Words & Photography By Michael Kinney
Darnell Mayberry has never been afraid to change directions when it comes to his career.
Whether it was relocating from Ohio back to his home state of Oklahoma to become an NBA beat writer or when he left that same newspaper to join The Athletic, a fledgling digital start-up with an uncertain future, Mayberry didn’t flinch at the opportunity.
But Mayberry’s newest course correction could prove to be his most impactful. Amid a thriving sports writing career, the 41-year-old partnered with his 10-year-old daughter (Parker) to form Money Talks, a multi-media platform that, as the name suggests, talks about money.
“Think about how many things revolve around money,” said Mayberry, who was recently back in Oklahoma City to cover the NBA Playoffs. “Everything that we do requires money in some way, shape or form. And so just to be able to set her off on that path and get her thinking about it early, like you said, we didn’t grow up like that. To be able to implement that at such a young age, I can’t wait to see what it turns into for her.”
Still, in its infancy, the Money Talks (https://linktr.ee/darnellmayberry) brand has grown from a weekly blog to something Mayberry could not have foreseen when he first sat down with his daughter to have what turned out to be a difficult discussion about money.
“Ignorance comes from a place of ignorance. Not understanding money, not being smart with money, not knowing how to manage money and not being really taught about money in real-world ways and in detail,” Mayberry said. “As my daughter Parker got older and I started making money decisions, I realized it was an uncomfortable feeling initially talking to her about money. And I had to examine where that came from. And it was because I wasn’t talked to about money in intimate ways, detailed conversations.”
Mayberry, who resides in Chicago, can still rattle off the sage advice he has been given throughout his life. It was the same quotes and axioms that most people from working-class or impoverished backgrounds stretched back generations.
“It was all bare bones save for a rainy day. Don’t spend it all in one place. It’s cheaper to keep her. What does all of this stuff even mean?” Mayberry questioned with a laugh. “We don’t know. We just hear these things and process them as best we can as kids and young adults growing up trying to figure it out. My goal and my mission all along was to never let Parker have to grow up having to figure it out. And if I could make these money talks easy for her in our home and help her along her journey, then I will have done my job in addition to just being a present and positive parent in her life, because it’s not just us being present as parents, it’s about us being positive role models as parents. And it’s not just what we teach, it’s how we teach.”
But before Mayberry could sit down and have these talks with his daughter, he had to first learn about money himself. He had to find time to do this while co-parenting and working a full-time job that had him traveling across the country at least nine months out of the year.
Mayberry’s answer was to basically hunker down and live the life of a monk, so to speak.
“The first thing I did was I stopped everything I used to do. I turned off the TV, I turned off the radio, I turned off sports, I stopped going out, I stopped drinking, I stopped dating,” Mayberry said. “I stopped doing all the things that were distracting me and bleeding my money and my bank account. Once I made that shift, I turned on financial literacy and started reading books. I started listening to podcasts. Instead of watching fight videos on YouTube, I started pulling up financial content creators, some of whom I’ve met and started to develop relationships with. So, I just dove into educating myself about the topic that I wanted to learn about.”
That type of dogged determination has always been a part of Mayberry’s personality, according to NBA.com’s Michael C. Wright, who’s known Mayberry since he was fresh out of Norfolk State and working at the Akron Beacon Journal.
“I think the biggest thing though, has been his determination,” Wright said. “Because think about when he was in the early days out here in Oklahoma City, covering the Thunder. You had to have some determination to deal with Russ (Westbrook), James Harden and Kevin Durant. He was a baby as a journalist, and then he’s dealing with some of the difficulties that you have to deal with in dealing with the NBA organization. And for him to be able to sort of stand out as a reporter at such a young age, you have got to be determined. You got to work your butt off to do that. I think he’s been able to just take that into everything else he’s done.”
Yet, Mayberry said he feels foolish that it took him so long to make these steps in his life. But he was not alone in his ‘ignorance.’ Despite the United States being the money capital of the world, it ranked No. 14 in financial literacy levels worldwide according to the S&P Global Financial Literacy Survey, which was taken in 2014. Only 57 percent of US adults were classified as financially literate.
Norway, Denmark, and Sweden tied for first place, with 71 percent of their populations ranking as financially literate. Israel and Canada were next at 68 percent.
Those numbers become even more concerning when broken down by race. According to the U.S. National Strategy for Financial Literacy (2020), 22 percent of minorities demonstrated a basic level of financial literacy, while 12 percent successfully demonstrated the highest level of financial skills assessed.
Mayberry wanted to ensure his daughter didn’t fall into that same trap. And instead of just telling her what to do, he put his money where his mouth was.
“One of the things I do and I write about is I direct $336 a month to her custodial account and I invest it in an S&P 500 index fund,” Mayberry said. “And that’s going to compound. I’ve written that I don’t want to give her a car for her high school graduation. I want to give her $100,000 in an appreciable asset so she has an understanding, intimate understanding of money so that when she’s 18 or 19 years old and going off into the world, she’s not going out there in an ignorant way. She’s not going out there blindly. She’s going out there with knowledge. She’s armed with information that will help her in any walk of life.”
Mayberry realized he could not only get his daughter off on the right foot, but he could help others as well.
And that is where Money Talks (moneytalks101.substack.com/) goes from being a personal project between a father and daughter to also a business venture.
“A lot of times the topic of money gets lost in the conversation it’s not being taught at all,” Mayberry said. “I made sure that in my home we were going to have those money talks and she actually came up with the phrase Money Talks because she was tired of having money talks. And I said, ‘You know what? That’s a good idea for the name of the company. Call it Money Talks.’ So these are all money talks that we have in our home.”
Instead of just writing down this knowledge, he was acquiring and putting it into a binder for Parker, Mayberry combined his old and new passions.
“I decided to start a blog to document it and try to help other people as well,” Mayberry said. “It’ll be there for her. It’ll be like letters to my daughter if ever anything happens to me.”
The blog has grown to a newsletter that he emails out to subscribers twice a week. It has also been picked up for syndication by Cleveland.com.
Headlines for recent blogs have included ‘What’s Your Coffee Habit Costing You,” “My Addiction to Nike” and “It’s dividend time,” “Let’s buy a house,” and what may be his most passionate subject “F**k Tipping.”
In addition, his weekly “The Money Talks Podcast” that Mayberry does with Parker was added to Spotify recently.
“I know that if I trust this information so much to help my child, it has to be able to help other people,” Mayberry said. “And it has. I’ve been grateful that the response has been good. People have resonated with the message with the columns. I’m proud of that and just continuing to grow little by little and trying to spread this information to help as many people as possible.”
But Mayberry knows that no matter how far he takes Money Talks, his work will only be the building blocks. He’s already looking into the future and sees the potential his daughter has because of what he has instilled in her now. That will be the real legacy of Money Talks.
Mayberry said he grew up without a father so there is no more important job to him than being in his daughter’s life. With the business venture they have created together, he knows those teachings will be her guide even when he isn’t around.
“She’s growing and she’s investing and she’s learning, and all of these things we’re implementing. It’s like watching, keeping up with a character in a show or a movie, you’re going to see her life evolve and how she develops and what she turns into,” Mayberry said. “As a child who started investing when she was eight years old and learning about money and learning about leadership and learning how to start companies and be a businesswoman and entrepreneur, the little girl has a bright future. And so that to me would be fascinating to follow along with. I can accomplish anything else in the world, but if I don’t succeed at parenthood at being a father to Parker, then I’m a failure. It means the world to me.”
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