#327 - Micah Lacher - Founder @ Anchor Investments - On A Mission To Be The Most Generous Real Estate Company in the World

Chris Powers: Let's start growing up in Memphis; when I reached out to you and we talked about how this conversation might go, you thought it necessary for folks to know how you grew up.

Micah Lacher: Yeah. So, I'm a native of Memphis. I did not grow up on the right side of tracks in Memphis. So, I grew up in North Memphis, one of five kids.

My dad could never hold a job. And so my mom had grown up in the projects in Memphis. And so, you know, she was trying to provide a better life for us than she had had, but, you know, she was high school educated, trying to raise five kids. I work nights, you know, try to be a great mom and try to provide for a family and, you know, always call my family the working poor.

It's like, you know, there's this perception in the world that most poor people are lazy, and, you know, there is a segment of the population that's true. Still, people like my mom, you know, she was working as hard as she could, but because of her education. She could work as hard as she could but could barely provide.

So, you know, we didn't starve to death as kids, but I always say, like, anything outside of regular day-to-day bills was an emergency. So if the air conditioner went out and it was 100 degrees in Memphis in the summer, we're sweating. You know, it's like, unless God provided the money and, you know, through a person giving it to us, we're just like, it's going to be hot for a while until because there are not a thousand dollars to fix the air conditioner.

Chris Powers: Why couldn't your dad hold the jobs? 

Micah Lacher: You know, he just had a hard time. Like he would, if things got tough, like he couldn't push through, and he, you know, everybody's got their story. His dad had died when he was a baby, and a young mom raised him. And, you know, I think she just babied him, frankly. And, you know, whenever things got tough, wherever he was working, he just quit, oh, you know, the man's not being fair to me, I'm going to leave, I'll get another job, and he just wouldn't. And, you know, it's just, he just let life defeat him, frankly. 

Chris Powers: Do you think you knew that? As you were young, did you recognize that, or was it later in life, looking back, that that's how it was?

Micah Lacher: I mean, I think from pretty early on, like, I knew that something was off because, like, in my family, it was like, Hey, you're working like we ran a family budget like kids are getting jobs, like raking leaves and grass. It's like you need clothes, you got the bomb, you need a car, and one day you'll buy it.

My mom said, you got to go to college, but there's no money. So scholarships, loans, like you'll have to figure it out by the time you get there. So, you know, very early on, we knew that it was, there was no financial, you know, means in my family. 

Chris Powers: How does that, now looking back on it, how do you think about your mom and all that?

Micah Lacher: Oh, gosh, I mean, my mom is a hero to me. My mom works for me now. 

Chris Powers: Really? 

Micah Lacher: Yeah, for the last seven years, my mom has been my director of the corporate culture. So, she works in my office three days a week. And so it's been enjoyable. We moved my mom. She needed to retire. Like seven years ago, my little brother lived in Nashville, too.

And I was like, Mom, you need to move to Nashville. You can hang out with our kids, and you know we can invest in you. You need to retire. And she's like, well, I need, I do need to quit, but I don't have any money. And so I was like, well, we'll help you. And she's like, I can't take your money. She's like, can I have a job? So I said, sure. She's like, you'll get this one day, but you want to avoid taking money from your kids. And I was like, it'd be a blessing. You've given up everything for us; it will be an honour to help you. And she's like, well, just let me work for you, and then you can pay me. So, and she's like, what do you, what can I do?

I said, we'll call you the director of corporate culture, and we'll figure it out. 

Chris Powers: How has it impacted you probably more than it's affected her? That's one of the most incredible things I've ever heard.

Micah Lacher: it's a blessing for me because she's the first person you see in my office.

So it's fun because a mentor asked me this the other day. He's like, he asked me the same question. I was like, he's like, that must be amazing for your mom considering how you guys grew up to get to see every day tangibly like your success and what God has allowed you to do. And I was like, you know, you're right.

Every day, she gets to watch and come into this office, the company we built, and see our impact on our businesses. And she gets to see it practically firsthand. So it's been a lot of fun for me because I know how much joy it's brought her. 

Chris Powers: That's so awesome; you said the working poor, like if you look at today's world, like even where we are today in today's economy and, the cost of, you know, inflation and what it's run, it's not cheap to live life right now, can you go a little bit deeper on kind of how maybe the way you grew up gives you perception on what, how you look at America today because I'll give you the spoiler alert now. Mike is one of the most generous people you'll meet, and he has come on this podcast. He has taken a big chunk of his life and devoted it to being helpful to others.

But I want to sow the seeds deeper of how you view the world because of how you grew up and how you look at it. There are several different types of people, but especially the working poor.

Micah Lacher: Yeah, I have a massive heart for people that are, you know, especially today. It's expensive for you and me to live, but fortunately, we have a financial margin.

I can complain about the cost of groceries or gas, but it doesn't affect my life. But if you grew up like I did, there was one bucket of money every month. And so if groceries were more expensive, that money's got to come from somewhere. It's like, where are they going to eat?

Less healthy foods, or we're not going to buy as much gas, or you know, we only had one pot of money, So I have a massive heart for people out there working 40 50 hours a week in a factory or a fast food restaurant, I tell my friends that with money, a lot is like we can all complain about inflation. Still, frankly, it hasn't affected us. Still, like, these people are dying, like they can't work more because they also have kids to raise, and things to do, go to church, whatever, but like, they have one pot of money. All this inflation, it's like, I don't know about you, Chris, but our grocery bill's doubled. It's not because we're buying anything different every week; it's like, for those people, that's an emergency, and it's like, the system doesn't work for them in the current environment.

And yeah, they've gotten some raises, probably hourly wage, but it has yet to compensate for the expense. 

Chris Powers: Do you have any idea how this gets solved? 

Micah Lacher: It's not going to be the government. That's a spoiler alert. I don't know. I'm glad wages are going up; it's like people need to make more money.

People need to be given a living wage if they're willing to work, but I am still determining what it will take to solve this. I wish prices would come down, but it's hard for people out there because they feel poor every day, even though they've gotten a raise at work.

Chris Powers: Yep. You said, through a crazy story that only God could ordain, my family was provided with a house way below market. Can you tell that story?

Micah Lacher: Yeah, this is an excellent real estate story. So, when I was ten years old, my family's life trajectory changed. So we lived in, you could look it up, Frazier.

It's most famous for a great rapper named Frazier Boy, but you want to be from somewhere other than an area of town where the most famous person ever was a rapper. But, my mom is a person of faith, and so am I, and she, you know, this neighbourhood started to get rough, and so she's like, we got to get out of here. My parents had been given this house because my dad had grown up in it, and so, um, you know, they knew they could sell the house. We sold the house for 30,000 in 1990, so it is worth it today.

I looked it up recently. It's like worth like 27,000. It could have been a better investment for the buyer, but the neighbourhood needs improving. But anyway, my mom, you know, there was no online back then. So she'd look in the paper classified ads every weekend. And, you know, she just prayed to God, give us a house.

Like we got to get out of here. And, you know, Financially, just mathematically, we could have moved to an area that's a little better but still needs improvement. And there's an area in Memphis called Germantown, and when I was that age, those were the best public schools in Memphis. And my mom would, like, pray, God, get us in Germantown.

But, like, it was a math problem. Houses were 200 000 to 300 000 in this area. Somehow, she figured out, between selling that house they had been given, and whatever she made, she could afford a mortgage on a 90,000 house. So one weekend, she's flipping through and sees a home in Germantown for 90,000.

So she packs us all in the station wagon. My grandmother's in town and drives us out there. Always jokes, like everything in real estate's generally misrepresented, but it was like a burnt outside of a duplex. It was misrepresented. It was like, and she was just so frustrated. She's like, I thought this would be an answer to prayer. Like, you know, I just knew this was supposed to happen. And so she leaves, takes a wrong turn, and ends up like in a, you know, one way in, one way out neighbourhood. And there's a for sale by an owner sign in the yard. My grandmother's like, Hey, you ought to take down that number and call.

She's like, we'll never be able to afford it. It was just a dream; it's not going to happen. My grandmother's like, well, stop. And my grandmother writes down the phone number. She puts it in my mom's coat pocket; it's wintertime. And so, two weeks later, my mom's wearing the same jacket. She pulls this number out.

I should call this person. It's wild. They're telling me it's 250,000. But it's like, I should call him. She calls this lady. The lady says, Hey, we got a couple of months behind on my mortgage because my husband lost his job. The good news is he just got a new position in Alaska.

But I got to move. I got to sell this house. My mom tells her our whole sob story. The lady's like, hey, we owe 90,000 on this house. If you buy me two plane tickets to Lascaux, I'll let you assume my mortgage. You can have my place for free. You pick up the payments because you could take a person's mortgage back then.

She said you can have my house if you pick up the payments next month. You just got to buy me two plane tickets, because I don't have much money. The coolest part of the story is my mom worked at that season of life. She was answering phones for Delta Airlines at night. So she goes to her boss and says, Hey, can you give me two free tickets?

So, for two free plane tickets, we were given a house, which changed our lives because we hadn't been going to great public schools. And you know, I'm very passionate about inner city education because I saw just like the high school I was zoned for, which is, you know, in the bottom 3 per cent of high schools in Memphis.

The one I got to go to is top 3, and like, it just opened me and my sibling's eyes to, like, what was possible in life because we're around people whose parents were professionals and successful and, you know, we still didn't have a lot of money, but we were, we had access, and our teachers were pushing us and, you know, so it's like it just changed our whole view of the world.

Chris Powers: Can you expand on that just a little more clarity? How not just the education of, like, okay, everybody will take a math class. What are the other things involved in school? As you mentioned, parents who are motivated and. What were some stark differences between attending an inner-city school and an excellent public school in a better neighbourhood?

Micah Lacher: We, you know, like at my high school, I would have a buddy whose dad was a lawyer. So, you know, you go to hang out with your buddy, and you're down there talking to his dad, and, you know, he sees some potential, and he's like, you could be a lawyer too. And I'm like, really, how do you do it? And how do you, where, how do you go to school, and how did you get into law school?

And, it's like, I would meet these people, and they saw potential in me and would spend so much time talking to me. And I was like, it just opened my heart. I would have gone to Frasier High School. It's the great debate at family events. It's like, would we all, would I be, would you be interviewing me today if I went to Frasier High School?

Probably not, because there I would have been in school, you know, drug, people's parents are drug dealers, incarcerated or, best case scenario, factory worker, you know. It's like, okay, I'm supposed to be working at the, there's a big tire plant in Fraser. It's like, yep, the best I can do is be a manager at the Firestone plant at Fraser.

Like, I will crush life if I end up with that job where at the high school I was able to go to, it's like, man, I could be a doctor. I'd be on the Supreme Court. You know, it's like, there was no, like, I would meet people that expanded. And my teachers were like, Hey, you have a lot of potentials. Like you can do whatever you want.

Chris Powers: Was there an inflexion point that you can even remember where you thought, okay, I'm on a different trajectory now? Was it moving into that house, or was it a conversation you had with somebody, or was there something you can tie back to, to go, my life changed when this happened? 

Micah Lacher: I think it was just teachers investing in me.

I was good in school. And so I was on a path to be a doctor, which I know your dad was, but I was good in school. So teachers were like, Hey, you have a lot of potential. And then my dad, because he just had career trials and tribulations. My dad was always like, you guys need to be professionals, like lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects, like go to college.

We'd all done well in school, graduate school, and then become a medical doctor because you're always like a doctor who will always have an income and a paycheck. So that's what changed for me. It was like my mom pushed us hard. Like you, kids can do this. Like America is the greatest country ever.

You can do whatever you want, just like work your butt off. And so, teachers investing in my life, saying, Hey, you have a lot of potential. Like, keep applying yourself and stay focused. Like, you can do this. 

Chris Powers: So you did go to college. 

Micah Lacher: Yeah. For those of you, I went west of the Mississippi to the real UT, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Chris Powers: Okay. Is that where you wanted to go? 

Micah Lacher: That was the only financial, I mean, you know, in-state was the only thing because I was having to pay for school myself. So, I could have gone to other colleges between scholarships, having a job throughout college, and some student loans, but financially, UT was the only option.

Chris Powers: Okay. All right. So, you go to college and enter the real estate industry immediately? 

Micah Lacher: I was premed my first few years and had a great story. I became an entrepreneur and got into real estate in my sophomore year. I did a fraternity at UT, as well as SA.

And, We were home for like fall break, and one of my buddies called and said, Hey, you want to play golf? How much does golf cost? And he's like, we'll go to the country club. And he's like, we'll put it on my dad. I'm like, free golf, I'm in. And so we go, it's like a Thursday afternoon, and his dad's on the driving range.

And I was like, Oh, Mr. Giovannetti, how, what are you doing here? Like, why aren't you at work? And he's like, well, Colton, you're coming in town. And, he's like, I wouldn't miss the opportunity to hang out with you guys. I just took the afternoon off and asked, Where do you work? He's like, I work for myself, and you know, because Even at Germantown, like a lot of my friends, dads had eight to fives, I didn't know many entrepreneurs, and I was like, hold on, you can take a day off like, and he's like I was like, you don't have a boss. He's like well, I just worked a little extra last night to play golf with you guys today.

I'm like, that's unbelievable. I didn't even know people had that kind of flexibility. So once that happened, I was like, man, and I was like sitting in labs all the time. I will be in school for 12 more years to be a medical doctor. I was like, this is not my path.

So, I immediately switched to finance. And then, I got obsessed with the financial markets and went to New York to work on Wall Street. And so, for the rest of college, I worked for financial firms in Knoxville. And then I was like, I'm going to New York. That's the major leagues. And, and I did that.

I went up there and interned my senior year. Then, I went back to UT because I'd switched premed to business. I lost hours, so my college mentor asked, " What will you return to New York? And I said, yeah, I will work for those guys. And he's like, you already have a job.

It's your last semester, and you have nothing to lose. Why don't you like to intern doing something other than finance? Cause that's all you've ever wanted to do. And I was like, well, I don't know what I would do. He's like, you have any other interests? I said real estate investing is attractive.

Cause the passive, he's like, we'll work for my friend. Two months into that internship, I was like, This is much better than being an analyst on Wall Street. It is much better than sitting in a cubicle 16 hours a day crunching numbers. And so that's how I ended up in real estate. 

Chris Powers: Okay. So you get into real estate. Can you walk me through some of what it was like to go through 0809? That sets the foundation for your career quite a bit.

Micah Lacher: Yes, it did. I got into the industry in 2003, and so on. I got recruited; I started in brokerage and was recruited by a client for retail development.

And then, and well, the financial crisis hits. I'm the young hustler. I'm a partner in the business, but he's got the money, and I'm putting deals together. Well, one day, he called, and we no longer had the money. And what had happened to him was that he had mainly borrowed from large regional and national lenders.

And when the economy got tough, he had a lot of liquidity and wealth. They started leaning on him. And so, they don't go after the guy with no money. They go after the guys. That's a cash grab. And so they started calling his loan, trying to get him to pay down and pay off loans. And I watched him for over two years. Frankly, going out of business was tough. I mean, my whole career is the result of working with him through that season because I just learned; I mean, I always thought that if you borrowed money, as long as you were paying your mortgage like you and the bank were good, I didn't realize that there were all these technical defaults and loan documents where they could, you know, call your loan just because they didn't like where the economy was.

So, I've learned a million lessons. You said something at lunch.

Chris Powers: You said we wouldn't have gone through that if he had taken money from more community or regional banks. Can you expand on that?

Micah Lacher: Totally; I mean, our firm now, we only bar from community banks because I said, I want to know the CEO of every bank.

I'll borrow from because what would have Bob Talbot because he just actually passed. He's a wonderful man. I was so much to him. He recently passed away. But like, You know, what happened when I work for Bob was is, you know, they would call SunTrust would call and say, well, the credit guy in Atlanta said, we got to do this.

I'm your relationship guy. You know, I never do this to you, but this guy in Atlanta, we're like, we'll go to Atlanta and meet with him. It's like, no, he doesn't meet with people. It's like a black box, you know, where I always say this and all due respect to my lenders is like I spend more time interviewing my lenders than they interview me because I was like, we'll find a suitable partner. Still, I need to make sure you guys will be a good partner if we have a recession because I'm not going to be put out of business just because you guys have your selfish motivation. You have liquidity issues so that you will find some technicalities in my loan document.

Because, you know, inevitably, they're going to call you and say, we need you to pay this off. It could be BebeBea better; you're sure I'll move it to the following bank. It will be when the skies are as dark as possible, and nobody else wants it. So, we do not borrow money from large banks. So, I'm only a customer for some of your large bank listeners. 

Chris Powers: You're not a customer. You're a community lender and haulier. I met a guy; he's a billionaire, and I tweeted this. It was the first thing that went viral on Twitter. It clearly struck a nerve, but it was basically, I asked him what is one way you've made money that most people don't think about. And he said, any chance I, anything I can sell where the buyer is willing to put in the deed, that he has the first right of refusal to repurchase it. He's made more money repurchasing things the second time because most people sell in times of distress.

Well, there's a lot of for sellers in times of distress. And so his answer to me didn't miss a blank. He's like, try and get a roofer on anything. Now, many buyers won't let you put that in the documents. And what he said is often then you also don't have to sell to him. But he goes more often than not, people will, and more often than not, when you repurchase it.

The second by the apples is better, so I have never done that.

Micah Lacher: I haven't either, but it's a good idea for me what's coming.

Chris Powers: It is a good idea; what do you think's coming? What do you think about the market right now? Explain what you do.

Micah Lacher: Yeah. My day job is buying value-added shopping centres around the country. So, it mainly focused on discount retail. So think about Big Lines, Planet Fitness, Goodwill, and just kind of blue-collar retailers, and then we'll talk about the hotel business later, but I do that on the side. Still, my day job is just buying shopping centres that are run down, have lousy ownership, and are financially distressed, and then we'll turn them around. Sometimes, we turn them into medical, but generally, it's discount retail. 

