The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Look for Another Job? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. It's an Entree Leadership Theme Hour. Welcome to small business land as we talk to leaders and owners of small businesses and for that matter businesses questions about business questions about leadership questions about small business this hour the phone number 888-825-5225 my co-host the panel for the hour includes daniel tardy daniel is Executive Vice President of Entrez Leadership,

where we teach and work with small businesses, tens of thousands of them every year. And he and his team do a great job with that. He also sits on our operating board. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, my other co-host and on the panel for the hour, is here to answer your questions as well from the Ken Coleman Show. Works with folks on getting jobs and on careers. So we're going to talk business, economy. We're going to talk about jobs. We're going to talk about jobs. We're going to talk about 36 million people being unemployed. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Lots of small businesses have failed, Daniel lots of during this time lots of them have uh succeeded beyond their wildest imagination or making more money than they ever made in their life yeah because they happen to be in a business that uh was in great need right now uh and and then some of the others are right in the middle just hanging on uh lots of them are trying to reopen right now, and some of them are experiencing labor shortages. We'll talk about that in a little while. But we've seen a spectrum, haven't we? Yeah, no doubt. It has been a crazy couple of months for businesses anywhere, and especially small businesses.

There's actually another group, and I kind of keyed in on this yesterday, and I got excited, and I started thinking about how inspired I am by the number of businesses that are starting right now. I bought a product yesterday that didn't exist a month ago. Our buddy Jocko Willink, the seal from living with a seal. He launched this product on his social media and I jumped on there and got it. It's a leather bag that you fill up with your own gravel to turn it into a kettlebell. And everybody's trying to figure out how to work out from home right now. And so he got with this apparel company. This product did not exist.

The bag ships out to you, so it's not the weight. You don't have to go build a big iron kettlebell and send it to you. You have to go out in your driveway and fill it up for him. You fill it up with rocks or sand or something, but you can get your workout in. And I paid $75 for two of these things. They're awesome. They're like nice leather, saddle leather. And I thought, this thing didn't exist a month ago.

How many companies right now are popping up? Are popping up. A product of service. There's a product. We can do something about this. That's what I love about entrepreneurs. That's how they think. They're problem solvers.

That's right. And there's lots of problems to solve right now. We had Dr. Art Laffer on last hour, and he's the father of supply-side economics, sitting on the Trump administration's Economic Recovery Council right now as part of that, a winner of the presidential medal. And he and his research team at Laffer are predicting the states that are reopening are going to be fully recovered and end a boom by the end of summer.

That was pretty inspiring. I mean, because most people aren't thinking it's going to be that fast, but they're seeing a real checkmark on the states that are reopening. He said there are states that, you know, like northeast primarily is going to really struggle, according to him, Jersey, New York. Higher populated areas, right? Connecticut. More densely populated.

Well, it's got to do with how quickly they, how hard they got hit by COVID and how quickly they reopened. The governors in the states. And he said California is still a mixed bag because they're back and forth. You know, one minute they're going to open, the next minute they're not going to open. And one minute they're, you know, and they're all over the place. And, you know, the mayor of L.A. saying they're going to be shut down all summer. But if you're shut down all summer, you're obviously not going to recover in the summer. So but economic recovery in the states that are reopening, we're already seeing that with the

small businesses we're in contact with. Sure, no doubt. And I mean, we've seen it in the stock market. It's been rallying and it's close to an all time high. It's not quite there yet. But great news coming out about vaccines. And I mean, there's just so much to be optimistic about right now. And I think small business owners are leading the way and being innovative, being positive, forward thinking. And, you know, the truth is the ones that are thinking about five years from now and where their business is going to be in five years, those are the ones that are going to win. If you're thinking about the next five minutes, you're going to be frustrated. But we talk all about the idea of vision and vision casting and looking out in the

future. Four to five years out, you've got a big, beautiful new business that you're looking at, if that's the mindset that you have right now. Yeah, we were talking to Art, and when you're talking to a world-famous, literally a world-famous economist, we're reminded what the United States economy basically revolves around. We are a service-based economy. It's essentially, we pass our money around to each other, right? And so what we saw is that if we look at the industries that were hardest hit, if we look at 36.5 million jobs, it's important, folks, you have context. I'm going to talk about confidence in just a moment, but the context is this. If you look at the service

