G Letter - FALL 2017 - Do The Toughest Thing First Every Day

“It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.”

- Og Mandino

 

Why is it that although everyone has the same number of hours in a day, some people seem to consistently accomplish more than the rest of us?   One of the biggest challenges we face in the 21st Century is managing our time with an ever increasing number of potential activities that can use up that limited time.   In order to overcome procrastination and get the most important things done, you have to take a disciplined, systematic approach, which is why it’s best to start your day by working on your toughest task while your energy level is still high and before other issues and people start to distract you.  Procrastination can only be defeated when you attack it head on, so focus on your toughest task first with laser focus.  

Multitasking is a myth.  Despite the fact that you can do more than one thing at a time (i.e. walk and talk), you can really only focus and concentrate on one task at a time.  Every time you switch from one task to another task, you lose momentum which ultimately wastes time and delays completion of both tasks.  We face the greatest psychological resistance from the things we fear most, which are often the tasks that are most challenging.  You aren’t forced to do anything, you choose the actions you take at every moment of every day.  If you choose wisely and take an ax to the toughest task as early in the day as possible, you’ll be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment that will energize you for the rest of the day and give you momentum that will make the rest of your day more productive and satisfying.  

G Letter - August 2017 - Resist Adult Onset Laziness

"Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength."

- Betty Friedan

I often hear people say that they are too old to do one thing or another.  They’ll say, “I’d do it, but I’m too old now.”  I can’t help but speculate that many of these same folks at some point in the past used being too young as an excuse not to not take some action.  Being sick or injured is a legitimate reason not to engage in certain activities, but having been walking around on the planet a little longer than other people is not a legitimate reason to stop living.

Age is a relative measure and has little meaning in an of itself-it’s just a number.  A nine year old is old to a five year old--so what.  The only two states that matter are alive and dead.  If you are alive, you have more time and aren’t too old to do what you decide to do.

Despite what many people mistakenly believe, our brains are elastic and flexible throughout our lives.  As neuroscientist, Michael Merzenich said, “you name the ability and you can drive improvement out of it independent of age.”

Why would we ever tell ourselves that we’re too old to do what we’d like to do?  There are enough barriers in the world already, there’s no need for you to invent more out of thin air.  

The real problem we face isn’t aging, it’s excuse-making.  When we are children, we have less choices--we normally don’t get to decide whether we want to go to school for example.  As adults, we can choose to be lazy and unfortunately many of us do.  In order to thrive and lead fulfilling lives, we have to resist adult onset laziness.

G Letter

October 2016

‘Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.’

– Thich Nhat Hanh 

October 7 is World Smile Day, a holiday established by Harvey Ball, an artist who created the smiley face in 1963.

The act of smiling activates neural messaging that benefits both our health and our overall happiness.

Smiling is literally contagious — when you smile at someone, they can’t help but smile back because the part of your brain that is responsible for your facial expression resides in the cingulate cortex, an unconscious automatic response area.

Smiling makes us appear more attractive to others. Researchers at the Face Research Laboratory found that both male and female subjects were more attracted to images of people who smiled than those who did not.

Smiling also lifts our mood, and current research suggests that smiling makes us healthier and may even lengthen our lifetimes. Smiling releases neuropeptides that fight stress. When we smile, dopamine and endorphins — the body’s feel-good neurotransmitters — are released, which in turn relaxes our body and can lower our blood pressure and heart rate. These endorphins relieve pain naturally and the serotonin released when you smile can act as an antidepressant. Take that, big pharma!

So, as the late, great, Zig Ziglar said, “Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give them yours.”

Onward and Upward!

I’m Looking for an Elite Group to Reveal My Most Profitable Real Estate Investing Techniques To

If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and will take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting http:// tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen:

I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good fit for my program.

If your application passes, then either I, or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

September 2016

“The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help.”

— Napoleon Hill

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

— Napoleon Hill

In the 1980s, Robert Ronstadt conducted a study that found that the most successful entrepreneurs leveraged what is known as the “Corridor Principle.” 

