Episode #148 - Finding Your Getaway Through Hard Work: An Interview With Julie Thomas

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[00:00:11] Joshua: Welcome back to episode number 148 of Speaking from the Heart. Today, we have Julie Thomas joining us, and Julie lives in the Twin Cities of Minnesota with her husband, three year old daughter, and a fur baby. She taught seventh grade English Language Arts for 16 years and saw herself retiring from this amazing profession, but 10 years ago, she, along with her husband, invested in an AirBnB, loved it and invested in four more and never looked back. Now they have both quote unquote retired from their nine to five jobs and are working full time in that industry to expand their business, and I have to say, this is one of those episodes that, when you think about [00:01:00] it, there is a lot of hard work, but the hard work doesn't necessarily come from a passive income, just like renting out Airbnbs, but learning that you can enjoy life and reclaim your time to do other opportunities can all start with a crazy idea; an investment, if you will, of a place that maybe other people might not normally think about, but go into it, never looking back, and that's exactly what Julie's story is all about, but you have to understand that there's a little bit of being risk averse, which we talk a lot about in this episode today, and why it's really important for us to keep the eye on the prize, what it means to keep moving forward, because it isn't just about building a lifestyle that you want. It's really about building a lifestyle that you can continuously work on, because it still takes a lot of hard work, perseverance, and determination to keep on pushing that needle forward, especially in the [00:02:00] things that we try to do. I think that Julie's story today really exemplifies how you can go from a nine to five, to something that you enjoy, no regardless of what you're doing, but you also have to realize that there's still a commitment of resources, and even when you think that you learned it all, there's always going to be surprises around every corner.

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[00:02:24] Joshua: All right. We're here with Julie Thomas. Julie, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

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[00:02:32] Joshua: Absolutely. You're one of the special people in my heart that reached out to me out of the blue and said, "I listened to one of your podcast episodes. I would love to be on your show and talk about my story.", and when you shared with me what you were all about, I was excited, so I'm really excited about this interview today. Julie, I already let the audience know a little bit about you and your background, so I have to ask, you had a very cushy career as being a teacher, [00:03:00] and yet you took a risk and started your own business. Tell me how you even got into teaching first, and then what was that decision, that light bulb moment for you that made you decide that you wanted to go into doing what you do?

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[00:05:42] Joshua: I have to interrupt and say, the only reason I say that is sometimes the teacher's pensions can be pretty lucrative, and that's just where I'm coming from in Pennsylvania, so I don't know how it is where from, but I know at least in Pennsylvania, it's pretty nice, so I have to caveat as to why I said that.

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[00:07:20] Julie: I felt like I never wanted to be one of those teachers that wasn't giving a hundred percent to my students, and I knew that if there came a day where I couldn't give them a hundred percent anymore for whatever reason that was, that I was going to exit education, because it truly is one of those jobs that you have to give 100 percent of your heart and soul to, to make those connections and really be the teacher, in my opinion, that you should be, and so when I began to recognize that this side hustle that we had grown into more than a side hustle, it was starting to consume too much of my energy. My husband and I started [00:08:00] having conversations about where it is that we wanted to go, and what we needed to do, and the changes that we needed to make, and unfortunately, that meant that I made the decision to step away from teaching, which was exciting, but also heartbreaking, so last June was my last month in the classroom after 16 years, and now I'm on this journey in entrepreneurship.

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[00:08:55] Julie: Yeah. I would say I feel the risk and the doubt maybe every [00:09:00] other hour.

