The Ramsey Show - App - You Can't Have Leadership Without Creativity (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

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live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host here on the air today. I promise one thing, This will be interesting. It always is. It'll be compelling, entertaining radio.

It always is. It always is. Thanks for hanging out with me, Dr. D. Open phones if you want to talk about your life and your money. We know we do. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-8255. Starting us off in Norfolk, Virginia, is Fadio.

Hi, Fadio. Did I pronounce that correctly? It's Fadio. Fadio. I'm sorry. Okay. I knew I was going to mess it up when I saw it. How can I help?

Well, I'm a father of five special needs children. We're in the process of setting up a family farm. So three of my boys have autism, and they're going to actually work the farm as part of their extended life, you know, to earn income and to have good, healthy relationships with how they feel and things like that good and so they're high functioning yeah they're high functioning yeah um one of them has type 1 diabetes and it's also bipolar uh the other one is just regular autism and the other one's a bilateral amputee and autism okay so we're setting up all kinds of stuff. I own three homes, 100 acres.

I don't really have, I mean, the debt would be like the mortgages on the land and the house. And we're, you know, I got probably about $200,000 in retirement saved up. Plus we have another $30,000 in another type of IRA. Well, you're an incredible man. You've done a great job. Wow. And then our household income is about $250,000 a year.

What do you do for a living? Well, I'm an industrial mechanic, and my wife is a BCBA behavioral therapist, or my analyst, like the behavioral therapist. Okay. And we're setting this up, and I just wanted to know if you thought, you know, that I had a good plan, and I've listened to your show a lot, and you've helped out a lot of people, and I just feel very unsatisfied with what I've done.

Okay. You're talking about your estate plan, on how you're setting it up to survive you and take care of these kiddos? Yeah. So what's unsatisfying? I just don't know if I've done enough. I don't know. I don't know.

I just... Said every dad who loved his kids. Ever. So all this makes you is in the good dad column. Okay? None of us think we did enough. But the other part of the equation is, regardless of the type of challenges that the kid is going to have, every one of our kids has challenges. And we can only do so much to get them there,

and they've got some extra challenges, so you're doing some extra stuff to get them there. But the truth is there's a part of this that's going to be on them and a part of this is going to be on God. At some point, you've got to rest in this. Yeah, I think that's where I'm having my problem. Yeah. in this yeah i think that's what i'm having my problem yeah and what you're going to do is you're going to plan and scheme and stress the time away you do have with them yeah and you don't want to be 70 or 80 and look back and think i worried my way through those connective years so now i've

worked really hard and i have a big estate and i have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars believe it or not over the years on my estate plan and we have a meeting estate, and I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, believe it or not, over the years on my estate plan. And we have a meeting once a year where we go over what happens if Dave dies this year meeting. It's very detailed and very complicated. We call it the Monty Python meeting. I'm feeling much better. And so I hate the meeting because the whole thing is about when I die. And it presupposes I'm going to die before all the people in the meeting.

So I don't know about this. But, you know, bottom line is I've spent a lot of time on it like you have. And at some point in the process, I've got to go, okay, I've done what I can do. Kiddos, you're going to do what you can do. God, you're going to do what you do. And I'm just the Dave part of the equation is the only part I can manage. And so releasing that, number one. Then number two, let's just talk about the mechanics and the tactics of what you're doing.

Obviously, you're leaving this stuff into these assets into a special needs trust, and you have a trustee to manage the trust of the assets that you trust, thus the name trustee, to take care of and oversee these properties and investments for the good of these kiddos as they become adults and manage through these issues. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah. And then the details of that trust, you can get down into that.

