Alecia St. Germain | How to Make Confident Decisions Without Overthinking

Every real estate investor wants to make the right decisions and avoid the wrong ones, but the reality is there are no perfect decisions. The key is understanding the framework you're using to make them. This episode is about the decision-making process, how you think about money and debt, how you evaluate what something is truly worth, and how your environment directly influences your growth. We're joined by Alicia St. Germain, who has trained and coached over 10,000 thousand investors. If you've been second-guessing your next move or waiting for more clarity before taking action, this conversation will help you so you can make more intentional decisions and move forward with confidence.

Welcome to the Real Estate InvestHer Podcast, a top 1% show helping women achieve financial freedom by investing in real estate.

And now, your hosts, Liz Faircloth and Andresa Guidelli, Alicia, welcome to our podcast one more time. I'm so happy to have you here. We have had so many conversations behind the scenes between the three of us lately. We were talking about decision-making and we were like, we should record a podcast about all those concepts that are so related to each other. So I'm very happy that you create the possibility to a last-minute podcast with us to talk about this subject.

So happy.

So thank you for that.

Yes, it was an easy decision to make.

All right, so you talked about a story between you and your husband, the late 2000s, when you both were not on the same page when it came down to decision-making in regards to your investments. And then you said, I missed that window. And that impacted a lot in our lives, but I'm not missing this window. So I really want to go back to dissect what happened, cuz many women might be facing similar situations right now in regards to their decisions. So take us back, let us know what happened and the impact of the decisions that you guys made.

Yeah, so the late 2000s, right? The time when the bubble popped, the adjustable rate mortgages started to adjust and people were losing their jobs and a lot of people were panicking. But it was also a really great time to be investing. And I see those economic downturns as really great opportunities for investors. And that's how I was always raised. But my husband was raised with that mentality of go to school, get a good job, work for a living, be the provider. And so a lot of investing looked very risky to him. And admittedly, he's not very handy. So the thought of having to deal with repairs on a home or looking at these properties that we find that are great wholesale deals was so scary for him, and it felt like such a risk. And I want to say that we did a lot of things right at that time, but I primarily focused on earned income strategies inside of real estate because that was what his comfort level was. And I did not have the leadership level. I mean, I'm 28 years old. This is like between the time of being 28 and 34. So much opportunity in the market, but I didn't have the leadership skills to come alongside of my husband to show him what he needed to see to get comfortable with investing and like a lot of investors, I understood how to do individual deals, but I was never educated in how to run a business. So when cash was flush, it was easy, and when it wasn't, it was, it was panicky. And getting to the point where understanding how to look at the financials in your business And being able to now see how I can use budget to drive a plan that I have in place. I have a very different leadership level where I could show my husband the numbers. I could show him why all those deals together, strung together would make financial sense. But I didn't have that at the time. So in a very realistic way, like the capacity was limited on what the wealth that we could create because of that business acumen and my leadership.

I wanna dive into what the business acumen looks like. What do you have now that you're not gonna miss this, you know, where, where we are in the economic downturn and make opportunities out of nothing now? What is in your business acumen now than you had when you were 28?

Yeah, so, well, for one is looking at my financials regularly, understanding inflows and outflows of money and what individual deals make Like, what do individual deals strung together mean for running a business, for being able to pay salary, for being able to hire employees? And not saying, I can't do that because my business can't afford it, but really planning for what needs to happen so that your business can afford it, so that you can grow in a way that is sustainable. Because a lot of times our answer to business, when we're financially crunched, is to take it all on ourselves. And that's borrowing from our bodies and that's borrowing from our wellness, and that's not sustainable either. So I would say a lot of it is in the financial side, in my comfort with money and debt and my relationship with debt. It is focusing outward and really looking at what are trends. I listen to a lot of really smarter people than myself. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I follow a lot of people who have a lot of different perspectives in the market, and I don't take any one thing as the way. I also trust myself, which is something I didn't have then. Like, my confidence level wasn't there. So I can look at something and go, "Okay, I think this is true," and I can cherry-pick that piece out, and then if I marry that over here with what someone else said, I can see very clearly now, like, what someone's agenda is, so to say. And when I can see that agenda, I can take the information, verify it, lots of vetting, and not just trusting everything at face value, but also putting a lot of trust in my ability to interpret things.

