The Ramsey Show - App - Make Sure Your Retirement Plan Is Working for You (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Coming to you live, talking to you about your life, your money, your work, and your relationships. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, and George Campbell joins me. We are here for you, America. 888-825-5225. It's all about you, and we want you winning in all those areas. George is the resident money guru today,

and they call me the work guy here, but this is all about money, too. I just call him Mr. Coleman. If you want to make more money, you want to get a little bit better income, become wealthy, think like wealthy people, act like wealthy people, I'm your guy. So if you've got a question, feeling stuck in your work or your profession, we'll take those calls today as well. 888-825-5225. Romeo, Romeo, where art thou? Romeo, Michigan is on the board.

Jeff is there. Jeff, how can we help? Tis, I am here. Thank you for having me today. What doth thou want to know? Well, guys, I've got some questions regarding a couple things, but to start out with, define the benefit plans. I'm self-employed.

My net income is between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. I have one employee on the books, including myself, and I'm at a point here to where I've got financial advisors that I've worked with that I've just lost trust in. I'm getting all these different offerings to me. I've got a large sum of money that I need to figure out where to invest it's sitting in a savings account at this time um how much money are we talking um i've got about a million and a half in a savings account um i've got about 500 in traditional investments um and the big thing is i I guess, is, you know, what do I do with that? And what are your thoughts on defined benefit plans for that three to 500K tax savings? It's

pretty heavy. How many people are involved in this business? Just myself. I'm a sole owner. Okay. Have you looked into other retirement plans like a SEP solo 401k? I have, yes. I think where I get caught up with that slightly, not that I'm caught up with that, but the ability for me to put 200k into a defined benefit as opposed to 66 $68,000 with the 401k, front-loading that defined benefit to get that in there sooner than later. I'm 47, so I feel like while I do have a good chunk of change there in terms of retirement investments, I'm a bit behind on that. Well, you always have a taxable brokerage account. If you run out of retirement options, that's going to allow you to build wealth and keep that money flexible. What is your money making the 1.5 in savings

right now? What's the interest rate on that? 5.5%, surprisingly. Okay. Wow, that's nice. So that's creating a chunk of change and keeping your money safe. Outside of how much you actually need liquid, I would rather invest it and over the long term, see that grow at 8, 9, 10, 11%. Right, right. So have you worked, you said you didn't like the financial advisors you worked with. Have you interviewed more? Have you talked to a smart investor pro?

Jumped on ranzysolutions.com? Yeah, I have. Well, actually, I'm in the process of that now. So I've got a couple of them that I'm speaking with. So I did take that step into that suggestion as well. Good. And do you have a good tax pro you work with? Yes, I do.

Okay. Between those two, I would kind of take there the tax pro advice, the SmartVestor pro advice, and then you'll have a much better picture of what the future should look like. And I wouldn't just do things for the tax savings. I want you to have a bigger picture of what your life's going to look like. You make amazing money. You already are a multimillionaire. And so I think part of this is figuring out the goal. What are we doing with this?

What's the why? What's the legacy I'm trying to leave? That will help you create more specific goals than just, I want to grow money. Right. Sure, sure. Do you have a family? I do not. Okay.

So solo, single, no kids? No kids. Okay. And you want to keep this business a solo business? I do, yes. Okay. Can you tell us what you do exactly? I'm curious for those out there going, how is this guy making half a million dollars solo? Because he's solo. That's why. Guy's got nothing else distracted him. No wife no kids maybe no life it's possible sounds like you may not have much of a life yeah yeah no it's there's a lot of time spent building this

business um basically yeah 15 years ago or so ago there was a lack of product uh in the hunting industry that i was interested in um so i went ahead uh went direct and started some digging overseas for manufacturing and started a couple of brands and kind of rollercoasted those snowballed those brands into something something big at this point in this industry way to go in the in the hunting equipment industry yes correct oh very impressive wow well that's what I do. I think the Solo 401k is one of the best options out there for those that are self-employed. But again, depending on your situation, how much money you're making, what your goals are, there's a lot of options out there. And that's where I would sit down with one of those smart investor pros and just lay it all out. Say, what's the benefit of going with this divine benefit plan?

