Lean Out Podcast

Investing with Savannah Arroyo

• Dawn Baker • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In this episode, Dawn Baker talks with Savannah Arroyo of Networth Nurse and InvestHealth. Savannah started her real estate investing career in 2020 after having her second daughter.  Looking for additional income streams and alternative ways to build wealth, Savannah began educating herself about real estate.  She has since purchased over $20M worth of real estate, partnering primarily with healthcare professionals to scale her portfolio.  Savannah is passionate about educating and supporting others to achieve their financial goals. 

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

Book - Think and Grow Rich 

Book - The Secret

Lean Out Podcast episode - Sabbaticals with Liz Drake

Lean Out solocast and article - What to Do When You're Lost or Stuck


Get in touch with Savannah: 

Get in touch with Dawn: 






Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right. Place. For inspiration. information. and a community. community. of like-minded. Professionals. Let's get to the show. Hello? Hello. Thanks for being here. Today, we're going to talk about money. And I have a few things to say before we get to our interview. As I was preparing this episode, I realized that it ironically fell right after another episode that had financial overtones. That was the one about sabbaticals with Liz Drake. Check the link in the show notes. If you missed it. Both Liz and Savannah are interviewee today. Like myself, crave, freedom and balance in their lives. But the way they approach money is very different. Money is an unusual thing. When you don't have it, your stress can significantly increase. But the opposite is not true. More money does not mean that you are going to have less stress. Money is merely a tool for you to do with your life, what you want. To live most in line with your values. Money does not equate to freedom or happiness or anything else. You will see in this interview today that Savannah. Has a pretty different approach and a very different work-life balance than Liz. Yet both of them have a common desire for financial independence. I also want to preface this episode by saying there are lots of different ways that you can build wealth. You need to do your own due diligence on any sort of investment that you might be interested in. So here's the bio for our guests. Savannah Arroyo is the CEO and founder of net worth nurse and her newest startup invest health. Savanna started her real estate investing career at the beginning of 2020 after having her second daughter. Looking for additional income streams and alternative ways to build wealth. Savannah began educating herself about real estate. She has since purchased over$20 million worth of real estate partnering primarily with healthcare professionals to scale her portfolio. Savannah is passionate about educating and supporting others to achieve their financial goals. Without further ado. Here is my conversation with Savannah.

SA - Dawn

Savannah Arroyo, thank you for being on the Lean Out podcast. I'd love it if you would introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your work life balance looks like.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, definitely. I'm a registered nurse. I've been a nurse 10 years now and, had always had my eyes set on becoming a CNO, a chief nursing officer of a large health care system. I love process improvement and operations and really went back to school early on and got my master's degree in nursing leadership and admin and started climbing that corporate ladder. And it really wasn't until the beginning of 2020, after having my second daughter, that my, um, uh, Priorities really started to shift. My husband and I were looking at our life and our very demanding jobs, and it didn't allow the time, freedom, and flexibility that we really wanted as we were raising our daughters. And so, um, really started looking for alternative ways to build wealth. I mean, it's. Started with Googling passive income and multiple streams of income and different ways to invest and stumbled upon real estate, but investing for obvious reasons. It's one of the best ways out there to grow wealth and started putting all the time and energy that I was using in my corporate career at my nursing job. Using it to build my own business. And within three years, both my husband and I were able to leave our full time jobs and have a lot more flexibility and time freedom in our lives.

SA - Dawn

Tell me about what your husband's background is for work and also what, the rest of your family looks like.

SA - Savannah

Yeah. So, we both went to Sacramento state university. That's where we met and he. Started working with a firm to do benefits consulting. Working with companies for benefits packaging and, um, my family's background. I mean, no one really in real estate investing. And we didn't really get any of that from anyone. Most of our families are, Working nine to five jobs, W 2s and that's, kind of the lifestyle that we were raised in.

SA - Dawn

I understand how different that can be striking out on your own as an entrepreneur because I come from a family just like that where everyone has more of a traditional role as a W 2 employee and climbing a more traditional corporate ladder, if you will. Now you have children as well? Okay.