Chris Powers: And how do you all, what do you do to turn them around? 

Micah Lacher: I mean, we just put the capitalism they need. We have to buy them on a good enough basis, but like.

Generally, we buy from people who might've owned it for 20 or 30 years. And all I said is that they look at that as a dollar put in that shopping centre, which is a dollar out of their pocket. So, in El Paso, you might drive by, and you go, man, that's a nice area. Good job. Why does the thing look like a bomb went off half-empty?

It probably had a horrible owner, and they let the roof leak for ten years and found the tenants were like, I'm moving across town, or I'm moving across the street. Then, it becomes financially distressed because half their tenants leave. And so we'll reopen it, re-landscape it, redo the parking lots.

And then we have many national relationships where we'll say, Hey, the demographics or place, or, you know, the data will say, you guys need to be here. Here's why we did it in-store with you in this market. It is the same market. It's just in another state like you guys ought to do this. 

Chris Powers: And what's going on in the market? Things are leasing well.

Micah Lacher: Yeah, I mean, our audience is as high as it's ever been. You know, I laugh at my current company. I started in 2009 and worked in retail four years before that. So, I'm 18 years into retail, and for 17 years, I've had to defend my existence to investors and banks.

Like Amazon will put everybody out of business, our whole thesis is we do not want to compete with Amazon. That's my whole thing. Like, see, of course, some of the stuff for our shopping centres, you can buy on Amazon, but it's about 30 or 40 per cent more expensive, and most Americans can't afford that because, like, when I'm raising capital, my investors like everybody's got prime.

I'm like, no, everybody, you know, has prime. Many Americans can only afford a 150 Prime membership plus a 30 per cent premium on some of their stuff. And then we do a lot of service-based, you know, retail haircuts, working out, like, things you can't do on the internet. 

Chris Powers: Wait, so Amazon's more expensive than ground-level retail?

Micah Lacher: Yeah, my wife thinks I'm crazy. I'm like, hey, go to Walmart and tell me how much this, this, and this is. So, you know, Amazon acquired all of us as customers. But, if you price compare now, they've hooked us all on convenience. So, it's great to click today, and it'll be on my doorstep tomorrow.

But you are paying a premium for that because of shipping, whereas if you go to Big Lots, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree, that toothpaste is 30, 40 per cent less. 

Chris Powers: Did you know that? Where do you buy your toothpaste? Not any longer, okay, but you'll buy an empty box and Old Planet Fitness. That's usually how many square feet? 

Micah Lacher: How big is a planet fitness? 15, 000. 

Chris Powers: Okay. And then will you try to release it as one tenant, or will you break it up into two or three tenants? Or it depends. 

Micah Lacher: Generally, the assets we are buying, we're trying to buy ones that have already been split up because with today's construction costs, like going, now we had a heck of a run redoing Kmart's, but we were buying those things super cheap, but like putting three electrical meters in, three sets of plumbing, three demising walls, like you have to get it super cheap, which we were able to do because Kmart was going through bankruptcy.

People were Selling it for the land value, but like today, in a more normalized market, we're trying to buy centres where somebody 10 or 20 years ago spent 10 or 20 years of construction money to split those things up because most deals will pencil if I have to go. Cause a lot of my tenants are paying single-digit rent, you can't pencil some dividing it up.

Chris Powers: Tell me the Kmart story again. What was your Kmart run? Was Kmart unloading stores, and you were buying them all up? 

Micah Lacher: We had a heck of a run from, like, I don't know, I lose track of time, but I'm out if it was like 16, you know, 2015 to 2019 or, you know, somewhere in that run. But, you know, Kmart was going bankrupt.

They always call it the longest-running bankruptcy ever because it was like, every year, if you're like, Kmart's done, and they'd somehow survive, Eddie Lampert will bail them out for another year. And then, we weren't the only one that did it, but pretty early on, we took the risk of buying a vacant Kmart and splitting it up into a three-tenant building.

We're like, oh, we can make this work. Like, we knew. We need to be between 20 and 30 bucks a foot on the purchase. We knew exactly where our rent would be. We knew the construction costs, and it took some other people a little longer to figure it out. Then we had a bunch of competitors jump in, and I don't think other people were doing it, but we had a great run where we did 12 or, you know, so Kmart's right in a row, same tenant lineup.

And it's just, we had a great form, and we built a mousetrap, and then we were like, all right, let's do as many of these as possible. 

Chris Powers: Are you facing the same thing in industrial, where fundamentals are good, but transactions are dead? Did you buy anything this last year? 

Micah Lacher: We bought four projects this past year, but I mean, it's, they're still a bit ass spread.

Sellers are, you know, not at 20, 21, 22 values, but they need to be somewhere else today. So they've come in the middle. You see, they need to have a motivation to sell to sell. We've had a bit of success buying some public reads because they're price agnostic, and they're like, they're very, they're just business people.

They're like, Hey, we got four offers. They're all around the same range. You guys are a suitable buyer. You have a quicker close. We'll take you. 

Chris Powers: And you buy all over the country. 

Micah Lacher: Yeah.

Chris Powers: Is there anywhere you won't buy?

Micah Lacher: California, I'm not going to buy in markets where there's this huge political risk for a bit of a business-friendly environment. 

Chris Powers: All right. You started the company in 2009, and you've got the most significant head of corporate culture that you could ask for when you started the business. And this is where we'll spend a good chunk of time.

Did you know that you were the mission of your company was going to be to build America's most generous real estate company? 

Micah Lacher: No, I mean, frankly, in 2009, I was trying to survive. I've always chosen to be personally generous. Still, I lost everything in the last the prior business, like, you know, my partner trying to like to keep everything going and me, we had to fund everything out of cash, so all the money I had made in my early career, we gave it all back to the banks at the end.

And so when I started in 09, I was broke, like, fortunately, I was still single, so my overhead was very low, but like I went and raised some capital, I paid myself the littlest salary ever so that I could pay rent. And I was like, so I was, I didn't have any money to give when I started.

Chris Powers: Okay. When did you decide that that would be the company's mission? You can walk us into that. Was it circumstances? When did you decide to spend the better part of your life being more generous than you were a taker? 

Micah Lacher: Well, I mean, I had been very generous out of college.

By God's grace, I had been successful in brokerage and then the first couple of years doing retail development. And so I had been generous, then I lost it all. The biggest lesson I learned through that season was that the amount of money in my bank account did not affect my happiness because I had gone from being poor to doing exceptionally well in my twenties.

To losing everything, and I was like, you know, as long as you stop your relationships, your family, your health, I was like, that was great. Cause I always said I didn't care about money, but then I practically learned that in 2008 and 2009 because, you know, I had no financial stability as a kid. Then I didn't for a season.

I was helping everybody, my siblings, my mom, and then it was like, then I gave all that back. And so I was like, once I start making money again, I will be very generous. I was like, because it doesn't matter how much money I have. After all, I've learned the lesson very realistically, and it doesn't affect my happiness.

Chris Powers: When you think of generosity, what does it mean to you? 

Micah Lacher: Well, everybody that listens to this has been given a different amount of, you know, things to steward in their life, so it's like being generous; it's not an amount you give every year; it's a percentage or like you're giving where it affects you because you know, some people can give a million dollars a year where they don't even a million dollars is nothing to them, whereas somebody giving 30 per cent of their income that makes 200 000 a year that feel like they have to make some personal sacrifices to give that money away where the billionaire who writes the million dollar check to United Way every year like they made more than that in interest.

Chris Powers: Okay. But so you lost everything. Were you generous when you had lost everything with time? 

Micah Lacher: Yeah, time. Yes, I gave away a lot of time because I had no money then. I mean, I still probably tie 10 per cent of my church, but it was on a minimal number, but I mean, I was still giving, but I didn't, You know, I was paying myself, I think, 30 000 a year at that point when I started the business.

Chris Powers: You're the third person here that I did 30,000, which is 2,500 a month. That's the easiest way. I did 30,000 a year for like three years when I first started, and you're the third or fourth person that's come on that did the 30,000-year thing. It's 2, 500 a month. That's how you get there.

Micah Lacher: Yeah. And just like as a bachelor, you're like, this is, that's just what it took. It could have been 35,000, but it was like 30. 000 paid my bills, and I was happy. 

Chris Powers: Okay. So, when you say I'm on a mission to build the most generous real estate company, what will that mean to you?

How do you do that in practice? So it's easy to say I'm generous but to put your kind of company out there, your team members know that. Was this a decision you made that this is who we're going to be, that it slowly happened over time and one day you looked up, and you're like, Oh, we're pretty generous?

We'll do more of this. Or was it a conscious effort to make this such a profound statement for the company? 

Micah Lacher: Well, part of my story was that six years ago, through a lot of life, my oldest brother passed away from a lifelong health struggle. I had my first child within 90 days. I always joke that my counsellor's kids will go to college on me because I have so much to work through.

