The Ramsey Show - App - Meekness Is NOT the Same As Weakness (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 28, 2020

Retirement, Savings Tools to get you started:  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 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. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money. It's a free call, 888-825-5225. Julie is with us in Pittsburgh. Hi, Julie.

Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. The question I have for you is I am completely debt-free, proud mom of four children, and an amazing husband who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, cancer. We have some amazing things that have transpired since then. Cancer has been one of those things that it's been our biggest reason for praying and our biggest blessing as well. And with that being said, we have close to, well, not close to, I know exactly how much we have. We have $15,700 in savings.

All of our ordinary and customary bills that we do as a family, like gas, electric, all of those things, are taken care of by individual rental properties. Now, with cancer coming into play, we even have a rental property set up to where it covers our vacations and things like that. My question is, should I start a nonprofit or should I take our rental property that takes care of our vacations and should I liquidate it and put those funds into savings in case if we experience any huge cost from that. I know that my max out-of-pocket for an annual year can be $15,000. How old is he? My husband is 50, and I'm age 38,

and we have children that are age 3, 4, 6, 16, and also an adult child who is 27. Does he have life insurance? No, we went ahead and prepaid. He doesn't have any life insurance? No. Prepaid what? Prepaid for the final expenses for... Oh, for funeral. Okay. But I'm talking about he doesn't have a life insurance policy that you will get money should he pass away. Okay. No. And your home is paid for?

Absolutely. And how many rental properties do you have? Seven, and soon to be eight. So. Network should be right around $950,000 by the end of August. Okay. The rental properties are all debt-free? Yes, sir. Okay okay so they're small properties yes sir i mean on average they bring us in anywhere from 70 to 80 thousand dollars a year

yeah okay all right and that's how you will eat should something happen to him yes sir okay all right um you know there's not life insurance, but there is. A lot of paid for real estate. You've got a million-dollar net worth, basically. Yes, sir. Okay. So should I start a nonprofit? No, a nonprofit is of no value.

You can't use a nonprofit for your own use. Right, right. It violates the tax law. Right. own use right it violates the tax law and so right but but um are you collecting are people giving you donations is that why you're wanting to start a non-profit uh there there has been folks that have reached out to us and just truthfully you know we're used to just paying for everything ourselves and not really uh having folks come to us in that way yeah what would the property sell for that you're talking about selling?

It would be one of the smaller, well, I could pick from any of them, but I'd probably start with the one that brings us in the least amount of rent, and that's $450 a month. We could get, I would say, a fair market value for that one would be about $50,000. Yeah, okay. All right, well, let's kind of walk through this a little bit, okay? If you only have $15,000 cash and instead you had $65,000 cash because you sold that property, that would give you – cash gives you power.

It gives you options when you're facing tough decisions. Okay. And so if you decide you need to get on a plane and fly to wherever to get a treatment that maybe insurance doesn't cover, I'd want to have that money available. Yeah. Okay, that makes good sense. Yeah, and then you're, you know, in a best case or a worst case scenario, worst case is you spend the money doing something like that, and it doesn't work.

That would be your worst case scenario. But in the case that you don't use the money and he's okay, his health comes back, you would just take that money and buy another rental property. In the case that something happened to him and you hadn't used that money, you could just take that money and buy another rental property. Yes. So we've not really lost anything except maybe a little bit of capital gains tax or something from selling it.

That's what I was worried about, the capital gains tax. But it's going to be minor because it's a minor-sized property. The whole thing's not gain. It's only what you've gained that's gained, and that's only at 15%. And so you're not going to have – I think you want the cash position to fight the battle of your life. Okay. Because you're in the battle of your life.

Right. And, you know, there's the part of me that definitely wants to be financially responsible, but there's also that part of me too, that wants to capture those moments. And, you know, we're living in a dash right now. You got your birth date, you got your end date, and you get the dash in the middle is where it counts. So, you know, that's why I was really struggling with getting rid of the vacation, you know, the one that provides us with a vacation each year. So would you say that taking a portion of that. Well, one thing about being where you guys are, it makes the dash really clear. Yeah.

