Cultivating a Growth Mindset: Exposing the Truth

Welcome to a special solo episode of the Girls in Property Podcast. In this edition, Athena explores essential insights for cultivating a growth mindset, offering her top tips. She also candidly reveals the challenges individuals might face as they embark on the journey of becoming a property investor. Furthermore, don't miss out – stay to the end to hear Athena tackle her top three frequently asked questions and open up about her own property mishaps. 

Join in for a genuine conversation, brimming with honest dialogue and actionable advice to empower you to be the ultimate property lifestyle investor!

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Disclaimer: None of the content in our podcast is intended to constitute legal or financial advice. All interviews and statements are the thoughts & opinions of the hosts and guests themselves and should be...

Transcript

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Hello everyone, good morning and welcome to the girls in property podcast. How is everybody doing today? Um, so today's going to be a little bit different. Um, just being really transparent with you guys, I was supposed to be having a guest on the podcast, uh, for you, lovely lot to go out this Monday. Um, however, unfortunately due to circumstances, um, they were, we were no longer able to do, to do the podcast together. So what's really important in these situations and the reason I'm actually mentioning this to you is because sometimes in life, things don't always go the way that you think that they're gonna go and things that go to plan. And therefore you need to adapt, you need to change and you need to pivot and think, right, what can I do instead in order to do this? Now don't get me wrong, we're gonna get her on the podcast. She's absolutely amazing. So don't worry, she is gonna be back. But in this exact moment, I knew that I had to get a podcast out. So... As a result of that, I thought, you know what, I'm going to do a solo episode for you guys. So I'm here doing a solo episode, and what I wanna do is I want it to be really educational for you guys. It's great to have fun, and it's great to have loads of guests on, but sometimes it's really good just to take it back to the basics. So what I'm gonna do is I'm obviously going to do my usual in terms of talking about celebrations and property disasters and everything. But what I wanna do today is I wanna talk to you about, specifically. like cultivating a growth mindset. And the reason I want to talk to you about cultivating a growth mindset is because I was trying to think about what I should do for you guys in regards to the solo episode. And to be honest with you, I'm actually going to be recording a few of these to put out. And I was gonna put the first one out to be sort of, how to raise joint venture finance. And it was gonna be about how to create the best investor pack. you know, HMOs, VSA, and all of these things that I could talk to you about for hours and hours. But the messages and the feeling that I'm getting at the moment from so many people that I'm speaking to in the world of property is they have yet to kind of understand about adopting and cultivating this growth mindset. And almost, you can learn as much as you want in regards to what strategies to do and how to raise your own venture finance and how to create the best investor pack. And you could have the best investor pack in the whole world. But if you don't actually believe in the investor pack or believe that you can actually raise the finance, then adopt this growth mindset, then there's almost no point in doing any of the work if you don't start with the basics. So I am going to be doing loads of episodes going forward in regards to the strategies and SA tips and HMO tips and joint venture tips and buy select tips and everything you want me to talk about. But I am gonna talk to you today about adopting this growth mindset. how to cultivate a growth mindset, giving you some strategies to do that. And then I also, what I'd like to do is I would like to also answer the three most frequent questions that I get asked in my day-to-day life, either it's face-to-face or whether it's on social media. And I'd like to answer those three questions for you so that anybody who wants to ask me will have the answer effectively to it. So hopefully that's all okay with you guys. Sorry for the ramble on, but I thought I would just kind of set the scene for you. So let's start first of all with celebrations, because that's what we do on the Girls and Property Podcast, always celebrating. So celebrating two main things. Number one, as many of you know, I've literally just got back from Marrakesh. Now, Marrakesh is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to. Absolutely stunning. The suks, the colors, you know. The snake charmers, it's just full of culture, full of joy, full of lovely people, full of warmth and fantastic food. The food was absolutely gorgeous. If you've never had a tagine in Marrakesh, you know, you must go and do that. So I'm doing a little bit of a shout out to Marrakesh at the moment. Please, please go and support the country. It's absolutely beautiful. Extremely well priced as well in terms of the exchange rates. So a great, great. place to go to and I really enjoyed it. And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes just having that little bit of a change of scenery and that cultural burst just really sort of recharges you and gets you going again. I mean, I literally went for what, two, three nights? It was like a long weekend. I might as well have just gone to the North, but instead we went to Marrakesh, which sounds incredible bougie, but that is the truth. So it's one of those where definitely go, try and just change your sceneries as often as possible. It doesn't have to be Marrakesh, it could be anywhere, but. make sure that you do that. So that was pretty beautiful. And then the second thing that I'm celebrating is when this podcast comes out, which will be on Monday. So on Monday, it will be the 29th. So 29th of January is when you'll be listening to this. I am actually doing a free webinar on Wednesday, 31st of January. That's Wednesday, 31st of January. I'm doing a free webinar for 90 minutes and that's gonna be at 7.30 PM. You'll probably see on the socials. that I will start to sending out the links if you'd like to join that. And what that's going to be all about is I want to talk to you all about being the best property lifestyle investor that you can actually be. And this is about aligning your lifestyle goals with your property objectives. Too many times do I see people who do strategies that I almost just don't understand why they do it. because you look at them and you think to yourself, this doesn't align with who you are as a person. It doesn't align with what you wanna achieve in your life. And so in a way, I almost don't understand why they do it. And to me, I think the whole reason of doing property investing and becoming an entrepreneur and going through life trying to do this, because it's not easy. Everybody knows who listens to this. We have not chosen the easy path of life. We really haven't. And so you always have to think to yourself, well, why am I doing it? why have I chosen to follow this path? And if you're not aligning your lifestyle and your goals and your aspirations to the strategies that you choose, I find it a bit baffling. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna talk for 90 minutes on this webinar about being the best property lifestyle investor that you can be. And then after that, I'd like to give something away, which is really exciting. Of course, as many of you know, I'm also launching my course. My course launches on the Wednesday, which is really exciting. It's literally jam packed. And if I'm honest with you, it's bigger than I actually intended it to be. It's almost twice the size of what I initially started to plan it as. And as I did it, I just grew with my ideas and grew with what I wanted to give to everybody. So just to really, really quickly just let you know, and then I'll move on with the pod. It's going to include contracts. It's going to include deal analyzers. It's going to include PDFs. It's going to include workbooks. I think it's got over now, I think it's got about 10 plus hours of recorded content specializing in raising finance, HMOs, service accommodation and buy-to-lets. So all of them as opposed to having to buy 10,000 courses just to learn about one of the strategies. And I've also decided to build a community within that. So as part of that, when you join and do the course, you will automatically get the access to the community as well. where we can come together, share ideas, and you can ask me direct questions and I'll get back to you and answer them. So it's kind of this big project that I've been working on for some time and it's now coming through to fruition. And next week is launch day, which is so exciting. So today's Monday, the webinars on Wednesday. I would love to see if many of you as possible. I'm gonna be teaching you everything I know in the 90 minutes best I can. And then at the end, sort of tell you about something really exciting and give you guys a little bit of a gift as it were. So. If you can join, let me know. But thought I'd just do a little bit of a shout out to me on this occasion, which is quite a nice thing. Okay, so let's talk about the growth mindset and get straight into it. So when we're thinking about cultivating a growth mindset, I'd like to start off with actually a quote that I read, which I thought was quite inspiring and empowering, and hopefully you as a listener will really, really appreciate it as well. So it says here. Strength and growth comes only through continuous effort and struggle. And that was that was Napoleon Hill. So one more time, strength and growth comes only through continuous effort and struggle. For me, that was actually quite poignant when I read that, because I don't know about you guys, but sometimes in this in this day and age, I think that a lot of people almost always desire this aspect of instant gratification, you know. even social media, let's face it, the likes, the comments, the instant gratification, you know, gaining a bit of money and going, I must buy that handbag, I must buy those shoes, I must buy that, I don't know, anything. It's all about instant gratification, but it's almost sometimes that people expect things to happen to them and they expect to decide that they want to be a property investor and then get annoyed that they haven't got a service accommodation after two months or haven't got a HMO after one month and it's like, yeah, but did you do the continuous effort? Did you do the continuous struggle? and did you put 100% in? And if you're not answering those questions to the best of your ability that you did, then you don't deserve to have the service accommodation on the HMOs because you didn't put all of your efforts into getting there, which probably is controversial, but I really do believe that strength and growth comes only through continuous effort and struggle. My point to it is you must, must keep going and you must almost push through the hard bits to then reap the rewards at the end. So that was my bit of starting off with a quote. So what I'd like to do today is I'd like to actually help you by giving you some strategies for cultivating a growth mindset and give you those strategies to try and help you. So here are my top tips. Let's start with number one. So number one is what you can do is you can start to use the word yet. Y-E-T. Now this sounds really simple, but there are so many people out there who just aren't doing it at all. Now let me give you an example of this. So instead of saying to yourself in your head, you know, I don't have enough money, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough knowledge. You know, those are the three basic ones to take and just to use as an example for this. You could start to say, I don't have enough money yet. I don't have enough knowledge yet. And I don't have enough time yet. Because at least that way, you're telling your brain, look, I'm not where I wanna be right now. I know where I wanna be. I've got my goals, I've got my direction, I've got my plan. Fine, I don't have enough money to get my first bitelet yet. I don't have enough money to do my first HMO conversion yet. All of these just help your stimulus of your brain to almost rewire and reprogram it to think a certain way. Because rather than embracing almost a scarcity mindset going, I don't have this, and I don't have this, and almost a half... a half glass empty milk, you're instead saying to yourself, well, okay, I don't have it right now, but that doesn't mean that I can't have it in the future. And that's why you have these vision boards, that's why you have these aspirational thoughts and embracing a growth mindset, because you're like, do you know what? I don't wanna be the same person I was a year ago, I wanna push forward, I wanna be a different person, I wanna have this growth. So that's one thing to really think about is in your day-to-day life, please, do yourself a favor. and just start implementing the word yet would be really, really good. Number two, I really like this one, it's one of my favorites. Number two is teach others. I've written here, teach others and share your knowledge. It's one of my favorite ones. The reason this one is one of my favorite ones is because I think one of the best things you can do in life is to teach others, I really do. I think that you can inspire people, I think that you can really I think actually, I think you can learn more from teaching others. Because let me give you an example. As many of you know, I mentor people within the property world on a one-to-one basis. And sometimes they actually ask me questions that make me think to myself, oh, they make a good point. Let me go and look that up. Let me go and research that. If I don't know the answer, let me go and find someone who does know the answer. And then I can learn as well. it's brilliant because you almost grow and learn and so many people will tell you like teachers even learn and grow, mentors even get mentored by others and learn and grow. So I think being a teacher is one of the best things to do. The other thing about being a teacher and teaching others and sharing your knowledge is I always find that if you can learn something and then you can repeat it back and to tell someone else what you've just learned, you almost do two things. One. you're almost telling your brain that you understood what it was that just got taught to you. So literally you're showing that you understand what you've just learned. And two, you almost when you repeat it out loud are instilling it in your psyche, in your brain, in your subliminal messaging. It kind of just stays there the more that you repeat it to others. What I love seeing that a lot of people do and... I see so many people doing this on social media, is they're always sharing their top tips or the most common mistakes that they just did on their flip or their BRRR. And I love that. It's teaching others, it's sharing the knowledge, it's embracing that learning aspect of continuous learning, which I think is absolutely fantastic. And again, referring back to this whole idea of cultivating a growth mindset, you're showing this idea that you're open to learning and bettering yourself and- kind of giving yourself that ability to enhance your brain as a result of it. So I think teaching others is such a wonderful thing to do. And actually in terms of growth as well, you will actually, first of all, be able to actually encourage others to then come to you, to learn from you and also increase your network and increase your sort of wealth of being and creating that lifestyle in which one of sharing and positive vibes and culture. And I think if we can help each other, like the world is just such a nicer place to be. So I really like that one. That's one of personally my favorites of the ones I'm gonna teach you. Number three is be inspired by others' success. Be inspired by others' success. So again, I really like this one for a couple of reasons. The first reason I like it is because let's face it, sometimes in this world, and it's not always, but sometimes in this world, people can get very, very hung up on comparing yourself to others. You get very hung up on, well, how come they get to do it and I can't do it? How come they've managed to, we started at the same time, how come they've managed to have the success and I haven't? And you almost start going into these, this area of jealousy and envy and things like that. And it's a very, very horrible place to be for some people. It's not a healthy place to be. Instead, reframe your wiring, reframe your brain to think to yourself. actually, let's be inspired by other's success. Let's be inspired by what they're doing. Let's learn from what they're doing. You know, a lot of the times I say to people, you know, who, I say to people sometimes, I say to them, you know, who is it that you're inspired by? Who is it that you're learning from? This doesn't even need to be somebody in the property world. You know, for me, and I've said this many times before and I'll say it again, I'm so inspired by Stephen Bartlett every day. I love Stephen Bartlett. I've actually got tickets to go and see him in March, which is really exciting. I've never met him before and I'm just going to be like a kid in a candy shop. And I just find him personally so inspiring by the way that he educates and teaches people and also isn't afraid to learn, isn't afraid to say, Hmm, I didn't realize that and I'd like to go and do that. And I just find that so inspiring. So maybe find yourself within your area, maybe geographically or online or something. Find yourself a group of people who inspire you every day. And it could be a podcast. I mean, even this podcast, I pray and I hope that it inspires people out there, I really do. And that's why you listen to it. It could be that you've got a really good network of girls or even men, the men that are listening. I hope you guys have got multi groups that you go to just to inspire one another and learn from one another. It's just such a wonderful, wonderful place to be. So make sure that rather than... looking at others in a jealous or comparative way. Try and reprogram your brain to think about more of an inspiring way. Like learn how they've been able to do it. Ask questions, be curious, and think to yourself, how have they managed to do that? Let me try and do that too. Or let me try and find my own direction. So be inspired, learn from others, and always have an open heart is would be my advice for that one. Then the next one is number four, I believe. So number four is effort is the path to mastery. So number four, effort is the path to mastery. So the reason I'm talking about this is because I'm gonna go back to what I said in my original quote. One thing that actually has been something that has frustrated me for some time now, which is quite interesting. that I'm talking about something that's frustrating me, but I think on a podcast, sometimes it's nice to hear, oh, you know, some of the juicy bits. So I get frustrated when I go to networking events and I'll see the same people over and over and over again. And they'll say, they've been doing it for what? Like five months, six months, something like that. And they'll say something like, I still haven't got my, I still haven't got my first property. You know, it doesn't work. I still haven't got, I still haven't managed to raise any finance. You know, it doesn't work. And I just... Or people who say things such as they join courses and they pay all this money to join courses with some of these people that tell them they can get rich in 90 days, which by the way is