Adam Torres and Scott Eddy discuss cruises.
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Show Notes:
The cruise industry is experiencing a boom as travelers choose stress free options for visiting their favorite cities. In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Scott Eddy, Travel Media Personality @MrScottEddy. Explore all things travel including the cruise industry boom.
About Scott Eddy
They say that entire lifetimes can be lived through the different seasons we encounter as we grow. This is an absolute truth in the life of Mr. Scott Eddy. World Traveler, Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Stockbroker, Uncle, Brother, Son and Friend are all titles that Scott holds with pride as he is constantly and optimistically looking to the future evolution of his career and what he can bring to strengthen the brands he works with.
Life changed for Scott Eddy after losing his father 3 weeks before graduating high school. After months of feeling lost, unmotivated, and directionless, Scott joined an investment training program and excelled as a stockbroker over the next decade. After 10 years traveling between Florida and New York as a stockbroker, Scott said goodbye to the corporate world and embarked on his first life changing trip. Scott’s lifestyle gradually transformed into something he couldn’t plan or predict, starting with his moving permanently to Asia to explore life beyond living in the United States.
After living in Europe and Asia for 17 years, Scott fell in love with several different cultures and recognized the value of creating lasting relationships. Scott embraced his sales and business savvy once again by starting one of the first digital agencies in Southeast Asia. Owning and selling this agency gave him a deep understanding of the digital transformation several industries would encounter.
Scott is a true people person and believes human connection is the only key to success and happiness. Although based in South Florida, there is no one place he currently calls home and is a genuine citizen of the world, traveling full-time, living out of a few suitcases through countless destinations.
2020 changed the world of travel in ways no one could ever predict, and for better or worse, Scott Eddy has become the ‘go-to’ digital guy for the travel industry, understanding it far more than many others as he chooses to completely immerse himself in its development and growth.
This is @MrScottEddy, version 2.0, a stronger, more resilient brand advocate ready to move into his next temporary spot, leave his digital “mark,” and create the relationships that will carry him into his next great adventure.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right, so today is a special episode. The van that I’m bringing on today, I’m telling you, it’s Been some years since he’s been on the show last, but I’ve been following him on on Instagram big time.
So at Mr. Scott, Eddie he’s a, he’s a travel. I don’t even know if I should say travel media, personality, influencer, travel connoisseur. I mean, how many different things can I add here? Hey, without further ado, Mr. Scott, Eddie, welcome back to the show. It’s been a while, man. I feel like, yeah, since we, I mean, I, I feel like we we’ve been there’s been a pandemic, the algorithm stole you from me.
Maybe I didn’t like every single one of your posts. And for a moment there, you weren’t on my feed and I’m like, what’s going on? What’s up with, what’s up with Scott? And then I’m like, no, it was the algorithm, the algorithms. I remember going back in when I, when I caught one of your posts and then I’m like, I just started liking a bunch of them.
I was like, man, Scott’s probably like, man, what’s this guy doing? I’m like, I wanted you back. I needed the algorithm to know. Oh man. So how have you been? I’ve been good. You know, pandemic turned everything upside down for the travel industry. So, you know, I, I, as, as you would expect, I went to zero with everything.
My whole life basically went to zero and then you got to rebuild and travel is booming. I’m going nonstop and things are good. Yeah. So all of my listeners that aren’t familiar, and by the way, I got the handle, right? Right. It’s at Mr. Scott, Eddie. Yes. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Obviously I’ve been following you for so long that I don’t even remember, but I, I just wanted to make sure I had that right.
I want my listeners to definitely go and check out this content. And I have to tell you, so for individuals that thought about or thinking about you know, travel of course, but even just building a lifestyle around something you love. When I first was introduced to your content, I, I got it immediately.
Like I was like, you know, when people are really doing something they’re passionate with or they love, it comes across, it comes across on camera. Like you’re not forced. You’re not like, it’s obvious that you’re loving what you do. Like, how did you get into this? Like, how did that start? Like that you became this travel influencer.