SA - Savannah

Yeah. Yep. We have a four year old and a six year old.

SA - Dawn

Okay. And tell me about how the 2020 timeframe, the pandemic, and the events that were occurring around that helped to incite you to make this change.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, definitely. Going back to work with both my girls, uh, when they were three months old was very, very tough. I mean, I remember the night before going back to work with my second daughter and just being in my kitchen, having a full blown panic attack, just not wanting to go. I mean, it was a breastfeeding mother being physically separated from her for 10 plus hours wasn't something I was looking forward to. And I just remember the agony that I felt every morning when my alarm clock would go off and having to go to work. And that was just really the pain that I felt at that time. Forced me to start looking for alternative ways and to your point earlier I think the majority of us are raised by and I mean in a society where we are told to Go to work for someone else and be an employee and I didn't really even know there was different ways to live life. And so, that self education piece in the beginning was huge. It was reading books, listening to podcasts, listening to other people's stories. Um, I mean, similar to this, people going out and starting businesses and just taking more control over their financial future. But yeah, I went back to work at the beginning of 2020. So right as the pandemic hit, I was working in a and was overseeing an orthopedic practice and we had to shut down elective cases and it really opened my office door to hundreds of conversations with nurses, techs, doctors about their money. And really, it was so heartbreaking for me to see people that could literally save lives. But they were living paycheck to paycheck and really didn't have a lot of insights. site into their finances and wealth building. And so that's really what motivated me to launch, my personal brand net worth nurse and my, company invest health. It's a financial health benefit for healthcare professionals and to start building a real estate portfolio. And so everything that I've done with net worth nurse has really just been to educate healthcare professionals on alternative investment strategies and different ways to build wealth. Because as I started doing that, it created so much. So much more freedom in my life. So much more flexibility. You know, now I was showing up at the hospital because I wanted to, not because I necessarily had to, and definitely changed my schedule to reflect more work life balance. But yeah, that's a little bit of my, my insight at 2020, that pain really pushed me to, to get where I'm at today.

SA - Dawn

You mentioned that you started the real estate investing and the net worth nurse while you were still working clinically. Make the transition to the business solely and not doing clinical work. And what did that look like for you?

SA - Savannah

Yeah, it definitely took a few years. We started heavily investing in real estate. Coming from no background, it was a lot of education at first. we did some coaching early on and Started investing in real estate and we took a second mortgage out on our home to use it to buy investment properties And at the time this is something that no one in my family or in our circle was doing And honestly, it wasn't something that we Talked openly about because we didn't really want to hear the naysayers and kind of the doubts leaking into our decision making but it was really looking at the numbers and talking to people who were successfully investing in real estate and learning that hey you could take out a mortgage at four and a half percent and use it to buy real estate investments that are earning you 20 percent average annualized returns and so now you're getting enough money back to pay down those And all this extra money into your pocket every month. And so that was a huge mindset shift and an aha moment of learning how to do that. I mean, we liquidated some of our retirement account under the cares act in 2020 when the government was letting you do that penalty free. And for us, it was just taking the money and having it in our own hands. We wanted more control over it. Really all we knew was investing in the stock market through retirement plans. And for me, even when I first started working as a nurse at like 24, I was putting 15, 20 percent of my paychecks toward my retirement account. And this was something that everyone congratulated me on. Financial advisors would say, you know, you're making such smart financial decisions, but it felt so discouraging for me to feel like, okay, but I can't touch that money until I'm 59 and a half. And it wasn't really giving me the freedom and flexibility that I wanted in my life right now. And so it was learning all alternative ways to grow wealth. And so, um, started. Taking that money into our own hands and using it to invest in real estate, really paid off. We invest now primarily in real estate syndications, which are group investments. I partner with a lot of healthcare professionals who want to passively invest in real estate and these. Opportunities allow them to grow their money at a way better rate than the stock market, which historically does around six, 7% year over year. And our deals are doing around 15, 20. Um, we just sold our last apartment complex and it earned our investors 25% average annualized returns. And so when I started learning about these alternative investment strategies and how they could provide. My husband and I money and income that could offset what we were making from our w 2 and therefore give us a lot more freedom That's when I became super super passionate about sharing these with other health care professionals. And so, I've launched that brand at the end of 2020. So i've been working on it Uh, four years now and, my husband left his full time job about a year ago. I left a couple years ago and worked per diem, and then when he left his job, I went back into the hospital part time just because nursing is so flexible and I can hold benefits for our family, only showing up at the hospital two days a week. So, that's, yeah, kind of what our life looks like now.