My trust is pretty detailed. I'm even going to be a bit of a control freak from the grave. But it's my freaking money. So it's my job to make sure that somebody doing cocaine does not get blessed with my estate. You know, that's my job. And in your case, it's your job to make sure some doofus investment advisor doesn't screw up everything you spent 30 years building and mess it up. And then your kids don't have food to eat after you're gone right right and so you put some safeguards and stuff in the in the trust to say this is how i want the money invested this is how i want the farm managed at any point if the child

becomes too debilitated to manage this or has to have too much assistance and it becomes a burden rather than blessing the farm is liquidated put into assets to manage the and then those those mutual funds create cash flow to feed the kid because they can't run the farm for some reason. You know, whatever. You just try to think through contingencies. And ours is if somebody falls off the good life wagon and decides to be a ne'er-do-well, they don't get to participate in the wealth because we don't want to finance goobs with god's money and so in our case we're trying to guard against you know the uh the reality show child showing up in the ramsey heritage somewhere right yeah but i can't control that but so much i can invest into the kid and teach them let them

build character spiritual life i can invest and i can invest some time and money into this other process. But at some point, you've got to set the tools down and rest, what John said. Okay. Does that make sense? It makes 100%. I haven't seen every page of your stuff, but my sense in talking to you is you're probably 80% to 90% there, which makes you like 1,000% ahead of most people because most people don't do beans on this issue.

That's true. And can I tell you, the last 20%, here's what you've got to do. You've got to be honest with yourself and your wife that your kids are going to have a rough go of it when you all are gone. Nobody will love those three kids like you all do. Nobody will know their special needs, Pachadillos. Nobody will know their little kids like y'all do nobody will know their special needs pacadillos nobody will know their little things like you do the thing that sets off the add man you know nobody's or the autism or the bipolar or the nobody will know that and so are they gonna have a harder run

of it yep and you gotta grieve that and then you gotta enjoy every minute you got with them otherwise you end up burning now minutes for a future that you can't control. You're going to be gone. They're going to have a tough time. But you are doing such an incredible job setting the foundation for them. It's beautiful. So keep working on it, but don't obsess over it. And the fact that you can't get any peace about it means you're kind of tipping over on the obsessed side.

So I work mine, and people might say I'm obsessed because I spend some time and some money on it every year. Sent an email this morning on it. But I don't sit and wring my hands about it and feel inept because I know I'm ahead of 99.9% of the crowd, and so are you, sir. I'm proud of you. You're a good dad. Absolutely. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. As we continue to face challenging times, I hear that a lot of you have been calling Zander Insurance

to see if term life insurance plans are still available. The good news is the insurance companies are starting to loosen up the restrictions that they had put in place at the start of the pandemic, making coverage available to even more people. So if you haven't dealt with this yet, I'm not sure what you're waiting for. Regardless of what's going on in the world, we're going to get through it. But the responsibility of protecting your family has not changed. We'll be right back. you have the time right now to deal with this call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com zander's team will get you the affordable coverage to give your family the peace of mind they deserve

dr john deloney remsey personality is my co-host this hour here on The Dave Ramsey Show. One of the many blessings of my life is that because I've yacked on the radio so many years, I ended up getting to meet people that are like iconic, that they own an entire space because of their excellence and because of their intellect and the things that they've done and who they are. And I'm just always fangirling. I'm just like, wow. And then if I'm really lucky, I get to hang out with them a little bit. And then if I'm really, really lucky, I get to become friends with them.

And that is what has happened with probably arguably the best, one of the best, anyway, marketing minds on the planet. My friend Seth Godin is with us in New York City, and Seth has written books like Tribes and Purple Cow and Lynchpin and The Dip. And if you've ever heard phrases like viral marketing, that's his, or permission marketing, that's his. He invented all of that, and you use it every day. And he is always about 10 years ahead of everybody else which means i'm way back in the exhaust fumes trying to catch up seth how are you my brother

well i wrote on my calendar that we were talking today and i went to bed last night saying this is the best thing that's going to happen to me on tuesdays i get to check in with dave so thank you for having me bless your heart it's good to say hello to you as well you too thanks for hanging out the new book this is great because it's got all your stuff in it i mean i can i can see kind of things coming to a point here it's called the practice shipping creative work because you're famous for saying ship it get it out there ship it put it out there so what do you mean when you say this that we're called to be a creative and we're called to ship it? Well, if we're lucky, that's what our job is. Some people are still stuck in jobs where they're compliant cogs in the industrial system.

But even then, your best days are the days when you did something that people didn't expect, that maybe you weren't asked for, something important, something that made a difference for somebody else. That's creative, because it doesn't come with a guarantee. And what I'm trying to do in this book is help people see creative doesn't come from outside of you, creative doesn't come from a light bulb or the muse. Creative comes from a practice. We show up, we do the work, and then we do it again. Songwriters don't write hit songs if they only write one song. Yeah, or if they wait for it to be a hit before they write any song, which is what most songwriters do. Yeah, because I'm only going to get to write one, so it better be right.

Instead, I know guys here in Nashville that have written thousands of songs, and you know them if you're a country music fan for four of them, you know, and that's what you're talking about. You have to get it out there. And the problem with creativity and putting yourself out there is there's rejection, right? Well, we trained people from a young age to say, will this be on the test? Because if it's not going to be on the test, I don't need to pay attention. If you want me to trade you some of my attention, you better give me an A. And that leads to this whole mindset of what's the outcome? Can

you guarantee me the outcome? If you get obsessed about that, then you don't end up with a Dave Ramsey because Dave Ramsey didn't start with all the radio stations in the empire he has. He got there, but he started with just one listener. That's the way everything starts, with just one person. And so we can't get hooked on the outcome. We have to get hooked on the process. You're right. I started with one listener, my wife, and she was a troll.

I started with one listener, my wife, and she was a troll. I started with a hater. Hey, so the book is out in November. What's the November date? Do you have a street date on it? Well, so I scheduled the launch date for my book, and then without telling me, they scheduled the national election on the same day. Go figure. Ridiculous. Well, that's not fair.

It's on Tuesday, so after you vote, you can stop by and pick up a copy. Well, or you can just go to – good Lord. I mean, somebody in marketing should have caught that at the book publisher, but what do I know about book publishers? You and I will talk about this offline. So the drop date is Tuesday, which is traditional in publishing. It just happens to be on the election day. And so if you really want to focus on something good, go ahead and order the book, and it will be shipped to you, and it will come out then.

The book is The Practice, Shipping Creative Work. Okay, so I had a guy. I was touring his place, and he was showing me his kids. One of his grown kids was working in leadership, and we went into the creative section, the art section of the business. And he said, my daughter works in here. And I said, oh, so she runs the creatives. And he said, oh, no, no, she is a creative. And you say that's exactly wrong.

I agree with you. Creativity is an act of leadership, and there really can't be much real leadership without creativity, right? Because leadership and management aren't the same thing. Managers have power and authority. They tell people what to do. We need them. But leaders cannot lead from authority because then they're just managers. Leaders have to voluntarily choose to go into the unknown. And it's in the unknown that we have no choice but to do creative work. So if you want to be a manager, that's fine. And there are some managers who lead. But I think the opportunity is to show up and say, I think I can make something better.

I can't prove it. I can't guarantee it. Let's try. Seth Godin, numerous bestselling author, one of the best marketing minds on the planet, is our guest this segment. The new book is The Practice Shipping Creative Work. Now, John just finished a book that we're getting ready to put out. We haven't announced it yet.

A quick read, just a couple of chapters, just to put something, since he just started and people are starting to know who he is. And he's gone through this whole creative process, and it was a joy, wasn't it, John? Man, I am not as smart or savvy or as good a writer as I thought I was, right? Creativity was a joint process. And you say here, Seth, all criticism is not valuable. How do I know the difference? When I think I've written gold and the group of people around me say, that's actually pretty terrible, you need to erase that part. How do I know which criticism

to hone in on? Well, a couple of things. First of all, I want you to add one word to your, to your vocabulary, which is the word yet, right? I'm not the writer. I thought I was yet because that opens the door for what you will become. It's true for all of us. But the thing about criticism is it's unevenly distributed, and most of it isn't useful to you. A couple years ago, I was walking on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and I passed this little pocket park or playground, and I hear this whiny, taunty, five-year-old voice coming from the playground, clearly belittling someone. And I look over to see if someone's getting bullied. And I realized this five year old is criticizing me. He's making fun of my haircut. He's making fun of how I walk. I'm 50 years old. He's making fun of me. I got to tell

