Welcome to the Accelerated Real Estate Investor podcast with Josh Cantwell. If you’re looking to retire early with forever passive income, you’re in the right place. This podcast is the go-to destination for real estate investors, both active and passive. And multifamily apartment investors, both new, intermediate and advanced. Now sit back, listen, learn and accelerate your business, your life and your investing with the Accelerated Real Estate Investor podcast.

Josh: So, hey, welcome back to Accelerated Investor, so excited to have you on. You’re going to notice in just our recent podcast that we’ve modified the name of Accelerated Investor, just slightly to Accelerated Real Estate Investor, so excited to have guests on and do solocasts with you to say a little bit more about our investment business and amazing guests that can help you along your journey of investing in real estate, creating financial freedom and becoming a bigger, better version of yourself today. Listen, I have an amazing guest on it’s a relatively new friend who I thoroughly enjoyed this interview with. His name is Jerome Myers. Jerome is a developer of people and places. He’s the founder and chief inspirational officer of Dream Catchers and the Myers Development Group through those entities Jerome gets to live out his childhood dreams of helping people manifest the things that they imagine in their brain and create social proof that these dreams should be real. 

Josh: Left Corporate America after building a 20-million-dollar division to focus on his multifamily multimillion dollar portfolio using what he calls the Myers methods. In this interview, we’re going to peel back the onion with Jerome on his Myers methods. And we’re going to talk about things like number one operating your investments and your real estate investing from a place of abundance versus scarcity. Number two, how to be a great partner in business by focus on being predictable. And that predictability, creating trust with not only your family or friends, but with your business partners and future business partners, you’re also going to hear about Jerome’s most recent one hundred- and twenty-eight-unit development in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

Josh: And you’re also going to hear more about why people want to know what you bring to the table, but ultimately why Jerome talks about the know like and trust triangle, know like and trust and why he feels it’s more like a funnel. Know. Then like and then trust and trust people when they come from a place of predictability. And then finally, you’re going to hear also about what I call the I am exercise and how you’re able to redefine who you are through the I am exercise. Thank you again for joining us today on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Jerome Myers. 

Josh: So, hey, Jerome, listen, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a long time to talk about some new topics with you about partnering, how to select the right partners, how to be a good partner in this multifamily space. So thanks so much for joining me today on Accelerated Investor. 

Jerome: Josh, you don’t know how excited I am to be with you. Man, this is dope. And I hear you just close a new deal, man. So super excited about that. Congratulations. And I wish you guys much success because that’s a monster you took down there. 

Josh: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. So, listen, I love to talk with the new guys, new friends about like what are they doing like right now? Like, what are you going to do this afternoon? What are you going to do tomorrow? What are you working on like next week that you’re excited about that really get your entrepreneurial juices going, your real estate juices going, your self-development juices going. Like, what are you excited for in your business right now that you’re working on? 

Jerome: Yeah. So I got an email two days ago from my guy Abdikadir. We’re working on a development project and we’ve been kind of moving at a snail’s pace through HUD. And it’s like, OK, we should have a decision by noon on Friday. And so we’re recording this on a Thursday. So hopefully by lunchtime tomorrow we’ll have the thumbs up to go ahead and move to that next phase in the process so that we can get this long, close and get ground broken before the end of 2021. That’s a big project for this year. One hundred and twenty units out of the ground on six acres. 

Josh: Nice. Fantastic. What market is that in and what is what does it look like? Help me understand the deal a little bit. The mechanics. When do you think you’ll be at stabilization? Maybe some valuation numbers. If you don’t mind telling our audience, tell us about the deal. 

Jerome: Yeah. So the valuation numbers since you asked that question last, are the ones that are tricky, right? Because construction has changed quite a bit. More expensive. And so I don’t know exactly where we’re going to land on the bill costs right now. But the way that we package it, when we sent that to HUD, it’s a seventeen-million-dollar deal, about fifteen million worth of debt. We’ll bring three or so to the table between us and partners. And we look to break ground into this year. It’ll be about an eighteen-to-twenty-four-month construction cycle. And so we plan to be fully occupied sometime in twenty, twenty three, hopefully first or second quarter of twenty, twenty three. And then this is a fully amortized forty-year loan. So we’ll be able to ride this thing until the end of my career in Opportunity Zone. The market is Greensboro, North Carolina. And so that’s what we buy and we’re looking to be the market leader here. We want to own the vast majority of the workforce housing in the city. 

Josh: Nice. That’s great. So super niche focus. I love the Carolinas. We’ve got a lot of investors and partners down there. I’m actually heading down to North Carolina to play some golf in June. Got that schedule. Looking forward to that with some of my investors who are close friends of mine now, buddies of mine. I’m so looking forward to that. Now, Jerome, listen, I know you’ve developed multifamily, but I know your focus when you’re developing really is on selecting the right partners and being a good partner and why so many people like to get into real estate investing, whether it’s single family, commercial, multifamily development. And a lot of them have trouble closing deals or getting bank financing or finding the right limited partners, joint venture partners or syndication partners. 

Josh: And I know that you have a lot of really strong opinions and philosophies around finding good partners and being a good partner. This isn’t something a lot of people talk about. People think like, oh, what? People just have money. I just want them as a partner. You know, I’ve fired people before or told people, you can’t invest in my deal. I don’t want to partner with you. We have a very strict policy in my company called forgive my audience, the No dipshit policy. Soso we don’t invest with dipshits. We don’t partner with dipshits. So you have a philosophy that’s very strict with that. I’d love to hear your take on how do you build your business with partners and where people get this wrong. 

Jerome: Yeah, I mean, ours is no jerks are allowed. Right. But to the point, I think I’ve been running this story for a little while and hopefully you humor me here. So, look, I’m going to. I need you to send me one hundred thousand dollars, right, or you can leave your kids with me. Which one are you going to do first? 

Josh: Great question. 

Jerome: I promise you, I don’t want you to answer but the pause says enough. Right. So there are people all across the country. 

Josh: Some days you can have my kids, brother, some days you can have them. 

Jerome: There are people all across the country who are trying to give folks the right. Twenty-five to one hundred and fifty. I’ve heard one person say they got a million-dollar check from one person. But when I think about it and I bring that point up that I just put you right, this is an uncomfortable situation to put a parent in. But the reality is people pause, hesitate and think about giving their most prized in kids our possessions, but their most prized possession to somebody else before they would give their money away. Right. And so that’s what you’re competing against. And so what it would have what you have to have is a deep level of trust. Right. And that deep level of trust really comes from your self-image. Josh, if you’re able I mean, I could tell right away, like you keep promises to yourself. Right. And that’s what all our self-image and our self-esteem is, is our ability to say, hey, I’m going to do that because I keep promises to myself. 

Jerome: The more people that you interact with that are living in that space, the more they expect of you. And this accountability rises and rises and rises. In 2020 I read a book that changed my life is called Sizing People Up by Robin Dreeke. And it talks about all the different ways that people signal whether or not you should trust them. The thing that I didn’t understand until I read that book was just because you like somebody doesn’t mean you should trust them. You’ll hear people in podcasts all the time talk about the no trust triangle. I think it’s more of a funnel, you know, like and then trust. Right. The widest part of the club that know the smallest part is trust. Well, some people can dance like in trust, but all trust means is that I can predict what you’re going to do. And so, Josh, if I’m going to deal with you, it goes south. Are you going to do a capital call or are you going to write a check and take care of the issue? And you don’t have to answer that. But that’s something that people are looking for. If there’s an issue at the property, are you going to try to hide it from me? Are you going to share it along with the plan on how we’re going to fix it? Nobody has the answer to that. 

Jerome: But if people can predict what you’re going to do, they get really comfortable with sharing information with you, as well as potentially leaving some of their cash with you because they know that you’re a fiduciary. And I like that word. I know it’s a financial industry where but you’re going to be a great fiduciary, a great steward of the money that you’ve been entrusted with. And so my first deal, you know, we talk about the glamorous piece of doing development, but my first deal was a twenty three unit property that they were doing prostitution and drugs at. And I tried to buy that deal by myself. And I went to ten banks and they all told me they told me I was too ambitious and told me I didn’t actually have a deal and that I need to go to find somebody who has experience to do it. The problem was I didn’t know anybody that did it. I’ve been in corporate America for a while, built this big business, got all this technical training and the none of that mattered. 

