In this episode of the Priority Lane podcast, host Nigel Catt welcomes Holly Scobie, a global traveler and entrepreneur who has successfully built a digital media agency while traveling the world. Holly shares her journey of leaving Australia at 18, traveling for a decade, and the challenges she faced while managing her business on the move. She emphasizes the importance of adaptability, resilience, and the lessons learned from her experiences in various countries. The conversation also touches on the Dyatlov Pass Incident, a historical event that highlights the unpredictability of travel and the human spirit's resilience in the face of adversity. Holly discusses how her travels shaped her perspective on life and business, emphasizing the need for effective systems and communication in a remote work environment. She shares insights on overcoming challenges, the importance of building a supportive team, and the necessity of maintaining focus while exploring new cultures. Looking for fresh social media ideas? You can reach Holly at holly@spoiled-social.com
You can learn along the way.
Focus on where you want to be, not the roadblocks.
Systems are so important because they can work 24-7.
Communication is the key that has kept my clients sticking around.
You have to be fueled by the embarrassment of failure.
Sound Bites
"Everything's fine. So it's kind of a mindset."
"Not being able to acquire things is very hard."
"You don't need to get anything right."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Priority Lane Podcast
02:05 Meet Holly Scobie: A Global Traveler and Entrepreneur
03:17 The Early Travel Bug: Holly's Journey Begins
05:43 Travel Highlights: Countries That Left a Mark
07:25 The Transformative Power of Travel
08:20 Exploring the Dyatlov Pass Incident
10:08 The Mysterious Circumstances of the Dyatlov Pass
13:33 Reflections on the Dyatlov Pass Incident
16:29 Travel Challenges: Holly's Personal Experiences
18:33 Building a Business While Traveling
20:25 The Impact of COVID on Holly's Journey
23:20 Navigating Lockdowns and Building a Client Base
26:59 Holly's Journey from Wales to Mexico
29:57 Building a Global Team and Client Relationships
35:50 The Importance of Systems in Remote Work
39:02 Overcoming Technology Challenges
41:58 Maintaining Focus While Traveling
48:03 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
51:11 Holly's Future Plans and Creative Hub Launch
Nigel:
Welcome to the Priority Lane podcast, the show where we explore the power of prioritizing and how it can be used to achieve real growth by doing less but doing it better. I'm your host, Nigel Catt, and each episode I sit down with successful people to uncover how they filter out the noise and focus on what really matters. We'll also take time out and delve back into history to uncover bizarre or unusual events and see what lessons can be learned, or if it was just not worth talking about at all. Today on the podcast, we're joined by Holly Scobie, a global traveller, entrepreneur and living proof that you sometimes can have your cake and eat it too. Holly left Australia at 18 and spent the next 10 years travelling the world while building and scaling a digital media agency business, completely on her own. She managed clients across various time zones, lived out of a suitcase and built systems that allowed her business to grow no matter where she was. Now, for the first time in a decade, she's back in Australia with a place to call home and today she's sharing what it really takes to build a business on the move. So Holly, welcome and thank you for coming on the podcast.
Holly:
Thank you so much. That was such a nice opening.
Nigel:
No problems at all. Now, I have to be honest, I've been really looking forward to having you on the podcast as there's no doubt there's a lot of people who would like to do what you have done. Start a business that enables them to travel the world. So today, I want to delve into how you achieve this and what advice and tips you have for people who want to do the same thing. So are you ready to get started?
Holly:
Yes, I have so many tips, let's go.
Nigel:
Okay, well let's start before you started traveling. Growing up, did you have a desire or an urge to travel?
Holly:
I think it was kind of built in me. My family moved house almost every single year. I think my mum had the travel bug or just the moving bug. I went to about six schools. I couldn't stay still. I was always trying to do something new and something interesting. I didn't want to live like everybody else was living. So I think that's probably where it came from.
Nigel:
Okay, so let's talk about when you did start traveling and you left Australia. Was this meant to be the big adventure or was it just a normal short-term holiday?