you, he didn't lay a glove on me. It had no impact. When I was seven, it would have crippled me. But right now, five year olds, they get no say in my brain. I'm just not listening. So the work is to realize there are people out there who know how to give criticism, who are the kind of people you're trying to serve. That is precious. You need to seek that out. And all the other criticism, not for you. Just walk away. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So I run the gambit not only on the air here with people when I'm trying to get them to move from center, but also inside our organization and inside my own brain between the lack of aiming at something. I call it ready, fire, aim. People start shooting before they aimed.

And then the other ones get paralysis of the analysis where they say, ready, aim aim aim pull the trigger you know come on and always yell ship it adam uh and i quote you but but you know how do you get the balance between that when you've done something that is creative we're doing the work for other people if you you want to have a hobby, do a hobby. I love hobbies. If you want to do the work, it's not just for you. So we start with who's it for? The smallest viable audience. Who am I seeking to serve? And if they think it's good, it's good. Now, we can't spend all of our cycles before they see it, imagining what they're going to say, but we also can't just ship whatever comes to mind, because then we will lose trust. And so part of the balancing act here, the high wire is between

the two. And that's why this is work. That's why it's not a hobby. The work is dancing with that fear of being an imposter, dancing with the what ifs, and still sharing it when it's ready. This is why he's called Seth Godin. SethGodin.com, you can get the book. You can get it in any great bookstore. In Amazon, it'll be on the shelves the same day as you vote for president, unless you voted early. So there you go.

Seth, thank you for joining us, my friend. We love you, brother. Look forward to seeing you soon and breaking bread with you again. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Ramsey Personality, Dr. John Deloney is my co-host this hour, or this day, here on the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rachel's in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave and Dr. D. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My husband and I are 24 and are looking to buy our first house in cash, and we are wondering if we should still require an appraisal to avoid overpaying. Not necessarily. An appraisal to avoid overpaying? Not necessarily. An appraisal is an opinion of value.

The way an appraisal is done in residential real estate is the appraiser finds three properties that have sold that are close in attributes, close in square footage, number of bedrooms, and have sold recently, and they're close geographically. Okay? And those are called comparable sales or comparable sales and then he adjusts for the differences in other words if one of them's 5,000 feet in the house you're buying is 4,500 then he'll take 500 feet worth of value off per square foot cost and adjust and go okay based on this 5,000 square foot house your 4,500 square foot house shouldfoot house should be worth this. Does that make sense? Yep, that makes sense. That's how an appraisal is done.

However, a first-class, world-class real estate agent does exactly the same thing when you're purchasing a property. It's called a comparative market analysis. The only difference is it's not legal to use it with a mortgage company because they're not technically certified by the state as an appraiser. But it's the exact same math. And oh, by the way, it's free. Got it. So are you working with a good real estate agent like one of our ELPs? We are actually considering switching to a real estate agent. Okay. Well, that would be part of what you would request if you're getting a new buyer's agent to work with you,

check with our ELP, click ELP at DaveRamsey.com. Part of what you would request is I'm paying cash. I don't want to pay for an appraisal, so I'm going to want you to give me a good, detailed, comparative market analysis. The initials in the industry are a CMA, a comparative market analysis. And that's what you want. And a good real estate agent can do that. They pull it off the MLS.

It really takes them about 45 minutes to build out an appraisal. There's not that much to it. It is not rocket science. And besides that, it is always an opinion of value based on those last three sales, which, by the way, the way markets are moving in some places the property might be worth more than that indicates because prices are jumping up in some areas pretty quick so that's that's but you what you want to avoid is how much are you talking about paying um around probably 250 okay what you want to avoid is not paying 250 for something

that's worth 175 you don't you're not trying to paying $250 for something that's worth $175. You're not trying to avoid paying $250 for something that's worth $248 because no one knows the difference in those two things. There's no such thing. Sure. That makes sense. And so you're not going to get it within $2,000. It's a GPS lands within three feet. It's not within three inches. And so it's the same kind of thing here. It is an estimate. It is an opinion of value. But a good real estate agent can provide that.

