The Ramsey Show - App - Teaching Kids To Win With Money

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss Financial Literacy and talk to teachers across the country about: How students can save and grow their money, Teaching students the value of cash in a digital age, Helping kids who come from disengaged homes, Supporting students with different backgrounds. 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

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host this hour. This is a very special hour on the Ramsey Show. It is a teacher appreciation hour as we do

talk, as we talk about and celebrate Financial Literacy Month this month in the schools, and we appreciate all teachers in the process of doing about doing something about that and doing something about everything that they do out there teachers are absolutely amazing my grandmother remsey was a second grade teacher my aunt taught taught until just the other day she retired after 40 years, or maybe over 40 years now,

taught math in the Knoxville public school system. My other aunt taught in the Atlanta school system. My cousin's wife is a teacher. I mean, I've got teachers all over my family. I'm a teacher, actually. I'm just a little weirder and wilder than some of the others but teachers teachers change the world man oh yeah and so we we love teachers and financial literacy is absolutely important i john i'll never forget the first time i had those little blue

self-published financial peace books they were pretty lame uh i didn't sell 35 000 those are your words not mine go ahead but they they well they know they they are lame i mean it's it's it's pretty much certifiable there there are facts and that's a fact but i did sell 35 000 of them they were just saying the words in them weren't lame but the production of the book itself all that but i'm i was one of the first times i went to speak and i had the books for sale i would go up front speak with like an overhead projector and all this stuff and then the book table was at the back with the workbooks, and the books were for sale for $12, and I'd run back there and sell books. And I remember a lady came back there at one of the first breaks

where I was talking about getting out of debt and living on less than you make and getting on a budget. And she picked up that little blue book, and she goes, why isn't this taught in the schools? I mean, like that was the first year of me doing this, 30 years ago. And I have heard that 25,000 times since. Because we've all thought it. Why isn't financial literacy taught in the schools?

How is it that you can get out of school and know what the Pythagorean theorem is but can't do a budget? How is that possible? So we started doing something about it several decades ago. We started a high school curriculum with our financial materials. It is now called Foundations in Personal Finance. It has now been taught in almost half of the high schools in America. About 48% of the high schools in America have now taught it.

Over 4 million students have already taken these classes we're now running into 26 year olds 28 year olds that are getting married and with no debt went through college with no debt and married someone who agreed to be debt free and stay debt free so that they can become wealthy because they went through foundations of personal finance in high school not because they went through financial peace university at 25 but because they went through foundations and personal finance in high school not because they went through financial peace university at 25 but because they went through foundations and personal finance because this should be taught in the schools and now by god it is if your school wants it you can get it and we put it in there it's that simple so uh and of course the the the hinge pin on which all of this spins the the key component the key stone that allows all of this to happen is called a teacher teachers make the world go around they have a bigger impact on

kids than anybody gives them credit for and and to in today's world with crazy butt school boards and helicopter parents i don't know how they do it i don't either i yeah i've i've been a high school teacher an elementary school teacher my wife too it's tough and it has just accelerated and dave if i was a high school teacher i would be in jail for murder yeah but not if your students are protecting them from the crazy adults in their lives take out one of the one of the administrators or the parent um i just take them out the few teachers i've talked to personally it seems like this becomes a mission for an individual teacher. They often bring it to the school and say, this is important, this is important.

Oh, the financial literacy piece. Financial literacy, and they champion it, yeah. But, yeah, being a teacher these days is tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. And we're approaching a crisis point in two or three segments of our culture that are some of the most important glue that hold our culture together. We're losing health care professionals, pastors, police officers, and teachers. Walking away. If you look at faith, safety, education, those are pillars. All because of the COVID ridiculousness, because of the political stuff that has gotten involved in them, simply executing their jobs and doing the things they're supposed to do, and they're underappreciated.

So on behalf of the teachers, we are calling touchdown right here. We're saying you rock, and we're here to this hour just to appreciate you and to talk to a few of you. So we've reached out to talk to some of the teachers that have been teaching the high school curriculum, the Foundations in Personal Finance, and that includes Karina Ford, who is a high school teacher at Rusk High School in Rusk, Texas. Is that right, Karina? Yes, sir. All right. Very cool. Thank you for coming on with us.

