The Ramsey Show - App - Want To Become a Millionaire? Here’s How (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman interview every day millionaires to find out how they really built their wealth. 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, 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 that they love and create actual amazing relationships ken coleman ramsey personality number one best-selling author and host of the ken coleman show is my guest my guest my co-host this hour i can't get anything out i'm just going to stumble off that's all right anyway we're here we're here we're going to do this hour and it's all about baby steps millionaires this hour if you are millionaire, we want to talk to you.

We want to know how you did it, what your situation looks like, what you've learned along the way. We want to talk to real millionaires. Now, for those of you that don't know, there is a specific and only one definition of a millionaire. A millionaire is not someone that makes a million dollars a year. It's not someone that's rich necessarily unless you want to define that as rich. It is a mathematical equation that decides if you're a millionaire. It's an accounting function from a

balance sheet. It is your assets minus your liabilities when that number at the bottom of that equation, assets minus liabilities, is one million dollars or greater. You are a millionaire. Well, I don't feel rich. It's not a feeling. Well, no one should have a million dollars. We should all be socialists. It's not a moral construct. It's not about wealth equality. It's not about your broke brother-in-law's opinion. It's a freaking accounting thing. What you own minus what you owe equals $1 million. Then you are a millionaire. Not before, not after.

That's how it works. And so when I hear idiots, like I heard an idiot congressman the other day go, well, anybody that makes a million dollars a year is a millionaire, and they shouldn't be. I'm like, you're an idiot. How'd you get in congress you're just stupid well that's part of the job qualification is to be an idiot so part of the island misfit toys what's broken on you but the um anyway but yeah we so yeah there we go i've got friends in congress i shouldn't say that but i know that was too broad of a brush must have bad joke it was very close though it's

just about got them all it kind of so anyway the um so the deal is this we're going to talk with real millionaires not your broke brother-in-law with a political opinion not your uh kid who's been influenced by um a youtuber or a tiktoker worse can you say worse than that a tenured college professor oh well he was a communist okay but um never made payroll so none of this matters this is a discussion with real millionaires how they got there if you don't want to be one ever because you think it's evil you should turn this off because we're going to tell you how to do it it's going to screw you up okay because we're going to talk you how to do it, and it's going to screw you up, okay? Because we're going to talk about real millionaires. Karen is our first one. She's in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a Sheboygan millionaire.

Always wanted to say that. That's very cool. Karen, what's your net worth? About 1.7, maybe a little bit more. Good. Give me the mix on that. How much in real estate, how much in 401K, and so on? Sure.

Our retirement's at about 1.1. We have a paid for home of $500,000, about $180,000 in cash. And then my husband has his GT40, which is worth about $140,000. I like him. All right. $140,000 GT. Good. How old are you guys? I'm 61, and he's 67. Cool. How much of this 1.7 million did you inherit? When my father-in-law passed away, about $35,000, which we took and paid the backside of our second home. How long ago was that?

Oh, geez. 30 years ago, maybe. So did that make you a millionaire oh gosh no okay just making sure okay because everybody says that all millionaires inherited their money and we know that statistically to be a complete farce but so give me your best year working in household income and your worst year working household income okay uh the best year was when he retired at $190,000, and our worst year combined was about $50,000 when we first started out. Cool.

What careers were you in? Well, I was pretty much a stay-at-home mom. After the kids went back to school, in middle school, I became more of an office assistant, administrative assistant. I retired from the park and rec department. Now I work really part-time for a vet office in their office, vet administration. How realistic is the parks and rec show? You know, I only watched it a couple of times. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's not. We know it's not. It's one of the most fun, best jobs I've ever had, though. Cool. What did your husband do?

My husband worked for the same company for 42 years, but within that company he had eight different positions. He retired as Director of International Business Development, so he traveled all over the world. So that's why I was pretty much a stay-at-home mom for quite a bit because I held a port down at home. What was his degree in? Well, he had a two-year associate degree, and he had a 2.5 GPA there, and worked for a while full-time trying to figure out what he

was going to do. Then went back to school and got his bachelor's and master's at the same time i was having children and his was in um the business management side and he ended up with 3.5 in college when he was older yeah very good very cool very cool okay so now when you look back on your all's lives and you look at the current situation in the united states today and you're talking right now to a whole bunch of 25-year-olds on this show, do you think that they can still start with nothing and when they are 61 have $1.7 million net worth? Oh, gosh, absolutely. What should they do to do that?