But, like dealing with the lowest low of your life and the highest high, I'd always wanted to be a dad. It was like, I just stepped back to evaluate, like, why am I put on earth? What am I here for? Cause by six years ago. I had done well financially. And so, you know, but I was like, I always used to see this great break between, like, the business makes money, the company pays my family, and then we choose to be generous.

But there was this big break. The goal is for the business to make as much money as possible. Then, we, as a family, choose to be generous with what we're given. But I didn't, I just saw. Business is a vehicle to pay me. I read a book called Halftime by Bob Buford, which greatly affected me.

Then I went through that they have a leadership program in Dallas. That's a one-year program, and Lloyd Reeve is my coach. To this day, it's still through Halftime. You know, he helped me figure out, like. The business is my platform. You know, God gave me this business to steward, which is my vehicle for impact.

It can impact my team members. We have a couple hundred tenants. We have a couple hundred vendors and 50 families that invest with us. Our hotels have 15,000 guests a year. He's like, you have the opportunity through this business. To impact tons of people. So it's like, you just got to run it with that lens of, like, this is your ministry, and you need to run it accordingly.

That was really when the process started. We're going to build America's most generous real estate company. And the business will be radically generous with our vendors; with everything we touch, we will be great.

Chris Powers: By the way, we had Lloyd on the podcast, Johnny. We'll put it in the notes, but it is a fantastic episode.

Micah Lacher: I've listened to it. It's great. 

Chris Powers: And Lloyd will be at next year's retreat; I'm spoiling that. Okay, you have this meeting or set of meetings, and he puts it on you that this is your ministry. You can make your company a generous vehicle for good. Please walk me through what happens in the following days or weeks. How do you start putting that into practice?

Because it's, I think where I'm getting at is it's straightforward to get excited about doing things and being generous, and that feel-good moment. It takes more work to put into practice. It takes commitment. How did you transition from this to what I want to do so I will do it? 

Micah Lacher: I give Lloyd a lot of credit for this one.

So, we had already started our hospitality business. When Airbnb came to Nashville, I owned many rental houses with one of my friends. And we read about Airbnb and are like, do you want to try it? Sure. It's like 10,000 pieces of furniture. It doesn't work out. We'll do it as furnished rentals.

So we tried it. It was very successful. Then we converted all of our rental houses and Airbnbs. And then, it could be more efficient to manage 50 Airbnbs all over town. And so I told my buddy, I was like, man, I'd love to buy a building and put a bunch of them in one building. And run it like a hotel with a standard of service and quality. But we'll do a bunch of so much more efficiently.

You have one manager for the whole thing. So I had already started. We had bought a building in downtown Nashville and done it as a marketing thing. There are no original ideas in real estate. But you know Tom's does like a pair for a pair, and we called ours a room for a room like rooms for rooms, so that's our charity.

So we're like we wanted to connect to the guest. Hey, if you rent a room from us in Nashville, we'll give away 16 nights to people experiencing homelessness, mission down the street. So a homeless person will have 16 nights at the shelter by you staying, you know, we just worked the math out where if you rented for a weekend, we figured out what percentage of profits we'll give away.

So I told Lloyd about that, and he's like, oh, that's a great idea. He's like, why wouldn't you do more of this? And I was like. He's like, you seem super passionate about it. You seem to love it. It gives you a lot of excitement to work on these historic buildings, save them, and then help all these people.

He's like, why wouldn't you try more of that? And I was like, you know what? You're right. Like, why wouldn't I like it? I enjoy it. And because, you know, my day job is like buying and improving old tired shopping centres. And I like it brings jobs back to me, but We paint them all the same colour as our tenants. I mean, it's always laughable, like big lots will be like, do you ever want to do a mural?

They're like, paint a different colour than we're good. Don't break the mould, nothing creative, you know, so um, the hotels. So, I had never really thought about expanding that business. And so we started giving away 15 or 20 per cent of our profits when we started.

What if we just gave them all away? What if we act like, from a P& L standpoint, this business, our hotel business, never existed, and we'll do more hotels? And then over time, we'll get to see that compound, you know, as long as God gives me on this earth, those hotels will give away money.

We have seven inner-city partners in Nashville that we support through our hotel business. And so anyway, we did that, bought a church, and turned it into a hotel. We purchased another church and turned it into a hotel. Then, we own another church in Nashville that will be our fourth hotel.

Chris Powers: And this is over. How long? 

Micah Lacher: Well, our first one opened like seven years ago. We still need to open our second one. 

Chris Powers: That was the rooms for rooms deal.

Micah Lacher: We opened our second one when it's been open. Well, it opened when my daughter, my middle child, was born. So it's four and a half years old.

So there was a two-and-a-half-year lag. Between our first hotel and then when we were like, oh, we're going to put some focus on this and try to expand this business. 

Chris Powers: Okay, so you have this conversation with Lloyd, and he's like, why don't you do more of this? I want to spend a little time there right now.

In hindsight, it's easy to go. It would help if you had thought about doing more of it. But you see this when you talk to people about generosity and ask them, why didn't you do more? There's almost this limiting belief that it has to stop somewhere. Was there something that he said or unlocked in you, or was it, like, you permitted yourself to do a lot more of it?

Was it? He said it, and it made sense. 

Micah Lacher: You mean one of the limiting things was his capital because these buildings are inexpensive. We're going to give all the profits. How are we going to solve this math problem? Because I always laugh, like all of our investors, these are like excellent, sexy hotels in Nashville.

They're always like, we want in on the hotels. And I was like, you, as we give up 100 per cent of the profits. They're like, well, we'll keep doing the shopping centres. You realize you can give me a million dollars in 10 years. I'll give you a million dollars back like there's no return.

I'd love you to help us grow this business if you want to do it. But most people want to return on their money. So the capital was like one of the biggest. And I was just busy with my day job, the shopping centre business. It was this side hustle, and I was like, but I didn't, but I didn't connect like, oh, We could grow this by giving help to so many more people. So he just unlocked that when he said it.

It was like one of those moments of life. I'm like, Yeah. Why don't I do that? Like I need to do that. 

Chris Powers: Okay. And that's what's called mission hotels. 

Micah Lacher: That's right. 

Chris Powers: Okay. Did you know that you were going to start buying churches? 

Micah Lacher: Well, no, I drove East Nashville. It is like a fantastic neighbourhood in Nashville.

It's, you know, an excellent restaurant bar. It's just great. I don't understand why I was driving on the street one day in a neighbourhood in Nashville, but there's this lovely tray. It's now the Russell Hotel, but it had a for sale sign in the yard, and I was friends with the broker. I knew her, and I was like, I called her, and I was like, Hey, what's the story of this church?

And she's like, we have just been on the market. I put my sign up today. And I was like, how much do they want for it? And she told me that's reasonable. But she's like, you're going to have to get it rezoned because many people, I didn't realize this either, but these historic churches were all built in residential neighbourhoods. So, the base zoning is that they bought three residential lots. So, no matter what you do with them, you must get them rezoned. And she's like, it will be a fight with the neighbourhood. And she's like, what do you want to do with it? And I said, well, we have this hotel downtown. I want to do another hotel.

And I was like, can I see it this afternoon? I walked in and said, " Oh my gosh, this would be the sickest hotel ever. It's got these huge, beautiful stained glass windows, and this fabric in the building is just beautiful. As long as the cellar, the church will work with me to give me time to get it zoned, like, I want to do this.

I'm going to give away all the profits. That aligns. I'm not just like some greedy developer trying to turn them into condos and make money. If you have the right seller, I'll invest time and energy if they do it. And thankfully, they gave me a chance to get it rezoned, and we ultimately did after a hard fight.

Chris Powers: It's always a fight, and you lease them out market rate, right? And, but there, are they owned by a non-profit entity? 

Micah Lacher: No, well, if there's any tax attorneys on here, call me, but our lawyers said we weren't able to do it because you can't sell a market rate reasonable, which we do a hotel room.

With a competitive advantage, like if we were a non-profit structure, we wouldn't pay property taxes, and arguably, we'd have a competitive advantage over the Omni in Nashville. We're currently working on doing a structure where we're like ground lead. There's a way to do it now where we could have the operating business in one entity and the real estate entity in another.

Then, I would like to become a non-profit because that would save me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in property taxes, which would go to the community. So we're working on it now, and next year, we'll probably convert it to a non-profit, but currently, they're just single-asset LLCs, each one.

Chris Powers: Okay, so you're buying a church. How do you convert a church to a hotel? Like the classroom, the Sunday school classrooms become rooms. Like, are you doing a lot? Are you adding anything? Are you using, or are you working within the existing walls? Are you adding stuff even within the existing partitions? How do you convert a church to a hotel?

Micah Lacher: The first one was a gut job. We did everything possible to save every historical element, but we just had to re-incorporate many. Like, our bed pews are old, and The headboards for our mattresses are old pews. So like we did, we reused, but like, you know, but then like, you know, the church is 125 years old.

So, over time, people put drywall and plaster and wallpaper. We ripped all that out and exposed all the old beams and Brick, but we built a brand new hotel inside a remarkable historic structure. Then, the second old church we redid had some stuff we could reuse for the senior class like the room sizes worked out, but then we built the lobby.

