Order of Man - DAVE RAMSEY ｜ Step by Step Guide to Building Your Way to Wealth

00:00:00.040 Gents, the topic of money is always a very charged one, and that's because everyone wants to build more wealth in their lives, but don't always know exactly how to do it, or they have their own internal dialogues that keep them from doing so.

00:00:13.800 But if this is done the right way, money and wealth can be powerful tools for good in your own life and also in the world.

00:00:22.320 Today, I'm joined by one of the most notable people in the world when it comes to the topic of building wealth, Mr. Dave Ramsey.

00:00:28.860 And whether you love him or hate him, there's no denying that his message of financial empowerment has reached hundreds of millions of people.

00:00:37.340 Today, Dave and I discuss how money magnifies who you are, good or bad, how to best get a hesitant wife on board with tightening up the finances.

00:00:46.660 That's a very important conversation, obviously, where building businesses falls into the wealth equation, how cultural perspectives shape our money decisions,

00:00:56.420 and ultimately the step-by-step guide to building your way to wealth.

00:01:01.060 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:01:06.800 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:01:11.220 You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:16.320 This is your life. This is who you are.

00:01:18.820 This is who you will become.

00:01:20.540 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:25.500 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:01:28.500 I'm the host and the founder of the Older Men Podcast and Movement.

00:01:31.540 Welcome here. This one is a very powerful one.

00:01:34.540 Last week, I had the opportunity to go to Nashville, spend some time with Dave Ramsey and Ramsey Solutions and some of the team members there.

00:01:44.240 It was an incredible, incredible time, and I'm really looking forward to getting this conversation out to you.

00:01:49.400 Before we get into it, just a very, very quick mention of my friends and the show sponsors Origin USA.

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00:03:07.160 All right, guys.

00:03:08.640 Let me introduce you to Dave as if I need to.

00:03:11.220 As I said earlier, he is one of the most notable figures in the world of money and finances.

00:03:16.620 Now, he started building his empire, although he doesn't call it an empire.

00:03:19.860 We talk about that in the podcast.

00:03:21.860 30 years ago is when he started from a card table in his house.

00:03:25.800 But since then, he's written multiple New York Times bestselling books, including Total Money Makeover.

00:03:31.620 A lot of you guys are familiar with.

00:03:32.720 He hosts a podcast that has been downloaded over one billion, billion with a B, one billion times.

00:03:40.540 He's received various awards and honors and recognition from radio syndicates all over the world and several hundreds of millions of people and families in paying off debt and building wealth.

00:03:54.860 He also employs over 1,100 people from Ramsey Solutions just outside of Nashville where I was visiting last week and obviously has become a force to be reckoned with in the world of personal money management.

00:04:06.800 Guys, I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

00:04:09.160 Dave, it's so great to see you.

00:04:12.120 So great to sit down with you.

00:04:13.080 What an honor.

00:04:13.760 Well, it's an honor to have you, brother.

00:04:15.000 Thanks for making the trip to Nashville.

00:04:16.660 You know, one of the things I was thinking about as I came in, I was driving in and I saw this line of cars right up the drive here.

00:04:22.560 Saw this line of cars turning into Ramsey Solutions.

00:04:25.160 And I'm following this line of cars and I see everybody turning to the parking lot and I pull here and I see this big, beautiful building and I pull into the space and I see a bunch of people walking out and they're all well-dressed.

00:04:37.300 They're all very friendly.

00:04:38.260 They're all very cordial.

00:04:39.320 And I get in here and your team's amazing.

00:04:41.240 And to me, this is the point of wealth.

00:04:44.960 Like what you've embodied here by creating these jobs for people, creating these opportunities, creating a service for other people.

00:04:54.680 This is what wealth is about.

00:04:55.920 But I think there's a big misconception about how we use our money or if it's even good or bad in the first place.

00:05:00.940 Yeah, there's a whole moral construct that has gotten broken down, misinterpretation of scripture, misinterpretation of how life works, what capitalism really is, what socialism really is.

00:05:17.520 And it's, you know, sanctified capitalism has a moral component to it.

00:05:26.080 And so when you're leading in the community, you're leading in your family, you're leading in business, that does not mean you're a taker.

00:05:36.300 That means you're a giver.

00:05:38.020 And that's where everybody gets us flipped that is throwing stones from the sidelines, throwing grenades from the sidelines.

00:05:45.260 They've all got an opinion about, oh, that rich guy's evil or wealth is evil or whatever.

00:05:51.100 When the reality is, is that there's a no higher percentage of evil wealthy people than there is evil poor people.

00:05:58.020 It turns out evil is just evil.

00:05:59.880 It turns out good is just good.

00:06:01.440 Sure.

00:06:01.920 And virtue is virtue.

00:06:04.120 And it shows up in every demographic.

00:06:06.700 But what happens with money is it magnifies the character qualities, good or bad, the junk in your life, the wonderful things in your life are all magnified with money.

00:06:21.860 And so that's why we see someone has tremendous dysfunction.

00:06:24.500 They get money.

00:06:25.100 The dysfunction goes bananas.

00:06:26.860 Sometimes we see pro athletes, you know, misbehaving or something like that.

00:06:30.160 But what we don't focus on is all the pro athletes that don't misbehave, that made a lot of money, that had great character.

00:06:38.780 Or one thing I've seen a lot of people do is they'll look at somebody like yourself or other people that are wealthy, and they will not attribute virtuous behavior to that abundance and wealth.

00:06:51.920 Or they'll ascribe it to stealing or lying or cheating or taking advantage of other people.

00:07:00.600 It seems like that's more the natural tendency, or maybe it's just a cultural thing to throw the rich under the bus, if you will.

00:07:06.600 Yeah, there's an old thing.

00:07:07.480 Aristotle started it.

00:07:08.460 The Australians call it tall poppy syndrome.

00:07:10.160 And the idea is that when you're growing a poppy field, if a single plant sticks its head up above the other plants, it is robbing nutrients from the others and must be cut down.

00:07:21.140 So it's the ultimate in socialism, right?

00:07:23.000 Sure.

00:07:23.180 Everything must be evened out.

00:07:24.340 There must be an even thing.

00:07:25.640 It must be an even thing.

00:07:26.540 So don't stick your head up because we must take you out.

00:07:29.000 Right.

00:07:29.360 You know, and so it's not a uniquely American thing, but Americans are really good at vilifying success and simultaneously aspiring to become successful.

00:07:41.980 You know, we want to teach our children to become successful, but boy, that guy across the lake who's got a big house over there, we just yell at him when we have a few too many beers, you know?

00:07:51.080 That's right.

00:07:51.400 I mean, that kind of stuff.

00:07:52.240 I did do that in college, by the way.

00:07:55.040 I think we've all been there.

00:07:56.240 Yeah, but it's envious and it's envy and jealousy, which are obvious, obviously not virtues that are at the core of that.

00:08:05.280 And here's the irony.

00:08:07.720 It violates common sense.

00:08:09.560 Let's just talk about it for a second.

00:08:10.740 Let's say that you had a, you got a guy over here who's got a car repair shop.

00:08:17.280 And you go in there and he fixes your car and he walks out and you say, well, it took five minutes, man.

00:08:28.100 And he goes, well, how much is it?

00:08:29.460 He goes, oh, no charge.

00:08:31.500 He goes, wait a minute.

00:08:32.240 You fixed my car.

00:08:33.480 It took you five minutes and it was no charge.

00:08:36.120 He goes, yeah, just remember me when you need some repairs and tell your friends.

00:08:38.960 Sure.

00:08:39.520 So what do you do?

00:08:40.260 You remember him and you tell some friends.

00:08:42.320 Right.

00:08:42.440 Fast forward 25 years later, he's got a chain of these throughout the region, the southeast, the northeast, the Midwest, with his name on it, because he's trained every one of his mechanics and every one of his managers to serve people, not rip them off.

00:08:59.640 Be kind.

00:09:00.480 So his virtue literally causes, because, I mean, you go to a car repair shop and you get treated, right?

00:09:05.740 You found a unicorn.

00:09:06.920 Oh, absolutely.

00:09:07.340 I mean, come on.

00:09:07.960 Absolutely.

00:09:08.360 You tell everybody, right?

00:09:10.080 That's right.

00:09:10.460 You put this on the billboard. 0.94

00:09:11.780 Transversely, okay, but rich people are evil.

00:09:15.900 So this guy, instead, let's take him and say he's evil, all right?

00:09:18.380 You go in there, takes him five minutes, he puts no parts on it, he turns two screws, and he says, you know, that'd be 400 bucks.

00:09:25.700 You go, yeah, you get me once.

