Hey there, I'm Madeleine and welcome to The Luxe and The Short of It podcast. I'm a military wife, mom, and entrepreneur that went from a stressed out nine-to-fiver to now a present-minded seven-figure business owner and investor, all through the power of short-term rentals. Here we believe the luxe life means having the time and financial freedom to be present for the moments that matter most. And I'm here to teach you the exact mindset shifts, insider expertise, and business strategy to make that a reality for you today. So are you ready to actively create the life you want? I'm Madeleine and this is The Luxe and The Short of It podcast.

[00:01:12] I don't know how many of you guys follow me on Instagram, but if you don't, you should. This is like a shameless plug for that, but I try to keep things spicy across the platform. So you're not getting a ton of redundant content. Yes, I repurposed that a little bit, but I'd say Instagram is where I show things in real time and get a behind the scenes. The podcast is definitely where you get the most in-depth stuff of what's going on. But usually it's a little bit delayed because we got to record and do all the things. Point being, if you follow me on Instagram, early in September, I decided on a whim, like literally within 24 hours, to book an international trip with my kids, without my husband, and bringing Abby, who you guys saw in an earlier episode, the AI episode. Just decided on a whim. Shared it on social media, half people thought I was crazy. The other half was like, yeah, girlfriend, you do you. Like thank you for the love and support.

[00:02:19] And I shared a brief story on what happened there because a lot of times you see the, oh, time and financial freedom. It looks like sunshine and rainbows. And I wanted to give a very clear dose of reality that it's not always as it appears, but there is absolutely a lesson in those types of scenarios. And I wanted to give you the behind the scenes of what went down with that week. Some things may be a little shocking, maybe not, but there's a lesson in creative problem solving that can be applied to a lot of different things and I think it's important that I bring it up and share it and give you guys all of the inside scoop. So I shared on Instagram that John had a trip booked, an international trip. I said Europe on Instagram. I don't know if Turkey technically counts as Europe, but that's where he was going. We've known for a while that he wanted to go back to Turkey, but we didn't have it on the books until a couple of weeks before. And the way that timing fell, it was going to be a real Labor Day. And the reason why he was going to Turkey was he was getting his second hair transplant.

[00:03:46] I think he's going to be fine with me sharing this. I didn't exactly clear this before I put it on the podcast. But he'll tell strangers on the street that he got a hair transplant in Turkey. Everybody's doing it these days. So that's where he was going. And this year, we significantly cut back our childcare. So from the time Rhett was about 10 months old-ish, we had had live-in either au pairs or nannies. And because the boys are a little older, we've scaled that back so much to where they're in preschool like alternating days. So Rhett goes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Rowan goes Tuesday, Thursday, and we have solo time. And John usually heads that up and spend some great quality time with the little dudes in the mornings during the week. And then his turkey trip ended up falling over Labor Day. So it was going to be a holiday. And as the trip got closer, I realized that I was completely striking out with childcare.

[00:04:55] Part of mine and John's situation, John does not work outside of our home. He heads up everything at the house and, again, takes care of the boys in the mornings. I'm there, but I have the flexibility to run and manage our teams. Across our portfolio of companies, we have about 25 to 30 employees. It's not a small thing, but that's my domain and John's domain is the house. When I was striking out on the childcare situation, I was like what am I going to do here? I was coming at it from every single angle, like literally every angle of can't do this, I've asked this person, just striking out. And there have been times in my entrepreneurial journey when I've had those types of situations. Whether it's trying to get a short-term rental property deal across the closing table or working in different partnerships or just other things where it's like everything that I'm trying, if I'm trying to go through the front door here, it just keeps getting slammed. And figuring out the discernment of like is this the opportunity that's not right or do I just need to go to the garage door over here?

[00:06:23] And I was having that moment the literally Saturday of Labor Day weekend of I've got a huge week the week after next. We were having a live workshop, the Elevate Workshop. So the week before that is all prep for that. I'm like we've got crap ton of stuff to do folks. And I love my children, but watching children is not hard. Doing anything else while you're watching your children is almost impossible, especially at the ages that I have four and two. So I said, I'm either going to be pulling my hair out by the end of the week. I'm going to be stressed out to the nines if I'm trying to take care of the business, take care my children, take care everything going on at our house. We have a little bit of an operation over there, too. We've got goats, horses, the whole thing. That's when I decided on Saturday morning, I said, you know what? How can I mitigate some of this? I don't want to cook. I don't want to clean. What are we going to do here?

[00:07:31] I love my children. I want to spend time with them. I don't want to compromise on that. I got stuff to do in the business. What do we do? I said an all-inclusive in Mexico sounds like they'll take care of the cooking and the cleaning. But golly, they did. I texted Abby. And I said, "How would you feel about working from Mexico starting tomorrow through Thursday?" She said, "Let me find a pet sitter." I said, "Yes ma'am, let's figure this out." So literally within 24 hours, we had flights booked, we had a resort booked and we were on a plane the next day. And it was a great week. Yes, it had its ups and downs and challenges, but we figured out how to make it work. We mitigated the variables. And that's the lesson that I want to give you guys and share just from a little bit of experience there. It's like if you feel like the front door keeps getting closed, you don't have to try and force it that way. Come around from another angle. You have a property that you're having a hard time getting funded from like a traditional Freddy Fanny situation, and they're asking you for every single document under the sun? Sometimes you just go commercial.

[00:08:49] You might have to put a little bit more down, but they're not going to do the investigation into every facet of your finances. Sometimes your partner in your business is not great. Figure out how to swap things around. A little foray into Mexico has so many lessons of like sometimes you just got to think about it a different way, the unconventional way. I'm curious. What do you guys think about that? Is there a situation in your life that it's worked out for you to come about it from a non-traditional angle? Think about it. Next time you have a situation that is a little bit challenging, I want to encourage you to ask yourself, is there a garage door that I could go through instead of the front door? The thing is, especially when you are getting your entrepreneurial wings, it is difficult to realize at the end of the day you make the rules. You're not answering to a boss other than you. Obviously, don't do anything illegal.

[00:10:07] Let me preface that. Like this is not tax advice. It's not all the legal jargon things. But truly it was like, okay, why can't I work from Mexico next week? That's going to really help me not be stressed out. It's going to be a beautiful place. The kids are going to have core memories made. I'm going to get what I need to done. I have my wing woman Abby over here, we're going to knock some stuff out and we're going to have fun doing it. Why not? Think about that for yourself, like why not? It's like people ask me all the time, why would you do it that way? I'm like, why wouldn't I do it that way? I'm at it with that attitude. Anyways, that's all I got to say today. I hope you will join us for the next episode of the Luxe and The Short of It. And until then, think about what garage door you can go into instead of the front.

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