complete BS quite frankly. It's not a whole get rich in 90 days, it's a marathon not a sprint in the property world. But just so that I remain on target with what I'm speaking about and I don't go on a complete tangent about that. You know, and I always say to people, well, what have you done? What have you been your action steps? Let me help, almost like let me help you. Because let me look at your action steps that you have given yourself as a goal and a target. And let me see how you followed these in order to see how you've tried to get where you want to be. And then let me help you kind of reframe it and redo it. It's what I do for my mentees. So for example, just to explain what I'm trying to say is, you set your goals out. So you set your 12 month goals out. And then what you do is you say, right, you split it into quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four, and then you then break it down again to say, okay, well what action steps do I need to do in order to do that? So you talk about KPIs, key performance indicators, and what you do is you say to yourself, right, I'm gonna set myself an Excel grid. By the way, I've got a KPI metric as part of the course as well that I'm giving out as part of it. And you sort of set yourself very clear metrics. You say, how many agents have I spoken to this week? How many letters have I sent? How many networking events have I gone to? How many leaflets have I sent? How many open-ramp messages have I sent? How many et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? You ask yourself genuine actionable questions. And if you can honestly stand there and say to me, these are all the action steps I've taken and yet I still don't have one, I guarantee you I'll be able to say, okay, tweak this, tweak this, try this instead, change this part of the letter, guarantee you, I will be able to help you to progress further than where you already are, which I appreciate is a very bold statement, but honestly, if you can show the action steps, you can tweak it in order to get to where you want to be. I do genuinely believe that. But people who can't say that to me and can't tell me the action steps that they've taken and how they've gone about it, when I've questioned their action steps, not really giving me an answer. And I've said to them, how much of an effort have you genuinely put in? And don't get me wrong, I've heard it all. I've heard every single thing under the sun. Oh, well, you know, I couldn't because my child was sick and oh no, I couldn't because, you know, I've got children and my job and, you know, all of these things. Listen, I hear you. I've been where you are. I had a full-time job, but what you do is you make it work. You know, I was coming home at eight o'clock at night and I was going straight on right move and I was looking at it. and I was then scheduling the emails to go to the agent at eight o'clock in the morning when I was then on my way to work. You just have to think practically about how to do it. And you can't, if you want to go into this world and be a property investor, you almost have to choose the direction you wanna go and not let certain things create a scarcity mindset for you. Time is the same for everybody. How you choose to use time is completely up to you. And I understand that everybody has restrictions in life. I understand that. But if you keep using it as an excuse, you will not move forward in life, you will stay very, very still. So just going on to this point, effort is the path to mastery. You must put in the effort in order to gain the results. The results will not walk towards you. An investor will not just walk up to you and give you their money. You have to show evidence, you have to show how, why that they should invest in you. you know, if an agent's gonna give you a deal, you have to give them a reason to give you the deal. They don't just come to you, you need to actually put some effort in. And I think that's something that's not taught on these courses. You pay 10,000 pounds to someone and they go, right, I'm gonna teach you everything I know. And then end up not teaching you anything because you think, oh, well I paid 10,000, suddenly this wonderful property investing is gonna come my way. And it's like, well, no, you have to be the driver of the car. You have to be the person to physically. do it and drive and go. What's that saying? Like you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink it. It's that kind of principle. So I apologies if I went off in a bit of a tangent now and went a bit deep, but I thought that I just needed to get up. Clearly that off my chest. So number five, this is my last one for strategies for cultivating a growth mindset. So number five is value in the process over the end result. So value in the process over the end result. Now I'm going to put both hands up here. I don't know if you can see that in the video. And I'm going to admit to the fact that I used to be very focused in the end result, very much so when I started my property journey. I didn't really care that much about the process. I just wanted to get my first rent to rent. I then wanted to get my first investor. I then wanted to get my first deal. I then wanted to get my first, I don't know, like whatever it may be, my first, my first, my first, and then my second and then my third. And I forgot to really think about the process and value the process and value the journey. And so, you know, so many people were saying to me who are so wonderful and I trust them so much and they're my mentors now and even family members, they were like, you're going to miss the journey. You know, it's one of those where you're going to, you're going to almost look back and go, why didn't I just, why didn't I almost just focus on the journey? And I get almost a bit like, almost emotional, which I wasn't expecting to do, because you think to yourself, well, why if you, why if you actually do focus on the journey as well as the process, you might actually really, you know, find something different and enjoy it and actually remember how difficult it was or how long it takes to get you there. A lot of people, let me commose myself, a lot of people see the end results, when you're posting about that first deal and you're posting about the successes that you have, but nobody actually sees the work that goes into it, behind it, and it's definitely something to think about for each. each and every one of you. So let me take a deep breath. I wasn't expecting to get upset and I find that really strange but yeah I think it's important to be real, I think it's important to be honest and to know that we're all