Blaze Your Own Trail - Empowering the Middle Class to Become Millionaires with Derrick Kinney

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

SummaryIn this episode of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, host Jordan Mendoza interviews Derek Kinney, a successful financial planner who transitioned from helping a select few become millionaires to creating a program aimed at helping the middle class achieve financial freedom. Derek shares his journey from a troubled childhood marked by bullying and health issues to becoming a leader in high school and eventually a business owner. He discusses the importance of mentorship, the power of media in building a brand, and offers practical strategies for financial success. The conversation emphasizes the significance of setting goals, understanding one's value, and taking bold steps towards achieving financial independence.TakeawaysDerrick transitioned from a successful financial planner to helping the middle class.A pivotal book changed Derrick's life and perspective.Leadership can emerge from adversity and personal challenges.Setting goals is crucial for motivation and success.Derrick's decision to leave a stable job led to greater opportunities.Media presence can significantly enhance business visibility.Understanding client needs is key to building a successful business.Financial management is simplified by knowing the rules of money.It's important to focus on personal goals rather than societal expectations.Taking action is essential for achieving financial freedom.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Derek Kinney and His Mission01:12 Derrick's Early Life and Challenges06:05 The Turning Point: Confidence and Leadership in High School10:06 College Years and Early Career Decisions16:15 Building a Financial Planning Business18:35 The Transition: Selling the Business and New Opportunities24:47 The Good Money Revolution: Strategies for Financial SuccessConnect with Derrick: https://www.derrickkinney.com/Buy a copy of Derrick's best selling book Good Money RevolutionConnect with Jordan:LinkedInInstagramTikTokJoin Jordan's weekly Group Coaching Community Risk FreeInstalling strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Derek Kinney, and I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. No, Jordan, I built a very successful financial planning business over 25 years, but I realized there was a problem, and that was I was helping a select few people become millionaires, and I realized there were a lot more people hurting. And so I took the five steps that helped the most people become millionaires. And I've traded that in for a program that helps middle class become millionaires.

It's called the Millionaire Money Map. And it's a way to help every American achieve financial freedom that they deserve. And I couldn't be more passionate about helping people finally live the lives they've always wanted but didn't know how to get there. I love it. Appreciate you sharing that context. You know, my favorite part of the show, Derek, is really taking a rewind and getting deep context into my guest's story and their journey. And so we're going to actually rewind back to the adolescent years, you know, elementary, middle, and high school years. So if you can't share with the audience,

you know, where were you born and raised? And then what kind of kid were you? Would you get into in the early days? A whole lot of trouble, man. So actually, born and raised in Washington State. I was born in a city called Bellingham, Washington, up in the far Pacific Northwest, kind of the tip corner up there. And interestingly enough, we moved six times. before the sixth grade. So my dad was a metallurgical engineer, super smart guy, but candidly, he struggled to either keep a job or get transferred or lose a job. And so we moved around a lot. And so because of that, I didn't have a lot of early friendships growing up. So that was, that was problem number one. Problem two was I had asthma as a kid really, really bad. Now, I didn't know

anything different. That just what happened. But there was goofy stuff like I had allergy. Surprisingly And amazingly enough, I couldn't even go out to recess. I had to stay inside because the allergies out in the air and stuff. It was just the strangest stuff. So I come to Texas in the sixth grade. And if you can see by my profile, Jordan, my nose is slightly larger than the national average. Okay. And because of that, I was teased mercilessly as a kid. And so it really shaped me. So early on, if I'm being honest, it was kind of a lonely period for me. And it wasn't until high school that everything turned around. And my mom, sensing kind of the desperation her son was in, gave me a book. And rarely can I say that a book changed my life, but this one did. It was a

book called Go For It by a woman named Judy Zarifah. And there was a chapter in that book, oddly titled enough, it was called How to Be Popular. And I thought, well, heck, nothing to lose. And it just talked about, ask people questions about themselves, and look people in the eye, and be interested and be a friend to people. And I said, I had nothing to lose. I mean, I was really at the lowest point in my life. I didn't come from the gene pool of the popular kids. I didn't have all these built-in relationships. And I began to do that. And it gave me the confidence to run for student body president my junior year, which would have been my senior year. And I had this idea, Jordan. It was kind of crazy. I realized that I'd have to do something different. So I realized,

