There’s something really interesting I know about YOU… and you probably don’t even know it yourself.  But you should, you must, it’s important to you as a self-directed investor.  I’m Bryan Ellis… you’ll hear about it right now in Episode #100. ---------Hello hello hello my friends!  Welcome to another excursion into investment excellence!Folks, this is an exciting day for me… and I have YOU to thank for it.You see, this is Episode #100 of Self Directed Investor Radio.  100 is nothing more than just a nice round number, but it’s a special day for this show, and I’d like to tell you why.May I tell you a bit about my background?  If you’ll indulge me, you’ll very quickly understand why my background is important to expressing how grateful I am for and to YOU!  I’ve been around the real estate business and alternative investment world for about 20 years.  For most of the last 10 years or so, I’ve been focused primarily on publishing my newsletter, the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter.  And wow… has that ever been a success.  I’m so grateful to God and to my subscribers and really to my wife, without whom it simply couldn’t have happened.We have nearly 700,000 subscribers to that newsletter, and through that publication I’ve achieved a level of influence in the real estate world for which I’m so deeply grateful.That newsletter is heavily focused on coverage of news, public policy and current events that are relevant to individual investors.  We also offer a lot of educational opportunities for people who want to learn the in’s and out’s of various real estate investment strategies.And wow am I grateful to everyone who has been a subscriber.  Far more than I can say.But you know… there was a bit of a yearning in my soul for something different… something bigger, and smaller, at the same time.You see, several years ago, I offered an opportunity to my newsletter readers that was different than I’d ever done before.  Instead of just offering educational programs, I actually offered my subscribers the chance to actually invest their money in real deals.  These were what are now called “turnkey” deals, because these real estate deals were completely passive for the investor.Well, something really cool happened… people made money!  And my clients were HAPPY.  I mean, genuinely happy.  Many of them had always wanted to invest in real estate, but had never done so for many reasons… maybe lack of time, lack of knowledge, or simple fear.  But what they saw in the opportunity I provided for them was a “green light”… a clear path to actually producing real financial results rather than just attending a real estate course or reading an investment book.Well, that was a couple of years before the crash of 2007, and about a year before that crash, I saw the writing on the wall, and asked my clients to stop those investments.  Thankfully, they did, and we had a really great run together.But you know what?  I never forgot that experience.  I absolutely loved it.  What I got was the chance to have a really meaningful impact on the lives of those clients… an impact that could be measured in dollars and cents.  Some of you may know, my formal education is in engineering.  Software engineering, specifically.  I went to the Georgia Tech – one of the top 10 engineering universities in the entire world – on academic scholarship.  So, needless to say, I’m a bottom line, black-and-white kind of guy.  Making a difference is a good thing, and I’d been doing that for years by educating people through the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter.  But making a MEASURABLE difference is even better… and my experience helping those clients in such a clear, measurable way lit a fire in me that never went away.Well, while the market was crashing, I wasn’t about to go back into the business of recommending real estate investments.  The timing was all wrong.But as soon as it was clear that the market was turning UPWARDS again, I chose to make a move back into attracting clients who I