Hey, we started flipping houses, made some money, was doing really, really well, and after about a year of that, started getting into rehabbing. So I sort of put my flipping houses business on autopilot, my wholesaling business on autopilot and used the income that was coming in to really start moving up the food chain and then move into to rehab. And I really enjoyed rehab, and my first rehab, I made like $43,000 on it. And in best rehab, I made a $100,000 on. But again, recognizing that when you rehab or you wholesale or your bird dog, that's work, it's a job. Now it can be a very lucrative, very lucrative, but it's still a job. And so I guess it was probably about three four years into the business that I was like, you know, there's got to be a better way, nothing wrong with those quick hits of cash, nothing wrong with getting those slugs of cash. And I think it was my second year in the business, I was at an event up in Connecticut, Robyn Thompson had a rehabbers bootcamp. Back then you had to hop on a plane or hop on a train or leave the DC area to learn the real estate business. You know, since then we've of course opened up the Real Investors Academy and there's lots of fine real estate clubs around. So real estate investors in the DC area don't have to leave but back then you had to go out of town to learn how to do the business, or at least get the knowledge. You always apply it back home, but we had to go out of town to get the knowledge. And I remember we were there and Robyn said, "If you guys are willing to stick around for an extra day," and understand this three day event is now four day event, so she said, "but if you're willing to stick around, I got something really special for you." I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like, "I got something really special for you." Friend of mine who lives up in Boston or just outside of Boston has been doing some rehabbing but he's using the rehabbing profits as down payment to do commercial real estate deals. And in the past couple years, this guy has done over at that point in time, I think over 50 units, maybe in a 100 units. And he's gonna come in and talk a little bit about commercial real estate. So I remember calling my wife up and saying, "Honey, I know I've been up here in Connecticut for three days, can I hang out for another for a fourth?" And she said, "Why?" And I said, "Well, Robyn has got this guy coming in, gonna talk about commercial real estate apartments. And I sort of have an interest in that and would it be okay?" She said, "Sure, sure." So hung out for an extra day. And this guy came in and he was amazing. He wasn't the world's greatest speaker, I had to tell you the truth. In fact, he stumbled a lot, but his knowledge was deep. I mean, this guy knew what he was talking about. And he started talking about how he started in his own backyard doing these small scale commercial real estate deals. And he would rehab a house, use the profits to pay bills and then he would rehab another house and use the profits for a down payment for his commercial property investing. And he had now gotten to the point where the cash flow from this portfolio of small apartment buildings was far exceeding the profits he was making from rehabbing. And if he wanted to, he could have retired but he sort of discovered the secret and he was sharing it, but more importantly, he wanted to go on and start doing bigger buildings because he had read this story about this guy in New York, named Harry Helmsley. And one day he wanted to be like Harry Helmsley doing these really big projects. And I was sort of impressed by that but what really impressed me was the strategies he used to put together those small deals. And his first couple of deals were like, duplexes, fourplexes, triplexes, I mean really, three unit buildings. And there was something in what he said that just really got my attention, he talked about one larger deal he had put together where he was making $10,000 a month and he didn't have to get outta bed for that check to show up. Now $10,000 a month doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it caught my attention. And there was something really cool he also said, he said, "You know what the coolest part of this is Sherman?" 'Cause there was only like, I think there was only five of us, five, maybe six of us in the room who volunteered to stick around for this bonus day 'cause Robyn had sort of sprung it on us last minute. So it was only a handful of us and he could tell he got my attention. He said, "you know, what's really cool about the Sherman?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "I don't know any of these people who live in my building." This building just outside Boston, Massachusetts in the town that he lived called Brockton. He said, "I don't know any of the people who live in my building. So in a sense, what I've been able to do is get a bunch of strangers to agree to live together for the sole purpose of writing me a check every month and the check is $10,000." And that caught my attention, 'cause to be able to get a chunk of money coming in every month, first of the month that you don't have to get outta bed to go get,that's a very powerful concept.