We're just here for a vapor. We're just here for a moment. That's right. And I know he's going to be born again into heaven, and I know that heaven is the best vacation you could ever take. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that we get lots of pictures with these babies amen amen yeah yeah yeah you drop you drop a little coin on that listen here's the thing let's say it out loud this way okay you don't you don't talk like this and so i know you don't think like this

but you're a millionaire yes sir you have a net worth of a million dollars yeah go on vacation your husband has cancer okay do it absolutely do it okay you're being very you're being very wise you're being very strong and uh you've got real good spiritual clarity uh you got wisdom beyond your years just talking to you. You're going to be fine. But you guys have put yourself in a position to fight this and to take clear advantage of every moment of that dash. Okay.

And listen, you call me if you need me, okay? I'm here. All right. I appreciate you, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you so much, and God bless. I'm not Mr. Ram me if you need me, okay? I'm here. All right. I appreciate you, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you so much, and God bless you. I'm not Mr. Ramsey. I'm Dave, okay? All right, Dave.

I appreciate you. Have a good day. Bye-bye. Okay. I just got clarity for the rest of the day. Wow. Living in the dash. And so are you. So am I.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We talk about it daily. Character matters. When I'm looking for team members, I'm looking for men and women who have character. People with character care. They care about the work they're doing and they care about the people around them. That's why my team uses LinkedIn Jobs to find people who care about our mission. Over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals, and discover new job opportunities. And their profiles give you a sense of the whole

person, their skills interests volunteer experience with linkedin you can reach candidates you can't find anywhere else so that you can get the right people for the right jobs it's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on linkedin get started today with linkedin jobs and get $50 off your first job post. Visit linkedin.com Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I'm a recently retired engineer, 61 years old.

I have about a quarter million dollar house paid off. I have about a year old truck paid off, a car a few years older than that, no debt. I recently retired and right now I'm moving my money out of my 401K and rolling over into an IRA. And I've got a pension, and I'm eligible for Social Security starting next year. Just trying to figure out what's my next move, how should I invest. Did you say 61 or 51? 61. 61, okay. And so are you doing anything to earn income? Did you say 61 or 51? Six one. Six one.

Okay. All right. And so are you doing anything to earn income? No, I don't really need to. Obviously. But you're still not, though? No. Okay.

All right. So what are you doing with your time? Well, I have a mom that's 92 92 years old and i visit her every day and uh pretty much just do whatever i want yeah well you're in a position to do that congratulations you've done a great job i'm just curious because i'm 58 and i just can't imagine doing nothing it bothers me so i wanted to know what it felt like yeah yeah well Well, I'm trying to figure out what's my next move as far as that part of it goes. But right now, I want to figure out. That kind of enters into the question a little bit, okay?

Number one, you've saved your nest egg is how big, not counting your pension? About $970,000. So you're a millionaire plus. You've got a net worth of about a million and a half give or take depending on the value of this house and uh way to go man congratulations thank you did you uh did you inherit any of this money no none of it okay so um just for the sake of our listeners in the everyday millionaire project um how did you do this what do you attribute it to i think frugality was a big part of it i mean i'm just being honest okay you're just not a big spender i did i invested

as much as i could you know yeah you're the number two category in in career of the millionaires that we studied the engineers are number two likely most likely um and and i think it's because the way your mind works. Number one, you're good with math, obviously. But number two, you're systems and you're steady, systems and steady. And so you got in that 401K and you got in that Roth IRA and you just did it every stinking month, didn't you? Yes. And I found through life that material things don't do it.

Oh, I agree. I assume if I'm outside doing something, you know, I really don't need to spend a lot of money. Maybe I'll get a bicycle, something like that. Amen. Good. Okay. Cool. Thanks for letting me interview you for a second.