Jerome: The banks did not care. They didn’t care about it. The PNL didn’t care about that. The MBA, the engineer. They didn’t care about anything. They want to know if I executed his business plan before. And basically, could I write a check if it fell apart so that they could make sure they got their money back. And so I had to go fix and flip and I’m sitting on the stoop. One of my houses is a ninety-thousand-dollar rehab. I don’t know what I was thinking. Built in 1920 and the guy pulls up in a white Dodge Ram, hops out, he walks up to the yard is like, hey bud, I’m getting ready to do a house down the street. I’d love to walk through and just check out your finishes so that we can make sure that you’re comparable to what we planned on doing. And so I walk in and he’s like, oh, you took that wall out. Granted, looks amazing. We go upstairs, he looks in the bathroom and great selection on the tile. It’s like, All right, man, thanks. I really appreciate this. And he’s getting ready to walk out. He stops in the door, he looks back. He says, hey, do you know the thing about that building behind the jumbo mart? I said, the twenty-three-unit apartment building? Yeah, I try to buy that four or five months ago. But the bank told me I need somebody with experience, he said, yeah, I’m probably gonna make off on that today. It’s like, oh, you’re the first I’ve been looking for. You have to have experience if you’re going to go make off on the property. Right? He’s like, yeah, we own a few buildings. 

Jerome: I was like, well, look, don’t leave me out. Like, this is what I’ve been looking for. You the person I’ve been looking for and I want to do this deal. I really like it. He said, well, what are you going to bring to the table and I just kind of looked at him and smiled. And I said, don’t worry about all that. Just like bring me the deal. Like, we’ll take care of it. We’ll figure that out, but just bring me to do. And so he just kind of looked at me confused, shrugged his shoulders and walked off and down the steps, through the grass hopped in his truck and he pull it off and I’m sitting here thinking this finally happened, is going to work. Josh, I got the guy right. Yeah. Yeah. Did he bring me in the deal or did he just go do it? 

Josh: Yeah, I’m going to guess he did it on his own, right. 

Jerome:Of course he’s going to go do it on his own. What did I bring to the table? I couldn’t even articulate what my skill set was. Right. Right. I just asked him to bring me in. And so he went and made the offer. It got rejected. And so he went and talked to a guy that I used to loan money to when I was in corporate America. And the guy said, oh, this is a deal Jerome and I talked about four or five months ago. I’m only comfortable doing this if he does a deal and so it’s the three of us. And then we bring a property manager and then the broker invests his commission. And so we go buy this deal. And I’m like, man, had I not done that stuff a few years ago, there’s no way I’d be sitting here right now. And so this goes to being a good person and not doing things with expectation to get something, but doing them because you think they’re the right thing to do. And that was reciprocated by the person who stuck up for me and actually created a space for me at the table. 

Jerome:So we go through that and then we’re sitting at the table, we’re going through the deal. And I still remember this one conversation that is still makes my skin crawl that day we’re going through and we realize that we have bedbugs at the property. And one of the folks says, well, if they move out, we don’t care because we don’t want those people there anyway. And I was like, well, what do you mean? Like they’re paying rent to live here. What do you mean you don’t want those people here? And the room got dead silent and he’s like, well, I didn’t mean it like that. What I’m saying is we want them to move out so that we can renovate the units. But there I realized that there was a disconnect, right? Like we didn’t think about the residents as people and they would probably use the word tenant instead of residents. I mean, the residents. Right. But we didn’t think about the residents as a people, as a collective group. Only some of us did. 

Jerome: And so what I’ve struggled with most in this space is the cognitive dissonance between owners and the people who actually call the place that the owners own home. I believe that you’ve got to see the humanity in this space. And as an ownership group, we want to treat people like the humans that they are. Right. And so we started going through that. And what I’ve learned is that if you and your partners have the same values, have the same morals, that it makes it really easy to make decisions. The moment that you don’t see the world through the same lens, you get a bunch of conflict, you get a bunch of sandpaper, friction and rubbing. And that is what causes partnerships. The great, because there’s always going to be something that happens. And you know that you’ve done enough properties. There’s always going to be stuff that is up to the partnership to navigate the conflict. And it’s no different than any other relationship is probably very similar to marriage, if you want to be honest. Right. Your cosigning loans, your tying, your financial future together, you’re committed for at least three to five years. That’s a joke at marriage. 

