[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the Short Term Show. The show about short term rentals and long term wealth with real property owners hosting real properties who are crushing it
[00:00:16] Speaker B: in the vacation and short term rental space.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: And here's your host, Avery Carle.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Hey, all. Welcome back to another episode of the Short Term Show. Today I have a familiar face who you have probably seen on the podcast before in different, you know, different roles. First he came on as a client. Then he's been on a number of times as an investor and short term shop agent. And he retired from being an agent probably two years ago now. One year ago.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: The year and a half, yeah.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: And he has now established himself as the top vacation rental photographer in the Smoky Mountains. Today we have Mr. Tim Grillo. How's it going, Tim?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: I'm doing great. Thanks for that. That was quite the intro there.
I love it. So, no, we're doing great over here. Having a ball.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, I mean, I also didn't include, you know, former executive in the automotive industry.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we've had. We've had quite the journey.
It's wild.
Thinking back on it, I was actually thinking about it this morning coming on here that I remember our first meeting with you and I was all excited on like, this is what we want to do and we want to live in a Sprinter van and we want to do this, we want to do that and quit our jobs. And we've like done almost all. We didn't live in a sprinter van, but we lived in an Airstream for almost three years. So we just. It's been quite the journey and just very grateful for everything that's happened along the way.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: The Airstream was cool though.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, no, that was a. That was a fun part of our life. It's. That will be cherished forever. That was, you know, a phase that we went through to grow our portfolio. Really. I mean, we sold everything when we got to a certain phase and did that for a while. So a lot of fun.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Well, let's recap what's in your portfolio right now just to kind of set the stage for you as an investor.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Yeah. So we have eight short term rentals. We've got six here in the Smokies and two in Gulf Shores, Alabama. And then we have a number of long term rentals in Kentucky and Texas. I don't remember the exact count.
Under 30, probably more than 20. So something like that.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Okay, so eight short term rentals. Like 25ish. Long term rentals.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Good deal.
So you're pretty experienced investor and then you are an agent at the shop, helped other investors buy short term rentals. So what made you decide to get into the photography side of things?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: You know, that's a, that's a great question. So, you know, kind of going backwards a little bit. A lot of people have probably heard some of this, but. So we had normal W2 jobs. I had normal W2 job most of my life and always had the dream of, you know, my dream was a little different than my wife's dream, but my dream was to retire young and sit on the beach and drink cocktails and have just this passive income coming in and all this stuff.
And my dreams have since shifted and reality kind of kicked in and stuff. But honestly the dream shifted to just, just doing what we love and having a life where what we love is what we do. And so it's, you know, we don't look at this as like our jobs anymore and you know, people throw around the retired word and stuff and you know, yeah, we both quit our jobs and we do this full time now.
So kind of shifting the photography thing, as we grew our portfolios in the real estate that allowed us to have a little bit of freedom to be able to breathe a little bit. When we both quit our jobs, we were both a little panicked and we were very, very grateful for the opportunity to join your team. And that was a nice bridge and all that, but it was never really meant to be a forever thing. And as we kind of explored our next steps, we did want to, we did want to move into something that was more, I'll say just us. We just kind of wanted to have our own, our own little empire. And we explored several business opportunities, everything from water heaters to water delivery services and photography and kind of everything in between. And photography is just something, it's been a, it's been a hobby of mine since I was really, since like 7. My grandpa bought me a camera and a photography book when I was 7 years old and it just kind of stuck. So it's always kind of been a in the background thing and it just kind of fit in. We had had some, you know, not great experiences with some local photographers here and we ended up doing some of our own pictures. And then in that my wife kind of learned that she loves like the staging end of things and setting up things and really taking things and you know, making them look their best. And so that's like her skill. And it was just an opportunity. This was an opportunity for us to be able to have an income source that complemented both of our skills and something we both enjoyed. And so we do this together. You know, I'm kind of the face of things. She doesn't love being on camera, but she is a massive part of this. And she. She does, you know, an equal amount of what I do. She, when we go in these places, she does all the setups and she spends a lot of time shopping and studying trends and all that kind of stuff and just kind of keeping things fresh and whatever. And. But she does all the setup work ahead of me, and then I do the actual photography and editing and stuff. So it's just really been a opportun to jump into more of what we love. So it's just.
And, and it's, it's, you know, for us, it was something that we could do that we weren't completely tied down. So, like, we can still travel to a degree. I mean, there's. It gets pretty demanding because we're. We're extremely busy now, which we're very grateful for. But, you know, if we need to shut it off for a minute and run, you know, our families are kind of spread around the country, so if we need to shut off for a minute and run to, you know, we're going to Texas for graduation a couple days and we're able to. To do that and no problem. And so it's just been a great segue and we love it. You know, we.
We tell people all the time, you know, we work harder than we ever have. And, you know, my, my going back to my dream of sitting on the beach, I found out real quick. I get really bored really fast and I enjoy working. And I've kind of shifted to like now I don't ever want to retire. I don't ever want to stop working. I love what we do. And if I stop loving what I do, I'm going to do something else that I find that I love then. And, And I don't know, that's just been a big thing I learned through this whole process is work. Awesome. And. And you're working and serving people. I mean, we get to, you know, we consider it a gift to have the, the talents and the abilities and the mindset to be able to provide these places for people to go on vacation. And then we considered a massive gift to be able to capture other people's places and help connect them with. Yes. So that guests can enjoy what they're doing. So I mean, it's just a. It's more of a, you know, I don't Want to go too deep here, but a servant mentality of getting to, getting to serve people and getting to use our talents in a way that hopefully make the world a better place.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: So awesome. Love that.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: That was a long answer, huh?
[00:07:10] Speaker C: No, I love it. I love it. And I think that so many people when it comes to pictures, first of all, there's the, the school of thought of, oh, I'll just take my own iPhone pictures for a while and then do this later.
No, you absolutely have to get professional photography from day one. It will make a difference. And it. There really is no argument against getting professional photography.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, you know, obviously I'm a little biased because this is what we're doing now, but I would argue that this is about the highest ROI thing you can spend money on if you're in this business. I mean, there is not a single thing I think of that's going to have a higher ROI than good pictures.
You can have all the best amenities in the world and if your pictures suck, it's just not going to connect. You know, I mean, it's all, this is all about connection. And I, you know, this is a little old school, but I use the USA Today approach. You know, the front page of the newspaper was always designed to capture people and bring them in and, you know, get you to buy that newspaper. And I know that's super old school and newspapers don't really exist anymore, but it's the same thing. I mean, you gotta, you gotta stop the scroll with your pictures and get people to click on it. You gotta, you know, I hate the word clickbait, but you have to get people to click on your listing to even get, you know, whatever's inside that listing. Doesn't matter if they don't get into picture one.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: So that's true. Yeah, gotta stop them and bring him in. So let's talk about this really quick because so many people don't know what that looks like. A lot of times people will come to me and they'll say, hey, my listing isn't performing. What should I do? And I'll look at it and I'll say, these pictures aren't great. And they're like, oh, I had a professional photographer do them right. And so what should people be looking for when they're hiring a photographer and they're looking at photos? So for me, I'll tell you what I hate. I hate to see fluorescent lights on inside the houses in the pictures. But that's just my untrained eye.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: What do you and so there is a lot of argument on, lights on, lights off and fluorescent lights, whatever. For me, it's a lot about color profiling, so. And that's going to get a little deeper. But the initial.
So pictures, it is subjective and it is, there's style and there's opinion and all that. And there's, you know, a lot of buzz around lifestyle photography and what it, what Liz. Lifestyle photography. And, and some people are going as far as putting people in pictures and all kinds of, you know, I hate that.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: I hate it.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not a fan. I'll do it. You know, I don't, that's not something we do on our own. If somebody asks for it, I'll obviously do what people ask for, but it's not something I'm a huge fan of. I think it, there's a lot of things that people think because they like it, other people are gonna like it. And one thing we've learned being in this business is you cannot even imagine the variety of guests and cultures of people and, and personalities that you're going through your properties on a monthly basis and trying to hit all of them is almost impossible. So we try and stick, you know, I will be honest, some of your old advice that we've stuck to is cute, clean and comfortable and, and we, we follow through with that on the photography. So we do do staging and I hate even calling it staging. We're not going in and putting furniture, artwork in people's places.
We, my wife does a great job of. We, we, we spent a lot of time in the cabins and, or in the properties and we go in and we're in them for a minute and we kind of look and see what the host has and we try and use most of their stuff. Like we'll, you know, do little setups and stuff in their kitchen. And we don't just like take a picture of, okay, here's your silverware or your, your measuring cup. She'll do like a little setup with a cookbook and some of their utensils and stuff like that. So it sets a scene and it is lifestyle. That is lifestyle photography. But it's not people necessarily. But then we do a combination of, you know, I think in the short term world having some close ups and detail and artsy fartsy stuff is, is great and important. You know, I think that stuff is, is drawing, but also, you know, you want to tell a story of what the property is. And that's, that's one thing I look at a lot is you Know, do the pictures tell a story? And if, if there's a million questions after looking at the pictures, I didn't do my job, you know, so I pay attention to things like can you tell that there's an attached bathroom when I'm taking a picture of this bedroom? And things like that.
You talked about lighting. Light profiles kill me. You know, different color light bulbs are rough and for photography and I spent a lot of time in editing cleaning that up. And you know, all these cabins up here tend to drop a lot of orange. And we spent a lot of time deoranging things and making it more appealing to the eye.
So people that have good artwork and sometimes accent walls help tremendously with that.
So it's a combination of the photography and the design of the property itself. So but for what people to look for? You know, can you see out the windows? Can you see that there's a view? Does it tell a story?
Does that photography portray a story of what the property is? And if the answer is no, then you know, that's not. That's not great. So.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: This program has been brought to you by the Short Term Shop.
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[00:13:19] Speaker C: Awesome. Yeah, I love that. Tell the and back to the having the people in it thing. I know a lot of people have like recommended that over the years and I as a guest, when I'm scrolling through, I don't need for there to be people in the picture for me to envision my family hanging out. Like, I don't need to see people in the hot tub to know we can hang out in the hot tub. A lot of times it distracts me because I'm like, who is this dork and why did they choose this person to be in here?
It's just, I think it takes away from.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:47] Speaker C: Property.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: I think that can. I agree.
You know, again, each different People have different opinions and they're entitled to that. And so I'm not a huge fan of it for the same reason, but I'm also not a. You know, I say the same thing about alcohol inside something about food, you know, I mean, you know, a lot of people want to have wine in their pictures. And I get it, you know, it's a mood and all that. But there's a lot of people now especially. I mean, there's a lot of trends right now where people aren't drinking and so. And people may have kids, people may have somebody that's come on a trip that has had a problem with alcohol. You know, there's a million things in that that just because it's good for you doesn't mean it's good for everybody. And I'm picking on alcohol I shouldn't be, or people or whatever. There's a million things that are like that. You know, it's. It goes back to keeping a certain amount of neutral, you know, so I'm not going to say we don't put any food in our pictures, but we keep it pretty light. You know, we'll put, you know, if there's a theater or something, we'll do a little bit of popcorn and stuff like that. We tend to, you know, we'll do some donuts by the coffee maker and stuff like that.
We don't get too carried away with it unless people ask. You know, we have had. We have had people that really want it, and we'll show up and they'll have a refrigerator of food ready for us to use, and we'll lean into that. If that's what they want, that's what we do.
But it's not something that's like our standard practice. So.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I totally. I. I don't like there being food and stuff in the pictures either, because then if it's not there when they show up, they're like, oh, I thought there was going to be a fruit basket for us when we got here.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. And. And I'll be honest, we've had, you know, when we paid for professional pictures around, there was food in them, and we never had anybody ask, but I don't know. Another thing that, you know, that we kind of lean into is like we are hosts and we are owners and owner operators, and we've got quite a few bit of experience now. You know, we've hosted thousands of people at this point, and we've kind of played around with pictures and what works and what doesn't. What actually moves the needle. And, and we use our own places as kind of a test bed for things, you know, with pictures. We'll try some stuff with ours before we do stuff on other people's. And, And I don't know, we've just never seen the needle move from having that stuff versus not having it. I mean, good, clean pictures that tell a story.
Show off. Show off what's marketable about the property. You know, different properties have different moods and different, you know, a property that's set deep in the woods with no view can still be spectacular. You show it off for what it is, and some people love that. And you want to connect those people to that property. And so we, we lean into. If it's got a massive view, we lean into that. If it's got great amenities, we lean into those. You know, just. It just kind of depends on the property. It's not a one size fits all answer. There's not just a, oh, this is exactly what works and what you need to do. It's like, what does your property have to offer that I can show off? And that's what we lean into.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that. It really is more about showcasing the property so that the right people stop scrolling and look at it.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with that. And your pictures, I have not, like, you progressed so quickly from good pictures to like, oh my gosh, these are amazing pictures that every time I see pictures like, it goes back and forth on our slack channel all the time. When, when people, when our agents have clients that have used you, I'm like, oh, my gosh, Tim is so good at this.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Well, thank you. And I, you know, I'll lean into that a little bit. I. I feel like, you know, we. Again, from doing this for so long, I understand how important the top five pictures are, and I do put a lot of time into them and my wife does too. We put a lot of time into this. And I really treat people's pictures like not every single, like, not every picture of a bathroom or every picture of bedroom needs to be a masterpiece. They need to be good, they need to be clean. The lighting needs to be right, the colors need to be right. All that, all the fundamentals need to be there. They need to not be cluttered with a bunch of garbage and stuff and, you know, level and straight lines and all that stuff. That's important. But the showcases is like, I can tell what the showstoppers are going to be and I spend time on them. And like, when I say time, I mean Some of these Pictures I spend 20 minutes a picture on and, and it's just, but not all of them. You know, I try and hit the ones that matter and ones that are going to, you know, our website, our website is scrollstopper photography.com and that's, that's, you know, we want to stop the scroll. So,
[00:17:59] Speaker C: so what advice do you have for new investors who, you know, maybe, maybe not necessarily in the smokey. So we're not biased, but if they're looking for a photographer, what should they be looking for? Are there any green flags, any red flags?
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. So there's, to me, there's a big difference between a real estate photographer and a short term rental photographer.
Real estate, traditional real estate photographers tend to lean towards selling a house on the MLS or you know, as they're trying to help the owner sell the house.
Whereas a short term rental, you are trying to make people envision them going on a vacation in the house and they're two different things.
So when you're looking at people's portfolios, I mean, that's a great question to ask.
Do you specialize in real estate or do you specialize in short term rentals? How many short term rentals do you shoot a year? You know, things like that. Similar things you would ask an agent. You know, like a, an agent that's selling primary homes is drastically different than an agent selling short term rentals. And, and a photographer that has experience in short term rentals knows what matters and they know, they know how to create an experience and create the vibe for people that want to go on vacation there. And it's, you're telling a different story.
So that's, that's just some kind of basic questions and you can kind of tell, you know, when you're looking at their photos, does this look like something you see on Zillow or does this look on like something like, oh my gosh, you know, it's Disney World and I want to go on vacation there. So, so that's some of the big stuff for me.
It can again, you can look and see. Is it overdone? You know, do they, Is it overdone? Does it look fake? Does it look, you know, if it looks fake and artificial, you can go too far with this stuff. And you know, I spent a lot of time on spectacular skies and sunsets and stuff like that and, but it's real, you know, it's not, it's not a bunch of just a fake garbage, you know, so.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And is There any way to tell if something looks like that? Because the last thing you want to do is post pictures on Airbnb that are, have been so edited that they're much nicer than what the guest is going to walk into and be negatively surprised.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Sure.
You know, that's, that's always a fine line. You know, I, I look at it as my job to make this property look absolutely as good as it can. And to me, it's the other, the other half of that is, is the owner's responsibility to make this property absolutely as nice as it can. You know, so, like, if your property is dumpy and you know it, fix it. You know, I think that's part of it. You know, we do, you know, some properties are nicer than others that we shoot. We still put a lot of effort in. Sometimes it is harder to shoot properties that aren't as nice because we, you know, it's harder to make them look as good as possible, you know, looking at the pictures and telling if they're better. The only way you can really do that is if it's your own property to some degree. You know, if it's your property and you're like, man, this is way nicer than what the property is, my advice is make your property nicer.
I know that's easy. Easier said than done. Said than done sometimes. But I mean, that's our responsibility as owners is to make these places great places people go. So, you know, as far as like what to look for and stuff. If you're looking at somebody's pictures, it's tough for an untrained eye. You know, I can look at a picture and tell if it's a fake twilight almost instantly. Like, you know, sometimes some. There are photographers that take daytime pictures and put artificial skies in. And artificial skies sometimes are a needed thing because the weather is not always cooperating. So you have to do what you have to do sometimes. But there's a difference between, to me, putting an artificial sky in and it can be a real situation versus it's something that was shot during the daytime and they just put a gross looking sky in and the windows look completely fake and all that kind of stuff. So you can just ask, I mean, you can ask the photographer, do you do your twilights at twilight or do you shoot them during the day and, and edit it? You know, that's good ask. You know, and you know, I mean, that's, that's, that's part of this gig. I mean, again, we spent a lot, we're most Properties were there for a minimum of five but often eight plus hours.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: Oh wow.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: So I mean we, we tend like we'll shoot one this afternoon. We'll get there around one or two and we're done with the main part of the shoot, usually around six or so. But this changes through the year because like right now, sunsets at like 8:34.
I watch that daily. What time? Sunset. But I'll be at the property until like tonight. I'll be there till 9, 9:30. Because I shoot all the way up until dark. I really try and get several stages when I do twilights. I do several phases. Like I do it like right during the golden hour, which the windows aren't typically all glowed up the way people like to see them, but you do get the nice golden hour effect on things. And then I shoot as it's getting darker. Then I actually, if I can, I like to lean into stars and stuff. I like to go all the way till it gets dark and try and get some stars and stuff if I can.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: Love that.
I love stars in a twilight.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's, it's. I love it. And, but again, you got to put in the, you got to be there for that, you know, and, and those pictures are tough, you know, because you're taking multiple really long exposure pictures and it's a lot of blending and stuff and editing to get those to pop the way they do. So.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Cool. Well, Tim, this has been really interesting. I don't think we've had, we might have had like one photographer on before. Yeah, I don't know if we did, but yeah, not. It was years ago if we did. So thank you for coming on.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. No, it's, it's always a pleasure to, to hang out with you and chat and catch up. So.
[00:23:31] Speaker C: Yeah, you guys should definitely check out the previous episodes that Tim's done with us because his first one he was still an executive at an automotive company and then he's been on a bunch of our market specific podcasts for the Smokies as an agent investor and then now he's on as a photographer. So we've kind of captured Tim's full short term rental business life cycle.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: It's kind of funny because I'll be, you know, I do a lot of, I don't know if I want to call them consultation calls, but I do a lot of calls with clients that are looking photography and often I'll get people, I feel like I recognize your voice and stuff and then I'll tell them, well, I'VE been on some podcasts before and they're like, oh my gosh, that's you. And they, they kind of freak out a little bit in a good way, you know, and, but it's pretty wild to, you know, I mean that feels like a lifetime ago almost. And it's, it just people still remember it so. But no, we're having a ball over here and we, we love this and so awesome.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: Well, Tim, before we get to the last three questions of the show that you've already answered a minimum of twice before, is there anything else about photography and maybe short term rental photos versus just regular real estate photos that you feel like our listeners should hear about?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Again, I say ask lots of questions. Don't cheap out on it, you know, I mean good photographers are worth the money. And again, I'm gonna sound biased here like because I'm, you know, I'm doing this. But if it's, if it's 300 bucks, you're probably not going to get what you're looking for. And you know, and I'm not going to say what it should be or anything because there are, you know, even at the higher end stuff people have pretty drastic different prices. But ask lots of questions, ask if they've done if this is some, you know, this isn't. Again, this is not a place to save money. If you spend 1500 to $3000 on pictures, you're going to make that back like quickly and you have to live with these pictures for a while.
I generally tell people every two to five years at a minimum, you should be looking at getting new pictures. And seasonal pictures are a big deal. You get those.
That's something most of these photographers, including myself, I go and do tons of people. Fall pictures and Christmas pictures are huge. I do those all the time in the fall and winter.
And then, you know, any short term rental photographer should offer twilights and it's probably going to cost extra and do it.
You need, your top five pictures need to be as stunning as possible and they shouldn't. All your top five shouldn't always be in my opinion like just the outside of house. So don't like do your whole top five is five exterior twilights. You know my twilights include hot tub area, anything that any kind of outdoor amenity I'm, I'm including. So if there's a fire pit, I'm doing that at twilight. If there's a hot tub, I'm doing that. If there's an outdoor pool, anything that's outside, I'm Going to be. Including and prep work. I, I'd kind of like touch on that a little bit. Any. If you have any kind of these areas, lighting helps tremendously. Like especially twilights, any kind of outside, I call them twinkle lights, but just your, you know, your string lights, whatever, anything you can do ahead of time to get that stuff installed and put up. And you know, neon lights are cool around hot tub. Just different things. That stuff's going to stand out a million times more in twilight and make your stuff look that much better.
So talk to your photographer about prep work.
You know, as far as, like if you want to, the more prep work you can do to work with the photographer ahead of times, it's. It'd be shocking to you how many like people they. We set the dining room tables and stuff and we take pictures of the dining room table set to kind of show off what's there.
