The Ramsey Show - App - Get Your Head and Heart Aligned on Career Choice (Hour 2)

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Lisa in Wisconsin starts us off this hour. Hi, Lisa.

How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for having us on. Certainly. How can I help? Well, I'm calling because there is some stress going on in our home right now. I quit my job before we had our surprise fourth baby to stay home with him. We just decided that was the best situation for our family.

And then we bought a new home that we're already in contract for in our building. The same month we had the baby, we went through FPU that same month too and realized we were kind of a mess and we got in a budget and I'm still home with our baby. And we're getting stressed out because our property taxes are going to become part of our mortgage payment coming next month. And we're still working on paying off debt. And my husband really wants me to go back to work and I do too. But we're just wondering, is it something that I should rush into and find something right away? Or is it okay to take a month or two and use some savings to kind of get us through until we find the right fit for our family?

What's your house payment? $2,700. What's your household take-home pay? It's about, without my husband's bonus, it's about $100,000 a year, and then he gets a bonus every year that's somewhere between $10,000 to $20,000. Okay, and so you have $120,000 income approximately, and so he should be taking home about $8,000 a month average throughout the year, but your typical month is more like $6,000 or a little more, right?

On our budget, it's about $6,000 even every month. Plus, you've got another $20,000 coming at the end of the year. And how much debt do you have not counting your home our student loan debt is our only debt we've paid off everything else and that's at 90 thousand dollars that's it how much 90 thousand ninety thousand dollars okay yes okay and you Yes. Okay. And you have four kids. Excuse me? I said you have four children. So what is the path that he's on?

What does he do for a living? He's in the financial world. The path that his income is on is going up rapidly or gently? I would say he would say gently. I would say rapidly. He's doubled it in the last five years. Okay. We don't know if it will double it again, but it's going to go up another $20,000 or $30,000 soon.

Yeah. In the next couple of years, I would anticipate, yes. Yeah. Okay. And so his angst over all of this is just his intensity to get out of debt it's not actually can you feed your family no it's it's to get out of debt and he's total but totally the nerd and i'm the free spirit and he's been on his spreadsheet and he sees that and it stresses him out. He needs to quit stressing out.

Okay? I want you to be intense. Intense is different than stressed. Okay? And there's nothing to be stressed at here. The numbers you're giving me are not disastrous. You have a $10,000 household income net of taxes, or $8,000 net of taxes.

So your house payment's a little high, but not for long because your income's coming up. And so you guys are not going to make a lot of debt progress this year, but probably next year you will. And that's okay. The other option is sell your house and move into a more affordable home we we bought our we bought the home we're gonna die in no you didn't that's absolute bullcrap that's bullcrap there's no such thing you're too young to have done that your life is going to change 14 times between now and then um the um no it's just a house don't don't attach don't you attach too much to it it is just a house and you know i really wouldn't trade your house for you being home with those kids since that is the desire of

your heart you did not call me up and say i love being a professional woman in the marketplace making money i am dying to go back to work you call me up and said i'm willing to because my husband's freaking out but my initial desire was to stay home when i had the fourth child that's what you told me yeah you don't want to go back to work and before i went back to work if i were in your shoes i'd sell your house and move down but i don't think you have to do either one okay i think your husband's just probably take a chill pill and you guys push on through this what did you what did you do for a living factors he doesn't want to stop contributing to his 401k which i've well he's not following what i teach him when i know when i know yeah so there's a problem okay i mean

listen you can't call me up and ask my advice on part of the program if you're not gonna do the other part it doesn't work i'm on yeah yeah i mean for him it doesn't work he can't he can't use me to send you back to work because he won't stop his dadgum 401k. Now I'm getting pissed. I mean, really. He wants you to go back to work to fund his 401k. That's what we just heard. Now that's completely out of line. When your desire is to be at home with these four kids, okay? He really needs to take a chill pill.

Really. And he is living in math and forgets that math is there to serve his family. His wife and his children are why we do math, not so that we win the spreadsheet wars. So, no, absolutely not. Okay. Yeah. You guys are trying to do too many things at one time. You bought a house you couldn't afford.

You want to fund a 401k while you have $90,000 in debt, and you'd like to get out of debt. Oh, and you'd like to stay home with four children. These are four things that are incongruent. You're going to have to not do some of them in order to get the other ones done. And you get to decide which ones because you're grownups. Personally, I'd stop the stupid 401k, chill on the getting out of debt just a little bit until his income comes on up and keep that house, or I'd talk about selling that house. Bottom of the list of four for me is sending you back to work.