industries and you look at the retail-type industries, okay, that's where the majority of these jobs are lost. So what's happened there? We've got consumer confidence that has dropped as a result of the coronavirus, the reporting. And we thought, oh, my goodness, it's going to be awful. And now we're seeing states that, again, many people were criticizing the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, Ron DeSantis in Florida. The narrative was this. There's going to be literally blood in the streets. And the reality is both of the states have opened. The numbers are really good as it relates to positivity and the economy. Tennessee's done a great job with Governor Bill Lee. And so here's what you all can do as you're listening. You are a consumer. And so when you're sharing these real-life positive stories, and then you are, to the extent within your budget, being responsible, but getting back out and showing some consumer, I can't talk, consumer confidence, here's what's going to happen.

It begins to spread. Here's some positives, just to kind of drive this point home. We've got the governor of California that was saying literally, folks, a week ago, no pro sports until the fall. Yesterday, he announced, 1st of June. The pendulum is swinging back now. I'm going to tell you something. We are a consumer-driven society, not just in what we buy, Dave, but in how we view sports and concerts and things like that.

As the consumer gets confident, guess what's going to happen? The V-shape or the U-shape, whatever it is, as Art Laffer is saying, is going to come back. We play a role in that, consumers. You don't have to do it from a patriotic viewpoint though but you just have to say i'm going to observe what's going on around me and i'm going to let that dictate my level of fear right rather than a newscast and the newscasts have even shifted where they're putting their emphasis yeah well some of us just need to go shopping again quite a few of us have put on you know a little bit of weight

during covid and we got to go buy a bigger shirt you know like we got to go to the mall like what are you saying i mean there's just a an idea like there's this pent-up demand that's just been put on the back burner and it's going to surge back just one it's not even just the confidence it's just if you'll just open i'll come in with my my money, and I'll patronize you just as a customer because I need your service. That's why we've been talking about haircuts. I swear to God, some of these people need haircuts. There's going to be a line around the block. There's going to be a line around the block at these bar rooms.

I finally got my hair cut. I'm just thankful for that. True story, folks. You're looking pretty dead gum shaggy. You want some behind the scenes? I get an email from Dave. I'm going to ask you where Scooby-Doo was. Daniel, I got an email from him the day that the governor said that those type of places could open up.

And he said, FYI. I showed it to Stacy. I went, you think Dave's trying to tell me something? I told him to email you. Me, Hogan, Tardy, we got no issue with this, so we got to make fun of you. Right. I get it. There we go. Small Business Theme Hour. We're taking your questions. Entree Leadership Hour with, Tardy, we got no issue with this, so we got to make fun of you. Right, I get it. There we go.

Small Business Theme Hour. We're taking your questions. Entree Leadership Hour with Daniel Tardy, Ken Coleman, my co-host this hour. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders make your life easier with FreshBooks. Whether you're starting a business or you've been at it a long time, FreshBooks is one of the smartest decisions you'll make this year. FreshBooks is an accounting software designed for people like you that lets you do the things like automate your invoicing and your online payments, so you get more time to work on your business.

Try FreshBooks for 30 days free at freshbooks.com slash Dave Ramsey. Small business theme hour this hour on the Dave Ramsey Show, an entree leadership theme hour, which if you didn't know is the title of my number one best-selling book, which is our playbook of how we've grown the Ramsey business from a car table in my living room to being the major national brand that it has become today. All the stuff we've learned, all the mistakes we've made would fill several books, but we picked out our favorite and funniest things that you can learn from us, put them in that book, and it was number one.

And we're here to help you guys. We've coached small businesses. We love small business people and have helped for years. Rob is in Texas. Hey, Rob, your question for the panel. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. Hey, guys.

Hey, Rob. Yeah, I'm in a family business, and my father-in-law is the owner, and I own 20%. I just want to know what's the best way to kind of start that conversation of how do we take the next step of me buying him out. He's 67. I run the day-to-day and just kind of feel like it's time to kind of make that transition. Rob, I would like to first know, I mean, before we get into the mechanics, there's two parts of this. There's the mechanics and then there's the relationship. So there has to be a good relationship where you and your father-in-law are having a mutually agreed upon,

this is our desired future together and we both agree this is where we're headed. And then the mechanics of the deal should support that. So have you guys been talking about this? What have the conversations been up to this point? It's kind of, I mean, even early on, he bought it late in his life. So he was like 56 when he bought it, and he kind of was like, hired me on early on, kind of like, this is the goal. Um, I'm not, I'm kind of at the back door anyway.

