EP 13: Why Is America Obsessed by Self Storage with Scott Meyers

There is no way that we would have come even close to losing $400,000 of my money or family money or our investors money before the, the alarms would have been going off and we would have pulled out of a deal just because we've been through that before. So I, I would say that's a long winded answer of saying I think you need to make sure that if you're going to follow somebody, if you're going into battle with someone, you need to follow the general that has a limp. Somebody who's been through it before and has scar tissue.

Are you frustrated watching your hard earned money ride the knee jerking Wall street rollercoaster? Are you looking to diversify into alternate investments and set them on autopilot to achieve financial freedom? It's time to learn the ways of the wealthy. It's time to Think Outside the Stocks with your host Madhavi Jain, an immigrant from India and ex IT professional who will bring you industry experts to illustrate a passive and holistic financial approach to build not just passive income but, but also your generational wealth. Madvi is on a mission to change the financial trajectory of one family at a time. And a thousand more to go. Are you going to be part of this vision? And now without further ado, here is the host of Think Outside the Stocks, Madvi Jain.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to Think Outside the Stocks. Another episode with an expert, an industry expert in self storage. Today Scott Mares is joining us. And Scott Mares is actually the king of self storage fun facts about him. I always like to introduce my guest with the fun facts. So he has over 2.4 million square foot of self storage under management. That's whooping 14,000 units. It's immense. And not only that he is a true educator at heart, he actually started this whole self storage movement, the education movement back in the times when people didn't even know how to invest in self storage. And with that he has built immense following with students and he has taught thousands of people to work on self storage to create that financial freedom using self storage. And the last fun fact about him, I want, I'd like to mention that if you actually google him, there are going to be about 30,000 results or so that that you're going to come across. So that that's how popular he is. And in the popularity again comes from a really great heart behind it. The true educator and true inspiration that we love to share with our guests today. So Scott, welcome to Think Outside this talks.

Thank you Madhavi. It's Good to see you again and to catch up here live in front of your audience. So thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. Just few days back we talk about your audience and now we are having this conversation to get that, that view. Your point of view is so important to my listeners. Right. To gain from it. So our listeners today are going to be the passive investors. So what we are trying to bring is, is that more hol perspective, more diversified perspective to their financial structure. So what you have done, what you have built, what you are doing, we are just going to draw the nuggets from your success story because success leaves clues. Right. So we are going to draw that and hopefully our listeners find 1, 2, 10 multiple things during this conversation. So before we go ahead and start talking about your expertise, tell us how does it, how did it all started? Tell us about your early days. You know, when you started thinking about real estate investing in it was self storage always on your mind? How did you even get started in self storage? And why did you in the first place think about creating the education in self storage?

