About this episode
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My guest: David Adelman is the CEO of Campus Apartments, founder of Darco Capital, and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers. During our conversation, we discussed how losing a basketball bet at age 11 changed his life, investing his bar mitzvah money in real estate, becoming CEO at 25, his grandfather's Holocaust survival story, and why it gives him perspective on struggle, embracing failure, the trade-offs of building something excellent, and what he looks for when hiring leaders. Key Learnings "Why not me? Why not now?" David's mantra cuts through all the overthinking and excuses we make. When he saw other people building national real estate portfolios, he didn't wonder if it was possible—he asked why he couldn't do it. Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Ask yourself: why not me? Why not now? Make mistakes, just not the same one twice. David doesn't expect perfection from himself or his team. He expects learning. Fail fast, fail forward, but don't repeat the same failure. That's not growth—that's negligence. Embrace the suck, but evolve through it. David's grandfather survived the Holocaust after his wife and children were murdered. He escaped, joined the resistance, and rebuilt his life from nothing. When David thinks about that, he says: "No matter what, I don't know struggle." That's perspective. Most of what we call struggle is just discomfort. Understanding that doesn't make your challenges disappear... It makes them manageable. If your grandfather could survive the unthinkable, you can handle the hard day in front of you. At age 11, David challenged family friend Alan Horwitz to a basketball game and made a wager. Horwitz didn't let the kid win, and David lost his basketball, football, and baseball glove. To get them back, he had to go to Campus Apartments every Saturday to sweep sawdust and stack lumber. This losing bet became his entry into a billion-dollar career. At 13, David gambled his $2,000 bar mitzvah money by investing it with Horwitz in a building at 45th and Pine Streets in Philadelphia - a property his company still owns today. By age 17, he bought his first solely owned investment property. David was accepted into Temple University Beasley School of Law but chose to become a Property Manager at Campus Apartments instead. At age 25 in 1997, he became CEO of Campus Apartments. His grandfather, Sam Wasserman, was captured by the Nazis in 1942 and taken to the Sobibor concentration camp, where his wife an
