The Ramsey Show - App - Am I Being Underpaid at My Job? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, as we take you through this hour. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. 888-825-5225.

Now, when John and I get together, obviously we're going to talk about your money questions, your life questions that you have come to know and to love here on the Ramsey Show, but we will both dive into our specialties as well. If you're new to the program or new to one of us, quick summary is I'm helping people figure out what they were born to do. You were created to work. And if you started looking at work as a contribution, where you could make the income you desire and the impact that you desire,

what would work look like? So we're talking purpose. And when you're on purpose, by the way, in your work, watch how your life and your relationships get much better. Now, John, describe for folks that might be new to you or to me or to us what you focus on with the Dr. John Deloney Show. We talk about relationships and mental health and parenting and education and trying to just figure out life.

Yeah. Anything above and around and to the side, all of it. It's all life. We're all just trying to figure it out. That's right. So John and I love to team up. If you're in a really toxic situation, feel like you can't spend another day at the office with a co-worker or a boss, and this is serious stuff, John, because it affects your livelihood.

You're not making a paycheck decision lightly. John and I love to team up on those leaders. We're looking at the data, man. We're looking at it. People are struggling, and they're struggling at work, struggling at home, struggling in relationships, struggling with their kids back in school. And a new Harvard Business Review publication

did some Harvard research. Nine out of ten people, John. Nine out of ten Americans say they would consider making less money to do more meaningful work. What does that mean philosophically for us? For us as humans in general? It means that we all want to make a difference, and we get to the point where you feel like I'm not doing something that I really, really enjoy. And the enjoyment isn't because it's easy or it's smooth it's because i really love the work itself i'm doing something

that i enjoy doing you look at the old guys i always go to this example who just love tinkering on engines it's a problem for them it's a new puzzle you know and the narrative i grew up with was the goal of work is to make X amount of dollars. It's provision. But it's past provision now. It was about stuff. I think of that old Garfield poster, whoever ends with the most toys wins. And that's the narrative.

That's what it's become. Yeah, it's gone from provision to stuff. And what we all know as humans, it's not about anything. It's about significance. We want to make a significant dent in the world. Meaning we've got to go, I just want to make my mark if we're going to really simplify it. And I think when you've got people going, I'm working too hard, I'm working too long, crappy environment, I would literally consider making less money to do something that really mattered to me, that I enjoyed.

Or I saw my parents do it, and now they say, I shouldn't have traded that for your childhood. Well, there's no question. Yeah. And now there's a group of people saying, I'm just going to cash out. Nine out of ten, a group. Yeah. 90%. Yeah. Huh.

So, now, again, they didn't say they were going to do it. Right. But they're going. With the right opportunity. But to your point, you do. They're at an emotional place to be able to answer that survey that way. They're going, I really would. Yeah. survey that way they're going i really would yeah and you know it comes down to it comes down to

um at some point there's enough pain associated with their current lot in life and from the work standpoint to where they go i would adjust i'd sell my house you know i would state yeah i'll cut my cost i just want to get off of this hamster wheel where I feel like I'm spinning, spinning, spinning for no reason. And you know this. When people want to either get out of debt, they want to find a job they love, they want to lose weight, they want to fix their marriage, they want to fix a crisis in parenting. At some point, the pain gets to a place, as David said many times, where you go, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I think that that's what we're seeing in that poll. Well, it's...

Who wants to be sick and tired for 40 to 50 hours a week? That's what it boils down to. The way I've begun to distill it is we have an opportunity to choose your heart. It's going to be hard to remain 100 pounds overweight and have every part of your body hurt

every time you get up, and it's going to be hard to lose 100 pounds. And that's the truth. It is. And it's going to be hard to remain 100 pounds overweight and have every part of your body hurt every time you get up and it's going to be hard to lose 100 pounds and that's the truth it is and it's going to be hard to go to a job you hate 60 hours a week and it's going to be hard to adjust your lifestyle down make a little bit less money move to a new town of a lower cost of living it's not a matter of choosing between oh this one's going to be simple i don't have to i can be unstructured and not intentional versus this one it's a matter of you're going to be simple and I don't have to, I can be unstructured and not intentional versus this one. It's a matter of, you're going to choose your heart. And I think people are opting out and saying, this is hard and it's killing me.

That's going to be hard. It's going to be life. I'm going to take that one. Yeah. You led into beautifully. I was going to ask you to talk about this because I deal with this every day on the Ken Coleman show, people calling in.

And when I dig into, why haven't you done it? You know what you want to do? You're clear. These are for the people who know what they want to do. And they actually know how to get there, but, but fear is want to do. You're clear. These are for the people who know what they want to do and they actually know how to get there, but fear is holding them back.

And I've just found this is the human condition. We just would, in some places, sometimes, rather be miserable than uncomfortable. Well, and I used to think

that was a moral and character thing. You know what I mean? It's this, it is a choice. It all comes down to choice. But, man, our neurobiology solves for what we know

it solves for homeostasis it would rather the devil you know than when you don't know exactly right and so yes that person's abusive but i know where they're abusive and yes this boss treats me like crap but i can count on it yeah and it's stepping out into that unknown that we our bodies try to solve go back go back to where you know so true go back to where you know so we just stay put and then and then you do get to a point where you're too miserable and then unfortunately usually it's it's a crisis that pushes you over the edge and then and you speak to this is the world you're in so you're trained in this yeah the problem is john is once we get we get to the crisis, there's so much other collateral damage.

Yes. Like even when we go, oh, crap, crisis, massive heart attack, or whatever, pick the category, health, whatever, mental health. We don't want to get to that crisis moment, John, because there's a whole lot of derivative effects and collateral damage. That's when your kids wear it, and your spouse wears it, and your colleagues wear it, and your neighborhood wears it. Yeah. And that's when your mortgage company it your spouse wears it and your colleagues wear it and your neighborhood wears it yeah and that's when your mortgage company's calling you and your insurance

i mean it's when all that stuff happens and so yeah it comes down to one simple thing choose your heart and then how far upstream can you get to solve for some of these things yeah uh we talk a lot about fear you and i both i mean we we deal with people every day that are in fear uh myself included right i'm not to this. Are you kidding me? Oh, yeah. By the way, fear and doubt never leave us. No. This concept that you can completely remove them is silly.

You can overcome them. You can power through them, but you will deal with them the rest of your life. Yeah. I think fear tells us the truth sometimes, and then fear lies to us a lot. Yeah. You know? And where's the delineation for you on that what's your process my process has become other people

what i know is that when i become afraid my brain responds and it takes part of itself offline the rational thinking part offline and it is simply responding to stimuli and so i i have people in my life that i call and say here's what i'm looking at and they're an expert in money they're an expert in life they're an expert in marriage and um i'll ask am i seeing this right and they'll say you're good yeah exactly i think i need to cash out everything and put in bitcoin and they'll say just stand down homie yeah go for a walk so good and go fishing but it's i that's my process process. I know enough to know that I'm not trustworthy. Isn't that the truth? So I'm going to call somebody.

No one's rational when they're afraid. So having that community, that accountability to run stuff off of is great. All right, folks. He is Dr. John Delaney. I am Ken Coleman. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Your call's coming up. In an uncertain world, being a good steward of your money is more important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your

budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Health Care Ministries is a Ramsey-trusted provider. Welcome back, America. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, and it is your show.

With John and I here, we pretty much will cover just about anything. You got a question about anything in your life, it's wide open. 888-825-5225. That's the phone number. Somebody out there, John, I just know somebody needs to call. They're kind of going, all right, I've thought about it. I've been listening to this program, and maybe Dave would whack me on the head, but I think John and Ken, I think Ken are going to be nice to me.

Probably not. We'll give it a shot, though. I think we will, potentially. Yeah, it's great. 888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. Let's get to the phones. We're going to go north of the border, Ontario, Canada, where Joel joins us.

Joel, how can we help? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call today. You bet. What's up? Basically, guys. Thanks for taking my call today. You bet. What's up? Basically, I think I'm being underpaid at my job, but I'm not sure exactly, and I'm not sure how I would find out. So I was just wondering, how do I find out, and what do I do about it? Yeah.

What's your title, or what would you say your technical position is if you were describing that to somebody who was a recruiter and say, hey, I do this kind of work. What do you do? I'm a mold designer, like a tool and die industry, like a mold designer. Oh, nice. So what kind of molds are you creating for what kind of tools? Mainly for the automotive industry, a lot of car parts. Okay, great. And how many years have you been doing that? Just over three now. Okay. So I don't have a spiffy little website to give you to make this super easy, but I don't think this is going to be difficult. But what you're looking at here is, is you're looking at the, what, what, and certainly in Canada, you're going to look for

what a range of pay is. And what we call this is, this is just what the market will bear, right? So what's the market for somebody who does your kind of work and for somebody who's been doing it as long as you. And then I would also throw in there any specific certifications that you have, you know, so again, I'm, I'm kind of walking blind into this kind of work. I can barely put the gas in my car. So talking to a guy, John, who does molds for tools every day is a bit over my skis. However, whatever the industry certifications are, whatever kind of training you have that got you where you are, I would include that.

What you're doing is a search. We're going, okay, what's the range of income? What do you make right now? Right now, I make $19 an hour. Okay. So we're going to look at it, and let's just say you do the research and the range for somebody that does your work, that has your certifications, qualifications, and experience, let's say the range is $22 to $25 an hour.

I'm making that up, obviously, because you don't know and I don't know. But if we see that we are below the average, then what we want to do is we want to take that information. Now, this is not opinion anymore. So you've got your research, if it's from a reputable site, reputable source, and you're going to sit down with your leader and you go, hey, I've been doing this for three years. I want to keep doing this. I would love to sit down and talk to you about a growth plan. And that includes this. What are some areas that you feel like I could get better, some areas of improvement?

What are some things that I could do, certifications or training or some added responsibilities around here that will make me more valuable to the team? I want to take on a bigger load. I want to create more value. And then third, how can we measure those two things and tie that to my compensation? Because I want to grow professionally, which means I want to grow financially. That would be the posture by which you take that information, right? That's if you are making less. If you find out that you're right there in the middle of that range, again, same conversation, growth plan, because you want to max out.

John, anything you'd add there? Well, Joe, what makes you think you're underpaid? So I talked to a few people kind of roughly in the same position as I am, and they were all making more than me. But I also heard that it was kind of bad etiquette to go around asking people roughly what they make. So that's kind of why I thought that, because the people that had roughly the same amount of responsibilities were being

paid more, but I only asked three people. Same company? Same business? No, slightly different company, but same industry. Gotcha. Joel, stay here because I want to ask Ken this because you deal with this all the time.

And, Joel, this will help you because I think this is a broader question. I'm hearing people, let's say you're a mold maker for machine parts. You make $19 an hour. And right now we're in this weird little glitch in the matrix where you drive down the road and it says $21 an hour at Sonic with a $5,000 signing bonus. It's easy to correlate what we're seeing and hearing about on the news and the market. And, Joel, I'll tell you, those kind of conversations, they can give you a ballpark, but people lie to you. That's right. Oh, I'm making $42 an hour, bro.

You're getting ripped off. No, you're not. You're not telling the truth. So I would hold that very loosely, that information you got. But Ken, there's this balance of I think I'm being underpaid, which is a different conversation than I'm not making enough money, which is a different conversation with I worked really hard and got a lot of training in this one particular skill, and now they're paying this at Taco Bell,

and those aren't related conversations. No, they are not. And so we see this all the time where you've got – this happened over the last two years where, aside from the pandemic where we had a big drop in unemployment, the unemployment rate has now dropped back down, and we now have 10.4 million jobs, higher than we had prior to the pandemic coming in, let's call it March 2020. What we were seeing was young people were coming in, and because there was such a need, there were more jobs available

than there were people who were unemployed. Young people, younger people, less experienced people, were coming in and taking a position, and because of the demand, supply-demand, basic economics here, Joel, what happened was is they were getting paid more than somebody who had been there before, but it was about supply-demand companies. It wasn't that they thought that this younger person who had the same amount of experience was a better employee. It was just this is what the market is kind of pushing that I've got to pay right now.

So to further solidify what you're saying, these are not all related. And so what I would say, Joel, is to what John is saying, having a conversation with a couple guys that do the similar work and them just being your only source, that's never good. Because, John, this is back into the world you spend a lot of time in, which is comparison. I struggle with comparison. I mean, good heavens, we all do. And when I look at, well, these guys are doing the basic thing and they're making three or four bucks more an hour, all of a sudden it's really impossible to look at what really matters which is let's say that you got an offer joel today to be paid three dollars more an hour doing the same work in another company but you knew going in that they were crappy

people to work for or they treated you like insurance or or or or or something worse than what you have it now let me just tell you something john i can't tell you how many callers i've had on the ken coleman show say ken i took a promotion for the money only i'm miserable now what do i do right so i joel i want you to back out of this conversation keep it as far away from the 19 versus 21 an hour yes because the temptation is to take that three dollars an hour multiply it times 60 hours a week times this a month, and I should be making this much more a month. And think about that on my paycheck, and then I would buy this. It's so easy to go down that road.

Back out and say, the question, let me just say what I always ask, Ken, and you can tell me this is wrong. Did my boss, are they deceiving me? Did, I don't even care. Let's say I found out you make $200,000 more than I do. I could say, man, I want to make that kind of money. But really, I'd go back and say, me and Dave shook hands. And he never tricked me. He's paying me this.

Yeah, I would go further. I think that's the right first question. Did they deceive me on this? Right. Number two, let me do my actual research. He hasn't done it yet. Then dig in. So the advice I gave him first, let's go see what's out there

and how far off am i on that market average then number three go do i love this work yeah do i value this place do they value me these are the quick little questions you're going to ask and you're taking a snapshot to go do i have a ladder here yeah because if i go over here the grass is rarely greener by the way way. Relationally, professionally, am I right? And I think we're in a season now where we're watching the world change underneath us. Yes. And the heartbreaking reality that millions will face is I have been trained in a thing that took me a decade to get trained.

I'm an expert in fill in the blank. I have been doing this fill inin-the-blank for 20 years. Yep. And technology, AI, the market moves. Yep. And often we're left with two choices. Curl up and be devastated by it. Or to say, that was a fun run, and now I'm back in the training.

I'm back in finding people to find out what my new career is going to be. What's this thing going to look like. But you've got to face that reality and move on. It may be that $19 an hour was incredible seven months ago, and now that's what the starting salary at a fast food joint is. You've got some hard choices. Here's the underlying lesson, folks. The amount of money you're getting paid really has nothing to do with your purpose.

And purpose in your work is what really, really matters. Phones are lighting up. 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman here with you on The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, and we take your calls this hour about your life. We'll talk about your money, your work, your relationships, your health, mental health, sleep, obnoxious co-workers, horrible leaders, family members that are driving you nuts. I mean, it's pretty much just wide open. We're here to discuss it.

Or incredible success stories like we're looking at right now. Which is right there. This is what we love. On the debt-free stage is John and Catherine. Welcome. Hey, thanks for having us. You bet. Where are you guys from? We're from a little town called White, Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta. Okay, very good. Yeah, I know that area. So you're here to do a debt-free scream. Tell us how much you

paid off. $87,511. Oh, wow. $87,511. Not that we're counting every penny. Yeah, absolutely. And how long did it take you to pay it off? 28 months. 28 months. And tell us the range of income. We started at about $105,000 and ended at about $140,000. There we go. Tell me about the $35,000 bump. What did you do?

I got a promotion at work, and also I'm in sales. So the longer I do it, the more commission base I build. There you go. Good for you. Congratulations. What do you sell, man? I am the national sales manager for a company that sells manufacturing equipment. Okay, awesome.

All right. And Catherine, tell us what you do. I'm a homemaker. Come on. Yeah, you're the CEO of the house. She has the hard job. That's exactly right. That's the heavy lifting.

Well, that is so fantastic. So what kind of debt was it? A little bit of everything. We had some old business debt from a business that we had sold about seven years prior. We had some medical debt, car payments, credit cards, personal loan, just you name it. We had a little bit of everything. Wow. So take us back.

28 months ago, you start this journey. What led to this? So it would have been uh so we started in january of 2019 uh so in december we just kind of gone through the christmas uh the kind of the christmas rush trying to come up with money you know charging everything up to our eyeballs to you know buy more christmas presents and i think what really hit it for me was a it was about a month before christmas um we don't with the income that we made um i went to a pawn shop to make some money to uh to pay some of our bills and here here I was, so I'm pawning things.

And then the next month, turning around and charging stuff on credit cards. And so this is just insane. This does not make any sense anymore. So you were making six figures and then running a pawn shop credit card loop-de-loop. Insanity. So we just said we've got to figure it out. And one of those things. And Catherine had been through FPU when she was in high school.

Oh, great. Yeah, my dad introduced it to me. And so at this point, take us to this. You guys are a mess. Do you say, hey, I remember this class. What happened? Basically, I was like, you want to live debt-free? And he was like, yeah.

And she brought it up to us. I had listened to Dave Ramsey on the radio a few times and kind of heard him flipping through the stage. So I started listening a little bit more and trying to get into it. And we said, you know what? January is a good time to kind of start fresh. And we go through that process. But we say we were kind of Dave-ish until about March of 2020.

We were definitely still going on the journey. We had done the step one, and we were working on step two. But it was not as gazelle intense as it should have been. And then March 2020 with the pandemic. Did something happen in March of 2020? What happened? The whole world burned down and you came back together again. My bad. We went through it. We got really gazelle intense then.

At the height of our journey, not only was I working my regular job, but on the weekends I was delivering pizzas. I was also doing two side gigs uh both buying and delivering groceries we were selling stuff on ebay we had always had a large garden so we we set up a farm stand we started selling uh where she was canning goods we were selling jellies and jams and our own produce and we were working five or six different things just to really have

any money we could get coming in to really speed it up so that like a large portion we paid down came from march of 2020 until may of 21 yeah that. That last, kind of the last leg of it. My goodness. So you had a great salary and paying off $87,000, almost $90,000. Y'all were really running lean. We were. Yeah. What was the most extreme?

Like, take us to, we just heard how intense you all were from a work standpoint. You guys were getting after it, bringing in more money. But talk about the sacrificing, the abstaining side of things. How crazy did you get? Well, I switched from buying clothing and things for the children at retail stores to going to consignment and thrift stores to borrowing from friends and hand-me-downs. Did the kids survive? Did they make it? Oh, yeah.

They did. They made it. No way. Yeah. And then we switched our cell phone providers to something much, much cheaper. Oh. Did the kids survive? Did they make it? Oh, yeah. They did. They made it. No way. Yeah. And then we switched our cell phone providers to something much, much cheaper. And, you know, just rice and beans, rice and beans. Yeah.

We cut cable. We, you know, we went to, we did that. You know, we also did. Oh, then you got to play with your kids and talk to each other. Now what are we going to do? Yeah. Right. We did lots of things like that. We also, you know, we went from buying like, from buying, quote-unquote, healthier food, some of the more organic stuff,

to where we went to buying all generics and Aldi and places like that. Really, we saw just switching grocery stores. We knocked our grocery bill down by like $600 a month, which is crazy. So things like that. And we just made a lot of little changes, a lot of telling each other no. Hey, we kind of want to do this thing. Well, it's not in the budget. And, you know, we can't do it this month or let's look at it next month.

And I think the biggest thing for us to do at all was really improve our communication skills. Even though, you know, we were sharing bank accounts and everything else, our money was often running two different directions. You know, we had goals for ourselves and not necessarily a family unit that we weren't talking together about as much. And, you know, at this point we'd been married, you know, six years when we began this journey. So we should have already been on the same page. But it kind of was in different directions. This really helped us pull together. And we did every dollar together every month and sat down.

And I think the first probably eight or nine months, she hated that time of the month. And then we kind of got better as we got used to it and making adjustments and learning how to work on a budget and stay through things. And we dealt with setbacks. I mean, we had about $25,000 in medical bills. We had a cash flow through the beginning of this. So she had to have some major surgeries. We had to do some of that. And we also had to buy a new HVAC system. We had to do some car repairs.

Oh, the dreaded HVAC. It always likes to show up when we're trying to make headway financially. What would you say to couples out there that aren't on the same page? They're hearing this, and they're shaking their head. They're going, we're not on the same page financially. What would you say to couples out there that aren't on the same page, they're hearing this, and they're shaking their head, they're going, we're not on the same page financially. You guys got on the same page. What would you say to encourage them? I mean, I think just finding your why, getting your goal, and then really just finding a way to communicate. You know, I had to adjust how I spoke to her about money because if I wasn't careful, the way I spoke about money came off to her like I was either being condescending or I was not valuing what was important to her.

Because we had different things that were important. Yeah. And I think, I mean, from your end. Basically, I've been very privileged my whole life. So being told no was not really exciting. But, you know. Not really exciting. But, you know, learning to live within your means and below your

means to make sacrifices really was rewarding. You know, it's a good feeling to be able to look back and see what I've accomplished. Yeah, that's awesome. So, who are your cheerleaders? Who are the people that really cheered you on and stayed with you through the journey?

Definitely our family. Our families. Her parents especially, and mine too as well. But her parents who are the ones who had sent her through FPU back in high school, they were followers of the program, were kind of encouraging us on. And my dad and stepmom as well. We had some good folks from family and friends in our corner. From friends from our church were really encouraging as well. That's awesome.

And the kiddos, I see that they're here with you. We're going to bring them up in just a moment. But did they get it? Like, were they kind of in tuned? And how did they contribute? Well, after saying no to so many things and then for so long, we figured we had to kind of tell them why at some point.

We explained the concept of debt. And they were like, well, why would you get into that? That seems silly. Like, well, yes. Out of the mouths of babes come wisdom, yeah so um but uh they but they started to understand what we were doing and they were excited for us and we're talking about it and then uh sometimes they would tell each other or um and our oldest who's with his grandmother today but you know he'd remind him no we're not doing that because you know we're because mommy and daddy

are in debt like we're working on stuff and so uh they kind of help police each other a little bit so it was good well i see they've joined us So tell us who they are and their names and ages, please. This is Ephraim. He has seven. This is Lydia. He has six. She has six. There you go.

We got it. Ephraim and Lydia. That is so awesome. Now, have they been practicing their scream? Are they ready to go? Yes, sir. All right. I think it's time.

Don't you, John? That's right. Let's do this. Hey, we're going to give you a copy of The Legacy Journey because that's the next step. It's where y'all are headed. And we're going to give you a copy of Total Money Maker so you can give it away to somebody who you think would benefit from it and change their life as well. Yeah, so please pass that along. All right, here we go.

John and Catherine, Ephraim and Lydia, they paid off $87,511 actually in 28 months, making $105,000 to $140,000. Let's hear your debt-free scream. Ready, guys? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it. So good. Way to go, kiddos.

They nailed it. That's a happy family, John. Incredible. It's quite a sacrifice. Yes, but it's two years. And now every single thing is different. Two years. You're right.

I mean, game changer. That's it. A little bit of storm, a little bit of hustle for peace and an unbelievable future ahead of this young family. Beautiful, beautiful family. Wherever they want. Great stuff. He is Dr. John Deloney. I'm Ken Coleman, and you're listening to The Ramsey Show.

I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague John Deloney, and we are here to take your calls about your life, your money, your work, your relationships, mental, emotional health, the whole nine yards. Let's go. 888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. the number. 888-825-5225. Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure or pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free.

You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Make sure you use the promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. So today's question comes from Marissa in Michigan. I'm 28 years old and currently at the end of what has been a very long and tiring PhD program, as most of them are. My goal has been to stay in academia where I could teach and do research, but I discovered along the way that this is not the path for me for a variety of reasons. I've lived very frugally and worked on the side, so I have no debt and $75,000 in savings and investments. Wow.

Wow. Way to go, Marissa. Wow. Well, there's a whole lot here. I've grown to despise. What should I do? Wow. Well, there's a whole lot here. I'm going to simplify this, John. I know you'll add to this, but I would start with, because of your financial, I would call it freedom,

I think it would be good for you to go do some job, just any J-O-B. And I'm the guy that's always pushing people to find their purpose and find that dream job, which is just simply about using what you do best to do work you love that produces results that matter. Because you're so fried, Marissa, on this type of work, I think you go try something totally different. And just if it's just covering the basics, the bills, but you've always been intrigued by it and you're just going, I want to do this work because I think it'd be kind of neat, kind of fun. Or I just want to help these people and get a paycheck. I keep it really simple. And I think that's the first step of kind of coming off of this deep fryer we use in the deep south where we throw anything in and it's just hot burning grease and it's bubbling. And I think she's been in that so long. Then I would make

sure I start re-examining what caused me to feel fried and lose it. I think there's a whole lot of circumstances, John, that we can't get to because this is an email question. But I would examine, do I love the work still if I wasn't in that cauldron, that boiling cauldron of pressure, maybe some toxicity, the whole lot here we don't know about. And the way I would do that is by myself. of pressure, maybe some toxicity, a whole lot here we don't know about. And the way I would do that is by myself. I'd spend some time just getting alone under a tree in front of a lake, quiet, and go, why did I love the work originally? And if I removed all the negative yuck, would I still love the work?

And then the third step I would say is, and this is tactical, you can help out on the emotional advice and everything else, but I'd get with some people who do that work, and they're really fulfilled and very happy. I just spend some time talking to them and go, what's your environment like? And I would do all of that to see if the heart is telling us it's time to move to something totally different, because it could be, or the heart's just damaged and it's wounded. That's my quick take. Yeah, and anybody who's finishing, I love the deep fryer. Anyone who's coming out of deep fryer,

you're getting done with the PhD program, it's been very long. Oh my gosh. You should be burned out. I can only imagine. I'm fairly certain that my wife likes me on most days, and my kids. And there are some days when she says,

I need to go away today. I need to go away for a couple of days. So just because you need a break, I love that idea, just go get a job. Go get a job. and it's almost like a palate cleanser yeah go put your head into something and you can because you've worked really hard yeah and man you were you were dead on working in academia at a big research one institution is different from the teaching college different from a faith-based school from a community college do you hate

teaching do you hate students do you hate research do you hate chemistry like get clear and you can only get clear when you've got some space that's exactly yeah just back out a little bit but just because you're fried doesn't mean you're crazy it doesn't mean you hate chemistry exactly right or editing or whatever you got your phd in yeah it may just be you're exhausted yeah yeah and i again i've taken so many calls from teachers who thought at the start of the phone call ken they started they started off by saying, Ken, I need to get out of teaching. I have no career worth to go to help. And when we dig in, we find that they're a teacher. They have a heart of a teacher.

They were put on this planet to instruct, if we're going to make it simple. And now we've got to find a different environment. Because maybe the environment you're in, for reasons that they go through, isn't the best. And they go, oh, it's not. But they find, well, public school environment isn't for me, but community college, I would love it. Or trade school. Or go to the corporate world and be a trainer, which is an instructor. So it's tough, man.

Because it's so hard to see clearly, John, when you're just trying to keep your nose above the water. And I imagine a doctorate feels like that. Like you're just, the water's up here. Yeah, and it's hard as she's been working on the side. Oh, on top of everything else. That's right. Well, we appreciate the question. Good for you, Marissa. Alright, let's go to Baltimore, Maryland now

where Jayla joins us. Jayla, how can we help? Good afternoon. How are y'all doing? Well, we're having a blast. What's going on with you, Jayla? Thanks for taking my call. I'm currently a sophomore in college, debt-free, due to a scholarship. And I pay nothing, but I'm somewhat restricted into one business school.

Mind you, I've always had a passion for automotive and mechanical engineering throughout middle and high school. Due to my fear of debt and making my parents proud, I took the scholarship rather than going to the university I've always wanted to go to. And my question is, should I stay at the university I'm at due to my fear of debt or go to the university I've always wanted to for the major I naturally have a passion for? I don't want to end up regretful and unhappy in a career path that I'm good at, but do not enjoy one bit. Yeah. Well, first of all, young lady, I sense a little bit maybe you're beating yourself up a little bit because you did this thing.

You're like, I made this choice to make mom and dad happy and to not go into debt. And you're a sophomore in college, so you are not at this crossroads where you've wasted any time or effort. I just sense that on you. Is that true? Yeah. Okay, but don't. Can I ask you a hard question, Jayla?

Well, let me piggyback what Ken said. I've never heard anyone in all my years of working in college saying, you know what, I'm really mad about my free undergraduate education. I'm so ticked off about it. What an idiot.

And so you have a passion. But you mentioned something that's a red flag for me after working with college students. Do you really not want to do business and do automotive engineering? Or do you have your eyes set on a particular university that may have a particular person or two or three that go to that school? That's the question. What's the answer? Well.

Yep, I knew it. Wait, wait, wait. I knew it. Wait, wait, wait. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. I think it's the right question, Doc. But I want to know because you said at one point you've always had a passion

for automotive engineering. And then it was this, we heard twice, this university I want to. And you're absolutely on it. So, Jayla, where is it at? Is it 50-50? Is it 60% university, 40% engineering? I mean, where are we? It's more so like 60% engineering and 40% university.

Because the school I go to now, they don't have an engineering program at all. Okay. And that's what made it. All right. So we have very limited time, so we're going to cut right to the chase. Okay. Because the heart of your question is, do I have to stay where I am in a scholarship for a degree I don't want or take on debt? And that's a false narrative.

Yeah. Okay. So I want to head that off. Here's what I teach. And John agrees with me. You need to to head that off. Here's what I teach. And John agrees with me. You need to do the engineering work or you will regret. I mean, you've nailed this at a young age that you don't want to be in a career and wake up at 35 and go, I didn't do the thing I wanted to do. You like solving mechanical problems. You like cars and the whole automotive

thing. That's where you want to be. You've identified that. But here's the deal. How many different pathways are there to that future? That's the homework assignment that i'm going to give you because you can answer that better than i can but do not assume that you've got to take debt on to get there because that's garbage and it's not true you hear me yeah so here's the question you got to ask what degree do i, or do I need a degree? And I think you do. To do the engineering, you need a degree. So who are all the people that offer that?

Because let me just tell you this. Anybody that's going to hire you, Jayla, is not going to care where you got your engineering degree from. Am I right, John? Most of the time, yeah. I set you up to where you just had to disagree. They don't care. Nobody cares. They want to know if you can do the disagree. They don't care. Nobody cares.

They want to know if you can do the job. So, Jayla, it's where else can I get it? You can't get it where you are. You're going to have to have a hard conversation with mom and dad because I know they want you to go to school. But you're going to say, I'm still going to school, but I've got to change my plan. So where can I get it? How much is that going to cost me? How do I save up for it?

Maybe can I get a scholarship for that? I'm going to work as hard as I can to get into the school I need to to get the degree I need to do the work I want to do. No debt. You can do this. No debt. That's a false narrative. You got this, Jayla.

Thank you so much for the call. Hey, wow, that hour is over. Thank you, James Childs. Thank you, Kelly Daniel. Thank you, John Deloney. And thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life?

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