The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Start a Business at Age 17? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, and a host of the Ken Coleman Show, where he talks with people about careers and jobs all day long in 75 cities, plus a SiriusXM show, plus YouTube and podcasts that are very, very popular. So thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Blake is with us. Blake is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Blake. How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Been waiting on you to say that. So I have a question. My wife and I have wanted to build a house and every builder that we speak with has quoted us way over budget. So it seems that prices to build are continuing to go up. And so we have started to look at existing homes, but those are also very expensive. We're currently renting a two-bedroom, single-wide trailer, and we have two children. So we're just kind of stuck. We could pick a smaller house plan, but right now I don't think we would want to go much smaller than what we've already chosen.

So I'm just wondering if you think we should wait it out. Should we be looking at other homes? Just wanted to get your advice. Okay. And you're debt-free and you have your emergency fund plus a down payment? Yes, sir. Good. So you're ready to go.

Well, I would continue to look. This is your first home purchase, I take it? We actually sold our first home in August with hopes to do this. And so when we sold, we moved into this rental house. So this will be our second home. Okay. All right. Well, in general, here's a couple things to take into the formula.

Okay. Number one, generally speaking speaking with rare exceptions used housing is less expensive than new new is usually the the top line bar of how we set values in residential real estate uh and so you know you're going to get more bang for your buck with a used house in general and if you're having trouble making something that fits your budget, then that's going to be part of your answer for sure. The second thing you've got is we are in a very, very, very unique time right now with the lumber factories being shut down during COVID.

There became a huge shortage of lumber and lumber prices have gone up exponentially in the last little while. And the primary, the largest cost item on your P&L or on your project list as you're building a home is lumber. And so we're even seeing builders in some areas not agree to lock in the price. Like, we'll bid you a house for X, but if lumber goes up more, we're going to have an escalation clause in that contract. I'm hearing stuff like that happening out there. Okay? And so, which I would not sign up for that, by the way.

Okay. Steel is doing the same thing. I got a huge price increase on a building I'm building next door. Our conference center that we're putting up that we're breaking ground on next month um we just got the prices in and we've had a huge increase on the steel steel's done exactly the same thing so uh these unbelievable high increases in prices on lumber and steel are temporary uh but will they ever come all the way back down to where they were? I don't know. But it's a simple supply-demand thing that there was just not any, and everybody was chasing what few was there.

And so when the supply dries up and there's high demand, it always drives price up. That's seventh-grade economics. And so that's what you're facing on the new home-building side. It's one of the toughest times in decades to build a new home right now because of escalating prices on all kinds of different things. And there's this huge influx of people back into the real estate market. There's a shortage of inventory in the real estate market across the nation. To give you an idea, February of 19 to February of 20, real estate went up 3.9% nationwide in value. From February of 20 to February of 21, it went up 14.9%. Wow.

And so that's used housing. But part of that is that riding the cap of the shortage of inventory and the shortage of the lumber driving these lumber prices up. So if I'm in your shoes, I'm not going to ride it out. Now, I'm going to probably go ahead and buy a used house. I'm probably going to park my plans to build until some of the smoke clears on this craziness that's out there. Let this market balance back out a little bit. You'll be able to get better attention from a builder, and'll be able to get a a more predictable reasonable price and that might be three years

but in the meantime i don't want you in that trailer i'd be i'd be buying something that'd be my plan yeah thanks for the call it's a crazy time this stuff is white hot out there it really is but you know there are some opportunities you know i was reading a story recently of the wall street journal of how a lot of young couples are moving out of urban areas and into suburbia, and they're buying older homes that are still a good value. But what they're doing is they're taking their cash, and they're putting the cash into reno. So, again, we speak, we preach cash on this. Into renovation.

