An interview with Jet Setter Melissa O’young

This month’s 20 questions is a case study in Jet Set Living. This girl is the real deal. Kim and I met Melissa in a random chance meeting outside a club in Mykonos at 7am. She said “I think I follow you guys on Twitter“. What has evolved since then is a fantastic case study of how you can have a musein place, abandon the deferred living concept and live a life of total excitement.

Background: Melissa was born Melissa O’Young in Australia and lived in Sydney until she was 23. When in Sydney, she got a degree in Commerce (Finance and Marketing). Afterward, she worked in marketing for 2 years at Unilever.

Feeling suffocated following the conventional path of buying a place, accumulating a mortgage and focusing on the next promotion. She opted instead to abandon comfortability and complacency. She quit her job, bought a one-way ticket to London and threw her self out of her comfort zone to see how she would react.

So many questions…….

1. Why does a girl with a perfectly good life in Sydney suddenly quit her job and buy a one way ticket to London?

I wasn’t inspired by anything anymore and every day that went past seemed to be the same. I didn’t want to use my savings to buy a place and accumulate a mortgage, as I knew I would trap myself in Sydney for awhile. You’re only young once and it was the perfect time to do something like this. I have been influenced my whole life by the society that has shaped me and I admit that I was a bit sheltered. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what I’m like without the influence of those taking care of me.

2. How has buying that one way ticket to London changed your life?

It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. A lot has happened in this past year. Since then, I have worked on the Greek island of Mykonos (during the summer) as I wanted to do something completely different. I’ve also started a successful business (with my business partner) distributing Italian bath and body products we found in Tuscany. I’ve jet-set across the world from Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Florence, Rome, Tuscany, the Amalfi coast, Macau, Bangkok, Pataya, Hong Kong, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Madrid, Barcelona, Ibiza, San Sebastian, Paris, Cologne, Munich, Essen, Berlin, London and New York.

3. What types of experiences have you had during your travels?

I’ve had crazy adventures and a lot of fun in each place from dancing with gypsies, getting a private high-speed boat tour of New York with the military, nearly getting fired four times because I worked for Greeks, touring with Australian DJs in Adelaide, meeting German celebrities just because people found it funny that an Australian Chinese girl could speak German, getting proposed to by an Italian after meeting me for five minutes, getting a five day tour around Paris with crazy French flame throwers, meeting Adriana Lima at an exclusive Victorias Secret shoot ….(the list goes on).

4. Tell me what working abroad was like?

I worked for a club called Cavo Paradiso, which was a really beautiful club in Mykonos that had a swimming pool perched on a cliff. People would come after 4am to dance to the sun rising and there was always good music. Through that I got free accommodation at an apartment at Paraga Beach and would wake up each day and either ate seafood at the beach or chilled with a cocktail at the gorgeous pool nearby with my friend DJing my requested tunes. Living on an island was really cool and I became part of the island community.

5. You’ve developed a muse to fund your jet set lifestyle. Can you explain the concept of it?

My muse is an Italian bath and body products business. These Italian bath and body products are all individually made by hand in a 50 year old farm house surrounded by olive trees and vineyards out in Tuscany. There are over 100 different products in different innovative lines with some products not found elsewhere in the world. They simply smell beautiful and are affordable luxuries for your body and home.

6. How have you utilized outsourcing in your muse?

We have outsourced many functions such as warehousing, public relations, and sales, which we used to control most of. Now, we leave it to people who specialize in their particular areas of expertise. It has saved us a lot of time and enabled us to concentrate on the growth areas of the business. My business partner even found a company that acts as our receptionist and answers inbound calls for us.

7. What are the outsourcing companies that you couldn’t live without and what aspect of your muse do you outsource to those companies?

Our company wouldn’t be growing at the rate it is today if we didn’t have our talented sales agencies working for us. They have established relationships and contacts with thousands of retailers (something that would have taken us years to develop from scratch).

8. Do you utilize virtual assistants in your muse?
Yes. Ask Sunday are great virtual assistants for the day-to-day administrative tasks that pop up and take up time. They are cheap and very good at what they do as long as you give them clear instructions. We also have a virtual assistant in Australia that we have never met who manages our accounts and acts as our PA.

9. When you were building your muse, how much time per week did you put in to it and how does that compare to what you put into it now?
When we first started, I would work every day (including weekends) because I wanted to save on costs. That meant I was doing everything – from generating sales, contacting the press, packing stock into boxes, couriering out stock, merchandising, chasing accounts etc and it was quite inefficient as I was running around doing all the bits and pieces that had to be done. Now I put in on average 3 hours a week as we have created a structure that allows us to do that.