00:09:28.520 Right.

00:09:29.180 But not only am I not coming back, but I'm going to tell everybody I know to not come back.

00:09:33.620 And then that guy goes out of business and he blames the economy.

00:09:37.120 The economy's bad.

00:09:38.280 Or he says people are cheap or all kinds of excuses.

00:09:40.780 You know, I was in the wrong neighborhood.

00:09:42.740 The people in this neighborhood wouldn't, you know, they weren't good people.

00:09:46.180 The, you know, the president's policies messed me up.

00:09:50.620 The stock market crashed and got me. 1.00

00:09:52.400 No, you were a freaking crook and the marketplace took you out. 1.00

00:09:56.760 Right. 1.00

00:09:57.320 Right.

00:09:57.600 Or you were virtuous and servants and the marketplace prospered you.

00:10:04.580 So it's very difficult to become wealthy in business when you're a crook because people tell everybody.

00:10:10.200 You can do it for a short period of time.

00:10:13.260 Because you can fool people, right?

00:10:13.640 I mean, you do it for 30 years.

00:10:14.940 There's no way.

00:10:15.500 It's not possible.

00:10:16.680 You'll get discovered.

00:10:17.260 This is the power of capitalism.

00:10:19.600 And I wanted to talk about it with you about that because I think there's even some misconceptions about that.

00:10:25.440 Obviously, there's a lot.

00:10:26.720 Is that it's two consenting adults agreeing to buy a product or a service.

00:10:32.580 And what's interesting about it is, let's say I buy this book from you.

00:10:35.560 I have to believe in order to transact that what I'm going to get from this book is more valuable than the dollars I'm going to give you.

00:10:41.580 And you have to believe that the dollars I'm going to give you are more valuable than what you put into this book through leveraging and other mediums.

00:10:48.320 But that's an interesting and freeing concept.

00:10:53.080 And I think it's one of the most liberating.

00:10:55.620 I think it's produced more wealth, more abundance, more health, more prosperity than any other system known to man.

00:11:01.260 Well, and statistically, I mean, these are these are not this is not theory and this is not a espousing an opinion.

00:11:09.220 If you actually look at the data, in other words, facts.

00:11:12.960 OK, at this moment in time, the little man starting from nothing has a higher likelihood of building wealth in America than in any other system in any other history in the entire history of humankind.

00:11:31.260 That's kind of bizarre.

00:11:32.220 Yeah.

00:11:33.060 But I mean, you tell me a place and or a time when the little man had fewer barriers to go become somebody.

00:11:43.760 Because I grew up in a neighborhood where that's what we always said, you know, the little man.

00:11:47.620 Right.

00:11:48.040 Little man can't get ahead.

00:11:49.240 Yep.

00:11:49.860 And Eeyore is like your spirit.

00:11:51.000 The rich get richer, richer, that kind of stuff.

00:11:52.700 Yeah, the rich, you know, Eeyore is your spirit animal.

00:11:54.400 It's like, oh, God, you can't do nothing.

00:11:56.420 You know, you can't you can't get ahead.

00:11:58.300 Little man can't get it.

00:11:59.240 Well, I got to tell you, man, when we can just turn on a computer and all of a sudden we you and me have a podcast, you know, oh, my God.

00:12:10.460 And Joe Rogan sells it for 100 million bucks.

00:12:12.960 Not a bad day, Joe.

00:12:14.680 Well done.

00:12:15.240 I'm proud of you, my man.

00:12:16.600 You know, and.

00:12:17.880 Well, we should be proud of that, too.

00:12:19.320 This goes back to what you were saying earlier, is that a lot of the times people villainize that.

00:12:24.140 And so I think if you're villainizing wealth and also simultaneously trying to build it for yourself, like you can't reconcile the two.

00:12:34.660 Right.

00:12:34.800 And there's no way for you to build wealth if you hate wealthy people.

00:12:40.160 It's well, it's there's cognitive dissonance.

00:12:42.500 I mean, there's a disconnect in your psychology. 0.96

00:12:44.340 You'd have to be a psychopath to be able to actually pull that off.

00:12:48.440 Rabbi Daniel Lappin talks about that in his book. 0.84

00:12:50.740 Thou shall prosper.

00:12:51.520 He talks about the 10 reasons that Jewish people have had a tendency to prosper throughout time in almost any situation in almost any culture.

00:12:59.680 And one of the 10 reasons is that they believe the making of money to be inherently moral.

00:13:05.160 I read that.

00:13:06.020 And when you say it's inherently moral, and if you don't believe that to work against yourself, it's cross purposes.

00:13:14.020 You're if you think wealth is evil, if you think money in and of itself is evil, which it is actually an inanimate object.

00:13:21.200 Bricks are not evil.

00:13:22.000 Bricks are not good.

00:13:22.820 Right.

00:13:23.040 It's immoral.

00:13:23.820 If you believe that something's evil to work towards it is just an anti-human experience.

00:13:30.840 You can't do it.

00:13:32.020 Your probability of actually accomplishing that is very low.

00:13:38.420 You have to believe that the story is I'm helping people with a $10 book, a $20 book, and I made $20 and I helped one.

00:13:50.220 If I help a million, I made $20 million.

00:13:54.360 So who served more?

00:13:56.880 You know, Bill Gates or the guy who's mad at him?

00:13:59.780 Well, but it's also not a zero-sum game.

00:14:02.320 You know, you take that transaction, for example, and you think, well, if it's a pie we're looking at, let's say, again, I buy this book, it's a pie we're looking at, you get a portion of it, I get a portion of it?

00:14:13.940 No, we actually both get 100% because I get to decide what's valuable to me.

00:14:17.880 You don't get to decide for me and vice versa.

00:14:19.920 Again, to quote Rabbi, he says, the economy is not cake, it's candles.

00:14:25.540 How so?

00:14:26.400 Well, when you chop up cake, you know, if I get a bigger piece, by definition, you get a smaller piece or vice versa.

00:14:32.760 When candles, if I light a candle, my candle's not diminished.

00:14:36.660 I can light 200 candles off of it, and my light is still the same as it was.

00:14:40.820 And that's actually how the economy works, more than cake and pies.

00:14:45.520 But people who are in the wealth inequality movement or the socialism mindset or the hating on the rich mindset, they have a cake mentality.

00:14:54.780 And what that amounts to is their critical thinking skills have led them to a wrong conclusion because their critical thinking skills are broken.

00:15:00.940 Yeah, I don't know if there's much skill in that at all.

00:15:03.360 Critical thinking skills, you know, kind of go hand in hand, but it seems like critical thinking and some of this nonsense is a bit of an oxymoron, to put it nicely.

00:15:13.260 Well, there's a lot of intelligence around it, but there's not much wisdom.

00:15:16.520 That's a good point.

00:15:18.720 That's a good point.

00:15:19.680 You know, I think people are, I've often thought about this even with politicians, you know, regardless of what side of the aisle you're sitting on, you have to question the other side and ask, 0.99

00:15:29.880 are these people extremely intelligent or are they just so dumb they don't get it? 0.99

00:15:34.580 And that doesn't matter what side of the aisle. 1.00

00:15:36.220 I think we're both asking our questions.

00:15:38.600 I agree.

00:15:38.860 Yeah, I think we're both trying to solve this.

00:15:40.620 If you're in that situation, both are trying to solve the same problems.

00:15:43.740 The disagreement is how to best solve the problem.

00:15:45.880 Right.

00:15:46.640 Right.

00:15:47.500 Well, looking at this place, I mean, this place is incredible.

00:15:50.040 I know you're building a new event center.

00:15:52.680 Is that right?

00:15:53.240 Absolutely.

00:15:53.660 Is that the one up here on the hill?

00:15:54.800 Yep.

00:15:54.960 Okay.

00:15:55.300 Would you have ever imagined over the course of the last several decades that, you know, starting what you've started in your house on a card table would turn into something like this?

00:16:06.140 No.

00:16:06.660 What do you call this by?

00:16:07.480 Would you say an empire?

00:16:08.720 Would you like, what do you call this?

00:16:10.400 It's a business.

00:16:11.560 A business.

00:16:12.320 A ministry.

00:16:12.880 A crusade.

00:16:13.420 Okay.

00:16:13.800 Yeah.

00:16:14.600 No, it's not an empire.

00:16:16.400 If it's an empire, it's a really small one.

00:16:19.740 But for a kid from Antioch, Tennessee, it's big.

00:16:22.480 Uh, the, uh, uh, you know, what I did see in the early days sitting there, I knew that getting people out of debt, I knew helping people with, uh, learn the truth about some area of their life, learn the truth about the guy or gal in the mirror, which makes me better next week, next year.

