At the beginning of the movie "Doubt", the priest gives a sermon on that very topic-doubt. As I listened, it immediately resonated with me, as a lawyer who every day lives with the problems of real estate investors in these difficult days and as an investor who, along with his clients, is trying to navigate uncertain waters.

With very minor modifications that I have taken the liberty of making (and regardless of your religious beliefs), that sermon has direct application to all real estate investors:

What do you do when you're not sure?

With today's current economy, who among us has not experienced the most profound disorientation? Despair. Which way? What now? What do I say to my family? What do I tell myself? It is a time of people looking for answers, bound together by a common feeling of hopelessness. Your bond with your fellow being is your Despair. It is a public experience. It is awful, but we are in it together.

I want to tell you a story. A cargo ship sank one night. It caught fire and went down. And only this one sailor survived. He found a lifeboat, rigged a sail...and being of a nautical discipline...turned his eyes to the Heavens and read the stars. He set a course for his home, and exhausted, fell asleep. Clouds rolled in. And for the next twenty nights, he could no longer see the stars. He thought he was on course, but there was no way to be certain. And as the days rolled on, and the sailor wasted away, he began to have doubts. Had he set his course right? Was he still going on towards his home? Or was he horribly lost... and doomed to a terrible death? No way to know. The message of the constellations - - had he imagined it because of his desperate circumstance? Or had he seen truth once...and now had to hold on to it without further reassurance?

There are those of you reading this today who know exactly the crisis of doubt and uncertainty I describe. And I want to say to you: Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.

When you are lost, you are not alone ...

In our continuing effort to be a resource for investors- both in the good times and bad-we are offering a free series of teleseminars and webinars dedicated to helping investors deal with the doubt, uncertainty and unique challenges presented by today's economy. There will be no product sales pitches in these seminars. The only purpose is to throw you an educational lifeline. Over the next few months, we will bring you some of the best real estate investing minds in the country to answer your most pressing questions and offer solutions.

Our first event is entitled: "The Big Picture: Revisiting Your Personal Investment Philosophy and Investing Goals In These Uncertain Times". This premier event is designed to help you re-evaluate and re-orient yourself and your investing goals at this critical time in the economy. Our speaker will be Robert Helms. Mr. Helms is a nationally-recognized expert in real estate investing and goal-setting. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Real Estate Guys (tm) and the TV show "The Real Estate Guys". In this teleseminar, you will learn how to: