Jerome Myers  00:00

Wealth is built by you being the best at something in the world. That’s how you build your wealth. And then you take that wealth, and then you diversify it across many different investments so that if something catastrophic happens, you don’t lose everything.

Intro  00:17

Welcome to the Share The Wealth Show where minority professionals can learn to escape the racial wealth gap and catapult themselves into abundance. Your host, Nicole Pendegrass grew her network from being negative to multiple six figures. Join her on her investigative mission to expose secret strategies of the wealthy. So we can all have the tools needed to build the life and legacy we were created to possess. Now it’s time for the show.

Nicole Pendergrass  00:42

Hi everyone welcome back to another episode of the Share The Wealth show, I am your host, Nicole Pendergrass. And today, oh my goodness, we had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Jerome Myers. And if you have never heard of Jerome, you need to know who this man is. Because he has had so many accomplishments and transformational moments throughout his journey into being a real estate investor now, and not just any real estate investor, he is doing his thing, let me tell you, but just to get started, this is an episode, you definitely don’t want to miss, he gives so many gems, so many mindset nuggets, so many things that if you reach these certain obstacles or have these experiences, you’re not alone, know that other people have been there, but other people have gone through the same things and kind of give you a mindset about how you should handle it and how you should move forward on your journey and push through to your next level of success. So Jerome actually left corporate America to guide people to leading lives of significance by focusing first on living a centered life. Often these people are already in positions of leadership of feel that they are there alone and as a result to wrong creates opportunities for these people and these apex performers to connect with each other so that they can develop solutions to their toughest challenges. And let me tell you, Jerome has rolled out of red carpet just for me personally in my journey. He’s given me opportunities that I don’t know if I would have had the level that I have, because he extended his hand and his opportunity. And he saw the potential. And he wanted to reach out and, and pave the way for things and encouraged me to take my next step in the journey. Even no matter how uncomfortable I may have been, it makes you break out of your shell, when you have a mentor or someone to guide you. He’s not even officially guiding me in a way that is making. Like there’s not a paid mentorship or anything that I’ve done as far as my relationship with him. But at the same time, you need to have people like this in your life, who can encourage you to do bigger and better things. And so with all of that, I will give it over to Mr. Jerome Myers. And hopefully you to pick up some nuggets and make that next step in your journey. You can do it. Welcome, everyone back to another episode of the Share The Wealth Show, and this is where we discover strategies to build, protect, and grow minority wealth. Today we have with us, Mr. Jerome “Method Man” Myers. Oh, my gosh, you have claps.

Nicole Pendergrass  00:55

 We in buildin Miss Pendergrass. How are you?

Nicole Pendergrass  03:40

I’m doing good. You know what I really I practiced that in my head and completely switched it around because it was supposed to be Mr. Jerome the Myers Method Man. And I said, Method Man Myers.

Jerome Myers  03:55

I’m just glad to be here. I don’t even know how you get invited to these things. But I’m glad you’re having me.

Nicole Pendergrass  04:02

Thanks for coming. You get invited when you’re the man. That’s it. So when you add value, and you’re phenomenal, you get invited to things, that’s what happens. So how are you?

Jerome Myers  04:13

I’m amazing. I’m truly grateful for the space that I’m in and the opportunities that are before me.

Nicole Pendergrass  04:19

Nice. I love it. Okay, so I actually already, you know, told everyone about your high-level bio, but do you want to dig into that a little bit and maybe give us a little about your journey and especially any kind of paradigm-shifting views or thoughts about money or building wealth that trying to change the trajectory of what you were doing from before to what you’re doing now?