human at the end of the day and that's what I represent. I represent authenticity, I represent realness. I could very easily just re-record the podcast but I'm not going to do so because I think that it's something that you know... A lot of us need to know that we're not all out there, super humans and things, we're all real people. So my advice, which like I said, I hold my hands up, is value the process over the end result and hopefully you were actually able to hear me over me basically not being able to breathe. So hopefully you got that. So value the process over the end result and make sure that you do value it as best that you can. you don't miss it effectively. So sorry about that. Right, let me bring myself back to this. So remember, number one is the growth mindset is a journey, not a destination. So I'm just gonna just gonna quickly touch on this as well. I'm talking about the fact that you've got to reprogram your brain and to think differently and all of these things. However, This is not gonna happen for you overnight. You're not just gonna wake up tomorrow and go, oh, I've now got a growth mindset and this scarcity mindset has left me. That won't happen. A growth mindset is something that will happen over a period of time. So the more that you do visualization, the more that you speak to people and hang around with people, the more that you do, you know, it's like massaging a muscle. So you know when people talk to you about, you know, going to the gym, you're not just gonna get a six pack after a day or an hour. of going to the gym. It's going to take time. So your brain is a muscle. So keep doing those affirmations, keep having strategies for cultivating a growth mindset, and you will naturally get there over a period of time. Don't get frustrated with yourself. If after a week, you're still having these scarcity thoughts, that's absolutely normal. It's absolutely fine. Give it time, be kind to yourself, be kind to yourself. And to really think about that. Then number patience and consistency. True, patience is actually a really good word that I wrote down here, because sometimes you can get very impatient being a property investor. And it could be to do with anything. It could be to do with the fact that the agent hasn't called you back, the solicitors are taking ages, the evaluation, it could be anything. You almost have to have patience with that, but then you also have to have patience with yourself and think to yourself, do you know what? haven't quite got that first deal or I haven't quite got that 10th deal because you want 10 and you're on 9, how do I adopt that patience to know that when the time is right, it will come to me and just to keep going and adopt that patience as it were. And then number three I've written down here to remember to always reprogram your brain and change attitudes and patterns. So let me give you a really quick example of what I mean when I say this. So for example, changing attitudes and patterns could be as simple as creating a positive daily routine. So your daily routine could literally change and reprogram your brain. So my version of this is I now start every single morning where I wake up and before I do anything, I will make sure I have a cup of tea and I will write down some positive things that I'm grateful for. I've got like a little, like a... appreciation journal and it's only small about three things but I always write in it and it just sets me up for the day It puts me in a really good frame of mind And then in a great frame of mind and the next thing I do is I would always write my to-do list for the day So that I have a really I get almost everything out of my brain so that my brain is free and I might write What's my to-do list for today? I see it and I can clearly tick it off as I go and I've got a nice framework to follow For me that personally works for other people to do this is their worst nightmare. So Find what works for you, but create yourself a positive daily routine. Create yourself positive affirmations. You know, using the word yet. It could be that you want to look at your vision board every day. It could be you want to add to your vision board once a day, whatever your version of kind of, um, reprogramming your brain and taking that action to change your attitudes and patterns. Please do it because it will genuinely really help you just to take you forward. So that's what I would say of number, number three. And then last but not least, my absolute favourite one, and you're probably bored of me saying it time and time again, but I'm gonna say it because it's the truth. Number four is remain consistent and you will see the results. So remain consistent and you will see the results. Consistency, consistency, consistency. I almost think about getting this tattooed on my body. Because that is the key. That is it. If you're not consistent, you will not get there. It's like with anything, forget about property for a moment. If you're not consistent with a diet, if you're not consistent with working out, if you're not consistent with that beautiful art drawing that you want to do and to finish it, then it's never gonna get finished. It's never gonna get done. You must remain consistent. I think I've also used this analogy before, but I'll use it again for any new listeners. You know that meme of when you're watching a digger kind of digging for gold? He's digging and he's digging and he's digging. And you can see the gold because you can see it in the photograph and he's so close to the gold. But because he can't see it and he can't see the gold, he walks away from it and he stops and he never reaches the gold. And if he'd only just maybe hit it one more time, two more times, three more times, he would have got to the gold. But he's never gonna know because he wasn't consistent and he didn't remain consistent. So consistency is key. Please, please remain consistent. Never, ever give up. Don't go back to what hasn't worked before. The only path is moving forward. I'm just gonna turn my page. So. Those are the strategies for cultivating a growth mindset. Now, how I wanted to kind of finish up this podcast was to do, first of all, to answer three questions that I get asked commonly, and then I'm gonna do my property disaster, because believe it or not, I've actually got one. Well, yes, property disaster. So here are the three questions that I get asked on a frequent basis, and I thought would really help if I sort of explain them a bit now, and see how we go. And please, you know, continue to send me your questions and I'll do my best to answer them on these solo podcasts as best I can. Okay, number one. I wrote