And honestly, when I'm buying real estate, you know, my real estate team, my son-in-law runs, and they've got access to the MLS statistics and the tax statistics in the area. And so we will pull up comps in the area ourself and do our own quick analysis on it to decide what we're going to buy and you probably did that with the house you just bought absolutely do you have every property inspected yes i don't but i would recommend that anyone does okay yes i mean i walk them i've done probably done a thousand rehabs in my life not personally but i've managed them and i i know what to look for and okay that roof's bad i mean you know it's not i'm gonna i'm gonna discount the crap out of it

for those gutters hanging off, you know, that kind of stuff. And so I might miss something, but I'm not going to miss major stuff, me walking through it, or Winston, for that matter. He and I have been buying stuff together for a decade, so he sees it. And, you know, if we've got a question about something, we'll pull an engineer or an inspector on something. If we're buying a standard rental house, we'll walk through it and go, it means paint and carpet.

Got a crack in the foundation over there, and we don't do it. But I would recommend, but I've bought 3,000 properties in my life. Gotcha. So I would recommend that if you're buying a piece of real estate and you've only owned two or three or four or five, yes, always get an inspection. Always get a land survey to make sure that the thing's actually sitting on the property. And always get title insurance. Right.

Title insurance. You got nailed on that in the past, huh? I didn't because I had title insurance. But I did buy a property one time that two owners ago, two sisters sold it out of an estate, forgot that they had a brother. And he wanted his third, and he didn't sign off on the deed. And so I had an imperfect title on this property. Brother comes up wanting his third and he didn't sign off on the deed and so i had an imperfect title on this property brother comes up wanting his third of my house and so i you know

call the title company i went guys y'all have a problem because you ensured that this title was clean they paid off brother so you always want title insurance uh and the idea that all title is clean in america because it's all done on the Internet. Oh, crap. You believe what's on the Internet? What's wrong with you people? That's a bad idea. Matt is with us. Matt's in New York City.

Hi, Matt. How are you? Hey, Mr. Ramsey. Dr. John, how are you guys doing today? Great, man. How can we help? So my wife is in her final year of medical school, and she has $391,000 in student loan debt, and it's going to go up with her last semester here. So my question is, what can I do and then what can we do together to, you know,

help tackle that debt when we have to pay it off, which won't be for another year? Well, I'm hoping that she is studying a field of medicine that's going to pay very well. What's the plan? Well, she's going into pediatrics, which isn't the top of the list, but she'll still be a doctor. I mean, what's she going to make, $100.25, $100.50? Yeah, depending where she is. And you're all going to stay in New York City? No, definitely not. Whereaboutsabouts you think you'll be living um she her dream would be in grand rapids michigan that would be a good one yeah it's a completely different world than where

you're living today uh except for the fact that it is shut down like new york but um because it is in michigan um but the um well i mean she steps into a practice and is making a hundred and quarter hundred and a half she picks up more er stuff on the weekends anything she can do to add to the income you do the same what's your career looking like what's your income gonna be well um so i'm a pro basketball player but the market um in europe, but the market has been horrible this year because of the virus, obviously. So teams don't have a lot of money. I'm making right now $1,000 a month plus incentives, but it's all I don't have to pay for anything.

So housing is free, food is free, so it's all $1,000 take home. So you're playing at what level like nba no no um i'm in ireland currently okay okay i had a young man that worked here that went and did that yeah okay so you're you're back and forth a lot and you can be back and forth from there if that if that materializes and becomes what it should be you should be making a hundred and a half as well shouldn't you yeah that's the goal that that would be around the normal i think if i remember from the young man that worked here so okay cool and so if we get to 300 between the two of us we're going to live like we make 50 and we're going to pay this off in two or three years right that's the that's

