Attorneys are Human Too, a Podcast

Episode 14-Exiting the Matrix Featuring Jerome Myers

September 09, 2020 Jerome Myers Season 1 Episode 14
Attorneys are Human Too, a Podcast
Episode 14-Exiting the Matrix Featuring Jerome Myers
Show Notes Transcript

Join Host Steve Wallace, Esq. and Co-Host Celena Muzic both of The Wallace Law Group, PL as they are joined by Jerome Myers.

Topics Include:

Jerome Myers' educational background and inspirations
Jerome Myers' Professional Background
Advice for Real Estate Investors
Jerome Myers' Investment Stratgies
Description of Jerome Myers' Podcasts Multifamily Missteps and Dream Catchers
Advice on How To Host a Podcast
Pop Culture Banter 
Lightning Round

Steve Wallace:

we have a true tree today. We have Jerome Meyers who has so many accolades It's almost impossible for me to list them all. who Jerome was when he was a child growing up.

Jerome Myers:

Is the kid that stayed outside until the street lights came on, because that was as long as I could stay out. We'd go out at the top of the day and I wouldn't come back unless I was home hungry and I couldn't eat at one of my friend's houses. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. So I went and adopted brothers and sisters through friends in the neighborhood, but you know, super active in sports, really enjoy school, tug pride in being. Intelligent. I thought for some reason that was cool. When a lot of people in my, the neighborhood didn't and really driven to Excel, I wanted to make mom and dad proud for lack of sounding cliche.

Steve Wallace:

Not

at all. I'm an only child also, and both of us turned out normal or normal, so to speak. Okay, great. So you have a pretty unique resume. you have a pretty distinguished athletic career as well as one thing. That's, that's pretty interesting. If you could just tell us, you know, how you came about to select your universe.

Jerome Myers:

Oh man. So for those of you who don't know what the North Carolina, agricultural technical state university, and there's this thing about that school called G ho and it's the greatest homecoming on earth and it's a historically black college or university and. They call it like a family reunion where people from all over the country, people that even go to school and we're not probably playing that school during the, actual homecoming event come to hang out. And I mean, there's probably 20 to 30,000 people that come to the university and the student population is right at 12,000 now. And they've grown over the past five or six years when I was there. It was less than 10,000. But I got that opportunity to go do that when I was in middle school, back to friends. So I went to visit one of my friend's sisters for homecoming on one of those weekends. And I got to experience the band, the football, all the people, all of these folks. And I don't know if any of your listeners watched a different world when it was on TV,

Steve Wallace:

but I loved that show.

Jerome Myers:

Okay. It was a different world. You had all of these people for me that looked like me, we're off getting these degrees. And then you see the fruits of the labor. Cause you know, it's primarily known as engineering school. And so those folks were going off again pretty well paying jobs. And then you see the luxury cars, you see the nice clothes and it's like, Oh. I thought only drug dealers get this stuff and preachers, like that was my experience that those were the people who got nice things, but the folks who went to work every day and worked really hard, kind of ended up with the stuff that was pretty drab and boring. And so for me, it was like, Oh, so I can do that. And I don't have to participate in illegal acts. So, so

Steve Wallace:

let's take a little step back. So you went to school and you on a football scholarship to go

Jerome Myers:

to school. No. I actually had two academic, four rides.

Steve Wallace:

That's excellent. But you did play football in school, right?

Jerome Myers:

Did, and so

Steve Wallace:

to manage that, that's something, cause I know engineering, you know, I have a law degree and I wouldn't go near engineering because that was way too labor intensive and difficult for me. So I mean, it's miraculous. How did you, how were you able to balance both of those? Cause they're both like two full time jobs and

Jerome Myers:

one. Yeah. So I think the training, right? If I go back to the story we were talking about where, you know, I was a kid that stayed outside all day. It was also the kid that like had homework. Yeah. I went to baseball and I was doing a TaeKwonDo and I have football. And so I was doing something every season. And so it was just the habit of, Hey, this is what you do. Right. So you do your homework yeah. To get your sports in and you eat and you just kind of do it over and over again. But the long and the short of it, it is difficult. Like there were. or three hour nights of sleep, you know, I would get up and especially in the spring, like we'd have workouts in the morning at four, we get out, we go eat breakfast, go to class all day. You gotta be out of class by two. And then, and your film from two to three and then three to six you're practicing dinner study hall. And then whatever you don't finish a study hall, you do it in your room at night. And so, you know, bedtime was about midnight and we did that over and over again. And that's how there is no shortcut. There is no magic bullet. I wish I was that smart where I didn't have to do the stuff, but. I had to do the stuff I went to every class I didn't skip. There was no laying out. And then the great thing about football that you don't get with like track or basketball or volleyball while our baseball is like all the travels at the end of the week. And so for us, you know, I was able to attend a majority of my classes and make sure Friday was my light day so that if we were playing away, I would be able to go travel and not get crushed with. The tests are some of the other stuff that came up, but it was just forming that habit and being in a culture of discipline early on that allow me to continue that through school.

Celena Muzic:

I think, I think it takes a lot of dedication and time. I want to know. I want to know. What, what troubles you were getting into when you were, when you were younger or even in college? I know we all did. I mean, I don't even want to go into my moments, but I want to know what, what times were you getting in trouble and, and having, since it was such a discipline schedule, when did you have time for you?