Outside of the old church, they didn't have an excellent place to put a lobby where, like the Russell, the entrance is this beautiful as you walk in. There's a vast stained glass window. We don't want to cover them up because of those. It created this cool lobby because we needed the stained glass windows if we started subdividing. 

Chris Powers: How many rooms are in these hotels? 

Micah Lacher: 20 something. Like, there's 23 at the Russell and 25 at the Gallatin. 

Chris Powers: Are they automated, or do they usually have full-time people? 

Micah Lacher: No, I mean, that's the thing. It takes a lot of work to run a 20-something-room hotel profitably.

So we've done everything via technology. So it's like. You booked a room with us, and I hope some of you will support our mission. But, like, you'll get a text the day before. You'll get emails. We'll send you a city guide. Here's everything you should do. We're here to answer questions along the way.

My team works remotely. So the team is available 24 seven. But like the day before you check-in, you'll get a text that says, here's how you get in the hotel. Here's your unique code to get in your room. Check yourself in and out. If you need us, holler at us if you don't like it. Have a great time in Nashville.

Chris Powers: And you guys have. Three of our Nashville hotels are ranked 1, 2, and 3 on TripAdvisor for your category. What's your type? 

Micah Lacher: It's called like. 

Chris Powers: Church hotels. I'm kidding. You're the only three church hotels.

Micah Lacher: We're three. There are three people, and it's all of us. No, it's called a speciality Boutique hotel.

So there are 60 people in our category. We have the number one, two, and three in our class in Nashville. 

Chris Powers: What have you learned about owning a hotel? Like how have you gotten better at creating hotels? What's something you didn't know when you did the first that now, as you're doing your fourth and fifth, you're like, Oh, you got to do this to make them successful.

Micah Lacher: I mean, you have to have, like, there's, well, I don't, I mean, Not everybody knows, but Nashville is one of the hottest hotel markets in the country. So, over seven years, I've seen many more competitors. So, we've learned that you must have fantastic memory points because you'll get buried in Google ad spend.

Like cause the Omni and Delta National have a thousand rooms. We'll never rank. So we have to have things that people will post pictures about online. So, like ours, our marketing budget is grassroots. We do buy Google ads and stuff, but I do. The way we're successful is for you and your wife to book a room with us.

You, your wife, come in and go; oh my gosh, that is so cool. She takes a picture and posts it on Instagram, and then five of her friends stay with us. 

Chris Powers: Okay. Who comes up with the memory points you, or do you hire that out? 

Micah Lacher: Oh, I mean, we have designers. I'm very involved. I think it's a ton of fun because I do have like a creative outlet there, but like, really, I mean, my Pinterest and she does, like, we have one of these projects go and like, I'm on Pinterest all the time, like just, you know, Googling ideas and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Could you send it to our designers? Hey, what do you think? Have you ever tried this? Could we recreate this or what, and then they'll tweak it? And so it's a collaboration. 

Chris Powers: Do you do these with your wife? 

Micah Lacher: I mean no, no, she's like, I tell her about stuff, and she has ideas, but she's not like day-to-day involved.

Chris Powers: Okay. Then, these things make money, but you don't take it. You give it away.

That's right, how do you figure out how to give away money? Sometimes that's the hardest part. It can be challenging to give. 

Micah Lacher: That's right, well, there's a stat that Nashville has, per capita, the most non-profits in America. So, there are many places to give, and like anything, not all have as much impact on the dollar.

So we're very vigilant about interviewing them and saying, Okay, what's your budget? Tell us about your impact because there are tons of good causes. But, like, we're trying to find the ones managing the money the best and having the most impact for the money we can give, so for everything publicly, we start with homelessness. Then, as the financial resources have grown, we say it's inner city issues, So we support teen moms. We support workforce training.

We support entrepreneurs of colour, and then we have four homeless partners. So, one of them does like a shot, and it's fantastic. They're expanding across the US, but they buy these old bike box trucks and convert them into mobile shower units. And they can hook up to any city hydrant, and then, you know, a lot of homeless people live under paths.

They can pull up hooks. They can shower, and many of these people haven't had storms in weeks or months. So it's, but yeah, we just found different partners. I've had a lot of fun because I am an entrepreneur, like finding the non-profits like we don't give to the huge ones in town, like we're trying to find them when they're small and then help them grow And then at some point we'll kind of graduate with them and then find the next one but that's been a lot of fun for me because it's like when I started my business like You know, the passion commitment, everything else, but once they become the united way or the 10 million dollar charity, I just like, we're, we can't make as significant an impact to move the needle.

Chris Powers: How are you? You probably have a lot of folks that reach out. Wanting to receive some of those funds, how do you vet people if you had to say, like, here are the five things we look forward to getting to a no or to keep talking? Like, how do you guys go through that process? 

Micah Lacher: Well, if it aligns differently from our mission of interstate, we get tons of people reaching out.

If it doesn't align with our mission, it's immediate. No, it's like, hey, thanks so much for your excellent work in this community. But we're focused on something else. If it is something we're focused on generally. It is a small world, like anything. We're calling our current partner, saying, Hey, we've got the financial resources to add a new partner.

Who should we talk to? And they're like, Oh, you got to meet with this guy. You know, he's doing unbelievable work. Like you'll, he's fantastic. Like, meet with him. So that's what we're finding through the word. 

Chris Powers: But if you find them. Especially with the smaller ones, is there a way to vet them to where, you know, the resource you're going to be used, right?

Is there a question you ask, or is there something you ask for? 

Micah Lacher: Yeah, I mean, we're always interviewing like, hey, how much money do you raise a year? And then tell us about the impact. Now, I knew a couple of our partners were committed because they were guys like you and me who had day jobs, and they started these charities out of their pocket nights and weekends.

And they had two full-time jobs because the charity wasn't raising enough to pay them. And they were so passionate about it. One of the fun things we've been able to do with two makes a financial commitment and say, Hey, you guys, like you need to leave your job. Like, like, but you have family support.

So we'll put up this much money over a couple of years of commitment. That'll give you the resources to quit your day jobs. You can focus on this full-time cause I'm confident you can grow it. And that's the story with the shower truck guy. Now he's in four or five markets, but he's a super gifted guy. he was working two full-time jobs, which is hard on a family because he was so passionate about it.

So, once I heard his story, I was like, I'm going to support this guy. There's no doubt he will be a good steward. The guy's like doing this for free and taking away time from his family just because he feels so called to do it. 

Chris Powers: How long have you been doing this, like seven years? How has your life changed? You're only 44 years old. You have an extensive career ahead of you. Like, how do you, you've set the seeds. How about the next 30 years? Like, how will you make decisions in the future? So that you can continue to be the most generous.

Is it continuing to do more hotels? How do you think about this in the bigger picture of things? 

Micah Lacher: Well, I mean, I will tell you, six or seven years ago, I was burned out of my day job. Like I had put so much time and energy into it, I wasn't working for a paycheck anymore. It was like it didn't scratch the edge.

It did like in my late twenties, early thirties, like doing a deal was just like, that was the greatest thing ever. And then I got to a point where it's like, well, great. We bought another shopping centre. I have been there, done that, like I was running out of steam. What this has done since I've refocused all my energy on, like, Hey, if we can keep growing our business, we'll have way more financial resources to help people.

Like I'm excited about my work. Like, and it's given me, you know, cause we always tell our commercial team, Without the retail business, there is no hotel business because I have to feed my family. But like, so I always say like, Hey, all the good that the commercial, the hotel business is doing is because you guys, like, it's, we're all one big team.

But, like, it's given me a ton of energy. Cause, like, you know, we still have challenging clients to deal with banks, everything else that you and I both deal with. But on days like that, like always encourage my team, like tonight in Nashville, I might have to go when I leave here. Please fill out a report for a bank, which is the bane of my existence, but I'm like, there's going to be somebody getting a hot shower in the shower truck tonight because I did that, you know, and I tell them, I was like, I own the business and probably 30 per cent of my job.

I don't enjoy it, but at this stage in our company, I still have to do some things, such as bank reporting. And I remind myself there are teen moms, like we're going to buy 50 teen moms tomorrow night, Christmas. For their kids and them because we're doing the hard work. So it gives me a lot of purpose on the days where a client's pissed, or they're like our lawyer is going to be in touch, you know, it's like okay, Sorry about the roof like we're trying to get it.

There's been a monsoon for a week. As a roofer, I will get there, giving me much energy for the business I had run out of.

Chris Powers: What does a lot of the efforts are focused in the inner city, just in general, more educated, like what does the inner city need because you could easily say, like, it just needs more money, but that isn't it.

There's a lot of social issues. Like you grew up in the inner city, you're now 44 years later, giving to the inner city, and I know it's not a quick solution, but what have you found they need most? So, a lot of people listening today have lots of resources. Because I will follow up with, well, let's start there. Like what do people need most? 

Micah Lacher: Well, I mean, this is scientifically proven, but one of the biggest problems in our city is the need for more male influence. They need males involved in their lives. So if someone's listening, it's like, Hey, I don't have any money, but I got time. It's like, well, they need to be around male influences because, you know, especially in the projects and all, it's like, you got the mom, the aunt and the grandmother, but like, The dad's ghosted out.

