The Ramsey Show - App - A Message of Hope Series: Ken Coleman

Episode Date: April 4, 2020

It’s scary out there, but hope is greater than fear. In times of crisis, facts are your friends. So get the facts and other common sense guidance on life and money from thought leaders Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruze, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, Anthony ONeal and John Delony. Get a FREE trial of our life-changing Financial Peace University today: https://bit.ly/3dFT7ir daveramsey.com/hope

Hello folks, I'm Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality and host of the Ken Coleman Show, part of the Ramsey Network. I'm so excited to be with you because we are in an unprecedented time. And in unprecedented times, we know from history that the human race has stepped up in unprecedented ways. And I'm expecting you to step up in these uncertain times and I hope you're expecting me and everyone you know to do the same. Today I want to talk to you for just a few moments about the importance of focus

because right now you have had a lot of things change in your life. Things are coming at you on the hour, in the hour. A lot of change is coming at you. And that uncertainty is piling up. And it creates a snowball effect on how we think and how we act and how we feel. You know, I'm reminded of one of my favorite movies, a movie entitled The Great Debaters, about a small college, African-American college, that had a world-class debate team. And this debate team was so good, they were competing against the best of the best of the best. And one young person on this team, a young man, had a relationship with his father

that was tension-filled, to say the least. Now, this young man was a good student, very bright, but he became so enamored with the debate team, the act of the debates themselves, that he couldn't focus on his schoolwork. And so there's a scene that pops to the top of my mind right now where the young man and his father are arguing. The father's upset at what he perceives to be slacking off, a lack of focus on his homework, on his studies. And there's a blow up a moment. And at that point, the father says, son, you do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do. Effectively saying, I get that the big picture is about the debate team and that's where your heart's at and that's taking your head there.

But the reality is, if you don't do your schoolwork, if you don't do what your teachers expect, what your mother and I expect, you're not going to have the debate team. Do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do. Do the homework. And when you do the homework and when you get the grade, then and only then do you get to focus on debate. I think that is the theme for the message I want to give you. Those of you who are affected in the most personal ways, your job, your job has been taken from you. Your job is being threatened. The company that you own is in dire situation. And not only does it affect your finances, it affects the finances of the people, the men and women that you employ. That's heavy, heavy stuff. And so when all of that uncertainty and all of that pressure come together, it's like a perfect storm and it's crashing down on top of you right now.

And there's no one who is immune to fear, doubt, and pride. Those are the three mortal enemies that we talk about every day on the Ken Coleman Show to help men and women realize that fear and doubt and pride are voices that camp out on our shoulders. And they hold us back from progress. Let's talk about what happens when fear and doubt and pride take up residence inside of our head. I want you to understand how your brain works and how you can control what stays in your brain. There's a difference between a thought coming in and a thought staying there. Big difference. While we cannot control our thoughts, we can control what we focus on. So I want to break down, before we talk about what you need

to do in the short term affecting your job and your career, I want to break down three things. Number one, how your brain processes thoughts. Number two, how your thoughts affect your actions. And then number three, how your actions affect your feelings. Let's talk about the first, the brain. How does your brain actually work? Well, we know from neuroscience that our brain is in many ways a computer. What we put in it, it will then put out. It is like a computer program. What we put in affects how the brain tells the rest of our body to act. It's fascinating. We know that when we have fear, it releases a chemical in our body

that can affect our stomach, which then affects our health. This is all chemical in our body that can affect our stomach, which then affects our health. This is all widely documented. But let's talk about how it can hold up our actions or push us into actions that can harm us instead of pushing us to do things that will protect us. Now, if we look at the human journey, thousands of years ago, we had this part of our brain that was really developed over time to protect us. They call it the lizard brain. It's at the back of your skull.

And if you think about it, thousands of years ago, you could walk around a corner and a saber-toothed tiger could swallow you whole. And so the brain evolved into this protection mechanism. That's what they call the lizard brain. And so it's designed, your brain, to anticipate fear or when it sees fear, to either help you fight, which is defend yourself, or flight, take off and run away. Now, in this modern time, we don't have those kind of crazy, scary things lurking around every corner. However, we still have that part of our brain which is there to protect us. So when we are thinking about things that make us feel threatened,

or when we actually see something or experience something that threatens us, our brain, in that that moment takes over. And it's telling us to either fight or flight. Now let's look at another portion of the brain. This is called the reticular activating system. Neuroscience has done tons of research on this, and you can look this up, but this is fascinating stuff. I'll give you the short version. The short version is that the reticular activating system in our brain operates like

a filter. If you think about all of the sensations, thought, smells, sights, sounds, everything coming in at us, our brain processes all that information. But if we didn't have this filter, we just couldn't even handle all of those inputs coming our way. And so the reticular activating system is the filter. So when I think positive thoughts, or I think negative thoughts, or I think insecure thoughts, or I think mean thoughts, when I allow those thoughts to stay in my head, it's not a fleeting thought, it comes in and I begin to focus on on it and I begin to ruminate on it, begin to soak in it. Here's what happens.

The brain gets a message and says, oh, we need to find more of these thoughts. We need to find more evidence to back up this thought. And so it becomes a filter by which you see the world because the brain becomes a supercomputer and begins to scan the landscape of life, if you will, and begins to get evidence. Let me give you two great examples of how this happens. For those of you that have bought a car, even in the last decade, I want you to go back to the moment that you bought a car. And I want you to remember the experience. You're all excited about it. Maybe you had your family with you.

Maybe you didn't. Maybe you drove it home, surprised the family. They got remember the experience. You're all excited about it. Maybe you had your family with you. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you drove it home, surprised the family. They got in the car. And as you were driving around either by yourself or with your family, over the days and weeks following that purchase, inevitably you began to notice cars that looked exactly like your car. Hey, wait a second. That's our car. There's our car and there's our car. And, wait a second. That's our car.

There's our car and there's our car. And maybe your kids did it from the back seat. Now, it's kind of weird. And you may have had the thought, that's weird. Didn't notice that car. Now I see it everywhere. What's going on? That's the reticular activating system.

A moment of tremendous heightened focus of purchasing a car makes you focus on the car. You're excited about the car. You're weighing the prospect. Should I buy the car? Should I not buy the car? Is this the right car for us? We love this car. Let's get this car, car, car, car, car, car. And so now as you begin to move on into your everyday routine, that car that you didn't notice before has always been all around you. You just weren't focused on that car, so you didn't see the car. But by focusing on that car, now your brain has identified it all over the place. Nothing has changed except for your focus. So what are you focusing on right now?

What are the thoughts, the predominant thought in your head right now you can't get away from it right now what is it give you another example one of the wide most widely renowned and studied psychological experiments was done with a group of people who was about 20 people in a room and they were asked to watch a video of a college intramural basketball game. And they were asked to record one thing and only one thing, and that was how many times the ball was passed. Both teams, total number of passes. Well, in the middle of the game, they had a person come out in a

gorilla suit and stand in the middle of the court for a few minutes. And then, just as random as the gorilla walked into the court, the gorilla walks away. At the end of the study, they came in and they asked everybody for their answers. How many passes did you record? And one by one, the respondents went through and told those running the study how many times they passed the ball. And then they were asked, how many of you saw the gorilla? And only two of the 20 people saw it. Why?

How is it possible that people could be watching the screen intently and not notice a gorilla walk into the middle of the game. Because they were so focused on watching the ball exchange hands in the form of a pass that they didn't even notice the gorilla. That is the power of focus. Now why do I share that with you? Because I want you to understand how your brain works. You have control of how your brain works. You have control of how your brain works.

Again, you do not have control of, I might lose my job. I just lost my job. I'm losing money. This is going to affect me this way. That's all real. And you can't control that thought coming in. What you can control is, what do you focus on? The negative consequence of this coronavirus crisis?

Or the reality that you've got to keep on living. You've got to find a way to move forward. What are you going to focus on? I can tell you that the reticular activating system will work in your favor, but you have got to have the discipline in two key areas as it relates to how your brain works. Number one, be aware that when negative thoughts come in, if you allow them to stay, they are going to filter everything for you, and you can't lead, you can't do what you need to do to move forward to be the positive

influence for your wife and your kids, whatever the situation, you can't do what you need to do, do it the right way. If you are completely and utterly focused on fear, doubt, pride, the negative, you can't do it. It's like a fog and it will never lift until you decide, I'm not going to let those negative thoughts stay in my head. Secondly, you've got to have the discipline to focus on the right things. What should you be focusing on? Opportunities where you can get part-time work, opportunities to maybe make the switch to working from a corporate setting

where you weren't happy and you weren't fulfilled to maybe working from home? The future. But also, what do I need to do in the now that will allow me to get to the desired next? That's what you need to be thinking about. What do I need to do right now to take care of the four walls, as Dave Ramsey says, food, transportation, utilities, shelter. What do you need to do? What do you need to do to just survive? This is the mindset right now. There's no shame in having to say,

I lost my job, I just got laid off, I got furloughed, and in the meantime, I've got to do something. Short-term thinking is where you need to be. Your purpose hasn't disappeared. The fact that you were created to fill a unique role, that's not gone. But what is true is that some of you are experiencing financial hardship. And what you've got to do right now is bring in money, cut expenses any way you can to take care of you and yours in the now. And then we worry about the next. Now, let's talk about if that's how we control the mental side of things and we understand, OK, my brain is a computer. And if I don't input the right things in there, I'm not going to get a positive output.

I'll be paralyzed. So how does the way we think affect the way we act? Now, it's very important to understand why it's thinking needs to change, and then only after the thinking changes can you change the way you act. I just explained why. Now that your brain is starting to focus on not the negative, but hey, here's my reality. It's not fun. It doesn't feel good. But I've got to go make money. I've got to go do some things.

I've got to cut some expenses to keep from laying off some people. Whatever your situation is, you start focusing on what you have to do right now. Then your actions will follow. It is the thinking that must change, and then that will allow us to act the way that we need to act. You can gather with the leaders of your company and come up with a plan. You can sit down with your wife and kids and come up with a budget and a plan. You can sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and come up with some action, some things that you can do right now to make the current situation a little bit better or to make

it just livable. Just, I got to get through it. I got to get through this storm. It's a storm. What can I do to survive the storm? That question is the right type of thinking, and that will inform your actions. Now when your thinking is, okay, I'm going to be okay. The world's not coming to an end. It's going to be really painful, and I don't ever want to get in this situation again, but I'll deal with that later. Right now, I have got to step up. I have got to respond.

My wife's looking at me. My kids are looking at me. My husband's looking at me. My coworkers are looking at me. My team, the people that I employ are looking at me. I got to step up. I can step up. It may not be perfect. I don't know if it's going to go the way that I plan it, but I am going to stay in the game. And every day I'm going to go the way that I plan it, but I am going to stay in the game and every day I'm going to come up and I'm going to take on that day. Day one and then next day one and next day one and next day one. You're not thinking 30 days. We're thinking today. What do I need to do today? Win the day. When that becomes the actions that you take, all of a sudden you're going to begin to feel a little bit more empowered. Are you in control? No.

But can you act on what you can control? Yes. There are certain things that you can't control. You're not in control of this thing, this macro thing. But you can control what you think and you can control how you act. And then you'll be amazed that when you change the way you think, as we discussed, and we start to focus on the things that I can control, the things that I can do, that I have some participation that is required of me,

and I've got to give all of that controlling what I can control, then your actions will follow that. Now, when you begin to see some momentum, some positives around the actions that you can control, here's what's going to happen next. The feelings change in a good way. The anxiety subsides. The fear subsides. The doubt subsides.

The pride subsides. What happens is is that you become so singularly focused on the now. Do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do. See, what you have to do right now is survive.

Circle the wagons. Protect what needs to be protected, do what you need to do. And here's what happens. You begin to have a peace. You begin to have a sense of, okay, this is not fun. We will talk about this for the rest of our lives.

This is going to be something that we hear about the rest of our lives. We're going to see this in history books. Your kids are going to say, I remember this. This is a momentous time in history. But if you can grab this simple construct that when I change the way I think, I can change the way I act. And when I change the way I act, I can change the way I feel. And that keeps me going, keeps me up. It's going to be a

tough day today. It's going to be really tough today. Yep. But I know it's short term. I know we're going to get out of this. I've got a plan. See, that's the thinking. And so now, boom, I'm going to execute on that plan. This is what I got to do today. This is who I got to connect with today. This is how I got to connect with them today. This is what I got to spread today. This is how I got to say it. This is how I got to do it. I don't feel uncertain about what I have to do today. In fact, I go from uncertainty to certainty. Change the way you think. Then you can change the way you act.

And when you change the way you act, the results of those positive, purposeful actions will create much better emotion. And now you have put yourself in a position where you can weather the storm. So the reality is the economy is changing. It has changed really fast. But you can still work in this economy. Do what you have to do.

I mentioned pride earlier. I want to address this very quickly. Don't you be ashamed of stocking shelves or delivering pizza or driving for a company and delivering things. Don't you be ashamed of that. There's nothing to be ashamed of. See, your family, the people that rely on you, they're watching you. They're the ones that will admire you.

They'll see you step up. They'll feel the results of you stepping up, doing whatever it takes. And they will admire you and love you even more than they do now. And that will be worth it all. Don't you worry about what other people think. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Hey, I just got laid off. I know this is a crazy job economy right now.

Do you know anybody that's hiring? I'll do anything don't you be afraid to say that there's honor in stepping up I know you can and I know you will hang in there

Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of the great American presidents once said when you get to the end of your rope tie a knot and hang on now's that time. I've given you a construct to be able to control the negative thoughts, to keep them at bay, to replace them with practical thoughts

that will inform your actions and change your feelings. I've given you a plan. You can do what I've laid out today. You must do what I've laid out for you today. Because we will cycle through this. This storm will pass. And hopefully, you're doing some things in this downtime to get ready for go time. I'm still going to be here for you every day.

Ramsey Solutions is here for you in a big way today. Some of you are in the situation you're in, having to figure out, what can I do in the short term for my job, for income, because you don't have financial peace. And we don't shame you for that, but can I say that now is the time to make sure that any future crisis

doesn't affect you the way that this is, for those of you that have lost your jobs. Or Ben Furlan. Dave Ramsey, our leadership, our entire company, is thrilled to offer a 14-day free trial of Financial Peace University. Financial Peace University is a nine-week video series taught by Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Rachel Cruz, Anthony O'Neill, my colleagues on the money side of the aisle. And this course has helped millions and millions change their financial futures.

It can help you right now. It's free. 14 days. If you binge watch a lot of stuff right now, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're ever going to binge on anything, Financial Peace University, you've got 14 days to get immersed and watch it. But more importantly, do it. Even if now you can't begin the steps until you get back into employment, and you will start. Make the mental decision.

I'm thinking differently. I can take control of my finances. I can get debt free. That's your thinking. Your actions will follow that. We're going to set a budget. We're going to cut up our credit cards. We're going to get that first baby step, $1,000 in the bank, however we can.

And we're going to get that free. Boy, that'll make you feel really confident. Make you feel like you've done a whole lot, and you will have. You've done something that not many people do, and that's get financial peace. So go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope. DaveRamsey.com slash hope right now. Don't wait. It's a 14-day free trial.

Why wouldn't you do it? Your future depends on it. A future full of financial peace, and I believe peace in your work. If you can figure out what it is you were created to do. Because you can. And I'm here for you on that. But I really want you to take advantage of this unprecedented offer for unprecedented times. 14-day trial, free.

DaveRamsey.com slash hope. By the way, while you're there, if you've not bought my best-selling book, The Proximity Principle, we have the audio book read to you by me for $1.99. It'll get you ready to get back on that trail, back on that path, up your mountain to your Mount Everest, your dream job. The Proximity Principle can be employed even now. You may not be able to do coffee or lunch, but you can still connect. So go get that opportunity at DaveRamsey.com

slash hope as well. Hey, I just want to say this before I sign off. Many of you are new to the Ken Coleman show and the message of Ramsey Solutions, but we're so excited that you're here and that you're watching. Know that we are showing up every day to bring you hope, but not just a bunch of positive hope, but hope based on a plan. A plan that will allow you to live like no one else and work like no one else. So stay engaged with us. I'm so grateful that you're viewing today. If this encouraged you and equipped you to move forward,

would you share it with friends and family or share it on your social media platforms? Right now, the world needs some hope. Hope based on a clear plan and a path forward. This too shall pass, I promise. Hang in there. We're going to get through this. Better days are closer than you think.

Thanks for being with me. Hey, everyone. We all need some more good news in our lives right now. And to that end, we will be continually updating our Message of Hope series with relevant topics that hit you where you are today. They'll be coming from me and our other Ramsey Network hosts. Please stay connected with the latest episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, following the show on Spotify, or listening in your favorite podcast app.