The Ramsey Show - App - My Employer Is Toxic but They Pay My Tuition (Hour 1)
Episode Date: April 27, 2021Career, Relationships, Home Buying Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/3rZTUAx Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2Q64HME Insurance Coverage Chec...kup: https://bit.ly/3sXwUn5 Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/3utmVXi Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fHhbVE
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,
broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Ramsey Show,
where data's dumb, cash is king,
and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW
as the status symbol of choice.
Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author,
host of the Ken Coleman Show, talking about careers and jobs, is my co-host today.
So if you want to talk careers and jobs, this is a good time to do it for sure.
The phone number is 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Ken, your show on now 75-plus radio stations and SiriusXM and a popular podcast has become the perfect one-two punch
because 90% of my work has been on the outgo side, but there's two sides of this financial equation.
The income side is the other side.
I don't get to talk about that enough, and you being in the marketplace teaching people that your income and doing work that matters and doing work with your life that you care about is part of the equation of building wealth.
That's absolutely right.
It turns out that when you do something that you're really good at and that you love, you get promoted more because you are an attractive candidate, an attractive team member because the leader says, wow, you know, this person is clearly doing what they were born to do.
We want to give them more stuff to do.
You know, a happy and an enthused.
You're an employer.
When you see somebody that's on fire, you've talked about this a lot.
We want to hire those people.
Because you said you're one of my favorite Dave-isms.
And I don't know if it's yours, by the way.
But you can't light wet wood.
Isn't that how you say it?
It's not. Yeah, I stole it. But, by the way, but you can't light wet wood. Isn't that how you say it? It's not.
Yeah, I stole it.
But, yeah.
That's okay.
You can't.
You can't.
I mean, it's really hard to light wet wood.
It is.
You know, I'm burned out.
It's impossible.
You were never on fire.
Right.
I mean, so, you know, it's just you got to get, you know,
if you're happy, notify your face.
I mean, you ought to be doing something with your life that you love
and that you're engaged with.
Right.
And sometimes if you, that means changing from what you're doing and um you know you have the seven steps to getting
to a career yeah uh that that you love and that you're passionate about and the first one is get
clear the second one's get qualified yes and getting qualified can can mean if you're going to open a lawn care business that you reach over and pull the thing on the mower and get the engine started.
That's qualified.
You get your button gear, right?
But qualified could be getting a Ph.D.
Could be.
If you're going to be getting your M.D.
If you want to be a medical doctor, getting qualified, there's only one way to do that.
That's right.
And that's go through med school.
So that step, while people are working to get out of debt, sometimes throws them.
It does, because they're sitting there going, okay, wait a second.
I'm gazelle intense.
I'm trying to get out of debt.
We don't stop that.
But what we have to look at is we have to first determine what does it look like to get qualified.
So we ask the question, what do I need to learn?
What do I need to do?
That's education and experience.
How much is that going to cost me?
There's a cost to time, and then obviously if you've got to spend some money to get qualified.
And then you say, okay, based on those answers, I've got a plan here.
Well, I'm getting out of debt.
And there are many times where you must get your financial house in order, walk the baby steps out,
because here's the good news.
That dream career is still going to be there.
The ability to get qualified is still going to be there.
And many times, though, we see people can cash flow their way through it because a certification
may be something that you can do.
It might just be that you don't need any kind of new education, that you just got to make
some connections.
And people say, you know what?
You've got some raw talent.
We're willing to train you on the job.
We're seeing this with companies as large as Google
where they are doing on-the-job training.
So getting a clear picture about what I actually need to get qualified,
then we can go, oh, it may not cost me as much as I thought.
And people, you know, with the epic student loan crisis
and with the shutting down of colleges during COVID, universities during COVID, people started to really start to look at higher education.
But too many people still have in their brain that if I don't have an MBA, that's table stakes for me to do what I want to do.
And it's just not.
It's simply not true.
It's just not.
There's a few things that are table stakes.
There are a few things you've got to put that chip on the table in order to stay in the game.
That's right.
In order to get to the table, stay in the game.
But there's very few things that are real table stakes.
But people put that up, and it's really an artificial barrier.
It is.
I've got two questions that I ask callers on this show, on the Ken Coleman Show,
to consider when they say, do I need the next level of education?
The first question is, is it the only way?
So let me give you two examples that everybody gets.
If you want to be a lawyer, you've got to have a law degree.
You just do.
If you want to be a doctor, you've got to have a med school degree.
Those are a couple of examples that we all get.
So you've got to look at what you want to do, and you've got to truly do the research.
And then you say, is this the only way to get the ticket to the dance?
And if it's not, then you ask yourself, is it the best way?
Okay?
And if it's not the only way or the best way, wait a second.
That means there are multiple ways, and let's look at that.
You and I have talked about this.
And the best way could be I can't afford it.
That's exactly right.
So I've got to find the other way because this is the way broke people do it.
That's right.
I'm going to cash flow my way through it.
Yeah, and I'm good with that.
I've done that most of my life on a whole bunch of things.
The best way is just go buy a brand new one.
No.
But maybe not.
Maybe the best way if you're too broke to do that because you don't have any money because you've been buying all the brand new ones.
That's right.
Then maybe you need to buy a used one before you buy a new one.
And see, that's where the baby steps come in.
So the best way for many people is let's get to baby step three, right?
Let's get there.
And then let's go, all right, what do we do now?
Can I now, because I've got my emergency fund in place, can I begin to cash flow getting qualified?
And here's the other thing, Dave.
I know there's this desire in all of our humanness to just make progress as much as we can.
But the thing is, is that if you walk the baby steps out, then get to the place where
you can cash flow your way to get qualified, you may take a little longer to get in that
dream gig that you've always wanted, but it's actually going to feel wonderful.
You're not going to be in a nightmare scenario where we have a lot of dentists, or you just
pick the career where they're doing it, but they're underneath a mountain of debt it's not
worth it if that dream becomes a nightmare then we interviewed a dentist in uh the borrowed future
podcast yes that between student loans and buying the practice had over a million dollars in debt
and he'd just gotten into the practice and And his lip is quivering. Absolutely.
Tears running down his face as he's describing the crap he'd gotten himself into.
And so, yeah, what we've learned to do over the years at Ramsey is to teach you,
yes, the Ken Coleman way to do careers is there.
And, yes, you can walk the seven clear steps to getting the career you love.
And yes, you can do that.
And it's not incongruent with building wealth.
It's not incongruent with staying out of debt.
It's not incongruent with any of those things.
As a matter of fact, it's highly congruent.
It's actually the best way to do it.
Tonight, we are doing a live stream event.
I assume our studio audience is sold out
we have a small studio audience of a couple we do i think we're sold out you know but a hundred
coming in yeah it's gonna be able to sneak in here if you ask somebody at the door real nice
i might walk out and get to people and yeah you never know but uh anyway if you're feeling stuck
or you're disengaged from your current job you dread getting out of bed going to work in the
morning you're searching for a new job for any reason,
the Get Hired live stream is tonight with Ken Coleman, April the 27th.
It's for you.
It's only $30, and you can text HIRED to 33789 and get your tickets.
Text HIRED to 33789.
I highly recommend, if you have any idea that you might want to be doing something different,
that you watch Ken tonight.
He's going to walk you very clearly through exactly what to do. You're going to leave
inspired, laughing, crying,
and believing you can win. This is
The Ramsey Show. Our famous $10 sale is back.
This time last year, a lot of folks got behind with their money.
But this spring, there's hope.
Our famous $10 sale can help
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To enter our giveaway, go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today.
I am Dave Ramsey, your host.
This is a show about you, America.
It's about your life, your money, your career, your mental health, your marriage, your money, your life, your career, your mental health, your marriage.
