The Ramsey Show - App - Am I Contributing Enough to Our Debt? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life. We're going to help you win with your money. We're going to help you win in your work and win in your relationships. All three of those are interconnected, and if you're not winning in one of them, it's going to be affecting the others. I'm Ken Coleman. Dr. John Deloney is with me as well, and we are here for you this hour. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. So, of course, we're going to take your money questions. We'll take some relationship questions, mental health questions. How about work questions? You're talking about making some more money. Do I launch a side hustle? Is it the right time in

the baby steps one through three? What do I do to make more money? We want to take on all of those questions. There's nothing off limits. Maybe we'll take a March Madness call. Do you fill out the brackets? It's bracket mania time where people who never watch college basketball fill out a bracket. I'm pretty terrible at the brackets because I'm overcommitted to my Texas Tech Red Raiders. I overcommit. I appreciate that. And I get delusional. It's your school, man.

And I just assume they're going to – I'm always stunned that they don't win at all. Okay. Well, I like that loyalty. So we'll take your questions. We always have fun together, and we're not afraid to dig deep. So let's get it started. In New York City, the Big Apple, Sarah is joining us there. Sarah, how can John and I help?

Hi. Thank you guys for taking my call. Sure. So we are currently working on baby step number two to get out of debt, and I'm kind of struggling with the idea. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and so I'm very well aware that I came into the marriage with student loan debt and our car debt. And so I've also been taking on the majority

of the consumer debt that we have on our credit cards. And so I struggle with the idea of feeling guilty, but also feeling like I'm not doing enough to contribute on tackling this debt. So, I mean, I don't know. I feel like I want to do more, but I'm not exactly sure how or where I can even start with that. All right. So let's take on that second part. I want Dr. John to jump in on that guilt here in a moment, but let's just look practically at I'm not sure what I can do. So let's just try

to back into this a little bit. How much time, if any, do you have in a given week that is not related to the very, very, very, very important duties of being CEO of that house? I mean, I count on him to be with the kids on the weekends, and so I have taken on some tutoring that I'm doing. And so I'm bringing in maybe like $150 on the weekends. Okay, great. Okay, so first of all, we didn't mention that in the opening question. You're actually bringing in some money, so we could say that on a given month, on a four-weekend month, you're bringing in what? $600? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that goes a long way, on a four-weekend month, you're bringing in what? $600?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, that goes a long way, doesn't it? If I was talking to your husband right now and I said, hey, man, how's that $600 your wife adding to the pot? How's that feel? What would he say? He'd say he's grateful, probably. Probably?

Or you know he would? Yeah, I know he would. So let me ask you this. How much time do you have during the traditional Monday through Friday that you could give to work? So, I mean, we do DoorDash about three hours. No, no, hold on. You're not answering my question. You're not answering my question.

I'm actually trying to help you here on a practical matter. How many hours could you give to making money Monday through Friday? Outside of you taking care of the kiddos and all the important stuff you do at the house. Be realistic. I would say maybe two or three. Two or three hours a day? Okay, great. So let's just say two hours a day. Two or three hours a day? Mm-hmm. Okay, great.

So let's just say two hours a day. That's 10 hours a week, and then we've got the weekend stuff. So what I want you to be focused on, I'm not going to put you on the spot. You don't have to come up with this on the air. But 10 hours a week, what could you do from a skill and experience standpoint? All you've got to be thinking about at this stage is what talent slash skill do I have that I can then turn into easy money? And what I mean by easy money is I don't have to get a degree. I don't have to go get trained. I literally apply or I raise my hand on social media and I can start doing this. And I think if you look at your skill

and your experience and you have a lot of both, even being a stay-at-home mom, okay, you have a lot to offer and you've already shown that on the weekends. I would just look to add those extra 10 hours and don't feel guilty about it. I want to hand it off to John on this guilt stuff, but I would just be focusing on what you can do. And I think that'll go a long way, but the 10 hours, how do I turn that into some extra money to help us in baby step two and three and four as we move on and keep doing the weekend stuff but i would i would keep it that simple don't overthink it just find what you can do and do it when you can sarah what's your total debt load of your house um we're about 30 000

in debt and what's your husband bring home you're bringing home around 3636,000. Around $36,000? I'd like to help him make some more money. And y'all live in New York? Yeah. How many kids do you have? We have two, a 10-month-old and a 2-year-old. All right. I want to give you some potentially hard truth because I love you. Is that cool?

Yeah, of course. Okay. What you're running into, it sounds like, is what you want versus reality. And what y'all want is you want to be a stay-at-home mom, which I applaud and I love. Okay? I think it's amazing. And you want to live in New York City, one of the most expensive places on planet earth and your husband makes thirty six thousand dollars a year for this particular moment in time that reality doesn't match so you're either your husband wants to make thirty six thousand dollars a year then it's you're probably going to have to find somebody to watch your kids and you're going to

have to go to work until y all get this stuff paid up. And by the way, at $36,000 a year, I don't know if you can get a bottle of water for $36,000 a year in New York. I'm not sure they can afford the child care anyway. Do you have family that could step in? Yeah, forget affording it. Do you have family there? Yeah, I think we have talked about this.

We have family in Jersey. So I think that is more of what we've been deciding to look into as a family. What does your husband do? He's a construction worker. Okay. What's he make per hour? So they get paid on a weekly basis. It's a small company. Okay. I'm going small company. Okay.

I'm going to tell you something. John and I are up in New York all the time doing media stuff, and I see construction everywhere, and I'm not a huge fan of unions, but I know that he should be, and he could be, making way more than $36,000. Way more. He needs some urgency. This is less about you feeling guilty, and he needs to feel some what I would call positive pressure from his older buddies, Ken and John.

He needs to be doing everything he can. The construction market is the trades. They're dying for people. And to John's point, if you guys need to move to New Jersey and be near the family so it's easier for the kiddos to be watching, you both are crushing it. You guys should be combined income $75,000, $80,000 really soon. I don't think you're feeling guilt as much as you're feeling fear. And your fear is founded because y'all can't afford to live in the world y'all have created for yourselves. So something's got to give.

I hope he goes, you know what, I'm going to get a new job, and I'm going to get three jobs, and I'm going to get us out of this mess, number one, and I'm going to find a sustainable way for us to live, number two. Or you're going to decide, I'm going to go to work also, and we're going to rely on family, or we're going to do all three, and we're going to move, right? But something's got to give because the world you have created isn't real. Yeah. John Mayer's song, Waiting on the World to Change, is not applicable here.

You guys got to stop waiting for something better to happen and make something happen. Like right now, it's urgent. Get after it. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since

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Dr. John Deloney is with me this hour. We are here for you. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. All right, coming up May 10th and 11th, this is a brand new event from Ramseyland. It is called Total Money Makeover Weekend. And in this weekend, it's a destination event here at our Nashville campus. And this is obviously the baby steps,

really broken down. All the personalities, including me and John, will be joining Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz and Jade Warshaw and George Campbell. And it's going to be a fun, fun weekend. I'm told that George and Rachel will be doing a live version of their podcast, Smart Money Happy Hour. And it's an event for anybody on the Baby Steps that needs that little extra sense of confidence, encouragement to get through it. As I said, we're all going to be doing brand new talks that are aligned, and we're doing Q&A as well.

Platinum Plus tickets already gone, still platinum, some VIP. If you jump on it now, you can go to RamseySolutions.com slash events, RamseySolutions.com slash events. All right, let's go to Minneapolis, Minnesota next where Dylan awaits. Dylan, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. You bet.

What's up? Well, I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do for a career. I know it's a big question, but I just wanted some advice on how to figure out what that passion might be and what I want to do for the rest of my life. Tell me how old you are and then I'd love to know where you are now on that journey and then what ideas that you've allowed your brain to think about. So it's a three-part question. Hit me with those answers. Well, I'm 21 right now. I'm still young. I'm working as a server right now and detailing cars and

auto body shop. And I've tested the waters a little bit. I wanted to do landscaping, so I tried that out and it ended up not being something that I really liked. Okay. So what have you been wondering about lately? Because I know you don't make this phone call without some ideas that have been circling your head. Yeah. I don't know. I was thinking about firefighting, but I kind of deal with a lot of self-doubt, I think. Okay, good. When I think about the firefighter thing, I'm a very small guy,

and I don't think I really fit the bill for what they're looking for. Okay. All right, let's take that on. Let's take that specific thing on, and then I want to pull back for a little bit because I understand doubt big time, and we're going to go through a real quick exercise, and I think we're going to get you some clarity.