And so it's always been the intention of me kind of taking over and we've had those discussions along the way. And, um, it's kind of, we kind of made the first step when I got 20% of the company and then it's kind of, I think we're kind of at a standstill. I think we both don't know how to take that next step. Well, I mean, if he's 67, you guys need to be thinking, by the time he's 72 at the latest, this needs to be fully transferred. And so you've got just a few years to accelerate the transfer of stock.

You can do this several ways. You can do compensation via stock over a period of time where you pick up another 20% each year for the next of stock. You can do this several ways. You can do compensation via stock over a period of time where you pick up another 20% each year for the next four years. You can actually do a purchase where you do a valuation on the business and you actually just pay cash and buy stock from him. But the key is you guys need to be looking at no more than a – I'm going to encourage by the time he's 70, just because it's kind of late in the game.

I would like, yeah, three years I would think would be, we should. I just have a quick question, Rob. What do you, how would you define the standstill? What's the cause of the standstill on both sides? Because you said both of you are at a standstill. What do you think the issue is? Well, I think I'm more like, let's get the ball rolling, and I just don't know how to navigate like him.

I feel like he needs to be the initiator, or it's his company, you know. Well, he may not. In essence, I work for him. I mean, here's what I'll tell you. I run it, but. Here's what I'll tell you. Ideally, he is the initiator. I mean, we have the blessing of Dave as the founder, owner, and CEO has been initiating our succession plan here

and leading us through a process that we're talking about this very intentionally and very consistently. But there's a point where if he's not breaching that conversation, you have to start bringing it up and saying, hey, I'm concerned that if we don't talk about this, then it could create pain for our family. You know, there could be stress here. And you can't have the whole conversation the first time, but you at least have to break the seal and get that going. But I mean, Dave, I'm curious to hear from you. I mean, you're kind of in the seat of his father-in-law as the owner

and thinking about succession with your kids. We talk about this stuff a lot here. We do. But as you said, it's almost an obsession of mine. So in your case, what I would do, Rob, is I would just sit down and say, first and foremost, I'm unbelievably grateful for the opportunity you've given me. I mean, that is the case. Yeah, I'm grateful for the opportunity. I'm grateful for the 20%. How did you end up with that? Did you pay for it?

No, it was a gift. Okay. Wow. Do you think the intention is for the rest of it to be gifted or for you to purchase it? To purchase it, yeah. Okay. All right. And so then you say, okay, you know, I'm unbelievably grateful.

I'm grateful for the 20% gift. And I just want to know how I can help in the process of us completing that. Because I know we've all kind of talked about it, but a good, clear plan would be good for the business, it'd be good for our families, it'd be good for you, it'd be good for me, it'd be good for our customers. A good, clear plan, clearly laid out and communicated with timelines, milestones, and a process. And so if you're going to buy the other 80%, you know, we need to establish a value,

and we need to establish how I'm going to get you that money. Because I'm not going to borrow it. I'm going to take it out of profits at some point, somehow. And, you know, then you do that. But I think you just, the good news is he's not owned it a long, long time. He didn't start it. He bought it. So he's not got the baggage of the founder.

Founders, as we've studied small businesses, I'm a founder. We're hardheads. We're the people that start and make something from nothing, and we will fight and scratch and claw but we also don't let go uh by and large founders oftentimes kill the very business that they love because they won't let it go soon enough systematically enough and i fought against that the emotions of it to force out myself and to force this business through the whole process and um the best succession plans are gradual. They're not sudden. Well, and because of that, I'm curious if you feel like this is true, but it sounds like that first conversation should not be about what the plan is, but just agreement that we should have

a plan. Yeah, and then let's get about the business of creating the next couple weeks working on putting stuff in the plan. Well, I have a question for you, Dave, because I know you did this at Ramsey Solutions. What does Rob or anybody that's similar to rob need to be thinking about what happens in the interim before there's a plan if something were to happen unfortunately the following 67 so don't you have to kind of get an idea of what would happen in that situation where does ownership go well it'd be one of the plans okay um i mean part of the plan the plan is the plan is if you live to x date we're going gradually, systematically work through getting you your money during that time. And then the final stock will transfer.

Okay? If you don't live to X date, what is going to happen? And you've got to talk about that. And, you know, we talk about that around here so much that I talk about my death so much it's almost like I'm dying all the time. But we're all dying. We're all going to die. So it's kind of morbid. Well, but to your point, in the absence of a plan, the family fights and things implode.

And so it goes to the estate. That's a concern that I have right now. Whatever, if it's not written down or dad just mentioned this in passing at one point and you're trying to convince the rest of the family. All of a sudden her wife's brother. Where's that 80% go? that's what you want to avoid. He's half of it. He's not got anything to do with it. Right.

Or something along those lines. That's what happens. Mike's in New York. Hey, Mike. How can we help? Hey, everybody. Hey, Mike. I've got a question.

I have a good friend of mine who owns a small antique shop here in New York, and the shop is closed right now and has been doing a lot of antiquing through eBay. A lot of the shows that are within the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, down south have been closed. So income has dramatically changed. eBay is not very kind of hit or miss. Some people aren't very successful with it, don't follow through.

In my philosophy, and I'm a different career path, I basically, following your plan, Dave, my friend who I'm not in his shoes is a cancer survivor, and his thought process is, you know, I want to have things kind of now because I don't know what life will look like tomorrow, et cetera. How do I help my friend along, if it's even possible, to kind of look long-term in that, yes, right now you're going through a rough time and I feel for you, but, you know, you will last, you will live beyond tomorrow and hopefully live many healthy decades ahead of you. Amen.

Amen. Well, I mean, I haven't survived cancer, so I don't know what that can do to your psyche. But very few lives or businesses prosper when they just live for the weekend, when they just live for the moment. The Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish. And so I don't know how you help him other than just to try to help him get a bigger vision for his life that's further out into the distance than Friday. And that's a healing of his psyche after the cancer, I suspect.

So maybe sit down with a good pastor. Let's talk about long term. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. maybe sit down with a good pastor let's talk about long term this is the dave ramsey show business leaders now more than ever we need people with the right skills to support our communities especially the frontline workers who provide resources and care for those most in need. To help, LinkedIn is offering free job posts for healthcare and essential service organizations that need to quickly fill critical roles with the people who help us all.

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It is called Entree Leadership Summit with some of the best writers, teachers, thought leaders in the world speaking and teaching at these events over the years. It's pretty much a who's who lineup that's been there over the years. And absolutely incredible. It's called Entree Leadership Summit. By the way, it will be in July, July the 15th in Orlando. And there's a few tickets left. It's almost sold out, but if you have an interest in that, get in touch with our team at 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223, or look at entreleadership.com, either one.

But here, Entree Leadership, those tickets, they start at $3,000, right? $3,000 to $5,000. $3,000 to $5,000. And so to go to the event. If you didn't go to the event, you want a free digital series. We've never done this. We did this just because of the situation that we find ourselves in in the culture. We got in touch with some of those thought leaders, some of the top speakers out there.

Marcus Buckingham was on last week, and I guess it's still up for a week, right? No, it's up for 24 hours. It's up for 24 hours. I told you last week, get it now, because if you don't get in that 24-hour period, then it's gone. Okay, so he was up for 24 hours. A lesson by me was up for 24 hours before that. We've done four of these on Thursday nights, and this coming Thursday night is the next one, every Thursday in May.

We've got two more to go, and we got special permission from these authors and speakers to use the video that we shot when they spoke for us. Coming up this Thursday, my friend Dr. Henry Cloud absolutely lights out incredible. Cloud is always top shelf. This talk on Desired Future is one of the best, completely free. Entree Leadership Summit unlocked this Thursday night, Henry Cloud. The next one will be our friend Pat Lencioni who is the best of the best. Advantage of Organizational Health. Along with the videos, we'll send you a

discussion guide for you and your team so you can sit and watch this thing with your whole team, watch the talk, go through it. It's all completely free. And make sure you RSVP because again again each talk is only available 24 hours and it's thursday nights the next two thursday nights to get the discussion guide and get everything lined up uh text the word unlocked to 44 222 that's unlocked to 44 222. And Daniel, when we put this up, we thought we would have a lot

of people watch it. This is amazing how many are watching it. Yeah, we've got over 24,000 and growing. And I mean, here's what's exciting about this. 24,000 businesses are watching. Right now, if you're a small business, it's always competitive in the marketplace. And if you're saying, well, we're all out of business, we can't do anything. No, you can still train. You can train your mind. You can train your team. You can get ready for as you're coming back, coming back with the right tools and the right information so that you, you know, that, that gun fires and the race goes off again and you're out of the blocks and you're ahead of your competition and you're, you're back on your feet again. And that's so much better than sitting around just wondering and watching the news and going, when's it all going to come back and what am I going to do about it?

So the leaders of tomorrow are the readers of today. They're the studiers of today, and they're doing things like this. Text the word unlocked to 44222. Paul's Weathers in California. Hey, Paul. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, what's going on, guys? This is my situation out in California.

We got a bunch of convenience store owners out here, and we do what we can for our employees, sneeze guards, face shields, everything. And now what's happening is that with the $600 that Gavin Newsom decided to give to people each week on top of whatever you would get on unemployment, we have employees that are not showing up to work, and we're not firing them. They just are choosing not to go to work, and then they're filing for unemployment. And over here, there's just the unemployment, the way they're checking it, it's so backed up and it's a mess that what do we do to prevent this from fraudulent unemployment because then that money comes out of our pool.

Yeah, that's true. Well, it's not Gavin Newsom. It was the feds. Gavin Newsom is their state. It's a state unemployment. The feds came out of the CARE Act, $600 additional unemployment from the federal government until July 25th. And so I don't know. I think you've got a clogged up bureaucracy you reporting these folks

and firing them is going to set them up to i mean if you fire them you're going to set them up for unemployment uh so but in reporting them for fraudulently doing it um i don't know i mean if they're taking it anyways i feel like you you fire them you document it and they're going to collect unemployment either way i'd rather them collect it and you not be paying them you guys took the ppp loan is that correct no yeah we applied for the ppe loan and you know working on that and whatnot but well it sounds like you don't want well i wouldn't i mean because you're obligated to keep your employees if you're going to get that thing forgiven and so i would say tap the brakes on the ppp loan get rid of the team that is collecting unemployment not showing up and hire some people who want to work.

You got to let them know. You got to let them know you're going to hold them accountable. You don't have to get into the bureaucracy side of it. But I'm going to tell you something right now. There are people that need to work. And I'd start hitting the bushes and telling people, hey, we've got opportunities for you to make money right now. Unfortunately, though, Dave, we talked about this with Art Laffer today. This is a real thing.

This CARES Act has created this incentive to stay home. They're employees asking to be laid off or furloughed. Yeah, they're making way more money because these are hourly wage earners, Daniel, and so they're making way more. But here's the reality. July 25th is looming. It's coming. And there are a lot of people who need work

and so I'd move on. I'd absolutely move on. I'd say, I'm going to hold you accountable. Nothing against you, but we've got to get people in here that want to work and I'd go get people that want to work. I want business owners right now to realize that they do not have to participate in the incompetence by the Fed.

I mean, Congress's best day is your worst day. And I know some of them are trying. I know they're trying to put stuff together to Fed. I mean, Congress's best day is your worst day. And I know some of them are trying. I know they're trying to put stuff together to help. I think their hearts are probably to really help people out. But their competency to design a plan. I was going to question that, too. I'm trying to be gracious.

You're being very nice. I mean, the truth is you can't wait on Congress to get this problem solved. You've got to solve it. Brent is with us in Florida. Hey, Brent, what's up? Hey, top of the afternoon to you, Dave. You too. How can we help?

So my company, I'm the president of my company, and we took the PPO. We actually applied for it the first day it came out, about an hour into it. We were nervous. We were unsure about it. And then I watched your show the other day, and when you said, do not take the PPE loan. So I believe I have a moral obligation to give this money back to the bank so they can give it back to Congress, and that's what I intend to do with it.

I don't think there's a mechanism whereby you can do that. If you give it back to the bank, they're not going to give it back to Congress. That's not going to happen. So you're just done. You're in. The government doesn't take contributions. Can you just pay it off, though, in whole? You could pay the loan off, yeah, if you wanted to.