Yeah, so I can unpack all of that. And begins back in 1993 when I got into real estate to, to begin with. And so we're celebrating our 30th year in real estate. And I think people that start investing in real estate, it all began with a single family house. And so I listened to the, well, I, I watched the infomercial and then bought the Carlton Sheets home study system on cable tv. And it wasn't late one night, but it was in an afternoon and began following his methods and going out to find these single family houses that were distressed that where I could assume the VA loan, which there are hardly any, if any VA loans that are assumable out there anymore these days. And that's how I bought my first property. I took out a home equity loan in my prim residence, assumed to be a loan, and bought my first rental house. We rehabbed it, refinanced it, rented it out. So the BRRRR method before it became really the BRRRR method and then we took that, the, the funds from that project and then bought two more. And then we just continue to replicate that. And we quickly found ourselves, we had about 16, 20 houses or so. And this is my wife and I at the time, I should say at the time I started on my own. And then my wife got into the business and and then she decided that one Sunday afternoon had a little bit of said, either you fire me or I quit. I'M not doing this any longer. And so a very clear ultimatum. And so at that time we realized, okay, well we love, we love this business. We love real estate for all the reasons people love real estate. It appreciates if you do the right things to it. If you're rehabbing them and you buy them, right. We can force the value and appreciation, we can depreciate them for tax purposes and we can borrow money and we can leverage to buy them. There's no other investment that has all of those elements to it. If it weren't for the tenants in the toilets, everybody would love rental real estate, right? And so we looked around the landscape and thought, okay, well maybe it's just economies of scale, we just need to grow it and buy some multi family so that we can put property managers and property management companies in place and then, then we can extricate ourselves and we can step out of the business. And so we, then we, we ramp things up on the single family side to about 82 single family houses. And then we had 423 apartment rental units. And I mean still, still fairly small. And I guess in today's standards of many of the folks that are out there getting into the business. But that was enough for us to say that we didn't want any more of this. We had the managers and we had the major companies, but we still had all the headaches and, and more. I mean the buck still stops with you as the owner and we still had issues that we had to handle and, and we couldn't really still go on, on a vacation or say even on a cruise ship to be unreachable. And that was not the reason why we got into this business. And so at that time we had two of our three young kiddos and we decided to make a pivot and I began to look into self storage and decided that yeah, if we're going to stay in real estate and get rid of tenants and toilets and trash, then, you know, it's either parking lots or self storage. And, and the more I looked into self storage that began to, you know, it made sense. And so we decided to launch into our first facility with a partner. Since then we had moved on on our own without any partners until we got to the place where we began then syndicating and bringing in private equity partners or our passive investors, our limited partners in our projects. And then we, it was off to the races and we found that the asset class itself is so strong, it does so well during a recession, it does great during inflationary. Times, when times are good in this country, people buy more stuff and store more stuff. And when we head into a recession, people downsize and businesses downsize and they store more stuff. And banks love them, love Self Storage facilities because they have the lowest loan default rate and the lowest loan loss rate because they do great during a recession. They outpace everything else. So it was really easy to begin to bring in our passive investors, our private equity partners into the asset class because Self storage just has the best game in town. It was just the best story to tell. And so we continue to ramp things up and, and I ran an investment group in here in Indianapolis. It was the largest real estate investment group. We had about 600 members. And at that time people were looking to see, you know, what I'm doing as the president. And so as I get more into Self Storage, quite honestly, Madhavi, I got tired of people asking me to go out to lunch to pick my brain and then in some cases they asked me to pay for the lunch. So we decided to begin holding some workshops and teaching people about the business and then wrote a home study system. And then the rest they say is history. And that's how we begin our journey of both investing and then also educating and teaching people how to get into the business. And before I knew it, I had two very successful but two 60 hour a week businesses. And since then we've decided to kind of pull back the reins on the education side of the business. I, I run our mastermind, but most of the rest of that is done now by my incredible team who I've trained personally and they're that are all very successful in Self storage. And so now I spend my time still teaching and still showing people the, the benefits of the business. But now we get to partner with them in our mastermind and other folks as well. And so we've kind of come full circle and now we're blending the two companies and we've taught over a thousand people how to be successful in Self Storage to the state. And we are a huge community, the most active and most professional community that is going out there and investing together. We're just, we find ourselves operating in that sandbox just below the REITs and just above the mom and pop facilities. And now looking to once again as we head into this next recession in 2023, looking for another big land grab this time around to go take advantage of the marketplace and move forward in what is going to be the greatest recess recession in terms of buying Self Storage facilities that, that we've seen.

Wow, what a journey, Scott. What a journey. I mean, you started, I mean you could have been happy in just doing those rehabs, right? You constantly question yourself that growth mentality is about not being comfortable. It's about feeling uncomfortable, looking for different opportunities. And that's the growth, right? So you have kind of by example, set that growth part throughout your journey. And you thought, thought scalability first in terms of how you can grow your real estate portfolio didn't stop there. You talk, you, you are thinking about scalability from your investor perspective. And now you're thinking about, you know, after that you started talking about scalability in terms of that education. And I know you are, you know, big fan of Go Giver, the book that I go by, I live in Brick by. And that's what it is. That's what it is, right? How you can add that massive amount of value to massive amount of people the same time that one on one is not possible. So let's scale and create that home study course. That's incredible. And that's essentially what I'm trying to do with this podcast and other educational material that I'm putting there that just, you know, even if I'm not there, kind of creating that, you know, 100,000x of me just creating that education for them. So kudos that you thought about that education when nobody was thinking about it, right. In real estate or self storage, it was just not thought of. So you kind of pioneered this educational system and you know, you touch based a ton of things about, about self storage and how you really like it and why you really like it. So I'm gonna go back and kind of connect some of the points there. But before we do that, tell me how did, what do you think that why did America become this storage nation? Because in the. I come from India and you know, first of all, I think the main reason, I think I kind of know the main reason in India. Break something, we fix it, we don't like haul it away, right? So that's the one mentality. And we do not have any storage facilities. It's not like in every corner you're gonna find self storage and people are literally holding and stuffing this self storage facility, sometimes paying money which is not even worthy of those objects that are in it. Right? So sentimental or whatever. So what is your take on it that why did America become this storage nation?

