An Army of Normal Folks - Travis Moody: Outcompeting Payday Lenders (Pt 1)

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

In the state of Tennessee, payday lenders can charge interest rates upwards of 459%. Travis Moody and his nonprofit Forward Memphis are on a mission to outcompete them, charging only 10%. In only 20 months, they’ve helped 600 families save a total of $800k!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I drive in Carlyville. There's not one payday loan store. Drive through Germantown, not one. The closer I get to New Direction, the madder I get. Because the closer I get, there are payday loans, title loans, places everywhere. And I was just mad. By the time I got to, I get to where New Direction, there's two of the best churches in Memphis right there, World Overcome is New Direction. I stand outside in the parking lot and there are four predatory loan places. That you could see from the parking lot of the church.

Yes, and so they literally go into the church to pray and come out to get prayed on. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part, it somehow led to an Oscar

for the film about our team. That movie's called Undefeated. Y'all, I believe our country's problems are never gonna be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Y'all, that is us. That's you and me.

Seeing a place in need and saying, you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Travis Moody, the voice you just heard, has done. Travis and his nonprofit, Ford Memphis, are fighting to outcompete predatory lenders that are really taking advantage of the most vulnerable Memphians. As you're about to hear,

this is not even close to just a Memphis problem. It's literally everywhere. I cannot wait for you to meet Travis right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Travis Moody's in the house, the founder and CEO of Ford Memphis. Travis, good to see you, bud. Thank you for having me here. You know, most times I say, how'd you get here? Because folks are coming from Indiana or Chicago

or Los Angeles or wherever, but Travis Moody is a Memphis fella. So how you got here is you probably woke up in your house and broke across town. Exactly right, yeah. Who you got over your shoulder there. Who's with us today? Alex? Oh, this is Sherman This is his building. I know I just wanted us. We got a guest. I thought we'd say hello You just it's just building that's why I say he's not a guest to the show

Hey, yo, how you doing? Hey, yo, what's up? How are you? I'm just paying you for the space, right? You're kind of a guest. That's right, well, he's a guest to the show. We may be in his building, but he's a guest in this place. That's right, so. He's a guest, he's a guest.

That's it. So it's a Memphis thing today. And Ford Memphis is something really near and dear to my heart. And we're gonna talk about that. But first Travis, you started here, been all around the world and ended up back here. Kind of tell us how you grew up and in your track.

Yeah, I grew up actually not too far from here, just right over the highway, off of Alsea Road, went to Hamilton High School, love Hamilton absolutely. My mom still lives in the Alsea community, so I really love that community. So this is home. So you must have been all right in football in high school. Yeah, I enjoyed playing football.

I was fortunate to get a scholarship to Georgia Tech to play football. Yeah, so what position were you? I played nose guard. You're a nose guard. You were a shade or a straight up zero? Well, then it was a straight up, it was a, we played a. Because you're all playing five man front.

That's right. Yeah. So you're used to taking on double teams. That was my only job. Split the double. Just don't let the guys're used to taking on double teams. That's, that was my only job. Just don't let the guys get out to the linebacker, keep them off the linebacker, split the double. That's, that's it, man. I, I spent 30 years trying to find some kid that could do that and they're rare. So, uh, that means you're tough. That means you're selfless.

And that means you you'll take on two on one to let your buddy behind you win. That's the way I look at nose guards. So Georgia Tech's a good school, man. I mean, what was your degree in? Industrial engineering. Travis. I mean, growing up in kind of the inner city of Memphis and back then, I think that the community around Hamilton was

still a pretty decent community, right? Right, right. And, but you go to Georgia Tech, get an engineering degree. I mean, that's, that's, that's arriving. Yeah, I think it was when I went to school, I mean, Hamilton did a good job of was when I went to school, Hamilton did a good job of putting the emphasis on me academically. Because I just wanted to play football, but the coaches talked about, you know, football was just a way to get you a better life. And they really focused on me getting a degree. And when the colleges started to recruit me, Georgia Tech came and I had never heard of Georgia Tech. I never met any engineer, but my teachers pushed me to say, you're good in math and

science, we think engineering would be a good fit for you. All they did was they took out a magazine to show me the average salaries, engineers compared to other people, and I think it may have been like $28,000 a year and I, it was the highest one. I said, just sign me up for that. That's fine. So had never met an engineer. Um, but I had good counselors and good teachers to set. We think this would be a good, good fit for you.