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[00:09:05] Julie: I would be absolutely lying if I said that I wasn't on this crazy roller coaster of emotions by the hour, sometimes by the minute. When I first left teaching in June, it was actually what got me into starting my own podcast. I had so many emotions around leaving teaching, and I'm very much a talk to process kind of person, and I needed a way now that I was by myself, in a home office, I didn't have teachers around me. I didn't have students around me. I needed the ability to process all this stuff that was coming up, so I first started a podcast, and then I kind of started shifting my efforts toward our actual business, and it does feel risky. It is hard, regardless of what the size of that paycheck is, it is really hard to step away from a [00:10:00] guaranteed retirement. It's hard to step away from a guaranteed paycheck that comes in every month. It's hard to step away from those benefits like insurance, and my husband had stepped away from his job a year prior to me, and got himself on solid ground, and we did a lot of work around budgeting, and making sure that we were financially covered for both of us to exit our professions, because we also have a little one who's in daycare. That's expensive, and so we had to make sure that financially things were sound enough for us to give this a go for a year. Now, with that said, to kind of counteract the risk, I'm keeping my license current, so really, worst case scenario, if our entire concept of what we want our business to be with coaching and consulting really doesn't take off or go the direction that we need it to, I can go back to education and it's a job that I would be honored to go back to. I wouldn't even be disappointed. Right now, [00:11:00] I'm giving a hundred percent to our business to see where it's going to go, but I also know that, worst case scenario, I still go back to a job that I loved, and that helps.

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[00:12:04] Julie: Yeah.

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[00:12:06] Julie: Yeah, and also I think too, for us, it was 10 years in the making, right? We built this side hustle starting 10 years ago. If we had started it 10 years ago, and a year into owning an Airbnb, we'd been like, "Let's quit our jobs. Let's live off of this.", that would have ended in disaster, but over time, over those 10 years, we built up to owning and managing these six properties. We knew the consistent income. We survived COVID with vacation rentals. We saw ourselves in weak and then thriving economies, and so we know how to ride it out. We know how to look at that as a source of income now, and what we can bank on and what we can't, and so to your exact point, we never would have thrown ourselves into this and quit our jobs 10 years ago, but now we had that safety and security and knowing what that business was, and yes, we're adding components where we are [00:13:00] really unsure, but yes, we have those backup plans as well, and we have a little one with a mouth to feed and bills to pay, and so we also can't afford to just say, "Well, we're just going to throw caution to the wind and see where this goes?"

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[00:14:36] Julie: Mm hmm. I mean the first thing I would say about picking an Airbnb over a hotel, there are similarities. It's a roof over your head. It's a bed. It's a bathroom. It's a place that you can stay when you're visiting a location where you don't own a home or rent a home. I would say we had an advantage in setting up our Airbnbs, because we had rented ourselves, and we had some [00:15:00] really bad experiences. There was one where the pipes in the bathroom were frozen because there was a hole in the wall behind the toilet, and so we couldn't even use the toilet upon arrival. There were ceiling tiles missing in the kitchen, and mouse droppings, so we had had some really bad experiences as renters ourselves prior to owning one, but it was honestly part of what made us want to get into it is this idea that, "Oh my goodness. These people are renting these houses, and individuals are coming out here spending their well earned dollars on the minimal amount of vacation time that they get to stay at this house that has frozen pipes, because you can't even repair a hole in the wall?", Right, and we knew that we could do it better. We knew that we could offer something different. Now, the reason that we always picked home rentals over hotels is because when we go travel with our friends and family, I want to share space with them.

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[00:16:56] Julie: Now, they do get a bad rap. There are a lot of [00:17:00] people who flooded into the industry to be hosts for quick dollars, passive income. I will be the first to tell you that it should not be a passive business. If you are viewing running your Airbnb as being passive, you're already doing something wrong, and the reason for that is homes take work. If you live in a house and you take care of your own home, you know the amount of work that comes with it: roofs, plumbing, your appliances break, all the things, and if you're treating this as a passive business, you're going to have disappointed guests because the likelihood is that you have dated furniture. You have broken appliances. You have things that are not being cared or maintained. That is not the way that we run our business, and so just like if you're searching for a hotel to stay in for a vacation, you do need to look at reviews for Airbnb, and VRBO, or whatever platform you're searching for, because those are indicators of how well a host is going to take care of [00:18:00] you when you're investing your money to stay at their property. Now, my husband and I are super hosts on Airbnb as we are on VRBO, and you earn that status through good communication, through having photos that represent what you're actually offering. That's another big thing that people always get a little weirded out by with Airbnbs is that they see one thing in the pictures, and they show up to something totally different. Again, you can't be passive and you need to be transparent. They'll book your property as is if you show them it as is, and they're okay with that, and then they'll show up and they'll review you accordingly because you provided what they thought they were booking. If you don't, that's where you start to run into problems and that's where you see a lot of people tell the horror stories of what Airbnb can lead to.

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[00:19:32] Joshua: Wow.

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[00:20:39] Joshua: Wait! You have two properties in Arizona, although you live in the Midwest?

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[00:20:44] Joshua: Wow. That has to be quite a logistical challenge.

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[00:21:49] Joshua: Well, when you're building an empire that you are, you're able to do that and have people on standby, and when you're providing that excellent level of service, obviously, they're not [00:22:00] only providing what it is as a fee. They're probably tipping you. They're coming back again, checking that place out, because they know they had a great experience. I mean, the whole hotel industry is built on that experience and you're doing quite the same. You're taking some of the rules of the playbook, but you're enhancing it, and I love that, so with all that said, I want to talk about for the next few minutes about what you started to do, which is really the coaching and consulting aspect that you've mentioned earlier, so your business, Wanderful, which is with an A-

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[00:22:31] Joshua: Field Guides is really not only about the properties that you've just spoken about, but also helping others that are interested in doing this, so I have to ask, and I always ask my guests this, because it's so fascinating to me that you want to pass this knowledge on to somebody else.

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[00:22:48] Joshua: Now, you could continue to do what you're doing, Julie, you and your husband, and be able to build more and more and more. Be a little selfish; be like, "Yeah. I got myself to feed. I want to just keep all this [00:23:00] knowledge myself." Why teach others?

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[00:23:11] Joshua: I knew that was going to be a walk in answer, but I figured there has to be a little bit more to it than just that. "Oh! Obviously, because I'm a teacher."

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[00:23:21] Joshua: Yeah.

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[00:25:37] Julie: It's one of the reasons I like your podcast is because it's all about authenticity. Ben and I also believe in being authentic, and we're not going to tell people that starting an Airbnb is easy. We're not going to tell people that being in an Airbnb business is passive. We're not going to tell you it's going to make you hundreds of thousands of [00:26:00] dollars in your first year because it won't. It won't.

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[00:26:03] Julie: It won't, and are there strategies that we used from 10 years ago to now that led us to be able to retire ourselves from our nine to fives by 40? Yes, and those are the strategies that we're going to teach, but we're not making promises. We're just showing you the spreadsheet that we use to analyze locations. We're just showing you how we created our own design boards to design our own Airbnb spaces, instead of paying $10,000 on hiring designers to come into your space like so many of the influencers are telling you that you need to do right now. We did it ourselves, so we want to teach other people who want the profit in their pocket, and not spending money on all these silly, excessive things that are out there right now in this space, and so that was really where we wanted to design a course that was different. A course that didn't promise anything, [00:27:00] but provided somebody with the strategy that if they wanted to have early retirement, if they wanted supplemental income to be able to enjoy adventures, that they could work through these strategies themselves and slowly build a business that is sustainable, right? It took us 10 years to get here.

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[00:29:06] Julie: I think one thing that they could do is figure out what financial options they have available, so there are some individuals out there that are really great at saving, and they have a pool of money where they want to know what to do with it, and they want to make sure that if they're going to invest in a particular area that they're investing right, but there are also other people out there who say, "I want that rental property. I want that Airbnb, but I don't know how to get to the money involved with having a down payment for the Airbnb." There are a lot of options out there for people. You can talk with other friends, or family members, that may be interested in pooling financial resources, right? There are companies out there where you can talk to them about what it is that you're hoping to get into, and there are people that will give you personal loans in order to be able to go in and invest if you can show that that's a great [00:30:00] strategy. There are options where you can do, it's new to the space, but co-hosting, so you could tell somebody that you want to get paid to help them co-host a property that's in your area. You start to generate a little bit of income from that, and then you eventually go out and buy your own property, so I would say the first big step is getting real with yourself about where you're at with your financials. What options do you have available and researching those first, and that is one of the things that we cover in the first few modules of our course is how to understand getting yourself to that first one, because it's always the hardest, but the first one that we invested in, although that was really hard to come up with the down payment for us, we ended up doing a home equity loan on the house that we lived in. That was how we were able to garner enough income for that first one. After that though, the first one, the income that came in off of that, because we saved it, paid for the second, and then the second paid, for the third, and then the third paid for the [00:31:00] fourth, and then the fourth paid for the fifth; the fifth paid for the sixth, and it goes from there, so it's all about figuring out where you're at realistically financially for that first one, and figuring out how you can get creative around your options. Going to that uncle that has loads of money and asking for a personal loan and coming up with terms, and repayment options, or things like that. Get creative. Get creative because after that first one, if you've invested in the right location and the right property for that location, it's going to pay to build after that.

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[00:32:01] Julie: Yes.

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[00:32:18] Julie: Yeah. Actually, surprisingly, in a lot of different facets of my life, I feel that this has brought a lot more creativity. As a teacher, I always tried to be creative with the content and the way that I was delivering materials to my students, so that's always been a part of who I have been anyways. I have to be able to channel some of that creative desire in me and put it into something that I'm doing, and now I'm seeing that come out a lot in my business with the way that we're designing this online course, so the way I'm teaching the lessons, or the way that I'm creating the PDFs that go along with my lessons, I'm seeing it in our personal life. We love traveling. That was our whole reason for starting an Airbnb [00:33:00] is we're getting really creative on how we can work remotely, and travel at the same time, and have our kid with us, and still be able to work, and so my creative juices are flowing, and we have so many more ideas of what we would like to do to scale this business, but I'm trying to keep a little bit of a lid on the pot right now and finish this course first and tell myself like, "Whoa whoa, Julie. Don't get too ahead of yourself. Finish the course." It's eight modules. I'm done with five out of eight, so I'm like, "Okay. Just get to the end of the eight modules, and then you can start to explore the ebook, then you can start to explore different programs, or offerings that you can do for consulting.", so yeah, the creative juices are all over the place over here.

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[00:34:20] Julie: Yeah, great. The best place for people to find us on social media would be at Wanderful Rentals. We have a presence on Facebook, and we have a presence on Instagram, and so you can reach out to us there. Message us. DM me and ask questions. If you want to know more that's the best place to find us and some of our content. I have already put a lot of free content out on Instagram. We have a short e-guide. We have different collections of links, like if you want to outfit your vacation rental, and that information is all accessible through Instagram. [00:35:00] Wanderfulfieldguide.com is our website, and that is where you can learn more information about the course itself. It's an eight module course. It's self paced. It's online. It takes you from, "I don't have a rental at all and I want to know how to get one.", to, "How do I secure a loan with a bank or credit union?", to, "How do I submit an offer that will hopefully be accepted on a house?", and then it goes through staging, and communicating with guests. It gives you binder templates to include in your rental. It gives you communication templates to send to your guests. It talks to you about curating property managers, and cleaning companies, and all the things, so that's our course. It's eight modules. It's taught by my husband and myself, and then separately, you can pay for consulting, so the consulting side of our business is really to help people specifically with their needs. Our hope is that somebody would use the course first to save [00:36:00] themselves money. As you know, consulting at an hourly rate costs a lot more. Going through our eight module course will help you save money on understanding a lot of those basics, and then our hope after that is that then people will spend the dollars for the consulting hours to then talk with us about their specific needs, their specific property, a specific location that they're thinking about investing. If they use our investment spreadsheet to determine if a location is right for them, it's about then sitting down and saying, "All right. Are we analyzing this location properly? Is it going to give you the results that you want?", that sort of thing, so that is what we're hoping for from our course, and Modules 1 through 4 are done. They're out there. That is the piece that you would purchase if you don't have an Airbnb at all, and then Modules 5 through 8 are still to come, and that is really, "I have an Airbnb and now what do I do with it?"

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[00:38:00] Julie: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to chat with you today.

