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Have you ever kept a time sheet on yourself? Looked at where your time goes, hour-by-hour, throughout the day. Can you just make some rough guesses at it? I’ll bet that you spend about 8 hours at work, and 1 hour commuting to and from work. You probably sleep 8 hours. So what happens during those other 7 hours?

When I started my first company – a billboard business – I started off with a bank loan from a local bank. It was difficult because they really didn’t understand my business or have much interest in learning it, but it was small loan and so it made it through the loan committee. As I kept building more billboards, I kept borrowing more from that bank. And over the years, I ultimately exceeded the bank’s maximum credit for one borrower, and they told me that they would sell my loan to another bank that had a higher maximum, so I could keep borrowing.

My grandfather started his business in 1930, at a time in which you had to make a conscience choice between being a “family man” and an “entrepreneur”. Starting a business back then meant long hours on the road and at the office, often at the cost of spending time with your family. And it often seemed ironic that you had to spend your life trying to make a great life for your family, while virtually not being a part of the actual family unit.

Flipping single family homes is a thing of the past, and it’s time to examine other real-estate oriented options for more fertile territory. One area that is often overlooked is outdoor billboard media – basically big signs that advertise located on highways and roads. These old, giant players in the advertising world are suddenly becoming the darlings of media buyers the world over, and creating some exciting opportunities for aggressive individuals who are willing to play.