Day within the Life: Marcela Marañon, Journey & Way of life Content material Creator

You don’t earn partnerships with corporations like Google, Toyota and Clinique and construct a base of two million followers throughout social media by taking it simple, however one of many high classes Marcela Marañon has discovered working as a way of life and journey content material creator is that it’s all for naught if you happen to don’t care for your physique. 

So as an alternative of waking up on the break of daybreak to work on enhancing content material, once I spoke together with her, she was having fun with a late breakfast of avocado toast and matcha tea and letting her physique get well from a foul case of jet lag within the kitchen of her Dallas house.  

“I am always traveling, and my body is always tired,” she says. “I have learned that I have to listen to my body and give it the time for rest. When I’m traveling, that’s when I’m working. When I am home, it’s my recovery time. I do things that are going to benefit me.” 

Whatever routine Marañon adheres to is working for her. Thanks to her savvy advertising and marketing and entertaining enhancing, she has established herself as one of many main way of life and journey content material creators who makes use of a wheelchair. Her content material, below the moniker of @thejourneyofabravewoman, reaches tens of millions of viewers each month and has supplied a snug life for her and her daughter.  

Among her many accomplishments, she has traveled to all seven wonders of the world, is the primary Latina wheelchair consumer to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, and has received quite a few awards for her content material, together with an Emmy. As a lot as she enjoys being a creator, she values her advocacy work much more. 

“What inspired me to create content was the desire to empower others, share diverse perspectives and show that everyone, no matter their circumstances, has a valuable story to tell,” she says. 

Marañon’s story as a wheelchair consumer started when was paralyzed in a automobile accident at age 20 in 2002. Her story as a content material creator began in 2014 when she was learning communications at Austin Peay State University. Her professor inspired her to give you a model identify to market herself. She immediately knew what to decide on. 

“I always wanted to make a book and call it, ‘The Journey of a Brave Woman,’” she says. “I have always considered myself untamed and brave. Whether it’s traveling internationally on my own or succeeding as a single mom, I just go and do it. You have to be fearless, especially with a disability. Even if something bad happens, I will always learn from that.” 

She began posting on Instagram in 2017. Her preliminary content material largely centered on way of life manufacturers, however she slowly shifted to creating extra journey content material as she noticed the necessity and want for extra accessibility data. While she sometimes companions with journey manufacturers and locations and has her lodging comped, she often foots the invoice herself. “It’s very important to stay true to myself and not just sell myself because they pay me a check,” she says. “Accessible travel isn’t cheap, and it’s important to show people how I can travel without breaking the bank.” 

Between locations, model occasions and different public alternatives, Marañon is continually on the go. Keeping forward of the demand for content material is vital. 

“I have so much content uploaded that people haven’t even seen on social media,” she says. “So if something happened to me for a year and I cannot work or I cannot travel, I have enough all ready.” 

Marañon nonetheless finds time to have interaction together with her on-line followers and says she has been lucky to have a largely constructive and supportive group. “I want to be surrounded by people that really like my work and really love who Marcela, is” she says. “I don’t care if I only have 10 followers, as long as these 10 followers wish me well, because that’s good energy for me.” 

Marañon attracts extra help from her college-age daughter and credit being a disabled mother with getting her the place she is at this time. 

“Being a disabled mom helped me to just wake up every morning, breathe in, and be appreciative of what I have — my daughter and my health. Every time I woke up and I felt healthy, I was able to go outside and work and do the things that I wanted to do and take care of my daughter.” 

Five years of heavy touring have taken a toll on Marañon’s physique, however she’s not able to retire the bags simply but. She didn’t wish to reveal precisely what she has deliberate however stated she is trying ahead to spending extra time in Europe and upping her advocacy involvement. 

“I have to pay my bills,” she says, “but I am not desperate anymore to get anybody’s attention or to try to get a trophy or something like that. I feel like I have matured and I am a place in my life where I do what I want to do. Nobody’s telling me what to do.” 

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