EntreLeadership - Setting Leadership Boundaries With Friends and Profits

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Today we’ll hear about: •       A business owner who hired his friends and how it affected their relationships •       Some of the key leadership lessons from the Freedom Convoy with Tamara Lich  •       How you can reward your employees without using money •       What to do with your tithe when your business is contributing a lot to your local church Links mentioned in this episode: •       The EntreLeadership Podcast •       Tamara Lich’s book: Hold The Line: My Story From The Heart Of The Freedom Convoy •       EntreLeadership Master Series •       Have a question for The EntreLeadership Podcast? Leave a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or submit your question for a chance to be on the show with Dave Ramsey: https://www.entreleadership.com/ask Start growing in business and leadership with the EntreLeadership Newsletter. Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://bit.ly/3IRWnsL   Support our sponsors: •       NetSuite •       BELAY •       Payority •       Trainual Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •       EntreLeadership Summit •       EntreLeadership Master Series Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •       Elite •       Advisory Groups •       Executive Coaching •       Workshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you, business owners and business operators, just like you. Now, this is a show by a CEO. Look at me, I grew this from a card table in my living room to a little over a thousand folk working here now. And so I got the same problems you got. I've done some of the same dumb things you've done. Only I've already done them. And I'm here to help you not do the dumb things. There you go.

Is he a practitioner, in other words? This is not about theory. You want to be part of this program? Well, call me and we'll talk about your business questions. I love them. I'm a huge fan of small business in America today. The phone numbers, 844-944-1070. If you leave a voicemail, our team will get back to you and make you a caller.

Or if you want to just leave a little bit about what's going on, we'll get back to you at the website, Entreeleadership.com slash ask. fill out the little form and the guys will get back to you. Pretty simple. Jason's starting off this podcast in Los Angeles. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hi, Dave.

How you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, I'm excited to talk to you today. I am 43 and married with two small kids and at home. We're on babysat four, five, and six. So thank you very much for that. And I run a surfboard factory out here.

on the coast. And I have about five employees now. We've been operating for about eight years, and it was just me and one other employee for the majority of those years. And through COVID, we just kept getting busier and busier and busier. So good problem to have. And instead of looking for employees from the small pool of surfboard builders out here, I decided to hire some friends and train them and I found that that was a better fit, having some personalities that matched and we all get along. But now I've noticed that it's become a little more difficult for me to talk about things like money or talking about cash flow problems or making payroll, just some of the normal complaints you make as a business owner. Or on the personal side, you know,

spending money, working on her house, going on vacation. I've noticed that's kind of started to trickle into our friendships. And I just feel awkward sometimes outside of work, hanging with my friends, and even inviting them out to dinner or concerts are going on small trips, things like that. So I'm just wondering, how can I keep these, like, relationships and friendships and friendships healthy? And do I need a new set of friends? Or because that's getting harder to do as I get older? Well, I don't think you're going to be able to vent about business problems to your team. Okay. Other than the far,

other than you would, your team otherwise. I mean, I let my team know what's going on here if I need their help with something. But if I'm fretting about cash flow, unless a team member here needs to be involved, I wouldn't bring them in to that,

that kind of stuff. So I do think you're going to have to find a different place to let off that steam other than with team members that also happen to be your friends. They can't, I don't think you're going to be able to make that distinction in a, in a, and them separate that in their emotions and not, you know, not be simultaneously worried about their own skin.

I mean, the boss is worried. The boss is worried. I'm not going to get my check. You know, I mean, this is that you can't keep from doing that if you're human. Sure. Yeah. So, but as far as trips and those other kinds of things go, I think you've just got a, you know, let's just have an awkward conversation at the beginning and say,

hey, I'm going on this trip. Y'all want to come, and this is a friend trip. It's not a business trip. And so everybody's going to pay their own way, you know, or whatever it is. Or if it's a business trip or if you're the wealthy friend in the friend group and you want to carry your friends on something, you say, this is not the CEO taking all the employees. This is me, your friend, who can afford to do it, taking my friends. and we go on this trip, you know, whatever it is. And so, or everybody pays their own way.