The corridor principle can be described like this: Imagine you’re looking down a long, dark corridor. Without knowing what’s in front of you, you walk forward, and as you move along the corridor, new doors open up on both sides of you — doors that you would not have been able to see had you not started walking down the corridor in the first place.

In a nutshell, the Corridor Principle affirms that the mere act of starting enables you to see and take advantage of opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to see or take advantage of if you stayed put where you are now, waiting for circumstances to be perfect. In order to follow the Corridor Principle to success, you must be willing to launch yourself down the corridor of opportunity without any guarantee of what will happen, because that’s when truly uncommon opportunities manifest themselves.

The truth is that circumstances will never be picture perfect, and let’s be honest — even if they were perfect, we could easily convince ourselves otherwise. So the key to getting your real estate business going or getting anything that you really want started is to launch yourself from wherever you are right now, then look at your results and make adjustments as you go. The Chinese philosopher Laozi, who was a contemporary of Confucius, said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Onward and upward! 

I’m looking for an elite group to reveal my most profitable real estate investing techniques to. If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and willing to take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen: I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good
fit for my program. If your application passes, then either I
or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

May 2016

My niece is graduating from high school this month. Wow, how time flies! I think back to her innocent smile as an infant, her dance recitals, her first bike, and I’m reminded I once told her that someday she’d be all grown up. Well, that someday has arrived.

While none of us can control the aging process, many of us let the “someday” belief system run the parts of our lives that we do control.

Someday I’m going to take the trip I’ve been dreaming about.

Someday I’m going to write that book I’m been talking about.

Someday I’m going to build the real estate business I’ve been thinking about.

As Henry Ford pointed out, “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” For many of us, someday is an elusive target that we just can’t seem to reach. So what’s stopping us from living the lives we want to live?

One barrier that stands in our way is our current set of habits and routines. At this moment, our lives are precisely designed to achieve the exact results we’re currently getting. So if you’re not achieving the results you want, it means your life design must change.

Most adults make thousands of decisions every day. The harsh reality is that we “choose” to defer our dreams when we procrastinate and put things off. The good news is that you can choose to break this cycle at any moment of any day. As Emerson revealed years ago, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” So make someday today. It’s never too late to change your life. The choice is yours.

Onward and upward!

I’m Looking for an Elite Group to Reveal My Most Profitable Real Estate Investing Techniques to ...

If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and will take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen:

I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good fit for my program.

If your application passes, then either I or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

April 2016

Back from my annual winter South American sojourn ... rested, relaxed, and raring to go. Man, I love real estate. It’s spring again. Tax time too. Time to make some money, family! As you emerge from your winter cocoon, wanna know how to cast off the cobwebs and kick-start your real estate business? Get moving. Send out a marketing letter, follow up on a dead property lead, make a ca$h offer. When? Right now!

You don’t have to do it yourself, though. Remember, I can help.

The fact is, you don’t get tomorrow over again — you only get one shot. Being successful in real estate is more about what you do than it is about what you know. Be a real estate entrepreneur, not a wantrepreneur. Separate yourself from the tire kickers who talk a lot at real estate networking events but never do any damn real estate deals. The inescapable fact is that you earn your authority as a real estate investor in your market by your actions.

Consider the ladder of achievement:

100% - I did.
90% - I will.
80% - I can.
70% - I think I can. 60% - I might.
50% - I think I might.
40% - What is it?
30% - I wish I could. 
20% - I don’t know how. 
10% - I can’t.
0% - I won’t.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The future depends on what you do today.” Get off your ass and get going. Onward and upward!

I’m Looking for an Elite Group to Reveal My Most Profitable Real Estate Investing Techniques to ...

If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and will take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen:

I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good fit for my program.

If your application passes, then either I or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

December 2015

Few days bring as much anticipation as Christmas Eve, especially for children who lie awake at night, waiting to get up at the crack of dawn to tear open their presents under the Christmas tree. The truth is that anticipation is a big part of fun for everyone.

Pleasant anticipation is an important source of happiness. Having something to look forward to makes us feel good and creates a healthy atmosphere based on positive expectations.

