Show notes
David Phelps began investing in real estate in 1980 while attending Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas. His first joint venture partner was his father, who invested with David in the first rental property David managed. After graduating in 1983, David – who also had a dental practice – began a steady and continuous progression of real estate education and investment. His goal was to create multiple streams of income that would provide for his family, for an emergency, for college tuition and for retirement.
In 2004 David's daughter, Jenna, then 12, was diagnosed with end-stage liver failure, the result of years of chemotherapy and drug therapy to treat leukemia and epileptic seizures. Jenna was fortunate to receive a liver transplant in time to save her life, but the recovery period was long and arduous. During this time David made the decision to become a true business entrepreneur, transforming his dental practice to enable him to spend more time Jenna, whether she was sick or well.
As a result of his new-found freedom, David began practicing dentistry part time and subsequently stopped being the "provider" of dental treatment. He ran his practice remotely for another six years before selling to one of the associate dentists.
Today, David is a firm believer that time is our most important asset. He counsels: "You can't buy your life back at some future retirement age – there's no such thing. It's an illusion that unfortunately escapes too many hard-working people."
Freedom is his mantra. He is a crusader for dentists and owners of other professional practices, to show them how to achieve the same life that he has engineered. Real estate continues to be his passion as a proven investment vehicle, a subject on which David mentors other enterprising individuals.
David's new book From High Income to High Net Worth, provides owners of professional practices and other small businesses a well-defined blueprint with which to create freedom and options within the scope of their businesses and personal lifestyles. He writes: "Professional-practice and small-business owners have simply not been given permission to operate their work and live their lives in a lifestyle that was envisioned at the beginning of their careers. I did it because I was forced to do it. Others can do it because they should."
David was awarded the coveted Marketer of the Year for Professional Practice Owners at the Glazer-Kennedy SuperConference in Chicago in front of 1,200 of his peers.
Today, David enjoys the freedom that he created in his own life. He coaches and consults with professional-practice and other business owners to show them how to create freedom, security and peace of mind through the development of true entrepreneurial practices and lifetime passive-income streams found in done-for-you real estate investments.
He has participated in more than 1,000 real estate transactions and has involved direct bank financing only five times – the remaining 99% of the transactions were done strictly with private financing, which, he reminds us, is all about financial friends and relationships.
"Your life is your life; your business is not your life," he says. "Learn to live life on your own terms and accept nothing less." David's life can be celebrated as proof that adversity can open doors to opportunity. Until we are uncomfortable enough in our present situation, he says, change is not likely to happen.
www.FreedomFounders.com
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