Using your intuition in making decisions to achieve financial freedom does not mean relying on gut feel alone. Intuition comes with years and years of learned experience. AdaPia d’Errico is an investor, advisor, and author. She is also the Principal and VP of Strategy at Alpha Investing, a real estate private capital network that connects investors to highly vetted commercial real estate opportunities. In this episode, she joins Sam Wilson to share her perspective on how to achieve financial freedom. Plus, she uncovers insights from her book, Productive Intuition: Connecting to the Subtle. Stay tuned for an insightful and eye-opening discussion to help you on your journey to business and financial success.
—
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here:
Using Intuition To Achieve Financial Freedom: Investing Tips With AdaPia d’Errico
AdaPia d’Errico is an investor, advisor and author. She is a Principal and the VP of Strategy at Alpha Investing, a real estate private capital network that connects investors to highly vetted commercial real estate opportunities. She’s a respected FinTech entrepreneur who helped bring the real estate crowdfund industry into the mainstream. She has also published a book, Productive Intuition: Connecting To The Subtle. AdaPia, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Sam. It’s great to be here.
The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show. Can you tell us where did you start, where are you now and how you got there?
When I was eighteen, I started working in a bank. I’m ambitious. I knew financial freedom was one of my values. I have had an over twenty-year career of getting to what I imagined was a success and it looks totally different. It started there. I’m now a principal at a private equity firm. It’s amazing the way life takes you to your goal. That’s where I started and where I am.
Break some of that down for us. It looks differently than what you had imagined. What does that mean?
When I was eighteen, I thought that success for me in the financial industry was I was going to be on Wall Street. That’s what we had as role models. That’s what I thought success was, the city life, the briefcase and the suits. What it is now is so much control over my life because I’ve managed through a lot of ups and downs and losses to come to a place of stability financially and to not feel like that can evaporate and be taken away. I feel more in control of where I am and it’s on my terms. I’m a partner in a firm. I work from home. I’m in real estate. It doesn’t look like what I thought it was but the values that are there and the way I want it to feel, which was confident, independent and secure, those are all there.
I’m rewriting some of the parts of this show like the guest guide and things. That’s one of the questions I was rewriting, which is the question was success and what does it mean to be successful and you define that success has control over your life and then you define the parameters for what that looks like for you. That’s interesting. Those aren’t things that we probably have the maturity at eighteen to understand.
That’s the generation that we’re from. Maybe eighteen-year-olds nowadays are very different but that was the world there like, “I need to prove myself and push myself. I need to compete and make it.” It’s within these parameters that are very much imposed. What I thought was success wasn’t my version of success. It’s what I thought I should want and so that’s what I went for.
What I learned along the way and in all of these years was that my heart was always in the right place. The values that I had were of primary importance. That’s how I got around to this success because my values and my intention were always the same. I’ve managed to shape a life that’s more aligned to my values and intentions.
Was there a point in your journey in which you felt like you were honoring those values or intentions?
Many times. The big one was in 2017 when I was in the FinTech industry. I was at a second startup as a COO. I was commuting to San Francisco from LA. You don’t have the title. I had a lot of fanciness. My ego thought I had something to prove. I burnt out. I realized I was so burnt out from so many years of being in the startup space going, “Go, go, go,” and doing all these things. That burnout led to an awakening for me where I woke up and said, “What am I doing with my life? What am I going for? Why is this important?”
At that time, my intuition told me like, “This is not going to work out,” but I overwrote it. I was like, “I want this because I want the title and I want to prove myself. I want all these things and show people, look at me,” and then my whole identity just blew up. I had to figure out and go deep inside myself to find out. If you’d asked me what successes back then, I would have not been able to answer because I had lost my way. I was chasing the external so much. I had to go back inside and find that. I’ve had several good moments. That one was the big one.
That’s probably a vulnerable period. To be honest about that, that’s super important. I appreciate you sharing that. What were some of the keys or some of the things that you said, “I’m going to redefine or define what values and intentions are for me. Here’s what I’m going to honor them going forward.” How did that happen?
