The Good Money Revolution with Derrick Kinney – EP 68

Interview with Derrick Kinney

The Good Money Revolution with Derrick Kinney

Money is often viewed as a taboo topic that most people don’t like or want to discuss openly. You’ll often hear parents advising their kids never to ask how much someone makes or how they make it because it’s rude. But this attitude leads to most people growing up with little to no concept of what a healthy perspective of money should be. This prevents the majority of us from ever reaching our financial potential.

Today’s guest, Derrick Kinney, is here to change the way people view and talk about money. He’s on a mission to help people make a lot more money and then use it to do good!

As a Private Wealth Advisor at Derrick Kinney & Associates for over 25 years, Derrick has a proven track record of providing financial security and quality advice to help people live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. But upon realizing that he no longer had the driving passion to be a financial advisor on his annual sabbatical in 2019, Derrick knew it was time to sell his practice, bet on himself again, and go in a different direction.

Fast forward to today and Derrick is now a successful entrepreneur who’s still excelling in the financial services space but in a different way. Secure in the coveted top 1% of his field, Derrick is also author of the acclaimed Good Money Revolution and host of the popular Good Money Podcast.

Derrick’s “good money” mantra stems from this basic premise:

“If you’re not making the money you deserve and you’re not making the impact on the world you’ve always wanted, there’s a better way for your money.”

Tune in to my conversation with Derrick and learn how to make your life better by connecting it to a purpose. Your journey to earning more, saving more, and giving more begins right here.

Featured on This Episode: Derrick Kinney

✅ What he does: CEO of Good Money Framework and Host of Good Money Podcast, Derrick Kinney is living his purpose of making people rethink everything they know about how to make money! With over 25 years in financial services, Derrick has featured on CNBC, FOX Business, CNN, and FOX News — all with the ultimate goal of making money easy to understand so you can make more of it.

💬 Words of wisdom: “Go make a whole ‘heck, ton, lot’ of money but add value to people. Add huge value and then use it for good.”

“As we come out of COVID, the giant reset is that people want more from every transaction. If you can help them be a part of helping solve a problem and injustice, helping right a wrong in your community or in the world, you’re going to be somebody that stands out and really blows up your business this year.”

🔎 Where to find Derrick Kinney: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Key Takeaways with Derrick Kinney

• Derrick reflects on a major pivot from communications major in college to financial services by following his dad’s advice of having the courage to always “go for things in life.”
• First steps towards overcoming fear — of the unknown, of failure, of going for it!
• Is there a right time to sell? How you’ll know you’re ready to exit your business.
• The birth of the Good Money Revolution and the framework’s mission to change the way people view money.
• Two key takeaways from Good Money Revolution:
  • Finding purpose in what you do can change everything!
  • Realigning bad money beliefs can help you reach your financial potential.
• The different mindsets that keep you back from your true wealth.
• The power of a quarter twist — implementing small meaningful changes in your life can lead to revolutionary results!
• Learn how to make more money to do more good by reading Good Money Revolution.

Derrick Kinney | Make More Money To Do More Good

Derrick Kinney Tweetable

Resources

• Good Money Revolution: How to Make More Money to Do More Good
• Go for It! by Judy Zerafa
• Do Good At Work: How Simple Acts of Social Purpose Drive Success and Wellbeing
• StoryBrand
• Bob Goff
• Love Justice International

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Read the Full Transcript with Derrick Kinney

Justin Donald: Well, hey, Derrick. Glad to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

Derrick Kinney: I’m super excited to be with you, Justin. Glad to be with you, man.

Justin Donald: Yeah. This is fun. So, we got a chance to connect a while back on your show and I really feel like there are so many things in alignment between us and between kind of what we’re doing, our mission for the world, our mission around money and finances, and wealth building. And so, I think this is just perfect having you on the show. What a cool season of life it is for you right now. But to kind of get things started, I’d love for you to share a little bit about your story and how you got to where you are today because you’re a very successful entrepreneur. You’ve done very well in the financial services space and you’re a top 1%. There’s a very small percentage of people that can kind of excel at the level that you have. So, share with us how you even got into this space.

