How Losing My Job Turned Me into a Millionairefrom Karen Nelson BellYou're probably anxious to get right into the how-to section of this book, but if you'll allow me a few short minutes, I'd like to tell you some of the humbling (and possibly inspiring) experiences I've had along the road to real-estate riches. If you'll hang in there with me for the next few pages, I promise you nitty-gritty investing action coming right up.In this intro, you'll see how things in life can go so right and then so wrong, and then so right again. The rebound factor has been extremely important in my own life, and maybe if you are having a tough time right now, you'll find a story familiar to your own that will help in the big picture. If you're having financial challenges, I've been there. If you're having relationship challenges, I've been there too. If you're having other personal difficulties, you'll see you're not alone. I've had plenty.

In just a few pages, you'll be diving into details of real-estate investing, but right now I'd like to show you why I believe I've earned the right to be your mentor.This story has two parts: (1) how I lost my job and got inspired to try real-estate investing, and (2) exactly how I made that first million. (Nobody ever asks me how I made the second.)Have we met? My full name is Karen Nelson Bell, and you might have seen me somewhere on the Las Vegas Strip performing as a pianist-singer-dancer since 1967. Because I had been raised on classical music, my parents were shocked when I went to Vegas on vacation and immediately got a job opening for comedian Don Rickles in the famous old Casbar Lounge at the Sahara Hotel. Later I enjoyed playing piano and touring with singer Paul Anka for two years, and then performed under the stage name "Kelly Stevens" for a decade in a successful lounge group (our first album resurfaced recently and sold out on the internet). After touring all over the world, I started working as a musical director in the eighties. Then in the nineties, I was hired to create the first country show in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel, "Country Tonite.

"If you ever got by to see the show, you know we had a lot of fun! I loved my job, and I thought it would last forever, since I was the creator and ultimately became the producer/director as well. However, I was still an employee working at a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), working for the people who actually owned the show. When you work for someone else, you end up usingyourtalents and energies to make someone else rich. In fact, the show I had created out of thin air made millions and millions of dollars forotherpeople!How Losing My Job Made Me a Millionaire!I thought my job was secure because I had such a high-up "important" position. What I never considered was that the owners might sell the company and that the new buyers had theirownproducer/director.

I did resign, but only moments ahead of a pink slip! I have the privilege to say I resigned or retired, but the truth is that out of work is still out of work, no matter which way you got there.My late husband, Duncan Guertin, had been working for the show too, doing multimedia productions. So not only wasmyjob gone, Duncan's job was gone too. In short order, we had shifted from having two nice paychecks and theillusionof affluence to being out of work. We had been living a "rented lifestyle."Multiple Streams of IncomeThat August, we went to San Diego for a week, and our idea of a nice trip was always to take a few books and go reading somewhere in nature. We each took three books to the beach, and mine wereHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Who Moved My Cheese?, andMultiple Streams of Income. Well, books can change lives, and Robert G.

Allen's hitMultiple Streams of Incomechanged mine. When I read it, I thought he.