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[00:40:31] Joshua: We don't want to feel less in a role because we want to give more in that role as a whole, so shifting is essentially what we heard in Julie's story today, of what it was required to start feeling more comfortable, to feeling more engaged, to actually changing that mindset and turning us into a completely different direction, but we have to live in a life that allows us to experience these situations. It has to [00:41:00] propel us and force us to experience that change, and sometimes that change can be the most challenging thing that we could ever experience, even if we love what we were doing. Julie even admitted, teaching is something that she always liked. It's something that gives back, but it was not giving enough of her time and resources back so that when this idea came to start having all these different rentals, that is when the whole shift, that whole perspective, started to turn. Where can we be all encompassing, in terms of us being individuals, in order to have that quote unquote, full experience, that we have in our life? Maybe Julie's story today even appeals to you. Maybe it's something that you want to start diving into and I highly encourage you, reach out to her. If it's something that's a bit more tangible, maybe it's just starting slow, reach out to me. There's enough wealth to go around in terms of all the information that we can work on to help you get to where you want [00:42:00] to be, but the other aspect of this is what Julie might not provide, or even what I might not provide, because let's face it. In order to create that change, it comes in different dimensions. It comes from different perspectives of our story, and being able to shape and mold it almost like Play Doh, into a shape or form that we really can enjoy in terms of that full experience. It's helping us as individuals come to grips, come to the realization that we can provide something and contribute to the greater whole, but it often means that we have to work on ourselves in order to create that best value in our lives.

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[00:44:01] Joshua: Not everybody is built equally, and even then If you are built equally, there are still different nuances, different paths that you took to get to where you are today, so that hard work does apply. It doesn't mean that you have to be passive about it. It doesn't mean that you think that this income, this money that will help you to survive, will always come flowing in. Julie even admitted herself. They are traveling around making sure that these properties are okay, even with the people that they enlist. You have to take care of them just as much as they will be able to take care of you, and part of that is being able to share that knowledge, share that depth that you're able to provide, and make no promises that things are going to happen at the very end. Let's be real. I don't believe in these gimmicks of saying that after 8 weeks, everything about you is going to change. If [00:45:00] we start making things time finite, then that will never allow us to be able to grow. We'll always be time indefinite on working on all those things, because it takes hard work. It takes hard work to not only change yourself, but change that mindset to even do some of the things that you never thought you could possibly do. Even if you thought that there are so many different financial options to choose from, you have to research them carefully. There are some things that even when you start to invest in, you'll start to realize that even all those aspects that they said to you that will make it so easy, so plain Jane, so easy for us to keep on moving forward into, that you still realize that when you get started, the work is so terribly hard to accomplish. Therefore, you have to not just research your options that you have, but you have to be creative at the same time. [00:46:00]

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[00:48:01] Joshua: Freedom is not defined by one common principle. It's defined by all the things that we aren't working on, and even if that means getting more time back, being able to work on yourself or work with others, it's totally your choice, but I'm telling you, there's no such thing in life as being able to get away scot free. You have to put in the hard work, but I promise you, just like Julie said, if you're able to take care of others, they'll take care of you, and that's the deepest, kindest type of respect that you could ever get, especially if you know that swindling, stealing, or any other sort of negative perception or activity against somebody else is not going to get you to where you want to be, so be a teacher, not just in the literal sense, but be a teacher in a way in which you're teaching others to shift their perspectives, learn how they can start their own skill [00:49:00] development and building towards that common goal, but also, finding that research, reviewing it carefully, and being creative, because when you're creative and you allow yourself to have that opportunity to freely think about things outside of all the things that you're told otherwise, I promise you. Not only will you get all the things that Julie has obtained, but you not only will you get all the things that I am enjoying even right now and continuously building up to, but you'll start having a different appreciation and a deeper appreciation for what you can potentially become. It doesn't happen in the passive sense. It happens in the active sense, and if you're ready to start that journey, not only is it going to be a crazy idea for you to walk away from all the things that you were once told, but you're going to enjoy something. That you never thought you would ever enjoy, and for that, I'm so happy for you [00:50:00] that you found that perspective.

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[00:50:12] Outro: Thanks for listening. For more information about our podcast and future shows, search for Speaking From The Heart to subscribe and be notified wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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