The Ramsey Show - App - How to Scale Your Business (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Ken Coleman, Anthony ONeal, Career, Debt, Budgeting   Tools to get you started:  Take TDRS listener survey to win a $100 Amazon gift card, click here: http://bit.ly/2krRePv Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. Sitting in for Dave Ramsey this hour, I'm Ken Coleman, host of The Ken Coleman Show, best-selling author of The Proximity Principle, and this is fun.

Joined in studio by best-selling author Anthony O'Neill, whose next book, soon to be next bestselling book, Debt-Free Degree, launches really soon. Anthony O'Neill, what are we, a couple weeks out? Yeah, man, we're less than 14 days, about 13 days out from launching out this book. I do want to correct you on this radio show. You said bestseller. King Komi, you are a national number one bestselling author. Well, thank you. That's very nice.

Can we just please give the credit where it's due? Because I want to acknowledge your success because I'm praying that I can also one day say national number one bestselling author. Well, we are certainly praying and working towards that end. Thank you, sir. You're going to hear a lot about it. And coming up a little bit later in the program, I'm not going to tell you yet. I'm going to tease it.

Anthony and I are very excited to announce something that not just Ramsey Solutions is doing, but that we are doing together. Yeah, it's going to be fun. The first time you and I have ever been on stage together by ourselves. And I'm going to tell America right now, it's about to be amazing. All right. Don't say anything more. Don't say anything more.

He's starting to tell you. I don't want him to tell you. Oh, my goodness. Hey, but we're going to have some fun this hour. We're going to take your calls about money, finance. We'll talk about career. It's your show. It's all about you.

888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. We'll start it off with Mike. Mike, how can we help? Hey, guys. I've got a quick question. It's pretty exciting to talk to both of you. Anthony, I went through, just paid off my student loans last month

and went to school and didn't get a degree but got a heap of debt. And so that feels good to get that off my shoulders. And Ken, along the same lines, I kind of just followed a passion I had when I was a kid, and it turned out to be super crucial and necessary in this world now. I started playing with video cameras when I was about 15 years old, and that led to be my entrepreneurial career. So that's what I do. I film and edit.

I do production, media production, and post-production. And I started a small business where primarily I do film things on site and shoot video, but primarily I edit with clients from across the country. Now, my question is, how do I scale this? I've got – I don't want to get too specific on what I do, but it's, well, I guess I will. My clientele is, they're YouTubers and I edit for YouTubers. And I'm trying to figure out how I scale this. My concerns are a couple of things is if I farm out the work or have subcontractors under me, I have a hard time trusting someone meeting the quality that I've kind of established. That's a big thing.

And then also, it's hard to find people that do what I do and that understand the medium at the pace that needs to be quick enough and someone that I can trust and still make money from this subcontracting, not just lose all my money. Sure. Okay. Well, I think you're making this way too complex, and so I want to simplify what your concern is. And your concern is all based on your ability to believe in yourself that you can train somebody. I mean, everything that you just talked about, you broke it down to two things. You said, I don't trust others to do it the way that I want it done.

And then finding people who really understand this particular industry and these type of clients. And so both of those things are a function of you actually training people. You can transfer your knowledge. You really can. And when you transfer the knowledge, you do it the right way. You train, you train, you train. Then you trust a little bit, and you trust a little bit, and you trust a little bit more. And then over time, you will get people who can edit it the way that it needs to be edited. And then they're going to understand the industry. But you're making this thing way too complex.

This is about just getting other people who have the basic editing skills and the desire to do editing. Then train them. Show them. Don't tell them. Show them. That's real leadership. Showing somebody. Anybody can tell somebody. But you've got to show them. Show them. Don't tell them. Show them. That's real leadership, showing somebody. Anybody can tell somebody, but you got to show them. And when you show them enough, they'll learn how to do

it and they'll understand the industry. But that's the only way you're going to scale it. That's your question. How do I scale? The way you scale is by training others to do the things that you can trust them to do. And there's certain things that only you can do. So if you think about your business right now, what are the two or three things that only you can do? Make a list. Everything else, I can train somebody else to do it, and not only I can, I should. And, Anthony, that's the key.