Derrick Kinney: Well, I appreciate that. First of all, it’s great to be with you, my friend. You know, it’s funny because I took one finance class in college. This was a major pivot. I was a communication major in school. My dad just said, “Get your degree as a stepping stone for things yet to come.” Those words echo in my mind all the time. And I took classes and I realized, “What am I really doing here?” I squeezed four years into six. I was kind of working my way through. So, I got a degree in communication, got my first job in a marketing role at a company, but I was making diddly squat. I realized that people with communication majors are not rewarded in the real world. And about a year-and-a-half into it, after two paychecks bounced at the company I was at, getting passed over for a raise, working for a boss that every Friday said, “Hey, by the way, tomorrow’s a workday.” “I already had plans with my wife already scheduled.” Major frustration. I said, “You know what? I need to bet on myself and my dad had always been someone who told me, “Derrick, you’ve got to go for things in life.” But he was someone surprisingly that couldn’t make that jump. He got close but he didn’t have the courage so he was trapped in the 9 to 5. And I realized at that moment I had a path to choose. I could either go on the path he was on and get stuck in someone telling me what I was worth and banking on that person giving me a raise and I just couldn’t tolerate that or I could put all the chips on Derrick Kinney and roll the dice and see what happened.

And so, that’s what led me to financial services. I’d always loved working with money. I would jokingly lend my parents’ money. I had this amortization chart on the back of my closet in my room and would charge them interest and so forth and would pick up every penny and nickel, recorded my first paycheck in these cash books I would keep. So, the money was an interest of mine but I had a problem, though, and that was when I got into the field I was 25 years old and I looked super young. I had a credibility problem. And the idea occurred to me one day, “What if I was on television? That would be a way to build credibility and trust with people.” So, I got to the office early every morning and I would send faxes back in the day to the local TV producers and I said, “Look, when you need somebody to talk about financial topics in an easy-to-understand way, call me.” Well, my break came one day and they said, “Derrick, we’d love to have you on.” I said, “I love being on TV having never been on before.” And I practiced but what I visualized, Justin, was when the interview was done, the producer would say, “Derrick, you are made for television.” We love to have you on, on a regular basis.” And that’s almost exactly what happened. And so, that one interview back almost 25 years ago put me on a path to building credibility where before people came in the room to work with me, they already knew they wanted to work with me. And so, it taught me when people feel like they’re part of something bigger and they’re decommoditizing, a common practice, like working with a financial advisor, it can lead to success.

Justin Donald: You know, it’s a great story that you share, Derrick, because there’s one instance where your father could, I mean, he clearly didn’t make the leap that you made, and it could have been really easy for him to say, “No, just do what I did.” Right? But he still had the courage. Maybe he didn’t have the full courage to do it himself. He had the courage to say, “Hey, do it different than me.” I think we live in a day and age where people just kind of want you to do the same thing as them because then it’s safe, it’s secure, it’s comfortable. No one’s getting ahead of anyone else. You’re kind of at the same level. There’s a comfort in that. So, I love that he is willing to say, “Hey, I didn’t do this but let me tell you if I could do it all over how I do it and I encourage you to do it.” And it’s just cool hearing that you were able to make that leap because it’s not an easy one. Most people have the golden handcuffs in some way, shape, or form. They’re generally around the money that they make. People become accustomed to a certain amount of income and a certain lifestyle, and that lifestyle keeps them bound to whatever job or business is producing the income or the cash flow to keep them there. But the golden handcuffs, there are handcuffs that come in different fashions as well, and some of them are the handcuffs to security, to safety, to routine, to what is known. And there’s this fear of breaking these chains for the unknown, the uncertainty, the risky, or at least going on a limb and not having it. So, how did you wrestle with those emotions? Because the vast majority of people in the world can’t overcome that or choose to not overcome that. So, how did you know that maybe this was your path?