Holly:
So basically as soon as I graduated high school and I turned 18, I had my first taste of freedom and I booked a trip straight away. I always had jobs since I was very young, like, you know, 14 cash in hand, whatever your older sister could get you doing in the back of the shop, you know. So I saved up lots of money and I went on, what should my parents just say? Fresh 18 year old all alone, backpacking Southeast Asia by myself and I went for four months and then I called my mom and said, hey I've spent all of my money and I need to come home now, I'm finished and she regretfully booked my ticket home and then ever since then I was like I can do anything.
Nigel:
Right, okay, okay. So you got the travel bug, you always like to travel and move around, you got the travel bug. So when you departed on the long journey, was there a time frame in mind?
Holly:
No, I packed up my room, I packed up my house, I put everything in storage and I just, I had no idea what I was doing. I just left the country, had a dream and no plan, no timeline and it took me all over. I couldn't have planned anything that happened in my life. It's crazy, it's like a book.
Nigel:
Okay, so your travels took you to a number of countries. What would you say would be the highlight countries, the ones that really struck a chord with you?
Holly:
My god. Like all of them scratch a different itch. Some of them are fantastic because they feel a bit more like home and then others they're so easy to travel and the tourism industry is set up so amazingly and the path is there for you to follow and then on the complete opposite ends others feel completely unknown and untouched and I loved shifting between them all. If I needed a little bit more like home, know, head to Europe, to the UK, and then off the beaten track, know, South America, things like that.
Nigel:
Okay, okay, so and I guess what you're saying is that different countries just provide different experiences and different opportunities. And I guess they challenge you in different ways as well.
Holly:
Yes, every single one is different challenge, different cultures, different people, even the people who travel there who are nomads or just travellers like yourself. They pose even more of a challenge than the locals, you know. The locals are always friendly and inviting, but sometimes you go somewhere and there's too many British people and like even if you're in Thailand or something, that's too much.
Nigel:
So did you notice a mark change or did others notice a change in you from the Holly that left to the Holly that came back home years later?
Holly:
My goodness. I don't think you could say you went overseas if you didn't come back changed. It sounds so cliche. People say you find yourself, but I think that it's through challenges and hardships and everything going wrong that you really find how resilient you are, how you can put up with challenges in your life and it builds sort of trust with yourself. It shows you that you can overcome things, scary things, panicky things, slight inconveniences when you're, I don't know, when you haven't had enough sleep and you're grumpy. That really makes you feel like you've met yourself and know your true limits.
Nigel:
Well, that's the great thing about travel. It puts you in foreign unfamiliar environments and forces you to adapt and grow as a person. And I guess being away from familiarity, opens up the, it increases the chances of something going wrong, which leads us into this episode's historical event. As you know, each episode we delve into a quirky historical fact of the month that we're in, which happens to be January.
Holly:
Exactly.
Nigel:
So before we move on to the business side of your story, let's get all historical. This historical event is a bit more... Thank you, thank you, been working on it. This historical event is a bit more serious to be labelled as quirky, as nine people unfortunately lost their lives. However, it is a very intriguing story and well worth telling. It's called the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Have you ever heard of this story?
Holly:
Beautiful segue. I've never heard it in my life.
Nigel:
Okay, okay, it was a very intriguing story. I first heard it about a year ago on the podcast. They dedicated about 50 minutes to it. It's very intriguing. So our quick two minute overview is really just that. It really is just an overview. Generally, I try to keep these segments down to about 60 seconds, but you can't do it with this one. You really need to put all the details in there.
Holly:
Mm-hmm. Give it its moment.
Nigel:
Give it its moment, do it justice. Okay, so let's go and do it. So it's the Dyatlov Pass. Now that is D-Y-A-T-L-O-V if anyone wants to have a look at it because it is a great story. Okay, starts in January 1959. 10 experienced hikers, led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, embarked on a 200-mile ski trek through the Ural Mountains in Russia. One member turned back early due to health issues, leaving nine. Now, worsening weather forced the group to change plans, and they set up camp on the eastern slope of Dead Mountain. Not a good sign, and were never heard from again.
Holly:
Mm-mm. no.