There are four key stages we experience when we enjoy an event:

1. Anticipation (looking forward to the moment)

2. Savoring (enjoying the moment)

3. Expression (sharing the moment with others)

4. Reflection (looking back on the moment — enhanced when you capture it with pictures, videos, mementos, or journal/diary entries)

Having something to look forward to brings happiness into our lives even before an event actually takes place. In fact, sometimes the happiness in anticipation is greater than the happiness actually experienced in the moment — in Latin this is called memoria praeteritorum bonorum, which means “the memory of the good pasts.”

Anticipation requires having something happy in your future to long for. When you look at your schedule for the next week, month, or year, are there things that you can look forward to with pleasure? If the answer is no, then I challenge you to pencil in something that you will anticipate with joy and gladness. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and have a safe and happy New Year! Onward and upward!

I’m Looking for an Elite Group to Reveal My Most Profitable Real Estate Investing Techniques to ...

If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and will
take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting http://tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen:

I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good fit for my program. If your application passes, then either I or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

September 2015

Back To Work/School: Get Better, Find Your Focus

"School is never out for the pro". ~ Cavett Robert 

Summer is over. Time to find your focus, make a commitment, and set a deadline. Let’s get better and get results now. If you want to live better, then you should be constantly working to make today better than last year, last month, or last week. You create personal fulfillment in your journey to get better and improve. When you grow, so does your real estate business.

You aren’t a kid anymore, so I’m going to give it to you straight — real estate has its share of obstacles and challenges like all businesses. Real estate investing is like being in Florida — there are thunderstorms every day, but that’s why we have umbrellas. Besides, if you hide indoors forever, you’ll run out of food!

The work that is necessary for success in real estate investing is ongoing personal development. This is precisely what I’ve done consistently by working with mentors and coaches and by reading lots of books.

I still study and read voraciously. I currently have five books in the queue, patiently waiting for their turn. Those who refuse to study will get taken to school in the marketplace.

One surefire way to weather the storm is with help and support from others who’ve gone before you. Everyone needs support, and it’s better to build support before you really need it.

If you haven’t already, sign up for my real estate workshop on the last weekend of this month at geraldlucas.com. Good luck. Onward and upward!

Join me at my three-day LIVE real estate workshop, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, September 25-27, where you’ll discover everything you need to know to quickly start making more real estate income. Get more info and pre-register at geraldlucas.com. 

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G Letter

July 2015

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Work Fun Into Every Day

"Some 80 percent of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?" ~ Richard Branson 

Summer is finally here! From backyard barbecues to beach trips, we associate summertime with having fun more than any other season of the year. I admit I’ve already spent some time chillin’ poolside this year. Special summer moments remind us how important it is to have fun and play.

When we reach a certain age, we often begin to starve ourselves of play. This comes at a huge cost, given the many important ways our brain and senses benefit from play. Play provides nourishment for both our body and our spirit.

Recent Japanese research found that spending as little as two hours a month laughing or listening to your favorite music has as big an impact on blood pressure as eliminating salty foods, or even losing 10 pounds.

Having fun is also a great creative engine that boosts
our ability to think outside the box and solve problems. Having fun revitalizes us and creates a healthy environment where we are more innovative and productive, and where customers are more likely to want to do business with us.

You don’t have to wait until your next scheduled vacation to add some fun to your day. You can and should start incorporating things you enjoy into your day right away. It doesn’t have to be much — laugh out loud, tell a joke — but balance is one of the keys to happiness and fulfillment.

Life doesn’t have to be so serious all the time, and doing things that light you up will help you relax. An exciting life doesn’t happen to you. You must find small ways to improve your life by shifting your perspective and changing some of your daily habits and activities. Make it a point to work some fun into every day. Good luck. Onward and upward!

 *Join me at my three-day real estate workshop: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September, 25th–27th at the Meadowlands Hotel, 2 Harmon Plaza in Secaucus, NJ, where I’ll reveal a technique I’ve never shared before. Get more info and pre-register at geraldlucas.com.

 

G Letter

June 2015

Become The Architect Of Your Future

"We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future."