So if you want to go way back, i, my life was, my life was set up to be a, to be a police officer. I mean, I was grew, I grew up in family full of cops and I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and my dad, before we moved to Fort Lauderdale, my dad was on Michigan state police, and then we moved to Fort Lauderdale when I was little and he was on Fort Lauderdale police for 11 years and in middle school and high school, every day after school, I used to be in the police department.
You know, I went on ride alongs and I mean, I learned, I watched my first autopsy when I was like 13 years old. I took my driver’s license test in a police car, like it was my whole life. I had a date to join the police academy six months after I graduated high school. And three weeks before I graduated, my father was killed in the line of duty in a plane crash.
And it turned my whole world upside down. Didn’t want to be a police anymore. Wasn’t really trained or skilled to do anything else. I was a horrible student. So college wasn’t really in the cards. I hated school and there, it was 1989. The stock markets are going through the roof. And my friend was working at a firm in New York and.
A bunch of guys from that firm were moving down to Fort Lauderdale to open up their own investment banking firm. He said, listen, I can get you in to the training program. And I was like, all right, whatever. Like I just didn’t have any other options. So I went in and it was successful and I did it for 10 years.
I was in investment banking all of the nineties and learned how to sell anything to anybody, which was looking back at it now. It’s the best deal I could ever learn. Mm. When they came out of the office one day it was, it was January. It was on a Friday, 1999. They came outta the office and said, if you show up on Monday, you’re gonna have new owners.
Half the firm resigned, including myself. Wow. And so the guy who was sitting next to me, his best friend was an expat who was working in Bangkok. And he. Whenever he used to come back and, and for trips, we used to hang out for drinks and dinner or whatever. And we became really friendly and he always used to tell me to come visit him.
And I, and I always used to say, listen, I work 90 hours a week. I can’t take a 24 hour flight. Basically what all my friends tell me now, I’m an entrepreneur. What do you mean before we all knew that being an entrepreneur, you know, for many of them, exactly, exactly. So, so. He called me the day after I resigned and he said, get your butt over here.
Just come for a visit. Trust me, it’ll change your life. And I bought a two week ticket. After four days, I called my mother. I said, I’m never coming home. I love this place. Send my stuff. And I never used my return ticket and I lived in Bangkok for 11 years. How long ago was this? Just roughly. I’m just curious.
I went in January of 99. Wow. And I want to, I want to stick in the early days just a little bit longer because I feel like You know, that concept of you were going to be a police officer and all these things that were built up like that, that word identity, like you had this identity and this thing that you were for so long, like that, that must’ve been rough.
Like all of a sudden, obviously, of course, your father, of course, that’s a, but your identity too. So you kind of lose almost two things at one time, huh? I mean, it was, yeah. I mean, today it, law enforcement and being a cop is like internal in my body. Like I still have all my cousins or cops and I still have loads of friends that are in law enforcement all over the world, and, and I can, I can’t, and I can relate to that, by the way.
So growing up in Michigan, I had, I mean, I, I, my family owns. The second or the, for the longest running bar in the, in the United and Michigan. I mean, it was a cop bar. It’s been around for over a hundred years. Never, never close. And so I grew up in the atmosphere of firefighters and police officers. And I, when I was, you know, going out of Cal or getting out of high school, even the thought was I was gonna, you know, be set up for a job driving a fire truck.
Like that was supposed to be my future. That’s what I was thinking about. That’s where my head was. So I can kind of relate to this thing of identity and the difference. So that, that’s why I asked you that question. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s just, it stays with you forever. Like I can’t travel to a new country and pass by a police officer and not think about it.
Or not like want to go give the guy a hug and like thank him for everything that he does like it’s weird like it’s just it’s strange like it’s not I love it I’ll tell you I got to tell you this so last night two stories got last night I’m in I’m in Beverly Hills I’m in like the hills like you’re looking right Amazing.
Expansive. We’re doing an event with light Dow and there’s just like, let’s just say the who’s, who’s just all these people. Right. The event organizer. I believe that maybe one of his people weren’t wearing they didn’t show up or who knows. I don’t know. But anyway, he’s he’s so everybody’s doing this like centering meditation and they’re doing it kind of downstairs, but there’s nobody watching and or working the door to either greet new people or make sure that randoms don’t walk in because even the event hosts downstairs.