Nigel:
A search party was launched and when they found the bodies of the missing hikers the scene was so horrific that would inspire conspiracy theories for decades to come. The first five victims they found died of hypothermia. Two of these were found in their underwear near a tree where they had tried to maintain a fire. Both appeared to have burns on their hands. Curiously, the branches of a nearby tree were broken five metres up the trunk. Had they climbed it to get a better view or trying to escape from something? The other three were found between the tree and the tent, appearing to have died while trying to crawl back to shelter. Now the tent, which was a bit of a way from the trees, had been slashed from the inside. But all their belongings, including boots and coats, were left behind in a neat arranged order. Footprints show the group had walked calmly, not ran, toward a nearby forest in sub-zero temperatures. Months later, after the snow thawed, the remaining four were found at the bottom of a ravine in a running stream of water. They had suffered massive internal trauma, including fractured skulls and crushed chest. One was missing her tongue and eyes. Another had trace amounts of radiation on their clothes, and another's neck was twisted and eyebrows were missing. The initial Soviet investigators blamed a compelling natural force and quickly closed the case. This led to decades of theories involving secret military tests, infrasound-induced panic, botched alien abductions and even yeti attacks.
Holly:
Yes.
Nigel:
An avalanche was a popular theory, however the slope was deemed to be too gentle for an avalanche to occur naturally. Some experts thought a test involving radioactive weapons could explain the burns on some of the victims and the radiation on their possessions. The contamination of their clothing could also be explained away by the presence of the chemical thorium in their gas lanterns and the missing body parts were potentially eaten by scavenging creatures, but there was no definitive answer. Sixty years later, significant scientific breakthroughs show that a slab avalanche could have occurred on the slope. Researchers used computer models to show a cut made in the snow to pitch their tent, combined with heavy windblown snow, could have triggered a slab of snow to slide down the slope hours later. A simulation from Disney's Frozen showed the snow slab would have hit the hikers with the force of a four-wheel drive, enough to break roots and skulls. However, some experts disagree with the slab avalanche theory but also admit they can't put forward any alternate theories. Will we ever know what happened in January 1959 on the slope of Dead Mountain Siberia? So Holly, an incredible story. Any thoughts on your side as to what happened?
Holly:
My goodness. I think you should start a True Crime podcast. I was on the edge of my seat. It was nefarious enough that Frozen, Disney movie Frozen got involved.
Nigel:
We got it all.
Holly:
I know you did some travelling. Did you ever go to... Death Park?
Holly:
Death Mountain? What was it called? I don't think it... You would have?
Nigel:
Death Mountain in Siberia. Would have got close to it. We did the Trans-Siberian. It was a bit north of where the Trans-Siberian was. But we were there the same time of year. This happened in January, obviously the middle of the Siberian winter. We were there in January as well. I wouldn't want to be walking around in the snow for those.
Holly:
God.
Holly:
No.
Holly:
My god.
Holly:
Well, it sounds like you took the heading, the name of it as warning. These people, not so much.
Nigel:
Well, yes, exactly, exactly. And I was just reading that with the Avalanche Theory, which is the most popular one, one of the flaws of that theory is that the footprints. So the footprints show the people walking from the tent towards the forest in a nice calm fashion. They're saying if an avalanche occurred with the injuries they sustained, there's no way they'd be able to unattained, unaccompanied to where they were going. And the footprints, as they said, was they were nice and calm. They weren't running. They were singular. They weren't assisting each other. So yeah, who knows what.
Holly:
Yes!
Holly:
No, avalanche happened.
Nigel:
Now, Holly, I know you're a bit of a traveller and you seem interested in this story. So I also did find that there is a biotech path expedition happening in January 2026. So as we speak, you better hurry up following the group's route.
Holly:
God.
Nigel:
Yes, here we go. It's planned for January the 20th through to February the 20th, sorry, February the 1st, 2026. So if you are keen, hurry up. Sorry. Yes, yes. Well, we'll see if we can get a different outcome as well. So.
Holly:
This year?
Holly:
Let's go! We'll see if they ever return.
Holly:
Maybe you can have them as your next guess, see how it went.
Nigel:
Yes, yes, yes, good idea, good idea. Now in all your travels, now I'm guessing you didn't have anything as horrendous as what these nine hikers had, but in your travels in foreign places did you come across circumstances where you thought you were completely lost and didn't know how you're going to get through it?
