Viral marketing is not just for high falutin’ internet marketers and techno-geeks any more. The continuing development of Web 2.0 with social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and a hundred dozen others brings the power of conveying your message within reach of every human being with a burning desire to connect.

The term viral marketing is casually thrown around to describe web phenomenon, usually video, that catches the fancy of web surfers and spreads around the world like wildfire when they start passing it on to their friends. How does this help the budding internet entrepreneur? Well, imagine the onslaught of sales that could be headed your way if you manage to get your video (with marketing message slyly inserted) in front of a tsunami of surfers.

But it’s ever so difficult to have something you produce turn viral on purpose. Some of the stuff that catches on is straight out of left field but when it hits, wow, it hits big. Let’s take a look at an example. It’s a pretty sure bet that a few of you have heard of the website, book, or both called “Things White People Like.” Do you think Mr. Christian Lander planned on more than 72 million hits to his blog or a slot on the New York Times bestselling list when he began airing his hilarious take on white people culture?

And this isn’t the only example.

So, while there is no formula for creating your own viral marketing landslide, there is evidence that it can happen over the most odd idea imaginable. Your lesson today – never stop thinking about ways to take advantage of of the Internet’s power to connect one person with a few million others.

There’s apparently an old say that goes like this, “If you are what you do, and you don’t, then you AIN’T!” Many first responders facing the prospect of retirement from a fulfilling, adrenalized life’s work know what we’re talking about. After retirement, then what? Break out the fishing pole and count the day’s until you die? On the opposite side of that contemplation would be the prospect of having to serve another five years at a job you’re burned out on because the retirement fund is too pitiful to quit.

The point of this is you owe it to yourself and family to be able to determine your own retirement date outside of the pro or con influence of how your portfolio is doing. First responders are true American heroes and deserve the latitude to decide when they’re done.

But what do you do if the stock market isn’t cooperating?

In the first place, the stock market is not such a great place to be putting your money. These days it is largely driven by speculation, political events, and natural disasters. Not a tasty recipe for solid growth. Trust us, this ain’t your grandfather’s stock market, and that’s not a compliment. To build a sizable nest egg that allows YOU to decide when enough is enough requires the courage to step out of the box and say, “I’m going to be different. I’m going to succeed at investing.”

Here’s a hint – income property. Become a landlord and own an ever-growing collection of residential, single-family homes that you rent out. This is the best method we’ve ever found for motivated first responders to reach the land of financial independence. You can learn exactly how to do this for free via the podcasts and blogs on this website or head over to JasonHartman.com for even more resources.

And retire on your own terms.

Due to the incredibly stressful demands of the job, the average policeman, fireman, or emergency worker can expect to be eligible for retirement sooner than their peers in other lines of employment. This particular perk can sometimes turn into a Catch-22 situation for those who haven’t prepared themselves for financial independence and and a longer stay in the golden years.

What we hope you realize is that you can’t rely on the returns of a traditional pension plan to provide enough income to really enjoy that extra time in the sun. Come on, you made it through a perilous occupation in one piece and you assuredly deserve the comfort that a financial independence buys.

Not too many pension plans are talking financial independence these days. Most are lucky to be solvent at all, and the dirty little secret they don’t want to tell you is they’re throwing darts at the stock market hoping to make up for the crumbling value of a dollar and market that has been churning for a while.

You need to take responsibility for your own future. Don’t rely on “the system” to provide for you. Chances are, it’s broken. Luckily, there is another way that we’d like to introduce to you as Heroic Investing develops into a valuable resource for your future.

We’re talking about real estate. It’s no secret that property investing works works. Most people would take that on faith. The disconnect comes in when it comes time to finance an actual investment. Don’t you need a big chunk of cash to get started?

Turns out, maybe less than you think.

Interest rates for typical mortgages are hovering around 4 percent – but potential homebuyers aren’t biting. Overall, applications for both refinancing and home mortgages are down by 48 percent this year, according to a new CNBC report – and market watchers are wondering what that could mean for the health of the housing industry.