~Frederick Douglass 

All of us dwell on the past from time to time. As we live our lives, it’s only natural that we sometimes cling to what once was. But when our desire to cling to the past affects our future, we begin an unhealthy battle with anchors that can hold us down and sink us. Dwelling on mistakes gives power to the past and can perpetuate behavior we may want to change.

When you think about it, everything that happens occurs in the present. Memories of events are thoughts occurring in the present. Anger or hurt about the past is happening now. What’s amazing about this understanding is that it shows you that the way out of your suffering is always in the present. You can change your perspective right now, you can focus on something different right now. If you want to transcend the past and move forward, place your attention on the present — this is the first step to getting beyond the past and beginning to take control of your future.

Every day, you have the opportunity to make new memories. This is a gift we often take for granted. Anchors don’t have to hold you down. If you choose to let go, they can simply become bends on the highway of life, on your way to the future you desire.

Develop a nostalgia for the future instead of for the past. Always put something ahead of you to look forward to. When you’re not goal-striving and looking forward, you’re not really living. Good luck. Onward and upward!

*Join me at my three-day real estate workshop: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 25th – 27th, at the Meadowlands Hotel, 2 Harmon Plaza in Secaucus, NJ, where I’ll reveal a technique I’ve never shared before. Get more info and pre-register at geraldlucas.com. 

G Letter

May 2015

Thank You, Mom

"Men are what their mothers made them."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

We say “thanks” every day to people we don’t even know, but sometimes we forget to say it to the ones who deserve it most. This Mother’s Day, I’d like to thank my mom, and
I invite you to join me in thanking all moms all over the world.

Who knew Mom’s advice would help us as real estate investors?

7 Lessons From Mom That Apply To Real Estate Investing

1. Value education. The ability to learn is a gift and a responsibility. Our moms taught us early to give education a very high priority. People who invest in their education tend to be the most successful real estate investors in the long run.

2. Don’t follow the herd. Our moms taught us to think for ourselves. You can’t be successful as a real estate investor doing what everyone else is doing.

3. Practice generosity. Share your life and resources with others. My mom spent extra time after work tutoring students for free. In real estate, as in most businesses, givers gain. The best way to make friends in business is to make money for someone else. The more you give, the more you get — generous investors do more real estate transactions than greedy investors.

4. Talk is cheap. Words are important, but actions speak volumes. Your reputation in real estate will be based on your actions, not your rhetoric.

5. Seek and share knowledge. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all teachers. Teachers must both seek and share knowledge. Growing up, I learned to appreciate the time, energy, care, and commitment that teachers show every day. The most successful real estate investors always look for new ways to learn. Investors who share their knowledge inspire other investors to reciprocate.

6. Always say please and thank you. Manners are important for life and for business. In real estate, people prefer to do business with people who are polite and courteous.

7. Work hard. My mom always set a shining example with her consistently strong work ethic. The hardest working investors get the real estate deals that slip beyond the reach of others.

Good luck. Onward and upward! 

G Letter

April 2015

Indecision Is A Decision

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger but in calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli 

Let’s welcome the arrival of spring after a punishing winter by embracing the fact that the Earth we all share is constantly in motion. The Earth’s spin axis is tilted on its orbital plane which is what causes the four seasons. Life is movement. If we don’t move, the circumstances and people around us will move things for us. If we don’t move, our muscles will wither and atrophy, so resisting movement is not only pointless but unhealthy. This is why making decisions and being proactive is so important.

One of the main excuses people use for putting off decision-making is the fear of making a mistake. The problem with that logic is successful people make more mistakes than everyone else, precisely because they make more decisions than everyone else—they learn from their decisions regardless of how things ultimately turn out. You shouldn’t be afraid of making a mistake—you should be afraid of standing still and letting the world pass you by.

Make it a point to cultivate decisiveness. Putting off decisions creates a cluttered mind. Decision-making creates order. Your life will be much more organized if you make decisions as they come. Rather than obsessing forever
about decisions you’ve put off, your mind will be free to concentrate on more important things. Time is our greatest asset. Like money, we can invest it, spend it, our waste it. However, unlike money we can’t possess, hold, or retain time—time comes to us for a moment and then passes by us.