So you weren't just a meathead nose guard. You're pretty bright kid wanting to find a future. Yes. And, um, and again, I had teachers and people in my life, but coaches that pushed me to, to, they gave me a vision for my life. What did, what did your neighborhood and high school in the eighties, I guess this was the eighties. I graduated in 85, 1985. Okay. You and I are the same age. So what did that community and that world look like in the mid-80s?

So I came in in the busing period. So we were bused out of our neighborhood in middle school. So we were bused to Wooddale Junior High School. And in that time, the area in Hickory Hill, Wooddale was still primarily majority white. So we had a very diverse junior high school experience and really loved it. You know, obviously it was a hassle getting up earlier and getting on a bus, but, uh, we had a really good experience.

Both my wife and I both were bus to Wooddale junior high school. And then for high school, you went to Hamilton. Yes. My neighborhood school was Hamilton. And, uh, again, just a really good experience. Then many of my teachers lived in my neighborhood. I had a, I had teachers that lived on my street. So if I didn't do right in school, you know, the last thing I wanted was my teacher telling my parents.

So, you know, the last thing I wanted was my teacher telling my parents so, you know. Everybody knew. Yes. You know, I know this is not, this is, when I hear what you're saying, I do actually think it applies to some of what we're going to talk to with regard to Forward Memphis. But I just, it saddens me because I think we've lost a lot of what you're talking about in our inner cities. I just don't know that communities have kids

going to neighborhood schools with teachers and people working in and around the community, living in the community, and kids and families feeling safe to share experiences like that anymore. What do you think? Yeah, that's well one of the reasons why I like the Alistair community because I do see some of that coming back. That's still going back. Yeah, many of my classmates are moving back into the community. Oh, that's cool. We've, my mom

still lives there. My mother-in-law lives in the community. Oh, that's cool. Um, we've, uh, my, my mom still lives there. My mother-in-law lives in the community. Uh, we have two properties in the community. We're looking at how to move back. We have a property on the same street with two or three of our classmates. And so we think that this, you know, we think there's an opportunity that Memphis has, um, that a lot of people, places don't have where there's a chance to really invest in ourselves. I think there's a lot of people who care about

Memphis and we think we're part of that. We love Memphis and we want to make it better and we think there are a lot of people that we can collaborate. I've done a lot of work in North Memphis. My business is in North Memphis. I've coached for years and years in North Memphis and at one time, and for those listeners not from Memphis, which is the vast majority of our listeners, North Memphis is, you can't really go west because you got the Mississippi River.

So you've got North Memphis, South Memphis and East Memphis. And then in the middle you have downtown and midtown. And those I would say are the five general areas of the city. And then each of those areas have pockets. So in North Memphis, three of those pockets are New Chicago, Smokey City, and Green Law, which is where my business is and surrounded by. And back in the 70s and 80s, there was Firestone, there was Harvester, there were grocery stores, there were places to shop, and there were all these really pretty good paying blue collar jobs.

And then due to a lot of factors, including a lot of destruction that happened in the early 70s after the assassination of Martin Luther King, a lot of offshoring of blue collar jobs. Companies like Harvester moved away or folded up, Caterpillar moved away, folded up, Firestone, which was massive, folded up. And those that could left and those that couldn't had to stay. And three decades later, those that couldn't had to stay. And three decades later, what was once a really thriving, blue collar, they're largely African American communities with a lot of pride surrounding the schools and the neighborhoods has just year by year by year,

dilapidated really. And you end up with food deserts, work deserts, and when the money leaves, the support for the school and PTA. And so it's just this, and I don't think that's a Memphis story. I think that's an urban story in a lot of cities across the country.

But what happens is people in those situations end up financially desperate. And it concerns me because if we don't redevelop those areas, re educate those areas and help people in those areas rise above those circumstances, what happens to our tax base? What happens to our society, what happens to our culture. Do you see that in the work you're doing? Yeah.

What we see is many of those communities have people who are under financial distress. And so those are the very people they get preyed on. Communities you talked about is where all of the payday loans, the predator lending happens. It doesn't happen in Caruville or Germantown. They're absolutely. Caruville and Germantown are suburbs of Memphis that are very affluent. There's absolutely, there's not one payday loan store

in either of those communities. Okay, so we'll get to that. So Georgia Tech, then you go to Duke and get your MBA. Right. I mean, dude, Georgia Tech, then you go to Duke and get your MBA. Right. I mean, dude, Georgia Tech undergraduate, the Duke MBA, that's impressive. I mean, you were on the way. Yeah? Yes.