You've got to trust people. You're the career expert, man. You broke that down brilliantly, man. I love it. It's actually possible, and you can do that uh and so let's go to a social media question this is dylan who writes in from facebook he says uh anthony i just graduated from college and i haven't gotten a job i started making youtube videos during my last year of college make around 15 000 a month from that hello and you know a

little something about youtube yeah he goes on to say I've been able to pay off all my debts from that of around $55,000. However, the income is not 100% steady, and every week the pay is different. So this is irregular income. Sometimes I make 2,000 a week, sometimes 6,000 a week. Should I get a normal job that comes with benefits and just do YouTube on the side, or do I stay with YouTube full time? Making $15,000 a month here and there is not a bad situation. The key thing I'm going to recommend to you, Dylan, is do a budget. What I want you to do is add up the six months of

your income and then that's going to be your average. Once you have a budget and if you can say your income is anywhere between $3,000 to $5,000 a month, and you know, you can continue doing the business, that's fine. Having irregular income is okay, Ken. Okay. My income is not the same. Your income is not the same every single month, but the key thing to a successful financial foundation is to make sure that you know, the average that you will have coming in is on a budget and you live off of your average. Then once you go from there, you're good i mean if you need benefits you can go to xander's insurance.com to have the greatest benefits but if you're making on an average anywhere between fifty to six thousand dollars sound like you could be making more than that and no you don't need an actual job you're a

young entrepreneur just don't get discouraged during the off seasons but then if you're making fifteen thousand dollars a month you don't need15,000 that month to live off of. So you're going to be scaling that out and saving as much as possible. And Anthony, you know this world a little bit better than I do. He's in the top percentage of people making money on YouTube, is he not? That's really good money. That's really good money. And here's the truth, Ken.

He can make a lot more on YouTube. I know several people. A good friend of mine is actually my brother-in-law who's making anywhere from between $15,000 to $30,000 a month on YouTube. But then there are months he will make zero. But again, if you're getting a check for $30,000, getting a check for $15,000, you're going to save and spread that out. So he's in a good place. Yeah, you need to learn this valuable phrase Dave Ramsey taught us. It teaches our Entree Leadership clients. Retained earnings, just like the personal budget save put it away and then when you have those off months hey we're not worried we got a full savings account and

we're just building building building all right coming up more of your phone calls for anthony o'neill and kim coleman we're sitting in for dave ramsey this is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution

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And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Welcome back, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by another fellow Ramsey personality and best-selling author, Anthony O'Neill.

We take your calls this hour. We'll take them on money. We'll take them on career. That's why we're here. It is all about you. And so we are taking your questions. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225 is the number. Let's go to Georgia where Adam is on the line. Adam, how can we help? Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I know Dave has mentioned multiple times when you're expecting a child to kind of

hit pause on the baby steps. My wife and I are currently on baby step two, and we're working through the debt. We do have a vehicle that we owe about $22,000 on, but it's worth anywhere from around $35,000 to $40,000. And that would pretty much wipe out if we sold that, our entirety of our debt, and we'd probably still have some to be able to put into an emergency fund. So I wasn't sure if it was worth either selling it and putting the money in the savings or selling it, paying off the debt and having some leftover before the baby comes, because we are expecting a child here in February. So just trying to figure out what direction would make sense, either sell and save or sell, pay off debt and save a little less. Yeah, Adam, again, you said you have how much debt again?

Total, we have about 27, 22 in a car and about five in credit cards. Cool. And how much is the car worth, Kelley Blue Book? We could, so it's actually, the Kelley Blue Book is different. We actually converted it into an RV, so we could sell it on the market for around $35,000 to $40,000. And if you sell this car, you will have other means of transportation, correct? Correct. You have two other cars that are paid off. Cool.

How does your wife feel about this? What does she want to do? She's on board. She's ready to go with it. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, we're kind of ready to pull the trigger. Oh, yeah. I'm on board with you and your wife as well.

You know, here's the thing. We want you to be as debt free as early as you possibly can. Now, yes, Dave does say and I do believe this as well, that if you are in debt and you're having a baby to pause to getting out of debt, you still be making your minimum payments on that because we want to make sure that you have some funds in the savings account for the baby to come. There's going to be some expenses with that. So we don't want you taking out any more debt when that comes. So if you can sell this car and get the $35,000, this is what I want you to do. I want you to sell it and then save the rest for the baby. Now, once you all get into a season and you know that the baby is good, you have no more surprise expenses coming from having a baby. Then whatever's left out of that savings,

take that back out and put it towards your debt. But as of right now, I'm putting that vehicle on the market today. I'm selling it tomorrow and I'm putting the rest of the funds in my account on Sunday and I'm preparing for my baby to come. Congrats. Are you guys having a boy or a girl? It's a boy. I'm having for my baby to come. Congrats.

Are you guys having a boy or a girl? It's a boy. I'm having a boy. Bringing a young man into this world. I love it, man. Again, congrats. Yeah. Let me ask a quick question here, Adam.

If I'm adding these numbers up, you got $22,000 on the RV and then $5,000 in credit card. That's it? Correct. That's all. How much expenses do you think you're going to need for this baby boy coming into the world we're still kind of wrapping those numbers we built our budget around our current lifestyle um and we kind of added some fluff room there for when the baby comes so give me a number give me a number uh so probably an additional uh around 750 a month is kind of what we're expecting we don't need child care or anything like that. So that's really it. Yeah.

I like Anthony's advice, but I roll into this thing with two or three months max. And once you realize if that $750 a month is correct or not, I'd look at some other ways to maybe fund that. Because I'm going to tell you right now, you could pay off all that debt just by selling the RV. So I'm with Anthony. Go ahead and put some away until you figure out your budget but you better have the discipline because there's a part of me Anthony that wants him to just say

go ahead and we got 13 in money he's going to make. He's got a surplus. And then he pays off the 5 and the credit card he's got 8 absolutely well there's part of me that wants you to do that but again i'm fine with what anthony said he's right but don't you know don't sit there and just look at that money and go oh you know and there's just

no sense to be paying that credit card debt when when you all it's not as it's not that much more expensive you know what i mean i mean it's not that diapers and food. You know what I mean? It's not that. Diapers and food and all that, I've been there three times. You can cut other household expenses to do that. So just something to think about. Be very disciplined with that. But my goodness, man, I'd have that RV online within an hour. Oh, man, the RV's online within an hour. And then also as well, one thing I'm teaching is we just want to be prepared

for any surprise medical bills that could come. So it's not really just about the monthly expenses, but we don't know what can happen medically. Oh, you're right. But once I get outside of that, I totally agree with you. There is no if. It's I'm attacking my debt 100%. Having a baby is scary. Oh, yeah.

And a young couple's first time. They think it's, you know, come on, you got this. All right. Let's go to Jacob who's on the line. Jacob, how can we help? Hi. So I guess my problem is that I grew up on Dave Ramsey. You know, my parents are big Dave Ramsey fans, and they know all the stuff.

I guess my problem now is that I've moved out, and, you know, I'm working three or four jobs, one steady job at Market Basket, and the rest are odd jobs for contractors and um I'm just curious about where do I begin my for lack of a better term financial peace journey um because problem I'm running into is now that I'm paying, I'm making just enough to, I'm, I'm living paycheck to paycheck basically. And I'm not exactly sure where to begin with it. And I'm not, I don't have any debt. So when I listened to Dave Ramsey, a lot of stuff is built around debt, but now I'm just

trying to figure out where I need to begin to save money. Jacob, how old are you, man? I'm 17. And you're already living on your own? Did you graduate high school? I graduated high school. I'm not living on my own. I moved out of my parents' house,

and I live with my great-grandmother, who is 77. How much money do you make? Yeah. I make about $1,300 a month. All right. And are you paying your great-grandmother rent? No, sir. She's not charging me any rent or bills.

I have a truck that my grandfather donated to me whenever I moved in, and I pay the insurance and the gas and any upkeep on that. And clothing and just any extra food besides just miscellaneous stuff, whatever, I pay for that. So, Jacob, I'm just going to be honest with you, man. I'm confused at how you live in paycheck to paycheck. If you don't have any debt, no mandatory bills, it sounds like the very first thing you need to be looking into is budgeting because your expenses should not be $1,300 every single month. If you do not have rent, mortgage, I'm thinking you're having some

insurance for your truck and maybe buying some food. So the very first thing I'm going to do for you is we're going to keep debt off of the table. But what you need to be doing right now with your situation is budgeting. And then also, I'm going to let Ken chime in here. How do we even get you up more to $1,300? Because if you're having three jobs and you're only making $1,300, I'm going to let the career expert talk about that situation. But from the financial perspective perspective you should not be living paycheck to paycheck that's a budgeting problem and so i want you to check out every dollar as well every dollar app and i want you to start listing out your your income how much you have

coming in and what you have going out and when you do that be honest okay and see on there where can you cut back because you need to be cutting back yeah and maybe this is maybe this is some uh something i should have also listed the thirteen hundred dollars a month is um what i'll be making now starting recently about a week ago um i just picked up the last two jobs i was making only about five to six hundred600 a month at Market Basket, which I understand is still a budgeting problem because with no expenses, $600 should be enough. Oh, yeah. This is a behavior issue.

You just need to do a very simple exercise. How about a pencil and a piece of paper and write out what your insurance costs you, what your gasoline is costing you, what kind of basic groceries you're contributing to grandma's cupboards. That's it. That is your budget. This is very simple. And then what is that number minus $1,300 if $1,300 is your net?

Yeah. Now we've got somewhere. Now we're going to save up a lot of money. And then you are going to look up at $21.22, and you're going to be very well off. This is not difficult. This is about having a vision based upon a discipline. All right, coming up next, your phone calls and a huge announcement from Anthony O'Neill and Ken Coleman

as we sit in for Dave Ramsey. Don't move. More coming up. Hey, guys. At the Dave Ramsey Show, we really value your input. It helps us to know what's important to you so we can deliver relevant content to help you crush your money goals. We just launched a brand new survey, and we'd love your feedback. It only takes a few minutes, and you'll be entered to win a 100

amazon gift card no purchase necessary take the survey at davramsey.com slash survey or text survey to 33 789 This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Welcome, America. It is your show. I'm Ken Coleman, one of the Ramsey personalities, joined by another Ramsey personality, Anthony O'Neill. We are here sitting in for Dave this hour. So excited to have you with us.

888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. All number. 888-825-5225. All right, so we're in today not just to answer your calls. We're also a little bit excited about an opportunity to work together. Now, the five Ramsey personalities plus Dave, we get to do things together every once in a while. We're always on the same stage at our SMART conference, which will be coming up in in november in sacramento

california november the 16th uh but and we've been on the stage before from time to time at financial events but now they came to us and they said hey guys uh we want you two to do an event together and we sit right next to each other so we were like well this is cool yeah uh anthony is uh the favorite personality of the Coleman kids. Like, you're a bigger deal to my kids than I am, which, well, no, that's appropriate. You know, nobody thinks that their dad is cool. That's normal. So don't feel bad for me.

But they like A.O. They really like Anthony. And so when I went home and told them about this, they got excited. Oh, man. But we're really excited. Here's what it is. It's for high school students. Why is it for high school students?

Because here's the big questions that we hear from high schoolers, and you hear parents from your high schoolers. What do I do after high school? Should I go to college? Do I jump straight into the workforce? What do I do financially as I start to get out on my own, start making my own money? What do i do financially as i start to get out of my own start making my own money what do i do well we're excited that this brand new event with anthony o'neill and myself

is going to answer those questions very clearly and it's called the ramsey start right event graduate with purpose and own your future it's happening november 12th and 13th two nights yes at the historic franklin theater in the greatest small town in all of america franklin tennessee and uh it's gonna be the same event both nights so what you've got here is you've got two nights two opportunities for your high schooler november 12th and november 13, and it's just for high school students. So mom and dad, you don't get to be the helicopter hovering parent. You can drop them off, but we're not going to let you in the building. It's just going to be, you and I are going to be the old people. And it's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of energy.

Anthony, tell them what you're going to be talking about. Man, you know, Ken, I'm really going to be talking about how to go to school 100% debt free and really just how to start correctly when it comes to having a solid foundation. When you graduate high school, going into college, graduate college, going into the real world. Before joining the team, I was a very well-known high-end youth pastor. I had about 5,000 kids in my organization that I seen every single week. And one of the number one questions I was asking was, what do I do next? And this generation is hungry to know,

hey, how do I become successful? How do I get into my dream career? You know, how do I win with money? A lot of people think that these young people don't care about money conversations. Yes, they do. They're the number one consumer when it comes to spending. So this event, Ramsey Start Right event,

is simply that. We're going to teach our young people, high school students, how to start. We're going to have the conversation earlier on. It's going to be fun. Your energy, my energy on stage, it's going to be crazy. We're going to have some music.