It's about you.
Celeste is with us. She's going to start off this hour in Tucson, Arizona. health, your marriage. It's about you. Celeste is with us.
She's going to start off this hour in Tucson, Arizona.
Hi, Celeste.
How are you?
Hi.
I'm doing well.
How are you guys?
Better than I deserve.
How can we help?
So really quickly to the point, well, first of all,
thank you for all that you do, and thank you for having me on.
So to the point, I am at a very,
very toxic work environment right now. So I'm kind of just what you were talking about. You know,
I get up and I don't want to go to work. I get up and I'm dreading going. I hate being there.
It's gotten to the point that I just want to quit and I'm not a quitter. So it's a very difficult
time and like season of my life right now. However, they do pay for school, and so I'm four classes away from getting my bachelor's.
However, I was supposed to graduate in May, and a lot of things, a series of events just happened,
and it didn't happen for me.
I'm now at the point where I'm stuck at this job until October 26th.
There's no transferring for me.
There's no moving up, nothing.
I was initially only there because they pay for school.
But at this point, I just I need something that's going to make me happy.
I have the money to pay for my summer classes.
However, I'm trying to pay everything off.
I finished baby step one and I don't want to continue using the money that I'm saving to pay for school
when I have school paid for if I stay here.
But I don't know what to do.
What is the nature of the toxicity?
What's the problem with this place?
I just don't grow.
I have no growth.
That's not toxic. There's no support. That's not toxic. There have no growth. That's not toxic.
There's no communication.
There's no support.
That's not toxic.
There's no support.
That's not toxic.
Okay.
What's toxic?
There's no support and you're not growing.
You're in a dead-end job that's boring.
Whoop-dee-doop-dee.
That ain't toxic.
Okay.
So tell me what's toxic.
Is there sexual things going on are
people yelling and screaming and cussing or is somebody throwing things at you um are they
you know discriminating against you in some way i mean what's what's toxic
well no that's not all of that no you're right but it is it no one speaks to me i go and i say
good morning no one talks to me but that's you know that is me complaining i should just go and
do my job that's what i'm there for however there's just no support i can't i can't go talk
to someone they're not letting me know they're not asking me hey like how are you and i don't
know if that's maybe me just complaining but no no I'd like to go to a pre-setting employee. Listen, the job sucks, okay?
I don't have any doubt.
I mean, you're kind of like, it sounds like Office Space, the movie, you know?
Yeah, Celeste, first of all, Dave's asking the right question.
We want to get to the source of toxicity so that you can get the right frame of mind.
But I'm going to tell you right now, you're dealing with something that happens in offices all across the country and all across the world, and you're just underappreciated.
People want to know, am I seen? Am I valued? And that's not fun. And Dave's right. It sucks.
But let's reframe your perspective, all right? Let's just go through this very quickly.
You're four classes away from getting the bachelor's, which is why you took the job.
So what's the new timeline if you stay at this company so they pay for the four classes?
Is that what I heard?
October?
October 26th, wasn't it?
October 26th.
Okay, great.
So I'd hang in there until October 26th.
This is an attitude change.
This is, hey, I'm grateful for this really boring place because this boring place is
giving me the opportunity to step up to the next rung on the ladder in life.
And I can hang out.
What you're learning here is how never to lead when you have the opportunity to lead.
You have anti-mentors.
They're teaching you how not to do crap.
Yeah.
And, you know, but if they're not being nasty to you or breaking the law or, you know, asking you to do something that's immoral or that kind of stuff, then it's just a matter of, it's a dead-end job.
It's boring, and they're not the nicest bunch of people in the world.
They're not very friendly.
If that's the whole version of toxicity, you stick this out.
You suck it up and stick it out.
Get your mind on the future. Do it then no i have the money to pay for it i just i don't want to because i'm trying to save my money i'm trying to pay off my debt i'm only
11 000 stay on the baby steps i don't know if jess you got it stay stay with what you're doing
yes let them pay for it and finish it's it's listen it's part you know you're
going to school and i can guarantee you you've gone to some classes that are taught by a tenured
professor who's boring as crud and not a very good teacher and that desk hurts by the time you get
out of it i've sat in those stupid classes and you're And you're putting up with that toxic stuff, in quotes,
in order to get a degree, in order to further your life.
You're delaying the pleasure.
You're putting up with some pain to win later.
Does that make sense?
It does.
I just feel like I'm delaying the chance to leave this job.
If you can leave the job and someone will give you a job that pays for your education
that's all thrilling and they affirm you every day, have at it.
I'm actually going to push back, Celeste.
I don't think you're delaying your exit from this boring job.
If you leave, you're delaying getting into the next baby step.
Don't use that money when they're gonna pay you how old are
you i just turned 24 how many brothers and sisters do you have i'm an older brother and a younger
brother you're the middle yes okay interesting all right i yeah i i still i um you can do whatever you want you're a grown person
if you want to quit and spend your money but basically you are writing a check in order to
get away from these people that's what you're doing and i i don't hear anything here that's
worth writing a check for um you know 68 of americans are dissatisfied at work. Is that right?
It's absolutely right.
Close to 80 around the world. And so that means that at least half of those are experiencing something
along the lines of what you are experiencing,
because most people aren't leaders.
Most people are bosses.
That's exactly right.
Most organizations don't affirm.
Most organizations don't communicate.
Most organizations suck.
And that's why most people don't like working there.
And so, but toxic is when something's happening to you that's abusive.
Yes.
And you're not being abused, kiddo.
Yeah.
You're just not being affirmed, and it's dead end, and it's boring.
Yeah.
You've got to change your mindset here.
It's, wait a second, I'm grateful for the money to get the schooling i need while i'm getting out of debt
it needs to be a total shift we know this from i worked in a place in my 20s one time that
everybody in the building it seemed like right was sleeping with each other oh it was a dadgum
soap opera yeah yeah that's a nice way of saying it, yeah. And it was just nuts. I mean, and I'm in the middle of this thing, and I'm going, this is gross.
And, you know, I was only there for about five months before I got moved on, right?
But it was one of my first few jobs coming out of college, and you go through some situations like that.
But you know what I learned from that?
That was 30-something years ago.
I'm sitting here talking about it.
What I learned from that is I'm not going to tolerate a situation like that but and i'm not going to now that i'm in a position to control it i'm not going to have a whole bunch of people
inside our building that are running around like it's some kind of orgy or something yeah this is
nuts and so people do this though in the workplace and but not ours and, you know, not there.
And we're not, you know, it's not who we are.
And so then a young lady or a young man could come to work here of character and they can feel safe.
Where, you know, and now that's toxic.
Yes.
But, you know, but still, I didn't walk out the door and quit that day.
I endured it for a while. but what I got from the endurance
was the lesson to make sure
it never happens in my environment.
Quick thing here, folks.
We see what we focus on.
We know this.
They've done all types of neuroscience studies on this.
When you buy a car,
you get excited about that car purchase.
How many of you see it everywhere
for the first six, seven days?
It's because there's an intense focus on it.
When you focus on being a victim,
you will see victimization everywhere you go.
As opposed to going, wait a second, I'm so close to being debt free and I'm getting my school paid for.
With a degree.
And all I've got to do is put up with boring, awful leadership until October?
I can do that.
Yeah.
That's the change.
You've got to wait until Christmas to open your gifts, too.
I hate that day. That's. You gotta wait till Christmas to open your gifts, too. I hate that, Dave.
I do.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness.
This is the Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
This is The Ramsey Show.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Landon is with us in Memphis.
Hi, Landon.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Hey, I appreciate you taking my call.
Sure, man.
What's up?