Well, you know, we could look at very various theories and I think it's a culmination of a few things. I think marketers, you Know, we, we prided ourselves on consumerism here in the United States and not that that's a good thing, but we just, we, we have a lot of things and we covet a lot of things and we want a lot of things and we want it now. And that is just kind of the American way. And you know, so the banking system has done an incredible job of telling us that, you know, we need to have something and even if we something or need it, that we can buy it and we can have it now and we don't have to pay for it until later. And so we can go into debt. You know, we can spend money that we don't have to try to have all these things to impress people that we don't even know because we have all this stuff. And so the marketers of stuff and the marketers of credit and credit cards have really shown people, or at least marketed to them that your value is derived by the amount of stuff you have. And the more stuff you have and the nicer and the newer and the bigger and the better, then your status as an American is greater than your neighbor. And, and many people have bought into that to the point where it's taken them to, you know, a not so happy place when they find out that they can't pay for all this stuff that they bought only to impress somebody that they don't even know.

Right.

So that is, that is a big part of, that is a big part of one of the parts of the demand regarding self storage. Now it is a utility that we use. And so, you know, we're, we are in the business in self storage of helping people and serving people when they have trauma and transition. So death, divorce, bankruptcy, a move, your basement floods, a business is downsized, the economy goes bad and individuals downsize or move back in with family or back home, you know, all necessitates a need for storage. If you're moving, you're going to store stuff in your current home to make it look like it's less cluttered before you move into your next. And then you're going to probably rent another storage unit when you move again. And small businesses are operating with excess inventory. You know, the Amazon drop shippers and ebay folks, you know, they're utilizing it as a, is a small warehouse for a small business. So they're, you know, the baby boomers have created a huge demand for storage that they put stuff in storage. But then when they downsize as they move on, the kids are out of the house, they downsize and they put their extra stuff in storage and then they move to assisted living and they put more stuff in storage. And then when they pass on, well, the stuff just stays there because the kids don't want it. They never take it out and put it in their own homes. But we can't get rid of it, right. So it just stays in storage. So there's a, there's just a number of reasons once people start using it that they continue to use it. Many are just from free utility purposes and, but not all of it is the hyper consumerism. Although you know that, that is, we can point to that. But what we're seeing with Avi right now is in other parts of the world. You know, I would, I would venture to guess that that Mumbai probably has some, a self storage facility. I can probably google it and see. But you're right, it is not, you know, most Asian countries have not adopted this. However, we are seeing, you know, in China for instance and in the, the uae, which I was just there a couple of weeks ago, we're seeing other parts of, in Europe is adopting self storage and the amount of storage per square foot is increasing. So as the middle class is rising in other parts of the world, it does necessitate a need for storage. People have still live in small spaces, but as their income grows, they want to have experiences. And those experiences come with skis and camping equipment and maybe motorcycles, bicycles and things that they just can't store in their apartments or condos or a small house. And so it goes into storage. And so we are seeing an increase in utilization of storage around the globe.

That's a great perspective. Internationally this change is happening. So just going back to what you said, that the three drivers that is really making America the, the storage nation, one being that consumer demand, right? Just being the, the mentality of having all the things. And I think social media puts more pressure on it because now people are sharing on social media about their lifestyle and everything, right. The second is that transition and I think that's really important. People don't think about self storage from that transition perspective that you are actually helping some of these families who are in need. So you're provid value again going back to that, you know, super value that you're adding in terms of your strategy in real estate. So that's great. And the third thing is about just the changes. The times are changing, right? So the Amazon drop ships and anything that's changing for the world, you are kind of supporting. So you're kind of running in the parallel tracks and kind of supporting that. I love that you know, as a self storage that kind of creates an impact different people's life at different times. So let's then now jump in, talk about what you were mentioning about earlier about the, the recessionary environments. Right. We would love to know that how many recessions you have seen, how many decisions actually your self storage strategy has seen. And now we kind of stand in a trifecta. There is a trifecta of the inflation, the recession and the interest rates growing. Right. So does this traffic impact self storage in positive and also in negative way, especially the higher interest rate. So let's talk a little bit about that. Give us a spill on that.

