The Ramsey Show - App - Why Am I Depressed When I'm Successful in Life? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Christy Wright, and joining me today is Dr. John Deloney. Welcome, John. How are you? Hey, and joining me today is Dr. John Deloney. Welcome, John. How are you? Hey, we've never hosted together today. Are they going to regret this? They might, but if you're driving down the road and you've never witnessed a train wreck live,

you may want to hang on. I'm so excited to host with John because he is a loose cannon. You never know what he's going to say. That's what my wife says and I disagree. Here's what's great. We are here for you. We are taking your calls. 888-825-5225.

Give us a call about your time. That's what we're focusing on today, John, because in case you didn't know. Today's a big day, huh? It's a big day. Give me a drum roll. I'm drum rolling. This is huge, man? Today is a big day. Give me a drum roll. I'm drum rolling. This is huge, man. Today, my book launches, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance.

So this is a great day to answer your questions about life balance or time management. That's obviously been a big focus for me recently and today with the launch of the book. But of course, you know John is an expert on mental health and managing anxiety, which actually, time and anxiety go together a lot. But listen, one thing I am terrible at. Oh, I'm so ready for this. Terrible. Is time management. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to step out in the lobby and make a few calls to you

today, because I'm really awful. Okay. I'm awful. Well, let's just make you our first caller, John. Tell me, I'm genuinely curious. Are you kidding or are you really bad at managing your time? Oh, man. If my wife listened to the show, she would have pulled over and raised her hands like an old 80s girl.

She may just call in right now just to vouch for this. But listen, I like to do everything. Sure. I don't like saying no. Okay. Everyone listening can relate to this right now. Not I don't like saying no. Okay. And not even listening can relate to this. Not even out of like a sense of guilt. I literally love to do just about everything.

Okay. I like doing stuff. Yeah. I like mowing and I like writing this book I'm working on and I like chit chatting and I like playing my music. I like playing with the kid. I like doing everything. Yeah.

Which means at the end of the day, I often end up doing nothing very well and I go to bed really scattered and I don't sleep good and my kids feel like they got a part of me but not all of it and my wife's like, hey, you're sitting at the table but you're not with us and then man,

and I find myself driving 90 miles an hour to work and I just feel like I'm chaos all the time and you're looking at me like, yeah, just like you started the show. But I like everything. But man, I'm just terrible at time management. Well, it's interesting because I so relate to that. My default answer to any question, anytime, anywhere is yes.

Yes, I would love to do that. Yes, I'll do this and I'll go there. Because it's all good. It all sounds fun. I'm very excited. I did learn early on into my marriage that my husband's default answer is not yes to all these social events. He's more of an introvert. That kind of taught me about how to have conversations before I commit us to things every day of the week,

which was a learning experience. But I think you make a good point because so many people have a lot of interests and they're all good things. So it may not even just be that they're people pleasers. That's certainly one problem a lot of people have but in our world where the opportunities are endless and they're they're good opportunities there's fun things going on every night of the week there's fun things you could get involved in you want to do them you try to do them and i think that's one of the things i've been fascinated by in researching for this book is what we have tried to do is we've tried to take something that is fixed, our time, 24 hours in a day, that is fixed.

It is an absolute, you can make more money. You cannot make more time. But instead of cutting things out or editing or choosing the best things or even really putting a lot of thought to our decisions, we just try to run faster. We try to cram more in. Oh, I just need to multitask better. I need to be faster. We try to cram more in. Oh, I just need to multitask better. I need to be more efficient. I need to be more productive. And we think the solution is that something we need to do to work harder. And we do that. We just end up exhausted and still out of balance. It didn't fix the root issue.

Right. And I pretend I'm not a people pleaser. I for sure am. But I'm fascinated, Christy, and you can help me with this. I'm fascinated by people like your husband and my wife, who I can say, hey, we just got an invitation to something in August. And she'll say, we're going to need to pass on that. And my first thought is, why? It could be awesome. You don't like fun? You don't like people?

