In this podcast, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner is joined by George Khalaf, executive director of the Fool Community Foundation, for a special Weekend Extra featuring Gooding -- musician, storyteller, and founder of Funding the Future.
Together they explore Gooding's mission to reach young people across America with dynamic, music-driven performances that make financial literacy not just understandable, but unforgettable. From inspiring students to pursue their dreams to equipping them with practical tools for money and investing, this conversation highlights the power of creativity, purpose, and education to change lives.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.
A full transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on Nov.19, 2025.
David Gardner: Happy Saturday, Foolish friends. Welcome to a Weekend Extra here on Rule Breaker Investing. Every so often, when something aligns beautifully with the mission of The Motley Fool, in this case, of the Fool Community Foundation, especially our growing focus on helping young people start smart, start early, and start investing. I like to drop a bonus conversation into your feet, and this week is one of those times. Now, if you caught Wednesday's podcast, you already heard me mention this. One of the best gifts we can give the next generation is confidence with money, understanding. Managing it and eventually putting it to work as investors. That's exactly where today's guest star shines. Now, Gooding is a musician with a mission. Through his organization, Funding the Future, he's been taking financial literacy straight to young people in the most surprising way through live concerts, stories, and practical lessons that stick. He's reaching students where they are, speaking their language, giving them a head start many of us probably wish we'd had. For this weekend Extra, I'm delighted to hand things over to my friend and co-host, George Khalaf, who is the executive director of the Fool Community Foundation, who will really actually be leading this weekend's conversation as we welcome Gooding and dive deeper into this inspiring work. George, take it away.
George Khalaf: Gooding, we're so glad to have you here with us, and I want to just extend you a F, Foolish welcome to this group.
Steven Gooding: Thrilled to be here.
George Khalaf: For listeners who might not be that familiar with your work, how do you describe what you do at the intersection of music and financial literacy? Because it's not an obvious intersection, and I will say last night I was having dinner with my son, Gavin, who's 13 years old, and I told him about this podcast. He said, Baba, did you say rock and financial literacy? I said, that's what I said. I want to hear from you, Gooding.
Steven Gooding: Thank you, and thank you for such a lovely intro. I think the thing that allows it to work is probably also what makes it a little bit difficult to explain. I say, music makes the medicine go down. We are using the power of live music to find a teachable moment to talk about something that, frankly, probably, until you hear the speech after the big concert, doesn't sound very rock and roll. Anytime I talk to the press folks, we were on all things considered and played on CNBC, they usually asked me some form of a question you guys are in a rock band. You're supposed to be throwing televisions out the motel room windows or doing drugs or something. I told them and said, look to me, that's all garbage. I tell the students, if you don't want to work, I can't help you. But most people are good, most people are trying. Most people are working really hard. To me, the most rock and roll thing in the world, and I can tell you a little bit about my background. I learned all this stuff the hard way. I don't tell them anything I haven't gone through or haven't talked to somebody at 3:00 in the morning after bar, bowling alley, army base, something playing on the way up. But to me, the most rock and roll thing is if you're working hard, you should have some fair shot at having some consistency in your future, some belief in the future you, and without some of these basic principles, which sadly, we just don't teach in schools, I definitely didn't have it. My family didn't have it. That's something that everybody gets a chance to know. I think it's going to be rough on all of us. Anyway, as crazy as it is, and there's other genres, other bands doing this. But for us, and the first few years that I did it by myself after I founded the 501 C3. It is a rock and roll band going around the country trying to move the compass just this much and get them to learn some things that because, as you know better than anybody and David, you spoke to this beautifully over the years, time is your greatest asset, and if they can understand some of these basic principles, I think that not just money will change in their lives. I think everything can change.
George Khalaf: Gooding, if I can take you back to some of the early years in your life, what role did music play in your life growing up? Then, if you could also share a little bit about the connection to personal finance and how that came about.
Steven Gooding: The joke is you don't pick this, it picks you. If you're crazy enough to cook Rama and the coffee pots, I have to Motel 6 as an American live out of a van to play every one horse town, something is wrong with you. There's a screw loose. We joke. If you want to keep doing that, to your own detriment financially, it's probably because there's something burning inside. For me, that little hole in my heart, I think, was just that well, first of all, I was a latchkey kid. Those of us of a certain age remember this. I go back enough that it was just the end of VHS tapes. My mother worked two, three jobs. She taught piano lessons after school. As latchkey kids, the idea was you get home from school, you've got to figure out how to take care of yourself a little bit. I watch the same little VHS tapes on a loop, and I don't know if we'll get into social media and these things today, because they absolutely apply to where these students are at financially. But I will say not having a phone as a little kid was the best thing ever, because the movies I watched Thelma & Louise, Rain Man, Crossroads, Ralph Macchio. These were all films that had incredible scores, and they all shared this thing of somebody that wanted to get out on the road. They were the underdog. I was about three feet tall till I was 14 years old. I was getting my butt kicked after school. I wanted to win my high school talent show. I was just like, it's OK. I'm just going to get a record deal like every kid in the Midwest thinks. I'm going to buy my mom and my sister a house. My mama was never going to struggle again. It's just that easy. I even tell the kids I say, shake your heads, no, 20 years to be an overnight success. Like most young people, I went through some things. My dad was dealing with some stuff. He split when I was about 12 and moved from Detroit to Kansas. Just my mom and my sister, and I. The thing that really turned it around for me is I'm really lucky. I like a lot of different music. My dad listened to Motown. My mom was a classical piano. I saw Kiss Concert when I was four, you watch Gene Simmons Blow Fire and Paul Stanley shoot something out at the start in his eye, you're like, superheroes, I've got to be in a rock band. I think that the thing that really fixed it for me was, as I was learning and recording all this other music, Latin and movie soundtracks, etc, I realized what publishing was. Of course, as I took this message to students, I realized what that is from a banking perspective is being diversified. I started getting what we call out here in Nashville, slipper checks. It's a royalty.