I think that was, again, I had a lot of good mentoring. One of the reasons why I went to Georgia Tech was, and I thought it was a great place to grow. And, and again, I was, you know, coming out of South Memphis, that was very rough and a lot of things I didn't have exposure to. So, but it was a great start and you know, we had, had a good coach and when they recruited me, one of the reasons why I went, because again, I wanted to play big time football, but at the time the coach there knew that there were some other things that, you know, that were important to me.

He had the mayor at the time, the mayor of Atlanta to call my parents. And that was a big selling point because he was scanning Andrew Young. He was part of the Civil Rights Movement. So my parents knew him. He was second to Martin Luther King as far as leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. Really? He became an ambassador later. And at this time he was a mayor of Atlanta and very well known in the black community.

And so when he called my parents and said, well, if you send your son to Atlanta, I'll take care of him. Oh gosh. What else do you want? That was a great selling point. And, uh, and so that I enjoyed it was a, you know, and being around, um, and he, and he did, he, he took me in, I would, you know, he would take me into his home and be around him and his family. And, you know, I had an internship in his office, but man, it was just great exposure.

So you ever heard of a guy in Memphis named Robert Hill? Yes, I know Robert. So Robert's been a guest on this show with the thing he's doing called Friends After Five. And when you said, I grew up in South Memphis and there were things I'd just never heard of, I'd never been exposed to, what Robert's doing with Friends After Five

is he thinks access and exposure are the two greatest limitations to the growth of the black middle class because how do you elevate yourself if you don't have access to the elevator or exposure to people who if you do good work have the ability to help you elevate yourself? Yes, I agree with that. Alright, so what he does with Friends After Five is he sets up meetings After five and he brings in young black graduates and professionals from

HBC use and all over Memphis and he does it and he's doing it many other cities Not just Memphis and then he convinces both black and white middle-aged business owners, and they simply gather for two and a half, three hours somewhere, and they just get to know each other. Just friends after five. I think that's great. And then what it does is it opens folks' eyes

to the opportunities and the possibilities that exist outside of, in your case, South Memphis. What it also does is opens the business world's ideas to these are some whip smart, young, aggressive, bright professionals. And if we just give them an opportunity, they're going to thrive. And through Friends After Five, he says he can help grow the middle class just by no freebies, no nothing. Just exposure and access. And when I hear you say I grew up in South Memphis,

I don't know nothing about Georgia Tech, I'd never met an engineer. That's exposure and access. It just. I'll tell you. So when I got to Georgia tech, I took my, uh, you know, cause again, I want, I want to be an engineer. And I signed up one of my first classes was this computer class programming. Basic computer is what it was called.

Well, I thought basic computer men that they were going to teach me basic. I had never seen a computer in my life. So I thought they're gonna teach me what a computer is, how to turn it on. And the professor said, how many people have written lines, programs or lines of a hundred? And you know, people raise their hands and how many written the 500 lines? A few of other people raise their hand. I was waiting for them to say, who don't know how to turn on the computer? And that never happened. And you sit there quiet.

I'm sitting there quiet. Probably looking around going, what have I got myself into? I think everybody's hand went up to me. So. Let me ask you something. Did that make you feel insecure? It made me realize this was gonna be a lot harder

than I thought. And I needed help. I knew I needed the great thing. The athletic department had tutors available, but I had to work a lot harder. It was, and it was no way around it. I just had to work harder because I was, it wasn't that I wasn't smart enough. I just didn't have the exposure. My classmates had computers in their dorm room. I'd never seen a personal computer. I had to learn. So that hard work exposure, it really helped me to kind of prepare for.

And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, we've launched a new written series called Normal folks wisdom. I think Alex came up with that Did you come up with that and an army of normal dead folks people have strong feelings on that one already? So we'll see what they think about this. I Don't know about these titles. But anyway, we've got this thing called normal folks wisdom. Come on. You like it I do like it. Actually, I like it. I do like it actually I like it better than dead folks but whatever. What normal folks wisdom is is it's the heroic normal folks we interview and when they share poignant cutting practical and oftentimes hilarious wisdom with us so we want to make it digestible for army members, especially if you don't get a chance

to listen to every single episode, with shame on you, you should, or all the way through. So, we think everybody can find it valuable. The best way to start getting normal folks wisdom is to follow us on Instagram at Army of Normal Folks. instagram at army of normal folks or by signing up to join the army at normalfolks.us as we're going to start emailing these things out as well. There's some fancy folks with some wisdom but normal folks got a whole bunch of it and are often overlooked so i hope you'll check it out. We'll be right back. One of my very dearest friends in the world was named Mike Ray. Mike Ray played at Arkansas State for Larry Lacewell. If Mike had a little bit bigger size, he would have played in the NFL.

He was one of those guys that was an undersized tackle, but was very effective, right? He helped. He was my offensive line coach for four years and dear friend. His children and my children remained dear friends. They'd been to each other's weddings and all that. When Mike started coaching with me at Manassas, my third year, his first year there, about really started to recognize deficiencies in what we would consider basics. So one day he asked a couple of players, hey man, how much do you think so and so's grandmama's house cost. And folks $20,000.

Said, okay, how much do you think my car costs and he drove a five-year-old suburban? $10,000. All right, how much do you think my house cost? And now he'd taken all his offensive line at his house swim in the pool and eat he did it all the time he invested in them. Now his house was in Germantown. It was 6300 square feet. 30,000. I want to buy that house. 30,000. I want to buy that house.

Me too. I'll line up and buy 10 of them. But the point was 5,000, 20,000, 30,000. They knew the house is more expensive than the car and the bigger house is more expensive than the smaller house. They could not, they had absolutely no idea what things cost in the world. Then he did another thing and he said if I give you $200 and for the week you have to do these things and you want these shoes and these shoes cost $160 and I give you 200 can you afford them yeah heck yeah I can afford

those shoes I got 200 160 well that leaves 40 can you eat and provide basic necessities for yourself over the week with $40 the is, if it's in your pocket, you can afford it, but you're not thinking about anything else. And through those two questions, Mike grew to understand and tell me, Bill, we got to start teaching basic financial literacy these kids, they have no idea how money, savings, their work, interest, anything works. And it's because their parents didn't know. And they were never, again, they never had access or exposure to a savings account a checking account how things worked and It was devastating to me. I'm a football coach

I don't I don't teach in the school and we started trying to have these conversations But it was devastating to me because what happens even if these kids do reach some level of success How are they going to maintain it when they don't even know how to act with money? level of success, how are they going to maintain it when they don't even know how to act with money? Well, what we find is that there's a different mindset when it comes to poverty and middle class values. I didn't know that until as we start coaching people who are in, that came out of poverty, even if they have high income, there's still a poverty mindset that we have to help, um, overcome. And cause every, every financial success is, is based off of middle-class values.

We talk about it all the time. These folks that do make it athletically and are paid millions of dollars. People don't understand there is income tax in most of the states. There's a state income tax that agents pulling three to 12%. And a guy that's that comes from an area where he has no financial literacy, maybe he does sign a $12 million contract and get a $600,000 signing bonus. And he feels like he's got to help his mama and the cousins show up and everybody wants a new car and everybody wants shoes and then everybody's hanging around them. And then we go, look at this idiot. He's 28

He had all that money. He's broke what a dummy and it disgusts me when we Talk about guys like that because nobody came alongside or very few come alongside to help support what to do with that wealth and people don't understand what comes out of it before it ever gets to them in the first place. Yeah. I, I smile when you, you say that because that's really how I got into this

area is because I was that person. You know, after you, you mentioned it, Georgia tank engineering, Duke MBA, You know, after you mentioned it, Georgia Tech Engineering, Duke MBA, you know, I was making a six figure income. All of the things that you're supposed to have in life had this huge house, you know, 5,000 square foot home, beautiful neighborhood, tennis courts, swimming pools, all of those things. And the problem was I couldn't afford it. And we were, we had over a hundred thousand dollars in personal debt.

Let's get to that. So after you left Duke, you worked for a series of big companies. Who'd you work for? Yeah. So my first engineering job was with a company called Procter & Gamble. A great company, had great experience. And each, each one took me one gave me different exposure. Because even though I had an engineering degree, again, I was still very rough.