Yeah, but if you can renovate it and kind of make it more valuable, make it livable, if it's livable to begin with. You know, they've got two little girls here. Yeah, but if you can renovate it and kind of make it more valuable, make it livable, if it's livable to begin with. You know, we've got two little girls here. Yeah. So depending on how short he is, they had planned to sell and then buy, you know, just keep saving and get pretty close. But I would go the used route, too. I agree with that just because you can't go wrong there. Yeah.

Well, and you're either way, whatever you do, you need to be in the ownership role because it's going to go up. It's right. I mean, a 14.9, 15% increase in real estate prices in one year. That's extraordinary. I haven't seen that since the 70s when we had double-digit inflation. Right. And real estate was a big part of that. When I got in the real estate business in 1978, they taught us when we're doing a comparative market analysis, doing an appraisal, that for every month that the comp was old, add 1% for increase in value. So if it was a four-month-old comp, you'd add 4%.

That's a 12% annualized. Wow. And, of course, that's not happened in decades. And do you see it being – how much – I don't know. I think it's temporary. Yeah, because we're seeing this because of new home building. I mean, it's all this supply and demand.

It was just this pent-up demand. Everybody's sitting around looking at their house going, I hate this temporary. Yeah, because we're seeing this because of new home building. I mean, it's all this supply and demand. It was just this pent-up demand. Everybody's sitting around looking at their house going, I hate this place. And they hadn't spent that much time at home before. Right. And so they put it on the market, sold it, and there's just a shortage. Is it also because new home builds have slowed down? So once they speed back up, now inventory increases and then pricing drops. Yep.

Because you couldn't get lumber. Are you worried about a housing bubble? No. Why? No. Why? No. Because there's a shortage of inventory that'll balance out. Yeah. This is not...

This is natural supply demand is what you're saying. It's not some false... It's not just a froth. It's not a hyper crazy people going nuts just for the sake of going nuts. It is too many people chasing too few houses, which is supply and demand, and that drives the price up. So, you know, you hear the stories of a house going on the market. I heard one in my neighborhood this week that a lady was telling my wife went on the market

and it sold in four days, and there were multiple offers, and people were offering more than appraisal. They're not even going to be able to get it appraised. They've got to pay cash for it because they can't get the appraisal on it. Wow. Because the appraisals haven't caught up with the froth of the supply-demand that's driving this. This is The Ramsey Show. If current times have shown us anything, it's that the least expected events can and will happen, and we have to deal with it. That's why everyone who has a family counting on them needs term life insurance.

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Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Great rates and a simple process mean there's no excuse to not get this done, people. Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. St. Patrick's Day brought some folks a little luck this year. On Wednesday, the IRS announced that it is pushing the federal tax deadline back. Everyone in the U.S. now automatically gets an extra month to file, with the date moved from April 15th to May 17th. And that's for federal returns, not estimated quarterly payments, not state taxes.

And why did it get pushed back? Well, the pandemic is still affecting things, and when you throw in the very recent tax changes, the April 15th deadline was looking like a lot of trouble for the IRS. And with the change to May 17th, you have an extra month to not just file but to also pay your tax bill. If you're in Texas, Oklahoma, or Louisiana, your tax date from the IRS is still June 15th because of the storms that hit you. So what does all this mean? Well, it means you have extra time to file your taxes. But if you can file now, especially if you're due a refund, well, you would go ahead and do that, obviously.

Now, if you need help filing either online or with a trusted tax advisor, we can help. We can hook you up with a tax advisor. We can hook you up with Ramsey Smart Tax. Just text TAX to 33789. Text TAX to 33789. Evan is in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Hi, Evan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Uncle Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can we help? I'm here with my wife, Tyra, and we've got a question for you. Okay. We've been on baby step two for some months now. We have about $7,000 in debt that we're taking care of, and with a baby on the way, and unfortunately some taxes, we've got about another five coming down the line for more debt.

And we made the decision together that I'm going to go back to school at the end of this year. So with debt and a baby and school, we are wondering where to focus our money while being on step two, big step two. Okay, it's incongruent for we made the decision to go back to school together at the end of the year if you can't pay for it when you're working to get out of debt. Those two things don't work together unless you can afford to pay for it after you're out of debt. What's your household income? Currently, just over $40,000. Okay.

And so you need $12,000 to pay off the $5,000 in IRS debt and the $7,000 in debt, and you need how much to go back to school? With three years of school, I anticipate maybe no more than $10,000 a year, so let's say $30,000 for school. Yeah, and who's working? You're working during this time? We will be anticipated full-time school, part-time work, yes. And how are you paying for $10,000 a year

and paying for your family? We are anticipating some grants. Now, I guess you should know, if those don't go through, getting a loan out for school is not an option for us. What kind of grants are you anticipating?

I was under the impression that there's some grants out there to help families go to school. And now I don't know the math, but I was going to see if those are available and then do the math to see what it would cost and how much work would have to be done to continue. Why school? Why school? I'm just curious. What's the reason for going back to school? The field that I'm interested in requires a degree.

What field? And the construction management. No, it doesn't. Yeah, that's a complete and utter myth. Dave knows a little something about construction. Lots of people just could do construction management all day long without the degree in construction management. Yeah, you could work your way up the ladder. Are you in construction?

I am, yeah. So you basically said you think you need a degree. Somebody's convinced you or you just have this myth out there that you need this degree to lead people in the construction business. You're already in the construction business. So let's set that aside for right now. What's the payoff date? Before you called, you guys have been thinking through this. When were you planning to pay the 12 off um our calculator tells us um what was it kind of you know uh to get our debt

taken roughly roughly i think we're looking at three years three years to pay twelve thousand dollars off well you know what you're right with new, with the baby bill and the taxes, that probably has increased by a couple years. No, dude, you missed what I was getting at. That's way too much to pay off that money. Yeah, this needs to be a matter of months, not a matter of years. It's a small amount in the grand scheme of things. And no, you're not going back to school until you're debt-free. No.

And no, you probably don't need to go back to school to do this. So all of this to say that helps with the priorities a lot. Yeah, you know, I think you need to do some more. Is a four-year degree in construction management necessary for you to do construction management? No, it is not a precursor. There's not a licensing issue. There's not a problem with that you you do have to have the knowledge to do construction management and is that a way to

get the knowledge yes it is a way there are other ways for you to skin this cat and i would highly recommend you do the other ways because you have a family to feed and raise at this point but dude you need a system where you are 100 debt free in about six months and that's going to involve like two extra jobs you're raising your household income and getting on a tight budget if you made fifteen hundred dollars a month delivering pizza five nights a week which you can do as an example you would be debt free in just a matter of months if you threw all of that at the twelve thousand and um and you got to get this irs whatever caused this IRS problem, it has to stop. And so that means you're under withholding or something else you did that you can't do anymore.

So here's your hint for the future. We don't need to make decisions that we can't pay for. So we made the decision, I'm going back to school at the end of the year. But we have no freaking idea how we're going to do it at this point, except these mythical grants that you have in your mind that I don't think are out there. I think you're going to have trouble finding those. I hope you can find them, and I don't mind if you go to school and pay for it, but I think you're going through a lot of trouble to try to increase your income, and there's

other ways to do that on your career track. Yeah, first things first. I mean, I tell people this on the Ken Cole Show. Look, we can pursue the dream once we get financially stable. And, oh, by the way, when we get financially stable, meaning getting out of debt, getting the emergency fund in place, and then having a plan to be able to cash flow or getting qualified, you get there faster than if you try to do it this way, which is go to school.

And I've got to say this, Dave. you get there faster than if you try to do it this way which is go to school and i gotta say this dave i i i gotta do a little rant here uh and it's quick but folks if education if higher education isn't the only way to do what you want to do or the best way then don't assume you have to do it so ask the question do the. If I want to be in construction management and be successful, is a four-year degree the only way to do that? Is it the best way? I'm not even sure on that one, to be honest with you. I'd have to do some research. I want to talk to Winston, your son-in-law, on that one.