Jerome Myers  04:43

Man? There’s so many places I could go there. I’ll try to do it justice. But I guess I’ll start out by saying yeah, man, I’m a corporate America dropout right? And so that’s probably not in the bio doesn’t sit anywhere, but I got the fortune after building a two In a million-dollar division for a fortune 550 over the course of a year, the beautiful opportunity through a phone call at 4:55 on December 24, they went something like this. Hey, Jerome, we’re gonna lay half of them off. What do you mean? Yeah, we don’t need them. So we’re gonna lay them off. Yeah, but we just did 30% profits, it doesn’t matter. We don’t need them. And so one of the two things is going to happen. We can do it, or you can do it, but it’s going to happen. No, no, that’s not the right answer. We’re not going to do that. Jerome. This is not a debate, nor is it a discussion. This is what’s going to happen. No, but you don’t get it. This is not right. We shouldn’t do this. All right, you know what, 4:59 on On Christmas Eve, I’m gonna go spend the rest of your with my family. I’ll talk to you next year. No, no, you’re not listening, boo, boo boo, as the iPhone call ending, right. And so my stomach sank. And there I was with this conundrum. Because I never had to be the axeman, I’d never lay people off. And after making $6 million in profit, over the course of a year, I couldn’t understand why half of my team of 175 people didn’t need to work there anymore. And so I did what I was supposed to do, like a good employee and figured out who’s going to stay who was going to go and after the first of the year, we delivered that news to people. And you know, at that point, I realized, Look, man, like you talk to people every other week, you see them once a quarter, well, this isn’t your shop, you’re not the owner, you’re a manager, and you know, you are losing perspective, because of the freedom and autonomy you have. This is not your shop, your $30,000 bonus on the 6 million isn’t doing a whole lot for you. And it’s probably not commensurate with what value was created by the organization that you lead. And so what are you going to do? And that really put me in a place of consideration. Because if I humbly submit to you that my world was raw, and yours could be to if you have a job, and you don’t have anything going on and outside, whether you’re the person delivering that news to employees, or you’re the employee that’s receiving the news, you want to get yourself in position so that if somebody fires you, you got another way to feed your family, because the scramble of desperation is one that puts you in a space that you don’t want to be in. It’s so a pause right there, because I’m sure you’re like, Wait, I’ve never heard that story that way. And then we can unpack some more for the listeners.

Nicole Pendergrass  07:25

Yeah, definitely heard the story on the high level. But that level of detail kind of just hit me in my soul a little bit. That hurts, right? And it just makes me think, actually, of my husband’s manager, who recently got laid off a couple of years from retirement. And he has no like, he was not planning to leave, he was going to be there until he retired, he actually liked his job. And he was the my husband just looked and told me explained to me the look of like angst and desperation that was on his face. And he was like, Yo, I can’t be like that, like, I can’t be in that position where I have no backup. And I have no other plan, especially if you haven’t even been working or thinking about something else. Just to get hit with, you have no option but to think of something else or to go look for another job. But when you’re almost to retirement, what other jobs are you going to get that’s still gonna give you the same pension or benefits that you were looking forward to? I don’t know like that. Yeah, and to be the one who have to deliver that news. I don’t pity you.

Jerome Myers  08:23

Well, I gave up all of my, I don’t want to call it control, all of my agency. So here’s the thing, right? I said, they’re making me do this. But I had a choice, right? I didn’t have to participate in the system and have to participate in the construct. But I did, because I liked my 2015 F150. With the aluminum body, I liked not having to pay for gas, I liked the ability to run a business of that size. And I liked the autonomy that I had. But and this was the biggest piece of it, the buck didn’t stop with me, I didn’t have final say. So especially not all major decisions. And so there’s a lot of people who don’t want that level of responsibility. But we think about $6 million in profit, and then you think about somebody’s income, and then you think about their bonus was convinced or it was fair for creating that level of income for a company. And I think a lot of people kind of missed the boat. But I started doing the math, Nicole. And here’s the thing, I didn’t have to make $20 million in my business if I exit it, I didn’t have to make $6 million in profit. If I just did a fraction of that I wouldn’t be able to cover my expenses. And I also wouldn’t be pushed into a place where somebody else was coming in and dictating to me the terms of my employment or those who were working for me. And that was really valuable. That was what was meaningful for me because then I was able to take my agency back and I got the ultimate authority in those major decisions versus somebody else telling me what was going to happen.

Nicole Pendergrass  09:56

So well that’s a great way to say that rocked your world and made you change, you know, the trajectory of what you’re doing. So what did you move into?

