EP 92: Good People. Good Money. Derrick Kinney, Founder Good Money Framework
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This week on The Millionaire Choice Podcast, Tony talks with Derrick Kinney, successful financial advisor and founder of Good Money Framework. Tony and Derrick discuss doing good, the mindset of millionaires, and making your money work for you.
Derrick grew up in a lower middle-class family. With a hard working 9-to-5 father, he remembers how hard his parents worked just to get by. For example, when all he had to wear to his baseball games were “goofy looking blue tennis shoes” while his entire team sported fresh cleats.
About Derrick Kinney
After boldly selling his successful financial planning business, Derrick launched Good Money Framework and the popular Good Money Podcast, where he interviews the world’s top business professionals, influencers, authors, and leaders to inspire listeners to build their net worth for good.
Derrick believes money is not bad, and good people — just like you — should have more of it to do more good in the world. His mission is to teach others how negative beliefs about money are holding them back, and how to change their money mindset for the better. Helping make complex financial topics easy-to-understand.
Learn more about Derrick Kinney, https://www.goodmoneyframework.com/
Take advantage of Complimentary Life and Money Mentor Session with Tony or Download FREE eBooks.
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Show Transcript
Tony (00:00):
Welcome back to the Millionaire Choice show. Today on the show, I'm really excited to be introducing you future millionaires out there to Derrick Kinney. Derrick and I have just met for the first time here in the last 15 minutes. And man, does he have a great story and a great heart. He's gonna bring something new that you all;, I don't think I've heard on the show before; and I'm eager to give him the floor and let him share his heart about money with you. He is the author of Good Money Revolution and is host of the Good Money podcast. So, if you were looking for another money podcast to listen to, check out the Good Money podcast. I'm sure it's gonna be a good one for you all to check out. Now, another thing you need to know about Derrick is that he formally owned his own financial advisory business, and sold it just a little while ago, but before he sold it, he was actually named by Forbes as one of the top financial advisors in the country. So, we're in for a real treat on the show today. Welcome to show Derrick.
Derrick Kinney (00:55):
Thanks for having me. I can see why your listeners love the content because we connect so well. I think this is gonna be a really engaging fun conversation.
Tony (01:06):
Yeah, I appreciate that. Now, you have your own show, so you've been doing this for a while. This isn't your first rodeo; helping people with their money; but you didn't grow up in just a wealthy family. I think like so many of us, a lot of times people look at millionaires and go, "oh, you were so fortunate. You had the silver spoon. You had the pedigree. You had the home life," and that's just not the truth; 80% of the millionaires in the United States are first generation millionaires. I'm one of those, I believe you're one of those as well, but it seems like the concept of money and building wealth actually clicked for you a lot sooner than it did for me.
Derrick Kinney (01:43):
Well, it's interesting. Cause growing up, I just liked money. It was fun to make it. It was also fun to give it, but growing up I'd say I was in a lower middle-class household. Most people wanna tell the story of, "I walked uphill, in the snow both ways, and had to carry a bake potato to keep warm, and eat that for lunch, and do that again the next day." It wasn't a story like that, but what I realized was I had a mom and a dad who deeply cared about my sister and I, but my dad was a nine-to-five person. So, he would work really hard from nine to five, but there wasn't any additional money above that. I remember playing baseball now. I was not the best baseball player. I was the baseball player that the mom or dad pushed on the team and really wasn't that good.
Derrick Kinney (02:35):
So to compound it, we went down to Kmart the morning of and bought these blue sneakers; it was all we could afford. I get to the dugout; all the players have their nice white, fresh cleats. So, here the worst player on the team stands out with these goofy looking blue tennis shoes. I mean, all those things were just symptomatic of, "I want this story to end and I'm ready to write a new chapter for it." So, that's really how I viewed money. Money was a doorway; not to just make a ton of it to pad my bank account and feel super rich, but it was a way to have a lifestyle I wanted, and then it allowed me to give to some of the causes I deeply cared about. A funny thing happened. It allowed me to keep making more money because I wanted to give more to the causes, which drove me to make more money, which allowed me to give more to the causes. So, it was a beautiful concept. One that I think a lot of business owners listening can apply to their business as well.
Tony (03:36):
Yeah. I love your heart around that. I don't wanna pass on it because there's a wonderful book out called Blessed Life by Robert Morris, and it comes from the same vein that I think where your heart's at; which is, you developed very early, a sense of giving. So, that was really what made your drive for finances and to build your financial future. That's a rare thing. Most people don't look at the purpose; develop their purpose; that young. It sounds like you had a purpose behind your money at a very young age.
Derrick Kinney (04:08):
Well, I did. Now, part of it sort of happened to me. So, let me take you to college; I graduated at the university of Texas at Arlington as a communication major. I took one finance class in college. I realized not many people were looking to pay big bucks to a liberal arts graduate. So, the jobs I took were either the fundraiser for the United Way, or working as a marketing person. So, I go to work for a marketing company, and I'm the one non-engineer there. All these guys are bringing their dogs to work. They've got the ponytails, the shorts, the flip flops, and I'm a nice dress-it-up kind of guy. So, I'm there about a year, and this is the type of company where the boss would come to us on Friday and say, "Hey, by the way; Saturday; tomorrow's gonna be a Workday.
Derrick Kinney (04:56):
We need to catch up on stuff," and I would just melt because I'd already had plans made with my wife, and had to call her and say, honey, the boss said, tomorrow's a Workday, but I think really the sort of the needle that broke the camel's back was our paychecks bounced twice. So, imagine writing your tithing check to your local church, and you realize, "I just wrote a hot check to my church." That was terrible. So, when that happened a second time, I really took a hard look at things. What I realized was; and this was an epiphany for me; that my dad faced a fork in the road much like I did in this moment. The fork was; I could choose to work for someone else, and let them dictate how much I'm worth according to them in the form of a yearly raise or a bonus; those kind of things; or I could put all the chips on the table and back myself against the wall, and go make something happen.
Derrick Kinney (05:51):
I realized both pathways had pros and cons, but one of them clearly had more upside because I really believed in myself, and that's what I chose to do. So, while I was working full time, I began to go back and get licensed as a financial advisor. Like I said, I took one class in college, but I just had a desire to help people. I realized I could learn, and that the learning would eventually catch up with my desire to help people. It took about six months to get fully license and take the jump. People told me, "Derrick, you're gonna fail. You don't have enough money in cash reserves to build a business. You're not gonna make it." It was all of that negative commentary that really fueled me for positive results. Now, you can't live there long term. I don't think you can just say, "Hey, because the world's against me, I'm gonna go make a lot of money," but I use that as fuel to say, "you will not tell me if I will fail, and you will not tell me what my worth is. I wanna dictate those things myself so I can really do more good for those clients and for the world."
Tony (07:01):
Yeah. I love the concept. There is risk. You took on a risk, but you understood the potential upside there. I think that's something. When I think about, my career and where I've been, you could put 15 years into somebody else's business at which time you may or may not get let go. What do you get to take forward with you? You get to take forward your experience that you had. Hopefully that's worth something. But, you've put 15 years of your life into something that you don't yourself own and therefore can be taken away from you. I think that's a newer thing for me because I grew up with a job mentality. My parents worked really hard. My mom and dad always worked for someone else. I worked with them, so I learned a good, solid, strong work ethic, but the concept of working for yourself or having that amount of freedom is something that's only been new to me in the last five or six years.