And so it's like, that's proven. And most of the charities we work with, that's the story. It's like a single-mom household. So, of course, you need education. Everybody needs a job. It gives you such purpose to make a paycheck and pay your bills. A lot of these people would love to do that.

But then, if the government pays them what they can get to work, that's fine. You know, they're not going to work. Their butt off and have to deal with the evil boss and all these things, if they can do the same thing sitting at home all day, sadly, but like, one of the charities were involved with puts, gives African Americans an opportunity for entrepreneurship.

Their goal is to launch 10,000 entrepreneurs of colour. And, you know, it's like the lady who makes excellent chicken wings. It's like, she's working at Burger King today. It's like, they'll help her figure out how do you. Started a food truck, or how do you start selling out of your backyard to get to the food truck to get bricks and mortar eventually?

So, and then education, everybody needs a quality education. And sadly, in Nashville, like most larger cities, our public education, it's terrible. You must move to the suburbs, educate your kids, or attend private school. And I am very involved with charter schools, which are excellent opportunities for people in that area.

They're giving people a decent education. So, that's where I don't spend my time volunteering with Davidson County schools. I choose to do the charter schools where we can have a privately run impact. So I don't have to deal. Our company does like.

We'll do this in two weeks, but we adopt alike, we'll assume the fourth grade of this school, and we'll do, like, a Christmas program for them, bring them presents, bring them school supplies, all that stuff. And, like, I tried to do that with Metro Nashville schools, and it was, like, you have to talk to this person, and then you have to do this.

It was, like, the red I was, like, I'm banging my head against the wall. I called a charter school. They're, like, this is unbelievable; meet with us tomorrow, and you guys can do whatever you want. Like you're going to do this. And we're like, yeah, they're like, there's no paperwork, no approval. So I'm like, those are the people I want. 

Chris Powers: How do charter schools work? 

Micah Lacher: Well, you know, the government puts a value on every student. In Nashville, they say it costs 9,000 a year to publicly educate a kid because they take their humongous budget divided by the number of kids.

Okay. 9, 000. So what do schools do? Laws in Texas have it too in Tennessee, but you can launch a charter school, and they'll give you 9,000 for every student you enrol. Now, they go privately and fundraise a little more. So they can, and then they hire teachers, and they push them hard. The burnout rates are three or five years, but they'll get these kids from Teach for America.

They are super bright kids with huge hearts. But they're like, Hey, you'll work 60 hours a week as a school teacher. Cause we got to get these kids to college. You know, and I know a couple of guys that run the ones in Nashville, and they're like, you know, sadly for a lot of these kids, the more they can keep them at school, the better your chances are a success because their home life is a mess, frankly.

Chris Powers: Okay, if you're sitting, I'm sure many entrepreneurs or folks in a similar situation want to do something.

It's what we were talking about at lunch. I'm sure folksq5 come to you, saying, Hey, we want to do something similar. And you said part of your mission of being the most generous person is helping others become more generous. Like, what are you telling people that might be coming saying, Hey, you know, maybe they're not burned at their job, but this isn't fulfilling, or I have financial resources, or perhaps they don't, but they want to do more, but maybe they don't already have the Airbnb hotel that you had created.

Along the way, you could use it as a foundation to keep going. They're coming on. I don't have much, but I do have this desire to want to do something. How are you guiding people or are you.

Micah Lacher: Well, on a very regular basis, I have this unique. I sit in this unique position, how I grew up, and now I raise money from wealthy people.

And so, you know, Quite often, every year, my investors will call me and say, Hey, one day when I sell my business, I'm going to do more of what you do. I will be more generous and say, Hey, I'll do respect. You're not going to do it. They're like, and I always laughed at rich people. I need to get used to feedback.

They're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, you won't do it because you're not doing it now. And if you can't do it now, when you have less, you get a hundred million dollars in your bank account. You think it will make your life easier and give you more control. And so I always tell them, like.

You have to start today. Being generous means giving away 100, but you should always encourage people. You have to find something you're passionate about. It might be teen moms. It might be entrepreneurs of colour. It might be the humane society doesn't matter. I tell people you have to find something that excites you because if it doesn't, it will just be like writing a check to United Way.

Like, I need to find out who that helped. I did some good, so I always tell my investors. Give some money, like research some things about whatever gets you excited, go to their annual fundraiser, and hear the high school kid get up and talk about how this charity changed your life; if that gets you excited, great, get more involved, if it doesn't, go to the next one, you know, but like, you got to start doing something because I tell them, it's like, once you do it, you'll get hooked on it. So, a thousand dollars could have been. And A big steak dinner with clients, or it's like man, that kid got on stage and talked about a thousand dollars, changed his perspective on life.

I'm like, and then you'll be hooked. And then you'll just become more generous because you'll be like, you'll start equating like dollars that you're spending on other things to like helping people, and it'll just change your whole perspective on life.

Chris Powers: You said if you still need to do it, you're probably not going to do it down the road. When you have a hundred million, money will control you more. That's intense. Why would? How does that work? Why would at a hundred the, the, the straightforward logic be, Oh, you have more to give.

And it still would need to get into your spending. Why is that not the case? 

Micah Lacher: I've just seen it first, and for any of my investors, listen, you're not the ones I'm about to talk about. You're the good ones; it's the other ones. And I love you all. But like, I just have found, like, they get this money, now they got advisors and accountants.

Like, everybody's telling them what they think about it. They got all these investments. I'm doing venture capital, I'm doing real estate, I'm doing all these things. And it's like, They're like, do I have enough? And what about the kids? And it's just like the money gets, the number gets more extensive, and everybody thinks, Oh, it's going to be so much easier to give away when I have more, but it isn't because you didn't start working that muscle.

It's like exercising. It's like, you have to start working that muscle when you have less. And then, by the time you have a hundred million, generosity is just part of your life. It's like, Oh, me and my wife, this is what we do. Our family's generous. Like we're teaching our kids to be warm, but it's like, I've just seen it with a lot of my investors first-hand, they get this pot of money, and they, they're going to write the 5,000 check to the big society event in Nashville, the Swan Ball.

And it's like, that's what they're giving for the year. And it just, it just, they're not going to give as they get more. I'm sure there are rare examples, but I have yet t

 To see if they're not starting those things when they have less. 

Chris Powers: How do you think about it? Your kids are relatively young. Your oldest is six. That's right. Have they started to have you? Have you brought them into this world yet? Like, how do you think about doing this with your Children, especially Children that aren't going to grow up the way you grew up? 

Micah Lacher: No, it's my biggest fear to raise kids. My upbringing taught me certain things about life, but there's no fooling my kids that we have extra money.

And so, as they're getting older, one thing we did last year, which I'd highly recommend to anyone, is we went to Walmart in this small, poorer town near Nashville. We just brought a bunch of cash, and we've got our kids to go and give this lady a hundred dollars, like, you know.

She was five at the time I was. The other two are probably rolling around a Walmart floor, but the five-year-old is like, give her the money. And these people start bawling, and I don't know. It will become more impactful as they get bigger, but that's something we'll do every year because, as they get bigger, I can teach them life lessons.

Like, cause she'll be like, why did that person cry? Because they have been praying, they can barely afford food at Walmart that week. And then some random person gives them 100 out of nowhere, like, that was an answered prayer, just an encouragement to them. And so, it's like, I've committed to my wife, when I started this journey through Halftime, I'm driven type A, and my wife was very concerned that I was like, going to like, Get so focused on changing the world that I would forget about my wife and kids.

That was a risk because I get so excited about how I can help all these people, but it can take nights and weekends, and it could have become a second job. So, thankfully, she was honest with me about that. And I said, well, Hey, I'm committed to you. I'll do all my charity stuff between eight and five, like during business hours, I'll do my meetings.

I will only join a few boards by joining a committee. I'll tell them I'm not available for nighttime board meetings. And, as my kids get older, I've told her like. Our deal is if I can take a kid with me, I can do it. So, I intend them to volunteer with me at the shower truck.

They're going to serve meals at the homeless shelter. I will put them in a bunch of situations where they can be around people that aren't like the kids in our neighbourhood, where they'll realize this is not normal like this is not the rest of the world. Like we're so fortunate.

We have to be good stewards of this. Like, there's a whole other world where people fight to survive. That's my plan with kids for now.

Good luck. I know. It's a challenge. I mean, I've talked about it personally. It's just so scary because you're like, you do not want your kids to be well-adapted humans. Yeah. And you can't fake it. You can't. And so it's like, but I've spent much time interviewing people with financial needs and well-grounded children.

And I'm always asking them like, what did you do right? What'd you do wrong?

Chris Powers: What are some of the things they say they did right? 

Micah Lacher: The consistent thing is they're like, your family has to make some sacrifices. They're like, you and Brick can afford to do many things. Some years it's going to look like going on a cheap vacation so they can the next year you're going to nice like they realize that like this is not normal We can't fly here and there and go these fabulous resorts like this is not a normal and then the most significant thing They're like you've got to put them in situations around people that are struggling So it's like and then you got to take them take your daughter on a date get Chick fil a and then take her down to the homeless mission and serve dinner and be like hey And then the whole way on you're talking to her going.