What's the benefit of this Solo 401k? What should I be doing with these bunches of money? And that's going to give you a better plan than just sort of winging it, which you can wing it and still do well, because you have been doing that and you're a very smart guy. But I love your line of questioning. It makes me think you're going to be okay, because you're asking the right questions. No questions. Did you guys cover, what's the income? Did I miss that? 300 to 500 wow yeah not yeah not three to 500 so when you're not working are you spending a lot of time alone in a field trying to shoot something no i actually you know that's the reason i got into it and believe it or not i don't have

the time to do that at all anymore and how much are you working the last thing um it's more of a season i call my my schedule a school teacher, a school teacher schedule, because, you know, I've got six months where we're just completely swamped in the other half. It's kind of catch up, uh, develop new products. So, you know, I would say an average, I deal a lot with, with overseas. So our time difference is big. So, you know, while I'm in my shop for eight hours a day, maybe, you know, I'm, I'm dealing overseas in the middle of the night for two, three hours here and there. So I would say an average work week of 50 to 60 hours. Okay. You may want to eventually look at, you know, some delegation, maybe hiring a team member

to help offload. You think Jeff, Jeff, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, I may overstep with you, but I think, I hope you understand my heart. George has helped me with all the money stuff. I've got to tell you something. I'm a little concerned that you wake up 30 years from now and you're full of regret because you had nothing else going on in your life except this work, work, work, work, work. And I'm a guy who believes in doing what you love.

And I think work is purposeful. And I think that we get great enjoyment and contribution out of it. But I'm just encouraging you, not challenging you. I'm not trying to criticize you. But, man, you're working really, really hard. You're 47, and 10 years is going to go like that. And, man, I'd want you to enjoy something. So delegate a little bit, and when you're three months off or it's a slower time,

figure out how to reproduce yourself a little bit and have some fun, man. You know? Yeah. No, I agree with you a thousand percent. I've been telling myself that I'm going to do that for years now, and I feel like I'm at a point to where I'm realizing that I do need to do those things because I am getting old. But, you know, can I tell you something? I'm going to really recommend you sit with a really good therapist because I don't think your life's on fire.

But I think you need to get to the source of the control. The reason you are running the business the way you are is because you're absolutely terrified of letting go. There's some massive control, massive fear issues underneath all of this. That's just what I'm hearing and seeing. And I think that might free you up, man. So gee whiz, go on a safari somewhere and get a massage before you go hunting. Enjoy life a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Just relax a little bit and enjoy the spoils because you're crushing it. Or else you wake up one day and you're going, I got a bunch of money, but I didn't do anything with it. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. And we are here for you, 888-825-5225. George taking your money questions, and I'm here to help you with your income, professional work questions so that you can actually get through those baby steps faster. Speaking of questions, George,

today's question of the day comes from Tyler in South Dakota. He asks, I'm getting a 15-year mortgage and plan on paying it off within 7 to 10 years. Does it matter how frequently I pay extra toward the principal? Should I do an extra payment once a month, or is there a better system for making this happen? Boy, this is custom-made for you, George. It is, and I just got a call out of someone with a slight OCD that it's principal P-A-L in the question. Oh, boy.

You see? It's not a principal, like a value. It's not like the proximity principal, my number one best-selling book that you can get at RamseySolutions.com. That's neither here nor there. Okay. So the question. I did that there. I see. I just wove it in. He's a master of self-promotion. Nobody even knew it hit him. So does it matter how frequently you pay toward the principle of a mortgage? Yes, it does. Should I do an extra payment once a month or is there a better system for making this happen? The faster you make the payment, the less interest you're going to pay. That's how it works. So I would not wait and do a lump sum at the end of

the year. The faster you can add to that principle, the better. The way I did this was just added every single month. So if the principle is $2,000, you want to put $2,500 instead or $3,000 or even better, try to double the mortgage payment. So set a goal for yourself and try to stick to it aggressively. And seven to 10 years is great. We found that the average baby step millionaire pays off their house in seven years, Ken, which is very encouraging. And it's part of the reason I love a 15-year mortgage. It forces you in this forced savings plan to go go we're paying this off worst case in 15 years but more likely if you do it the right way you're going to have margin to put extra on there so

the faster you make that payment the better and how frequently it doesn't matter if you do it three times a month or once a month the easiest way with your lender and for your life is just to add it on your regular payment so if you pay your mortgage on the first put an extra 500 bucks or a thousand bucks make sure it goes toward the principal, not interest or anything else or a future month. Yeah. Love that. Hope that helps. Hey, I've got a quick question for you. I'm going to make up a question here, but it's based on a real life scenario. Okay. Okay. What would you say for someone who's debt-free and they want to make a very large purchase on a second home. They're debt-free though. Okay. Yep. And they don't need the second home. It's just a pure... It's a toy. It's a toy,