Jerome Myers:

So, I mean a lot of this stuff for me. So the short answer, and the question is I didn't get in trouble. There just wasn't time for that. Right. everything was just you move from here to here to here. And if you're serious about the mission of getting a degree, or if you're serious about being a high performance football player, if you're serious about being a pillar in the community, and some of the other stuff I was taught in my upbringing, Then you couldn't like move this the way to go do that. So, and I didn't mention, like I had jobs while I was doing this too, because, you know, I was tutoring and study hall for some of the folks because I was doing fairly well. So they allow me to be a tutor. I had research projects that I was working on for different professors. And so I was doing everything I could to grow my income while I was in school. Because I knew on the back end that I had some goals. And so, you know, I was able to get out of school that free. and so the trouble thing, I was so focused on. Things that I guess weren't fun because I knew that I was on a mission to do something bigger when I was there. And so a lot of people would say, well, you missed out on college. And when I think about what the first five years after causes looked like for me, it was very different from the people who really enjoy college. And so for me, it was well worth it. And I think a lot of people miss this whole, they miss it when they say, Oh, well, you need to enjoy that. And you can find yourself and you do all these things. Like the stuff that a lot of people were excited about doing in college, like I'd already done it. And you know, I've never said this, like on a public forum when a place that's recorded, but like, I don't smoke. I don't drink like. All of that. Once I turned 16, I had everything I wanted. I had the privilege to do everything I want, which was drive for me. I mean, it was the freedom piece of it all. And so when I could do that, like I did it and really being 21 was a non event, right. College parties. Interesting. Because I have other stuff that I needed to make sure it happened in order for me to get to the place I wanted to get to. And so. I ended up not having a ton of friends. And so this is the thing that I think I really messed up with school is I didn't do a lot, but networking perspective, right. It was I'm here, I'm here to take care of business and then I'm out and going to do the next thing. And I mean, you know, there are things like, you know, student orgs and I mean, there were so many layers that were stacked on it that. You know, I just didn't have the capacity to do what a lot of people consider to be the college experience. And I'm grateful for that because it gave me so much exposure. Like I got an internship in Africa when I'm in between my junior and senior year. Like, it was just such a dynamic experience for me that I could have wasted it, but I wanted to get all that I could out of it.

Steve Wallace:

What did you do in Africa? Could you elaborate on that internship? That's we've never heard that before on the podcast.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah, so I was, I'm a civil engineer by training. And so I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to work for the office of over overseas building affairs within the state department. And so we were building a communications building in East Africa. And the country that was in the middle of, of a war, which was like terrifying and the majority of the folks in the culture or fairer skin or in the community affairs skin. And so people who have skin like mine were usually captured and taken to like, I don't want to call it a concentration camp, but it wasn't camp where you were enlisted to fight. And basically, if you identify it, then you were killed. And so I wasn't able to go anywhere without like my driver, if I wanted to go somewhere in town. And then, like, I had a couple of guys who were on the team that I was leading. And so like, even when we went out, like it was with my like security guy. And so just like getting experiences like that, like, I couldn't point to anybody who was doing the same things I was doing and get to do that, but this goes back to like trying to squeeze everything out of it. I got that opportunity because I volunteered for a, to help put together a Saturday session for the honors program at the university. Fly in from DC who were interested in one recruiting and high talent, but to like creating these opportunities where people get the professional development so that when they go to interview or they go to the workplace, they actually have the tools. And capabilities, they need to be successful there. And so for me, like that was a once in a lifetime effect. And, but I mean, it changed so much more. Right. So now that I've been to Africa, I know what it's like to be there. Right. And so from that, when I start doing traveling and stuff, like instead of going to Europe or some of the more popular tourist destinations, I spend my time in the Caribbean in Africa because. It's not what it's made out to be in popular media and the places that are like it gives you appreciation for the privilege that we have in the States, in some

Celena Muzic:

parts of the Caribbean,

Jerome Myers:

you name it like we have been in central America Belize, been to Rupa. Jamaica, like, I mean, Trinidad, like you name it, I've probably been there or really close to it.

Celena Muzic:

Yes. Selena is from the Dominican.

Jerome Myers:

I've been there two or three

Celena Muzic:

times. okay. Very cool. Very cool. So you must, you must actually know dr. Very well.

Jerome Myers:

I like it puts a kind of, okay.

Celena Muzic:

Okay. Yeah. That's a touristy. The best part. I think you should check out. Some are not it's a little bit. Off the beaten trail, but it's amazing.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we went there at one point.

Steve Wallace:

I don't remember how many stamps do you have in your passport?

Jerome Myers:

Lots. I mean, I, I tried to get out of the country three times a year, at least

Celena Muzic:

that's fantastic. I think that's great. I mean, I love to travel, so. I have a lot of stamps too, but, I think that's the best way also to broaden your view on different cultures is by experiencing them and being there. I was born and raised in New York. So for a very long time, I didn't really know what it was to be Dominican. I knew my parents were from there and luckily they taught my brother, my sister and myself, how to read and write. In Spanish and speak Spanish fluently, but we never, like, I had never been there for a long time. It was until I got older that they took me and I went there and experience a lot because they were always flying back and forth on business. And I just, I was too little to know any

Jerome Myers:

better. Yeah. I mean, getting back to the roots, whatever they are. And I, I, I won't go too far off the path guys. I promise, but