It's going to, I mean, I'm telling you, parents, you don't want to come because you're going to see some things that you probably just don't want to see. Your kid's having a good time dancing, but at at the same time they're going to be learning a lot of great information that's going to impact their future all right so uh you heard what athie's going to talk about and parents i'm going to help your kids get the basic formula that will give them clarity throughout their whole life and it helps answer the big question why am i here yeah

we're going to look at what they do best every one of your kids every person on the planet is grown uh excuse me is is created and grows into two basic functions what they do best and what they love to do most right so we have core talents that we can develop into sharp skills and then we have things functions tasks that we love to do, to engage in. And so we're going to teach them that formula, how to identify what they do best, how to identify what they love to do most, and then how do they come together in their sweet spot. We'll do that and so much more in Anthony's Right. We're going to have some fun surprises, too.

This isn't going to be just practical content. We're going to have a lot of fun, and your high school is going to walk out of there with an advantage on everybody else because they're going to have some tremendous clarity and direction and a clear path forward to live the life that they were created to live. That's what the Ramsey Start Right event will be,

and it is, again, parents, just for high school students and tickets are only $10. I think we should be charging you much more but it wasn't up to me. $10. That's unbelievable. What a great price. And they can be purchased at DaveRamsey.com slash events.

That's DaveRamsey.com slash events or you can call 888-22-PEACE. Again, the date's November 12th and 13th here in Franklin, Tennessee. The Ramsey Start Right event. Graduate with purpose and own your future. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash events or call 888-22-PEACE. Can't wait to be there with you.

It's going to be a lot of fun. But back to the phones we go. 888-825-5225 is the number. Stephan will start it off in Minnesota. Stephan, how can we help? Hey, how's it going? We're doing well. What's going on?

I am a sophomore engineering student in a small school up in Minnesota. I'm going to a career expo. I was just wondering what I can do with my resume to generalize it, to give it to several different companies instead of having one specific one for each company. Yeah. Well, I'm very glad you asked that.

We have an actual free PDF at KenColeman.com that I want you to download as soon as we're done with this phone call. Because what we're going to do is we walk you through in this PDF. It's very easy to read and easy to follow. We're going to teach you how to flip your resume. Because, Stephan, everybody in the world, except for people who go to KenColeman.com, have basically the same resume. You could throw a hula hoop around them, and they all look basically the same. And therefore, your resume's not going to stand out. Your resume's going to look like everybody else's. And then here's what everybody does with their resume that looks like everybody else's,

Anthony. Then they just send it in online, and they just hope that they hit the work lottery. It's the same as playing a lottery. Your chances of getting hired that way. It's the exact same. And Ken, your resume PDF is actually working. So Stephan, I highly recommend that. A lot of my students who I mentor,

I've sent them to Ken Coleman's website and a lot of them say that the resume has worked and I've seen proven results for it. So not just Stephan, but listen to America. This is something that you need to be passing down not just yourself, but even to your kids. Go to kentcobman.com right now and download this tool. Now, the resume is only the first part, Stefan, okay? Because I've said this many times, I'll say it again today. Your resume is worthless without a relationship.

I'm letting that sit for a second. Your resume is worthless without a relationship attached to it. Here's what that means. If you don't have a connection to somebody in that company that you want to get hired for, so you're thinking you're going to this job fair and you're going, well, Ken, there's a bunch of companies. Well, you got to think this way. If you're going to ever hand out a resume, you want that resume to say at the very top, and we walk you through this in the PDF that we just talked about, but you want a relationship. It doesn't have to be a one-to-one relationship, meaning your parents could know somebody that works at that company, or your parents could know somebody really well, could be your uncle,

could be your dad's best friend, who then knows somebody that works at one of these companies. So what we do is we got dad calls his pal, and he says, hey, my son, getting ready to graduate, wants to work here, maybe wants to intern here. Hey, would you submit his resume to this person? Well, I don't know, Larry, but I know what department Larry's in. I can find Larry's office because Larry's in the building next to my building.

And so we get somebody walking in your resume and saying, hey, here's the resume of a sharp young kid named Stephan. And he's got the qualifications. I know one of his dad's best friends, and he speaks highly of this family. They're an outstanding family in the community. They've got great kids. This kid's probably a good culture fit. See, now that's how we get a phone call.

