Beyond Travel: A Road Warrior’s Survival Guide” is a comprehensive guide for business travelers, road warriors, and mobile professionals to reclaim their lives and their health. The book reveals solutions for simple management of email, calendar, task, time and receipt management, as well as ideas for eating on the road, sleeping in hotels, staying healthy during air travel, and finding movement opportunities.
Targeted Age Group:: 25-65
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I was inspired by clients and colleagues who travel heavily and struggle with how to maintain their lives, health, and relationships with a road warrior lifestyle. I completed over 100 endurance and ultra-endurance events during my decade of travel, shut down with inbox zero and still had a date with my husband every week. I knew that what I was able to do wasn’t typical. I wanted to share that with others living the supercommuter lifestyle.
Book Sample
Business travel isn’t part of your job. It’s a lifestyle.™
During my second year in the field of business travel, we moved from Capitol Hill to Raleigh, North Carolina. I glanced at my itinerary and realized that I didn’t need to arrive at the airport at 8:00am — my plane departed at 8:00am! It was 7:05am and we lived 12 minutes from the airport. In a panic, I jumped in the car, no joy for me in knowing that if I missed my flight because I was late, my company would make me pay the difference to reschedule. I could only hope it was a day that the line through security was easy.
I drove much faster than was safe (and I knew this too) and later found out I cut off a friend of mine in traffic. I pulled into the parking garage and drove up and around and around, Level 2, then Level 3, at which point, seeing no spaces at all, I said out loud ‘screw it’ and drove directly up to Level 5 and parked. Dragging my roller bag, I ran to the elevator and then waited until what seemed like my next birthday, for the doors to open. At Level 4 a guy stepped in and said smiling, “Where ya headed?” My blank stare caught him off guard. In that moment, I had to actually reach into my bag and look at my itinerary to remember … I was going to San Diego. The cities had all become a blur.
As luck had it, I breezed through security and made it to the gate minutes before they shut the runway door. I had planned to stop and get my “breakfast of champions” — a Frappuccino and scone — on the way to the gate. Since I would have surely been late, I had nothing to eat before boarding my 4.5-hour flight. For the first half hour I kept looking down the aisle, willing the flight attendants to come by with my coveted Delta Biscoff cookies and something to drink. The smell of the cheese bagel from the guy next to me made me want to eat my own arm. Finally an announcement came on that the turbulence was too great and they would have to delay service. When it did resume, it would only be drinks. The airline had not received their delivery of Biscoffs, and … someone on the plane was allergic to peanuts, so no peanuts.
By the time I got off the plane at almost 1:00pm EST, I felt like someone had taken a hammer to my head while there was a wild animal eating its way out of my stomach, and, of course, I was supposed to drive directly to work at a site visit with my manager. It was in that moment I knew that if I was going to survive in this business, I had to get it together. My travel, my nutrition, my exercise, my sleep, and my work had to be very focused. There could be no more Marcey-induced spontaneity if I was going to have any hope to not end up a fat, frazzled business traveler that looked ten years older than I was, and burned out after two years on the road.
To understand why I believe health and productivity go together, it’s important to understand my background, and to know that I’ve been where you may be right now, frazzled, tired and overwhelmed. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science and Wellness and Master’s degree in Health Promotion and Exercise Management. Since 1993, I’ve been certified in group exercise, personal training, fitness nutrition, and integrative nutrition. For about 15 years, these certifications were all intended for me to become a better athlete. I worked in the Health and Wellness field for three years before entering the world of clinical research in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and biotech.
My travel experiences began 2001 when I took a job for a large clinical research organization and immediately went on the road three-five days a week, which I did for the next ten years. I lived in Washington, D.C. at the time (in the district itself, not an hour away pretending I lived in D.C.) and travel was easy because it was pre-9/11. I could get to the airport minutes before my plane took off with no problem. After 9/11 the extra security increased my travel time at least 2 hours each trip. I took the Acela high-speed train as much as I could going north, yet could never, it seemed, get away from the new delays in air travel. This was also the time where you couldn’t get out of your seat within 30 minutes of landing at DCA, which put the fear of God in me … that I would have to go to the bathroom and end up peeing my pants. I shudder to remember … Later I became an operations manager for global clinical trials and then moved into the clinical trainer role. I found my element! I got to teach people how to be clinical research associates, manage global trials, learn new systems and technologies, and write procedures and processes. I was able to unleash my inner geek. My favorite module was on Travel Health and Work Hacking that I developed and taught ‘under the table.’ I always received the best feedback on this course because it was practical and personal. When I had gone as high in the industry as I wanted to go, I knew that my belief that you can’t be healthy without being productive and you can’t be productive without being healthy, with both being more challenging as a routine traveler, was my calling. I wanted to teach people a better way to travel that didn’t result in the Travel 20 (20 pounds of weight gain), Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), broken relationships, stacked up laundry and feeling like the work is never done. I realized that even though I had many trials and errors, I was still able to do things that other travelers weren’t able to.
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