How many times have you said to yourself, “I’ll get around to that later” or “I’m going to take care of that one of these days”? This is masochistic, self-sabotaging thinking based on the foolish notion that we’ll have more time down the road, or that an unpleasant task won’t be as bad if we do it later. Unpleasant tasks usually get more unpleasant the more we put them off (think toothache or leaky roof). Nothing gets accomplished “sooner or later.” Things get accomplished at a specific moment in time.

Although it’s tempting, your worst impulse is to wait, procrastinate, ponder, or wait and see. If you hear this inside your head, know that this is NOT how successful real estate investors respond to life’s challenges. Fortune favors the bold. So now, the only open question is, are you ready? Good luck. Onward and upward!

I’m putting on an epic real estate investing workshop on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 17-19 at the Empire Meadowlands

Hotel, 2 Harmon Plaza in Secaucus, NJ. That’s 3 full days for just $197, where I’ll reveal my most profitable
real estate investing strategies. Find out more about the event and reserve your seat by visiting tinyurl.com/gerald-lucas-4-17-15. 

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G Letter

March 2015

Plan, Prepare, Perform

“It is better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.”

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”

- Abraham Lincoln 

I recently returned from my annual winter getaway to South America, where I soak up the summer sun of the Southern Hemisphere and map out my plans for the coming year.

Like planning, preparation is a key driver of success. When you plan your day beforehand, you know what you need to do. Preparation, which is the next step, gets you ready to actually do the work. In general, the more you prepare the better you will perform.

Preparation normally requires more time, hard work and sacrifice than planning. The most successful professionals prepare before they perform—athletes, teachers, and trial lawyers to name a few. As a long-time musician myself, I’ve spent countless hours practicing and preparing before concerts and gigs. Preparation can and should extend to as many parts of your life as possible.

One of the amazing things about preparation is that it makes you more aware of potential opportunities—this is critical for us as real estate investors. As the Roman philosopher Seneca put it, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

For real estate investors like you and me, more preparation normally translates into better results and higher profits. For example, in order to make a smart purchase offer, we have to do research and due diligence on the subject property. If we’re dealing directly with a property seller, our preparation must include tactfully asking probing questions to understand the seller’s individual circumstances, so we can craft a win-
win transaction that satisfies her requirements as well as ours. Without that preparation, we’re flying blind and are more prone to making costly mistakes.

I hope you’ll join me when I reveal my most profitable real estate negotiation strategies at my 3-day real estate investing workshop, April 17th–19th at the Empire Meadowlands Hotel, located at 2 Harmon Plaza in Secaucus, NJ.

So after you plan, how should you prepare?

The first thing you’ll need is clarity—be crystal clear about what you are preparing for and what you are trying to accomplish. Focus during your preparation. Break bigger tasks down into smaller pieces and zero in on what you’ll need to do to accomplish each sub-task. Work on these sub-tasks until you feel good about where you are—this progress will increase your personal confidence, which is key to performing at your best.

Although you should always do your best to move forward and avoid procrastination, preparation isn’t all about seeing how fast you can complete a task so you can move on to another one. It’s more important to focus on doing things well. This may mean going over one particular area many times in an effort to get it “right.” That’s okay, this is precisely what prep time is for— smoothing out the rough edges.

Keep in mind that preparation doesn’t guarantee success, it just vastly improves your odds of being successful. During “the moment of truth,” even if you’ve prepared, you may still be faced with a situation you hadn’t anticipated. That’s okay—do the best you can given what you know and how you’ve prepared. When you finish, look at your results and then go back and update your preparation routine. Incremental progress literally moves mountains—if you don’t believe me, take a look at the Grand Canyon!

Your moment is now! Plan, prepare, and then perform—put it all out there. No regrets. This is your life and your time to be great. Good luck. Onward and upward! 

G Letter

December 2014

The Best Holiday Gift To Give

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
- Thomas Jefferson 

Seasons Greetings to all of you in The Real Estate Insider family. Let’s count our collective blessings for 2014 and look forward to a bountiful 2015. As you are out frantically doing last minute holiday shopping, consider that one of the greatest gifts you can give is the gift of honesty. Before you can be honest with others, however, you must be honest with yourself.

