The Ben Shapiro Show - Dave Ramsey | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 36

00:00:00.000 That's how you succeed in business, is you do the right thing.

00:00:03.000 It's how you succeed in life, you do the right thing.

00:00:04.000 You know, I'm going to give up something today.

00:00:06.000 I'm going to live like no one else so that later I can live and give like no one else.

00:00:11.000 Here we are on the Sunday special with our very special guest, financial guru Dave Ramsey.

00:00:23.000 Super excited to have him on.

00:00:24.000 But before we get to Dave Ramsey first, let's talk about your impending death.

00:00:28.000 So the fact is that you're going to plot sometime.

00:00:30.000 Hopefully not soon, hopefully much later, but you should have life insurance because life insurance is one of those topics everybody knows a little bit about, but do you understand it well enough to feel comfortable buying it?

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00:01:14.000 PolicyGenius is indeed the easy way to compare and buy life insurance.

00:01:17.000 Be a responsible adult.

00:01:18.000 Don't be buried in a pauper's grave.

00:01:20.000 Make sure that your family has money left over if, God forbid, something should happen to you.

00:01:24.000 Go check them out at PolicyGenius.com.

00:01:26.000 Again, PolicyGenius, the easy way to compare and buy life insurance.

00:01:29.000 Well, Dave Ramsey, thank you so much for stopping by the program.

00:01:31.000 I really appreciate it.

00:01:32.000 Well, I'm honored to be here.

00:01:33.000 You're a legend.

00:01:34.000 It's an honor to be on with you.

00:01:35.000 Well, I mean, right back at you.

00:01:36.000 My family's been listening to you for a long time.

00:01:38.000 I didn't even know about it, apparently, as it turns out.

00:01:40.000 Over the weekend, I found out my in-laws listened to you, and my wife apparently listens to you, and I didn't know about it, which says something about both our marriage and the success of your show.

00:01:47.000 And I want to start by asking you, I want to get into your financial strategies and kind of your life strategies, but what is your background for people who don't know your story and how you came to your kind of realizations and program about financial independence?

00:02:01.000 Well, I started out with all these letters and licenses after my name that said I was supposed to know something about money, and I started with nothing.

00:02:08.000 And we ended up with about $4 million worth of real estate by the time we were 26.

00:02:12.000 And back in the 80s, I was making a couple of hundred a year, which neighborhood I grew up in, we called that rich, because it was starting from nothing. 0.99

00:02:19.000 But I was stupid. 0.83

00:02:20.000 I had borrowed too much money, and I spent the next two and a half years of my life losing everything we owned. 0.99

00:02:25.000 Too much debt.

00:02:27.000 And I got a Ph.D.

00:02:28.000 in D.U.M.B.

00:02:29.000 We got a chance to start over with a brand new baby and a toddler and a marriage hanging on by a thread and so kind of pierced through the academics and through the lens of faith and through the lens of common sense found really common sense money stuff and we started doing it ourselves.

00:02:46.000 That was 30 years ago.

00:02:48.000 Maybe you can explicate some of the baby steps that you use, because I know so many people who have had serious debt problems and have been attempting to get out of those, who have used the steps that you talk about.

00:02:57.000 So what are some of those steps that you talk about?

00:03:00.000 You know, what we figured out was that personal finance, I kept trying to fix it with the math, because I'm a math nerd.

00:03:07.000 And then I finally figured out it wasn't a math problem.

00:03:09.000 It was a me problem.

00:03:11.000 The guy in my mirror is the problem.

00:03:12.000 If I can get that guy to behave, he can be skinny and rich.

00:03:15.000 But he's got issues.

00:03:17.000 And so I figured out he needs a clear path and basic financial planning slash mixed in with a little common sense to make some gumbo.

00:03:26.000 We came up with an idea that, hey, do this first, then do this, then do this real clear and don't deviate from it.

00:03:32.000 And lots of people did it, and it worked.

00:03:34.000 And we called it the Baby Steps, because you can do anything if you just take a step at a time.

00:03:38.000 Baby Step 1 is $1,000.

00:03:39.000 Quickly save a little starter emergency fund.

00:03:42.000 2 is knock off all your debt, except your home, using the debt snowball, listing them smallest to largest.

00:03:47.000 Attack them in that order.

00:03:49.000 3 is an emergency fund.

00:03:50.000 Go back to that $1,000, raise it up to a fully funded Grandma's Rainy Day Fund.

00:03:54.000 3 to 6 months of expenses.

00:03:56.000 So now you're sitting with $15,000, $20,000 bucks, and no debt except your house.

00:03:59.000 Now you can breathe.

00:04:01.000 That's a foundation.

00:04:02.000 And then you start your investing into your retirement, kids college and pay off your house early.

00:04:07.000 Typical millionaire pays off their home in about 10.2 years.

00:04:10.000 And then you're set up for baby step seven, which is just build wealth and be outrageously generous.

00:04:16.000 So, I want to talk about some of those ideas, because there's a lot there, and as you say, a lot of that is psychological as opposed to monetary.

00:04:22.000 So, when I first heard about your program, and I've talked to, as I say, a lot of people who have used your program, there were a couple things that jumped out at me, because I, too, am kind of a math-minded guy.

00:04:30.000 The first one was, when you talk about the debt snowball, you start with small to large, you list all the debts, and you say, okay, we've got a $200 debt, pay that one off first, and, you know, build up to the big debts.

00:04:40.000 And I'm sitting there going, okay, well, if you have a $200 debt at 2% interest, and a $10,000 debt at 10% interest, Why not start with the one with the high interest rate?

00:04:48.000 It's mathematical blasphemy.

00:04:50.000 It really is.

00:04:50.000 For a nerd like me, it's like fingernails down a chalkboard.

00:04:53.000 We're doing it wrong, you know?

00:04:54.000 We're doing it wrong.

00:04:55.000 But the thing is, if you go to the Y and you sweat and you drink water and you don't eat white bread and you gain weight, you will quit.

00:05:05.000 And the same thing getting out of debt.

00:05:06.000 You need some quick encouragement.

00:05:08.000 You need to go, this might work.

00:05:10.000 And then you pay off another one.

00:05:11.000 You go, well, this might work.

00:05:12.000 And you pay off another one.

00:05:13.000 You're like, get the neighbor in here.

00:05:14.000 This might work.

00:05:15.000 Hey, baby, come over here. 1.00

00:05:16.000 Look at this.

00:05:16.000 We paid.

00:05:17.000 And you start to get this thing happening.

00:05:20.000 It's called hope.

00:05:21.000 And you actually believe it's going to happen.

00:05:23.000 And so, and what happens is the more people get excited, the more they believe, the deeper they'll sacrifice and the faster they get out.

00:05:31.000 And so this debt snowball thing, even though it's, you know, it's a paradox, even though that it works, it works.

00:05:39.000 And people don't get out of debt using the other because they get stalled out.

00:05:43.000 And I always just laughingly tell our audiences, you know, if we were doing math, we wouldn't have credit card debt in the first place.

00:05:48.000 It's not a math problem.

00:05:50.000 So, I want to ask also about who kind of your target audience is?

00:05:54.000 Because, you know, I think that there are certain situations, right?

00:05:57.000 I came from a middle class background.

00:05:59.000 By the time I was, you know, a teenager, a late teenager, I'd say we were sort of upper middle class.

00:06:05.000 And I incurred debt for college.

00:06:07.000 I incurred debt for law school.

00:06:09.000 You're very anti-debt for college.

00:06:10.000 I agree with you that many college debts are worthless.

00:06:13.000 But for my wife, for example, she's a doctor.

00:06:16.000 As people know.

00:06:17.000 And she went to medical school and she also went to pre-med for undergrad.

00:06:22.000 Are there any situations in which you think that taking out college debt is worthwhile?

00:06:25.000 Well, I just don't teach people to borrow money.

00:06:28.000 The shortest path between where you are and wealth is to stay in control of your largest wealth-building tool, which is your income.

00:06:36.000 Now, that puts some serious hurdles in place when you're going to law school or you're going to go to med school.

00:06:42.000 But I talk to people who go to med school.

00:06:44.000 And they find a way.

00:06:45.000 They get scholarships.

00:06:47.000 They do fellowships.

00:06:49.000 The MD-PhD program.

00:06:51.000 There's all kinds of ways to do it.

00:06:52.000 But it's tough.

00:06:53.000 It's tough.

00:06:53.000 But so is paying off $250,000 freaking dollars in debt.

00:06:56.000 That's tough too.

00:06:58.000 So you're going to pick your tough.

00:07:00.000 You just got to pick which one.

00:07:01.000 I mean, and that's sort of, I guess, the question, because it sounds like there are certain situations, like, there are situations in which, if you have to have a government-sponsored debt, it seems to me those are the situations in which it's a bad idea to really take out debt.

00:07:12.000 If you gotta take out a student loan from the government in order to go major in gender studies, good shot, you're never gonna be able to pay that off. 1.00

00:07:18.000 But there are certain professions where the income coming out is gonna be good enough that there's a reason the bank is giving you a low-interest loan.

00:07:26.000 If you're taking out a loan for pre-med, They're presumably giving that loan hoping they're going to get knowing, or having actuarial tables suggesting they're going to get paid back on the other end.