Sure, sure. So been through two recessions. The first one was 99 in 2000. That is the dot com crash. And I was not in self storage at the time, but I was in real estate. And all of our tenants were leaving once the Community Reinvestment act in this country was put in place. And basically anybody that could fog a mirror was able to buy a house. And, and so our tenants left and it left us in, in a very bad situation with a high vacancies and now we had to rehab our houses all over again to sell because that's, that's how the market had shifted. Well then fast forward and we had gotten into self storage by, at that point in 2005. And so then in 2008 when the great Recession hit. Well, that was caused by all of my tenants that took advantage of the Community Reinvestment act and bought houses and they couldn't afford it and all their loans went bad. So we saw it coming. But we were in self storage at that time. And yes, what, what happened in the financial world at that point, that one was caused by, you know, the lending environments and, and again the Community Reinvestment act and, and the, the, well quite honestly the greed and the bad actors in, in the lending communities and the brokerage communities. And so when Lehman Brothers fell, you know, the economy came to a screeching halt. And then the lenders at that point, you know, they weren't lending for a while. They, they took a breather and, and the Fed, you know, basically made them take a breather. Some new rules to put in place. Well, in the meantime, people were, you know, unemployment went sky high, businesses were downsizing, individuals are downsizing, they're losing their homes and they needed to put things in storage. And so we have this huge surge in demand for storage and we have lenders that weren't approving loans for development. So that was the, you know, the most speculative type of loan is development. So starting with a piece of dirt and telling a lender you're going to put a building on it and then an income stream on top of it. So we had the, the perfect storm for storage. And what, what I recognized at that point, Manavi, is that I, I'm. When this happens again, I will have, and we know recession said every seven to 10 years like clockwork, I will have more lending relationships and I will have more private equity partners that understand the business that, that see the opportunities that we do and the reasons why we love self storage to come alongside of us. And that's what we've done is we've built a community of passive investors to come alongside of us. And we' 2008, 2009, 2010. I just didn't have a large enough group to acquire these developments and finish developing or acquire existing facilities where the owners were in trouble because, well, we were in a recession and maybe their other asset classes were stressed or there are other things going on in their personal financial world that they had to sell these facilities. We bought many of those, but we could have bought more. So this time around, what we're seeing is, and you're right, every recession is different. And as we head into this next one, we don't know how dramatic all those factors are going to be in terms of negative GDP and inflation rates, where's it going to stop and unemployment rates, how severe, how long. You know, average recessions are nine months long. And so we kind of bank on that. We're already hearing that maybe by the end of this year that interest rates will actually come down even with the increases that are already scheduled to go into place. And so either way, we know that interest rates were at three and now they're at six, and they're going to head to most likely seven. And that's going to put a lot of stress on a lot of owners, development projects and partners. And so at that point, you know, we will be in a position again to be able to buy a lot of troubled properties or buy some great properties where the owner is troubled. And so that's what we've been preparing for as we head into the latter part of 2023.

So to summarize that there's going to be a lot of opportunities. And by the way, it's interesting when you're talking about the 2008 conditions and that, you know, how lenders were cautious and sitting on the sidelines that's basically what's happening right out. And the circumstances change, more or less. There is some commonality in the recessions and there is, you know, something very particular in the situation. So you're looking at more opportunities to come on the horizon. That's, that's. What's your outlook for 2023, right. For self storage. So let's talk about, you briefly talked about why self storage is, is a great way to invest during the recession. What are the positive impacts of the recession and what happens, why people need more storage when they're actually maybe losing jobs or don't have money. Why, why does that happen?

Yeah, so that's, you know, we've seen that in the last two recessions. And then for those that are kind of new to a recession or investing in real estate, all we need to do is look back to 2020 and what Covid did and that mimicked, you know, we had a blip in the economy, we had that trauma in our economy. And so when shut down and everybody was sent home, well, there's a lot of businesses that went out of business and self storage was the benefactor of that. They put their excess inventory or even office equipment into storage until things turned back around again. And so we had a, you know, again, a huge uptick in occupancy in our storage facilities. Individuals, same thing. They were either out of a job or they were displaced or they received a lower paying job during that time, depending on what was going on with their employment and in the economy at the time. And so they were moving back in with each other, moving back home. And so they would put their stuff, extra stuff in storage until they were able to move back out again. But the bigger phenomenon that we saw during the pandemic is that people were sent home from work, they still had a job, maybe one or two wage earners in a home. And so we had to, we got to clear out the dining room, we got to clear out, you know, the formal living room, we got to clear out a spare bedroom and make way for an office or two. And then the kids came home home, some from college, some from, you know, K through 12. And now we had to set up a classroom in the dining room or the basement or a spare bedroom. And so all this stuff out of millions of homes across the country was placed into storage to make way for a new work and a new school environment that came back into the home. Also, people weren't able to travel, go on vacation. So they took that money and they bought RVs and they bought boats and you can't store them in your driveway. Sometimes they won't fit. But in most cases the homeowners associations and covenants, they won't allow it. So they go to storage facilities in our, in our parking lots for boat and RV parking. That's right behind, you know, the metal buildings. And so we had a huge increase in surge in demand and then therefore occupancy to store all the boats and RVs. People that were out displaced, they started businesses and those businesses required inventory or some cases work trucks and contractors, trucks and things of that nature, food trucks. Again, none of that stuff can be stored in a neighborhood, an association. So it all goes into self storage. So that's, that's essentially what happened during a pandemic or the pandemic is, is what happens during a recession. And so yes, we're seeing, you're right, history repeat itself. There are, there are certain elements that are the, the same in a recession and, and like what happens in a pandemic. And we know and can expect that that's going to happen again because we, we've already seen it happen.

