When you play in the NFL, everyone wants to show you a deal. I took those meetings for years. The growth side of a portfolio is crowded. The income side is empty. I invested in more than fifty syndications and private deals and built my own rental portfolio one house at a time. I was not a passive listener. I was writing checks and watching what happened after. Almost none of it paid me anything I could live on, on a schedule I could plan around. Every pitch was about what my