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423. Solo
Welcome and Listener Spotlight
[00:00:00]
Sarah Karakaian: Hello, welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: Let’s kick off this episode like we do every week. And that is sharing one of you are incredible listeners, who is heading over to strshare.com and sharing all the details about your short term rental so we can share it here on the podcast.
Annette who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: Today we are sharing @ Onyx Oasis, again that’s at the Onyx, O N Y X, Oasis. And here is what I want to champion, applaud, and also hosts, give you some homework. I love the pinned comments on this Instagram. The host has done a wonderful job. And if you go to it, if you don’t know what a pin comment is, you’ll see that you can pin them to the very top.
It’s like the three top posts and it’s what you really want to get across when someone lands on your feed for the first [00:01:00] time. And so what I love is her three pin post one is an aerial view map which I think everybody should have this especially if you have outdoor amenities and she’s calling out her cowboy pool her lounge chairs her fire pit the pergola, her grill, and she also has a little picture of you and your crew, but she just doesn’t call those things out.
She also adds some copies. She’s like cowboy pool for those hot days, lounge chairs to sunbathe, pergola with seating to catch shade. So she’s like invoking these, like, what am I going to do? It’s not just the map of the place, but how would it win and how would I use those? I just think it is so well done.
The next pinned post is her Catherine meet your host and it’s just like a cute picture of her so inviting and she gives a little snippet of who she is and so I think you know telling her story is amazing there and then the last one is Like a call to action, like [00:02:00] why you should book the Onyx Oasis, and she goes through, it’s a carousel, and she gives ten reasons of why you should book with her.
Sarah Karakaian: This is good, Catherine.
Annette Grant: So, everyone, please, go to the Onyx Oasis. Do yourself this favor, take a look at her pinned post. Catherine, I know that you’re a host and you love to share, so I’m sharing this so other hosts can really, take a lesson from you. I think she has crushed these pin posts in her feed.
Well done. Give her a follow and if you use some of her things for your pin posts, give her some love to DM her, let her know. really appreciate you coming to the site, sharing your short term rental, Catherine, hopefully more of you will, so we can continue to share you here on the episode.
Sarah Karakaian: And her carousel, you should see
it too, the font size is big and clear. It’s good. That was really smart.
Annette Grant: Awesome.
Sarah Karakaian: All right. So. Annette Grant.
Investing in Ourselves
Sarah Karakaian: This is a solo episode, meaning it’s just you and me hanging out, chit chatting.
Annette Grant: Let’s do it.
Sarah Karakaian: About probably one of our most favorite topics,
Annette Grant: [00:03:00] investing,
Sarah Karakaian: yes, but
Annette Grant: drum roll, investing in ourselves. We talked so much about investing in real estate here, investing in your design, investing in your team. And today we want to turn that on its head. Because this is for Sarah and I, it is a core value of us as business partners, friends as real estate investors, is we truly understand that there is no better investment than investing in ourselves.
And we’re going to share some of the totals of how much this means to us, how much we’ve actually invested in ourselves together and separately too. So we talked numbers of real estate investment, but we’re going to talk about some of those personal development investments too.
Sarah Karakaian: What inspired this conversation is that it is the holiday season. [00:04:00] And oftentimes we’re making lists and there’s all these names on our list of people we want to buy gifts for, or do something for, or support. And very rarely do we find putting ourselves on this list. I know Annette and I just said, said that investing in ourselves is important and it is, but I will tell you, sometimes we invest in ourselves when opportunity comes our way. And I would like to be better about because it’s like the oxygen mask rule, where if you put on the oxygen mask to yourself first, you are then prepping yourself to be the best version of yourself to help other people in your life.
Annette Grant: I’d say the first 40 years of my life, I was helping to invest
Sarah Karakaian: hmm.
Annette Grant: This was a lesson, a hard lesson I had to learn because I was helping so many other people build their businesses, build their portfolios, working, you know, it was, it was great. I mean, I was, you know, getting paid for that, but I didn’t see, the value quite yet of investing in Truly in myself [00:05:00] just for myself.
And so I can share that that was this isn’t like it’s some easy thing in that I didn’t have a lot of fear when I started to do that or even understand how important it was.
Sarah Karakaian: Why Annette do you think when you first hear those topics of investing yourself, I feel like one of two things happens. One, someone thinks that it’s selfish.
I mean, the word selfish is one’s self. I know that there are parents out there that feel like, you know, their kids come first, their spouse comes first, right? And then you see them running ragged or as business owners, right? You take care of your team, you take care of your office, you take care of, your customers, your guests, you know, in our world, it’s their property.