So, I'm 24.
My wife is 22.
And we'll have our house paid off in five months.
Yeah!
Yeah, I appreciate it.
So after we pay off our house, we want to save up and pay cash for rental real estate.
And I was just curious on your opinion on if we should, and I grew up in real estate, my parents didn't have real estate,
so I was just curious on your opinion on if we should maybe just kind of start out by doing a couple of small flips or if we should just kind of go straight into real estate.
I just kind of wanted your opinion on that.
Well, flips are real.
When you're doing them with cash, you can make money.
Right.
And with your background in it, if I woke up in your shoes, I would do some flips.
That's how I used to make a living when I was your age.
And so I was so stupid I did it with debt back then.
But, you know, now, you know, here's the trick, okay?
And you already know this, but I need to say it out loud to make sure all of America hears it.
People doing flips off of what they see on an infomercial or read in some kind of stupid book lose their butts.
In the real world, on a flip, you are going to look at 200 properties to buy one.
Right.
Because you've got to steal it.
There's no margin.
If you're paying 80% of value value you're going to break even right minus
repairs so our our formula when we were doing flips was 70 percent of value minus minus repairs
and so um you know if the property was a hundred thousand dollar property for easy math that means
i'm gonna pay 70 if there's ten thousand dollars worth of repairs i'm gonna pay 60
and it takes a while to get at that oh by the way you're in a ridiculously hot real estate market
where any stupid thing that comes on the market sells instantly and so you're gonna have a hard
time finding deals right now sure i suspect memphis is the same way as the rest of the nation
i don't know but there's a lot about an hour outside of Memphis, and so the market's not quite as crazy as Memphis is.
And so, you know, it's a little bit easier, but it's still, you know,
a white-hot market.
Yeah, but the bottom line is you make your money on the buy if you're doing flips
or if you're doing long-term investing, either one.
You make your money on the buy, meaning you're going to get a deal
or you don't buy it.
And that means you cannot get emotional.
You cannot get fever like, ooh, ooh, this money's burned a hole in the pocket.
I got to buy something.
I got to buy something.
I got to buy something.
The first property I ever flipped, I was 22.
I made $832.
I barely got out because I was an idiot, and I paid way too much for it.
I bought a HUD foreclosure, and I thought because it said foreclosure,
that meant bargain.
It doesn't.
The number means bargain, not the situation.
Yeah, yeah, yes, sir.
And so if you'll stick to the math and put some business practices in place
that guarantee profit, and you'll do some flips with cash,
it's also probably going to be very hard in this
current situation but i love the concept and i made a lot of money doing it uh but it's uh it's
most people don't have the patience or the diligence to look through enough deals to get a
real deal and uh and they get emotional and they get oh i've got a i'm a real estate investor now
and then they just go buy something and they do something stupid.
Yeah.
I love that formula, the 70% of market, then the expenses itself.
And I don't know if this young man can do it,
but if you've got the skills, like my father-in-law, he's got the skills.
He's a contractor.
He can go in and save a lot on that actual expense budget too,
where some people are getting crushed by a contractor.
But here's the thing.
You don't want to – you want to budget it out as if you paid a contractor, because if you're going to do the work, you ought to get paid profit on the deal, and you ought to get paid for being a contractor.
I love that.
If you're going to be in there swinging a hammer, don't do it free.
That's right.
You're going to be on the business end of a paintbrush, be paid painter's wages, and make your profit, too.
Yeah, that's a great form.
Yeah, you don't want to say, oh, I'm going to pay them more for this house because I don't have the level of expense.
That means you got paid zero for your labor.
Great, great point there.
You don't want to do that.
But I made the decision.
I can swing a hammer.
I can the decision. I can swing a hammer. I can fix anything. But I made the decision even at 22 that I was going to run crews to do it because my highest and best use was not on the business end of a paintbrush.
It was getting the next deal and, you know, hunting the next deal.
I'd make more money hunting the next deal than I did painting houses.
Yep.
Otherwise, I'd just be painting houses.
See, that's a great point, too.
So know what you do best.
What do you do best for you?
Well, where's the, you know, highest and best use? You you know what's your best return on the doll on the time spent dollar
return on the time spent how much per hour you make and looking for deals how much per hour you
make in painting houses and that that's the difference and that's what you get into so you
gotta it is nice to be able to do the stuff and that way when the crew leaves in the middle of
the job you can jump in there and finish it out because you hired some bozo to do the work.
Not that that's ever happened to me, but anyway.
No emotion on that sentence at all.
No sarcasm dripping off of the tongue.
Jake is in Boise, Idaho.
Hi, Jake.
How are you?
Good, Dave.
Thanks, Dave and Ken, for taking my call.
Sure.
How can i help so yeah our question is uh
have a promotion opportunity that's causing us to move from eastern idaho over to boise
we stand to make about 140 000 in the sale of our home and we're wondering if we should take
that 140 000 and put it into our new home or if we should pay off our debt and live with the
in-laws for a year and then buy a home after that. How much debt have you got? We've got about $80,000,
$35,000 in student loans. Why couldn't you put $60,000 down on that?
We could. We've got five of us, my wife and I and three kids, and so a home in Boise, we feel like we're not going to get quite the home we want with $60,000 down.
Okay. And you're going to be making, what did you say?
So currently making $90,000. The promotion, expect to make about $140,000.
Okay. The difference in eastern Idaho and the wide-hot Boise real estate market
is not 50%, and your income is going up 50%.
So you should be able to move into a similar home to what you have now
in square footage, but it's going to cost more with your increased
income with a $60,000 down payment.
Now, you can move in with your in-laws if you want.
I wouldn't.
That'd drive me nuts and them, too.
But, I mean, you've got $60,000 put down on a house.
You're debt-free.
You have no payments in the world, and you live there two or three years, and maybe you
move.
Okay.
Or you rent for a year.
Yeah.
Rent for a year and put your $60,000 in the bank.
Right, right.
But, I mean, you can move into them if you want, if that's good for you.
But there's very few families in – I mean, there are in different cultures.
Families that come from different cultures do it all the time.
But, you know, I come from the noble hillbilly culture,
and we don't do well moving back home.
Right, right.
No, that makes sense.
So, I mean, it's just there's too much.
Thanksgiving dinner is a good thing.
It's a little distance there.
We can leave after the turkey's sliced.
But, I mean, some people can do it, and it's okay.
I'm not saying that they're bad people or anything like that.
You're just like a grown guy making $150,000 moving your mother-in-law's basement.
It feels weird.
Yeah.
I agree with you, but I will say the other side of that coin is if he can do it
and he really weighs this thing
out where are we living what's it look like how weird is that going to be can i bite my lip
what kind of relationship does he have i get it i'm i'm in the same boat but listen stacy's parents
are saints but you moved in with them they kill you well that that's yeah you're right same as me
that mouth it wouldn't last i mean it works good on talk radio it doesn't work good at the dinner
table i'm with you, Dave.
I'm just trying to go, man, that is nice.
If you got that, you can pack a lot of money away.
I love my father-in-law.
I couldn't live with him 20 minutes.
Yeah.
Because it wouldn't be fair to him.
I'm not that easy to live with.
Yeah.
So, I mean, y'all just, you got to decide this stuff.
And I think sometimes when people ask this question, they're only thinking about math,
and they haven't thought about the emotional and relational strain they're walking into. I agree with you on that.
Jake's nicer than you and me. That's what I think. It sounds like the math
is going to make it all okay. The math goes away quick.
Not so much. I get it. This is the Ramsey Show. show. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Ken is the host of the Ken Coleman Show,
which airs on 75 plus
radio stations on SiriusXM
and is a podcast YouTube show
as well. So you can listen to it as a
podcast. You can listen to it on YouTube.
And it's all about discovering
your purpose. It is all about
you living in the
dream, meaning doing work you love
and getting paid a lot for doing
it.
You do not have to take a dumbed-down income in order to find work that has meaning.
That's a false dichotomy.
It's not true.
And Ken is here to walk you through that.
As a matter of fact, tomorrow, no, not tomorrow night, tonight, on the stage here at Ramsey,
there are big spotlights out here like it's Hollywood or something.
We're getting ready to do this live stream with Ken tonight,
and he's going to cover the seven steps to get hired.
It's the Get Hired event tonight, the 27th of April,
and we want you to tune in tonight.
Tickets are just $30, and you can text the word HIRED to 33789.
And that will come on live at 7 p.m. Central, 8 Eastern.
7 Central, 8 Eastern.
And tonight you're going to be covering the eight steps and other things as well.
Going to be diving really deep on the first three stages of get clear, get qualified, get connected.
The seven stages to doing what you were born to do.
We're going to dive in because those are the three stages that allow you to get noticed and get hired.
And I actually got something for you, Dave, because we'll unpack the seven stages really quick.
We just mentioned the first three because I want you to weigh in on stage five for our audience.
So get clear is figuring out talent that's what you do best passion work you love to do and then what are the results that's the mission that you want to put out in the workplace
then you got to get qualified that stage two stage three get connected all about relationships that's
all about your number one best-selling book the proximity principle the right people the right
places give us opportunities so that puts us at stage stage four where now we got the gig and we're starting. We're on that ladder. Stage five is get promoted.
And that's a stage that we stay in for a while as we keep getting promoted, keep climbing the ladder,
if you will, until we step into that dream job. And here's the thing that I want you to weigh in
on because you have great insight on this. Saw an article yesterday, Dave, that the oldest millennial in the workplace will turn 40 this year,
according to those who determine what's a millennial or not.
So the oldest millennials turn 40.
And for the first time, we see that there are just as many people in leadership or management positions
under the age of 45, Dave, as there are that are over the age of 45.
And so this article is talking about how these millennials are now, as they get promoted,
as we see anybody get promoted, at some point you're going to be in leadership.
You hear it as management.
We call it leadership here.
And so, Dave, it's just inevitable.
As I get promoted, I'm going to have opportunities to lead.
And they were saying that a lot of these millennials didn't set out to become leaders. We teach a lot about leadership here. You learn to
lead. You started out in real estate, started a radio show. As your organization grew, people
come in and you were learning to lead. And thus you created this term that became a bestselling
book, Entree Leadership. I thought it'd be good for you to kind of explain that as you're going
to get promoted, you're going to have the opportunity to lead people. I think a lot of people are scared.
I've never led before.
I can't lead.
And I think, and you believe, that leadership can be learned.
It can be developed.
What do you say to those people who are going, I want to get promoted.
I want to keep doing it, but I don't know about this leadership thing.
Leadership is one of the hardest endeavors you'll ever undertake but it's not complicated
great statement so you shouldn't fear it um because it's not like it's like uh becoming
wealthy there are no secrets to the rich so like instance, when we start some of the lessons
in Entree Leadership, one of the lessons I start, I ask people, what are the character qualities
of a great leader? And most everyone will tell you
about the same thing. Yeah, I've seen you do it. They all pop out the answers.
Sometimes they use a little bit of a different word, but there's only about five or six
things that pop up every time. They're a servant. They're humble. They have
integrity. They have vision. they have energy and passion um they're affirming uh the things like
that are what we always hear that's what you think of when you think of a leader now not necessarily
a boss if you want to be a boss that's a different thing but if you want to be a leader, you've got to be in front. You can't be behind.
Bosses are behind with the whip, driving cattle.
Yes.
Leaders are out front casting a vision and saying, this is where we're going.
If you want to go, the train is leaving in just a moment.
Hear the whistle?
You need to be on the front train.
This is where we're going.
And if you don't get on the train, you're going to be left at the station.
And so leaders sometimes leave people behind that don't want to go, won't keep up.
Sometimes we ask people off the bus, as my friend Jim Collins says,
because they shouldn't have been on there.
They don't fit in with the vision.
They're a toxic problem inside the organization.
They don't have the skills to bring it
uh whatever and so we have to walk with them but if you will just love people and serve them
and not try to be a boss and think about okay if i'm gonna lead name the person doing that job
just switch roles for a second treat other people like you'd want
to be treated so how would you want someone to do that you'd want them to occasionally smile
you want them to say hey that was you did a good job with that that was good it's a good job you'd
want to be told when you're doing something doofus so you don't do it again because you don't want
to be a perpetual doofus that's not not good for anybody. You know, what would you want people to do if you were being led?
And it's really not complicated, but it's hard because people, some people are crazy.
Yeah, the best thing about leadership is people, but the worst is people.
Exactly.
About 2% of the public should be institutionalized.
So, you know, and some of them will come to work for you.
God help you, you know.
And they dress up nice, so you make the mistake of hiring them.
But then they get in the building, and you've got problems.
And then you get other people who surprise you the other way that you thought,
well, I don't know if that's going to amount to much,
but it turns out to be dadgum Albert Einstein.
Actually, that was Churchill's grade school teacher sent home a note to his mother
that said this one's not going to amount to much.
Winston freaking Churchill, you know?
And so, you know, but sometimes you have that.
You get the surprise, right?
Obviously, that grade school teacher was a bit surprised if he lived long enough.
But to see the man that almost single-handedly saved the free world
in an unbelievable act of leadership.
And so a series of acts of leadership.
But again, it's not really complicated.
It's just hard because you are subordinating your own rights.
You're putting other people forward, and you're putting the mission ahead of your own rights.
The leader who wants to be in charge in order to be in charge is never going to make it.
No.
The leader who wants to be in charge because if we all get this done together,
we're going to get it done right and we're going to get it done faster
and a bunch of people are going to be helped on the other side.
Mission critical, mission first, driven by the task, driven by the desired future,
and we're all on the page to that and anybody that's not on page to that, we're going to help you get on the page
or get you somewhere else.
That's leading.
Jim Collins, our friend that you mentioned earlier,
he calls that a level five leader based on the research.
And basically his one-sentence description of those level five leaders is that
if we win, we all win.
So if you win, we win.
If we win in this team, the whole company wins.
So if this particular division wins here, the whole company wins.
If the customer wins, we win.
It is, as you said, mission above everything else, and that's really huge.
Dave, to what you said about it not being complex,
research shows that men and women would rather get public recognition
or some type of reward.
Reward or recognition more than a raise.
That speaks to what you're talking about.
And they don't care if the leader is perfect.
No.
All they care is that they're just telling the truth.
Yes.
Do they care about me?
Yeah.
Do they care about me and telling the truth?
You know, like going through COVID.
You know, I told everybody, we run out of money, we're all going home.
Because I'm not borrowing money to prop up payroll.
I told everybody that.
Yeah.
And let me tell you what happens.
Here's how much cash we got, and here's where we're going to be.
And when the cash runs out, leadership's all going to go to zero pay.
And when that doesn't work, then some of you are going to zero pay.
And when that doesn't work, a bunch of us are going to zero pay forever.
And so if this thing persists.
And so people stayed.
Nobody took a pay cut.
Nobody got furloughed.
Nobody got laid off as a result of COVID.
But we did not know that at the time.
And they appreciated just being told the truth and treated like adults.
That's exactly what happened.
And other companies told them nothing.
Told their employees nothing.
Nothing.
That's not leadership.
That's doofusness. This their employees nothing. Nothing. That's not leadership. That's doofus.
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