Ban.do Founder Jen Gotch on Anxiety and the Power of Mini Vacations

Women Who Travel | Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.4 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2020

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At 19, Jen Gotch had a panic attack in the airport, just ahead of boarding a flight back to college. "I, on a cellular level, felt like I was going to die if I got on that airplane," says the Ban.do founder and author of the soon-to-be-released Upside of Being Down: How Mental Health Struggles Led to My Greatest Successes in Work and Life. Now, years later and hundreds of flights under her belt, that anxiety has shifted, evolved, and—most recently—waned, as she's found strategies to stay calm on the road. (One life-changing tool? TSA PreCheck.) This week, we sat down with Jen to talk through how she continues to tackle her travel anxiety, why vacations (even if they're just on our own couches) are good for our mental health, and why she stopped working on her days off.

Find a link to preorder Jen's book, out March 24, and a full transcription of the episode here: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/bando-founder-jen-gotch-on-anxiety-and-the-power-of-mini-vacations

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone, and welcome to women who travel, a podcast from Connie Nass Traveler. I'm Meredith
0:08.3	Keri, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Thalai Ara Koglu.
0:11.4	Hello.
0:12.1	Today, we're joined by Jen Gotch, founder and chief creative officer of Bando, an author of The Upside
0:17.4	of Being Down, How Mental Health Str health struggles led to my greatest successes in work
0:21.0	and life out March 24th. Thank you so much for joining us. Of course that was so I don't think I
0:27.5	breathed. Yeah that was impressive and also I will say there's there have been times where I've
0:33.8	been asked to read the entire title including subtit subtitle, and I was just like,
0:38.6	I can't. I can't. It's just the upside of being down, but I watched you go through it quite
0:44.3	gracefully. I was like, oh man, she's going for the whole thing. Well, speaking of this book,
0:50.4	what made you feel like it was the right time to write this book um that is a good question so
0:57.2	my editor actually approached me in 2015 and i that was not the right time i felt like i was too
1:06.7	consumed with bandau um and then we spoke several times over the next three years. And then I think
1:14.7	it was late 2018, we had been back in touch. And I was like starting to feel like maybe this would
1:20.1	be the time. And my friend Busy was writing a book. And we were talking one day and she was like
1:26.9	my editor, Lauren, she just said like, my editor Lauren, I was like, Lauren Sp talking one day and she was like my editor Lauren,
1:27.8	she just said like, my editor Lauren, I was like, Lauren Spiegel. And she's like, yes. And I'm like,
1:32.5	oh my God, that's the editor that wants me. I was like, I think it's time. Like it felt like Kismet. So
1:38.3	so I said yes. And I feel like I'm very big and trusting timing and like leaning in when you get a sign like that and if you're not feeling that way not even though it felt like it would be cool to write a book in 2015 like I'm really glad. So that is the long answer to the short question. You know I think this is something people often think about, because
2:01.4	writing a book is such a massive undertaking. When you sat in front of that blank computer
2:06.6	screen for the first time, how did you take the steps to start to work through everything you
2:13.6	wanted to write about? I mean, I was in front of a blank computer screen for many months.
	...

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