This is mind blowing. Scott. I was think when I was thinking about self storage, I was just thinking about, and most our listeners are thinking about self storage. They're just thinking about this boxes and the storage that goes inside. But as transition is happening, you're actually supporting different needs, you know, when it comes to RVs, when it comes to the truck. So now my, my vision of self storage is expanded. So thank you for that. I hope our listeners, my pleasure have gotten from that. But that's interesting point. With COVID came that necessity of making more room in the house. With COVID also our consumership also grew. Right? People were staying home. Their needs and wants equation kind of went a little different that they're staying at home, the office at home, they're purchasing more stuff and now, now they have, you know, the stuff to put somewhere else. So again there is that need of transitioning what they purchased during COVID time to self storage again. And also on the other side, we see a huge surge in the warehouse push as well because retailers just had this inventory, huge inventories and now the people, they have gone, their consumer confidence has gone lower so now they don't want to buy so much anymore. And retailers like Amazon, the big box stores are staying on this big, huge inventory. So the warehouse perspective, do you see anything happening? I mean storage is really small, but do you see yourself supporting the businesses? And I know you mentioned that you're supporting small businesses in a way where we have the shop, small shops. But do you see yourself going into the warehouse space or do you get warehouse space and convert it? Is there any conversions going on?

Yeah, so that is, that is our favorite way to get into the business, if you will, is if we're looking at, well, we like to buy existing facilities and turn them around. You know, the ones that are run by the mom and pops and maybe aren't run very well and they have room to expand. Then we'll, we'll buy those facilities, we'll turn around the operations, add technology, reduce the expenses, lease them up and then build additional buildings if there's room on the site. You know, that has been our cookie cutter business model from day one. But on the development side, you know, if we can find an old industrial building and that is to be repurposed and reused and converted to self storage, well, we get usually the shell the building for pennies on the dollar and then all we need to do is build out the inside. So we, we make a nice clean, what we call white box on the inside and then we redo the facade, the front and the parking lot and then we put in the walls and the doors inside. In a small office and very, very quick time frame, six to eight months, we can convert a building and have it up and running and a very short time frame and for a fraction of the cost of doing a ground up development and certainly a fraction of the time as well.

So, so this strategy, the value add strategy for our listeners, right? The, the what is the value add mean? The value add is that increasing the value of the property, the investments that you have, pushing its value up so you can sell it to either, you know, REITs or somebody else, of course, and for a better value. So stepping back to what you do, the immense amount of groundwork that goes in, the strategy that goes in depends on investment in terms of acquiring what, what is that value that you are bringing in? Right. So passive investors who are listening, even if the self storage look like a small box of containers, still there is a lot that goes behind it. So for you who are busy professionals who do not have that time and energy to learn about this or to go in, in the, into self storage, which could be risky because now you don't have that expertise. If you try to do it on your own, there's, you are just on so much hassle. So when we are talking about self storage for you, we are not trying to add that hassle to you, but we are trying to show you a passive way of doing it. So Scott, you do a lot of syndication, you do a lot of partnership, you bring the passive partners into the self storage. Right. So what is the growth plan that you're looking at in 2023?

