I have to tell you something that equally blows my mind and makes me laugh.
When I graduated college — student loans breathing down my neck, rent to figure out, a cell phone bill that still charged by the phone call — I journeyed across campus to take a career assessment test.
It gave me two options:
Number one: Financial Analysis. HUH?
Number two: Hospitality. DOUBLE HUH?
I looked at those results and laughed directly at the paper. Neither one had anything to do with my studies or majors. But this girl had bills to pay, so off to finance I went. 🤷🏻♀️
And… I'll be damned… lookey-loo who's coming around to that career test I blew off 26 years ago.
Turns out, hospitality wasn't about hotels. It was about experiences. About paying attention. About helping people feel something.
🎤 Hospitality has entered the room.
Here's the thing finance could never quite explain: I notice beautiful things and create meaningful moments. 👀
The way the light shifts in a room around 4 p.m. The sound of a city before anyone else is awake. The small gesture a good host makes that you don't consciously register, but somehow leaves you feeling like you've belonged there all along. ❤️
Finance taught me the numbers. The structure. How to build something that actually holds up. And I wouldn't trade those years for anything.
But finance never quite explained why I get so much joy from filling a welcome bag, choosing the perfect hotel, finding the hidden gem, or creating the kind of experience that makes someone feel cared for before they've even realized it.
Fast forward to my mid-40s. I'm leading a conference. Someone turns the question on me: "What would YOU do?" Before I could stop myself, the answer flew right out of my mouth:
"I want to take women across the world to Paris. To truly experience it. To revel in a vacation that is planned so well, so thoughtfully, and so beautifully that it stays with them long after they return home."
The room got quiet. And for the first time, I heard myself say it out loud.
...And so here we are.
Turns out the career test wasn't wrong. It was just early. ⏰
Come see what 26 years of pent-up hospitality looks like in Paris. 💃🏻