Holly:
Every single time, almost every single day, I think any long-term traveler can tell you that it all goes wrong all the time. Anything as small as, you know, your phone dies, you're lost, you get on the train the wrong direction, somebody steals your phone, your laptop, you lose your passport, not speaking from experience in any of this. This all happened to me. But nothing that daunting at all. But I will tell you, when I was in Guatemala, I hiked a very active volcano and we hiked the volcano. It very long. I think it was nine hours up there. You sleep there and then you go back down and the whole time you're watching the volcano next to you explode. It's so beautiful. It goes off like every 15 seconds. It's so stunning. And it was all beautiful. It was all fine. And then it wasn't until months later, I come home and I'm watching a documentary on the world's most deadly natural disasters. And they said in 2013, Mount Fuego in Guatemala erupted and all these people died. And I was like, 2013 that was the volcano that I hiked a few years later like five years later they're like it's fine everybody get up the volcano
Nigel:
Well at least it wasn't called Death Volcano I guess.
Holly:
Just call a translation like hot, hot mountain, fire mountain.
Nigel:
So you're wandering around overseas, so guess money soon becomes a bit of a concern. Is that what triggered you to establish the business?
Holly:
Well, that's such an interesting question because basically, this side of the business, so basically this business that I'm still working in now, which is the digital media agency, did start because I kind of hit rock bottom. I opened a brick and mortar business, a hostel in Sri Lanka. Like two years into my travels, I think. And that was 2019. And then COVID hit and took away the hostel, which was my only source of income at that time. I had been doing slight freelancing and I had grown some of my own businesses. And it turned out they weren't allowing people to leave the country. No one was allowed to enter the country. The lockdown was very strict.
Nigel:
Right.
Holly:
So I found myself with no income, stuck pretty much, no way to get home and all my savings had been put into the hostel. So I was like, what can I do? I need to get money to eat, to pay my hotel, know, things like that. So I kind of hustled really hard and started this business.
Nigel:
Right, okay, okay, so you mentioned COVID, so that obviously was no good for the guest house business. Did that help you with the online business?
Holly:
So I was able to, as I had no other options, I was kind of forced into working really hard and honing my skills and basically forced into the position where I had no other choice. So I was, I had previously grown my own, my own businesses, social media, I had experience building websites and I had helped a few local businesses back at home to get some notoriety for their brands and things. So I knew that I was able to scale online and help other businesses. So I got onto all of the freelance websites that I could. Back then there was only like Upwork and Fiverr. So I was also posting on Facebook groups and like cold emailing and reaching out to people that way to see if anyone would take a chance and help me grow their businesses by making content for them, by running advertising, updating their websites, basically doing audits on their social presence. And luckily not that many days into it, a lady took a chance on me and from Canada and she stayed with me for about three years.
Nigel:
Oh, okay, so what would have happened? How long did you have left if you had to work really hard? What was the alternative if this didn't work?
Holly:
I think it would have been trying to get back to Australia, getting a real job, doing all of those things, but I knew I was never going to do that. Unfortunately, like I said, my future, I thought it was going to be working in this hostel, running it. It was really, really hard, face-to-face kind of work constantly. Wake up really early, go to bed really late, entertain people of those things. So I'm kind of glad I'm not still doing that. I was helping everyone else travel while I was working really hard to make them happy. But yeah, there was no timeline. Luckily, Sri Lanka was happily to let people stay in the country as long as they needed. But the lockdown was so strict. I needed my first paycheck to get out of there.
Nigel:
So I know with the lockdown here in Melbourne, we were just shut down completely. Couldn't do anything. What were your movements over that period? Were you able to move countries?
Holly:
So it was illegal to drive on the road, illegal to basically go to your front gate. There was people with government enforcing with weapons, making sure no one was stepping outside, all of those things. They would open the grocery stores once every two weeks, but they didn't give you a time or a date. They would just kind of post it on their Twitter and say, the grocery stores are open today. And that's when thousands of people would rush to the grocery store. So it negated the whole lockdown thing. It was really silly. The system didn't work. So I built up my client base. I think I had two and I got my paychecks and I got a government pass to go to the airport, which was a few hours away, two, three hours away. We were the only car on the road. To get the car was very difficult. No one, everyone was scared to drive around. So I got on a plane and I went to Wales straight back into their lockdown, but it was snowing. It was completely the opposite. So I spent Christmas snowed in in Wales, just hustling hard, being like nonstop, just on my computer, being like, maybe this is something I can do. Now I've got my two clients, I think. I can help more people.