I hadn't been exposed in a corporate setting, so it was a very good place to learn and grow. And then I went back to Duke after that. So I spent six years as an engineer, then I went, my MBA, I went full time. Uh, when I finished Duke, I went to Seattle to work for a company called warehouser. Uh, warehouser is the behemoth of the forest products industry. Yes.

Great company again. Um, uh, and it allowed me to see, uh, how companies operate, you know, cause I worked directly with the CFO and the CEO of a, of a fortune 100 company, uh, very, very good experience. Uh, basically I was doing mergers and acquisitions. I was buying companies and selling off parts of a company and doing the analysis for it and really learned a lot. And you also there had to have learned valuations.

Yes. Yes. So, uh, and again, I was, I was, I was good at numbers and math and science. And so this was a really good chance to, to use it in a practical and business environments. And I really, uh, after a few years of that thought, man, I can do this for myself. And that's, that's when we left that company to go and buy a company in Atlanta. That's, that's how we kind of started the financial journey.

So what was that company? What was the business that you wanted to buy? It was a, a folding carton company, you know, they need boxes for, uh, church's chicken and Dunkin donuts and cereal boxes. It was a good company. You know, they eat boxes for, uh, church's chicken and Dunkin donuts and cereal boxes. It was a good company. There was all kinds of reasons why I was a bad company to buy though, but I ignored them. I, I, I, I saw all of the things that we all see. I thought how I was going to make millions of dollars. And again, without having, uh, making some of the mistakes that are you know looking back at

I shouldn't have. So you're married at this time. I was married about two years. To your school yeah age sweetheart. Yes. It's Carol. Carol yeah. Yeah and you have three kids. At that time we had three kids that's right. All right so Hamilton, Georgia Tech, Procter & Gamble, NBA Duke, Seattle, for one of the 100 largest companies in our country doing mergers and acquisitions, you have made it. And you say, I've learned all of these, I'm going to make money for myself. You go to Atlanta, you decide you're going to buy this company. On top of it by a huge house with at the same time. How big a house, 5,000 square foot home. Where this was in Marriott, the, uh, and Cobb County.

Yeah. At work. There was an awkward Georgia. Yeah. Big place, big place. You know, mother-in-law suite. Never had a guest in that house, in that suite. Two kitchens.

What you need for a mother-in-law suite. I know, I know. I'm still mad about that, so it's still sensitive. All right, but you buy this big house. Buy this big house. And everybody's saying, man, you have made it. And I read where your wife looked at you one day and said, everybody sees all this, think we made it,

and I can't even go to Walmart. Right, right. And so we're struggling spiritually, our marriage for the first time, and financially. So we just went through a period of just a year of tough. That had been dark, man. It was. Were you questioning yourself?

Yes, I was questioning myself. I was questioning my faith. I, you know, I'd been going to church and hear how everything's going to work out. And then this didn't seem to be work out. So mad at God, you know, I was, I was just struggling, embarrassed. You know, I didn't want, you know, people to know. So, it was just- So then, if you're embarrassed to know what people know, who do you reach out to? Because you don't even want to talk about it, I guess.

So my wife had heard about a class at church. She said, we need to go to this class to learn about money. And I didn't want to go. I'm thinking, first of all, I'm the head of the finance committee at church. And I got a Duke MBA. All they're going to tell me is I need the tithe and that's not working. But she drug me to that class and I learned that even though I had a Duke MBA,

I've been in church all my life, no one ever taught me how to handle the 90%. The only thing I knew was what to do with 10%. And the 90% is what got me in trouble. So we went through this path of applying those principles. I mean, I didn't know the Bible even talked about the first fine your investments and not co-signing for somebody's loan.

I didn't know that the Bible even talked about that. But we went through that process and over three years we paid off the $100,000 in debt. What about the big old house? We sold the house. We'll be right back. He downsized our home. And really we downsized to a home. We moved to Carreville.

We downsized the home to like a 3000 square foot home. So it was a nice place. All right. Carreville again for everybody here. That means you moved back from Atlanta. Yes. Carreville is the suburb of Memphis. Correct.

So what year was that? That was 2001. Yes. Carriville is the suburb of Memphis. Correct. So what year was that? That was 2001. Okay. So about 23 years ago, you go through this horrific period where you decide you're going to buy a business that doesn't work out. You've hocked up credit cards. You bought this big house and you got humbled. But then you fight and fight and pay off the debt,

you move back to Memphis. For what purpose do you move back to Memphis at this time? So the warehouse actually hired me back. Got it. And they moved me to a Toronto facility here in Memphis area. Okay. So, you've got your formal education education and now you have your life education.