Josh: Till the honeymoon period wears off. 

Jerome: Yeah, the honeymoon period wears off and it wears off quicker, especially if you have money issues. And again, during the marriage parallelism, like most marriages fail because there’s some issues with the money. So it’s always my guidance, my encouragement to people to make sure that you know, who your partners are not when everything’s good and hunky dory, but when things hit the fan. Right. Are they going to take responsibility, some ownership and go work on it? Or are they the victim? And everybody else is at fault and they’re perfect. And I can tell you, if you’re dealing with somebody who’s perfect all the time, you’re still going to be perfect. When you’re their partner, you’re the person messing it up. 

Josh: So, Jerome, I’m curious. So to some degree, we’re talking about whatever you want to call it, but the law of attraction, meaning what we project to the world, we’re going to probably get something similar back in return. The people that we hang out with are probably we’re going to be like them. You hear the this cliche of, you know, you’re the average of the five people that you hang out with most. There’s all these different cliches out in the world. But if we want to level up our game, if we want to be a better partner, how do we become a better partner? Like what exercise or what questions? What are boxes? Do we have to check to say, look, I know who I am. I know what my values are, I know what I stand for. Because if you plant your flag in the ground and you say, this is who I am, this is what I stand for, this is what I’m trying to do, you’re probably going to attract people like that. 

Josh: But a lot of people have never spent the time to methodically think through who they are, who am I as a person, and then in order to attract people like that so you can be a good partner and attract good partners. So is there some sort of checklist or some sort of questions that we should be asking ourselves so that we can be very clear about who am I like everybody has on their website in the corner, like the About US section, the upper right-hand corner in the navigation, like how do we know how to write the about us section of who we are so we can attract those type of same people and make good partnerships and do bigger deals. 

Jerome: You’re talking my language now, brother. 

Josh: Good, I asked the right question. 

Jerome: Yeah, we always go around wearing this shirt, say, I took the red pill. And I believe that the change happens within and then radiates out. I think the vast majority of the world wants the world to change without anything in them changing. It’s not going to happen. And so I went through a really low point in my life back in 2010 and I started questioning everything. And the thing that I’m most grateful for about that period is I realized that I was doing a bunch of rituals and practices and I didn’t really understand why I was programed as a kid to do X, Y and Z, and I just kept doing them out of habit. And so the first thing I think we need to do is press the pause button and ask, when did I define myself right? Is it when I was eight or 10 or 12 or is a teenager or in high school? And if I’m thirty-five years old or forty five years old, have I redefined what my life should be and who I should be because of it? Because a lot of times most people are still trying to live out whatever that thing is that they decided when they were eight. Right. And they’re dissatisfied, frustrated and uncomfortable because what their vision of the world was at eight is very different for what it is today. 

Jerome: But they’re disconnected from the two because they won’t reconcile. If you haven’t redefined what your life is going to be and decide for yourself what you believe and what you don’t believe and really tested it to make sure that it is true. For instance, if I sneezed right now, I suspect you’re probably going to say bless you. But why? What is that based on right and my heart didn’t stop. That’s what I was told, that you’re supposed to say bless my heart and stop. So what is it really mean? Am I a real person if I don’t say bless you? Right. Is all these things, these practices.So one ask, what do I believe and redefine the things that you believe and then operate in that true essence? I think the next thing I read this book called The Four Agreements, and the one that was most profound for me was being impeccable with your word. The second one was don’t take anything personal. When I adopted those two things, I was able to live in gratitude completely and fully in that right there just changed the way that I saw the world. 

Jerome: No longer was I worried about who was trying to take what. For me, it was all about what I can give and being around people who see the world in the same way where they’re generous and open to sharing and interested and making sure that the relationships are mutually beneficial. And when you have mutually beneficial relationships, you don’t have an empty cup. What I found most surprise performers and I will put you in that bucket, right, is they only have people coming to them to take from. Right. Hey, Josh, I got this problem. What do you think I should do? Hey, Josh, I need money. What do you think? And this is what’s happening when you’re trying to raise money. Right. You’re going to somebody who has an abundance of that thing saying, hey, I need this, and you’re probably asking them for it instead of offering them an opportunity to participate in something that’s going to benefit them. Right. And so when you make that shift and you know that you don’t have scarcity, you live in a place of abundance and everything is available, then you can change the whole game, the whole game change. 