Jerome Myers  10:06

Yeah, so I did another year, we did another 20 million. I’m standing in front of the room two days before Good Friday. And I’m saying, Hey, guys, look, I don’t know what’s gonna happen between now and the end of the year. But I want to make sure that you don’t spend all your money on Black Friday. And it was in that moment that I felt like I lost all of my credibility as a leader. Here I am telling people to prepare for the worse. And it was in that moment that I realized that I needed to be a corporate America dropout. And so I love and I broke the glass on this dream that I put on a shelf in a glass case were when I was a sophomore in college and pursue this thing called multifamily real estate. And when I was in college, me and my buddy Duran was sitting on the stoop. And we were doing math, because that’s what engineering students do in their free time. I was paying 395, I had two roommates paying 395 and our apartment downstairs. Yeah, the same thing happening. And when we multiplied across the complex, the owner was making $700,000 a year, but we never saw him or talked to him, say, Whoa, you can really decouple your earnings from your time. Now. $700,000 was a number that I couldn’t count to at that point. And so for me, it was like, Well, do I need 700? Or do I need 70? Right, and 70 sounded like a great number, especially if I didn’t have to trade my hours for dollars. And so I was like, Man, I want to do that. But the problem is, I’m the son of a soldier and stay-at-home mom. So those folks who have multimillion-dollar real estate portfolios weren’t coming to our house for the cookout, right? They weren’t at the party, they didn’t show up. I didn’t have access to them. So I had nobody to call and I didn’t know how to do it. And so I went down the path that we talked about, and I decided that well, let me see if I can go do that. And so I went to the bank first go around, and I had a deal off a loop net, and I said, Ah, put together my business plan and showed it to him. It’s like, Hey, don’t you want to give me a million dollars, so I can go buy this building? And they smiled at me and said, Why would we do that? I said, Well, I just got done running a $20 million business. They said, Oh, that’s nice. What else you got? Licensed engineer? Okay, MBA, no, six Sigma master black belt, I can do some data analysis for you. Yeah. It’s like I got this business plan. Maybe like, we’re getting closer. I got 100 credit score. Oh, okay. I got money in the bank. Yeah, none of that actually matters. I was like, oh, so what do you want? They said, well, we want to know that you’ve executed a business plan of similar practice to what you want to do now. And you’ve done it with the deal of similar size to the one you’re trying to buy. So I reached in my pocket, and I pulled out a piece of lint, and I handed it to the guy because that’s all that I could give him of what he was asking.

Nicole Pendergrass  12:49

Wait, wait, wait, wait, you didn’t actually hand him a piece of lint, did you? Please tell me…