down, how do you do so much in a day, week, and a year? I get asked this question all the time. They're like, how do you do so much? Okay, so. few things to say to this. Number one is... how do I answer this question to the best of my ability? Okay let me start with the basics. I write a to-do list every single morning as I said to you so I know exactly what needs to be done on that list by the end of the day. Now of course like everybody things get added to that list and life gets in the way and landlords call from the letters that you send and all sorts of things. and then you have to redo your list or add to your list. But I've got a really strict list. And I don't really stop until that list is done. Now, I'm in a fortunate position where, quite frankly, I can be selfish with my time and my days. That's just the truth. At this moment in my life, I personally don't have children. I don't have children. And so, you know, I don't have to do the school run and things like that. And as I've always said, I take, I take my hat off to every single mum and dad out there that do have children as well. However, I guarantee you that if I did have children, I would, I would find a way to, to get around it, even if you're teaching them, you know, I said about teaching others teach kids while you're doing it, they'll listen to you. But how do I do so much in a day, week and a year? So, okay, this is why I'm struggling because I've got two, I've got two answers to this question and to be completely transparent with you guys. I've got an answer which is a healthy answer and I've got an answer which is an unhealthy answer and I think I'm going to do both because I always promise to be open and transparent on the podcast because that's what it is. So the healthy answer is I do my day to day list, I get it all done and you know as long as you're focused and as long as you've got a really clear routine then you can get so much done and also quite frankly if I enjoy what I do, like if you enjoy what you do it's not really work. Like for example, I do obviously the podcast. I've just been doing the course. I've course managed all the HMOs. I managed the service accommodations. I managed my vitalettes. I'm now looking for more BRR and speaking to some agents. Like I do quite, quite a lot in the day, but to be honest with you, when you really think about it, we all get the same amount of time in a day. And personally for me, my day does not start at nine and finish at five. Like my God, I wish it did. Like I'm, and this is where I'm kind of overlapping now in regards to whether it's healthy or not. I work a lot of hours, a lot of hours. So for example, I can do days where I work from seven o'clock in the morning until maybe 1 a.m., 12, 1 a.m., because it's where my brain really, you know, I'm able to have peace and quiet and no one's messaging me and I'm able to really focus. So how I manage to get so much done is sometimes I work very, very late and do very long days and into the night. Sometimes I also forget to, which is not a positive thing at all, but I sometimes forget to kind of eat, eat and drink and go to the loo. And sometimes I'll be sat for about five hours and go, oh my God, I have not eaten or drank or gone to the loo or anything like that. So if anyone else can relate to me in regards to that, then please let me know. And I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying that's a positive way to be in any way, shape or form. I'm just being real and I'm being authentic in how I managed to get so much done. It's because of the time. And I think that it's a case of if you've got your clear strategy and almost deadlines and goals and you know what it is you're trying to achieve, it gives you that focus, that drive and that ability to almost not procrastinate. That's actually a really positive to say about that question is sometimes you get a lot of people who I speak to about this and they tell me that they procrastinate so much. They're like, I procrastinate on social media. I procrastinate on, I watch TV. I procrastinate by reading, I don't know, reading whatever they read. Who knows? See for me, whenever I actually do, and I've had to train my brain to do this, so whenever I've had to do tasks in my day, because there is so much to do for me, like so much, I actually really only ever really concentrate on my to-do list on money generating tasks. So almost anything that I know is gonna generate money, I kind of prioritize and I do, because let's face it, that's what we're on this planet to do, is to kind of make money so that we can go and live the life we want to live and align our goals. It's not the money that I'm chasing, it's the lifestyle that I'm chasing and what money allows me to have which is options and choices. So I don't really sit and scroll on social media because that isn't a good way to do it, but what I do is I post on social media because it helps brand awareness, it helps bring people together, it helps to nurture each other and grow. Everything has a place and a value of why I do it. And so that really helps me. And so I try and almost keep my procrastination levels very, very low, which gives me more time to then do the activity generating things and money generating activities. So hopefully that kind of gives you an idea as to how do I do so much in a day is because I try and stay as focused as possible. So as I'm sure you can appreciate, if you try to Instagram me that question, I've just given you the most long worded answer in the entire world. So that's the answer to that question. So everybody try and best to have goal setting, maybe a to-do list, and try and keep procrastination to a minimum. Make sure that you do eat, sleep, and take breaks. Please, please do that, and I will try and be better myself. And I will let you guys on this podcast keep me accountable. Number two, oh god, this is another big one, HMOs be serviced accommodation. Okay, I'm gonna do a whole podcast on HMOs be serviced accommodation. If you look back through the podcast, you'll be able to find Julia and Sophie did a podcast about this. because Julia, of course, does service accommodation and Sophie does HMOs. Now, I actually do both. I do HMOs and service accommodation. So I think it'd actually be good to have a podcast where it's run by someone who does both because I can give you both perspectives really easily. Let me give you a 90 second reason between HMOs and SA. Okay, I'm gonna start by saying your lifestyle choices will dictate whether you decide to do a HMO or a service accommodation. That's the first thing I'm gonna say to you. And what I mean by that is, service accommodation