How long have you been teaching? This is my 16th year as a teacher, and this is the first time I've ever taught your course and taught economics. Wow. Okay. how's that going? It has been life-changing for some and then some kids I look and think I wish you were listening to me. So basically like me and Dave's job every day right? Yes. So how big is this high school? How many kids are there? We have about 600 kids in our high school. As far as Texas high schools go it's considered a 4A. Okay all right cool all right. So this is a public school then? Yes sir. So you're teaching this in a so what age group are you teaching juniors and seniors or what um just seniors and

um we do economics from january to may okay and woven into that is foundations and personal finance that is our entire economics course this year wow very cool thank you thank you yes sir well we also heard that you had a question what What is it? My question is, I have students who do have money in savings accounts, but they found out that that money is not really growing. It's growing at like 0.05%, so they're getting a penny every few months. Where can I tell these 18-year-olds a better place to put their money where they see a little bit more return on it versus a penny every few months.

Well, the risk that goes with it might not be worth it, but you could go with just an S&P 500 index fund just to park some money in a mutual fund for a period of time. The risk is that it could actually go down in value, right? Okay. If the stock market goes down, it could go down. And so that's generally why I tell people not to do that in these situations. I would rather them use this money on some form of education.

Okay. The best investment these kids can make is in themselves. If they study something, use money to go to some kind of school, trade school, college, whatever, to study something that's actually usable in the marketplace. The actual return on investment, you spend $10,000 on education or you put $10,000 in a mutual fund, the actual math that you get back from the $10,000 will be greater if it's on education that is usable, that has a utilitarian value in the marketplace. Hey, thank you, Karina, for teaching this.

We appreciate you. That's what we're here for this hour. It's a Teacher Appreciation Financial Literacy Month Theme Hour. You've got a lot on your plate. A job, your home, your marriage, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a

blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey Trusted Provider. Well, in honor of Financial Literacy Month and our high school curriculum taught in about half the high schools in America, we are doing a teacher appreciation giveaway this month, and we're appreciating teachers on the air this hour as well now the teacher appreciation giveaway works like this we're giving away five thousand dollars to two different teachers in cash and you do not have to be a teacher that teaches our stuff you just have to be a teacher no like a real teacher not like you taught your dog to sit that's not what i'm talking about you have to be like teaching in a classroom and stuff and if you're doing that then um we're gonna we're gonna say yes you're like a real teacher and we're gonna put sign let you sign up for the drawing no purchase is necessary just go to

ramsay solutions.com slash teacher ramsay solutions.com slash teacher and don't miss out this giveaway ends on april the 30th so you've just got a few more days to get signed up for that and if you know a great teacher out there that you've loved get in touch with her get in touch with him and tell them to make sure to run over to ramsey solutions.com slash teacher and register for this three give a free giveaway they may be one of the teachers that wins the $5,000 cash. So up next is going to be Wendy. Wendy is a teacher in Wisconsin, and she's been teaching our high school curriculum as well. Hey, Wendy, how are you?

Good, thanks. It's a pleasure to talk with you gentlemen today. You too. And so where do you teach? Which school? I teach at Sheboygan South High School in Wisconsin. Great. Very cool.

How many students are enrolled there? Oh, I think it's probably about 1,100. Okay. Very cool. How long have you been teaching? 27 and a half years. Well, you've seen some changes. I definitely have.

Definitely. Some of them good, some of them bad. Yeah, what's the biggest change you've seen working with young people of 27 years? Definitely some good, some bad. Probably the biggest challenge is the many different challenges that our students come to us with, very complex home and family situations, but also the digital challenges. Our children today are growing up in a digital world that we did not grow up in. That's right.

Very true. And we've got to figure out how to navigate that, how to guide them, how to parent in that world. It's a very different world than we were raised in. That's right. True. That's very true. Yeah, there's the pre-television generation the post-television generation there's the pre-smartphone generation the post-smartphone generation and it's it's a

lot of it is a blessing and a lot of it is a curse absolutely and they're the netflix and and live streaming generation i mean they don't turn on the tv like we did no they don't they don't need to they just when they want to see something, it's there. Right. It's on demand. And so that's the way all of us are now, but most of us just didn't realize it happened. It's native to them. They've never known anything else.

So how long have you been teaching our high school curriculum, Foundations in Personal Finance? Well, I think it's been about 10 or more years. A number of years ago, you hosted a teacher training institute, and I was fortunate to travel there with another teacher and be trained on site with your folks there at Ramsey Solutions. Wow, okay. I remember doing that. Yeah, wow.