So I said, you know, if I could ever figure out a way to do what he did and he gave me a lot of tips, he gave me some, and sort of talked me through, walk me through, but I said, the big problem that I'm having is I don't necessarily wanna get out there and rehab a bunch of houses to be able to do that. He says, "Well, you don't have to." He says, "Because I don't really do that too much anymore myself." I said, "Well, what are you doing?" He said, "Well, right now I'm looking at this concept called syndication." I said, "Well, I know a little bit about syndication." He says, "You do?" I said, "Yeah, in fact I know this guy named Gene Trailbridge." And Gene is a CCIM and he's also an attorney and he's been teaching about syndication since the 1970s. And in fact, a good friend of mine, Byron, Byron Smith who teaches the intro CCIN class told me about Gene. And so we sort of exchanged some information, and you know, stupid me, duh, told Dave about it. And you know, Dave picked up the phone called Gene, Hire Gene and had Gene put some syndications and I'm sort of watching Dave take my idea and implement it. And I'm going, "Well, gee, Sherman, Dave can implement it, why can't you?" And so I probably took a lot longer than I should have. I guess if I had gotten past licking my wounds from the collapse of my government contracts business faster, I could have focused on building my new business quicker and I probably could have been here quicker. But the bottom line is within the past several months, I finally got to the point that I had dreamed about based on the conversation I'd had with Dave, going back to, I guess it was about 2004, 2005, somewhere in that timeframe, I can't remember. But I wanna share something with you, and I'm gonna show this to you, but you gotta promise me to sort of keep this confidential, but I wanna show this to you. So come on in a little bit. This is an envelope that I got in the mail. And I was in Chicago last week for almost over a week, came back home, threw some new underwear in the suitcase, flew back to Chicago. And while I was gone, this envelope came, in fact, you can see it right here, it says April 29th, 2011. Now I get an envelope like this now pretty much every month. I don't know what's in this one, but I'm gonna go ahead and open it up and I'm gonna share it with you. And all I ask is that you think about it when I show this to you. Okay. So. Don't want it flying away. Come on, come over here and look over my shoulder. This is a check. $8,217.53. $8,217.53. But let me share something else with you 'cause this comes every single month, every month, every month, every month, this comes. It's also in here is a report. And I want you to take a look at something 'cause this is really, really important. See this number right here. That's the amount of rent that was collected. Now we just started leasing this building up in September. Okay, we just started leasing this building up in September. So the first check didn't come till October, took us about three months to lease the whole building up. So and we had to pay the folks to lease the building up for it. 'Cause I didn't do the leasing, we paid somebody to lease it up for us. Okay, and we had to make some repair, not repairs, we had to finish off some of the construction items, little things here and there. But the important thing I wanna share with you is that the building is now fully leased. And so this is maybe the first or second check we've gotten where it's fully leased. Okay. $10,000. But look here and this is something that's really, this is the most important thing I wanna show you here. You see that there? Right there. Right there. $1091.38. That's the management fee. So each and every month, the folks who manage this property for us get their fee. You sitting there, going, so what? Who cares? I care, the partners care because by having professional property management on the job, and we're paying them 10%, okay, so we're paying top dollar, but by having professional property management on the job, we don't have to do anything. Now stop and think about what I just said for a second. Okay. I wanna make sure you're really getting this, okay. I really wanna make sure that you're getting this, every month, a check for $8,200, right? Every month, every month, a check for 8,200, what'd I say $8,217.53. $8,217.53. Do you know what that means? That's $98,610 every year. $98,610 every year, and I don't have to do anything. Did I have to do something to put this deal together? Yeah. I had to find the deal, I had to find the investors, I had to hire the contractor. Halfway through, I had to fire the contractor. I had to put all the pieces together by hiring the right talent. And of course I had to find the property manager who leased the property up, got paid a really nice commission, and every month gets paid a property management fee, but when it's all said and done, when it's all over, there's a check every month for $8,000 and every year for 98,610. So I'm gonna ask you a very personal question, what could you do with a check that shows up in the mail every month, every month, every month for $8,000 and you don't have to do anything for that check to arrive?