as I looked around the high school, there were all these groups of people who felt like me. They felt overlooked, underappreciated, they weren't the popular kids either, the band crowd, the rock and roll crowd, all the different people. And I had this idea of I would reach out to the leaders of all of those groups of people and have a picture of me and them taken together and put that poster all around the school where they hung out with their friends. Well, what happened was is those people have never been approached by anybody to do something like that. They felt important. They felt valued. Well, suddenly what happened was out of five people running when they announced the winner at the end of the day, the crackle of the microphone came on and the principal said, and the

winner is, Derek Kinney, I was overwhelmed because it wasn't me that won that day. It was we that won that day. And what it taught me was is that when you can get people a voice and make people feel valued and important, all your own troubles, they go right out the window. My nose didn't matter. all the mattered was people felt like they were part of something bigger. And that's what lesson has led me into business today, just helping people feel valued and important and heard. And you can build a lot of businesses based on that one single principle. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate you given that context. And, you know, we're all going to deal with adversity. It's why I'm getting ready to release a book called The Power of Diversity, because that's the one thing I guarantee

anybody that's listening. You're going to face adversity. You don't know what it's going to look like or when it's going to come, but we just have to figure out ways to overcome it. And it was, it's really cool to hear that you found, you picked up a book, you know, I don't know, I don't think in high school I read a single book, if I'm being honest. So the fact that you pick one up, I mean, that was a big deal. And then the fact that you read it and that you extracted the content, and then you went and actually applied it. And it worked. How cool is that? And what I heard from that is that you learn soft skills. You learn things that there are so many people in 2025. are missing, looking people in the eyes, smiling, being energetic, you know, shaking people's

hands. Those are things that even today I think people are missing and you learn those at such a pivotal time where you needed confidence, you know, and you got to essentially get this borrowed confidence from multiple people that were almost in the same place you were and you were able to bring everybody together. Essentially crowdsourcing is what I would call it back in a time when it didn't even exist yet, you know. And so what I want to hear is what happened next, right? So you go from, you know, the kid that's bullied, the kid that's kind of overlooked, you know, maybe you made fun of. And then you,

now you're at the pinnacle here, student body president. What happens next? Do you decide, does that confidence help you maybe get a job or maybe get a gal or maybe bring you into education after high school? I'd love just to hear what trail you decide to blaze next. Dude, I would take all of those options, Jordan. But unfortunately, it didn't quite work. I like that, but I like the way that sounds. So I then went on to college and I squeezed four years into six. I was working part-time, kind of paying my way through. But I'm always been a big goal setter. And I think when I look back on my life, that's one thing that really has helped me stay motivated is I would, I would write goals down and I would visualize achieving those goals and it helped me make it easier to achieve

those goals. Didn't mean I always got it exactly right, but it gave me motivation. as to why I was doing what I was doing. So I set a goal of like, you know, if I could become student body president in high school, could I double double? Could I create the same strategy and do the same thing in college? And so ended up doing that as well, which was really, really cool. And what happened there was, I was questioned a lot because I'm going to our local college. It was a reputable school, but I'm here in Arlington, Texas, and my buddies are going away to Texas Tech and USC,

all these big schools. and suddenly you begin to feel inferior. People ask you, why aren't you going to a bigger school and why aren't you doing this? Why are you staying at home? And you begin to question other people's goals as it relates to your goals. And I began to realize, wait a minute, that is your goal path, which is great for you. But it's not my goal path, which is what I want to do. And so if I bought into their goal path, it makes what I want to do feel inferior.

And I realized that's not right. So I graduated college and then went into a job. And my major was communication. You know, my dad always told me, just get your degree. It's a stepping stone. And I love speaking and talking and so forth. But I realized a communication degree was not valuable at all on the open market. Okay.

