The Ramsey Show - App - My Parents Are Asking Us To Give Them $55k (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Upgrading a house vs. paying down the mortgage, How to handle asking parents for money, Unreasonable Hospitality with restaurateur & author, Will Guidara Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studio, it's the 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Eric is with us in Omaha. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thank you very much for taking my call sure what's up so uh within the past two years both my wife and i have had drastic income increases and we're trying to figure out if it's more worthwhile in my starter level home split entry to put more money towards my $98,000 mortgage or to invest that money into upgrades. We don't have anything that needs repaired, but trying to figure out if the upgrades will be more fruitful than paying down the mortgage prior

to moving in two to three years, what kind of upgrades uh doing some concrete repair possibly just replacing the deck boards as you know the lumber prices are nuts right now so i'm just trying to make my my deck safer uh no lumber prices are not nuts right now they've come way down they've come way down okay they were triple and now they're back to about normal um yeah i saw there's like a twenty thousand dollar surcharge on building a new house right now so we're trying to hold it we're trying to hold out that's a builder that's still trying to gig you even though the prices have come down so that doesn't mean that we need that builder i'm not paying any builder a twenty thousand dollar surcharge in this current market there's

no need um that's a builder hadn't had the wake-up call yet. The phone's ringing. Concrete and deck boards. It doesn't sound like you're spending a lot of money. The concrete is just mud jacking for the concrete work on my sidewalk. It's nothing too big for that. What's the total bill on what we're discussing here uh last time i got a quote is about eighteen thousand dollars

if i were to have someone come in and do my deck uh otherwise it would be about two thousand dollars two to three to try to do it myself uh but i'm just trying to figure out if the home upgrades are more fruitful than paying down my mortgage so I have more equity. I got that, but I'm trying to figure out what you're spending on the upgrades so I can answer that. And $18,000 versus $2,000 on a deck for labor only as the difference, there's something screwy about that number. $16,000 in labor to fix a deck? Yes. Yeah, I think that guy was smoking weed.

Mm-hmm. Or something else. So, no, I mean, if the lumber's $2,000, it's not that big a job. Mm-hmm. You know, you build a deck cheaper than you're talking about. Oh, yeah. So you need to get a different bid, because the goober that gave you

the bid on the deck is out of his gourd and uh then we're talking about five thousand dollars to fix the deck versus two thousand dollars if you throw in some labor instead of 16 or 18 so what's your household income the household income uh i went from $64,000 to $110,000 within the past year, and my wife makes $44,000. So like $154,000, I believe, total. Okay, cool. What's the house worth today? The house is worth $240,000. Okay.

And so if you spend $20,000 sprucing this house up, $15,000 sprucing this house up with the broken concrete and the floating and the redoing of the deck and that kind of stuff. 10, 15, 20 grand, something like that. You're not going to mess up. I would not spend 80,000 bucks on this house. But if you're going to spend 15 or 20 grand on it, yeah, do that. Let's get the house fixed up, get it living nice, and then make the decision on whether you're going to sell it or not.

Well, and these sound like they're important upgrades. They're not like adding a pool or, you know, something kind of, you know, that's meaningless. These are important things that even if you want to sell the house in a few years, you're going to have to do this at some point. So you're going to have to do it. You can't have a deck you fall through to put the house on the market. So you got to get that fixed. And really, the broken concrete's going to scare people, too.

So I'd probably fix all of that. And just to get it ready to sell, even if you're going to sell it next spring. Yeah. Yeah, but I think you're still existing in a one-year-ago construction environment in your head. High lumber prices, high labor prices, people smoking crack that are giving you bids, and you need to go visit, again, the lumberyard now because prices are way down. You need to get revisited on the bids on everything because the people are um much more normal now they kind of calmed down they kind of

went crazy for a while some of them and they've calmed down now and you're going to get a much more reasonable uh process probably uh if you shop around a little bit from a sub to do this work and you're going to be much but yeah do the work and i think it's a sub to do this work, and you're going to be much better. Yeah, do the work. And I think it's a both and. Do the work and then attack that $98,000 mortgage. Like, do the work, and then you have this drastic income increase. So keep being intense and intentional about paying off the mortgage, but tackle those repairs first. Absolutely.