Steve Wallace:

if there's no path to follow we're having a nice conversation. So that's what we pride ourselves on. Attorneys are human too.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. So the, the, who are descendants of slaves that live in America today. And I mean, they weren't slaves before they were put on the ship and brought here. Right. But they were cut off from whatever their heritage is. And there are ways now that you can trace your ancestry, but it's. Before I knew that I was Nigeria from the Europe you're of a tribe. Like I was always jealous when I would hear people who knew they were from Italy or knew they were from Germany or knew they were Irish being able to, say that they knew that. Right. Whereas what most people who are descendants of slaves in this country say is they're black, but what does that actually mean? Because there is no country for black. Right. And hearing you say, Hey, you know, I was Dominican, right. I didn't know. I know ever been and I had to self teach myself Spanish and all this stuff like getting back to your roots, there is something that you find when you connect back to your roots, that nobody can give you. And so going, like when I was, I was in Ghana, I went to the slave castles and. I got to the door nor return after walking through what were the three different holding chambers that people went in, they basically every 30 days, you moved to a different chamber and then the boat would come around the 90th day and you will walk out and get into the boat, but to see how people existed when that type of stuff was happening. In some ways it's terrifying, but for me it was like super eerie because you could still feel the heaviness of the place that you were in. And so I bring that all full circle to just say, like, we've got to figure out what our roots are. We've got to stay true to our stated values and we need to make sure that our actions align. And this goes back to your question Selena about getting in trouble. Like I. My state of values, where I was going to get out of college. I was going to either start my own company, starting my PhD, or go work somewhere where I was getting paid more money than I thought I would ever get paid. And I didn't want anything to impact that. And I remember specifically when I got back, I had, two new roommates and, or people I knew from high school, but I walked in the day I got back and I was like, They're sitting on the couch, smoking weed. And I'm like, what are y'all doing? Like to add insult to injury? Like it was furniture that I bought,

Celena Muzic:

Oh no,

Jerome Myers:

and it's just like, you got it. These are idiots. And so like, literally, like I moved out that day, like I got to Utah and moved that day just because they didn't want to be around any mess. Like I done at worked too hard in order to be in a space where. Somebody being silly, regardless of how small it is is only small until it keeps

Celena Muzic:

yeah. Or something happens. Exactly. Yeah. My dad was still always tell us, look at everything from every possibility and every angle and don't put yourself in that predicament.

Steve Wallace:

So, kind of following your path to Rome. So you, you finished college and you had a civil engineering degree. And so you have a pretty unique resume where you work many years in corporate America, and then you just had enough of it. And I've, I've been there too. And we can share that story as well, but I'd love to hear what your path was after you finished college.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. So I, I thought I was. It had two paths. It was go do my PhD at the university of South Florida and go work for a power company in Virginia. And I decided that it was time to start wealth building. So I took the job. And so that was a structural engineer. I did that for about a year, maybe 18 months got a promotion as kind of a team lead for the work that we were doing. And then from there I moved to operational role in a distribution business. And so we're responsible for keeping the lights on. There's a 24 by seven operation. And I was called what was called the soup switching supervisor. And so this was the first time where I felt like I really had some. Like really real skin in the game. So the guys would come in and they say, Hey, here's, what's happened. I need you to make sure that there's no electricity on this line while I go do the work. And we'd have to tell them which devices to move around in order to make the line say for them to. Either put up new wire or remove a tree, whatever where it was. And then when they got done reenergize it and all that keeping as many people's light on as possible. And so that was like a super challenging environment. And this was right in the middle of the recession. And so. I was fortunate enough to have a number of different. And so it was when I was working at the company and a few of them actually became sponsors, but the guy that was my sponsor for that role, his position got eliminated. And from there. I got stuck. And so I was in a role that I hated for like 30, like a swing shift. I was working one to 11, which, you know, I was in a job where you didn't need a college degree. So it was like all these things. I'm like, this is awful. This is terrible. I don't ever want to do this again. Who's going to let me out. Who's going to help me. And I remember I applied for a hundred jobs at that company. Got 10 interviews and got zero offers. And I was like, how did Jerome go from being this high performer, dada to a loser who can't get a job now? And so. You know, eventually I got out of that, a new guy step then started mentor army helped me get out of that. And then I got into another job and the guy said, Hey, look, you got six months to get a promotion or we're going to cut your bones. I was like, what do you mean? He said, yeah. And I was like, well, what's the likelihood of that? And he said, well, this lady has been in jail for two years. She still hasn't got her promotion. And we're certainly not going to promote you before we promote her. So there you have it. I had recruiters reaching out pretty regularly, had another guy reach out or, yeah, I can't remember which one it was and was like, Hey, we got an opportunity for you. And so I got this opportunity to build a consulting firm office for a smaller company. It was like 800 people that was headquarters in Pennsylvania and moved over to them. Started building this office in Richmond. It was crazy. I was driving back and forth from Richmond, Virginia to Pittsburgh. Every Monday and Friday for like four months, just to try to make the thing work. And so I did that and I got the opportunity to commit time sheet fraud. Right. And adding these things, right. The guy's like, Hey, I see you tried to admin budget this week. I said, yeah, my project's over. And the only reason it's relevant is because it was right around this time. It was right around labor day. It was like, yeah, my project finished. They're not going to send me a new one. So after labor day, well, you don't start charging, having a budget. What do you mean? Like I'm done with the project. I don't have the next one yet. I charged admin budget. He was like, no, he said don't ever do that again. You'll either take vacation or you figure out how to, put your work together so that you don't have any Well, I don't own the company, so I'm not doing either one of those and I'm not going to steal from a client. And he's like, I'm telling you what's going to happen next time. And so I left there, gave back the$10,000 signing bonus that I was given. It's just, it goes back to like, it's my story. And like, that's when I figured out that I don't do things for money. Right. It's I'm doing things because it's the right. Whether somebody is watching or not. Yeah, exactly. I left there went to a global, the consulting firm got to go back to Africa. That's when I was in Ghana, the slave castles. And got to work on some really cool policy work for, the country of Ghana and their power infrastructure stuff. And then I came back and my last role in corporate America was building a$20 million division for a fortune five 50 company. And in that we, I was employee number two, start on January 30th. And by labor day we have 175 people on the team here. We've done 20 million in revenue, about 30% profit. My reward for that$6 million was getting to lay people off and that message. Me on Christmas Eve and it's like, you need to spend the next week figuring out who's still going to have a role in the new year. And I was like, I don't think this is right. I don't ever want to do this again, said, well, you can let somebody else pick, but you've got to do this again. So you probably want to pick the people that you want on the team so that you can actually do successfully. And so I did it. I promised myself I would never do it again. Fast forward to Thanksgiving. And the next year. Same thing. I said, I'm out. And so this is when I become the self proclaimed corporate America dropout, and I decided to move back to real estate. And so, you know, there was a guy that lived downstairs, apartment building that I was talking about, that I moved out of pretty radically, who. we were doing the math and that's what all engineering students do on their free time. Right. And so I was paying three 95. I had two roommates paying three 95. He had the same thing going on downstairs. We multiplied it out. The guy that owned the complex was making$700,000 a year. And so it was like, I want to do that because I don't have to make 700, like I can make 50 and I'm good. Like,