As you don't have to be in the music business or an actor or an athlete or anybody, I show on the screen and try to bring the hype down to size. You just have to invest in yourself, and you have to do it young enough that your money's making some money while you sleep. But those checks, over time, I've written a couple thousand songs. I've got music in about 2000 film, TV shows, and video games now. That stabilized me to be able to say, look, I'm a songwriter, I Wish Love Paid the Rent, but we all know that's not the way the world works, whether we want it that way or not. If there's more month than there is money, we're going to be in trouble. At some point, just having going, look at me, that's not quite enough. The people I know who are the only joy is them feeling good about themselves they get in a lot of trouble once success comes. I think I was in some ways fortunate that they said the sand and the shell makes the pearl. I went through some things young that now I realized for me enough that by wanting to connect with other people and wanting to feel like at the end of the show, it's not just what have I done, but, wow, am I talking to you about something that might change your life? I'm talking to a younger version of me, things I wish I would have known. But being able to make the money and publishing helped, and we can get into this down the road, since I've spent an hour answering this question. Surrounding myself with people smarter than me, surrounding myself with kind people. George, you know as much about empathy as anybody in this world. Surrounding myself with people that had skill sets that I don't have, which is about every list except that guitar. That's really what made this whole thing go. Just because I lived on the road, I was yelling about this issue even before I knew it was financial literacy. One of my mentors, a guy named John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope he talked about this. I met him in LA. Also, just talking to financial advisors that were like, you know what you're saying is actually called financial, just naturally happened in a way that I was able to find some people willing to stay up all night and write up that government paperwork and find some other bands. It's been very organic across about a decade.
David Gardner: That's fantastic. Gooding, one of our former employees at the Motley Fool, great guy named Mark Reagan, told a story when he first came to our company. He said his mother said to him at an early age, when he was a kid, his mother said Mark, there are three ways to make money in this world. The first is with your brains. The second is with your brawn. The third way is with your money. He said, wait, mom, tell me about that third way again, making money with your money. You just told a story about doing that and starting to figure out the music world that you could just record something or create something, and then it would get played and then played again, and all of a sudden, money would start coming to you. Gooding, most people could only dream of that. Did you have a breakthrough moment?
Steven Gooding: I had a few of them, and I remember Stephen King saying once about writing. It's like, the bad books I read taught me probably more than the good books I read. It gave me a little confidence I could do it, but it also said, wow, don't do that. I turned down a couple of things early because I was so fixated on this is what I like and what I want to do. I was actually asked to go out with the band Hansen when they were breaking, when they were very little. I was only a little bit older than them, but the music I was doing was darker and I had and I was like, well, I can't do that. I've got to do my thing. I would have been on a 10 spot back in the day, David Letterman. [laughs] I would have been making a couple grand a week, which was about 1990, $9 more than I was making back then. But I was like, I'm only going to do my thing. I like to say to people, we hear this in music, visit some 100% of zero, is zero. Having some parameters and being on somebody else's timeline is a great way to get some discipline. It's a great way to learn from somebody else. Some of those breakthrough things and some of those bright flashing lights that said, this is possible. Some were learning from some of those hard mistakes, but I was just really lucky that I did run into a couple of things came into my life at exact time I needed them because, again, I was dealing with some stuff at home, and I didn't have a lot of confidence. You wouldn't know that me running around yelling at 300,000 high school students. But I had some people that stepped in, and they showed me that it's not about that fame. Drugs and alcohol aren't going to fix it. I had some people that kept me in the lanes when I needed it the most. But some things, as far as specifically to the charity side of it in the schools, they ended up being loosely called The Women Who Rock. It was a group of financial advisors from Raymond James who took a shine to this. Sasha Millstone, Colleen Shoe, Daniel Page go down the list. They were just in pretty good-sized cities around the country. While I was going around borrowing, begging, and stealing and going, can I get $1,000 for this charity? Can I get 2,000? We're going to go to my old high school, my drummers. They had stepped in and said I see something bigger for this, let's give it a shot. It's funny when you talk about you can make the money with brains, bronze, or money.