Carla is with us in Seattle. Hey, Carla, what's up? Hi. What's up? It's raining. How can we help you today? My question is that my dad and his wife have asked my husband and I for a large sum of money to pay off their debt. My husband and I are retired and we are debt free, but now we are on a fixed limited income. We do not have what they are asking in the bank. It would require us to take a draw out of our retirement accounts, and we don't want to do that.

And I want to respond to Dad with facts and data and not emotion because I am very emotional, and he is a great salesman. So what's your net worth? Oh, we are millionaires in the bank. Yeah. Untouchable money. One million or ten? What's your net worth?

I don't know exactly. My husband knows the exact numbers. Well, give me a round guess, I don't know exactly. My husband knows the exact numbers. Well, give me a round guess. I don't know. It's two. Okay. Two to three. All right. And how old are you? I don't know. I'm, I am 56 and he is 57. Okay. All right. And why did, how much money do they want? $55,000. For what? Specifically, they say to pay off three credit cards and a car loan. What is the premise that you should give them $55,000? Just because you've got some money?

Because their statement, his statement, my dad's statement was, in order to get ahead and be able to do anything in their later years, they want this debt to be gone. So get a job. Well, he is 80. 80? He's already in his later years. I know.

Too late. We have a lot of longevity in our family. So he is expecting to live another 10 to 15 years easy, probably. This is so fascinating. I'm out of time, but I have to answer your question. So you hang on. We'll bring you right back. 🎵 Christina Ellis Ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us America the government is planning to hand out more Biden bucks in the term in the form of student loan forgiveness now but that forgiveness won't wipe out all your student loan debt unless you're very

unusual and it certainly won't wipe out your car debt it won't wipe out the other things that you've got you need to actually buckle down and do. We can show you how to get out of debt. We've shown more people how to get out of debt so that they can build wealth than anybody else. It's called Financial Peace University. It's a proven plan to pay off all your loans, including your student loans. Millions and millions, tens of millions of people have done it. So kick Sallie Mae out. Kick everybody out that you owe money to. Get rid of them and start Financial Peace University right now. RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. All right.

Carla is with us in Seattle. She's in her late 50s. She and her husband are worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million. Her 80-year-old father calls with his wife and says, we want $55,000 as a gift from you to pay off our credit cards so that we can do well in our later years as if he's not already there and that's a summary of what you told me is that fair yes sir he's a good salesman he's a bit manipulative you have trouble saying no to your daddy we established that and yet you don't want to do this i think i heard that

between the lines and i kind of think your husband doesn't want to do it for sure and there are reasons that we don't what are the reasons yeah the reasons are that um his wife is owed a large amount of money and she will not pursue it from her own family um and so i feel like they're making the decision to be in the situation you're the easier maybe they don't i am definitely i am so much easier yeah yeah i'm sorry you're in this situation it's so hard even if you're in your 50s, he's still your daddy, and it's really hard to own the fact that he's a manipulative jerk. Well, he's...

He is. I haven't even met him, but what you've told me about him, I don't like him. Okay. Who calls up their daughter and says, I'm entitled to $ five thousand dollars of your money and i'm going to send you on a travel i'm gonna be a travel agent for guilt trips if you don't give it to me who does that not the guy i like carla what have these conversations looked like how how has he approached you said he's a good salesman what does that look like or sound

like he's always been in um in sales jobs his whole entire life, but how it went was he, uh, Oh, by the way, when you have, uh, some time this next week, can you give me a call? I, I want to ask you something. I'm like, okay. So a few days go by and I call and I say, Hey, you know, I'm calling you back. You said you wanted, what do you got going on? And he said, well, we have a situation. And he presents his sales pitch for why they are asking for what they're asking. And they asked a couple other people before us, and now they're asking us. And it would be great.

