Learn more about Sustainable Travel and Impactful Leadership with Sydney Yelton

Combining activism with passion, Sydney Yelton has made a career that you’re going to love. “Star Heart” is about finding your potential to shine while doing something you love. With a focus on travel, growth, and leadership, this entrepreneur helps women find the courage to make the changes they want to comfortably and happily travel solo with purpose. She also shows them how to use their unique voice and perspective to both grow and lead. When you lead with your heart and are impassioned about what you do, you can create change.

Tell us more about yourself, and what you do.

My name is Sydney Yelton. I’m a travel and leadership coach; focusing on sustainability, purposeful travel, personal growth, and impactful leadership.

I have been able to combine my passions of travel and activism to create my online business, ‘Star Heart’. My business is called “Star Heart’ because I believe that each person here on Earth has the potential to shine as bright as a star and lead with their biggest heart.

I help and empower other women to do things such as solo travel, travel consciously and with purpose, and lead and create change with their unique voice.

What inspired you to create your brand? What current projects are you working on?

During the Fall of 2019, I embarked on my first solo travel adventure to Hawaii. I decided to do this because I felt like a part of myself was missing. Over the next year, I kept solo traveling. I found that travel offered a lot of personal growth and learning. My travels inspired me to create my brand.

I fell in love with travel and knew I wanted to continue. But, in traveling for the rest of my life, I recognized that a lot needs to change within the travel industry and that a lot of people don’t know where to start when it comes to travel. This is where I created the idea of ‘holistic travel’- an idea that looks at all parts of travel.

But since COVID happened, I was forced to pivot. My travel has been on pause since March. Through my journeys, I was inspired to step into my power as a leader in change and sustainability. I currently help other leaders in travel and climate/social justice find and use their unique voice to create large impacts, the impacts they desire!

On the travel side, I help create a conversation around the new age of travel; what needs to change once travel opens up again, and how others can do that.

How does your brand work?

I currently offer group coaching programs and 1:1 coaching depending on the needs and desires of my clients.

For my travel programs, I focus on education, empowerment, and skills.

For my leadership program, I focus on helping my clients align with their messaging, finding their unique voice, and using their voice by connecting to their personal stories and passions. They need to learn voice work to help them create an impactful change confidently and effectively-so I also help them with this process.

What’s your desired impact?

My biggest desired impact is to help people know that their voices and actions matter, no matter where they are in the world. I want other women to be empowered to do the things they want to do, create the life they want, and to use their voice to create impactful and meaningful change.

Explain the challenges you went through that lead you to create this business?

One of the biggest challenges was that COVID hit right when I was getting started with my travel coaching. All of a sudden travel wasn’t a thing anymore — at least for the time being. This threw me off entirely because at the time I was only doing travel coaching. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to pivot to, but since I started doing leadership coaching everything feels much more aligned and exciting again!

A deeper reason I created my business was that growing up, back in middle school, I was a big climate advocater; I gave speeches, was interviewed on TV and the radio, and was very passionate about using my voice. Once I got into high school I felt like I didn’t have the time or opportunities to keep doing this, resulting in losing a part of me. I didn’t realize it until I started to solo travel that that was what was missing and essentially “found” myself again.

What are the core values you and your business embody?

My core values in my business are sustainability, purposeful living, travel, and purposeful leadership, climate/social justice. All of these values are inner connected.

Tell us your future vision about the brand. What is your dream about taking it to the next level?

My work is currently online. I am working to make my business my full-time job. I would love to eventually host leadership and travel retreats all over the world; connecting with others in physical space is powerful. These retreats would be a place to learn, connect, network, grow, and empower each other. I also want to lead others on trips and help them connect with themselves, others, and the Earth through those trips. I also envision hosting and speaking at travel summits and conventions; talking about purposeful and holistic travel and how travelers can be world leaders. So many exciting things are going to happen!

What message would you like to give to anybody who has a plan of creating something of their own and making a living through it?

To connect with other entrepreneurs and find and build your support system! I found that it’s powerful to connect with others, share your vision, and lift each other daily. Connecting with so many other amazing people has inspired me to work harder and know that my goals and dreams are going to happen.

Star Heart

Website: www.starhearttravel.com

Instagram URL: www.instagram.com/star.heart.traveler