Derrick Kinney: Well, I’ll share another story with you. When I was in junior high in high school, Justin, I was teased mercilessly about my nose. As you can see, it’s larger than the national average and people let me know about it. And it really pelted my self-esteem. It really made me question my value. And my mom gave me a book when I was going into high school. There’s a book called Go For It! by a woman named Judy Zerafa. And it was a book about basically how to get through the teenage years. And one chapter, you’ll get a kick out of this, was called How to be Popular. And I read that chapter over and over and over. It just talked about how to listen, how to make friends with people, how to be liked, how to be trusted. And this idea occurred to me. I think my path out of this mess I was in of getting teased and berated and almost bullied was to run for office. So, I decided to run for junior class president and ran the campaign. In the end, I came in second place but it gave me a sense of, hey, we could rally people together. So, the next year I ran for it all. I ran for student body president. And the lesson I learned was we were just a bunch of nobodies trying to be a somebody. And as I looked around the school, there were all these different cliques of people. There were the rock and roll crowd, the band crowd, the student crowd, the athlete crowd, but they all sort of hung out in their own pockets.

The idea was what if I got a picture with each of the leaders of these groups shaking their hand and on the poster would say, “Hey, let’s rock the boat with Derrick. Vote Derrick,” and we will put the posters where they all hung out with their different people. Well, what happened was, it’s a powerful thing, Justin, when a bunch of nobodies have a heart of a somebody because we were part of something bigger. And I won the election that day against five other people but it wasn’t me who won. I’m getting goosebumps talking about it. It was all of us that won. It was a moment where somebody had a vision for something bigger. And all those students realized we’re part of something bigger. And it was that mentality that led me to bet on myself that first time in, as I like to say, if you’ve done it once, you can do it again. And that’s what gave me the courage to say, “You know what, even if I fail, I have enough belief in myself to know I can scrape myself back off the pavement and move forward again.” What I would tie that to right now with so many people I think listening and watching, Justin, may not have been good with money. They may have made some really sour decisions, really thought that their best thought about something really turned badly. What could they teach their friends or their kids? And just like my dad did, he wasn’t perfect and didn’t want to take the risk but he could encourage me. And I just want to tell people listening now, look, you might be the person standing between their dream and holding them back, not because you did it, but because your words of affirmation can actually push them to really extract every ounce of potential they’ve got.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s really good, Derrick. And I love hearing the foundation of kind of where you came from and why you made the moves that you made, how you had the confidence to do it. In my mastermind, there are several financial advisors, very successful individuals. And for me, I interview every person before they get in so I’m really picky. Most of the people that apply or come through the framework in some way, shape, or form don’t make it. But these individuals all did, and it’s because they’re serving at a higher level. And I just think that they’re doing incredible things. But the reality is in financial services, it’s really hard to build a business. It’s really hard to scale that business. It’s then really hard to sell that business. And I luckily have a bird’s eye view into this because of all the people I’ve worked with. And so, I would love to hear some of the story of like how you did scale your business and how you were able to sell it because often the business is tied to the business owner. And so, it’s hard to get rid of the person who is like the brains or the face or whether you are or you aren’t, the acquirer generally feels that that’s the way. So, how did that happen for you?

Derrick Kinney: Well, it, first of all, happened in a hotel room in July of 2019. And I’ll take you there. I was at the W Hotel in Boston and I go away on a sabbatical every year for about a week. And the purpose is to think and pray and journal. And I like to ask myself three questions. How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father? How can I be a better business leader? And it’s just a chance to be in my silence with myself and with God just writing down ideas and thinking about how can I make this week so impactful that the other 51 weeks of the year are really high octane toward the goals I want. And so, I made a list. What are the things that I would enjoy doing in this next chapter of my life? And I wrote down crazy things, Justin, like host a podcast, write a book, speak, consult, train, not knowing any of the fruition of those things. But on that list was not being a financial advisor. And it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. It just wasn’t driving the passion that I once had. This was 25 years into the business, and I realized in that moment it was time for me to sell. Now, keep in mind, I had just been on the prowl up in Nashville. My daughters loved it up there. I was going to acquire other practices to basically blend personal and business but I feel like the voice was, “It’s time to sell and bet on yourself again and go a different direction.” So, what that led me to then was how do I position the business to sell it?

But let me go back many, many years. The problem I had earlier, I talked about getting on television, I had a commoditization problem. And the problem was there was an unlimited number of financial advisors people could pick from. Why would they possibly pick me, a 25-year-old basically punk with no gray hair? I’ve got everything going against me. But what I realized was that by getting into the media for me and building relationships was foundational but the big aha for me was I always enjoyed supporting education in my local community. It was just something I love to do because I wanted to give other students something I didn’t get that I wish I would have had, some mentors or recognizing student leaders or great teachers. So, I would give out $50 a month to a student of the month or a teacher of the month, didn’t think anything of it. I just loved education. Well, my phone began to ring and I remember the first time this happened, the couple said, “Derrick, we want to work with you.” And I said, “Why? I mean, I should have had a better response but tell me why you picked me of all the people you could have called.” “Well, we see you in the newspaper all the time and we like how you give awards out to schools. We like education as well. We want to work with you.” That was mind-blowing. $50 a month and this person had about half a million dollars to invest and I thought, “That’s crazy.” Well, then this began to happen repeatedly.

And so, what I realized was what I was just thinking of giving and supporting my local community, people made business decisions on a like-minded value that I and them shared. And so, what I now call that is my generosity purpose. And in my book, Good Money Revolution, it’s this linchpin of the whole book and that is if you have a business, if you’re an entrepreneur, people can work with anybody these days, and most products and services looked very, very similar but the way to decommoditize yourself and stand out is by your generosity purpose. It’s picking a cause that you care deeply about or your customer base cares deeply about and intertwining that into your business practice. As I talk about, look, of all the work we do for clients, a portion of our profits go to support helping build water wells in third-world countries, helping solve the hunger problem in our local community, helping stop human trafficking. Well, what happens is, and this is so cool, that creates a bond. It creates a bridge and a deepening of that relationship. And my friend, Bea Boccalandro, who I quote in my book and she wrote a book called Do Good at Work, she talks about when people watch advertising, and they see an ad for a car or a house, there is really no emotional action that occurs. But when they see an ad about, for example, supporting the US Olympic team or solving a world’s problem or helping a child improve their life, the emotional response of the brain, get this, is equal to the same as if we look into the eyes of someone we love. That is powerful.

And what that says is that when you have a common bond and a goal you’re working toward with someone, that shared experience, even if your prices go up, the competitor down the street has a better offering, they still are sticking to you because you’re giving more to them and helping make the world better. It’s just a powerful proposition for people, especially that are in the fee-based businesses that want to increase their rates. People don’t blink an eye to pay more if they’re helping to give more and make the world better.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I’ve had a very similar experience with that as well, Derrick, and I love all the good that you’re doing in the form of I mean, obviously, financial education but just where the dollars are going and the different organizations. And you and I share a passion for really the impact that we can have on human trafficking and more specifically, child sex slaving because that’s really what it is if you want to boil it down and not just have nice, soft, easy words to describe it. I think a lot of people don’t know that. So, I love that you’re part of these organizations. I love that you’re doing great things. And I want to speak to that more here. Before we do, though, I want to talk about like that one-week sabbatical. Is that where you came up with the name, Good Money and the Good Money Framework? Was that the start of it? Did it come afterwards? Because I feel like that was your next iteration. So, I’m curious where the birth of that came from.

Derrick Kinney: Yeah. So, it didn’t actually come at that particular week but it was launched in my mind that week. And what happened was as I began to meet with a colleague of mine, his name is Donald Miller, he actually wrote the foreword for my book. He’s someone I highly respected, great writer. He owns a company called StoryBrand. People should be very familiar with that, and he and I began to tease this idea out. And what it came out of was this belief that I saw in culture today, Justin, that many people think that money is bad and therefore it holds them back either in real life or psychologically that, “You know what, if I make a lot of money, then people aren’t going to like me because the people who make a lot of money, they are vilified and they’re ridiculed and they’re criticized, and I don’t want to be like that.” And it inherently holds them back from achieving the success they have. And so, what I want to do is tell people, “Look, I want to empower you and unbridle you,” and say, “Go make a whole heck ton lot of money but add value to people. Add huge value and then use it for good.” Because so many people think that if I, for example, Justin, if I’m giving money to you to a charity that you believe in, I lose because the money leaves my wallet and it goes to your charity. It’s lose-win. But we want to scratch that and flip that script and say it’s actually a win-win-win.

