Millionaire Interview: Frank McKinney- Real Estate Opportunist and Serial Entrepreneur

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Frank McKinney – Real Estate Opportunist and Serial Entrepreneur

In this session I talk with Frank McKinney. He’s a daredevil real estate artist, bestselling author, and is wealthy in all areas of his life. He went from landing in Florida with $50 in his pocket to creating million dollar dream homes on the beach.

In this episode we talk about building your risk tolerance like a muscle, living with fear, and what separates a successful entrepreneur from the unsuccessful.

We also talk about the tangible things like planning your week. You can check out a new DVD that he just came out with about the Power of Plan.

He creates multimillion dollar homes in Florida, and also creates villages in Haiti with the Caring House Project. He’s more than just a wealthy businessman, he is an amazing person trying to impact and change the world.

Enjoy the interview!

Items mentioned in this podcast:

• The Tap By Frank McKinney
• Make It BIG!: 49 Secrets for Building a Life of Extreme Success by Frank McKinney
• Frank-McKinney.com – Find more information and learn about the Caring House Project

Transcript:

Jaime Tardy- Hi this is Jaime Tardy and welcome to The Eventual Millionaire Podcast, where we interview millionaires to learn their success tips, financial advice and get motivation for our million.

Today we have Frank McKinney. He?s a daredevil real estate opportunist and serial entrepreneur. He?s the ultimate rags-to-riches story. He had a 1.8 GPA in high school and moved to Florida with only fifty bucks in his pocket. Sixteen years later, he was showing Oprah Winfrey camera team the new 12 million dollar home he built on spec. (And spec just means he built it without having a buyer in mind.) He creates multi-million dollar homes that are pieces of art and he has a huge tolerance for risk. With numerous books including the ?Tap and Make It Big: 49 Success Secrets for Building a Life of Extreme Success?, he has a lot to teach. Welcome Frank, thanks for being here.

Frank McKinney - Oh Jaime, this is going to be exciting. Today I?m recording from my tree house office where I actually wrote all five of my books and where I designed these oceanfront homes that you just referenced for the last ten years. So it?s a beautiful South Florida day, looking out over the ocean, and this is my little escape and this is where we?re going to have some fun today.

Jaime Tardy- Excellent, excellent. That must be amazing and very different than the cold Maine morning that I?m in right now. I?m a bit jealous.

Frank McKinney - [Laughter] I think everybody, and maybe this is our first little lesson, is that you need to identify a place that draws out your creativity and your ingenuity, because after all in business today that is what is rewarded, regardless of the line of work that you?re in. It?s really funny, I had this childhood dream of having a tree house, and every little boy wants one. I never had one, so as a grownup boy, I built one and made it my office, and it?s amazing the fireworks that have taken place, the successes and the ideas and the vision that has come from a place that really does draw out my creativity and ingenuity happens to be a tree house for me, but I advocate that everybody listening identifies a place that will do just that.

Jaime Tardy- Wow, that?s amazing. That?s funny, because I actually talk about my blog, about how I was a little girl I had this sort of weird knowing that I would be a millionaire, which is funny because I?m not yet. I really want to ask you, when you were younger, when you landed in Florida with fifty bucks in your pocket, did you have a knowing that you would be that successful?

Frank McKinney - Not at all, and I think its important that when we?re striving for whatever our definition of success in life is, and mind you it will change and morph and really materialize in different ways as we get older, because I can see a picture of you on Skype. You?re much younger than I am.

When I first came to Florida, I simply wanted to start fresh. I was eighteen years old, I didn?t know what my highest calling was, either professional highest calling or spiritual highest calling, I just knew I needed to get out of Indiana, take out that imaginary eraser that we are given the opportunity to use no more than about six times in life and turn around to look at the life that was, which wasn?t very productive, and erase and start fresh.

So when I came to south Florida with that fifty-dollar bill, I just wanted a job, I wanted an opportunity to pursue free enterprise and capitalism. I don?t believe in the welfare mentality. I don?t believe in the entitlement mentality. I was very proud to have that first job digging sand traps on a golf course earning $180 a week, but I always knew, subliminally, subconsciously, that I there was a higher professional calling for Frank McKinney then digging ditches on a golf course. But it wasn?t motivated by attaining a million dollars. Perhaps at a young age it tends to be motivated by, and I think I can speak for both young men and young women, lets say between the ages of 18 and maybe their mid-twenties to later twenties, materialistic things tend to motivate.

When I saw people living the lifestyles of the rich and famous down in south Florida, being a corn-fed country boy from a small town in Indiana, I think I was highly influenced by that lifestyle I saw other people living, and I guess I wanted a part of it, and I knew that because I didn?t have the benefit of pursuing a formal education, I didn?t have the benefit of going to college that I certainly wasn?t going to be getting a job, so I had to make my own job. That?s what being an entrepreneur is all about.

Jaime Tardy- So how did you go from sand traps to your own business?

Frank McKinney - I was fortunate enough to be around affluence, Jaime, and I watched people play golf all day. It fascinated me that these people never seemed to go to work as I maintained the golf course they?re playing on. They?re just enjoying their four hours out of the day playing golf. Then I was moved over to the tennis courts to maintain those, and mind you I was a very good tennis player as a young boy. I was ranked in the Midwest, and therefore I started to play tennis again. I got to the point where I was good to be a teaching professional, and here I was teaching the affluent how to hit a better forehand or backhand, which was a great living.

It was a six figure a year living by the time I was twenty years old. I started my own little business called The Professional Tennis Service that went into country club communities, oceanfront condominium projects, oceanfront housing projects that were just being built, and I went in there simply to provide a service, which was to be their resident tennis instructor. So that was a great job, but the most important thing that was taking place was being surrounded by, again, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. When I would teach somebody how to play a little bit better tennis, I was always fascinated by their story. ?How did you get to live in this million dollar house?? ?How did you get to drive the fancy car, have the beautiful wife or handsome husband and the two perfect little kids and the yacht out back of your house, perfect tennis clothes and the most expensive tennis racket?? They had everything, and being very impressionable, I literally learned my PhD in Entrepreneurship, my Masters in Real Estate if you will, fifteen minutes at a time after I would instruct these people in tennis.

We?d sit down and talk, and what I heard over and over again was most of us are born 9 to 5er?s. We have a cubicle mentality, its how we were brought up. Most of our parents worked at a job, so we almost hardwired into our DNA to have a cubicle and a 9 to 5 mentality, but the people who were living that lifestyle, while they may have started in a 9 to 5 job, as a lawyer or some other 9 to 5 profession, they chose to deviate and take their discretionary income and invest, in my case what I heard more often than not, was that they invested in real estate. So they took themselves from a 9 to 5 mentality, had a little bit of money left over after putting food on the table and paying taxes from their job and said ?Okay, let me buy a duplex?, or ?Let me buy a single family home?, or ?Let me invest in some commercial real estate?. It was really that pursuit through their own destiny via real estate that they made their fortune. It wasn?t from being the doctor and the lawyer. It was from their being an entrepreneur, a real estate entrepreneur and pursuing that professional highest calling. I was hooked. I decided at that point, and I had a great job as I said, earning good money teaching tennis and I had three or four clubs underneath me, and other tennis pros that were working for me, that I decided to get into the real estate business when I was 22.

Jaime Tardy- Wow, 22. That?s amazing. Did you have a hard time building that tennis practice that you had? Did you run into any obstacles, or was it pretty easy for you to get from 0 to 100,000 by the age of 20, 22?

Frank McKinney - No, here?s what you have to do. In the tennis business just like in the real estate business, just like an author now, you have to be confident in the ability to sell yourself, and I had to convince tennis students back then that I could teach how to hit a better forehand or a backhand or a serve. I was a certified tennis instructor, I didn?t make myself one. I went away to get a certification and I came back with a license to teach. So I believed at that time that I could make you a better tennis player. And I would convince you that you needed to take a lesson from me in order to be a better tennis player. For a lot of these people this is just a pastime, just a leisure time activity, its nothing serious, so they?re enjoying their million dollar house and they take a tennis lesson but they saw me out on that tennis court ten hours a day, six days a week. I swore off all unhealthy vices and temptations as a very young man. I didn?t drink or smoke or do drugs or stay up late or womanize or gamble or overeat. All these things that drain the extraordinary from one?s life and turns it into the ordinary. I stopped doing all of that, and I was very disciplined. I was organized and I sacrificed a tremendous amount of social activity to build that little business. There was a limit to how much I could make on that tennis court, and when I hit that limit and I felt confident in my ability to buy a distressed asset, a foreclosed home, lets say, and add value to distressed commodity like no one else, market it like no one else, sell it for a price that very few were able to obtain, then I transitioned off the tennis court into the real estate business in 1986.

Jaime Tardy- So how many properties of foreclosures and distressed real estate did you buy before you went to these multi million dollar beach homes?

Frank McKinney - Critical question. I want everybody to listen very carefully. Forget the fact I?m going to give you a real estate answer and I want you to apply it to your life. There is a great author out there by the name of Malcolm Gladwell. You may have heard of him. He wrote ?The Tipping Point?, he wrote ?Blink?, and he wrote a book called ?Outliers.? Last summer, ?Outliers? I was reading that to become an expert at anything in life, you need to put in 10,000 hours. So if you want to be an expert blogger, you want to be an expert real estate person, you want to be an expert author, it takes, I did the math, 10,000 years equals five years full time forty hours a week. Well, this is the securest way to answer your question, but I put five years in, and I was so astonished when I looked back and read that 10,000 hour reference last summer, applied back to the late 80?s, early 90?s.

It took me five years, Jaime, to gain the courage to put hundreds of smaller deals under my belt, to learn the business, to learn the craft of acquisition and improvement and marketing and sales to be able to have the confidence to step up to the million dollar home. It was hundreds of smaller transactions, hundreds of smaller profits, and five years of applying my nose to the grindstone before I became an expert. Then I simply added another zero to my deals. It was the same approach. It really was. There?s no deviation. The projects are a little bit bigger and a little more complicated, but I?m still in the real estate business. I?m still in the housing business. So that 10,000-hour reference, that five year reference, I want your listeners to focus in on that. There is no get rich quick scheme out there. There are those who get lucky with Facebook applications and Google and some of the technology that?s out there that do well in a short period of time, but most overnight successes take years to materialize.

Jaime Tardy- So what I heard from you in there was confidence. It really takes confidence to make that leap. When I was reading about you, I was really interested in hearing how you made that decision, so after those five years you made that decision to buy a beachfront home. How did that decision work for you? How did you know there was a market? How did it work?

Frank McKinney - Getting back to your reference on confidence, I?m inherently not a confident person. I have to build my confidence and therefore by saying yes more than no to opportunity, one of my favorite sayings that?s been in almost all of my books in one way, shape or form, is ?Exercise your risk threshold like a muscle.? Exercise your risk threshold like a muscle. Eventually it becomes stronger and is able to withstand greater pressure. One more time. Exercise your risk threshold like a muscle. Eventually it becomes stronger and is able to withstand greater pressure. So for me, after five years of doing that, and understanding the craft that is the real estate investment business, I had built enough confidence to go out there and to take the risk to buy or sell everything that we had personally and professionally to put it all into this one oceanfront property we had decided to do back in 1991. But believed it was simply no different at what I was very good at doing at $100,000 and below. This was a two million house, but to me it just represented another zero at a different location.

Jaime Tardy- Did you have a backup plan?

Frank McKinney - No, I didn?t. I know you?re supposed to have exit strategies in business and all that. Maybe it was beneficial I didn?t go to business school because I didn?t?failure wasn?t going to be an option. There was such a belief in the fact that there was, and this is a true fact that has been since the Roman era, that there is always an ultra-wealthy class of real estate buyer. Been around for thousands and thousands of years. I believe with a limited supply of this commodity called oceanfront real estate and the belief that there?s going the ultra wealthy will have a desire to live in Palm Beach County, that that was a niche that I knew I could fill, and it was a very under served niche. All these references you will hear in terms of successful entrepeneuers: an under served niche, a limited supply of a commodity, the track record to believe you can add value to that commodity like nobody else, and just going for it.

We didn?t do all that great on the first deal. We made some money, but it enabled me to get some more financing from the bank because I did what I said I was going to do, and we went from a $2 million house to a 4.5, then to a 6, 8 and we went all the way up to 50 was our most expensive home, a fifty million dollar home a few years ago and then just finished and sold the most expensive certified green home, triple certified green home, in the world at $23 million.

Jaime Tardy- What type of support did you have? I know you have a wife. What was she thinking along that entire path?

Frank McKinney - If you have a significant other involved in your entrepreneurial pursuits, one of the things you must sit down with him or her is to make sure they?re onboard with you. While I don?t profess to be Dr. Phil here, I can tell you that an unsupportive spouse or partner or what have you will ruin a great entrepreneurial career. From the very beginning she was on board. She had her own business; she was an interior designer, which worked out perfectly. We?ve been working together professionally as long as we?ve been together personally, so we sat down and we said to ourselves, and this is another great chapter in the ?Tap? book, ?sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.? Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Now I?ve never left that mantra. I?ve never said, ?Well, today is here, so I don?t have to sacrifice anymore. No, I live a very simple life. I live a simple lifestyle. I don?t need to go fill my garage with a bunch of cars or my closet with a bunch of clothes. That has never changed, and it?s served me extremely well, sacrificing today for a better tomorrow, because I?ve been in the business for twenty-five years. It?s amazing how the calendar turned 2011. You can assume we went through some tough times, especially in these last couple of years in the real estate marketplace. If I hadn?t sacrificed today and a lot of todays for a better tomorrow there would?ve been no tomorrow for me, so that was something that she bought into, she supported, we worked together, we still work together, and it?s a great partnership.

Jaime Tardy- Do you have any other support structure besides your wife, or is your wife your rock?

Frank McKinney - No, I?m not a real good partner person, Jaime. It?s me, the bank and the IRS. Those are my partners. I think I?ve had one or two partners in all the twenty-five years, and that was years and years ago. I?m just not a good partner person. I identified that very early on. Why risk ruining something that works well which is me executing my own vision? But when it comes to support, you have two kinds of support. You have professional support and emotional support. Professional support?Listen, I don?t even like reading a set of plans. I see things in three dimensions versus two dimensions so I?m challenged when it comes to structural engineering and mechanical engineering, civil engineering, coastal engineering, general contracting, all those kind of aspects that are part of my life now. I have a huge support group that is far more professionally qualified and adequate than I?ll ever be.

For an entrepreneur, it?s up to you to identify the vision. The vision for lets say, the house that was known as Aqualiana, the world?s most expensive certified green home at $23 million, that was my vision. Its design, its orientation toward the oceanfront, the number of bedrooms, those were all my vision. Now I can?t execute on that vision alone. That?s where that professional support group, being, lets say, my consultants and engineers and architects and contractors, all of them come execute the vision. But it?s very clear; it needs to be very clear to the entrepreneur that it is your vision. Its not to be focus grouped. You?re not to be talked out of it because, one of the things I reference in my new real estate book is?No, I think this is in the ?Tap? book, that with the abundance of information that?s available to us as entrepreneurs today, lets use Google as an example, when we go to research a new endeavor, a new entrepreneurial endeavor, what happens is we want to do our homework. We should do our homework, but subconsciously if we take too long in our research process, Jaime, what we?re looking for is a reason to say no. Because there is so much information out there, we?re going to?Ah ha! I just found it. I just clicked on it, and its says ?No, I shouldn?t be doing this project because the real estate market is crashing? and then you?re going to feel good because you?re going to have your fear validated by someone else?s?No. That?s one thing I want to warn people about because in the early days, as you referenced, there was no research. I just went out and did. I still research but I return back to that intuition that says ?Frank, you should likely pursue this entrepreneurial endeavor.?

Jaime Tardy- That?s huge. That?s extremely huge what you?re saying right now. Like you said, I?ve grown up in an era of the Internet where I can find anything I want online, and I want to look for reasons to stop, I can totally find it. I think that?s a really huge point for everyone to hear.

FM - If we could just expand that a little bit, one thing that you need to know that happens psychologically when you?re doing research. Like you said, you?ve grown up in that era?When you?re thinking about undertaking a big change or challenge in your life, the first reaction you?re going to have to deal with is the risk associated with that change or challenge. Lets say it?s a new entrepreneurial undertaking, so big change or challenge means I must risk. The first emotional reaction to the thought of undertaking a risk, Jaime, is fear. So we?re afraid. That?s normal. That?s natural. Then we go and do our homework. With that fear firmly embedded in the back of our minds, as we?re researching, you are subconsciously, we are subconsciously looking for a way to say no. Realize that. Don?t let it happen. Get the legal size paper. Put the pros and cons. I?m not saying don?t do that, but realize there is a force at work subconsciously in your mind that is tempting to cause for you to say no. That?s the primary difference between my career and most others especially in real estate, is that I don?t let the fear that is there? I?m afraid everyday of my life, I admit it, I?m like an alcoholic that admits he?s an alcoholic. I admit I have fear everyday, but I don?t let it stop me. I do not let it stop me. That is the primary difference.

Jaime Tardy- That?s one of my questions. What do you think separates you, a successful entrepreneur from the ones that don?t succeed?

Frank McKinney - That?s it. That?s it in a nutshell. Listen, like you said, I?ve written five books, I travel around the country and the world talking about the content of those books and the real estate market, and when I look out over an audience or even on a one to one, I can look in somebody?s eyes or a sea of eyes and I see there?s a lot more competency out there than me. There?s a lot more educated individuals than me. There might be a more well funded individual than I, but where it tends to fall short is in the execution beyond the fear. If we can recognize in a simple little graph, a pictorial graph, big change or challenge in our life equals risk. No change or challenge in your life will ever be accomplished without you taking a risk. I don?t care what it is. I don?t care if its professional, I don?t care if it?s being the President of your Tupperware club in your neighborhood. Whatever it is, it?s going to involve some form of risk, and when we think about that risk we get afraid. That?s natural, but this is where so many entrepreneurial dreams and ambitions break down and fall by the wayside is that fear overcomes the desire, it disintegrates and we sit in that 9 to 5 mentality and we turn around we?re 50 years old one day and we haven?t done a darn thing with our lives. All because we succumb to fear.

Jaime Tardy- That?s extremely important. That?s funny because you would think as you?ve gotten to be a multi-millionaire that the fear would dissipate. Like you said, it dissipates for the smaller things but you still have it every single day. I think that?s extremely important to know.

Frank McKinney - I think its important to realize that if you didn?t have it, then you?re becoming complacent. You?re thinking you can walk on water. You forget what got you to where you are, so that fear is wholly a natural thing, and mind you, Jaime, there?s undertakings I would consider I?ve chosen not to pursue. Sometimes the best deals in real estate are the ones you walk away from. Its not that I do everything I set my mind to do. Sometimes I?m afraid to go further because the evidence says I shouldn?t be doing this. Those occurrences are in the minority, but for the most part its when I can look fear in the face, or an entrepreneur can look fear in the face, and say ?Look, I am not going to make any significant breakthrough in my professional, spiritual, my relational life until I can stare fear down and pass through it. That?s the most important thing in an entrepreneur?s life.

Jaime Tardy- I?m hoping you?ll tell us it gets easier as you do it more.

Frank McKinney - The things that you would micro manage over, because all successful entrepreneurs begin as micro managers, those things begin to get a lot easier, your ability to remain extremely focused. I wrote three different books in three different genres and released them all on the same day, and if wasn?t for my ability to be very focused spending a couple hours writing business real estate and then a couple hours writing spiritual self-help and then I wrote a young reader fantasy novel that?s competing with the Narnia?s and the Potters and the Twilights out there, that?s a skill that over the years of dealing with the smaller fears allowed me to be myopically focused in my tree house where I don?t have the negative distractions that do usurp our entrepreneurial energy, don?t they? All the negativity that permeates the airwaves. Be careful of what that does to us. Create the environment that draws in that creativity and abate some of that fear.

Jaime Tardy- I love how you said you wrote three books all at the same time. I was reading about how you plan your week and I thought that was extremely interesting. Can you sort of tell us how each week goes and how you plan?

Frank McKinney - Well it depends on what we?re working on, but at that time, I have a priority sheet that?s a very simple, crude, caveman-like document that I?ve used for fifteen years that identifies the important initiatives in my life and they are typically, on the top of the list is my charity involvement and what we do with the Caring House Project Foundation, so there?s the philanthropic, philanthro-capitalist involvement I like to say, then we have our author, our books and things, and we have my professional real estate involvements, and so I break them up into different parts. I prioritize them on this priority sheet and then I execute from that priority sheet. Before I do that, though, this is important since I don?t know when this is going to air, but here we are at the beginning of a new year, for the last decade my brother and I together identify an annual objective plan for a given year. In 2011 I have a theme, I encourage people to identify a theme for the year, ?What?s your theme for 2011??, and underneath that theme I identify no more than ten big picture objectives that you want to accomplish in 2011. And that I print out, I tape it to where my palms rest on my laptop, so I see all of this year for me at six objectives. It went from thirty-some back ten years ago, and I realized ?No, let?s work on the biggest things possible?. There?s plenty of little things that are going to have to take place for the big things to execute. I put it right on my laptop and I execute from that. That planning process starts at the beginning of the year. Every week I organize my involvement so I can be multi-dimensional and I do my best to execute.

Jaime Tardy- You said ten. I?ve heard some people say you should do one or two or three, but I?ve never actually heard ten big visionary things. Why did you decide to go with ten?

Frank McKinney - I?d say no more than ten. Never more than ten, because I was as I said when I first started this process I would have twenty-five or thirty objectives. Were they big picture in nature? No, they weren?t. Therefore they were taking away my energy from, if I were to look at some of those early objective plans ten years ago, I could?ve now, being a little more educated, I could?ve pinpointed maybe five or six of them I should?ve focused on. But I didn?t. I focused on all twenty-five of them, and when I didn?t accomplish them I was too hard on myself. No I think, depending on your involvement I?Listen, you have more than professional involvements. Don?t be so focused on the professional side. We each one of us listening today has a spiritual highest calling as well as a professional highest calling. The true joy in life, Jaime, is when you can ducktail your professional highest calling with your spiritual highest calling.

Jaime Tardy- I want to stop you and come back to the ?Tap?. I?d love to talk about that, but I also heard you say that you fail sometimes and that sometimes you have a goal for the year and you don?t achieve it. What does that mean to you? Sometimes you don?t achieve the things that you want to achieve?

Frank McKinney - When I was younger, I was extremely disappointed in myself, I held myself very accountable and became very close to saying failure in not accomplishing this objective means ?Frank, you?re a failure.? That?s something I had to grow out of and realize that all of the objectives that I identify, be them annual or weekly, big picture or otherwise small picture, they?re not?Listen, somebody else higher above has a greater plan for you and he is the one in charge of all your grand plans. Sometimes they don?t come to fruition and it isn?t because you didn?t try. Its because the good Lord said its not in my plan for you right now, Frank. Sorry it?s not going to happen the way you want it to. I?ve become a lot more pliable when it comes to those things not falling into place.

Jaime Tardy- I did recently read the ?Tap?, and I loved how you talked about its necessarily about any different religion or anything like that, but it really is a spiritual side. Can you talk a little more about what the Tap is and how its affected your life?

Frank McKinney - We could?ve spent the whole half hour talking about that because I?ve gotten a little bit older and I?ve had a little more experience. I do realize that there?s a great Biblical reference, a wonderful life mantra. Its from the Gospel of Luke 12:48, paraphrasing it says ?To whom much is entrusted much will be expected.? I was very curious in going about writing The Tap. Why did some people succeed and why were some people?s prayers for more answered while my mine were unanswered? Lets face it, if you pray, and I?m not going to pound a pulpit here and do a bunch of Biblical references, but I?m going to tell you that if you do say a prayer at night or anytime during the day or week, even if its once on Sunday, your prayer contains some form of more. Some form of more: wealth, health, love, peace, happiness, relationships, understanding for you or those you love. Next time you pray, people, inventory your prayer. I guarantee it contains some form of more.

So why is that some people?s more that they pray for tends to be answered? I have a few mentors that have a tremendous amount of the more in life while mine go unanswered. I learned as I was succeeding that passage ?To whom much is entrusted, much is expected?, God rewards responsible stewards. If you want more, or more than what you have, don?t you think that you ought to be responsible for the more that you already have? I think that?s how he thinks. If you are a responsible steward and you are sharing your blessings with those less fortunate?for us it?s the Caring House Project and the thousands of people we house over in Haiti. We were over in Haiti seven years before the earthquake. We built fifteen self-sufficient villages over there for charity. There?s no profit motive. There?s human capital as a profit motive, not financial capital. We?re there to save lives. That understanding, that God rewards responsible stewards, and the whole concept of The Tap is that you look at the cover of the book its really the image of God from?as painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel coming down and instead of tapping the finger of Adam, which he really does in the painting, we got permission from the Sistine Chapel to remove Adam from the picture and put you, the reader, there. And God coming down, tapping you on the shoulder, how to recognize life?s great Tap moments, Jaime, once you recognize what they are, how do you act on them? In turn, how do you turn that into the more that you?re praying for? It?s a really?if you read The Tap, regardless of your religious preference, it is a business book. It truly is a business book, but it?s how to succeed in the business of life instead of the business of business.

Jaime Tardy- I highly recommend the book, it?s an excellent, excellent book. I actually have a mastermind group that I?ve been recommending all your books to. Tell us a little bit more about how certain instances of how The Tap has really affected you.

Frank McKinney - I can refer to my epiphanous Tap moment that took place in the mid 90s where I was very full of myself, very full of my own success and meteoric rise and all the attention it was garnering in the media and stuff, and there was a house that we sold?It was the most expensive spec home sold at the time in Palm Beach County. It was $12 Million or $13 million, and an article came out in the local Miami Herald or some big newspaper. You know how it is. Everybody listening, you?ve been in the paper before, the night before the article comes out, you?re so excited, you can?t sleep. At the crack of dawn you go to the news stand, put a quarter in the newspaper machine, you pull out ten papers, you don?t pay for all ten, you pull out all?put a quarter in, you pull out ten, you shouldn?t, you rush home and you open up the newspaper, you start to read about yourself to see if your picture looks good and they quoted you right and what have you. That was happening and I did that, just that, raced home to see if they got a great picture of me and I have longer hair, wanted to make sure my hair looked good, suit looked good and all. Well, on the opposite page, as you read an old-fashioned news paper, on the opposite side of the page was a picture of a homeless man that if I don?t put a blow dryer to my hair and I don?t wear nice clothes and shave, it looked exactly like me. There but for the grace of God go I. I was very curious to find out why, and this homeless man was being fed out from underneath the overpass where he was living by a soup kitchen.

Why?listen, I spent some time in juvenile detention halls when I was younger, I had a very troubled youth. Why did I end up on the right side of the page and this man, who looked identical to me and was about my same age at the time, ended up on the left side of the page? And I had to find out. That was an epiphanous Tap moment. I couldn?t even finish reading the article about me. I simply said ?You know what? That soup kitchen that?s serving that man that hot meal, that means everything to him. Who am I to think that this article means anything to anyone other than me? That man is surviving based on the kindness and generosity of the volunteers at this soup kitchen. Jaime, I simply went and started volunteering. Here?s a great?now that I can look back on my crystal ball ten years back or so, fifteen years since I read that article, if I hadn?t said yes to that Tap moment, which basically said ?Frank quit paying attention to yourself, quit thinking so much about the I and the Me. Start thinking more about the You and the We. Why don?t you go volunteer at that soup kitchen to see what life?s really about? One hour a week, I started doing that, Jaime.

Now what? Fifteen years later, after serving hot meals out of the back of a beat up old van, fifteen years later, we have a huge charity that?s over doing some great work primarily in Haiti and Indonesia and Nicaragua and Honduras and Africa and here in the United States. We?ve built fifteen self-sufficient villages; have provided 7000 people-plus with shelter who were homeless before over in Haiti. That is a Tap moment that had I not answered it, who knows what I might?ve been doing? That?s what the book does. It teaches you how to recognize, because when we talk about the concept of having a Tap moment, everyone is ?Oh, Frank, ah! Now I know what you?re talking about.? I?ve had that. Here?s what I did or didn?t do. Usually when we follow through with life?s great Tap moments, the explosion in our life, both professionally and spiritually, is something that is really a joy to live with.

Jaime Tardy- That?s a huge story. I was reading it just recently a couple of weeks ago, and its really, really important to know how your path could have been so different. Just that one moment can change your life and I think its funny to imagine that. It?s so much easier to look back and see that, but to really be in the present moment and realize you are tapped, that?s why I like the book so much. It really helps you recognize it within the moment.

Frank McKinney - Thank you. That?s the whole idea of the book because we have these Tap moments that lay themselves on our heart. If we are present for them, just as you just said, Jaime, the power in us acting on them, small or large?Listen, it was tiny. Probably ?it was big to the guy we were serving meals to or the homeless we were serving meals to, it was big. But to me it was tiny. One hour a week? It was nothing, but look what it grew into. The earthquake relief we?ve given over there, we?re over there now fighting cholera in Haiti with these water filters we?re providing. None of that would?ve happened had I not really grown to understand and then live by that 12:48 ?To whom much is entrusted, much is expected.? Don?t you want, everybody listening to this call or this podcast, don?t you want things entrusted to you? You do. To whom much is entrusted, well you want much entrusted to you. I know you do. But once, if you want that, ?Much is entrusted to you? part, much will be expected of, it will follow. And if you?re not prepared to give and to share your blessings in the form of time, talent or treasure, then the more you pray will likely never materialize, and if it does it will be the flash in the pan variety.
Jaime Tardy- And you never know whether yours was the flash in the pan, based on that one moment that you had. That?s really important. And we?re wrapping up time, and I just want to ask one more question for you. I really appreciate you being here. It?s been an excellent half an hour. How has wealth, you?ve had wealth in every aspect of your life. Physically, we didn?t talk about the ultra marathons you do also, but physically, financially, everything, emotionally. How has that changed you from being 20 years old in Florida to where you are now?

Frank McKinney - How has wealth, how forms of wealth or just financially wealth?

Jaime Tardy- Yeah.

Frank McKinney - Well, we should do a Part Two to this, where we can explore kind of the physical side because we didn?t do that, but first of all, as human beings, we are not conditioned very well to handle excess. You can define wealth as an excess of some something. Could the way I, most of us understand it, that its an excess of money that exceeds our need to live daily. When we?re not conditioned, if we?re, again present is a great word, present in the moment to that fact that we?re not conditioned, look at all the crash and burn stories of people who had tremendous wealth. I don?t think you can have a tremendous amount of physical wealth and have it hurt you, you know if you?re in great shape, you take god care of your body, and you don?t put poison in it, and you exercise regularly, that?s a true gift, to have health. That?s an abundance you want to maintain and not be afraid to pursue, but when it comes to the financial wealth, once you realize you can use that and?Listen, I have mastermind groups myself, and I network and I have mentors who understand the power inherent to using that wealth responsibly for, for your family. Certainly taking care of your family. I have a twelve year old little girl who I want to make sure she wants to go to college, that there?s money there for her to use to go to college, but more importantly what good that wealth can do for others?

Oh, can you hear that? There goes a siren.

?That, I will tell you Jaime, that is a struggle. They success and its lonely at the top, and that?s all true. You have to be very comfortable in your own skin and you have to realize that the blessing you?ve been given in the form of the wealth that you just referenced to be used for others, for the benefit of others, that?s when it seems like the wealth just continues to pour in all forms.

Jaime Tardy- I do have to do one follow up question. What do you suggest that we do now? People that aren?t as successful as they want to be. What do they do now to try and embody that?

Frank McKinney - Well, if we could just stay on the Tap for a second, the first thing I would do?we get so focused on the ?woe is me?. First of all, if you think ?That?s easy for Frank to say, he has all the more he?d ever want. I have no more. I have nothing that represents what he?s talking about.? Come to Haiti with me. You?ll realize when you come back you are the richest person in the world. You have more than you?ll ever imagined when compared to the rest of the developed world. What I suggest that you do, if you don?t have the treasure to share that you do share a little bit of your time or talent. Take the focus off of you for a little bit and use my example. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen or go visit a shut-in at a hospital or at a home and go visit a children?s hospital. Its amazing what that will do to your psyche, what it?ll do to your ability to realize ?I can refocus, I can get back out there, I?m going to do what Frank says, I?m going to start small.?

In my very first book ?Make It Big? it talks, there?s 49 little short chapters on how to pursue making it big, whatever that definition is for you. I know this is kind of counter-intuitive, but I would spend some time focusing again a little bit more on the You and the We instead of the I and the Me. That will then cause for these other desires of you to be put in perspective, and be focused, get out there, work hard professionally but don?t lose sight of that spiritual highest calling while you?re doing it.

Jaime Tardy- Thank you so much, Frank. I really appreciate you being here and I hope everybody really takes that to heart at the beginning of this year when you?re setting your goals to really include more than just you. Its really important, so again thanks, thanks so much for being here. I enjoyed it so much.

Frank McKinney - Great, and make sure everybody on the podcast goes to my website. Can I mention that?

Jaime Tardy- Oh please.

Frank McKinney - There?s such a tremendous amount of information on the Caring House and what we?re doing in Haiti. There?s some great video and stills of some of the mega mansions that we?ve built. There are also some sample chapters of all the books that I?ve written that you can read to see if you like them before you buy them. Take it out for a test drive. It?s a great, a very comprehensive website. It?s just my name Frank, then a hyphen, McKinney, M-C-K-I-N-N-E-Y dot com. Frank-McKinney.com. If you send me an email I?ll likely answer it myself.

Jaime Tardy- And highly recommended following you on Twitter and picking up your books as well. So again, thank you so much for your time, Frank. Have a wonderful day.

Frank McKinney - Thank you, Jaime.

Tags: Business Growth, business risks, Fear, Frank McKinney, millionaire interview, Planning, Power of Plan, real estate business

Categories: Action Plans, All, Business, Business Model, Environment, Fear, Giving, Goals, Millionaire Interviews, Visioning

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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