How Money, Psychology & Spirituality Shape Your Real Estate Success

Dylan Silver (01:32)
Hey, folks, welcome back to the show today on the podcast. We have a real estate educator, a syndicator involved in real estate investing for a full cycle and also has a master’s in spiritual psychology. Please welcome to the show Christina Suter.

Christina Suter (01:54)
Yes, thank you, Dylan. I’m glad to be here. I’m excited. Thank you guys. I appreciate the opportunity.

Dylan Silver (02:01)
Christina, I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

Christina Suter (02:09)
can thank my mom. So I’ll keep it super short because I know your short content. So basically when I was 12 years old, my mom said, hey, you see these little tiny numbers in this newspaper? Those things are called stocks. And if you buy some, they’ll give you money back. And I went, that’s a good idea. And so I started buying stocks when I was 12. And then at 17, my mom’s health got really bad. You probably, you’re too young. I’m sorry, Dylan, but you’re too young to remember third degree smog alerts in the LA area.

And my mom’s like, I can’t live here anymore. Like literally she would have to go to the hospital if she had gotten too much pollution in her lungs. So she said, who’s gonna take care of the house? I said, I’ll take care of it. And then she gave it to me. The furniture, the title to the house, all became mine. And so all of sudden at 17, as I was entering into college to get my bachelor’s in business, I became a real estate investor and I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no clue.

Dylan Silver (02:40)
Mmm.

Christina Suter (03:01)
Well, later I bought a condo off my brother. I bought another house for my mom to live in. And lo and behold, time, hugely important in real estate as a compounding effect, time about 10 to 15 years later, this was 2086, this was in 2000, so it was 14 years later, I had a house I was selling that had more than tripled in value. I bought it for 350,000. I was selling it for 1.2, 1.3, and I was pulling out.

$750,000, almost a million dollars worth of gains from the house. Now what am I gonna do? Am I gonna keep doing single families? No, I moved into the multi-family space with my own cash. And that’s how I started in real estate.

Dylan Silver (03:41)
So I want to get granular and talk about the journey getting into the real estate space because it seems like if I listen to that story, it seems like, well, was a success immediately. Did you have mentorship in there or was it kind of go figure it out on your own?

Christina Suter (03:57)
Okay, so no, it’s not always a success. Let’s be really clear and let’s be really honest about that. It is not always a success. No, it was three little investments along the way that my mom helped me up with being successful about. My practically ignoring it and just enjoying my checks from my property management company. The condo I bought from my brother, I bought from $127,000 went down to like $80,000, but I didn’t have to sell it. had a…

Section 8 mom with her two teenage boys in there so I didn’t have to sell it and then later when I sold it I sold it for about hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars, but that was a whole cycle later Right, so it’s not like it’s always easy. It’s not talk to me about 2009. Okay. Well, if you want to have a conversation about hard, let’s talk about that That was hard like profoundly hard for me as an investor. I lost

Dylan Silver (04:44)
You

Christina Suter (05:41)
I was almost at my first…you know how you have stair steps at financial freedom? I was almost at my first marker. And I was like, man, I’m so cool! I got it covered! I’m a Vox Star! I’m so smart! Yeah, no. I wasn’t. No. was 2008 and 9. I burned through $450,000 worth of reserves trying to keep my projects up. was a…flipping into different states. I was in a condo conversion in LA. I owned in Hawaii. I owned in…

Dylan Silver (05:44)
Yeah.

Christina Suter (06:10)
Texas, owned in Tennessee, I owned in Virginia, I owned in Los Angeles, I had 350 doors, 50 of my own and 300 I shared. My whole world fell apart. I had way too many projects that were stalled, not working and were not gonna come to successful conclusion. That was a humbling experience. Truly humbling. can, you know, I remember the moment where I’m like, I am such a loser, I should totally just give up. Like just stop.

Dylan Silver (06:29)
Mm-hmm.

Christina Suter (06:39)
If I’m this dumb, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, right? And then the moment where I went, but if I stop, who am I gonna be? Am I gonna be proud of myself? Am I gonna be happy with myself? Am I gonna be content with what I did and the decision? Because I’m in my 30s. I’m like, am I really gonna stop? And I know I’m not. I’m not gonna stop. I’m gonna face it. I’m gonna clean it up.

I’ve lost a half a million dollars, but I’m still gonna do what I need to do to make it right. And so I doubled down and I learned.

Dylan Silver (07:12)
You know, that’s

one of the interesting things about real estate, right? Is you think there’s maybe an end game or a destination, but then the rules and the playing field changes. It’s like you’re playing soccer and then the next day you’re playing tennis and it’s like, well, these are two different sports, but I’m still an athlete. And a lot of times that’s how real estate is. You know, so many people were making money hand over fist, for instance, in the mortgage and lending space. then private money existed, but it got even bigger and bigger.

Christina Suter (07:32)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:42)
post all of the regulation and Dodd-Frank and everything that went into that. And you know, when I got into real estate a handful of years ago, was in the wholesale space. And I think people knew about wholesale then and then right now it seems like everybody is a wholesaler. Maybe too many wholesalers. But I think the constant change, the constant problem solving, being able to adapt, that’s really the hallmark of a real estate operator, real estate investor who’s gonna be in it long term.

Christina Suter (07:52)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (08:11)
Christina, I wanna pivot a bit here and ask you about the real estate education, because I know you’re involved pretty heavily in that side of things. When did that come about?

Christina Suter (08:22)
You’re very generous, Dylan. Thank you. I appreciate it. So I started, so I started my, okay, I was a small business management consultant and then I, 2007, right? So I started investing in 1986. In 2007, my business coach said to me, why don’t you do real estate investing, advisement? I’m like, wait a minute. No, I do business advisement because I have a bachelor’s in business and a master’s in spiritual psychology. I advise on business. He’s like, but you’ve been investing.

for all these years and an extra source of income would be helpful right now. 2007, mark the date. I’m like, hmm, that would be good. Because I didn’t want to keep building. My capital is slipping and I didn’t want to keep living on capital, no income. Obviously I was doing flips, was doing condo conversions, lot split in Hawaii, condo conversion in LA.

I had a lot of projects that were now negative because they were in mid process. And so I went, okay, let’s do that. So ⁓ the consulting work was first, then it became, hey, there’s so many people that need core skill sets. That that’s when I started creating what at the time was called a real estate 101.

⁓ and the advanced course. I did that through my consulting work, but now we have a company, ITI Education and Networking, that both has leadership programs, mindset programs on how to be successful, because real estate is always surfing the wave, like you talked about, it’s still a sport, sometimes you’re playing golf, sometimes you’re playing soccer. ⁓ And we started creating that more formally about two years ago. And that’s how ITI Networking and Education kind of got born, was it was meant to be a meeting that was a hybrid with an educational program.

Dylan Silver (09:49)
Yeah.

So are the folks that were involved initially maybe prior experience in the real estate space and wanted to get into more of the investing or was it people from all backgrounds all walks of life?

Christina Suter (10:52)
No, have all backgrounds, all walks of life. So the mentoring, the consulting work that I started in 2007 was really for either people who sold a company but wanted to use that capital to get into real estate and they didn’t want to make mistakes, they needed somebody who could sort of guide them, or for people who had a portfolio and they didn’t like it. Right? I mean…

You’re a professional investor, right? So you’ve invested, you’ve been a wholesaler, you can be a flipper. Like, hey, I’m a flipper and I’ve got, you know, 20 flips going, but guess what? I don’t like being there. Where is my freedom? How do I get to freedom? And that’s the conversation that I focus on, whether it’s somebody who sold a business, somebody who’s an active professional, somebody who has a portfolio they don’t like.

You know, I’ve got, had once one client who said, I just don’t talk to my property management company. I don’t like it. I’m like, well, maybe we should change something in your portfolio. If your experience is, I don’t want to engage with it. I’m like, okay, there’s a way to have a portfolio that is both successful and meaningful while also reaching your freedom. Real estate grows you up really fast and you don’t have to do any deal. You just don’t have to.

Dylan Silver (12:02)
with eyes.

That’s right.

Christina Suter (12:07)
There’s too much out there, too much wealth, too much abundance, too many good projects, too many things you can do to try to suffer through creating a portfolio for financial freedom. You don’t have to do it. You just don’t. You can create financial freedom. Go ahead, Dylan.

Dylan Silver (12:20)
I want to pivot a bit. I want to ask you about

the importance of like truly liking what you’re doing because I’ve heard mixed. is maybe maybe a question that is off the beaten path in real estate investment. But I’ve heard before like motivation doesn’t matter because just be disciplined and go do it. But my personal feedback and vantage point on this is that if you are an Airbnb host if you’re in short term rentals

One of the things which will make you successful is actually liking being a host. If you’re involved in the real estate space as a, you know, single family home realtor who does listings and represents buyers, you probably should enjoy talking with lots of new people who are maybe looking for first time homes and that sort of thing. I’m involved in distressed real estate. And one of the things that I’m looking at more recently is like land deals and infill lots. And I just love

the idea of, what can this space be? Can this be a rezoning? Can this be, you know, an ADU? You know, what’s going to be the cost of a new build in this area? What are, you know, flips going for? So when I look at all this, some people will be like, well, yeah, that’s all boring. And I’m like, I love that. I’m curious to get your perspective on finding something that you actually like and how important is that just in general?

Christina Suter (13:44)
Okay, I’ll try to keep it short because you just hit one of my favorite topics. like I’m like love this. Okay skills Right. What are you skillful at? Right. What are you talented in? Right. What do you what right? Those are two things. What do you want to be doing? You take those three elements. I have this skill already I’m naturally talented at talking like for me. I’m good at talking. Don’t ask me to write anything, right? I’m good at talking so

Ask me to talk through something, talk to somebody, and what feels passionate for me. What do I love showing up for? Now, real estate is such a vast field. You can take those three items, create your window of not just the asset class, but who you are on the team. You can have multi-family, and you can have capital raisers, you can have project managers, you can have interior designers, you can have people who are…

you know, running the construction crew, they can be swinging a hammer. Like we have so many spaces inside of real estate that there’s no reason to create a job for yourself in real estate that is going to be counter to who you are. Now that being said, I told you before, I get up at 6 a.m. and I meditate and I do, I pray, ground and meditate every morning. I focus on my I ams. I create a sense of discipline in my mind and in my focus.

so that I can achieve the goals I want to achieve. Discipline will help you get there. But if you’re, there’s an ease to the engine. There’s a slipstream that gets created when you’re in your box and then you apply discipline. Now you’ve got a little bit of a secret formula going because now you’re going to be in your slot, in your lane, right, stay in your lane and have the discipline to be able to drive yourself forward.

Dylan Silver (16:15)
I think there’s a balance, right? Because when people talk about, you know, kind of just like white-knuckling their way through some of these situations, maybe there’s something to that. But I also think that you can burn yourself out and then you’re like, I’m done with this.

Christina Suter (16:35)
Yeah, because you’re not doing your passion, you’re going to burn yourself out. So if you’re not following your passion…

Dylan Silver (16:39)
We’ve got

our rooster going off on the ranch. I don’t know if you can hear that. I’m in North Dallas. Sometimes he makes an audible appearance.

Christina Suter (16:45)
I do, hear the… I hear the business.

That’s all right. Hey, you know, everybody has their way of living and where their lane is, right? No, I think that there is an application of discipline that is based in a sense of joy. There’s this pulling oneself forward when you know what it is you want to do, what you can contribute. There’s a joy that shows up. So the moments of discipline come and go.

They don’t have to be this ongoing grind. And if it becomes that, then you’re right, you’re gonna burn out and maybe you’re not really fine tuned into your lane because you’re having to apply too much discipline too much of the time. I love praying, grounding, meditating my am statements, the vision I’m creating. I’m excited to engage in that. The discipline is in setting the mindset. It’s not the rest of my day.

Dylan Silver (17:19)
Right.

Christina Suter (17:45)
The rest of my day is rolling through the joy of being able to talk to that person and do this and create that project. I’m now back in creative mode. Yeah, I’m slotting my time. Let’s be clear. I’m spending a half hour on this and a half hour on this and a half hour on this, but I’m not struggling. I’m not fighting my own system. I’m not swimming upstream all day long. Does that talk to the balance you’re talking about?

Dylan Silver (18:05)
I want to ask you about

the kind of interweaving or the intersection between spiritual psychology and business. And I think we’re really hitting this here. You know, it may not seem like you can potentially profit from having something that is a spiritual element to it, but I do think that if you feel connected to what you’re doing, you’re going to be more invested.

And if you feel like it’s providing you energy versus taking away from it, you’re going to be more able to put time into it. And so when we’re talking about burnout and this type of thing, when you went into your master’s degree, did you kind of see this playing out or were you interested for other reasons?

Christina Suter (18:52)
I was interested for other reasons. I got a bachelor’s in business and then I said, oh, you know what? I don’t know if I should do business. Got politely fired by my boss. I’m like, maybe I shouldn’t do business. And then I got a teacher’s credential. Oh, I help the kids because I love kids. That’s another passion for me, kids. And then I went, well, I don’t know if I want to be a teacher. So, okay, well, the problem with kids is they’re parents. So now let me get a master’s in psychology. And I’m like, but traditional psychology doesn’t really have a lot of healing in it.

Spiritual psychology was really more focused on what I felt like was healing inside, right? We have to deal with our subconscious, memories. We have to be able to go into our subconscious and process through the memories that we’re not aware of or that stop us from our success. So that’s the spiritual psychology side. So then I started a business and I was now coaching 90 different teachers inside the business I started.

Dylan Silver (19:26)
Sure.

Christina Suter (19:47)
sat songs, yoga instructors, meditation instructors, and they’re like, well, can you coach us professionally? And I’m like, well, I guess I could. So now here I am on this meandering path. And then there’s a moment where it all lined up and said, ⁓ I should be a coach. I should be, and I was a coach in business. And now I’m a coach in real estate. Because how else do you merge psychology and the process of real estate? Now you touched on something.

which I’d love a moment to touch on as well. Money and psychology, or money and spirituality, people constantly think are against each other. And actually, I would suggest it’s the other way around. Money is a tool, just like time is a limiter intentionally on the planet, money is a tool also on the planet. And if you avoid using the tool called money, you’re actually stopping yourself from being successful in what we’re supposed to be doing. Not loving money.

Dylan Silver (20:18)
Yeah, sure.

Christina Suter (20:45)
Loving money is a mistake. Loving what you’re doing gets you lot of freedom and passion. Money is the tool that creates it. So when you respect it as a tool, just like you cook your meal, you respect fire, you respect money as a tool.

avoid money because of the sayings in a spiritual text, which is great and wonderful to read and be involved in and believe in, and I believe in, the wording is important, which is the love of money. It’s when you love money instead of understanding it as an item that’s useful to you, is when you truly get confused. Then you stop yourself from actually being able to fulfill what your purpose is, because you’re not willing to use the

It’s a tool, it’s not something you can chase.

Dylan Silver (21:32)
Yeah, I’m.

I think when people think about it like a conflict thing, like they think like I’m living to work or working to live versus it’s all kind of one realm, like you’re all of this is so that you can live a fulfilling life. You’re not it’s not one thing or the other. I think that’s a way more I would say holistic way to look at things healthier in general. But I think it’s very I would say American of us to think like I’m going to just work really hard for nine or five and then I’ll have the rest of my time to

Christina Suter (21:46)
Thank

Dylan Silver (22:04)
De-stress and then back at it again the next day and then I’ll have a two-day weekend and I’m really looking forward to a three-day weekend and then but ⁓ Especially as entrepreneurs like if you were to look at things from that lens There’s probably gonna be someone who’s gonna outwork you then because they’re more fired up about it ⁓ So it’s interesting. I haven’t spoken with someone who has the kind of the background that you have but I can definitely see how that would be advantageous certainly in education for sure

Christina we are coming up on time though here. Where can folks go if they want to learn more about your business or maybe ⁓ get involved maybe in some of the education that you have going on out there?

Christina Suter (22:43)
That’s easy. So, christinasuter.com. So, suter is S-U-T-E-R, Christina with a C-H, dot com. Or, live a rich life, which is what I’m passionate about helping people do. So, livearigelife.info. And both of those, you can set up a meeting with me at the end, the schedule meeting. Or you can actually just do the old fashioned and you can call me.

or you could text me at my cell phone. I know it’s weird, but we could talk direct. 310-463-5942. 310-463-5942 is my actual cell phone, guys. So give me a text and we can set up a time to chat.

Dylan Silver (23:26)
Christina, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Christina Suter (23:30)
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.