SAN DIEGO — Bobbi-Jo Romanishan defines herself in many ways: She's a group travel specialist and a member of the Ensemble Travel Group and also what her doctor jokingly refers to as a "recovering perfectionist."
But Romanishan admits that she once saw herself in other less-flattering ways: a gangly teenager who was often picked last for teams in school, a yo-yo dieter who tried every program under the sun but couldn't keep the weight off and, perhaps most destructively, a victim of negative self-talk.
It's this destructive self-talk that Romanishan believes blocks many female professionals from reaching their true potential, including those who attended her session on mental toughness at the Ensemble Travel Group's Power Up conference here Oct. 19 to 23.
The intriguing title of the session? Cursing for Ladies (Without Swearing).
While no actual cursing took place during the session, the positioning must have done its work; the conference room at the Manchester Grand Hyatt was nearly full.
The message was more about the push to shed a good-girl image in favor of being assertive and confident in business, reducing that negative self-talk.
To illustrate her point, Romanishan strode down the center aisle and leaned next to a member of the audience.
"This is what you're wearing to the Ensemble conference?" she whispered in the audience member's ear. "Why are you even here in San Diego? Don't you know you have a ton of work back home? And, yes, you do look fat in this."
Romanishan gave attendees pointers on being assertive and confident in business. Photo Credit: Emma Weissmann
Romanishan stood up and faced her audience.
"Wasn't that rude?" she asked. "Wasn't it impolite? Nasty? Mean? You would never say that to another person, would you? So why do we say those very things to ourselves?"
A mental-toughness speaker and coach, Romanishan shared with attendees the formula that she said has been critical in helping her to succeed not only in her weight-loss journey but also in her professional life.
"Mental toughness is the idea that our thoughts and beliefs create our actions and behaviors," she said. "And then our actions and behaviors create our results."
But behaviors and beliefs are not so easily changed, especially when they are learned at a young age. Romanishan likened the business world to a school, where boys reign supreme on the playground and girls excel in the classroom.
When women find themselves in the professional world — an adult playground, of sorts — they start hitting some walls, she said.
"In the classroom as young girls, many of us learned that if we do good schoolwork and we listen to the teacher we'll get rewarded," Romanishan said. "Boys? They get knocked down, they pick themselves up and they brush it off.
"The behaviors we learned at a younger age — to do good work, to be helpful — doesn't work so well in the business world."
In the travel sphere, this mental toughness can manifest itself in simple ways, such as charging a fee for time spent in consultation with a client or quieting the inner voice that compares one's knowledge of a destination with another adviser's.
The session, which was open to Ensemble's suppliers and members, featured a writing exercise in which attendees filled out a "life blueprint," writing their future and present goals and the challenges and barriers that stand in the way of reaching their true potential.
Lindsay Pearlman, co-president of Ensemble, said that he felt it was important to incorporate topics other than just how to sell travel better during this year's conference.
"These guys already know how to sell travel," he said. "We try to bring forward skills that help people be better at what they do. Especially in this environment, there are more complicated factors in how people execute their day-to-day lives. Not just in their work, but personally, too."
Nikki Shanley, regional director of sales for Aqua Aston Hospitality and a session attendee, said she was initially intrigued by the title and hoped that Romanishan's message resonates with the advisers who attended.
Romanishan "said that you need to be assertive and that agents need to believe they are worthy of their time and money," Shanley said. "Some agents are still fearful of this.
"And while I think some have embraced this concept, hopefully after this session they all will realize that their time and their professionalism is worthy of a fee."
Emma Weissmann is assistant editor at TravelAge West, a sister publication to Travel Weekly.