There was no such thing as disposable income around my house.
It was all disposed of before I got it. Thirty-five years old, bankrupt and I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up; but I knew it wasn’t fixing cars in the hot Florida sun.
The year was 1982. I saw an ad that said something like “Come learn how to buy real estate with no money or credit.”
That appealed to me because I had no money or credit and I liked the rich idea. So, I attended the free seminar.
The instructor got us all excited about real estate and showed us how people were buying real estate with no money down. Then he said, “if you pay $450 and attend our two-day training this weekend, we’ll show you all the secrets”.
I wanted in but I had a big problem, actually 450 of them.
But something compelled me to find a way to get the money and that’s what I did. I borrowed it from two friends and showed up for the seminar. That decision changed my life forever, my family’s life and their family’s lives for generations to come, not to mention hundreds of thousands of my students and their descendants into the millions.
That one small split second decision that could have gone either way made me millions of dollars since and spawned countless numbers of millionaires all over North America and other countries I can’t even pronounce.
In fact, most of the stuff taught in that seminar was over my head. I was clueless and could barely spell real estate.
But I picked up one idea I felt I could do and within three weeks I made my first $3,000 from real estate using none of my money or credit, which I didn’t have.
I immediately called my boss and said, “I’m upping my income… up yours!”
Fast-forward two years, I had amassed 276 units, some single family, some apartments, not including some I sold along the way to live. I was a millionaire… on paper. I had over $1,000,000 in equity two years after starting with no money or credit.
I sat down one Friday evening to pay my bills and realized my outgo was bigger than my income and my upkeep was becoming my downfall. All I had accomplished was create a big, ugly mess.
I’d spent two years buying the wrong properties the wrong way in the wrong areas for the wrong reasons. I built my empire on a house of cards, not a solid foundation.
You see, I really didn’t understand the real estate business. I just bought properties because I could, without money or credit. I bought all the crap savvy investors wouldn’t touch. They’d already been to the school I was about to graduate from…
The School of Hard Knocks. All my low income properties in war zone areas with brainless tenants were sucking me dry, financially and mentally. My days were spent solving their petty problems and listening to all the worthless excuses why they couldn’t pay rent.
Now fast forward a few more years of teaching what I know while simultaneously doing what I teach and I will admit I’m a weird dude. I’ve bought and sold nearly 2,000 houses and still do.
Over the years I’ve created a mountain of home study products, written millions of words in print, shared the platform with past presidents, movie stars, actors, politicians, sports heroes, business leaders, super wealthy from all professions and some of the best speakers in the world.
I’ve spoken to audiences as small as 20 and as large as 20,000 in hotel meeting rooms and coliseums all across North America.
I’ve gazed in amazement and sheer joy as so many thousands of my students and new friends have pulled themselves out of financial mediocrity, or downright poverty, and made themselves financially independent millionaires and some multi-millionaires from the words that left my lips and the time we spent together.
My legacy has spread like a swarm of locusts and thousands will be affected, (maybe millions now), by the positive impact I made with a few carefully chosen words that left my lips or got put in print at a time when students were ready to receive them and convert to action.