So on the firefighter thing that you're a small guy, okay, have you actually sat down and had coffee or lunch with a firefighter? No, I haven't. All right, I want you to do that. That's your homework assignment. Because I promise you, Dylan, you know somebody that knows somebody that could get you in touch with the local fire department. And I'm telling you, those firemen would be happy to take a young guy out like you and let you kick the tires, find out everything about their job, the good, what do they love about it? Ask them what they hate about it. Don't be afraid of that question. And then tell them what you're really doubtful about. Tell them, look them right in the eye and go, I think I'm too small.

And let's just see how that goes. You agree to do that? Yeah. All right. Now, quick exercise. All right. So the world of work, Dylan, can be divided into four areas. Really simple. There's people work, there's process work, there's ideas work, and there's object work. Okay, let me explain that. People work, kind of what John and I do, right? We're dealing with people, we write books, we speak, we coach, all that. And ideas work, that's a little bit of John and I too, right? We're coming up with methodologies or concepts or whatever. And then there's process work, right? So think of somebody who is maybe an engineer, maybe a project manager. Does that make sense to you? The process part? Yeah. All right, great. And then the last piece is the object work. And that is a little bit of what you have tinkered around with, right? Detailing cars, mechanics, we're building something, we're fixing something. Does that make sense to you?

Yes. All right. So we got the four areas of work. Here's what I want you to tell me. I want you to tell me in the four areas, people, process, ideas, and objects. If I interviewed everybody that knows you, Dylan, what would they tell me and John that you're really talented at? Which four areas? Which of the four? And it's okay if there's a couple. What would they say? Dylan's really good at this kind of work. What would they say? I'd like to think people. Okay. Probably the biggest one.

People's the biggest one. Okay, now let's ask you the question. Now let's forget about talent, what you're good at. You think of those four areas of work. Which of the four areas do you think you would enjoy the most? People work? This is just your heart. You would feel fulfilled, enjoy.

You would enjoy it. You'd be excited. Would it be people work, process work, idea work, or object work? Probably ideas. I like to see what I think come to life. Okay. So we're not going to lock you into anything today. But Dylan, that's a really good experiment

for you to go okay this is this is who I am and I'd run that by some people and say okay I love ideas so if I can use ideas to help people what would that be does anything pop at the top of your mind really quick when I say it that way if you knew you couldn't fail what would be some type of idea-based work that you could do with people what would that be what what jumps to the top of your head um i'd say something something to do with helping people find uh like houses for cheaper very good all right john what are you reading i want to bring you in here because what we've done here is just classic. Let's just get how he's, we wanted Dylan to be able to identify who Dylan is and so that he can go, cause he's got a lot of exploration and Dylan at 21. Some

people know at 21, a lot of people don't, but based on what you're hearing, John, you've heard me do this before. We've done it together. There's something there behind what he chose this idea of i like ideas and i want to help people and so he came up with maybe helping people find houses right what are your thoughts well earlier there's something behind the landscaping and the firefighting too that's so there's some there's some patterns here so let me ask you a strange question um dylan and i heard this from a guy who has a show his name is chris williamson and chris asked this question and it caused i was just scrolling through wasting my life away scrolling and it caught me and i have it's kind of wormholed its way into my head for

the last few weeks here's what it is what do you want to want and And here's the question Chris asked was, what if we all spent our energy on, what do we actually want to want? And here's what he means by that. If you ask me, what do you want, John? I would say, well, I want a nicer car because the car I drive is not great. I want a bigger house. I want to get promoted here at the office. I want to get X, Y, and Z. But what do I want to want?

I want to want peace in my home. I want to want to build some time where I can just have some reading time where I've got some time with my kids. So what must be true for those things to happen? So you've rattled off server, you rattled off landscape guy, firefighter. Now you're getting more into like counseling and real estate guy. What do you want to want, Dylan? If you could snap your fingers, and I got this from Ken, you snap your fingers and you're 29 years old and you have a career and you're surrounded by a family and little ones running around,

what career would that be? What would that look like? I don't know. It's really hard to figure out. I really want to have a lot of freedom in my life. Yeah. And you want to help people. Yeah. So here's an exercise you cannot answer necessarily on the air. Okay. But we've been kind of guiding you through this process. Here's what you have to answer. Who are the people I most want to help? So you said that you're good with people.

And so those people skills, you've got to get some self-confidence. You're dealing with a lot of doubt. And that is a doubt to me is very simply defined as I don't believe something good will happen if I move forward. That's doubt. And I think that you've got to answer the question, who are the people I really want to help in work? And what's the problem that those people have? And then what are all the solutions through work that

will address that problem? So for instance, if you were sure that firefighting is it, we would say, who are the people I want to help? People that are in danger. What's the problem that they have? Their life is on the line. What's the solution solution somebody like me stepping in a burning home and pulling them out this is the exercise you got to work through and you're 21 well that's the other thing it's going to take some time to figure that out can if i had to go back and talk to my 21 year old self i tell him one thing chill out because the job you have when you're in your 40s doesn't even exist yet because youtube and podcast did not exist when you and i were 21 so right however though slow these are the right questions he needs to be asked.

1,000%. You don't need to be putting pressure on getting the great answer. What you have to do is use those questions that we just gave you and begin to trust your heart and follow that till you begin to discover things that you never saw before. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, America. Thrilled that you're with us.

Dr. John Deloney is with me. I'm Ken Coleman. And we're here for you. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Ed is going to join us next. He's in Los Angeles. Ed, how can we help? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. He's in Los Angeles. Ed, how can we help? Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I appreciate it. You bet. I was calling. Thank you. I was calling because I've been working on Baby Step 3, so I'm getting 18% put into my 401k Roth IRA.

But I go back and forth. Sometimes I have to take money out of my bank account, out of my savings to cover our expenses during the month. It doesn't happen every month, but I want my six months of, sorry, expenses. I'm trying to build that up. So I'm wanting to know if I should back it all out, stop investing in the 401k until I get that built up or... That's what we teach. So we teach... What was that?

That's what we teach. Baby step one, two, three, and four. And we don't start investing 15% until we get the three to six months fully funded. But I think we need to step back a bit and find out why is it that you are having to dip into Baby Step 3, the emergency fund, from time to time in order to cover your monthly bills? What's causing that? I feel like my contributions to my 401k are a bit too high, so they're taking out too much. Okay, so that means that you feel like that is the sole reason that you are paycheck to paycheck. No, I believe the biggest reason is I don't have a budget. I haven't for five years since the last time we took the Dave Ramsey course.

All right, so not beating up on you, Ed, but that's what we've got to deal with. Yeah, you've got to have a budget. I haven't for five years since the last time we took the Dave Ramsey course. All right. So not beating up on you, Ed, but that's what we got to deal with. Yeah. You got to have a budget. Like we get the budget under control and, and, and cause you've clearly been able to make some progress. Where's your, where's your emergency fund at now as you, as you rate it between three and six months, you have three months? I almost have three months. I have $17,400 right now. Okay. So here's what's interesting, Ed. I want you to be encouraged, but I also want you to have some more urgency because you've been able to accomplish that despite not having a budget for five years. Yes. That's impressive, man. It actually is.

And imagine though, John, how much more effective he could be. I think this is all about budget. And then we're not even worried about the question that you asked. I think it's about budget. Because is it safe to assume, Ed, that you have enough money to be contributing the 18% anyway? I believe if I did a budget, I would. I'd have to cut some expenses that I know I don't need, and I think I would. And that has been something I've been adamant about the last couple of weeks since doing my taxes. All right, let's say you did a budget for April, which you need to do. Let's say you do a zero-based budget. Every dollar is how you do it.

It's the greatest tool in the world for it. Let's say you do a zero based budget. Every dollar is how you do it. It's the greatest tool in the world for it. Okay. Let's say you do that in April. If you had a disciplined budget, you knew where every dollar was going and which meant you also cut back on some stuff that you're just not monitoring. Could you not get the extra money in the first month in April to finish the baby step three? I feel it would take me two to three months at least. Okay, all right. So my point is that you're that close to having six months, right? Yes.

Well, we say three to six months. So how much more money do you need to make it three months? Probably another $15,000. Okay, all right. So that's going to take you two or three months but this is all about the budget what do you think is the biggest um drain on your budget right now if you had to guess because i don't think you actually know i believe little expenses like streaming services they add up um and maybe not eating out as much, we have cut back on that. And then everything else is just a question mark, but I know there's stuff I'm not considering.

Yeah. Well, here's the way we play the baby steps out. Technically, to the letter of the law, then you would stop. You would stop until you get your house in order, right? Until you complete baby step three. So if you were to pause the 401k investing starting next month, that would free up a sizable chunk of change for you to allow you to finish baby step three. And if you want it to be six months, then it's six months.

At that point, then we just come back online with the 401k investing. Here's why I like that for Ed, Ken. Ed, I can tell you have a thing about investing. Here's what I like for Ed, Ken. Ed, I can tell you have a thing about investing. Yes, and I'm starting late. So you cutting it off, it would force

you. So in behavior change, we want to reduce friction in the behaviors that we want to do more of. We want to make it easier to eat healthy, so we only have healthy foods in our house, and we want to put hurdles in front of those behaviors we want to do more of right we want to make it easier to have to eat healthy so we only have healthy foods in our house and we want to put hurdles in front of those behaviors we want to change it's going to make you mad like like not mad angry but mad like cuckoo like to not be investing and then to see your family going out to eat again i have a feeling you follow the baby steps to the letter.

You stop investing. By the way, investment is a gift for future you. An emergency fund is a gift to present you, to right now. And if right now you is not okay, then future you doesn't have a chance. And so get your emergency fund built up so that you can be okay in the present and you can take care of yourself you can start planning but that idea of you not investing is going to drive you bananas you're going to watch every dollar like a hawk to get that emergency fund so you can start investing again so i like i like that in your case especially i mean it's the way we teach it but for you especially i love you walking in tomorrow into your office and getting with the HR person, cutting it off, and then you sit down with your wife tonight.

We're going to give you Ramsey Plus. We're going to give you FPU. We're going to give you a year subscription to every dollar. So you and your wife have to sit down and do a budget together. Actually, you don't have to. You can let it just waste, but sit down and do it. I'm giving you the tool, the best tool on the market, and go in there and put a hurdle in front of yourself. Stop investing until you get this emergency fund paid up, and you're going to get

there real, real quick. I promise you. So do I do the match? They match 5%? No, no. Pause everything. Get crazy about getting your family safe. Your family's still not safe. Y'all got out of debt, but one thing that goes sideways, you're an air conditioner or a roof away from having zero money. That does everything. Get crazy about getting your family safe. Your family's still not safe. Y'all got out of debt. But one thing that goes sideways, you're an air conditioner or a roof away from having zero money. Yes. So we're talking two to three months, Ed, right? Yes.

All right. So what we're doing is we're doing a forced pause, as John laid out for you beautifully. But that's now we found you some money right now. You pause it today, by the way. I'd call HR before the day's out. You're a couple hours behind us. No excuse. Pause it today.

You pick right back up after you would get the Baby Step 3 finished. But here's the deal. You've got to get a budget anyway so that you can make hay in other areas or else you're going to be in the same boat. I'd hate for you to get Baby Step 3 fully funded, right? Go back to all the investing again, and you're still living paycheck to paycheck because you're not watching your money. And then you're having to dip into an emergency fund for a non-emergency. For a restaurant. Come on, man.

Or you just don't have money for vacation because you haven't been using your money wisely. So, Ed, we're trying to force some change here, but you can fix this pretty quick, and you're not going to fall behind. The two, three months, by the way, whatever gland is freaking out right now, it's going to be okay. You know what I'm saying? Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, buddy.

This is about changing the behavior, John. I love what you said there. I think that's a really good point. He's going to be really uncomfortable not seeing his 401k account get disposited. Oh, man, one of his kids is going to ask, Hey, Dad, can we go to Sonic? And he's going be really uncomfortable not seeing his 401k oh man one of his kids is gonna ask hey dad can we go to sonic and he's gonna right and he doesn't put a stop to that real quick man because that five percent match that that's somebody else's money and it's just not gonna be going into your account because you didn't do the stuff you need to do ahead of time

let's get it let's get it knocked out it's gonna i think it's gonna change his behavior real fast yeah it really is wow wow wow unbelievable again, if you're new to us, okay. And you're hearing the baby steps one, just a real quick review. Baby step one is we want you to get a thousand dollars in a savings account for your kind of run of the mill emergency, right? And then baby step two is we begin to tackle debt. That's your smallest debt all the way up to the largest debt. We want to get momentum. Baby step three that you heard us talking about, that's three to six months of your complete budget living expenses in the bank as an emergency fund.

After that, you begin to invest 15% of your income. So those were the steps we're talking about. The reason we lay it out that way, and Dave Ramsey figured that out after counseling thousands of people, now it's hundreds of thousands, is that's how you create financial momentum and behavior change at the same time. If you're new to it, check out Total Money Makeover. Get to ramsaysolutions.com. Click Get Started right there. You're going to begin to see where you are in the process. All right, quick commercial break. Got to pay some bills. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

The Ramsey Show continues, and we are thrilled that you've joined us. I'm Ken Coleman. Dr. John Deloney joins me. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Taking your money calls, any kind of work, professional income-related calls, and mental health and relationship calls we we take it all and we're thrilled to be able to serve you that way 888-825-5225 jeremy is up next in baton rouge baton rouge for the rest of you jeremy how are you doing well ken how about yourself i'm doing well i'm having too much fun with the place you live. But, you know, you've got to say it a little bit more exciting every once in a while. Oh, absolutely. It's a great place. So how can we help today? So I'm working on my Ph.D., and I'm part-timing it right now.

It's a 90-hour program at the university, and I'm trying to determine whether or not this is actually worth it. I've been in the program since 2000 and cash flowed the whole degree myself, and I'm feeling like I'm in a rut, and I'm trying to figure out, I'm close to retirement. Is this really worth the headache? What's the program? Leadership in Human Resource Development. Now, why did you get into it?

Where did you think it was going to take you? Well, I was expecting to be able to advance into the fire chief role in the local area, but that's not going to happen here. I'll have to go elsewhere and tell you the truth. Is that an option? Not really, no. So if I'm understanding this right, we pursued this PhD for a very specific role, and that's not an option.

That's done. Right, right. How much do you have left? About 30 hours. And how long would that take? Probably another three plus years. Well, John's answer may be different than mine, so I'm going to go first because mine's quicker. I am a guy who believes in degrees for one reason and one reason only. It is the only way

for me to do the thing that I want to do. Now, let me say as a caveat, if you want to go get a PhD just for your own personal accomplishment, I got no problem with that either. All right. But when I look at this situation, this is a clear no for me. I'm not going to just continue to sink time and money into something that has zero return. Zero at this point. And I would cut my losses.

I don't know what John thinks, but that's where I'm at on it. I mean, this is a rare moment, but I 100% agree with you, Ken. Like, Jeremy, you're talking about three years of your life, and that's 30 hours at part-time. That's six, four. That's being real generous if you take two classes a term, and then you've got to write a dissertation. That's another year.

Right. How old are you? 49. Okay, so. Hard pass. I guess, like, my mom finished her PhD at 53, but she had a very laser-focused career trajectory. Right.

Are you in love with human resources, or do you want to be a human resources professor? Not at all. Yeah. No, I think it was a one-shot deal. I was in it for the leadership purposes. Okay. Do you have an opportunity, and a lot of doctoral programs will do this, if you go sit with

your advisor, they will off-ramp you with a master's degree after you already got 60 hours, because most master's degree programs are 45 to 60 hours. Would they do that for you, or do you already have a master's? I've got a master's already, but I'll finish their master's program in December. I would finish that and sayonara. Roger that. I agree. Now, can I dig a little bit, Jeremy? What's going on there in Baton Rouge with this, you got a lid on you. What are you comfortable sharing? I don't want you to dig a little bit jeremy what what what's what's going on there in baton rouge with this this you got a lid on you what what what are you comfortable sharing i don't want you to in any way share

anything that you're not comfortable with but what where's this lid and and answer that first then i got a follow-up lid meaning why this is not here why this option why the chief the thing that you went after why it's not an option? Everyone that they put into the positions are very young. And before they retire, I will be long retired. I see. You're 49. Yeah, that's young, brother. Yeah. I'll retire in four years.

And then what are you going to do? Yeah, that was my follow-up question. What's next? Because you can't just retire and do nothing. Consulting was what I was looking at. The only redeeming factor in this whole PhD program is being able to go into consulting and organizational development. Great. I think the master's is enough, man. I think somebody who's as sharp as you are, a retired firefighter, you were in some type of a leadership role, correct?

Right. Yeah. I mean, dude, you got a great resume and you got a master's degree. You got two of them. Have you started consulting yet? No, not especially here's what i would do to give yourself a peace of mind you're 60 hours in you're two-thirds i i think ken and i both i think we're both right i mean i've just sat with too many doctoral students over the years that get halfway through and they're like what am i doing everyone just kept saying keep going so i just kept going i don't want to be here i don't like this i don't like the trajectory i don't want to sit in a classroom or a research lab for the rest of my life and i want you to actually consult once yeah even if it's free by the way yeah it sounds like a scam it sounds like oh dude you just get

like there's a great on new girl once he's like my girlfriend's running this awesome scam called consulting i love that you even know what new girl is. I love that show. Yeah. It's almost, it's like blue oyster cult, new girl. Those are my two favorite things. Okay. But listen, either you're going to be all about it or you're going to think, oh dude, I don't want to sit here and listen to someone else's problems and help people solve problems that they don't really want to solve. Like some people are wired for that, some are not. And before you go get, spend four more years of the best years of your life, transition out of a job you love into, and you're going to be losing a brotherhood, and so you're going to be rudderless, and you're going to be wondering where to go,

and sometimes getting in a room with a computer and saying, I'm a consultant now, I mean, it's a hollow run of it for a while. Go try some consulting on the side like ken said even for free give it a shot for a minute and then if you love it and they're like dude if you had a doctorate you could do anything okay cool fire back up yeah and jeremy i want to ask a one one more question on this sure why did why did you want to be the chief uh i'm asking myself that on a regular basis. It was one of those things that I was told that I was going to be a good leader and would be able to run the department. And I've been told over the years that it's not going to happen to happen all right so let me ask you this i was

digging for something i may have found something i didn't think i was going to find did you want to lead because you were told that you would be a good leader or did you want to lead because you wanted to lead i wanted to lead okay that's what i thought and i can hear the disappointment can we be honest that it's pretty disappointing and pretty hurtful. You feel like you... Oh, yeah. Okay. So can I just tell you, everything John said is right about consulting.

We agree 100%. But I think you need to realize that you want to lead. And I think a 53-year-old retired leader in the fire department is going to be really attractive in the Baton Rouge area, leading in any number of companies. I think you ought to start kicking the tires now, having conversations now, showing up at business meetings, showing up at business mixers. Start getting connected now and saying, three years, I'm punching the clock out at the fire department. I want to lead people. I've been leading. I got a master's in this. I got a master's in that.

I want to lead. My friend, I'm going to give you my book, The Proximity Principle, and I want you to read it and do it. But I think that consulting, sure, try it, kick the tires. But I think you ought to tell as many people as possible that you want to continue to lead at 53 and take everything you've learned. Because I think you want to lead, don't you, Jeremy? Absolutely, absolutely.

So, my friend, this is great. You're going to collect a fireman's retirement pension or whatever it is you've got, and I think you've got a lot of years of leading, and I think you need to give it everything you've got and find a place to lead. There's a lot of transferable leadership skill and experience that you're bringing to the table. And this nation, this world is starving for good leaders. And I think Baton Rouge is going to be a very nice place for you. So hang on the line. I want you to read the proximity principle. I want you to get around people that are leading currently, that are hiring leaders. Hang out

with guys that are going to leadership conferences like Entree Leadership Summit. Start listening to Leadership Podcast. I would begin to completely surround myself with all things leadership, and you watch what begins to appear right before your very eyes. Thanks for the call, Jeremy. You're going to get there, man. Be encouraged. John, great advice. Great hour. I want to thank James Childs, our fearless leader, and his merry band of men behind the glass. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time.