I disappeared for a year! WHY?

Kia Ora whānau,

In April 2022, I started negotiating to buy my first golf course here in San Francisco. 18 month later in October 2023, the deal closed. And for the last year, I pretty much went off the social media grid, put my head down, and went full BEAST MODE. No bullshit, no distractions—just BUSINESS BUILD MODE. It’s been the hardest grind I’ve put in for years, but it’s more than paid off.

THE RESULTS?

We FULLY reset the culture, rebuilt the whole team, revamped the product, invested a shit tone, streamlined all it’s processes, engaged our epic community, and FULLY turned the ship around. In 12 months we grew the business revenue by over 150%. A dope big win in a much bigger American market. Churrr. Now I’m on the hunt to buy my next golf course, and hopefully many more.

Why Golf?

It’s active being outside all day, it’s social with all the community engagement, it’s commercial with all the business challenges, it’s creative with all the navigation of differentiation and branding, it’s fun, it’s challenging and it can be a sport and business for your whole whanau and friends to get into.

What else have I been up to in the last year? Thats another story for another day. But wifey is charging as per, whanau is solid and my 2 girls are champs. TLDR : I’m happy!

So reflecting on the past year stepping away from LinkedIn and social media. Did I miss the whole personal social media game? Honestly, NOPE!!! I even deleted the apps off my phone for months as I went into the business bunker of focus. I didn’t miss the dopamine hits, the engagement metrics, the follower count, or the algorithms. None of it mattered. I didn’t even reply to unneeded emails for months. As bad as it sounds - It just wasn’t my priority AT ALL. In the last year I felt a singular focus. I was locked in, fully absorbed in the process of building and improving my business 1 day at a time making it 1% better each day. And it felt goooooooood.

So now that I’ve had a year with my head down, I wanted to pop up for a day and share some reflections. I’m turning 40 next year so I’ve been thinking a lot about how I allocate my time, my energy, and my focus. What’s changed? Any insights?

Back when I was heavily involved in the NZ business scene, I was constantly on the move - always posting, streaming, sharing, connecting, and being in the mix of a bunch of everything. The net net result was sooooo epic to help so many crew all over the show and building genuine friendships with so many legends. I successfully and organically built a public platform over a decade that gave me direct access to CEOs, ministers, and a mega mix of cultural, commercial, creative and community crew. It was an dope, and I eventually used my platform to speak up for a few other Startup Founders who couldn’t speak up for themselves. This battle came at a huge personal and professional cost and filtered out a bunch of my circle with who ACTUALLY keeps it real - but I’d do it again in a heartbeat!!!!!

With my social media presence and profile I always simply wanted to be able to share my insights, stories and experiences because I wanted to. But tbh with all the attention that came over years, a few times I unfortunately fell into the attention trap of enjoying the bi-products with the profile I had built - and deep down I knew it was shit - being caught in a dangerous cycle like this. So I would always be mindful of this as I’ve seen too many people chase the wrong thing and it NEVER ended well. I learnt this in the Pro Snowboard game so would like to think navigated this part pretty good - but I was still not perfect.

Now to a downside - 1 thing I’ve realized, looking back a lil is that soooooo much of my energy that I put out for others became a lil bit of one-way street of energy taking. I was always giving, giving, giving, and saying yes yes yes that at a certain point my whole vibe and drive started to feel expected from a few crew. Some expected I’d show up with 1000% energy, to help them with their meetings, their events, their causes, their missions, their wants and their needs and to countlessly ‘pick my brain’ time and time and time and time again without really even thinking about the energy value exchange being balanced.

And don’t get me wrong - most of it was done with good intentions. But when you are a JUST ONE MAN, your time, ideas, and energy are your main assets, there’s only so much to go around, and it’s not unlimited. I would get to the end of a big blitz of work and engagements and then I would feel FULLLYYY drained, depleted, and eventually and unfortunately a bit resentful. I realized I was saying yes too often to too much shit, sacrificing myself and too much of my time for others who didn’t have the same intent as others. This came at the cost of my balance, my energy, my health and my goals, missions and dreams. Not choice.

The balance was off. I realised I had become too reactive to what others wanted from me instead of prioritizing being proactive to what I wanted from me.

The turning point came on one of my last trips back to NZ. I remember sitting in a meeting, halfway across the world from my wife and two young daughters, thinking, “Why am I here?” “Do I ACTUALLY need to be here in this big meeting?” The answer was NO. I didn’t HAVE to be there. It made me ask a big ugly question. Was I really doing this for my whānau? Or was a small part of this feeding my ego again - a need to feel wanted, to feel significant or relevant? Was it both? Not to say what I was doing wan’t helping others but being able to look at yourself in the mirror and have enough self awareness to try see the WHOLE picture is a powermove in itself.

So this past year, moving away from that public persona and going full stealth felt like a full reset in many ways. Here in the States in the golf world, NOBODY even knows me as Robett Hollis. They don’t even know my full name (plus most can’t even say it right. haha). They have NO idea about my NZ career with my media exit to Saatchi & Saatchi, or the ColabNZ shared workspaces or the Keynotes or Startups or any of that stuff. The don’t even know about my former career as a Pro Snowboarder, or Wanaka or Aranui or anything. No one here knows any of it. Here I’m simply just ‘Kiwi.’ AND I LOVE IT! There’s no preconceptions of what I’ve done, what I know, who I know, what I can DO for others and no expectations of anything. It’s really refreshing. I simply get to show up, lock in and help get 1% better every day without the weight of any public profile. I know it sounds weird after having a public profile for a decade but it really was a relief to be anonymous like this in a way.

Lil Wayne once said, “Real Gs move in silence like lasagna.” He was right. In fact, some of the most impactful work always happens behind the scenes. One of my OG mentors taught me that you can still have massive public influence without being seen publicly. And he was also sooooo right! So I leant into that a lil more in the last year - going stealth mode behind the scenes for a few important issues back in NZ, and I was still VERY effective. Those who know, know.

So what I’ve learnt moving forward is that I NEVER EVER want to feel resentment toward people who genuinely want my energy or time. I just want to engage externally in a sustainable way on my terms as I head into my 40’s, without feeling drained or having any type of resentment to anyone. I want to control my input output better. I want more of my relationships to be a two-way street - And know that it’s ok to say NO. NO to milkers. NO to time wasters. NO to shit I don’t want to do and NO for things which don’t fill my cup.

So where does this leave me now? For now - I’ll pop back down in the bunker, head down, focused, and I’ll pop back up when I want to share any new insights, stories, experiences and business thoughts - because I want to - not because anyone expects me to.

And that, to me, is a win.

Much love all - hope you’re all smashing it.

• Robett. xoxo.

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