I love that. It's very practical, right? And the vetting, a lot of people say that you make money when You buy the property, right? Totally agree with a vetting process. A lot of people are also losing a lot, buying right by losing a lot because they are not managing the cash flow properly. You said something very profound, then I'm like, whoa, what's going on? You said that this could be the last time for our generation that we will have it opportunity to build real wealth. So tell me, what are you seeing in the market right now?

So history gives us a lot of clues, right? And so we're in— anybody who would not deny that we're in volatile times. And in my experience and in historical experience, it is when we are the most unstable that the cream rises to the top, the people who are really savvy, who are into problem solving. This is when we're going to be able to see opportunity where other people are afraid. And I think there's some statistics out, out there, 70% of the wealth in the United States is owned by people over the age of 55. And I think half of that, 50% of the wealth in the United States is per— in people who are in the baby boomer generation. So that wealth has to transfer somewhere. And some of what I'm looking at is Part of what happened in 2008 is the Gen X population who were entering the market to buy their first homes were so much smaller than the baby boomers. So we had like a perfect storm of oversupply. The generation behind us, the millennials, they're as big as the baby boomers. So I think that's part of why we're seeing things not go exactly as they have in the past when we have a market cycle is because we do have a housing shortage. But what I'm looking at is, okay, a lot of the baby boomers having all of that wealth, that goes into healthcare. And so the question that I'm asking myself is, how do we preserve, like, just within my family, how do we make sure that we're preserve— preserving the wealth of parents to actually come to the younger generations so that it's not eaten up into corporations that are taking care of like nursing and medical bills and things like that. Like, how do we actually preserve that wealth? And that's not necessarily the same strategy I think that everybody's looking at, but there was a time when we used to take care of our parents, and parents came and lived in the home, and we were more of a stronger family unit amongst generations, and we don't have as much of that happening now. So that really was a big internal shift as my parents are aging and my husband's parents are aging are, you know, how do we be a better family unit to take care of? Because I think that's one of the things that preserves generational wealth is that connection between family. And there's a lot of baggage that sometimes comes to family and that's where like our personal work comes into play. So looking at like what happens as this generation ages out and the younger, the millennial generation, the generation right behind us, because I think you're all, you're both Gen Xers too, aren't you? You?

Millennial?

I am. Oh, I'm the elder here. I'm the elder.

Okay, but Andresa, you're like an elder millennial, right? Like right there.

You really are right there. I couldn't be called a millennial too.

It is like you are like literally 80% right there.

But what's happening is there's like school loans that are so— like the price of— I'm so grateful I went to college when I did because just 10 years behind me, school loans and the kind of debt that the younger generation had to take on to do the American dream of going to college has shifted so much. So the housing prices have not come down. And even though interest rates, we got a little used to the 2 to 3%, at 6% it's moderate. But compared to what housing prices are like, it's very out of alignment. So I'm looking at what part do I play in all of that?

So there's a lot of, obviously a lot of research that's come out with the great wealth transfer, right? $100 trillion coming into the hands, obviously the baby boomers shifting wealth to us and millennials. There's two points though that are made, and I wanna just circle back on what you said about preserving wealth and then the conversations you're having with, with parents. There's two inheritances, right? There's a spouse that potentially passing away, why women are inheriting a lot of wealth. They're making their own money. There's another inheritance is their parents, right? Aging parents passing on the wealth to them directly, not just a spouse that's passing away. And there is a huge point of contention of having conversations and having the dialogue now before that happens. And there's a lot coming up that I've seen in different articles saying, okay, how do you approach those conversations, the children of the baby boomers, right? In terms of preserving that wealth and their, and not just their direction, but what's important to them and how do they really maximize the next shift that's gonna happen in wealth. So Alicia, what are the types of decisions that you're making alongside, right, your parents, your husband's parents to preserve wealth?