Jerome Myers  12:53

No, but I thought about it, because you made me feel pretty small, right? Because I had none of that. And I thought I was a pretty big deal. Right? But no, I didn’t have any. So I was like, You know what, I took my 50 page business plan. I walked out and I was like, This guy just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So I went to the next bank and went through the same discussion. And he got the same answer. I was like, Okay, number three, here we go. Here we go. Same outcome 4,5,6,7. Same outcome, I get to number 10. I’m like, Oh, these folks aren’t crazy. I’m the one that doesn’t know what I’m doing. And so I realized that I was not going to buy apartment building because I still after my time in corporate America didn’t know anybody who owned apartment complex. And so I pivoted and started fixing and flipping. And then I’m sitting on a stoop of 1920s four square in Richmond, Virginia. It’s a $90,000 rehab budget project. And I’m proud of myself because we’ve got some stuff going on, man, new mechanicals, new electricity, plumbing, all this stuff, you name it. So guy pulls up in a white diaphragm. He hops out. He’s like, Hey, man, I want to check out some of your finishes. You wanna check out my finishes? He’s like, Yeah, we’re gonna do some down the street. I just wanted to see what kind of finishes you got. So we can comp you. Okay, well come on in. And so now my chest is getting recognition, right? Somebody wants to see my project, getting recognition just pokes out a little bit. He walks in. He’s like, Hey, man, I love that you stuck these walls out. You got the granite. That’s not like level one. That’s probably like level six. You got the gooseneck sink in the island. Like, this is amazing. He goes upstairs, he checks out the bathrooms like, man, you got some great tile here. And so we come back downstairs. He’s like, Man, I really appreciate you letting me walk through the property. And he gets in the threshold on his way out the door and he stops and he says, Hey, man, do you know anything about that building behind the jumbo mart? Like the jumbo Mart? Yeah, the 23-unit apartment complex. He’s like, Yeah, that one. That one. That one. I was like, Yeah, man. I was trying to buy that four or five months ago, and the banks told me I needed somebody with experience to partner with me on the deal. So well, you know what I’m gonna make offer on that later today. So well, so let me guess you got some experience and multifamily real estate. He’s, you know, we own a thing or two I said, Oh, well, I really want to do that deal. Please don’t leave me out. He said, Well, what are you gonna bring to the table? And I said, Look, man, like, I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. Just don’t leave me out of the deal. Like, they told me I need an experienced partner. You’re the guy I’ve been looking for. And he said, Yeah, well, what are you going to bring to the table? I said, Look, man, we’ll figure it out. Just don’t leave me out. This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is what I’ve been looking for. And he just got frustrated. They shook his head. He turned around, he walked down the stairs through the grass, hopped in his truck and drove off. And this was a Wednesday and I’m like, Okay, this is amazing. He’s gonna call me tomorrow, let me know that we got this thing under contract, we’re gonna be ready to rock and roll. Thursday comes and goes nothing. Friday, I was like, they’re just negotiating the other workout. Friday, he’ll call me Friday afternoon. It’s gonna happen. Nothing through the weekend. I was like, man, maybe they just couldn’t come to terms maybe he lowball we’ll figure it out. Because like, Monday is the day this thing is gonna happen. Nothing. And so by Tuesday, I’m starting to start ask some questions, because it’s almost been a week. And then I was like, Well, let me just call him and check in and see what’s going on. And I realized I didn’t get his number, nor did I know what property on down the street. I was like, oh, no, I just miss my opportunity. And so the rest of the week comes and goes, and still no phone call, there’s no nothing. And then the following Tuesday, I get a call. There’s a guy used to lend money to when I was in corporate who was a big contractor in the city. And he’s like, Man, I got the opportunity to be the GC on that 23 unit apartment complex you were talking about back in the winter. And I was like, that’s amazing. He’s like, but here’s the catch. I told them, I was only comfortable doing it if you were involved in the deal. I was like, Are you serious? Absolutely, man. When are we meeting? We’re meeting tomorrow at nine o’clock, just send me that dress. I’m there, man. And so the three of us kind of locked arms. And we’re going to take this property down. We brought in a property manager and the broker and the three of us took down that 23 unit apartment complex for $1.27 million. And I was fortunate enough to be the asset manager on that deal. And because I was asset manager, I got my name in the paper, because my name was in the paper, the bank started calling me, Nicole. And they were like, hey, we want to know what you’re going to do after you finish that project. We want to refi you out of it. Wait, I’m the same guy you didn’t want to give a loan to 11 months ago. And they were like, Can we meet you for lunch so we can show you our products. And we want to hear more about your pipeline. I was like, I’m not in oil and gas. I don’t even have a pipeline. What do you got?

Jerome Myers  17:42

I was like, what if you want to take me to lunch, we can go eat. Started going down the path and Nicole’s laughing at me because pipeline is a meaningful term in real estate. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Right. And so that’s where we said, and so that opened the door that got us into multifamily. And then we took those relationships, we too that experience and we came further south. We didn’t go quite to South Beach like LeBron, but we came further south and started building a portfolio here in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Nicole Pendergrass  18:13

All right, so many nuggets. And I don’t know if people were just not listening or not catching those, those gems that were being dropped. But there’s a lot of mindset in that story that people need to understand and pick up on. If you’re going to pursue something especially something new, something that’s scary, something you’ve never done before. There’s a few mindset things that you need to have in there. One, I like to call it unbridled optimism, because you just knew that guy was coming back. That first guy he was coming back. That deal was yours. He was getting brought into that deal. I like to think of it. I’m kind of like that. But I like to think of it as always thinking that you’re two feet from gold, you know, you’re digging, what’s that analogy and you’re digging, and people think that they’re going to reach goal. And then they stopped because they give up, not knowing that the gold was actually like if they had dug two more feet, they would hit it, right. So I in my mindset, always think I’m two feet from gold. And that’s why I just keep going because sometimes it’s got to be like I’m doing all the right things. something’s got to happen next, right? And I feel like that was your mindset. And I was just like, I’m just like, like, Come on, man. We’ll figure it out. I’m gonna help some like I have a lot of strength you’re looking how you’re gonna want to look at my finishes. But then you don’t think I have anything to add to the table the way looking at my finishes for I get out of here. Oh, kicked him out sucker.