That's the question you call me to ask. That's my answer. Thanks for calling in. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Number one thing that keeps you from accomplishing your goals is not what you're willing to do to hit your goals. It's what you're willing to give up to hit your goals. You have to be able to not do things that are incongruent with your goals to hit your goals or you never hit them, whatever the goal is.

Chocolate chip cookies are incongruent with me losing weight. You can't have both. You get to choose which one. And that's what we got here. We got a stack of incongruent things. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, I get asked all the time, at what age should I buy life insurance? Let me be clear.

If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance. Let me be clear. If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance. I don't care if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever. Your age is less important than your financial situation. If you have debt and a lack of savings, it makes no sense to risk your family's financial well-being based on the cost of a term life policy. Term life rates are just plain cheap, even if you're not in perfect health. And the best way to compare those rates is through Zander Insurance. Zander only sells the plans I recommend and shops among the top companies to find the best rates and the right coverage for you. Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com.

You've got no excuse to put this off, folks. Bad things happen to people all the time, regardless of age, and it's your responsibility to deal with this. That's zander.com or 800-356-4282. Hey, coming up at the bottom of the hour for 30 minutes with us, the last half of this hour, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, Ken Coleman will be with us. He's the author of the book, The Proximity Principle, and the host of The Ken Coleman Show,

heard on 40 radio stations across America, plus Sirius XM every day, and a proud product of the Ramsey Network, obviously. So we're going to take questions for Ken beginning at the bottom of the hour. We're going to talk about career. If you have questions about career, whatever that is, getting a job, getting out of a job, I don't know, interviewing techniques, whatever, the whole process, finding something that fits in your skills and passions, that is Ken's specialty for sure. So Ken Coleman questions, we're opening lines up right now at 888-22-822-B. No, don't call concierge.

Call us, 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. This is what happens when you have 27 years of doing two phone numbers in your head over and over. You do get them transposed every so often. All right. All right. 888-825-5225. Questions for Ken Coleman for the bottom of the hour.

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and we're holding lines open for him right now. The phone number 888-825-5225. Jennifer in the meantime is from Minnesota. Hi Jennifer, how are you? Hi Dave, I'm fantastic. Thank you for taking my call and changing my family. I'm honored. You changed your family. I just showed you how. You're the hero. How can I help? I'm in kind of a pickle and and I have searched all your podcasts, and I cannot find you talking about disability student loan discharge. I have already applied for this. The school helped me, actually, kind of crazy.

And then afterwards they told me that there is a three-year post-surveillance period where if I get a job and I basically make any type of money, they call it under the poverty level here for two people, which is basically any amount of money, all my student loans come back plus the interest that I didn't pay on them. Yeah, because you weren't permanently disabled. Exactly, but they're still trying to push me into doing this i'm just not sure what to do because are you permanently disabled i don't know yet i'm i want to say no i want you on ssi fight against it are you on ssi yes i am i would take it really and then if you're if you you know

if you if you uh go back to, then your student loans are there. If not, they're gone. Okay. And if you go back to work, we'll just put them on, you know, we'll revert to baby step two, knock out the student loans. How much student loan debt have you got? $72,000. When you were working, what did you earn? I earned about $42 a year.

Doing what? I was a bookkeeper and a general manager for an office. What's the nature of your disability? I got Lyme disease, and it took them four years to find it. Yeah. We lost one of our guys off the staff here. He's out on long-term disability, the same thing. And it took him five years to find his.

Yeah, that. He thought he was just lazy because he felt like crap all the time. Yep, I felt like crap all the time. I had memory issues. Yep, yep. And he thought he was like having the flu for five years. Yes. But he wasn't lazy.

He was just hurting. Anyway. Yeah yeah and in that process i lost my home i lost my vehicle while i was trying to figure out what was wrong with me because everybody else just thought i was lazy too um and then my kids and dad passed away as well all in a four-year period wow well and so you're receiving you're currently receiving SSI. Two forms. I get 771 SSI for myself, and then I get 980 for my son whose father passed away, a death benefit. You get that whether you have disability or not.

Right. And I have $11,000 in debt. The Lyme disease is being treated right it's being treated but it's a long process being treated for lyme disease i know and they're i'm like am i going to get 100 better and they're basically throwing their hands up in the air and saying we don't know right and so for me it felt like when i was doing this discharge thing, like agreeing to be disabled for the next three years. Does that make sense? Yeah, because you are, but you're also saying, if I get better, we're going to praise God and pay $72,000 off. Yeah.

I would gladly take the $72,000 back if your health returns in return for your health, right? Right, because the interest on this is just astronomical. I have $46,000 I actually took out in loans, and the $26,000 is just the interest since I've been sick. But three years of interest is not that much. Okay. It's probably another $6,000. Okay. It feels a little less scary.

Yeah. I mean, think, think about your interest rate 5.5 okay so that is um three thousand dollars a year okay that is a lot less scary okay because i was thinking it was going to be like 26 over the three years again you know 0.05 times 72 okay it's 3 000 right and so um that's your interest rate and that's that's the interest accruing per year so about 10 000 a year or 10 000 over three years if you go back to work anytime during that time if you go back to work after three years it's still forgiven, correct? Yes. Okay. So we just continue the treatments.

I don't know. I'm not a medical expert, and I don't know what your prognosis is going to be. The only times I've had experience with it is the one guy that worked here, and I knew one other guy that had it. And it's been a bit of a slog for both of them to return to health. And I suspect you might have a three-year window to get back to health. And if you have a two-year and six-month window, you stay out of work for six months and let this go by. And then you get back to work, even if your health returns.

Don't go back to work with two months left on the three years to run and blow the whole thing up. Sit there for two more months and let it go by. Because that's what it's for. That's how it's designed. And you're not lying and you're not cheating anybody or anything like that. But if after a year you're ready to go back to work and you have to get the student loan debt back, well, fine. We had it set aside if things went bad, but they didn't go bad. They went good.

And so you're back to work and take it on and knock it out. Yes yes i would take the deal because of the way we're talking through it here after walking through the kind of the critical thinking the worst case scenario best case scenario you look at the actual math and put all the pieces on the table to make the decision with and that's how i would do it so hey good question i'm sorry you're facing this i know that's been a tough run for you. And living on $1,600 a month is no picnic with a baby, especially when you don't feel good. All right, we're going to put you through Financial Peace University as our gift to help you walk through this. Hold on, and we'll have Kelly pick up and get that done for you. Meantime, we've got Ken Coleman on the line coming up here.

Not on the line. He's walking into the studio. But Ramsey Personality, and we're going to take career questions with him for the next half hour. If you have questions about your career, this is the time for you to jump in. The phone number is 888-825-5225. I'm going to be this half hour answering your questions. Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book, The Proximity Principle. Ken Coleman. Been a little busy this week doing shows, and you were down speaking to the Entrez leadership crowd. You had about 650 business owners in. On fire, too.

What a great crowd. The room was electric. Of course, Chris Hogan warmed them up all day. Not bad to have him as your opening act. It's not bad. It's not bad. But it was really fun. That's one of my favorite events

you know that's really our training camp you know at the summits the super bowl and and ems is this wonderful gathering where these men and women that really want to lead their companies the next level and it's it's just going through your playbook and it's a lot of fun to get to be a part of that so well you used a page out of your playbook, obviously. We did. We're talking about careers this half hour. If you want to call in with questions for Ken, the phone number is 888-825-5225. But you got around on the other side of it and not taught how to get the job but taught hiring. Yeah.

We know from a Harvard Business Review that turnover rate is largely due to poor hires. And so if we back that down, what's a big cause of poor hires? It's the interview process. And early in the day, Chris Hogan talked about our hiring process, which is extensive here at Ramsey Solutions, but then I focused on the intentional interview. And that comes from my background of hosting the Entree Leadership Program. I did 364 interviews, Dave, in five years.

I just recently handed the baton over to Alex, who's doing a wonderful job. Is that what made you go back and count them? Because I had no idea. The team told me. Oh, they looked at it. I didn't ask. That's neat. Yeah, it's kind of cool.

And over five years, Ken, on my last broadcast, they told me at the very end, they said, you did 364. If you'd have done one more, you'd have had a whole year. I know. I know. But what we did yesterday is what we've done at Summit before, and we teach on how do you make the interview count. You as the leader have got this select amount of time with a potential candidate. And if they've gone through a good process, there's some certain things that you in your leadership position need to know.

And so we walk them through how to prepare for that time and then how to actually conduct the interview. Because here's what we know. And so we walk them through how to prepare for that time and then how to actually conduct the interview. Because here's what we know. When you are prepared, you actually are able to sit and be engaged. But we know this, Dave, that most leaders will scan a person's resume minutes before they walk in the office and then glance at it throughout and they're shooting from the hip. And that's a complete and colossal waste of time that's ever done right so we're teaching let's be intentional here so that we we check out the fit and the feel and we truly can read the candidate are they acting is this real and so the power of a question dave as you know can unveil so much truth so that's what we taught on cool a lot of fun lay out a few questions that are very intentional that's right and you don't have to do how to match four socks in the dark no you don't

have to do all that stupid butt stuff that so many people do no it's just corporate america's lost his freaking mind i mean but all you're doing is trying to get to know somebody that's right well what matters to you so what do you need to know as a leader what do you need to know now there's two types of questions there what do i need to know from a, there's two types of questions there. What do I need to know from a technical fit? But then what do I want to know from the feel standpoint, right? Their character. Yes. Yes. We want to know, do we feel like they're genuine? Are they humble? You know, our good friend Pat Lencioni, we've both been friends with Pat for a long time. He has a great book, The Ideal Team Player, that you talk about a lot on this program, right? The three characteristics, humble, hungry, and people smart. Well, I got to tell you, if you only built your questions around those three attributes,

trying to determine does this person have those three vital attributes, that's a good interview. Yep. So don't overthink it, but here's the thing. Most leaders don't think about the interview. And so we walked them through a very detailed process that I use if I'm going to interview Peyton Manning or Condoleezza Rice in front of 3,500 leaders. I've got to be intentional. I can't go up on that stage and fake my way through the interview because we've got people out there who want to hear something from these people.

And so what we've done is I give them my secret sauce, and it actually works in a job interview. Very cool. Yeah. Good stuff. Ken Coleman, author of the book The Proximity Principle, also host of The Ken Coleman Show, now on about 40 radio stations around America, as well as Sirius XM. You can hear him every day. Joe is in Illinois.

Joe, your question for Ken. Hi, yes, sir. Thanks for having me on the show, both of you. Sure. I'm currently a real estate agent, kind of specializing in more of the agricultural area. I've opened an office, established a new area with a nationwide company. Going on two years, things are pretty slow.

Life as a nurse works at a local hospital. Just to kind of catch things up and go forward financially, I've accepted a position, a night shift position, which will still allow me to do real estate during the day. We're currently on step two of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and kind of looking for Jack being about a five-year period here and having to be completely debt-free. At that time, I'd like to be able to go back to real estate full time, you know,

because my actual third shift just isn't, you know, isn't where I want to be, but it's what I need to do right now to get myself set up. I'm just wondering if you have any advice as far as, you know, where, how you would look towards the future.

I'm looking to continue my education, certifications and so on in my specific field, but juggling the both of them is going to be a tough five years, but it's worth the effort now to set my family up for the future. Let me ask you this, Joe. If you were selling more houses, let's talk about the next 30, 60 days. Wait a minute. You said you're selling farms, right?

Yes, yes. Okay, so. And that's the thing is I'm making a little bit, you know, I'm making ends meet just through whatever comes along. But it's one of those things to where dealing with foreclosures. But you're wanting to sell large tracts of ground to farmers. Yes. And as a result, is that a longer sales process than obviously a home?

Yes. It's not as fast-paced. You know, it's not the, you know, three or four closings a month. But typically, you know, when there's a closing, when there's a closing, it's a very good commission check offer. How many large tracts of land or farms would you need to sell in a year to take away the need to work that second job? On a ballpark, probably eight to ten, because they range from 50 acres up to

500 acres so so what's the most you've sold in your first two years uh right now i'm averaging about 25 a year wait a minute you said you need to say save you said you need to sell eight to ten to not do your night job yet you took the night job because it wasn't working out but then you told us you sold twice that oh i'm sorry no i've No, I sold, you know, commission. I'm grossing about $25,000 a year. $25,000. How many transactions did you do?

That's right. You know, right now on small homes and things like that. No, large tracts of land that are your goal. How many of those did you do? Three. Okay. All right. So I just wanted to get some information on where you stand because here's the deal. You called and said, Ken, how do I grow the real estate career? How many people have you sat with that are really winning

in your area that are selling both, either homes or those large tracts of lands and farms? Have you sat with people who are really winning in those areas? Selling both? No, no. You've got to start there. Now, this is going to seem really simple, but this is the breakthrough. If you want to win, you've got to hang around people who are winning. Now, not just hang around and talk about football. I'm talking sit down with them and say, how did you get started? What are some realistic goals for me? I'm two years in, but I'm essentially a beginner in the large track of land section.

How could I bolster my sales with, let's do some houses and some things that may be a little bit easier to sell? You've got to sit with people in your community who know your community, and you've got to ask them. It's like being a college student again. Do you ever do a research paper, Joe?

No, I have not, no. All right. Joe, what section of Illinois are you in? Central. Okay. So go somewhere up into northern Illinois or southern Illinois that's not in competition with you and find a guy or gal who's selling 10 to 20 large tracks a year. And spend a couple days with them. That's what Ken's saying.

Yeah. You've got to understand some simple tactics, what works and what doesn't work. And it's a niche. That's a different world. And you've got to learn how to find the people who are looking for those tracks. But I've got to tell you, I'd be selling as many regular houses as I could to get through the baby steps and to truly set yourself up i wouldn't just focus on the whale i'd get a lot of fish yeah

shoot shoot some rabbits in the meantime while you're looking for the elephants but the uh the other thing i would do is ask yourself are there how many transactions of the size you want to do in a four-county area are actually occurring? Is this market actually going to support you doing eight or ten a year? Is there a big enough market? Because if there's only six transactions done a year in the whole area, and four people are vying for those, and you want to do eight or ten, you're going to have to change your strategy here because your marketplace is screwed up. Good question, man. Hope that gives you some pointers.

Ken Coleman's with us this half hour. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. joining us this half hour ramsey personality number one best-selling author of the book proximity principle ken coleman joining us he also is available to be listened to on the Ken Coleman Show by podcast on SiriusXM and a local radio station near you every day. At Ken Coleman on Instagram, at Ken Coleman Show on Facebook, The Ken Coleman Show on YouTube, all kinds of information out there. Check out if you want to get his interview process, how to prepare for the interview, how to put together the proper resume, all

at KenColeman.com. Or is it TheKenColemanShow.com? Just KenColeman.com. Both will work. I got it right. Perfect. All right. John's with us in Texas. Hey, John, your question for Ken. Hi, Ken. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure.

So my question is, currently serving on active duty in the military at four years in, coming up on my reenlistment window, and have the opportunity to apply for a couple different programs. One is to become a pilot. I'm actually in a career where I have the ability to be a crew chief on helicopters right now. I do enjoy flying. My wife and I are kind of tossing back and forth the idea because if I do sign up for that commitment, it'll put me at 12 years of service, leaving only eight left towards the military retirement. Our only real concern is having our children grow up away from their grandchildren and from our immediate family.

I don't know if you had any thoughts on which route is best or that sort of thing. Well, this is a great scenario. This is really where you're standing at a crossroads, and you're trying to weigh which way do I go. And I think in this scenario, I'm willing to bet that there's a head answer and a heart answer. So I'm just going to put you to the test. What's your head telling you to do if I made you choose? My head is telling me to stay in. Yeah. What's your heart telling you? Anything different? No. Great. Because if it was different,

I was going to say, we've got to get the head and the heart aligned. Because when they war against each other, it can create real confusion. And what I mean by that in your situation is you've got to weigh all of the pros and cons, like Grandma used to do, Dave. What are the pros for signing up and staying in? What are the cons? What are the pros for getting out and going to the private sector? What are the cons? And I think when you can get to a point, and I think this is a family decision, you know, you and your wife, and if the kids are old enough to weigh in a little

bit just to get their take, it's not their call, but I think when you are at that point where the head, you're saying this is a smart decision, this has lots of benefits to it, and also this is good for our family. I think when the head and heart align, you move forward, and you don't allow doubt to talk you out of it. What would be your doubts? Right. Because you called today because you just wanted some confirmation. What are you doubting? I'm doubting.

It's not really a doubt. It's more of like I never grew up having stability, and the military has provided that. It's provided the blessing of the following days program to allow my wife to stay home from work. And, you know, I'm at a very low rank right now and I have a lot of potential to move up. I just thinking about potentially regretting looking back and missing time with, you know, my father, for example, or my wife's dad, those kinds of thoughtful regression, I guess. So if you stay in, you're worried you're not going to get as much time with them, obviously, as if you got out.

Correct. Yeah, you know, I'm never going to step into a situation like this that's so personal to you and talk you out of why you feel that way, but I would say this. I think you can be very intentional to spend more time with them than you probably think, and it can be very quality, and you can make it really memorable. But I think the risk is if you step out of what you think is the right thing in your head and heart, Dave, and then you look back on it and you go, I regret that I made this move because I get to see them a lot, and I didn't make the move that I should have made professionally.

You can sometimes resent people, resent the very people you want to spend a lot of time with. So in this case, I think your head and heart are aligned, and I think you've got to trust that. Amen. Good stuff. Good stuff. And most people don't grow up with their grandparents in the same city. I didn't. I didn't either, and we both turned out.

Yeah, and I have great – yeah, you did. It may be debatable for me. I didn't either. And we both turned out. Yeah, and I have great... Yeah, you did. It may be debatable for me. I don't know. But, you know, the other thing, too, Dave, is that my relationship didn't suffer. His wife is at home with his kids. That's right. That's right. That's a solid, stable situation.

That's a big... That's a big... That's right. Yeah. It's good that you're thinking about it, though. Yeah. Melissa's in Iowa. Hi, Melissa.

Your question for Ken Coleman. Hi. Thank you Melissa's in Iowa. Hi, Melissa. Your question for Ken Coleman. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling because I have been in the same kind of career path for, well, career for 11 years. And I switched companies. I was really excited. I was just not really going the way I had hoped. I've also just kind of thought maybe this isn't the right thing for me to be doing,

but I'm just not really sure how to start over to try to decide what to look into or how to get ideas. Everything I can come up with seems like I need to go back to school, so I just thought I would see. All right, hold on a second. So you just took a job in a new company, and your words, not mine, you said, it's not working out like I hoped.

Tell me specifically and quickly what that is. I'm sorry. I took the job about two and a half, three years ago. So I've been here a little while. I do third-party benefits administration. And I wanted to get into doing more like system website building, but I've had some opportunities that I didn't get, and I just kind of feel like maybe this isn't the right thing for me to be doing after all. Oh, okay. Okay. So let me ask you this. If you had gotten any one of those opportunities, or if I told you that there's an opportunity closer than you think to do the system's administrative work, would you be questioning that that's something you want to do?

No. I don't think so either. So you've been dealing with disappointment, and the disappointment is making you doubt. So let's just ask a couple quick questions. Do you have the chops to do this work? If we gave you the job today, can you do the job and do it well? I believe I can. Absolutely.

And do you enjoy it? It's work that you would feel good about. You're excited about it when you think about it. Time seems to pass a bit faster when you're in the middle of it. When you're done, you look back and say, that was rewarding. Is that true? Yes. All right. So don't question everything and say, do I have to go back to school, Ken?

Do I have to do something different? No. We need a better strategy on how to get the work. And so it seems to me like the opportunity is not there in your current company. Is that correct? That's correct. All right. So here's the deal.

The company I worked for previously was kind of the same way, and I felt like I waited too long in that company for changing. What's the common denominator? So I'm afraid if I keep waiting, it's not going to happen. Right. We're not talking about waiting. I want you to tell me what's the common denominator, why you don't think you got the position.

Your best answer. What do you think? Is it qualification? Honestly, I don't think it's the qualification. I think there were a lot of people who applied for the position. I had recently come off maternity leave, and, you know, I don't know if it's just that coming back, I didn't have a grasp on some of the things that had changed. You know, there were just maybe people who were a little more qualified than me.

Okay, good. So let me encourage you. I'm going to encourage you, all right? Number one, you're very clear on what you want to do. That means you're ahead of most of the population. You're very clear, and that's the first step. We've got to be clear on what we want to do. Now we've got to get qualified. After we're clear, we get qualified. So what are those extra qualifications that you probably don't have that you need to go get? This is not a degree.

These are qualifications to do the technical work that you want to do. Let's get clear on what those qualifications are that will make you more attractive as a candidate. Now, while you're getting the qualifications, get connected. Hang on the line. We're going to give you a copy of my bestselling book, The Proximity Principle. And it's a clear path to walk you to the people that will bring you opportunity. Here's the formula that always works, Melissa, and it'll work for you. The right people plus the right places equals opportunity. Here's the formula that always works, Melissa, and it'll work for you. The right people

plus the right places equals opportunity. You've got to get outside the company and you've got to begin telling everybody, you know, not just close network, but acquaintances, people that they know. Let's identify some companies in your area that are hiring positions that you know you can do. And while you're getting qualified, get connected. And after you get connected, the opportunities come to you and that's when you start you step in circle back to the last two hiring managers that did not put you in the role that's right and ask them what you need to do to be the next winner of one of those positions and anytime you're disappointed do not run back to school no just get better don't run back to college to hide.

Yeah. No. It's thicken up the skin, get back in the fight, and raise it up a notch. Hold on. Kelly's going to pick up. We're going to give you a copy of that book. Ken Coleman, good job. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good job. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book

that we just gave her, The Proximity Principle. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.