Because I think if you get in the business and you really figure out from people that are construction managers, why I wrote the book The Proximity Principle, get around some people sean uh uh who uh are doing this excuse me evan i apologize evan get around people that are actually successful construction managers even if it's a phone call or a friend of a friend of a friend and go hey how would one how could i how could i get the information i need without going to get a four-year degree what just humor me friend what would it take to get there get a four-year degree. Just humor me, friend. What would it take to get there without a four-year degree? You'd be surprised sometimes. Four classes at the Vo-Tech school on project management and on construction technique to add to what your knowledge you already have working in the business, you're probably there.

And oh, by the way, you probably could take on another construction job or something in this field right now to pay off the 12 grand. And if it depends on the size of the company, they might pay for you to take the classes to become one of their managers. You bet. Yeah. There's another way. That's your angle.

It's not stop your life and hope grants will carry your little family along. That's a scary scenario you're painting out there, brother. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Thanks for calling. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host.

Sean is with us in Baton Rouge. Hi, Sean. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you. I'm calling. I have a question about the baby steps. We're self-employed, and we're trying to get on board with the baby steps. And I was just wondering,

should we only have $1,000 being that we're self-employed for baby step one, or should we have more? You're not making any money, are you? I mean, well, last 2019, the adjusted growth income was $188,000. Okay, then why are you worried about only having $1,000 if you're making $20,000 a month? I'm just trying to do the biggest steps, and my husband, he's trying to. I know, but I mean, you're making $20,000 a month.

Why are you worried about having $1,000? I don't know. I'm trying to make it make sense to him. I mean, that's a common sense question for him. Yeah. You have $20,000 a month coming in. Why are you worried about only having $1,000? You got plenty of money coming in.

Okay. I mean, if you had a major emergency, you would just twist, turn, and use that $20,000 and work it out, right? Yeah. Yeah, because I'm trying to get him to use the cash that we have on hand, and's like no we need to keep this in case of an emergency yeah so he's also the one that got you into debt yeah so his best plans aren't real good ones right okay so i'll let him know hey sean i got a great thing for you. You know, because we do this not just on radio stations all around the country, but we're on YouTube, you can actually take him to this moment, rewind, and let him just watch it for himself.

Yeah. So how much debt have y'all got? How much debt have y'all got, honey? Between the business and personal, we have like $229,000. What's on the business? The business is $9,000. What's on the business? The business is $110,000. That's lines of credit and a PPL loan. Ooh.

Okay, and what's the personal? The personal is $117,000, but that doesn't include the mortgage. And it's a vehicle, a HELOC loan, the IRS, and a student loan. How much do you owe the IRS? $12,000. Okay. And what kind of net profit are you making on this $188,000? What'd you pay taxes on?

That's what we pay the—now, the business brought in $950,000. Oh, that's your actual profit? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. How long have you guys been running this business? Nine years.

Okay. All right. Well, I started our business on a card table in my living room, and we coach businesses through our Entree Leadership brand all over America and have for decades. And I can tell you what's happening here, okay? Just by the information that you've given me. And this is not – I was kind of poking fun and being sarcastic a while ago, but now I'm concerned.

Now I'm a little bit concerned, okay? You have IRS debt. You're making clear close to $20,000 a month, and you're so discombobulated and confused, and there's so much chaos, so little organization, your accounting system sucks that you still feel out of control. And this business has grown so much bigger than your ability to manage it yes and so it's kind of like you feel like you've gotten in a real powerful car and you just learned

how to drive yeah i can hear it i can tell i can feel the numbers i'm telling you i'm just like what am i supposed to be doing yeah yeah so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to send you a copy of our book, Entree Leadership, on how to run a business. It's our playbook on how we've run our business. It's not going to give you all the information you need, though. You need to get with a different person than you've been using to keep your books. How many employees do you have? None. We just have subs. It's a home maintenance and

remodeling business, so we don't have any employees. We're just 1099 in the subs. Okay. Here's a book for you to pick up, too. I'm going to give you two or three assignments that are going to help you with this, because you're classic. You have become very successful, and your success is going to be your doom is how it feels. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. And I'm so proud of you.