but they're very wealthy. Is there a percentage of net worth that you feel comfortable with on a second home when you have zero debt at all? Did I ask the question properly? Yeah, I think that's proper. I don't know that we have any Ramsey parameters I've heard of. I don't think so either. So I was asking you to make one up. I think the numbers would matter to me. So let's say you've got a net worth of $1.5 million between your house, your nest egg, and you want to buy a second home that's worth what? $300,000? $400,000? Well, that's what I'm asking you. That's what I'm asking you. What would be the percentage on someone's net worth that you say, you know what, this is okay because, first of all, you're debt-free.

But to take on a second home— And this house will go up in value over time. It's still a toy, but it's not a depreciating asset. It's another house. Is there a percentage you might—for instance, 10% of your net worth? I would say emotionally— 20%? With your home and a second home, I wouldn't want your net worth to be too real estate toppled, which Dave's is because he has an extraordinary amount in real estate, 600 million.

He's never going to catch up on the investment side. But again, as a portion of his net worth, his second homes are a teeny tiny percentage. Right. I'm saying what just, and I'm not holding you to this. This is not a new Ramsey. I would say a second home, 10 or 20% of your net worth feels right. That's what I thought. If it's 50% of your net worth tied up in that toy second home, that feels too much.

Okay, good. I'm very happy about this because I have a friend who had a really cool situation. Did they get a second home? They got a great second home. Are you going to get to enjoy the second home as well? It sounds like you have benefit in this. I do, and you do too. Are you serious? Are you surprising me? I'm surprising you. I don't have many friends, let alone wealthy friends. I have a very wealthy friend who I called the other day, and I called to talk to him about pickleball. He thought I was calling about a decision that

he had told several of our mutual friends about, and I had no knowledge of it. And this friend asked me my advice and I said, I'm going to treat this just like I would if I took a call on the Ramsey show. And he was buying a very valuable home that is very important to him. And he was asking me, what should he do? He has zero debt and he's very wealthy. And I'm not going to get into the numbers, but this is a very public story. And I told him I'm going to say it because he called me this morning and I coached him and his wife through this purchase. I said, follow your heart. They did. And I'm proud to tell you, George, that my friend bought the Home Alone house in Chicago. No way.

Look at the audience out there. Very good friend of mine. I got to tell you, I thought this story was not going to have a great punchline. But you really, you didn't oversell it. I did not. They took his offer. Wow. What was it?

I think that was running, it was very public, like 5 million. I'm going to stay out of it. It's very, very public. But my friend is the new owner. And you're telling me I can go visit because I don't know this friend, but you're saying I could go with you? You are a friend of Ken. And a friend of Ken is a friend of this guy. Road trip to Winnetka, Illinois. Let me tell you what I think might happen. A very special Christmas edition of the Ken Coleman Show

might be filmed in said house. Live from the Home Alone house. I'm not even kidding. You think I'm joking. We've already discussed it. And he's cool with it. Yeah, I was involved. He said this doesn't happen without your coaching.

So I did a little retro because I played that percentage. I was like, if it's that small of a percentage of your net worth and it was in your range. Yeah, the general theory is if you lost that money, would you be okay? But he's got no risk on this house. If he holds it and they have family Christmases there for two or three years and make unbelievable memories and he flips it, it's a non-fact. I would film my own version of Home Alone. I'd hire a camera crew, script writers, the whole bit. Well, I'll tell you what we'll do.

We will do a Chicago road trip, and we will go do something. I cannot wait. Maybe some social media. I could see you doing something really fun around the staircase. Well, you know what's funny is we actually did a Home Alone spoof for a Ramsey Christmas party. I know. Where I was Home Alone in Dave Ramsey's house. The one that he sold up on the hill.

You should ask for permission. Of course, this is a no-brainer, and put that on your YouTube channel. I'm wondering if it's safe for public consumption. Of course it's safe. Dave doesn't even live in that house anymore. Yeah, but I was in a bathrobe, Ken. There's certain things you don't want on the internet. But I saw the video and there wasn't too much skin.

