EA Radio Episode # 16 - Get To Know Your Friendly Neighborhood Travel Planner

Scott Stein, the owner of and travel planner for Extraordinary Adventures (https://www.myextraordinaryadventures.com/travel-podcast.html), shares 15 things you may or may not have known about him, all so you can get to know your friendly neighborhood travel planner a little better.

Music: www.bensound.com

(The show transcript is being provided by YouTube's automatic transcriber. Please forgive any inaccuracies or errors.)

hey everybody and welcome to the 16th episode of EA radio I'm Scott from extraordinary adventures and this week I thought we'd have a little bit of fun get to know your friendly neighborhood travel planner yes it's me one of the things that I firmly believe in is is having a more personal relationship with my service providers my product people I don't feel like you can put your faith in something so personal as a travel plan in someone that you don't really know in somebody that is distant or anonymous or like an online travel agency not to knock the them Expedia and Orbitz and all these things but you know that's very transactional so if you're gonna be in a position like mine you're in a very personal business and I feel like I would want to get to know my travel planner I would want to like make sure that he was in my corner understood my needs and I think the best way to do that is to once in a while be a little silly be a little quote/unquote unprofessional and share some stuff about yourself I think this whole idea from 30 40 50 years ago professionalism I think it's gone out the window in this day of social media instant access access to everything you have to stand out in some way and the weight that I think the best way to stand out is to be incredibly genuine to be transparent honest connect with your folks and that's something I do you'll see if you're not yet a client my clients already can attest to this I become Facebook friends with you I give you access to me I give up I like access to you I like to see what you're up to I like for you to see what I'm up to next week if you have a question 11 o'clock at night if I'm sitting there you know watching TV or whatever usually I'll answer your question 11 o'clock at night I don't I don't have those hard and fast 9 to 5 monday-friday hours you know I respect your privacy in your time and you respect mine and that's it I mean it's a it's a great relationship but I think you only get that through creating rapport so I thought today would be fun to again tell you things that help you to get you to know your friend neighborhood travel planner that's me so 15 things you may or may not know about me let's get started first one I think everybody knows this one but the single most important thing in my life is my wife Laura we've been together I was 18 she was 17 that was 26 years ago so you do the math figure out our ages we were babies I mean truly really really young we we went to different high schools on the mound met each other it was called cruising Hempstead Turnpike side of the road parking lot a bunch of kids would hang out and and meet people and date and whatever and that's how we met it was a great it was great first month she was supposed to leave to go to Indiana and we just fell in love and have been love ever since she came right back one month later and said I'm not leaving him and her father was upset and her mother was upset and everybody's everybody was upset but you know we clearly showed them prove them wrong because you know our wedding song is just still the one by chennai 20 because she's still the one and i'm happy to say that we are have beaten the odds of divorce in this country i think it's again because a my my philosophy our philosophy of the way we connect with people being genuine having open communication and transparency the same thing I do with my clients we do with each other so I think that is made for a really really open honest environment that has allowed for the flourishing of two people who be worse with children and grew up and do adults and did alongside each other and those I think a very powerful thing for us the numbers number two things you may or may not know about me I'm a big dog guy had Shepherds a lot as a kid and I've had labs as an adult I think dogs are so important in human lives I think that they add something that I mean cats are sweet and nice and bunnies are sweet and nice and and I had all the pets that you love your whatever dogs and there's a lot of science to you back this up there's a connection between human and dog and I couldn't imagine my life without my dogs I've had dogs since I was a baby since I before I was born my parents had dolly then we had buster then we got Chrissie then we had Tara then we got Spanky and Spanky died right around the time when I was leaving my house my wife and I got our first dog together that was Sammy we got him a brother that was Rex and they both passed on we got two new boys Albert and Brody many of you may know Albert he comes up a lot in my post and now we have how can any to add to the list many of you probably seen pictures of them as well and posted them as well we like to take them places and I tagged them and things because they have their own Facebook page of course me what dog doesn't um so that's that's my dogs the other thing you might not know about us is that Laura and I are bikers not bicyclists but bikers we both owned harley-davidson motorcycles we've had him four or five six years now we do all the biker type stuff go to events and go to the Biketoberfest Bike Week out in Daytona yeah we live the biker lifestyle it's you know that typical I wouldn't call it midlife crisis because I've wanted it a bike since I was a child that was a very small boy in Queens and queens new york and my cousin I forget his name somebody literally drove his motorcycle right into the living room and I was like okay that's for me