Confidence is a lot of it, but momentum is a lot of it, too. The same momentum with money, if you can wait long enough to see the power of compound interest, you start feeling that he be, wow, this thing is going up. When you get a few breaks or you get some people like the women who rock who believe in you and show you, wow, I get what you're doing. I'm a founder. I'm crazy. I'm like, I know where this is over corner to corner. If you're not going to be optimistic, forget it. But it's hard. Anybody that's an entrepreneur, you've got to get up a little early, you've got to go to bed a little later, and you've got to make sure that you're constantly keeping that energy. When you get those little things that tell you, there is momentum here. It allows you really to do a lot more. Of course, the money helps. Having some stability to some band with some runway helps. We're always fundraising. But I'll finally put a pin in this. That momentum works the other way. When you say that beautiful thing about brains, brawn, and money, I would also say that money component has to exist for that brains and brawn, too, these days. I don't want to say it doesn't matter how hard you work, but you can work very hard if you don't understand that once you are behind, once you are paying interest only instead of making some interest, it can get to be a point relatively quickly, as everyone on this podcast knows, where the brains and brawns can't save you. As much as I think that quote is brilliant, do I wish I wouldn't have been just brains and brawns. I'm going to play every show. I'm going to play all night. That wasn't solving my problem at all. I wasn't saving anything. I was blowing it all. But I hope someday when people think money, they understand that that really means knowledge. That means helping other people have that chance, and etc.
George Khalaf: Gooding, I'd like to actually build off of David's question. He talked about breakthrough moments, but I'm hearing you talk about what might be more of a breakdown moment. What are those moments when you had the fortitude despite all the hardship? What was it that got you through, and the perseverance that you have? You have such clear energy and enthusiasm toward this.
Steven Gooding: Well, I will tell you, a band is I probably stole this from Bon Jovi. He said, it's a closed fist. You could be not getting along at all in a band. You could have everything going wrong. But if somebody else is against the band, all of a sudden you're a family. You get very tribal because you've been through all the same [laughs] ups and downs. You've been through the same trials and tribulations. One thing that helped me, I'm a solo artist now. It just so happened that the guys that I grew up with they had some things they were dealing with were still all best friends. They are still incredible musicians. But I was in a band, truly a team for a long time. I won my seventh-grade talent show. That was with the same drummer that I played with forever. It's the same situation with the family, or if you have friends, you have some support system. Even when we didn't have two sticks to rub together, we had each other. When the little bread truck would break down on the side of the road, Willie Nelson says a good sense of humor that can save you sometimes more than anything else you could have. Musicians, by nature, the ones that stay around on the road, they're pretty resilient people. I had a tribe, and that helped, but I don't know, and I won't make you an armchair therapist today. But music's one of those things it means this to a lot of people. You don't have to play it or make a living doing it. It's just one of those magical things where it can take you out of the situation you're in. I think that's why the shows work. The students get lost with us because we're playing loud. It's a full concert. These are not bands that are bankers or teachers or financial advisors. These are bands that have driven through the night. They've had some success. The kids know when they're being authentic. But that same thing that I think they're getting is what I was getting. I was able to get away from some of my problems as a kid by living in that little sacred universe of what music can do. When things were really hard, I still had that guitar. I won't get into my fear of AI robbing people of becoming, but finishing a song is as good a feeling as anything else in the world. Even when everything was rough and we were making a million mistakes, I still had that. I'm very lucky. I had some good people around me, and I had six strings and another song too.
George Khalaf: Tell me good. For people who haven't seen a funding for the future event, I'm still trying to wrap around like, there's a school, there's music, and there's financial literacy lessons. What does that look like on the ground?
Steven Gooding: I'm so glad you asked because I know it must still sound crazy. Again, I think I made that joke about the Janitor writes a good song in Nashville. It is the janitors when we load in at 4:00 of 5:00 in the morning to get ready for this kickoff in the morning at these schools that go, you guys sing songs about money? That sounds awful. I'm like, no, I know. That's not what we're singing about. We may be singing things that are adjacent, love each other, take care of each other. Don't be too greedy. But again, why this works? If I gave this speech first, we'd probably be in trouble. I feel for the teachers in town, because some of here are places that are teaching this in school. There is Junior Achievement out there. We've worked with before. They're back in the stuff. But because we have this thing that in their minds is much more glamorous than it really is. A lot of the listeners, I'm sure, know this. When you're on stage, it's a magical world, but you've got 22 other hours of the day that you're going to have to figure out how to make this work.