the most yeah that's how you do it i mean it's just outgo versus income the problem is you're in two fields that do not have a peer set that are going to like you living on nothing both of you people you're hanging out with broke doctors who are putting on the dog that and they don't even have a house to put the dog in and and you're hanging out with broke pro athletes who are acting like they're making six times what they're making. We work with both of them all the time. They're perpetually stupid with money in those fields. And so you're going to have to just walk away from your peers in terms of the pressure on how money is handled

and your goals and have a very different mindset and just say, we're going to live like broke college students on 40 or,000 or $50,000 in Grand Rapids. You can do that. And we're pouring everything else on this colossal debt. Otherwise, you're going to wake up in 10 years, still going to be around your neck. Now, John, you've been around higher ed. You've got a Ph.D. in higher ed. What's your take on this?

Yeah, the most common thing I hear is, I deserve this. I'm a doctor. I deserve this. And so you're going to have to. Yeah. You've dug yourself a mighty big hole. You're going to have to never say the words we deserve.

You're going to have to get a one-bedroom apartment and share a Honda Accord and you're going to have to just figure it out. And I think you can do it in a couple of years, but you're going to have to

work real hard, real fast. That's good, because that's a Jesus car. That's exactly right. All the disciples were in one accord. This is the Dave Ramsey Personality, is my co-host this hour. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com.

Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY. It's magical. You'll get the best deal. John? All right. Today's question comes from Amanda in Georgia.

Amanda says, I find myself struggling with placing expectations on people and outcomes and always being let down. What would be the best way to stop placing expectations onto situations that you have no control over? That's a good question, Dave. You manage a thousand people. You've got expectations both individually and economically and for your whole business how do you manage this donald miller that wrote um there's our friend that writes marketing books and does such a great job has a great joke he says um studies have shown that the danish are the happiest people because they have the lowest expectations.

Hey, you joke, man, but I remember an interview with somebody. I think she was Danish, and they asked her, what advice would you give to Americans to help them be happier? And she said, lower your expectations. Yeah, the secret to happiness is low expectations. That's what I say every day when I play golf. So I'm not going to get upset about golf. I'm going to learn how to play it. I just started two years ago. I suck.

Yes. And the secret to happiness is low expectations. And it is kind of a joke, but the problem is, and you can speak to this therapeutically more than I can, the problem is when we expect imperfect people to be perfect, 1,000% of the time you're going to be let down because there ain't none you know including the guy gal in your mirror right right and so um i expect excellence and i can be upset with a lack of excellence without saying this person let me down they dropped the ball on that that happened today you know

this so-and-so the project is screwed that i was dealing with this morning right and so we're jacking some people up getting some stuff done around here we're all getting real passionate enthusiastic about excellence we're not killing any humans in the process right okay separate the human from the dropped ball okay uh now a series of dropped ball may may mean that the human has a pattern of not being able to carry the ball so we made it a different human but right right but the point is i mean you know you a pattern evolves is one thing but a singular event is uh of imperfection is called humanity i love that so when somebody says the phrase, I'm always being let down, one thing I think of is this idea between where am I going versus how do I think I'm going to feel when I get there.

And so when people talk about their dreams, I have a dream of going to Antarctica or climbing this mountain, going to this beach or having this third home, they often are thinking about how it's going to feel like when they get there. And they forget that that beach is going to be hot and that sand is going to be gritty too, right? Or you are still going to be you when you get to the top of that mountain. And so whenever you feel yourself, find yourself always being let down, I want folks to be real clear on where it is you're actually going.

What are you actually asking of people? Have you told them, here's what I'm looking for? I find this with my kids. I say, will you guys just chill out? Well, you know what that means to a 10-year-old? A whole host of things different than me. And I'm asking them to be quiet, stop banging around. Chill out to him means, all right, let's don't mess with dad.

Let's mess with sister. And chill out to my daughter means something totally different. So's me being clear otherwise i'm gonna find myself always let down because i i have this feeling of what it's going to be like and that's not real it's a fantasy yeah i mean if you think that you're going to build your dream home you're going to find out that some of those boards have knots in them that's right and some of those nails are bent and people did stuff in that house they shouldn't have while it was being built and and and and so you're going to find out your dream home is going to be a letdown because you had this fantasy that you were in heaven and you're not in heaven and the worst part about going to your dream home is that you go with you. You move in that day, right?

