#67 - Going Through a Major Career Change with Derrick Kinney

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Derrick Kinney about his morning routine, the greatest fear of change, happiness, creating a stop doing list and more. 

Transcript

Ryan  

Hey guys, it's Ryan real quick. So my mission with the Morning Upgrade blog and podcast is to raise the awareness of morning routines and personal development. And I now have two products that are also helped me with this mission. The first product helps you start a 20 minute morning routine. And the second product is a book that outlines how to use personal development, upgrade your life and business. You can get full details on both products over at morningupgrade.com. Thanks for letting me share. And now on to the show.

Announcer 

Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan  

Hey, Derrick, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you doing?

Derrick 

Great, Ryan. Great to be with you today.

Ryan  

Yeah, I'm excited to spend these next 15 minutes with you. Let's kick this off by you telling everyone who you are, what you do for a living, and then maybe one or two of your hobbies.

Derrick 

Yeah, so Derrick Kenny, I'm the CEO of Good Money Framework. And actually, I'm a new CEO. As of just about a year and a half ago, I sold my longtime financial planning practice after 25 years, I reached a point where I enjoyed what I was doing. But I recognized there was something more that I wanted to do with this sort of the second chapter of my life if you will, and sold that business and began to launch this to really help dispel the myth that many people feel like that money is bad, or that they're not making enough money. And I wanted to be a voice of reason to help them accomplish both of those, but really be able to do more good in the world. So that's what I'm all about, have a podcast have a book coming out, but just excited to be with you today. And then let's see where this goes.

Ryan

What was the like to sell the business? A, was it harder than you expected? Or easier? And then B, did you go through a period of being depressed or off because of the change?

Derrick  

Yes. So to go back, this was July of 2019, that every July I go on on a sabbatical, where I take about a week away by myself. And I asked myself three questions. First of all, how do I be a better husband? How do I be a better father? And how can I be a better business owner? Those three questions Ryan shaped that week by myself. And it's a time to think and pray and journal and really just be one with my thoughts. And this particular time I went into this, thinking about some other more national things I wanted to do. And I began to make a list of all the things that I enjoyed doing. And surprisingly, this was actually a shock to me. But being a financial adviser wasn't on that list. It wasn't like I didn't really love it. It just wasn't what I was enjoying to my fullest ability right now. So I called my wife and I said, Honey, I think it's time to sell the practice. And I thought, Let's build this up for the next two years, really increase the value and make sure that it's ready to sell. She said, Derek, you've done this before you bet on yourself. If you think it's time go ahead and do it. So I then began to engage a company that I had used to buy other financial planning practices, I then used them to sell mine. So fast forward, on January 15, 2020, I officially sold the practice. So I was at perfect peace with it. But I will tell you this in working with clients when they would retire, I would send them some sort of loss of identity. For example, if people didn't like their jobs, they easily retired and left what they had because they didn't like it. But for somebody who really liked the job and like the relationships and love the the the process of really giving back and creating some things. That part has been hard. And so client names still pop in my head every day. But what I find myself doing is how can I work and live each day to honor what I did for them because I helped a lot of them retire and move on to the next. I want to make sure that I'm moving on to the next in a way that would honor what I taught them to do as well.

Ryan  

The loss of identity that was a better way of phrasing it seemed to go away for a full month Are you be at home and just not working necessarily?

Derrick 

Well, it's actually that I go away for a week. But I typically don't see clients at all through the month of July because it's travel time. There are a lot of trips that we do as a family and individually. But I then carve out a week just for myself. And the purpose of that is really to get honed in very, very tightly, really tuned in to what is it that I want to do for the next six months? But really for the next couple of years? Am I putting my energy in the direction that's going to get me to where I want to go and I had built a really good practice Ryan it was nationally recognized by Forbes and other great organizations? But I realized I could continue to maintain the practice that could have been fine. But to really do the things I want to do nationally and really take some risk to do those things, I would have to sell to really put my back against the wall to make sure that I had to push myself to create this new business I just couldn't settle for, let's keep both feet on either side of this fence.

Ryan 

Good for you for taking action, recognizing you need to make a change, and actually doing it.