Because what happens is I found in my own practice and I know other people who I’ve coached have done the same thing. They’re actually making more money the more they’re giving. It makes no sense but it’s because more people want to work with you because you’re part of something bigger and you’re giving them the doorway to easily make an impact in the world with a product or service they would have bought from anyone. So, business owners listening, this is the ticket, I believe, to this year as we come out of COVID, the giant reset people are wanting more from every transaction. If you can help them be a part of helping solve a problem and injustice, helping right a wrong in your community in the world, I think you’re going to be somebody that stands out and really blows up your business this year. So, that’s where that came from. And then the question was how to apply that. And so, the book, Good Money Revolution, I like the word “good money” because we all like to make good money but it has a double connotation of the good you can do with it. But the word revolution, I want to camp there for just a second. You know, revolution is basically a group of people who see the way things were done and they don’t like it and they want to do things completely differently. There’s been many negative revolutions. This is a good revolution, and that is we want to change how people think about money.

So, wherever people are at right now, if you feel like you’re underpaid or not getting paid what you deserve or you feel like you want to make an impact on the world but don’t know how, this is a framework for you to do that, and it’s a way to open the conversation about money. Just like some people think that sex and religion, those are taboo topics in politics. Well, then people grow up with no concept of what that healthy perspective should be. And money is the same way. I want people to talk about money in ways that we want to make a lot of it so we can use it for good. So, that’s where that was birthed and why the book was so important to really launch this movement into the world.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s such a great point, Derrick. And I don’t understand how we got to a place where talking about money became taboo or talking about how much you make or what you invested in or how much you lost like how that became a taboo thing. You know, I remember growing up and my parents were like, “Don’t ask him how much he makes or how much he makes. That’s rude.” I mean, it’s like burning my dad because I think I probably asked it so many times because I was a curious kid. I’m still curious. But it is mind-boggling to me that people fall into line on this not talking about money because you will not get better at it if you don’t talk about it. This is one of the big things in my mastermind that one of like our big rules is that you have to be able to talk openly about where you are. In fact, the interview process is a very interesting process because people have to share every detail of where they are financially and they have to be comfortable being able to do it. And I’m sure a lot of people can’t fill out the application because they’re afraid to let go and divulge of this info that they hold so tight. But what I found is if you can’t have an open conversation about where you are, how are you going to go to where you want to be?

And if people around you aren’t talking about it, how do you know where you want to go and who you want to hang out with? I just think that money should be something that we talk about in a way that we would talk about anything else. No big deal because we can help other people who aren’t where we are and we can learn from other people who are where we want to go. So, it’s, to me, you want to grow your financial wealth. You need to be around other people that can talk about it openly they can say, “Hey, I lost a lot of money here. This was stupid. I made a horrible decision here,” or, “I made a lot of money,” or, “I just sold my business for X amount of dollars,” or, “I had this offer. I turned it down but I’m going back and forth. I’m not sure what I should do.” Like this open dialogue, that is what’s going to make people stronger financially. So, to refrain from speaking on it is going to make you weaker. To just kind of stay in the same place is going to make you weaker. The only way we get stronger is by having these conversations, and I love that you open this up. So, let’s talk about the Good Money Revolution because I’d love to know like some of the key takeaways as you see it from your book. And obviously, this is not an excuse to not read it and take this as the Cliffs Notes. But if there were to be a Cliffs Notes like what are the things you want people to know about it?

Derrick Kinney: Well, I’ll tell you one of my favorite stories out of the book, and it’s a true story. A client named Dave came into my office many years ago, and you know those relationships, Justin, where you can just tell by looking at the person something’s wrong? That’s how it was with Dave. We had a close relationship with he and his wife and it was just him that came in that day. After some small talk, I said, “Dave, look, I can tell the weight of the world looks like it’s on your shoulders. Spill it. What’s going on?” He said, “Derrick,” he said, “The business is doing great. My kids are involved. We’re making good money and so forth, but I’m just not into it.” He said, “I’ve lost my passion for the business. I’m mailing it in every single day.” And I paused for a moment and what came out of my mouth next still surprised me but it really helped launch this whole item was, “Is there a cause that you care deeply about, Dave?” Well, he was stunned by the question. He pulled back a little bit. He said, “Well, it’s funny you ask because a couple of years ago I took my family on a trip overseas in this village that we went to, the guy mentioned that this particular area needed a schoolhouse. The children were severely undereducated and a schoolhouse would help them significantly. And as a family, we all sort of said, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to fund a school here?’ But we got back to the states, got back to the business like our busy dream put on hold.”