That would be giving it back to the bank. But, I mean, you can't request that the money go back to the government. The bank may or may not do that. But, I mean, you can just pay the loan off, or you can just sit there and see if you end up qualifying for the forgiveness. If you've kept all the employees in place and done all the different hoops and gyrations they're going to require you to do to qualify for forgiveness, you can qualify for forgiveness,

and then you can donate the money to something if you got forgiveness, if you wanted to. I would sit on it like an egg right now and let it run a little bit. And let's see if you qualify for the forgiveness and then you can decide what you're going to do. If you qualify for the forgiveness, then you've got forgiveness. You've got the option of keeping the money. You've got the option of donating it to something if you wanted to do that. You've got the option of paying it back anyway, repaying the loan even if you do qualify for forgiveness, which would be so confusing to a bank. They just really won't know how to deal with this. So I think you just chalk this up to a thing you've learned in this process. You just make the next right decision.

You can't necessarily undo it, but you optimize what you've done and where you're at. A little hard to unring the bell on this. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. So so Folks, I love telling you about well-made, well-thought-out products. Today, I'm talking about Grip6 belts. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of traditional belts. They never fit right, and they're uncomfortable. Grip6 belts are unique. Owner BJ designed a truly modern minimalist belt

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To learn more and get this month's Dave Ramsey special, visit Grip6.com. That's GripIX.com. That's GRIPSIX.com. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 28, 7. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. Louisa May Alcott said, he who believes is strong. He who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show and Entree Leadership Theme Hour. This hour on the Dave Ramsey Show, Entrez Leadership theme hour this hour on the Dave Ramsey Show. We're answering your questions about business. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, and Daniel Tardy, Executive Vice President of Entrez Leadership, are my co-hosts this hour. Remember that the Entrez Leadership Summit Unlocked is featuring Henry Cloud this Thursday. To get your discussion guide for you and your team, 24,000 folks have already signed up for this free digital event series. This Thursday, Henry Cloud.

Next Thursday, Pat Lencioni. Text the word UNLOCKED to 44222. That's 44222. Thomas is in North Carolina. Hey, Thomas, how are you? Hey, Dave, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? All right. Yeah. So I am actually calling on behalf of my mom. I'm a high school senior about to go out to college. But my mom owns a small business in Belmont and she teaches ballet. And so she was trying to apply for one

of the PPP loans, but my dad, who separated two years ago from my mom, he left us, did not agree to co-sign. And he is a partner. He owns 50% of the business. He did not agree to co-sign and he is a partner he owns 50 of the business um he did not agree to co-sign and so i was calling because i was just wondering what the best way um for my mom to get my dad out of the business would be so that she's free to have full autonomy um in the business has there been a divorce so yes or divorce they just separated um yeah no they uh sadly have not divorced yet and it's been it's been about two and a half years he left the summer before my sophomore year and i am now why have they not divorced you know i honestly couldn't tell you um well that's how you get to business business well yeah so my my dad uh has multiple sclerosis ms um and he was diagnosed with that a few years ago so he has been uh living off of um not unemployment but another government uh

system where he uh he basically just gets money uh money. But he has threatened, because he's in such a good position to take so much from my mom, he's threatened that if my mom gets a lawyer for the divorce, that he's going to go after my mom's stocks, which she has about almost $100,000. Yeah, good luck with that. Get a lawyer. Well, look, Thomas, good luck with that. Get a lawyer. Well, look, Thomas, here's the thing. Get a lawyer. I don't think he's going to get it.

And I just want to talk to you. I mean, as a high school senior, I hear you caught in the middle of all this and wanting to help. There's only so much influence you're going to be able to have, and I know you love your mom and your dad, and you're trying to do everything you can. I think they're going to have to get a divorce. There's going to have to be a lawyer to figure out in the settlement what happens to the business. And that's like to Dave's point,

that's how you ultimately make it clean. But you're going to be a great leader someday. I mean, I can already tell like you're trying to figure out how to help this and solve the problem. And you know, I would just, I would encourage you to hang in there and support mom and dad the best you can, but it's also, it's also not your problem to solve, and you don't need to bear that burden as a high school senior. The answer to your question is your mom needs a lawyer. Call his bluff. It's a bluff.

Yeah, he can't do what he thinks he can do or what he's convinced her he can do, and he's been acting this way for a long, long time. This is not the first time. Well, and she's running. I mean, she's effectively running the whole business, and so it's not going to hold up. And he's got her buffaloed into the corner. She needs an attorney desperately. I don't know if you can talk them into doing that, Thomas, or not,

but regardless of your dad's threats, your mom needs to get a lawyer today. Today. Painter, get off the ladder. Sorry, man. Leo's in Arizona. Hi, man. Leo's in Arizona. Hi, Leo. What's up? How are you, Dave?

How you been? Great, man. How can we help? Thank you for receiving my call, Dave. I have a big question for you, for the panel. I arrived at this company five years ago. I'm a financial controller. I work for a big company.

The region that I manage is bigger than half a billion dollars per year. And I've been working for the last two years more than 14, 16 hours a day, sometimes Saturdays, Sundays, that I don't mind. But right now it's taking the time of my family, my kids. I have two kids into the autism spectrum. I like to help people with their finances too. But right now, how can I speed my career having a more balanced time doing what I love, that it's finances.

I'm very good at it. So right now, I don't have anybody inside of my company helping me. I don't have a financial analyst, admin person who can help me. So I'm the whole orchestra. And to be honest with you, I do 110% every day, but I'm starting to start getting tired.

I bet. Well, yeah. So, Leo, first of all, amazing. I love immigrants. They're so inspiring. Yeah. They just work. My question, though, Leo, is have you brought this up to leadership to say, hey, this is a big-time company, or at least you're serving big companies.

I want to know, have you brought this up to leadership to say, hey, I can use an admin or some help? Has that conversation happened? I already did, and the answer was, well, this is how the things have been done for the last 10 years, and nothing's going to change. All right, well, then it's a simple answer. I think it's start looking, don't jump.

Start looking. Here's the good news. You're absolutely clear. You're absolutely clear, and I think you're qualified. And I think it's working now. Connections. And let's find another job. A guy like you who works as hard as you do, is as talented as you are and experienced as you are.

You are an absolute diamond for somebody else. Look for something else. But before you move over there, check the culture. Do your homework. Find out if that kind of culture that you're going to leave exists somewhere else. And you get in a healthy environment like a Ramsey Solutions where the company is known for two things, for developing you and promoting you. And then the balance will take place. It'll come when you get into a position in a place where they value you, not just as somebody who gets work done, but as a human being. I think that's what

you look for. Well, I think Ken's exactly right, especially if you're going to look at another company. And I also want you to hear Leo. I have a lot of friends who are very successful, small business owners, and they've been at it for 10 to 15 years and they're making millions and they've got big teams and they were exactly where you were right before they started their business. And you've got the makeup of an entrepreneur. You're working your tail off. You have the vision. You know what it takes.

You've got the skill set. And it might be a time to consider starting your own thing. On the side. Unless he's got the financial wherewithal to just jump into that, I want to make sure he starts that on the side, begin to offer his services on the side, and build that up. Agreed. Yeah, doing that in a way that is not in conflict ethically with where he is.

That's right. Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, you know, Leo, all we're saying to you is what you already knew, that you're not going to be doing what you're doing today, one year from today. You, in some form or fashion, are going to leave. You're going to take another position with more reasonable folks and working more reasonable hours, probably for more money. Or you are going to start your own thing on the side,

and as it builds up, you're going to be able to move from this to that seamlessly without causing havoc in your personal finances by doing that. So, very interesting, very interesting. Well, there is a lot going on out there. There's a lot of opportunity in chaos. It's really sad and heartbreaking what some of the folks have gone through. The level of fear, and in some cases just outright hysteria, that people have gone through is mind-boggling. But in the midst of that, the entrepreneur finds a way to serve,

finds a way to help, finds a way to compassionately love their customers, and their customers, as my friend Rabbi Lappin says, return the favor by giving them certificates of appreciation with president's faces on them. And that's the way I feel as a customer when I went to my friend. I went to three different friends' restaurants this week to make sure that I was there. Socially distanced, spaced apart, all kinds of things going on. The people all look like bank robbers in there with their little masks. And I left them nice, big, hairy tips because I want to make sure those servers hear us say loud and clear,

thank you, they're out there serving. Some of them are a little bit scared. Hairy tips. Big, big old hairy tip. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you. Before you know it, in the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial

peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope. For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.