The Ramsey Show - App - It's Important to Listen to Yourself (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

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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, my co-host on today's show, Ramsey Personality, Dr. John Deloney. So we'll, as always, be taking your calls about life and about money. Dr. John will answer questions from a detailed psychology perspective, and I'll give you horse sense. You get what you pay for on either one of those, man. Yours is a better value, Dave.

Just be careful what you're signing up for. That's all we're saying here. We're warning you ahead of time. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Let's start off this hour with Anna in California. Hi, Anna. How are you? Hi.

I'm doing great. I'm super excited to be talking to you guys today. I actually just discovered you like two weeks ago. Oh, wow. I know. I wish I would have discovered you earlier. Hi, John. How are you?

I'm outstanding. And I didn't exist before two weeks ago. So we're just discovering each other for the first time. That's excellent. Great. So I have a question for you guys. My husband and I have a total debt of about $500,000 and 32 of that debt is my student loans and then the rest of that is pretty much my husband. And he is the one that makes the most income, but it's because he travels overseas a month at a time. So we're both in the oil industry.

What does he make? He makes $250 is his gross base salary. How long has he been making that? How long have you been making that? Two years. Okay. So, uh, in my base salary is 120. So pretty much, um, if we want to get out of our debt, we started, uh, the 14 day trial of the financial peace university and we're projected to pay our date off in April of 2024. But that means that my husband still renew his contract for another three years,

which pretty much already put hardship in our marriage, and we were actually thinking about getting a divorce last year. So we started counseling, Christian counseling in January of this year. But I had already decided to sell the house in case we did get a divorce and we did go through with it. So we made about $125,000 in profit of that house. And my husband wanted to go back to school. He already has a master's and now he wanted to get executive education for $50,000. I also wanted to go back to school and get my master's, which was going to be a hundred K plus living expenses. And hopefully in 18 months, I'll potentially have a better income. So right now

we're sort of on baby step number two and we're wondering what we should do with the 80k that we have left over of the profit of the house. Should we do baby step three first? Should we invest in another home so that maybe we can make potential money in a few years? Is it worth to pay off our debt in April, putting our marriage at risk? It's sort of like a lot of things going on. Plus, I'm having surgery next. Are you both asking all of these questions or just you no we're both here we're both here together we've both been we're actually starting the financial peace university today together okay good yeah when is his contract run up with his current um overseas work in one year one year okay april april 2024 sounds like way far away that's too long

you're making a combined 370 that's a to quote dave that's a huge shovel to get to to dig out of this 500 000 i mean 250 000 a year on 500 makes it go away in two years, and you'd have to live on a measly 120. Right. You're breaking my heart. What do you think a $50,000 executive certificate from Harvard is going to get you? It's more for the opportunity to probably change industries. Like I said, we are in the oil industry, so it's kind of iffy right now um i just applied and got accepted so i'm not too sure so that's what we're trying to understand and anna either your voice got real deep or you just handed the phone off to husband is that right okay so i i have an executive certificate from harvard and somebody else paid for it for me. I had an employer that I negotiated, and they paid for it for me.

It was a great experience. I did get smarter. It's not worth $50,000, especially if not $50,000. Let me reframe that. It's not worth borrowing $50,000 for. The big H is important and powerful, and it put me in contact with great people. All that stuff, dude, you've got a half- million dollar screaming emergency staring you in the face. And y'all have got to get that figured out. I don't like blaming geography while it can be a contributing factor to this idea that this is why

your marriage had issues. So give me a bigger context, a greater context, more specifically, what was wrong with your marriage? So pretty much, I don't know, it's like my husband just concentrates in work a lot, and then he puts 100% in work and sets everything else aside. And being distant, that makes it a lot easier for him to do and just, like, sort of shut me out of his life. Okay. So are you all still seeing a therapist now? We are. Okay.

So if you're working with a marriage counselor and that's where you all have landed, that you need to make a job transition, that's great. I want to honor that relationship and the work you all have done there. I'm just, I don't think you should get any more student loan debt at all whatsoever, ever, much less with this giant on-fire situation you have right now. And something tells me if you're the caliber of person that's got Pepperdine's an extraordinary school, UT Austin, I'm from Texas, that's an extraordinary school, you're smart enough to have landed a 250K gig right now. You're smart enough to land another one. You can and and take that skill and transfer it to another place so i don't know it would be subject to your marriage counselor's approval this idea but i think for 24 months

if you increased communication in he was overseas and you increased lots of uh collaboration all working towards a central goal of cleaning this debt up. But what would it feel like to have no debt? And what price would you pay emotionally? What price would you pay distance-wise to have no debt? All right, what are you willing to do? I'm not willing to sacrifice your marriage on that altar, okay? But I know that I'm with John.

Geography doesn't necessarily solve that. It's lack of shared vision, lack of shared goals, lack of communication. A lot of those kinds of things show up in that. So if I'm in your shoes, if I can get the marriage counselor to give me a process that you both agree to for increasing communication collaboration shared goals I'm gonna work my buns off for two years and be a hundred percent debt-free and change everything and then you make a lot of different decisions oh oh by the way wait a minute we got another hundred thousand we can throw at this debt today so we're only dealing with 400 now you've only got to do 200 a year for two

years now now we're gonna do it 19 months that's the latest you know there's no way this is 2024. You're already stuck at home, so next time your appliances go out, fix it yourself. My friends at Appliance Parts Pros have helped over 7 million Americans fix their appliances safely at home while saving up to 90%. They carry over 2 million appliance and outdoor power equipment parts. Plus, watch how-to videos and chat live with pros on their site. Get your parts today at AppliancePartsPros.com. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

My co-host today, Dr. John Deloney. Now, I was well aware that Dr. Deloney had two PhDs, but then he just casually drives by a Harvard executive, what was it called? Certificate. It was a leadership certificate. I've got one of those, too. I've got one of those, too. I like learning, man.

I like learning. I drove by that. I like learning. I like learning, too, but I don't have one of those. You have a building, Dave. I have a pack of gum in my pocket. You've got a building. I've got an 88 Tercel EZ hatchback in the parking lot.

I will trade you that certificate straight up right now. Straight up. Oh, this is so casual. I've got one of those. Something I've never been able to say to a caller in 30 years here on the air. I've got one of those. Something I've never been able to say to a caller in 30 years here on the air. I've got one of those. I wasn't even aware they existed before today. Well, they're great.

And, hey, here's the thing. I so badly, Dave, I so badly wanted my experience heading into that Harvard program. I wanted it to all be a media fabrication. I wanted everyone to be just as dumb and knuckleheaded as me. They weren't. They're smart. They're real smart, man. They're smart.

There were some smart people in the class. Oh, the presenter. Yeah, man. It was that moment like watching the Michael Jordan thing that's been going on when you realized like it was me in about eighth grade when the coach would say, if you just work hard, and I realized, I can never jump like that, right? He's just better than me. That's when I got to realize, oh, those guys' heads are just faster than mine.

They're just smart. Running on a different speed. That's right. Hey, Patrick's with us in Kentucky. Hi, Patrick. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello. Thank you both for taking my call.

I really appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? So I am currently in the process of getting an engagement ring for my girlfriend of five years. Awesome. I have a little bit of car loan debt still going on, about $9,000 left on that. But that's the only amount of debt that I have. And the money for the ring is fully saved up. I know what my budget is. It's going to be around 27 at 2,700, but all that is squared away. I'm good to go. But what I'm struggling with at this point is the frugal side of me,

uh, coming to grips with just spending so much money on a single object, and she's completely worth it. But it's just daunting and just sort of overwhelming at some points to come to terms with just spending so much money. You didn't have that problem when you bought that car. Oh, my gosh. Hey, Patrick, I don't know if you've heard that, but that was a mic dropping right in your lap. Yeah. So what is your income sir it is around 42 okay and um you're how old i'm 27 okay you are a sharp young

dude you have done a really good job You've thought all of this through. And I think the my supposition would be that the weight of the overall decision has been landed onto this ring. And that my advice to you as the

old guy would be buy the ring, put it on her finger, and never look back. Okay. All right. It's not too much. You're at about one month's income, which is what we recommend. You're paying cash for it.

You're not destroying your life. You didn't call me up and give me some kind of two-step about how important the size of the diamond is because there's absolutely no correlation between the success of marriage and the size of the diamond. As a matter of fact, there might be an inverse correlation. And you can give me any of that crap, but just buy it. Now, have you got someone in your life that knows a little bit about diamonds and has bought some before?

Yes, I do. To walk beside you so you don't go into the retail jewelry store and pay double? No, no, no. I've been to a local jeweler and been recommended by multiple friends as well. The jeweler is super helpful, and then the friends as well have been going through the whole process, so they're knowledgeable about all that. I pretty much have the ring picked out. It's literally just pulling the trigger and

saying, I'm getting it. Does she know you're at this step? Oh, yes, completely. We've been doing it for five years. Yeah, but surprise her, man. I don't like this whole trend where we go look at rings together. I'm kind of an old-fashioned guy. You've got to do the

surprise. She doesn't know what it looks like or anything yeah okay all right you do it you listen you're good man do it do it today thank you so much get off the phone go to the jewelry store by the ring today and record it and then uh text it to the to the instagrams or whatever the internet's i want to see it yeah we want to we want to we want a video of your uh engagement your proposal i suspect her family is going to be there so i'm pretty sure they'll be able to get it okay so send us a video we want to see it outstanding okay hey that was so much thank you that was wise dave um when you get all of that um you get all that energy and all that fear and all

that uh and it lands on this one decision, right? It can look like the decisions that at fault, it's not. You've got all this other baggage that you're carrying with you. Yeah, we do that with possessions all the time. We heap guilt on a particular car, shame on a couch, cynicism on a life insurance policy we got screwed on we we park on we park our our wounds and our emotions and our fears and our hopes and our dreams on stuff and you need to it's a good spiritual practice to disconnect them yes and go this is just guilt. I just sucked at this. I have regret, and I feel guilty,

and you can't attach it to an insurance policy. You just have to go, that was just stupid. Stupid is just stupid, and I did stupid, and so I feel bad about it. I don't have to go, every time I walk past that policy, I feel stupid. No, that's not what you do. Put it down.

It can be a joy that you Put it down. It can be a joy that you attach to it. It can be negative or positive emotion, but we see it a lot when we're trying to help people change behaviors and things. Alice is with us in Canada. Hi, Alice, how are you? Hi, good. How are both of you? Great. How can Dr. John and me help? I think you're the perfect ones to help me. So I was in a difficult marriage for a long time and it was especially hard to leave because I didn't have access to the funds in the marriage. So finally I got myself out and over years I rebuilt my finances and established freedom financially and now I'm in a relationship and have been for years and we're talking about marriage

and now I'm in the position where I make a lot more money and I do believe as you do that sharing finances is important but it kind of scares me to potentially lose control again if that makes any sense yeah it makes a lot of sense what you would say makes a lot of sense so what do you make and what's he make i make about 650 and he makes about 150 what do you do 650 oh you're a doctor wow so impressive good for you you said that so casually like i make a little bit more than him, and then you just, boom! Yeah, so that's amazing. Congratulations. Okay.

Well, I do not recommend prenuptial agreements except in situations where the differences are extreme. And the differences here are extreme. Okay. And so I would recommend a prenuptial agreement another example would be i was coaching uh talking to a young lady who had inherited eight million dollars and she's marrying her high school boyfriend uh who had never had eight dollars and nothing wrong with the marriage you can go ahead and do that but but yeah because what happens is this the money uh in their in your case it's income or in her case it was a pile of money does not necessarily make you weird or your husband weird but somewhere in

one of your families weird is going to be exaggerated because of this and it's going to be exaggerated because of this. And it's going to influence and impact. And if you've got this shield of a prenup, it sets the boundaries a little more firmly. And I do recommend that to help you with that. I'll tell you what, can you hold through the break? I want John to speak to this as well because he's probably got something a lot wiser to say than me giving you a tactical thing. Because there's emotions tied to this too too, that we need to address. So hang with me through the break.

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so you can find the right person to quickly fill critical roles. To post a health care or essential service job for free, or if you're in another industry and have hiring needs, visit linkedin.com slash ramsey. linkedin.com slash ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, my co-host on the Dave Ramsey Show today. We're talking with Alice in Canada, $650,000 income. Her boyfriend, potential husband, makes $150,000. She's concerned about the differences.

I said going into the break that because the differences are so great, she might want to consider a prenup because that amount of money activates crazy up and down the family tree like nothing else does, and it's good to have that in place. I don't recommend a prenup any other time, but I do in rare circumstances, and this is one of them. But, Alice, you're back with us. Is that a fair summary of what you told us so far? Yeah, I think I realize, though, a lot of it is concern in me

that isn't necessarily valid, and i think it relates to my past experience i don't know if it's reasonable so yeah let me tell you this um any one of these feelings based on past experiences is not only valid um it's important that you listen to that your past history your past experiences and they inform your steps going forward. You just expressed one of the biggest challenges that women face in broken relationships is that economic insecurity. And so you've, man, you ground it out and now you are making most of the known world jealous with the success you've had financially. But that demon, that fear you're going to have that's going to be with you for a long time and so the challenge you're going

to have coming to this new marriage is to a both honor your past and learn from those those experiences set up set up ways where you're going to be safe moving forward and at the same time don't force your new husband your new partner to carry that baggage because that's not his to carry with you right his is to join with you and your new adventure to carry that baggage because that's not his to carry with you, right? His is to join with you in your new adventure that y'all are making together. So, man, your past experiences are super valid, super valid. Those fears are real, real, real. Don't make him carry that bag for you, right?

Yeah, that's... So set in place what you would consider what will be emotionally uncomfortable, the sharing of money, as long as there's a normal, healthy relationship going. And you share, of course, when you're married, you know, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge, the old-fashioned marriage vows say. And so, you know, what we're doing is we're joining in so many ways we're joining households we're joining in spirit we're joining uh we're becoming one and you want to do that with your money as well that's going to be decidedly uncomfortable for you and uh he needs to know that and he needs to honor the fact that you're going

to be uncomfortable doing that and he can't give you any reason he's got to be very hyper attentive to not give you any reason to become more uncomfortable alice are you weirded out that you make more money than him i'm not no and he's not and i think he even leaned toward oh if you're uncomfortable then we don't have to combine but i think that feels no worse no yeah you need i don't want to live on a different budget you know i i think it's it's you know he just says hey my wife has um a valid scar a wound a tender place and i've got to honor that in the way that we do combine is that and and you just got to talk about it more i'll give you another i'll give you an example in my life that's uh that's similar and yet not okay sharon and i lost everything we had a brand new

baby a toddler we almost killed each other We came within an inch of a divorce, okay? Mm-hmm. Can you imagine, with that scar in our past, almost 30 years ago, how important the emergency fund is to her, to a woman who was terrorized by her husband's idiocy with money right right so uh you know and and so she's got that scar so i have to honor that wound that i actually caused okay but i have to honor that wound by having an emergency fund for the emergency fund we don't even walk near the drawer where the paperwork is kept it's on the other end of the house you're not allowed to go on that end of the house i mean it's like this thing it means so much more emotionally and relationally than simply a little bit of money in an account in case there's

an emergency because i'm honoring that wound albeit a very old wound now but still if you ask her today she can get she can remember it her throat gets tight you can see her eyes change a cloud comes across them um and you know so we just can't i can't do things that remind her of that because she starts to think we're going to go back there again right and so that's the kind of thing i'm talking about here is you look for some practical way to do that. And I would do a prenup, which will also give you some comfort, but it will not heal this. What heals this is you guys, you might even really get some real detailed in-depth pre-marriage counseling and kind of plot out, map out some of this stuff on how you're going to work together.

It's a great question, by the way. Yeah, it's lovely. And Alice, so Dave, do you mind if I work together. It's a great question, by the way. Yeah, it's lovely. And Alice, so Dave, do you mind if I use your and Sharon's situation? Have at it. So where often this plays out and that response to that scar can make injuries across the house is, let's take Sharon for instance. She may feel like this emergency fund isn't where it needs to be. We had to get into the emergency fund to the emergency fund.

But that comes out with, oh, Dave, you're just going out with the boys again. Or, oh, I guess I have to cook again. It ends up coming out in different places when really it's an honest conversation that we need to have about the money part. And so I think what's real important for you and your future husband to do is to identify moments when it's not the fact that he was late getting home. It's not the fact that he hasn't done the insurance paperwork yet. It's the fact that that scar hurts, and you need to be able to articulate that and be direct with him about that so that it doesn't shoot out in other areas. It distracts you from the real issue which is historical pain that's

real wow that's good and congrats to you alice yeah and by the way let me just tell you number one cause of divorce in america today y'all listening is money and money fights right so let's pretend you got one of those divorces it's number one cause and then you get ready to get remarried you're gonna have the exact same thing she's dealing with right and it's a scale issue having eight hundred thousand dollars doesn't make that problem no way no it makes it it makes it magnified it's exactly doesn't make it go away and so i mean it doesn't matter you know if your husband your wife whatever my wife i've had people calling my wife was a spender she spent us into oblivion and now i'm scared the new lady's gonna

do that well you can't make her carry her bags, right, what you said. But you need to sit down and talk to her about it. But on the other hand, you know, she's got to understand that you walk with a limp over here because of that other thing. Yes. And, you know, that's part of the package you're getting. So because you're either going to marry someone that's the polar opposite of the crap you left, or you're going to do the same stupid thing again.

Right. Right. It's usually what happens. And so Larry Burkett used to say people run up a bunch of debt and then get divorced because of the debt and they remarry and then they run up a bunch more debt because they didn't change anything. Right. They marry someone looks just like the other one and they do it again and so you gotta there has to be a break in the cycle because money money is not the problem it's it reveals the other problems right and um that's really good stuff alice that's really good stuff i appreciate you hanging through the break with us um and then uh uh you know so

the other in the spectrum i don't uh we had a guy, I think I mentioned it last week. I can't remember which one of the personalities were co-hosting with me, but I had a lady call in one day and said, my husband wants, my fiance wants a prenup. I said, really, what's he got? He has a sports car. Nope. I said, he's not going to be your husband. Right. This guy loves his car more he loves you if he if he has to protect his

car from you he ain't the one right right right you know so that's the other end of the spectrum on this because everybody thinks a prenup is going to solve everything and it doesn't right it doesn't and because you see all this in the tabloids with the hollywood types and all these guys you know the music types or whatever well they're pretty enough and you know i'm usually against them i don't like the idea of starting a relationship with the foot out the door right i don't want to plan the death while i'm alive you know so um that's i'm totally against them but in extreme situations it helps keep the crazy family members at bay and it settles down the nerve so you can deal with the actual situations okay so that's that's the only time i've changed from that i changed that many years ago because i ran into a couple crazy situations i used to just say never this

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business. Grip 6 is determined to help build and modernize american manufacturing to learn more and get this month's dave ramsey special visit grip6.com that's grip6.com Thanks for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney co-hosting with me on the Dave Ramsey Show today. Ramsey personalities, we talk about your life and your money. They are tied together. Lucy's in Virginia. Hi, Lucy. Welcome to the show.

Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call. And hi to Dr. John. Hi, Dave. Thank you very much. You have saved my life financially because I found you shortly after 9-11. I had just gotten fired from a job and I'm sitting in my car crying. And I don't even know how, but some way way somehow you came onto this radio station that I never even listened to and from then on when I heard you everything just clicked you made so much sense you were talking something that I had never heard before and from then on I think from I started working like two and three jobs for about the last for about 10 years straight until I finally got my finances together wow but my But my question for you to, yes, thank you very much.

My question for you today is, I have moved to the D.C. area from Tennessee, and I absolutely hate the area, but I bought a condo as soon as I moved here. One of the things that you say don't do, but I did. And I hate it. I can afford it. It's $1,700, but what kills me the most is the money that I'm throwing away in HOA. It just kills me every single month to write that check. And I could afford to pay it off because I have about $400,000 in stocks, which you say don't do.

They're single stocks. And I could get rid of those and pay off this place and then either rent or buy a single-family home. But I'm only going to be here probably for the next three to five years at the most. Okay. So should I rent or I definitely want to sell the place. It's too small. I hate it. During the three to five years that you're going to stay there, are you going to stay

in this condo or not? You told me six times how much you hated. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you were clear for america on what you really feel about this condo what do you what do you really feel about the condo yeah you said you hate it and i hate it and by the way i hate it and are you going to stay there the whole three to five years in that condo that you hate won't you buy something else well that's my question to you should should i i i can't afford to pay this thing off and

and we'll sell the sell the condo and how much how much is the condo worth oh it's only worth about maybe 400 okay but in this area that's a lot i know i know i know i know and what do you owe on it oh probably about um 350 360 okay so you'll get a little money out of it you'll get a little money out of it when you sell it and you've got four hundred thousand dollars plus that little money to buy something else can you not buy something else you like better and pay cash for it but it will cost more no i pay cash for it pay you got four hundred 000 that's your budget um okay you hate the condo you mentioned i do hate it i think you can find something in a similar price range that you didn't hate as much as you hate

this thing okay and do you hate the condo or do you do you are you frustrated yourself for buying the condo that too and the hoa i i just think i'm just throwing money out the window every single month when you signed on this line for this condo did you know like you had that voice in your head yes but i i like i said i'm not familiar with this area and i was and i researched before i came here and i knew everything was going to be much more expensive compared to Tennessee. Yeah, take your time, but before Christmas, have the condo sold and move into something. And, Lucy, you're a smart, brilliant person. Listen to yourself when you talk to yourself.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, look at what you did. A decade ago, you're sitting in your car, 100% broke, lost your job crying. Look where you are now. listen to yourself when you talk to yourself. Wow. Yeah. I mean, look at what you did a decade ago. You're sitting in your car, a hundred percent broke, lost your job crying. Look where you are now. You're calling me with $400,000. That's stinking impressive. Yeah. I think your, I think your voice is worth listening to. Yes. This is the Dave Ramsey show. John Deloney is with me and Kristen is next in Iowa. Hi, Kristen. How are you? I'm well, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I'm looking for some book recommendations for Father's Day and I was

hoping that each of you could kind of weigh, given your professional background. So my husband is transitioning away from a technical role at his job more into managerial and leadership. And he's very hungry to learn about the business aspect of the business. So he's been listening to podcasts and reading books. Who's he listening to? Oh, I knew you would ask me that. Um, who's he reading?

Patrick. Um, he's reading like getting things done. Um, uh, Patrick. Yep. Yeah.

Okay. Um, and so for Dave, I was wondering if you could kind of give recommendations for like, um, the logistics of running an office, like day to day meetings, how often are you checking in with people? Um, you know, like, um, evaluations and that kind of stuff. His company should have systems and processes in place on that. If they're moving him into leadership, they should have a set of standards that they run with on that. That's so tactical that, you know,

most leadership books are not written with do this, do that, do this, in terms of that. Okay. They're more conceptual. Patrick is a friend of mine. Anything that Patrick Lencioni writes is worth reading. Okay. The one I would start, I would pick up two books of his, The Ideal Team Player, which talks about hiring people that are hungry,

humble, and smart, and The Advantage, which is probably one of his best books he ever did, The Advantage. I can probably send you those, and I think we've got them here. John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and I'll throw in my book, Entree Leadership, which was the number one, how we run our business. That's very kind. Thank you. Yeah, we'll put those four together. But basically, Jim Collins, anything he writes, Good to Great is a classic. Yeah.

Anything that John Maxwell writes, but he writes a book every week. It's hard to keep up with him. And Pat Lynch, anything he writes. Simon Sinek's stuff is good. He's an excellent writer. Good thought later. His new one called Infinite Game is a rock star book. It is really good.

When I was leading teams, books that were important for me were there was two books by Henry Cloud one was boundaries and one was necessary endings for a leader that were two powerful books definitely I can't think of her name she wrote a book called I think it's radical integrity radical honesty about having hard

conversations that spoke to me in a real good way yeah and then there's two books I've read recently that were outstanding. One is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday and another is I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real, which it's a book on male depression, which sounds like it wouldn't apply, but it's really about leaders looking inside themselves

and being able to take care of the human being that's now a leader over other human beings. And if a leader's not well, they spew that stuff all over the human beings that work underneath them and work side by side with them. But if a person can be well, especially a guy in a leadership role, then the folks around them have the opportunity to be well too. Now, Lencioni, the thesis of his book we found to be true,

and almost all these other books we mentioned feed into that same thing. The thesis of The Adv advantage is organizational mental health, the ability to do conflict well without toxicity. And we do conflict all the time around here. It's like a full-time job. And we're pretty good at it. You were just hitting me during the break. It's a highly honed skill.

But the ability to do conflict well and drive to excellence without harming all the players, you know, in the process and, you know, work through differences and those kinds of things is more of an advantage for a product that you have a trademark on or a copyright on or a patent on. People think those are the kinds of things that are the magic sauce. The magic sauce is people working well together. That's the sauce. And it just happens so rarely that when you do it, it gives you an unprecedented advantage in the marketplace, and that's why Lencioni calls that book The Advantage.

But all of these things feed into that. Playing well with others is a skill that gives you a distinct advantage in knowing how to do it. Good, really neat question, Kristen. Thanks for calling in. Kelly will pick up. We'll get some of those out to you, and you can backfill with the rest of them. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope.

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