My first job was $24,000 a year working as a marketing director for a software company. And I was more of a dress-up kind of guy. But at this office, it was a computer company, very, very small, like 10 people. They brought their dogs to work. They wore shorts and flip-flops, had their kids. their ponytails. I mean, I was like a fish out of water. And I remember this moment, and this moment that I'm going to share with you, Jordan, was critical for me in terms of a decision I had to make. Our boss was pretty famous for on Friday afternoons telling us, hey, by the way, tomorrow's a work day.

I need everybody to come in Saturday and work. And I'd have to call my wife and bust the plans we had made together. And it was just disappointing and frustrating. There's got to be a better way here. So we did this for a long time pushing this new product out. Well, we got it out. And then they announced And I told my wife, man, I'm excited about this. We're going to do something. Everybody was excited. And then I got passed over for the bonus. And two other customer service people got passed over. And it was devastating. I felt embarrassed. I felt shamed. I felt like, why did I do all this work? And other people are benefiting from this. And it was in that moment, I realized, okay, Derek, you've got a decision to make. You can either stay in this job and let someone else tell you your value at about 4% per year. because that's the raise I would get every year. Or I can take this moment and take the chips and bet on Derek and give the wheel of spin. And I thought to myself, my dad had always talked about, Derek, you know, take risk and do this kind of stuff. And my dad would always get to the point of taking the risk, but then never doing it.

And I realized this is where my dad was. He was at the same point, but he chose the 4% safe route. I can't allow that trap for me. And so I'd always enjoyed working with money and saving money, investing it. And so while I was working full time, went back and got my licenses, began to study. And it was about six months later that I left there and started my own financial planning business. Now, was it hard? It was the hardest thing I've ever done.

But as the saying goes, it's always more fun to work 80 hours for yourself than 40 hours for somebody else. But fast forward, it was that pivotal day, that decision that then led me to build a business business. But, Jordan, this was the key thing, is here 30 years later, my kids, all four of them, are now business owners. And it was because I, if I might say this, this may sound sort of patting myself on the back, but because I made that decision of boldness and courage, it then set the stage for the next generation in my family to also believe, well, if dad did it, well, all of us can do it. It reset the belief button of what was possible in our family. Yeah, I love that. I love that context there, and I appreciate you sharing that. And I see the same things in my kids.

You know, my oldest is 20, and he has a job in sales, and he's going to have the potential to do six figures at 20 years old. And he is doing what some of people look at, and they would say, why would you do that? And he's out knocking on actual doors, and he's doing business and customer development and trying to get people to remodel their home in a few different areas. And when I tell you, for anyone that's listening, that's never done door to door, it's worth its weight in gold. You're going to learn about yourself. You're going to meet yourself.

And you're going to find out how lots of humans are, like their attitude. And it's so interesting to see him going through all the things I went through 20 years ago when I was doing it and being able to encourage him and tell him he can do it too. And so I love that you said, now you have all your kids for your children or entrepreneurs. and that has to make you proud, right? Because it's like they saw you do it. They saw you grinding. They saw the early days. They saw the losing the clients and staying up late.

And they got to really witness what it looked like and see you come on the other side of it. And so for them, it's like, wow, that looks like it's fun. If he can do it, we can do it, you know? And there's that belief. And then they also have you as a mentor and to be there to coach him and guide them along the way. So I love that. And so your first gig, you're only there six months and decided to blaze a trail six months later. And so for the audience's context, how long has it been now since you decided to jump and have been doing things on your own? And then also I want to find out what opportunities came about with that yes, with that, you know what? I'm going to bet on Derek. I'm going to invest in myself here and go all out. Yeah, you know, so I was at that job actually a year and a half right out of college and then went over to.

Ameriprise Financial, and that's where I began to build my financial planning business. And fast forward was there for 25 years, sold that business in January of 2020. So I'm about four years, four and a half years removed from that now. And when I first started that business, the problem I had was I was 24 years old, but I looked like I was 13. And I looked in the mirror and said, who's going to invest with a young guy like me? And I didn't have the country club membership. I didn't have that the gene pool of all these, these famous people or rich people to call on. It was just me versus the world. And I didn't, you know, have all this financial knowledge. But I had a desire to serve people. And as I looked at my parents, I saw them working hard, but they struggled.