00:07:34.000 So, you know, are you supposed to forego med school?

00:07:37.000 Those are federally insured loans, too.

00:07:38.000 And the inherent problem, and it becomes a policy problem when you get right down to the core of it, with $1.4 trillion now in student loan debt.

00:07:47.000 We're basically loaning 18-year-olds who have never had a job and want to get a degree in left-handed puppetry up to $145,000. 1.00

00:07:54.000 I mean, we the people are stupid. 1.00

00:07:58.000 We're really stupid that we're guaranteeing these loans. 1.00

00:08:01.000 I mean, because there's no guidelines on this whatsoever. 0.99

00:08:03.000 And the parents, many times, don't care, don't bother to be involved, or don't know how to lead their kid.

00:08:10.000 You know, they're like, well, they're 18, they make their own decisions.

00:08:12.000 That's probably not a good idea.

00:08:14.000 You know, maybe we put your arm around a little junior and say, you know, we really do need to get a degree in something other than, you know, German polka history.

00:08:22.000 Let's try something else, you know?

00:08:24.000 Let's try to get something that actually is marketable and that you can put some tools in your belt to earn a living so you don't live in my basement when you're 32.

00:08:30.000 Let's have a plan here.

00:08:31.000 And it's funny that you come at this from a different angle from people like Peter Thiel, obviously, but you end up in exactly the same place, which is, college is very often a waste of time.

00:08:39.000 Maybe you ought to just be going out and learning a career, apprenticing yourself, actually making something yourself.

00:08:43.000 No, I don't think it's a waste of time at all.

00:08:44.000 I mean, higher education, we just completed, one of our Ramsey personalities, Chris Hogan, we just completed the largest study on millionaires ever done.

00:08:51.000 We studied 10,165 of them.

00:08:54.000 And the vast majority of them have a four-year degree.

00:08:58.000 They didn't use debt to get it, though.

00:09:00.000 That's what's odd.

00:09:01.000 68% of them have a four-year degree.

00:09:04.000 And almost none of them went to prestige schools, though.

00:09:06.000 Most of them went to state schools and community colleges and that kind of a thing.

00:09:10.000 But, you know, it turns out being smart, being educated is a good thing.

00:09:14.000 It's just, you know, what are you studying and what are your expectations?

00:09:17.000 But it just breaks my heart when I get a young lady calling me from Atlanta last week on my show.

00:09:21.000 And she's got $165,000 in student loan debt for a master's degree in sociology.

00:09:26.000 And she makes $38,000 working for the state of Georgia.

00:09:28.000 I mean, it's just...

00:09:31.000 Where were her parents?

00:09:34.000 We as a culture failed her to tell her that was going to work.

00:09:37.000 But then you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, well, education isn't a good idea. 1.00

00:09:42.000 But we're just stupid about education. 0.99

00:09:43.000 That's the paradox. 0.99

00:09:45.000 As far as taking on debt, I'm focusing on debt because this is one of the areas where, as you say, the kind of statistically minded folks look at you and it sounds like blasphemy.

00:09:54.000 Talking about entrepreneurialism, when you look at the number of businesses that are started in the United States and that are successful, the percentage that were started off of some sort of loan from family, from friends, from a bank, there are a lot of businesses that were started off, at least with somebody investing who was not the original person.

00:10:11.000 Where, you know, our business, for example, we started off with an investor, and we went to the investor, and we had an obligation to pay off the investor, and our business doesn't exist without us actually borrowing money and then using it to build our business and then paying back the investor.

00:10:24.000 And that's true for an enormous number of publicly traded companies.

00:10:27.000 Is there a happy medium here, or do you really believe that it's just a matter of scrimping and saving until you can get together enough money to start the business?

00:10:33.000 Because sometimes you actually do need a spend of scale in order to make sure that you can get launched.

00:10:37.000 Well, if you're an income... I mean, if you're in-game as an IPO, if you're wanting to go public, you're probably dealing with a vulture capitalist at that point.

00:10:46.000 I mean, a venture capitalist.

00:10:47.000 You're probably about to get yourself into a situation where somebody owns your soul, and that's going to be part of the process.

00:10:53.000 If you're doing something like you guys are doing, you've got an angel investor that's setting you up and believes in your cause, and that gets you going.

00:11:01.000 In my case, we started on a card table in our living room.

00:11:04.000 We've got 806 employees today.

00:11:07.000 We'll do about $200 million in revenue this year.

00:11:09.000 We've never borrowed a dime.

00:11:11.000 But it did take us 20 years.

00:11:13.000 You know, 20 years later, we're an overnight success.

00:11:15.000 Yeah, it sounds like a pretty good plan.

00:11:16.000 I mean, 20 years to $200 million in revenue ain't a bad thing.

00:11:19.000 It worked out.

00:11:20.000 So when it comes to kind of personal character, how much do you think that financial decisions are about education of people to make the right decisions?

00:11:26.000 And how much is it about actually being able to put off That's called maturity.

00:11:34.000 The ability to delay pleasure.

00:11:36.000 And that is a character quality.

00:11:39.000 Integrity, there's a high correlation between integrity, wholeness, not just telling the truth in honesty, but this full on integrity.

00:11:47.000 You are who you are all the time, that's integrity.

00:11:50.000 And not only do you tell the truth, not only do you honor your word in situations.

00:11:54.000 High data point correlation between that and the ability to build wealth.

00:11:58.000 This idea that you cheat your way to the top is mythology.

00:12:02.000 It truly does not work out there.

00:12:03.000 I mean, think about it.

00:12:03.000 If you go to the local car place and get your car worked on and he cheats you, you tell everybody you know.

00:12:10.000 You don't tell everybody you know.

00:12:11.000 And if you go in there and he says, oh, it was 35 cents.

00:12:14.000 I fixed it.

00:12:15.000 Don't worry about it.

00:12:16.000 You tell everybody you know, because you just found a unicorn.

00:12:19.000 You know what I mean?

00:12:19.000 So where the guy just did the right thing.

00:12:21.000 And you send your family, your friends, and that's how you succeed in business.

00:12:26.000 You do the right thing.

00:12:27.000 It's how you succeed in life.

00:12:28.000 You do the right thing.

00:12:29.000 Integrity, the ability to delay pleasure, the ability to say, you know, I'm going to give up something today.

00:12:35.000 I'm going to live like no one else so that later, I can live and give like no one else.

00:12:39.000 That's the way we say it on the show.

00:12:40.000 You know, one of the things that I think is so fascinating about your approach is that it is an approach that is driven by personal responsibility.

00:12:46.000 So much of what's going on in the country, in politics generally, is driven by precisely the opposite attitude.

00:12:51.000 So, you're smart.

00:12:52.000 You stay away from politics.

00:12:54.000 I'm in politics full time.

00:12:55.000 And it seems like politicians make bank off of basically telling people that nothing they do is their own responsibility and that everything that is wrong in their life can be blamed on outside forces.

00:13:05.000 In America, how much of what's bad in people's lives do you think can generally be blamed on the decisions they make, and how much can be blamed on outside forces, if you had to balance that out?

00:13:16.000 Well, I think you can be born into a situation where you don't... I grew up in a neighborhood where people said stuff like, the little man can't get ahead.

00:13:28.000 It was a victim mentality.

00:13:29.000 Blue collar thing.

00:13:30.000 It's like, you know, the union will take care of you.

00:13:33.000 The government will take care of you.

00:13:34.000 I sure hope we can elect a, you know, a president or a congressman will take care of us.

00:13:37.000 Because a little man just can't get ahead on his own. 0.99

00:13:40.000 And is that a reality?

00:13:42.000 Yeah, if you think it is.

00:13:44.000 If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right, Henry Ford said, you know.

00:13:47.000 And so there's a reality to this.

00:13:48.000 And so the belief is the real privilege.

00:13:52.000 It's not the skin color, and it's not the socio-economic thing.

00:13:55.000 It's the belief in the culture you come out of.

00:13:57.000 I mean, I grew up in Tennessee, and we're hillbilly culture.

00:14:00.000 My family's Scotch-Irish, and proud hillbillies of the best kind.

00:14:06.000 And an interesting bunch.

00:14:08.000 They'll fight you.

00:14:09.000 For their freedoms.

00:14:11.000 And yet sometimes they'll adopt that victim mentality.

00:14:15.000 And a whole bunch of those folks, I mean, J.D.

00:14:18.000 did a nice book, Hillbilly Elegy, that indicated that probably that's a bunch of us are who elected Trump.

00:14:24.000 But it was all that he was a little bit Reagan-esque in that it's up to you, I'll just make it where you can win.

00:14:31.000 You know, and I'll do it for you.

00:14:33.000 And there's a different message there in that ideology. 0.95

00:14:35.000 But, you know, the problem is if you start to believe someone else is going to fix your life, whoever it is, your employer, your mommy, the president, the Congress, you're screwed.

00:14:44.000 Yeah, well, this is one of the things I really fear because I am seeing it rise on both the left and the right.

00:14:48.000 There's this sort of new right-wing populist movement that suggests, okay, well, you know, all the problems that you're having in life, you didn't get married because you couldn't afford it.

00:14:55.000 And it's like, well, maybe you should have made some different decisions.

00:14:57.000 And single motherhood is not a financial decision.