You've done so well, you and your husband, okay? This is a great success story, but your lack of systems and your lack of accounting is classic in your world, because your husband is a guy that can fix anything. He knows how to do any kind of construction project and get it done, and he knows how in your world. Because your husband is a guy that can fix anything. He knows how to do any kind of construction project and get it done, and he knows how to run the subs. Right. But he hasn't ever learned, and I had to do the same thing,

and everybody that's in business has had to learn to do the same thing. You've got to learn to run the business side of the business. The second book is called The E-Myth, E-Myth by Gerber. Okay. By Gerber, G-E-R-B-E-R. And Michael Gerber says in that book that you have to learn to work on your business, not just in your business. Right. And you guys have been working in the business and growing it up, but you've never stepped back and put the accounting systems in place to control the flow of the money because you've got enough money to clean this mess up really, really

fast when you get it efficiently managed. That's how I can tell there's a bunch of chaos. Yeah, yeah. And you need to start job costing each one of these jobs separately, and that probably involves an estimating package, a good estimating package with a good accounting software. And so the third assignment, I'm going to give you two books and an assignment. Read those two books, okay? Kelly, if we've got e-myth, just ship it to her.

If we don't, just ship her the information on how to get an e-myth book. But anyway, then go to DaveR you go to davramsey.com and click on tax elp and find one in your area there in baton rouge that helps with bookkeeping and have them come in not to fix it all but to start to teach you and your husband how to do an accounting system properly run that will help you get control of this. Because this money, you're trying to out, I did this for years, and I'm not making fun of you, okay, because I've done the exact same thing. I tried to out-earn my stupidity.

Right. I tried to work hard enough, make so much money, that it overcame my lack of systems and my lack of accounting prowess and my lack of other things. And you run too big a business now to not increase your sophistication, it leaves you vulnerable to failure that you don't need to feel the stress that you're feeling. I know. You're making a lot of money and you're working your butt off, and you could have a lot more peace than you have right now.

So you desperately need someone in the accounting world to come in and go, okay, here's what job costing looks like. Here's what cash management looks like. Here's what an accounting system looks like. And whoever's been doing it before you before has not been cutting it, so they're gone. You've got to fire them. And you may need to hire someone as a full-time bookkeeper, miniature CFO, whatever we want to call it, controller. You know, probably $60,000, $70,000 a year you could put somebody on as a controller that could jerk a knot in his tail pretty quick and get it all straightened out

and give you half your life back. And you'd make more money as a result of hiring them than they cost you. That's right. They're spinning plates right now, and they've got to get some simplicity. It feels very complex. Their business is fairly simple, but I think it's got all these moving parts and what you're saying is right once they simplify and get a really good system oh game changer now they know what to do with the money now we can work the baby steps and pay this debt off because the beauty of this is sean's husband is

really really good at making money that's a fantastic... It's a great business to be in, number one. Number two, he's proven that he's good at making it. The problem is that the thing's going to... If you're not careful,

it becomes very unstable like a house of cards and it'll fall in on you because of all the chaos. And the IRS hadn't been paid. We've got all these other bills

that hadn't been paid off and we make plenty of money to pay them all off. You could clear it in no time. That's right. And that's why he's reaching and saying, I need make plenty of money to pay them all off. Right. You could clear it in no time. That's right. And that's why he's reaching and saying, I need more money in the savings instead of $1,000. Sure, they feel it.