What are the keys? My husband wants me to tell you that he recommends that you do do the community college, whether you start right out of high school or not, but to continue working until you find your career path, and make sure that you take advantage of the company college reimbursement. That helps so much. And also the 401k matches. My end, I would make sure our biggest fault was the car loans. To stay away from those car loans, credit card gimmicks, and not have to compete. Don't pay attention to what your friends, your neighbors have or things like that. You really don't need all that stuff.

You can have a lot of fun without it. And then just to be patient and that your hard work will be rewarded in a lot of wonderful ways, but it just takes time. So that's what we're telling our 20-year-olds, too. I hear you. Hey, you're wonderful. Well done. Very well done. Congratulations.

I'm proud of you. So, Ken, the misnomer is that the wealthy all inherited their money, and the only way you become wealthy is to be crooked. You have to be evil because the wealthy are evil. Or they're all famous. They're a basketball, football player. They're a country music star, a rock star, a Hollywood actor. Or they're brilliant.

They have inordinate brain matter. Right. They're all 4.4 GPAs. Right. And all four of those things, it turns out, statistically, are lies. Yeah. This is a couple here where he had a 2.5, community college only, went into work, busted it, later said, all right, I want to get a master's to maybe move up the ladder, did that,

and eventually became a 3.5 student much later on. But not a 4.4. He's not a rocket surgeon. No, just a hard worker. A guy who had a plan and went after it. Not a rocket surgeon, and he's not Tom Cruise. And they didn't steal anything. They didn't beat anybody up.

They weren't in the mafia. And they didn't inherit the $35,000. And by the way, that's about the normal thing out of the 10,000 millionaires that we've studied. We find lots of people just like those fine folks. So quit saying bad things about millionaires. They're my friends. ken coleman ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today dave every day we get calls from people who've had enough. Enough credit card payments, enough relationship problems, enough overdrafting of their bank account to

pay for food and gas. And everyone here at Ramsey, we've been there and we know how challenging it can be to take that first step to say enough is enough. And you could say enough. This job I have sucks. I want Ken Coleman stuff. That's right. You know, you could say enough. When you could say, enough. This job I have sucks. I want Ken Coleman stuff. That's right. You know, you could say enough. When you say enough is when you change your life. When you yell it at the sky. Enough!

That changes everything. The good news is you can decide today to get out of the pattern that's getting you nowhere. And that's why we've brought back the Ramsey $10 sale on our number one best-selling books and tools. The sale ends in August. For most of you listening, that's right now, today. Today is the last day. Learn the baby steps to climb out of debt. Build wealth with books like our bestseller, The Total Money Makeover.

Questions for Humans. Cards by Dr. John Deloney. My new little quick read called The Momentum Theorem. Man, there's all kinds of stuff in here for just $10. All right, and Dave just said it ends today, but here's what else ends today, the Ramsey Cash Giveaway. There's two amazing chances to jumpstart your journey. The resources to help you walk the clear path to the success that you want,

and then the cash to help fast-forward it. You can enter the Ramsey Cash Giveaway for your chance to win the grand prize of three thousand dollars so today's the last day you take a shot at three thousand dollars get the ten dollar deals all at ramsey solutions dot com don't miss the three grand ramsey solutions dot com this is an everyday millionaires baby steps millionaires real millionaires female we're talking to real millionaires the next one is steve in salem oregon hey steve what's your net worth uh about 6.9 right now yeah i love it okay wonderful give me a little breakdown on that by category. How much of each type? Well, it's almost entirely real estate.

Very little in stocks and mutual funds. I have a little cash on hand, but the vast majority of it is in real estate. Okay. Big real estate guy. All right. Any debt on it? A little bit. I'm at about an 80% equity standing on it.

Gotcha. Okay. So a couple million in debt. All right. Cool. Yeah, about maybe one and a half, somewhere around there. How old are you? 52. Okay, cool. And how much of the 6.9 did you inherit? Zero. Zero, precisely. All right. And your range of income, your best year working and your worst year working household income? I would say household income ranged between

80 to 120,000 a year. Okay, cool. And what do you do for a living? Real estate investor? So for most of my career, I actually started out as a teacher and was actually investing in real estate while I was doing that. And I was doing so many remodels, I switched my profession to remodeler. So I was remodeling homes for about 27 years for others and remodeling anything that I would buy along the way. Okay, fun. Okay. Fun. Cool. Do you have a four-year degree?