And they worked to put food on the table for us. Both of my parents worked. But they didn't have a game plan for when they could retire or they weren't ever looking forward anything exciting in their lives. And then I realized as I met their friends, they were in the same boat. And I thought to myself, here, all these people's parents caring deeply for their children, caring deeply for their family, wanting to give them a better life, but they're not having a game plan for their own financial freedom. And I thought, I don't think that's right. I want to change that. And so that's what motivated me to become a financial advisor is to help other people like my parents be able to have the life they want once they finish working. And that's what motivated me.

But I realized I needed to find a way to build my business. And so going back to high school, I was thinking back when I was in high school, nobody successful ever came back and talked into us and expressed belief as a high school student to give us a glimpse of what our future could look like. You know, everybody said, do well in school and study history and math and science and all the stuff you need, but nobody ever told us about here's the business you could start or here's what your life could look like. And I thought, I want to change that. And so I began to go back to my alma mater, Sam Houston, in high school, still here in town, and I presented a teacher of the month and a student of the month award. And the whole purpose was, I wanted to breathe life into these students and tell them,

I know you're just studying now, but you have a great potential future in front of you. And I wanted to breathe life into the teachers and say, look, you maybe just be teaching a class, but on Christmases and Thanksgivings around the dinner table, your name is going to be the one that gets brought up, because of something you said to these students to inspire them to be great. And it was just powerful. I would leave there. I had to give the teacher a $50 gift card and the student a $25 gift card. Then we got a picture taken with the teacher and the student, myself, and the principal.

Well, back in those days, we had these things called newspapers. It was really cutting-edge technology back then. It's kind of gone by the wayside. But they put the picture in the newspaper. So a couple months go by. I've done this monthly. And a woman calls me, Jordan. And what she said to me changed how I thought about my business. And she said, Derek, we want you to be our financial advisor. And I would tell everybody listening, don't say what I'm about to say what I said. And I said, why? I'm so young. Why do you want to work with me? I was just curious. She said, well, look, we know you're young, but we know you care. But here's why we want to have you as our advisor. Because you care about what we care about. You care about what we care about. We like supporting young people.

people in education. We like the fact that you do that. We want you to be our advisor. And that's when the light bulb went off. And I realized I didn't have to be the smartest or the best looking or have all this vast knowledge. I just needed to care about what the clients I wanted to work with cared about. And that's how I built the business. And that's how I wove in going back to the local high school so much so that when we would have our yearly client appreciation parties, I would bring the high school principal, invite some of the students to come talk to our clients, because what I realized was all the work the most of us do listening were all sort of commoditized unless we add value by inviting people to be part of something bigger. They assume you're going to get good returns

and we're going to call them back and return their emails. Those are the table stakes, you know, but when clients feel like by working with me or working with your listeners that they're part of a bigger cause, it endears them to you at a deep level and emotes your business. When the competitors come calling by email and cold calls and knocking on the door, whatever may be, they are insulated because they bought into your vision and your bigger purpose, not just what you do for them. I love it. I love that. Yeah, I love that. That's innovative, especially, you know, back then when those newspaper things exist. What are those, you know? Now, I don't like the fact that you're dating me because that was my first job was signing people up for the newspaper door to the Oregonian newspaper.

