I recently talked with Bold Journey Magazine about work ethic, the qualities that have shaped this journey most, and how Her Wild Life came to exist. A few pieces of that conversation are worth sitting with a little longer, since they explain a lot about how we actually run things day to day.
Where the Work Ethic Comes From
My parents were young when they had me, and neither of them went to college. My father had only been in the US for seven years by then, after growing up in Mexico until he was thirteen. What they gave me instead of a head start was a clear expectation: work hard at school, because that was the way to get further than they had been able to. That expectation never really left. It is still the baseline for how I approach anything, including building a travel company from nothing.
Three Things That Mattered Most
Three qualities came up in that conversation as the ones that shaped the journey most, and all three show up directly in how Her Wild Life operates today.
Dependability is the first. If a guide, a partner, or this company says a trip will run a certain way, it needs to actually run that way. That is the same instinct behind never overpromising what a trip involves, and being direct about weather, physical demands, and logistics before anyone books.
Inclusivity is the second, and it means something specific here, not a slogan. Make the people in front of you feel genuinely welcome, because none of us fully know what someone else is carrying or how they got to where they are standing. That is the same thinking behind building a company where every guide is a woman and every traveler is treated as a peer, not a guest to be managed.
Intuition is the third. Trust your gut, even through the dead ends and the unexpected turns, and stay on the path when it feels right despite the bumps. In the field, that same instinct is what a good guide relies on to read a shift in weather, a change in an animal’s behavior, or the moment a group needs to slow down or move faster. It is not a mystical thing. It is pattern recognition built from experience, which is exactly what a good guide’s instinct is made of.
A Book Worth Passing On
The book that came up in the interview was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, and the piece that stuck was its focus on gratitude, abundance, and love as daily practices rather than occasional ones. That is a simple idea to state and a harder one to actually live by, which is probably why it stuck.
Read the full conversation at Bold Journey Magazine. To learn more about Her Wild Life and how these values show up in the trips we run, visit our About Us page or explore our full range of women’s wildlife expeditions.