and I knew that since I was small single digits and it took me like 40 well 30-something years to to finally get around to getting one so I've been a biker too hard my whole life and then my wife got on back and for several months and said okay that's for the birds and got her own she I've never dreamed about being a bike a biker but loves it loves a lifestyle likes hanging out likes riding so it's it's it's a little fun fact about us that many people don't know here's a fun fact that is gonna maybe strike you as odd I went to college telling everyone else undergrad Hofstra knew Hofstra University and then somewhere along the way decided I wanted to be a chiropractor and like kids do my wife and I kind of decided this together and we both jumped in we went down to life University Atlanta Georgia will place called Marietta right outside of Atlanta and we went to school become doctors she finished like 75 80 percent of the program I finished like 99% of the program the only thing I had left to do with some clinic work and three other board exams I had already done one so I was literally at the finish line and decided to stop and that's a whole nother story someday you can maybe ask me in person we'll talk about that but it wasn't for me long story short it wasn't for me so we bailed out of that and that was kind of when we got into the restaurant industry which I guess now is a good segue I'll skip number five and jump to number six and then come back to number five which of course you don't know the order so I didn't have to just say any of that so yeah after that we didn't know what to do kind of fly on it a little bit and just got jobs we were 24 25 years old but it led into a career my wife and I both became bartenders and servers and got into management and did the whole nine yards and at some point we actually even opened our own bakery cafe we had our own restaurant right here in dr. Philips turkey bacon sailing Sand Lake Road near the Whole Foods we were there for about four years loved it it was great it was fabulous the critics loved us we it was New York style pastries and bagels and some sandwiches and stuff but after doing it for like I said three or four years realized that too was not for us did teach us a lot about running a business taught us that we loved running a business but we'll taught us that we didn't want to work 16 hours a day seven days a week and then we needed to find something that we could take our passion and take our connect you know our desire to connect with people and be involved with people and do something with it differently so we closed that down went back to what we knew bartending she and I both worked and she still does work at Disney she was a fine-dining server and he's a fine-dining server and I was a bartender a high-volume bartender at Downtown Disney we did very very well and that gave us the ability to travel because it gave us a lot of time off throughout the year and it we made pretty good money for for those jobs you gotta remember Disney so its high volume and it's high ticket prices so that's when our love of travel started you know several years ago probably more than several at this point there's been a while we started with cruises and then we English and Germany and Mexican like we went everywhere and we just loved it and that's kind of obviously a foreshadow into what we now do for a living but that's that's that was that owned the cafe became bartender I have to have the chiropractic school and then somewhere along the way we were gonna head to Germany and I decided I wanted to learn German so that's fact number seven that you may or may not know about me is I eat reckon I'm beaten budge I mean I speak a little German I've been studying for years and I still sound like an idiot to myself I don't know I really just need to go live there for a few months and get immersed and sound better but it's a very very hard language but no excuses I also like yo hablo poquito espanol tambien I speak a little more Spanish I think I'm more comfortable in Spanish than I am in German but I think I know more German than I knew Spanish I just came up learning Spanish and so it's more comfortable for me so that's that's a little fact here's a quick one favorite band my favourite band has always been to bands since I'm 12 13 years old they toads been between Metallica yes I'm a bit of a hard rocker guy and Led Zeppelin little bit softer rocker but those two bands back and forth you know throughout the years I'll swear one way or the other those have been the two bands for me for 30 years that have been my nothing's toppled the two of them my favorite book ever if you haven't heard about it it's called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand there was a survey done years ago influential people New York was the New York Library of Congress and somebody else got together did the survey these influential people like senators business owner like these people right and they said hey what's the most influential book ever and of course top the list was the Bible you think influential good bad different influential the Bible clearly the number-two book that made the list was Atlas Shrugged I said okay I got to read this book and it really was a great book it's a life-changing book it changes the way you think about things and I highly recommend it favorite movie my favorite movie like my favorite band is is to but it's really one of the same it they got father sound cliche but it is Godfather one and two I don't even recognize the existence of number three Godfather one and two are absolutely my favorite I go back and forth as to which one is my favorite I probably lean towards - I loved Michael in that what does new mapache knowing that Michael Corleone was so psychopathic and evil and amazing that it's like oh my god but um it was great it was great movie in the boost world I'm a big scotch guy single malt and I'm a big beer person