00:16:42.680 Um, that there was a tremendous need for that.

00:16:46.080 Just let's just say getting out of debt.

00:16:47.920 All right.

00:16:48.200 I mean, getting people out of debt.

00:16:49.660 That's not a small market.

00:16:50.640 I mean, me and Jenny Craig got a lot of work to do.

00:16:52.720 I mean, there's, it's not a small market, right?

00:16:54.920 So I'm sitting there on the car table.

00:16:56.600 I'm going, this is massive from an entrepreneur's perspective.

00:17:00.080 You know, this market is not, there's not like six customers.

00:17:03.440 It's everybody.

00:17:03.940 So when you started, you were looking at it as a potential business, not just, Hey, I'm just doing this out of the goodness of my heart.

00:17:09.140 It was both.

00:17:09.760 Yeah.

00:17:09.880 Sure.

00:17:10.140 They're not exclusive.

00:17:11.520 Both in.

00:17:11.920 Yeah.

00:17:12.060 And so, but I knew it could be huge.

00:17:15.880 And if I was going to help all the people that needed help, it was going to have to be huge.

00:17:19.120 What I didn't know is how much work it was going to be.

00:17:21.860 Yeah.

00:17:22.200 What I didn't, I never thought I would need, you know, 400,000 square foot buildings in buildings and, uh, another 50,000 square foot in an event center, uh, to, in order to pull it off efficiently.

00:17:33.960 I didn't know we were going to have 1100 people in the year 2022 on our payroll.

00:17:40.040 Is that right?

00:17:40.700 Yeah.

00:17:41.060 Yeah.

00:17:41.500 I didn't know that.

00:17:43.400 I didn't know how wonderful that was going to be.

00:17:46.980 The experience you talked about earlier.

00:17:48.580 I get to see the same thing.

00:17:49.800 They're driving in the parking lot and, um, and you know, the vast majority of these people, I don't, I don't know all 1100 personally.

00:17:57.560 I don't sit in time with them, but the ones I do know, I love and trust and our team, our leaders love and trust them.

00:18:03.960 They're incredible people.

00:18:05.360 And a lot of them very young.

00:18:07.380 I noticed that incredibly, incredible young people, which gives you great hope.

00:18:11.060 So I didn't know how much betrayal there was going to be.

00:18:14.340 I didn't know how many negative things were going to be said about me that were lies and how many negative things are going to sit about me that were the truth.

00:18:20.600 I didn't know. 0.93

00:18:21.660 I didn't, I didn't know how much crap I was going to shovel, but I didn't know there was a need that was huge.

00:18:28.540 It's interesting. 0.73

00:18:29.260 You talk about negativity.

00:18:30.360 I see some of the negativity you receive on social media and everything else.

00:18:33.640 And, you know, most of what I see, cause I, cause I try to interpret it.

00:18:37.040 Like are people just being mean, mean spirited?

00:18:39.580 Yes, of course.

00:18:40.420 There's some of that, but are there others that just see it differently?

00:18:44.320 Of course.

00:18:44.840 But what I think I see more often than not is people lacking discernment because what they'll do is they'll take one of the baby steps, for example, and they'll say, well, you know, in this particular situation, which actually they might be right.

00:18:57.480 But you're trying to reach so many people that giving this specific detailed advice may be unique or slightly different in certain circumstances.

00:19:07.160 Would you agree or disagree?

00:19:08.560 Yeah.

00:19:08.880 Yeah.

00:19:09.360 That's, I mean, it's nuanced and the baby steps are not from the Bible.

00:19:12.940 I invented them, so they could be wrong.

00:19:14.360 And you can just decide if you want to do them or not.

00:19:16.000 It's okay.

00:19:16.720 Yeah.

00:19:16.880 But, um, but what we do know is that, uh, close to 10 million people, about 8 million families have been through financial peace university.

00:19:26.140 We do know that, uh, we do know there's tens of thousands of people that have followed the baby steps and become millionaires.

00:19:32.900 We do know that.

00:19:34.600 And so if you want to disagree with that and not do it, it's okay.

00:19:41.000 Sure.

00:19:41.760 But it's like, I hired a personal trainer in my house.

00:19:44.240 I had a little gym at one point in the house I used to live in and, um, my wife made fun of me cause she said, you know, you, you, you can't count the 10 by yourself, you know, like one, two, three.

00:19:55.580 Right.

00:19:56.300 Um, and you have to pay somebody to do that. 0.96

00:19:58.400 No, I have to pay somebody for accountability cause my butt won't go down there and work out.

00:20:01.900 So, um, I got to get up and go down there and work out. 0.82

00:20:04.500 Well, I go down there and the guy's got a six pack and I got a keg.

00:20:07.420 Right.

00:20:08.300 So am I going to argue?

00:20:10.980 Well, he, you know, he gives me like 16 things to do with attrition.

00:20:13.760 And I go, yeah, but number 14, I like everything, but let me make it my plan.

00:20:18.780 Yeah.

00:20:18.960 But number 14, I don't know if you're right about it, but I'm sitting there arguing with a guy who looks like a Greek God and I look like a bozo, you know?

00:20:26.420 And so you're sitting there broke, arguing about some nuance in the baby steps at what you're doing is you're trying to figure out a way you don't have to deal with you.

00:20:34.800 You, you individually, you personally, when I'm arguing with my trainer, I'm really just saying, I like donuts, leave me alone.

00:20:40.220 Right.

00:20:40.420 But if you like donuts, then just like donuts.

00:20:42.720 Don't say you want to get healthy.

00:20:44.100 Well, and don't blame him.

00:20:45.720 Good point. 0.83

00:20:46.440 You know, just go eat your donuts and be fat.

00:20:48.220 I mean, it's okay.

00:20:49.060 Right.

00:20:49.340 I've done that too.

00:20:50.360 You know, so it's okay.

00:20:52.100 I'm okay.

00:20:52.760 If you want to be broke, I'm okay.

00:20:54.580 If you want to work a different system, that's fine.

00:20:57.320 But you don't have to villainize something that is proven in order to justify you're not doing it.

00:21:06.620 And that's, that's just immaturity.

00:21:08.880 And it's classic social media with some guy writing a financial blog lives in his mother's basement.

00:21:14.300 I mean, you know, it's, it's just classic stuff, but, but it's, it also gets great clicks because I got a big name.

00:21:19.560 So it's, it's a wonderful clickbait.

00:21:21.260 Sure.

00:21:21.940 Well, uh, confession time, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a former financial advisor.

00:21:26.540 And at one point I was a new financial advisor, broke new financial advisor, trying to give people financial advice.

00:21:34.440 Yeah.

00:21:34.660 That was a very weird, strange position to be in.

00:21:38.340 It is.

00:21:38.840 And you know, when I wrote the first book, financial peace, I wrote it in my car table in my living room.

00:21:42.960 I was a couple of years out of bankruptcy.

00:21:44.660 Who am I to give people financial advice?

00:21:46.700 I didn't have any money.

00:21:48.240 I barely scraped together the $4,642 to order the first thousand books and carried them home in the trunk of my car. 0.95

00:21:55.740 And, um, with no apparent marketing plan, by the way, which was really stupid, but, um. 0.89

00:22:01.480 Maybe, but also maybe that was the genius. 0.94

00:22:03.660 It turned out.

00:22:04.380 Yeah.

00:22:04.700 But yeah, but the, but, but now it looks like a genius.

00:22:07.780 But at the time, my wife's going, you did what? 1.00

00:22:10.000 Yeah, but I don't know.

00:22:10.720 See, I think there's a lot of smart people who would not do that because it's not intelligent.

00:22:15.900 It's not smart.

00:22:16.700 It's not a wise and prudent thing to do.

00:22:18.400 And that might keep them from doing something great.

00:22:20.620 It does sometimes.

00:22:21.660 And it's kept me from doing things, you know, but, but we all, there's a difference between taking reasonable risk and just being rash.

00:22:28.000 And I hope I was taking reasonable risk.

00:22:29.500 So, but the bottom line is when I was talking from that book, when I was writing that book, that book's different than all the other books I've written.

00:22:36.240 Because all the other books are written.

00:22:38.660 We were successful.

00:22:40.140 And then we showed you how we did it.

00:22:42.560 In that book, I didn't have anything to stand on.

00:22:45.520 It was God's ways of handling money.

00:22:47.700 Grandma's ways of handling money.

00:22:49.120 This is common sense and what scripture says.

00:22:51.880 And that was the only thing I could lean on.

00:22:54.120 Nobody cared what Dave Ramsey said.

00:22:55.920 There was no Dave Ramsey.

00:22:56.960 Sure.

00:22:57.440 Except at a card table.

00:22:58.700 A little bald guy, you know, sitting there 32 years old.

00:23:01.360 Right. 1.00

00:23:01.540 And so, you know, they gave a crap. 0.97

00:23:03.620 And so I didn't, I couldn't make the case for the validity of the information based on my knowledge or track record. 0.98

00:23:12.440 I had to make it based on someone else's.

00:23:14.220 So what gave you then the audacity, I guess is the right word, to put something like that out there?

00:23:20.540 Because I had to do the same thing, for example, when I started the podcast.

00:23:23.640 You know, I'm talking about masculinity and what it means to be a man.

00:23:26.560 And I'm not the epitome of masculinity.

00:23:29.880 I'm still not.

00:23:31.160 But what gives us the right to talk about these things and even justify that to ourselves?

00:23:35.800 Because I know there's a lot of people who deal with imposter syndrome.

00:23:38.900 Sure.

00:23:39.600 Yeah.

00:23:40.060 Well, we, you know, with me, I was broken, broken.

00:23:43.440 And so I had to learn how to handle money, even though I had a finance degree and all these letters and licenses.

00:23:49.160 After my nightmare, I sat broke.

00:23:50.620 We've heard this story before.

00:23:54.500 And so I had to learn how to handle money.

00:23:56.100 So then I went and said, OK, what works?

00:23:58.680 And I found common sense.

00:24:01.180 And I found scripture and they lined up stuff like do a budget.

00:24:05.000 OK, so I went and did a budget.

00:24:06.840 It worked.

00:24:08.240 And then I told some guy, I said, hey, I did a budget and it worked.

00:24:10.640 And he said, will you show me how to do it?

00:24:12.060 I said, sure.

00:24:12.860 Sure.

00:24:13.120 I got a little yellow pad out and a 10 key calculator.

00:24:16.540 And there we went.

00:24:17.880 And then I said, you know, I got out of debt.

00:24:20.120 He goes, how'd you do that?

00:24:20.960 I said, well, I listed the debts off smallest, the largest.

00:24:23.060 I read that somewhere and some guy did.

00:24:24.440 Because, by the way, I didn't invent the debt snowball.

00:24:26.680 I just got credit for it.

00:24:28.460 And I said, I just it just worked because I kept I kept once I paid off the little one.

00:24:32.820 I kind of got some hope.

00:24:33.620 And then I did another one.

00:24:34.380 I got more hope.

00:24:34.920 And then I did another one.

00:24:35.640 I got more hope.

00:24:36.540 And the hope kept growing.

00:24:37.740 And as the hope grew, my intensity increased and my speed through the debt and the math increased.

00:24:42.340 And he said, this is what I did.

00:24:43.980 And he goes, can I do that?

00:24:45.260 I said, yeah, I'll walk with you.

00:24:46.200 Let's do this.

00:24:46.560 Have a coffee on Friday mornings. 0.54

00:24:47.840 I'll bust your chops if you're not doing it, man. 0.61

00:24:49.260 Come on. 0.99

00:24:49.560 I'll hold you accountable.

00:24:50.100 And so two guys, you know, and one of my buddies.

00:24:52.780 Right.

00:24:53.100 And so we did this.

00:24:54.200 And then I did it as a little thing.

00:24:56.180 I started teaching a Sunday school class at my church, which was, you know, common sense.

00:25:00.040 Do a budget.

00:25:00.660 Get out of debt.

00:25:01.420 Live on less than you make.

00:25:03.020 All things grandma said.

00:25:04.440 All things the Bible says.

00:25:05.340 Right.

00:25:05.500 And so it became this thing where I proof texted other people's information.

00:25:14.680 Right.

00:25:15.200 And the more I proof texted it, the more confident I was to persuade someone else to go do this.

00:25:23.280 And now 30 years later, I can do it just based on the fact that I can go, okay, 10

00:25:27.840 million people went through Financial Peace University.

00:25:29.360 If you don't agree with that, you're what's known as wrong. 1.00

00:25:31.000 Shut up. 0.99

00:25:31.420 I mean, really. 0.99

00:25:32.240 I mean, it's a whole different set of arguments then.

00:25:34.960 Yeah.

00:25:35.080 Versus I had to make a persuasive argument that this works based on, you know, time-honored

00:25:42.800 ancient wisdom.

00:25:44.300 I think it's in our nature to some degree to not necessarily reject, but this stuff's

00:25:51.700 kind of boring.

00:25:52.800 You know what I mean?

00:25:53.540 And so it's like, you know, people are looking for sexy and big and glamorous and exciting,

00:25:59.460 and then they'll see what other people are doing, and they'll play the law of large numbers,

00:26:04.540 they'll see those few who have made it by winning the lottery or becoming famous or, you know,

00:26:10.880 one of these exciting ways of doing it.

00:26:12.620 And they'll write off the principled approach that takes years and years of dedication and

00:26:19.240 discipline in achieving these results that you talk about in this book.

00:26:22.020 Well, and the thing you've got to do, if you want to win at an area of your life, the primary

00:26:30.180 way I have been able to do that in my life, the areas that I'm good at, I'm not good at

00:26:34.600 all of them, I've gotten better every year at every area, and I'm discovering what we in

00:26:41.960 business called best practices of someone else.

00:26:44.460 Sure.

00:26:45.120 Okay.

00:26:45.800 And so if one-tenth of one-one-jillionth of one percent of the people who are millionaires

00:26:52.440 did it with the lottery, or 96 percent of the people who are millionaires did it this

00:26:59.500 other way, I'm kind of going with the 96 percent plan.

00:27:03.860 Seems like a prudent decision to make.

00:27:05.560 Now, what is that plan? 0.99

00:27:07.060 Oh, crap. 0.99

00:27:08.640 It's going to take a while. 0.99

00:27:09.760 I got to invest in my 401k.

00:27:11.460 I got to live on less than I make.

00:27:13.260 I need to get my house and my other debts paid off because when I don't have any payments,

00:27:17.420 I got money to build wealth.

00:27:18.520 Oh, crud.

00:27:19.100 This is going to take 10 years.

00:27:21.180 This is going to take 15 years.

00:27:23.660 But it has a 96 percent probability or whatever figure, 86 percent probability of working.

00:27:29.540 This other one has a one-tenth of one-jillionth of a percent of working.

00:27:34.040 So which one is why?

00:27:35.600 I mean, you know, how do you lose weight?

00:27:38.220 How do you get in shape?

00:27:39.560 You eat less and you exercise more.

00:27:43.460 Right.

00:27:44.080 Whoa, I don't need a book from Oprah.

00:27:46.060 You know, I just figured it out.

00:27:48.360 But instead, I want an app.

00:27:50.440 I want a plan.

00:27:51.760 I want a shortcut.

00:27:52.880 I want to take a pill.

00:27:54.160 I want to do something that short circuits the probability.

00:27:59.700 But what's the highest of all the people you know who lost weight and kept it off and

00:28:03.460 became fit, of all of those people, did any of them really use a trick?

00:28:09.820 No, they just used discipline and consistency.

00:28:11.900 Hustle and grind, baby.

00:28:12.840 That's it.

00:28:13.340 You know, they're the tortoise.

00:28:14.300 They're not the hare.

00:28:15.320 And of all the people you know who grew wonderful businesses, how many of them did it over 20

00:28:21.480 years, how many of them did it over 20 months?

00:28:25.640 Yeah, significantly more over 20 years, of course.

00:28:28.360 And how many of the ones that did it over 20 months even survived 20 years?

00:28:32.460 That's a good point as well.

00:28:34.060 You know, and so when you actually, I'm a practical guy.

00:28:36.980 I'm just looking at the data.

00:28:38.780 What works?

00:28:40.400 Do you think there's a personality characteristic in this?

00:28:44.800 Like, I look at motivation and the way people are inspired and the way people go and decide

00:28:50.340 to do things.

00:28:50.960 And I think there's hot burners and then there's efficient burners, right?

00:28:54.040 So you have hot burners who come out of the gate swinging 100 miles an hour, but they trail

00:28:58.600 off fast.

00:28:59.260 That fuel burns hot and it burns up quick.

00:29:01.940 And then you have these slow burners or more effective and efficient burners who maybe aren't

00:29:05.540 as hot out of the gates, but can do it over a long period of time.

00:29:09.220 Is that a personality thing?

00:29:11.720 It starts as that and it ends as a decision.

00:29:16.400 So I will tell you, I'm a hot burner.

00:29:19.260 I'm a sprinter.

00:29:21.240 I like to do things really fast and quick and I have a short attention span.