Why do you hate America? And she'll say, well, we have 15 things going on. You've got this two weeks before, which I'm around you during those seasons, and you're not fun. I don't understand how somebody can look at fun and think, what if we all slept? Think how much more fun we would have

if we just ate all of our meals, right? I don't understand how somebody gets there, and I do this for a living, but this is the one elusive thing for me, is I pretend throughout a day that I can just make more time. I think that's what it comes down to. We all think that. I live in a fantasy world.

Yeah, we all do that. And then what's interesting is instead of cutting things out or saying no, like our spouses are better at than we are, we try to run faster. And then what happens is things drop and then we feel guilty. And I'm curious your thoughts on this, because what I found, John, and this is certainly from personal experience, but also from years of working with people, men and women experience it differently, but we both experience it. There is such a layer of guilt that factors into how we manage our time, how we make decisions, and even how we feel balanced, what that even means to us. Because I've noticed that we don't know

what balance is. We're just sure we don't have it. And so it feels like we're chasing a moving target. It feels like we're always guilty no matter what we do. It feels like it's the wrong thing. And so I'm curious, your experience, even with this idea of guilt and this nagging feeling of like, gosh, I can't get it together. Gosh, I just feel like I'm always doing the wrong thing. Do you see that in people that you work with oh yeah that's such a piece of this and myself because i don't have when i don't take the time to reverse engineer my day or my week or my month meaning i've got to have a picture of what enough is and i've got to have a picture of a day well lived is otherwise i'm always well i should probably do this should probably do this and had a great day

with my son yesterday and so what did I do? I went home and thought you know what I need oh he wanted to read these books and so there I'm on Amazon there was no need to do that

right? but I didn't have a picture of what enough was today and so I got caught up in the man we had a great time we were running around in the creek being silly

I just want to keep this thing going right? yeah that's me I think that now that I'm saying it out loud I'm that kid at 2 o'clock in the morning and I'm like, come on, man, let's just keep the lights going. It's so dumb. I'm tired. I want to sleep. And, um, but I think we don't have a good understanding of what a finish line is on anything. And, um, so we just

run around untethered all the time. Yeah. We don't know what success looks like. And so we always feel like we're a failure. Right. And so I think that's a big piece of it and um it's funny you your book redefining anxiety when when we were coming out this book i was like what about redefining balance like no deloney has the redefining title it's like okay we'll come up with something else but what i love about the title we landed on take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance because i don't think this is just a time issue or a schedule issue. I think it's a heart issue of this guilt piece of it. And if we don't fix our time problem at the root level, it's going to keep coming up again

and again and again. And so I love how you talked about that. For any of you guys listening right now and you need help with managing your time, give us a call. We're taking your calls today. Me and Dr. John Deloney, 888-825-5225. We're focusing on life balance,

time management, managing anxiety, and of course, we're always here to take your money, questions. It'll be funny to see what answers John and I come up with for you. We're going to nail it.

It's going to be so great. We totally got this. This is The ramsey show Registration is now open to attend our largest leadership event of the year, Entree Leadership Summit. We will be at the Hyatt Regency Orlando in beautiful Orlando, Florida, May 22nd through the 25th, 2022. We always bring together the best leaders for this event, and next year is no exception. I'll be there speaking, as well as our very own Ken Coleman, Christy Wright, and Dr. John Deloney. We've also got legendary comedian and former host of the top rated Tonight Show, Jay Leno. Best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni. Founder of It Cosmetics, Jamie

Kern Lima. American restaurateur, Will Gadara. Classic concert pianist and powerhouse speaker, Jade Simons. Best-selling author, Henry Cloud and more. These are leaders and speakers who have made their own rules in business and are going to inspire you to do the same. To learn more about the event and get your seats, text the word SUMMIT2022 to 44222. That's 44222. I'm Christy Wright. Sitting in the chair today with me is Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls. Phone lines are open, 888-825-5225.