I said, “What if you did this? What if over the next few years, you said you’re going to increase your sales and your business by X percent and you’re going to take half of that growth and fund that school?” Well, his eyes got as big as saucers. He got excited, reinvigorated. He comes back in about three months later. He looks younger. He’s enthusiastic. He’s all in. He says, “Derrick, you’re not going to believe this. We picked The Generosity Purpose and they had a small manufacturing company and they picked a cause that would resonate with their clients and so forth dealing with them. They were already up 20% within that three-month period. They had already funded half of that school.” Now, here was a guy that barely showed any emotion at all but we were two guys in the room really holding the tears back because when you see that the words you’ve said have helped extract potential out of someone, man, it’s powerful. So, that story, there is one I think a lot of people are ready to live right now that if they’re asking themselves, “Look, I want more meaning in my business. I want to make more money but how do I connect my meaning and money together?” that’s a magical way to do it.

And another story I’ll tell you real quickly. I was in the office catching up on a Saturday morning and you see the voicemail light blinking and eventually, you say, “You know what, I shouldn’t do it but I need to listen to this message.” And it was a woman on the other end in a frantic voice said, “Derrick, somehow I bounced a check and you were the first person I thought to call. I think I’m going to go to jail.” Well, okay, when someone says they feel like they’re going to go to jail over a bounced check, I could either wait and call them back on Monday or call them back right then. I knew that news was going to get really stagnant over the weekend. I called her back and I said, “Tell me what happened.” She said, “Well, I forgot to move money from my check into my savings. Can you help me with this?” I said, “Look, first of all, you’re not going to go to jail. You’re not going to get fitted for prison wardrobe or anything.” But I said, “Out of curiosity, what made you think that?” And she tells me this story. She said, “Growing up, my dad got a call from a store owner and my dad had accidentally bounced a check and the owner said to my dad, ‘I’m going to call the cops and we’re going to try to put you in jail for this.'”

And so, she thought this was a 50-year-old woman that if you bounced a check, you go to jail. And what that taught me was a lot of people listening may have bad money beliefs that they were taught or observed that has held them back from reaching their financial potential. So, this book is all about identifying what those bad beliefs are. How do we restructure those? Because I don’t believe, you know, until you’re dead, you can still make an impact in the world. And so, that’s what I want people to do is, look, learn from your past but your past has passed. It’s time to really focus on the future here.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s very poetic. Your past has passed. I like that. You know, the first thing that you were sharing just reminds me of so many years of coaching and consulting where you constantly find people who basically lose the big picture vision. It gets drilled into this playing small, just focused on your business and what your business does, not what your business or your job provides you the opportunity to do on a larger scale. That is just a component of your life, not your life. And so, I love kind of redirecting and reframing and helping people figure out a compelling vision of the future, a compelling vision that what they’re doing today matters for what they want to do down the road. And it sounds like you do that. And one great way, one amazing way is to tie it to a cause. And I think that that is just picture perfect. And it’s also interesting hearing the second story because can’t we all relate to that one? Our parents, mentors, friends, people, somewhere along the line shared something about money, about many things, but specifically money and we adopted it as our own without fact-checking it, without seeing if it’s true. Just because it’s true for them doesn’t mean it’s true for us.

By the way, most of what we get in the world of money since we don’t talk about it enough is someone else’s projection. And generally, it’s like what you said, there’s fragments of truth but overall, just a lot of distortion in what it is. And so, I like hearing that story and it’s so funny because it’s like so far off from the reality but most people have that in their life and they don’t realize they’re that far off from the reality. So, I love that. I’m curious because you talk about five different mindsets that keep you back from your true wealth. What are some of those? Do you have one or two that you could share?