But why do we think when you mentioned like putting yourself first, it has this like icky feeling to it if you’re not careful.
Annette Grant: I’m just, I’m going to take it from, I’m going to go there right now on the,
Sarah Karakaian: go there, man.
Annette Grant: Female side. [00:06:00] Yeah. Is, we are kind of like born and bred to be caregivers and it is like, you know, very natural for us too.
But I think it’s frowned upon. We, we were just kind of raised that way. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing either, but we’re also never. Really taught that it’s okay to invest in yourself And when I say invest in yourself, like I think it’s at a different level Like I’d always been reading books, you know, I do those things like obviously podcast if you’re listening this podcast that is investing in yourself Yeah, absolutely.
You’re taking some time for yourself. You’re educating yourself, but I would buy the books. I’d listen to the podcast You know watch the YouTube, but it was that like actually Paying like higher Dollar dollar amount. That was that transition, but I really think it’s more. It’s it’s for me. It was just cultural and
Sarah Karakaian: My parents didn’t do it.
Yeah, and to invest in themselves.
Annette Grant: No, no, they were my parents were busy working Absolutely, and didn’t even like they were busy investing in me.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah driving me around
Yeah, [00:07:00] listening to my hopes and dreams and invest.
Annette Grant: Oh my gosh,
like my parents. Thank you, mom and dad, very grateful for that. My college, you know, all of my extracurriculars during like,
Sarah Karakaian: it’s a
privilege.
And, and there are people who don’t have a fraction of what. The kind of support that I know you got, Annette, growing up, and what I got growing up. But at the same time, watching them run ragged, and I will tell this to my mom’s face, you know what I mean, and my dad’s, of like, running ragged
Annette Grant: at the cost of their own
mental health, physical health, and just like, yeah, I see that.
I love this. I actually got this from one of my mentors that I’ve invested in, and here’s the truth about this.
The Importance of Personal Growth
Annette Grant: When you invest in yourself, you create ripples of transformation that touch every single person in your life. Your growth becomes their inspiration. Your joy becomes their possibility and your evolution creates space for theirs.
And I really, really do agree with that a hundred percent
Sarah Karakaian: a little bit slower. So when you invest in yourself, your growth, so you [00:08:00] growing to that next level of yourself, can become their inspiration. Sometimes we feel like when we grow, we feel like we’re losing touch with those friends or we feel that what’s the, what I’m looking for.
It’s like I’m all this egotistical thing, right? And I’m better than you. Yes. But flipping the script on that, I’m like, no, you could become someone’s inspiration. Okay. All right. So when you invest in your joy, what makes you happy? What tickles you? Just Yeah, taking a moment to just be happy creates possibility for someone else when they see you Making that a priority and making that important and then when you have a new chapter in your life and you become someone else Or you make space for that how much that could inspire someone else to thrive in their own life Absolutely, and if we don’t if there are friends in your life who see these all these things as negatives Then that is a sign that it’s time to move on from that friendship.
Annette Grant: Had [00:09:00] your chapter there. Close that chapter. And here’s, the flip of that. Yes, there’s all these amazing things when you do invest in yourself, but let’s talk about the consequences when you don’t, when you neglect, your growth, when you neglect your self care, like, and this is for you host, this is what I really want to, um, Have you take some deep breaths because you.
will burn out if you have not already had some bouts with burnout? I know Sarah and I both have. You start to feel that lack of fulfillment. We’ve talked to hosts recently who are like, man, I almost wanted to just stop hosting. They needed to refresh their brain and their thoughts about hosting.
And then you’re just energy for everybody else is diminished. Sarah and I have talked to multiple, especially, I’m just going to share it. Couples. Husband and wife investors. That is been a struggle for them to, you know, invest in real estate, specifically short term rentals, try to keep their jobs, their family and all of it.
It’s [00:10:00] hard. It’s hard. And so that’s where we also see this investment is like that. Not investing also, there are consequences, and I think we’ve all suffered, we’ve all suffered them. And I can share what happens is when you start to neglect, it makes it even harder to justify investing in yourself or taking that time for yourself.
Financial Growth and Management
Sarah Karakaian: There are different areas of personal growth that we believe deserve investing in. Your financial growth, which I think we talk a lot about that on the podcast, that’s exactly what short term rentals are. For us, for a lot of us, although you do have to pay attention to it, and I know there’s plenty of episodes about “knowing your numbers” and how that, that leads to your financial growth.