We all like to think of ourselves as basically honest, but we all have areas of our lives where we’re pretending to be something that we’re not. We pretend we’re on a diet, even as we’re sneaking chocolate when nobody’s watching. We pretend we’re working hard even when we’re watching TV or silly videos on youtube.

If you want to be whole and happy, then being “basically honest” isn’t good enough. Every time you do a little end-run around the truth, you lose a part of the truth of who you are. Self-deception is a slippery slope, so when you pretend to yourself, you cheat yourself out of the opportunity to look squarely at the things that you wish were different and take measures to change them.

When you are dishonest with others, you sabotage the trust that’s required for that relationship to thrive, and you undermine your own sense of trust. Setting a standard of absolute honesty for yourself prepares you for moments of temptation. Every lie you tell out of fear strengthens the fear. Every truth you tell strengthens your courage and confirms your integrity.

Practicing absolute honesty is very liberating—you find power in living according to your own beliefs, preferences and desires, instead of trying to mold your behavior according to others people’s expectations. You learn to trust yourself completely and to take full ownership of your decisions. Your relationships get cleaner, clearer and deeper. Your stress decreases, and life becomes more interesting and more fun.

Best wishes for success and happiness in the New Year.

Onward and upward! 

G Letter

September 2014

Your Journey To Financial Freedom & Independence Starts Now
 

When I was four years old, I noticed a price tag inside the cover of a children’s book I was reading, I thought to myself, “Wow, book equals money.” So I got a stack of white paper, a stapler, a magic marker and a box of crayons and then painstakingly copied the entire book, page by page (words and pictures). When I finished my masterpiece, I went door to door trying to sell my ‘re-created’ book to neighbors. This was the first of many business ventures I’ve attempted over the years--some were successful, but many like this one were not. I believe that perseverance above all else is the key to success because successful people never give up and just outlast everyone else. 

When I was growing up, I loved music and sports. I played soccer competitively and was an accomplished violinist. I was also fiercely independent and hated to play by other people’s rules. After missing several rehearsals a few weeks before a European tour, I was kicked out of the New Jersey Youth Symphony—I’d have to wait years to get another chance to travel overseas.

After finishing college, I wasn’t sure what career path to take. I wandered from one unfulfilling corporate job to another. The pointless meetings, stifling bureaucracy and office politics made me sick. I stumbled onto real estate accidentally 15 years ago and, in my free time, began amassing a small portfolio of properties by partnering with other people who had money to invest. Although I was earning a six-figure salary as a director at a Fortune 100 company, I was miserable—it was time for a change. My mom thought I was crazy, but in 2002, I took the plunge and became a full-time real estate investor. Now that I control my time, thanks to real estate, I’ve travelled to every continent on earth, I spend several weeks every winter in South America and I volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters and a local homeless charity in my community. I also get to indulge my lifelong love of music by performing live on a regular basis, both as a solo artist and as the founding member of the funk fusion band, GMJ Groove. What would you do if you had more control of your time?

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does.

— James A. Michener 

 Real estate, like all endeavors, has its share of challenges and frustrations, but I’ve learned to enjoy the ride—the ups, the downs, the smiles and the frowns. I think you’ll find that most things in life that are worthwhile require some effort, and I’m here to help you leverage real estate to make your dreams come true. I love to teach and I have hundreds of former students throughout the United States and Canada. Many of my students have found success investing in real estate, earning extra income buying and selling property for profit and building wealth over time with rental properties. One of my former students recently founded a Montessori School for kids in Jersey City. I started this newsletter to share what I’ve learned about real estate with you because lifelong learning has been one of the keys to my success. I share real estate tips and market insights in The Real Estate Insider that you can immediately put to use and in every issue, I answer a real estate question from a subscriber like you.

Welcome to the Real Estate Insider family—I’m glad to have you on board. Your journey to financial freedom and independence begins now. Buckle up—I guarantee it’s gonna be a fun and fulfilling ride.