Holly:
Fingers crossed. I'm now in Wales. I'm in Wales. So Wales, I wanted to stay forever. It was beautiful, but the UK government had other ideas. They said after six months, please leave. And I said, please, can I stay? It's kind of a pandemic out there and I don't have anywhere to go. And they rejected that. They rejected my plea Even as part of the Commonwealth, they didn't care. They didn't want me. So I started scrambling. Thinking, okay, I'll just have to go back to Australia. I had heard all of the horror stories. It was a nightmare for all of my friends back in Melbourne. So I looked on Skyscanner. The cheapest flight I could find back to Melbourne was $20,000. And that was just the flights. And then that was one way back to Melbourne.
Nigel:
Wow, was that one right?
Holly:
I have screenshots on my phone of 10,000 and you know, 80 pounds. It was so wild. And then you have to pay for the quarantine hotel and then all of that business, you weren't allowed to do it privately. You had to go into these enforced hotels, which were like four grand. And my heart went out to all of the families who were stuck in the UK, stuck in London, that would have to pay that per person, child. So I thought, I'm absolutely not doing that. I started researching who would open their borders, who would let an Australian in right now. And the only country available and close to me was Mexico. So I moved my entire life to Mexico within, I don't know, two weeks notice. And yeah, that's where I started my business base from.
Nigel:
Okay. So Mexico, were there any issues getting a visa or anything?
Holly:
Luckily they were giving everyone still six months visa on arrival when I was over there and then after six months I just had to pop over South America, do a visa run, climb a volcano, come back.
Holly:
Okay. The great part about that then was I was on the same or similar time zone to all of my Canadian and my American clients. So that was the first time ever. It was really helpful.
Nigel:
That's what I was about to ask. So you're travelling around spending all this money because there's airfares are going through the roof. You have the Canadian client that you mentioned, but you also had a few more on board at this stage.
Holly:
Yes, so in my lockdown in Wales it was like a high intensity, full work six months. I just hustled in, there was nowhere to go, snowing, it was beautiful but it was too cold. So I just used it as a business intensive and I think I probably left the country with six clients, most of them strangely were in Canada, I have no idea why my profile was going off over there. But yeah, it was great to finally be on the same time zone as everybody.
Nigel:
Okay, so did your clients, did they care whether you were in the same country or they just couldn't really, as long as you delivered, that was fine by them?
Holly:
They were actually so interested and they were really excited to hear about all of my adventures and they were checking in on me. They're just humans at the end of the day. So if I ever came to them and said, I have a blackout or there's a crazy weather situation or I'm down with wifi, everyone was so open and just happy to help. When I scaled my business a little bit more and grew my team, I had someone in every time zone. So they were able to help out and they, my clients will always get an answer within, you know, a few hours of them asking a question or needing something or yeah. We're really personable. Like I, yeah.
Nigel:
Yeah, well that was going to be my next question about how you did scale up. So you got a team of people. They were in different time zones to yourself, is that right?
Holly:
Yeah, everyone was spread around the world. It's a super like international multicultural team. Everyone from different backgrounds and different skills and different passions as well. I like people who are enjoying their job and having fun with it and exploring their creativity and things like that. What was I going to say? left my brain.
Nigel:
So was it a conscious decision to have them in all different time zones, or is that just the way it evolved?
Holly:
Kind of just the way it evolved and I like to hire people who want to start to live a life like I do and things like that even if no matter what country they're from I want to help them you know fund their dream life if they don't have to go to an office if that's not what they want to do some people do but if people are outreaching and trying really hard to freelance and things like that I'd love to give them that opportunity. At the beginning it was really hard to let go of my baby, doing it all myself, just with the help of another person. And letting go of my section of things which was really the creative and which I think is why the business got so much traction was because we were doing different things in marketing personally and creating content that was put in front of people who wanted to see that type of stuff and not bothering wasting a cent on people who didn't want to see it. So we were like a really creative business and me having to give that give that away a little bit by hiring people to help me with the creative as we grew. I mean, I couldn't handle 10 clients, ads and content and everything all myself at the end of the day. I had to expand and get more people on. That was hard to do, but now that I've done that, the work's so much better because I've been so thin. I can breathe and we just keep growing and I get to give other people opportunity to expand their creativity.
