Ways to make money, when you have money

[Charlton Thiede]

I'm new on BP and joined after I started listening to Joe Fairless' "Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever" podcast. It's very motivating to hear other investor's stories. Curenrly I work full time in mental health and I have a fairly considerable amount of capital at my disposal to start my real estate investing business. "Fairly considerable" is relative and vague, I know, but I'm hesitant to post a dollar amount. It's over $250,000. I'll leave it at that unless you want to talk personally. 

I know that having funds starting out is a huge advantage when going into real estate investing but I'm new at this. It would be easy to rush into something and make poor choices. My families goal in a nutshell is to increase our cash flow and for me to be able to move away from full time mental health work. 

Because I am inexperienced and my current knowledge is limited, I am looking to develop a plan for how to wisely invest my money so that it can grow and work for me long into the future. I'm interested in rental properties but I know that there are other ways to make money in real estate. I think ideally I would like to fund my own deals and use earnings to buy rental properties free and clear but I'm looking for sound advice on how to make my dream a reality. I'd love to find a great mentor. 

Here's the big question I have: If you had $250,000 how would you invest that money?