Order of Man

00:00:00.000 I don't really believe there is an excuse to be broke in today's society, but there are factors

00:00:05.720 that contribute to both the mindset and the behaviors that keep many men from financial

00:00:11.720 prosperity. But once you become a man, I think your excuses expire. You, after all, are responsible

00:00:18.280 for your own financial abundance and prosperity. In fact, it's one of the core tenets of manliness

00:00:23.340 to provide. Today, I'm joined by Dave Ramsey personality, George Camel, to talk about what

00:00:29.520 keeps us from achieving the ultimate wealth and prosperity we desire. We talk about some

00:00:34.780 common pervasive myths about money. What exactly is the quote unquote money matrix and how to

00:00:40.360 break free from it? The importance of relational equity in the wealth building process, the

00:00:46.100 three emotions keeping you from financial prosperity and so much more. You're a man of action. You

00:00:52.600 live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks

00:00:57.460 you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated,

00:01:03.600 rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become

00:01:10.240 at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:15.860 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. Glad you're tuning in. Glad you're here with

00:01:20.600 us. Glad you're connected. Glad you're listening. But most importantly, I hope, it's my hope that

00:01:25.280 you take this information that we share, my guests share, and apply it in your life for

00:01:29.140 the betterment of yourself, your family, your colleagues, your coworkers, your communities,

00:01:32.840 society at large. You know as well as I do that we need more men in this fight, maybe

00:01:38.620 more than we ever have before at any other point in history of mankind. So I'm glad you're

00:01:44.720 tuning in, and I'm glad you're applying, and I'm glad that we are hopefully giving you

00:01:49.280 some tools and resources you need to thrive. That's what we're all about here, giving you

00:01:53.500 everything that you need to thrive as a husband, business owner, community leader, father,

00:01:58.080 et cetera, et cetera. I've got a really good one for you today with George Camel. He's

00:02:01.740 a Dave Ramsey personality, and this one was very good for me. I learned a lot personally,

00:02:07.580 and I believe that if we get our finances dialed in, a lot of the other problems that we deal

00:02:12.740 with don't necessarily fall in place, but I think it does help us to fulfill our responsibility

00:02:18.520 as a man and to provide and protect and serve those that we love and care about. So guys,

00:02:25.400 I'm going to introduce you to my guest in here very shortly. Before I do, just want to mention

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00:03:11.860 to save some money when you support these guys, support America and get yourself a great quality

00:03:17.820 knife. All right, guys, let me introduce you to my guest. His name is George Camel. He is,

00:03:22.500 as I said earlier, a Ramsey personality. He's a personal finance expert. He has been following

00:03:27.940 Ramsey's proven money plan. He went from a negative net worth to a millionaire in under 10 short

00:03:34.820 years. And since 2013, he has served on the Ramsey team. He's speaking across the country.

00:03:41.260 He's co-hosting top ranked Ramsey network podcasts, like smart money, happy hour, and the Ramsey show.

00:03:47.960 I was on his show not too long ago called entre leadership and on his YouTube channel, George

00:03:53.940 educates and entertains. He exposes the financial system that's designed to keep you broke. We talk a

00:03:59.740 lot about that today, but his goal is to help people spend less, save more, avoid money,

00:04:04.820 traps so they can live a life with more margin, with more options, with more freedom. And he's

00:04:11.460 also the author of his brand new book, breaking free from broke the ultimate guide to more money

00:04:17.020 and less stress. George, what's up, brother? So great to see you again. A little different than

00:04:22.700 last time. We have to do this virtually as opposed to in person.

00:04:26.020 I know, but you still look just as good as last time. You've been taking care of yourself. I see.

00:04:29.980 I probably look better because you know, the camera maybe sometimes can hide some of the

00:04:33.480 blemishes and you know, the, the, I don't know. They say the camera puts on 10 pounds. So I'm not

00:04:38.080 sure. I believe, you know, I didn't plan to be in front of a camera for the rest of my life. And so

00:04:42.700 this is what God gave me. I'm working with it. And you are too. We can't all be Dr. John Deloney.

00:04:48.080 That's right. And I see how many followers he has and, and, and his posts and how much interaction.

00:04:53.280 And I mean, clearly it's because of his looks. It isn't because of his content. We know that,

00:04:57.360 you know, any guy over, over six feet tall, I feel like their life's just easier. And so as a short

00:05:01.800 king myself, it is a struggle. We can talk about that later. I'll unpack it with you.

00:05:07.020 So one of the questions that I had written down in preparation for our discussion today

00:05:11.020 is how you got a job with the Ramsey team. Um, because I, I did a little research. I saw a few

00:05:18.560 things and like, all of a sudden it was like, Oh, so I just went and got a job with Dave Ramsey.

00:05:21.520 And, uh, that doesn't just happen, but it's interesting because you're talking about,

00:05:25.840 you know, looks and being in front of a camera and all this kind of stuff. I am very curious

00:05:29.720 about that particular part of your journey. Yeah, that's an interesting one. I actually

00:05:34.300 started as an intern and a temp here at Ramsey solutions back in 2013. And I truly didn't really

00:05:40.780 know Dave Ramsey. I grew up in Boston in the Northeast. And so it wasn't as big as, you know,

00:05:45.520 he is in the South and the Bible belt, uh, with churches doing financial peace university.

00:05:49.460 And so the reason I ended up here was I was kind of a marketing, social media tech guy

00:05:54.440 coming from the musician background. And I saw an opening for a social media role for the

00:05:59.720 personalities. And so I'm a Ramsey personality. Now I actually came on board to help another

00:06:04.320 personality who's no longer on the team, but that was really my goal. I was excited about

00:06:08.880 helping that person spread the message in a creative way and something they were passionate

00:06:13.360 about. And so that's kind of what brought me into Ramsey. It got me in the door and that

00:06:17.800 turned into a full-time role in email marketing to social media. And that spiraled into a host and

00:06:23.340 MC role, which has turned into this personality role. So I've had six jobs at this one company in

00:06:28.180 10 years, which I think is a world record for a millennial, just to hold a job at one place for a

00:06:32.420 decade. Fair enough. And it's, I mean, it's a great organization to work with. I was out there

00:06:37.760 several years ago. And one thing that struck me, I remember pulling into the parking lot and you

00:06:43.060 guys hit, we're building the, uh, I don't even know what you call it, but there's a building that

00:06:46.800 you were, you were building at the time for conferences. That was it a, is it a conference

00:06:49.920 center? Yeah. We have an event center up on the Hill center. Yeah. I'm sure. Is that done at this

00:06:53.700 point? It's done. Yeah. We opened it this past year and it's been amazing to use for staff meeting

00:06:59.020 and devotionals and our live events. It's been a really cool space to have. Yeah. I remember pulling

00:07:04.140 in and I, I parked the car and I walked to the front door and I saw a bunch of young, energetic,

00:07:11.380 good looking people. And I thought to myself, I mean, I knew a little bit about what I was getting

00:07:16.200 myself into, but I thought this has got to be just the most amazing entrance. I hadn't even walked in

00:07:21.020 the building because everybody, like I said, young, energetic, looked like they take, took care of

00:07:26.880 themselves. I was impressed before I even set foot in the door. Do they, we, you know, Dave always says

00:07:31.980 that we hire thoroughbreds, not donkeys around here and thoroughbreds run with thoroughbreds.

00:07:36.640 And so we have an amazing team over a thousand people. Now people think that we do the Ramsey

00:07:41.040 show out of like a double wide or something. They show up to the headquarters and it's a whole fan

00:07:45.100 experience and multiple buildings. And what Dave has built is, is truly just a massive empire.

00:07:50.900 And it's built on helping people, you know, become debt-free, live with financial freedom,

00:07:55.720 live with freedom in all areas, career, mental health. Now with Dr. John Deloney,

00:07:59.300 and he did it all with cash, which is just as mind-blowing.

00:08:02.760 Yeah. It was probably a huge benefit to you, maybe an unintended benefit because you talk a

00:08:07.500 lot about how you were, were broke, you know, yet you were in debt and you had, I think 40 plus

00:08:12.520 thousand dollars of student loan debt. Like, like most people do, you know, when you're in there in

00:08:16.960 your position. And so this, this was gotta be this huge blessing in disguise that not only are you

00:08:22.920 going to be earning an income and making a career out of doing the social media marketing,

00:08:27.180 but you're now we're financial learning. You're immersed in the world of finances,

00:08:32.640 which is an education. Unfortunately, most people just don't get.

00:08:37.540 Yeah. As part of the onboarding process for a team member, if you haven't gone through

00:08:41.140 Financial Peace University, which is our nine lesson flagship money course, you're required

00:08:45.440 to go through it to understand, Hey, here's the principles we live by. Here's the values.

00:08:49.440 If it's not for you, you need to opt out in this first 90 days because we actually practice what we

00:08:54.440 preach. And so that was an amazing opportunity to understand the kind of toxic money culture and

00:09:00.560 how to break free from that. And it's what put me on that path over a decade from going from broke

00:09:05.100 to millionaire and getting out of that consumer debt, building wealth, paying off our house,

00:09:09.360 all of that stem from that first course and learning from Dave. And now I get to sit beside

00:09:13.600 him on the Ramsey show and glean even more wisdom, which is a true privilege.

00:09:18.640 As a, uh, as a former financial advisor, I don't know whether you knew that or not. I was doing some

00:09:22.900 financial advisory stuff for almost a decade. I thought you had a background in finance. I didn't

00:09:26.460 know you were in the advising space. Wow. Yeah. You've seen it all. Uh, well, yeah. I mean,

00:09:31.040 I've seen a lot. It was interesting to me. Uh, money is just, if we strip everything else away,

00:09:36.360 it's just, it's math. Right. But there's so much emotion and, uh, bias and experiences and beliefs

00:09:45.600 and myths that are infused into our belief about money that I think are adopted at an early age.

00:09:51.940 It was amazing to see how many people had toxic beliefs about what money was and what it was used

00:09:57.840 for and how you can build it. And that's something that I had to focus on breaking down before I could

00:10:02.460 talk to people about what type of return we could get them in the market, man. You're so right. And

00:10:07.700 it's seriously, one of the reasons I wrote my new book, breaking free from broke is to unpack all of

00:10:12.540 these myths to help people deprogram and unplug from this money matrix that we all grew up in,

00:10:17.520 whether you had no financial literacy or you were taught the wrong things, there's so much paradigm

00:10:23.320 shifting that needs to happen and it's difficult. And so the first two thirds of my book is just that

00:10:28.240 it's a paradigm shift where I'm saying, here's what the debt system is actually made to do.

00:10:32.600 Here's how it started. Here's where we are today. And here's how you can break free and have financial

00:10:37.280 freedom and build wealth peacefully without all the noise and distractions. Cause you're right.

00:10:41.120 The path and gap from financial stress to financial peace is littered with myths and distractions and

00:10:47.600 noise and tick talkers telling you that you need whole life insurance to build wealth. And here's

00:10:52.000 what the wealthy do. And at some point we need to stop the paralysis analysis and just follow a proven

00:10:57.820 plan. And that is what the Ramsey baby steps did for me. It's funny. You talk about whole life

00:11:02.740 cause I grew up in the industry with a whole life insurance company. So we were taught to dislike Dave

00:11:08.880 Ramsey. I'm saying it nicely. Yes. Dislike Dave Ramsey. Well, truthfully, Dave has been,

00:11:13.680 you know, knocking, rocking and knocking on the whole life industry for so long that no one in

00:11:18.000 that industry likes Dave. Of course. Yeah. And so I remember, I actually remember again, years ago when

00:11:24.080 I came out to you guys and I was able to interview Dave and John and talk with you as well while I was

00:11:28.820 out there. One of my former colleagues messaged me cause I think he knew I was going out there. I had

00:11:35.480 maybe had mentioned it on social media and he's like, what are you doing? I can't believe you.

00:11:39.580 You're in enemy territory. I had become a trader to the industry at that point, which was really

00:11:45.480 interesting to me. Wow. When you say money matrix, what do you mean by that?

00:11:52.760 Well, I make the analogy in the book, as we shift from how you're chained to the system and how to

00:11:57.520 break free from the system, I make the analogy cause I'm super relevant and hip to the 1999 sci-fi

00:12:03.180 thriller, The Matrix. It will always be relevant. Let's just throw that out there right now.

00:12:07.220 But it's a good analogy because there's this simulation that we're told is real life. And I'm

00:12:13.820 out here yelling from the street corner with my cardboard sign being like, it's not real life. It's

00:12:19.040 a simulation that's designed to keep you restrained and keep you chained and keep you reliant on the

00:12:24.280 system. And if we can break free from that money matrix, which I describe as this culture of debt and

00:12:30.400 our obsession with payments and our obsession with building wealth the wrong way, when you break free

00:12:35.740 from that into reality, like debt is a thief and budgeting is freedom and spending is self-control

00:12:41.520 and margin is breathing room and generosity is joy. I believe those principles will help us live

00:12:46.840 a much better life and become the people we want to become with less money, stress, and more peace.

00:12:51.740 So that's the matrix is that we're on the, we're a hamster on the wheel. Every complaint that we've

00:12:56.080 had usually ties back to the matrix. It's inflation and it's the housing market and it's the president

00:13:01.080 and it's Congress and the fed and they got to stop screwing with this man. And I don't want to work a

00:13:05.100 nine to five working for the man. All of these feelings are wrapped in a lot of this mythology and

00:13:11.000 everything is kind of, we don't have control. We don't have autonomy. Life is happening to us.

00:13:15.320 And so what I want from this book is for you to walk away going, I have agency over my life.

00:13:20.580 I'm going to take control of my money, regardless of who's in the white house, regardless of what

00:13:24.360 happens in the economy, I'm going to win in spite of all of that. And those are the people that

00:13:28.540 inspire me. And that's what I hope we can all become. I mean, I love what you guys are doing.

00:13:33.280 I was driving down the road the other day and I think about this quite often because I'm a little

00:13:37.040 bit sick and I'm also, you know, my background is in the industry. I see these people driving these 80,

00:13:43.100 $90,000 trucks. And look, I do well financially. I know I do well financially. Like if you compare

00:13:49.240 my income to the majority, their average of Americans, it's better than that. And I look

00:13:55.300 at that. I'm like, I don't know how all these people afford, I can't afford that. But I got thinking

00:13:59.320 it's because I know what afford actually means. I think Dave Ramsey says afford doesn't mean you can

00:14:06.320 afford the payment. And that's what most people are looking at it as.

00:14:10.000 Yeah. You know, we always say broke people, here's the questions they ask. How much down,

00:14:15.660 how much a month? Wealthy people with freedom, they ask how much. That's it. They wanted the

00:14:20.960 total cost. And when you think about it in terms of that, you know, America wouldn't be in debt if

00:14:25.480 we just counted the cost and said, if we can't afford it, we're not going to buy it. But what's

00:14:29.300 happened, Ryan, is we've gotten so comfortable because of the gateway drugs of credit scores and

00:14:33.760 credit cards. We get comfortable with the payment. Can I afford the payment? And so we're going to

00:14:38.280 have a car payment. We can afford the student loan payment. We can afford the mortgage payment.

00:14:42.480 And then we look up and we're broke, unable to save for retirement, unable to give the way we want.

00:14:47.200 And all of it stems back to this lifestyle of getting used to payments. And so you're right,

00:14:51.760 people are driving around their retirement right now in these $90,000 trucks. And as cars go up,

00:14:57.220 it's exactly what happened with college tuition. Colleges realized, thanks to student loans,

00:15:01.260 we can just raise tuition as high as we want, and people will just take out more loans.

00:15:05.640 Well, the car industry is much of the same. It's supply and demand. And they realize we can just

00:15:10.320 raise the price of the cars and people will just take on a slightly bigger payment. And so that's

00:15:15.260 one of the reasons keeping car prices so astronomically high. And then there's also

00:15:19.840 brand association and our reputation and ego wrapped up in our metal boxes that we drive around.

00:15:25.480 And that stems from probably childhood trauma that is unaddressed. And so we have to go get the

00:15:30.160 biggest, meanest truck we can get, you know, whatever that sports car is that you've always dreamed of.

00:15:35.060 And it's just, it's an appreciating asset that's causing so many Americans to just not be able

00:15:40.680 to build wealth. I call it America's number one wealth killer right now is the car loan.

00:15:45.260 Interesting. I was talking with someone the other day and I hadn't even, this hadn't even crossed

00:15:50.280 my mind. We were talking about how expensive vehicles are. And they said, you know, oh, and

00:15:54.580 they're probably on a seven year note. And I'm like, wait, what? I didn't even know that was a thing

00:15:58.900 because I don't buy cars on loan. So I, my, my prized vehicle possession, I've got three,

00:16:05.920 three vehicles. One is like my nice truck. One is, you know, the, the one that I really like.

00:16:10.580 And the other one is just kind of an off-road beater. And I've got this 99 Toyota Tacoma.

00:16:15.980 It's been paid off for probably 20 years. I think I've had it paid off for. And, you know,

00:16:22.260 I put a couple of grand into it over the last several months, just on fixing some of the interior

00:16:26.740 and replacing some things here and there, putting some new tires on it, stuff like that.

00:16:30.700 But man, dude, that car is going to outlast both of us.