We talked last segment about my book launching, Take Back Your Time. So if you've got a time question, today's a great day to talk about it. We all struggle with having enough time. I certainly feel like that. Hey, so tell me about what a book launch looks like. So I'm in the middle of writing, and I know there's not a lot of sleep,

and there's not a lot of balance. It's a lot of interviews. You get this thing out, and now what's happening? Well, that's what's funny. I was on an interview this morning, and it was like well what is what does your schedule look like right now i'm like the the opposite of whatever you think it is for someone that launched a book on balance i'm living and breathing but really that's the reason that i love helping figure out people figure out what's right right now because you can't do everything all the time so figure out

what's right right now and do that right now it's getting the book out there and there's gonna be a season this summer i've been playing a lot and now we're switching gears. So phone lines are open. 888-825-5225. Taking your calls about your life and your money. Dr. John Deloney and I are here to help. We're going to go to the phones. We've got a call from Yadira in Bakersfield, California. Hey, Yadira, how's it going? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. I can't imagine two better people to answer my question. I agree. I'm ready for this. Okay, so it's a two-part question. So part one, I have a wonderful husband.

I have a ton of dogs, keep life interesting. I have an incredible talent of succeeding in everything I do. And I've done that by creating two businesses. But I still find myself lacking and finding myself really depressed and lonely when I logically understand that I'm super lucky and very blessed and should not feel that way. But I do tend to feel empty and sad and find it hard to get out of bed some days. And it's kind of just the circled around the what's the point mentality. And then part two is because I want to feel balanced and accept things I don't have control over and be able to feel happy when happy when good things happen. I signed up for better help on John's referral link. And I wanted to know how I can make the most out of this

program. I currently was assigned a therapist. I just spoke to her once. She seems really nice. But I want to determine if she is a good fit and what I can do or what I can request to help this process be more helpful and beneficial. I've never gone to therapy, and I've been raised around people who don't believe that therapy can help. So when I saw that you could do it remotely, I was super excited,

and I just want to know the best way to approach it. So I was just writing down while you were talking, where does this story come from that you are your achievement and you are the amount of accomplishments you have and you are the amount of luck that you feel like you've received from the world? And then you ended this with, I come from a family that doesn't believe in therapy. So then I thought, well, that answers that question. Somebody told you that.

Somebody either modeled that for you or told you that directly, that all your dreams would come true. And when I say dreams, I don't mean money or jobs or anything. I mean the ability to sleep at night, the ability to hug your husband or hold hands with him when y'all are going for a walk and it to feel like you can be there instead of wondering about an email that's coming. You could be present. Who told you that? Where'd that come from? I think that just came over a long period of time. So when I was younger, I had a lot of difficulties really just getting by day to day. And as I've gotten older, I've just noticed that,

you know, I try to start a business, it goes great. I try to start a project, it goes fantastic. Anything that I ever tried in the last few years, I've noticed that I succeed at. And I hear that from my husband's family specifically, that they're so surprised that I can do anything I say I'm going to do it. They might think I'm crazy and I just do it. And so it might come more from my husband's family than my own, where that confidence comes from. Christy, you talk to a lot of, I'll challenge that in a second here, but I want to get back to starting a business. Christy, you talk to a lot of i'll challenge that in a second here but i want to get back to starting a business christy you talked to a lot of folks who start businesses um do you hear often that people get to the end of it and think

and well i think i think there's a now what yeah well it's interesting because i you know i put some research in my book on um even something as simple as like to-do lists like the dopamine that's released when you check a box so i think there's an there can be and i'm not i'm not the doctor here so you tell me if i'm wrong but i think there can be in my life that i've experienced an addictive nature of success and achievement so you achieve something it's like well what's next so i run a half marathon well i'm gonna do the full marathon you become addicted to that achievement well what how can i push myself and there's part of that that I think is a good quality, but I think it can be something,

like I definitely have experienced that, John. Like I've experienced that where it's like, okay, what's next? Well, what's next? Yeah. So, Yadira, why are you doing this? Why are you going to therapy?