Yes. Education? Yeah, in education. Okay. What was your GPA? In college, about 3.9, actually. Yeah, good for you. Very cool.

Okay. So tell folks what the secret to having a $7 million net worth at 52 years old is. I don't know if there's really a secret. You know, I started young, and I think you need to start thinking about the future when you're young, and I did. I bought my first house at age 24, and then my first rental property at age 26. Uh, so I started early. I knew that there was really, I didn't have a big retirement, you know, I didn't have a big 401k, you know, ahead of me. I didn't have anything, you know, any big golden parachute to lean on. So I knew I had to get busy and, and get to it when I was early, because by the time I got older, I was going to be tired. I wasn't going to want to work so hard. Yeah, cool. I always made sure that, you

know, I was willing to work harder than the guy next to me and give service like nobody else. And along the way, I was just trying to be disciplined with my spending and discipline with my investing. So I often ask people how much debt was a factor, how much did they use debt to build wealth? And in your case, you did a little bit, at least a little bit, right? In the beginning, I used a lot and I used too much. And that came back to bite me back in the crash of 08. And, uh, I was afraid I was going to lose everything, Dave. Um, I actually probably lost about half of my portfolio and, uh, and so if you had it to do over, you would not do it that way. I would not, I would not leverage in the way I did. Absolutely not. Uh, I was leveraging like crazy. And, uh, I know

you, you have a story that's somewhat similar and, uh, you know, I, I didn't have anybody in, in front of me that I knew to, uh, so I could learn from their mistakes. I wish I did. Um, but I got to learn from my own and those are the most painful but also the most memorable they're thorough it's thorough yeah uh and it took me about 12 or 13 years to crawl back out of that hole dave but you know i never uh i was at the point where i thought i might have to uh claim bankruptcy but i didn't i just you know i i didn't feel right about that, and I thought, you know, if the good Lord gives me the ability to work, and if I can deal with these creditors to do what's right and pay back what I promised, that I would do that. And I felt that was the honorable thing to do. So it took me a long time to crawl out of that hole.

Very well done. The moral of the story, of course, is that you, A, survived, but, B, if you were doing it over, you would use at least less debt and not be as leveraged. That's the moral of the story. So more and more in our direction. But way to go, man. Congratulations. I love it. You know, Dave, there's a great instruction here.

It's teacher by trade. And, you know, a lot of young people are buying a lot of the messaging out there all over social media that hey i can leverage my way into a lot of money and i hope they hear there's tremendous tremendous risk and he almost lost it all yeah oh that's exactly right alan's with us in atlanta alan what's your net worth hey dave uh my net worth is about 3.8 million cool give me a little breakdown on that by category. All right. The way it breaks down is I've got about $800,000 in real estate all paid off. I have about $200,000 in cash, $500,000 in a 401k, and $2.3 million in my equity account. Good for you. Very good. All right, cool. How old are you?

I'm 46 years old, and I'm married to a 45-year-old wife. Perfect. And how much did you inherit of this $3.8 million? Inheritance is never going to be part of what happens to us, Dave, so zero. Okay. And your range of income during your working life, your best year since you've been married, your worst year? I mean, it fluctuates a lot because my wife's earned her doctorate degree since we've got married and teaching,

and so that kind of helped a lot. But I would say the lowest that we've made is probably around $200,000, and the highest we've made is probably right around $500,000. Okay. So you made $500,000 high end? Yes, sir. Yep. While doing what uh my wife's a teacher she teaches high school math and uh i'm an engineer oh okay i do uh technical sales okay cool all right so there's two of our top three uh categories of uh careers that become millionaires, and you're $3.8 million at 46. Okay, so obviously you've got an education degree. You said you've got a Ph.D., and you've got an engineering degree, correct?

Well, I only have an associate's degree. I don't have a four-year degree. I'm in school now to complete one. But, yeah, I've got a two-year associate's degree. If you don't hurry up and do that you're probably going to be a failure we're really concerned right now i mean you make a half a million dollars a year you're 46 you got 3.8 million yeah you've been really held back by this hey way to go all right in 30 in 10 seconds what is is the most important thing someone should do if they want to be you?

Stay out of debt, live in self-imposed scarcity, and invest like your life depends on it, not only financially, but in your understanding. I love that. Beautiful. Self-imposed scarcity. Beautiful. And he did it all in 10 seconds, too. That is impressive.

Didn't mess up the commercial. Way to go, Alan. This is the Ramsey personality is my co-host today best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. We're talking to millionaires, baby step millionaires, people that followed the baby steps and did it, or just millionaires. Maybe they did it some other way. Open phones here at 888-825-5225 as we talk to actual millionaires. team here in conjunction with an outside research team to confirm that our methodologies were airtight and that there wasn't any bias in our process, did what became the largest study

ever done of millionaires in North America. My friend Tom Stanley that did the book The Millionaire Next Door passed away in a car wreck a few years ago. His daughter Sarah is still continuing his research in Atlanta, and you ought to check that out. It's incredible research. But Tom's book, Millionaire Next Door, had a statistically significant sample of millionaires but was always criticized because most of the journalists that write critical articles

about things like this that are socialists never took a math class or a statistics class. And so they don't know what statistically significant means. But the study sample size for The Millionaire Next Door that became a famous book was 750 millionaires. And he was always criticized for that being so small. So we said, you know, we understand that his data was accurate at the time. It was written in 1992. We want to do a fresh study, but we're also going to go ahead and just beat up on the stupid publicity side of this thing, and we'll do 10x of statistically significant.

We want to study 7,500. Well, before we got wound down, we ended up with 10,167 that we had done. So it's over 10,000 actual millionaires that we talked to. And here's some of the interesting things we found. 68% use a financial advisor. 73% of millionaires never held a penny of credit card debt in their entire lives. Seven out of 10 never had a student loan compared to 51%. 70% didn't. 51% of the public has uh top three jobs we said this earlier engineer accountant and teacher and ken you'll like this and you knew this of course 96 percent enjoy what they did for a career 64 said they loved their jobs yeah yeah i mean turns out

that when you're doing something you were created to do you do it really well and get rewarded for it you make more money yeah hello one-third of millionaires 33 never had a six-figure 100 000 household income in a single working year that's extraordinary less than 100k yeah the average millionaire lives in a 2600 square foot home that they've been in for 17 years the average millionaire pays off their home in 10 or in 11 years. In our tribe, the ones that have gone through baby steps are more like 10.2 years, a little faster. 94% say they live on less than they make compared to 55% of the general population. 93% use coupons. Most of them became millionaires at an average age of around 49 years old.

So you hear somebody 50 years old that just became a millionaire, that's a normal thing. Some do it faster, some do it slower, but that's the average. 97% of millionaires said they believe they control their own destiny, what Dr. Deloney would call locus of control, versus when you survey the public, the public the public's at 63 not 97 so they believe they control their own destiny and by the way if you don't think you control your own destiny you won't work on it so there's a there's a correlation of causation there uh 70 say they set some of

their income aside every month to give to others seven out of ten are generous every month yeah every single month with a rhythm of their life is generosity and here's the key one they did not inherit their money that is the biggest lie and piece of mythology that is floating around okay out of the largest study of millionaires ever done what we found was 79 79% of them inherited precisely zero. 5% inherited a small amount, like $5,000 from grandma when she died. Or one guy said earlier here, $1,300 or something, right? That kind of thing. And another 5% inherited substantial monies, but after they were already millionaires.

So they might have got $100,000 or something, but they were already millionaires. So 5 and 5 and 79, for those of you struggling, that's 89%. 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires mathematically did not become millionaires because of an inheritance now when we publish that these stupid butt people that comment on stuff like instagram and by the way some of you that comment you really should keep your stupid mouth shut because it makes you look stupid because you are it's just ridiculous and it just you know it's just ridiculous. It's just crazy. Well, they grew up in privilege. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. They didn't.

Well, mom and daddy paid for everything. No, they didn't. They just didn't. These millionaires, when we talk to them, they laugh at you ignoramuses that say stuff like that all you're doing is whining because you don't have enough chutzpah to get up off your little butt and go out there and do something and you'd rather sit around and whine like a socialist snowflake instead of actually going and getting something done and and so the problem the problem is when you do stuff like that people believe you're stupid but and you're what's known as called a hope stealer you steal hope from

people that's why i ended up writing the new book that became a number one bestseller baby steps millionaires which again has the entire study in the back because i got tired of listening to you hope stealers and i had to go through and show people the actual facts that yes it can be done every race every creed every religion every region every sex they're all represented in the in the study that we did and right down the dadgum lines of statistical i mean significance is right where it should be that's right it's just you know is it harder for some people do they start further in the hole yeah but do they still do it every day you whiners every day don't be a whiner it's not becoming it's not good so we're talking to real millionaires not whiners not people who vote the wrong way not people who they're confused about this stuff real millionaires that really did it Michaela is one of them she's in Boston Michaela what is your

net worth well I think just under three million like around 2.7 2.8 okay I'm going to go with 2.8 based on you all right and give me a little breakdown on that what's the uh categories so i have a roth ira that i started right out of college my first job and um how much is in it so about i'd say it goes up and down but about 800 okay cool all right and then i have two houses or two properties to live in and one piece of land. What's all that worth? And so I'm going to say, um, to about 2.6, 2.7. That's the whole thing. Okay, cool. How old are you? Uh, 61. Okay, cool. You're single. Yes. All right. And what did you do for a living? So, um, I've've believe it or not been um a modern dancer and a real estate broker a dancer and a broker okay and i kind of split the two up so i didn't make as much as a lot of brokers do but i have a really good balance collection okay i love it that's fun how much of this uh 2.8 did you

inherit uh zero okay zero and what was your best year working income and your worst year working income well so my worst probably was about 11,000 when I first started and my best was when I decided to buy the three properties so I had I worked really hard in real estate for that one year and so that was almost 300,000 so that I could qualify to buy. Got it okay very cool. Do you have a four-year degree? I do. In what? In political science. Political science perfect okay what was your GPA? Three four three five I think. Okay very cool so what advice would you have to the younger version of you that's in their 20s that's listening to this if they want to have $2.8 million net worth when they're 61 years old?

Well, I never ever dreamed I would own property. I just didn't think that would happen for me. So just to believe that you can do it and set out to do it. That belief thing, that 97% of the millionaires we surveyed said they believed they could do it. There it is right there. Well done, Michaela. I'm proud of you. You're awesome.

Absolutely amazing. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. And I love the mix. Modern dance and real estate. Yeah. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Mark 1045, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Don Meyer said, Discover your gift, develop your gift, and then give it away every day. Who's Don Meyer, Ken? One of the greatest basketball coaches of all time that most people don't know about you'll know him from he was at Lipscomb University for a long time when they were division three and then he ended up his career won a couple national champions several national championships with Lipscomb and he mentored Pat Summitt he's one of those small college guys that like all basketball coaches know but most people don't know because he never was d1 discover your gift develop your gift and then give it away every day sounds like a ken coleman quote

well it certainly uh certainly is what we teach uh that you were you were gifted with what you have to give it away created to contribute it's a millionaire theme hour the book baby steps millionaire is the number one bestseller it's latest. If you want to learn more about this subject, I'd be honored to teach you in that method. Stuart's with us in Arizona. Stuart, what's your net worth? Hey, Dave. My net worth is $2.3 million. Good for you.

Give me a little breakdown by category. Okay, sure. So we have $430,000 in mutual funds. We have, my wife and I both have just started Roth a few years ago. We have 50,000 there. We have 320,000 as liquid cash. And then we have 1,535,000 in real estate. Cool. All paid for. Paid for. Awesome. How old are you? 39. Cool. Very good.

And how much of this did you inherit? Zero. Cool. And what was your record income and your best year income and your worst year income since you've been working? So I'll reverse that on you. My lowest year was 9,000. I'm self I'm self-employed. Um, so I was just getting my feet on the ground and, um, you know, you got to start with something. And so, uh, that was my lowest year. My CPA kind of looked at me and before he gave me my tax total and said, how are you feeding the kids? And then he went on to, you know, let me know that we had made $9,000 that year. Um, but then as our company grew, I wanted to keep as much cash flow in the company as possible. And so I just put myself on a really modest salary.

Yeah, but you have taxable income. What was your best year taxable income? $60,000. No, you kept all the cash in the company. You're not counting that. You paid taxes on the cash you kept all the cash in the company you're not counting that you paid taxes on the cash you kept in the company with cash in the company we did a 1.3 million dollar year and a couple years ago there we go okay i thought you were killing it all right that makes more sense all right and your career what was your company do so i'm a builder i'm a general contractor oh okay all right

very good good for you and you have a four-year degree? No. Okay. No degree. All right. Cool. Nope. Cool. What advice do you have to a young person listening to us that wants to have a $2.3 million net worth when they're 39? Way to go. So I think that the biggest thing for me, looking back, is do hard things. A very motivational speech for me was recently discovered from John F. Kennedy in 1962. He said, we choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And for me, that's been a major blessing in my life was coming to a fork in the road and

knowing that you can take the easy path but intentionally choosing the difficult path and it doesn't pay off overnight but it does pay off yeah that is that is a a speech that should be required to be memorized like the gettysburg addressress. Absolutely. He was a world-class orator and motivator. Yeah. Sorely missed. And his sentences actually made sense and stuff. So there you go. Man, way to go, dude.

I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I got to ask you real quick. You don't have a degree, and we know your first year of your company was 9,000. What was your path to become a contractor who is very successful building homes? Well, so like Dave mentioned, you know, with the statistics, I'm a big Thomas Stanley fan, read, you know, all of his work.

And as I read these, I could see myself in these other people that he would interview. And I think for me, it just kind of came down to at a young age. So the reason I didn't go to college is because I was homeschooled and I wanted to work. And so I actually started working a 40 hour a week job at the age of 15 and a half. My parents said, Stuart, you can go into full-time work when you get your graduation from high school. That really motivated me. And from day one, I was out there. But it took me two or three jobs to determine that I really liked creating things with my two hands. Yes.

And I especially liked creating things that I could drive by years later and say, hey, I built that. You know, and I can take my kids by their nowadays before they were even born and say, hey, guess what? Dad built that house. And I just love getting my hands dirty to this day. and take my kids by there nowadays before they were even born and say, hey, guess what? Dad built that house. And I just love getting my hands dirty to this day. So did you start working for a builder? Did you learn from a builder or did you just start getting into remodels yourself? Yeah. So a core value of mine as a young, I started at 18 years old. My wife and I got married at 18 and I started my business that same year and I started mowing lawns. And a customer would say, Hey, Stuart, you're mowing

our lawn, but do you build fences? And I had this core value in my head and my value was never say no. And so they would say, you know, we'd like to pay you to build a fence. So I'd build them a fence. And then they go, do you do decks? Yes, we do decks. We'd build a deck. It just grew and grew and grew to the point where 10 years down the road, we were doing multi-million dollar homes. I got into some public works, which obviously, you know, is a great, it's a great avenue.

And I just always had a keen sense of wanting to kind of sniff out, like, what makes me happy? So you are truly a with-your-hands, self-made guy in the truest sense of the word. When someone is out there floating around in our economy today and they say things like, you know, the wealthy are evil and they should pay more in taxes does that do to you what it does to me absolutely yeah yeah because i mean i i i understand what it took to create this um you know sleepless nights many hours away from my wife and kids yeah sometimes i hear people say, you're so lucky. And I'm like, lucky had nothing to do with it, you butt. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Blessed? I'll take blessed. Yes, I am so blessed. No question about it. And I have no question I did not do this by myself. God's blessings and the blessings of incredible people coming alongside and helping me. But luck?

No, this is not a random lightning strike. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's just, we have got to break that cycle off of these next two generations that somehow this is just random. Corn does not randomly grow. It is planted. Yep. You reap what you sow. And you, sir, have worked your butt off.

I can hear it in their stories. Thanks, Dave. I mean, you've had some nights when you got home and your hands were sore and your back was sore and you got up the next day before the sun came up and went at it again. You've had a bunch of those. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I'm 39 now, and I'm just now getting to take my first break um we've had a great run for 20

years and i decided last year to take some time travel the country in an rv you know we homeschool five kids my wife does so i'm going to be taking some time to be a little bit more helpful with that we're not done but now we get to choose the things that we get to do and the jobs we take. Yeah, and you should, sir. Very, very well done. I love that. He gets to choose.

He just went back to the Kennedy thing. There's a callback. He chose to work hard. He chose to sacrifice. He's making over a million dollars for his company and only pays himself 60. But he's sitting there with all this net worth, plus 320 in cash, RVing. He now gets to choose. He and his wife get to choose what they want to do at the very young age, I might point out, of 39.

Yeah. Yeah, not even 40. That's incredible. That's the American dream, by the way. It's still very much alive throw him out of the house at 15 and send him to the salt mines salt mines i mean 15 years old he's working a 40 hour week oh i love this guy what a wonderful story hey that puts a millionaire theme hour in the books

good job ken good job james andrew zach ben and austin in the books. Good job, Ken. Good job, James, Andrew, Zach, Ben, and Austin in the booth. The booth dudes. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. 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, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts

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