00:16:35.040 That's the one I like right there. I'm at 200 and I think 65,000 miles. I got to get that thing

00:16:39.660 up to 300,000. So we'll get there. Wow. Well, that's another myth as people go,

00:16:43.640 oh, it's over a hundred thousand miles time for a new car. I got to get rid of this, this death

00:16:48.000 mobile. I'm like, guys, get a reliable car and take care of it. And it will go hundreds of thousands

00:16:53.940 of miles. And so that's a, it's a big myth out there. People just want to really,

00:16:58.120 they're trading it in for their ego because they just want to drive a nicer car. You know,

00:17:01.720 it's not for safety and reliability. It's for them to feel good. And I think we got to stop that

00:17:06.180 mentality and upgrading cash. And if it's good enough for Ryan, I think we should all be following

00:17:10.960 that, buying our cars with cash and you free up a payment right there and you get to live life

00:17:15.280 differently. Yeah. I mean, you hear people say, oh, like, I wish I could afford to go on vacations and do

00:17:20.380 you can, you just can't be strapped with car loans and pay that $500 payment times 12.

00:17:26.140 That's six grand a year that you have a nice vacation going down a value. Yeah, exactly.

00:17:32.160 Yeah. It's really interesting to see people go down. It's, it's, I mean, interesting is a mild way

00:17:37.120 to put it, but it's really unfortunate that people are just strapping themselves with debt and they're

00:17:41.340 wondering why they're so broke. And then they blame, like you said, the president or the economy.

00:17:45.880 And I tend to look at it and say, create your own economy. You know? Yeah. We can't really control

00:17:51.000 what the president does. We can't really control what the market, the global market at this point

00:17:55.420 is doing, but you can control your own personal economy. And that's what we ought to be doing a

00:17:59.420 better job at. Absolutely. And once you've, you know, the goal of getting out of debt is not just

00:18:04.500 like a cool flag you can wave of I'm debt free. It just gives you more margin and more options to do

00:18:09.820 the things you want to do. And for some people that's giving more or building wealth. And it's amazing to

00:18:14.740 me that people out there are yelling from their social media feeds that the wealthy people,

00:18:19.280 they leverage debt up to their eyeballs. That's how, that's what they do. And I'm sitting next to

00:18:23.180 Dave Ramsey, who owns hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate, all paid for in cash.

00:18:28.440 And I'm like, not this guy, not so many others that I've met on the debt free stage who become

00:18:33.440 multi-millionaires following a proven plan. They don't have any debt to their name and they're able

00:18:38.320 to invest more. They're able to give more. And I think that's, what's missing, you know,

00:18:42.500 in today's world is we're so frustrated and yet we're not really holding up the mirror to go like,

00:18:48.940 hey, I am part of the problem. And it's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility to take

00:18:53.440 that next step. And I love that idea of creating your own economy where you're kind of insulated.

00:18:57.980 When you have an emergency fund of three to six months and no payments in the world,

00:19:01.780 you just look at a pandemic differently. You look at your career differently.

00:19:06.860 I like that you're talking about what you can do when you get these basics right. Because for a long

00:19:12.040 time, I just believed, hey, look, for me, when I looked at the baby steps, I was like, yeah,

00:19:18.380 great. Okay. Budget, you know, have the emergency fund. This is all basic stuff, right? And I'm not

00:19:25.200 discounting it. I think I did before, but I'm not now because I see where people are. Like we can't

00:19:29.900 discount the basics. But then I also look at my own personal situation and I've got real estate and

00:19:35.300 I'm building businesses. I have multiple businesses. And that's where a lot of my wealth comes from.

00:19:39.160 And so I saw this disconnect between what Dave was saying with regards to the baby steps,

00:19:43.320 but the way that he built his true wealth, which is through business and real estate.

00:19:47.680 Absolutely.

00:19:48.000 And it's the way that I've done it. And I imagine you're on the same path.

00:19:52.660 Help me understand that gap or bridge that gap for me, because I think it's important people see

00:19:57.940 that at least the way I look at it is you can get to the real estate, you can get to the businesses,

00:20:03.100 but unless you get the basics done first, that stuff's not going to play as well as if you did

00:20:09.180 get those basics right. Absolutely. You know, Dave didn't become, didn't amass his wealth just

00:20:14.420 by getting out of debt and investing in his 401k. Right. By eating beans and rice. He did it by being

00:20:18.180 an amazing entrepreneur. Exactly. You can't eat beans and rice to billionaire status. It's not going to

00:20:23.080 happen. And so Dave talks about that concept in his book, Baby Steps Millionaires, the difference

00:20:27.600 between a millionaire and a billionaire. Our plan is not, you know, become a billionaire. It's,

00:20:33.080 hey, you can retire with one to $10 million. But if you're looking to get even more than that,

00:20:38.940 most of those people, if you look at them, they're business owners. They have a lot of real estate.

00:20:43.380 They own a business. They've sold a business. And so I have a, we have a deep love for entrepreneurs.

00:20:48.860 You were on our Entree Leadership Podcast, which I was hosting at the time. I've now passed the baton to

00:20:53.820 Dave and he gets to take questions from callers who are small business owners and help them take

00:20:59.020 the next step. And so it's been really cool. We have a huge heart for small business owners and

00:21:03.180 we love entrepreneurship. Dave started this place on a card table in his living room. And now here we are

00:21:08.140 over a thousand team members. And that's not everyone's goal, but I love that entrepreneurship

00:21:12.920 in today's world. It's, it's hard and it's still a grind, but man, there's so much opportunity out

00:21:18.740 there with technology and social media and the internet. You can just go start a business tomorrow

00:21:24.240 if you want, which wasn't the case, you know, 30 years ago, it was a lot harder. So it's a really

00:21:28.660 cool path to build wealth when you do it the smart way. And by that, I mean, you're not going to take

00:21:33.580 out a hundred thousand dollar loan to try to start this business, do it at the speed of cash. And that

00:21:39.780 way you lower your risk, you increase your potential to be successful and make it sustainable.

00:21:43.900 And it's how we coach business owners every day. I'm actually really interested in your personal

00:21:49.520 story because I know there's a lot of people who may be taking on a job that is just a job. You know,

00:21:55.080 you, you go do social media marketing and very easily you could have done that with any other

00:21:59.140 organization and it could have just been a job. I think, and I'm not discounting what you've done

00:22:04.500 to get yourself to where you are, but I think the fact that you work with an incredible company

00:22:09.740 that has a growth mindset that is, you know, oriented towards developing and bringing people

00:22:14.440 up is a huge blessing for you. I imagine. I don't want to put words in your mouth,

00:22:18.040 but what was your journey like? And what specifically did you personally do to promote,

00:22:25.160 to create new opportunities within the organization? Cause there's a lot of guys who

00:22:29.140 aren't satisfied with where they are right now. That's a great question. I think if you look back

00:22:34.480 in my career journey, having, you know, six jobs here at Ramsey over the last 10 years at every step

00:22:39.700 of the way, when there was that new opportunity, it took a few things. Number one, it took me just

00:22:44.440 putting my head down and being faithful and excelling in whatever was in front of me. And so that really,

00:22:50.620 I think that kind of work ethic and discipline, you know, it begets more opportunity. And so when I

00:22:56.100 did that leaders noticed and the best leaders in my life at Ramsey and otherwise, they see something

00:23:03.060 in you that maybe you don't even see in yourself and they point it out and they help you get that

00:23:07.880 opportunity. So I think it's both. And it's me seeking out those opportunities, but it's also a

00:23:13.380 leader believing in me saying, Hey, I think you could go do this over here. And that takes some

00:23:18.480 paying attention. If you're a leader out there and you've got team members, you need to invest in

00:23:23.440 your team. It needs to be more than a management role. The best leaders help you improve your life,

00:23:28.640 not just your, your career. And that belief is everything. And so at every step of the way,

00:23:33.920 I got a little more rope and a little more rope. And so for me, making the gap from marketing to

00:23:38.800 on camera, on stage personality, that was an interesting gap. And we have a battle of the

00:23:44.860 bands event that we do here at Ramsey every year. So team members gather, they form cover bands and

00:23:49.720 they compete. And it's a really fun team building event. And I was in those bands for a few years

00:23:54.540 and I realized, Hey, there's a gap here with the hosting that I think I could really bring

00:23:58.320 something to the table, the MC who carries the event. And so I brought my whole self to that with

00:24:03.380 creativity, with humor, with music, um, with really fun ideas. And they saw me on that stage and went,

00:24:09.960 Hey, what if that guy could host our live events? He can carry himself on stage. He really believes

00:24:14.940 in this place. He's followed the money principles. And so they gave me a shot. And so I took over for our

00:24:19.660 friend, Ken Coleman, who's now personality. And I became host of the Ramsey show video channel and host

00:24:24.420 of the, all the Ramsey live events that turned into me hosting a podcast called borrowed future

00:24:29.460 on the student loan crisis from Ramsey network. That turned into me getting my own podcast called

00:24:33.600 the fine print, where I unpacked a lot of these, these money myths and systems I unpack in the book.