So, yeah, and this can be touchy inside of families, right?

Absolutely.

And that's why I'm curious. Yeah, so, so we've got kind of two schools of thought, right? I was raised by entrepreneurs on my, my side. So that conversation is very easy to have. And those decisions are, you know, making sure that, things are in order, that all of our paperwork is in place, that they're— we're consulting with people who are experts and smarter than us, but also those that are not necessarily just conventional, but really looking at how do we do things like avoid probate and how do we make sure that when there's a transfer that we're not taxed in the same way that someone who was unprepared maybe ends up paying a much painful tax. You know, you think about fam— there are some states where you work your whole life, you pay taxes on the money, and then when your family gets the money, they get to pay tax on it again too. So being really smart about those types of things. And so those conversations are very easy there. On the flip side, you know, my husband's family have a more traditional, conventional sort of approach, and you're also dealing with personalities that want to, they want to do the very best. I think the most important thing is to realize that you're on the same side. Like, fam— hopefully, I hope, like, families are on the same side. And so it's not about who's right and what's the right way. It's about how do we get to the same outcome and empower versus, I think sometimes with older generations, as I grow older, and it's like you do feel a little bit out of control of what is happening to your body, to what is happening in life. And so maintaining a sense of respect and control is super important, and being autonomous. So just being very thoughtful in the way that we do that. And so there are some things that we can't control, and there are things that a parent is going to make a decision that we don't agree with. And that also gets to be okay. And really thinking about, okay, given what they're choosing to do, what will we choose to do? So there are things you can control and there are things you can't. And we make the best decisions we can with what's involved.

Yeah, I think the bottom line is to make a decision to talk about it, right?

Now.

Versus, oh, we'll talk about it when the time is right. The time was right yesterday, right? The next time right is today. You mentioned about people's relationship with money and how that impacts how people see the world, how they spend the money, how they invest the money, how they see the relationship between cost and value. And I think nowadays it is more challenging to find a deal that works and not versus, oh, we're gonna pray that all the numbers work and then we can get a deal, a profit at the end. We talked about different ways that we can set ourselves up for success versus, oh, I'm using the same strategies to find deals, fund deals. My decision making when evaluating a deal hasn't changed. And then I'm getting frustrated with the market, with how things are. So in one of our Million Voxers, you were saying that people, you would encourage people to really take a step back and go back to the old ways of finding deals through relationships and putting themselves in spaces where they can build relationships with different people and really understand that forcing a decision, it's, it's just not the, the right way. You are, you are making a decision based on your anxiety or pressure to buy versus making a decision based on your goals and in alignment. So I wanna touch a little bit more into that, the money relationship. What have you seen? There that people that are listening can say, do I have a money toxic— do I have a toxic relationship with money?

Or, or how— that's deep.

How would I know that? And I— or what would you say?

I wouldn't per se— the relationship with money is the thing that's toxic. The money is the amplifier. Throw money on anything and it's gonna make it more of what something already is. If you're super generous, throw some money on it, you are going to be more generous. If you have anxiety about not having enough, throw money on it and you're going to be fearful of losing it all at any moment. So it is only amplifying whatever your fears or whatever is already there. So, you know, that, that would be my one thing I'd say about money specifically is it's a tool. It amplifies things. In itself, the relationship is not the toxicity.

So for, let's say I'm listening, right? I'm listening. Okay. Okay. It's a tool. I agree to that, but I am a freaking, I lost everything or never had it in order to lose it. So I'm afraid that if I have it, if I quote unquote grow more than a few doors, if I scale my portfolio, If I build a team, oh my gosh, how am I gonna pay them? And all the above. I wanna connect the relationship that with money, the tool, with people getting stuck in growing their portfolio and ultimately achieving financial freedom through real estate as a tool itself. Is that like an internal sabotage going on?