Yes, it was wonderful. It's been a while back. We ought to do that again. That's good. Yeah, you ought to do it again. So did you have a question today as well? I do. As a teacher and honestly as a parent myself also,

I'm caught in a bit of a dilemma with the young people I work with every day. I definitely want to inform them about all the great digital tools, the apps, the things they can use conveniently through their smartphones to help them manage their finances. But as they do this, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma, struggling with the gap that we're creating for these kids in terms of helping them understand the tangible immediacy of cash. They're not using cash. They're not getting a paycheck and cashing it. They're not going to pay for their gas with cash. They're not getting a paycheck and cashing it. They're not going to pay for their gas with

cash. They don't have access to cash in the same way we grew up. And so how can I balance that for them when it's not in their hands like it was for us? I always want to roll back pedagogically. When I'm thinking about how can I teach somebody, I always want to, how can I turn this into something they can touch with their hands, how they can see it, right? And so I think something that's important for kids, they've become untethered to the reality of money, right? I love the way you put that. I used to have to go cash a check, and I would hold the cash,

and then I'd have to hand that to somebody to get the thing. They don't have that exchange anymore. And so they become untethered from reality in the same way they've become untethered with violence and with sensuality because they can just see it and see it and see it and see it and see it. So I would love to create a classroom environment that is tethered in reality. We are only going to operate with cash in this class, and you have to give that cash to somebody else. And so I'm going to take every opportunity pedagogically

to reground them in human connection in, nope, we're going to practice how economics works, and you've got this money, and that person has something you want, and we're going to learn about supply and demand, but you have to get up and go across that room and breathe that air and hand them that cash, right? I'm going to get that basic

because they're getting the high-level stuff digitally. They are just becoming increasingly untethered from reality, right? Yep. I think that's a great solution. So having sort of a token economy within the classroom with maybe some Dave cash. Yeah, or something. But I do think that's a great idea the visual aspect

of that changes it and then i think you teach the uh i think you end up having a lesson on the digital world and that facebook friends aren't real friends yeah virtual means sorta yep snapchat exchange is not a conversation it doesn't mean real it means virtual it's not it's not real virtual is not real so when they say virtual reality it's an oxymoron yeah means almost absolutely and so and so the uh you know and the same is true so the beauty of the digital is it's highly efficient it's quick it's easily accessible it's easily accessible, it's convenient, and the downside of it is you don't feel it, whether it's relationships or whether it's money. And I want them to feel it.

I want them to feel that negative feeling that prevents them from overspending, that, oh, I've got this cash in my hand and I really don't want to let go of it. But if they go to McDonald's drive-thru and try to pay with cash, they're asked, do you want to use your app today? Here's another place I would send them. George Campbell, our friend George Campbell, did a, I think it was a nine-part series on his podcast.

The Fine Print. The Fine Print podcast that is appropriate for their age, but it talks about, here's why airline points, credit card points aren't that great. Here's why this particular thing, here's why it sounds so good to get Bitcoin. Here's why that's not a good idea. And it's something that they're hearing about all the time in a medium that they are hearing about. And so it will make you, of course,

you're super way more hip than me and Dave, but it will make you be hip and you'll be able to pass along something to them in a medium they can understand. And what I've seen with young people is they get fired up when they realize they're getting taken advantage of, or they get fired up when they realize, oh, my points are coming on the back of somebody who can't make their payments. And you galvanize the justice here, and then they're ready for a conversation about here's how cash works. Here's reality, right? And so I would point you to The Fine Prince, nine episodes.

It's great, but it's a tool that can be used. And all of these ideas kind of fall in the same bucket, but one last one, and we're doing a lot of teaching on it. It's going to show up in a new lesson that John and George did in Financial Peace University here in the spring um that uh this idea of friction um the the harder the more clicks you have to do the harder the movement is inside of an app or inside of a website the more sales go down so the easier it is the more sales go up and teach them that companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to make it easier and easier and easier for them

because that company is going to get more and more and more of their money. And that's all a McDonald's or a Taco Bell app or a Dunkin' Donuts app is. You can order the donuts. They'll be sitting there on the counter. You don't have to stand in line. It's easier. It's easier. It's easier.

It's easier. Why? Because their sales go up every time it's easier. And so it's a manipulation is what it is. Yeah. And it's perfectly fine, but if you know it's there, but if you're 16 years old and you just think it's cool, then you're going to fall right into the bear trap. So, hey, thank you for being one of the best teachers in America, Wendy.

Grateful, Wendy. We appreciate you. This is The Ramsey Personality is my co-host today it is a teacher appreciation hour during financial literacy month this hour we're talking with teachers and crowing about teachers and bragging on teachers we love teachers and we love what they do we think that they change the world we know that they change the world so We know that they changed the world. So we're taking questions from a few of them. Our high school curriculum, financial piece,

or I'm sorry, foundations in personal finance, is taught in about 45% of the high schools now, 48% of the high schools in America. It has been taught in that many, and man, it's absolutely, about 4 million kids have now graduated from it. It's been a fun ride, been a really, really, really fun ride. So we thank you for that. Our documentary, Borrowed Future on Student Loan Debt,

the epic failure of the student loan system, the dark side is the sponsor of our teacher appreciation giveaway. We're giving away $5,000 to two lucky teachers. They will be drawn randomly from the list of teachers that register on our website for this free giveaway. No purchase is necessary. If you know a teacher or you are a teacher, a real teacher like in a classroom teacher, go to ramseysolutions.com slash teacher,

and you can get signed up for the teacher appreciation giveaway you do not want to miss it so john i'm guessing that probably in class at 13 years old you were an absolute terror dude i was a joy i was calm yeah i was a mess man i was a mess uh as my wife tells me john you're a lot um i think my a lot my 13 year old teachers would tell me yeah i was a lot man that was a lot well i they just called it hyper yeah when i went to school i mean that was a thousand years ago yeah they just hyper well and coach that that hovered over me in a way that it doesn't for young people today the choir director or the math teacher would say if we can't sit still i'm gonna have to let coach know so he can he can help take care of this and that that straightened us up real real quick um well i i you know the the strange irony is i end up in talk radio where actually

not talking is is not a good thing dead air it gets real quiet right here, right now, it's not a good thing. In radio, you're supposed to keep the air full. I kind of had the same mindset, though, in the eighth grade. There is not a single teacher I've ever had who, when they found out I work in radio, go, yeah, I can see that. Not one has said, really? I'm shocked. You were such a wallflower. Such a queen.

No, that has never happened. No, I was a mess man. Every report card ever went home to the Ramsey parents said Dave talks too much. Oh, good grief. Dave can't sit still. So, yeah. So, where are those teachers' worst nightmares? So, we have to stop now as adults and go, thank you.

Can I tell you this, though? The teachers, and again, I know I sound like an old man, like, back in my day, I had to go uphill both ways. I feel like teachers, when I was in school, had the flexibility both in the curriculum and in outcomes. And my parents were parents who, they trusted the teacher before they trusted me, right? Oh, 100%. They were the opposite. I wouldn't say opposite of a helicopter.

Yeah. They're like, I don't know. A a helicopter they're like i don't know a roto rooter i don't know yeah a hedgehog i don't know my parents were hedgehog parents i don't know they yeah they just assumed that whatever happened was my fault yes prove me otherwise but but i felt that they had the opportunity to channel that energy and channel that. They could see that I wasn't a bad kid. They could see that I had good ideas. But, hey, let's push it this way. And I'm sitting here today because teachers invested in me outside of the traditional learning classroom.

Outside of, like, they would call me to their office. They'd have conversations with me. I'm here because teachers invested in me, man. And my college professors too it's it's i i it's neat to look back on a group of people and say everything in my life is because y'all um y'all y'all invested in me it's cool it's awesome we were at a dinner party at our house a little while back and around the table were um very successful people in politics and music and whatever and we started talking about teachers and every one of them i

said everybody tell me your favorite teacher no one could they all i mean 40 years ago all had teachers and name after name after name after name and they couldn't choose their favorite it's like trying to choose your favorite movie your favorite song too many options you know it's too it's too it's too broad and so and they all knew their names they could tell your stories from the eighth grade they were just as clear the pictures the the painting was in high hd uh and that's the impact that these teachers have and so we love you guys out there and that's what we're doing we're honoring you today tom is one of the teachers of our high school curriculum and he is in new hampshire hey tom how are you i'm good how are you guys so

where do you teach i teach in londonderry new hampshire all right and uh and and what age group do you teach it's a high school program 9 through 12 okay and how many kids are in this high school yeah about 1400 a little over 1400 kids400 kids. Oh, wow. Okay. How long have you been teaching? I've been teaching 45 years. I've been in this school 44. Wow. Wow. You've broken some records. I got hired when the school opened, and I was like a second-year teacher, and I've been here ever since.

You know where all the bodies are buried in that school, don't you? And then some. And some of the other schools, too, yeah. Wow. What a gift. Hey, what a gift. Hey, what a gift of stability in the last several years. So you've taught some of your kids kids. Teacher mobility, yes. A lot of my kids.

I have plenty of kids who I've had their parents. And it's been a blessing to be in this environment. The administration is great. The teachers I work with are amazing. I've just been blessed to have this opportunity to end up where I ended up. Amen. You got a question today? I do.

First of all, I'm a shop teacher by trade. That's what I teach all these years. But I went through FPU. I taught financial peace, or I ran it, you know, did the program. And now I'm teaching it at the high school level because I did the same thing you were talking about earlier. You know, these kids need to know this. And I'm teaching in a program that we have here. We call it adult ed. It's really an alternative education program. It's after school for kids who can't make it in the regular school day. So a lot of these kids have been tossed out or have trouble staying in class or staying focused and that kind of thing.

The issue that I have is that it's a shortened amount of time that I have with them as opposed to a regular school day. I have them for an hour and a half for two days a week for 14 weeks. So I have to take the program and trim it down and kind of rifle through it and pick the, you know, the most important topics to cover. You know, we covered debt and budgeting and all the, you know, the key things. And I don't have time to do any of the activities. So it's, the trick is trying to keep them focused. I had a discussion with them today. I just had them this afternoon.

So your question is what? The question is, how do I get these kids to relate better? I've trimmed out as much as I can, but I'm almost afraid I've trimmed too much sometimes. One of the things you always say is, you have to get to a point where you say, I've had it and I can't do it anymore. That's what makes people change.

Well, these kids haven't had enough experience sometimes to get to that point. And they say, oh, this is nice stuff. This makes sense. But I asked them today, I said, how many of you have a budget? And only one kid in the class is working on a budget. And how many of you have an emergency fund? Two of them have an emergency fund. So here's the the entry point into those kids hearts and minds that are struggling um during the regular school day so much they got to come in the afternoon

the key to their ability to learn is trust and a stable adult and one of the greatest gifts you can give them as a classroom teacher is to look at them and say, I believe in you and I trust you and I love you. It's not the content. No, it is creating a world where they plug in and say, okay, I trust this guy and he makes me feel safe. In fact, he's the only guy in my world that makes me feel safe. Tell me more. And then you teach them. Maybe you pull a concept out and teach them how to budget, right?

And sometimes we get so concept heavy or theoretical heavy. Teach that kid how to budget. Make sure they don't leave your class without a budget. Make sure they see your budget up on the blackboard. They know how much you make. You're a teacher. Let's make this personal.

Let's get them that personal touch, that personal impact. And then you're going to see some major changes in those kids' lives. What a gift. They're going to – some of the teachers we were just talking about before we picked up the call, I don't necessarily remember the content that they taught me. What I remember is that they cared. That's right.

And they deeply impacted me because of that. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day as we head into Easter weekend, John 3, 16 and 17. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him clarence hall said if easter says anything to us today it says this you can put the truth in a grave but it won't stay there oh i never heard that one before it's pretty good huh that

one that that that uh that's a good one powerful powerful. Powerful, powerful stuff. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host this hour. We are featuring our Teacher Appreciation Giveaway, sponsored by the Borrowed Future documentary, exposing the dark side of the student loan industry. Be sure and check it out. If you are a teacher or you know a teacher, please send them to RamseySolutions.com slash teacher to register for our teacher appreciation giveaway in honor of Financial Literacy Month. And two teachers will win randomly, no purchase necessary, a $5,000 cash gift each. And we invite you to send your favorite teacher or teachers that are

maybe your second or third favorite over to ramsey solutions.com slash teacher and get them signed up our high school curriculum has now been taught in 48 percent of america's high schools and over four million kids have been through it and it it's as a result of wonderful, fabulous teachers like Susan. And Susan Everhart is a teacher in Ohio, and she's on the line. Hey, Susan, thank you for what you do. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Now, what high school do you teach in?

I teach at Wadsworth High School in Wadsworth, Ohio. Okay. And where's Wadsworth? What's it near? We're kind of in the Medina area. Oh, yeah. South of Cleveland. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. How many kids in the school? We have about 1,400, 9 through 12. Man. Getting after it. Big operation. How long have you been a teacher?

I have been teaching for 20 years. This is my 20th year. Wow. And how long have you been teaching foundations and personal finance? Yeah, this is my second year teaching the foundations curriculum. So still relatively new with that, but I'm loving it. Well, cool. Well, thank you for being a high-quality teacher, and thank you for teaching our curriculum.