All of this would be paid off. They'd pay us this much back over time. And it would be, you know, he thought that they could pay back interest, which we just kind of, you know, like, okay, yeah, whatever, no. Okay, if the situation and the relationships were completely different, $55,000 out of $2 million, you're not going to miss it. No, not at all. I would, in a heartbeat, pay off my dad or my mom's stuff

and just help out if he's 80 years old. But the situation is not different. The situation is what it is. And so I'm just going to have to tell you what you already know and give you the courage to do what you already know you have to do. And you can't live with yourself and your husband if you do this. So the answer is no. Because you're not doing it for any really good reason. You're only doing it because you're caving

and you're a coward if you do it. Am I speaking what's been inside your brain already? It's not in my brain. It's in my gut and my heart. Yeah. Now I'm putting it in your brain. Yeah, it tears you up because it's your daddy. Right.

I don't care how old you get. It's still your daddy. And that's why this is just so wrong to put you in this position. It's just wrong. And so I'm sorry you're there. It does break my heart for you. But I think you and your husband just sit down and you say, we're going to pan back from this.

And this is not a six-year-old little girl looking for her daddy's approval. This is a bunch of information from uh ramsey solutions go to this website sure matter of fact i'll give you financial peace university i would love for them i'd love to help him and help him go through financial peace university i'll give it to you as a gift well that, that's very gracious. And you can give it to them. Well, thank you. And I think you and your husband, you just say, look, we talked about it. Our money's tied up in investments right now.

We think you should go after her relative's money. I think that's an easier mark. And it doesn't make sense for us right now. And I love you, but I'm just so sorry. We can't do it at this time. It's not convenient for us. Well, what about, what about, what about? That's the beginning and the end of it.

You don't have to give an explanation to the salesman. You just said no. No, I'm not buying the car. No, I'm not buying the purse. No, I'm not buying the manipulation. No. No is a complete sentence. Well, and Carla, let's get you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future by Dr. John

Deloney, because it doesn't sound like this is the first time you've had these type of conversations with your dad. It sounds like there's a history of kind of manipulative conversation. So just taking some time for you to process that and heal from that, I know it's going to be hard. And you said you've been kind of lost in your emotions, so I'm sure this is going to be an emotional conversation. It's very hard.

I mean, you're going to be, you're. I mean, you feel like a teenage girl asking to go out on a date or a teenage girl that thinks she's going to get grounded. You know, that's what it activates inside of you emotionally. I don't care how old you are. I'm 62, and I can feel it right now. Yeah. You know, and I get that. I understand that. So it doesn't go away. It doesn't change. But what you do, the only way to deal with it is to pan back from the emotions and say, okay, we're going to deal with this based on facts.

Be very gentle and very quick and short and know as a complete sentence. And it's not a big discussion. You do not owe an encyclopedia worth of reasons. Our stuff's tied up. We don't think it's a good move, and we think you should get the money from her family, and we're not able to do it right now. So right now the answer is no.

We love you. We hope it works out for you. Matter of fact, we're going to put you through Financial Peace University, but no. End of sentence. No more discussion. We're not going to debate this. We're not going to let him drag this

down the thing he's not going to solve the objection because the objection is over it's over it's a complete sentence it's a complete sentence and then you don't have to feel guilt and shame no absolutely not and the very fact that that that's all here is the reason for the no exactly it's not her it's not she should get it from them. It's not that you have it tied up in investments. It's the very way that the whole thing is handled and the whole thing is couched in, and you don't want to do it. And by the way, it's your money.

You do not have an ethical or a moral obligation to give manipulators money just because they happen to be kin to you. It's just not there. What about honor? The Bible says to honor your parents. It does not say to honor their misbehavior. If your dad calls up and he's doing cocaine, you need some money, you don't give him money. That's not what the Bible's talking about. It says we honor the position of fatherhood, not the misbehavior of the sole individual that is in the position. We honor the position of president, not the misbehavior of the president. It's a different thing.

I honor the position of motherhood, but if mom's an alcoholic, we don't honor that. Okay? That's the thing you're looking at. And so you're not biblically or morally or spiritually or psychologically obligated in any sane person's book. Okay? So you're set free right now.

Right now. Hang on. We're going to pick up and get you FPU for him and Own Your Past, Change Your Future for you. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Christina Ellis number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality is my co-host today Kevin and Lisa are with us in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. And I would ask where you're from, but the Phillies shirts give you away. I'm guessing Philadelphia. Yes. Yes, about 15 minutes away.

We live in Jersey. Representing the team, though. You're repping. Absolutely. Good job. Very cool. Very cool. Well done, well done, well done.

All right. How much debt have you guys paid off? We paid off $95,146. All right. How much debt have you guys paid off? We paid off $95,146. All right. How long did this take? 30 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that two and a half years?

Was about 99 to 125. Cool. What do y'all do for a living? I work for Super of America in Camden, New Jersey. I'm a parts information coordinator. All right. Me, disabled since 2015 okay all right good so 95 000 worth of what kind of debt it was uh just about everything we were probably normal

truck credit cards cards most of the animals put us in debt animals put you in debt what kind of animals dogs dogs two with diabetes and overnight stays and every time we went it was four or five thousand dollars good lord yeah and we had a 401k loan mixed in there and a personal loan as well okay what was the wake-up call what got you started two and a half years ago so we're gonna we gotta stop this i think we did it davish for for for a while and i was at the point where Lisa got hurt and we had some issues going on with that. I got to the point January 2020 I was going to do a New Year's resolution.

I was going to get myself out of debt. I came across your YouTube channel and I started listening. I bought in. Lisa, he's kind of gone down the rabbit hole here on YouTube. What did you say?

I was right with him. Okay. Right with him. Right there, let's do it. Yep. We struggled a lot during the years, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. How long y'all been married? 33 years.

Okay. All right. Together. We've known each other for 40 years. Okay. We were babies. We were 14. Okay.

And you look up and you say all right after 30 years we're done this has got to change done the worm has turned yes and you and you went all in then yes we went all in we did everything we possibly could wow yep what did that journey look like I think I had seven part-time jobs throughout just just you know if i didn't like it i didn't go back it was just like you know this was during during covet yeah they were everywhere i mean i was i started at walgreens i worked at walgreens for a little bit i worked at walmart i got a job at a floral place working you know monday through friday it was it was uh it was surreal but Never thought you'd be a florist, huh? No.

No, not at all. But it was a warehouse being a florist. It was picking the flowers, but they were in boxes and shipping them to the places that actually made the arrangement. So it was pretty cool. It was nice inside. It was cool. Yeah, I bet. It smelled good.

Yes. Yeah, we really had to buckle down once I lost my salary. Yeah. Are you doing better? Are you feeling okay? Yeah, I'm doing okay. Good. Yeah, we really had to buckle down once I lost my salary. Yeah. Are you doing better? Are you feeling okay? Yeah, I'm doing okay. Good. I go day by day.

Good. I'm glad. Y'all are the definition of gazelle intense. Yes. Yes. That's amazing. So what would you tell people is the key to getting out of debt? Budget.

Budget. Every dollar budget. Get it if you don't have it. I mean, it takes a while to get used to budgeting, but you're taking three thousand to four thousand dollars and putting it at your debt a month and you're having it being able to do it it's amazing absolutely amazing it's very amazing way to go you guys yeah we always we never talked about money before so we sat with meetings every month every every week you completely completely changed. Yes. I mean, and that's hard.

That's hard. I think it's easier three months after you're married than 30 years after you're married. Yeah, I think we fought more married than we did talking these last few years. Yeah. Good. Good. Well, and you guys are people who you didn't budget before. You struggled with money, and then you just did it.