Josh: Just love it, love it, you’re on this fantastic, so wait, when did this become your personal philosophy? Like what happened in your life, maybe it was leaving the corporate world and becoming an entrepreneur, maybe you were always maybe this is what you grew up with when you were eight? I still think sometimes in my own life, you know, if I peel back the onion was real honest. I was an athlete in high school. I was popular. But my best friend, one of my best friends, was like nominated as like the best athlete in school. He was an all-state football player. He was the best-looking guy in the school. And I always felt like I was playing second fiddle to that dude. And he’s still a close friend of mine. So sometimes I still feel like I’m just being honest here with myself and with our whole audience and Jerome with you. Like, I still feel like I’m trying to prove when I do big real estate deals or when I raise a lot of capital, it makes me feel worthy. 

Josh: And this is something that my buddy, he probably doesn’t even know that I still think of him in high school 30 years ago or the girls that liked him instead of me. And here I am still trying to prove to my 16-year-old self. Right now I’m forty-four twenty eight years later, and I’m still like some of may not all of me, like I’ve grown up. I’ve matured. Right. I’m trying to have a bigger impact. I made a promise to my father when he was sick that I would always take care of them and never let them struggle. And now that he’s passed, I’ve got that same promise to my mother. So I have different reasons now. But just a little piece of me still is trying to prove to high school Josh. So I get it. Like I know exactly what you’re saying, that if you don’t reconcile with yourself who you are today is the big piece of you can be trying to prove a point that doesn’t even matter to anybody from 20 or 30 years ago. Right? 

Jerome: Yeah. You got to be able to control the talk that’s in your mind. And I think one of the ways that you’ll know if you’re in trouble is if you are scared to sit in silence. There are people who walk in the house. As soon as they walk in the house, they turn the TV on the radio. They say, I got to have something going. But if you can sit in a dark room and be totally OK with that, just fooling yourself. No phone, no nothing. That’s when you know that you’ve actually found the piece, because that’s what we’re all seeking. We’re seeking some form of peace. Some people think they’re going to find the peace in the noise. But I can tell you that the peace really exists in the silence, in the darkness. And that’s why when you’re suffering, going through the pain, you have these epiphanies, you have these realizations because you can actually hear the voice and you can get the clarity. But we try to numb it, man. We use sugar, we use drugs, we use all these other 

Josh: TV, social media. 

Jerome: All of these things to try to get us away from the reality of our situation. But it’s not until you accept that reality that you can actually make a change, right. As long as you don’t have a problem, you don’t have to do anything about it or somebody else has to do something about it, not you. When you take personal inventory and take responsibility for it. Life changing experience. 

Josh: Yeah, fantastic stuff. I’ve got, this is just reminding me as I get done with this interview with you, I’m going to go back. I’ve got a Google slides like PowerPoint that I look at almost every morning. And one of the slides is what I call an I Am slide. And I’ve got about 15 to 17 statements. It says like I am. Right. So it’s a declaration of who Josh Cantwell is, regardless of what other people think about me. Now, I’m mature enough to know this is who I believe I am. And so it’s things like I am a servant son of God. I am a conservative Christian entrepreneur. I am a proud father. I’m a loving husband. I am. I am. I am like I am great at raising capital. Right. I am seven percent body fat. Two hundred and ten pounds with a six pack. I’m not that, but I want to be, right. So there’s all these I am, so that when I, when I doubt myself when something goes wrong in business, I have an argument with my wife, you know, think something’s going on with one of my children. I can always come back to say, like, well, Josh, this is who you are and remember who you are and operate from those principles, don’t wing it, don’t have a knee jerk reaction based on emotion. This is who you are. 

