The #1 Thing Holding You Back in Your STR Journey

One of the more dicey pieces of advices here is an understanding that if you're feeling yourself stuck or capped, understand that your paradigm is also reflected in the people that you have around you and in your environment. Your environment is perfectly happy with how you are because they are a reflection of your thoughts and your current reality. Just become obsessed with your craft. Become obsessed with the repetitions and yeah, I just love it, man. And just like I find myself not feeling like I work a lot because all of my life is composed now of labors of love. And so I deeply love everything that I do.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard on the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect, you're better but direct. Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

Welcome to the Boostly podcast. This is a podcast for hosts who want to get more direct bookings. We give you the tactics, the tools, the training and most of all the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. We do a series on this podcast where we bring in special guests and we look at either their business, their short term rental business or something which they've mastered within their skill set that they can help you with as a host. And one of the big things which is a mind block for many people is this getting past certain challenges. So often it's within our mindset and that is what we are looking at today. And this podcast is going to help you do so. So to help us do that, we've got special guest, we've got Manuel. He is from STR Secrets. He is, he's a podcast host himself. He's got amazing short term rental business. He is a big influencer within the STR space as well. So let me welcome along Emmanuel. Thanks for joining me.

Oh, my pleasure. It's always so good to have people to speak with your accent, do any kind of introduction. I already feel more, more high level than I probably am. It's just a cheeky accent. Just makes it, makes it that much better. Pleasure being on, man. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you being here, man. So for the people who haven't heard of your business and yourself before, can you give yourself like the elevator pitch and what you'd like them to get out of this podcast?

Yeah, I love that. So I started in short term rentals in 2010. I graduated college. I had a degree in accounting and finance. I Wanted to be a wolf in Wall Street. And at the time, if you guys remember, 2010 Wall street wasn't quite open for business. And so I came back from Geneva, Switzerland, to South Florida, where my mom was living at the time, and kind of with my tail between my legs. And I began working as a maintenance guy in an apartment complex that did vacation rentals. This was before, you know, like the early stages of Airbnb, but as you all know, vacation rentals have been around since the beginning of time. And I started there and I, I loved it. I loved the hospitality aspect of it. I love people. I realized that all my people pleasing personalities worked great in hospitality. And that became kind of like the dream of, like, I'm going to own this entire apartment complex. 12 years later, I bought the last apartment, all 40 units of it. In the meanwhile, I did all kinds of things right. Like, I was very shiny object syndrome. So I've done wholesaling, flipping, syndication, so you name it in the real estate space, if the sun shined on it, I have done it. And along the way, I partnered with my good friend Mike Sher, and we launched SDR Secrets, the podcast I coach between SDR Secrets, the community, and for me, that is really just the labor of love, of just seeing people create a life that they want.

With vacation rental, how do you get the mindset of, hey, I've got to stick at this, and I've got to focus at this one thing without chasing the shiny penny all the time and getting too distracted so you don't achieve what you need to do?

Yeah.

So.

I think to best answer that question, it's a matter of understanding just human nature. And what I have come to learn about myself and about other people is that we, we have come to understand that wanting things makes us ambitious. The reality of things is that one thing makes you human. Your brain goes from 1 to 1, from 1 to 1, from 1to 1 all day long. And if you're listening to this, by the time you woke up and you walked into the street to get into your car, your brain probably ask you for 20, 30 things by that time, I want to go use the bathroom. I want some water. I want to eat that. I don't want to eat this. I want to do that. I don't want that. So the idea is this, right? Your brain gets an idea. If your brain likes the idea, the idea becomes a want. If your brain really, really wants it, it becomes a goal. Once a goal gets in your mind, if you really want it, so you Make a second decision. Right. So the first decision is, I want that. That makes it a goal. Then the second decision is, oh, I really want that. That becomes a desire. The moment that becomes a desire, your desire is going to be the only thing that's going to go to battle with your paradigm. What is the paradigm? It's just your current set of beliefs and habits that you have. So a strong enough desire will go to battle with your paradigm and say, hey, we might have access to a different kind of life. Once a desire becomes a burning obsession, then it's going to change your decision making and it's going to change your results. Once that happens, then life changes. So your question was, how do we go from just wanting things to actually achieving things? Well, the first part is understanding what it is that you want. And you'll be surprised how many coaching calls I do with people that make. So what do you want? Crickets or it's just the later latest thing. So what's somebody's natural response? Well, I want more units. Okay. Why? Well, more money. Okay. Why? So it's in really understanding that game. So obviously the main step in all of this is awareness. Until you're aware of what your paradigm is, what the story is that you tell yourself about who you are and what you can do, we're not going anywhere. So awareness is the, is the beginning of all change. So once we are aware of how we are, what we do and how we do things, we can change it.

You've had a lot of experience when it comes down to short term rentals. What is one of the biggest mindset shifts that you've had from the early days of starting STR to your mindset now? And what would you tell yourself back then?

One, it is not as, not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Two, by getting distracted, I just extended the time. Three is really owning that perspective of I'm providing a service, I'm not asking people for anything. And I see that a lot with people that grow their hosting business is the idea of like, how do I do this? And understand this. As long as you come from a perspective of service and you understand that you don't get paid by people, you get paid through people and through the services that you provide for people. That would remove all of the fear that I had when it comes to growing my business. Number four is in really understanding the power in being in the right rooms where I can share my feelings, my thoughts and what I'm going through. Also from the perspective, Liam, that For me, what I've understood is that which I'm most embarrassed to share or that which I most don't want to share is that which you and I most have in common. Because we really are one consciousness experiencing itself through different integrations of life and understanding that anytime I choose not to pursue a goal, I'm giving up a life that is in, within that goal. And so in really understanding what is the life that I want and what is the goal that matches that life and how can I just go after it? Because it's really like you're not helping anybody by playing small 100.

And it's easy to fall into that kind of like self doubt and those kind of things. We go, oh, well, it might be an opportunity, but it's too much of a risk. And what would you say to those people who have got self doubt or have got imposter syndrome? Because I see this all the time, that people's businesses get stuck at different levels and often it's not the, you know, the actual operations isn't that bad. You know, perhaps a little bit more marketing and stuff like that. But actually there's kind of a mindset of this is as big as it needs to be or comfort or imposter syndrome, hey, I shouldn't have this business. You know, like things like that. What would you say to these people?

So if your thought is this is as big as it needs to be, it's going to be so. So really you understanding that you are your thoughts create your life. Number two, what I realized, the more people I hang out with in this industry, and I'm blessed with some friends that execute a very, very high level, nobody's special, right? If you can see somebody else have something means that they're not more extraordinary than you are, it just means that they've accepted extraordinary ideas that you haven't accepted yet.

Period.

Right? Nobody's special. And if you watch sports, that is the best analogy that you have in life in general. Because anytime somebody breaks a record, what happens right after that?

Somebody else pushes and breaks it, don't they?

So what does that mean? We just need to find the, find the fox, they find a rabbit to chase and then the moment that happens, we got it. And so one of the more dicey pieces of advices here is an understanding that if you're feeling yourself stuck or capped, understand that your paradigm is also reflected in the people that you have around you and your environment. Your environment is perfectly happy with how you are because they are a reflection of your thoughts and your current reality.

What is a motto or a mantra that sticks with you across your journey? And that just feels like a nice way to bring it to a close.

So just really fall in love with the process. Just become obsessed with your craft. Become obsessed with the repetitions and. Yeah, just love it, man. Just like I find myself not feeling like I work a lot because all of my life is composed now of labors of love. And so I deeply love everything that I do. I love the podcast. I love the coaching. I love doing this with you. I love speaking on stage. I love coaching people and supporting people. I love growing my business. I love my investments. And it's not work because I'm like, I'm just having such a good time, but it's because my life is filled with labors of love, which I am deep, deeply passionate about. Like, everything I do, I just obsessed with it.

And it shows, buddy. It really does show. And. And I. I feel. I feel inspired from this. And I know there's lots of people who are going to gonna check STR Secrets out if you're listening to this on the audio when safe to do so. So if you're not driving, you can check out the show notes and there'll be a link in there. And of course, if you're watching this on YouTube, it'll be somewhere around where I'm speaking at the moment. But, Emmanuel, thank you so much for your time on the Boostly podcast. Hear from you again in the future and have you back as a returning guest.

I would love that.

Thanks again. Bye for now.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.