Yeah. So I knock on 100 doors a day and yell that, cuss at, stop waking up my baby, dogs chasing you. I mean, you had to deal with the gamut. And so, but, you know, what kept me going back, Derek, was we got free Burger King, like a whopper and a milkshake. And, you know, and if I got some sales, we got commissioned. So I was like, hey, this is the best gig ever. What more do you need? It was a 14-year-old, you know. All right, that's awesome. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, some opportunities that have come about because I know you've been able to speak on some amazing stages on television. You've been able to do some things that I know will inspire our listeners, especially looking back to where the journey started. You know, now that they have the context and they can see back. Now let's kind of move forward and talk about, you know, you decided to sell the business. That must have been great. How was that experience and what was that able to bring and what kind of ideas did you have next? Because of course, you're still out blazing your trail. You didn't just sell the business and on a yacht somewhere in the south of France just enjoying your life. Like you're still out creating impact and helping people. So I'd love to get your thoughts on these questions. So let me take a bit into my private world if I can, Jordan. Every year, and I've done this for the past, almost 10 years now, I go on a yearly sabbatical.

And this may sound kind of crazy, but I take about five days completely by myself. Typically go somewhere by the water. And the whole purpose of this is I began this kind of self-assess a problem that I had many years ago. And that is, I like to run really, really fast. I'm a type A personality. But if I don't have a specific plan I'm running toward, I realize I'm running really fast in a big circle. And I just keep circling, but I'm running fast and getting nowhere. So the purpose of my sabbatical is to pull.

back and work sort of on the business and not be in the business. And I always ask three questions. How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father? And how can I be a better business owner? Those three questions guide that time together. But it's a great time for me personally to think and to pray in the journal and just even walk along the beach and just be with myself and just think about stuff, really put my brain on the payroll and let my brain think and really process and figure out and help me with the tools God has given me my subconscious mind, my brain. I want to use all these tools to figure out what is that that I want. So this was July of 2019.

I'm in the W. Hotel in Boston, Overlooking the Wharf. And I began to write out a list of what are the things I would enjoy doing. I wrote out, write a bestselling book, launch a podcast, recreate at least a million dollars of recurring revenue, which would have been half of what I had in my previous business, coach, a speak, consult, even write a best-selling book for teenagers. And what shocked me, Jordan, was on the list was not being a financial advisor. That's what I knew. I'd been a financial advisor for 25 years. I loved it. But I began to realize I was sort of going through the motions the past couple of years. And you know those athletes that you like and they're really superstars,

but they hang around about a year or two, too long. And you say to yourself, I wish they would have retired back then, I didn't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that guy for my clients or for my team who I love dearly or my family. And what precipitated this was two years earlier. And even earlier than that, when I first started in the business, my strategy was I look so young, but how can I build credibility? So I began to, of course, invest back in schools and students. But also I realized that TV could give me a really good opportunity. So I would actually send faxes. Again, back in the paper days, I'd get to the office super early, and I'd send a fax to the local TV producers once a month, basically said, hey, when you need someone to talk about

complex financial topics in an easy to understand way, call me. And I would give them a couple examples of, hey, three ways to say for your kids' education, for strategies to cut debt, for simple steps to say for retirement. You always want to put numbers in there, so it quantifies it. About six months of doing this, I get a call from the local CBS affiliate. here in the Dallas Fullworth. They say, hey, we got your faxes. We know you like to be on TV. Could you do an interview next week? And I said, of course, I love doing TV. Having never, ever been on TV before, okay? But the goal was I knew that when the opportunity came, then I would be ready. I knew it didn't make sense to be ready before the opportunity, just create it and then figure out

how to fulfill it. So I practiced and practiced interviewing with myself in the mirror, had my wife asked me questions. But Jordan, as plain as day, I visualized that when you, When I finished that interview, the producer would say, Derek, you are made for television. Would you come on on a regular basis? And I just held on to that vision. I could see it plain as day. And the interview went great. And at the end of it, she said, hey, man, you're really good on TV.

Could you be a regular on our show? And I said, well, of course, I'd be happy to. And that was the moment. That's awesome. That's the moment when TV lit up for me. And what happened was producers sort of move around. And so at one point on the NBC affiliate, I was on five times a week. And that really helped blow up the business because people would come in and they'd watch me when they're getting ready in the morning.

One woman told me a little bit too much information. I watch you when I'm in the shower. You did not need to tell me that. But the point was is people feel like they already know you, just like today. Jordan, I'm sure your followers feel about you. They hear your voice. They feel like, man, Jordan's a nice guy. And they've never met you before.