Yeah. And so we work the relationship tree. How many connections do you need to make to where you get to a point where somebody can vouch for you and they hand your resume in? That's how we get a phone call. So you've got to have a relationship attached to the resume or else it's just a brochure and you're nameless, you're faceless, and you're not going to get a phone call. And that works not just for Stephan, but it works for the rest of you. KenColeman.com to get that resume template. Go get it.

It's free and it's working. Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman sitting in this hour for Dave Ramsey. More of your calls coming up next. Welcome back, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thrilled to have you with us, us being Ken Coleman and Anthony O'Neill. Anthony, you having fun? I am really having fun. Yeah?

It's always fun taking questions from you, America. We're answering your questions about money. We're asking your questions about career as we sit in for Dave Ramsey this hour. 888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. We'll get back to the phones, and we go to Alex, who's on the line in Missouri. Alex, how can we help? Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call. So I've been really interested in trying to learn how to just get really fired up about paying off my debt. I'm always behind on bills, and I always like getting behind on debts, and there's no reason for it because I'm a finance and accounting student. So I know all of these things that need to happen. I just have issues making it happen. And I think it's a lot to do with willpower.

And I'm wondering really how to get that willpower going. That's a good question, man. How much debt are you in, Alex? Well, I've got an $11,000 car. And then back in June, I took out a payday loan, which was the worst mistake of my life. And I knew it when I was doing it too. And I still decided to do it. But it's like 350 bucks. Okay. So you're in about $11,500 of debt. What's your income right now? I make $16,000 a year. $16,000 a year. And outside of your debt, what are your average

bills? Are you living at home? You have rent, mortgage. What is that looking like? My fiance and I live together and she takes care of all of the bills while I'm in college because she's not in college. So she takes care of all of the bills and I'm just focused on mainly my car, any kind of food, gas, insurance, basic things that I need to live with. She takes care of all of the actual bills. Cool. Well, that's part of your problem. I'll, I'll, I'll speak to that in a moment. Sorry. I just, it had to come out of my mouth right there. I knew Kim was going to go there. Let me, let me address the question why you called in. Um, when it comes to motivation, man, I can't teach you how to get motivated. Um, I can tell you, you need to get motivated. You

know, you can't teach me how to get motivated. You're in debt and you're saying you're tired of it. That's all the motivation really that I will need. Here's what I do. I always come up with a vision and then I come up with daily habits that's going to get me closer to my vision. My vision is I want to have financial freedom. I want to build wealth. Debt gets in the way of that. So what am I doing every single day? I'm staying away from debt and I'm saving, I'm investing and I'm working hard so that way I can get to my goals. So for you, Wiz, it sounds like you lack vision. You lack clarity on where you want to go. So I would sit down and write out what is the vision that you have for your life. That is going to be your ultimate encouragement right there. But here's the thing.

If you can have vision without daily habits, that's just a dream. Okay. You got to put in some daily habits. What are you doing every single day to get there? Now, those are the two things that gets me motivated, that keeps me going every single day. But when it comes to your lack of motivation, that's going to be on you. But you've got to come up with a vision. Now, I'm going to slide over to Ken

because he's going to hit you with the other thing. Yeah, I do not like the fact that your fiancé, who you're living with, is taking care of basically all of your needs. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And I'm going to tell you why. There's nothing morally wrong with what she's doing.

So let me clarify. What's happening is you have no incentive. So incentive is the issue. And when there's no incentive, you're like, well, I'm going to school, and so everything's kind of cool, and I've kind of just got all the support. I think she's an amazing young lady to be doing this. But you need to get some skin in the game, first of all. And that's where incentive comes. I have some now responsibility that if I don't do this, bad things will happen.

This is just responsibility and an incentive based on potential pain. The best kind of incentive in my mind. Now, second thing I want to tell you, when you break down the word motivation, Anthony, you and I, you're a former preacher. I come from a preacher's home. I like to look at root words. What is the root word of motivation? It is motive.

What is your motive, right? We've watched crime dramas or we watch a crime movie, right? And the detectives are always looking for a motive. You have no motive. You haven't clarified your why. Anthony's advice is spot on. But before you can have a big vision, you must first determine your why. And so you're looking at things like, why am I in college right now?

Why do I go to college? Why this degree? What do I want to do? What's in my sweet spot? What is it that I dream of doing? When we start thinking about a desired future, a future that is bigger than we can possibly at times begin to try to imagine, it's so big. That's where we get motivation because then we go, wow, in order to climb that mountain, I'm going to have to make some sacrifices. I'm going to

have to change my behaviors or I'm going to die on the mountain. Right? And so motive, when we get a clear why, we don't need to worry about motivation. Dave says this all the time. We don't hire. They go, how do you get motivated people? Well, we don't. They're here because they're missional. We're not here trying to motivate people.

We hire people that are already motivated. You know what I mean? We want to find people who have a mission, have a goal in their life. So I think you've got to get centered on what's your why, what are you going for, stretch yourself like Anthony's saying, and then I want you to get some skin in the game. I don't like you just being a full-time

student and not working some. Which you are. You're bringing in a small amount of money. But let's go do some more. Let's help out the fiance for heaven's sakes and you know what ken i'm gonna say this and uh making some people upset but i if i'm sitting down uh with the both of you and your girlfriend i'm saying maybe y'all should step outside of that of living together so that way both of you can learn how to maintain yourself it's hard to have a man relying on a woman and and especially being a husband down the road one day, how can you take care of someone else

if you can't take care of yourself? So with you all both being young, I'm suggesting you go back home and really learn more about yourself and develop character and then step back into it once you're married. 888-825-5225, the number. We go to Audrey, who's on the line in California.

Audrey, how can we help? Yeah, thanks. So about a year ago, I read the total money makeover, and since then I've paid off about $55,000 worth of debt. We also, my husband and I saved $60,000 because I knew I was going to be starting grad school, so I started grad school a few weeks ago. And my question is this.

We didn't actually need the whole $60,000 for grad school. I picked an in-state program, two-year program, and we'll thank you guys. and my question is this we didn't actually need the whole 64 grad school i've only i picked the in-state program two-year programs and listening to you guys so i i'll take the program it's only going to be 20 so i still have 16 000 worth of student loans for my bachelor's degree that we've also been paying off and i'm wondering should i use that big chunk to pay it off which i'm willing claim to do my husband is like no maybe we shouldn't do that because no one just got deferred. Let's hold on to that in case something happens. Like we don't want it. Like what if you can't work? What if something happens? Like, let's just hold on to it and wait until the day you graduate and we'll pay off that student loan. So I just,

I'm not sure what to do. Oh man. You know, I'm not trying to break up a happy home, but I firmly disagree with your husband. You know, my book that's coming out, Debt Free Degree, and studies are showing you do not want to defer it because while you're deferring the payment, you're not deferring the interest. So this means every single day, this loan is going to cost you more money down the road. And I do not want that. So if you have the money to pay it off, you're actually saving yourself money up front. If you just go ahead and cut the check. I understand that's a large lump sum, but it's a large lump sum that is so worth the investment right now because it brings you freedom. And you can get that money back just by working down the road and it'll come back to you.

But I firmly disagree with her husband, Ken, on this one. I respect his role as her husband, as a man of the house, but I'm paying it off. I want financial freedom for myself, and we cannot play around with salary made, with student loans, with the federal government. It's robbing young people of their future, and it's just not something we want to play around with. Yeah. The only thing I'd add to this is tell your husband this, hey, I get why you're feeling this way, babe, right? You you're going this is safe but safe what we think is safe sometimes is not always smart yeah and what anthony's saying is actually smart and you want to choose the smart thing why because when you actually pay that off

then just show your husband how much that payment is every month to pay off that additional money which you can and you'll still have some left over, by my math. And so he has to see how quickly we will make up that amount that he wanted to save and not pay off the debt when we actually pay off the debt. And so what we're doing is we're reducing our expenses every month, and before you know it, we will be able to save up that same amount of money that you wanted to hold on to anyway, and we don't have a giant rock hanging around our neck. So really good advice, Anthony. And you just got to make the case.

Let him see the other math problem. He's looking at one way. You need to show him the other way. Well, this has been fun. Anthony O'Neill, thanks for hanging out with me, man. Always fun. I want to thank our producer, James Childs, and sitting in for Kelly today, our associate producer, Madison Browder.

But most of all, we want to thank you, America. Thank you for listening. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration, subscribe to Dave.