100%. I mean, and it's different for a lot of people, but you for a lot of the women that follow this podcast and are connected to you, there are a lot of high-functioning women. It's all on me. I handle everything. I carry the mental load. If it doesn't get done by someone else, I will do it myself. And the idea of putting more on your plate is going to— it's like you're going to break. And I'm gonna, I'm not capable of doing more. I don't have, this is what I hear all the time, I don't have the capacity for more. And what's really happening is there's some fundamental beliefs that you may or may not be aware of that it is unsafe or that you may be growing a team that you're not going to find the right individuals, that no one can do it as well as you. And so it's taking those steps to, because if you see it around you, there are other people who are growing huge real estate portfolios, who are creating freedom lifestyles, who have what you want. If they can do it, you can do it. You are not that different. The difference is how they manage their team, how they treat other people. You know, they afraid of looking good or making a bad decision. You know, this whole overthinking, "Before I can move, I've gotta get it right," when a lot of times the information is not gonna present itself until you take the next step. So trying to look really good, get it all together behind the scenes before you just like emerge with it all together, that's not a real thing.

When we think about decision-making in that context, right? And then there's decisions that have to be made to move forward. Or to not move forward, right? To either stay in the sense of a little bit of fear or a little bit apprehension, or to take advantage of what people are seeing or opportunities right now and right, you know, today's market. What are the initial decisions that you need to make, that women need to make to say, okay, let me make this, 'cause we always talk about micro decisions, right? I can decide to become financially free, like huge decision. More importantly, that's not what we're talking about, right? What's my next decision to make So that—

Do people, let me ask you a question. Do you guys think that people really decide to be financially free, or is that they like the idea?

They dream of it. I think you have both.

I think you have both.

Decide, who wouldn't decide that though, right? I think that people like the idea of being a real estate investor. They like the idea of being financially free. They like the idea of having a lifestyle that they dream of. They like the idea, but that is a different, to me, is a different decision that needs to make. I am deciding to become financially free, therefore I'm gonna put effort into it. What I see is a lot of people liking the idea but actually not committing to it at all.

Well, not to get too deep, but we'll go there 'cause we're, that's where we are right now. I think there's people within our community, right, that not just like the idea but believe the idea is possible. Then you have people in society that may like the idea but don't see it as possible for them, right? So you, and then you kind of, and Alicia, you're, you're the mindset coach, but like then there's like those two lanes of like, I, I believe this and I see it possible. I'm not, I haven't made the decision on really how to do it. Or you have people who in all of our circles that aren't in our circle of real estate investing, entrepreneurship, honestly, I don't think they see it as a, as a even a possibility. Right, so maybe you're dealing with different— I, I don't, I don't know, Alicia, that's, that's your, yours to answer here.

But no, for sure, depends on what you're exposed to and it depends on what you heard growing up. Like, I can see people not choosing to be— you, somebody, you said like, why would someone not choose that? Because if you believe that people who have a lot of money are selfish or, um, evil, evil, or do bad things, like, then you, you greedy. You would—

greedy.

You wouldn't want that. So you don't want to be like that. So you, you like the idea of having the money, but to be that person is so counter to who you are as a person that having a lot of money would feel inauthentic based on what you know. And you'll find evidence of that if that's what you focus on. But if I decide, you know what, I am going to actually look at all the people that I admire that I think are doing really great things in the world that are making a difference, and I'm gonna focus on what that journey looks like, then that's gonna open up a lot of different possibilities. So it's really wherever you will find evidence of whatever you decide. We're talking about decision. So if I decide I'm going to work towards financial freedom, I'm gonna do it in an authentic way. I'm gonna do it with integrity. I'm gonna, you know, speak my truth and do my very best to do no harm along the way, then when I make that decision, that's the evidence that I'm going to go find.

Ooh, let, let me ask you a question. Let's say I didn't grow up in the best financial possibilities. My parents didn't teach me anything. So the belief is not there, right? And I don't know how to shift from not believing to believing it. Let's put it out there. I don't know how to do that, but I am coming across now different ideas about investing in real estate, becoming financially free. Nobody in my generation bought a house or went to school. I'm painting the picture of that person. Do you think that, okay, I'm gonna make the decision first, will the belief come after? Because then you are saying that once I make a decision, I'm going to start finding evidence about that, and those evidence are gonna help me to start believing in more and more. Is that the path?