Nigel:
Well, I guess with the people you mentioned earlier that the people you brought on were people that shared the same sort of passion as you do. So therefore you were building a culture in the team which was really strong of shared values and what they want to aspire to as well. So I guess that probably helped with letting go because you're all this, well not all the same, but similar. Sort of ambitions or similar outlooks on life.
Holly:
Definitely and everyone works so hard because this is the life that they would love to live and everyone's so nice. No one's ever like that looks like crap. Everyone's like wow my god you're improving every single day this is amazing. It's a lot of fun.
Nigel:
So with this business, obviously it's not a typical business, because you're moving around the world, did you have to have different or more robust systems in place to manage this, to manage the different time zones? You couldn't all get together in a room and have a meeting because you're all scattered all over the place. Your clients are all over the place. So did you have to have more robust or special systems in place to ensure everything ran smoothly?
Holly:
Systems! Let's talk about systems, they're my favourite thing ever. So as I was talking about hard to let go, it's hard to kind of change your business when you're so rigid and you're working inside of it. You're doing all the daily tasks that need to be done to then change everything, to work a little bit differently. It's hard to find the time and you kind of think that's not really important. But it is the most important thing that you can do is be constantly evolving with the new technologies and updating the way you run the business. Whether that's creating a CRM and updating it all the time so your clients and all of your team can work within that. Whether it's just like making a notion spread, whether it's having a WhatsApp group. You need to create systems for everybody to be able to work together so you're not waking up in the morning and going, here's your to-do list today and then the next day, here's your to-do list today. Because that would take so long. You need everybody to be clued in all the time. What's going on? And, I lost it again. Wait, it's coming back. And there we go. Systems are so important because they can work 24-7. They can be working in the background. You can't. You can't be working all day, every day, every night when someone messages you in America and it's 3am. But your automation can and all of the systems that you've set up can help you do that. So it's really important to scale. That's why letting go and having people focus on working in the business is so helpful because then you get to work on the business. Then you get to build the system. Then you get to make everything more streamlined and easier and everything just flows so much better when you get to work on the business. I love them.
Nigel:
Yeah, that is so true. And what you mentioned there, now obviously with you being scattered all over the world, you would have been relying on technology a lot. Technology is fantastic until it doesn't work. I'm guessing you would have had, especially going back a few years and working from different locations.
Nigel:
Inconsistent Wi-Fi or inconsistent internet access, how did you overcome those problems?
Holly:
You just have to stay calm. Everything's fine. What happens in emergency situations, say you lose Wi-Fi, you can't contact your client, you immediately think, my God, something has gone so wrong. I've posted something horrible on someone's account and I can't see it and the world is making fun of me and all my clients have fired me. It's been 35 seconds. Like, we need to relax. Everything is fine. So it's kind of a mindset that you have to be in and then go to a cafe, you know, or what an excuse to go get an iced coffee.
Nigel:
And what about on the client side of things? If you weren't able to, if you failed on a certain aspect because the technology let you down, how did you manage that?
Holly:
That's where having such a global team is so amazing because no matter what someone is there in any time something's going on, if there's an emergency, a team member can pop in and say, oh my God, I can fix that within two minutes. But every, like I've said, every client is just a person. They're not going to scream at you at the end of the day. Everybody's just trying to run their own businesses in the best way they can.
Nigel:
Okay, so down to communication.
Holly:
Communication. Communication is the key that has kept my clients sticking around and coming back. So return clients if they just need me for one project, coming back. So as I mentioned briefly, I worked with somebody else on the business for a little bit and they were handling some client communications. But the communication wasn't the strong point for them. It was more in the numbers and the analytics and everything. And I felt the retention of the client slipping. And it was hard, but we parted ways. And then I took back all of the client communication, which I'm still doing to this day. It's all me. It's front-facing. I talk to all of them. They know me, my personality. So as soon as I took that back on, I never lost another client because we're just honest with each other. If something's going wrong, I tell them, they're like, thanks for telling me it's all about being real. And people can feel that, that you're not trying to sell them on anything. You're not just trying to take their money. You're trying to help them at the end of the day. we're just, that's what you get.