Derrick Kinney: Yeah. You know, a couple that stand out is I picture people growing up. They might have seen a family member’s fist hit that table and say, “Look, if only we had more money, then we could.” And it’s that phrasing that says basically that there is the haves and the have nots, and we are the have nots family. And that is a terrible way to grow because it places this limiting belief over our head that even with money or sports or academics said, “You know what, we don’t quite measure up because we don’t have what other people have.” And that’s a dangerous game to play. But also, when that is portrayed as money is the enemy that if we have a lot of money, it’s good. If we don’t have a lot of money, it’s bad. And therefore, money is what controls the happiness in our life or not. And so, right now, again, as we come out of COVID, I just think the parallel here is this giant reset button. People are changing how they dress, how they buy products and services, how they eat. You know, I didn’t used to wear shorts in interviews like this in the middle of winter. I mean that kind of thing. So, people, they have a unique opportunity to kind of press the restart button. And as I like to say, many successful people have a giant reset button. They press it often. So, just because you made mistakes in the past, that doesn’t define your future.

One thing I talk about in the book is, look, use this as a moment to learn from your experience, not to focus on the mistakes in the past. And one of the other examples I give in the book, there’s many, many stories but one is a woman who was part of a startup company super excited about it but a year-and-a-half into it, she began to get disillusioned, didn’t get a raise, wasn’t getting advanced, and she was a client of mine. We talked about a strategy and I said, “You know what? Don’t just ask your boss, bang down the door, demand a raise because that leads to a short-term gain, long-term pain. You want to add value.” And I said, “Talk to some of the salespeople.” She was an admin and I said, “Ask them about how they make money on their bonus structure.” And so, she was surprised. Mainly it was by referral. So, she went to the boss and said, “Look, what if you gave everybody in the company, admin included, a referral bonus for anybody we brought into the sales team?” Well, the boss was incredulous like, “Why didn’t I think of that earlier?” Yes, that’s a yes. Then she positioned herself as, “If I get another designation or a certification to help take a load off of you to build capacity, could you give me a bonus for that?” And he was like, “Well, yeah, that sounds great.” She walked out of there with about $6,000 more of incentives and bonuses based on about a $35,000 a year salary.

Now, for many people listening, that may be one deal, for goodness sakes, but a lot of people don’t know how they can make more money, much less do any more good in the world. So, I want to teach people, look, here are tangible ways to add value. Money chases value and the more value you add, the more money chases you. And that’s something good to be chased by.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s a 17% potential pay raise. So, I mean, that’s significant. Like, take the dollars aside. Any time you can add 17% to what you’re earning at any level, that’s exciting. Yeah. You know, there are so many things that I could talk about when it comes to mindset and beliefs because I do believe that that is what holds people back. I believe that one small little mindset shift can literally change the game for someone. It’s that close yet sometimes it’s so hard to overcome conditioning and beliefs and mantras and whatever else it might be that we’ve learned about money incorrectly, but we’ve learned it and we take it as fact and we hold it as the authority instead of really getting curious and asking questions and investigating. And seeing if someone else’s experience is really how it is or if it’s just their experience. And is that experience something that is common among many people? Or is it just one experience in one unique situation, which is almost always what it is?