We appreciate you. So you had a question for today. I do. With being in such a big high school and the kind of different socioeconomic levels of my students, I have anything from kids that want for nothing to kids that don't have much of anything to want for. What advice can you give on how to make kind of the content and the curriculum really connect to every kid, no matter what their socioeconomic level may be? I'm going to go back to the same answer I gave the last one. They're not going to understand abstract numbers sometimes.

Some of the kids may understand a million dollars is what my dad makes every year, and other kids may understand a million dollars is some number they see on a game show, right? So it's hard for many high school kids even to conceptualize. I want them to get to know each other. And I want them to get to know the humanity of the people behind these dollar amounts, right? Or behind some of the big flashy things or the hand-me-down clothes. I want them to know each other and then be able to engage in this material. And I would challenge you to not teach the principles differently to those with less than those with more.

The principles are the principles are the principles. And once they know each other and they have a context for each other, then everybody's learning the same stuff together. That's great advice. I love that. Yeah, and I think the thing I always want to give to kids that are not coming up in a household where everything is provided, you know, it's a tough situation, is I want to show them evidence that people like them become millionaires. Give them a picture. Yeah, and show them evidence you know stuff like the baby steps millionaires book and the because the information in that is a whole host of people that become millionaires uh did not start from any kind of privilege uh they literally started with no money but even then they started a lot of times with no privilege or limited privilege now everybody

has a different starting line, but it doesn't matter what the starting line is. All that matters is what the finish line is. And so I want to give them hope. And then the kids that are sitting in, I don't like the word privilege in this current environment, because it's misunderstood. But the kids that are

sitting in a situation where everything's given to them or where they don't have a worry in the world um what i i do want them to have one worry and that is if they don't go do it themselves it's not going to happen and so the disadvantage that they have is that they may think it's going to be automatic and it's not it being success. Okay. And so I always want to disturb those that are comfortable and give hope to those that don't have it. And on both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. So, you know, whether I'm speaking in a homeless shelter or I'm speaking in a church with a parking lots full of Mercedes, you know, I'm going to craft my message one of those ways. And because I want to disturb and make the comfortable uncomfortable for their own good, because because that comfort will be your destruction and or keep you from being all you're supposed to be in God's eyes. And the hopeless, you know, if they don't go move and move towards success

because they don't believe it can happen, then that's where we failed them. We didn't tell them it could happen. And that's the reason I did this last book. I really didn't have another book on my agenda for the next five years. But Baby Steps Millionaires, I just got tired of the hope stealers out there telling people it couldn't be done. Dave, that's a way better answer than the one I gave. I love that.

Because you're providing a picture of a kid to a kid who, like, hey, many of the NFL football players who signed these million-dollar deals wind up broke. Here's a picture of that. And, hey, kids, here's what it takes to become a millionaire, and you can do it, too. Even though your parents haven't shown you that picture, your grandparents didn't show you that picture, I'm going to give you a picture of that. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. You're the secret sauce in both of those equations. That's right.

You're the secret sauce. You're the secret sauce. You're the problem. You're the solution. You're the problem. You're the solution. Love it. Andrew's also a teacher.

He's in Pittsburgh. Andrew, thank you for teaching our stuff as well, man. We appreciate you. Thank you. How are you? Great, man. How long have you been teaching foundations? This is my 10th year.

Cool. All right. I'm up against the clock, so right quick, thank you for that, by the way. That's unbelievable. What's your question for John and I? My question is, in just some background context, I'm always using supplemental information, whether it be the journal to use a story about insurance I just used your book the past couple weeks got my hands on it you guys

use on a daily basis to reinforce your beliefs and everything that you teach in terms of whether it be investing or insurance or financial services? I'm a big believer in Charlie Munger's philosophy, which is before I develop a position, I need to know my opponent's position better than they do. And so I spend a lot of my energy reading things that might go against what I think because I want to know what the other folks are saying about things so that that being said I wouldn't do that to a bunch of middle school and high school kids I would probably push them to learn more about why they make the decisions that they make why they lump into why they default to this or to that how do they learn about how their families work and what messages, what stories were they born into, what stories were they told?

Because that's going to frame a lot how they do money. What do you think, Dave? You know, there's a lot to be said for not being in an echo chamber and just sitting and listening to people that think just exactly like you all the time or reading things that people think just like you all the time. That's kind of, That's a dangerous thing. The problem with getting outside of that and searching out your opponent, like John's saying, is you have to be careful to not pollute your mind with trash. That's right.

Because there's a reason I disagree with them, and they're wrong. Hashtag, that's america everybody so you have to you have to temper that with a little bit of wisdom moderation that puts us out of the 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. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to ramseysolutions.com slash show.