What would you tell people who are intimidated to budget it takes it takes work to budget it does like take three months to to to to hilling it down and every dollar now goes to budgets and we have budget meetings every month every morning when we're drinking our coffee you know just say this is where it's going when we started this and we put the thousand dollars away i had to hide it every time and keep putting it away and moving it because I always thought he was going to take it. I did. Because for 30 years he had. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh. And then we really, we just had to touch it in September. His mom passed away just four weeks ago. So, you know, and her life wasn't great because her insurance plan was in her ex-husband who was dead and you know we still have to wait for all that to come through so we had to dig in that was our first time we used emergency wow good for you guys good how's it feel to be free awesome fabulous we we we came here we uh we we stayed here for you here for the Friday we got here to Philly's.

We're playing. We were watching them. And they're 3-0 since we've been here. So I don't know. I might not be able to go home because of the trade-off. Just ride the whole World Series out here in Nashville. Can we stay another week? No.

Yeah. So, yeah, it was pretty good. Who were your biggest cheerleaders during this journey? Our kids, Kyle, Kevin, and Courtney. They knew you needed to do it and that you could do it. We also have probably two weddings coming up in the next two years. Oh, yeah. Congratulations.

Some things to get ready for. Yes. Very good. One, I love that you're changing your family tree. The fact that they are your biggest cheerleaders. They saw what your life looked like before, and then they watched you fight through this journey you know that's going to have an impact on them moving forward yes they see it more now they didn't see it back then but they know now

yeah that's powerful way to go you guys i'm so proud of you thank you very very well done very well done and you were holding the gazelle card up out there earlier yes you already got the gazelle card i got it we just got it as we got the gazelle card. I got it. We just got it as we were heading out this week. I love it. That's perfect timing. Cool. Very cool.

Well, congratulations, guys. We got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you and the Baby Steps Millionaires book for you. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. And a one-year membership to Financial Peace University and the Live and Give bundle. All of that goes in there use whatever you want give away whatever you want and it's all for you just to say we're proud of you and way to go so very very well done Kevin and Lisa $95,000 paid off in 30 months making 99 to 125 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt free

wow 100 of the people who get out of debt have to overcome things while they are getting out of debt. She obviously, we didn't dig for details, just out of politeness, obviously went through an injury and a disability as a result. They went through a bunch of other stuff. They did this during COVID. Our last two debt-free scrimmages decided in January of 2020, and then two months later, things start shutting down. Three months later, the entire world shuts down, and people

lose their jobs. People are scared. People think you're crazy if you're out there moving around, and you're working in the middle of all that, and they did anyway. I love that. I kind of have that visual image of so many people running away from the storm, and instead, they just ran into it. Y'all saw challenges, and you went, you know what? I'm not afraid. I'm that. I kind of have that visual image of so many people running away from the storm and instead they just ran into it. Y'all saw challenges and you went, you know what, I'm not afraid. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to fight to get our family out of debt. Yeah, it's time that this changed and it's time that this is over. And you have to have that moment. And there's that I've had it moment, as the great motivator Les Brown says, you know, you change your life when you finally say i've had it and that's the thing or you got to have that moment and it doesn't matter where you are whether you're 23

whether you're 63 whether you're 43 i don't care where you are you've got to have that moment and the weird thing is different things will cause you to have that moment it can be it could have been the scare around covet it could be uh the scare around medical problems It could be the scare around medical problems. It could be just, I finally am disgusted. You know, it doesn't have to be some big thing, but you do need to be able to pinpoint and go, that's when it happened. That's when everything changed. That's so good. And that will propel you forward through challenges because it doesn't sound like your journey was easy. Seven jobs. You guys had to work hard to do that. You guys had to fight through,

you know, not feeling like you were strong at budgeting. Like you said, it took three months or more to figure that out. You had some arguments and had to wrestle through it, but you did it. Yeah. You did it. Powerful. Good people. Good people right there. Well done, Kevin and Lisa. Whoop, whoop. This is The Ramsey Show. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok Christine Alice Ramsey, personality number one bestselling author, is my co-host. Joining us is the next number one bestselling author, Will Gadara, my good friend from New York, has got a brand new book out, and this is a remarkable book, a remarkable man, and I got to meet him a few years ago. Simon Sinek introduced us, as a matter of fact, at an event we were both at in Aspen, and we've become fast friends ever since, and you're going to love this

guy. You're going to love the book. The book is Unreasonable Hospitality the remarkable power of giving people more than they expect uh Will's uh ownership uh partial ownership with 11 Madison Park in New York City uh the creativity that he brought to Unreasonable Hospitality made it the number one restaurant in the world, literally, multiple times over, and has got multiple awards after his name. Everyone in the restaurant world knows Will and Unreasonable Hospitality and knows his personality. Welcome, my friend. Thank you so much.

Congratulations on a new book, brother. This is good. Today is the day. Today is pub day. This is pub day. It's officially out. There's nowhere I'd rather be than here with you guys today.

You say that to all the girls. Oh, man. It's amazing. So what is unreasonable hospitality? Give some examples of what you did at the restaurant. So unreasonable hospitality is the strategy that I used

to make our restaurant number one in the world. All the other restaurants, they were unreasonable in the food that they were serving. They were unreasonable in pursuit of product. I choose to be unreasonable in pursuit of people and how we made them feel. And so we would basically, when I say unreasonable, I mean doing whatever it takes to make people feel. I mean, you guys did some bizarre stuff. So we had a position in the restaurant

whose only responsibility was to just go way above and beyond. So like one example, a couple came in after their beach vacation flight was canceled. We turned our private dining room into their own private beach. We put about 500 pounds of sand on the ground and a kiddie pool filled with water they could dip their feet into over tropical Mai Tais. That's amazing.

Or one time, there was a family of four from Spain visiting the restaurant, and the most beautiful thing happened when the kids were looking out the windows with wonder because it had started snowing, and it was the first time they'd seen snow. So we somehow found a store that was still open at 8 o'clock on a Friday night selling sleds,

and when they left the restaurant, there was a chauffeur-driven SUV to take them to Central Park to go sledding. We did all these things. Who does that? The number one restaurant in the world. That's who does that. But I'll tell you what we did.

Listen, people don't collect stuff anymore. It doesn't cost that much. No, it definitely doesn't cost that much. It just costs ideas. And the person's position, their job, their title position was? They were called the dream weaver yeah a nod to 80s rock yeah not to the to the seminal song by gary wright you know people don't collect things anymore they collect experiences and i believe that in order for

an experience to be worth collecting you need to give people a memory to help them relive it but the cool thing and this is what's so special about Unreasonable Hospitality and why I believe it applies to things far beyond restaurants. Oh, it does. Is because two things happen when you create a culture, when you give your team the permission and the resources to start thinking like this. One, they're empowered. In my restaurant, they were no longer just serving plates of food that someone else had created. They were coming up with their own ideas and those ideas were affecting the experience and

they worked that much harder to make the experience great because of it. But two, there's just nothing more energizing than seeing the look of complete joy on someone's face when they receive a gift you're responsible for giving them. Yeah. Surprise and delight is the best reward for any team member when they get the opportunity to surprise and delight a customer. You're giving them the gift of being able to give people gifts. Yeah. And so that's a lot of what we did and it took us straight to the top. That's amazing. I remember you talking at Entree Leadership Summit and telling the hot dog story and about how somebody on your team just listened and they heard somebody say, you know, that was their dream in New York and y'all provided that.

Yeah, we overheard a table saying that they had had dinner at all the best restaurants. They just hadn't had a hot dog from a street cart. And so we ran outside, grabbed a hot dog, somehow convinced the chef to serve it. And in a fine dining room. I would imagine it had some presentation to it. But I'll tell you what, like some presentation to it, but yeah. But I'll tell you what, like when we served it, I'd never seen anyone react to anything. We'd served them the way that they did to that hot dog because it was specific to them.

One of the things I say is that genuine hospitality is one size fits one, where someone feels seen, completely seen because they know that you are fully present with them. I think the other thing the hot dog showed was this lesson that I believe every customer service business can benefit from, which is take what you do seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. Because too often, in pursuit of these brands that are somewhat arbitrary in many ways, we let our self-imposed standards get in the way of us giving people the things they actually want well and i think what's happened is um i'm seeing i think your book timing is amazing because i'm seeing a revolt coming up not only in business but among the

public where they've had enough of fake friends, fake experiences, digital experiences that aren't real. You figured out Facebook friends aren't real friends. They won't come change your tire to in the morning. They won't help you move on the weekend. They most certainly don't. They just don't. They're not real. And so you can collect all those fake friends you want, or you can collect real relationships.

There's a relationship revolution coming. The digital thing has overplayed its hand and not to say digital is going to go away i'm not saying that at all but the current use of it has become so freaking shallow yeah that there's no connectivity like you're talking about with unreasonable hospitality yeah i mean the digital transformation has almost started to feel like a race to the bottom and what people are craving especially after the last three years is connection and people will pay more and be more loyal if you're the person that starts to give it to them.

And by the way, this is not just a work thing. It's a life thing. Oh, yeah. But I, you know, I'm excited about the book for restaurants, of course, that's the world that I'm from, but I believe that this can be a really helpful tool to anyone in any customer service business. Because, I mean, listen, it doesn't matter what you do, whether you're in construction or financial services or insurance or retail or real estate, you do the same thing that I do. You're in the business of serving other people.

And this is my call to arms that we should just be a bit more unreasonable in how we serve them. Yeah. And relational and connection. We had some good friends uh about six or eight weeks ago i guess just call and say hey you guys come over for dinner you know how weird that is nobody does that anymore i know that's so that's so 1970s i know wait hold on we're gonna be together like actually connecting like human beings just sitting at your table and you're like cooked and stuff we're we going to be intentional? And then we had a conversation. The television wasn't on.

There was no football. There was just people sitting there talking and eating together. It was fabulous. I came home and I told Sharon, we're doing that more. That's like a thing now. But you're right. Unreasonable hospitality, it can be very personal. For sure.

Yeah, I'm so excited about this book. I remember the moment I heard you speak, I was like, I can't wait to get this and start practicing it because the examples you gave of ways that we can start implementing it were powerful. How can other people outside of the restaurant industry start implementing some of these practices? For sure. So I just recently moved into a new apartment and I think that's a great opportunity for an example. So every time I've bought or rented a new apartment, the real estate agent has, at best, left me a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge

as my thank you slash congratulations gift. And these aren't cheap apartments. No. Perhaps not. By the way, this is someone with whom I've spent weeks, if not months, looking together for my new home. If they've been paying attention, they should know almost every intimate detail about my life. So imagine instead, if the first time we walked into the place that we chose, he overheard my wife talking about the nook that she could see herself doing yoga in every morning. And imagine if when we moved in, instead of that bottle of sparkling wine, there was a yoga mat in that nook with a candle and a note that said, welcome to your new

home. A, that'd be pretty cool. B, it doesn't cost that much more than a bottle of sparkling wine. And C, it's an insignificant investment in what will inevitably be a lifelong relationship. I believe it's simple pattern recognition. No matter what you do, you can find these opportunities to give people more than they could possibly expect. And if you seize on them, it's a win-win-win because it will make the business more profitable.

Yes, you have to spend a little bit of money, but that hot dog you're talking about, that was $2. But two, the guests will be happier. They will come back. And three, it just makes doing the job so much more fulfilling. And people are better at their job when they're having fun doing it. You guys see why Will and I became fast friends.

He's brilliant and fun to hang out with. The book is Unreasonable Hospitality, the remarkable power of giving people more than they expect. I predict it to be a big bestseller. Thank you. Don't want to miss this. It's an incredible book. I can't wait to get it home and read it.

Be sure and check it out anywhere great books are sold, including Amazon. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.