00:29:27.960 And so that's a hot burner.

00:29:29.380 It's a definition of a hot burner.

00:29:30.720 If you add immaturity to that, you've got somebody that has the attention span of a gnat.

00:29:36.740 I mean, you can't stay on game.

00:29:38.680 You can't stay on focus.

00:29:39.880 But what I realized as a hot burner was I could use that energy as enthusiasm to get

00:29:46.060 the thing started and I'd be able on that long run then to coast a little bit or could

00:29:52.500 save up and sprint the end of the half marathon.

00:29:55.140 I could save a little fuel, but I've got to be more strategic and intellectual about how

00:30:00.220 I'm displacing my energy, where I'm placing it in order to get the win.

00:30:05.560 Because what I discovered is get rich quick almost never works.

00:30:10.260 Get rich slow does.

00:30:11.500 Become successful quick instantly.

00:30:14.420 Add water.

00:30:15.580 Almost never works.

00:30:16.660 And when it does, it doesn't sustain.

00:30:18.660 I don't like that result.

00:30:19.720 So that's a hot burner mentality.

00:30:22.500 And that is my personality.

00:30:23.620 But I had to overrule that as an act of my will, as an act of intellect and say, all right,

00:30:29.020 I'm going to use all of that hot burner energy to run the whole race.

00:30:33.520 And I've got to make the decision to play long, to play long, even though it's not my nature.

00:30:41.060 And it's not saying, because otherwise I just go, well, I'm a victim of my personality.

00:30:45.520 Right.

00:30:45.760 I'm not a victim of my personality. 0.97

00:30:47.100 It's a freaking decision. 0.92

00:30:48.580 Change. 0.94

00:30:49.320 Sure.

00:30:49.880 And it's also, you have that personality for a reason, you know, like you can use that for

00:30:56.540 your improvement or you can use that to potentially destroy you and take you down the wrong path.

00:31:01.340 Exactly.

00:31:01.580 Are you fear-based or are you anger-based?

00:31:03.940 All of us are one or the other.

00:31:06.000 Anger-based? 0.79

00:31:06.960 Yeah.

00:31:07.160 Anger-based or fear-based.

00:31:08.880 Talk to me about anger-based.

00:31:10.300 Well, you know, you've got this thing that comes up or you naturally shrink away.

00:31:17.340 Got it.

00:31:17.740 Kind of that fight or flight mentality.

00:31:19.400 Yeah.

00:31:19.640 Yeah.

00:31:19.800 And most people are that.

00:31:20.680 And by the way, neither one's wrong.

00:31:22.800 But they're wrong when they go to a toxic end of the spectrum and you go, well, you're

00:31:27.780 a rageaholic.

00:31:28.820 You're undependable.

00:31:29.820 You know, you just walk out of the room.

00:31:33.160 You know, you walk out of your marriage.

00:31:34.960 You walk out of everything because you're just right.

00:31:36.940 You're always angry.

00:31:37.900 Or your fear, you're paralyzed.

00:31:40.420 You never do anything.

00:31:41.880 But fear can be wisdom and causes you to slow down.

00:31:44.820 Sure.

00:31:45.640 Stay out of the traffic, dude.

00:31:46.980 You get run over.

00:31:47.840 Right.

00:31:48.140 You know, and anger can be energy that causes righteous.

00:31:51.740 You can fight for righteous things.

00:31:53.600 And so both of those are OK.

00:31:55.640 But recognizing what that is and say, well, that's that's just the way I am. 0.99

00:31:59.560 Oh, bullcrap. 0.99

00:32:00.640 You're going to be a grown up version of you. 0.99

00:32:02.800 Yeah.

00:32:03.200 And then go do something.

00:32:06.480 All right, guys, let me hit the pause button on the conversation with Dave very quickly.

00:32:11.260 Just want to make a very quick mention of our battle ready program.

00:32:16.400 Guys, not there's no great warrior out there who would ever go into battle without a plan.

00:32:20.720 And I don't think it's wise to go into the battle of your life without a plan either.

00:32:24.720 But there's a lot of people who do.

00:32:26.440 But the question is, where do you start?

00:32:28.660 What do you look for?

00:32:30.120 What plans do you put in place to reach your objectives?

00:32:32.900 And that's exactly why we built the battle ready program to help you answer those questions and more.

00:32:38.020 And then also get your 2022 off to the right start.

00:32:41.580 So when you join the free battle ready course, you'll unlock access to a series of 17 emails that are going to help you find the answers to your own questions.

00:32:50.720 Questions and challenges.

00:32:52.340 And you're also going to learn a system that has transformed thousands of men's lives over the past five years.

00:32:58.800 So if you're looking for a course to get your annual planning done right, which is actually going to lead you to producing results, then check out our free battle ready program.

00:33:09.760 You can do that at order of man.com slash battle ready.

00:33:13.160 Again, that's order of man.com slash battle ready.

00:33:15.620 Do that after the show.

00:33:17.060 For now, let's finish it up with Dave.

00:33:18.520 So I went, I went through this book.

00:33:22.300 I read the book, which I loved, by the way.

00:33:25.160 And, you know, you talk a lot about the baby steps.

00:33:27.420 And the thing that I like most is there's case studies, right?

00:33:29.480 There's examples of people who have used this to their own benefit to be able to produce the results that they have.

00:33:34.600 But one thing I don't see a whole lot in here is growing business.

00:33:37.460 And yet that's a big part of the way that you've built your wealth.

00:33:40.660 So I'm always curious where the business building and all of that comes into, whether it's the baby steps or just the entire conversation about finances and money.

00:33:49.760 Because that's been a big part of my success, too, is not the real estate, not the 401ks, but the business component of it.

00:33:57.380 Well, about 15 percent of the millionaires that we studied did so as entrepreneurs.

00:34:04.480 That is that to me.

00:34:05.640 That is a wild.

00:34:06.540 That that seems so low to me.

00:34:08.420 It is low.

00:34:09.280 And here's why we didn't study deca millionaires.

00:34:12.620 We studied one to five millionaires.

00:34:15.240 Got it.

00:34:15.720 Now, to go from 10 million to 30 million or 10 million to 15 million to be if you want to be Jeff Bezos, you're not going to do that reading this book.

00:34:28.940 Sure.

00:34:29.420 And you taught you taught you very clear.

00:34:30.980 You talked about Bezos.

00:34:32.260 Yeah.

00:34:32.480 And this book is not crazy numbers.

00:34:34.780 This book is not.

00:34:35.460 But now so if you get to someone, let's say, that has a we start if we did a study of deca millionaires, 10 million or greater.

00:34:41.840 OK, we would see a very high percentage of entrepreneurs.

00:34:44.680 OK, got it, because it's very difficult with your 401k and paying your house off will only get you to about five, maybe seven.

00:34:53.180 Sure.

00:34:53.540 Depending on when you start and how old, how long you live, all that kind of stuff.

00:34:56.060 But but I mean, in a 20 year period of time, which is what most of these people did it in with 10 to 20 year period of time, you're going to hit that one to five million.

00:35:04.840 So what this book is about is getting your first one to five on a very steady, easy projection.

00:35:09.960 And the interesting thing is you could do that as an entrepreneur.

00:35:12.740 You could do the stuff we're talking about in Baby Steps Millionaire while running your business, which is actually what I did.

00:35:18.920 Right.

00:35:19.380 So the 98 percent of my wealth, personal wealth, has nothing to do with the stuff in this book.

00:35:27.380 Right.

00:35:27.720 But the first one to five million is it came from this book.

00:35:31.420 I get that.

00:35:32.380 And I think I'm maybe I don't want to say past.

00:35:35.520 That sounds pretentious, but it's different for me.

00:35:38.900 It's obviously different for you.

00:35:40.520 And so I looked at it as like, well, you know, like paying off the house, for example, you know, am I super concerned with paying off the house?

00:35:47.420 I've got a couple of different rents.

00:35:48.580 Like, I'm not really concerned about that right now.

00:35:51.300 But if we take everything in the book as gospel or we don't have any discernment, like you and I were talking earlier, people might think, well, that's misguided advice.

00:36:00.260 It's like, well, it's for a certain person.

00:36:02.940 Well, maybe.

00:36:03.460 But but also, you know, in working with entrepreneurs and through our entree leadership stuff, tens of thousands of them over the years.

00:36:10.440 What we find is, is that when that young entrepreneur who has a business that's generating one to ten million dollar top line, when they pay off their home.

00:36:21.820 As as a goal, it releases something inside of them to go run their business.

00:36:28.000 So it's not so much of a maybe mathematical decision.

00:36:32.360 Interesting.

00:36:32.940 No, it's it's you when COVID hits, you don't worry about it.

00:36:38.940 House is paid for, you know, when COVID hits.

00:36:42.180 And I got, you know, and here's another entrepreneurs often make this mistake and it's a huge mistake.

00:36:48.400 They'll grow a good business, a one to a ten million dollar top line business, meaning gross revenues.

00:36:53.240 Sure.

00:36:53.880 And I'll meet them and they're they're fifty five years old or forty eight years old and they have zero money saved.

00:37:01.380 All of their asset is their business.

00:37:04.020 Right.

00:37:04.840 Well, that's a lack of diversification.

00:37:06.500 Sure.

00:37:07.040 So I have fully funded my 401k as maxed out everything.

00:37:12.640 So I've got millions of dollars in mutual funds and has nothing to do with this business, which gives me the odd opportunity to hand the keys to this whole place to the next generation.

00:37:23.380 Walk away.

00:37:24.500 Get nothing personally from this.

00:37:27.980 All the wealth I built over to the side other than the business will sustain Sharon and I things when we can.

00:37:34.400 And I don't have to put the burden of debt on the next generation to do a succession plan.

00:37:38.000 That is a good point, because I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs and as I started along my entrepreneurial journey, I was like, I don't need to put money in the 401k or the real estate or any of this other stuff.

00:37:46.880 Like, I'm making a bunch of money over here.

00:37:48.660 Well, at some point, that faucet may actually turn off, whether it's something that's legislated or something in the market changes or I get disabled.

00:37:57.300 You know, there's all sorts of things where that could potentially turn off.

00:38:00.460 Well, it is.

00:38:01.160 It's just a lack of a diversification.

00:38:02.880 You got all your eggs in one basket when you own the business.

00:38:05.040 And the problem is, those of us that run businesses, we see the ROI.

00:38:09.100 Yeah, of course.

00:38:10.040 If I take $10,000 and I put it in a mutual fund or I pay $10,000 and I put it in Ramsey Solutions, oh, the ROI at Ramsey Solutions is like light years better.

00:38:20.460 Yes.

00:38:20.580 And so, why would I ever put it over in a boring but mutual fund?

00:38:24.820 You know, because I'm laying foundational things that allow freedom to run the business without the stress of a debt on the house and without the stress of having, there's no other money anywhere except in this one place.

00:38:37.880 And then if this one place starts tilting a little bit, man, my freak on, my freak goes on really fast.

00:38:43.500 Right.

00:38:44.000 Well, you know, there's another thing is you were talking about your personal trainer.

00:38:47.220 What I like about it is that it teaches you principles that are proven to work, right?

00:38:52.340 Proven to work.

00:38:52.980 Like, well, at some point, you know, if you're trying to lose 30 pounds, let's say, you follow what your trainer does.

00:39:00.340 But then when you're ready to do a powerlifting competition or you want to go into bodybuilding, the principles are still there.

00:39:10.220 But you start adjusting and tweaking and changing your diet and your exercises because now you're at a different level than you were before.

00:39:18.300 Yeah.

00:39:18.360 But it turns out if you want to run a half marathon, it's good to get your entire body in shape, not just your legs.

00:39:23.240 Yeah.

00:39:23.700 Great point.

00:39:24.400 Right.

00:39:25.200 And that's the whole thing.

00:39:26.540 And you'll do a better job.

00:39:27.700 You'll feel better when you're done.

00:39:29.340 Your recovery will be shorter.

00:39:30.680 If you actually have some tone in your biceps, which has apparently nothing to do with running the half marathon.

00:39:37.480 But it has everything to do with your body functioning properly.

00:39:40.580 Well, the other thing I like that you're doing, too, is is making sure that people get the right mentality because, you know, I've often thought about money, for example.

00:39:49.040 Well, it's just math, right?

00:39:50.480 Like, two plus two equals four.

00:39:52.360 And up until relatively recently, everybody believed that.

00:39:55.220 Okay.

00:39:55.700 It just is.

00:39:57.340 Well, then why is not everybody wealthy?

00:39:59.660 It's more than math.

00:40:01.140 There's so much more to it.

00:40:02.800 And I don't think a lot of people understand that or get it.

00:40:05.420 We always say that, and I think it's one of the Ramsey differences in the whole financial space.

00:40:10.160 It's a brand differentiator is that personal finance is 80% behavior.

00:40:14.460 It's only 20% head knowledge.

00:40:16.460 We all know what to do.

00:40:17.740 We all know how to lose weight, but we're looking for a shortcut.

00:40:22.640 We're looking for a trick.

00:40:23.700 Our own broken psychology, our own broken emotions, our own sin in our life, whatever it is that causes us to see the world through skewed glasses, causes us to not do the obvious common sense things that are in front of us.

00:40:40.700 And I'm not indifferent.

00:40:43.260 I'm not any better.

00:40:44.420 I'm not talking down to anybody.

00:40:45.620 I mean, we keep using the weight loss metaphor.

00:40:48.300 I mean, during COVID, when in high stress situation, I discovered something about myself.

00:40:52.440 I did not know in a high stress scenario.

00:40:55.200 And I used to do this when I was on the road with book tours and other things.

00:40:57.860 We're working 16 hour days, but I didn't realize it in a high stress scenario.

00:41:01.580 Apparently, the way I medicate all of that stress and hard work is it gives me I give myself permission to eat everything in the world.

00:41:10.040 I ate every donut in a 50 mile radius during COVID.

00:41:13.540 I looked like I gained like 35 pounds in a heartbeat.

00:41:16.920 And so now I've lost almost 40 to get back down to this.

00:41:21.640 Well done.

00:41:22.060 I still got a little work to do.

00:41:23.020 Well done. 0.94

00:41:23.360 Because I realized, you know, Dave was screwed up.

00:41:28.140 It wasn't the plan that was messed up. 0.81

00:41:30.640 It was the broken guy in my mirror.

00:41:32.240 And so the joke line we always use is, if you can control the guy in your mirror, you can be skinny and rich.

00:41:37.880 Do you feel like you heal some of that brokenness, let's say, through money principles?

00:41:44.620 Or does that brokenness need to be fixed first?

00:41:46.820 And then the money issues or the money discipline comes secondary to that?

00:41:52.260 They're intertwined in that I say, OK, in order to get out of debt, I have to address.

00:41:57.980 Part of it is I have to address the math.

00:41:59.680 Part of it is I have to have a tactical solution like the debt snowball.

00:42:03.640 But as I'm working that debt snowball, I start to realize why I went into debt.

00:42:08.060 I start to realize I was trying to look like somebody I wasn't.

00:42:11.080 I'm trying to buy stuff that I don't need with money that I don't have to impress people I don't really like.

00:42:16.140 And all of a sudden, I don't really care what people think.

00:42:18.360 And that change inside of me accelerates the debt thing.

00:42:22.540 So as I'm working to get out of debt or as I'm working on a budget with my spouse,

00:42:25.760 I realize we weren't communicating about a lot of stuff.

00:42:27.880 And now we start communicating about this money thing.

00:42:30.960 And the number of people come to us after a financial piece of diversity and go,

00:42:33.880 you saved our marriage.

00:42:34.720 And I went, you went to the wrong class.

00:42:36.260 The sex class was down the hall.

00:42:38.040 I mean, come on.

00:42:39.080 Well, I mean, let's not deny the fact that maybe the intimacy and sex department is going to get better

00:42:43.580 if you get the money stuff under control.

00:42:45.140 100% of the time.

00:42:45.880 100% of the time.

00:42:46.540 It's the number one cause of because when you can agree on your spending,

00:42:49.640 you're really agreeing on your life.

00:42:50.800 And you're really communicating.

00:42:53.620 And 100% of the time, that affects your sexual life, your relational life.

00:42:59.020 And so there's no exception.

00:43:01.340 I mean, there's no difference.

00:43:02.200 And so these people go, I'm going to do it without my spouse.

00:43:04.380 You're going to be doing a lot of stuff without your spouse.

00:43:06.180 You know, it's just not going to happen, man.

00:43:07.740 You better get down.

00:43:09.120 You better figure this out.

00:43:10.240 You better get on the same page.

00:43:12.340 And because, again, the probability is when we studied millionaires,

00:43:16.740 that huge millionaire study we did here at Ramsey, there was unbelievable research.

00:43:21.460 You know, it was like 78% of them said one of the key things was they worked with their spouse.

00:43:25.940 Yeah.

00:43:26.200 So, okay.

00:43:27.200 So you can do that.

00:43:28.360 You can not do it, but 22% of the time is all you're going to make it.

00:43:31.640 I'll take the 78% of the time.

00:43:33.620 Well, and, you know, I think about marriage.

00:43:37.120 Well, you made a commitment to walk hand in hand with her.

00:43:39.460 Yeah.

00:43:39.640 Like, you made that commitment to do it together.

00:43:42.760 Was Sharon always on board with you as you started to change some of your habits

00:43:47.160 and improve your financial practices and get better with this thing?

00:43:50.520 Or is that something that you feel like you had to convince or coax her

00:43:54.500 into walking in this financial journey with you?

00:43:58.220 We were so broke and broken, both of us, by that process.

00:44:01.620 We got a brand new baby, a toddler.

00:44:03.340 We're 28 years old.

00:44:04.780 We hit the bottom and we're ground into powder that both of us were just willing to do anything.

00:44:09.640 Neither of us had a prideful thing left.

00:44:14.680 It all had the snot beat out of us.

00:44:17.040 And so both of us are, like, just holding hands like two scared children in the rain, you know.

00:44:21.400 So what do you do?

00:44:22.320 What do we do?

00:44:22.800 What do we do?

00:44:23.180 How do we get out of the rain?

00:44:24.000 Where's the umbrella?

00:44:25.160 And I don't know.

00:44:25.880 Let's try this.

00:44:26.460 Okay, let's try this.

00:44:27.360 And so the obstinance came later as we started healing.

00:44:32.980 And that's more where we had our arguments was as we – but when you're so scared and you're back in the corner,

00:44:37.840 you do anything to fight together to get out.

00:44:40.360 I mean, we always laughed and said she would have left, but she didn't have a car.

00:44:43.220 You know, so it's like –

00:44:44.720 What were some of those issues as things improved that you guys argued about?

00:44:51.600 Well, I tactically went, for instance, to the emergency fund.

00:44:56.420 I didn't need an emergency fund.

00:44:57.860 I have a very high risk tolerance.

00:44:59.920 And it's what caused me to go broke, by the way.

00:45:01.620 Hello.

00:45:02.920 Also what helps you build wealth.

00:45:05.020 Yeah, but it's more matured and has some scars.

00:45:08.740 Sure.

00:45:08.940 So the risk tolerance looks more like wisdom rather than being rash.

00:45:11.800 Got it.

00:45:12.440 And so nowadays – but so building in a three- to six-month emergency fund was plenty for me, but not for Sharon.

00:45:19.120 After we were broke, she wanted an emergency fund for the emergency fund.

00:45:23.120 Right.

00:45:23.740 Because, again, I'd be more anger-based.

00:45:25.380 She'd be more fear-based.

00:45:26.340 And so the fear-based person sometimes has a scarcity mentality versus an abundance mentality.

00:45:31.440 Do you think that's generally a sex difference, too?

00:45:33.980 Nope.

00:45:34.480 Really?

00:45:34.880 Nope.

00:45:35.360 I meet ladies who are game on. 1.00

00:45:37.600 I meet – and –

00:45:40.160 I'm not talking about the fear versus anger.

00:45:42.220 I'm talking more about the conservative nature or making sure hedging bets a little bit more, growing that emergency fund a little bit more.

00:45:49.460 I will tell you that the number of men who don't need an emergency fund is higher than the number of women, just anecdotally, just from having taught this to thousands of people for years.

00:45:58.840 The ladies will go, yes, we need that emergency fund. 1.00

00:46:01.560 But there's a little bit of the nesting thing and protecting the kids thing that's innate and maybe societal or environmental.

00:46:09.460 I don't know.

00:46:09.820 But either way, wherever it comes from, yeah, more ladies will do that. 1.00

00:46:12.980 And we always tell guys, look, your wife will relax in a place you don't have.

00:46:16.500 She has an emergency gland that's all tense.

00:46:19.420 And if you'll just put that emergency fund in place, she'll relax in a place you don't have and join you on some of these other things you're wanting to work on.

00:46:25.880 That's a good point I was going to ask.

00:46:27.080 How do you reconcile those?

00:46:28.200 So in this case, it sounds like just have three months more of emergency, and then you can go on to do the other stuff that you're more inclined to do or have a desire to do.

00:46:35.520 Yeah, but if I, even to this day, it's been 30 years since we filed bankruptcy, and even to this day, if my verbiage or the action that I'm anticipating doing makes her feel, it activates, she sees a pattern somehow in that, it'll activate that old scar in her, that wounded place in her from all those years ago, and she gets that look in her eyes like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:47:04.380 What might you do as a real-world example at this point with the level of success that you've had where it would activate that?

00:47:15.620 I wouldn't actually do it, but if the way I'm talking about anything or the way we're discussing it feels to her like the same pattern, she kind of hears the 28-year-old Dave talking coming out,

00:47:33.940 or even if I wasn't doing that, but if the way I structured the sentences or the way my body language was or whatever, she goes, oh, God, here we go again, that thing rises up inside of her, and it's not logical in either case.

00:47:47.800 It's not saying she's illogical or I'm illogical.

00:47:49.900 No.

00:47:50.040 It's just you have a wounded place, and if you put your hand on that wound, everybody flinches, and so you've just got to be aware of that.

00:47:57.820 And so that's an example of where there was some belligerence where if I even – I always joke and say we had the emergency fund stuff in a file drawer in my office.

00:48:05.360 If I walked near that file drawer like I was going to use that money for something, like to do it in the business, she would be like the machetes come out and the swords and the bazooka is lined up in my head.

00:48:17.360 It's like World War III, baby.

00:48:19.640 Don't you walk near that dadgum drawer.

00:48:21.400 I'll take you out, Bubba.

00:48:22.460 So, you know.

00:48:23.700 But, you know, I think about it too.

00:48:25.420 You know, if having that emergency fund or having that set aside is what appeases her and what makes her feel comfortable and that's something that we can do together and then the rest is for other things, then that's a small price to pay to be able to get her on board with other things.

00:48:39.600 And that's why I did that because – but the old Dave wouldn't have even had one.

00:48:42.520 I was fine with zero cash.

00:48:43.800 That's one of the reasons I went broke.

00:48:44.800 I had no liquidity, you know, and so, no, you need cash.

00:48:47.780 You need cash, man.

00:48:48.840 You need a big pile of cash.

00:48:50.060 Cash is a huge cushion against life.

00:48:53.680 And so, it's not necessarily invested properly and all the details of that.

00:48:57.960 But, man, COVID hits and you got a big pile of cash, it's a different world.

00:49:02.420 The whole world's quarantined and you don't know if you can make payroll.

00:49:04.780 I got a big pile of cash.

00:49:06.100 Right.

00:49:06.600 Yeah, I think the past – what is it?

00:49:08.780 Almost two years now – that's wild – has really opened a lot of people's eyes to how dangerous their financial situation is.

00:49:19.160 You know, people are laid off.

00:49:20.720 They don't have any money coming in.

00:49:24.260 They're, in many cases, being forced to not – they can't come into work.

00:49:28.640 And it's really exposed a lot of vulnerabilities and flaws in people's financial planning.

00:49:33.680 It validated what we've been saying for 30 years to the marketplace.

00:49:37.760 And so, all of a sudden, for a number of people, they went, oh, okay, I get it.

00:49:44.460 I get it.

00:49:44.940 I got to do these baby steps.

00:49:46.360 I got to get this emergency fund in place.

00:49:48.000 I need to get these debts paid off.

00:49:49.540 I need to start working through – start systematically ongoing in funding my retirement.

00:49:55.420 I need to work to get the house paid off in 10 years because the next time – not if, when –

00:50:02.160 Right.

00:50:02.860 Something happens.

00:50:04.460 9-1-1, the planes go into the buildings.

00:50:07.060 2008, dadgum, economy crashes on a housing bubble.

00:50:11.000 Which is when I got into financial planning, by the way.

00:50:13.160 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:13.580 And, you know, and then, you know, we have 2020 and 2021.

00:50:18.060 It's not a – I just don't know what the big bad wolf is going to look like the next time he comes huffing and puffing,

00:50:23.640 but I want to be in the brick house.

00:50:25.560 Yeah, but people forget so quickly.

00:50:28.240 You know, I fear that what people will do, especially as it relates to money,

00:50:31.720 is they'll start getting their financial situation in order.

00:50:34.000 They'll get to three or four in the baby steps, and they're like, oh, yeah, see, we're good.

00:50:37.960 We're fine.

00:50:39.140 Yep.

00:50:39.460 And they'll start to revert back to their old patterns because they think they're safe,

00:50:43.140 and they'll find themselves in the same situation in the next five or maybe 50 years.

00:50:47.500 I don't know.

00:50:48.460 That's why it's unusual to be wealthy.

00:50:50.960 Hmm.

00:50:51.760 Because people can't sustain that action?

00:50:53.920 It's unusual for people to make the choices over a long period of time that causes them to be healthy, wealthy, and successful.

00:51:01.820 And that's why we admire people who are healthy, wealthy, and successful because they're unusual.

00:51:07.520 Right.

00:51:08.360 The neat news is you can just decide.

00:51:12.180 And you have the power to do it.

00:51:13.700 You can just decide.

00:51:14.420 Nobody's stopping you.

00:51:15.900 The only person stopping you is the person in your mirror.

00:51:18.120 What are some of the mistakes that people make on this path?

00:51:21.940 Let's say somebody's hearing this.

00:51:23.460 Maybe they're in a tough financial situation currently, or maybe not.

00:51:27.960 Maybe things are okay.

00:51:29.060 They're just okay.

00:51:30.220 What are some mistakes that people often make on the path to build more wealth and abundance in their lives?

00:51:34.840 I'd say okay is more of an enemy than bad.

00:51:40.400 If things are bad, sometimes like when I went broke, that's your wake-up call, and you say never again.

00:51:45.940 But just mediocrity is easy to just sit there.

00:51:49.600 There's nothing waking you up.

00:51:51.340 There's nothing smacking you around to go, you've got to fix this, bozo.

00:51:54.780 But you have a heart attack, you quit eating biscuits and gravy, man.

00:51:59.120 I mean, they do a biscuidectomy by opening up your chest, then you will all of a sudden change your healthy eating habits.

00:52:04.940 That is true.

00:52:06.380 But just eating and eating and eating and going on, it's the same thing with money.

00:52:10.740 The problem in America is you can have a really good life and suck at handling money. 0.72

00:52:16.300 Oh, yeah. 0.86

00:52:17.480 You know, compare it.

00:52:18.580 But, I mean, if you really want to be somebody, if you really want to take it to the next level, if you really want to be game on, if you really want to leave a mark, if you really want to change your family tree, if you want to have a sense of dignity, the ability to feed poor people in mass, the ability to buy toys for an entire community of kids where the whole thing was wiped out with a flood.

00:52:38.800 If you want to be able to do stuff like that, it takes money.

00:52:42.460 And if you want to play at a level of greater joy, a level of greater enthusiasm, you've got to pay a price to get there.

00:52:51.260 You don't get to stand on the podium at the Super Bowl unless you have worked your butt off to get there and had everybody tell you you're doing it wrong the whole time and still you're the one standing up there holding the trophy shut up.

00:53:05.440 This is such an important conversation.

00:53:08.640 It's one I think a lot of people overlook.

00:53:10.520 You know, they're looking at the ones and the zeros on their bank accounts and their balances and their debt and everything.

00:53:14.620 And that's important.

00:53:15.100 You've got to do that.

00:53:16.300 But what does that represent?

00:53:18.240 What does that mean?

00:53:19.040 I wish more people would know that and know why they want to build wealth because I think if they did, it would keep them on track for longer periods of time.

00:53:26.780 And let me go ahead and give you a clue.

00:53:28.320 You need a bigger why than just I want more stuff.

00:53:32.740 Right.

00:53:32.900 Everybody wants that.

00:53:34.060 There's nothing wrong with wanting more stuff.

00:53:35.900 That's a first level thing.

00:53:37.640 But you won't stay at it just to get a nicer car.

00:53:40.000 You won't stay at it just to get a nicer house.

00:53:42.780 Selfish motives, noble motives will drag you a lot further into your why.

00:53:47.940 And those are decisions.

00:53:49.140 By the way, there's nothing wrong with having nice house and nice cars.

00:53:51.860 I got both.

00:53:52.520 Right.

00:53:52.960 So it's OK.

00:53:54.200 It gets you some.

00:53:55.220 Right.

00:53:55.440 But that's not the answer.

00:53:56.460 You eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap.

00:53:57.860 I mean, really, there's I love lobster.

00:53:59.660 But enough of it is enough.

00:54:00.940 Right.

00:54:01.140 I haven't reached that point.

00:54:01.900 I'm in Maine and I have not reached that point.

00:54:03.540 I have tried a couple of times, you know, but the point is you satiate yourself with

00:54:07.380 input, but output you never get tired of.

00:54:12.020 You never get tired of.

00:54:13.180 So when you want to change your family tree, when you're looking at your grandbaby, I got

00:54:16.140 seven of them.

00:54:17.140 And I know that the decisions we've made over the last 30 years will affect their kids'

00:54:22.780 kids.

00:54:23.080 I know it.

00:54:25.180 Mathematically, it's really almost impossible for them to screw this up. 0.98

00:54:28.560 I mean, really, it's ridiculous. 0.97

00:54:30.540 Right.

00:54:31.080 Do you have fears, though, about the way that your kids and grandchildren will turn out in

00:54:37.360 spite of the different upbringing that maybe you had personally?

00:54:40.960 No, because we, in every case, our kids and our grandkids are not defined by the money.

00:54:50.780 They have to have a work ethic.

00:54:51.940 They have to have virtues.

00:54:52.900 They have to be welcome with God.

00:54:54.080 They have to care about other people.

00:54:55.760 You don't get to be a trust fund baby if you're a Ramsey.

00:54:58.360 It's not an option.

00:54:59.800 Well, and you have a big part of what you talk about is always giving, right?

00:55:06.140 Serving, value, giving back, sharing, abundance.

00:55:09.260 And I think that changes things as well.

00:55:11.040 Listen, the most fun you'll ever have with money is generosity.

00:55:13.920 Agreed.

00:55:14.340 And once you get that nailed down, then you'll go get you some.

00:55:17.980 Yeah.

00:55:18.520 You go get you some in sort of you can give some.

00:55:20.980 It changes everything.

00:55:22.980 And so, folks, go be a Baby Steps Millionaire.

00:55:26.120 You can do it.

00:55:28.420 Dave, I appreciate it.

00:55:29.520 Thank you.

00:55:29.860 I'm so honored to be here with you today.

00:55:31.280 Honored to be with you, Ryan.

00:55:32.140 I remember when I joined, I started financial planning seven years ago.

00:55:36.120 You know, I'd look at what you were doing.

00:55:37.300 I'm like, man, look what he's doing.

00:55:38.380 And I like the marketing component because I'm entrepreneurial driven.

00:55:41.020 So, man, to be able to sit down with you here today has just been a real joy.

00:55:44.360 I appreciate it.

00:55:45.080 Honored to be with you, sir.

00:55:45.900 Thank you, brother.

00:55:47.620 All right, you guys.

00:55:48.760 I hope you enjoyed it.

00:55:49.920 That was a good one.

00:55:50.900 That was a definite highlight of my podcasting career up to this point to be able to go sit down with Dave and meet him.

00:55:57.320 And he's very gracious.

00:55:58.580 And with his time and his resources and allowing me to come visit the headquarters there, what an incredible place, what an incredible organization that he's running.

00:56:08.420 Go check out his newest book, Baby Steps Millionaires.

00:56:11.720 He's going to explain in that book a lot of what we talked about today, but of course, goes further into depth and talks about more than what we could address today.

00:56:19.520 And I really think you're going to get a lot of value from that.

00:56:22.400 Outside of that, let's keep the conversations going.

00:56:24.300 Take a screenshot, share it on Instagram, share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, share it on Gab, share it on wherever you are, get her wherever you are.

00:56:31.720 Just share it.

00:56:32.220 Take a screenshot, tag me, tag Dave.

00:56:34.620 Let everybody know what you're listening to.

00:56:36.460 If you've got information, we have an obligation to share it.

00:56:39.620 If it's serving you, it will serve somebody else.

00:56:41.960 And all I ask in exchange for the information we're trying to put into your earbuds is for you to share it with somebody who could be served by what it is we're doing here.

00:56:51.920 All right.

00:56:52.880 Outside of that, just connect with me.

00:56:54.300 Leave that rating and review.

00:56:55.640 Look at the Battle Ready program and let's get to work.

00:56:58.300 You have your marching orders.

00:56:59.940 Guys, dial that money and those finances in this year.

00:57:04.760 And I think taking a look at what Dave Ramsey and the Ramsey team and Ramsey Solutions are doing might just be your ticket.

00:57:11.760 Check it out.

00:57:12.680 All right, guys.

00:57:13.240 I'll be back tomorrow.

00:57:14.360 Until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:57:18.860 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

00:57:21.440 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:57:25.460 We invite you to join the Order at quarterofman.com.

Order of Man - January 11, 2022

DAVE RAMSEY ｜ Step by Step Guide to Building Your Way to Wealth

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