It happened being in the darkest place of my life. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I’ve never not been able to be at some level of success at work. I’ve always worked hard. I’ve always been ambitious. I’ve put in more time and effort. I’ve always been able even to jump in jobs and places. I’ve never not been able to make something work. That wasn’t working, even though by all accounts, I should have been able to make it work. I knew exactly what I was doing but it wasn’t working.
With my mind, I was like, “This has to work. Why isn’t it working?” I left and I thought I would do some other things that were more aligned. I wanted to be a coach for women because when that happened is when #MeToo happened. I thought, “There’s my purpose.” I’m a successful woman, an executive. I need to do more with my life. I need to help people. I thought I would be a coach. I would do speaking, do other things and completely abandon this business career that at that point was twenty years. The coaching stuff, that wasn’t working either then I got upset at the universe or God.
How we think is the last thing in line. Thinking is not knowing.
I thought if you follow your heart and your purpose then you should succeed. I’m naive. It wasn’t working. I had a massive breakdown because I wasn’t making money. I had a house under construction. I had a husband who didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I had this breakdown and I said like, “What is going on? What am I supposed to learn and understand?” I spent a lot of time on my own, asking myself and going through a lot of emotions.
At some point in that process, I did a lot of spiritual seeking. I came to understand that I love business. I had to admit that to myself because what I did when I left was I made the person that I was bad in a way. I was like, “You’re a bad person. You were in it for the wrong reasons.” I judged myself and then I convinced myself that I could never go back to business. I created my own closed door in terms of opportunities. I was like, “I can never go back.” I don’t even know why I made that decision but I did.
When I realized to myself and when I was willing to admit to myself that I loved business and I didn’t want to be a coach then I would have to tell all these people that I told I was going to be a coach, it’s the ego that didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t succeed. Once I got over myself, I was able to receive from my inner place. I call it my higher self that like, “You love business, investing, real estate and all this stuff. Your heart has always been in the right place.”
In a way, I had to forgive myself and let it be okay that I am who I am. As soon as I did that then all these things started to fall into place, including meeting my partners where I’m at now at Alpha Investing. Everything started to fall into place. It was all because I took the time to go in and do an inventory of what my values were, what I was grateful for and what I wanted.
That period of introspection in nowadays busy life is not one that is widely talked about, including me that I’ve taken that time and you go, “This is incredibly valuable.” Not just once but repeatedly. Is that part of your book, Productive Intuition: Connecting To The Subtle? I’ve not read the book. Give us a little background on that and tell us if that story ties in.
It does. The book is the book that I needed when I was going through this burnout and this awakening because I didn’t know who to talk to in my colleague business network. I thought people would think I’ve gone crazy. Not knowing who I am anymore. I would try to talk to some people and that experience was bad. The response was what I was most afraid of. I lost a lot of people in my life at that time too because they couldn’t understand and I couldn’t understand so I had a lot of shedding.
When I decided to write the book, I wrote it because after four years of deep seeking and putting myself back together, I learned a lot about not just my intuition because my intuition was something that I thought wasn’t real or that the mind is more important, which is not true at all. Our intuition is so important. I wrote a book about waking up, not just spiritual waking up but realizing that it’s important to go inside.
I wrote the book of that journey that I went on what I learned about myself and working through the introspective process and some of the things that I did to figure out in a way who I am and why I’m here. Big life questions that I was able to answer. The third one is how I want to show up in the world. That’s the nexus of the book.
I take the angle of intuition because it’s one of those things that in our rational left linear Western society is thought to be the be all end all is how we think and how we think is the last thing in line. Thinking is not knowing, it’s very different. The book is a journey for everyone to connect with that part of themselves and be able to make better decisions because they’re not going to think themselves out of what they know.
Even inside of the real estate side of things, that’s a very applicable skillset because there are so many places you can go in this business, many different angles you can take and many different ways to get involved with so many different people. Some may fit and some in your heart of hearts may be the absolute wrong move.