Nigel:
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's about trust, isn't it? It's, things do go wrong from time to time. it just happens.
Holly:
Exactly. And things go wrong in their end and I don't hear from them for a few days and it's fine. Then they come back and they go, sorry about that. And I'm like, we're still afloat. It's fine over here.
Nigel:
Now, travelling's great, yeah love travelling. Great experience, you're seeing new places, new cultures, new food, new everything else, new people. Very distracting. Now, I get easily distracted. How do you keep focus? If you're travelling around all these great exotic places, you're still running a business, you're growing the business, you've got a team, how do you keep that focus and not just wander around all day looking at all the new places you're visiting?
Holly:
I know it's so hard but I, depending on where I am, what I am, I change my process to adapt to the situation. So if I am like, okay, I'm gonna go on a holiday, which doesn't happen. Like I wish I went on a two week holiday. No, I moved to a new country and I stayed there for eight months. So I set up my work in a way that suits my new work life so it's all about adaptability. If I know I'm going to be away for a little bit I work even harder the few days before. I block out the week before or the days before so I've set it up, I've automated it, I've set up all of my systems to be working when I'm not and then I'll do quality control every single day when I wake up. I've got my phone there, I can check everything's running smoothly, I can talk to the people I can so I'm front loading everything, doing it all so it's all running smoothly. I can enjoy my holiday and I can just check everything is going smoothly as I go.
Nigel:
Okay, okay. So as long as you manage your time basically and then as you said automate everything. Yep, okay. Okay, so technology. Let's get back to technology. Technology, you'd be lost without technology by the sounds of it. You're on your phone, you have your automations, everything's there. So take me.
Holly:
Basically... Yep. My goodness, I would be printing out flyers or something. What would I be doing?
Nigel:
Well, I've taken a look at your book and I've used technology, something called AI you may be familiar with. And I've gone in there. Yeah, yeah. And I said, okay, I said, I'm going to be interviewing Holly. Give me your best question. What can I ask her? And they've come up with this. Okay. So you're ready for it? Okay, the best question according to AI for Holly Scobie.
Holly:
Interesting. My goodness, I'm scared.
Nigel:
Just got to find it. Here it is. What's the part of living and working out of a suitcase for 10 years that people glamorize but is actually really hard?
Holly:
The part of living out of a suitcase. Not being able to acquire things is very hard. Not being able to pick up your souvenirs. But honestly, the lifestyle that you adapt is so different. Not having access to convenience, familiarity and things like that when you're in unfamiliar places and circumstances that can be a bit scary or you don't know what's going on. The lack of that homely comfort is quite difficult and a lifestyle that you have to adapt to, say you're in a non-English speaking country and something's going wrong, it's hard to shift your mindset into relying on yourself. So I find that really interesting that people don't really expect. And say you something on TikTok and you're like, I'm going to become a silversmith. I'm going to dedicate my life to now making jewelry. You can't just go and do that. You live out of a suitcase. There's probably no way you can do that. The conveniences of starting new hobbies and doing new things is kind of limited.
Nigel:
Yeah, well hadn't really thought about that. You are basically constrained by the capacity of your luggage.
Holly:
It and people don't realize that so you can't really acquire anything new without getting rid of something and you become really familiar with your items because this is your whole life and at the end of it you could be like I never ever want to see that pair of shoes ever again. They've seen the world I'm sick of seeing them.
Nigel:
So has that had any, you lived with that mindset for quite a number of years, has that had any long lasting effects on you now and your personality and how you live?
Holly:
100 % it's kind of an impossible mindset to shake it out of. The self resilience obviously. Me being overconfident, like I can do this, anything I can. is problem, that's fine, easy to fix. But also the living very mindfully and living very simplistically where I fight it hard to acquire new things. And I just got an apartment and my friend house sat for me and she had to drink her coffee out of a bowl from the hot water from the tap because I refused to buy mugs or a kettle. So she bought them both for me and said look how much your life would improve but I have such a temporary mindset now that I'm like I might move and she's like no you could stay there you time to lease What? I can do what?
Nigel:
So for someone listening who wants to do what you've done and travel and run a business and think, this sounds great, what's the one thing they need to get right before they go?