Steve Wallace:

we call it mailbox money on this show. We love mailbox money.

Celena Muzic:

We love mailbox money.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. So I wanted to do that. Right. And, but I didn't know how I didn't have access. You know what, I'm the son of a soldier and a stay at home mom. So we went, just started getting some credit, getting some money in the bank, getting some experience and said, we'll figure it out later. So I went back to that. I was like, okay, I got to deal. I went to the banks, we went to 10 of them. They all told me, no, you guys can do

Steve Wallace:

what asset class, where you're looking into Jerome.

Jerome Myers:

We were doing, we were doing C so C and a B area.

Steve Wallace:

Was this multifamily residential?

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. Okay. And they told me I didn't have the right experience. I was like, well, I just did this. And you know, I got an MBA, I got a professional engineering license. I got my project management professional service. Like, what do you want? They're like, we want you to do this business plan on a project of similar size before I was like, you're right. I don't have that experience. And they said, well, go find a partner. I didn't know anybody. Right. And I didn't know about all of the virtual networking. Well, we didn't have the virtual networking. No, I didn't know about, I didn't know that you could go pay people 20 or 30 grand to get in their course in order to buy an apartment, be told out of syndicated an apartment. I just knew that I wanted to go buy this thing. And so, you know, Fast forward it. And today, you know, we've got, we've done five transactions. we. We're running what we consider to be a meaningful business and looking to scale the goal by 2028 is to have a thousand doors and to help a hundred people get out of their day job by teaching them how to invest and giving them opportunities to go be their own operators if they want to.

Steve Wallace:

Okay. Let's, let's rewind a little bit because we got where you didn't have an experience and the bank was telling, you know, And one of the things we have a lot of folks that listen to our podcast that want to get into real estate and, you know, you're definitely a motivational model for them. So how did you get from point a to your first deal? We'd love to hear that story.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. So I think. The, so what happened was after 10 banks told me, no, I started fixing and flipping houses and being on the stoop of one of my projects and the guy pulls up and he says, Hey man, let me check out your finishes. Like, okay. And so he walks through, he's like, yeah, we're doing one down the street. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's like, Oh, I liked that you took a wall out. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then he said, Hey, do you know anything about that building downtown in Churchill? It's like, yeah. I tried to buy that four or five months ago, but they told me no. He said, well, I'm getting ready to make an offer on it. I was like, Oh, you're the guy I've been looking for. So I need somebody with experience and we should partner on the deal. And he's like, what are you gonna bring to the table? I said, I don't know. We'll figure it out. But. I want to be in the deal with you because you're the guy I've been looking for and sure enough, you want to make the offer without me. Right? Cause you didn't need me and tell him I was bringing a hundred or$200,000. So it didn't matter. Eventually he goes and talks to one of the guys that I talked to about doing the deal back in February, January or February, maybe, maybe even December of the previous year. And he said, Oh, that's the what's wrong with talking about. I'm only doing the deal of drum. Does it, do he needed the guy to be the general contractor? Cause he had his license and so fast forward, I get to be the asset manager for that project. And since we bought from one of the big brokerage houses, they, did a press release. Excellent. It was in the paper in the press release little old me and guess who called me? Based on the press release the guy

Steve Wallace:

who made the offer.

Jerome Myers:

No, the banks,

Steve Wallace:

a bank even better

Jerome Myers:

calling me. And they wanted to know if I'd already lined up refinance money for the deal. If I had anything else in the pipeline, right? Cause now I got a pipeline cause I did one deal. And, and the reality of the situation is I didn't know anymore before that article was written than I did before, but I signed the loan. And that was what the bank needed to justify giving me a million dollars to go do a deal. And so we leveraged those relationships left Richmond, Virginia came to Greensboro, North Carolina, and we've been buying here and we really want to be the market maker in this city. You know, we've got 120 unit development that we're working on going on that we've already purchased and reposition and get in near the end of that cycle for that business

plan.

Steve Wallace:

And so how do you, and if you can share a little bit of the secret sauce with us, what factors do you look at when you underwrite deals?

Jerome Myers:

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, for me, it's really simple, right. I'm looking for the solid location. And so what does that mean? I characterize it by the stores that are in the area. So I like food lions. I like Harris, teeters, publics are kind of on the high end, but they may work. I like Walmarts. I like targets. I don't like dollar general. Right. And so I'm looking for those types of stores in the areas that we, I liked. Chick-fil-A's a lot, if I can get a Chick-fil-A close by and so buying in those areas, tell me the, the solid demographics. I look for places where market rent is at least a hundred dire dollars higher than and you stack those things together. And I think you've got the recipe for a successful project.

Celena Muzic:

You said you were teaching your or helping people, Learn this, where are you? Where are these classes taking place?

