India - A leap of Faith
A Path towards happiness.
Life offers some great adventures, amazing experiences and it is full of new stories every day. At the same time, we live in an era in which we are almost forced to experience an overwhelming feeling of stress and obligations. Your work is pulling on one side, your social life on the other side and at the same time, we have to deal with all the perfect stories/pictures on our social media feeds. The days are passing by and before we know it we are already celebrating a new year. A new year with resolutions for the upcoming 12 months but looking back, you probably come to the conclusion we haven’t completed the things that we wanted to achieve.
The same thing happened to me many times. I thought moving to Barcelona and changing everything would be the solution to all of this. The contrary happened and got swelled up with work, proving myself and chasing as many promotions possible. But where was my happiness? After two years we decided that it was enough! Another change was about to happen but this time more aware and enjoy the adventures lying in front of us.
Mistakes in the past
Many of us decide to travel to liberate ourselves from our daily grind and obligations. Going from hostel to hostel, meeting great people and creating some unforgettable stories, but does it help you understand what you want to do afterward? Seeing many backpackers being pulled into this world of “freedom”. I noticed that many of them just enjoy not having obligations. At the end of their trip, they return to their previous work and after a couple of months, they are back into their daily grind…
Traveling more consciously might be the key to a more successful future. Priya (Valeria) and I left Barcelona with the sole purpose of figuring out what we wanted to do and most of all, how do we prevent being dragged back into our “boring lives”… We resigned from work and booked our tickets to India!
The beginning of our future has started! We traveled to Vrindavan, India, and decided that it was needed in the first month to get our feet back on the ground and stay in a temple. Instead of seeking constant new adventures and pushing our mind and body into unexplored territories filling it with adrenaline, alcohol, and/or drugs. We used this time to clean our minds and body. What a change happened, just after a couple of weeks. Waking up every day with the question “What are we going to do, once we get back and how are we planning on doing this?” really helped us get more focused. Every idea that popped up in our mind (how stupid it might have sounded), we put in a mind map until we had a better picture.
With an idea to organize Yoga-round trips in India, we joined Priya’s brother in-law, Gustavo, to Jaipur to see if it was feasible to obtain more contacts and reasonable prices. After going back and forth with different hotels and tour-operators, unfortunately, it was not the moment to start this business. Although we were not able to launch this project we did establish our name “Be Conscious Travels”. This became our foundation for any future products and/or projects which perfectly combines our values and mindset. The trick; open your mouth and start talking about your ideas and goals! Don’t be afraid that someone might steal your ideas. Most researches are done by talking and finding out if people are interested in your plans. In case you feel like protecting your plan; Make a breakdown of your mind map and divide it in multiple topics. These topics, you can test with your target group without revealing the entire picture.
“Easier said than done… A change of mind and consciousness was necessary to attain this.“
A GREAT SUCCESS!
We did not manage to create a company in India but for sure we accomplished great success. We created a brand name and gained new motivation to implement OUR ideas into a project. People started noticing our motivation and our love to work in tourism. Creating a unique and memorable experience is something we both dreamt of before starting our studies in tourism.
Part of this journey is trial and error, don’t let yourself be worn down because your first idea was not a success. The moment you give up on your dreams and ideas, is the moment you have failed.
The unexpected happened, at a time and place nobody saw coming. Waking up in our room at the temple, outside stood Priya’s spiritual master (Sadhu Maharaj) which was very uncommon. He directed us to meet with Braja Madhuri since he had a project for us in mind. Full of excitement, curiosity, but also being a bit skeptical, we decided to listen to him. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to listen to another idea right?
While walking towards the chambers of Braja Madhuri, she was already on her way and revealed that she was just thinking about us concerning a project. They were looking for a young couple to live in La Gomera and run a successful Airbnb.
So… there we were with a brand, motivation and an unbelievable offer that could potentially make our dreams come true. The only problem was that we still had 3 months left of our trip… Meaning that we had to change our plans, rebook our flight and get back to work..!
It was time to take a leap of faith. Having only seen 15 pictures, 1 Skype-call and some vague descriptions of the house, we decided to have complete confidence in the people surrounding us. Being completely overwhelmed with all the unexpected changes, it is time to embrace the future!
La Gomera here we come!