As a newbie, I need someone to guide me from the beginning to try to avoid mistakes and hopefully be very successful.

BIG mistake on my part.

You can hear real-world examples of how others have built their investment portfolio and (hopefully) learn to avoid their mistakes.4.

The "Initial Filing" is extremely important to get this right the 1st time as there are limited safe harbors for mistakes to avoid the penalties.

Real estate investing is more about taking actions and learn as much as possible along the way and not repeating your mistakes.

That can be legally done under the correct situations.You made some serious mistakes in the purchase, that proper training would have prevented.Again, Subto is legal, when done legally and I am not saying you've done anything illegal.The real solution is to sell and pay off the loan.

Heck, you could possibly JV with one of em during those early months/years of getting going to best mitigate the unknown mistakes, experience leveraging. 

I began to see through everything, but because of my kind nature (that has since been changed) I felt obligated to continue trusting him, that it was a mistake.. that it would get better.

Just don't make the mistake of comparing what someone else profits on a role, to decide whether your compensation is sufficient or not. 

Get to know other investors and learn from their mistakes.