It was very modest. It was a fun video. Me opening Dave's fridge, looking for food, hanging out in the pool. It was a fun video. Me opening Dave's fridge, looking for food, hanging out in the pool. It was a great time. It was a selfish play for me to make that video. I've never been so excited to tell millions of people about a friend of mine buying a house than I just was. But that is, how cool is that? I'm very excited about it. You have proximity principled your way into a lot of amazing situations, I got to say. You know, in all honesty, the reason I wrote that book is because i have figured out how to do that yeah but that's a total

uh there was no intention there we just met over pickleball and uh by the way but here's pickleball the new like we met on the golf course we talked shop yeah now it's pickleball all right now let me turn this into some real content all right so we did talk about the net that was good we had a money quote two money questions yeah and then a fun surprise. We'll run it by Dave next time he's around to see what he thinks. But I do want to talk very briefly here about this kind of thing. So I read an article years ago and I want our audience to catch this. As you're walking through the baby steps, one of the great benefits of getting debt free is that you can then move into places that maybe previously you could not afford. And here's what we know from the data, that if you live, the nicer the neighborhood you

live in, the greater success chances your kids have. And the reason is, is because birds of a feather flock together, if we use that old phrase, and wealthy, successful people kind of in the same area and relationships happen to where you can go play pickleball like I did one night in my neighborhood with this guy. And you meet this guy and he's one of the first executives at Facebook, Spotify. This dude never has to work a day in his life. He's brilliant, brilliant marketer. And you get to know somebody, then you go to coffee. My point is, back to the proximity thing, getting control of your finances and having freedom and not living paycheck to paycheck and trying to keep up with the Joneses.

If you get free, guess what? You can actually hang out with the Joneses. You see the difference? Instead of keeping up with them versus hanging out with them. And when you're hanging out with successful people, great things happen to you because they're doing great things. And they go, hey, you want to do this? And so just a fun little story.

Yeah, your environment matters. The people around you matter. That's it. Harvard's done the longest study on relationships in the world, 80-year study. And here's what they found. 95% of your success or failure is directly related to the people you spend the most time with. Oh, that's why I hang out with Ken. That's exactly right.

And look how your life has gotten better. I get to go to the Home Alone house. Yes, you do. It's going to be fun. Alright, we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. 888-825-5225. That's the phone number to jump in. 888-825-5225.

Ken Coleman, George Camel with you. Let's go to Ryan in Vancouver, Canada. Ryan, how can we help today? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. It's been a tricky last couple months, so I appreciate the advice. Just to get right into it, a couple months ago, I lost my job. It was terminated.

There was a question about the actual validity of it. And I've been given very little information, well, actually no information about the actual concerns around it. And then a couple of weeks later, I lost my fiance and now I'm kind of starting the job hunt and just trying to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world. So in the meantime, I have racked up some debts and some personal loans that just comes with cost of living. The good news is I have about $20,000 in my RRSPs, or of course in America, like 401k kind of equivalent. So I guess part of my question is, should I liquidate part of that? I could likely use all of it to get debt free and then essentially start that process again when I find my new position.

And then my second question is the actual litigation around the termination. I stand to make not earth-shattering amounts of money, and I'm worried that pursuing it further would, of course, accrue more legal bills, and that process might just be tricky for me to navigate as well. You want to take the investment piece first? Yeah, I'd like to come back to the litigation. I just want to say, Ryan, I'm sorry for everything you went through. Your fiancé passed away? No, no, sorry.

We separated. Oh, goodness. I was like, me too, because you said you lost your fiancé, and I was like, oh, boy. Okay. I feel a little better. It's still a heartbreaking situation. Did she dump you? Fairly mutual.

There was definitely a lot of added stress with unemployment and bills racking up, and we went our separate ways. All right. All right. Okay. So how much debt do you have total? Total probably about $20,000, and it's almost exactly what I have in those investments as well. Well, the investments are retirement, and I don't know what the laws are in Canada, the penalties, but I imagine this is not... You're going to get hit badly taking out this $20,000. I don't think this is worth it. The laws that I've found are, it actually wouldn't be as bad as you think for a one-time taking it out. And my thought was to clear up the debt using that. Well, no, it's bad, Ryan, because you plug that into an investment calculator and what that

money would have turned into 20, 30 years from now, it's not worth taking it out. I'd rather you use your future income to knock out this debt than rob your future. I agree. So I wouldn't touch this. Let's pretend this money's off limits. What other money do you have access to or things you could liquidate? Obviously, I have no income at the moment. I am able to get some personal loans when needed. No, we're not going into any more debt. Can you promise me that? Yeah, yeah. Come hell or high water, Ryan is not going into a penny more of debt. Okay. Okay. Once that's settled, we're going to get you income really fast. Ken's going to help with that, even if that means temporary income through side hustles.