Okay. You do not need to do investing. You don't need to. You may want to. Yeah, I don't want to you may want to to be i don't want to be risky i want to be low risk yeah no i'm not talking about that i'm not talking about i'm just saying if you never saved another dollar right you're okay oh good that's my point you you said earlier if you never earn another dollar you're okay okay. The money you have invested in your pension, you should be just fine. I take it you're single.

Yes. Yeah, okay. And so you're going to be able to – That's probably another reason why I've got more money. Well, maybe, maybe not. Yeah. But the – so you don't have to work and you don't have to invest. So there's not a need to do either thing.

There may be a want. There may be a career that gives you great fulfillment in your encore. Right. Where you come back out for the second act and take a bow, right? Your encore career. And there might be some investing that is fun. Now, I long ago reached where you are and don't need to invest, not even close. But I enjoy it.

For me, it's just kind of a game in the sense that I like seeing the real estate go up in value. I like making sure that it's maximizing and that I'm doing a good job of managing that asset that God gave me to manage for him. And I like the generosity that it allows me to do. By having money, I'm able to be more and more and more generous. And I noticed when I was broke, I couldn't do that. So, you know, I work now for legacy and for generosity. The percentage of the money that I create now off of investments or I create now off of my income that goes to my personal lifestyle would be probably less than 2%. And I got a really good life. I'm not that frugal, comparatively speaking.

So all of that to say, that's the guy who's answering your question. And I would say you might find real fulfillment in the generosity that you're able to create by doing some additional investing and by creating a second encore career. That's not high pressure or that doesn't require you to not see your 92 year old mother or something like that. But, you know, you have a unique ability to earn and create money. There's only 12 million millionaires in north america and you're one of them that makes you a fairly rare bird and so you have a gift and how can you use that gift in a way that that gives you fulfillment and it usually has to do with service when you serve you get. And generosity is a type of service. Helping other people do something is a type of service. And that's unbelievably fulfilling. And so I'm going

to lead you in that direction with your investing. And yeah, you can afford to take some risk. You don't need to. You don't like to take much risk. I don't blame you. I don't take a lot of risk, but I put money in real estate. There's no guarantee on it. I put money in mutual funds. There's no guarantee. They got great long-term history, so they're relatively low risk if I'm willing to leave it alone long-term.

So that's what I would suggest. You're what we call baby step seven. You're completely out of debt, and it's build wealth and give. Build wealth and give, and that's baby step seven. You're completely out of debt and it's build wealth and give, build wealth and give, and that's baby step seven and decide as a single guy, you know, what you're going to do with this and you need to have your will in place and your estate plan in place. And how's this money going to be handed out? And if it is nieces and nephews or relatives, you might want to spend some of your time teaching them how to be like you when they grow up. And you could have a real impact on your whole family if you chose to then.

I'm not saying it's not an obligation to, but I would not leave some kid $300,000 who's a doofus. I would want to train them and make sure that they were going to be blessed by the money rather than cursed by it. But you may have all that planned out, too. You're kind of a planner, so I wouldn't doubt it. Those are some things to think about. Good talking to you. Congratulations. Very, very, very well done.

Margaret's in Sacramento. Hi, Margaret. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate it. And first and foremost, thank you so much. With the six kids that we have, you have really helped us change our large family tree. So thank you very much.

Lots of branches. Yeah, that's right. You know, I have about 280K in my former 401K, former employees 401K. And I know you've always said to roll that over with the SmartVestor Pro so that we have more investment options. But it's currently making about 12% year over year. And is it worth it to spend that 4% fee that I would have to pay in order to roll it over out of the former employer? Does that make sense? If you make more over the long haul, it would be.

Okay. If you break even, it wouldn't be. Right. The purpose of having more options would be to create a better portfolio that outperforms. Right. It sounds like your 401K is outstanding. You may want it. There's nothing wrong with leaving it.

But most of the time, if you're given 12 options and I'm given 8,000, I can find something that outperforms your 12. Okay. Most of the time. I mean, it's logical. You know, not everyone chooses to. And it's logical you know not everyone chooses to but um and it's okay you're not doing anything like there's nothing here under the stupid column that we're checking a box okay this is all brilliant i mean you got a you have a quarter of a million dollars way to go touchdown okay b you've got it invested very well and so the only thing is could you do and let me just tell you you're not going to do double if you could make one percent more than you're making now you would

have had a great day so you know what you might do you might just sit with a smart investor pro and say you know show me a reason that i should believe that a logical, educated person that you can teach me why I would want to move it. And they may say, leave it. That's okay. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. If you do this one simple thing that we all do, you are literally at risk of being hacked and someone stealing what you've worked so hard for. Do you ever use public Wi-Fi?

I'm talking about getting online at a coffee shop, a store, the airport, or even at home. Hackers can use a simple $100 device to mimic Wi-Fi, and with just a little bit of skills, they can take over your financial life. This means you may think you're on your bank's site or app or securely making that purchase online, but hackers could see and steal that information. That's why I trust CyberG vpn cyber ghost thinks about cyber crime so you don't have to you can try it for free for seven days protect up to seven internet devices and keep all of your internet connections secure that's cyber ghost vpn downloaded today from your app store and be

secure in seconds in the lobby of ramsey solutions jamel and Aletha are with us. You guys win the t-shirt contest. That's the best t-shirts I have seen. Thank you. Black t-shirt, white t-shirt. One says beans and rice. The other one says rice and beans.

Well done, you guys. Touchdown. I love it. Where do you guys live? We live in Brandywine, Maryland. And it's about 20 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. D.C. folk. Welcome. Good to have you. And here to do a

debt-free scream. Yes. Love it. Welcome. And how much have you paid off? $222,222. No way. This way. That's a lot. How long did this take? 22 months. 22 months oh no are you making that up

nope still selling 22 months and 22 hours yeah and 22 days yes oh my gosh and what's your household income don't tell me 222 000 no currently the household income is $200,000. $200,000. Okay. And what was the range? What was the low point? The high point was $234,000, and we went from $234,000 to $180,000. Whoa. Okay. All right.

And now making $200,000. So what kind of debt was the $222,000? We had a rental property, medical bill, credit cards, vacations, vehicles. We had it all. You paid off everything but your house? Everything but our home. Wow. Did you sell the rental?

Yes, we sold the rental. And what did it bring? What did it sell for? $138. Okay. Of the $222. Of the $222. All right.

Good. And the rest of it, what was the other big ones? Cars or student loans? Cars. We didn't have student loans, but it was cars. And we had bought a brand-new home. So, of course, with a brand-new home, we was brand-new furniture. Oh, yeah. It's federal law.

Yes. So did you keep the cars? Yes, we did keep the cars. So you sold the rental property and just plowed through the rest of it? Plowed through the rest of it. Beans and rice, rice and beans. Rice and beans, yes. I love it.

So how long have you two been married? I'll be close to 14 years coming this August. Okay. So what happened two years ago that lit the fuse? Because you guys blew up, man. Oh, it's all her. He gives me the van of white. I got pregnant and I went in for my 22 week follow up and they put me on high risk and they indicated that I will have to stay in the hospital until I delivered her.

And the goal was to get her to 28. And so since I was in the hospital, they wouldn't allow me to go home to pack or bring anything. My husband went to a bookstore and he just so happened to pick up your financial peace book. So I read it within one or two days and that's what kicked everything off. So you're stuck in bed, but you are chomping at the bit now. Yes. We're ready to go. And so Jamel's like, okay, I got two problems. One is I got her in bed, and now she's gone crazy. Well, actually, it was three problems, because the third one was, being that she was on bed rest, I was unaware of everything, all the bills that we had.

Oh. So I brought that to her attention. I said, well, you know, future reference, if something happens, how am I going to pay the bills that we had. Oh. So I brought that to her attention. I said, well, you know, future reference, if something happens, how am I going to pay the bills? What bills do you have? What bills do I have? And so from that point, I went and looked for a financial book because she's always reading from Barnes & Noble.

Okay. And I purchased your book and brought it to her. Oh, wow. Okay. So what'd you guys do? Just dump everything out on the hospital bed and go through it and figure it out? Well, not at first. When I was in there, it was more of, hey, we need to do this.

And he was, no, no, I just need to know what bills to pay, so I'll bring the bills whenever they come in the mail. But it took a while. It wasn't always easy. I recall having the budget envelopes and i'm in one grocery line with my budget envelopes and he's in another line with his debit card so it took us a while it wasn't an instant let's pick up the book and just do it but um he eventually came on board gotcha okay all right in 22 months, you decided to sell the rental and pay off everything else.

So, Jamel, what made you decide to go all in going from sort of being in? Well, she drew a good picture for me in terms of a stress-free household because we like to travel. We like to do things. But at the same time, we was also going in debt. So she painted a picture to where if we just plan accordingly, that we'll live a better life and more stressful life if we just save and pay out of pocket

versus putting everything on the credit card. So it was a bigger picture for me, and now here we are. Yeah, way to go. Was it worth it? It was. Sky's the limit. Yeah, I love it. Well done. Good job. Very, very cool. So what do you guys tell, now that you're on the other side of this, what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? I would tell someone, especially a married couple, that if you have a strong household and one person is strong in one aspect in terms of finances, let that person

take the lead, and you follow. Just get on board. And that's with anything. Whoever's a strong person in a particular category, follow the lead from that person, and just go all in. And the overall outcome will succeed. That's logical. And who's the nerd at your house, then?

I'm guessing I know. I am. You kind of enjoy it. I mean, that's what it amounts to. And that makes sense. Well done. Good job, you guys. What about you, Aletha?

What do you tell people the key is? I would say there's three major things. Know your why. Have a vision of where you want to go. And then start creating goals to get there. That's very good. Very good. All very good ways and reasons to get out of debt.

That's it. So what's your why? Our why was we just wanted to live like nobody else down the road. My vision is at the age of 50, I want to retire from the government service and be a third-grade math teacher and travel in the summertime. I love it. Very good. Very good. And what do you do, Jamel?

I'm in law enforcement. Okay. Very good. Good. Okay. Very cool, you guys. I'm proud of you. Who are your biggest cheerleaders? We are. Good. Okay. Very cool, you guys. I'm proud of you. Who are your biggest cheerleaders?

We are. Yes. We are each other's biggest cheerleaders. We cheered each other on. We actually created a vision wall in our basement because we was in the process of redoing the basement. Since it was a new home, we needed to get the basement done. But we stopped in the middle of construction and painted the wall like a chalkboard paint. And we put our vision and everything up there.

So anytime we went down there, that was our cheerleader. That was our visual to see that we got to keep going. I love it. That'll be one in every house. I may go home and make one tonight. That's good. I like that. Well done.

Well done. So what was your biggest sacrifice? For me, I'm the spender in the family. So my biggest sacrifice was not purchasing quickly. Think it out, plan it out, save for it, and also decide whether or not, if it's a need or if it's a want so i made determinations in terms of things that i want necessarily things that i need so need always came first and once i put in the back yeah you know i used to do that too because i'm a spender at our house just like you and um you know i actually wrote it out one time and i figured out i didn't really have any needs almost everything

on my list was once and so i was just whining it just convicted me to no end it was unbelievable yeah most of us in america really i mean most of us don't have many needs if any at all we we have transportation clothing food shelter i mean we really have our needs covered. And even a better version of any of those things is a want. You know, once you got a car, a better car is not a bad thing, but it's a want. It's not a need. You know, and yet we all say, I need. And I do it, too.

I still do it. I have to fight against it. That's why God makes me teach this every day. Well done, you guys. So proud of you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you. They almost said retire inspired. Every day millionaires, because you're going to be one very soon.

That's right. And that way you can travel in the summers. That'll be perfect. I'm loving it. Well done. Very good stuff. Jamel and Aletha. And you brought your baby with you?

Yes. And how old is she? She is 15 months and 12 months corrected. She was a 26-weeker. Alright, look at her. Very good. Good stuff. Alright, Jamel and Aletha and little Kennedy. $222,000 paid off in

22 months. Let's hear your debt-free scream. 3, 2, 1. hear your debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt with Mike in Los Angeles. Hey, Mike, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

My wife and I have recently finished Baby Step 3. We have $20K extra in savings and are considering what the next step is for us. Our household net pay in 2018 was right at about $160K. Way to go. We're 30 years old. We have no children. We do not own a home and are now discussing whether to put 15% toward retirement while saving up for a home or to flat out focus on only piling up for a home as quick as possible. The two curveballs to this conversation are her parents have generously offered as an early inheritance to gift us with $150,000 toward the purchase of our first home. And the kicker, number two, is my wife is concerned about not putting anything toward retirement while saving up for a home for the next few years.

All right. What would you do? If you have $170,000, why can you not buy a home? Now. Just in the Los Angeles area, it's fairly expensive. I mean, we're thinking probably somewhere around the $600 to $1 million range would be what we're looking at. I know it's a little bit more expensive than a starter home. I understand that.

But, I mean, if you have $170,000 to put down, you could buy a $600,000 house making $160,000, couldn't you? Can. Yes, you can. On a 15-year fix, that's about, what, like $4,000 a month payments, so schedule over 15. So it would be a little tight, but not much wiggle room, I think. So the point being, I don't think you have to take a long. How old are you two? 30.

And she's panicking about retirement? Not panicking. Well, to the point you can't save for two years until you're 32? Because of the compound interest. I know. I understand compound interest. I understand. But I'm saying between 30 and 32, if you did no savings toward retirement

and you put another $100,000 with this $170,000, so you had $270,000, $300,000 to put down, you put down 50% or 30% on a $900,000 house, you're going to be in fine shape and you're going to be able to save. Your income is going to go up from $32,000 on. What do you guys do for a living? She's a mechanical engineer and I'm a sound artist for movies and TV. Okay. Okay. Well, assuming you continue to do your job well,

and your job could be feast or famine, hypothetically. Hypothetically. But, you know, I mean, you could go out of vogue, and 20 years from now might not be making more. That's possible if you don't continue your learning curve in your world. Her world is a pretty steady climb up so on income so i think you're fine i i if you want to take a year and save up some more and then buy a house or two years and save up some more and buy a house we call that baby step 3b

i never recommend or almost never recommend somebody do that longer than three years but if you do take if you take 12 to 24 months and add some to the 170 you got 20 mom and dad are giving 50 you add some to that then you You got 20. Mom and dad are giving 50. You add some to that, then you're going to have a really substantial down payment, and you make a great income. So you're fine. You're fine. I wouldn't hesitate to do it that way at all. You know, I don't think your numbers work to save up to pay cash for anything in a, you know,

in a short period of time in your market. You know, it's just very difficult to do there with your income. So you could do it, but it might take you 10 years. And she's not going to want to play that, it sounds like. Joel is with us in Seattle. Hi, Joel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, I've got a small business people question for you. I own a very small business. There's just five of us. That includes my wife and I. I imagine there's just a few other team members. And I'm familiar with your no-gossip policy from the Ontario Leadership material, which I really appreciate. My question is, I had an employee this morning who's been with us for a few years, approached me and was sort of frustrated that one of her newer coworkers, who happens to be a friend of hers, was venting to her

and basically gossiping a lot of negative stuff that I sensed might have been going on but wasn't sure. And so I appreciate that she's approached me. She did it sensitively and even felt bad doing so. But now I'm wondering how do I approach or do I approach this other employee without sort of calling out her friend slash co-worker for bringing it forward? How do I handle this in a way that's tactful but achieves the result we hopefully want? Yeah.

Does the new person know that you all are not okay with this idea? I have not been clear enough i haven't articulated that no gossip policy clarity that i should okay all right uh you know i might just pull pull her in and say listen i'm reading some stuff and um i gotta tell you i'm not okay with the concept of this and um and i kind of think you're doing that right now and i'm going to go ahead and kind of warn you right now that i'm not going to be okay with that in the future and she says what me yeah you you know and um you know what's interesting is if you're if you use a low tone and you're not caustic in your sentence structure

you can say almost anything to people but what happens is we get frustrated angry and we change our tone or we change our sentence structure to where it's toxic but if it's just like look i kind of goofed up i had this whole idea and i thought i had told people better i hadn't really told people as well as i should so probably you didn't completely understand that we basically here have a no gossip policy i will pledge to you that i'm gonna tell people going forward that if you have a negative you have to bring it in here if you could bring it to a co-worker ever again you and i are not going to be okay and what you've been doing taking it to other co-workers is just not okay it's on me because i didn't tell you ahead of

time that it wasn't okay but you also knew it was slimy to do that so you shouldn't be slimy stop it yeah and that conversation could last that conversation could last that long it could last that long it It could last that long. It doesn't have to be a long conversation. And it's over. And we're not going to beat you up. We're not putting you in timeout. I'm telling you it's my fault because I wasn't clear.

But after today, it's your fault. And really, it was kind of your fault anyway because it's just slimy to do that. And you don't need to do it anymore. Just as a human being. Running down the people who pay you is stupid and disloyal. You don't have to say that, but it is. Should I be worried if basically if, you know, did so-and-so tell you this or how do you know?

You know what, that's not relevant. Yeah, if they bring it up, I say, you know what, that's not relevant. What's relevant is I wasn't clear and you were slimy. So we both have made a mistake and you're not going to do that mistake anymore and I'm not going to do my mistake anymore. I'm going to be clear from now on, unbelievably clear, and you're going to stop doing that. That's all that's relevant.

And if you do not want to work in a place like that then you should probably pack your stuff because you now work in a place that's like that at our place the people that work here don't do this and if you do this whatever this is then you're not going to get to be one of the people that work here. And that's something we talk about around here all the time. I mean, odd infinitum, every stinking staff meeting, I'm covering some kind of a core value, and I go, this is how we treat the customer. This is how we serve with excellence.

We bring it. We're playing for the Super Bowl every day, and we're not gossiping, and we're not running down anybody. We're not running down each other. If you have a problem, not with when you have a problem, you hand your negatives up and your positives laterally and down. You don't discuss negative things, frustrations, with people who can't do anything about them.

That is a toxicity in an organization, and it destroys an organization. And I will fire your butt, and I tell people that about once a month from the stage with 800 people in the staff meeting. And you know what? We win best place to work every stinking year. And one of the things when they survey and say, why is it the best place to work? We love the no gossip policy. The other people love it.

And so if slimy girl can't clean up her act and she's just going to continue to be slimy girl, then she does need to leave. You can get another one that's better than her and that's part of the fear that's part of the fear too and so i appreciate the clarity and pray for the courage now yeah and it's just it's just listen it's courage but it gives you the ability to be kind meekness is not weakness it's power under control You're in the driver's seat You own the place You control her job at the stroke of a pen So you're in a position To be kind to her

But clear Be very clear And you've not been clear, you admitted that So you owe her an apology for that part And don't make that mistake again Be clear from this point forward And that's really what You've got to get it out of there.

You can't ignore it in the name of protecting the informant. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening.