The Origin of Financial State of Minds: A Conversation with Darrin Harvey

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our podcast. We have a very special guest here for you today. Some call him the space cowboy, some call him the gangster of love, some call him the sexiest man alive. Let's get a round of applause for Darren Harvey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate you inviting me. Really appreciate you inviting me. Alright, so uh tell us a little about yourself and about your show that you have.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, so uh my name is Darren Harvey. I am the host of Financial State of Minds, a show where I help people get to that bag, manage that bag, and grow that bag as best as possible. My little tagline through uh financial literacy, personal finance, and business literacy. So I've been doing it for a little bit, and it's there for people to basically learn more about personal finances, money management. I really target it for everyday folk, but also really the people who are interested in getting their money right and potentially even starting a business.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

What made you go down this road?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

How did you enter this field of like knowledge? It really starts way back, I would say 2014, but I have to even talk about it a little bit before. So after we graduated in Mount Eaton, I went straight to Cal State East Bay and I got my degree in sociology. I wanted to be a social services, I wanted to do the social service thing, the therapy thing, and I did that in Oakland. And I did that for about, I think like 16, 18 months around there. Loved it, super rewarding working with the teenagers and their situations. Pay me 1320, worked 50 hours in four days a week, and no overtime because that particular space, you don't have to be paid overtime. That's not against the law. At the same time, so now we're in this was like 2013, 2014. I graduate 2012. So 2014, it's I'm working a lot of hours, not getting paid a lot. And my boy, who graduated from UC Davis, he got a job at this company called Legal Match, and he has a psych degree. And Legal Match is a marketing company that markets towards attorneys and law firms. And I'm over here busting my behind to get this job done. And he's literally talking about how he's literally working for a couple hours and walking, like just working for a couple of hours. I just leave it there. But he's on the shift for eight hours. Yeah. So transition to legal match. And basically, I was an account manager. And what I did was I made sure that the customers who were buying these marketing packages, these league gen packages, were happy. And once I got good at it, it truly was like you work two hours, mess around for six, go home. And during 2014, 2015. So I'm watching a lot of YouTube, but I'll never forget. I don't, I wish I could remember his name, but I give him all the credit. It was this crazy older white gentleman. And this was 2016. I believe that's when uh Donald Trump and uh what's his name was running for president. And he was just talking about in the world stuff. He was just in the world, God is coming to cleanse it, this inner world stuff. He was just like, it's cool. I'm just here to make sure my family and I is covered, protected, and I got all the money I need just in case something happens and crazy talk stuff. But then basically, I started asking him questions like, okay, at this point in my life, I don't really have access to successful, and I mean successful, financially successful businessmen, business women, uh women. So I just asked questions because I didn't know. And he was really the first one to give me game about running a business. And because my job as an account manager was to make sure that everybody in my book of business was successful and happy, I turned around and used that game and gave it to the younger ones, the ones who didn't know better, the more amateur early in the game. And it worked. Like the knowledge was true. So I basically transitioned to a competing company called Martindale Nolo, and I was there for five years. It was the same exact job, but I had a much bigger book. So I was just doing the exact same thing. And I basically learned business from an attorney and law firm standpoint. And 2016, I kind of feel like is the year that the world or YouTube, social media started getting into business, entrepreneurship, investment, investment, stuff like that. It was kind of becoming starting to