What were you doing before and what were you making? I was general manager in the hospitality industry and I was making 85 to 90. Okay. So let's pretend you go back to that. You can pay off 20K pretty quickly making 90. What's your living situation? Are you paying rent right now? I'm paying rent. My rent is 3,200 a month. And then after all my other expenses, it's close to four grand a month in general month to month expenses. Goodness. How long have you been unemployed? Two months. Is this case case is it in any way affecting your ability to get back into

the hospitality industry uh it likely is due to the nature of how connected people are but but like i said like i truly have no idea about the actual concerns at hand and i was not able to get any information about it which kind of therein lies the why are you going to court for all this like can you yeah if you don't know why you were fired why are you pursuing legal action because I was attempted they attempted to terminate me with cause which of course meaning there's no severance payments or any payments that were owed and uh and I just myself and my representation just don't see that that's a valid with cause situation. So that kind of lies the problem. Well, how would you know?

I thought you just told us you don't know what the situation is. Yeah, exactly. So whatever they think that the situation is, they think is terms with cause, but I have no idea. And just knowing myself and my day-to-day, conducting myself day-to-day, I know that there's nothing earth-shattering to find. But how are you paying these legal bills on top of paying rent with no income? I've exhausted all my savings and then have accepted some personal loans from family over the last month. Oh, gosh. Okay. George, I don't know what you think. Ryan, if I'm you,

I tell the lawyer today, as soon as, if I'm you, I tell the lawyer today, as soon as I hang up with us, I call the lawyer, hey, Sparky, I'm out. This isn't worth fighting because I just don't think it is. This seems like a recipe for you just spending more and more and more money. Yeah, what happens when you're 40 grand in the hole in legal bills and you don't even win the case? Right. What's the severance payment that you think you're owed? On our best day, it's about $30,000, $35,000. I'm guessing you'll spend that in legal bills. Likely, but there's part of it that's worked into them covering my legal bills, so I'd likely spend it to get out of debt if I were successful. Oh, boy.

This feels like a Hail Mary. I mean, you might as well be playing the lottery. If your lawyer is that convicted about it. And it's not going to help with your future employment. It's not going to take long before they go, oh, this guy's suing his former hospitality employer. Let's not get in the mix with him. I'm sticking with what I said. I would drop this whole case, and let's move forward in life.

$20,000 for somebody of your ability. As George pointed out, you can knock that out. If this was like a half-million case, I might go, all right. And if you had the money to actually pay the legal bills. But the juice ain't worth the squeeze on this one, as my friend Ken would say. And as you would say, for that reason, I'm out. So I would call the lawyer and get out of this deal. And Ryan, I know it's not fun.

I think you need to go downgrade an apartment and maybe get a roommate. Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. You can't pay $50,000 in rent a year and survive this. Yeah, I applied to probably 50 apartments when I first moved out here, and this was one of two that got back to me. So the market's pretty saturated. Well, again, see, when I hear somebody say that, and it's coming up with an excuse as to why you

got to keep overpaying. And George is right. This is where you start to go, I'm going to look for anybody who's got an apartment over top of their garage. I don't know if they do that in Canada. That may be weird to you folks. It's pretty normal here. But I'm looking for any scenario that I can. And where there's a will, there's a way, my friend. And I think you've accepted a lot. And I think it's time for you to stop letting life happen to you and you need to start happening to your life today. And in the hospitality industry, that's a high turnover industry. Am I right? Yes. Well, then go freaking show up somewhere and go i'm a former gm i'm ready to go yeah yeah you understand like walk in in a suit like they could put you on a shift

right now i mean this is the urgency that i think you need i think you're just kind of a little bit like you know you know i mean you're eeyore and i want to see ticker do you know who that is they have that in canada okay i don't know i didn't know if winnie the pooh went north of the border but you know i i think so yeah and ryan the other side of this is your housing is out of control i know it's a canadian problem i understand but you can't be bringing home five5,000 or $6,000 and be paying $4,000 in housing expenses. You're never going to make

any progress paying off debt, building wealth, or otherwise. So that's the next thing to face once you get some income coming in is going, I've got to figure this out. And if that means you get two roommates, how old are you? 27. Great. I had roommates up until I was married, and you will survive, and it'll help prepare you for marriage.

Wow. Really? Really. Huh. You got to deal with other people's junk everywhere. Oh, I see. You know? I have no experience where Stacey dealt with any of my junk.

It was dealt with. You know what I'm saying? There it is. You were the perpetrator. The instigator. 100%. Yeah, that gets fixed pretty quickly. I don't know'm saying? There it is. You were the perpetrator. The instigator. 100%. Yeah, that gets fixed pretty quickly. The violator. I don't know. So anyway, interesting stuff there.

Ryan, I'm sorry, man, but we gotta get some mojo and get to work ASAP. Even if it's doing side hustles, even if it's moving further out, we gotta make some two, three, four jobs right now. Like, we're not sitting around. And get rid of the lawyer. I wish I had a judge's robe and one of those old English wigs, you know,

and I'd go, case dismissed. He loves a wig. I do love a good wig. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number.

888-825-5225. Akron number. 888-825-5225. Akron, Ohio is where we're going to go next. And Mike joins us there. Mike, how can we help? Yeah, yeah. Thanks for taking my call, guys. You bet. What's up?

So I'll just kind of dive into it. My wife and I, so I'm the single income earner for the two of us. And we've got a baby on the way. Nice. Thanks. Yeah. It's our first one. So, um, she's due here at the end of July and I work about 45 minutes away. Um, about 45, 50 minute commute, which hasn't bothered me until the closer we get to our daughter being born, uh, started bothering me more and more. So, um, we've got a lot of manufacturing. I'm a tool and die maker and CNC machinist, and we've got a lot of industry around us. And I kind of looked around and,

um, had an interview that went really, really well and they made me a pretty good offer. Um, but it's a little scary you know considering we've got our daughter is almost here um and so a job change is a little scary but it was a pretty good offer we're trying to decide what to do and all right let's walk together a third party all right we're very excited about this um what is the offer is it better the, the same financially? Give me the contrast here. Right. So right now, I make 29, just a couple cents over 29 an hour. And our insurance is not bad. It's a high deductible, but they match a little bit for an HSA. So it's a $6,000 deductible.

And they give two weeks vacation right now. And then also 401k is at 4% if you put in five. All right. Now give me the new offer. The new offer, so they did a probationary period of 28, because it's a little bit different machines. So he said as long as I get the proficiency, then they'll definitely bump me back up to 29 50 and then anything beyond that is at annual review um they also gave me they're going to give me a sign-on bonus of four grand to cover all the cobra insurance coverage so that i don't lose my current insurance before there's kick then in. They also said that it's

perfectly fine to take my two weeks vacation for my daughter being born and then it would renew January 1st. So I'm not stuck going through the winter and all year to get that vacation back. And their retirement is 6% match. And what was the last bit? Well, Mike, I'm going to jump in. I'm going to jump in and remind me if something if the last bit jumps in but you're scared so the question becomes whenever i coach anybody that's dealing with fear the goal is is to find out if the fear is telling them the truth and protecting them in In other words, if I get close to a cliff and I start to feel a pang of fear in my chest, is fear telling me the truth that I could fall over and die? Or is fear lying to me and holding me back from great excitement? What's the answer,

Mike? What's the answer? Basically, the thing that I'm not entirely sure. The thing that I'm afraid of is, you know, my daughter is my first priority here. No, no, no, no, no, no. What's that? Are you afraid that you're going to get over there and not learn how to work this new machine and they're going to go, Mike's an idiot and we made a horrible choice and we're going to fire Mike? No, not at all. I'm pretty confident in my abilities. I think that I'll succeed there. Then what are you afraid of? Not sure. It's just unknown. It's kind of that devil you know versus the devil you don't kind of thing. Okay. There's the answer. Congratulations, Mike. That's the answer. Yeah. But by the way, going back to my little

analogy, if fear is telling me the truth and protecting me, I listen to it. But if fear is lying to me and potentially hold me back, I don't listen to it. And in this situation, fear is lying to you. And so we're not going to let it hold us back what you were afraid of is i've never worked for this company before but you're also afraid that that could turn into something bad and it not work out and all of a sudden i can't provide for a baby girl yes but i know that's why you keep bringing her up but but but see here's the deal What would have to be true for you to lose this new job? You need to make a list. I'm not going to make you do it on the air, but let's make a list today. What would have to be true? Okay. I'd have to not show up for work repeatedly, uh, and piss my manager off on a regular basis on

purpose. I would have to run the machine into a coworker and break their leg in 80 places. I mean, start making a list of all of the things that would have to happen for this not to work out. And then after you make the list, look at it and go, what are the chances of those things happening, George? And I think that's where we go. On paper, I'm like, this is a no-brainer. And what are you saving on your commute time?

What's the new commute? It would be about 15, 20 minutes. Okay, so you just saved an hour each day back into your life. Are you going 45 minutes each way? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Right now it's 45 minutes each way. So you just gained 200 hours a year back in your life to be with your baby girl,

to help out your wife. Great call, George. So I'm like like this is worth it no matter what but you're also moving financially no gap in income you're making the same money pretty much you're also having no gap in insurance and so all the boxes are checked i think the change is just scary and hard and it's going to be a learning curve becoming a dad getting a new job and it's a lot i think it's okay to admit this is going to be a pretty tough season but it's also one filled with joy and new things and embrace that yeah the toughest thing about your future my friend is actually not learning this new job it's learning how to operate this

new machine with no sleep there is that's yeah no kidding i mean the new job is going to be a breeze for a guy like you the new new baby, welcome to fatherhood. George, you want to tell him? Yeah, I'm nine months into it, and I'm very tired. What's the hardest part for you, George? Encourage him a little bit. I think it's like a mental, it's way more mental and emotional than working a normal job. And so my wife now stays at home, and I'm like, God bless, because an hour of just taking care of a you know

screaming baby that blowouts all of that but then she smiles and you're like this is all worth it nothing matters except for this little girl yeah so it's a beautiful adventure my friend i'm looking forward to it for you yeah mike you're a good guy there's no way you're gonna blow this take the job take the job today but uh i want our audience to get this. We all deal with fear. We all deal with doubt. George and I do. Let me tell you something. Fear and doubt, nasty little cousins. They hang out on one shoulder and one on the other. And fear, by the way, George, is just, I'm worried that something bad will happen if I move forward. That's what we just dealt with, Mike. That's what fear is. I've got an opportunity to move forward, and I'm happen if I move forward. That's what we just dealt with with Mike.

That's what fear is. I've got an opportunity to move forward, and I'm afraid if I do, something bad will happen. Doubt is a little different. Doubt is I don't believe that anything good will happen if I move forward. So they're very interesting. They're a little bit different, but they kind of hang out together, and they tend to whisper, and then they gang up on us, and they start shouting at us. And when you get in a situation like that, and by the way, this plays to your money. This plays to everything. Listen, some of you are

going, this Dave plan, this thing is hard, right? And you start coming up with some fear. You start coming up with some doubt. And in this process, I have learned in my own journey to put fear and doubt on the witness stand, George, and just say, okay, this is what fear is saying. This is what doubt is saying. I'm going to put on the witness stand, and I'm going to see if there's any evidence that they're telling me the truth. And let me tell you something. If you can learn that process, a simple little hack, you'll find that you can overcome fear and doubt. And one other encouragement. The only people, George, that experience fear and doubt are people that are wanting to do something good or are actually moving forward to do something good in their life.

The man in the arena. People that are sitting on the bleachers of life, they don't experience fear and doubt. They're just elbow deep in a bag of popcorn commenting on everybody else's life. And they don't know what fear and doubt is because they're just sitting there watching everybody else. so i want to encourage you if you're struggling with fear and doubt that's because you're thinking about doing something or you're in the process of

doing something and i like that no one lies to ourself as much as we lie to ourselves oh good one isn't that wild well you know the person we listen to the most is us this guy who's got two thumbs i need to listen to you more i appreciate that. I need to listen to you more. I appreciate that, Ken. I need to listen to you more. You need to get out of your own head. You know, that's what having great friends is for. We're basically the friends that you may be what you wish you had. I don't know. That's true, and we'd like to be your

friend. It's simple. 888- 825-5225. I'll be your friend. George will fake it, but I'll be your friend. Don't go anywhere. We're coming back before you know it. This is The Ramsey Show. Take care.