Yes. And God hit you in the mouth with. Yes. Right. And you're in Carriville. So this is 20 years ago or so. How are you now where you are? Unfold what happened. So after that period with Warehouse, I actually went to work for target in Arkansas managed, uh, in a distribution. I was an executive with their, in their distribution center.

Uh, and that again, moved forward. We downsize again. We thought, man, if we, we downsize our home again, we can get out of this debt within the last next year. So we paid off, we finished paying off the debt and 2004 we moved to Arkansas. A great company again, really, I mean, really three good, good companies. Um, but there now we've paid off our debt. We're living off, we're very high income, but we're living off a half of it.

We're, we're making progress in very high income, but we're living off a half of it. We're making progress in our goals. But I wrote my first book, Financial Breakthrough, to really share my story on how we paid off $100,000 in debt, three years. Why did you write the book? I felt a call in to write it. I didn't want to, because I was was I didn't want anybody to know I was embarrassed.

But I felt I needed to share our story. And I thought I didn't think anybody would buy it. I thought maybe I knew my mama would buy it. I thought, you know, candy lady. Yes, I thought maybe four or five people. But when it came out, the first people who called me were my friends on Wall Street that went to Duke with me said, man I thought it was just me struggling financially. You're kidding. So it was. Now that's interesting. Yeah. You had friends that you went to school with at Georgia Tech that are on Wall

Street now and they're also dealing the same thing. Dealing with the same thing. The name of your book is Financial Breakthrough, subtitle God's Plan for Getting Out of Debt, Winning, The Guide to a Life of Peace and Purpose. Can I ask you, was this specifically for people who had your experience or was it just for anybody? So the first book, Financial Breakthrough, is really for anybody who's dealing

with financial pressure. Anybody who's dealing with financial pressure. Anybody who's dealing with debt and how to get out of it. That's what that first book is. Well, you just defined 96% of the people living in the United States today. Right. And so that's the reason why my friends from Wall Street were calling. But also, I kept getting calls from churches here in Memphis, pastors saying, hey, can you come and teach this at my church?

And that's when I really felt that there was a calling for me to come back to Memphis. So pastors of churches recognize this financial illiteracy among their parishioners, and they reached out to you to teach their congregations basic financial literacy. Right, yes. That had to made you feel great that now you can share your experience in a positive way. Yeah, I thought this was a great way to to really pour back into my community in Memphis. I've always had a heart for Memphis. And I realized the first time I felt the weight of being in Memphis was when I went to Atlanta

for Georgia Tech and my freshman year, Andy Young was a mentor. He was very close with the King family. And the first time I met Marty King, you know, just a normal question, hey, where are you from? And I had answered this question a thousand times. But when he asked, I said from Memphis and it was when it came out of my mouth, first time I recognized, Oh, this is Marty King. In other words, this is where his father was. He was he didn't make me feel guilty, okay? But I just felt the weight of where Memphis is different.

Can I ask you a question? See now, this is one of the squirrels. Are you saying because you were talking to Martin Luther King's son, and Memphis is where his father was assassinated, that you felt the weight of that guilt? Not guilt but I felt Memphis has a history. Boy does it. And also I felt Memphis has an opportunity. So one of the things and as I look back I

thought I think Andrew Young was always developing me for activism. Really? Yes. Cause he would, he made a comment. He said, um, one time he said, you know, he was, he always told stories about Martin Luther King and the civil rights, but he said the reason why the civil rights movement was successful because one, it was a movement, it was self, it was lots of organizations getting together to push in the same direction.

He said, but the movement needed a Montgomery. It wouldn't have happened without Montgomery being the place. He said, a Montgomery needed a Martin. Martin was just a local leader. He was not somebody coming from the outside. And so I think the whole time, he's telling me these stories, but as I look back, he was grooming me to be a local leader in my community. And he felt, he kept saying, Nefis is the right place.

And so I appreciated all of that even more so. I mean, at the time, I'm a 20, 21 year old. You don't even know what's being planted in you. But as I look back, he was grooming me the whole time. He would have me over and again, I did most of the grunt work because I'm, you know, I'm just, I'm driving him around, helping him to cook, cleaning, you know, picking up laundry. I'm just doing grunt, you know, whatever he asked me to do.