Derrick Kinney: I’ll tell you a quick story on that, too, because I love your commitment to mindset shift. You know Bob Goff? So, Bob Goff wrote the book Love Does and a couple of other bestsellers. He was on the podcast. We were talking about change in mindset, and he gave me an example. He said, “Derrick, when you go to a really nice fancy restaurant, then the sommelier who manages all the wine, if they’ve got a wine cellar, what the sommelier will do is periodically they’ll gently twist the wine bottles just a little bit, so the sediment moves around and doesn’t settle and make the wine taste bad and they call that a quarter twist.” And he said, “Derrick, in most of our lives, most people say, ‘I need to do a whole 180. I’ve got to go a completely different direction.'” Or one person he jokingly said, “I’m going to do a 360.” Well, if you do that, you’ll end up back in the exact same spot you were. But he talked about just a quarter twist. What is it in your life right now that if you just made a quarter twist, you could have revolutionary results? Because you start off the new year. People make all these grandiose goals and then three weeks into January, they’re disillusioned and frustrated. But if they just made a quarter twist and just made one financial goal. Don’t over goal yourself. Just pick one. What is the biggest financial pain point in your life right now? Is it your debt? Is it a goal you want to get? Is it a property you want to buy? Is it a dream that you haven’t pursued? Just make efforts on that one goal and you’ll be surprised in the backdraft how many other goals get attained by focusing on your number one pain point.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Great point. And I mean, I’ve got a comical story about that because it reminds me like what most people do with New Year’s resolutions is they just come out of the gate swinging with like the grandiose of grandiose goals or dreams. I remember one year going to the gym and I’m like, “I am going to get really fit this year and just ripped.” And man, I hit the weights so hard that I literally was not able to work out after that. Like, I hit them so hard, it threw off my whole plans because it hurts so bad. I remember one time I was like, “I need to get bigger calves.” I feel like I work out all my different body parts pretty well and I’ve never really given enough attention to calves. And I remember just I hired this trainer, and he just crushed me and my calves were on fire. I couldn’t walk normally for about four days. I had some really important stuff that I had to do, and it was just brutal. And it was such a great reminder that it’s like, “Hey, where else in my life am I potentially overdoing it?” This is just one example, and I could tell you many where just I’ve overdone it. When the answer is the quarter-turn, just a little twist, just a one-millimeter different pivot because over the long haul, that makes a huge difference. You know, I love what you’re doing in the world. You’ve got an incredible podcast too that I hope people know about. I think it’s also called the Good Money Podcast. I just want to give a plug for that because I love it. I spent some time on your show. You’ve had some other really exciting guests on your show as well. And I’d love to know if there’s any last thing that you would like to leave our audience with before we share how they can get in touch with you.

Derrick Kinney: Well, Justin, you’ve got a great audience and we were talking off the air. One of the principles in the book is about obviously how to make more money to do more good. Our book right now is launching and I think of this as a revolution. So, it’s a brand new way to think about money and really help people do better this year for their money. And what I wanted to do was once this podcast airs, which I know you have a huge listenership and viewership, if we have 50 people preorder the book, I will make a donation of a thousand dollars to your favorite cause, Justin. I want to do that because I believe in you. You and I have had many conversations offline. Our values align and I know the listeners do as well but I would just want a model for people. This is how you do it, that when you offer someone, “Hey, here’s value but then also you’re making the world better,” that’s where meaning and money come together. So, 50 preorders. You can go to GoodMoneyRevolutionBook.com. GoodMoneyRevolutionBook.Com is the way to do that but I’d love to do that for your listeners.

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, Derrick, and I really love just your willingness to be a giver. I think that that goes a long way. That’s been really important in my world. That’s why I donate the proceeds of my book to Love Justice International.

Derrick Kinney: Which is fantastic, by the way. You’re making a huge difference there.

Justin Donald: Thank you. And like what you said, I noticed that as you shine the light out there, it attracts more attention from other people. So, the impact isn’t just the dollars in but it’s the awareness of everything that’s going on. And it draws so many amazing people in. And it’s really funny earlier on in my life, I didn’t realize that I talk about how motive really matters. And the reason you should give is because it does good things, not because of what you’ll get from it. But what I found in giving is I have connected with so many amazing people because that’s what they do. And these are the organizations that they’re part of. And then you just get to spend time with so many like-minded people. I love getting a chance to spend time with you, Derrick. This has been incredible. Thank you for that gift. And where can people find you if they want to learn more about you specifically?

Derrick Kinney: Yeah. Just go to GoodMoneyFramework.com. Also, you’ve listened to all of Justin’s podcasts, pop over to Good Money Podcast and they complement each other really, really well but love to see you there.

Justin Donald: Awesome. Well, I want to leave this show in closing the way I closed all our episodes, and that’s really this. What’s one step that you can take today that can move you towards financial freedom and set you on a path to designing the life of your dreams, not a life by default, but a life on your terms by your design? Thanks, and we’ll catch you next week.

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