Creating Life First Business Strategy

for Entrepreneurs​
​

Creating Life First Business Strategy for Entrepreneurs​
​Think: one game-changing strategy, the resources you didn't know you needed, and a few fun favorites we're loving right now. Quick to read, packed with value, you in? 🕒 3-minute read, unlimited inspiration.

Hi Reader,

We just got back from Alaska.

Six days of sunshine, which if you know Alaska, you know is its own kind of miracle. We were celebrating our 20th anniversary, and I will spare you the full story since I have talked your ear off about it already.

But I have to tell you about two moments.

The first one, I have no photo of. A full-size humpback whale surfaced about 100 yards in front of our boat. School-bus big. Right there. I just stood frozen with my mouth open. No camera, no time to grab one. Just this magical picture burned into my mind that I will keep forever.

The second was the Dawes Glacier. I took photos, but they do not even come close. You have to feel that kind of quiet to understand it. Some mind-blowing facts.

• Location: Situated at the end of the Endicott Arm fjord in the Tongass National Forest, Alaska (about 50 miles south of Juneau).
• Dimensions: The glacier spans half a mile wide and towers over 300 feet above the water line, with up to another 300 feet submerged below.
• Origin: The surrounding geography was heavily carved during the last ice age, more than 16,000 years ago 😳

Here is what both moments reminded me: magic still exists in the world. You just have to look for it.

And then I came home.

To something called Cruise Crud. Did you know this was a thing? I did not. I lost my voice. Had to reschedule every meeting on my calendar, which is not ideal after being gone for two weeks. I have some sort of eye mucus situation I will not describe further.

Not exactly the first week of summer I designed.

So this week I had to lean hard into mindset. Because I felt awful, my schedule was short-circuiting, and my girls came back with all the energy in the world and a jam-packed summer schedule of their own.

And honestly? I think every business owner is in some version of this right now.

Whether it is the economy, AI changing the game, or just summer flipping everyone's schedule upside down. We are all rethinking what we are doing. Anyone who tells you they are not is lying.

So I came back to gratitude. It is the fastest reset I know.

Grateful I can rearrange my entire week after two weeks away, and the business keeps running without me.

Grateful I am writing this from my back deck in the sunshine, not a conference room.

Grateful for two weeks of uninterrupted time with my family.

Grateful for Ohio sunshine. If you know, you know. This is THE season.

Grateful that for 30 seconds, a whale the size of a school bus reminded me to look up.

The week was not the one I planned. But the magic was still there, same as Alaska.

XO,
Holly

P.S. I planned this entire Alaska trip myself. Which cruise, how we booked it, and what we did. If you want the full breakdown, just hit reply and tell me. I will write the novel. 😉

P.P.S. If this whole "rethinking everything" season is you, my free private podcast The Anti-Social Shift is the 9-episode framework behind a business that runs on under an hour a week of social media. Start here. 💛

✨Your Weekly Strategy Shift

Look In, Not Out

When everything outside feels uncertain, the instinct is to look out. At your competitors. The economy. The algorithm. What everyone else is launching.

And here is the thing. Looking out there gives you plenty to blame. It just does not give you anything to actually work with.

I keep coming back to this from James Clear:

Want to actually use that this week? Grab five minutes and a notebook:

→ What is one thing I am blaming on the outside right now? (The economy, AI, the season, someone else.)
→ What is one piece of that I actually control?
→ What is the smallest next move I can make on it today?

That is the whole exercise. You are not solving everything. You are just turning your attention from out there to in here. That alone changes the week.