In your opinion should I be rewarded for additional labor or docked for hiring things out?

OC/LA is a very competitive market but can be rewarding.  

With hard work, you could potentially pay off your student loan in one year.For current monthly expenses, make sure you are putting everything on a credit card so that you can track every expense in one place while earning rewards.

It's scary working for myself sometimes but it's rewarding.

He would rather give you 25k and reap the long term rewards from your hard work.

With risk comes potential for reward and consequence - more so potential for reward when t is calculated risk.

Is the hotel part of a big chain w/rewards program?

It's one thing to sell an asset but quite another to also own properties and truly understand the risks and rewards and share real experience with your clients.    

I love it but I don't.I have always been on the reward side of the reward/punishment argument so this makes sense to me.But...Not when it comes to my money.

This means understanding what investment really means, what investment options are open to you, how to manage money and taxation whilst balancing a risk reward ratio.