GLOBAL MENTALITY

Farryn Weiner is the owner and founder of Farrynheight, a social media marketing agency. She first earned plaudits in 2011 as a pioneering talent using social channels to boost the profile of Michael Kors, launching the brand’s Instagram page from her smartphone. Weiner went on to become CMO of the fast-casual restaurant chain, Sweetgreen, before founding her namesake agency in March 2019. Prepandemic, she lived and worked in New York; today, Weiner is a confirmed “global nomad,” helming her company remotely from wherever she chooses.

The first time I traveled by myself really shaped me. On a whim, I went to Nepal for two weeks. Putting myself in a new environment like that—trying new things and meeting new people—fostered a confidence that translated into my work as an entrepreneur.

I run a marketing agency with an all-female remote and global team. We have team members across New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, and Sydney. We had these values at Farrynheight about being mobile and global, but I’d been chained to a desk for most of my career. The decision to work remotely came from looking at my own values and asking: Why aren’t I living them? This was an opportunity to live those values. So five of my colleagues and I decided to work remotely, changing locations every couple of weeks. When we were in Mexico, we spent a week at the Club’s property in Real del Mar.

With clients across the globe, we tried to find a destination that was in the right time zone, and Mexico was a no-brainer. The key to working from anywhere is a combination of discipline and freedom; you’ve got to make sure you’re enriching yourself and your life by being in this new environment. Unlike being on vacation, my daily routines are more structured and I have rituals that ground me. I stay consistent, but also take advantage of the destination I’m in: Maybe that’s waking up early one morning to watch the sunrise, or taking a dip in the ocean between meetings.

In a work-from-anywhere culture, you’re allowing your employees to be themselves, and to take the afternoon off to go for a swim. Yet with more freedom comes responsibility and accountability. As such, there’s a technical and emotional side to making working remotely a success. Slack has been one of the best tools, and we’ve been building a rhythm of communication with team and company-wide calls twice a week. These are real check-ins, where everyone goes around and shares genuinely how they’re feeling; someone will say she’s at a “3,” because it’s raining and the coffee machine at home broke, while someone else will be at a “10,” like the colleague who just got engaged. And each new team member has a one-on-one video call with everyone at the company, so they can get to know each other personally.

Working remotely is an amazing opportunity to meet different types of people who aren’t normally part of your daily life. And the beauty of Exclusive Resorts is that you’re getting hotel quality service in the privacy of your own home. If I have 10 hours of meetings, it’s a luxury that someone will bring coffee to me in the morning, or might run to the grocery store because we ran out of blueberries.

I worked in Mexico for three months, and my plan is to be in Europe for the summer. During this moment in time, so many walls and barriers are being broken down. Allowing the team to live and work how they want fosters productivity, creativity, and, happiness. People are rethinking how we thought we had to live, the places we thought we had to work. This trend of remote working is only the beginning. Historically, it was about creating a line in the sand between work and life. Now, it’s about fluidity, a practice that fuels you and your life goals, in a creative and inspiring environment.

Where you are doesn’t matter anymore. It’s how you show up that matters.

Work and learn remotely at be-creative-anywhere locales.

Today, time is too precious for should haves. As such, Exclusive Resorts created an Extended Stay Program inspired by a work-and-learn-from-anywhere motto—combined with a luxury travel destination. After all, creativity is sparked by new perspectives. The Club now offers Members the opportunity to use Plan Days for extended stays of 21 consecutive nights or longer in select destinations at select times (be forewarned, you may just want to move to one of these destinations full-time). For a list of all available Extended Stay residences and availability, Club Members can visit The Source or speak with their Ambassador.