Yeah. Yeah. He needs that pad because he has all this volatility going on. And all of that can go away with some systems and some processes in the accounting world. And it's really not rocket science. It's stuff you could do on a yellow pad if you knew how to do it. it's really not rocket science. It's stuff you could do on a yellow pad if you knew how to do it. It's really not that hard, but you've just got to have someone teach you and say, this is how this works, and you've got to get this in control,

and then let's lay out some cash flow priorities, and let's begin to clear these debts up. You could clear them up very, very rapidly. You could be completely debt-free in your world in about two years, 100% debt-free in two years. Would that be wild? That'd be wild. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture today, Philippians 2, 3 through 4, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility.

Value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest of others. Brian Tracy says leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people. Ethan is with us. Ethan is not on that line. He is on that line in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Ethan.

How are you? I'm doing well, Mr. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How are you? I'm doing well, Mr. Engie. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just wanted to get some advice on what are some things that I should be doing as a young person trying to start my own company. How young a person?

17. Okay. What kind of company are you trying to start at 17? A drone technology company. Drone technology company. To do what with the drone technology? For police surveillance purposes. Okay.

So you're going to get police departments to hire you to help them with their drone technology. Yes, sir. Hmm. Okay. I'll play hard to get for a second. Are you okay with that? Yes, sir. One of the problems you're going to have to solve is why would a police department hire a

17 year old to do that that is another point i'm not trying to be a dream killer dude i'm just trying to present you with the problems you're getting ready to face okay trying to help you with your path so i think that can be done um and so because you know, here's the thing about drone technology. It's a lot like other technologies. Old people are intimidated by it. And we always look for a teenager to tell us how to fix it. So that's the good news in this story, right? Yes, sir.

And so that's one way to open the door. But just to present yourself as we're a big time drone technology company only uh for the local sheriff's department to discover that a 17 year old's running the thing could cause you issues so i think i want to back into this rather than uh go into it face forward and probably go in and help the local law enforcement people for free for a little while and to to where they get to where they can't live without you what do you think ken yeah ethan i i like the ambition i think you're going to have to actually start doing some drone uh surveillance have you been doing that

um i have purchased a few model kits that i've put together and tried putting my own spin on it with different types of miniature cameras. Yeah, so you've got to create a body of work. So let's just start with, Dave's absolutely right, but let's start at the very beginning here. Before we try to sell your business, we've got to show your work. There's a great book by a guy named Austin Kleon named Show Your Work, very simple book

you can read in 10 minutes. You've got to, now that you have these drone kits, you've got to get up there in the air and you've got to start doing real estate, maybe doing a nice aerial of somebody's farm or something. If that doesn't get shot down, you've got to be careful these days. But you've got to show your work and begin to show the video quality of what you can do with a drone. So from a crime-fighting perspective, Ethan, you've thought about this. I never have. How is a drone used?

Well, basically, if the police were storming said building, they could use a drone with a high-definition 4K camera to follow suspects that might leave the building, or they could use a thermal camera attachment to try and gauge how many heat signatures are inside the building so they could get a better understanding on who was all in there and what they were expecting. I thought you had thought about this. Okay, good.

So here's your body of work. It's not just flying over a farm. Okay, you get six of your buddies. You find a friend that has an abandoned house on a farm somewhere or something, and you go stage how you would use this and make your buddies be the bad guys and the good guys. Yes, sir. And you show a police professional, a crime-fighting professional, how you would have done this. And if you have two or three of those pieces of tape uh you know i i would just waltz into the uh local guy's office and say hey um i've really i really

think i can help you guys i know i look like i'm 17 because i am but i want you to watch this for just a second or if your dad knows somebody they're at the police department that'll give you a hearing and let you just give me five minutes let me show you what we did and you show him how someone's life got saved or how a bad guy get captured got captured or whatever the benefit of this is with a staged scenario with some of your buddies playing cops and robbers so to speak um and then when they see the benefit of it they don't care how old you are yes yeah but i do want to go back to what i was saying i think that's great i think it's a bit And then when they see the benefit of it, they don't care how old you are. Yes, sir. But I do want to go back to what I was saying.