Well, first, Madhavi, a couple points that you made are spot on. You know, in our education business, we bring people through to learn how to go out and be activ self storage investors. And with that comes some risk. If you're going to develop, there's the development risk and everything that goes into that. The credit risk of signing on the bottom line. And, and that also is the same if you're acquiring an existing facility, you're putting your credit at risk and expecting a return on that. And then you need to learn the business if you're getting it into it from the beginning. And so that's. Many people come to us for all those reasons to, to help them with that. Then if we look at, you know, the industry itself, if you were to just invest passively in the REITs, the real estate investment trust and self storage, you know, they've returned roughly 17 over the past 25 years, which you know, is, is fantastic. You know, as you mentioned and the name of your podcast and your movement, think outside the stocks. Well, you know, the Standard Poor, The S&P 500 over 25 years has only returned 7%. So even though I, I don't really look at real estate as an alternative investment in the, in the investing world and in the eyes of Wall street, you know, it an alternative investment. And so that's what the REITs are producing. But you know, we're a lot more nimble, if you will, and we don't have the layers of management. And so for the past 15 years that we've been syndicating and investing in self storage, we've returned almost 35, 34.9% is the average IRR that we have returned to our passive investors. And so that's not, that's not a solicitation, that's not bragging or from a prideful standpoint, that's just from a realistic standpoint that many people think that they have to do, do it actively so that they can keep it all. But there are many folks that when you, when they start out in the business that they, they most likely won't get to a place where they're getting a 34 return on their, on their money unless they really get lucky and fortunate in the beginning. So I'm not saying that it that it won't happen. But if you look at, you know, the landscape to be able to invest passively, you know, we're happy to say that, you know, we, we are competing with folks that are investing actively and they don't have to take on the credit risk or the lease up risk or the time frame or any of those, those other areas. And so, so for that, you know, we, we truly have created one of those win win scenarios for both active and passive investors. And, and that was, that wasn't necessarily by design, but that just happened organically in our business because we have the education business and our investing business and many of those folks that we were teaching about the business, once they got into it, they thought, I think I want to invest passively over here because that sounds like a lot of work and I don't want to take all that risk. And so that's what we've built as an entire ecosystem where we teach people and show them it's a buffet. Whatever they would like to do in the industry, we'll teach them about it, make their own decisions.

That's excellent. And passive investors, if you're listening to it, this is the, this is the top reasons why you should be passive. But once you start being passive and you are interested in going to the active side stock, Scott has tremendous education that can help you and also that partnerships with more experienced indicators that you could have in alignment if you do want to be active. So dip your waters in the passive investors investment first in the self storage side like Scott mentioned. There's just a tremendous opportunity there. So with that I think we are kind of coming to the wrap. But I cannot go to my next segment, which is the think outside the stock segment before I talk about your impact that you are making such a tremendous impact, such a tremendous cause. Can you tell us, our listeners about why is it so close to your heart and what are you doing with it?

Sure. Well, I think at the beginning, Madame, we, I think like many people, when you become an entrepreneur, when you decide to step out of a corporate America, we do it for usually a couple reasons. One is a freedom. And then two, because at least on the outset, we feel as if we can control our own destiny. And that usually comes with a little more income along with it to be able to utilize in our free time. And that's what my wife and I had always wanted to do, is we wanted to have that, that time, the freedom and the resources to be able to raise our kids and travel with them and go on to the mission field. And we didn't find that in the multifamily or the single family. But once we get into self storage with fewer hassles of, you know, the tenants in the toilets, but then also being a more lucrative business, especially during the recessions, we were able to do just that. And we were able to travel the world with our kids and introduce them to some incredible experiences and then onto the mission field. And we, we began by serving on the Native American reservations here in the US and then we began building houses in the Dominican Republic and then in Mexico. And we did this alongside of another organization, really invited us to go on one of these trips and our hearts were wrecked. And we came back and I, I told my wife, I said this is what I want to do in our business. And we're going to begin tithing corporately and setting aside 10% of our profits in our education and our investing business. And then we have a pool large enough of money and funds, we're going to pay for an entire team of people to go on a mission trip, a four day family friendly mission trip and build a house and give it away way. And the, the goal is twofold. It's to end generational poverty one family at a time, one house at a time. But then the people that we take, these 20 to 25 people, they're going to be affected somehow, some way, some greater than others, some life changing, some, you know, it's a great experience and others, wow, a seed was planted for my kids. And thank you to some folks that are now coming alongside of us and they're doing these same things and they've assembled teams and they're paying for a house and they're paying for their team to come come down and the ripple effect is taking place. And so to date we've, we built 26 houses since 2013 when we started this after we built our first one. And now we're taking two trips a year, taking multiple teams to build roughly three to four houses each time. And we're, we're attracting more folks and attracting even some folks that are, oh, I guess maybe you would call them semi, semi superstars or folks that are popular if you will. And we've reached out to some folks that I think are kind of people that I'd like to spend more time with and, and they're coming and, and bringing their folks as well. And it's gaining more traction. And so before long, Madavi, the goal is that for my wife and I, that we flip the script and, and 80% of our time is on the mission field and then just 20% is in the business keeping it moving. So that's the goal.