Derrick  

Well, I appreciate that. As I said, it wasn't, it wasn't an easy thing to do. It's funny because people will question you. You know, one of the hardest things I did when I sold the practice was I was committed to calling each of my clients individually and letting them know of my decision. And many of them were excited. They were thrilled for me. On the other side, people cried some people said, Derrick, how could you do this to us? You've been with us all this time, and you're going to let us down and not help us retire. One lady. jokingly said, Derrick, if you're going to have a midlife crisis, just buy a Corvette, it's a whole lot cheaper. So it was a range of emotions. But what it taught me was sometimes the people who care about you the most, that you think will be there to say go do this, you ought to do this. They'll be the ones to question you at a deep level, some because they want what's best for you, but also in their lives, they may have never taken the risk to do something themselves. And they can't imagine someone else doing that as well. And they want to keep you from the harm that they think you're going to find because they thought they would have found that and that's what held them back in the past.

Ryan  

Yeah, I think you nailed it there. I think you're absolutely right. Right with that. Let's talk about your morning routine. Derek, what does that look like?

Derrick  

Yeah, so my morning routine, I get up about six o'clock in the morning and there's sort of a selfish interest there because I have to make sure my son is up because often has alarm doesn't go off. So I'm sort of the stopgap to make sure that he's awake. For example, today. This is, you know, on Monday, when I got up, I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Just to be candid. There are days like that where I'm like I really just want to keep sleeping but I was able to go upstairs where I have kind of a makeshift gym. Press my peloton app I did a 20 minute way to work out and so my routine starts off with either a 30-minute Peloton bike ride or a 20-30 minute peloton, wait for routine. Ideally, I do both of those showers go up to my office. And this is kind of the funny part. But I will typically have about five bottles of water on my desk that I sit there the night before. And what that does is that removes me having to think about Go get water to drink, I simply have my bottles of water right there. I also try to write two to three note cards before I can actually press my keyboard. And so what that forces me to do then is to be grateful to be thankful to send note cards to people who I appreciate admire. They've impacted my life. And so now I'm beginning to win the day. So if I've gotten up, I've done a weight workout. I'm drinking my water writing my notes. Now I'm in a rhythm of getting positive things going. And what I try to do, I try to do I like to call it required first optional. Second is what is my hardest task of the day, what's going to burn the most brain cells or require really the most pain I've got to walk through, I've got to do that first. Because if I can make progress in that area, or get all the way through it, I literally have one the day the rest of the day is very, very easy and as amazingly even more productive. Because I've really faced head-on some of those the hardest tasks first.

Ryan 

I love the five bottles of water idea because they're looking at using you're gonna want to drink it and then keeps track of where you're at with your water consumption for the day. Very smart.

Derrick 

Well, I tend to be very habitual. And, you know, I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast, I've got my bowl of oatmeal, my cup of coffee. I eat the same thing for lunch. I'm a very routine kind of guy and I get teased about it a lot. But what I find is, and I know you've talked about this before the subconscious mind likes predictability, and consistency and routine and listen, I don't want to burn my brain that I want to use for highly dollar productive activities on having to make decisions that could change every day like my breakfast or my lunch. I can just make those decisions and not even let my brain worry about that. Let my brain work on the bigger things that are really going to move my business forward.

Ryan  

Have you always been into personal growth and habits, routines, rituals going back to when you were in high school or college?

Derrick  

Yeah, it's interesting because I've always been a very regimented person, a little personal note, dye, I was teased a lot as a kid about my nose, we moved a lot around as a kid didn't have a lot of friendships until about the sixth grade, I moved here to Arlington, Texas, that's my home from that point until now. And so childhood wise was a little bit troubled, just because there wasn't a whole lot of stability there. But what I realized was once I could begin to get into a routine, and again to establish relationships, one of the things that I found that really helped me a lot, was the way that I got out of getting teased a lot as I ran for the class office of all things in high school. So I began to run for class president. And what I realized was, it wasn't about me, I was so focused on Derek, you're the victim here, and all these things are happening to you. When I began to help be a voice for other people and focus attention on others, they began to want me to be in these offices, because I was representing them. And it just taught me a very, very valuable business principle that if you can make people feel heard, and you can help heal their pain points and help them get what they want, you can get almost anything you want because you've helped add value to other people's lives. And so that value-added mentality has really guided me as I built this business and sold my last business. And so that's what I would encourage your listeners as well as to think about how can you add value? Because that then adds meaning to really what you're doing every single day gives you some purpose?

Ryan

Yeah, absolutely. I 100% agree with that. I want to add something with the habits. And you mentioned the exercise, too, just a personal story. My family and I just got back from a short road trip, that 10 days, I think it was, I came back in the first thing. A couple of days, I found myself kind of in a rut, kind of down a little bit, which didn't make sense, because I like my work and like my life, you know, everything's good. And then I realized, because during the road trip, I was kind of out of my habits and routines, I wasn't exercising as much as I would my diet was not as predictable with the salads and all of that. And so, you know, for those listening to that, you know, maybe you think the habits and the sounds too regimented, but it actually does. I don't know, it creates, I think, like you said, predictability, it makes everything easier, you don't have to think about what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear all of that. And so I found like, for me, personally, that helps a lot.