But it's just the tonality and the personality, and that's what TV did for me. So all of that said, what happened was that Fox News offered me my own show. And I was like, dude, this is like the pinnacle. I want to do this. Well, within the advisor branch I was in, the compliance department said no. They said, no, you can't do that because it's a compliance risk. We can't have you talking about money and representing the company. The answer is no.

And if we're being honest, it was devastating. That was like putting a knife right into my heart and just twisting it incessantly. And I knew if I'm going to go to the next level based on my goals and my dreams and my aspirations for doing something bigger, I'm going to have to leave. As a person of integrity, as I know you are, I would have to bet on myself. And so there are many advisors that just kind of work part-time. They've got one foot in, one foot out. They're on the golf course half the week. I didn't want to be that guy.

I'm either all in or all out. And so I said, I'm going to sell my business and I'm going to back myself against the wall to force myself to recreate something new. And so what that led to was then more frequent appearances on Fox and CNBC and some other things that I love to do on a regular basis. But what I love is taking complex financial topics and making them easy to understand. And I look at money as a game. Everybody works hard. But money is very easy to manage if you're not. know the simple rules to do it. And I want to make sure that people don't feel like all the secrets

are locked in this vault that only a few people have access to. I really want to fight against that and give everybody the opportunity now to be financially free. Yeah. And man, I love the strategy that you integrated because it was way ahead of its time because these strategies that you did are now what people are doing. But it's a lot different, right? In the online space, you know, there's media buys and there's all the things and trying to get appearances and all of this, but you did it organically. You did cold outreach and you didn't give up and you kept sending it for six months and you prepared and you got ready, you know, and that's what I, that's what trailblazing is all about. And you got to be about it before you're actually doing it,

you know, and you have to, you know, train your mind. It's all about mindset, you know, the inner game controls the outer game. So if our mindset's right and we're focused and we're locked in and you were literally visualizing what was going to happen and making it happen, you know. And I love the fact that you did that because those are intangibles. You know, that's the resilience and the determination that we've seen, you know, throughout your story. And that's, you know, one of the reasons why I was so excited to get you on the show. And what I'm really excited about is getting the audience some tips on how they can have a good money revolution. For those you that are going to see the audio version of this, you'll see that Derek's got the book. And so, you'll see that Derek's got the book. And so you're a good money revolution. You're in a good money revolution. For those of you, you'll see that Derek's got the book. of course, he's the author of the Good Money Revolution. And this is all about how to make more money to do more good. And so before we jump into context around the book and where people can grab a copy, I know this is going to impact and help so many of our listeners, I'd love for you just to share because you've just talked about how money has been, it's a game, you have to understand the rules. And so I'd love for you to maybe share some of these rules or share, you know, one or two or three

tips for folks that are listening that say, you know what, I'm just sick and tired of being in the same place that I'm at and having the same thing year after year, nothing to show for in savings. I mean, credit cards. I'm just, I need a better system, you know, and I'm sure that you talk to a lot of those folks and those are a lot of people that you enjoy helping. So what would you say would be a few strategies that people could institute today or at least start to move in the right direction. One of the things I would tell you is set a goal for what it is that you want. I want to tell you a quick story. I had a doctor come in my office and his wife a couple years ago. And the problem they had was they said, Derek, we're making a good income, but we're not able to save anything.

Can you help us? Well, as we dug into their situation, he was making $1 million a year. But he was spending over a million dollars a year. And so I said, this is going to be easy. We'll just find some great ways to do this. So what I asked them was, hey, would you be open to selling the second home to free up some cash flow? And they said, no. Would you be open to selling the second Mercedes? And they said, no. Would you be open to canceling the country club membership?