Jerome Myers:

So I do one on one coaching. And for those, you know, we, we connect and do virtual conversations. And so the fundamentals of apartment investing don't change. It doesn't matter what market you're in. So that's applicable everywhere. what. Is all the rage of syndication, right? Everybody wants to send a kid a deal. And I'm counterculture in that. I think people who haven't had any real, real estate investing experience, especially from a via hole standpoint, should spend their time getting tuned in the boat. That's what I call it. I call syndication hunting, Moby Dick. Right? You want to go take down this hundred and 50 unit deal? The$6 million and. You want to do that with no money, no experience. Yeah.

Steve Wallace:

We, prepare the documents, the securities documents for a lot of our clients. And that's what everybody's saying now, especially, since, you know, 2012 under the jobs act, it's made it even easier with crowdfunding and under a five Oh six C where you can use social media and things like that. Everybody is trying to hit a home run. You know, a lot of our clients they'll find one or two folks to kind of partner up with like as a joint venture or something like that.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's my game, right? I'm a joint venture guy and this is kind of the, you go get a smaller deal and you don't have to do a smaller deal. It's just a function of capacity. So if you've got enough money to fund the down payment and be liquid enough on the backside, and you've got people with the network, you can do a hundred million dollar deal. As a JV. And I liked that better because you've got vested interests. You've got the right people in the game who are really interested and making it happen. And, you know, you start stacking all that stuff together and you can build a really beautiful relationship. I feel like, and I don't know, it's the nicest way to say it, but you'd have people just going along for the ride when you have limited partners in your deal. For me, that is an exciting, I want to share the spoils of war with the people who went to war with me. Does that make sense?

Steve Wallace:

Yeah, it does. One of the other things I can just see it cause we see on the, on the flip side of it. So we'll do a deal where there's, you know, we, we are climbed, syndicated, and I can just tell you from my client's experience, the limited partners will drive the sponsor crazy. And just think about it. If you have one or two people to please, and a joint venture versus let's say you have 10 or 12 people, and some people have invested as low as$10,000. Can you imagine the aggravation? I can tell you. That the people that invest the least amount of money are the ones that will drive you the most, the craziest I'm sure you can agree with.

Celena Muzic:

They have the most questions and the most concerns and yeah,

Jerome Myers:

so, and that, that's a small part of it. The other thing that I think we miss is like, those people probably shouldn't be investing in the deal guys. Exactly. And it's okay. Like the educators have messed it up for us. You think about the cashflow, right? employees, small business owner or self-employed business owner and investor. Everybody's rushing into that. I. When they should be rushing to the business owner. Cause that equity, that that's where you build your true wealth and that's where you get the money to invest. But no, you got 10 grand. Oh, I've got more money than I've ever had. Yeah. Go double or triple that money in your business and then put it into something. But no. Oh, I got 10,000, so now I'm gonna put it in. They offer me a 6% return. I think that's a few hundred dollars a year. And so you don't start yet a compounding, but if you can put it together, you can put it together. And that is pretty tough for. people who were trying to get into the space, and I know everybody's trying to build wealth, but I just feel there are more ways to do it quicker. And so that, to this joint venture versus syndication thing, like I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot. That was one of the many careers that I wanted as a child. The other one was a garbage man, by the way. And I see joint ventures as being fighter pilot operators. Right. Everybody's got a job everybody's involved, whereas. The syndications are jumbo jets, right? You set the business plan before you go in, you tell people what type of returns they're going to get, and you don't deviate from either one of those. Whereas you can be nimble with my venture. You can attack and adjust. And yeah, I think the people that are like operators right now in this kind of uncertain environment are really enjoying, being able to get on a call with their partners and say, Hey, here's what what's going on. What do you guys think and have an intelligent discussion about what are the next best steps for not only the business, but for the residents, right? Because it's not just selling widgets. Like you're taking, you have somebody home that you're responsible for at the high level. And you need to make sure that at the end of the day, you can look yourself in the eye and say, Hey, I did the right thing, about by these people. So

Steve Wallace:

along those lines during COVID, you know, we've had a lot of other, you know, operators on and. And B one of the areas that we practice, a lot of them, we mentioned to you earlier is we do a lot of bankruptcy and foreclosure. And so we probably get 10 or 15 calls a day from tenants in the process of being evicted. And so we're just curious, you know, what steps have you taken to work with your tenants during this uncertain time?

Jerome Myers:

Yeah, so it's been pretty simple for us. Are you impacted by COVID or not? Right? Did you lose your job? Did you get sick? Whatever it is. Okay. Prove it. Show us the pink slip. Show us whatever. Alright. Have you filed for whatever support that the government is going to give you, did you file your taxes return so that they can send you your stimulus check? Did you file for unemployment so that you can get your unemployment benefits? Cause the majority of our stuff is under$700 a month. So at stimulus check and those unemployment benefits allow them to still do what they need. Okay. You did all those things. Great. So you have the money to pay your rent. And while it might not be comfortable, you can still take care of your obligations. Great. All right. Now, for this people who don't have the things that they need, let's work out a payment plan because I mean, it still costs money for you to be here and you can't really expect us. So, so all that, right? So what's your payment plan? What can you actually do? What are your plans for getting back to work? If you need to get back to work and now we just can hold you accountable to the plan that you could agree to. And we just keep going through that. As long as people are making progress and doing what they say they're going to do, they have a place to live, the moment that they go to us and stop communicating and stop doing the things that we want or need done, then they've breached our contract back and we need to part ways so that we can. Work with somebody who absolutely wants to live in a place where they're going to get their maintenance requests taken care of the owners actually care about the property and what's happening and not just trying to siphon off all the money that they can. And so on down the road or the list, because, you know, part of our mission is to make sure that we erase the cognitive dissonance that sometimes happens between owners and residents. Or they will call them tenants, right. Where it's like, well, I can't really see myself in you. I can't see the humanity in you so I can let you live any kind of way. I don't care. we, we don't think that way our investments have to make an impact. That's great. And

Celena Muzic:

do you, a lot of, cause we had spoken to someone before, he had a hundred apartments. He said he actually didn't have many people. Not paying rent. do you feel find that people are being a little bit more responsible and stand up? It's just because you're, you're giving them this option, which by the way, and Steven would agree with me. There's not a lot of landlords that are, are discussing with their tenants, like options or payment plan options. They're just calling us and telling us. We want them out, that's

Jerome Myers:

it? I don't care. Yeah. I mean, I think that's or tastes right and battling me for throwing stones, but we there's some people who try to take advantage of the system, right. There's one person in particular that I'm thinking about because he comes up every week in our weekly report. And, you know, he signed a new lease in February. He didn't pay in February. We were going to evict them in March and he wasn't impacted by COVID. Right. But he knew that he couldn't be evicted, so he wrote it out. And so he didn't pay rent for six months. And so we finally got him evicted in the last window and we're doing a lockout like this week or whatever. And there are those people that do that stuff. Right. And, but that's not the majority of the folks.

Steve Wallace:

Yeah. We're in South Florida. So we have a lot of folks that are gaming. The system it's South Florida is known for folks that get in the system.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. With that said, but there's a ton of people who aren't gaming the system and they realize, because here's the thing, like you still have the balance, right? Like you can not pay, but you still have that balance. And depending on who files for eviction and how they file for eviction, you probably going to end up with the judgment on your record. If. You're not careful, but that money is still owed and this whole idea of, well, yeah, it doesn't matter. And when you add on, Hey, you're going to get evicted. Like all those things really make your life harder, going forward. Kind of going back to the, getting in trouble and not doing what you're supposed to do things right. They're setting themselves up for a lot of heartache and there's not a way to make that stuff go, go away easily.

Steve Wallace:

Exact. So we're going to shift focus a little bit now, and we're going to, we've talked a lot about business now. We're going to tone it down a little bit and talk a little bit about fun and pop culture, and then we'll end with our lightning round. Selena is question for you.

Celena Muzic:

I want to know what's going on with the matrix in the background.

Steve Wallace:

Yeah. You stole my question.

Celena Muzic:

Okay. I don't know if I should call your Neo or what's going on.

Jerome Myers:

And so I was Neo at one point and now I prefer to be Morpheus. Right? I like to give people the opportunity to choose the red pill, because I think it's much. More comfortable place to be once you get used to being uncomfortable. And so the red pill is about choosing to live in truth and the truth is yours, right? I think a lot of us are programmed when we're young, so that we're easily controlled. And then as we grow, we rebel, but we don't ever actually do the work to find out what we really believe. And so perfect. Yeah. Example of this is when somebody sneezes a courteous person will do what.

Steve Wallace:

Last year and get a tissue for somebody, right?

Jerome Myers:

Bless you. Right. Are you blessed? Cause I sneezed, like there is no scientific reason for it. My heart didn't stop if that's what some of the so,

Celena Muzic:

but, but you're not blessing them. You're saying God,

Jerome Myers:

the term

is, God bless you. May God bless you. Not I'm blessing

Jerome Myers:

you.

Celena Muzic:

Huh?

Jerome Myers:

For what?

Celena Muzic:

Continued health, you know, may God bless you that that's not something

Jerome Myers:

worse, but you know, bless me. You know, you don't say, God bless me. When I have hiccups. You don't say when I cough, like. It's just kind of one of those things and we're doing them just out of programming, not because it has some true. And so that's kind of the point. It's just like you sit down and say, grace, when you're getting ready to eat fried chicken and Coca Cola, like none of those things are good for your health, but so we have these habits. And so it's really, for me, it's about unplugging and then asking, what do I truly believe in? Why do I believe it? And then does this serve my life? Does this serve where I want to be and where I want to go? Because at any moment you can read side or redefine who you are and then go on that path, but it's all about your belief system. And so for me, the red pill signifies saying, I'm going to go down that path. And when I'm down that path, I will. Make the new framework for the way that I view life and what I make my decisions on because the decisions make habits and habits make your life.

Steve Wallace:

Excellent. Excellent. So one of the other things about you that are listening, I'd like our listeners to know is that you host two podcasts and we'd love to know a little bit about that, but I guess my first question is more to Celine and I, what advice would you have for us as, as newly minted podcast host?

Jerome Myers:

I think that asking amazing same questions and being selfish with the podcast interview is the best way to use it. Right. When you have folks come on, sometimes you're going to get folks on that. You can't get on the phone to have a conversation with you regularly, but if you tell them you're going to record word it and share it with the world, they'll sign up for that. And so for me, I take the opportunity to get one on one mentoring session, right. And we have a conversation where into all of the questions and like you guys on this podcast have stories that I haven't told anywhere else. Right. And. Because you asked questions that led us down the path where we could actually dig into it, some of that stuff. And so I think you're doing the absolute right things, but I'm telling you to be selfish because you're not so different from all the other folks that are out there and the people that are going to be attracted to your podcast. They're interested in curious about the same things. And so by you ask them the questions, you'll get the answers that will not only feed your soul, but those. The listeners who will listen on a weekly basis. I think we're funny

Steve Wallace:

too, but maybe some people disagree with that.

Jerome Myers:

I enjoy your humor.

Steve Wallace:

Okay. So, so tell us, I know you have two, you have two podcasts, you have dream catchers and you have multifamily missteps. Could you tell us a little bit about both of those and tell us how our listeners can, listen to those as well? Because I don't mind sharing our listeners with you, Jerome. Okay. And tell us how they can get with you one on one also, because I want to learn more so I'm sure everyone else does

Jerome Myers:

love it. So dream catchers is my. Passion project. It tells the stories of people exited the matrix and the whole goal is to leave the bread crumbs for everybody else. Who's trying to get out there, the tools, the tactics, the techniques that they use to make that transition. You don't have to leave your day job in order to exit the matrix, but maybe you come and entrepreneur where you're adding value within the business and making yourself a linchpin so that you get that job security. But you also get. Increased responsibility and that raises your income. But the goal there is simply to provide inspiration, education and direction to the folks who check out the podcast and bring on folks who were doing things in a new and unique or different way. many of them are contrarian and they like to challenge the status quo. And I feel like that's part of my role as chief inspiration officer there. On Myers about this presents multifamily missteps. We talk to operators and we get the war stories. Every, if I cast that I was listening to listen to 40 hours of content every week as well. It was everybody made money. Nobody, man, any mistakes. And you should come in though. And I just know it. Wasn't true. And I wanted to go, wow. And stop giving you the HGTV version of multifamily investing so that sell you a course or sell you some mentorship. I want to tell you the stories. Where people make mistakes because that's where all the learning happens. And in doing that learning piece, we are becoming a better community of operators, right? There's no reason for me and Steve to make the same mistake or me and Selena and make the same mistake. We aren't competing with each other. Once the is closed, right. Operating your deal. The more you can get for rent. Better for me because now I can raise my rent. Right. And we can all grow together because a rising tide raises all the boats. we might be competing when we're trying to get a deal on it contract, but those windows are so concise and so small, that, that part. I don't really think it's worth discussing. and so that was, I was trying to fill a void in the marketplace where we actually have a conversation about the reality of being an owner and an investor. Right. If you're putting your$10,000 in expecting to start getting checks at the end of the first month, when you're in are you have project you're probably in trouble. Right. And so I just people to get the full story because I hate when, and it happened this morning. Somebody said, Hey, I picked the wrong education company. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars. And now I'm really selective about who I work with, et cetera, et cetera, because I don't want to get. So it would a blank bill of goods. I agree with them wholeheartedly, and I really wish that that never happened to him. But usually what happens is because the more, well they're more established and it's ECC, are they the folks who were being marketed to. They're getting brought in and then they, those five figure checks, I call it buying a used Mercedes or BMW, and then they realize that they got something and it wasn't what they actually wanted. And so then they come back to me and say, Hey, can you help me get my first deal? And I personally don't believe that you have to buy, you know, a 30 or$50,000 course to find out whether or not you want to do this business, but then you can find it out a whole lot quicker. And so that rolls us into, Hey, so Myers methods.com and Y E R S M E T H O D s.com. We'll get your listeners a free four step guide on how to get into multifamily investing.

Steve Wallace:

We love free gifts.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah, yeah. That will get them that free four step guide. And then there's also a podcast it's about 15 minutes of exclusive content. You can't find it anywhere else where we break down, why we like joint ventures over syndications. And that, for me, that's super important for people who actually want to be active operators. There isn't anywhere else where anybody he's sharing that message. And it's important for me because you can take all these lessons that you learn in a joint venture. And move over to be a syndicator, but it's really difficult to go back the other way. And so what I really want to do is just say, Hey guys, let's go get some tuna in the boat, right. And then after he gets the tuner in the boat and you get a bigger boat and maybe you go get a bigger boat, then you go, well, honey, Right. You got some track record, you got some reputation and cause I mean it baffles me, people call the brokers and they're like, Hey, I'm looking for a hundred unit building in the Southeast that's value add with, hundred dollar NOI upside. And there's like, How are you going to do that? Yeah, I, Oh, I'm working with a group of people and we've got a track record of over 50 years. They're like, what group of people like who who's actually going to sign the loan and get this deal done?

Steve Wallace:

You know, how many calls a day we get for clients that wanted us to represent them? And, Oh, you'll get paid at closing. Don't worry.

Jerome Myers:

No, if you've been in the game long enough, you know, better than that. And there's a bunch of people running around who don't have the wherewithal to even write the due diligence check. So that they can get the property under contract. And so I want you to, and so when you start digging in and say, Hey, I don't actually have any experience. Right. And then move that out a little bit and like, Oh, well it doesn't actually seem practical that I can actually close this still. But if I can tell you, Hey, Selena, I just closed on a 10 unit. We're executing the value. Add there. It's going well, we've been in it for about six months. I'm looking for our next deal. We found that things are working well in this market. And that was our test. We're looking to scale up. Do you have anything that's of similar vintage and property types so that we can execute the same bigger business plan on a larger scale? That's a compelling conversation. That's actually attraction. Yeah. And so that's my game. I want to help people walk down that path and yeah, they don't need me to do it, but I've made it enough mistakes that I think I can keep them from driving off a bridge. And that's my whole thing. It's not about how much money I'm gonna make you. It's about how much money I'm gonna keep you from losing and how much I can help you get how much faster I can get to. You can get to the results that you're seeking. That's the

Celena Muzic:

best way to put it, how you can prevent them from losing money. That's always my fear. I mean, I get into little projects here and there. Usually my partner is always my brother, you know, family, just because we've, we're a family of entrepreneurs and always merge and work together. and it works for us, but I'm always scared to take that extra step because I'm like, I don't wanna lose money. Exactly. So we're, we're gonna, we're going to ask you one more each pop culture. So we need, it's going to take us home with the, lightening round. So my question, and I'll let Celina to ask her a question next and then taking the lighting round my question.

Yeah. I love leveraging virtual networking. I think I don't want to meet anybody in person ever again, the way things are

Jerome Myers:

going. Yeah. So I, I don't have a great show. I, I, if I had to pick something though, I think I would pick a Lucifer. I think that shows. Cool. That is cool.

Celena Muzic:

Okay. Let me, let me ask you, it's more of a political question, but I'm gonna ask you anyways, just because you've played sports and. And what is your opinion right now with the NBA supporting BLM as a movement? I like to ask everyone what they think, because a lot of people, you know, we get mixed feelings. We get a lot of people saying, you know, sports players shouldn't be involved in politics. I am of a different opinion. I find. Yeah, I'm just a completely from a different opinion. And I'm maybe, I don't know if it's just a younger generation thing, but I feel like if it relates to me and not just me, if it relates to the world that relates to me. so how do you feel about that? Because I saw them playing and they're all wearing black lives matter jerseys and, and they're, they're really making a statement.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah. So at the risk being ignorant, cause I don't watch the news. So I didn't even know that was happening with that said like, I believe that the majority of the players in the NBA or of African descent, right. Especially the ones that are getting into bigger contracts. And so it's when you're high income earner, when you're on TV, you have frame and celebrity. You wasted if you don't use it to move the society forward. And so, so I think it's possible for those folks to have that type of platform and then not use it to make the world a better place. At the end of the day, like the whole black lives matter and all lives matter and blue lives matter. And all this stuff is just a bunch of division. If we could actually see everybody as humans, we can see the humanity in everybody. Then a lot of these atrocities wouldn't happen,

Steve Wallace:

even attorneys Jerome, because we are human too

Jerome Myers:

nice. You guys are here humans, but at the end of the day, like, At some point, we've got to figure out the humanity of it. And I really to keep it in sports, but to move it to a different sport, like Michael Vick was sentenced in a very irresponsible way. From my perspective, when you look at some of the sentences that people get for killing humans versus what he got for killing dogs. Right. And I don't even know how much of it was actually him killing dolls versus him just being affiliated with it. And somebody wanting to make an example of him with that said, I just want to make sure that we treat humans as human. All humans should be treated the same because we're all one race. Right? We're all the human race. And so. I think it's absolutely imperative that if you have a platform, you use it to make sure that everybody sees the humanity, even if they haven't been exposed to maybe that group of people or people that look that way or a certain type of way,

Celena Muzic:

that's tremendous of their career. and, and I say that just because of what happened with Colin Kaepernick, I mean, he, he pretty much lost his career. For taking a

Jerome Myers:

knee. So I think Collin is a great example of people trying to make an example of someone. But with that said, I truly believe that you can't do things for money. You've got to do things because they're the right thing. And when you do things because of the right thing, everything works out in the end. And so do you think we would be where we are had Colin not taking that stand

Celena Muzic:

then? No,

Jerome Myers:

I don't. I think he started a movement and he was a catalyst for something way bigger than that. Then what was happening in that space? And while he may have lost some income, I don't think our impact as humans is only based on how much money we make. And so I think he made a statement that. Really lit the world on fire. And for me, that's exciting because he'll be rewarded for that and other ways in the future. And I don't think, and he's going to be on the street anytime soon for an asset I'm point. Right? I mean, you can make, but so much money. I mean, you can buy as many. I like Ferrari's and Lamborghini's, I can buy those things, but isn't really making the world a better place other than inspiring somebody else to make more money by solving a big problem so that they can buy one of those. I don't think so.

Celena Muzic:

Alright. Thank you for

not being afraid to ask. We have some guests that are afraid to answer. These are hard hitting questions. Okay. So we need to take us home with a lightning round. Okay. So I'm going to ask you this or that questions and they're going to be, you know, just random, you just say what you prefer.

Celena Muzic:

Okay. So it's going to be easy. It's just a little personality. so we know a little bit more about you. Okay. So coffee or tea?

Jerome Myers:

Tea, huh?

Celena Muzic:

Okay. Dogs or

Jerome Myers:

cats? Batman

Celena Muzic:

or Superman?

Jerome Myers:

Batman.

Celena Muzic:

What is up with that, man,

Steve Wallace:

even man, he was pretty bad as bad, bad

Jerome Myers:

Batman. I love the fact that it's the poverty to riches story and hearing about the riches and wanting to do good with the riches. Okay.

Celena Muzic:

Good. Everyone has a different perspective, so yeah. Yeah. Cake or pie. Kanye. Or Jay

Jerome Myers:

Z Jay, all day

Celena Muzic:

Beyonce or

Jerome Myers:

Rihanna, fiance

Celena Muzic:

really surprised you've been to the Caribbean

Jerome Myers:

a lot. I'd say it's Creo.

Celena Muzic:

All right. Well that was it. That concludes my, my lightning round. See, it was easy. It wasn't anything crazy.

Steve Wallace:

Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for them. Please tell our listeners again, how they can find you social media websites. Tell us all, tell us how we can download your two great podcasts.

Jerome Myers:

Yeah.

Steve Wallace:

Instagram, Facebook, mailing address, work, Google earth of your home.

Jerome Myers:

I don't want to confuse people so. If you want the podcast, you can just type the Meyers Methodist present, or you can protect them. Multifamily, missteps, or dream catchers on the same platform you're using. No, listen to this. If you want to learn more about multifamily investing in our approach, hit Meyers methods.com. And if you want to connect with me on social media, I'm only link then every day. So Jerome Meyers, Greensboro, North Carolina. Well,

Steve Wallace:

thank you so much, Jerome. This was truly a pleasure. I hope

Jerome Myers:

you enjoyed yourself. This was, you learned a lot in FreeState. You guys.