Jerome Myers  19:28

Already got what he wanted, right? But here’s the thing, right? The reason why I tell this story that way is because it’s so important for you to be able to articulate your value to potential partners, and I couldn’t do that. Or I didn’t know how to do it or I didn’t think about how to do it in that space. You don’t ever want to miss that opportunity. When people ask you what you can do, you want to be able to tell them that even if it’s just I’ve got some capital and I’m ready to invest. Whatever you can bring to the table, you want to be able to articulate that. People don’t do business deals with other people for the sake of I like your pretty smile, right? You’ve got to be bringing time this table. Well, I don’t have the gift of pretty, right? So maybe if I was sitting here, somebody would do it, but I’m not that pretty.

Nicole Pendergrass  20:15

Okay, what was the other thing? I forgot the other mindset. But that was a good one that you said, make sure you can articulate your value add so off of that if somebody’s getting into a space, they’re brand new in, how do they know their value add to a space, they don’t know what they’re good in yet? They don’t know what they’re good at yet in that space, because they don’t know what they don’t know, like you did mention. And that’s another thing, just being scared, being unsure not having 100% of information, but still making whatever decisions you can make to move forward. Just don’t let that inhibit you from moving forward, regardless of information. So that was the other nice thing. But yeah, if you’ve never done it before, you don’t know what you don’t know, how do you even know how you are adding value to something?

Jerome Myers  20:54

For sure, it’s a great question and one that I think so many of us complicate. And so Nicole, I’m gonna give it to you in the way that I describe it. You can argue with me if you want. But I think this is true, based on the hundreds of deals that I’ve watched happen. And so every investor is trying to overcome four things, knowledge, deal flow, experience, and capital. And they’re overcoming those four challenges in that order, every single time. Now, they may do stuff out of order. But when it actually comes to the sequence of the deal, closing, it happens this way, every single time. And so the thing that you need to do when you are new is get knowledge, you have to get foundational knowledge. And a lot of us think, Hey, I’m just gonna go hang my shingle as a real estate investor, and invest hundreds of 1000s or millions of dollars, without any formal education. While meanwhile, we spent most of us $100,000 to get some type of college degree to go work a job that doesn’t pay $100,000 a year. And we thought that was a good investment. Think about that. You spent all that money and all those years to get prepared for the career that you go into. But you’re not going to take any formal training in order to get prepared to put your money and other people’s money to work in an asset class. If you were a plumber, there is no way that you will go do that, well, we think we can go by asset and do that. And so that knowledge piece allows you to figure out what you’re good at. It also gives you credibility when you go talk to other people in the space. So that you can have that formal dialogue, because there’s a different vernacular, regardless of what piece of investing you’re in, you know, for apartments, you talk in debt service coverage ratios, or NOIs, I could throw a lot of terms out there. But I don’t want to confuse the listeners with stocks and bonds, you’re talking about other things and, you know, earnings per share. And I mean, you can go down the list of all of the special words that are used, when you’re talking about investing in a specific asset class, I encourage people to spend the time getting the education, because what happens is, if you don’t know and you meet somebody who does real estate’s a zero-sum game, and I think investment, in general, is a zero-sum game, the money’s either in your pocket or somebody else’s. And so if they have more knowledge than you more experienced than you is likely that they’re going to be able to move the money from your pocket to theirs.

Nicole Pendergrass  23:21

Yeah, and I agree with that. So I want to kind of shift a little bit. This podcast is about building minority wealth, right and growing it, protecting it, showing us how to do this and giving the information that other people have either been successful in already, or have implemented in protecting and not only on like the investing active side, also the asset protection side, I don’t know if we’ll even hit that today. Maybe we can, we’ll have some time to hit that. But I think I’ve been playing it safe a little bit with my questions, not just with your particular but so far in the podcast, and I’m going to maybe start with you with the shift of questions. So let me know if you’re ready or not. But you’ll know after ask a question, but okay, out of your journey, how has race affected your journey? Whether do you feel there were any opportunities that you didn’t get because of that? Or do you feel like there was things you didn’t reach for or go toward because you didn’t see other people doing it that looked like you? Like, just in general, I just want people to know that even if you feel because sometimes you can’t prove things. Sometimes you might feel things, or you might not see other people who look like you doing something, but it doesn’t mean they’re not out there. And it doesn’t mean that opportunities are not there and that you still can’t progress and get past whatever hurdles, you may have to move forward. So I just want to know what your experience in that aspect of your journey so far has been?