SA - Dawn

So you still do do some nursing then?

SA - Savannah

Yes.

SA - Dawn

Oh, okay. That makes sense. All right. Keeping the benefits and that stability there is very helpful for just your entire family unit.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, in addition to investing in real estate, I just really saw a huge need for financial literacy resources for the healthcare community and so set out to build a startup company. Called Invest Health and that's our financial health benefit that we're integrating into healthcare companies like Invest Health. Hospitals, staffing agencies, medical schools, nursing schools, to provide this education and literacy resources to healthcare professionals. So definitely while I'm building that, it's really nice to show up at the hospital and still kind of have a pulse on the business. Every time I do show up to work, I'm hearing nurses complaining about money and their finances and, really just looking to set out and solve that problem within best health.

SA - Dawn

How do you fit all of these things into your life? What does your like weekly life look like? It sounds to me like you've got a lot of different roles.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, so mindset was probably the biggest piece early on, changing the mindset from that of an employer to that of an entrepreneur. And definitely certain books like Think and Grow Rich helped me. A lot of Law of Attraction, Manifestation type books like The Secret, The Power, Magic by Rhonda Burns. Love those ones. But it was really just getting clear on our goals. When we did. start investing in real estate. My husband and I sat down and we're looking, okay, what do we want our life to look like in three years? Like what type of flexibility do we want? Who are we working with? Where are we living? What does our day to day look like? What are we, what are our daughters doing? And the clearer we got on our goals, uh, the easier, Became to see what actions we needed to take to get there. So by looking at three years We want to be making this much income every month. Okay What do we need to be doing at two years one year six months? And then what do we need to be doing almost on a daily basis to get there? And so for the first three years it was definitely A grind. I mean, we were both working pretty much full time jobs, Monday through Friday, and we would come home from work and do dinner, bath time, bedtime with our daughters. And as soon as they were in bed, my husband and I were in our office from like 8 PM till midnight. I mean, every single night for years, we were doing this and just growing our real estate business and Yeah, but building that company and it really started to pay off around that three year mark. That's really when we started to see a lot of the fruit from our labor. And so, our life now looks a lot different than it did then. My husband and I make it a point to go on walks in the middle of the day and, Go catch a movie on a Wednesday afternoon just cause and be able to go to lunch during the week is is something that during those hard times when we were working, I mean, 16 hour work days, it was looking forward to the moments that we have now. And so although it can be kind of hard to get out of that grind mentality, especially as an entrepreneur, I mean, I love solving problems and, love working towards different goals. But it is such a. Privilege that we have to be able to just kind of soak up the goals that we were setting for ourselves even three years ago.

SA - Dawn

That is really helpful to explain the idea of having a vision that You both sat together and made and then realizing that you're going to have to put in some time doing things that you wouldn't necessarily envision yourself doing in the future in order to get the future flexibility that you want. So that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned a little bit about, the difficulties of leaning out, doing something that no one else around you was doing, changing to that entrepreneurial mindset, taking the financial plunge early on, uh, investing a lot of savings and taking out a second mortgage to, to do this, real estate investment without the money. Telling too many people because you didn't want to hear the backlash. Has that been the hardest part about doing something unique for you? Or is there anything else that's been challenging?

SA - Savannah

Definitely that mindset piece was big early on because you're fighting the imposter syndrome. I mean, for me, it was like, It's like all my training has been towards being a nurse and I want my for all I could remember, I wanted to be a CNO and so giving up that goal to pursue our own business. I mean, it was definitely a sacrifice, but I mean, as I mentioned earlier, the pain that I felt living the life that I was with that very demanding job, it just, it, it wasn't working with my goals and dreams at that point. And so, getting clear on the life you want to leave. I think a lot of us are living a life that, I mean, isn't even our own at the end of the day. It's where some people are working jobs that their parents wanted them to work or their, doing different activities because they felt like they needed to. And so that kind of self realization, self discovery and then self actualization piece that comes with the mindset was really big for me and just getting clear about like what kind of life I want to lead. And there's definitely a lot of self care that goes into that. For me. working such long hours, still being a great mom, being around for my kids. It was making sure I was taking care of myself. And so a lot of things in my life did start to shift. I stopped going to happy hours with my friends. I stopped drinking alcohol together. It was getting a better diet, making sure that I was taking care of myself physically and getting in yoga classes four days a week. It was daily meditations, um, things like that. Little habits that I've started to enforce in my life over the last few years have definitely helped on the journey for sure.

SA - Dawn

Those are great things to point out. I love that. Is there any really best part that stands out to you about your current work life balance and the journey you've been on?

SA - Savannah

Yeah, the freedom aspect of it for sure. As I mentioned, like the grind, it feels like we haven't almost had a break for the three or four years that we've been building these businesses, but definitely more recently, I would say over the last like six months or so, we recently relocated down from Los Angeles, California, where we were living for seven years up to Santa Rosa, California, and just even that transition of that busy city life up here where things move a lot slower, has definitely been helpful. But now we have the freedom to work when we want to. And although, um, we do work probably five, six days a week. Sometimes it, I mean, the last couple of weeks, there was a point where I just didn't really feel like working and just wanted to kind of relax. And I started doing some like big art projects around my house and like finding shells at the beach that I'm hanging up and putting together and just having the flexibility to kind of take a step back and, and do that was, um, Freedom that I never could have imagined before. I mean, in the life that we were living, just three to four years ago, working our full time jobs, I never would have had the privilege to be able to have lunch with my husband in the middle of the day or to take off a week of work just because I wasn't really feeling like grinding on any projects right now. And so, definitely moments where I'm constantly grateful for the work that we put in and where it's led us today.

SA - Dawn

I love that answer, and it really, to me, brings up the idea that Freedom to those who find it very important, for some of us, freedom is really a part of our core value system. Can look like so many different things, but the one aspect of it is taking things Into your own hands and like you mentioned shifting that mindset from an employee or someone that Follows along to an entrepreneur And that can look like so many different things, but it's basically a self starting type of a situation I have also a very flexible schedule, uh, like what you're describing, but I don't do the same kind of business that you do. And it just shows that there's so much room for so many different things and interests that, that we can all be doing, to get more freedom and flexibility. Is there anything that you Know now on this journey that you wish you had known when you had that laser focus to become the CNO and thought that that was going to be your entire life's work and identity.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, definitely that there just were alternatives. I mean, like I kind of mentioned that employee mindset is just so ingrained in us that we don't think there's another option. And unfortunately, many people are limited because of money. And that's really why I've become so passionate about financial wellness and financial health because none of us are ever taught that. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the systems that are set up out there, like the 401ks are meant to keep the working class and the working class. There's not a lot of education surrounding budgets and, how to invest. I mean, 73 percent of Americans don't have a financial plan. That's, that's a shocking statistic. How can you even begin to have ownership or control over your financial future if you don't even have a plan in place? And so, really becoming aware of this disconnect. for me as a nurse manager, when I would be hiring new nurses, they would be sitting in my office asking what percentage do I put towards my 401k? And it just, I kept seeing the. The gaps and the huge pain points there. And it's just, it was, yeah, so disheartening to see people who could save lives, but nurses, travel nurses who during the pandemic, we're making heavy six figures, and yet they didn't want to set up a budget because they didn't want to see where their money was going every month. That lack of financial awareness is really my biggest motivating factor of working on Invest Health, my startup company. It's really to empower and to provide the confidence to people to make money decisions and have more ownership and control over their financial future, um, to give them that encouragement that they need to go out in life.

SA - Dawn

That's really good advice. Tell me about the kind of educational resources that you offer on your website tell us the name of the website and then what types of courses or resources are on there. Thank you.

SA - Savannah

Yeah, definitely. So Net Worth Nurse is my personal brand. I have a bunch of different blogs on there just about financial education. It's networthnurse. co. And then our real estate investment company where we partner with primarily healthcare professionals to go out and passively invest in real estate deals. That is Willow Investment Group. So that's my real estate company. And you can get to that company from the Net Worth Nurse website. And then So that's the financial health benefit that we're building for healthcare companies. It's a B2B product and, that website is investhelp. com. So, um, a lot of different resources depending on, you know, what you're looking for. I've worked with healthcare professionals in so many different capacities over the last four years that really just started building products and solutions, for people's needs.

SA - Dawn

Any last bits of advice that you would give to women who are feeling stuck burned out, overwhelmed, and are feeling held back maybe by their finances? Where can they start?

SA - Savannah

Yeah, definitely you can head over to my website and I have tons of resources there, but really that mindset piece early on is so crucial. I mean, I cannot recommend the book Think and Grow Rich enough. It is written in the early 1900s, Napoleon Hill, but it just really gives you perspective over your mindset and how that is impacting your finances and your overall life.

SA - Dawn

Okay. Well, we'll make sure to link to that. I've definitely read that book myself. It's a great resource and all the resources you mentioned Savannah, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your journey with us. I really appreciate all of the work that you've been doing for healthcare professionals in so many different ways.

SA - Savannah

No, absolutely. It's my pleasure. Anyone listening, if anything I've said is remotely interesting or you'd love to chat, I love connecting with others. You can reach out to me. I'm pretty active on all social media accounts. That's really how I give people an inside look into my life as a nurse and a mom and then as an investor. So, um, I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik TOK, uh, YouTube, all those platforms under net worth nurse. And then, yeah, as I mentioned, my website. To love, love to connect.

SA - Dawn

Thank you so much for being on the show.

I hadn't thought much about the stark differences between being an entrepreneur versus an employee. Maybe it's because I'm still both. And so is Savannah actually, but you definitely can't treat both roles in the same way. Here are my takeaways from our conversation. Number one. Your mindset is very important when you're working toward any goal, whether it's getting to a part-time work schedule. Starting your own business or working to eliminate debt and build wealth. Savanna talked about how she had to take the reins by changing her mindset to that of an entrepreneur, to learn all sorts of new things while investing and starting her companies. In the book lean out. I also mentioned a different sort of mindset shift going from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. What does this look like? Well, your current situation, skillset roles, salary. They are not labels that you must live with and work under. You have the ability to change them as you wish. And when you come across difficult times, they can be seen as opportunities for growth and learning. They do not necessarily constitute failures. So that's the difference between having a fixed and a growth mindset. Number two. Be patient on your journey. I have a clear vision for what you want, but know that things may not happen perfectly in a perfect timeline. If you start a business, for example, like Savannah did, you may end up working more at first. I know this goes against the solo cast episode. I just did a few episodes back where I talked about being an anti hustle entrepreneur. You can find that link in the show notes. But sometimes a little work on the extra side is necessary upfront. My husband did that when he started his law micro-practice he was working significantly and then it started to go more on autopilot and he could focus on his particular clients and the work that he liked to do. You just need to remember your vision and your why as you go along so that you don't get caught in any sort of treadmill that you're actually trying to get away from when you're leaning out. Number three. Educate yourself using books, podcasts like this podcast stories from other friends or colleagues and information from experts like a coach or a mentor. This will increase your confidence along with giving you the information you need to overcome negative thoughts and limiting beliefs that arise when you encounter naysayers. My parting question for you today is what is the lens with which you look at your work. Some examples of lenses include employee boss, entrepreneur. A leader. Consultant. Or change agent. And is your lens. The lens that you want to be looking through. Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time