How the show flow goes, and first of all, it's turnkey. Never charge a school. All I got to do is open the door. We'll do our thing, and then you close the door behind us, and we'll send some stuff to make sure the show went well, some curriculum, some things to try to help if they don't have some. But what this is, it's a 90-minute show, and 75-90, and we play a pretty hype film of two minutes before we take the stage. The very hype I'm going to dispel once I get the mic in my hand, a lot of these markets are places where it's not like we've got some huge Number 1 hit. A lot of film and TV stuff, been out with a lot of big bands. But it's not like I'm Drake or Beyonce over here. A lot of these schools have never heard of us. And it's the same with some of the other bands on the charity. So we play this two minute piece of the biggest things we've done. We make it look as big and fun. And by the time we take the stage, I mean the deal, some of these students, some of them, they don't want to hear anything, then they're having a hard time. Some of them, they're on the phones, it's our job to get those turned around, turned into a flashlight. But we show them this film, and some of the kids who are from especially these smaller towns, they're like, what is happening? Someone actually cares enough to come do this. That has met some famous people and been on shows they have seen, video games they have played. What is it? The battle's got to be won before it's fought. We get a little equity with him before we hit the stage. We take off immediately we play about six songs, 20 minutes, and it's over the top. I got a bass player throwing the bass up in the raptors. He's jumping on things, I got one of the greatest young drummers in this country. I play two guitars at once. I mean, it is the circus has come to town. And when we're done with that, again, I'm not patting myself on the back music makes the medicine go down, the music is doing the hard work, but we have a window there where they're going to listen. As I'm catching my breath between the show and going back out and giving the speech, we play two more minutes of all those film and TV placements. I walk out I get about 20 minutes to go through my personal story, and anybody listening would know these foundations don't change. Credit cards, credit score, I talk about same day lenders, depending on the crowd, I'll talk about IRAs and magic of compound interest and how that works in relationships. It works with something you want to learn and, boy, does it work with money? And I give them the exact stats. I talk about watching out for 36% interest on Buy Now, Pay Later. I talk about 700% interest here in the South with the same day loan. There's a lot of really good people that back this program, bankers that don't know what the same day loan is.
You go from rock, rock, rock to take a break, to come back, and then lights go on and power of compounding interest.
Believe it or not, because of that full on concert, we got them, brother. They listen. And I can't wait for you to see a show and we've got a lot of metrics on this. Those have gotten a lot better over the years, again, hire people way smarter than you. The thing we want them to take it back to the dinner table, because a lot of them in the same situation I was in my family. It's not their fault school doesn't teach it, the parents don't know. We want this to be a dinner table conversation.
We wanted to find a local bank or credit union. And we're real specific on the sponsors we use. But if it's a big bank that cares, that's wonderful, we work with the Iowa Insurance Division, we work with secretaries of state, governors, state treasurers. I've loaded into three Federal Reserves and we bust kids in. I will say, just as a quick aside, the longest load in in America is trying to play rock and roll at the Federal Reserve. They will X-ray your pick at five in the morning, making sure you're putting a rock band next to a billion dollars, I don't blame them. But it's one of these things where when we're speaking right after that show, and I'm constantly taking it back to examples from the music business. And I'm reminding them you do not got to be in the music business to make money. As matter of fact, I know people working at a post office did the things you're learning today. They're going to be millionaires because again, your time is your greatest asset, and Google rock stars that went broke, you're going to be up all night. They go up like this, they don't learn what you young people are learning today, I realize it's a podcast not visually. I'm holding my hand up to show them the mountain to show the the curve. Zero is no longer the bottom, the things that are coming at these students, it's worse than even some of the stuff I was dealing with. Again, if they don't want to work, I can't help them, but they're trying, and if we can get some of these things put in place. Sorry to finish this finally put land the plane here. About a 20 minute speech, and then it's Q&A as long as the school wants to go, and we stay after and that's a lot of times where we hear the personal stories, we hear what's happening out there on the street, and that's where we can answer some questions that are, I'll be honest, keep us very inspired because they're heartbreaking. I mean, not to go too long on this, but I've had students ask me for food backstage before we play because they don't have any, I've had a tattoo valuable on their arm because nobody at home is telling them they are. I've seen same day lenders advertise at high school newspapers. I mean, it's wild out there, so we're very lucky to get to do this work.
George Khalaf:: You mentioned earlier that tireless nights as an entrepreneur, obviously filled with doubts. Any entrepreneur or Rule Breaker it's like, Is this working? Is it not? What am I doing? Were there some tipping points or some stories early on that gave you that validation that you're onto something, and that this is landing in the way that you want it to?
Steven Gooding: The first time we did these shows, I started this with a legal pad, trying to draft out, how compound interest looks. I mean, I didn't have the show together at all. I just went, I'm going to go back to my old high school and play and see if I can tell him some of this stuff that I've been yelling about in the press or that John Hope Bryant talked about after I read some of his great books about this. One of the things was seeing that they were asking all financial literacy questions, not, how do I get in a band or what's your favorite color? Because I know in high school, and I've seen other programs even when I was in high school, and you don't always have them only talking about the thing that you're talking about. The light that went on me for that is, they're just like I was. Somebody comes through town, they go, I am in something that I've got to change. I got to break a chain here, I got to do something. John O'Brien says, if you show me a student's lost hope I'll show you a student's going to jump the line they're going to be violent. You hang out with nine drug dealers, you're going to be the tenth drug dealer, you hang out with nine doctors, you're probably going to learn something about medicine. To see these students all ask financial literacy questions after those first few test shows, I was like, putting music and financial literacy together as hard as it is to explain, and that's why we're making a documentary trying to be able to show this, there may be a way that we can be that squishy middle where somebody else can come in with the program whether it's junior achievement or who somebody can help, and we are trying to still do everything we can to work with these politicians, work with anybody that wants to support the charity to get that done. But if we can keep these bands out there doing this, we could reach a generation of kids. I'll tell you, for me, as far as the despair of being an entrepreneur.
And frankly, let's talk about money. Back to the third one. You could have all the brains in the bro, but, you got to understand money. I was in a hotel, it was actually Monterey, California. We were playing a little club up there. I was probably losing money every day, I was playing out on the road. I mean any entrepreneur, it's funny when you get hit with those taxes when you finally start making your money. It's like, by the way, I lost money for about 10 years on these credit cards. But that's why you got to save some of everything you make, every dollar as a soldier. I was in this hotel and I wasn't making enough money out on the road, but I had gotten my first opportunity to score a commercial, it was- I think it was for Jeep or something like that. And I was lucky enough that laptops were getting good enough, you could take your studio basically on the road. And so I was playing every night, but I had to stay up all night to score this thing. It was due by 5:00 P.M the next day. Like anybody, boohoo, you're working both jobs. But I remember that thing of I am going to be so tired for the show tonight, I just need one thing to work. I got that commercial and not only was several thousand dollars, which was a lot more than I was making at any club at that time, but it also led me to some other things. Seeing that stable music start coming in, the mailbox money when I started getting those royalties, and while I'm out living on the road, every 90 days, a good check is coming in. And that's what I want people to understand when they're investing in themselves, or working those extra hours, put your shoulder against the wheel. In rock n roll punk, hip hop everything's DIY, do it yourself. Work those extra hours and pay yourself first, that feeling of being able to get through a mass or get through a hard time or when the van is catching on fire and you can't pay for it because you haven't saved anything. Back to the students real quick. We want that for them because they don't have a band to fall back on. I at least had one parent always worrying about me. Some of them don't, and if they take out a loan where that interest is too high for them to catch up, these things that I'm saying become platitudes.
MALE: Gooding, we've done work with schools with product we have at the foundation called The Freedometer. We're looking at bring it into high schools at scale for the very reasons you do. And one of my experiences with teachers and educators is they're so pressed on time. They're looking for a Advil or Tylenol to alleviate a specific pain point, and financial literacy is too often seen as a vitamin that's a nice to have. How do you enter schools and what's the pitch? And if any listeners have schools in their communities where they want to bring you in, how can they do that?
Steven Gooding: You make such a great point. My mother was a teacher, she substitute taught and then taught those piano lessons, I saw it even growing up. The energy it takes to keep that going and the great teachers do care about each one of those students, there's a lot of empathy there. I think for some places, if they've had any financial literacy in the school, it's an easy sell because it's a way to make the teachers look cool. It's a way to make any program that they're going to have after that maybe look cool and the kids have seen it's not just about money. George, forgive me, you've already seen this on the materials as we chatted, but I mean, it's not just about money. I mean, you're going to have better food to eat, you're going to have less violence in your community, you're going to have that little bit of hope that maybe gets that momentum going in the right direction. We try to explain to them, it isn't just about money, this is about self reliance, this is about, again, betting on the future. This is about having some feeling that you have some autonomy, some control in your life. Students that are doing really well, this is a great message for them because they have a chance to change the world already. They're on third base that's great let's do something for others. Students that don't know where to even get a bat and get up to take a swing, a lot of this is tailored specifically for them to get out of that mindset of getting famous on Instagram or TikTok is not going to fix your problem for me, it was MTV. Never compare your inside to someone else's outside we talk a little about social media.
That's an issue for the teachers, too, because they're in the same spot we are when we have music to get their phones turned around. For the ones that haven't banned the phones, and I'm seeing that more and more, by the way, I just got off the road last weekend after a month out and a lot, especially if I'm doing a smaller show in the gyms, they don't have the phones there at all, which is great. But is really about a lot of things besides money in it. I'm taking all the credit, we have a really great booking agent that's full time at the Charity. One of the few things that we have, a staff payroll is the executive director and the booking agent. Cheryl Dunnigan and Alicia Dave, I got to give them a shout out because they're in the engine room putting coal to keep the train on the track while I'm out there going. Look at me, let's talk. They're fantastic. We really try to explain to the teachers, nothing else, I know they're like, 75 minutes that everything is safe and taken care of because 800 shows we played, we've never had a problem. So I will say that to any schools that are listening. But I think it's a chance for them to maybe get a crash course all at once as to why they should listen to some of these numbers, and as to why, frankly, they should listen to those teachers and for the parents that do understand this, try to make it cool for them to listen to those parents too.
FEMALE: Do you have a signature tune? Is there a go to that you have? And I'm going to ask two questions at once, so there may or may not be. I'm also curious, have you had an experience where you didn't expect something to hit with the kids, and it surprised you how well it hit with the kids? And then maybe the opposite. Did you have something where you're like, this is obviously what people need to hear, but for some reason, they didn't quite hear that the way you wanted them to?
Steven Gooding: It's so good. These questions are so good. Every podcast was like this. Well, first of all, this won't age well, but don't say six or seven. I did that in the gym the other day, and everybody stopped to do that. I said, All right, y'all, come back to me now. [laughs] And I have little tricks to get him back and say if you're not listening to trust me, anybody's listening, they go be asking you for a job in 10 years, come back to me. But yes, don't say 6-7 right now. What have I seen that works and doesn't work? Well, I learned this one the hard way, and no disrespect to schools that are a little more buttoned up than other schools. But one of the things my man John Hope Bryant says, I think him and Quincy Jones came up with this. They were saying this in LA like 15 years ago. I said, man, we got to make smart sexy again. I was like, that what I'm talking about. That's so much of what we're talking about. To the students, I say, Hey, look, if somebody's taking notes or they're asking me a question, you're going to be making fun of them. Man, the geek inherited, don't make fun of people for wanting to get better for trying to learn. But I did say that line in some schools on a tour. I said, guys, we got to make smart sex again. [laughs] I had a couple of teachers on that. He said sexy on stage you cannot see the word sexy.
No, I pushed back a little bit, fellows, because I was like, I got to tell y'all, if you make this thing so safe that I'm not other, if I can't have some lines that grab their attention and make sure I got them that full 20 minutes to get the right questions and get learning this, you're going to dilute this thing down where it doesn't have any power. Well, you know how that goes. If they don't open the door to bring us into school, we don't have any power to help anyway. So I do not use the word sexy. [laughs] I've never sworn on a stage in my life. Now, I swear plenty with the rock and roll musicians use any of you who play blues and rock and funk know that sometimes a musician will go, Hey, man, you are a mother, and that's a compliment. But I have never said a swear word, and apparently now I'm not saying the word sex anymore.
FEMALE: Well, you can say it on this podcast, though.
Steven Gooding: Well, that's as wild as I'm going to get. I'll leave the rest of getting wild with loud guitars. We play a song we open up a lot of the shows with just 'cause it's actually love animals, but Bob Dylan said, hurling horses over cliffs. We come out trying to just get things going. There's a song called Trouble Maker. That's a lot of fun. And that was inspired. You talk about Rule Breakers, man. I mean, and congrats on the new book. Good Trouble. We want to cause good trouble out there. And I got a song called Mind to Save, it's a little ballad. I just played it at the Hyatt House at the fundraiser to get some money on Saturday night when I got off the road with our wonderful board and some banks that were pitching and some things. And that Mind to Save, that'd be the other one if there was any music fans out there, drop me a line on that stuff.
George Khalaf: Do you have any suggestions? This is something we're dealing with, too. I can imagine you go to a school, you do your thing, kids walk away super excited, wanting to learn more. What kind of follow up is there in some of the schools you've visited? Because we're encountering one of the challenges is, when students get this, they want to learn, but teachers feel ill equipped to teach financial literacy because oftentimes it's a topic they don't feel comfortable leaning into.
Steven Gooding: A hundred percent. I feel like between the predominant, which looks awesome, and what we're trying to do, what JA is trying to do, I heard of something I haven't checked it out too deeply yet, but I think there's something called communities in schools. Somebody was just telling me about. I know you have some friends, George, that are working on this actively. Was it 2030? They want to make financial literacy requirement in every high school in America. That was my original missing statement. I opened it up a little wider so they understand we need other people to do some of this work while we're driving through the night. We're building the plane while we're flying it, aren't we? We've got to get people to understand not only the students, but even the teachers, the parents, we've got to get everybody to get this message. I'm always very open to people that are doing that work, that our job is really just to I don't want to say shake them, but just get them to lean in long enough that we can clear the decks for that other work to happen. I say to him. I say, one of the first things I say after I thank the band and the sponsors in the school for trying some different I say, does everybody know what I'm here to talk about? Financial literacy. I just say, straight, when I was your age, somebody would come out here playing, I would have been like, dude, play some more guitar. It sounds terrible. I won't say, doesn't sound very sexy. But I realize it sounds boring.
We just really try to drive that home that you need to pretend for the next 20 minutes that what we're talking about is you. There's no test at the end of this. The test is your life. Teachers, it's the same. Look, as I talk about compound interest and the way that works, I see teachers all the time go, I talk about the IRA. They're like, I wish I would have known that. I'm like, you're telling me, that's why I started, but we just really try to drive home to them. Some of the teachers, especially if they're in their 20s and 30s, they probably haven't learned a lot of this, too. It really is for everybody. But if we can inspire not only just the students, but maybe some of those teachers or parents to keep this message rolling, that's how I can go to town three years later, and they tell me, they cut a little too much, y'all can't see it. Tell you, too much of my hair in Nebraska here a couple of weeks ago. Got to be careful. You only got the great clips. I'll go to the great clips. [laughs] I've got no fight.
Man of the people here. But the woman that was cutting my hair because we reached about 35,000 students in small towns in Nebraska. She said, I saw your show a few years ago. I'm not making this up. She said, I told my parents about the IRA, and I was like, she just got a tip of about 200% for me because you just made my whole day. We do see people down the road telling us that the message is getting there. But I'm not going to lie, and we were just talking about it at our board retreat this weekend with this incredible board. We've got to continue to find the right partners in this. We've got to continue to make sure that these schools keep doing this. This isn't a one-time thing. Now, if I didn't believe bands weren't doing some real heavy lifting, getting it opened up and making kids want to listen, I wouldn't be doing this. I'd stay on all my other civilian tours and make some good money of film and TV. But I do think there's a blend of what we're doing and somebody out there that can do the back end on this. But as far as what you're doing, George, I'll put a pin in it. I just think that the heart I heard from you and some of the things you've done in this world, what is it? Was it Empatico? Am I saying that right? I felt like I forgot I was trying to convince you of my charity. I was listening to you about the things. Every job is selling, and I tell musicians that all the time, say, look, I like being in a dark room, getting sad, and saving money on therapy and writing these songs. But if you're going to get out there and anybody's going to hear it, every one of us is selling. You folks have the ability to get that message out there, too, and I think we've just got to just remind them that, whether we like it or not, money is going to touch every single facet of your life. Without a bedrock of that, I'd like to see some civics, too, but that's not our job. That's not what we're doing. Without money being taught young, we're just going to see a lot of problems. I think healthcare companies are starting to see this. You said it earlier in the podcast, and I really will stop this long-winded answer. You said it earlier in the podcast, and I get it. If you've got a woman's shelter or somebody needs food, this is an immediate need. We've got to get the money out there. You had these guys doing Fin Lit, whatever. If we don't plant those seeds, long-term, we're going to be facing every one of these problems down the line. We're just kicking the can down the curb.
George Khalaf: Gooding, I think last time we spoke, we talked about how these problems are too big for any single organization to solve. It invites partnerships. I have a dream that you can come in and rock at schools and introduce Fin Lit, and we can come in and have the predometer in teachers' hands as a follow-up curriculum. Music and financial literacy partner together to teach the next generation the power of personal finance. I love it. I can see that, and I look forward to working with you and our team working with you to make that a reality.
Steven Gooding: You got all your listeners out there, and this sounds like we're putting some things together today. I'm excited because I trust what you're doing, and that's great news.
David Gardner: I think George may be star-struck, but George is also visionary, and partnerships are absolutely the way to go. Thank you, George.
George Khalaf: Gooding, since you meet thousands and thousands of students every year, and we've got listeners here who are passionate about personal finance, have seen the power of investing. What themes do you see or challenges do you see coming up again and again with the kids that you're touching? Maybe the top 2 or 3.
Steven Gooding: I used to call back home. It was actually my grandfather who I would call, who would say Gooding, you've got to get a rail job. The music business was crazy. You've got to go slow and steady. Slow and steady wins the race. I was just like, again, I don't need to hear that. I'm watching MT. I'm going to get a record deal. I'm going to fix it. I wasn't even that cocky. I was just cocky to him because I was just like, stop telling me the music business sucks. The music business is really hard. He wasn't lying to me. But anything you want to do that Matt's Kinky Freeman, what's that great quote he said hopeless causes are the only ones we're fighting for. Telling them slow and steady that you do not have to win the lottery. You don't have to get the record deal, the sports contract, that's where the work starts. Telling them to stop this attitude of one day is going to fix all your problems. If you can just even get them to where they're not unbanked, get them to understand what a budget is, why it matters. I don't know who I stole this from. You could drive a car from New York City to Los Angeles in the dead of night with just a little bit of headlights. When they see on the screens up there after we play how these numbers work, we're trying to just turn that light on. The other thing is social media, and that really is getting in a place where we stop thinking. That's the same problem. Sorry, folks, I'm holding up my phone as if you can see it. This is that same mentality that one day is going to fix your life. You see, everybody's Instagram famous or TikTok famous, or buy now pay later, or let's be honest, AI, I can just say this thing, and something magical is going to happen. If we don't figure out who to become who we really are, or have some resilience or resistance, or go through the things that it means to become human, and again, I say it all the time, and I know I've already said it on this podcast. Forgive me, folks. Never compare your inside to someone else's outside. I work in the most hype business in the world. If I truly believe that everything I saw on social media was what was happening to those other musicians, you would think, no matter how much money or success you had, that you were just yesterday's news and you were just garbage. It's ridiculous. One of the best things that's happened to me was meeting some of my heroes, finding out, dang it, not only are we all going through the same things, but without financial literacy, those folks, it does not matter how many records they've sold or how many shows they've played. They're just right back to zero. I would say some of the pitfalls of social media.
George Khalaf: Gooding, you mentioned being a visionary, and I'm just curious to hear from you. What's your vision for funding the future going forward?
Steven Gooding: I don't know if I'm a visionary. I fell into it, but what a lovely question, because while you're fixing things, I think if you don't keep those very headlights we're talking about on, you can get really mild in stuff. The process is so important. It's funny. I always tell people enjoying the ride is way more important than what happens. But when you're trying to help people, getting more people to hear this message and getting more bands out there and playing more shows, buddy of mine, who's given us an amazing amount of help. Actually, he's who introduced me to Will at Corner to Corner. A guy named Mark Montgomery. He says it's Bench Pilot Scale. I think I had it on the bench, just learning it the hard way and playing the Brazilian shows. Then the pilot was us going around all these years and reaching. I think it's 315,000 students, 36 states, 800 shows. We've done the pilot. We're trying to scale. I was just talking to the board all day about this Saturday. We're trying to just find the right partners to get that back-end piece, and just like everybody, I always say I said, money isn't the only thing that drives things, but it sure doesn't hurt. I'll tell you a very quick story. COVID, of course, it's devastating for everybody. It's much harder for people that didn't have the slipper checks I'm talking about. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I had some stability there. I was absolutely fine, and so were a lot of my friends at this point. But one thing that really let us know we were spinning was a 90/10 rule. It takes the same amount of money to ask for $3,000 and it does 30 or 300,000. Depending on if you've worked up the people you know and can talk to, we got a grant for $220,000 from the Save Our Stages Act. We had never gotten a grant like that, mostly for exactly what we're talking about today. Grants are tough because they don't see the long-term need for this sometimes. That allowed us to do sponsored shows. I got a street up here in McGavick in Nashville, Tennessee. Anbody's living here. We got 16 same day. You can't get an apple to eat, but these kids are taking these loans, paying 2,400, 700% interest. We did a couple of Native American reservations. We were able to work our way up the East Coast and meet some of these politicians that wanted to help in play shows for free, just to get the word out. At the band stable. But really, the light went on there because if you can get large amounts of money and it's the right organization, we've got great people. The 990 is online, folks. Go to fundingthefuturelive.org. We're an open book. It's completely transparent. We never had any problems. But if we could get a little more help and scale, that's the main thing for 2026.
George Khalaf: Gooding, if I want to get you performing at my son's high school here, Brooklyn Prospect Charter, and I asked that question just because it's personal, it's in my neighborhood. Other listeners probably have kids or contacts at high schools in their communities. Who do I talk to, and how do I get that going?
Steven Gooding: George, let me start by saying, beautiful people listening today, I can't make this offer to all of you. But, George, I fell in love with you on that call when we were talking about empathy and these different things in the world. I'll play that show anytime. If it's unsponsored, I'm paying for it. Now, there's where the board says up because you guys are losing money, stop it. You know what? I'm going to go find some unsponsored show money.
George Khalaf: Wow.
Steven Gooding: I'll be there anytime. Name it. My old managers out there, too, and I love them to death. I got nice sisters out there. We'll make it work. We're mostly focusing on the Southeast right now. We got another band, Carter Halsey, full-time, incredible friend of mine. He's out there. He's going to hit Iowa and Nebraska. He's going to hit the Great Plains, where I came up out of Wichita there. But I'll get up to you, I promise. We played the Brooklyn, the High School of Performing Arts, I think, two or three times now up there, great kids. No, if there's anybody out there that you got a school that you think would like this, let me finally answer the question for crying out loud. Her name is Cheryl Dunigan. Look, hit us up online. I'm a Gooding at fundingthefuturelive.org if you want to drop me a note. But Cheryl does the booking. She's incredible. Again, the executive director is Alicia David. They're 24/7. We never close. We never sleep. If there's an opportunity, you let us know, and we'll get a band there. George, I want to be the band that comes to you, brother. I'll tell you.
George Khalaf: Gooding, I want to say that you brought up COVID, and you lifted up your phone. Listeners couldn't see that, but I do think there is a hunger for human-to-human connection and empathy. I loved our first conversation, where I felt like we connected as human beings, and I think listeners who meet you and see you in a show will equally connect and see the passion that you bring to the performances. I'm going to hand it over to David for any closing remarks. But, David, before doing that, I have one more quick question. If you had one simple step, just one you hope listeners take away from hearing your message today, what would that be?
Steven Gooding: Well, on a human level, just be kind. Life's too short. I know some people with a lot of money, they're real unhappy in this because they don't have other people around them, loving them. I know some people that they're just stable. They're just getting by, but they're building. They got some hope for it. They're saving a little bit of money. On the financial literacy front, I'll just say, again, let's teach young people about this. Time is your greatest asset. Just save a little bit everything you make. It may not seem cool, but I tell the kids, you might not buy it today, but you're going to be able to buy everything you want down the road. Just get them started as young as possible. You two have been such a pleasure to talk to. It really does mean a lot. You've built an incredible reach over the years, David, and George. I just think the things you're doing are just absolutely outstanding. I really do appreciate you taking the time to let me know, talk about this thing that has become my life's work, and that I believe in. Again, I got a great group of people. I'm lucky to get to do this.
David Gardner: Well, thank you so much for sharing yourself, your story, and your important work with a lot of Fools this weekend. Gooding, that was a real delight. George, I want to thank you as well for the connection. We want to thank Will Acuff, who I think was a mutual connection, and I want to even thank my daughter Kate Gardner, because I think it all started with you. It was a connection of a connection to a connection that led to this conversation, and I hope those connections continue. The website is fundingthefuturelive.org. Gooding has already said, at the generosity of his heart, Georgia's son, Gavin, is going to get a free performance at some point in the future.
George Khalaf: He'll be super excited.
David Gardner: They're not all free, and by the way, they shouldn't be. This is important work. I've always said a really good financial book, a really good financial podcast. Now, I can add a really good financial concert.
George Khalaf: Yes.
David Gardner: When you really think about it, they actually create more than they cost. When you really think about it, you realize the work that's being done spreads in a beautiful way. I want to thank Gooding. I want to thank George for leading such a meaningful conversation. And, dear listener, if today sparks something for you, maybe a lesson to share. Maybe a young person to encourage, maybe a school to connect. I hope you'll take that next small step. Again, the website fundingthefuturelive.org. You can even bring this work into your own community. Of course, so many listening to us, guys, this weekend are doing something at their kids' school. They're teaching a course, maybe meeting with the kids, having a conversation about saving, which is where it really starts becoming a net saver, and then investing, of course. Anyway, Gooding, George, thank you both, friends, Fool on.