You can’t just invest in real estate. You can’t just invest in the stock market, You have to understand how that is, or is not, adding to the richness of your wealth. Life of your wealth building strategy right like so and that’s a lot of time we can get lost in the sauce of [00:11:00] like oh We bought the property The underwriting looked good And then we kind of like step away and expect it to just be this amazing thing that’s where it can cause stress When we don’t invest in our financial growth Down to revisiting those things that we invested in making sure they’re still serving us.
Annette Grant: Yeah and investing in yourself. Obviously, hiring a bookkeeper, a CPA to help you come alongside you like that is an investment to me. That is not an expense.
Sarah Karakaian: You’re
not wrong. I had, I met with my CPA with all the different LLCs I have and it is when I’m done on those calls.
I feel like a new woman because there’s clarity. strategy, and being able to talk to someone else who can read these, documents, the P& L, the balance sheet, and see something that I don’t see, it
does feel good.
Annette Grant: we had our joint call with a CPA this week and then I did mine personally.
I was feeling myself after I was like, I am on top of this. Like it felt really good because I can share everybody. I used to do them on my own. I used to be that person that like right before the deadline or then I had to do extensions and it just, that [00:12:00] empowerment that has been coming from that investment has been huge and it just gets better and better every single year.
Sarah Karakaian: Another little investment I made in my financial growth this past year is something that I’ve kicked and screamed in opposition of, and it is downloading an app where I can track my personal budget because I didn’t want to limit myself. I work really hard. I want to make sure that, I mean, we all talk about financial freedom, right?
having some sort of budget that I pay attention to didn’t feel like freedom to me. And I’ll be honest, I’m not to the point yet where like, you know, literally I could never not spend all the money that I’ve made. Like there is a limit to the money that we’ve put away.
It’s not that though that I’ve noticed. It’s recognizing patterns. It’s staring myself straight in the face at my habits, at what’s important to me that maybe I didn’t realize. Maybe it’s about seeing where money is going. And I’m like, wow, I wish I could really spend money here. So it’s like, well, what decisions am I making?
And [00:13:00] it’s kind of like, Again, not just it’s, it’s facts over feelings. It’s like, what is actually going on in my personal spending? So, and this is like, I use rocket money. Yep. Me too. And it’s like a couple bucks a month. They even let you choose what you want to invest each month, which I thought that was really interesting, but it’s like two bucks a month, something like that.
Annette Grant: And if you upgrade, I’m just going to share
this, they will do some of the work for you. Like rocket money went in. They negotiated. Yeah. My AT& T bill.
Yeah. They’ll do that. All
right. Like you do, you pay for the service, but guess what? I didn’t have to do it. They can, there’s several things, that they can negotiate for you.
And so, they’ll actually serve it up to you and say, Hey, would you like us to, I think that might be on the pro level. I don’t know. But again, the pro level was worth it.
Sarah Karakaian: The pro level is like,
I think I pay 4 a month. Okay. Cause you can get it absolutely free.
But you can send budgets for every bucket, which I love too. Yeah.
Annette Grant: And I upgraded and they did all the negotiations and I got everything in order. And then I downgraded because I was like, okay, I was feeling myself there.
I was like, okay, I got this in order, but yes, that is a simple thing. But like Sarah said, too, we get so focused on our businesses sometimes that our personal [00:14:00] business of my personal self goes the way
side,
Physical and Mental Wellbeing
Sarah Karakaian: physical and mental wellbeing. So the connection between your health and productivity. Again, I’m definitely at fault for just being like, put your head down, just work harder.
And listen, I’m not going to lie. Like it’s worked for me. I’ve accomplished a lot, both as a student and in the various careers I’ve been in, but at the cost of being burnt out. And when I think about the cost and I go back and it’s not worth it because you feel drained, you feel alone. Then I snap at my friends or my partner or, you know what I mean?
Like it’s this person, this version of me. And then when you get in that habit of always being stressed or, you know, we call it, we do a lot of workshops and we call it your busy badge. You know when people just say like,
Annette Grant: I can’t, I’m busy. I’m, I refuse to say I’m busy in
2025.
Sarah Karakaian: Because, I think especially in American culture, [00:15:00] it’s just like, well if you’re not busy, then like you’re lazy.
Annette Grant: I had a coach, which just goes back to physical mental well being. I actually participate in a membership, and I have a life coach. And I, yeah. One day she said like she gut punched everybody on the call and was like if you are busy It means you are sloppy.
You are unorganized She works three days a week she’s her revenue, I’m just gonna say it’s around 50 million dollars a year and She’s been working on that for like 20 years. But like when she said that I was like She not wrong like that hurt. Everyone can digest that differently.
But I thought about that. Like my days should be planned. They should have buffers in them. Like we all know things are going to take longer. Like Sarah and I still look at our calendar every single day and like how nothing can happen back to back to back. It’s not possible. You can’t even be on a zoom and hang up a zoom and get on the next one.
Like things cannot be on the hour every hour. It just is not possible. So, and this is I actually caught myself the other day telling somebody I’m, I was [00:16:00] getting ready to send a text because they wanted to grab coffee with me and I looked at my calendar and I was like, what I wanted to say is I’m busy.
I can’t meet you for coffee because my calendar for the next two weeks is packed and said, I just said, Hey, I need to plan in advance for this. Yeah. What does your calendar look like in two weeks? Because my first reaction was I wanted to tell him I was busy and I couldn’t. Those days he had, and I was like, let me just rephrase this.
It’s like, I’m not busy. I planned for those days to be what they were. And that felt so much better.
Sarah Karakaian: I also am team, you create your own version of being not busy. And for me, I don’t like you mentioned your coaches like she works three days and she’s off four days. To me, that is does not sound fun. And that’s not a life that I want to design for myself, even after a lot of self reflection, but for me, I love coming to my work, I love creating, but I need more white space in those days.
So if I want to work, Five, six days a week, but make that those work sessions, whether it’s like go hard in the morning and then take a nice [00:17:00] afternoon where I can actually go to the gym class. I want to go to. And then we do another hour or two like when I’m feeling inspired, like That, to me,
Annette Grant: exactly.
Yeah, this, and by the way, for everybody out there, she’s, at the end of her career, had that schedule during children and things like that, so it’s like everybody has their different thing.
Sarah Karakaian: And for
her, working three days and having four days off, I just want to normalize those of us out there that don’t necessarily need four straight days of having,
Annette Grant: well, I don’t want to retire.
That fire like financially, like I don’t be financially independent, but I don’t want to retire. I want to work. I want to create.
Yeah. So there you go. We’re on the same page there for sure. But physical, mental, and you guys know what you need to do here. Whether it’s like I have a life coach, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s a personal trainer, whether it’s, just investing in a gym membership. But this is something that, puts, even if it’s just like YouTube morning yoga.
Like putting this on your on your calendar is a game changer for sure.
Sarah Karakaian: And again, just before we go on the next one, and to do what’s right for you for [00:18:00] years. You know, I feel like me, I listen to all these business podcasts. And they talk about, you know, putting yourself first, but then there’s this rigid thing I’m supposed to do.
And when I do it that way, I will then be a successful business owner. And so I tried to fit this, like, whatever, when we was on this extensive morning routine and I couldn’t have been more miserable, but you know what I mean? I have a slow morning for sure. And that’s fine. You know what I mean? Like whatever works for you.
But. Get all the tips and tricks from all the people you look up to, but then create your own version of what works for your body for sure. And your mind and like what actually invigorates you to put yourself in the best position each day.
Okay.
Personal and Business Development
Sarah Karakaian: Personal development.
This is where maybe we’re too heavy in on it? I don’t know. Too heavy or? No, no, no, no, no. Or we just like
it the most?
Annette Grant: I don’t even think it’s called personal. Like, I don’t even know if we call it personal development. Well, for you and I, I know we are, I’m just gonna say, we’re addicted to business development.
Okay. So, I would actually, Oh, that, you know, you’re not wrong, you’re not wrong. But to us, That’s personal. That is our personal [00:19:00] development. That is where, and we’ll share a little bit right now that that’s where Sarah and I, this business development is our personal development. So we have invested heavily in masterminds, in one on one coaching,
courses. We went to a retreat this year. We have done all of those. I actually did some math. And please remember, Sarah and I have been business partners, since 2019 And I just did a quick, snapshot before we got on this call, because I wanted to share with you guys, like we are practicing what we preach here of investing in yourselves.
And we are, at least at around 150, 000. And when I say that, that might sound like a large amount. And I kind of like, Go crazy thinking about it because that could have been money Directly in our pockets and I even think with Sarah I’m like, oh my gosh We could have bought another house Like there are things like I’m not gonna lie and say that for a second that doesn’t go through my head, But I know the compound effect of [00:20:00] her and I continuing to invest in ourself.
It is going to just completely Make that amount so small. I will never regret any of those dollars that we’ve spent on our personal slash business development?
Sarah Karakaian: Well, I’ll listen to his business podcast. I just listened to one. Actually, I’m a big Alex Hormozi fan, you guys. I just discovered him, not, Annette tried to introduce me to him years ago, and I like, was like, no, he’s a bro.
Annette Grant: Now she can,
but really check out our YouTuber Instagram and it’s slightly on repeat. I’m gonna tell Nick about it.
Sarah Karakaian: Nick knows. Um, what is the point of that? The point of that is he actually just had a recent episode out about Having a meeting with this billionaire business owner who He was very excited to have an afternoon share lunch with and he shared in this episode his three takeaways from this billionaire business owner and the one thing that he Recognized was this business owner reinvested did not take any profits [00:21:00] from his business He reinvested them back into the business.
And so there’s plenty of conversations about that reinvesting your business profits back into the business so that you can See it grow during your growth period. It’s the first five years Maybe it’s the first seven years or taking a period and doing but again going back to this like I called the personal development But what I really am good at is business development.
Investing in Personal Growth
Sarah Karakaian: So personally putting dollars back into Ourselves myself when it’s just about being a better Human and showing up for myself better you take that money that you mentioned in that you divide it by the amount of time that We’ve been in business. Yeah, that’s 25, 000 a year.
It is a privilege to be able to spend money on yourself. And I want to recognize that.
Annette Grant: Oh, absolutely.
Balancing Finances and Self-Investment
Annette Grant: And recognize that we have like, at times made less money than ever because we decided to reinvest in our in ourselves. I also don’t want 1000%. I don’t want that to get lost in the sauce that we I’ve had to go way way backwards in my earnings.
Thank you so much. But I know where it’s going to take me into the future.
The Value of Personal Development
Annette Grant: So I also, [00:22:00] want to be very transparent about that, The first time I ever invested myself before I met Sarah, I had, in between jobs, invested in something that was around 3, 000.
And I was scared. Scared. I put it on a credit card. I was like, who do I think I am? I don’t even have a job right now. What, what am I doing? But I knew, but I had the desire. I was so, I just knew that it was the right thing for me. And funny enough, that investment is, an event that I went to that actually, I have Thanks for Visiting like in, I still have the book where we were journaling, business ideas.
I want to make sure that that’s clear to everybody is, I have always sacrificed my own, we’ve sacrificed maybe paying ourselves or other things. And guess what? You know, I got my Honda. I got my paid off Honda still. I would rather invest in myself and then a new car.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. And your
car looks great. Yeah.
Annette Grant: Because I take care of it. I invest in taking care of it. I go to a car wash. I go to Moo Moo.
Sarah Karakaian: No, but if you don’t mind Annette, you know, Annette has brought up like, God, do I get a new car? I’d like. Put myself in a situation where I feel like, [00:23:00] you know, your four walls do define who you are and so she’s brought up, like, getting a new car.
And from her outside, like, her, both her business, like, partner, but also her friend. It’s like it is not a jalopy by any stretch of the imagination. It is tight.
Annette Grant: It 10
years old. Can you believe that?
Sarah Karakaian: No. And it looks like it was only five years old. No, that I had to go into her glove compartment like, girl, this is from 2013, but it’s a great car.
So all that to say, it’s not like we don’t struggle with that balance of, be, do, have. Right? You want to be that person. So you have to do the things that those people do that you want to be so that you can have the things that they have. It, listen, making those decisions is not easy, but it is worth it.
And I also want to say, here’s also why personal development is hard is because when you underwrite a property, there is a spreadsheet. And every guru, including us, has a spreadsheet on underwriting a property. And so you can see what that cash on cash return is or what your ROI is for that investment.
It is hard to do that with personal development. All you can do is take the advice, the people who you look up [00:24:00] to and that it is worth it. But that is why it’s hard to do. And that is why, and I know we’re going to get people who’ve heard how much we’ve invested in ourselves and going to be like, wow, That’s a lot of money.
It’s aggressive. That’s aggressive. It’s worth every penny. It’s worth every penny. And we don’t have a spreadsheet to prove why, but it just is. Like, yeah, I mean, thanks for visiting. There you go.
Maintaining Relationships and Community
Sarah Karakaian: last but not least, in terms of the areas in which you can invest in, are your relationships in your community, which one might argue that’s going back to personal development, but showing up for others, again, showing up for yourself first. But I love that one. You know, Your friend wanted to meet you for coffee.
That’s it. It’s an important example because I know a lot of us like, no, I just don’t have time for that. I get my head down and I got to work hard,
Annette Grant: but I’ll tell you exactly
what I did though. I am working, everyone I’m working with, um, an amazing assistant right now and we are planning my 2025 and I have a personal like section of it and it’s things that I want to do every month.
Like I want to have coffee with a friend every month. I want to go to dinner every month. With someone every month. Sarah and I want to go to a new pizza joint every month, and that is true But if it [00:25:00] doesn’t get calendar for me It doesn’t get done and so that day when my friend wanted to go to coffee and I couldn’t like I added that. My assistant’s name is Sarah also Sarah and I added to my calendar that it’s a part of my like must do next year is have coffee with one friend each month and I need to schedule that ahead of time so it is important to me and investing myself and so that investment myself is that assistant helping me make sure even personal and like when I brought her on I told her that yes she was going to help me with business stuff but there’s personal things that I need her to help me with and she’s helping me calendar those dinners those coffees.
I get my nails done now. I never used to do that. I know. Thank you. You were inspired me. Um, and so I do want to share that that has been something that has been all report back after I hopefully check them off for the whole year. But I don’t want that to go by again where I really didn’t do too many coffees with my friends this year at all.
Sarah Karakaian: We’re going to change that next year. I know. I know.
Annette Grant: And it’s not just friends. It’s like their business. I want to do with like meeting new [00:26:00] business people too. So look at me trying to bring business, business into the personal.
Sarah Karakaian: Well,
because we love business. That’s okay to love it. It is okay to love it.
You know what I mean? Like that’s our, that’s our hobby. That’s our, I want to network that way too. But let’s, last but not least here, let’s talk about community because this is when I’m like Thanksgiving, I will volunteer the holidays. I will volunteer. But what other ways do I show up for the very community that.
I decided to live in and thrive in and invest in, how am I giving back to it? Like, how am I showing up to it? And you can do this in so many ways, whether it’s like literally like the city in which you live and like showing up to, city council meetings, it could be a political situation.
It could be just volunteering for, an event that’s going on in your town. Or it can be like the community of people in which share the same interests as you. But. It’s funny, I saw this reel on Instagram the other day and it’s this girl who’s like laying on the couch and she is exhausted and doesn’t feel good.
And then the, the person taking the video is like, well, did you eat healthy food? And she goes, [00:27:00] no. Well, have you gotten eight hours of sleep each night? No. Well, did you go out and into the get fresh air today? No. . Did you hang out with a group of friends that uplift and inspire you? No. You know what I mean?
And it was just a, it was a comment on. You know, we might feel busy or feel exhausted or feel all these things, but we haven’t done any of the things that it takes to nourish ourselves. And it’s really just as simple as sometimes just going outside and touching grass.
I love that you said that. I do.
Listen, I’m trying to try this whole white space
thing.
Annette Grant: So we’re going to share, I’m going to share a couple of things really quickly.
Daily Practices and Personal Goals
Annette Grant: Sarah and I, how we’ve invested in ourselves. One, I’m going to share a book that I think is really great. Cause I struggle with like perfectionism and maybe like going back to, try new things or investing in myself.
I would always get really nervous because I didn’t know if it worked. It’s called failing forward. It’s by John C. Maxwell. And it’s just about failing faster. I think again, that’s kind of like the way I was raised in schooling, it’s like you need to get a plus, you need to be perfect before you do anything.[00:28:00]
And so that has also held me back, I think, from investing in myself before, because I’m like, well, what’s the ROI going to be on this? And am I going to be able to squeeze in? It’s like, now I’ve changed that to. Well, either a, I learned something from everything and it might just be, this is not the thing for me.
And I move on to the next instead of ruminating on it, a coaching program or mastermind that elevated my business. I’m going to give her a shout out. That first event that I attended in 2019 was with Chalene Johnson. It was marketing impact Academy. And that was awesome. And I’ve also personally, invested in several masterminds outside of Sarah, but I want to give a shout out to that original coaching program, with Chalene Johnson Marketing Impact Academy.
Sarah Karakaian: What about daily practice? Don’t
skip that in Annette.
Annette Grant: Uh, my daily practice is I am in, it’s closing, sorry everybody, but I am in the life coach school right now and I do, there are daily, I have been going and getting my things printed all year long. I do a d a daily, thought download. I love that.
Yeah. Alright. Maybe not every day, I may not lie. I miss some days.
Sarah Karakaian: For [00:29:00] sure. I don’t have, I would say, but I do. I’ll do my daily practice. I don’t have a daily practice. My daily practice is snuggling with my dogs, and I am obsessed with that.
Annette Grant: I don’t have any dogs. What’s your book?
Sarah Karakaian: Okay, my book is, and I’m reading it for the third time.
Ooh. It’s Unreasonable Hospitality. Okay. We’ll link to all this below, too. I don’t know how to say his last name. Will Gudara. Let’s go with that. Sorry, Will, if we botched it. why is this book listen, everyone, I know that and you’re like, okay, Sarah Hospitality, like this is literally what you do in your life.
Yes, but the book is so much more than that. And I know our entire audience is hospitality enthusiasts and professionals, but it’s different. It is about how It’s like offering hospitality that you can’t systematize or you can’t scale, right? It is, it is hospitality that is so personalized for the people in your life.
And just flips my brain on like, how can I blow someone’s mind today? Who’s not expecting it. Whether it’s a guest, or my business partner, or a team member, or someone I don’t know. I mean, the example that came up in my head right now is like buying that person’s coffee [00:30:00] who’s behind you in line. Like, it’s, and that’s, and that’s an easy one, right?
But how can you challenge yourself to offer unreasonable hospitality to someone? And so this book for me is just checks myself and reminds myself to give back to my community and get back to the people who lift me up. And in turn it puts the oxygen mask on my face because you feel so good when you do that.
So that’s my book.
Mastermind Groups and Networking
Sarah Karakaian: And then right now we are in a mastermind right now, and I do want to touch on this for a moment. We are in a mastermind right now with, Amy Porterfield, which if you don’t know who she is, she is an online marketing expert. She’s got a podcast, online marketing made easy and it helps us listening to her podcast obviously helps us because we do all have an online business, right?
Our rentals are all online and we have to get people to physically buy into our online presence and come visit us in person. But of course, Annette and I also have thanks for visiting and that’s how we reach all of you. And like, how can we, make sure our messaging reaches, Those incredible humans and [00:31:00] hosts that we want to bring into our world and have these conversations with right so Amy’s always been this person who has inspired both Annette and myself well, there was an opportunity for us to apply to be a part of this group coaching with her, and only one of us could be the one who represented thanks for visiting and Annette was.
I mean, you didn’t even think about it, letting, I don’t know if the word let me, but you let me be that person who represents things for visiting in that group. But and here’s the thing, I know it’s about obviously about business, but when you surround yourself with other, and this was not an inexpensive mastermind, it is an investment.
And yes, we’re hoping to get an ROI for our business because you talk about these business strategies from these other women who are making a certain amount of money and it’s all around
the same.
Annette Grant: Oh, we already have. I’m already sold. We’ve had, you’ve had one. I mean, you’ve had your in person in one session and I think it was already worth it.
Absolutely.
Sarah Karakaian: But also these relationships that I’m building with these human beings, I never would have met and I’m, it’s not from [00:32:00] this, the standpoint of, I want to get something out of them. It’s from the standpoint of like, when I get to pour into them. Whether it’s personally or professionally, I have an idea for them or just show up for them.
This one girl wanted me to show up to, she had an online training and she was nervous. And so it was eight o’clock at night. She’s a masseuse and she teaches people these different techniques. And she just wanted to know like, could anyone just give me feedback on like, Because she’s by herself.
Sarah
Annette Grant: will give feedback.
Sarah Karakaian: I will give feedback. And I attended the whole thing, and like I know nothing about massage therapy, but it was, it was just felt, again, unreasonable hospitality, felt really good to show up for her. I met her, what, a month ago now? We were only one month into this membership, so, or this mastermind, so, it There we go.
That’s, that’s what we’re doing.
Annette Grant: And her daily practices, like she said, snuggling with her dogs, which are really, really cute. They’re so good. They are really, really cute.
Sarah Karakaian: And they’re, they’re absolute unhinged monsters that I love so much.
Call to Action: Invest in Yourself
Sarah Karakaian: So, as we wrap up, Let’s turn it on you, dear listeners, because listening to this is one thing and if you’re like me, you want to listen to these podcast episodes where the host kind of shares personal [00:33:00] insider tips. Secrets or what have you like I love knowing what other people are doing It’s like walking late at night past people’s homes and being able to see the lights on.
Yeah That’s what I feel this episode is.
Annette Grant: Not when they’re like doing anything freaky Just not like
Sarah Karakaian: living their lives like washing the dishes. What are they watching on tv? I want to see the art in their wall. What paint color did you invent? Like what what kind of light fixtures you have like this is what I want to know That’s what this episode feels like up to this point but now we have to turn on all of you so you can walk away from this episode and this is Amy Porterfield, our mastermind leader.
She has this acronym DSD and it is stands for do something different. to get a different result. So Annette and I, whether it’s about business or personal, we’ll like, we got a DSD, we got to do something different because it’s not working. Or, um, we want, we want this new flavor to come in.
Annette Grant: we are encouraging you to do something different in 2025 and put yourself first. And we want you to take that time and like, how, how are you going to invest in yourself? Next year, we [00:34:00] would love for you to email us or send us a DM, let us know what you’re going to do, but that that is our mission right now.
It’s always to up level hosting. And the only way we’re going to be able to up level hosting is to know that the hosts are taking care of themselves, that they’re reinvesting in theirselves because you cannot be the hostess with the most is when you are running on empty. And I’m telling you, it will trickle down into everything in your life.
So again, we want you to do something different. Be bold and putting yourself first next year, commit to that action, make a list like brainstorm what you think it’s going to be, then kind of organize that, and commit to it. I think that’s the other thing to calendar it. You can get excited. Yeah, but commit to whatever that investing in yourself is.
But make sure we’ve got to make it happen. So it has to be in the calendar. it has to be in your budget of, Hey, I’m going to spend X, Y, Z on my personal development for 2025, but you have to identify what you’re going to invest in. You know, how are you going to [00:35:00] do it and commit to
Sarah Karakaian: and you don’t have to do them all. And you might be showing up today as someone who has a job that they’re not thrilled with, and maybe the bank account isn’t where you want it to be. joining a high ticket master may not be your next step, but it might be committing to reading a book or doing some journaling or again, working out.
Maybe that’s something I was going to say to like, I’ve, I’ve gotten away from going to the gym and, um, and lifting heavy because it’s like, well, I could stay home and get some work done instead. But this year I prioritized that and when I’m working out. I get these great ideas, you know, so what is that for you?
And I know there are very, you could, there’s gym memberships that vary in pricing. So I don’t want the price tag to hold you back that as an excuse. So if you’re showing up more advanced in your career, what do you need to do to take that next step? Yep. And
Annette Grant: you’re going to mess up. You’re going to fail.
Even if you like, whatever you invest [00:36:00] in, like, again. It’s okay to fail. I always like whenever I invest in something like I’m going to show up to every class. I’m gonna do every you know and then like life happens. Yeah. And I don’t beat myself up anymore. I just show up at the best I can with like when I can but obviously calendaring helps but just knowing right now I’ve kind of let that go has been a great investment too.
Sarah Karakaian: Speaking about investing in yourself, we’re gonna, we’re going to challenge you a little bit.
Upcoming Bootcamp Announcement
Sarah Karakaian: And this is one of the easiest challenges I think we can give you, but we have a way for you to dip your toe in investing yourself when it comes to education and your short term rental business. Annette, do you want to share with them what we’re doing for the first time ever in 2025?
Annette Grant: We are excited to announce we are doing a boot camp in early January and it is focused on equipping you on how to do your own. Listing audit and we want you to join us there. We are going to be deep diving into how we do listing audits. And the goal of this is for you to [00:37:00] have the best listing in your area because if you think about it, it’s the only way you’re making money.
That is your presence online. Your guests are choosing you when they see your listing. We have made this a no brainer offer. It is only 49. We are going to have multiple trainings. We really want to make sure you make it live, but if not, we’re going to record and you will have the replays.
And the thing is, this is going to be the gift that keeps on giving, you are going to be equipped to do listing audits, just like we do, and you’ll be able to repeat this over and over and over again on not just one listing, but. All of your listings and you need to be doing this throughout the year.
Sarah Karakaian: Absolutely. And so we’ll also have a pop up Facebook group. So there’s going to be a community aspect. Once the training is over for that, we’ll have like, and it said three live trainings, you can hop into the private Facebook group with Annette and myself and our team, and we can talk about the things we just learned and you can show us what you’re thinking.
You can try things out. We’re also, one of the trainings is going to be all about analytics and how to actually See if the changes you’re making are making a difference. We’re not talking [00:38:00] about that old useless hack of like adding a word, deleting a word and pressing save on your Airbnb listing. Like that doesn’t work anymore.
We’re talking about true listing audits. So go to thanksforvisiting.com/bootcamp. Thanksforvisiting.com/bootcamp. Get signed up, invest in yourself and start the year off really strong by educating. Get back to the foundations. If you’ve been hosting for years, I promise you, if you’re like me, sometimes your, your, your listings can get crusty, dusty, as Annette likes to say, you got to get back to that foundational work.
Join us. It’s a low investment, but we’re going to pour into you. All right. Is anything else in it? I should say. That’s it.
Annette Grant: Let’s go. We’re excited to see you. It’s going to be, um, it’s going to be very interactive. We’re going to be able to, we’re going to be on zoom. You’re going to be able to see us. If you’ve been listening to the show forever and you want to like be with us on a call, please join us.
We cannot wait to see you, to help you, to serve you and for you to have the best year yet.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Sarah Karakaian: With that, I am Sarah [00:39:00] Karakaian.
Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant and together we are, thanks for visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you next time.