I think it's gonna be a lot easier path. I don't, here's the thing, the brain will filter. We get so much information in a day, the brain filters it out. It's like when you decide to buy a certain kind of car, you buy that car. And then all of a sudden you see that car everywhere, but you never saw it before you made that decision. So I hear you in like, if you don't know something exists, how can you put yourself towards that? So there are maybe like, I, look, I, you know that I also believe in a bit of the spiritual side. So if, if you have things that are like little nuggets that are put in your place and you're like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's an interesting nugget. And you start to follow that thread. I think that it can grow slowly over time, but you can also have those nuggets and ignore them.

Hmm. So it's the awareness piece.

So you didn't, but, and here's, I'd reflect that question back to you, Andresa, like you didn't have the easiest of upbringing, but you still made it here.

Yeah.

And it, my experience of you is you're relentless.

Yeah.

When you want something. So you do make a decision. Relentless. Wow.

I've never heard Andresa called that.

I am. But looking back, it was not that, oh, I made the decision to come to the United States to go for my master's degree, and I have all lined up to pay the $75,000 tuition. It didn't happen like that. I made one step and then the other kind of like when you're driving and it's cloudy. So the more that you drive, uh, then you can see the road ahead. But if I don't drive, I won't see what is ahead of me whatsoever. And I think for the women that we are serving inside the Real Estate Investor, they are really relentless. They are driven, they are hyperfunction as well. And they are in a stage right now that quote unquote, building a team seems out of capacity because they believe that they need to manage a team versus leading a team. And that's gonna take a lot of time. Or partnering up with other people doesn't feel safe because they don't believe that other people will carry shit when things don't go right like they would. So they're carrying everything themselves. And to me, it's sad because I want them to see that there are other women like them out there. And there are possibilities that we can together really leverage the experience that we had. So other women don't need to make the same mistakes that I did, that, that you did. That's why this podcast exists, so we can start showing to people that didn't see it through their parents, their generation, but they start seeing that there are possibilities out there so they can take one step. We're not asking people to, okay, present your financial freedom plan right away. We are asking them, be curious about it, start talking about it, take one step further, get connected with other women, attend our webinars, attend our conferences, start seeing more. And I think that that's how momentum starts.

Starts.

And that's when the decision about money comes in, right? Because sometimes I remember, I remember not that long time ago, less than 10 years ago, I was attending a conference here in Philadelphia and the ticket price was $200. I do remember looking at that and think, $200? That's insane. Insane to me at that time. My relationship with money, it was more of a cost versus what is the value that I'm going to get by being in that room. I wanna touch base a little bit about that with you, Alicia, because we are seeing a lot of free webinars, $47 events, and no shame to people's strategy. But you said something one time that your mentor said to you about people being the product. I don't remember what.

Not, not my mentor. So the, it, it came into my awareness from the movie The Social Dilemma, which totally, totally freaky movie if you've never watched it, or documentary. But this is a concept that's been around since the 1970s when television became so captivating and it's, If you're not paying for it, you are the product. And so the idea is the viewership, the attendance, the captive audience. When you are coming for free, you are there as the captive audience that is gonna have an offer made of some sort or in some way. Like when you think about social media and that, the advertisers, that's where social media is making their money is from advertisers and by having a captive audience that stays on. So when we talk about even conferences and, and look, everything has a place and a value. I think what I really want people to hear and understand is that why are you choosing to spend time on whatever it is you're choosing to spend time on? If you are going to a free or low-cost event with the intention to find the right mentor for you, and there's going to be, you know, a lot of speakers on stage. That is a great way to sample, to find like that right mentor for you because you're just getting started. A lot of the free things are geared towards people who are new. So I do sometimes hear, even when I go to some of the lower-cost events, people will complain, oh, everybody here is new. And it's like, well, yeah, what? Or all of this was basic knowledge. And it's like, well, that's because it's who it's geared for, you know? Like, don't be upset. Like, go with, with that intention, maybe to find the other people like you that are more savvy, but know that you're searching for a needle in a haystack. If you're paying more for an event, a lot of times there's a lot less sales pitches. They have to pay for the event in some way. So if it's a lot higher quality content, more curated, a lot more like InvestorCon, you feed us really well, you pay attention to like more making sure there's networking opportunities and there's high educational content that is new information, cutting edge, whatever is right for what's happening currently in the market. You know, that's a more curated event. And so one of the things that like blew my mind was one of the very first InvestorCons. I think it was Kim Kiyosaki asked, or somebody asked how many people in the room had a net worth more than $1 million.

Yeah, it was Kim.

And like half the room raised their hands and I was like, wow, this is so different than the kinds of events I had been to in the past because You know, they were those low-cost events designed to sell you stuff, right?

Last year we asked people, it was 1.95, 1.95 billion in assets in the room.

In the room. What I would love is instead of people complaining about the event that they came to, is that they start seeing that there are events, there are education, there are things you go to that truly have a connection networking type thing, and those are going to cost, those are gonna be a bigger investment than something that is free. And if you're there, then know that it's a marketing tactic versus an event, and you have to be savvy enough to see the difference between those things.

So Alicia, we're so excited to have you back at InvestorCon, of course, and you're gonna be teaching the Now Advantage. Which is a framework, right, that transforms hesitation into bold decisions, which is what we've been talking about today. Why is it so critical in today's market?

So here's the thing about, number one, we have such a great opportunity that's coming up. I'm not looking at all of the uncertainty in the market and saying that things are bad. I'm saying I'm gonna find a way through, and we always land on our feet. You have to believe that. But acting now and being in the present moment and working towards this life that you want and being intentional in everything that you do, it's not just important about what's currently happening in the market. It is— this time that we are on Earth is a blip, and the time that we have with the people that we love, is a blip, and if you're spending time with indecision, it is taking up mental load and taking you away from truly the things that matter most in the world: the precious connections that you have, the experiences, the way that you get to live and experience all that this planet has to offer is what this is all about, and if it is spent in worry and concern and stress, That is not a life well lived. So I don't think it's just important for the current market and to be able to take advantage of it. And I'm so passionate about that because I don't regret my husband and my decisions through 2008. It was what we created with the capacity we had, and we did a ton of things right, and we get to reap the benefit of that now. And all of that happened before I had kids. And if more women know what I know now before they had kids, it would make, have made my child-rearing days so much easier. I think same thing for you, Liz. You and I have very similar aged kids. It would've made the journey easier. And so I am very passionate about handing back this wisdom as a mother and a businesswoman. To younger generations and making life a little bit easier.

I love that. And that's exactly what you can expect from every single speaker at InvestHerCon. You're not gonna get anything you can Google it. You're going to get extremely high interactive sessions where we have women who walk the walk. They're going to be sharing practical frameworks that you can apply, and you're gonna start doing the work inside the session, not taking notes and leaving without a clear plan. And that is our commitment to you, that you leave with a clear decision about what your next step is. And most important, we are committed that you leave with a support system you can rely on beyond the event. So if you're looking for a curated group of driven women real estate investors, I will see you in Scottsdale, Arizona, June 14th to 16th. I'll link the link over here on the show notes. I'll see you there. Alicia, always a pleasure speaking with you.

It's always a pleasure.

I always want our conversations to be recorded because we go in different places and we start connecting and our experiences, our points of view. The beautiful thing that has happened many times is that we bring different points of view that might or might not be in alignment, but I learned from you that different points of view are true and valid and can coexist.

So everything is great.

Always a pleasure to have you. And I am blessed to have you in my life. So thanks so much.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, same, Alicia. Can't wait to see you in June.

It's going to be fun. Thank you for listening. I hope you found today's conversation valuable. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And share this with the women in your life that needs to hear it. I'll see you next week.

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