So me with, again, being in the DNA, what do you think I’m doing? Standing at the door, working the door, checking, making sure, literally writing name tags. You registered? Who are you? Whatever. And I’m so funny. They think I work there. I’m a, I’m a guest and I’m like, no, yeah, we’re not. So that’s what, when I say it’s in my DNA, like you say it’s in your DNA, that’s what we do.
Like we’re protected. We can’t help it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. So getting back to Thailand. So like, I loved it. Like I, I loved it so much. And, and think about those dates. I got there before social media was invented. Man, so I was in Southeast Asia when social media came out.
So on a whim, I started the first digital agency in Asia, and we were the biggest for five years, not because we were the best. It’s because there was no options. Nobody knew. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. So that’s really where I built my name. And then I sold it. And like, I was first 2000 people on Twitter. Like I was, I was, and now, now I have like 600, 000, but like Elon’s killing Twitter, so it’s basically worthless.
But before they, before a lot of people dropped off and they got rid of all the just dead accounts that people don’t use anymore, I was the first American expat in any Asian country to have a million followers on Twitter. Man. Back then, that was front page news. Yeah. The social was so new and so hot, especially in Asia.
Like if you think it’s hot here in Asia, social media is like through the roof. Oh yeah. The amount of views, just the amount of people, the amount of views. Yeah. TikTok in Asia is like, oh my gosh, it’s like to have. Like people, people have no idea. Yeah. Millions. Think, think about this. Think about this. The first three out of the first four years that Instagram was even.
Invented the most Instagram place on the planet was Bangkok. Wow. And that’s when I was there. Wow. Yeah. That made, so that led to speaking gigs and I sold the agency. I really concentrated on social and, and it be, but not social the way you think about it today. There was no, there was no social media campaigns and come on, come to my hotel for free.
Everything’s for free. As long as you post about us, there was none of that. There was no exchange for posts for. Hotels or anything like that. Cause they didn’t, it was basic. If I’m not correct me if I’m wrong on this, because at this point it was still just consider not me, I shouldn’t use the word a game, but they didn’t know.
Like nobody, it was a game or a hundred percent social media. So for you to say that they’d probably be like a hashtag, a tweet of this or that. Well, what? Like there was no value. No, it was, it was, it was for fun. It was a joke. It was to pass the time. It was a place where you posted pictures so your friends and family could see.
Like, that’s it. Remember back then, first off, everybody went to Twitter for news because there was no news apps. There was no news feed in, in Facebook feed and, and things like that. So I was basically using social media just to get attention. And then once I got the attention, I would be, I would do consulting work and all kinds of stuff in, and the majority of it was in hospitality.
I never set out to concentrate in hospitality. Oh, wow. It just was a natural progression because I was there when social media or when Southeast Asia was blowing up. And what does blowing up mean? Blowing up means resorts, restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, you know. Yeah. So, but I ended up living in 6 different countries for 17 years.
So I did Thailand for 11 years, Philippines for 1 Sri Lanka for 1, Spain for 4, Portugal for 1, and UK for 1. And then I came back to the States in 2015, which I think is where we met. Yeah. About that time. Yeah, yeah. No, it would be probably, I think 2016. Because I was in San Francisco for about a year.
Yep. It would have been either 2016 or 2017 off the top of my head because we started this this whole shindig at 2016. So it would have been one of those two for sure. Yeah. So now, I mean, thank you for sharing, by the way, the backstory of this, but now, you know, present day, I’m just, I’m in catching up in otherwise you’ve seen the ups, you’ve seen the downs.
I mean, obviously you saw, you saw the Asian financial crisis. I mean, you’ve been through all these things 2008, all those things. And and I’m just curious, like now, you know, post pandemic travels opening up, obviously I know some of many of the sectors are doing, are doing very well. What are your thoughts?
Like, tell me about the market, man. You’re my inside. As far as social media, as far as travel, as far as travel, like your niche and what you’re out there doing, like, tell me about so our things for you. So here’s something that most people don’t know is I don’t pitch myself. Yeah, I, I connect myself with a lot of decision makers in the hospitality industry globally, on social media across all platforms, whether it be LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram threads, it doesn’t matter.
And I’m very active on social. So I’m always. top of mind because I’m always in somebody’s newsfeed, then when they see something that I post that they like, they’re like, Oh yeah, I want that to be done for my client. So that has been my strategy to get clients since I started. And I still, it still fills up my whole calendar.
And post pandemic, the cruise industry has been booming like nothing else. And we’ve been cruising a lot. I haven’t been on one in a while, but I did hear that, so it is packed, isn’t it? It’s interesting. Why do you think that is? Just from your vantage. So, I’ll explain exactly the reason. And listen, it has to be for you, again.
Of course. Some people don’t like cruising. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cost benefits and less stress. Yeah. Nothing can beat it. And let me explain why now, even though the pandemic is, you know, out of there, you know, nobody, there’s shockingly, there’s still companies out there using the pandemic as an excuse for some, some ridiculous reasons, but it’s gone.
Okay. So things are still messed up on the back end of in the hospitality world. Hiring is still not easy. Companies are still not making what they need to make. So even though things look perfect on the front end, the back end of hospitality is still not perfect. Hiring is still very, very difficult.
So cruising, think about this, you, you go on a 10 day cruise in the Mediterranean, right? Hold on, you gotta set this up for me more, because I know I’m not going on a 10 day cruise, so let me live my career just like my, my feed, Scott. Alright, set it up, we’re going on a 10 day cruise in the Mediterranean.
You’re going on a 10 day cruise. Okay, I’ll give you, I’ll give you a real life example. In March. On the 9th, I am going on a 10 day cruise in the Mediterranean. Ah. I’m going on Princess Cruises. I’m going on their brand new ship. And we’re leaving Barcelona and we’re ending up in Rome. But along the way, we’re visiting Turkey, Spain Italy, and Turkey, Spain, Italy, and one other country.
So four countries in total, right? The only thing that is required for a passenger on that cruise itinerary is to fly into Barcelona and get on the ship. That’s it. Wow. Wow. They booked their flights. Yeah. They coordinate that with the cruise line. The cruise line sets up a transfer from the airport directly to the port, or maybe they’re coming in one day early, stay at a hotel, see Barcelona a little bit, and then the transfer goes from the hotel to the port, right?
Once you’re on the ship, you unpack once, and the countries come to you. Hypothetically, the first port you’re going to, There’s issues. There’s a oil spill, or there’s a strike at the port, or they’re having a storm and weather’s bad. The people on the ship, the captain and his whole crew, will work out logistics to visit another port to replace that, because that port is not an option.
While you’re sitting at the pool drinking pina coladas. Wow. You do nothing. Even when, even when it’s a stressful situation, you do nothing. I like that. The best! I do nothing. Now. Now. On the flip side. Take me more. Take me further. Take me further. I want more than that. Let’s, let’s, let’s do the same 10 day itinerary.
Huh. Four countries. Mm hmm. You’re flying into Barcelona. You’re either catching a taxi from the airport to your hotel, or you’re pre setting it up with an airport transfer. You’re booking the hotel. Do you have breakfast included or not? Are you paying extra for that? Where are you going for lunch? What activities are you doing that day?
Where are you going for dinner? How are you getting to and from dinner? Scott, this is why I don’t travel. When I leave LA, it’s more work for me to travel and to like have and to have a good day than here. Yeah. Who is making this, that, you gotta figure out, learn something new. This is not much of the reason why I don’t get out much.
Go ahead. Go ahead. I’m just saying. But you’re on a cruise ship. You’re on a cruise ship. You have seven restaurants to choose from. You have 15 bars to choose from. You have theater production shows every night. Again, you know, like people are asking me all the time. They’re like, are you only in the cruise industry now?
And I’m telling them, I’m like, no. But I go where the business is, and it just so happens that right now, the business is in cruising, so I’m cruising 10 12 times a month. Wow. We did 27 countries last year. Oh my gosh, wow. I travel with a photographer, so we do full cruise ship photo shoots during the cruise.
Which is unheard of, like it’s such a logistical nightmare because you have to plan everything when there’s no people around and we do food and beverage shoots and yeah. It’s so, but, and the interesting thing about your content is you make it, you make it look easy. Like it doesn’t feel like, Oh yeah, I know what the production on the back end is.
And, and listen, that is where the sales side comes from. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like you’re the expertise. You, I mean, I will say this, you’re not saying this, I know you’re a humble guy, but you invented this space. You’re one of the first like you’ve been doing this for a long time in terms of not just on platforms But also on that niche like as long as i’ve known you and otherwise like you didn’t wake up one day and say I want To be this travel guy.
No like and i’m not nothing again. I think that does do that. I mean I’m probably 14 years strong That’s what I mean. I’m not judging anybody else’s content, but like, you’re a, you’re a vet in this game and it’s fun to watch what you do and for you to make it look so easy when I’m looking at it sometimes and I, I look at it and I’m like, yeah, that was a hard shot.
Like, Oh yeah. What? Like what? Time went into that video that nobody will ever know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enjoy, and I enjoy too. Of course, people have no idea. So we just got back from Antarctica. Hold on, we just got back from Antarctica, and the photographer that I travel with, we were just talking yesterday, and he said, Oh my God, I took too many pictures.
Now he, he has spent the last few days just going through and deleting duplicates because you have to take duplicates when you’re taking a picture of an iceberg in Antarctica, because you have no idea how it’s going to come out. I mean, he took easily probably 20 or 30, 000 pictures. Good God.
So, okay, Scott. So the, the big question I need to know is when’s this like, when, okay, princess, if you’re listening to this, I need a mobile we got to set up my podcast studio on one of these Man, I want now, now you got, you just now added some vision to my head here. I need to, I probably podcast a solid four hours a day.
That’s a lot of content. I gotta, how’s the wifi and the connection with that? When on these cruise lines, I’m guessing. Listen, I was, I was blown away how good the wifi was. We were deep in Antarctica on princess cruises and the wifi was ridiculous. I was streaming Miami heat games off the NBA app. Oh, come on.
It was unbelievable. You have no idea. Listen to what we just now said, how amazing this world is and this earth. It’s unreal. I’m so proud of you guys. Like, I always praise God on this stuff. I’m like, just the fact that we’re having a conversation right now about you streaming an NBA game from your phone or tablet, whatever.
In Antarctica!
I mean, listen, Elon, for Starlink because all the cruise ships are going with it now. Wow. Wow. See, Cousin Elon does some good too, you know, whatever. Dude, I love the guy so much. I’m waiting. I’m waiting for him to, like, wake up and be like, Alright, let’s hire professionals and like, let’s get Twitter back.
Let’s go. I’m waiting. He’s got something up his sleeve. I know. I don’t know what, but he does. I’m sure. Well, Scott, hey, I know you you’re a busy guy, man. I really appreciate you coming back on the show and I’m sure we’ll be connecting more. And now you got, you got this in my head, man. I’m going to get a, I’m going to have a a podcast studio on one of these cruise ships for a couple of days.
I’m going to figure this thing out. Yeah, bro. start working on it. Cause that’s where it’s at. It’s you, bro. It’s you. It is me. I do my four or five hour podcasting. And then when I’m done, I walk out and I’m on vacation. Like, cause to me, conversations with you and doing what I’m doing now, that is a vacation for me.
It’s a privilege to be able to bring these conversations to my house. We should pitch, we should pitch a podcast and do it. Like, Oh man. We, we, we could talk about it offline. It’s a good absolutely talk about it offline before I let you go though. I want you to please one more time, let know everybody where it know where they can follow you.
Cause I want everybody to go check out that’s content. I’m at mr. Scott, Eddie, E D D Y on every platform. And that’s also my website, mr. Scott, eddie. com. Awesome. Again, and we’ll, and we’ll post all that stuff, of course, as well. So at Mr. Scott, Eddie check it out. And to the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t hit that subscribe button yet, I don’t know why, like hit the subscribe button, it’s not going to, what’s wrong with you guys, Scott
is always, man. Really appreciate all you do. And I look forward to continue to build the relationship. So thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, man. Thank you for so much for having me.