Why are you creating successful businesses? Why are you married to a great guy? I don't know. That's kind of the reason that I'm really looking for answers, so to speak. But listen, that is the answer. If you are doing this for nothing, for achievement's sake, it will always be a vortex.

It will be a black hole. You'll be Jeff Bezos. You'll have $8 trillion. And then you'll think, well, I guess I'm just going to quit and go to space because I don't have anything else to do. Right? Because what's next? I guess i do it for like the stability i think i think that's what what i'm looking for and what i would tell you stability is an illusion it feels good but it's never enough and so you have to define this and it sounds cliche and we talk about all the time you've got to have a thing you're doing this for or to say it in a nerdy way you gotta have a why and when you just spin and spin and spin

here's the deal you have been running you've been fight or flight for probably your whole life and you can't out cheat you can't outperform you can't run from a feeling of, I don't have any value. Or you can't run from a feeling of, we don't have enough around here. And so when you come up with enough number, that's what I love what Dave talks about. You need to see six months for an emergency fund. And then we're going to say, good, man. We don't have a meteorite plan, right? And so we have six months emergency fund, and then we're going to move on to the next thing. Because if you keep spinning out your wheels there, then what are you going to do?

Eventually your body says, why are you even get out of bed? Just go to bed. Just stay here. And so what I would love to challenge you and your husband to do is to get away from all the mess. And by the way, you're going to start a business and it's not going to be successful. And you know what? That's going to be okay. You're still going to be, it is. And you're going to have another one that's successful. Another one after that successful. Great. That doesn't define you, right? It's cool and it's neat and we'll high five you. Doesn't come from your, your in-laws. They're just celebrating you, right? Um, right. It comes from this idea that you think you can outrun change and you can outrun insecurity and you can't.

You got to sit with it and let it be present and feel it. And it's uncomfortable and it's awful and you won't feel like you're enough. And then as you talked about, you go sit with somebody who's a professional. Here's the best thing you can do with the counselor is to tell the truth. Most people lie. That's one of the first things in grad school they teach you is your clients will lie to you. Go tell the truth. Okay? Tell the truth.

Be honest about your feelings about what you do want to do, what you don't want to do. And go somewhere with your husband and you all sit down and say, why are we doing this? What do we want to be? Where do we want to go? Christy and I were talking about earlier about reverse engineering. What enough looks like? What does our, after we paid off our house and after we're everyday millionaires and after,

what are we doing? Get to the why to what you're doing, the where you want to be and reverse engineer it and then live a life that you love to live, right? Otherwise, you're going to be running

and running and running and running and then you're going to be like, well, I guess I'll just go to space for the weekend because I don't know what else to do, right?

It kind of feels like that. It does. It does. And we can't go to space because we don't have a trillion dollars so we just stay in what else to do, right? It kind of feels like that. It does. It does. And we can't go to space because we don't have a trillion dollars, so we just stay in bed and watch Netflix, right? Right. I think that'd be a great exercise for you to take on with your counselor, Yadira, of this idea of discovering what your why is.

And it may not happen in one session. It may not happen in just one five-minute prayer of being alone. But if you spend some time and dig and dig, like what makes you light up? What makes you come alive? What gives meaning and purpose to your life? Ken Coleman talks about this on his show. John Deloney talks about this on his show. I talk about it in different ways on my show.

But that is the baseline for everything, for every business, for every relationship, for everything you do needs to have a purpose. You need to have a why or else, no matter what you do, you're going to wake up the same sinking feeling like you don't have a purpose. I bet you do. You just need to find it. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Charmin is with us. Hey, Charmin, how are you? Great. How are y'all? Good.

So you are on the debt-free stage, which means you are debt-free. I can't wait to hear this story. Okay, tell us, first of all, where do you live? I live in Graham, North Carolina. Okay, awesome. And how much debt have you paid off? On the program, about $12,000. I actually started way more than that when I got out of college about 11 years ago.