They said, no. And I said, well, if you want my help, you're not willing to do any of these things. She said, Derek, you don't understand. If we sell these things and it looks to our clients that he is struggling as a doctor, then they won't come to work with him. And for whatever reason, I said, how many of your clients see your house or see what he drives. Well, if we just don't want to look like we're not doing well financially. And so they actually left the office taking no action at all. And the point of that was they were living their life

based on how people thought they were looking at them. And what I would tell people right now is screw them. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It doesn't matter what anybody else's goal plan is. All that you need to think about is what do you want for yourself and your family. What is the vision? And so I would encourage people to write down three personal and three financial goals and write those down with the passion of what it is that you truly want. It doesn't mean it's realistic at all. Just write that down. Then what I want you to then do is write down what is at stake if you don't achieve that goal. What terrible, no good, very bad thing could you miss out on? Will you not enjoy the feeling of the sand, the kernels of sand between your toes walking on the beach with your spouse.

Will you miss crawling on the floor chasing your grandkids because your kids live somewhere else in the country? Will you miss traveling and seeing the things you've always wanted to do and heard about? And is that pain so great that it will cause you to take action? And then what I encourage people to do even further is, this is going to sound even crazier, Jordan, but it's highly effective, is on a simple note card, write out your ideal year as though it's already happened in vivid detail. This was my best year ever financially and personally, and here's what happened. I got the raise I deserved and the promotion I fought so hard for. My kids love me.

My spouse and I talk about money on a regular basis. You just want to vividly write this out as though it's already happened. And the key there is now you're locking into what is your goal. path and your goal path alone. Everything else is push to the side. Okay. Then the second thing I would tell people is don't settle for your current income as the cap of what you're going to earn. You can bang on your boss's door and you can beg for the raise and well, my expenses have gone up. I need you to pay me more. All your boss cares about besides this great podcast is this one radio station. UI-I-I-FM, what's in it for me. And how you play to that.

station is answering three questions in your current job, how can you help the company make more money, how can you help the company save more money, and how can you help the company be more productive? When you answer those questions in your current role, now you can go back to your boss and say, look, I love working here, but I want to make more money. But let's be honest, if I help you make more money, then you'll feel better about paying me more money, right? And the boss is going to have a big grin on his or her face. Well, now they get the fact that you're an entrepreneur in a corporate setting. That's how you set the stage for getting the money that you deserve. Now, not everybody is in a job where you could get a pay raise. You might be the best teacher in

the world, but unless every other teacher in your district gets a raise, you're not getting paid more. And that's just the cold, hard truth. And keep in mind, by you agreeing to cash your paycheck every Friday, you are telling the company that you agree with the dollar amount on that paycheck, unless you decide to change it. So this is where you have to start the side hustle, the side gig, but set an income goal in 2025, I want to be at this level and then begin to craft a plan to help the company make more money. Do those two things and then simply drop that on a regular basis into an index fund, the S&P 500, something where your money is working as hard for you as you did for it. You'll be dramatically shocked by the progress you can make in one year.

Love it. Love there's a tangible number attached to it, right? You're setting a one your goal and you're writing it out as it already happened. I mean, such great tips and advice. And I know our listeners are going to be taking action and blazing trails. And I want them to be able to reach out to you for sure to give you their feedback, you know, for the ones that are willing to blaze a trail in 25 and you want to take on this challenge. Eric, where's a good place that they can reach out to you? Two places. Instagram, where we post daily content. And the goal is how do we educate people and help them make smarter financial moves at Derek T. Kenny. Also, you can go to our website, which is anyone can become a millionaire.com. Anyone can become a millionaire.com. There's also a

download I would make available too, which is get the raise you want.com. Get the raise you want.com. A free template to get the raise and start earning what you deserve. Love it. Love it. Well, folks, also, we're going to make sure in the show notes we put the link to the good money revolution. if you want to learn how to make more money to do more good, make sure you guys grab a copy. I was so appreciative, Derek, that you sent me a signed copy. And getting you on the show has been fantastic, learning about your story and journey. You are a true trailblazer, my friend. And I know you're going to continue to not only blaze your own trail, but you're helping other people blaze

trails that they never thought were possible in the financial realm. So thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule to come on the show. And I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you, Jordan. This was a real pleasure and an honor to be with you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure.