In this episode of the InvestHER podcast, host Liz Faircloth explains why women real‑estate investors often need to move beyond the network that helped them start. She outlines three clear signals that indicate a network no longer supports a next‑level growth: (1) Awareness – noticing that conversations in your current circles no longer align with your strategic goals; (2) Alignment – evaluating whether the people, groups, and mentors you spend time with reflect the higher‑level objectives you now have for portfolio health, systems, capital, and leadership; and (3) Access – ensuring you have entry to rooms that expose you to new perspectives, purpose‑driven work, and opportunities you haven’t yet considered. Liz shares personal anecdotes (a mismatched conversation at a local networking group, a moment of feeling “off” despite apparent success) to illustrate each signal. She then provides concrete action steps: audit your current rooms, identify five key influences and test their relevance, and pinpoint one new community that can stretch you. The episode also promotes the Strive Mentorship Program—a structured framework for women who have already built a portfolio and want intentional, peer‑supported growth—and mentions the production sponsor Social Chameleon. Listeners are encouraged to apply the insights, join Strive, and share the episode.
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What if your next level in real estate doesn't require another strategy? What if it requires a different room? Because at a certain point, the questions change. It's no longer just, how do I buy my next property? It becomes, how do I grow without everything depending on me? And here's the truth. The network that helped you get started may not be the network that helps you grow to the next level. Not because anything's wrong with them or wrong with you, but but because you have changed, your portfolio has changed, your responsibilities have changed, and the conversations you need to have changed. So today we're talking about why your next level in real estate may require a new network. Let's get into it. Let me say this as bluntly as I can. If you're the one that's always giving the advice, you are the one always giving the contact to help someone. If you are the unofficial real estate therapist in every group text, it might be time to ask yourself something really, really important. Who is helping you grow? Really, who is helping you grow? So today I wanna walk through 3 signals that your current network may no longer match the growth that you are looking to achieve in your real estate business. And these 3 areas are awareness, alignment, and access. And I'll be asking you questions throughout so it helps you determine your next steps so you can grow into the right network to get you where you want to go. The first shift is awareness. This is when you start to realize that the conversations around you don't match where you're going. That doesn't mean anything is wrong with the room or wrong with the people. It just means that something is a little bit off and you need a room and a network that helps you grow versus kind of keeping you where you are. I remember joining a local real estate networking group and really leading the group, being very involved in the group for many, many, many years. And I remember one specific moment at a meeting distinctly. I remember what the person was wearing. I remember the guy's face. And in that moment, it made me realize, have I outgrown this group? And it wasn't until this conversation. So anyway, we started talking. I started talking to this guy. I don't remember his name. We'll call him Joe for the story. So Joe and I started chit-chatting and I was sharing a little bit about a situation that I was going through in my own business, in my own situation. And we were, we had just hired someone to help us with property management. And I remember it being really challenged because the person was not following directions and it's costing me a lot of time. We were paying them quite a bit. I was just feeling really frustrated with this team member and I was going on and on and sharing like my whole situation with this guy. And I just remember kind of being done with what I was saying. And then he just was staring at me. And the next thing he said to me, he said, "How many doors do you have?" And I was almost like, am I in the Twilight Zone? I don't even remember. Like, how does this guy not know what I was just talking about? And then all he asked me is how many doors do I own? I thought that was very odd. It was like two completely converse, two completely different conversations. He wasn't wrong for asking that, but it was just odd. And I really felt in that moment, have I outgrown this network? And the answer was yes. That was an awareness moment. So here's what I want you to really consider and think about for yourself. Look at the network. Look at your own network. Look at your— the groups, the rooms that you are surrounding yourself with and the people you're surrounding yourself with. And here's the question I want you to answer. Are these conversations helping you grow? Or are they keeping you where you are? That's a question for you to answer. Okay. So once you've gotten more awareness, which is always critical in all areas of our lives, especially if our network has out— we've outgrown our network. The second shift is all about alignment. So this is not about judging people. I'm not a judgmental person and there's no right or wrong. But I want you to think about this in a very honest way. That the people that you are surrounding yourself with, are they aligned with where you're going next? And it's tough, right? Because these folks that you've surrounded yourself with, networks, groups, they're kind people. They helped you. They're encouraging. There's a lot of positive traits to groups and networks that have gotten us where we are. But I heard a coach once say to me and Andresa, What got you here isn't going to get you where you wanna go. And so that's really critical. You're no longer thinking about the next property or the next deal. You're thinking more strategically, right? You're thinking more about like your portfolio health. What systems do you have in place? What team do you have in place? What partnerships do you have in place? What's working? What's not working? How is, how is capital working for you? Do you need to raise capital? Do you need to create more creative ways to finance your deals? What's happening with your time? Meaning where are you spending it and how can you spend it more efficiently and effectively? How are you as a leader? These are the strategic questions versus just where's your next market or next property or investment. And you need peers and mentors that will hold you accountable to growing in those strategic areas. And that's all about the conversations and the people that you're surrounding yourself with, the questions you're asking, the knowledge that they're sharing, their experiences that they're sharing. And it's so important to be around those peers, those mentors that have achieved what you're looking to achieve, not that are behind you, but that are in front of you as well. That's really, really critical. So here's what I want you to do for this particular alignment conversation. I want you to think about 5 people, groups, rooms, you most are influenced by right now, whether it's virtual rooms or in-person rooms, I want you to ask yourself this really important question. Do they reflect where I'm going or where I've already been? And that answer will help you get realigned because that, that's certainly the goal and that's the, the point here. You've heard us say it before, real estate is a relationship business. And one of the most powerful ways to build those relationships is through meaningful conversations. That's one of the reasons we love podcasting. It's allowed us to connect with incredible women, build deeper relationships, and open doors to opportunities we never expected. But to keep the show running consistently at a high level, we don't do it alone. We have an amazing team behind us at Social Chameleon who handles all the behind the scenes work, the production, the content, and distribution so we can stay focused on serving you. And growing our business. So if you've ever thought about starting your own podcast or taking it to the next level, they can help you do the same. With Social Chameleon, you press record and they handle the rest. Check them out at socialchameleon.us. That's socialchameleon.us. The third shift is access. Access is about choosing the right rooms that give you the perspective on the strategy, on the growth, on your next level, a new possibility that you haven't considered. That's access. And sometimes we have our blinders on. As driven women, we have our blinders on. We are like deep, deep inside our portfolio, our business, and we are like all about getting things done. And it's almost like business as usual. And we may tell ourselves, This is a busy season. This is just what growth feels like, or I just need to keep pushing through. I don't know how many times have you said that. I would be a millionaire for every time in the past that I've said those things. But I needed to learn this, and I'm encouraging everyone listening needs to learn this, that we need to move through that and really get clear on, am I, do I have access to the rooms that are stretching me? So that I stop putting my blinders on and I can see other possibilities. That's really important. For me personally, I'll share a quick story. And this is about, about a decade ago or so. On paper, everything looked great for me. We had built a portfolio. We had just, I just had a little baby, healthy baby boy. We had created financial freedom. I left my job. And on paper, everything was like, oh my gosh, Liz has everything she wanted, everything I had asked for. And inside, something felt off. You know, when you have that feeling that you're like, something is off here. I don't know what it is, but something is off. And not because I wasn't grateful. I was really grateful. We had worked so hard in our business and our portfolio to grow and grow our portfolio and do what we were doing. But something was, you know, the deeper conversations, there was something off for me. And it wasn't about ambition or alignment, but it was about meaning and purpose. I loved real estate and I still do, but something was missing for me around the work, 'cause I really wanna be part of purposeful work that was making a difference for people in, in a, in a really, really special way. I don't know how else to say that. That was one of the sparks that was behind launching InvestHer with Andresa. We realized that women just didn't need more information. They needed access to a different room, a room that was going to create a, a safe place for women to talk honestly about money, about wealth, about real estate investing, about everything that you can think of when it comes to building wealth on your own terms and w— without any sort of strings attached, if you will. And that was really important to us. But that's, that's what access means, right? Access gives you that perspective. It creates this ability to look at things differently than you have been. And sometimes we're just too close. We're too close to the deal. We're too close to the person. We're just too close. And being in the right room, having access to the right room, the right network, takes your blinders off and you're able to see, okay, I haven't seen this before, see different possibilities, see different options. So here's the action step I'd love for you to take. I want you to identify one room, one community or relationship that could help you think at a level that you're trying to grow into. I'll say that again. So identify a room, a community that can help you think and act at the level you're trying to grow into. That's going to stretch you. Okay? So those are, those are the 3 shifts I wanna encourage you to make here today. And that's really why we created Strive. Strive is our mentorship program, and it's a strategic framework that helps women real estate investors build wealth with more clarity, with more structure, and more support. It is designed for when women real estate investors who are, who've already built a real estate portfolio, but they're ready to grow with more intention and not just by themselves, but with peers and mentors to do, to, to really grow along with in their business. So if you're ready to stop growing alone and to really uplevel your network, I invite you to apply to join us in, you know, in our Strive Mentorship Program. We'll put the link in the show notes, But with that, thank you for listening. I hope you take something, an action step from this episode, whether it is awareness, whether it's alignment, or whether it's access. Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for listening. I hope you found today's conversation valuable, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and share this with the women in your life that needs to hear it. I'll see you next week.