Derrick 

And to your point, I think that's such a great story. If I don't exercise for a couple of days, my body tends to ache a little bit more. And if you've not been exercising, you might think well, I probably need to rest because my body's aching. But it's actually the opposite of that I need to go exercise to then make my body feel better. So it's an interesting paradigm shift.

Ryan  

What makes you happy? How do you? How do you make sure that you're fulfilling your happiness every day?

Derrick  

Well, my kids are a big source of happiness. For me. Now that may sound like a trite answer. But how I tested myself on that was if something really exciting happens to me, like if I if something goes great, or I crush a project or this interview goes well, or something I'm working on just goes really, really well. How I like to celebrate it with my kids or with my family. And so that that really taught me that that's a core value for me. So, you know, I always like to work every day that, hey, if my kids are watching me, or if I'm telling them something, my actions are going to speak far louder than if I'm just telling them something. But one thing that I've learned recently has really been helpful. So much of my life has been about setting goals and starting new things and trying new things. But there was a book that I read by Marshall Goldsmith called Mojo. And in the book, he talked about a stop doing list. He said, so many people start doing new things. But oftentimes successful people need to stop doing the worst things in their life. For example, I'll give you an example. For a personal one, about nine o'clock at night, I tend to get tired, 10 o'clock at night, we go to bed about 11. So typically around that time, it brings out the worst version of Derek, if my kids are doing something or I tend to just have a shorter fuse, I get more upset later at night. And so my wife and I've kind of made a deal. We're basically at 10 o'clock after actually it's actually nine o'clock and after I try to say as little as possible because it gets me in trouble even less. And so that's on my stop doing listen. So by stopping doing that, I'm seeing better relationships with my kids, because there's less of the worst version of dad coming out if that makes sense.

Ryan 

It does. I mean, I love that. I love that. Yeah, everyone keeps it To-Do lists, but having a stop doing list, that's a great takeaway there.

Derrick  

Well, it's helped me a lot. And it's just a way I mean, oftentimes when you achieve a certain level of success, you think, Oh, I've got to do more and more, but sometimes looking at the opposite of that has been really, really helpful. You know, one of the other things I'll share, and this is when the kids were a bit younger, you know, I would come home from the office and want to know everything that was going on and tell me this tells me that my wife and I said, Derrick, you're overwhelming everybody. We were actually doing fine before you got home. And so I had to take a little humble pill, and just realize they're just kind of ease into this. And just hear the tone of the conversation, ask a couple of questions, but don't come across like the interrogator. Because then your intentionality of you wanting to know more about your family and, and really develop those relationships, or having the opposite effect. And so all of those things I'm learning, so I just call myself a continual work in progress.

Ryan 

These 15 minutes have flown by I told you they would. But I do have one last question for you. And then we can wrap up with you tell everyone how they can learn more about you. Number one habit that you have, or your number one personal development tip.

Derrick  

Yeah, I would say one of the personal development tips that helps me a lot is what I learned many years ago, you know that there are three buckets, there's the bucket of things I can control. There's the bucket of things I can influence. And there's the bucket of things I can neither influence nor control. And what I've come to realize is that most of my life is in the bucket of what I can neither influence nor control, nor what I can influence, but there are rarely things I can control except about myself. I can choose when to get up, I can choose how to use my time I can choose how to choose what words come out of my mouth, those are all things I can control. But how do people respond to all those things? I really can't even barely influence and so recognition of that, for me has helped be me dramatically. Just be more patient with how I choose to interact with people in our relationships.

Ryan 

That's great advice. Derrick, thanks for sharing. Thanks for everything you shared today. All the takeaways I'm going to once we wrap this up, I'm going to go grab my five bottles of water. So thank you for that. What's the best way that people can reach out to you if they want to learn more?

Derrick 

A great way to keep up with us is on Instagram at Derek T Kinney and I would love to have you join us. Ryan, you've got a fantastic podcast. If you're looking for another podcast, go to the Good Money Podcast. It’s a great way to keep up with us as well.

Ryan  

Great, thanks, Derrick. We'll link those up on the show notes page. Thanks again.

Derrick

My pleasure. Thank you, Ryan.

Ryan 

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