Josh:So if this is who you are, how do you solve that problem inside of that silo of Josh Cantwell, who’s Josh Cantwell? And more times than not, the answer reveals itself. And I don’t say I come up with the answer. What I say is the world reveals itself to me the answer. I didn’t have the answer, but all of a sudden it just comes out of kind of out of thin air, almost. Right. And part of it is because there’s not that white noise like you talked about. There’s not the TV, the social media, the drugs, the sugar, you know, the constant movement. I got a busy life, but I take time to slow down. One of my favorite things in the world, Jerome, actually lately has been a coach club volleyball. We’re busy with our syndications and our investments. But at night, kids go to bed. I sit in the kitchen with my wife, TV’s off, social media is off, phones are away. And I do the dishes. And she sits at the island and we talk about life, about what’s going on with her day, what’s going on with my day, and I know she’s also looking back at those the Five Love Languages, the book by Gary Chapman, I believe it is her love languages service. Yeah. So I’m able to love on her by doing the dishes, the pots and pans, cleaning up the kitchen. She’s an amazing Italian cook, so I love to eat the food she makes. 

Josh: So again, this is one of those things, being a loving husband, knowing what her love language is giving back to her. So I think I’m getting a lot of these things right that you’re talking about. So what should people be asking themselves to get more in line with who they really are and just being comfortable, even if they’re an oddball, even if who they determine they are is totally different than the rest of the world and what Instagram projects and who they should be on LinkedIn or what they should be and whether in the field, how do people really get comfortable to say, this is who I am, I’m just going to be this. Is it telling the world like I don’t really give a shit if you like me or not. This is who I am. Like, help me understand how we how we bring it together so people can actually live harmoniously with who they really are and then just project that to the world whether the world likes it or not. 

Jerome:Man there’s so much here. I don’t want to leave the point that you just told about the dishes and the wife. Right. And so your love language is quality time, right? 

Josh: Quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation. Yeah, you bet. 

Jerome: Yeah. And so you’re standing there and you guys have given the mutual benefit and it’s deepening the connection. And so you guys are in a great spot. And if something is off, that’s the place, that’s a safe place for you to reconnect and get it back going. And if somebody isn’t participating in one of those two things, you have permission to call them on it, because it’s our ritual. That’s our practice is what deepens our relationship. And I mean, that’s just amazing for anybody out there listening. I don’t want you to skip over that, find the way that you both can be served in the same space and watch how much closer your relationship gets in that closeness, creates that oneness, which pushes you to that next level. And so you ask the questions that people should be asking and I think they should be asking, hey, who do I really want to be? Because this is when I made the drop from corporate America for two years in a row after building a twenty-million-dollar division for a fortune 550, I had to lay people off. 

Jerome: And I realized that while I was making day to day operational decisions and I have responsibility for the PNL, I wasn’t actually the ultimate decision maker for what happened to my group. And because of that, I realized that people were dictating to me what I was going to do. And I didn’t have a say whether or not it was in alignment with my morals and values. Get crystal clear on your morals and values. And that was the other thing you were talking about with your affirmations. Your affirmations are setting the standard for your life. We get our standards. We don’t get the things that we wish for that that we desire. We get the things that we decide these are our standards. And that’s why I am is so important with the rest of the words that go with it. Mine says I am the embodiment of health, wealth and love. Right. And I keep my super simple because I can remember that and recite it. And so what are your morals and values? Are you in alignment with them? If you’re not, are your morals and values actually your morals and values, or do they just sound nice? If they actually are, what are you going to do to change your life to make sure that you can move in alignment with your morals and values? There are some people who practice Christianity but don’t actually live it out in practice. Right. 

Jerome: And so you leading with hey, I’m a Christian. If when somebody introduces themselves that way, I sit back and watch and say, OK, I know that Christianity is based in love. Do you act out of love? Is that your general demeanor? And if it’s not, if you always worried about being a victim or somebody taking advantage of you, I know that that’s not actually what you believe. Right? You’re just saying that because it sounds nice. And so then I move to the next place, you know, like and trust. I can’t predict what you’re going to do because you aren’t living out your stated morals and values. So I’m going to keep a distance from you because I know there’s a disconnect. For the people who are living out their morals and values. I believe that you can show up anywhere and be yourself and not worry about anything because you will draw the people to you who are like you and the people who aren’t like you will run away and you want them to run away so that you can live in this what I call a bubble. Right. You’re safe in this bubble with people see the world in the same way, and they’re all going to be predictable because they have the same morals and values. Yeah. 

Josh:So being a better partner to kind of bring this all kind of full circle and it’s kind of last question, Jerome, any kind of final piece of advice that you would give to your younger former self or to our audience about being a better partner? But it really it really starts with like identifying, really defining who we are. And then, like you’ve talked about so many times, being predictable in that what you do, the outcome that you have is in line with what you said you would do. And the more often you do that and you show up when you’re supposed to show up, you close. When you’re supposed to close, you call someone. When you’re supposed to call them, you’re on time. You project things to the world and then you live there and you do it. That makes you a better partner. Right. Because what people don’t like is non transparency. Unpredictability, right. We were given like one of these senses that we have to have, I believe, not only to be a great person, but to be a good business owner. 

Josh: Which is. You have to be somebody who people can count on one of the basic needs of humans is security, and because God is creative and he’s wild, he also gives us one of the other basic needs, which Tony Robbins talks about a lot, which is the need for unsecurity or new, fresh changes, things that are fun, but generally, especially for women and especially in business, knowing and predicting securities, pro formas. How is this deal going to pencil out? Is it going to work that way? And when it doesn’t? Because a lot of deals don’t pencil out or perform exactly as they’re penciled. Are you going to be transparent with the details and how are you going to fix that? So help me understand what kind of final pieces of advice you would give for us to be more predictable, provide more security and be a better partner. 

Jerome: Yeah, I will tell you that if you’re more accountable to yourself than you are to anybody else and your life is going to be extraordinary, right? And that’s because you always know if you were willing to do whatever it took until in order to deliver the result that you told yourself that you wanted to achieve. Right. And people miss all of that, like Josh, if you step on the back of my shoe while walking down a hallway because you’re talking about your high school buddy in high school, we step on the back of people’s shoes, trip and stumble. Right. But you know, whether that happened on purpose or not, you intended to do that. You did. I can give you the benefit of the doubt because I don’t know. You might have been looking at the girl that was going out of the way. You might have been looking at a locker. There’s so many other things that could have been going on. And you did it by accident. My assumption today is that people are doing things by accident. They’re not intentionally trying to hurt me or to harm me, but, you know. Right. And so any time you give a halfhearted effort as something that you said you want to do and it doesn’t work out, you completely know that you didn’t do everything that you could in order to do it. One of the other of the four agreements is always do your best. And so in that space, you being more accountable to yourself than anybody else instead of saying, oh, well, hey, Jerome’s watching, so I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do, that 

Josh: That’s childish behavior, right? That’s like my nine-year-old son Dominic says I’m going to brush my teeth because Dad’s watching versus when Dominic says, yeah, dad, I brush my teeth that I know he’s lying. Right. But we do that as adults. Right. Some people never grow out of that behavior. 

Jerome: Right. And so but now when you are responsible for your life. Right, total extreme ownership as Jacko talks about that’s when you move to that next place and you will be amazed at how many people want to be around you, but you’ll also be amazed at how many people run away. So when you live a life at that level, they know that you’re going to expect the same from them. And the people who aren’t accountable are going to run away. And in business, there is not a greater blessing to having the people who are going to do what they say run away from you, that you can’t predict. You can’t predict them. You can’t do anything with it. 

Josh: That’s beautiful stuff. Jerome, listen, fantastic interview, man. I was excited for this one. Excited to talk more about this. The internal business owner, the internal entrepreneur, the internal partnership that the next deal, the next syndication. This is exactly what I was hoping to get for me personally and for our audience. So if our audience wants to get more information about you, engage with you, what can they find you? 

Jerome: The best place for the audience to go JeromeMyers.co. It’s Myers. Some people like that extra E. It’s just straight MYERS what you are and you can find out about all the stuff we have going on. And we’re pretty busy, super excited to meet new folks. 

Josh: Fantastic, Jerome. Listen, thanks so much for joining us today on Accelerated Investor. Hey, listen, I hope you really enjoyed that interview with Jerome. I’m so excited to interview him and hear more about his personal philosophies. If you enjoyed the interview, please go right now and leave us a five-star rating and review in iTunes and YouTube. And don’t forget to hit the subscribe button.

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