You get a feeling about people. The number one thing with investing is who you invest with, especially if you’re the GP, it’s also who you work with. As an LP or investor, who your sponsor is and who your partners are so very important. If you have a bad feeling about somebody, it doesn’t mean walking away. It does mean doing a little digging, asking more questions, exploring it a little bit more and experiencing people.
Here’s the thing about intuition, it’s not like some random thing that hits your mind. A lot of it is very experienced people will walk into a building and they’ve seen hundreds of these kinds of deals before. Off the cuff, they can know whether it’s good or not but that’s also their intuition because they’re drawing on all of this embedded knowledge that they have. They can have an instant sense, “This is a yes or no,” and then they can make decisions based on that with the analytics. It’s always the two things working together.
From personal experience, I’ve never overridden my intuition and had it turned out well. How many times we walked in and be like, “This is a good deal.” You’ve come in everything checked. The boxes are all ticked. Go down your typical analytic checklist and you go, “This is great on paper.” I’ve said yes before and gone disappointed.
The willingness to put in the time and the effort goes a really long way. At a certain point, you start to know your stuff and that work that you put in really pays dividends.
When we override our intuition, when it says no, wait or check on that a little bit more in the mind and the analytic is like, “I can change the assumption.” There’s what I want. You can make the numbers say anything. It’s using both. I agree. Every time I didn’t listen to my intuition when it was saying no, worst experiences of my life when I’ve not listened. I remember listening to Barbara Corcoran in a Clubhouse Room in 2021. She said all her best deals were not good on paper but her intuition said they’d be good deals.
I don’t want to put all weight in one category or the other but I would understand that to a point because there are times when you know. It’s like, “I’ll move forward with that. Hit the buy button, this make sense. I can’t define it but this is good.” I can’t think of any situation where I’ve had that, to Barbara’s point, in which it has not turned out positively. That’s interesting, using that sense we’ve been given in a practical manner. How have you defined or built the role that you’re in now to meet those values that you have?
It’s alignment with my partners and coming to an agreement and an understanding of what I want to do, what my strengths and weaknesses are. I know myself very well. I know what I’m good at and not good at. Matching that with each other. I’m not the underwriter. We have an incredible head of underwriting. That’s not what I do, that is not my strong suit. I work more on the investor and business development side. I’m good over here at the positioning, investor relations and communications.
We know that about each other. That doesn’t mean that I don’t take time to learn more about the underwriting or get into it but the amount of time it’s going to take me to underwrite something versus Anne is completely different and if we were to switch roles and Anne had talked to the investors. The way that we find it is also being open and that admitting like, “I know what I’m good at and not good at. I know what I prefer to do and not prefer to do,” and matching that out.
A lot of things need to be delegated to associates or external firms that we work with so that I’m not bogged down or anyone doing the things that they’re not best suited at doing. That makes us more efficient by outsourcing. It’s knowing yourself, being honest with yourself and others, finding alignment with people who are willing to meet you there and then everybody works as a cohesive team.
How do you feel like someone can do that? Let’s assume this person is out looking to join a firm, such as what you’re doing, that didn’t have the background you do or can’t command that, “These are the things I’m good at and not good at. How do I fit into your firm?” How does someone responsibly communicate those things on pre-joining a team basis?
I believe that still can be done on a different level. Humility is important along with believing in yourself and being willing to try. If I know I’m not good at something but it’s part of the job then I’m going to try hard. It’s going to take me a little longer to figure that part out. It’s going to be a little bit more of a struggle than doing something that comes more easily to me. If somebody is in a junior position and coming in, being honest because people will ask you, “What are your weaknesses?”
You might say something that’s false humility like, “One of my weaknesses is that I try too hard,” or something like that. No, be honest and be willing to say that you will work and do it, that you will work hard at something that you need to work on and actually do it. I still have to do a lot of things that don’t come naturally to me. It’s an important part of my growth every single day. The willingness to put in the time and the effort goes a long way. At a certain point, you start to know your stuff. That work that you put in pays dividends for you.
Let’s shift gears a little and talk about your role in investor relations. What does that look like? What are some things that you enjoy about it and some things that you find are challenging?
In the role of overseeing and managing it, everything from marketing all the way down to having conversations with investors. A lot of it is strategic, which is something I’m good at. The little details are not my strong suit at all. This I know about myself so I have systems set up to help me with things like details, calendaring and things like that. I often am known to not be able to set up my own meetings and things like Calendly. There are ways where it’s like, “I’m not good at this so I’m going to use this to help me.”
What I love about the role is I believe in what we do and we’re very good at what we do. That is easy for me to speak to because when I’m passionate about something that comes through, I’m like an evangelist. People connect with me. That’s a natural thing. I don’t even have to try to do it because I show up authentically.
If I don’t know the answer to something, I will tell you. I’m not going to tell you, “Here are all of our best deals. Here are our best returns.” I’m going to tell you, “Here are our worst deals. Here are all the risks. Here’s everything.” The connecting with people, investors, understanding what their goals are and having an honest conversation if what we do is a good fit for them, for the investor we’re looking for because we’re not an open network. That’s sometimes the hardest because I want everyone to have a passive income portfolio.
Sometimes the hardest thing is having a conversation with somebody and they’re not a good fit for us because they don’t have the investment minimums that we’re looking for or they don’t understand the risk. For their own good and for ours, we can’t work with everybody. That makes me a little sad but I know that I can direct them elsewhere. If we’re not the right group, I can direct them to multiple places. Maybe they start there and they come back to us one day. The good and the bad go together and it’s in connecting with people.
Let’s zoom out a little further and talk about the company as a whole. What are you guys investing in now? where do you see us in this state of things? Let’s talk about your company and then what you guys see the macroeconomic picture looks like.
Alpha Investing is private equity. We come in as LP, usually sole LP or majority LP. We’re writing anywhere from $5 million to $10 million checks. We invest in Class B workforce multifamily, senior housing and single-family rental portfolios. We partner with operators who have $1 billion or more of track records, bigger operators where we can come in with that seven-figure check that an individual would otherwise have to come in with a seven-figure check. That’s what we’re investing in.
The move into a single-family rental is part of the overall thesis that we have on the markets and what we’re seeing in multifamily, the opportunity we’re seeing in single-family rental, where 50% of multifamilies owned by institutions, only 1% or maybe 2% of the single-family rental is owned by institutions. They’ve been making a push into that asset class. COVID along with demographic shifts have accelerated the way that people want to live. They don’t all want to live in multifamily units, they want homes. There’s a lot of demand in the single-family space whether it’s rental or build to rent but that has also been underbuilt for decades. We don’t have the supply in multifamily or single-family. We like that for the yields and the cap rates relative to certain Class B multifamily. That’s a push we’re making.
Within the larger macroeconomic environment, when I read and follow economists, what it seems and I would also believe is my opinion is that we’re going to be in an asset inflationary period for the next several years. We haven’t seen the stimulus money hit the economy yet. It’s going to hit in the next 2 to 3 years. The concept is invest in what is scarce and invest in assets because that is what is going to be rising. It’s the most important time to be an asset investor to not rely only on wage growth or wages. For those who can start to invest in real estate even a little bit, it’s going to go a long way.
Take your time. There will always be another deal.
That’s a succinct way of putting that, be an asset investor. We talk about that a lot on this show. I like the way you’ve said that. I’ve enjoyed this. I’ve got two more questions for you and then we will jump into the Final Four. Can you define the word impact for me? What impact do you believe you have on other people?
The impact is like an indelible mark that you leave. You make an impact, it’s something that leaves a mark. I believe that we do that by showing up authentically as who we are. That’s the biggest impact that we can make on people. I’m vulnerable and open. That’s how I want to make an impact. I want to share and spread this idea that we should always be open and be ourselves because we’re more successful when we’re ourselves and when we try hard to put on this mask of who we think we should be. That makes an impact on the world because I gave you permission to be who you are and everybody does it to everyone else. We’re kinder. We want each other to succeed. That to me is a true impact.
If you can define the word goals for us, what is a goal that you’ve achieved? What did you do when you achieved it?
A goal is an outcome that you decide that you want. A goal is an outcome that you’re going to achieve. It can be very defined. My goal of financial freedom that I had when I was eighteen looks different than what I thought it was when I was eighteen but the goal is still the same. There’s an element of having a goal but being open to how you get there and to what it ultimately looks like. That’s how I would define a goal.
What did you do when you achieved it?
I’m getting a lot better at this part because usually when I achieve it, I would tend to not celebrate it and be like, “I can’t stop. What’s next?” That’s how I got burnt out. I have to be a lot better at practicing celebration. It’s celebrating and honoring that goal and what it took to get there and living from a full cup instead of like, “There’s still more.” There is, life doesn’t stop. Enjoy what you’ve got. That’s one of the practices that I’m working on.
For those of you who are reading that haven’t tried that, that’s a much harder practice than it sounds is to celebrate your wins to acknowledge them and even try to internalize that. That’s very difficult. Kudos to you for doing that. Final Four questions here for you. What is the most important lesson you learned in 2020?
The most important lesson that I’ve learned in 2020 is the work that I put into learning, technical investing and underwriting, the stuff that I’m not good at that. That was totally worth it because I understand technical fundamentals at a time where it’s more important than ever to do so. That’s been a big lesson for me, getting over my resistance to doing that thing that I was telling myself and other people I’m not good at because it’s not my strength but I’m glad that I got over it, learned it and continue to learn it and put in the effort.
Question number two, if you could help our readers avoid one mistake in real estate, what would it be? How would you avoid it?
The number one mistake is FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, “I got to get in on this deal. It looks such a good deal.” Take your time. Stop. Chill out. There will always be another deal. “It’s so exciting, I want to invest in everything and everyone because I want everyone to succeed.” That is not smart investing. If you feel a sense of urgency that you need to notice that and notice where that comes from and stop. Maybe you need more time to evaluate a deal, ask for that time if you can and be willing to say, “I can’t look at this. I don’t have the time to do my due diligence.” Walk away, there will always be another deal.
When it comes to investing in the world, what’s one thing you’re doing now to make the world a better place?
I am investing in female founders and diverse founders through a women’s venture capital group as an LP.
Last question for you. If our readers want to get in touch with you, find out about your book or Alpha Investing, what is the best way to do that?
Find me on LinkedIn, that is where I spend most of my time, to connect with me. Type in my first name. Hit me up with a DM and let me know you read about me on Sam’s show and we’ll connect there. You can find me online too but the number one way is LinkedIn.
AdaPia, thank you so much. It was a great show. I appreciate you coming in.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Alpha Investing
- LinkedIn – AdaPia d’Errico
- Productive Intuition: Connecting To The Subtle
- https://www.AdapiaDErrico.com
- https://ArkoWorld.Teachable.com/p/writing-the-self
About AdaPia d’Errico
AdaPia d’Errico is an investor, advisor, and author. She is a Principal and the VP of Strategy at Alpha Investing, a real estate private capital network that connects investors to highly-vetted commercial real estate opportunities. She is a respected fintech entrepreneur who helped bring the real estate crowdfunding industry into the mainstream.
AdaPia is sought for her expertise in entrepreneurship, leadership, innovation, and capital raising. She believes that wealth in the right hands changes the World and that taking wealth creation into your own hands changes your life! She is passionate about empowerment – from financial to spiritual. She has published a book, Productive Intuition: Connecting to the Subtle, and created a transformational course, Writing The Self, and her Goalcast video about Making The Right Decision For Yourself has been viewed 40 million times.