10. What has been the most challenging part of building and maintaining your muse?
In the beginning, when I was dealing everyday with heavy boxes of product, trying really hard to overcome the barriers of being an unknown brand, not having the luxury of a big budget like I used to have in my corporate job, and occasionally dealing with rude, demeaning retailers that would get me down, I would question whether all of this was worth it and whether it would work out. But what got us to keep going was just the passion and belief we had in the products. It was truly magical when we first saw all the products in Tuscany and we knew people would love the products if we just got it out there.

11. How have you utilized the principals in the four-hour workweek specifically in your daily life? For example the principals of 80/20, Parkinson’s law, batching, tasks and not checking email often?
After I read the book, I tested some of its theories out. I have a habit of doing a little bit of everything and by spreading myself thin like that, I get less results. So I spent a week solely concentrating on what I thought would be a major growth lever for the business and by the end, I had added 8 new people to the team who act as sales agents for us and have grown our sales exponentially. I find that batching tasks helps me get more things done and frees up more time. With both work and personal emails, I have tried to get into the habit of proposing solutions rather than asking for opinions which helps save on the number of emails or SMS’s going back and forth e.g. simple things like instead of “where do you want to meet?” to “lets meet at Colombus Circle at 2pm”.

12. If you had a second chance at building the same muse, what would you do differently and what would you keep the same?

We have taken a lot of risks and some have turned out to be mistakes and have lost money from it but most have turned out to be great successes. I would not do anything differently as both our mistakes and successes have helped us move up the learning curve.

13. Most people live a 9-5 existence. What’s a typical day look like for you in London (i.e. not on a mini retirement trip abroad)?

At the moment, I am not working in a full-time job. My life is very random so I don’t usually have a routine but each day is a mix of a little bit of work, meeting up with friends (having tea in Covent Garden, strolling through Borough Markets, exploring museums), a little bit of learning (looking into certain topics I’m interested in at the library or spending time on the Internet), and learning how to live independently (cooking, washing etc!).

14. Would you classify yourself as a backpacker, vagabonder or more of a Jet-Setter and why?

I don’t like the backpack look or traveling with a very lean budget so I’m not a back packer. However, I do occasionally stay at hostels but I always travel with a suitcase! I guess I’m sort of a vagabonder as very often I have traveled without knowing where I’m going the next few days or where ‘home’ will be. And, I am also a jet -setter as I finance part of my travels through the company I own (with my business partner) and I’m able to do that by outsourcing my role to others. Plus I like to travel in style!

15. How have you managed your costs and budgets while traveling?

There are two main costs to traveling – accommodations and flights. In my latest trip, I spent the majority of my trip staying with friends in different countries as it works out cheaper that way and I usually only like traveling to places where I know locals so I get off the typical tourist-path. I learn a lot more about their culture if I stay at someones home and go to their local restaurants, parties, and meet their families. I tried couch surfing for the first time in Germany and had a fantastic experience as I got to practice the language and actually stayed at some very nice places.

With flights, they are cheap between international cities, Air Ninja shows you the discount airlines you can fly. I try to minimize on these two costs but don’t skimp on food and living it up when I’m traveling.

16. When traveling what is the one technological item you can’t live without?

Definitely my Canon camera. I meet so many great people and see so many beautiful things. I always try to capture the moment. I don’t travel with a laptop, as they are bulky and risky to lose so I carry a USB stick with important files.

17. What’s the up coming year look like for you in terms of mini retirements, specific learning experiences, or anything else you have planned?

I plan to find a contract job in London for 6 months or so to learn how to live independently and get to know the city better as someone who lives here rather than a tourist. After that, I would like to learn Italian and perhaps get an outdoors job there during summer. I will probably go back to Australia to work on the next growth stages of the business and after that, possibly move to New York.

One of my learning experiences is that people put a lot of obstacles in front of their dreams. It’s actually not that hard to achieve them – it sounds cliche, but the biggest obstacles are in your mind. Just write down what you want to do, write out the steps, and just take the plunge! I find it amazing that you guys have a kid but have worked out a different and more fun way to earn income and lead your jet-set lives.

18. What is your all time favorite Jet Set destination and why?

This is a hard question to answer but my favourite destination at the moment is New York. It’s so exciting and busy and the shopping is great! I feel like there is so much to discover there.

19. What Jet Set destination have you always wanted to go (but haven’t made it yet) and why?

South America. I haven’t made it there yet as I want to spend significant time there and I have too many things I want to do right now!

20. How do you want to be remembered?

Hopefully as a person that challenges people to go follow their dreams, however silly or crazy they think it might be!