Hey, that's a lot of people in our world. Like, that's more than just 50 people you saw tonight. There are homeless shelters all over the country, and there are people. So that's my plan, but all the mentors have been like, you just got to keep teaching them and putting them in these situations to realize this is not normal.

Chris Powers: Yeah, that's been the number one thing that I've heard from folks, too, is you've got to walk the walk, and you got to see it. You have to see it to believe it. Writing a check, wiring money, and looking the other way differs from how you learn.

Micah Lacher: That's right. One other thing we're doing with our kids is we're setting up a little charitable foundation for each of them, where from a young age we'll let them, I got this idea from a mentor, but like, they'll present to the family every year and say, even, starting my seven-year-old next year, she'll be like, hey, I've chosen to give to this because I have a friend at school, that has cancer or, so we're going to have them present and provide them with money that they can give away. Still, they've got to tell us why it's important to them and why they think we should do it as a family.

Of course, we'll say yes, as long as it aligns with our family values, but it'll be good for them to start learning about it from a young age. How do you give, and how do you make decisions on giving? What gets them excited? So, they'll develop their passions for things they're excited to share.

Chris Powers: I'm not trying to get too in the weeds, but I love this idea. Is it a certain amount you're already going to set aside? Is it through a not-like? Are you setting up some particular type of account that you're putting money into? Or has it yet to be thought through that?

Micah Lacher: No, I have, so in most cities, and I'm sure Fort Worth has a community foundation.

That's what it's called in Nashville, the community foundation, middle Tennessee, but you can 5,000 set up your charity. So there'll be like the Lizzie Locker charity and the Rosie Locker and Eli Locker. So we'll have their little charity. Okay. And then we'll take some of that money every year and be like, Hey, we're going to give away 2,000 a year, and we'll put 2,000 more in it every year.

Yeah. and so, but I'm sure there's a community foundation in Fort Worth, or you can Google it. You could use the community foundation, Middleton. You don't have to live in Nashville, but the community foundation's mission is that it gives 2,000 a year. Anybody with 5,000 can set up their non-profit because they do all your taxes and accounting.

You're using their tax ID number, but like them, they privately fundraise from wealthy individuals to underwrite all their overhead. So, you get to give out every dollar you put in your account. 

Chris Powers: It's super cool. You can call the Fort Worth Community Foundation and say, I want to start an account for each kid.

I'm going to fund it each year, and it's free. That's right. And then your kids would, my kids would come to me and say, Hey, this is how we want to give it. But that's, we agree. And then we can go to the account, pull that money out, and get it. 

Micah Lacher: That's it. You send them an email, or I will. Iwill. I will physically take my kids down there and go because it'll teach them.

It's like, I've been friends with the community foundation people forever. It's like, hey, Lizzie would be like, hey, I want to give to X, and they'll give her a little check or whatever, make it a big deal, make it fun for them.

Chris Powers: Why do you think people who often have a lot of money don't want to give? 

Micah Lacher: many people have bought into this myth of how much is enough. We're going to need more money. What if we live toward 99? Oh gosh, as our financial advisor says, we have enough to reach 97.

If we live to 99, what are we going to do? Well, there's a great book called Die With Zero, which I highly recommend. But, he talks about how even Middle to lower-income Americans end up with more money in their bank account when they die. They rob themselves of all these experiences because they wait too long.

I mean, you hear people, I'm going to one day, I'm going to do this one day. I'm going to hike this. I will do this, but it's like, well, they might not. Live that long, frankly, they might not have their health at that point, and they're always saving, and there's a lot to be said for, like, keeping for a rainy day, but like most people rob themselves of experience because they're just worried and I see that with people with, nine-figure networks.

They need to find out how much it will be enough. What if there's a recession? What if the stock market drops 50%? It's like you're still going to be okay. Like, you might have to sell the jet. So it's like there are so many people. In general, everybody wants to be generous.

They just haven't found something they're passionate about where they're like, okay, that was worth it. And then, like, I think that, like. They didn't realize they would be okay, especially the high-income earners. It's like they will end up with tons of money. The power of compound interest is like, it's just, they're going to have enough money. So they need to start giving some of it away. 

Chris Powers: Why do you think poor people are often more generous than rich people? 

Micah Lacher: Because they realize they have enough money to meet their basic needs and know they will be fine.

And so I don't think they're not worried. They don't have a stock account. They're not concerned with investing. They're just like, they have this much money, and then their friend's car breaks down. They need a hundred dollars to fix it. They're like, why this month? You're lucky I had a hundred dollars. Could you take it?

It's because they've also been the recipient, and that's part of my story. Like, I still needed to come up with this. Oh, I'm going to be just generous. Part of my family's story was that people consistently showed up for us. A lot of the giving that we do as a family is anonymous, and the reason is because my mom would pray like the air conditioner out God, we need a thousand dollars.

It is like we're sweating to death. It's 100 Memphis, and the heat index is 150. It's probably the highest place on earth besides El Paso, but you know, and then literally, I have a little charity fund. I did it in honour of my mom; it's called the magic mailbox because we always joked as kids that my mom had a magic mailbox It'd be two weeks later, My mom would come in, bawling, crying, she'd have a wad of cash in her hand, and we're like, mom, she couldn't talk, she's so emotional, and we're like, mom, what in the world, where did you get all the money?

She's like, it was in our mailbox. We're, like, in the mailbox? And we're like, who gave it to us? She's like, it was in an unmarked envelope. We're like, who gave it to us? She said God gave it to us. And we're like, no, who gave it to us? God didn't put it in there. She's like, well, I've been praying to God, and somebody did.

So he must've told him to do it. But that was so powerful because of the power of anonymous giving, and this was my experience. If Dr. Jones from church, if I knew, if it said, Hey, we've been thinking about you guys, we felt called to love Dr. Jones. Then we're going to church next Sunday and be like, Dr. Jones. Thank you, man. So hot. You saved us. But, like, we believe God gave it to us, and we didn't owe anybody a favour. We didn't feel guilty about it where. We would have been like the little kids. Oh, there's Dr. Jones. Go. Thank him. Please. He gave us the HBC. We're just like we had nothing to think of besides God.

So, that's what we've chosen to do. A lot of our giving our company does publicly to support the mission of being generous and all, but like our, we do a lot of our giving anonymously.

Chris Powers: Okay, here we go. So, how does the magic mailbox work? How do you know where you're going to give it?

Micah Lacher: Well, what I've done is, so like, I went to the pastor at my church, and he was like, he said, I think this is great, but he said, I'll be honest, most people here have some catch net, an uncle, a cousin, like. They don't ever make it to the pastor of their church and be like, the HVAC is out, like, so I was like, well, if my church didn't do it, like, so I came up with the idea to start working with inner city pastors because the people in that community don't have a rich uncle, wealthy cousin, like, They, they got no buys, they end up in the pastor's office saying, my utilities are getting shut off tomorrow.

The kids will be freezing, like, what do I? Can you pray for me? Does the church help? And so we partnered with like intermediaries in the inner city. Those guys will call me and say, hey, can you call an ES? Pay 550 bucks. We have a single mom who is getting her power shut off tomorrow. I'm like, done.

Got it, so like that's what I've done, and I'm not vetting these people. I'm, like, if the pastor calls me and says do it, we're going to do it, you know. So, like that's, we've just tried to find the people who have access to the people who have unbelievable needs, and there's plenty of them out there.

 Chris Powers: And you said you did that the intermediaries, yeah, there are folks you can call or that you can hook up with that have connections into the inner city that can help on kind of What I'd call rifle shots, one-off situations.

Micah Lacher: That's right. I'm involved with Young Life, a high school ministry with an inner city division. So I was friends with the guy who runs the inner city for Young Life. And so I, he was my first guy. I said, Hey, who should I give to? And do you ever have kids, high schoolers who's, and he's like, yeah, I do.

But he's like, you need to meet with this pastor and this pastor. So, he helped me build a network of people in the trenches and rough neighbourhoods. That would need our family's support.

And we've gotten so much joy from it. I mean, like, Britt and I love it. Like, it's like, I've always said, like, I believe that God had a bigger vision for my life than I did. I was not, like, when you grow up with no money, you go two directions. You're obsessed with money and security, or you realize how little money in life takes to be happy.

And thankfully, I've fallen out that way. And so, it's just been fun for me To be able to do all these things. But I never liked envisioning, "Oh, one day, I'm going to be set, and I can do whatever I want financially. It's like, so I've taken that as a massive responsibility to steward.

No, I don't have many of your listeners' resources, but I have the resources that God chose to give me. And I'm trying to steward those very well.

Chris Powers: God, I want to go on that. Like. Can you make meeting those kinds of connectors in the inner city efficiently? Is that something like the community foundation, or do you have to know people to know people?

Micah Lacher: If you call the Fort Worth Community Foundation and say, Hey, who's doing it?

