Episode 11 - Welcome to 2026: Embracing Prosperity in Life and Business
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EPISODE SUMMARY
Episode Focus
• Prosperity redefinition: Beyond money to encompass love, happiness, relationships
• Boundary setting: Strict adherence to work-life balance
• Present moment: Focus on being present rather than constantly busy
• Community building: Creating meaningful connections in all areas of life
• Sustainable success: Building business without sacrificing personal well-being
• Gratitude practice: Appreciation for current blessings while working toward goals
Personal Transformation Philosophy
Word of the Year: Prosperity
• Annual tradition: Setting a word of the year during Christmas/New Year period
• Personal timing: Birthday coincides with holiday season (favourite time of year)
• 2026 word: Prosperity - encompassing all areas of personal and business life
• Holistic definition: Love, kindness, care, happiness, laughter, presence
Family and Personal Life
Family Structure
Beach Lifestyle
New Home Journey
Business Philosophy and Boundaries
Work-Life Balance
• Unsustainable past: 2-3 years of 16-hour days to build business
• New goal: Finish work by 4pm daily
• Family priority: Present time with family, long and happy life
• Boundary challenges: Things creep in, working on urgent vs important
• Commitment: Being extremely strict about boundaries in 2026
Wednesday Planning Days
• Reintroduction: Bringing back dedicated planning time
• Structure: No client calls, no emails, no checking messages
• Focus: Working ON the business, not IN the business
• Activities: Marketing strategy, social media content, podcast batching, tour design, financial analysis, team goal mapping
• Personal time: Beach walks for mental clarity and self-care
Team and Gratitude
Team Appreciation
Business Excellence
• Client focus: Detailed itineraries, solving challenges, celebrating milestones
• Continuous improvement: Commitment to enhancing client experience
• Innovation: Staying current with technology and travel trends
• Personal touch: Maintaining human connection in all interactions
• Community building: Going beyond transactions to create relationships
• Local support: Promoting local businesses and mutual support
Relationship Philosophy
Financial and Future Planning
2026 Goals and Planning
Community and Industry Vision
READ THE FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT HERE
Introduction
Hello and welcome to 2026. This is our first episode of 2026 and I am so excited for this year. I have the most amazing feeling that this is going to be an incredible year.
I'm Holly, your host of Travel Business Unlocked and the founder of HollyDay Travel. This year I have decided to do things a little differently in my business. For those of you who know me, you will know that I am absolutely a people pleaser. I love being around people and I often say yes to way too many things. I absolutely love our travel industry, I love the connections I've made and I love my clients.
But what I am changing this year is that I am focusing on what is important and not urgent. This is something my mentor Kim and I spent so much time on. She worked with me on this for a long time until I really understood what it meant.
I get so wrapped up in messages, coming in emails, coming in, things that seem urgent right now. But what she's asked me to do is take that step back and look at it and is that important? Is that task needing to be done right then, right now? Can it be handed on to my team? Can somebody else do that for me? Is that task interrupting my family time, my own mental health, my own relaxation and peace?
So, what I am doing is really focusing on what is important this year, what means the most to me.
Word of the Year: Prosperity
So one thing I do every year is that I set a word of the year and over the Christmas break and the New Year, it's also my birthday during that time and it's one of my favourite times of year. We get to celebrate, it's summertime, we live on the beach, so it's a beautiful time of year, and I thought really hard about what it was that I wanted to achieve in 2026.
So this year the word I have come up with is “prosperity”. Now to me, this is for all areas in my personal life and business. It is about being surrounded by so much love, so much kindness, so much care.
My family is my absolute world. And for those of you who don't know, we have five children. They range from 22 down to 9 year old twin girls. So for me it is about providing them a really loving and supporting home environment. An open house where they can talk about anything, they can prosper and follow their dreams too. It's about teaching them the practices of kindness every single day. But it's also about doing this, it's learning the process myself by teaching them… I really need to learn and teach by example as well.
So it's about happiness. Prosperity is about happiness for me. So much laughter together, laughter in everything we do as a family, but also what we do in our everyday life with business, with the team, and it's taking away the stress that we've been living these last couple of years and really just being present and in the moment.
Beach Life and Family Time
So the kids are currently on summer holidays. As I said, we live on the beach. The beach is my absolute favourite place in the world. It brings me so much peace, so much calmness. I go at least once a day, if not twice, especially now during the summer and I walk on the beach during the winter. It's absolutely beautiful.
We have had algae bloom here in South Australia, so it's so nice that it's finally cleared. We can be back in the water absolutely enjoying these really hot days that we've been having. And for me and the kids, we just can't get enough of all the water sports. I like to just relax in the water, watch the kids have fun. They love to do paddle boarding, surfing, boogie boarding. And then all of us will just sit on the sand for hours and build sand castles. And for me, this brings me so much joy. It makes my heart so happy. And it's truly a dream life that I am really, really thankful for every single day.
New Home
So one of the most exciting things that is happening for our family this year is that we are finally moving into our beautiful new home that we are building. This has been a three-year-long journey from when we sold our house that we built previously. It wasn't near the beach, it was inland a little bit. And we have bought a beautiful block of land and we have the most gorgeous, gorgeous beach views. And in the next month or two, we will finally be moving into our dream home. And I cannot wait to be sitting on that balcony, having a cocktail or two and watching those incredible sunsets.
So to me, this is what prosperity is all about. It's the feelings, it's the love. And yes, it is about the financial wealth as well to provide our family for the dreams that we want. To live, the life that we really want to achieve. But it's about expanding what we've currently got in our financial plan and also working towards our future security. It's about teaching our team, our kids and everyone around us as well what they need to do for the future.
But it's also so much more than just the financial security. It's about nurturing the bonds that make life so special, both personally and professionally.
Intentional Relationships
For me, it's about making that intentional time for the people who truly matter in my life, for those that want to lift you up, that bring you joy.
We have an incredible industry that we work in, the travel industry. There is so much encouragement, there is so much collaboration in this industry, but there is also a lot of competition. So I am choosing to work with those suppliers and also those clients who genuinely want to work with me and they see me for my worth, but also surrounding myself in my personal life with the people that are happy to see me succeed, that believe in me, and want to see me do the best that I can.
It's about creating those deeper, more meaningful relationships with everybody around us. It's ensuring that when we are working with our clients that they are feeling valued, heard, and completely understood with their travel experiences.
Setting Boundaries
So it's also setting really, really healthy boundaries. This is one of my biggest things. As I said, I'm a people pleaser. I have worked incredibly hard to get HollyDay Travel to where it is today and to get the roles within the industry that I currently hold.
I absolutely love it and I'm extremely proud of what I have achieved, but it has not come easily. It has come with two or three years of 16-hour days. This is not sustainable. This is not something that I want to continue. I want to finish by 4 PM every day. I want to spend that time with my family. I want to be very present with them and I want to live a very, very long and happy life.
So for me, it is really setting those boundaries around my work hours and I had this in place and then things creep in and you, you know, work on what you think is urgent, not important. There's many reasons why I have let this slip, but this year I'm being extremely strict on this again.
Wednesday Planning Days
I have reintroduced my Wednesday planning day where I will not be taking client calls, I will not have my emails open and I will not be checking them.
This is a day where I am completely dedicated to, to planning for the business. Not just working on the business—in the business—sorry, I'll be working on the business. So it's going to be things that I do this day is going to be reviewing and planning my marketing strategies and social media content. It could be doing my podcast and, you know, doing a batch day of those.
It's also about dreaming up and designing our tours that we want in the future, analysing the financial reports, mapping out weekly goals and priorities for the team. So many different things.
But it also might just be that I need some time and I'm going to spend that time going for a walk on the beach and just really getting my mind clear and doing the things that I need to do for myself. So Wednesday planning days are incredibly important for me this year. And that is one thing that prosperity means to me as well.
Gratitude and Team Building
And another thing is gratitude. Gratitude for the people in my life, gratitude for my dedicated team who work so incredibly hard to help me and HollyDay Travel have so much success in everything that we do. But it's also about building them up. They are such individuals and talking to them about their unique talents, finding their creativity and the heart in everything that they do.
Their commitment to me and HollyDay Travel is so important what they do. They genuinely feel that we are a family. I celebrate their wins, both big and small. This is so important to me. We have team member of the month and we just keep celebrating them.
So it's prosperity within all of that as well, but also within our work, making sure the team aren't working the crazy hours, that they're not stuck working overtime unless it is really something super, super urgent. It's knowing that we have our systems in place and our team has everything under control.
Business Excellence
It's also about contentment in all of these moments of building these detailed itineraries, solving client challenges, but also celebrating great booking milestones, what's happening within our business and celebrating all of this.
And then also of course, we always promise to thrive in everything that we do within our business. It's our commitment to continuous improvement with our client experience. It's staying innovative, it's embracing new technologies, working out what the trends are in travel, and also maintaining that personal touch for all of our clients.
And we love sharing this. We love sharing our journey with our clients. They love getting to know us, building these relationships and we go beyond just transactions. We are all about creating community, working together, promoting local businesses, supporting each other. And for me, this is again exactly what prosperity is.
Focus and Planning
So this year we just really want to spend a whole lot of time working together, increasing HollyDay Travel. We have some huge business goals that we want to achieve this year, but also taking that time to really have a step back.
Step back and look at what is important and what is not urgent.
So for me, what I really want to say to you is: work out what you want in 2026, sit down, come up with a plan. Normally I'm doing three-year plans, five-year plans, but honestly, this year I am just focusing on a one-year plan. What is it that I really, really, really want to achieve in 2026 in my personal life and also in HollyDay Travel and then taking the time to actually do that. It's about being present with my family, with my team, and with my clients.
Listener Engagement
So I would love to hear from you if you set a word for the year and if you do, what it is. This all makes me so excited and there is so much to look forward to and so, so, so many moments to cherish.
So for me, just a bit of a recap. It's moving into our new home and spending quality time with my family, growing HollyDay Travel, and creating unforgettable experiences for our clients.
My heart is so full of anticipation to achieve this. I'm so committed to embracing prosperity in every sense of the word, from abundance in love, laughter, success, and meaningful connections. Setting boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And prioritising what truly matters and staying very strict and focused on this in both personal and professional growth. And I know this will guide me through the year to have an incredible 2026.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening. I am so grateful for this incredible community, the messages that I get with every podcast that goes out, the questions that I get on DMs, the emails I get, and thank you to every single one of you listening today. I couldn't do this without you.
So here's to wishing you an incredible 2026 filled with your own version of prosperity, joy, and endless possibilities. Let's make this one a year to remember together. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep unlocking the potential of your travel business.