Holly:
People need to stop seeing the things that are preventing them from getting where they want to be and just focus on where they want to be. So instead of seeing all of the roadblocks along the way, just take it one step at a time. Do one thing every single day for yourself and see where it comes in a month.
Nigel:
Okay, so basically don't.
Holly:
You will have learned so much instead of trying to burn yourself out and power through it. The whole thing, learning everything you can in one day or designing a whole website in a day or doing every single outreach possible in a single day. Spread it out. Take your time. You'll get there. Just don't burn yourself out.
Nigel:
Okay, so basically just head in that direction and back yourself.
Holly:
100 % and people are so understanding. What you need to know is the people that you're approaching if you're trying to get into social media or advertising or anything like that. It's just one person that you're talking to at the end of the day who's running a business or running a company and they're a human being. They didn't they weren't born the CEO. They know what it's like and if you can just have honest communication with them, they will understand if you do something wrong or if you have to go, I don't know that system yet. I'll learn that. I don't know that software yet, but I'll know it tomorrow. You just have to try your best.
Nigel:
Okay, okay. So now that you're back in Australia, what do think the next steps are? What's in the future for Holly?
Holly:
So as you know from talking to lot of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs have a problem. They can't stick to one thing. We have our fingers in a million pies. I'm constantly getting kept up at night by going, maybe I'll start that business. Maybe I'll start that business. maybe I'll do this. It's just constantly thinking of what I can do next. I'm currently I'm working on a creative hub for people who want to get into freelancing or any creative industry working for yourself. There'll be inspiration on there, whether that be designing, advertising, copywriting, inspiration websites. And lots of tools and tips that I wish that I had when I was getting started to show you how to talk to people, grow, anything that you need to start this dream life of yours and it'll all be free. It's just a resource that I wish that I had and it's fun.
Nigel:
Wow, wow that's incredible. So basically helping people that want to do what you do, making it easier for them to do it, giving them the support.
Holly:
Exactly. And there's so much out there right now that it becomes overwhelming and there's so many tips, there's so many inspirations. There's like, just it makes your head spin how much resources is out there right now. So I just kind of want to help people, give them a smooth transition and they don't get too scared to start. Because that's my problem with everything. But once you start, it all goes away. And if you fail, it's, you know, part of the life story.
Nigel:
Well, yeah, mean that's part of life. I mean, every inventor or anyone that's changed the world with their technology or whatever, they've all failed at some stage. No one nails it the first time around. And if they hadn't have picked themselves off of the carpet and had another go, they would have been known as a failure as opposed to a success, or probably not known at all.
Holly:
Exactly. That's exactly right. You have to be fueled by the embarrassment. You have to go, well, I failed. That was really embarrassing. I have to succeed now. So people forget about that.
Nigel:
So with this creative hub you are offering that as a free resource for people.
Holly:
Yes, it's a resource because I believe every person can do this. They just have to have some self-belief and if they don't believe in themselves, I'll believe in them and I'll say, look, start with this. Go there. Look at that. Does that make you inspired? And then if they're still too scared, then we can't help them.
Nigel:
Well, that's, well, yeah, they're going to be able to help themselves. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's great that you're doing that. And what's the timeline for that? Do you know, is that just in its embryonic stage or are you close to launching that?
Holly:
Listen, you can take a girl out of the island, but you can't take the island time out of the girl. It'll be there. It'll be there when it's ready.
Nigel:
Okay, well, make sure, well, you let us know when you're ready and we'll get you back on and have a chat about it, because that sounds like a great project.
Holly:
That's
Nigel:
Holly, look, we've been going almost an hour now, so we'll leave it there. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. And thank you for telling your story. And no doubt you've inspired a number of other people to follow in your footsteps. So thank you very much for joining us today.
Holly:
Thank you so much. If anybody has any questions, just get in touch. It'll be me. We can just have a chat. If want to hire me. everything I said was credible and not weird, I swear.
Nigel:
Yep, and we'll put your contact details on the bottom at the end of the podcast here. And so that's it for today's episode of the Priority Lane. Make sure you tune in next time for the next edition. Thank you.
Holly:
Perfect.
Holly:
Thank you.