The Federal Reserve has now “tapered down’ its massive Qualitative Easing stimulus program for the third time, and more scalebacks are likely, depending on the health of economic indicators such as employment and retail activity. Because of that, financial experts worried that interest rates would shoot up, controlled only by natural market factors.

So far, that hasn’t happened. But along with those relatively low interest rates came more stringent mortgage standards – part of the Qualified Mortgage Rule that took effect in January 2014. And we can also add in rising home prices as the housing market continues to recover from the historic crash of 2008, as possible reasons for the slump.

Houses are still being bought and sold, but a growing number of those sales are skirting the mortgage market entirely and relying on all cash, especially in higher end markets – a strategy that shuts out many lower-end home buyers and investors.

For buyers who don’t have cash, the issue of creditworthiness stands as the major obstacle to taking out a mortgage. The Qualified Mortgage Rule sets minimum standards for qualifying loans – but even so, many borrowers don’t meet those standards.

To ease the credit roadblocks, many lenders are now setting their own minimal credit requirements, with acceptable scores lower than those set a year ago. And the Federal Housing Finance Agency, regulator for quasi-government mortgage servicers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has opted to create new lending standards along with a new program that would reduce insurance premiums for riskier borrowers who agree to go to credit counseling.

But some housing industry professionals argue that those measures aren’t enough – and they might just put more unqualified borrowers back into the housing market at a time when both the availability and price of properties make put home buying within reach of more borrowers.

For investors hoping to build wealth through income property as Jason Hartman recommends, movement on the mortgage front, combined with relatively low rates can still open the door to an investing career. 

Living the busy and often chaotic lifestyle of a first responder is a recipe for estate planning neglect. And to those without experience in this particular area of finance, it’s sometimes easier to turn a blind eye than get educated about exactly which documents you need to save your heirs a lot of heartache and potential squabbling. Bad idea. Don’t make them guess what you want. Tell them!

According to the AARP website, here are the four legal documents you should have in order for your estate to be disposed of efficiently upon death.

1. Will. This is the basic legal document that describes who gets your belongings, who is in charge of distribution and who will be guardian of any minor children or disabled family members. Die without a will and the state will make these decisions at considerable cost to survivors. Trust us – not what you want.

2. Durable Power of Attorney. Should you become disabled or incapacitated, it requires protracted legal proceedings for anyone else to be able to access your bank accounts, securities, property, or to take any action in your name – unless you have assigned a durable power of attorney to someone. Do it!

3. Advance Directive. An advanced directive describes what medical decisions should be made in the event you are unable to make them yourself. Falling into a coma is one example. This directive tells what steps should be taken to to keep you alive and/or designates who should make the decision to withdraw life support if you are physically or mentally unable to decide for yourself.

4. Letter of Instructions. Though not a binding legal document, consider writing an informal letter describing your personal and financial situation and expressing your specific estate planning wishes to survivors. Include special requests here, as well as a list of all financial resources. This keeps your heirs from having to go on a wild goose chase.

If you do nothing else towards estate planning for the day you are gone, at least tend to these four documents. Your heirs will thank you for it.

Those who have devoted their lives to the service of others – first responders – have traditionally enjoyed a strong work union and, if not lucrative, at least comfortable pension. These days, we’d hate to be the ones betting on that to continue. Government funding at any level seems perilous at best. With the pool of payees rising and payors dwindling, no one really knows how programs like Social Security or Medicare will be paid for in the coming years. Same goes for local police and fire departments, as well as hospitals.

Your pension could be next to fall under the ax to some extent.

The way to live out your golden years is to take matters into your own hands, a concept you’re probably familiar with on the job. Don’t sit back and let the stock market and your broker drag you all over the place. One of Jason Hartman’s 10 Commandments for Successful Investing is to be a direct investor. Simple in concept, this idea is powerful in execution and could mean the difference between an “okay” retirement and financial freedom.

Direct investing means there is no middleman you rely on to implement your investment strategy. Heroic Investing thinks that having an investment counselor to bounce ideas off is a great idea, but only you should have the power to pull a trigger on a deal. Additionally, you MUST fully understand every part of your portfolio and take an active role in monitoring it. If this sounds like a lot of work, it’s not. As a direct investor, you’ll spend much less time tending to financial matters than you do on the job right now.

And that’s what retirement and a healthy pension is supposed to be about, right?

It used to be that pensions for police, fire, and other emergency service careers were based upon receiving a certain percentage of your highest salary of the last ten years of employment – or some permutation of that. Those were the good old days. New retirees hope to build wealth lies in the whims and vagaries of the stock market, which is where many fund managers plow your future pension, hoping to generate some sort of decent return.

That’s a scary proposition if you ask us. You can’t rely on the stock market for anything except to behave like a hyperactive chimpanzee. Up. Down. Up. Waaay down. Sideways. Diagonal. Backward and forward simultaneously. Are you queasy yet? You should be. This is not a good way to plan for old age.

A better idea to build wealth that will actually be there when you retire is to funnel whatever pension money you are allowed to into a type of investing that actually works. For more than two decades, Heroic Investing has watched people of modest means change their financial future for the better by focusing on income property investments. This is the silent secret to wealth in America. The majority of rich people got that way through real estate, and many didn’t have much to start with. You’ve worked hard. You’ve sacrificed much. Unfortunately, today’s economy is leaving pensions hung out to dry. Take hold of your future and learn how to build wealth that lasts no matter what the stock market is doing.

First responders and emergency workers have a long tradition in America. Unfortunately for them financially, that tradition often includes a devotion to invest in the stock market, sometimes for no better reason than that’s the way the family has always done it. That viewpoint is understandable but not a very good reason – especially when there is another way to invest that works. Really works!

The truth is this; stocks, bonds, mutual funds have virtually no chance of making anyone wealthy except the brokers selling advice that may or may not work, and the Enron/Bernie Madoffs’ of the world who raid the portfolios of the hard-working average investor.

The way for a hero to invest (we’ll call you what you are) is in income producing residential properties. Now don’t freak out and run, thinking this stuff only works if you’re last name is Trump. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Almost every day we help educate people with average salaries on how to locate and close property deals that have the real potential to result in a financially secure retirement. And we don’t just mean sort of secure. We mean VERY secure. We’ll go into more detail about exactly how to do this in the coming days but for now let’s focus on the fact that we’re talking about annual returns of 20% to 30%, sometimes more, instead of the measly 5% to 15% you might get in the stock market.

And real estate investing done the right way is not flinging darts at a wall. It’s a conservative, repeatable, effective method to grow wealth for anyone – even you. Stay tuned in the coming days as Heroic Investing pulls back the curtain and shows you how to change your financial future.

There are two main reasons we believe income property investing is the best path to financial success available for your dollar. First, and perhaps the most telling, is personal experience. We’ve been doing this for more than two decades and it’s worked quite well for us personally. Secondly, history is on the side of the property owner, especially the income property owner. It’s created more wealthy people than any other asset.

For a quick review, an income property is real estate that you own for the purpose of renting it out to a tenant. Ergo, instant cash flow and, if you do it right, income for you. The trick is, of course, doing it right. You can get slaughtered in the real estate market if you don’t know what you’re doing. The good news is we’re going to teach you what you need to know and it won’t be complicated.

There are essentially two kinds of income property, residential and commercial, but we strongly recommend you start your portfolio with single family, residential properties. Why do we recommend investors stay away from commercial properties? In truth, we’re not completely against the notion but you do subject yourself to more economic fluctuations.

There’s a very good reason we say focus on single family residential dwellings – universal need. This one simple truth could make you very wealthy. A universal need goes beyond wants or desires. It’s something we humans must have to survive. Food, water, shelter. These are three of the very basic needs and it will never change. People will always require a roof over their head and a place to lay their heads at night.

Be the person providing the universal need at a fair price and you could write your own ticket to financial success. Heroic investing will teach you how to do that.