But the stories that he shared and the lessons and they stuck, they stayed with me to even to this day. What did Martin say when you said you were from of us? I'm curious. I mean, we were just, it was shooting basketball. It was just, it was just, it was all good. It was all great. It wasn't he, great. He didn't respond anyway. That would have been. Does the King family, do you know of the King family? What does Memphis mean to the King family?

I can, no, I couldn't answer that. I just, I know they, again, I'm a young kid just around. They were older, Bernice was older than me, so all of them were older. I just know when the, when the national civil rights museum was opened, the Coretta Scott King and the family came here and they were really proud of that place. I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. All right. So you, you moved back to Memphis, right? This book now, pastors are calling.

Yes. So what now? So I told my wife I really feel that I'm called to be to help people in Memphis financially. I don't know exactly what it looked like. At the time- Is your wife looking at your cross out? Well, this is the third time I've had this conversation.

So, but fortunately uh, but good. Fortunately she was on board with it. And, uh, yeah. So, but I had, um, there was a friend that we had, they actually, I, I, we had heard of each other in high school. This guy named, uh, David Lenore. He, he used to be, became this. It's a trustee at one point, but David can call me and said, Hey, let's meet up.

I think we know each other, uh, from football and he had David played at Alabama and I played against him in high school ball. So I know David very, very well. His kids and my kids ended up playing high school ball together too. So I know David well, David's a great guy. David's a great guy. And so he did. He ended up being the Shelby County trustee.

And he just joined our board. Great guy. But David said, man, we I think we have the same passion to help people financially. So we met up or get well at McDonald's and just had a really great conversation. And he convinced me to come back to Memphis. Really? Yeah.

David did? David did. Wow. Okay. So Robert Hill with Friends After Five worked in the trustee's office for David. That's like old home week. That's how I met Robert. Yeah.

That's it. There it is. Okay. Actually, I went to school with Robert's, too. Yeah. All right. So go ahead. So there you are. So we so we moved back really just a passion to help people move forward financially and we started teaching financial principles helping people get out of debt and Ironically is when I came back I thought I would get most of the calls from, uh, inner city churches, black churches, but you know, I was getting calls from Bellevue at second

press. Those are the large predominantly wealthy churches. Yes. Cause you know, they were teaching it as well, which was, which was great. Um, it took a while to get the momentum in the black communities. But man, why do you think? I don't know. I think those, I'm not sure.

But I knew that there was several churches, some of the black churches responded quicker, like Brown Baptist and Mississippi Boulevard. Some of the large progressive black churches responded faster. So when did you found Ford Memphis? So I guess about- Because you're doing this work. Yes.

But right now, you're just a dude doing some work at the beginning. Right. You're a dude that wrote a book, has a heart for the city, and you're just saying, you know, let's work together to try to teach the financial literacy where it needs to be taught. But you don't really have a thing yet. So I've been helping churches for about 10 years and doing doing well at that. And I got a call a call from, um, new direction. I was going over to meet with their team. So I'm leaving a church. And new direction is another church in town.

I'm leaving Carreville, uh, and an affluent area and I'm driving to Hickory Hill, which is a, uh, area with a lot of payday loan stores, a lot of distress communities. So I'm driving down Winchester. And again, I drive in Carlyville does not one payday loan store drive through Germantown, not one, the closer I get to new direction, the madder I get. Cause the closer I get their payday loan title loan places everywhere. And I was just bad by the time I got to, title loan, places everywhere.

And I was just mad. By the time I got to, I get to where New Direction, there's two of the best churches in Memphis right there, World Overcome is New Direction. I stand outside in the parking lot and there are four predatory loan places. That you could see from the parking lot of the church. Yes, and so they literally go into the church to pray and come out to get prayed on.

I was so, I was so mad and angry that I could barely talk with this team. Wow, Travis, that is a great line. They go into the churches to pray and they come out of the churches to get prayed on. Yeah, so I walked away saying, we got to do something. And I started talking to, I called David Lenoir, called friends and said, we got to do something.

And we went through a lot of conversations and landed on, you know, how do we get the banks involved? Because these payday predator loan places are bad for banks. They're bad for the community. They're bad for everybody. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Travis Moody. And you don't want to miss part two that's now available to listen to as we're about to dive deep into what Ford Memphis is doing

to address this massive problem of predatory lending. Together guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see you in part two.