This cost me money AND broke my heart 😭

June was WILD 😭

Three countries in ONE month, honestly the most hectic stretch of the year so far ✈️

First stop was Toronto for my brother’s graduation 🎓 Getting to be there, meet his world, his people, was SO special. We see each other once, maybe twice a year now, which still feels insane considering we LITERALLY shared a bedroom our entire childhood 🙈 Then New York with my mom and brother for some proper quality family time 🗽 And right now? I’m writing this from Cusco after finishing one of the HARDEST treks of my life in Peru (altitude is NO joke 😅), on my way to see Machu Picchu! Like… one of the seven wonders of the world 🏔️

So yes, lots of adventure, lots of family time! But what made this crazier was the behind the scenes stress of hitting new targets for Creator Takeoff Academy. This is the first time I’ve travelled like THIS while running a full on business on the side. So while I’ve been making it insanely good for the coming batch, it’s also been genuinely stressful for me 😅

Here’s my June, unpacked 👇🏽

Voicemails for Isabelle

After SUCH a long time I watched a good rom com and I LOVED it 🥹 It hit all the right spots. Both leads are SO cute and it was just the lightest, coziest watch. I put it on in an Airbnb in a little mountain town right after coming back from my long trek, and honestly there’s nothing better than a movie like this after doing something really hard 🛋️

The one thing I LOVED is how wholly and completely the main character stays herself. Female characters usually end up changing themselves for the guy, and she just… doesn’t! She embraces her full crazy self and it was so refreshing to watch 💛

Simon Sinek on the Raj Samani podcast

I LOVE Simon Sinek, so this one was a 10 out of 10 for me 🙌🏽 One thing really stuck. The way he talks about competition: our whole generation constantly feels left behind because we’re comparing ourselves to people we see online. But the truth is there will ALWAYS be someone ahead of you. The reality has been this way for ages, we just SEE it now, so we’re not actually getting left behind, it just feels that way 😌

Highly recommend this one 🎧

The Wilder Way by Eva zu Beck

WOW what a read 😭 It empowered me as a woman in a way I wasn’t expecting.

Eva has been an inspiration of mine since the day I joined Instagram, one of the first few travel creators I ever followed! And her journey of self discovery, of solo travelling to the most incredible corners of the world, is just magical storytelling ✨

If you’re a woman, you NEED to read this 🙏🏽 It shows you how much of what society tells us we need (a man, a certain life, all of it) we don’t actually need at all. She found her own version of happiness, and it inspired me to keep finding mine 💛

How much we ACTUALLY need to disconnect

We live in this hyper connected world where we’re expected to be available for EVERYTHING all the time 😅 Available for our loved ones, for the news, and as a creator, for my audience too.

But on this trek I had no signal and no connection for almost EIGHT days 📵 And it genuinely rewired my brain. The ideas would not stop coming. I felt SO recharged just from not having to be reachable 🤍 I finally had the space to process a lot of emotions and think back on everything that’s happened over the last year.

It inspired me so much that I now want to keep one day a week where I FULLY disconnect. Phone completely off! If I can actually pull it off I’ll keep you guys posted once I’m in Bangkok 👀

Because the truth is, we as humans NEED this quiet. It’s what lets us show up better in our relationships, at work, and for ourselves 🙏🏽

🌅 SUNRISES

Finishing the Huayhuash trek 🥾

I completed the Huayhuash trek, one of the HARDEST treks I’ve ever done, and I’m so proud of myself for pushing through 🙌🏽 The crazy part? My period started on DAY ONE 😭 So if I didn’t already know it, I know it now: women can literally do ANYTHING!

We hit 60K on Creator Takeoff Academy 🥳

We crossed 50K on Creator Takeoff Academy this month and we’re already at 60K now! And honestly, this is NOT something I can take full credit for. This is the power of a genuinely good team who’ve shown me that teamwork really does make the dream work 🫶

New York with my mom and brother 🗽

We made it to New York and I got to make this trip happen for my family! We had our little sibling fights here and there (who doesn’t 😂) but these are the memories that matter SO much to me. Getting quality time with my mom and brother when we’re all scattered across the world, I feel like the older I get, the more I cherish it 💛

⛈️ STORMS

I had to cancel my trip to Banff 😭

This one HURT. I was supposed to go to Banff in Canada with my brother right after this, but I completely underestimated how much work I’d have right before the Creator Takeoff Academy launch. So I had to make the call to cancel. Huge lesson: do NOT plan a hectic month of travel right before launch month! 😅

It was heartbreaking, and I lost some money too (thankfully a lot was refundable, but not all of it). But I’ve learned to prioritize my mental health over a sunk cost. My brother was SO understanding about it 🥹

Learning to run a whole business while travelling 💻

Working on Creator Takeoff Academy while constantly moving was genuinely hard, especially with the time zones! And if I’m being honest, I think we prioritized wrong this time. We had so much time before the launch, but a lot of the urgent stuff piled up at the end when we should’ve tackled it earlier. I’m learning that one the hard way. But that’s entrepreneurship right? You live, you learn, and you keep moving forward 🌱

I spent an entire afternoon in a hot tub surrounded by mountains, alpacas and llamas 🦙 Like… WOW I would have NEVER imagined this to be my reality!

We stayed a night at this beautiful place called Mountain View Hotel, and there were just llamas and alpacas roaming around the area. We even got to feed them 🥹 Alpacas are truly one of the cutest animals I’ve ever seen 💛

Okay so first, full honesty: a LOT of it is genetics 😅 I’ve never really had major skin problems, so I can’t take all the credit.

But here’s what I actually do! I use a face wash with salicylic acid, wash my face properly, drink LOTS of water, and use a moisturizer every single night. And the big one, sunscreen, at least three times a day ☀️

I also try to eat clean even when I’m travelling because honestly food is the thing that makes my skin break out the most.

And just so you know, I am NOT a skincare expert! I’ve learned all of this from YouTube and Instagram myself. It’s the simple things done consistently 🙏🏽

Tell me, what was your highlight of June? 🌅

Hit reply. I read every single one 👇🏽

That’s June, wrapped 🧡

See you next Wednesday with something new to unpack 👋🏽

Lots of love & sunshine,

Aakanksha