and I don't mean just pounded Bud Lights although I would my refrigerators full of odd lights no I'm Laura and I are both a bit of a beer snob household she likes her IPAs and I like my mom or multi forward beers like the Germans or the English so that's that's our beer Sidon she's a big wine person she was studying to become a sommelier I don't know if she's still doing that or not she may she may pick it up again in the future but she really loves her wine and then she's a gym person so so we like going over to England Ireland Scotland because inland and Scott are very much known for their gin obviously Scotland is where Scotch is from so that's a big a big thing for me I love that favorite food favorite food is gonna have to be even though I grew up in New York which is basically Jewish and Italian somewhere along the line my favorite food became Mexican food obviously I like kosher delis and I like Italian food and I like New York Chinese and I like hotdogs I like all the New York foods I like I like it all but Mexican by far is my favorite is my favorite food okay you're not supposed to my posture don't ever talk about religion or politics well I'm not gonna talk about religion but I will talk quickly about politics I am a libertarian that's as quick as I'm gonna say I'm not a Republican I'm a Democrat I'm a I'm a libertarian that's it now you got to know me so maybe you hate me or like me for that you know we're more connected now because you know where I stand politically here's an interesting fact for you how does a person who sells travel who sells travel planning who travels himself how does that person whose destination focus is Germany England Ireland Scotland as well as the rest of Europe has that person hate flying yep I'm in the camp of people who hate flying I absolutely we would love to just take the Kino art transatlantic over and then do my Europe thing and then take my transatlantic back if I could it's more about time than it is about money because those translations aren't really that expensive but you'd have to dedicate like a month of travel because it takes four five six seven days to get over there or if I think seven days to get back so you're dedicating you know ten days to two weeks just getting there and back so you have to fly and I hate there's a fact now I'm up to the 15th and final fact that you may or may not know about me and that is I am a cruise at it I would be on a cruise ship 26 weeks out of the year so yeah half the year if I could I'd be on a cruise ship Caribbean river cruise expedition cruise Alaska cruise you name it if I could be on a cruise ship I'd be a happy man I love cruising I think that I think that for two purposes one I think that he'd mystically I think there's just a really laid-back fun vacation go down the Caribbean jump on Royal in the region whoever whoever you like I just think it's a great value as well I mean everything's included it's and it's amazing but then there's the other side the flip side is the more philosophical side and the expedition and river clue cruises and the small ship cruises and the sailboat cruises they get you to ports that you could not get to with these big guys you got to remember the world grew up on the waterways whether that was ocean or earlier on rivers so where did all the great towns and cities spring up on coasts and on rivers so you can get to much of the places you want to get to via boat so I say why not if you don't know anything about river cruising you might be surprised to know that oftentimes you get dropped off right in the heart of a city so instead of going the airport then driving an hour to get to that city or using a cruise ship like a mess a mass-market one like royal or something like that where you then port and then you've got to take an hour to get into these cities these river boats go right into the heart you step off and you're in the action so and that to me I you can't be dead so between the hedonism and the connect connecting and then the immersion that I just I just love cruising I'm never gonna stop cruising so that's that alright so that's my 15 you heard by my wife and low my dogs I meant Harley and my chiropractic school and that we owned a bakery cafe and that I was a bartender and then I speak expect fine beach and bunch and then I like Metallica and Zeppelin Alice shook my favorite book Godfather one into my favorite movie booze scotch and beer a sketch of beer man I'm probably gonna go have a beer or soon as I get done recording this Mexican foods my favorite I'm a libertarian who hates flying but loves cruising so that's it so that's the show for today now you know a little bit about me email me back Scott at my extraordinary ventures calm tell me why you love the things I love more hate the things I hate you know hate the things I love and tell me what you love and hate I would love to hear about my audience I'd love to hear about my clients and that's that so I hope you enjoy the show for today definitely give me an email if you do I'll read your email on the air like we did last week with I think was George will Macon if I recall and you just say your your first name and where you're from and we'll read your email so until next time this is again Scott from extraordinary adventures I'm thanking you for tuning in and reminding you to please share this show on Facebook and Twitter remember we are now on iTunes and Google Play so it's very easy to just share the link it's it's EA Radio EA travel rates up you know I'll get you I'll get you you would think that I would know it's EA radio travelpod cast EA radio travelpod cast and you can find that on Google and iTunes okay so how professional was that that I don't even know the name my own thing alright guys now you got that you learned that about me as well that sometimes I don't know my own stuff alright until next time spread the word we'll catch you on the next episode of EA radio stay tuned ciao