VoyageTampa Interview
Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracy McHugh.
Hi Tracy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I guess I will start from the beginning. I was born and raised in New Jersey. I say this because it is not just a location but an attitude. Most people are shaped by their locations, but no matter how much time has passed, how far I have traveled, and where I have lived; New Jersey is still at the core of me. I actually left New Jersey around the time I was 22, so I’ve lived almost another life elsewhere, but I just can’t shake it. I talk fast, many times am low on patience, and have a (sometimes fierce) loyalty and sense of right and wrong.
I did not get out of the Jersey bubble much (outside summer vacations domestically with family, mostly on the east coast) until college. I was fortunate enough to study abroad in Greece, and England, and took a weekend school trip to Canada. The kid who had not been further than California (once) with a basic American diet had been bitten by the travel bug. I spent two months after college traveling around Europe. This experience really formed me as a person. It was the first time in my life I had ever been alone (from a literal and emotional standpoint). Before this, I never would have gone out to eat or to the movies by myself, let alone travel for 2 months alone, but the class I had signed up for in Ireland was canceled after my non-refundable flights were booked. Wasting money was not an option, so I needed to plan two months of traveling to countries I had never been to, let alone spoke the language of. I also had to plan out and optimize (or sometimes lack of a plan) my days. This trip made me more aware, self-reliant, resourceful, and enhanced my social skills. I needed to be able to very quickly realize who might be a friend or foe. And for all you younger millennials and Gen Z’ers out there, this entire trip was planned and executed without a smartphone. Everything needed to be planned and printed from a desktop prior to my departure. So when I say resourceful, I mean resourceful. My subsequent international travels thereafter with my iPhone have been much easier.
When I got home from Europe, I went back to New Jersey for a couple of months but knew I needed to leave or I never would. I also had always dreamed as a child of living in Los Angeles. I had just recently graduated from college, I wasn’t married, and had no ties to anything. So I drove from New Jersey to LA with my belongings that I could fit in a sedan. I spent 6 months living in LA and searching for work. My goal was to work in the entertainment industry so I focused on trying to find an office job in a studio, but that is pretty much where my planning ended. I picked the unfortunate time to graduate and start looking for work around the 2008 recession so my 23-year-old lack of plan did not go accordingly to plan and I left LA after 6 months to head back to New Jersey, with a 4-month pitstop in San Francisco to hang out with friends and explore that city (because that’s what 23-year-olds do).
I eventually signed up for Americorps and was sent to work with a non-profit in Miami for 15 months. This was such an amazing experience. It gave me work experience to build off of, I got to experience something else completely different from New Jersey, and meet a great group of people who wanted to explore the city and that I am still friends today. One of those friends helped me get a job at a hotel where I spent the next 8 years expanding my career from an entry-level role to a director. One of my favorite jobs I ever had during that time was with a hotel as a corporate training manager. I traveled to over 200 hotels, in 30 different states, in 6 months to train teams on our systems and executing events. I got to see so many amazing places in this country, meet a ton of new people, and really enjoyed my job.
I always had the thought in my mind that I would keep monitoring jobs to transition to the entertainment industry and it may be easier to make the transition after having gained experience in sales and events. My dream was I wanted to be a comedian, but the reality was I also needed to pay bills so I geared my search to the corporate side of the entertainment industry. When just applying for jobs in the industry did not become fruitful I decided to move to the hub of the entertainment industry – LA, to also make connections. Once I got up and running with my job and building a friend group, I took several classes (improv, sketch writing, etc.), and volunteered in many theaters (Westside Comedy, Second City, and the Pack Theater). I even did background extra work a few times. While being a background actor isn’t the most exciting, I found it so thrilling to be on a set.
In 2020 when the pandemic shut down many things, I rode it out in Los Angeles. But it did put things into perspective as it did for many people. I was not going out as much, was more okay with spending time at home, and focused more on saving money and improving myself rather than instant gratifications. I started working with a health and wellness coach, a dietician, and my physician to make health my priority. I was exercising regularly, being very mindful of what I was eating, and meditating regularly. I was missing the creative outlet though so I started joining virtual open mics and I created a monthly group for my creative friends and acquaintances to connect, collaborate, and share what they were going. This transitioned into a weekly creative writing call that has lasted over two years. I became obsessed with listening to audiobooks in the pandemic. I found I was able to breeze through them with down time and it stuck. I think it’s so important to not only have your own creative outlets but to learn and experience other art forms. In 2022 I went through 153 audiobooks and started a virtual book club.
In the end of 2020, I also started a blog. I think many people have a little twinkle in the back of their mind that they will start a blog, Vlog, TikTok, etc., and it will go viral. At the end of the day though, I wanted another way to be creative and something I had full control over. Not only did I write all the posts and take all the photos, I completely created the website on my own. This probably doesn’t sound like much to many who were born with a phone in their hand and a social media account, but I have no background in marketing or website design so it was complete trial and error. So I joined a bunch of blogging groups on social media and connected to other people I knew with websites or blogs. A lot of the feedback I got was I needed to pick a focus. That one focus would work better for SEO and building an audience. I tried doing that for a while but soon realized I would love to build a large audience, I was doing this for myself and not other people. I think I am like many people who have many interests and sometimes my interests ebb and flow. Maybe you can’t do more than one thing (or topic) really well, I sure would like to try though. I love to travel and write about that, but also love photography, the theater, current events, things that impact many people, and comedy among other things. I didn’t want to pigeon hold myself to one topic. I would probably get bored and run out of things to say.
At the end of 2022, my apartment lease was up. Since the pandemic had normalized remote work and not needing to be in LA for the entertainment industry, I decided I wanted to spend some time closer to family and out of the city. I drove from my apartment in LA to be close to my family in the Tampa area. I have spent the last two months exploring central Florida and the Tampa area as well as reigniting my creative interests.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Nope. Definitely not. When I was a kid and a young adult, I definitely cared more about what other people thought and would try to bend myself into that form. While I am all for compromise and middle ground, as I have gotten older I have realized the benefits of being true to myself.
Also, finding work and my passions haven’t always come easy to me. As a kid I thought 20 years old was old, let alone any age past that. I assumed by that age you had it all figured out. I can safely say that well into my adulthood, I still feel like I don’t have most things figured out. I have more experience and am more receptive to trial and error.
I always joke that I wished someone warned me how difficult and uncertain adulthood can be. I do appreciate how society is normalizing candid conversations more. Things can be tough. I have days where I just want to yell or cry. But I also have mellow and relaxing days, amazing days, days where I laugh my butt off, and days where I am appreciative and grateful.
For more titillating insight from Tracy’s time with VoyageTampa, check out the rest of the interview.