00:24:38.420 And so at every step of the way, it was a little more rope and a little more rope. I was faithful

00:24:42.500 in whatever the next thing was. I lived out the principles and everyone saw that and went,

00:24:47.140 this guy can do the next thing and the next thing. And so I stand before you today,

00:24:50.960 not as a guy who's super special with unbelievable talent. Cause there's Ryan,

00:24:55.960 there's people who are way smarter than me when it comes to finances. You're one of them coming from

00:24:59.980 the financial advisor world. There's people who are better looking with more on-air talent,

00:25:04.100 but I'm just a guy who was faithful every single day, showing up, doing the work, doing whatever

00:25:09.720 it took. And over 10 years, you know, just like my financial journey, it's amazing what can happen.

00:25:14.700 It's almost like compound growth, but with your career.

00:25:17.000 I noticed you said you're, you didn't say you're one of them. When you said there's

00:25:21.680 people that are better looking than you. I'm a little disappointed.

00:25:24.600 I didn't want to give you two. I didn't want your head to explode, Ryan. Cause we know

00:25:28.280 everyone wants to be Ryan. They want to look like, I mean, you look like you just came out

00:25:32.380 from cutting the wood outside, just chopping up the wood. And then we got a podcast to do.

00:25:37.160 You even have the ax in your logo.

00:25:38.860 How'd you know, man? Come on. Um, look, we got another half of this conversation left,

00:25:44.300 but I think at least the way I'm hearing it, what you said, and I'm going to reiterate here,

00:25:49.800 but what you said might be the most important thing that you said of this podcast. And that is

00:25:55.160 that you noticed an opportunity, you're a gap, and then you put yourself in the position to fill

00:26:00.920 it, which was emceeing the events. And that, because I was, what I was going to ask before you said

00:26:06.380 that, as I said, I even wrote it down right here. You've got a thousand people at the organization.

00:26:11.260 How did you set yourself apart? Because I'm willing to bet that 90, 80, 90% of we're using

00:26:16.180 Pareto principle, 80% of those people, you could say the same thing about their hard workers.

00:26:21.760 They, they look for opportunities. They, they tap into their skills. How did you set yourself apart

00:26:28.160 from the other 999 people? You just told me what it was.

00:26:32.040 Yeah. There's, there's definitely a piece of persistence, but in the right way.

00:26:36.380 Cause we've all like, when people say, just be persistent, well, that can backfire pretty

00:26:40.460 quickly. You know what I mean? You start knocking on the door every single day going, Hey, Hey,

00:26:44.360 I'm here. And that can be annoying. It can be frustrating for leaders. So what I had to do

00:26:48.820 was I knocked and they'd be like, Hey, you're that's cute, buddy, but go put your head down

00:26:53.260 and work. And those are some of my most frustrating words. It was like, just go put your head down

00:26:56.940 and do the work. Um, so I had to continually earn the trust and the right to even speak into things

00:27:04.460 and earn the right with every little accomplishment and every little task to go, Hey, I did the work.

00:27:10.540 Here's my assignment. I, I, I feel like I did a good job. And when you bring your whole self to it,

00:27:15.720 there's a level of work ethic and also the people skills, the soft skills, you know, there's the

00:27:19.600 hard skill of just knowing how to do it. Sure. But there's the relational skills. And that's the part

00:27:24.360 that I really had to work on is, you know, relational equity is everything. And EQ is everything.

00:27:29.720 Your emotional intelligence within an organization or in a business, it matters a whole lot. And so

00:27:35.300 there's a lot of tact involved and there's a lot of relationship building and you can't just

00:27:40.120 keep badgering people for things. You got to earn it and earn that relationship. And when you have a

00:27:44.660 relationship, you've built trust and trust is what leads to opportunity. Was there ever a time in that

00:27:50.540 tenure tenure that you, I shouldn't say it that way, that tenure timeframe, uh, where you thought

00:27:57.620 about seriously thought about leaving the organization and going to pursue other opportunities,

00:28:02.940 other ventures, maybe your own business even. Yeah. And that's a real, that's a real thing

00:28:07.660 that happened. It was in around 2016. I had gone through, I'd gone through divorce and so it was a

00:28:12.960 really hard time in my life. And so I sort of had this existential crisis. I was doing kind of a hybrid

00:28:18.060 social email role and I wasn't really satisfied and it wasn't, it didn't have a whole lot to do with

00:28:24.160 Ramsey, but it was more of just like, what am I doing? What is life? Should I move back home to

00:28:28.800 Boston and just restart? Should I go back and try to pursue music again? Is there something else out

00:28:34.060 there for me? And, uh, as I was kind of healing along that journey, I got that opportunity.

00:28:41.100 And so that changed everything for me. I also met my now wife at Ramsey solutions. And so that was at

00:28:47.160 the end, heading into 2017, I got that opportunity and that leader spoke into me and said, Hey,

00:28:52.380 you're going to go do this event. We believe in you to go host this. And I was like, me,

00:28:57.500 is there a guy behind me that you meant to talk to? So that coupled with, you know, this woman

00:29:01.900 entering my life who just changed everything. It gave me some pep in my step and I got some mojo back

00:29:07.240 and I found that sweet spot that my friend Ken Coleman talks about where your talent, your passion,

00:29:11.960 your mission all align. And so if you're out there, keep going. Like you don't know what's just on the

00:29:17.780 other side of just grinding that out for another week or two or a month or two or a year or two.

00:29:23.900 And I feel like we all just give up right on the cusp of something amazing happening in our life.

00:29:29.540 And you talk to anyone who's had that kind of success over time. And they always will tell you

00:29:34.760 like, man, I was on the, I was so close to giving up. And something said, just keep going, man.

00:29:39.160 And it was that next opportunity that changed everything. And so there's just, there's a mindset of

00:29:43.940 just not quitting. And it sounds kind of like rah, rah, sis, coom, bah, but it's so true that you,

00:29:50.180 people tend to give up right before that, uh, that hope is on the other side.

00:29:54.780 But I feel like that in my own life is God just giving me a little exam to see if I'm ready.

00:30:02.140 Yeah. Right. And he's like, all right, let's see, let's give you the exam. Let's see if you're ready.

00:30:06.760 And if you pass it, then I know you're ready. And I'm going to present you with a whole lot more

00:30:11.280 opportunity than you currently have. If you don't pass it, then you have to retake the course.

00:30:17.540 And so if you keep doing the same things over and over again, and having the same experiences

00:30:22.240 and banging your head against the wall, it's because you didn't pass the exam.

00:30:26.500 That's so good.

00:30:27.760 And that exam is, you know, it could be a divorce. It could be, uh, overcoming a loss of a job.

00:30:34.620 It could be anything, anything. If you pass that, then you're ready for the next thing. It's just

00:30:39.800 waiting on the other side of that exam. Yeah. If it's too easy, I don't think it was the right

00:30:44.520 thing. There's a level of, you have to really believe it and you have to have that kind of

00:30:49.880 grinding season where it feels like, man, am I even making progress? And that applies to money too.

00:30:55.680 I mean, when you're starting to do a budget or you're trying to get out of debt, that first season

00:30:59.420 is really hard. But when you get to see that progress, it gives you a little bit of hope.

00:31:04.120 You see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel and that's all you need. That runway is

00:31:08.540 what causes people to, to gain freedom and success in any area of their life.

00:31:14.780 So, so what about for you? I mean, you've got multiple successful podcasts at this point.

00:31:19.100 You work with this great organization. You're obviously up and coming growing. You're a Ramsey

00:31:22.520 personality. You've just written a book. So now what do you do? I love that. What's going to be next?

00:31:30.120 I started to have not an existential crisis, but it was sort of this question I was asking myself.

00:31:36.760 And I sort of would ask of other people of just like, and then what, you know, if you ask anyone,

00:31:41.880 like, Hey, what's your dream? And they lay it all out. And it's sort of this idea of like,

00:31:45.060 if you got everything you wanted, how would your life change? You know, if I, if you became a

00:31:49.800 millionaire, how would your life change? And the truth is none of it changes your life. Like it all

00:31:56.200 is really cool. And I'm very grateful for the success and it's not a modesty thing, but when we paid off

00:32:01.040 our house, it wasn't like, Oh my gosh, we're retiring tomorrow. Like you still had to get up

00:32:06.500 and go to work and feed the dogs and wipe the dog's butt. If you're me, you know what I mean?

00:32:09.920 There's like this, this still the rhythm of life exists. We don't know. John Deloney has the same

00:32:15.000 feelings, but you know, French bulldogs are a different breed. Literally. This is true. I've,

00:32:19.560 I've got a friend who breeds them and I understand the anatomical challenges with these types of,

00:32:27.040 of dogs. You have to love pain and suffering in order to own a French bulldog and we own two.

00:32:32.020 So it's one example, but it's so true. Like whether it's having a successful business or

00:32:37.480 becoming a millionaire or writing and launching a book, you know, if I hit the bestseller list,

00:32:43.460 we're going to all celebrate. But truthfully, it's not like this, Oh my gosh, you've made it

00:32:48.340 retire tomorrow. Give up. There's still this idea of like, and then what? And now what? And there,

00:32:53.480 there can be this endless chase. And I see it a lot in the financial world as I have been

00:32:58.320 reaching out, collaborating with other content creators in the financial space.

00:33:02.840 Some of these folks have million net worths of millions of dollars, 20 million plus.

00:33:08.120 And it's almost like there's this never enough. They're never just content with where they are.

00:33:12.780 And so truthfully this year, one of my goals is just to pause and just be content. I'm a new dad.

00:33:18.880 We got a five month old little girl now, which has been life-changing. And I've just been trying

00:33:24.060 to be more present and more just okay with the now instead of always being like, well,

00:33:29.320 what's next? Like you made it to a million. When are you going to hit 2 million? Okay. You did this

00:33:32.800 book, but now you got to follow it up with another bestseller. And you know what I mean? There's always

00:33:36.360 that next, next, next. And so I'm trying to just pause and go like, everything is okay. Enjoy the

00:33:43.080 moment. There doesn't always have to be a next goal. And we've hit all of our financial goals. We paid off

00:33:47.920 the house and we're like, okay, now we're going to upgrade my car. Okay. Now we're going to upgrade

00:33:50.700 my wife's car. Now we're going to go on this vacation. And at the end of the day, wealth is

00:33:54.620 beautiful because it gives you options, but it doesn't make you the person you want to be.

00:33:59.520 And so that's what I'm trying to aim at now is what kind of person do I want to be?

00:34:03.240 I want to be a person of character who is more generous. And so that helps me with a financial

00:34:07.360 goal now of we want to give more in 2024. And I want to be more present. I want to read more books.

00:34:12.580 I've been a little lackadaisical. When you're writing a book, it's harder to read them.

00:34:15.560 And so there's a lot of goals there that are not the next milestone and goal,

00:34:20.740 but instead just trying to be present and grow more personally now.

00:34:25.520 Men, let me step away from the conversation very quickly. After six years, gentlemen,

00:34:30.120 we're finally bringing back our original event. The very first event that we ever did.

00:34:35.180 It's called the uprising experience. Now, when you sign up, you're going to lock in your spot with 19

00:34:40.940 other men for an unforgettable experience like no other here in my backyard in Southern Utah on May

00:34:48.040 2nd through May 5th of 2024. Still trying to wrap my head around that year, 2024. There's going to be

00:34:56.300 20 men and you are going to go into the mountains of Southern Utah to learn everything that you need

00:35:02.520 about the frameworks and the networks you need to achieve at your absolute highest levels.

00:35:08.360 While everyone else out there is running auditorium like conferences and lecturing from the pulpit to

00:35:14.820 you, we're going to put you into the field with 19 other men to test your resolve, your decision

00:35:21.860 making, your fortitude, and over three and a half days of tests, camaraderie, accountability, growth.

00:35:28.800 No one else is running these types of events, guys. And after doing it for nearly 10 years now,

00:35:33.460 our cadre knows what it takes to give you the knowledge and the framework that you need to

00:35:38.940 thrive in your life. Now we've already booked 11 of 20 spots. I haven't even gone public with it yet.

00:35:44.060 And we're already over 50% booked. And I imagine we're going to be booked for the experience this

00:35:49.180 week. So get on it. If you'd like to learn more about what we're doing at the uprising experience

00:35:55.200 and get registered and lock in one of those last nine spots, head to order of man.com slash

00:36:00.840 uprising. That's order of man.com slash uprising. I hope to see you in person in May. Shake your hand,

00:36:08.640 maybe bleed a little together, but at a minimum, go through some challenge and adversity together.

00:36:12.900 And again, that's order of man.com slash uprising. We'll see you there.

00:36:17.220 I try to hear what my audience and the guys who are listening might think. And one thing that's

00:36:24.440 playing in my mind right now is, well, that's really nice and easy for you to say,

00:36:29.100 because you're in this position where your house is paid off and you've upgraded the cars and you've

00:36:32.880 got a bestselling book and all these things. But for me, I have to bust my butt because I've got the

00:36:39.540 mortgage to pay or we're not making the bills, or I just got hit with a $30,000 medical bill or,

00:36:45.360 or whatever, fill in the blank with whatever people are dealing with.

00:36:48.660 What do you say to somebody like that who isn't on the tail end, but they're in the midst of it

00:36:53.480 currently? Man, we, we take those calls every day on the Ramsey show. And there's so many

00:36:58.840 real hardships. You know, we like to joke that everyone's lifestyle is out of control and they're

00:37:03.280 driving the truck with all these payments, but a lot of people life just kind of punched them in

00:37:08.000 the mouth and they weren't ready for it. And they had that emergency come up and there's,

00:37:12.080 there's a health issue in the family or the car went out and we don't have the money

00:37:15.240 to do, to make the repair happen. And so there's a lot of real hardships. I have a ton of empathy.

00:37:19.820 If you're in that season of, you're really on the front end of these baby steps and you're going,

00:37:24.880 I got a mess of debt to clean up. I don't have the emergency fund. I'm not where I want to be

00:37:28.860 when it comes to wealth. I found a, this is kind of a quote that I found really applies to my journey.

00:37:34.680 People overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and they underestimate what they can

00:37:38.960 accomplish in a decade. And so if that's you at all, you can see right now is that,

00:37:43.840 that thing, a foot in front of your face, that medical bill, that health scare, whatever it is,

00:37:49.280 it's really hard to then look at the big picture and go five years from now, I'm going to be in a

00:37:53.820 different place. And when you look at the Ramsey plan and the timeline of it, it's really encouraging

00:37:58.100 to me because on average people get their starter emergency fund, baby step one in 30 days. Great.

00:38:03.960 We have a little buffer between us and life. Baby step two, paying off all consumer debt,

00:38:08.000 18 to 24 months on average. Baby step three, three to six months of expenses happens in about

00:38:13.900 six to 12 months on average. That's amazing. So think about that. Three years may sound like a

00:38:19.380 long way away from now, but think about the financial foundation you've built in 36 months.

00:38:24.400 You don't owe anyone anything except for maybe your mortgage and you have a pile of money ready

00:38:29.120 to protect you in case life punches you in the mouth. And so that's a great place to be. And three

00:38:34.540 years is going to be here, whether you like it or not, we're all going to be three years older. I

00:38:37.680 mean, I saw you, what, two years ago now, and you still look exactly the same, I might add,

00:38:43.060 but life's going to move. I hope I'm looking a little better. I mean, that's the goal. I want

00:38:46.000 to look a little better. So I got work to do apparently. Aging like a fine wine or a bourbon,

00:38:50.500 if you will. So I think it's true that it feels a long way away. And so three years from now,

00:38:55.300 you're now building for the future instead of paying for the past. You're ready to invest 15%. You're

00:39:00.100 ready to start putting away money for your kid's college fund and paying off the house early.

00:39:03.940 And so when you look at it as a 10-year journey, if you're 34 or 44 right now,

00:39:08.700 where do you want to be at 44 or 54? And if you can start setting those goals and reverse

00:39:13.380 engineering it with some habits like budgeting, getting out of debt and cutting up the credit

00:39:17.920 cards, that's what accelerated the path for me. And obviously, we didn't have kids at the time.

00:39:23.340 We were starting the journey. Our dual incomes really helped. And so if you have a spouse that's

00:39:28.800 working, that's a huge benefit people don't think about is having two incomes to plow through

00:39:33.680 this stuff. It matters. And so do whatever it takes to get that financial footing under you

00:39:39.180 because the next 20 years of your life doesn't have to be stress and mediocrity and living the

00:39:43.760 same generational curse that your parents maybe lived through. You can break free from that and

00:39:48.500 change your family tree. I mean, it's amazing to see it. I think with finances, sometimes it can

00:39:54.660 be challenging because it takes time and it doesn't always manifest immediately. Like you think about

00:39:59.280 going to the gym, if you're severely overweight and you go to the gym, like in 30 days, you're

00:40:03.860 going to lose some weight and you're going to start seeing some definition of your muscles.

00:40:07.360 And that's fulfilling. That's rewarding. It keeps you going. But the longer you do it,

00:40:11.820 the less the return, the law of diminishing returns. Right. And I think that's the challenge

00:40:15.860 with finances is you could be doing all the right things. Maybe you're paying an extra two or three or

00:40:21.060 $500 a month on the debt snowball and you still got debt and you're going to have debt for three years.

00:40:26.720 It's hard to stay in the game. Have you noticed that for people?

00:40:30.300 Yeah, that there's two pieces of this. One is just the perseverance. And a lot of people go,

00:40:35.980 I'm out. I got to sacrifice for two years. And one of the reasons we say you need gazelle

00:40:41.180 intensity, you got to be really like scorched earth on this plan is because it's too hard to

00:40:46.300 focus on debt payoff for five years or 10 years. And that's why we want you to do it in two years or

00:40:51.580 less is the goal. Now, some people, it takes longer. My friend, Jade Warshaw, another Ramsey

00:40:55.720 personality took her and her husband seven and a half years, but they had almost a half million

00:41:00.300 dollars in consumer debt. And so it's not this one size fits all, but the sooner you get out,

00:41:05.640 the better your life is going to be. And we think sacrifice is part of it. And most people are,

00:41:11.260 if you're going to do Ramsey-ish and you're going to just go, well, I still want to invest and I still

00:41:14.980 want to go on vacation and I'm trying to pay off debt. You're just going to struggle for even longer.

00:41:19.940 It's going to feel even more impossible as the interest adds up and those payments continue to steal

00:41:23.920 your paycheck. So what I did was I got side hustles and side income going when I was 23, 25.

00:41:31.080 Even as we were buying our first home, I was doing side hustles in order to increase income. So

00:41:35.780 it's not always, you know, people go like, well, my employer doesn't pay me enough.

00:41:39.560 My employer paid me just fine. You know, I was making good money, but I needed to make more than

00:41:43.800 the 40 grand or whatever the starter salary was. I needed to go make 60 grand. And so

00:41:48.200 look at your skills and look at your time and look at what you can do for the best hourly rate.

00:41:54.040 And so I was designing websites. I was helping people launch podcasts. I was doing Uber and Lyft.

00:41:59.860 I mean, whatever it was, I was doing it. On top of making more, I was also spending less.

00:42:04.420 And so I would shop for what was on sale to grocery store. I wouldn't eat out.

00:42:08.580 I was cutting all subscriptions that I didn't use or need. And so that allowed me to have more margin

00:42:13.820 to throw at the debt, which caused this whole thing to speed up. I'm writing questions. I have

00:42:19.100 so many questions for you. So I got to pick which one's going to be next. Actually, here's one thing

00:42:23.520 I would say. I like the one thing I like a lot about the baby steps is that it accounts for what

00:42:29.900 Steven Pressfield. Are you, are you familiar with Steven? Oh, yes. Yeah. It accounts for what he calls

00:42:35.160 the resistance. You know, as soon as you pay off the car, the transmission goes out. Inevitably it's

00:42:41.700 going to go out. It's going to happen. Or you're going to need new tires because those ones only

00:42:45.620 last for 12 months. And the reason I like the baby steps is because it accounts for the resistance

00:42:51.580 that will come up and builds in the plan to make sure that when the resistance shows itself, and it

00:42:56.600 will, that it doesn't completely derail you or set you back to baby step zero. Absolutely. And baby step

00:43:02.640 three is where you have that fully funded emergency fund. And that is a force field between you and life

00:43:07.040 when you have that in place. And so I, in the book, I talk about how savings is peace. And when

00:43:12.520 you have that peace, you know, it's just better to go through life when you have 10 grand, 20 grand

00:43:17.620 ready to protect you against the transmission or the HVAC or the health scare or whatever bill comes up.

00:43:22.860 And so getting that, you got to make it a priority. You have to make it an emotional priority to go.

00:43:27.800 This is important for me and my family. We're never going to go into debt again. That's what that fund

00:43:32.440 becomes because you're going to face resistance. And I talk about in that chapter,

00:43:35.520 it feels like it's hard to have good luck when you're broke. It feels like life. Murphy is just

00:43:40.660 always knocking on your door with another emergency and another bill. And it's amazing what happens

00:43:44.580 when you get out of debt and you have an emergency fund. It feels like you have more good luck,

00:43:48.340 but it's really not luck. You just are able to take care of your stuff better. And so it's breaking

00:43:53.040 down less. You're able to upgrade with cash. And so it's amazing what happens. You sort of stop

00:43:58.520 having emergencies once you have an emergency fund because you're able to cashflow a lot of these

00:44:03.360 ankle biters instead of everything feeling chaotic. It just becomes an inconvenience instead

00:44:08.300 of an emergency. And I remember that when you had that car repair and you're broke, you are freaking

00:44:12.900 out. But when it happens, when you have an emergency fund, you just kind of yawn, you get it taken care

00:44:17.660 of and you move on with your life. And that's the kind of piece we want people to have that financial

00:44:21.900 piece where they're not worried about the job loss or whatever else is coming their way because

00:44:26.400 they have that buffer between them and life. They're not relying on a credit card as a crutch.

00:44:30.520 They got their own money in the bank. Luck is such a dismissive way to look at

00:44:35.560 other people's success too. I remember I made a sizable investment into Origin. And this is a

00:44:43.560 company out of Maine. They're manufacturing durable goods and geese and they're making products and

00:44:49.460 hunting gear. And I made a sizable investment. And I mentioned that. And somebody said to me,

00:44:55.340 Oh, you're so lucky. What? Lucky? I'm like, no, I had that money in the bank ready to go. Well,

00:45:02.840 you're lucky you had that. Well, you're lucky you had that relationship. Lucky I had the relationship.

00:45:08.080 I moved my family across the country, spent tens of thousands of dollars, bought property out there

00:45:14.900 so that I could build the relationship. It has nothing to do with luck. And I really hate it actually

00:45:21.140 when people say that, because if you're thinking that somebody else got lucky, then all you can do

00:45:28.080 is wait until you get lucky. And it just doesn't work like that.

00:45:32.620 It's like Eeyore is their spirit animal at that point. It's just a nice way to be jealous. Like

00:45:37.420 it's kind of throwing shade and it does minimize. When people tell me, they're like, Oh, George,

00:45:42.980 you're only a millionaire because your house appreciated and you invested in retirement.

00:45:46.860 And I'm like, yeah, that's not luck. I mean, that's part of it.

00:45:51.720 It's like, they're like, well, you, yeah, the housing market appreciated. Sure. I did. I'm not

00:45:56.080 in 2008. There's not a housing crash, but the amount of work it took and the side hustles and

00:46:01.020 the work we did to put 45% down and then paid off in 26 months. And the work we did to consistently

00:46:06.500 invest in our 401ks to build wealth. None of that was luck. In fact, it was all discipline and preparing

00:46:12.320 for those opportunities. So you're so right. When people are like, Ryan's lucky, he just,

00:46:16.340 he chose the right investment. He worked his butt off just to have the money and did the research to

00:46:21.580 know this is a wise investment. And then it paid off. And I think it's so easy to be dismissive of

00:46:27.240 other people's success. And it really just, it holds the mirror back at them and they're upset because

00:46:31.980 they don't have whatever you have. And so really, you know, I wouldn't, I would never take it

00:46:36.840 personally when people say that. Sure. They're just, they're just upset because they're not where they want

00:46:41.140 to be. They probably just need a hug. That's every troll in the comment section just needs a hug.

00:46:46.680 Yeah. Okay. So when you started to go through this plan, you're talking about putting 45% down

00:46:54.140 on your house, paying it off in 26 months. I already know people are like, what? That's crazy.

00:46:58.820 It's not crazy. That's why you are where you are. Was your wife fully on board with this or was this

00:47:03.960 before you had met your wife? And if she wasn't on board, how did you get her on board? Because it's one

00:47:10.120 thing to say, I'm going to do this. I can do this. I'm going to, I'm going to bear down and do this.

00:47:14.120 Oh, and hon, you're going to do this too. And she's not on board.

00:47:17.980 Yeah. Well, I have the blessing of having met my wife at Ramsey Solutions. And so she was already

00:47:22.740 smarter than me, better with money than me and better looking. And so I was like blown away that

00:47:29.500 she said yes. And so when we started this journey, this wasn't my first property. And so when we got

00:47:35.000 married, I had some money in the bank from the equity of that first townhome sale in the Nashville area.

00:47:40.280 And so on top of that, we were like, hey, let's save up a big down payment. It's a new construction

00:47:44.020 townhome. It was very modest and reasonable for our area, which New Williamson County is where we

00:47:49.800 are here at Ramsey. It's the 11th wealthiest county in the nation. And so-

00:47:53.760 And it's a beautiful area. It's Franklin, right?

00:47:56.560 Yeah. Franklin area. So we moved south of Franklin because we were like, we can't afford this. Now the

00:48:01.160 bank would be willing to loan us as much money as we want, basically, because they always do.

00:48:05.680 But as far as what we wanted was we wanted to get a modest first starter home that we could

00:48:10.860 pay off quickly. And so that meant we were going to set our sights on a townhouse instead of a

00:48:15.320 single family home. And instead of being in Franklin, it's going to be in Thompson Station,

00:48:19.360 just south of there. And so all of that helped us pay it off early. And what we did was we

00:48:24.400 pre-decided that we wanted to have no house payment in our early 30s. And it all started when

00:48:29.060 we asked ourselves real life questions like, what could we do without a mortgage payment

00:48:33.240 in our early 30s? What kind of options would that give us? If one day you want to stay at home

00:48:37.580 with our first kid, it won't even be a conversation. It'll just be like, great, cool,

00:48:42.780 yawn, let's move on. That's the kind of options I wanted to have for our family.

00:48:47.800 And so becoming debt-free, having that down payment, having the emergency fund,

00:48:51.880 that allowed us to pay it off quickly. And so with a new construction, you have time because

00:48:57.360 every delay just became another high five of we got more time to save. It just got delayed three

00:49:02.140 months. That's three more months we can save before we have to show up with all the money.

00:49:06.000 So that's what allowed us to put that much down. And then we had an aggressive goal. We pre-decided

00:49:11.020 we're going to pay this thing off in less than five years. I said four. And then my wife being the go

00:49:15.940 getter is like, we're going to do it in three or less. I was like, oh my gosh. And so I was working

00:49:20.000 my tail off. I was even doing side gigs then, hosting events across the country to get the down

00:49:24.880 payment saved so that we had as little of a mortgage as possible. We did a 15-year fixed rate.

00:49:29.500 And then we knocked it out real quick. And so I meet people all the time. I'm not that special

00:49:34.960 because I meet people in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions doing their debt-free scream in their

00:49:38.680 twenties and thirties. They learn this stuff early from their parents or learning it in our curriculum

00:49:42.980 in high school. And they decided, I want that kind of freedom now, not when I'm 65. And they go after

00:49:48.700 it. Yeah. That's powerful. Let's pivot a little bit. And I think it ties into what we're talking about

00:49:54.760 now because what you said earlier is that the financial industry is attempting to confuse and

00:50:01.000 conflate. And I recognized that when I was an advisor, I would see the insurance and investment

00:50:05.360 products companies would come out with. And I mean, it was ridiculous. I'm like, this is confusing to

00:50:10.640 me. I'm in the business. This is confusing to me. And I got to realize, oh, that's the point.

00:50:16.400 Because if it's confusing, then they need us, right? They need a financial advisor. They need the

00:50:22.920 financial actuaries. They need, because it's confusing and they don't know how to do it

00:50:26.340 themselves. But in what ways specifically do you feel like the financial industry confuses and

00:50:32.820 targets and preys upon, as you said, consumers? Well, I'll give you an example in a few areas.

00:50:38.380 So one, the credit score. I mean, what a genius invention back in the early nineties to go, hey,

00:50:43.100 let's create a score that is your financial self-worth. And let's make it really confusing to where

00:50:48.280 if you pull an inquiry, it will hurt your score. And if you pay off your debt, it will lower your

00:50:52.540 score. And let's encourage behavior of making payments every month. And what that did was it

00:50:58.520 gave us this little carrot dangling in front of us that said, you should get more debt. You should

00:51:02.400 play the game even better. You should master the game until you realize you're just a rat in this

00:51:07.840 maze trying to get the cheese and you're not really free. And then with credit cards, what do they do?

00:51:12.700 I interviewed an ex-Capital One manager who told me they run tens of thousands of experiments on

00:51:17.380 consumers. There is a reason they switch from cash back to points and miles, because we have no

00:51:22.440 clue, Ryan, what 120,000 miles is. It turns out that's just a flight to Boise. Exactly.

00:51:28.380 And so then you work with student loans and you don't know all the fine print and the interest

00:51:32.100 and how that's going to work with repayment and mortgages, a lot of confusion there. And then all

00:51:36.780 these first time home buyer programs and income driven repayment programs with student loans that

00:51:41.280 are causing balances to go up instead of down. And then investing, goodness gracious, it is littered.

00:51:46.560 I have a whole chapter on investing traps in the book that cover gambling, sports betting,

00:51:52.500 whole life insurance, gold, CDs. I mean, you name it, single stocks, day trading, all of these traps

00:51:59.420 out there. And even in the financial advising world, a lot of those people, they don't have the heart of

00:52:04.200 a teacher. They're salespeople. They are there to sell you a product. And usually that's going to be

00:52:09.900 this insurance product. Yes. And they're really good at it. And so you have to be aware about all of the

00:52:15.020 inputs coming at you and how they're stealing your money, your attention and confusing you.

00:52:20.340 And at the heart of the wealth building investing traps, I realize there's three really key emotions

00:52:26.780 there. I call them the three stooges of wealth building in the book. And it's fear, greed and

00:52:32.040 pride. In every single investing trap, I could point to one of those emotions. I mean, if you want to

00:52:37.580 talk about fear, gold. How many people have been saying the economy is going to crash this year,

00:52:42.500 so everyone go out and buy gold and silver because it's a hedge against inflation? And I'm going,

00:52:47.420 what is their incentive for you to buy these precious metals? And if it all goes down, Ryan,

00:52:53.220 I want food and fuel and ammo and water. No one's going to be trading in gold. And so the other piece

00:53:00.260 is greed. And we see this with crypto, the get rich quick schemes out there, day trading and single

00:53:06.780 stocks. People think I'm smarter. I'm going to be the one to beat the system. And then you have pride.

00:53:12.500 And that's a lot of people going, I know better. I'm the genius. I'm going to choose the right

00:53:17.660 single stock at the right time and time the market and they end up getting burnt. And so when you can

00:53:22.800 put all those aside and have humility and realize you're not a financial prodigy and it's okay to be

00:53:28.800 the average investor because you're probably, you know, being the tortoise, you're going to win in

00:53:32.800 the end. If you just invest in the S&P 500, you just put money in your Roth 401k, you're going to

00:53:38.720 build wealth. And you don't have to do all these fancy things that people are telling you is the

00:53:42.940 key to building wealth. And so I just wanted to dispel the myths and cut out all the noise in that

00:53:47.200 investing traps chapter. Yeah. I mean, I can attest, even as a former financial advisor, I have

00:53:52.440 my stock market investments. So there's investments outside of that, but stock-based investments

00:53:57.020 in indexed, low cost, low turnover funds. I do a quarterly rebalance and that's it. I don't buy,

00:54:06.820 I don't sell, I do a little bit of a rebalance and I don't even look at it. It's there, it's doing

00:54:11.460 its thing. I don't care. I don't care if it goes up. I don't care if it goes down. It's not going to

00:54:15.680 change my mind about what I'm doing. Exactly. Most people get freaked out looking at one piece of

00:54:20.180 the rollercoaster ride and they pull their money out. And I'm going, no, no, no, no, no. You just

00:54:24.100 unplugged all of the future growth and you took it out at probably the worst time possible on top of

00:54:29.220 that. Or you're investing in this one single stock because your buddy told you it's what to get.

00:54:33.960 And all of that just frustrates me to no end because building wealth is so much simpler than

00:54:38.780 we think, but we try to overcomplicate it because it sounds too simple. It sounds too good to be true.

00:54:43.600 So instead we make it overly complex and we end up getting burnt or we get paralysis analysis and we

00:54:49.720 don't do anything. The credit score is a funny one to me. About a year ago, I applied to open a

00:54:57.500 credit card for the business because I have a credit card for the business. I was going to get

00:55:01.160 a different one that does do points because I know how to work the system. I get it. I understand the

00:55:06.340 game. I can use the game to my advantage. And they declined to me. I'm like, what? Like I was shocked.

00:55:11.260 I'm like, declined. What was the reason? And they sent a letter and it said, because I didn't have

00:55:15.560 enough open lines of credit. I'm like, isn't that the point? Brilliant. Yeah. You would think

00:55:20.020 you'd be rewarded for not being over leveraged with all these lines of credit, but it just shows

00:55:24.940 you how screwed up the system is. I mean, Dave, Dave Ramsey loves to joke that if he tried to go

00:55:29.700 rent an apartment, they wouldn't let him. But if he tried to buy the complex, he could pay for it in

00:55:34.120 cash. It's just such a stupid mentality. And it all comes down to bureaucracy and rules and people

00:55:39.460 wanting the easy route. So they just go, let the computers decide if Ryan deserves this thing. And it's

00:55:45.520 just so silly versus looking at Ryan's income and debt to income ratio and going, okay, he's debt

00:55:51.460 free and he makes a great income. I feel like we can do this. I feel like he's got the discipline.

00:55:56.880 He can pay debts off. You have the least amount of risk to the lender.

00:56:00.920 You would think. You would think. It's really interesting.

00:56:03.440 It's a broken system for sure. How do you, so in the micro, I guess the idea,

00:56:09.020 and you guys are doing a phenomenal job. I think you're leading the charge is educating consumers how

00:56:13.980 to learn about this stuff and do it for themselves. But then there's a larger picture and that's,

00:56:20.000 how do you change the school system? How do you change the government to institute these types

00:56:25.580 of things when you have, frankly, a government who, and even the IRS talking about hiring tens

00:56:30.540 of thousands of more agents, not to help us. Don't mistake that. They're there to get more of our money

00:56:37.200 and find that extra $600 that your sister-in-law paid you back for on that family vacation you went

00:56:43.020 on. You got to pay taxes on that.

00:56:44.640 A hundred percent.

00:56:45.660 How do you begin to change those things?

00:56:48.520 Well, I've realized, you know, I can control what I can control and I don't have full control

00:56:53.040 of the system at large and the economy and how the IRS works. And so, you know, I try to be a law

00:56:58.680 abiding citizen and buck the system when I can. And to me, that's avoiding all debt and living a very

00:57:04.600 different lifestyle. And also, you know, there's ways to minimize taxes and there's smart things

00:57:08.880 you can do to be strategic with that, which is a good time to work with a tax pro or financial

00:57:13.540 advisor who can help you navigate all of that. But I've realized that the key to my success is not

00:57:19.900 like hacking a certain system or like sticking it to the man. The key to my success is me and

00:57:25.140 my greatest wealth building tool is my income. So anything I can do to get that up and then live

00:57:29.900 on less than I make is going to create the widest gap and margin that allows me to do the things I

00:57:34.160 want to do, whether that's buy property or, you know, go on the vacation or give more. And so

00:57:39.180 I believe margin is what we're all looking for. And I have a whole chapter in the book called

00:57:43.020 margin is breathing room. That's what we're all looking for. We're like, even if you're doing

00:57:46.700 well financially, you have a great income, people are broke. We found that one out of three people

00:57:51.980 making six figures are still living paycheck to paycheck. So when people tell me, well, if I just

00:57:56.480 made more money, I could know if you can manage the money you have, you're just going to manage it

00:58:00.960 even better when you have more. And so it doesn't matter if you make six figures, if you have

00:58:05.260 lifestyle creep, eating up your income, cause you want to look good and upgrade your life.

00:58:09.100 You're always going to feel broke. Is, does they, I know Dave Ramsey says, I don't know,

00:58:15.640 actually, does he say cash is King or cash flow is King? Cause I've always thought cash flow is the King.

00:58:20.900 He does say cash is King, but I just agree with that cash flow is also King.

00:58:26.320 Yeah. I mean, you think about his, his wealth and, and your wealth with real estate and my

00:58:31.720 business and real estate, it's not cash. I don't need $50,000 in the bank. That's done. That's fine.

00:58:37.020 I need income. I need, I need something generating income in my sleep. That's what I'm after.

00:58:43.400 Absolutely. That, and you know, having all those revenue streams is great. I mean, Dave has that with

00:58:47.940 royalties. If you, if you're a published author or you're a musician and having that mailbox money come

00:58:53.360 in is great. Or you have an online course that you sell and you're providing value to people.

00:58:57.720 That's amazing. And so I think it's very wise to think about not always trading your time for money.

00:59:03.120 Cause if you can get outside of that, even if that's where you're investing, if you're not a

00:59:06.480 content creator, if your investments make more money than you do, you have won. You know, if you got

00:59:11.840 $2 million in the bank and you get a 10% return that year in the stock market, that's $200,000.

00:59:17.700 And so if you make a hundred thousand, you just doubled your income without doing anything,

00:59:21.660 just by letting your money work for you. And so I think it's very wise to think about

00:59:25.100 cash flowing assets versus depreciating assets and things like our cars are weighing down our

00:59:31.380 wealth in that regard. Student loans, consumer debt, all of that is detracting from our wealth

00:59:37.040 versus, you know, real estate, investment accounts, businesses, royalties, all of that

00:59:42.920 will increase our wealth over time without us having to do all the legwork. That's why I like

00:59:47.760 the concept of Airbnb, you know, you've got a property anyways, and now you can cash flow from

00:59:52.800 it. Um, or, or company like Turo, you know, you can do private car rentals. It's like, you got the

00:59:58.160 car, you might as well rent it out if you don't need it. Or there are certain dates or times you

01:00:02.540 don't need it. There it is available. Now it's a depreciating asset, but it's actually earning you

01:00:06.460 income. There's so many, there's so many opportunities, unlike anything we've ever seen before.

01:00:13.200 Yeah. When people make excuses about income, I'm just like, there's a thousand things.

01:00:16.900 Just tell me you don't want to do it, but don't tell me you can't. That's a very different

01:00:20.620 mentality. And you're right with all the technology and apps out there. I mean, even as a side hustle,

01:00:25.440 if you just need to go make some money, go sign up for one of these apps tomorrow and start doing

01:00:29.340 that. And the key to all of this I found is doing it with cash. And so I'll give you an example.

01:00:35.020 A caller called in the other day to the Ramsey show and they said, Hey, my husband and I were

01:00:39.940 doing Turo and it went South and they had taken out huge loans on three expensive cars just to do

01:00:47.280 Turo. And now they were underwater on all three cars. They're like, okay, so we owe 35,000 on this

01:00:53.100 one. It's only worth 20. We owe 40,000 on this one. It's only worth 25. And I'm just going, oh my gosh,

01:00:59.120 you over leverage yourself trying to start this business. And now you're screwed. And there's not

01:01:03.040 enough cashflow in the world to save you. And so running your business debt-free, which is what we

01:01:08.140 teach in Entree Leadership, Dave's business brand. It's a beautiful thing because it cash flows

01:01:13.740 beautifully when you don't have debt on it. I mean, all of Dave's properties cashflow 100%

01:01:19.100 outside of his basic expenses because he doesn't have lenders to pay. And so it's an amazing thing

01:01:23.940 when you just decide debt is off the table. I'm going to start and grow this thing debt-free.

01:01:29.400 You will have so much more success long-term. Well, George, man, this has been fascinating.

01:01:35.340 A lot of great discussions. Obviously, I'd love for guys to pick up a copy of the book,

01:01:39.560 Breaking Fee Free from Broke, but let the guys know where to connect with you. Obviously,

01:01:43.560 they can get a book wherever they get books, but how do they connect with you and learn more about

01:01:47.300 what you're up to? Yeah. If you listened to this episode and you enjoyed it, would love for you to

01:01:51.580 connect with me at Instagram, Twitter, at George Camel. That's K-A-M-E-L. Camel like the animal with a K.

01:01:58.680 So I love connecting with the folks on social there. I'm very active,

01:02:01.760 more than probably any other personality because that's how I grew up. I grew up in the land of

01:02:07.280 social media. And if you want to get the book and if you're a listener, I think you're going to love

01:02:11.240 the audio book. We did our first ever enhanced audio book with some sound design and effects.

01:02:16.420 And I wrote some custom music coming in and out to really elevate it that brings this book to life.

01:02:21.180 So you can check that out, ramsysolutions.com, Audible, wherever. And I think your listeners will

01:02:26.380 enjoy that. And I hope it helps them just get some hope this year when it comes to their finances

01:02:30.640 and help them build wealth with peace and confidence and ditch debt and unplug from this

01:02:34.780 broken system. Yeah, man. I think it will. I appreciate your work. I appreciate what you're

01:02:38.960 doing and taking some time for us today. Thanks, brother. Thanks, Ryan.

01:02:43.740 All right, man. There you go. My conversation with the one and only George Camel. I really enjoyed that

01:02:48.940 conversation. George has a lot of energy. We have a good time. We've got some banter and obviously we've

01:02:53.820 been friends for some time, but the guy knows what he's talking about. In his book, Breaking Free from Broke,

01:02:59.020 The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress is a phenomenal book that's going to help you

01:03:03.620 achieve the financial abundance and prosperity that you're looking for in your life. And also

01:03:09.540 on a parting note, I would suggest that you lock in one of the last nine spots for the Order of Man

01:03:16.580 uprising. In fact, right before this podcast, I think I saw that one other person had registered.

01:03:22.800 So it might even be eight at this point, but either way, we want to have you there. Please make sure

01:03:27.280 that you get registered at orderofman.com slash uprising. I'm not going to lecture. I'm not going

01:03:35.020 to preach. I'm not going to bore you to death to tears inside of an auditorium at a hotel or some

01:03:40.360 conference center. I'm going to get your ass into the field, doing the work, working with other men,

01:03:45.880 being physical, and ultimately achieving what it is that we have a desire to achieve. Check that out

01:03:51.280 at orderofman.com slash uprising. All right, guys, you have got your marching orders. We'll be back

01:03:57.420 tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything. Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are

01:04:02.900 meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of

01:04:08.700 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

01:04:14.660 Thank you.

GEORGE KAMEL ｜ Don't Be Broke

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