Incredible. Incredible. And this is what I love about you, Scott, that you're, you're visionary. You're truly visionary in terms of not just the business point of view, but how you can make the impact to the world as well. Right. So the listeners, if you are listening, I mean this is how you can make the, and I love what you are doing and not just that you are doing it, but you are impacting those families, but you are also creating that triple impact and bringing more people into this vision. So I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. And when I talk to you, for, when I talked to you first time, actually I was humbled by you and your personality being such a successful person. We kind of, you know, in our society we have that unimaginary divide between the rich and the wealthy of the America. And you know, the middle class or the higher middle class, we think that, oh, there is like this snob or there's just different kind of mentality about using the money, operating with that money. But you have set the true example of how you can get that money and actually doing that 80, 20 kind of a way impact the world with it. So thank you so much for putting that thought, putting that seed in so many people's mind. So with that, the next, the next segment is going to be how do you scam thought, think outside the stocks? How do you diversify? What do you do for you're guarding your family's wealth in a world so you can grow, preserve, protect and pass it to the next generation. Can you provide us some insight towards it?

Of course. Well, I, I think I just kind of relate all of that to you. That is our story. And that's, you know, in the beginning when I was working for corporate America, you know, everybody told buy stocks, bonds, mutual funds, max out your 401k. But then the company I was working for during that tech crunch, the dotcom crash of 99, I was working for corporate America while building my real estate portfolio. And they were one of the companies, if I told you who it was that got caught cooking the books and their stock went down and down with it went my retirement. And I said no more will I put my faith and my trust and my investment dollars into the hands of somebody else who I cann meet with that I can't see, touch or have a conversation with or know what their morals are and what they're doing with my money. And so at that point and, and then shortly after reading Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor dad, which I'm sure has come up on this show many times, you know, that's what he teaches. You know, it's is to, you know, move away into alternative investments and into bricks and mortar where I can see it, touch it, feel it, and then I am in control because I meet with the manager every day because it's me, it's a, and it's my money and it's my, my investment. And nobody cares 1% as much about your investable dollars as you do. And so that was the catalyst. And so since then, the only thing that we've done in the stock market is a 529 funds for our kids. But we've taught them, they've invested in real estate, they've invested in our projects, they have created their own business. We've taught them to be entrepreneurs, to be able to teach them how to fish, to feed themselves for a lifetime. And that is really at the core of, of what we do. All you need to do is look at the numbers. The s and P500 has returned 7% over 25 years. That doesn't even keep up with inflation. If you're putting your faith in your trust and your retirement in the S&P 500, you're moving backwards right now. It just does not work. And so for us it was just logic and is an easy and obvious choice.

That's a great insight, Scott. And do you diversify outside of the self storage or pretty much self storage is your favorite?

Very little. Very, yeah, very, very little. I mean, if you talk to, you know, the greatest wealth advisors during any time, they say, well, you can diversify. But why would you diversify? If you've got a business that is doing very, very well and you found, you know, your returns are beating, you know, stock market, everything else out there, then you should be doubling down instead of trying to then lose focus. There's a, there's a difference and it's a fine line and a balance between diversifying and then losing focus and going with what you know versus what you can't get control. And so we continue to double down and reinvest in our business because I know that I can produce these types of returns which are much better than any other investment out there. So.

Right.

That's where our dollars go. So it may sound self serving, but it is. That's why we do it.

That's great. You know, if you're confident about it, then why not? Right, so with that, let me ask you, if our listeners want to reach you, how can they reach you? And we will provide some, you know, access to your websites and stuff in the show notes. What is that one thing that you would like to put dimension?

Yeah. So I think to help people if they're new to self storage or to our community, SelfstorageInvesting.com is the place to go. That is where everything starts and everything about what we do from how we educate people. There's lots of free resources about the industry, about our live events and workshops to get involved in self storage actively. And then also on the passive side, the projects that are available in our fund for people to be able to invest in that is that there as well? And then if you, as you mentioned, if you Google self storage and Scott Myers, there's yeah, 30,000 some impressions out there. And you'll find us on all the socials as well.

Thank you for sharing that. And with that, it's kind of a last round and I'm gonna try to make it quick for you. It's a fun, it's called rapid fire round. Are you ready for it?

I am ready.

And you come with this tremendous mindset and inspiration. So I'm gonna ask some of these fun questions, questions to you. First of all, what is that one mindset advice that you will have for entrepreneurs today?