Who's like a legit person? Because there are some, like anything, people aren't. But, like, I think if you called them or The person that runs the YMCA here or whatever, and said, who's like an inner city pastor or inner city non-profit person who's like straight up, wants suitable for the people, will help them, like they know those people.

And then you'll meet one guy, and he'll be like, Oh yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. You ought to meet this guy. And that they'll pass you around. And, but, like, it's easier to find, like, anybody that's listening in their town can call whoever kind of the non-profit hub of your city is and be like, hey, who's doing good work and then meet with them and, see what you think of them. You'll understand whether they're straight-up people or if you believe something shady is going on.

Chris Powers: Regarding your mother and the magic mailbox. Do you know how that did arrive? 

Micah Lacher: I guess somebody at church knew that we were poor, and my mom probably made a prayer request or something, or they could sense it on her. She had a lot of weight, you know?

And so they probably knew, like, they might not have known the air was out, but they probably knew just like seeing her at church, dragging five little kids around, like she needed some help. But that's always been my guess. We've never found out. And recently, I've been like. I need to track down this lady we got this house from, fly to Alaska, and tell her thank God bless you because that changed my life.

I told my mom that recently, we got to find this lady like she'd be in her 70s now. I'm like, She doesn't know; she has no way to see the impact that had on that. 

Chris Powers: She's in some igloo out in Alaska, just freezing her ass off.

Micah Lacher: Hopefully, she's a listener. Suppose this story sounds familiar: Germantown, Tennessee.

Birch Tree Avenue.

Chris Powers: Call us. Do you have a stance on some people feeling like they have to give dollars over oceans instead of just across the street or in their backyard? Do you have any thoughts about that? 

Micah Lacher: It's a great question. I would have answered this a couple of years ago, but when you go through Halftime, they make you think about whether your ministry will be local, regional, national, or international.

And Britt and I've been in Nashville for 20 years. My wife's been there for 13 or 14 years. So we're like committed. We're going to raise our kids there. Like. That's our new hometown. So we both were like, there's a ton of need in Nashville. Of course, there's a need in Haiti, Africa, and all these places, but we live in Nashville.

We're going to raise our kids here. Hopefully, our grandkids, so we both felt very called to give all our resources to Nashville. In the last couple of years, I've had mentors. They're like, help me think differently about that. The power of the dollar in foreign countries is just unbelievable.

We partner with an organization building houses in Africa for 4,000 bucks, and it can change nine or ten people's lives. Like. You can't build a house in America for four grand. So we have started giving more internationally. But most of our giving is still focused on Nashville. However, different listeners might be passionate about their old hometown, the US, or the country they vacationed in.

It doesn't matter. You just got to pick something. 

Chris Powers: Let's finish on Halftime. You brought it up like ten times. Lloyd's was on the episode. Pete, near and dear to me, has been through it and works. It runs for a while, but what is halftime to you?  What brought you there, and what was it like going through it?

Micah Lacher: Well, I'm eternally grateful for Halftime. I mean, it was just the perfect book in the ideal season, but like, So, the way I ended up doing Halftime was, I read the book, I went to this men's group when I was 25 years old, and I heard a man speak. He, I'm a big reader, and he's like, oh, Halftime, this book changed my life, and when I was 25, I read it, and I remember thinking when I was 25, I was like, maybe one day in my 50s or 60s, I'll have like, Enough financial margin where I can do something other than work all the time.

So fast forward to six years ago. I, you know, had all this stuff going on. My brother passed away. I have a child. I had many things going on at work, and I was talking to a guy named Tim Sideman, who mentors me in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was like, man. I'm going to sell my business. He's like?

I thought you enjoyed it, and it seemed like things were going great, and I said, well, business is frankly killing it, but I think I just need to. I'm going to. I've got all this stuff going on. I'm going to exit. I'll take a year off, think, pray about what I'm put on this earth to do, and just reset my whole life.

The only way out of my situation is to sell it, be done with it, and then figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. And he's like, you need to write a book called Halftime. And I was like, Yeah, he's like, you ever heard of I said, man, I read that one. I was 25. He said you need to reread it.

I think you're in Halftime. And so I got it. Reread it that weekend. And I felt like Bob Buford had written it for me. I think it's just how God works. But I just read the book and was like, it was like every page. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is where I am. And so I signed up for the program.

 Whenever their next class was starting, it just helped me have a new perspective because I felt like a lot of books I'd read in my life said you have to sell your business, move to a foreign country, live in a hut and be a missionary, and I have always enjoyed the company. I mean, my wife laughs.

We go to the beach, and she's reading some historical novels, and I'm reading Fortune magazine or something like that. I like this. I read business books. I have always felt wired, and I didn't feel like I needed to get out of business and run a non-profit, but I was like, I thought that was the only thing.

I either had to be a business guy or a non-profit guy, and the book's good, but I always remind people that it was just Bob's story, like he was just this wealthy business owner who sold and did all these good things. Like. Anybody can go through Halftime. The book is different from different from The Only Way. It was just Bob's personal story, but the program is much more significant. You could be a middle manager at a huge corporation and decide if you're called to stay there and start a group for people in the inner city to get disadvantaged people to work at the corporation or whatever gets you excited.

But that's what Halftime helped me with: why was I put here? What could I do? Like, how can I use this business for impact? And Lloyd is still my coach. Six years later, I have a monthly call with him, and Lloyd's helped me just a ton, like putting together a plan, checking in every month, talking about it, and tweaking it every year.

We write out our life map, and it changes every year. Some years, I need to focus more on my mirrors, and it's like, now my kids are getting older. I'm in more of that season. So every year, we're evolving my plan, but having the accountability and the monthly check-in, how are you doing?

 What are you working on? How'd you do since last month last month? You said you're excited about trying this with your wife. Did it work, you know? So, it's giving me a lot of accountability. It just helped me, and then the most incredible thing I've had time, like Pete's a friend of mine as well and like I would have never met Pete if it wasn't, however, Halftime, but like Pretty much anybody that's gone through the program, you can call, say, Hey, I'm thinking about starting a soup kitchen in the inner city.

They'll be like, well, it'll say, Oh, call John. He did that in Tulsa. And you'll call John and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about this. How'd it work? How should I do it? How much money did it cost? So it's the network has been unique because there are a lot of ideas I've had that I thought about, and then I talked to somebody who's already tried it or is currently doing it, and I'm like, that seems like I need to find a better fit.

It saved me a lot of tuition because I would have written a check and tried to start a new non-profit. And then it's like, two years later, I'd be shutting it down. Cause you'd be like, well. That was different from what I was getting into.

Chris Powers: And the general reason it's called Halftime is because you're making decisions now that'll set you up for the second half of your life.

How do you think what goes back to the meaning of Halftime? 

Micah Lacher: I mean, well, when Bob wrote the book, the tagline was from success to significance. Traditionally, people have been in their fifties, sixties, or even seventies when they've gone through the program. And some people are coming to the end of their careers.

And they're like, but I'm still healthy. I still have energy. I'm 60 years old. I've just sold my business. What do I do in the next 20 or 30 years? Recently, there have been more young people going through the program. They're like, Hey, I'm Not selling my business. I will keep working, but I want to focus on something other than 50 hours a week on running a business like there's got to be more to life than buying the next shopping centre. Yeah. So, that's what it's evolved to. 

Chris Powers: it's younger because, in this country, people now have access to make money earlier than they historically had. 

Micah Lacher: Totally. And I think, like, especially this new generation coming along, there's such a need, like, for people to have a purpose in their work, where, like, our parents were just, like, Working a job for 40 years and, you're just glad to have the job.

It's like, now, especially with so much information out there, people are like, no, I want to be fulfilled at work. I want to find some value in my career. And that feeds into Halftime of, like, there's got to be more to make it.

Chris Powers: Do you have any? We'll bring it home. You've built a life around generosity; it's going well. Does that create any new dreams for you, or are you now feeling like you're living the goal you wanted? Does that make sense? Does it create another level to this?

Micah Lacher: It's added significant value to my life.

But like I told you at lunch, I'm almost 44 and have three young children. I enjoy my job, but I'm balancing everything, like being a good husband and dad, trying to give back, and figuring out a fair budget for my family. What do we spend our family?

What do we give away? You know What we put back into the business, so I'm still trying to figure out what excites me. It has done a ton for me, but like, I'm also young and Lord willing, I have 40 or 50 years left, and it's like, I don't know, like, but I also hold things loosely, and it's like, I didn't plan to be sitting here today at 43.

So I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to be doing at 53, so I'm like, I'm just going to be faithful every day and try to show up, try to do things that bring me joy and then be open-handed about, I mean, I never would have imagined I'd own hotels that gave money away, but like, it's been a ton of fun doing it. Still, there'll be a next thing at some point that gets me excited. It is where I will dedicate more of my time and energy.

Chris Powers: Micah, you're the man. 

Micah Lacher: Thanks, Chris. Thank you. Honoured to be here.

Chris Powers: Thank you. We'll put Mission Hotels in the show notes. 

Micah Lacher: We'll be booked for years to come.