Building Business Courage as a Travel Advisor with Angela Hughes – Episode 48

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Building a travel business takes more than just loving travel.

It takes real business courage.

The kind that pushes you to resign from a stable job, invest in relationships that matter, and make bold moves when everyone else is playing it safe.

I learned this firsthand from my own personal experience, and we went super in depth with this during a conversation with Angela Hughes. 

She runs Luxury Travel University and has been in the industry since she was filing brochures as a teenager.

Between her decades of experience and my own journey of leaving full-time employment to build Take the Helm, we discovered something important: the travel advisors who succeed aren’t necessarily the ones with the most credentials or the biggest social following.

They’re the ones who develop courage at work and aren’t afraid to take action when it matters most.

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Why Business Courage Matters More Than Ever

Angela said it best: “It’s not enough to say, I love travel and I plan travel.”

She’s right.

The industry has changed dramatically, and why courage is important in our life as entrepreneurs becomes clear when you realize that passion alone won’t carry you through the uncertainty we’re facing.

Angela lived through the 1994 airline commission cuts that collapsed most agencies, the rise of OTAs, and the 2009 stock market crash. Each time required having courage to change direction.

What makes this moment different is that we can’t just wait for things to go back to normal.

As business owners, we need to build something sustainable that can weather whatever comes next, and that takes business courage.

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The Foundation: Know Your Why

Before you can develop real confidence in business, you need to understand your why.

Not the surface-level “I love travel” why, but the deeper purpose that will carry you through when things get hard.

Angela shared, “You’ve got to know why you’re in business. You’ve got to know why you do the things you do.”

She explained that all of us have a divine purpose and fundamental passions, and how we utilize those best as human beings, eventually to give back and serve others, is what matters.

I experienced this myself in May 2021.

I’d been working full-time in the theme park industry while building my travel business, and 2020 made me reflect on everything.

Something happened, and during my lunch break, I literally put my arms up and surrendered.

I said, “Okay, I’m giving it up to you. Whatever happens is going to happen, and I’m going to let you do whatever it is that I need to be doing at this time.”

That moment of surrender required tremendous courage.

It was a HUGE risk….the biggest risk I’ve ever taken in my life.  

Strategic Decisions Over Busy Work

One place where bold advisors stand out is in how they approach their daily work.

It takes guts to step back and be strategic rather than just staying busy with tasks that feel productive but don’t actually move your business forward.

Angela coaches leaders in the premium and luxury space, and she’s blunt about this: “When I sit down and coach people, there are so many issues to diagnose in their systems, tools, processes, business development plan.”

Even advisors running outstanding businesses for 20 years can benefit from an outside perspective.

The challenge is that we get suckered into the glamorous side of marketing.

We think we should focus exclusively on social media because that’s what all the internet noise tells us to do.

But that’s not always where you’ll make your first connection with premium clients.

It takes confidence and success to recognize that what works for one advisor won’t work for everyone.

That’s leadership that respects individual paths rather than forcing everyone into the same mold.

Making Bold Moves and Building Relationships

When I think about what bravery means in our industry, it’s about things that take boldness that others might shy away from.

Like that time I approached the Chief Marketing Officer of a brand during a FAM and started asking questions that nobody else was asking.

During Memorial Day 2020, Angela had a thought while at Zion National Park: “Grow your Facebook group again.”

That group only had 400 people and had been stagnant for four years.

But she showed up every day, working with destination management companies (DMCs) that needed help, giving free business advice one-on-one. “That single idea to show up every day in that group has led to a bounty of opportunities, blessings, relationships, friendships, and partnerships.”

When Angela wanted to switch her family’s agency from Utah to Florida in January 2020, right before the world shut down, she couldn’t have picked a worse time.

There was no government funding available because it was technically a new business.

Everything went to chaos.

She told me: “I thought things could not get worse at that point.”

But looking back, she said, “The stars aligned, and I feel like it’s been the best two years, and I feel like it’s all mindset.”

Learning to Develop Your Own Path

The truth is, you can’t be me, and you can’t be Angela.

You have to develop your own version of entrepreneurial strength based on your goals and what you’re building.

Angela shared, “People are buying you as a person. There’s a million business coaches out there and all of the coaches teach some of the same things.”

What makes the difference is how coaches help bring out what you already know.

That’s what coaching really is…structure, accountability, and helping you see things you can’t see yourself.

For small business owners like us, that means recognizing that there are multiple paths to success.

You don’t have to follow exactly what someone else is doing.

Practical Ways to Build Business Courage

So how do you actually learn to be braver in your business?

Based on my conversation with Angela and my own experience, here are some practical starting points:

• Embrace adversity as a teacher. The hardest moments often become your greatest gifts if you let them change you.advisors face.
• Clarify your deeper why beyond just loving travel. What do you want your business to enable you to do or become?
• Make one bold move this month. Reach out to that DMC you’ve been curious about. Approach a brand representative at an event. Share an idea you’ve been holding back.
• Give yourself permission to be different from other advisors. What works for a 2-million-dollar producer might not work for you, and that’s okay.
• Show up consistently, even when you don’t see immediate results. Angela showed up every day in her Facebook group for months before seeing the return.
• Find ways to serve others, even when your own business is struggling. As Angela discovered, giving back often opens unexpected doors.
• Embrace adversity as a teacher. The hardest moments often become your greatest gifts if you let them change you.

Stop comparing yourself to other advisors, coaches, or leaders in the industry.

As Angela said, “Where you are is where you are in your journey.”

Move forward with where you’re at right now.

That’s where you’ll be successful.

The advisors who are thriving aren’t the ones with perfect strategies.

They’re the ones who take action despite uncertainty.

They show up consistently, invest in relationships even when the payoff isn’t immediate, and aren’t afraid to change direction when something isn’t working.

They understand that being brave in business isn’t about being fearless.

It’s about acting despite the fear, trusting your why, and knowing that the hard moments are preparing you for what’s next.

So what’s your next bold move?

What have you been putting off because it feels too risky or uncertain?

That might be exactly where your business needs you to go next.

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