become trendy. So I started reading books, started watching YouTube videos, primarily honestly, at work. This podcasting one year. I'm doing my work, making my calls, and stuff like that, and I'm just soaking up game, soaking up game, and I'm just on top of now talking to these hundreds and hundreds of attorneys at this point. So that all happens, pandemic hits at this time, and my pops get sick with Alzheimer's. So I'm taking care of him, and I'll never forget this moment where I've always been very good about money management. I come from a family that was good with that. So I've always had things on a spreadsheet, and I'm like, how is it me and Pops combined bringing in like $11,000, $12,000 a month, but we're still broke because we're spending out $16,000, $17 because of his care was so expensive. I'm a big person about getting this money just for a rainy day because my dad's care was nine to ten grand a month. And he was in care for a full year, about 16-18 months. So that season ends around 2020, he passes away, and then I get let go from my job not too long after. So I'm like, I got all this knowledge, I basically got a clientele that's rooting for me. Some of them I can, they're like, hey Darren, we'll pay you for this thing called consultations. And I'm like, all right, bet, let me try it. So 2020, 2021, 2022, Clubhouse gets popping. So I'm jumping in and I meet all these, I meet all these people. Some of them to this day I still talk to, they're like my mentors. And one of them's name is shout out to uh Troy Shandish. That's literally like my brother. And I'll never forget, he said, Darren, you need to charge at least $150, $200 for an hour for a consultation. And I'm like, you out of your mind.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Like, shout out to Troy, he's right.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, like you out of your mind. Like, what are you talking about? No one's gonna pay for that. Long story short, I get an opportunity to do a consultation for a research firm, and I said, $300. They said, okay. And that was the first time, and I just talked. That's all I did is talked for an hour, and they paid me $300. And I'm like, I've never made $300 in one hour in my life before. Even if you do the taxes, that's more money than I've ever made. So I'm like, this is what I want to do. Like, this is what I want to do. So to answer your question directly now, where did the podcast come from? At first, I was really advertising myself as a marketing consultant because that's what my experience was and still is. It's not my passion. My passion was trying to help people manage that bag, get that bag, grow that bag. Like that's really where my passion was. And that's what I found myself Googling and YouTubing during the pandemic because I was still obless. I was just doing my self-employment thing, collecting these unemployment checks, then $3,000 checks, and then I man, those things came right on time.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I know they did.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Well, Valstoffage, and then at this time too, I'm renting out my house. I've been renting out my house for almost 10 years now. So I'm still renting out my house. So literally, I was experiencing in 2021, pretty much all of 2021, I experienced true financial independence. I was able to pay all my bills and save some money on the side from renting my house out and the unemployment checks. And I was like, Oh, I want to live like this, like forever. I knew it wasn't gonna be forever, but we got a taste of it. And a lot of us did, right? A lot of us had a taste of it, but I want to do this forever. And then so I'm learning about really financial techniques, personal finances, stuff like that, because a lot of people were coming to me at this point about starting a business, but no one had the money, and no one typically had the money because their finances weren't straight. Usually their credit wasn't straight. So I started Financial State of Minds as an Instagram channel at first, because I just liked the name, I just thought it was cool. Uh did the content for a couple of months, and then uh shout out to my boy Jordan Kirkland, or Jordan Saunders, excuse me, and uh he had a podcast at the Oakland radio station I was telling you about, and he put me on, he made an introduction to Felicia, Dr. Bridges, and I was on as a guest, just got an interview, kind of like what we're doing now after the recording was done. She's like, I want you to have a show here about finances.

unknown 9:50

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

That was around August, September-ish of 2022, and I've been doing it ever since.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

That's good to hear, man. This the way everything kind of came together for you, like through ups and downs. But you talked about how YouTube kind of entered that self-help era and you were receiving all this game that you were just soaking up, and then to go forth and try to put it towards like the next generation or even our generation, just people that don't know that philosophy of just each one, teach one, and we'll all elevate and lift each other up. You know, I I appreciate that for real. Yeah just to see it from another grown man because I feel like we don't see it enough. You know, we're not talking about enough positive things and enough things that can actually factually help us out.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I knew this is what I wanted to do because I was legitimately doing the stuff for free. Like straight up, I was doing financial plans, building business plans for people. I was doing it for free. I could tell the story on my own show. I only started charging money because people weren't taking my advice that I knew was true. The moment I started charging, they wanted to do my advice. Yeah. Yeah, literally, that's it. That's the reason why I have a business or this business is because of that. But what you said earlier, like I'm soaking up these videos, and I still do, like, I watch this stuff, listen to the stuff on a daily basis. And it's more so like I didn't know this. And I grew up, I would say middle class, teetering upper middle class, and I didn't know about how businesses leverage credit to start their businesses. I didn't know what makes up a FICO score, I didn't know certain things, so I just found it real interesting. And I'm like, if I don't know, I know everybody around me for the most part don't know. So I was just talking about it. I just wanted to get the information out. And I'm still to this day like that, honestly. I just want to get the information out because, like you said, people don't know. They hear a lot of, you know, myths, rumors. Ironically, my last episode was on that, like myths and rumors and busting them. And it's a little different now, it's a little bit more open. People are more talking about it, people are concerned about it, mainly because it's so difficult to buy a house here. So the conversation's opening up more. But why I feel it's powerful for someone like me to talk about it, it's really blatantly two reasons. One, I'm a young black male, and I'm a young, visually impaired male. So I'm like double jeopardy, like when it comes to the minority stuff. And really, I hope to show people that literally anybody can take this knowledge and do whatever they want with it. It could be buying a house, which is I feel everybody's dream and goal, or start a business. We all can do it. It is not about who's the smartest, it is not about who is the richest, the most intelligent, has the most connections. It is straight up all about how you think and how you move. That is it. In my time, I have talked to hundreds of millionaires, I've had lunches with them, conversations. I met somebody who showed me that they made $800,000 in two weeks. And he said, Yeah, that's my income. $800,000 in two weeks. And I'm like, What? But we're talking. And he straight up told me, he's like, I'm telling you straight up, Darren, you can do this too. And I was just like, dang, that's crazy. But I always get excited just sharing this stuff. And really, what I specialize in doing is I specialize in teaching people about business credit because that is what the upper class knows, and we don't.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

So can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Sure, it's $200 for an hour, y'all. That's where you guys exclusive. I'll give you guys the general info for free on the podcast. So there is personal credit, which we all know, and there is business credit. They're separate, it's literally its own number. And business credit is what it sounds like. It is business or it's credit for businesses. For those who don't know, when you open up a business, typically, in this case, an LLC or a C Corp, an S Corp corporation, basically, it is its own entity, meaning it literally has a life on its own to the point where it has its own social security number called an EIN or employer identification number. That's essentially social security. You can open up a bank account, you can open up a Gmail, you can do almost everything you can with a social security number with an EIN, and it's separated. So the power of business credit is this you want to start a clothing line or something like that. You ain't got no money, but you got decent credit. Let's just say your credit's like 730. You can go to Bank of America, make sure your business is formed, make sure everything's straight, the paperwork straight, apply, and off the strength of your personal credit, they'll trust you with your first business credit card. And the first one from Bank of America is gonna have what is called a personal guaranteer, meaning that yes, this business credit is under all error clothing. But if all error clothing defaults on the payment, Darren Harvey is responsible for paying that back. But none of that debt is on Darren Harvey's name. Okay. I know this because that's exactly what I did. Really? So I have uh my old company when I was doing marketing. I went to Bank of America, they gave me a five-figure line of credit, and I have no problem saying this, guys. I'm not perfect. I got debt right now on that credit card. None of that debt shows up when you look at credit karma. None of that debt shows up when a credit card company wants to pull my credit, or a real estate company, or a bank wants to pull my credit for a loan. Because it's not Darren Harvey's debt, it is financial state of mind's debt.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Right. So that's the power of business credit. You're protecting yourself so you can still do things with your own credit score and not be limited by a failed business or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Exactly, exactly. So all that stuff you hear on Instagram, that is true. They don't tell you about the personal guarantee or part sometimes. There are some ways around it, and that's where I say, people, sorry, you gotta pay me, you gotta pick me up for a consultation for those. There's ways, there's ways around it, not shortcuts, there's ways around it. So I do tell people that's my service. I don't care what your credit score is, I can come up with a plan to where you can get a business credit card, any credit card, really. However, that is all true. And where I want to finish, and this is where you hear the complete part on Instagram or TikTok. Say you do good on that first credit card. You do good for six months a year. You go to Bank of America, you say, Hey, I want a second credit card from you guys under financial state of minds. They're gonna be like, oh, well, you have business credit now, like a business credit score now, because you developed it with that first credit card. You're in good standing, we trust you, we don't need a personal guarantee no more. That second business credit card is purely under financial state of minds, it's not attached to Darren Harvey. So that second line, literally, if you were to default on it, Darren Harvey's not responsible at all.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

In any way, shape, or form, no way. Wow. So, what's the advantage of having a line of credit that you're not responsible for in case things don't work out?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

That's what you just said. Darren Harvey is not responsible for financial state of mind's debt. So if financial state of mind goes bankrupt, dissolves, whatever, they can only go after financial state of mind's assets. So if my house that I just told you, I rent out is under Darren Harvey, they can't go over to my house and seize it, put a lien on it, anything. If Darren Harvey has a nine to five W-2 job, they can't garnish the wages.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Because it's all tied to financial state of minds and that LLC that I have. So basically, of course, pay it back. You're not personally liable if for whatever reason you can't. The other advantage of having business credit is the lines build much faster because it's business credit. A lot of personal credit cards, I gotta most of them 90-ish percent. You're only gonna get lines up to about 30k, 40k, 50k, stuff like that. You can literally open a business credit card starting at 50k, starting at 100k. Really? Absolutely. Because it's business. You just inherently need more money in business. So and that's what I help people do. And I've helped people, hey Darren, I want to start a business, but I don't got no money. Okay, cool. Let's get you a business credit. Okay, great. Like, what do you need? Like, all right, well, you know, I'll take whatever. Usually it's like, they don't even know about this, right? So I'll be like, will a few thousand dollars work? Yeah, cool. All right, figure out their financial profile, their credit profile. Okay, cool. I think you might be able to get like seven, eight grand immediately. They're like, what? I can start a whole online clothing store with eight grand immediately, like just off-rep between the website, clothing, the material, the logos, everything. I can start it with cream pin, eight, ten grand. I can get a lot done with that. And it's not my own money. All right, cool. Bet they go to Bank of America, Case, any of them, Wells Fargo banks, and especially if they got a good credit card, it's usually approved immediately. And they're like, okay, right there in the mail, just like a personal credit card, you know, a week or two later. Here's your 10 grand. Go start your business.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

So, what are the key steps someone should take to create a basic financial plan?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

What I advise everybody to do if they haven't done it already, is they create what I call an income and expense sheet. What is that? That's what it sounds like. You write down or you put it on a spreadsheet or whatever, how much money you make and how much money that you spend, and you list all of that. You list it item by item. What do I mean item by item? I want to know how much money you're spending in a month on gas, groceries, Netflix, Disney Plus, your Nintendo Online or PlayStation subscription, candy bars, taxes, credit card payments, your car payment, health insurance, car insurance, if you're a renter, renter insurance, if you're a homeowner, mortgage insurance. Everything you spend needs to be listed. I guarantee this is what I actually advertise. If you write that down and I cannot find something to cut or find something that is cheaper, my session's free. Because I've never never. It's never. Because we all do it, including me. But you need to know. That's what I find fascinating. Most people don't know or they can't point to where this is all written down. It's the first thing you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I don't know. I was maybe in like my mid-20s. I like just started working like more hours, and like I felt like I didn't have as much as I should have had, but I didn't really see the value of like five dollars here and there. You know what I'm saying? And that's where it was just trickling out. And I finally added it up, and it was like two or three hundred dollars a month.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Exactly. You're technically right. Five dollars is not gonna make a difference. I hear all these people on the TikToks and stuff, you need to stop getting your Starbucks and save that five, seven, nine dollar drinks as I came here and had Starbucks before it showed because it's not gonna make that big of a difference. It's the habit. Those people who do it, right? First off, if you um let me actually answer the question, then I can sidetrack. So you make that expense and income, sorry, income and expense cheat. Now you know exactly how much money you're making and how much money you're spending. So you're gonna fall into two categories. Three technically. Scenario A, you're making more money than you spend. We call that the surplus. You're neutral, you're making exactly the same amount of money as you're spending. And I would also give that a range. So if it's like $100 plus, $100 minus, you're basically neutral. Yeah, give or take. Give or take. And then what I find most of us are in is C. You're spending more money than you're incoming. The reason I always and I make people go into their bank statements, if they don't know, I make them take the last 90 days, go in your bank statements, figure this out. The reason I do that first is that your goals change dramatically or your strategy change dramatically based off of that. Right? It makes sense. If somebody is saving $1,000 a month, their financial strategy is significantly different than somebody who's overspending $1,000 a month. Yeah, of course. So when you ask how to create a financial plan, you do the income and expense sheet, and then you create the strategy. Okay, if you're saving for this example, you're saving a thousand. We can talk about investing. We can talk about if you have an emergency fund, what is an emergency fund? People, emergency fund is a savings, some type of savings account where you have at least six months of expenses. Meaning, if your expenses for the month is $5,000, that means you have $30K in that account in liquid. So you're building that expense fund, and then if that fund is filled, then you're investing. And then we go down that rabbit hole. Right. If you're neutral, you need to be making more money. Because Darren, I have a savings account and I'm neutral. I have 30k. Okay, cool. COVID happens. Your loved one gets sick, child breaks her arm, whatever. Now that emergency fund's gone. Yeah. Quick. Quick. Go make more money. We talk about what that looks like. If you're negative, then we go into the conversation I just had earlier about what we can do to reduce your expenses. Because reducing expenses is always easier than making more money. So that's what I was talking about earlier. Cut out Netflix. If you have four streaming services, keep one. If you're going to Starbucks, go buy the Starbucks beans, make it at home with your curriculum. Stuff like that. We know this stuff. We know. But we talk about it. And then let's just say at $1,000, I say you got to go get a second job or find another source of income. If it's something like three, $400, $200 at neutral area, then typically reducing expenses will bring you to neutral or positive. So it's one of those two. And then now you know how much money you make, how much money you're spending relative, and the strategy to get you to have an emergency fund, start investing, and or saving up to buy a house. So that's how you build a financial plan.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah. First step is getting that understanding of what you're actually working with.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Absolutely. So I want to thank you again, you and the team for inviting me in. I always appreciate it. You can call me back in, whatever. My name is Darren Harvey. I have a podcast and a brand called Financial State of Minds. I help people get to that bag, manage that bag, and grow that bag as best as possible by coaching and teaching financial literacy. I help business owners find the funding they need to start up or scale up their businesses to take it to the next level. And I'm just some guy who happens to not have the best vision and who happens to be a little have a little melon in his skin. But I love helping people make money because I'm passionate about them creating their own security and their own safety net. That's what I'm truly passionate about. You can find me on Instagram primarily. That's my hub social media spot, Financial State of Minds. You can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio. You can find it there all consume my content, get up on game. It's all there for you guys to listen to. You can DM me if you're interested in a consultation. But yeah, if you guys are interested, if you're thinking about, if you have an idea or you're just trying to get your finances right on the personal side, on the business side, if you're trying to think about creating a business, launching a business, you have some questions or whatever, you can reach out to me through DMs. Feel free to hit me up at financialstate of minds.com, but you can find me on there with all my content. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Again, I appreciate you having me, Joseph. I really do.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah, really happy to have you, man. You really shared a lot of game, a lot of knowledge, and I appreciate you for volunteering your time. We're happy to have you here. Yeah, anytime, anytime. Financial state of mind.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Uh yeah, secure that bag, right? Absolutely. Manage that bag. I even get it confused sometimes. It's technically get to that bag, manage that bag, and grow that bag as best as possible through financial literacy and business literacy. With your boy Darren Harvey, I'm very proud to be an example for people as an African American, as a disabled community as well. Uh because we're out here. Like we're quiet for the most part, but we're out here. And if I can do this stuff, guys, any of you guys can do it. And it doesn't take a lot of money, it just takes effort, patience, mindset, and delayed gratification. And you can get whatever you want. I truly believe that, no matter who you are and your situation. One of my uh colleagues is um she's a single mom, a heck of a backstory, and she's 40 something. She's I think she's 44 right now. She's done. She's retired, done since her kid got off to college. I have people who have multiple kids. That's the number one excuse I hear. I have kids. This is so hard. Nope. I know people who are doing it. I know people who have been through way worse than I have, and they're doing it. So if you guys are interested, hit me up, consume my content. I appreciate it. But if not, you just was trying to buy in my house, still hit me up, learn how to manage that money better, and just go for that American dream we all know by that house. So thank you again for having me.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

All right, thank you. That's great.