I think that's great. I think it's a bit of a Hail Mary, though, and I like that. I say go for it. But I still think if you want to start a business with a drone, then let's crawl a little bit. Let's start making some money. I know a lot of kids. I actually know kids in this area that are doing drone work for real estate professionals. Oh, yeah. And they're young people.

Aerial of properties. Well, I know know there's lots of drone work being done but they're all one kid's 24 another kid's 19 you know i'm saying i want him to just start making some money with drones period while he's doing the same thing while you're trying to do this highly sophisticated crime fighting drone yeah because the only question mark i have for you ethan and i have for myself is do most sheriff departments i mean how widespread is the usage of drones right now i don't know either i don't know i think your metropolitan areas though they do it it's a cool thing yeah so a build a body of work b try to find a contact through a friend that will give you a hearing uh c go make some money in something that's not necessarily crime-fighting

with drones to prove that you have a business, and use all of that as you beginning to build your entrepreneurial experience. I'm with Ken. I love your ambition. I just want you to fight through the troubles. So, Ethan, the reason I ask a question like that is this. Three weeks after I turned 18 years old, I got my real estate license. Three weeks later, I sold my first house to a guy I knew from high school.

And he was the only one that would talk to me about a house. Right. Because I was 18 years old. Who buys a house from an 18-year-old kid, right? That's a very good point, yeah. And so I spent the next four years of my life while I was in college selling real estate, fighting the uphill battle of being an extremely young, extremely young real estate agent. And I've laughed about this before, but I grew out a mustache, my little Tom Selleck

mustache back in those days, Magnum PI. I ain't got to get my hands on one of those picks. You got to get that pick. And I had the disco suit, because disco was big. It was the only suit I had. Bell bottoms? I didn't have a real suit. Bell bottoms?

Well, sort of, but they're kind of John Travolta look you know okay all right and so i'm out showing houses with my tom selleck mustache and my you know and but i still sold some houses because i was like ethan i was ambitious and i was just gonna scratch and claw and make it happen and the experience was valuable but i was so uh sure of myself that would be an understatement yes that it never occurred to me that this was going to be an uphill battle to get people to buy houses from an 18 or 19 year old young person and it was a huge battle and so i just and and you know people try to tell me you can't do it and i did it anyway so i'm not telling you you can't do it ethan you can do it anyway but i don't want you to miss the fact that because sometimes guys that are into technology,

they think the technology is going to make the sale for them. And, you know, they've got to know who's running the freaking drone back there. Yeah, you've got to show your work. Now, again, if you show your work and your work is good, you're eventually going to get some yeses. And there will be people who always discount your youth. So what do you have to do? Dave just said it. You've got to show that, hey, this is the quality that I can do.

And here's why I want you to just do any job you can with Adrenaline. I want you to get some momentum. I want you to get some momentum in the form of money. When you go in the stress department and say, I'm already making good money doing this, this, and this. But I really have a bent for this crime thing. And, you know, it's not like you're my first client. That's right. You know, you're my 18th client.

You're just my first crime-fighting client. I love the long pass, the Hail Mary. Go for it. But don't put all your eggs in that basket. You know, offer to help them for free. I can't say that enough. You're exactly right. Yes.

You know, if you're making money over here doing real estate or whatever, dronage, right? Dronage. There you go. There's a whole new thing. I love that you just came up with a whole new word. Just whatever, dronage, right? Dronage. There you go. There's a whole new thing. I love that you just came up with a whole new word. Just came up with a whole new word. Dronage.

But anyway, you're over there making money doing that, so you can afford to go into a live crime situation and help them and prove your worth and do it for free two or three times, then they will get you into their little government budget to keep you around, and you may have just started a big, hairy deal. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I love the idea. Very fun.

I just don't know much about it, so I fumble around. Wander through the question. You didn't fumble, Dave. You created a whole new industry. It's called Drone-ish. Drone-ish. That's it. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamay.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville

and tell your story.