00:15:00.000 It's not that you got pregnant out of wedlock because you couldn't afford it.

00:15:03.000 The classic studies are that 97% of the 30-year-olds that graduated from school, high school, Before they got married, and got married before they had a kid.

00:15:15.000 That's all they did.

00:15:16.000 High school, and they did it in the right order, in other words.

00:15:20.000 97% are above the poverty level.

00:15:22.000 Almost everyone below the poverty level somehow got that out of order.

00:15:26.000 They got pregnant before they got out of school, they got pregnant before they got married, they got married before they got out of school, they got it out of order.

00:15:31.000 It's the success order.

00:15:32.000 All kinds of data points on that, statistical evidence.

00:15:35.000 And it's not a political statement, it's just This is the proper way to live your life.

00:15:40.000 Turns out morals have implication.

00:15:42.000 Character has implications.

00:15:45.000 So in a second, I do want to ask you about what's happened because it feels like there's been a decline in both happiness and I've attributed that to a decline in virtue and religion.

00:15:55.000 I want to see kind of your perception of that in just one second.

00:15:57.000 First, let's talk about your health care program.

00:15:59.000 So I have some good news.

00:16:00.000 If you missed the deadline to sign up for health care insurance or more importantly, if you signed up for a plan you're just not that happy with, you still have a choice.

00:16:06.000 It's called MediShare.

00:16:07.000 MediShare is a Christian healthcare-sharing program.

00:16:09.000 They've been around for 25 years.

00:16:10.000 They have more than 400,000 members now around the country.

00:16:13.000 And get this, over the years, MediShare members have shared over $2 billion of each other's medical bills, so they could help share your needs as well.

00:16:19.000 Best of all, you could save a lot of money with MediShare.

00:16:22.000 The typical savings for a family is about $500 a month.

00:16:24.000 Your savings could be more, they could be less, but think about what you could do with that extra money every month.

00:16:28.000 So, if you think you're stuck with a high-cost health plan that doesn't have much to offer, Think again.

00:16:32.000 You can join MediShare anytime, so just call them today and check it out.

00:16:36.000 Just head over to MediShare.com slash Ben or call 844-61-BIBLE to find out more.

00:16:40.000 There's no pressure.

00:16:41.000 They are super easy to talk to.

00:16:42.000 Find out how much you could save, why MediShare is really popular.

00:16:45.000 I've talked to the folks over there, really nice folks, Christian folks.

00:16:48.000 Go to MediShare.com slash Ben.

00:16:50.000 That's M-E-D-I, MediShare.com slash Ben or call 844-61-BIBLE for more information.

00:16:55.000 Again, that's 844-61-BIBLE.

00:16:57.000 So I want to talk about some of the aspects of virtue that you're talking about because I fully agree with this.

00:17:09.000 I think that the supposed crisis that we're having in terms of happiness, the rise in the opioid epidemic, although some of that is due to bad diagnoses and people being given medical opioids and all of that, the rise in suicide, the rise in single motherhood, that in the end, these are mostly personal problems.

00:17:25.000 These are people making bad decisions, and they're making bad decisions because they've been taught by society, by the government, by the culture that if you make a bad decision, it's not really your fault.

00:17:33.000 And at the beginning of wisdom is recognizing that it's probably your fault.

00:17:38.000 Where do you think these kind of – where did things start to fall apart, or do you think things are really not that falling apart?

00:17:42.000 You know, it's strange.

00:17:44.000 There's pockets that are falling apart, and there's sometimes a malaise or a fog over some things, but then there's entire segments of the population that are booming like never before.

00:17:55.000 They're having the best years of their life right now, and maybe did even under Obama, you know?

00:18:00.000 They had the best years of their life.

00:18:02.000 But, I mean, we share a book in our faiths, in my Christian faith through Jewish faith, the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Wisdom. 0.84

00:18:08.000 And all throughout the book of Wisdom, the fool is juxtaposed with the wise. 0.99

00:18:13.000 The wise does this, the fool does this. 0.97

00:18:15.000 Wisdom is this, and wisdom is, in the Hebrew, you know this probably, is the art of living life well, is really what it means. 0.91

00:18:25.000 And that's what we've lost.

00:18:26.000 is wisdom, not knowledge. 1.00

00:18:28.000 But we've lost wisdom, as juxtaposed with the fool. 0.97

00:18:31.000 And if you read through Proverbs, you go, well, I've done that. 1.00

00:18:33.000 I'm a fool. 0.99

00:18:34.000 I've done that. 0.99

00:18:34.000 So I'm going to quit doing that. 0.99

00:18:35.000 So I'm going to be wise.

00:18:37.000 In the house of the wise are stores of choice of food and oil. 0.99

00:18:40.000 But a foolish man devours all he has. 1.00

00:18:43.000 If you spend everything you make, you're a fool. 1.00

00:18:45.000 Fool, fool, fool. 1.00

00:18:46.000 I've done that. 1.00

00:18:47.000 And then when I quit doing that, I actually saved money.

00:18:49.000 I had some money in the house of the wise.

00:18:51.000 I mean, it was just, it's remarkable, isn't it?

00:18:53.000 And so the art of living life well, and when you start to believe that if I plant corn, I'm going to get corn.

00:19:01.000 If I'm going to reap what I sow, if I'm going to live in a cause and effect world where I actually can impact my own destiny, there's variables around me.

00:19:08.000 There's isms.

00:19:09.000 I mean, there's racism and sexism and baldism.

00:19:12.000 There are people that won't let me do stuff because I'm bald.

00:19:15.000 Hadn't been a bald president elected since television.

00:19:17.000 Go look that one up.

00:19:18.000 It's interesting.

00:19:19.000 But I mean, you know, these kinds of things are very... We got one with bad hair, but we don't have any with no hair.

00:19:25.000 So Jerry Ford was not elected.

00:19:27.000 I've got a southern drawl, and for years in the radio business, now we've got 600 stations, but for years people in Boston thought we broadcast from a double-wide because we were in Tennessee, you know, with no shoes, you know?

00:19:37.000 I mean, there's all these isms, right?

00:19:38.000 Everybody's got an ism they've got to bust through.

00:19:41.000 I don't care who you are, but if you truly believe because of your ism, whatever it is, that you can't win, you're not going to get corn if you plant corn, then why would you ever plant corn?

00:19:50.000 That's hopelessness. 1.00

00:19:53.000 And that's the path of the fool. 0.98

00:19:54.000 Yeah, the way that I've put it on my own show is that I root for reality because there's nothing else to root for. 0.98

00:20:00.000 There's a lot of folks out there who are rooting against reality.

00:20:02.000 And you see this not only in politics, but you see it in culture, just the general thing where people look at their life and they go, X or Y isn't fair.

00:20:09.000 Here's a person who's really rich, and I'm not really rich, and that's unfair.

00:20:12.000 And you see politicians say this without any solution.

00:20:14.000 They just sort of put it out there.

00:20:15.000 And this is their actual talking point.

00:20:17.000 You say, OK, well, let's assume for a second that that is unfair, and that if you were God, you would even all that out.

00:20:22.000 You're not God.

00:20:22.000 You're not evening all that out.

00:20:24.000 And even if you would even all that out, it wouldn't result exactly in what you want here.

00:20:28.000 Maybe you should stop fighting reality and deal with reality instead.

00:20:31.000 Actually, wealth equality is unfair.

00:20:35.000 Because effort is not equal.

00:20:36.000 Smarts is not equal.

00:20:38.000 I'm not as smart as Bill Gates.

00:20:40.000 He's helped more people than I've helped.

00:20:42.000 And as a result, he has more money.

00:20:45.000 I mean, I haven't changed the world with a computer.

00:20:46.000 He did.

00:20:48.000 I'm not Steve Jobs.

00:20:49.000 I didn't do that.

00:20:50.000 Now, I've made a good bit of money.

00:20:52.000 I've helped a whole bunch of people.

00:20:54.000 But, you know, I was arguing with this lady, liberal lady, and she was mad at me because I had made a lot of money selling books to people, helping them with money. 0.99

00:21:02.000 And she's like, well, you're taking advantage of all these people that are broke.

00:21:04.000 And I said, You know, when I sold 5 books for $10, nobody was mad.

00:21:10.000 But all you people got pissed off when I sold 10 million of them.

00:21:14.000 And I helped 10 million people.

00:21:16.000 And so, you know, your level of return is the level of help.

00:21:20.000 And so that just defeats the wealth equality argument completely.

00:21:23.000 Because we now know that 79% of the millionaires in America today, 8 out of 10, inherited zero.

00:21:31.000 Zero.

00:21:32.000 Which means they did something in the marketplace.

00:21:35.000 So the American dream is alive and well.

00:21:36.000 One of the things that I love about your show is that you actually do defend the morality of the free market.

00:21:41.000 And that's something that very few people are willing to do in this day and age.

00:21:44.000 It's all about the shortcomings of the free market, income inequality, the idea that people are being exploited.

00:21:48.000 And it seems like they're coming from this perspective that even basic elements of life, intelligent gaps, this should be somehow rectified.

00:21:57.000 And you see this with, they'll use Bill Gates as an example.

00:21:59.000 How is there a Bill Gates in this country who's worth this much money?