So it was like total about like $38,000. $38,000. Okay, awesome. Student loans are horrible. Yeah, that's what we hear and that's what we teach. Okay, how long did it take you? On the program, two and a half. Total was about like 11-ish. Okay. Cool. But once I got on the program, it kind of went faster because like the gazelle intense thing. Sure.

It gave you kind of extra motivation like you can do this. Here's ways to do it. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll just go with your totals just for fun just because it sounds better. $38,000. That's awesome.

What's your range of income during that time? About $17,000 to about $26,000. Oh, wow. Mine's lower, but I felt like coming here, even with the lower income, that could help people like me that don't make a lot to say, I can do this too. Absolutely. I love that.

1,000% yes. Absolutely. The most common critique I hear is people say, oh, it's easy when you make $100,000 to, well, you make $17,000. It's not a critique. It's an excuse. That's the number one excuse we hear. And then I got a new job, so it kind of started bumping up a little, jobs over time.

What do you do for a living? I was a chef. Yeah? Now I'm a seamstress at a uniform company, which is actually great because there's a lot of great benefits and everything. And so this weekend I was off automatically and I got time off here easily, so I got to come here and meet y'all.

Because I've been binge-watching John Deloney's or listening to it. That is what I hear. There are very few people who say that out loud, so I appreciate you. No, that's a compliment. You helped me in ways you didn't even know. Well, I appreciate that. That's awesome.

Okay, so Sharmin, let's talk about this debt. The $38,000, let's just do the whole amount here. What type of debt was this? College, medical, car, and bed. Bed, fine. Okay. Got a loan on the bed. Got it.

Yeah. Okay. It was kind of supposed to be half and half when I was married. And then a couple months after we bought that, at like the state fair, it split up. So it was in my name, so it became mine. So it was kind of good because I got to keep it, but I had to pay it. Yeah. So it kind of became like a love-hate thing.

And when I got my car, it was like a love-hate thing. I'm like, I don't like it because I don't like the debt, but I got it. Yeah, yeah. It all was a part of it. How much of the $38,000 was college? $26,000. What's your degree in? Culinary Arts and Food Service Management.

I wanted to own a restaurant until I got into restaurants. Oh, that happened. Stressful, hard life. People burn out really quick. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I hear that a lot because it's like the idea of like, oh, a chef, that sounds so cool. And the reality is nights and weekends and late nights and you come home smelling like food and you're like, maybe not.

Everyone's just mean to you. It's not quite what you think when you watch it on Food Network. Yeah. It's not quite like that. And I always wanted to have a family and I thought if I'm owning a restaurant, I can have a family one day I mean if I do I won't see them yeah so you think of it differently you know John I wanted to be an event planner in college and my mom told me she was like uh you need to think about that because events are on the weekends and if you have a family you know you know spouse that works nine to five you need to think through the implications so it does take

some some thinking through that okay so so let's go back to how did you decide to start paying this off 11 years ago? And then what happened when you, how were you introduced to us? So give us both, both stages of the story here. So when I came home from college and I was living with my parents and about the six months later, when everything started coming in, my dad sat me down and I was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And he actually taught me the Dave Ramsey way of paying them off because I had like seven or eight different individual loans so he taught me pay them all pay you know as much as you can on the least one and then just keep adding so I did that and I was making small progress but then I got in more debt so then I had to add that to it. So I kept doing it

the Dave Ramsey way. Sometimes I just didn't realize it. But like I said, when I got to Dave Ramsey, it just kind of escalated it. And I was like, before I knew it, I was like, I'm going to be able to do this a lot faster. I can have an end date now. Yeah. Yeah. Lights a fire under you, doesn't it? Yeah. All right. So talk about the journey. Who were your biggest cheerleaders in this journey? They were. So my cousins right here, they gave me it. So I bought Total Money Makeover. And when I did, it was right before I started my new job.

And I was like, I don't know if I should be spending this money to get these two books because of the workbook. But I was like, I'm just going to do it. And I got a new job. And then it was about New Year's Eve day, right the day before I started my new job, they told me, well, you find a class for PFU, and we'll pay for it, and honestly, I was like, no, they're not going to do that. When they left, she texted me. She's like, yeah, when you find your class to talk to him, we'll pay for it. I actually didn't find a class until almost a year later, but I took it and I loved it. And then a year later, yeah, about this year, actually, I led the class and then my parents took it. And my mom had the whole Dave Ramsey curse word thing in the house.

And every time I said something about Dave Ramsey, she's like, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. And then she wanted to support me, and they wanted to support me, so they took it. And now they're doing the program. They're working on it. So they're my main ones, and my brother. Okay. He's home.

He's a firefighter, so he's got crazy scandals. But he follows the program, too. So they're my biggest ones. I love it. Well, I know they are so proud of you. It's incredible to see the different stages of your journey and just how you stuck with it. Even with a couple setbacks, you stuck with it. And now here you are debt-free. Well, I've got to tell you, Sharma, we have got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you

because that's definitely your next step of the journey. And, of course, wema, we have got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you because that's definitely your next step of the journey. And, of course, we're going to give you a copy of the Total Money Makeover. You can gift that to a friend, another family member, someone you can help kick-start their journey and get them on the same path that you are on. And John and I are so excited for you, and we're so,

so proud of you. I have two little stories that I wanted to tell if that's okay. We actually have to go into break in a minute and we need to get this debt-free screen, which are going to be so good. Okay. Charmin is with us from Greensboro, North Carolina, paid off $38,000 in 11 years, making a range of income of $17,000 to $26,000.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free. Way to go, Charmin. Gosh, here's the thing, John. The debt-free journey is such a long one that it's just amazing. When you stand there, it's this milestone.

It's this, I'm never going back. My life has changed. It never stand there, it's this milestone. It's this, I'm never going back. My life has changed. It never gets old to see that. Never. And I hope anyone listening to this, whether you have $150,000 in debt or $10,000, $20,000, it's all on a scale. And some people think, I don't have that much. It's all good.

It's not. Some people think, I have too much. I'm not even going to bother. It's not. Yeah. Right? Right. Charmin didn't make an excuse. She didn't make a ton of money. Everyone's think, I have too much. I'm not even going to bother. It's not. Yeah. Right? Right. Charmin didn't make an excuse.

She didn't make a ton of money. Everyone's, I don't live in the... You do. Yes. What you have to have is people in your corner, and you've got to have the willpower to wake up one day and say, no more. I'm done. Well, and it's such a simple concept that is easy to understand but difficult to do

where you truly have to live on less than you make. Stop, crazy lady. Stop. What? Whether you make $700,000 or $17,000, you have to live on less than that in order to be able to afford your lifestyle and certainly even less than that if you're going to pay off this debt. And Charmin did it, and I just think it's incredible to see people that have got the gusto to go for 11-year journey, in her case, and like you said, on that income, sticking with it, getting different jobs.

She has made it. And that is just incredible. I know there's a lot of people listening right now, and they are going to find hope in that. And maybe the kick in the pants that they needed, because maybe they don't have a big income, thinking, okay, I don't have an excuse i can actually do this and if you've been through it just like her cousins did aunt and uncle cousins yeah man sponsor somebody that you love yes you could change their entire family tree they were probably trying to get to your parents and not to you but they they got to you through the, like, whatever it works.

That one little investment has changed a family tree for everybody. Man, find somebody in your life that you could reach out and say, you know what? I'm going to bless you with this. We're going to change everything for you starting today. And FPU is a good way to get going, man. It's why we do what we do. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Christy Wright and joining me today is Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls about life and money.

888-825-5225. And we've got a call from Andrew in Phoenix, Arizona. Hey, Andrew, how's it going? Hey, John and Christy, how are you? Good. What's going on? How can we help? Hey, so a little bit of background. My wife and I are debt-free. And then about two weeks ago, my wife found out that she is pregnant.

Oh, congratulations. Thanks. And then additionally, I'm making the jump to get out of the army next year. So my question is, what are some wise financial goals during this time? Because right now, it just kind of feels like every dime I spend takes away from the baby or money we need to transition out of the army. Yeah. How much savings do y'all have? We have a three-month emergency fund that we're beefing up to a six, and then that's our main goal right now. Yeah.

So what money are you feeling guilty about spending? That's a good question. I think most of it. My wife's uh part-time or full-time in grad school and so we're cash flowing that so it just kind of feels like every time we do our uh budget i've been using every dollar like the past six years so like every time we do our budget just kind of feels like the numbers always come up short you, is this your first kid? It is. Okay.

Um, Chrissy, you can tell me if I'm crazy here. Um, I remember planning for my first child and I over guilted and over dramatized and over scrutinized everything. So if you were telling me that, yeah, bro,

I'm like getting my Jeep extra jacked up right now. And I'm like doing some knucklehead things like that. Then I want to buy a boat. And I would tell you, yeah, you should feel guilty about that right now. If it's not in your budget, you'll have a plan for it. If you can't afford it and you got a new baby coming on the way. If you've got a budget and you are doing quote unquote normal things like investing in grad school and your cash flowing, you're doing everything right then high five to you man your guilt i would pass along christy pop in here your guilt is at least in my experience is a normal part of prepping for the great unknown which is what is my life going to look like after a kid and so i get apprehensive and i get anxious

and so then i just never feel like i'm on firm footing. Andrew, quick question about the transitioning from the Army. Have you run the numbers on that? Like how much are you making? What will you be making? What is that going to look like from an actual tangible number standpoint? I haven't sat down and like actually run the numbers like on a piece of paper, but I have a general idea. I think the hard part is that I want to do my own thing,

whether it's a financial coaching business or just something on my own. I feel very practical right now because I don't have any real plan in that direction. Yeah. So here's what I would recommend. And this is a really simple answer, but I think this will help relieve some of your fears and hopefully some of your guilt. You're already using every dollar for a regular monthly basis, but it sounds like you've got several things going on in your life, two at least, if not potentially three that are completely unknown. And so what you want to do is you want to put numbers to those things as much as you can. Like, okay, I'm making up

hypotheticals here, Andrew, but let's say if I have six months emergency fund, I will feel secure about bringing the baby home with a six month emergency fund. If I have X amount of dollars, I'm making this and I'm going to be making this in this period of time. There's two months in between, three months. This is how much money I need. I'm going to set this aside. Putting some numbers, goals, to these unknowns I think will relieve some of your fear. And then it gives you permission to put line items on the budget for the things that you need and the need the amount that you want because you go oh i'm covered right now it's just a lot of question marks and that is scary the unknown ambiguity that that makes anybody feel

anxious and nervous because it's like i don't know how much do i need i don't know how much for the baby i don't know how much to transition jobs i don't know for the business i don't know so i just want to encourage you take these one thing at a time step one the baby's coming you know when roughly let's just set a number to it if it's five months emergency fund six months of our fund whatever that amount of money is then when you get it give yourself permission to relieve the fear there as much as you can within reason i know you've got emotions around it but you know okay i've got the money transitioning from the army run some numbers how much money do you need to make this transition what will you be making in what amount of time and then if you want to do your own thing, that's fine.

We're just not going to do it all at the same time. It's going to be priority one, priority two, priority three, with numbers attached, with timelines attached. And I think if you do that, Andrew, I think that will relieve your fear and overwhelm. Because even when those emotions rise up like anybody does when they're transitioning jobs or bringing a baby home because that's a that's a crazy time you at least have the numbers on paper to say we're okay is that do you think that would help yeah i mean that's a hundred hundred percent that's going down to the very basic what can you control here right um yeah andrew you you can't start your new coaching job right now you don't have enough clients you don't have people you got a new baby you're gonna have to get an interim job and like you said put the paper put the have enough clients, you don't have enough people, you got a new baby, you're going to have to get an interim job. And like you said, put the numbers on the paper.

You wouldn't go into combat without doing the appropriate reconnaissance and budgeting and what tools do you need. Same situation here. Right. Yeah. One of the things that's funny, the correlation between time and money is just so, it's kind of incredible because I think that we put pressure on ourselves, maybe from desire, maybe from outside pressures, to do everything all the time. And we want to do everything all the time with our time, and we want to do everything all the time with our money. They're both mythological, right? Yeah, and we feel spread thin, and then it removes our ability to focus and gain traction in any one area. And so one of the questions I've been asking myself lately, and it's in relation to time since we've been talking about this a lot. But I say, what is right right now? What is right right now with my time?

What is right right now with my money? Okay, what's right right now? I have a baby coming home, for example, in Andrew's case. What is right right now in a year? Maybe that's the business. But you prioritize. And I think so much of our stress, John, comes from, and I know women are really bad about this. We treat everything as if it's created equal, and it's not. So when push comes to shove, two things need us, whether it's with time or money. We don't know how to make decisions because we have lost the ability to prioritize and say, this is first most important. This is second most important. This is third most important, and so on.

And so I think if you can put on paper what is most important in order of priority and create some goals around that, whether it's just a deadline or a dollar amount, it doesn't matter. It relieves your fear, and it also gives you permission to say, hey, just because I'm not going to start a business right now doesn't mean never. It just means it's not right right now. Right. You've got a wife in grad school, and you've got to finish a year in the Army, and you're going to have to earn right now because you got a little kid right so it's not the season yeah but you will be working towards it and i'll tell you um i i've never heard somebody explain it that way but i love what you just said that women often flatten things out and say it's all important right now um guys run around and keep a lot of crap in their head and i'll'll get to it. I was talking earlier about I was anxious

when before Hank was born. I didn't know it. It never occurred to me, like an idiot, it never occurred to me just to sit down with somebody who had a kid and say, hey, how much does diapers cost? How much does food cost? What an arrogant moron.

This is not a mystery. We can find it out. And it's everywhere is an answer because everyone I know has kids. Yet I spent, I thought, my worry energy, my ruminating energy, my, I don't know, I don't know, I should Google it and look it up. I thought that was time and thoughts well spent because they felt important and impactful. And God almighty, dude, it would have taken a half an hour on a spreadsheet to say, oh, it costs about this and it costs about that right and that's about what you're gonna need and i would have gone oh okay you know what i mean watch how just putting it on paper and that's why we teach people to do

a budget yeah but it's the same thing with your calendar whatever it is it's just a plan if you want to run a marathon you've got a plan on paper and when you have a plan when you can see it you can do it it's when you try to keep it in your head that that's when it starts to create the worry and create the anxiety i think david allen in his book getting things done said your mind is for having ideas not holding ideas yes and that's what keeps you up at night and it's it's you just said it's a budget it's calendar it's also with your thoughts right just taking a moment in the day to say i'm gonna write this down real quick hold on i got 50 things spinning does she really not like me is that why this is no she does like this stuff

right it's just write this stuff down yeah that's so good well in case you guys need help with your time my new book take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance is available for pre-order today get it when you get your copy you know what we've got all kinds of fun stuff for you guys you time. The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance is available for pre-order today. Get it. When you get your copy, you know what? We've got all kinds of fun stuff for you guys. You get the audiobook free, the e-book free, you get a ticket to my event in September for free, and you get access to a

private Facebook group with me for free. Get your copy of Take Back Your Time, the Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance. I want to help you spend your life on what is most important to you. Congratulations. I need to go working on that.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank producer James Child, associate producer Kelly Daniel, my co-host Dr. John Deloney. This is The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country.

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