If you don't do the homework, you will give them the impression you may not be up to doing the homework with real estate investing.

The impression I got is that they just want to extract from you and not give you anything of real substance in return so Danger Will , Danger will.  

Had gotten ahead of myself but had been under the impression I was 100% secured on my hard money loan.

So, I am not impressed, and would not recommend at this point.

Your journey from New York to DFW as a licensed Real Estate Agent is impressive. 

In the 9 years I’ve spent licensed in this industry I have never been impressed much with my peers.

The median sale price skyrockets by an impressive 15.6%, reaching a staggering $630,000.

., etc.  ...and, my impression is that they're also opposites in terms of the mindsets of the investors (e.g.; many RE investors have comparatively longer time horizons, and I would assume that most RE investors have a lower tolerance for risk).I'm a RE investor, and don't have any crypto, but I have plenty of friends who hold a lot of crypto, and we've discussed crypto endlessly...At the risk of sounding like a luddite, even after years of discussions and reading countless articles, I still don't feel like I have a good understanding of crypto.  ...and frankly, I'm skeptical of people who claim to have a thorough understanding of it (yet, there are no shortage of self-proclaimed "experts" who describe crypto with the confidence of someone predicting a sunrise!)

I also want to use this time to improve my credit score since it is not in a very impressive place right now.

Your reading list is impressive and shows how committed you are to learning.