Any of that's okay, but what you've got to do is just distinguish in everyone's mind what's happening here. Because where you get into struggles with a relationship is where there's confusion as to who's talking. Is this my friend talking to me or my CEO talking to me? Okay. And, you know, with our family, for instance, internally, you know, we switch, we, we, call it switching hats. And so I'm wearing the CEO hat. Rachel Cruz is my daughter. She's a Ramsey personality. She wears a Ramsey personality hat. And so she functions the same as a Dr. John Deloney or Ken Coleman or Jade Warshaw, George County, whoever. I mean, they're on the same

pay scale. And she treats me in a meeting the way they would treat me in a meeting. And I treat her in a meeting, not like her father, but instead like her CEO. And like the person is trying to help her win. And, you know, I'm trying to knock down block her so that as a personality, she can be successful, just like I would do for John or for Ken, right? And so that's, you make that distinction. You go, okay, this is a business meeting. And so in this meeting, you can treat me like your CEO, and I'm going to treat you like a team member, which means I'm going to treat you nicely with dignity and clarity, but I'm not going to unload on you and I'm not going to dump a bunch of my negative venting on you, and I'm not going to do all that. But, you know, and then we all go out and

have a beer or something and have a cup of coffee or whatever, then there's a bunch of friends hanging out. But you're probably even in that situation, go, it's friends hanging out. I'm going to talk to you about other friends stuff, but probably not going to cover the business problems with you. Yeah, I try and keep business conversations to pretty much a zero. And to make it even funnier,

it's just like two of these guys that work with me. We've also been playing music for the last 10 years. So it's just so intertwined that I'm just really trying to, toe that line. I think the thing that we've done, we've worked a lot at here. We've burned a lot of calories on is just distinguishing who is speaking right now. Okay.

Is this dad? Is this Papa Dave? Or is this the CEO? In your case, is this my CEO? The guy that owns this place and he brought me in here, gave me a job. And we're all working on these surfboards together. We're having a blast. And it's a cool business.

But he also owns it. and I got to treat him like I would with the same dignity. I'd treat another boss, right? Another leader. And then, you know, we're playing music together, playing music. We're goofing off, we're having fun. This is not serious. We're not here to, that's a hobby, you know, that's not our revenue producer.

And so, by and large, I'm sure. But, so, I mean, I think if you just, if you just say it out loud, it removes a lot of the awkwardness, and you're very clear about who it is, which role it is, that's making this deal. And so, like, I hired two very good friends early in our process that people had known for 30 years. And when one of them was leaving, I took him to dinner. And he starts telling me this, this, this, and this and this.

And I said, look, here, let me just change hats, okay? I'm going to be your friend right now. Okay. based on all the things you just said and how you feel about the company, you should leave. If you told me, if you worked somewhere else and you told me that about, he was voicing all these things he hated about Ramsey, hated about this, hate about that, my leadership style, whatever, all that kind of stuff. I said, you know, as your friend, if you were working somewhere else and you told me all that stuff, I would tell you to go get another job that you liked.

And so as your friend, I'm going to tell you to go get another job that you liked, you know? I mean, and it worked out pretty good. I mean, we're still friends. So, but, but he, you know, he didn't stay and he didn't need to stay. He was, he was over it, you know. Yeah. So that's okay. I mean, it's okay.

Everything's, you know, it's, you can, you can do whatever you want to do with all that. So, but again, extra communication, a little awkwardness on the front end of conversations and stay in your lane. Stay clear, be clear about who it is that's speaking. this is a company conversation, and I'm the owner of the company, and you're a team member. This is a friend conversation, and we're going on this trip, and everybody's going to pay their way, because that's what friends do on these trip, or whatever it is, okay? And regardless of the difference in your wealth or their wealth or whatever,

unless you just as a friend wanted to take a bunch of your buddies and pay for it, and that's okay, too, however you want to do it. So, again, just lots and lots and lots of clarity like that. So, yeah, very good stuff. Very good stuff. Very good stuff. Very well done. This is the Entry Leadership Podcast. Welcome back to the Entree Leadership Podcast.

I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. My friend Jordan Peterson, who was on with me on the Entry Leadership Summit a month or two ago. And he reached out to him and he said Tamara Leach has a new book out. And you have to talk to her about leadership. She's a former energy logistics worker from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. that became a huge part of organizing the Canadian Freedom Convoy in 2022. Start up a ruckus is what she did. She's written a book about her experience titled Hold the Line, My Story from the Heart of the Freedom Convoy.

And we're here with Tamara Leach and want to learn her about her leadership journey in this process. Hey, Tamara, how are you? I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me today. Well, we're honored, honored to be with you. So you had a background in energy logistics. So when do you start recognizing out of that that you've got these leadership skills and you leaned into this whole convoy situation?

Well, it was very early on in my logistics career when I discovered that I worked really well under pressure and tight deadlines. And I really rambled in it. And so I was probably in my mid-20s, I think. And yeah, I just, you know, you're just. trying to find your way in the world and find your place. And I fell into logistics. And I absolutely love the challenge. So when do you decide to leave your career then and move into this as a, you know, like an organizational movement's idea, right? And so you really just said,

okay, these are my leadership skills naturally. I enjoy this. I like the deadline. I like the pressure. You know, I'm a gunfighter. I like drawing and shooting right now. I want to get this done. And so how does that get you into organizational management or organizational movements, I guess, just to say? Well, how I got involved with the Freedom Convoy was obviously the two years of the pandemic here and the lockdowns were really hard. It was very dark times here. And I was sent a video, a TikTok video from a gentleman by the name of Chris Barber who was calling for a Canada-wide shutdown on January, of 2022. So I gave him a call. I said, I want to help you in any way that I can. My skills are logistics, administration, and organization. You're going to need social media. You're going

to need some funding. How can I help you? Okay. So you believe in the cause and you just dove in? Yes. All right, cool. And for those, give us a little background for Americans maybe that didn't follow the news story and didn't follow the whole thing, exactly what happened with the Freedom Convoy. What was the goal and then what did you guys actually do? Well, the catalyst of the Freedom Convoy was when our prime minister was going to implement the trucker mandate, which was effectively going to require truck drivers who had just been hailed as heroes for two years, require them to show a vaccine passport or quarantine. every time they crossed the American border and came back to Canada.

So what that would look like, I mean, along the border, of course, we've got truckers that are back and forth every day, and they have families to feed. So obviously, 14 days of quarantine wasn't realistic. So that was really the catalyst. And as we were talking to people and hearing about the support that was out there, it became about stopping the mandates. Like I said, we were under horrible restrictions here in Canada, completely segregated, and we just had enough. Yeah, it just got fed up.

And then the convoy was basically a created, a traffic jam of sorts, right? It did. We drove across the country. I left Medicine Hat on January 24th, and that's when I met Mr. Barber for the first time. And I traveled with him across the country. And what we saw was this amazing network of supporters. They were as people aligning the highways on the overpasses, holding Canada flags, little kids with signs saying, thank you truckers. You know, people were praying on their knees for us on the side of the road.

It was just one of the most amazing shows of unity I've ever seen. And I mean, I grew up always being so fascinated with patriotism in the United States and how, you know, you really love your flag and you really have this strong sense of your country. And I always admired it. And I think for me, the convoy was the closest thing that I'll ever feel to that. The sense of unity was incredible. We got into Ottawa, of course, and we were there for about three weeks peacefully protesting. and then the government invoked the Emergencies Act here and sent in law enforcement to crush it.

Yeah, okay. And what was the net result of the whole thing? What ended up happening at the end of it? Were the mandates rolled back? Some of them were, yeah. Well, while we were there, some of the provinces started announcing that they would be rolling back the restrictions.

And so they'll never say that it was because of the convoy. But, I mean, it's pretty clear that, it has something to do with it. Yeah, yeah, very cool. Tamara Leish is my guest. Her book is Hold the Line, my story from the heart of the Freedom Convoy. So leadership lessons,

when you're going through something like that, you're in the middle of fighting it. I mean, we had our own COVID routine. We went through here at Ramsey where we're arguing and getting negative press because we went back to work, all the same kind of stuff. When you're going through something like that,

I've kind of gone back with our team and kind of almost did an autopsy on it and go, Okay, what are our takeaways? What do we learn from all this crap? If there's this much manure, there must be a pony. I mean, come on, you know. So it's, so what are your leadership principles that you take away from this that,

that, you know, you can, they're transferable that you can use and our listeners can use? Yeah, well, first and foremost, I mean, you have to understand it was really a chaotic time. So I was in meetings constantly, being pulled in lots of different directions. So my number one takeaway is that when you're under pressure like that, it's important to keep everybody level-headed and stop them from panicking, which does happen. I mean, you start to panic and you start to make mistakes and bad decisions. And we were literally under a microscope and had to watch, you know, what we were doing constantly because we didn't want, we never went there to disrespect the police officers or break the law. So my number one takeaway, especially dealing with that many people, is to try and keep everybody calm, keep a level ahead, stick with the facts, et cetera. Yeah, decelerate rather than accelerate the drama.

Yeah. Yes. It would be a drama extractor. That's a good principle for leadership in general because it's real easy to get caught up in the wave of emotion as a leader while all these things are going on. Instead, you've got to do quite the opposite. You've got to step outside of it and bring everything down. Just bring it down, bring it down, bring it down. Let's stay on task, calm down, breathe.

This is not as bad or not as good as these emotions are telling you. And so it's not as high. The highs are too high and the lows are too low, especially in a high pressure cooker thing like that. Yes, exactly. What other leadership principles do you take away? That's a good one. Yeah, that's the biggest one for me.

again, I mean, managing people, one of the most important things to do is listen, really listen to people when they're talking to you so that they feel heard. And so that when issues arise, you can solve problems. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the only way you can turn the corner or something. Yeah, that's very good. Active listening, I think it's the technical term. Yeah, very good.

Very good. I love it. Yeah. Good stuff. Again, Tamara Leish is her name. Her journey to leadership is what we're talking about. Her new book is Hold the Line, My Story, from the Heart of the Freedom Convoy. You guys pick it up if you want to learn something about that whole event and that moment in history.

It's good to learn what happened and how the Canadian government acted and reacted, how the truckers reacted, how the public acted and reacted. It's good to see those kinds of things and know because if you don't, we're probably not going to face that thing again, but we are going to face something like it in times. And so there's times that, you know, it's something as simple as trying to get a building built and dealing with the building codes. I mean, it's just there's always a regulator.

There's always somebody doing something that's slowing down or pushing back against people trying to do business. And, you know, and so there's always a good takeaway from a story, a journey like Tamara has been on. Hey, Tamara, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you going to all the trouble to get all this studio and garbage set up. It's a mess, and it worked out.

We got you here, and I can tell Jordan we were able to get you on, and hopefully we can help you promote the book a little bit. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. Thanks for coming. Tamara Leach, the book is Hold the Line,

my story from the heart of the Freedom Convoy. You want to be sure and pick that up as quick as you can. Good stuff. Hey, appreciate Jordan. let me know about her. That's an interesting lady. He's got a lot to say. This is the Entree Leadership Master Series is coming up this November. Hey, you've heard me talk about the stages of business on this podcast. If you're a business owner trying to level up to the next stage, maybe you're trying to go from Pathfinder to Trailblazer or from treadmill operator to Pathfinder,

you need to be at the Entree Leadership Master Series. We're going to cover this stuff in the five-day conference and a deep dive into the skills that you've got to have to grow and run your business, get more control, have more fun. Do not miss Master Series. It's November 5 through 10. It's going to be a blast. If you're trying to grow your business, you cannot afford to miss this. Go to Entreeleadership.com slash Master Series.

Get your tickets today before they are gone. Stephen is in Memphis. Hey, Stephen, welcome to the Entry Leadership podcast. Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me today. Sure, man. What's up? I guess I should actually say thank you to Emily for getting me through. She's a world-class gal. I just want to tell you that. She's been great through all this, and I appreciate her.

Well, thank you. And I heard you talking about entree leadership. I was able to attend the week-long entree leadership in 2015, got to come to your house and hang out one night for hors d'oeuvres and all and got to see your house. So when you call it a world-class event, I can attest to that. sure he is and I had a good time and took a lot of things away from that. So I appreciate that. Well, awesome. Thank you. Got a family business, first generation, so I can't blame anybody

except myself. It's all my fault for anything that goes wrong. But I got 90 team members, operate two grocery stores and two convenience stores. And if I remember correctly, I think you said Ms. Sharon's family was in the grocery business at one time. Yeah, they had a market at one point. Yeah. Yeah, so got a great team. They range anywhere from 16 years old to 70 years old. We try to treat them very well, and enjoy their job, of course, as much as possible.

I have more compliments about how friendly our team is and anything else in our business, so we're really proud of that and really proud of them. So my question today is, we have department managers and store managers, and we have bonus programs for them, of course. but I've always heard you say, I've listened to you a long time, and I always heard you say that you'd put the receptions on commission

if you could figure out how to do it. Yep. So my question is, you know, like for, say, cashiers and guys that are carrying out groceries and stocking shells and sweeping the parking lot, would you have any thoughts on how we could reward them? And we do, of course, from time to time, but it's hard to kind of measure how to reward them, you know,

with a quote-unquote bonus program like we do, our other managers, and just wonder if you had any thoughts on that? You know, it's not necessarily money. It's not necessarily a comp plan in something like that. Sometimes it's, you know, we just are going to take everyone that is not in leadership. So all the cashiers, all the guys sweeping the parking lot, all the guys carrying out the groceries, gals, whatever. and we're all going to do X.

Like, I've got a friend that took his whole team like that. They took the whole maintenance team, which was a large team, in his case, to Dollywood. Just loaded them up, took him to Dollywood for the day. And paid for the buses to fly to drive them over and, you know, took their families with them. And, you know, you might not go that big. In your case, he's running a larger operation than you are. But you could do something as simple as, you know, we're all. all going to this restaurant.

We're all going to get pizza. We're all going to the local bowling thing or whatever it is. Find some kind of an event. The other thing I've done, it's been pretty successful on stuff like that, is you can rent out the entire movie theater for just a few dollars. I mean, like $500 or $1,000 or $1,000 and show a movie. So go to the local movie theater, and if you find a movie that, you know, is appealing to everyone, especially that age group, then just, you know, we're going to, we're all going on

Tuesday night to this, and it's on us and bring a friend, you know, bring a date, bring a whatever, that kind of thing. And, you know, you spend a thousand bucks and all of a sudden you've got, you're just rewarding and just saying you're important. And it doesn't necessarily have to be calm. It's difficult with part-time team members, young team members that are high turnover to create a, actual comp plan that is ongoing, you know, that that is an extra bonus plan that's measuring it here or there. So I don't know. I wouldn't know how to do that actually in that situation. I don't have a good suggestion. But I would try to catch them doing something right and give a $50 handshake. I would go rent on a movie theater. I would rent out a pizza place,

buy out a restaurant for the night, for whatever, that kind of a thing. Every six months and just, you know, word gets out that that's how you treat the team members that are doing the front line work, and you'll be attractive to them. They'll want to stay, and you'll be able to get new ones. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hey, guys, I'm Dave Ramsey. Thank you for listening to the Entree Leadership podcast. If you want to help us, we could use your help.

You can help us by clicking the follow button, the subscribe button, leave a review, a nice five-star review. Those one-stars don't help. It's not funny. go somewhere else if you don't like the show. It's okay. We're cool. We're not for everybody. And just, you know, five-star review, click, save, click or subscribe, click follow, and do the sharing as well. Click a link and share it. Click one of these episodes and share it however you're doing it. Some of the different services have a share button. But share the show, subscribe, follow, and leave a five-star review. That is very, very helpful for us. Thank you very much for doing that. We know you're doing it because of numbers

this thing are going way up, and we appreciate you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to be part of the program, be a caller, you just call me at 844-9-4-1070, or you can leave your idea, your question, what it's about. We'll get back with you, make you a caller here on the show, entreeleadership.com slash ask. Thanks for hanging out. John is in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, John, welcome to the show. Welcome to me out. Hey, Day, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, you and I have a bit of a similar story.

I started a wealth management firm 21 years ago out of a spare bedroom in my home, closed my first deal with a client at a card table. Wow. Zero asset center management, zero clients, but we had a phone, a computer, and a dream, and a desire in our heart to help individuals make wise decisions with their money. Good for you. 21 years later, we're managing wealth for about 330 clients, 320 million in assets

under management, top line revenue over 3 million, 13 team members. And as a business owner and a small business owner, CEO, my income is growing around alongside the business, which is a really good thing. Yeah, good for you. Well done. Congratulations. Well, thank you. Thank you. And I followed you long enough. I appreciate your message and your platform. And I've heard you talk about the tithe. And I'm a person of faith. And I give a tithe. I tie on

my gross income. I go to a small church. And as my income grows, my tithe is becoming a large percentage of my local church's budget. So I'm wondering, is there a certain point where my tithe or a donor is taking too much percent of the overall church budget. My concern is if I were to leave or become a snowbird and head down to Florida, or if I were to die, it would severely disrupt church operations and maybe even cause people to lose their job. Yeah. And I care about these people. So, you know, it's unhealthy for the church to be single donor dependent like that. and so you're concerned about that lack of health and, you know, what do you do about it? Okay.

So the tension is that evangelical Christians, you and I, Orthodox Jews, believe in giving a tenth of our income to our local church. It's a representation of the Old Testament storehouse. And so where the widows are taken care of through the church, and the Levites, the priests are fed. So the pastors are covered, and the church is doing good social works with widows orphans and so forth in the community, and the tithe is to fund all of that. And that's the principle by which we're doing it. So the tension is if you don't give it to your local church, are you stepping outside

of what tradition has taught us on that? Yeah, you would be, but I think I would, in your case. I would step outside of that, and I would find probably some other local churches that you believe in the work that they're doing and how they're doing it, but you just don't attend there and distribute your tithe across those. I would not switch it and put it into the family foundation. I have a family foundation, and I wouldn't do that. But I'm not going to allow our tithe, Sharon's in mind, to disrupt our church either. I'll just pair it back and send it to some of the other churches in the area that I know and there are good people. so forth. I'll still be a substantial giver, but I don't want a church dependent on a single giver. And if I was a pastor, I'd be concerned about that. You know, I'd be concerned if I, if our thing is being built on one guy's deal, that would just scare me.

What percent do you and Sharon typically look at it? Or about like 10 percent of the? No, I think you just got to look at it and go, what have I got to move to keep from being a problem? Because right now I'm a problem. You know, and I wouldn't do it instantaneously, but, you know, I certainly wouldn't, if your income goes up next year, I wouldn't give any increases in income. You know, you've got to start offloading it at some point. But I'll, you know, but I wouldn't go in there and just chop substantially what you've been doing because you do harm to them right now, right? They're already dependent on you right now, right? Yeah, so you had mentioned you would put it maybe to other local churches.

about just the nonprofits that have a ministry focus? Well, I, you know, you can do anything is okay. There's nothing, I'm not legalistic about this. I personally would say, you know, okay, the tithe goes to your local church is a standard. I mean, that's not a Dave Ramsey teaching. That's an evangelical teaching that's been taught by lots and lots of people. There are people that agree with that, disagree with that, whatever, I don't care. But I'm, I personally would stick with the local church, because I believe that, even if it happens to be not the church I'm attending, I'm not going to give all of it to the church I attend, but a local church anyway that's doing God's work and that the people are, you know, the books are open. We can look at them. The, you know, the staff is not overpaid. They're not

underpaid. The, like I'm assessing any other charity that I'm going to give to, I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that that other churches, since I don't go there and I don't have a feel for it, I'm going to make sure that they're, you know, operationally good and solid and that I'm not going to disturb them with this either. But, you know, yeah, so I'm not going to increase itures if I'm you, and I'm going to stay with the local church category. But again, it's, the whole point here is not that you are the savior somehow with your income and your tie. the point is that you need to be giving for you because you exercise a giving muscle. It's a part of managing wealth well.

And so generosity has to be a part of your DNA of your makeup if you're going to manage wealth well. And so that's the big thing. It's why God has us to tithe. It's not because the church needs our money or God needs our money. He has tithing because it's good for us to be generous people. It changes our character when we do that. and the rhythm of our life every week, every other week, whenever we get paid to be giving is just, it's an amazing part of the normal rhythm of your checkbook, you know.

And so that's what you want to have. And you can do whatever you want to do within those guidelines for it. But again, I'm old school, and I fall in that camp where the storehouse, the New Testament storehouse or the New Testament church is the representation of the Old Testament storehouse. And so I give to my local church until I'm a problem. And then I would give to a different local church or churches. And that would mean in the area where you live, in other words. But if you want to change that and do it, I don't think it's not a salvation issue.

God's not going to go, oh, we can't bless John because he gave to this other wonderful thing instead of to that church. And I don't think that's how it works. But again, you do whatever you want. want, I'm just going to stick with the principle on that. And then my other giving over and above the tithe, I can do anywhere I want to go with that. I can give that. That doesn't even have to be to ministry. I can give that to the, uh, we give some to the university at Tennessee where we graduate from. It's obviously not a ministry. Uh, and so we, you know, help some college students over there

to have scholarships and things like that. So that, but that's all different, completely separate from the tide discussion. That's a, in additional giving over, uh, over and above that. So, great question, great heart, and congratulations on all your success. I'm so excited for you, John. It's awesome. Hey, folks, remember better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. Leaders serve. Leaders are active, not passive. They act on principle, not appearances. This world needs more high-quality leaders. Choose to lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entry Leadership Podcast.