Jerome Myers  24:43

Yeah, I appreciate the question. And I’m probably the wrong person to ask you because I don’t have a single example of a time where I thought race impacted my ability to do something and that’s not just an investing that’s in general. In fact, I’ve I’ve kind of been numb to it or blind to it intentionally if it did exist, because I can’t change it right? Like, for me to go into a room and say, Oh, well, you know, it’s a race thing like, so what the point for me. Now, there’s a lot of people who carry that they’re looking for that they’re concerned about it. And I understand why. But that’s just never been a thing for me. And I’ll go a step further, Nicole. And some people may hate that I say this. But I found that people outside of my race have been more interested in opening doors and creating opportunities for me than the elders and the people further along on their journey that are of the same cultural background as me. And that, for me is crushing, right? But you know, it’s just my experience. Now, with that said, like, I do see the issues in the marketplace. And one of them is with podcasts, right? I’m so glad that you’ve taken the initiative to actually start this thing. I’ve watched your journey from when you got in before you had a deal to now you being a big baller and doing the things and people coming to you asking questions, and looking for your counsel, wisdom and guidance. And, you know, we need more of that. We need to create our own platforms, and we need to create our experiences. And, you know, I think I can tribute to that in a few ways. And, you know, you’ve been so gracious with your time, I’ve been a speaker at the mid atlantic multifamily investing conference, multiple times per year, over the past couple of years. And for me, that is so important that the people who have platforms and the people who have the courage to create those platforms, and communities are conscientious about who they are sharing their mics with to make sure that people do get that example because I’ll never forget, walking down the hallway, interacting with Craig, and he was an executive, he was the only African American executive out of the 88 at the 17,000 employee company that I worked at at the time, and I would tell him in the hallway, you make me believe that it’s possible for me to be an executive here. You do. And he would always say drama is not about race, that doesn’t matter. Just be the best engineer you can then be the best supervisor, then best manager then best director then best vice president. And then if you do that, right, you’ll be able to run a business unit like me, I was like, Man, that simple. He said, it’s that simple, man. And the fact of the matter was, maybe it was but because I saw him I saw as representative. I thought it was possible for me too.

Nicole Pendergrass  27:33

You know what, and I love that. Thank you for that response. And being completely honest. I don’t want people to feel inhibited and to go around searching for reasons they can’t make it because of race, right? There, sre there things are there systemic systemic things? Yeah, of course there are. But like you said, you can still do what you need to do to get where you need to go. So don’t let that stop you, right? Like don’t let anybody else and it doesn’t have to be a race thing. It could be just someone don’t like you. And they could be trying to block your success. So just keep going anyway.

Jerome Myers  28:06

But it’s okay, right? Like, it’s okay, I played football for a really long time. And then I coached after that. And the fact of the matter was, I didn’t care if the refs cheated, right? If the score isn’t close, the refs can’t take the game from you. Just run the score up, control all the things you can control and do your part. And you’ll find people who were sympathetic or interested in supporting the cause, or, you know, folks who you think about the Underground Railroad, right? It wasn’t just African Americans that were involved in the underground world. Well, you will find those abolitionists as you go on your journey, if that’s what you feel like you need in order to get to where you want to go. But again, there are people like Nicole, who were leading the charge and creating opportunities for you to see examples of folks who are just like you, right, same background, came from the same circumstance, overcome some of the same obstacles, and they’re there to eliminate the excuse that you can’t do it. I think that’s the whole purpose of this show. And it’s why I’m so excited to be one of the guests here. Because there is no reason for you not to be able to make your dreams a reality. It’s just a mindset thing.

Nicole Pendergrass  29:20

Yeah. And thank you so much, because you’re saying yeah, I’m leading the charge, but I’m able to because people before me like you give opportunities for me to step up and you actually pushed and encouraged me to step up, you know, for how nervous I was at a first speaking engagement. I probably missed the rest of the speakers. Everybody else I wanted to really hear speak and I missed it because I was recording and rehearsing my speech and trying to get it down into the timeframe because I didn’t realize I could talk for so long until I had a 50 slide presentation. I was like, Oh no, this is not going to be enough. Now I need to cut this down. So I missed everybody else talking because I was trying to work on my thing, but thank you for who are pushing me out of my shell and even pushing me with the podcast, like, you’re so encouraging and like you say, you tell a lot of things. And even if it takes people a little while to step into that, eventually they do because you’re very encouraging. And I want to thank you and give you your flowers while you’re, you know, right in front of me here. Thank you so much.

Jerome Myers  30:19

Received, Thank you. And I appreciate you acknowledging that, right. But it’s our purpose, right? It’s our mission. If you’re part of the talented, and you don’t show your capacity if you don’t give those other folks an example for what is possible, then how will it ever be real for them? That exposure is the thing that makes it okay, right? If I did it, right. If we’ve built a multi million dollar portfolio the why can’t you?

Nicole Pendergrass  30:47

Yeah, exactly. I love it. And I’m following right behind you to Rome. I’m running to catch up. Okay, this was so great. Wait, wait, don’t go yet. Have you been looking for a way to get started in real estate investing, but you just don’t know how you need? THE LAUNCHPAD is brought to you by my company Noirvest Holdings. And THE LAUNCHPAD is a free guide with a ton of resources I’ve compiled to help you invest into your first real estate syndication. It includes terminology, book resources, video explanations, all the information that you need. Don’t know what a syndication is? I got you covered. How to find a good operator? How to even tell if a deal is good or not, without having to know how to underwrite it all. It’s all in there. THE LAUNCHPAD is designed to help launch you into the next stage of your investing career and get you invested into your first multifamily syndication as a passive investor. Meaning you can be a landlord and own a piece of a large apartment building, but still go about your day-to-day life without having to stop and learn every single detail about what’s under the hood and how it all works. The link to the guide is in the show notes, make sure you sign up today. Again, this is a free resource guide. And if you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me. Now let’s finish up the show.  I’m gonna ask you a couple of questions that I ask every guest right? The first one is, Warren Buffett said that diversification is protection against ignorance. What do you take that to mean? I know I say multiple times what I think that that means what do you think that means? And why does it or does it not matter?

Jerome Myers  32:23

Oh, it matters. Now, here’s the thing. Wealth isn’t built through diversification. Wealth is built by you being the best at something in the world. That’s how you build your wealth. And then you take that wealth, and then you diversify it across many different investments so that if something catastrophic happens, you don’t lose everything. And so the people who build the most successful businesses, the ones that allow them to create multimillion-dollar net worth sometimes nine-figure net net worth a billion dollar net worth, they know how to do one thing, they’re solving a problem. And they solve that problem better than anybody else, which is why so many people come to them. Once you do that. And I think this is a step that so many people miss, a lot of people have a job and they want to be an investor. Well, if you think about the Cashflow Quadrant, and for the listeners, hopefully we can slip it in for them. But Robert Kiyosaki gives you the employee, the self-employed the business owner, and then the investor, many of the educators tell you to go from from employee to investor. So you’re just taking your in earned income, and you’re investing in something, and that investment is probably going to get you somewhere between two and 12% per year, well, if you don’t have a million dollars, it’s not going to be life changing for you. But if you can take that money and invest it in a business and be a business owner, one, you’re gonna get tax benefits that you couldn’t get as an employee. But two, you’ve got so many different levers that you can pull that will allow you to grow your wealth more rapidly. Making a million dollars and a year versus making a million dollars in 40 years has very different implications into your wealth calculation. And I think people miss that piece of it. The speed with which you accumulate, the wealth determines where you actually end up on your retirement trajectory. So you want to grow that wealth as quickly as you can, and there is no way to grow it faster than by operating a business, then you take that equity created by the business, and you drop it down into investments. And if you can do that over and over and over again, you can turn let’s call it 100,000 and the 400,000 .400,000 into 800,000. 800,000 into 1.6. And if you do that a few times, you’ll look up and you’ll find yourself free and that freedom I think is what most people are talking about and to define freedom is being able to do what you want when you want with who you want without worry or concern about how things are going to be taken care of after you do that. That’s the ultimate for me. And I hope it is for the majority of other people. And they may make it a little more complicated than me at some other things. But for me, that’s the essence of it.

Nicole Pendergrass  35:09

I don’t even know what Sunday I mean, no, actually, it’s not Sunday. But that was a word. All right. Next question. Monopoly, you play Monopoly before, right?

Jerome Myers  35:19

I play Monopoly, my kids beat me in it.

Nicole Pendergrass  35:23

So you might not be good. You might not be a good person to ask this question but I’m gonna ask you anyway, but I’m not I might not be following your strategy, Baltic Avenue or Boardwalk and why?

35:33

Yeah, so I was a Baltic Avenue guy for a long time. And what I realized through the pandemic is those properties are really, really difficult to run. And so you know, you give me a Baltic or Boardwalk, I want to take boardwalk, because it’s a really high-quality asset. And while you have a lot of money invested that cash flow that comes off of it as a function of your investment, right? Your rent at Boardwalk, especially if you have a hotel on it is multiples higher than what you get on Baltic. So you don’t have to have a ton of hits. But if we really want to go through it, right, with Baltic being a Class D property, my New York Avenue being a Class C property, Marvin Gardens being a B property, and then boardwalk being a property. I really want to be over there on Kentucky Avenue, Indiana, Illinois. I like those B minuses Nicole, I think they give you the best of both worlds where you get the appreciation as well as the cash flow.

Nicole Pendergrass  36:37

Okay, so you just showing off now naming all the spots? No, no, no, no, we’re good. And they can look up a picture of Monopoly board if they need to know all those spots. But okay. Oh, my gosh, Jerome, thank you so much for coming. Now. If people want to know more about what you were talking about, with the Cashflow Quadrant, or how do they start a business? How do they do what you do? How do they learn? How do they get educated? How do they reach out to you to have that conversation? Or where should they go for more resources.

Jerome Myers  37:09

So jump over to jeromemyers.co and there you’re gonna find all types of resources, we’ve got a checklist for those who want to exit the matrix. 15 points help you figure out what you need to do before you leave your job so you can have a soft landing. Burning into boats and walking out like I did is not the right answer. If you want to learn more about multifamily investing, we’ve got a free four-step guide that you can pick up to help you get into the space without having any capital credibility. And it’s really just a function of how hard you’re willing to sweat. And so those two things I think will help people go on their journey. And look, man, there’s about 300 podcast episodes where I’ve been a guest. So if you want to hear my story told in different ways and answering different questions, I’d love to help you on your journey ton of free resources out there.

Nicole Pendergrass  38:00

All right, 300. But this is the best one. 301.

Jerome Myers  38:04

We’ve certainly talked about things that I haven’t talked about in other places. So Nicole, I’m so grateful that you did this. I’m so happy. In fact, I may be jovial that you took this step to create this platform, and this outlet. And I can’t wait to promote the episode to our community so that people can get on this train and support you in what you’re doing, because it’s a necessary resource for the folks out there who are trying to take things to the next level.

Nicole Pendergrass  38:36

Thank you so much, Jerome, thank you and all the listeners out there. If this has been a great episode for you of there have been a lot of jewels and gems that you have picked up and you do a couple of things. I need you to one, put them in your purse, put them in the bag, put them in a vault somewhere, lock it up, and so you have access to it and you’re ready to use it when you need that resource. And if it was helpful, don’t just keep it to yourself, share it Share The Wealth, so I will see you on the next episode.

Outro  39:08

Did you love this episode of Share The Wealth Show? Be sure to connect with Nicole by following her on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. If you picked up any of the gems that were dropped by today’s guest, make sure you not only put them in your bag, but if you know of someone who would benefit from this information, don’t keep it to yourself. Share The Wealth, and make sure to leave us a rating and review. We’ll see you for next week’s episode. Subscribe so you’ll be notified.