Wow. I think, you know, I listen a lot. Many of the listeners have paid attention to Jim Rohn. He's been around for a number of years. I actually had his cassette tapes way back in the day. And one of the things that always stuck with me as an entrepreneur is that sometimes you just need to, you got to get the weeds out of the garden. And what he's referring to, to is the people around you, the naysayers, the ones that really don't want you to succeed or will, you know, talk about nothing but the worst case scenario as to, you know, why your venture, your idea, your plan, your dreams, your goals are unachievable. And when, if you surround yourself with folks like that or if you find that you're surrounded with folks like that, you do have a choice. You can't, you can't quit your family, but you can quit your friends and you can go find other folks that will support you in your dreams because they're doing the same things and they want more for themselves and their family and to build a legacy. And those you are. The sum total of the five people you spend the most time with. So it's important to surround yourself with people that are like minded, like you, that are climbing up the ladder, that rather than trying to pull you down as you continue to rise.

Love that. Love that. If you are the smartest person in the room that you, then you are in the wrong room. Right. I love that advice.

That is correct.

What is that one advice? Yeah. Thank you. What is that one advice for passive investors that you can give?

Well, I don't give advice. We share from experience, but I guess it's deemed as advice. You know, there's, there's a lot of folks out there that are syndicating and putting together private placements and have funds that started in 2009 and 2010 and there's nothing wrong with that. But if they've had a lot of success and they're showing numbers and you're impressed by those and everything looks fantastic, you need to do your due diligence and recognize that you know what, not everybody that's been investing since 2009 and 10 is, is all that great. You know, 50% of their success was because of a bull market and a huge wind in their sale and at their back. So if you're looking, looking to invest with somebody and put your trust and your faith in them that they will invest wisely, you need to make sure that they have been thoroughly vetted. But I would say that they need to have been through a recession or two. And I'm not saying that just because I have, but I am sharing experience. You know, we were, those of us that have been through recessions, we can see a little further down the road. We recognize trouble when it's coming a little bit sooner. And I've seen some folks, even if in my space, in the self storage space at Syndicate and one of them was, I don't know if he was bragging or what the purpose was. And he Talked about losing $400,000 on a deal that they pulled out of because it wasn't a smart deal to move forward with. And I'm thinking, well that's the perspective of somebody who's fairly new because I can tell you without a hundred percent confidence that there is no way that we would have come even close to losing $400,000 of my money or family money money or our investors money before the, the alarms would have been going off and we would have pulled out of a deal just because we've been through that before. So I, I would say that's a long winded answer of saying I think you need to make sure that if you're going to follow somebody, if you're going into battle with someone, you need to follow the general that has a limp, somebody who's been through it before and has scar tissue. And that's some of the best advice that I've ever had. And so I think you need to, you know, the more experience, the better off you're going to, to be in somebody who's going to handle your money.

Yeah, very well put. There's just so many investments out there and there so many shiny numbers per se but you know, don't fall for those shiny numbers. I love that advice. And lastly, what is, lastly, what's the most, most fun things or interesting thing that you have found when you had to evict a tenant in a self storage? And that's going to my last. Wow, I don't know my last question by the way.

Yeah, so I don't. Well, first of all, we don't evict people. We go through the lean process. But yeah, I understand the question. When we go to, to auction and sell the, we open the doors of one of them and, and this was my wife and it was in our facility and this gentleman had thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of racing bicycles, vintage and old ones. And I'm, I love bicycles and just all types used to race beyond BMX bikes. And, and I wasn't there that day and I couldn't bid on it anyway. But it went to somebody who got a fantastic deal only because you know, he had more money than anybody else, but it still wasn't enough money. But he won the auction and he, he made out like a bandit. So that was one of the cool ones. Outside of that, no treasures. You know, the, unfortunately the, you know, the reality TV shows about the, the you know, story wars and auction hunters isn't, isn't necessarily 100% real, let's just put it that way. But they're entertaining, interesting.

You know, just because he couldn't, you know, put the monthly payments in, he couldn't have keep those thousands and thousands of bikes. Yeah, that's unfortunate. But thank you so much for sharing that. And with that I really again want to thank you for your different perspective about the market, your perspective about your subject matter expert and just the overall mindset for the passive investors. I hope my listeners you have got tremendous amount of value from this. If you want to get in touch with Scott, there are going to be show notes that you can get in touch and we will look forward to more relationship, more connection through investing with Scott so that we can bring this to our passive investors and also those mission trips that would love to be part of Scott in future. So again, so grateful for you being here with us and sharing your knowledge. Thank you so much.

My pleasure. My pleasure. Madhavi, thank you so much and we'll see you all on the floor. Flip side everyone.

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

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