A lot of people don't even know but like they don't have enough glasses or they don't have, you know, if they seat 12 people, they might only have six forks. And that's not a deal killer for me. Like I can work around all that stuff. But it's just a good time to check in on your guest experience. You know, you're, you know, if you've only got six forks and there's, you're sleeping that many people, it's just something to keep up on. So.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah. All right.
Okay, Tim, last three questions of the show. What advice would you give 20 year old Tim and Patty if they knew then what they know now?
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Don't listen to the world.
You know, that's something that evolves as I get through this. Is like I spent a lot of my younger years scared and like feeling like I need to have a job to make money. And I ignored a lot of passions because I was trying to go down a path to make money. And you know, they always say do what you love and the money will follow. And the older I get, the more I just find that rings to be true. I mean even this, when I was looking at starting this, it was like, man, is this even gonna be worth. Like, is it even got to pay for our equipment? Because I, you know, I spent a lot of money on equipment and stuff and, and you know, Patty kind of pushed me. She's like, just do it. Who cares? She's like, it'll. If the money comes, great. If it doesn't and it has like exploded. I was hoping to do four shoots a month and we do four a week. Now. And so it's just, just don't listen to the world and do what you want to do and work hard at it. Don't, don't, just don't be afraid. And I was, I was scared for a long time of how am I going to make a living and how this, how that. Even as I was a successful executive, I just, you know, I listened to the world too much. So anyway, I'm rambling, but work your butt off and, and do what you want to do and, and whatever you enjoy, put a lot of time and effort into it. Just crank.
[00:28:47] Speaker C: All right, number two, what advice would you give a new short term rental investor who's looking to get started today?
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Kind of similar. I'll say, don't, don't get sucked into too much noise.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Really.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: I think that's a, you know, thinking about like the end in mind. But be careful what the end is. Like what do you want to do with your life? Like investing, especially real estate investing. It gets to be a lifestyle.
So be real with yourself and like, what do you want out of this? And for us, like what we wanted out of this, we, like a lot of people say, oh my gosh, you guys are living the dream. Yeah, we are, we're living our dream. You know, our dream was exactly what we're doing. And, and so you have to ask yourself, what's your dream and what do you want out of, what do you want out of the investment? I think that drives what you should invest in. I mean, there's, there's investments out there for all different kinds of lifestyles. And don't chase the one that is the, oh, this is the get rich quick thing. Chase what matches what you want out of your life. And our, our investments have turned into massive fulfillments in our life, you know, and people often also say invest in yourself. And I completely believe in that. You know, if you can't figure out what you want to invest in, you probably need to invest in yourself and figure out, you know, some of what your wants are.
I've also learned don't, don't put your long term goals too long term, like what you want. If, you know, I was really focused on what I wanted, you know, When I was 30, I was focused on what I thought I was going to want when I was 55 and I was driving everything. Oh, when I'm 55, I want to be this, I want to be retired, sitting on a beach, period.
And, and I wasted a lot of time because of that. You know, focus on what do you want in five years? You know, what do you want? And then, and then when you get there, what you want after that is probably going to be different than what it would have been or what you would have, you know, you don't know what you want at 55. What do you want right now? What do you, you know, and, and again, our situation, your s, we started this a little later. My kids are, are grown. You know, if you're, if you're a young parent with two little kids or whatever, your, your, your wants and stuff are going to be different than, than what somebody that's in their 40s or 50s might be. So just, just pay attention to all that. Be real with yourself.
[00:30:56] Speaker C: Also very good advice. And for the third time, you have to choose a different book.
What's your favorite book that's impacted your mindset recently?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Right now we're going through a book that's, and I'm going to butcher the name of it a little bit, but it's, it's, I think it's called Ask Better Questions.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: And it's a, it's literally a book and it's kind of a, it's, you know, a little bit of a self helpy type thing, but it's, it's a relational thing and it's, how can you listen better and ask better questions in, in your life? And that can drive conversations a lot differently and stuff and just the way you see things.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: Okay, thank you so much for coming on, Tim. If our listeners want to find you, follow you, hire you to do their photos, how can they find you?
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Tim Grillo.com is the website or ScrollstopperPhotography.com It'll both get you the same website or if you look up Tim Grillio Photography on either Facebook or Instagram there. So call me.
[00:31:56] Speaker C: Yeah. And we'll have those links in the show notes guys too, so you can find them.
All right, Tim, thank you so much for coming on yet again.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