00:22:02.000 And then you'll see somebody who's worth no money.

00:22:04.000 And you say, well, he's contributed more.

00:22:06.000 And they say, well, but that wasn't his choice.

00:22:09.000 He was smarter, right?

00:22:10.000 He was smarter.

00:22:11.000 He grew up better.

00:22:12.000 How do you answer that?

00:22:13.000 He did.

00:22:14.000 And he is.

00:22:16.000 And And, you know, George Clooney's prettier than me.

00:22:20.000 So, I mean, so what?

00:22:21.000 Deal with it.

00:22:22.000 I mean, this is your hand.

00:22:24.000 Play your hand.

00:22:26.000 And, you know, we had a leadership event.

00:22:29.000 We did our entree leadership event last summer and got to spend some time with Condoleezza Rice.

00:22:34.000 And she grew up in a In a segregated neighborhood outside of Birmingham.

00:22:40.000 And she was talking about coming out of that segregated neighborhood to become Secretary of State. 0.99

00:22:45.000 She's brilliant.

00:22:47.000 Brilliant lady. 0.96

00:22:48.000 And she said, my parents told me my whole life, it doesn't matter where I'm coming from, what matters is where you're going.

00:22:53.000 And you just decide that's what we're going to do.

00:22:56.000 But that has all the way back to do with this thing called hope and this belief that if I plant corn, I shouldn't be shocked if I get corn.

00:23:03.000 If I plant nothing, I can't gripe about the farmer who planted corn and was out there toiling to kill the weeds and in the hot sun.

00:23:11.000 Meanwhile, I'm standing over here watching the guy and then I go, well, it's not fair that he's got some corn.

00:23:16.000 I mean, I wonder if some of the complaints that are cropping up, particularly among young people, and I speak a lot on college campuses where there are a lot of young people who make exactly these complaints, that this is coming as the result of a breakdown in religious community.

00:23:27.000 Because, you know, I'm a religious person, you're a religious person, there are a lot of rich people, people who have been, you know, I've been a lot poorer, I've been, you know, I've done well.

00:23:35.000 That's changed, but I've watched the same thing happen to people in my community who I grew up with, and so I know all of them.

00:23:40.000 And so it's hard to be a lot, it's a lot harder to be jealous of the guy that you've known and grown up with and he can go to for help than some random guy on the street who you have no association with.

00:23:48.000 And as we fragment as a community, there's more of a feeling of, well, maybe that guy owes me money, as opposed to, well, I've known my next door neighbor my entire life.

00:23:57.000 We go to the same church or the same synagogue.

00:23:58.000 The one area of equality that matters more than any, we are equal, which is we are all equal before God, right?

00:24:03.000 God sees us all exactly the same.

00:24:05.000 With that breakdown, I'm wondering if maybe that's what's caused a lot of the feeling of dispossession.

00:24:09.000 Well, and it also contributes to racism, also contributes to arguments between religion.

00:24:16.000 I mean, if you sit down and spend time with people and actually develop a relationship with people that have a different situation than you've got, you're going to learn there's good people and there's bad people in almost every one of those things.

00:24:27.000 I know wealthy people all over the world that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they're some of the best people on the planet, and I know some of them that will cut your throat.

00:24:35.000 Just to see if you bleed.

00:24:37.000 I mean, and I know some poor people that are some of the best people on the planet, and I know some of them will cut your throat.

00:24:42.000 Hasn't got anything to do with the money.

00:24:43.000 It's got to do with their character or their lack of it.

00:24:45.000 The money just revealed it.

00:24:47.000 So where do you think the country is going?

00:24:49.000 Are you hopeful or pessimistic for the country?

00:24:50.000 You deal a lot with individuals, but on a broad level, where do you think the country is going right now?

00:24:55.000 I mean, my spoiler is that I'm always pessimistic, which is great for me because it means I'm always right eventually.

00:25:00.000 It's just a question of where the eventually happens.

00:25:03.000 But are you optimistic or pessimistic about sort of the direction that the American people seem to be moving?

00:25:07.000 I'm optimistic overall.

00:25:09.000 Overall.

00:25:09.000 There's lots of issues.

00:25:11.000 There's lots of problems.

00:25:12.000 And I think the biggest problems we've got are not structural.

00:25:17.000 And they're not systemic.

00:25:19.000 The biggest problems are belief breakdowns.

00:25:21.000 Where people believe the wrong things.

00:25:23.000 And when you believe the wrong things, then you make bad decisions. 0.99

00:25:26.000 Because your worldview is screwed.

00:25:29.000 And that's the most pessimistic piece I've got about it.

00:25:34.000 And so, to the extent that we can, people like you, can get out here and be thought leaders and teach people that what happens in their house, at the end of the day, is probably a lot more important for the quality of life they lead over the next several decades than what happens in the White House.

00:25:52.000 So, what's your religious background?

00:25:54.000 Where do you come from?

00:25:54.000 Can you tell me about your parents?

00:25:56.000 Because how did you get this way, is sort of the question.

00:25:58.000 Oh, I didn't grow up in church.

00:26:00.000 I grew up, I was a hell-raising, beer-drinking hillbilly. 0.99

00:26:03.000 I was a crazy man. 0.96

00:26:04.000 No, I met God as an adult.

00:26:06.000 And I actually met Him on the way up when I was making that money, and then when we were losing everything, I got to know Him on the way down.

00:26:11.000 So, I started studying scripture because I had all these letters in license after my name about money, and then I broke something.

00:26:18.000 I must have got some bad information.

00:26:19.000 Because I was acting on all the information I had, and it didn't take me where it was supposed to take me.

00:26:24.000 Instead, I built a house of cards that fell in on me.

00:26:26.000 Use OPM, leverage other people's money, and all that stuff, right?

00:26:30.000 And I got to thinking about it, and who was it that taught me to borrow money?

00:26:32.000 That was my finance professor in college who was broke.

00:26:35.000 Which is kind of like a shop teacher with missing fingers, right?

00:26:38.000 That's a problem.

00:26:41.000 As a young person of faith, young in my faith in my 30s, 20s, I really dove in and started learning what the scriptures say about money.

00:26:49.000 I mean, if you just read Proverbs over and over, you have a master's degree in finance.

00:26:53.000 So you have three kids.

00:26:55.000 How old are your kids?

00:26:57.000 26 to 32.

00:26:58.000 And have they followed all of your advice?

00:27:01.000 Yeah.

00:27:03.000 They're all actually functioning human beings.

00:27:06.000 They have great marriages, married good people, and have great babies and great careers.

00:27:10.000 They work very, very hard.

00:27:12.000 They are not silver-spooned by any stretch.

00:27:15.000 Well, one of the things that I love about your show is that you really do give tough love advice to a lot of the folks who call in.

00:27:20.000 I mean, it's what makes it so entertaining is that you're actually telling them the truth.

00:27:23.000 Have you ever felt bad after you get off a call that you slapped somebody a little bit too hard upside the head?

00:27:28.000 Yeah.

00:27:28.000 Oh, sure.

00:27:29.000 Sure.

00:27:30.000 But typically, what I've learned to do in the past more than in recent years, I've gotten better at it.

00:27:36.000 I mean, because I can judge.

00:27:37.000 What I used to do is I would just hit everybody the same.

00:27:40.000 And that's not fair.

00:27:41.000 If somebody joined our tribe three weeks ago, they've got a different set of knowledge.

00:27:45.000 So I can't hold them to the same level of account.

00:27:48.000 I started watching your stuff on YouTube, Dave, three weeks ago.

00:27:51.000 Okay, we're going to gently bring you along.

00:27:55.000 Dave, I've listened to you for ten years and I leased a car last week.

00:27:58.000 Pop! 0.87

00:27:58.000 You're going to get it. 0.87

00:28:01.000 You know not to do that.

00:28:02.000 I do everything you say to do and then tell me three things you didn't do.

00:28:05.000 It's like, we're going to get you, dude.

00:28:07.000 It's tough love, but you know what that is?

00:28:08.000 That's real love.

00:28:10.000 Real love is always, I mean, my son's 26.

00:28:13.000 He's a wonderful, fabulous young man.

00:28:16.000 He's a vice president in our company.

00:28:17.000 He's brilliant, great entrepreneur.

00:28:19.000 When he was eight, he would not take a bath.

00:28:22.000 His dad made him bathe, because you stink and you can't exist in society if you don't take a bath.

00:28:31.000 You know, you don't brush your teeth, you're not going to have any, son. 0.73

00:28:33.000 And I'm going to make you do this against your will for your own good.

00:28:38.000 I don't get any benefit out of it at all.

00:28:40.000 It's for your good.

00:28:42.000 That's love.

00:28:43.000 They call it tough love.

00:28:45.000 It's just being a good dad.

00:28:46.000 This is one of the things that drives me up a wall.

00:28:48.000 I know so many people who are both adults and teenagers, but it must have been inculcated in them when they were teenagers and now they carry it forward.

00:28:57.000 You're 25, and you've screwed up your life, and if somebody says anything that crosses you, it's because they don't love you enough.

00:29:02.000 That if they truly loved you, then they would just accept you as you are. 1.00

00:29:05.000 And so, well, maybe I'm trying to not accept you as you are because you suck the way you are. 1.00

00:29:09.000 Exactly. 1.00

00:29:09.000 Maybe you should stop sucking, and then you will have earned the love. 1.00

00:29:13.000 I think four DUIs is awesome. 1.00

00:29:14.000 Just keep drinking.

00:29:15.000 It's working for you.

00:29:16.000 I mean, come on! 0.98

00:29:17.000 You're going to spend your life in a ditch if you live and don't kill somebody else. 1.00

00:29:21.000 This is ridiculous. 1.00

00:29:22.000 You're going to have to drag your butt out of the bar, boy. 1.00

00:29:24.000 I mean, this isn't going to work for you. 0.99

00:29:25.000 And you've just got to love somebody enough to go, I'm not going to participate in your crazy.

00:29:30.000 I'm going to stand over here on the side and show you what sane looks like.

00:29:32.000 Come join us.

00:29:33.000 It's more fun over here.

00:29:34.000 So what are your rules for relationships?

00:29:35.000 You know, there are a lot of folks who are married or thinking about getting married.

00:29:38.000 Do you have any sort of relationship rules and advice for folks who are getting married that they should keep kind of first and foremost in their minds?

00:29:45.000 Oh man, I've been married 36 years and happy wife, happy life is the first one.

00:29:53.000 As far as the money piece goes, we have learned that when people handle their money together, that they're really setting their life goals together.

00:30:00.000 They're sharing their fears.

00:30:01.000 They're sharing their stresses.

00:30:03.000 They're sharing their dreams, because your money all runs towards those things.

00:30:08.000 The way you handle your money symptoms more of a symptom of what's going on in your life than the actual problem.

00:30:13.000 And so when we can get couples to start talking, it's amazing.

00:30:16.000 They go through one of our classes, and they've been married 12 years, and they come back, you saved our marriage.

00:30:20.000 I'm like, you went the wrong class.

00:30:21.000 The sixth class was down the hall.

00:30:24.000 Yeah.

00:30:25.000 All we did was we made them start talking about their money.

00:30:28.000 One checking account, shared accounts.

00:30:30.000 We're going to know everything that's going on, both of us.

00:30:34.000 There's no, I'm going to take care of you.

00:30:37.000 You're not good with money, honey, so I'll do the money.

00:30:40.000 No, we're all on this together.

00:30:42.000 One might be the nerd that's going to do more of the details, but we're going to be two adults pulling the wagon together.

00:30:48.000 And there's tons of data that says you're not going to build wealth unless you do that.

00:30:51.000 So, I know, again, you don't get into politics too much, but from a general political view, I am going to ask you one political question, which is, what do you think the proper role of government is?

00:30:59.000 Because it seems like nowadays people think it's to fix income inequality, guarantee people jobs.

00:31:03.000 In your ideal world, you're King Dave Ramsey.

00:31:06.000 You get to decide what government does and what government doesn't.

00:31:09.000 What do you think government's actual role is?

00:31:11.000 Well, God has been smart enough so far to not allow me to be involved in that.

00:31:16.000 I pretty much agree with him.

00:31:19.000 Politically, I'm sitting here, so I'm obviously conservative.

00:31:23.000 Very conservative.

00:31:24.000 Probably just to the right of Genghis Khan.

00:31:29.000 You know, and my liberal friends, my liberal listeners, I make fun of them all the time on the air, but they know I love them.

00:31:36.000 And I'll help them with their money, and I'll help them with their marriage when they call in.

00:31:39.000 I'll help them retire with dignity.

00:31:40.000 I'll show them how to do it.

00:31:42.000 But I like people.

00:31:44.000 You know, I'll help you wherever you are.

00:31:45.000 That's okay.

00:31:45.000 But as far as, the reason I'm a conservative is, you know, I was sitting with John Stossel one night about 15 years ago, back when he did 2020, back a long time ago.

00:31:57.000 And he said, I read up on you.

00:31:59.000 And I said, oh, really?

00:32:00.000 That didn't take long.

00:32:02.000 And he goes, yeah, you're a social conservative and economic libertarian.

00:32:09.000 And I said, I never thought about that, but I probably am.

00:32:12.000 I probably am.

00:32:13.000 I'm an economic libertarian because I'm a free market. 0.98

00:32:16.000 I mean, I am a capitalist pig. 0.86

00:32:18.000 I love capitalism. 0.95

00:32:20.000 Capitalism is what happens if you leave people alone.

00:32:23.000 You know, they will go and function in their own best interest.

00:32:26.000 Some of them will do it crooked, some of them will do it with morals, some of them will do it sanctified capitalism, some of them will do it wrong, and you wish you hadn't let them run loose, just like when your children grow up sometimes, you wish you hadn't, but that's the way it is.

00:32:40.000 But I see so much good happen, more good happen, in the marketplace when you let people do their own thing.

00:32:49.000 Anytime you put a large number of people in a small area geographically, there has to be more rules.

00:32:55.000 We call that civilization.

00:32:58.000 If you're going to be in the middle of Montana and there's more sheep per capita in this square mile than people, and there is.

00:33:06.000 It's beautiful up there.

00:33:07.000 I love Montana.

00:33:08.000 But you don't need it. 1.00

00:33:10.000 You can just walk around with a gun on your hip and you can just shoot it if you want to. 0.97

00:33:13.000 But if you do that right here in the middle of L.A., you'll not only go to jail, but you'll endanger people. 0.54

00:33:17.000 Well, we call that most of the city, actually.

00:33:20.000 Legally, I mean.

00:33:21.000 You know, the point is, more people, you have to have more rules.

00:33:24.000 And government is the same way.

00:33:26.000 And so, I love the old systems of government.

00:33:30.000 I'm an old guy, so, you know, highways and take care of the military and a bunch of this other stuff, you know, they were just trying to engineer votes.

00:33:39.000 And they should be out of all of those businesses.

00:33:41.000 So, yeah, if you made me king, there'd be a whole bunch of folks unemployed that used to work for the federal government very quickly, because I'd just do away with a bunch of it.

00:33:48.000 But I'm not going to be king, so you're safe.

00:33:50.000 It's OK.

00:33:51.000 All righty.

00:33:51.000 So I want to ask you about charity.

00:33:52.000 So in your program, you talk a lot about how when you get wealthy, you should give a lot of charity.

00:33:56.000 What do you think the role of charity is?

00:33:57.000 Because there's a whole group of folks who are sort of the Ayn Randian objectivists who say that the best way that economics works is to never give charity.

00:34:03.000 The best thing you can do is invest your money, create more jobs.

00:34:06.000 Why do you think it's important for folks to give charity?

00:34:08.000 Well, it has nothing to do with the economy.

00:34:10.000 It has to do with what it does for you.

00:34:12.000 God teaches both of our faiths to give very, very clearly.

00:34:16.000 Tons of Scripture, the Talmud, the Old Testament, what we Christians would call it, and in the New Testament as well.

00:34:21.000 Tons.

00:34:22.000 So why would a loving God suggest that you give money?

00:34:25.000 It has nothing to do with economics.

00:34:28.000 Your synagogue does not need your money.

00:34:33.000 My church does not need my money.

00:34:36.000 They're going to be fine, I promise.

00:34:37.000 So that's not what it's about.

00:34:39.000 This is about what happens in me.

00:34:41.000 When I turn loose of money and I see the result, it moves me from selfish to selfless.

00:34:52.000 It grows my character.

00:34:54.000 And selfless people are highly attractive.

00:34:59.000 Much more so than selfish people.

00:35:02.000 And so it turns out that the person who gives is also the person who holds the door for you.

00:35:06.000 They're also the person that has a level of humility.

00:35:09.000 They understand the center of the world really doesn't run through the top of their head.

00:35:13.000 But there's a spiritual Result, a character-based result and a psychological result when you go through the tactical step of mathematically giving your money away.

00:35:24.000 And so when you reach over and you see a lady waiting a table in a greasy diner and you leave her a $300 tip and she's pregnant, that lady needs some money.

00:35:35.000 Now, you helped her.

00:35:37.000 The economy was affected.

00:35:39.000 But what it did for you was more than any other player.

00:35:43.000 Oddly enough, charity is selfish in that regard.

00:35:46.000 If you understand what it does for you, what it does for your kids to see you give.

00:35:53.000 I've got a good friend who's an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Daniel Lappin, and he cannot stand the phrase, and I agree with him, give back.

00:36:01.000 He says, you're not giving back.

00:36:02.000 You didn't take anything.

00:36:03.000 Right.

00:36:04.000 You're just giving.

00:36:05.000 You didn't give back indicates somehow you took advantage of the culture and you owe the culture a debt.

00:36:10.000 You don't owe the culture a debt.

00:36:11.000 That's not true.

00:36:13.000 But you owe yourself a debt to learn to have that element of your character.

00:36:18.000 Because people who give are always grateful people.

00:36:21.000 They're more humble, and they're more selfless, and they're highly attractive people.

00:36:26.000 They're who you want your kids to be.

00:36:27.000 They're who you want to be when you grow up, you know?

00:36:30.000 That's who I want to be.

00:36:31.000 I meet those old men, those old women, they got those beautiful faces, you know?

00:36:34.000 And then you meet the ones that don't have beautiful faces because they're angry and they're selfish.

00:36:38.000 And it's up on their countenance when you get old.

00:36:41.000 And because when you get old, you become more of what you're going to be, right?

00:36:44.000 You know, and that's what charity does. 1.00

00:36:46.000 Now, think about this, though.

00:36:48.000 If we could look at that on the macro level, what would happen?

00:36:51.000 Oh, baby.

00:36:52.000 I mean, what if we could get a whole culture that started giving, not because of the economic impacts, not because they helped this little charity, or not because this kid was fed, although that's a wonderful thing, but we got a whole culture of people who are highly attractive and selfless, instead of selfish.

00:37:09.000 And mean, and nasty, and on Twitter, you know?

00:37:14.000 I mean, it's just unbelievable, you know?

00:37:16.000 Yeah.

00:37:16.000 No, and I think that's exactly right.

00:37:18.000 It's because I think that what happens is that the folks who don't give charity tend to be the folks who are very eager to take somebody else's money for something else.

00:37:24.000 Oh, absolutely.

00:37:25.000 I mean, there's a really high crossover.

00:37:27.000 And not to get too political again, but the stats show that red states give a lot more charity than blue states, that religious people give a lot more charity than non-religious people.

00:37:35.000 And those people also tend to vote for small government because, again, those people Understand that when it comes time, when the pedal hits the metal and it's time to help somebody out, that in the end it's up to them, it's not up to somebody else, and that casting it off on a third party is a mistake.

00:37:48.000 And one of the things I always note on my show is that when it comes to charity, yes, I have a commandment to give charity, but there's no commandment to receive charity.

00:37:54.000 And we seem in our society to have reversed it.

00:37:57.000 The commandment is mostly that society owes something to me.

00:38:01.000 It used to be that if you took charity from somebody, You felt the obligation toward that person because you knew who the person was.

00:38:07.000 The person had a face.

00:38:08.000 And I always cite the movie Cinderella Man, where James Braddock is walking back into the welfare office, the role of 20s, and paying back the welfare office.

00:38:15.000 Is there a single person in the United States who gets a check from the government who would ever think about doing that today?

00:38:20.000 Probably not.

00:38:20.000 But if you do it in the context of a community of which you're a part, you know exactly how much you owe to everybody else in your community.

00:38:26.000 Well, and all that is is gratitude.

00:38:28.000 If you've received it, it changes your gratitude level.

00:38:31.000 If you've received help at some point in your life, you're a grateful person.

00:38:35.000 And if we could create a whole culture of people who were selfless rather than selfish, and in the process, Out, you know, we gave so much into these institutions that you could literally, you literally, financially, economically could make the government irrelevant.

00:38:53.000 You could put them out of business.

00:38:54.000 It'd be wonderful.

00:38:56.000 So what do you think, as a person running a massive, massive business, what have been the biggest obstacles that you've faced in taking your business from non-existent to a $200 million business?

00:39:03.000 People.

00:39:06.000 Our people on our team are our greatest blessing and they're our greatest pain.

00:39:11.000 We love them and they drive us nuts sometimes.

00:39:14.000 People.

00:39:16.000 The human resource and loving them well, compensating them well, attracting the talent and people of character, people that have quality.

00:39:26.000 Tell me about that experience.

00:39:27.000 How does that interview process work?

00:39:29.000 That's a lot of vetting. 0.98

00:39:30.000 and all that kind of crap.

00:39:31.000 You know, I mean, that has been our biggest obstacle.

00:39:34.000 We hired 200 folks last year, but you have to go through 10 interviews with us.

00:39:38.000 We're very hard to get on with.

00:39:39.000 But we win Best Place to Work every year.

00:39:41.000 Why?

00:39:42.000 Because we're the best freaking place to work.

00:39:43.000 We take care of our people.

00:39:44.000 I mean, we're very, very good to them, but we require a lot.

00:39:48.000 You have to bring it, baby.

00:39:49.000 We're playing for the Super Bowl. - Tell me about that experience.

00:39:51.000 Like, how does that interview process work?

00:39:53.000 That's a lot of vetting.

00:39:54.000 I mean, maybe we'll start doing that around here. - Well, I mean, I was so dumb when I first started. 0.97

00:39:59.000 I thought if you hired people, they would just work. 0.99

00:40:01.000 You know, and that was dumb. 0.90

00:40:03.000 I mean, I thought they would actually care and they wouldn't steal. 0.95

00:40:05.000 And it turns out you have to hire people that work and care and don't steal.

00:40:09.000 You can't just hire people and then they want to do those things.

00:40:11.000 So you have to actually vet that process.

00:40:13.000 There's a due diligence involved.

00:40:14.000 So we just found out if you spend more time with people, you get to know them, they'll tell you.

00:40:18.000 We call them thoroughbreds or donkeys.

00:40:20.000 You can't win the Kentucky Derby with a donkey.

00:40:23.000 Never been one win, ever.

00:40:26.000 And you can't win at business with a room full of donkeys. 0.84

00:40:28.000 And so, sometimes a donkey can dress up, they put on their interview clothes, they look like a thoroughbred when they come in.

00:40:33.000 But you have to talk to them long enough until they finally go, and you hear, that one's got a drug issue, I don't think we're going to do that.

00:40:40.000 That one's doing some crazy butt stuff in their personal life, I don't think we need that toxic stuff in here. 1.00

00:40:45.000 Have you seen any quick indicators of the donkey? 0.79

00:40:46.000 And so, because, you know, everything moves to the speed of trust.

00:40:49.000 And if you can't trust people's competence, their excellence, their integrity, their intent, then it's hard to work together.

00:40:56.000 You can't get work done because you're always looking over your shoulder seeing who's going to stab you.

00:40:59.000 And so we just fire people if they do stuff like that. 0.86

00:41:03.000 Have you started, have you seen, I mean, you've gone through so many people, it sounds like, have you seen any, like, quick indicators of the donkey?

00:41:07.000 Like, how do you spot the donkey right off?

00:41:09.000 We just talk to them and they'll tell you.

00:41:11.000 And we love millennials for this reason.

00:41:13.000 The millennial generation is a fabulous generation.

00:41:16.000 I get asked all the time in these leadership conferences, how do you hire millennials?

00:41:18.000 How do you hire millennials?

00:41:19.000 I love them.

00:41:20.000 They're awesome. 0.91

00:41:21.000 Because there's really only two kinds, awesome and sucks. 0.98

00:41:25.000 And that's only millennials. 1.00

00:41:26.000 And they'll just tell you, I suck. 1.00

00:41:28.000 I live in my mother's basement. 1.00

00:41:29.000 I don't intend to work.

00:41:30.000 I got a participation trophy.

00:41:31.000 I'm not doing squat.

00:41:32.000 They'll just tell you.

00:41:33.000 And good, we're not hiring you.

00:41:34.000 But the other ones, the ones that care, and they join a cause, they'll storm the gates of hell with a water pistol, man.

00:41:39.000 They're missional.

00:41:41.000 They will fight.

00:41:42.000 They believe.

00:41:43.000 They're loyal.

00:41:44.000 It's the best generation I've ever hired.

00:41:46.000 As an old leader, I can tell you, it's a fabulous generation.

00:41:49.000 What's your management style?

00:41:50.000 I mean, how's it like in your office?

00:41:52.000 There's some people who are, you know, delegators.

00:41:54.000 There's some people who are micromanagers.

00:41:55.000 What's your management style?

00:41:56.000 What do you recommend in terms of management?

00:41:57.000 Well, I wouldn't really have hired you if I didn't need you to do something I didn't want to do.

00:42:02.000 So it's delegation, but I'm going to require you do the stuff with excellence and with a spirit on it that the customer loves the fact that they came into contact with the Ramsey organization.

00:42:14.000 It's a high level of expectation, more like a coach.

00:42:20.000 A coach is somebody that loves you dearly, but you're a little bit afraid they'll go crazy at any moment and kill you.

00:42:26.000 That's probably me.

00:42:28.000 That scene from Patton where he goes in and yells at the soldier and he leaves and his adjutant says to him, they don't know when you're joking, generally.

00:42:36.000 He says, it's not important for them to know.

00:42:37.000 It's only important for me to know.

00:42:39.000 Well, I mean, I'm not unkind.

00:42:41.000 I don't yell and scream or anything like that.

00:42:42.000 It's not, but, but I mean, it's, you're going to do the stuff because that's what we're all here for.

00:42:47.000 And this, this place is bigger than any one of us.

00:42:50.000 And so you're going to get your work done.

00:42:53.000 And, uh, and if you don't, then, you know, we'll set you free in Jesus name.

00:42:56.000 There's stuff you can do.

00:42:59.000 Well, I mean, this does seem to be the commonality between all the good managers that I've ever seen, is that they do, it's all about hiring the right person and leaving them alone.

00:43:06.000 That if you have to intervene with the person too much, then you're a bad manager and you're a bad hirer.

00:43:11.000 If you have to be in their face all the time, and that's why when I look at presidents, you know, I'm not gonna name any names, when you look at presidents and they're constantly shifting staff, or they're micromanaging, or going over people's heads, that's the mark of a bad business to me, is somebody who has to have only closely held people who can't delegate out to- No, you're a control freak then.

00:43:28.000 And so, but you can't, if you delegate without being able to trust someone's competence and their integrity, that takes time.

00:43:35.000 If you delegate without doing that, then you're just irresponsible.

00:43:38.000 And so, and we have made the mistake in business and in government, if we just hire someone who's talented and they got a good resume, then we'll just turn them loose.

00:43:44.000 No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:43:45.000 We'll walk with you a little bit here.

00:43:48.000 Make sure you know how to do this stuff the way we're doing it.

00:43:50.000 Make sure you really know how to do it, that you're not just got a good resume and so forth.

00:43:54.000 So I'm going to trust your integrity and your competency.

00:43:57.000 And the bigger the job, and the more money that's involved, more customers that are involved, the more that's on the line, the longer that's going to take.

00:44:04.000 So as an advocate of the free market, some of the big questions that have come up recently, one that's obviously starting to take center stage, is the question of technology and the idea of a permanent underclass.

00:44:14.000 The idea that there's going to be some sort of IQ dichotomy, where people who are smart are going to be able to work and get jobs, and everybody else is going to be replaced by technology.

00:44:22.000 Do you see that as a problem in the future, or do you think that technology will be more of an aid than a hindrance?

00:44:28.000 Technology is both simultaneously in all of our lives a blessing and a curse.

00:44:35.000 We've got kids whose screen time is blowing their brains up.

00:44:37.000 There's all kinds of problems with their brains with too much screen time.

00:44:42.000 We all check our inbox and have to keep it clean like we're OCD or something, guilty, and so on.

00:44:50.000 And yet I can do more.

00:44:52.000 My personal efficiency is way through the roof.

00:44:55.000 compared to even 10 years ago.

00:44:58.000 And so it really doesn't require that much brain matter to take advantage of technology.

00:45:04.000 Most people turn on their televisions and sign into Netflix.

00:45:07.000 Most of them are listening to this podcast and they're figuring out a way to do that at all social strata.

00:45:12.000 And case in point, the dollars that are flowing into those things, we can see that that's happening.

00:45:16.000 So there's enough brain matter, gray matter, to take advantage of technology.

00:45:20.000 But it's always a blessing and it's always a curse.

00:45:23.000 And, you know, I always think about the, you know, the story of the guys that used to bring ice blocks and tongs on a wagon and set them in a box called an ice box that was basically a cooler in your kitchen.

00:45:38.000 It was not, it didn't have any refrigeration.

00:45:39.000 And then Freon was invented.

00:45:41.000 Well, the ice tong guys went out of business, right? 0.99

00:45:44.000 Well, one of them had an ice house in Dallas.

00:45:48.000 Jerry Graham and Jimmy, Jimmy Graham, they called him Uncle Jimmy, and he decided to store bacon and milk and stuff in his ice house, and you could come by and pick it up anytime between the hours of 7 and 11.

00:46:03.000 And he started a little market chain.

00:46:05.000 And the ice business today, by the way, is a $5 billion a year business.

00:46:09.000 And nobody's got tongs.

00:46:12.000 So what does that mean?

00:46:13.000 It means we adapt.

00:46:14.000 Those that are going to win, there's market disruptions, welcome to life.

00:46:19.000 And they come at you and they present either the death of your business or the life of your business.

00:46:24.000 Be ready, they're coming.

00:46:25.000 So you've had a ton of callers, obviously, over the years.

00:46:29.000 Is there anyone that really sticks out to you as particularly memorable?

00:46:32.000 Or it's just at this point kind of faded into the...

00:46:35.000 I've had several of these, but I guess the first time it happened, it sticks in your memory.

00:46:41.000 She called me from San Antonio, and it was Monday, and San Antonio's a big military town, and her husband, a special forces guy, had been killed in Afghanistan the day before.

00:46:50.000 And she's calling me, crying.

00:46:53.000 What do I do?

00:46:54.000 Well, we work with military folk a lot, so I knew all their programs, and they do a great job of coming around the spouses when they lose somebody.

00:47:02.000 So I knew that they were going to be there, but we were able to plug her in with a good church locally, and one of our coaches locally, and one of our investment advisors locally, and we were able to put all those people around her to help her and walk with her.

00:47:13.000 Because, obviously, in two minutes on the radio, I just cried with her.

00:47:18.000 Tore me up, I'm thinking about it right now, but I can't imagine getting that call.

00:47:22.000 Those guys standing on your front porch, you know?

00:47:25.000 Those get you.

00:47:26.000 But, you know, radio's a blast.

00:47:28.000 There's humans there, man.

00:47:29.000 One guy called and said, my wife says she won't have sex with me if I don't make at least $600 a month. 0.99

00:47:36.000 What do you think about that, Dave Ramsey?

00:47:39.000 I said, I think I'd get to work.

00:47:46.000 He started cussing and yelling.

00:47:48.000 We had to hit the dump button.

00:47:52.000 In a second, I want to ask you about, as I sort of referenced vaguely earlier, there's been this debate that's broken out now among people on the right.

00:48:00.000 On one side of the debate, people like me.

00:48:02.000 On the other side, people like Tucker Carlson.

00:48:03.000 We had Tucker on the show probably a couple of months ago at this point.

00:48:07.000 And Tucker was going on about how America had left the non-college-educated man behind, how these people were basically stuck, there was no way to get them forward, and he actually said in a monologue on Fox News that the free market is just a tool.

00:48:23.000 That we shouldn't see it as a system, we should just see it as a tool, and just like any other tool, we should be able to play with it and do what we want with it and all the rest.

00:48:29.000 And when he was sitting in that chair, one of the things that I said to him is, it seems to me that you've lost the sense of American adventure.

00:48:36.000 Because he said, you know, why should it be that if you grew up in a small town, and your grandparents are buried here, and your parents live here, that you should have to pick up and move if there are no jobs in that town?

00:48:45.000 I said, well, because that is the biblical injunction and has been the nature of Adventure-seeking people in all of human history.

00:48:51.000 That was the guarantee of America. 0.89

00:48:52.000 But it seems like this is a mindset that's setting in for a lot of folks.

00:48:55.000 I was born here.

00:48:56.000 I should stay here.

00:48:57.000 There's no reason for me to leave.

00:48:59.000 Do you see that as a trend as well?

00:49:01.000 Well, Tucker and I started on Fox Business when it first started together.

00:49:06.000 He's been a friend a long time.

00:49:07.000 I wish he was sitting here so I could insult him in person.

00:49:10.000 That's just hogwash.

00:49:11.000 He needs to get out of Manhattan more.

00:49:14.000 You know, when you walk around with real people out here, some of these little towns are dying.

00:49:19.000 And evil Walmart took over the town, or evil whatever took over the town and ran the little guy out of business.

00:49:26.000 Again, that's a marketplace disruption.

00:49:28.000 There's a great old book, one of John Grisham's books, Painted House. 0.59

00:49:34.000 It's fictional, but the story is about a cotton-picking family, white trash, lower-income white trash in Arkansas, and the cousin had enough, Picked up, got in the truck, got a bus ticket, went to Detroit because they were hiring people to build cars. 0.96

00:49:51.000 And he came back a year later with a Yankee wife, right, and driving a new car, and he made more money than the rest of the family put together, putting cars together for Henry Ford. 0.97

00:50:01.000 And so what'd he do?

00:50:02.000 There was no economic things available, so he picked up and he went to Detroit.

00:50:06.000 I mean, when the hurricane hit New Orleans, you know what happened?

00:50:10.000 We got Cajun restaurants all over the United States, because people left.

00:50:15.000 And never went back.

00:50:16.000 They left because their homes were destroyed, their businesses were destroyed, but then they got comfortable.

00:50:20.000 We've got great Cajun restaurants.

00:50:22.000 Two of them are friends of mine in Nashville that were from New Orleans, and the only reason they're there was Katrina.

00:50:28.000 That's the reason they're there.

00:50:29.000 So when economic calamity or lack of opportunity is there, you pick your butt up and you move.

00:50:35.000 There's always been a diaspora.

00:50:37.000 An economic diaspora.

00:50:38.000 There has always been that.

00:50:39.000 There's always been movement, you know, to the state of Florida, you know, because of the snowbirds.

00:50:45.000 There's always a thing.

00:50:47.000 And taxation and policy drives that.

00:50:49.000 There's people leaving the state of California as if the place is on fire right now, going to Texas.

00:50:55.000 I mean, the whole political makeup of Texas is shifting because of California's moving there to get away from the taxation.

00:51:02.000 And the same thing coming out of Connecticut and out of New York.

00:51:04.000 I mean, you've got to make a lot of money extra to offset the taxation.

00:51:09.000 So all of those things play into, and there's always been a sense of, you need to move.

00:51:12.000 I don't want to move.

00:51:13.000 I like my town.

00:51:15.000 I'm comfortable there.

00:51:16.000 But if it means feeding my family, if it means living my destiny that God's given me, I'm gone.

00:51:22.000 Let's go.

00:51:23.000 When it comes to the question of, sort of, how to raise your kids in this culture, what sort of tips do you have for young parents, particularly, who are being hit with a lot of cultural influences that suggest precisely the opposite of exactly the lessons you teach?

00:51:35.000 How do you shield your kids?

00:51:36.000 Because you brought up three great kids, it sounds like.

00:51:38.000 How do you go about protecting them from this and inculcating in them exactly the sort of values you're talking about?

00:51:44.000 Well, the first thing is, my friend Andy Andrews says, don't try to raise great kids.

00:51:50.000 Raise kids that are going to be great adults.

00:51:54.000 And that's a different thing, because great kids are like little Stepford children, and they don't ever, ever embarrass you in the restaurant, and they're always perfect and all this BS.

00:52:01.000 And they're never that way.

00:52:02.000 They'll poop in their diaper right in the middle of the worst possible time and scream in the middle of church, you know.

00:52:07.000 That's kids.

00:52:07.000 That's because they're kids.

00:52:08.000 That's what they do.

00:52:09.000 But what we are going to teach them to do is to have critical thinking skills.

00:52:13.000 And I'm going to be a whole lot more concerned with your character than I am your GPA.

00:52:18.000 I'm going to be a whole lot more concerned with the way you treat your brother or your sister and the way you talk to your mother in my house than I am whether you did a piano recital. 0.99

00:52:32.000 And so sometimes we raise the activity level, all the activities we plug our kids into, as a substitute for teaching them character.

00:52:41.000 And, you know, we just taught them you can't lie.

00:52:44.000 It will hurt you, because I will hurt you, so that you don't get hurt later.

00:52:50.000 Well, you paddled your children.

00:52:51.000 You dadgum right.

00:52:52.000 Most of my best friends were paddled as kids. 0.71

00:52:56.000 You beat your children.

00:52:57.000 No, I'm not a child abuser.

00:52:58.000 I love my children more than anything. 0.96

00:52:59.000 I take a bullet for them.

00:53:01.000 But they turned out, and part of that was the nurturing of their mother, the fear of their father. 0.99

00:53:07.000 Let's even talk about that sort of stuff these days.

00:53:09.000 It's obviously very controversial.

00:53:10.000 I get hate mail for days.

00:53:11.000 I will after this.

00:53:12.000 That's okay.

00:53:13.000 It's alright.

00:53:14.000 I made a living off of it.

00:53:15.000 It's okay.

00:53:15.000 Well, I mean, this is the fun stuff that we get to talk about all the time and you talk about in your show, too, is sort of the distinctions between male and female roles in the household.

00:53:22.000 How do you see that?

00:53:24.000 Well, I'm probably middle of the road.

00:53:28.000 My daughter called me a feminist the other day. 1.00

00:53:30.000 I couldn't believe it.

00:53:31.000 But, you know, toxic feminism, toxic masculinity has been in the news this week. 1.00

00:53:39.000 Obviously, we don't want to do any of that.

00:53:41.000 But as a husband, as a dad, my job is to love my family, to serve them, and take care of them.

00:53:49.000 And that may mean the way I serve my 8-year-old is I may make him brush his teeth.

00:53:55.000 It may mean the way I serve my 16-year-old is you don't get to drive tonight because you've not been acting right.

00:54:00.000 And they don't feel served.

00:54:02.000 When you're doing that.

00:54:03.000 But I'm serving them.

00:54:04.000 I'm their dad.

00:54:04.000 I love them more than anything on the planet.

00:54:08.000 And that's the way I view it.

00:54:11.000 My goal is to serve.

00:54:13.000 But no, I mean, my wife has been a full-time mom, but if she wanted to have a career, I don't care.

00:54:17.000 My mom was a working mom, and that's fine.

00:54:20.000 I mean, your wife's a working lady, and three of our operating board members in our company are very Very sharp ladies, and so I have no issue with that at all.

00:54:30.000 It's, you know, what do you want to do with your life, how do you want to do it, and how can we support each other to win?

00:54:35.000 I don't make decisions unilaterally at our house, and neither does my wife, by the way.

00:54:40.000 So, big decisions, and we talk about it, and we come together on it, and that includes talking about something going on with the kids, or a large charity donation, or going to buy this building to put our company in, or, you know, in the old days when we hired people, we always interviewed them with their spouses, and with our spouses.

00:54:57.000 Because spouses see stuff.

00:54:59.000 And so that, you know, we just work together.

00:55:01.000 It's a team.

00:55:02.000 So, you know, a lot of the basic values that you talk about, it seems like a lot of folks in the country ideologically do not hold those values, and it seems like they are located in particular states around the coast.

00:55:12.000 Do you think that this is a gap that's bridgeable?

00:55:14.000 Because this is really a concern for, you know, for me, is that as I, that It's almost two separate Americas.

00:55:20.000 It's a group of Americans who take very seriously traditional values and who still think that it's worthwhile to go to church and inculcate those values in their kids.

00:55:27.000 And then there's a group of folks who seem to think that those values are old-fashioned, outmoded, that we live in an experimental age in which you basically ought to let your kids run roughshod over you or do whatever they want, in which it's a mistake to try and teach your kids anything.

00:55:39.000 And in fact, it's an act of parental tyranny to try and teach your kids anything.

00:55:43.000 Do you think that that gap is bridgeable, or do you think it's going to continue to sort of bifurcate?

00:55:47.000 Oh, it probably comes and goes.

00:55:49.000 We kind of went through that in the hippie movement in the 70s.

00:55:53.000 We've gone through it.

00:55:54.000 We went through it a little bit with the Gen Xers. 1.00

00:55:56.000 Some of the, quote, skateboard crowd.

00:55:58.000 Remember those guys?

00:55:59.000 You know, that kind of thing.

00:56:00.000 Every generation has to push back.

00:56:03.000 And has to pull.

00:56:04.000 But yeah, we're seeing some of the fabric of our culture unravel.

00:56:08.000 Some of those values that are basic human things.

00:56:13.000 The loss of civility, though, in the last 36 months, 48 months, has just, this political correctness, police, you can't say anything that someone doesn't like anymore without them going absolutely bananas.

00:56:30.000 I mean, they'll destroy a teenager's life.

00:56:34.000 Whether it's the right or the left.

00:56:35.000 I mean, the young man that stood up on the left from the school in Florida that there was a shooting.

00:56:40.000 I mean, the right went after that kid and basically just ate him alive.

00:56:44.000 He was a 17-year-old boy.

00:56:46.000 Leave him alone, people.

00:56:48.000 And then this week, the kids from Kentucky with the MAGNA hats on, or MAGA hats, or whatever you call it, and all that stuff.

00:56:58.000 The one thing you need to understand is these cameras and audio, you can make people say almost anything you want them to say when they finish.

00:57:07.000 And I've had it happen to me a time or two, and in print as well.

00:57:11.000 And so you can't believe what you see on the Internet.

00:57:14.000 I know that's shocking.

00:57:15.000 But the lack of civility to stop and, let's just stop a second.

00:57:19.000 Did that pastor really do that?

00:57:22.000 Maybe he did.

00:57:24.000 Maybe he's an absolute reprobate and he should be punished and he should lose his standing for 45 years of building that.

00:57:31.000 But did he actually do that? 0.65

00:57:33.000 And so I think we got to just stop a second and breathe before we just slit everyone's throat on the first possible offense.

00:57:41.000 Oh my God, we're an offended people. 0.99

00:57:43.000 It's ridiculous. 0.98

00:57:44.000 And you get extra credit for being offended. 0.98

00:57:45.000 And you also get extra credit for being the first person to go in for the throat slitting.

00:57:49.000 Because if it turns out that you got it wrong, well, then you can sort of walk it back a little.

00:57:52.000 Maybe you apologize, maybe you don't.

00:57:53.000 But if you get it right, then you get all sorts of credit as being the first on the virtue signaling train.

00:57:57.000 Exactly.

00:57:58.000 Exactly.

00:57:59.000 And I'm in charge of virtue.

00:58:00.000 That's my job for everyone else.

00:58:03.000 And it turns out a full-time job is a guy in my mirror.

00:58:06.000 Well, in a second, I want to get to the final question for you here today.

00:58:10.000 Uh-oh.

00:58:11.000 Boom, boom, boom.

00:58:11.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:58:12.000 So here's the question.

00:58:13.000 The question is going to be, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being entirely risk-averse and 10 being entirely risk-tolerant, how do you rank yourself?

00:58:19.000 Because you're obviously an entrepreneurial guy, you're a guy who's actually started a massively successful business, but you're also somebody who says that you shouldn't take out debt, so that seems risk-averse.

00:58:28.000 I'm going to get the answer from you in a second, but if you want to hear Dave Ramsey's answer, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.

00:58:33.000 To subscribe, go to dailywire.com, click subscribe, you can hear the end of our conversation there.

00:58:37.000 Well, Dave Ramsey, it really is a pleasure to have you here, sir, and I can't express enough that if folks haven't checked out Mr. Ramsey's stuff, you haven't checked out Dave's stuff, you really should.

00:58:46.000 He's helped millions of people, including apparently half the members of my family, which I didn't even know.

00:58:51.000 So, Dave Ramsey, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:58:52.000 Thank you, sir.

00:58:53.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Jonathan Hay.

00:59:03.000 Executive producer Jeremy Boring.

00:59:05.000 Associate producer Mathis Glover.

00:59:06.000 Edited by Donovan Fowler.

00:59:08.000 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.

00:59:09.000 Hair and makeup is by Jeswa Olvera.

00:59:11.000 Title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:59:14.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 03, 2019

Dave Ramsey | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 36

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