is extremely hands-on, extremely hands-on, because you have guests, because they have checkouts, even if you've got a property manager, like even if someone is managing the property, believe me when I say this to you, service accommodation is not hands-off. There is always something going on, you know, which I'm gonna come onto in my property disaster, the, you know, shower issues, central heating issues, guests checking out, guests not understanding things, like... Even if you've got a property manager, the property manager contacting you, like SA is very, very hands-on. So if your whole version of why you're getting into property is to have hands-off investments, and you then decide to do service accommodation, that to me doesn't make sense because you're not aligning yourself with your property objectives and lifestyle goals. Now, service accommodation, of course, you can cashflow sort of more amounts, however, be aware of the seasonality aspect of it. and you of course have guests as opposed to tenants. So that's the biggest one is decide if you want tenants or if you want guests to completely different people. Now, of course with HMOs, HMOs is great because you've got a steady income. You know, with service accommodation, service accommodation income is like a roller coaster. So some months will go really well, some months won't, some months go really well, some months won't. So in terms of from your psyche and heart rate, service accommodation can be a really interesting place to be because you're like, oh my God, how am I gonna do this? I actually talk about this quite a lot on the course that I do all about breakevens and making sure that you have your breakevens. So that's the keyed service combination. As long as you have your 50% breakeven and you know where that is on the days that you need it, then you'll be fine. HMOs, you've got tenants. So personally, I find HMOs much more easier to manage. There generally doesn't seem to be that many issues for me personally with the HMOs. Of course, you'll always get like the odd problem tenant that then kind of... you know, and nobody gets on with them, then that causes a bit of difficulty. Of course, you've got a higher turnover of HMOs and typically a buy to let, because people tend to move in and out of HMOs. And obviously in winter, in terms of damp issues, you know, just the way that people live, et cetera. But HMOs tends to be a little bit more steadier. Of course, your profit margins are less traditionally than service accommodation. Traditionally, I'm not saying always, I'm saying traditionally, you might earn, let's say 500 pounds per calendar month for a HMO. Let's just say you could earn up to about a thousand pounds per calendar month for an essay. So you're doubling up. So I'm going to do a whole podcast on it because there's so much to talk to you about like literally so much to talk to you about But from h mos vs a the one question that I would refer back to you guys is Is what is your lifestyle choice if you want hands off investment? Go more down h mos if you want more hands on investment go down sa And decide whether you're interested in less money, but for less hassle or to go for more money, more hassle, would be probably the easiest way I could summarize it for you guys. But I will do a whole podcast on HMOs VSA and talk to you in depth in regards to systems and channel managers and all sorts of things and management software systems on HMOs and SA. And then number three, someone wrote down, oh, I like this one. So number three, I always get the question, how do I improve my social media presence? So, I like a social media question. So how do I improve my social media presence? So I get this one quite a lot where people will come to me and they say, hi, I've seen your social media. Could you please give me some advice as how I could get more followers? Could you give me some advice about how I could get more people engaging? So the very first thing I would actually say is if they have got this person who contacts, or if you're out there and this is you right now, and you're... Company Instagram or your personal Instagram even is not showing your face, but it is showing your logo Please go and change it now as in today. I'm giving you an action step today Because people buy from people they do not buy from companies. That's just a known fact You'll never have a person buy from a company. You'll have a person buy from a person always so for example I've of course got a logo now for Athena Dobson. I wouldn't put the logo as my photograph because then people will be like, well, who the hell's that? And I had somebody message me today and she had her company logo for her social media. And I said to her, you know, and I didn't know what her name was. Even in her bio, I couldn't see her name. I couldn't see her photograph, nothing. And I said to her, do me a favor and please change your company logo to your face. and write your name in the bio. And I'm not gonna out her, because it wouldn't be fair to her, but she went and she did that. And she had the most beautiful face, gorgeous, gorgeous girl. And I was like, why have you been hiding your beautiful face? I just couldn't understand it. And this was only today, so I don't know what the result has been, but hopefully I'll be able to find out and know if it's managed to acquire her more business as a result of it, which by the way, I have absolutely no doubt it would. but it just made her so much more approachable and personable and got to know her more. So my advice to you is if your photo is a company logo, please, please change that right now. Put your lovely face out. And number two, please do an introduction post yourself and be personable. Like, let people know a bit about you. If you've been posting about the company all this time, like just do a shout out to who you are and tell people what you like. And if you've got a dog and you know. what your passions are, like let people know, properties are people business at the end of the day, so please do that. Number two that I would say is, I see a lot of people on social media who don't have a lot of followers and who post things and they say, oh, people aren't really engaging with me, people aren't really liking and commenting, like how do I improve that? And my question to them, because I always ask questions when people ask me questions, is I say to them, well, have you been commenting on other people's posts? Have you been liking other people's posts? Have you been engaging in other people's posts? And they always say, most of the time, they'll say, oh, not so much, like I'm just kind of getting into it, like I don't know if I should be commenting. And I'm like, well, there you go. Basically, you need to engage on social media, like hence the word underlined social. You need to be open, you need to be like, on social media, you know, commenting on other people's posts, encouraging other people's posts, commenting and liking and sharing and... being involved in the property world, because then if you've got your photo, you've got your name, you've got your face, people are gonna get to know you and then they're gonna start engaging in your own posts. So that would be my next thing I would say. So I've got so many to talk about on this one, but I'm conscious of time, so I'll probably do another one all about this. So let's go for now with the basics, which is change your company logo today to your face, please. Number two is in the bio, write your name so we know who the hell you are. And number three is to like and comment on other people's posts and therefore gain your engagement up. So those are the main ones I would say, just to give you an idea for social media presence. Wonderful, so that is cultivating a positive mindset and that is the three questions. I'm then gonna go now go on to one of the juicy bits, which is property disaster. Now I haven't actually spoken about one of my own property disasters in quite a long time, but I thought I would give one to you guys for this one. So as you know, I was in Marrakesh recently. Now, The thing is, when you're on holiday, it's the law of the universe, it's the law of attraction. I could go days and weeks with no issues at the HMOs or service accommodation, like none at all. But trust me, as soon as you go on holiday, for what? A weekend? Literally three nights? Your phone is going to blow up with problems because that is just the law of the world and karma, quite frankly. So... My property disaster was the fact that we had a guest who was staying at the property, at one of the service accommodations, and she messaged us. She'd been messaging quite a few times to be fair. Some guests messaged more than others, but on this particular occasion she said, we can't get the hot water to work, the hot water doesn't work. And I was obviously reading the messages and I was thinking, oh God, why is the hot water not working? Now, the reason I'm saying this to you is... When you're gonna be doing things like service accommodation and you wanna build a lifestyle where you can travel and it's hands off and you don't wanna do it, you need to have systems in place. Systems is absolutely key to this. So what I mean by that is, I had a handful of my power team on hand in order to be able to fix this issue. So for example, contacting the plumber. who knows the access to the property, knows all of the codes and everything because we have that like and trust relationship, to say, please, can you go in here? I need you to fix this because the guest has this issue, et cetera, et cetera. And because I was able to systemize it, I was able to have it almost as like a messaging system all through, and they put through booking.com, but I was able to do it through my channel manager up listings that all the messages were in one place. And then I was able to send that over to my plumber to say, I need you to go and. and resolve this effectively. And so what I'm saying to you is that things will always come up at the worst time. They just will. It's nature and it's life. But as long as you have the right systems in place to fix it, then it's fine. And also just to say that the same plumber had been there five days earlier because the central heating system went because it's winter and, you know, to try and fix that. That then got fixed. And then this one happened and this was due with, of course, the shower mixture. And I think it was to do with the fact that there was a miscommunication with the thermostat and things like that. So it's always those where you can try and fix as many things as you want and then another thing will happen. So Plummer went in, all resolved, all fixed. And what I'm trying to say is, is as long as you've got systems and things in place, you can travel, you can do what you want to do. You can have the lifestyle that you design, but you need to ensure that you are doing it to the best of your ability as the correct property investor that you can be. and have a power team in place. So really, really important just to note that if you're gonna go down that road of service combination. So yeah, so that was my property disaster, which is just one of those things that happens, but just get the right systems in place. And then, yeah, that's basically it. So just to finally finish off this podcast, which I really hope you enjoyed. Like I said, I was supposed to be having a guest on, but so this was very, very last minute for me. However, we must pivot. we must move, we must adapt. And I promised you guys to get a podcast out for you every single Monday. And hopefully I deliver that. And even if it means doing a solo episode and having the all getting upset to myself, which was not intentional, but I'm glad that I did and showed the real and rawness of property investing as well, because not everyone does that. And I think that's a really important thing to do. So just a reminder, I've got my webinar, which is gonna be this Wednesday, 31st of January, at 7.30 p.m. It's gonna be 90 minutes where I'm gonna be teaching you all about aligning your lifestyle goals with your property objectives. That is what I want to do. It's gonna be running through HMOs, service accommodation, bi-talents, and raising finance as well. I remind you I'm gonna be speaking all about the deal analyzers that are in there, the contracts, the community that I've built and building that people will become a part of. and all the PDFs and workbooks as well as part of it. So if you'd like to join me, Wednesday 31st at 7.30, I would absolutely love to see you there. And that's the official launch course date for me, which is very, very exciting. Thank you so much for listening. Send me a message if any of that resonates with you. If you've got any questions for me, then of course you can find me at Athena Dobson underscore official on Instagram. We are Girls in Property Pod on Instagram. And on email, we are girl Also, we have a handful of tickets left to the Girls and Property Retreat. So if you haven't yet got yours, make sure that you do that. The deadline is coming up, which will be closing very, very soon, as I need to let the venue know about numbers and directory requirements. Thanks so much, guys. Take care. Have a wonderful Monday, and I will speak to you soon. All the best. Bye!