Yeah. And all of the insecurities and frustrations and that knuckle-headed husband and those loud kids, they move into that dream house too, right? Yeah. And those neighbors, they're going to be just like the last set. That's exactly right. And you're going to respond to them the exact way. Yeah. And so when you find everyone around you always letting you down, go to the mirror.

You're the common denominator here. Go to the mirror. That's right. That's right. Be honest about what you're asking of people. Are you being clear? We say around here, clear is kind. Do you have different expectations for your feelings versus where you're actually going?

So I think to differentiate, though, be real clear. Everyone always indicates that you're expecting perfection out of all humans. And that is that's a recipe for disaster. You're not going to be happy. That's a fantasy. The other side of that, if you swing the pendulum the other way, is, you know, my husband comes home drunk and beats me every week. He keeps letting me down. Right.

The other side of that's being a doormat exactly the other side of that is i'm not willing to go i'm observing a pattern in someone who's misbehaving and so i'm setting there's not i can't set the bar low enough for that scum right right that scumburger you can't get a bar low enough for him to meet because he's not what you've got to do is get away from him because you know if he's you, then it's time to leave immediately. That's exactly right. And that comes to that clarity, right? Yeah.

He let me down once. After that, it's you. Or them and her and him and this institution and that church and this business. So an example of that around here in a business setting or leadership setting inside of businesses we with the exception of some kind of extreme moral failure or someone stealing or something like that we never let someone go here for a singular mistake but a pattern of ineptitude or lack of caring or lack of competence, a pattern evolves, that's a problem. But I also know that that pattern is reverse engineered with very clear expectations. Oh, yeah, we're talking about the whole time.

You will be here on time, Deloney. Here's a conversation that may or may not have happened, right? Yeah. You will fill in the blank, and here is the expectation. Yeah, and if you're not doing that, then you are not rolling the ball towards the pins. That's right. We're not going to take you bowling and turn out the lights. There you go.

We're going to say, there's the target. There's the target. You keep missing the target. There's the target. Can't stay if you keep missing the target. You can't stay with that attitude. The attitude, you can stay, but the attitude's got to leave. And sometimes they're good people, but they just can't do the thing that's right you know and so there's things

i can't do right and you hire me to do that you have to fire me for incompetence you know and so it's not incompetence is not an evil thing no it just means you can't do something that's exactly right and so sometimes it's that but that's a pattern we're looking for. But still, even then, on the leader, you asked me about leading here. On the leader, it's the first time they drop the ball, it's on their humanity, and I have reasonable lowered expectations because humans mess up. The sixth time they drop the ball, it's my fault. I've allowed this to continue. The second time he comes home drunk and beats you, it's not it's my fault right i've allowed this to continue the second time he comes home

drunk and beat you it's now your fault i'm not shaming you but you're tolerating an observable pattern or maybe not your fault but the ball's in your court right yeah you gotta do your job to move yeah you know if if this happens six seven times at some point you can't say oh people let me down no you're you're participating in an observable set of patterns, and you're going to get an observable set of results. Because it happens every time. Yeah. I mean, if you plant corn, don't expect beans.

There you go. You know, it's predictable. You're going to reap what you sow. There's a cause and effect thing here. So I know when I act this way, do this thing, I'm going to get this response. And if I keep doing it. It's going to keep happening. You know, this is not, it's just, but that involves emotional IQ.

That's right. So what about situations that you've got no control over? Like, let's say a politician or leaders in your community. How do you tell somebody, like, that person continues to let me down. I have no control over the fact that neither one of these presidential candidates are a worthy human being. They both suck. That's my opinion. I have no control over that. I wouldn't want either one of them in my house for dinner with my shih tzu.

I'd be worried his character would be lower. You know? Now, one of them is getting ready to be president. That's right. And whatever. Okay? So all I can control is me. But I have no control over that.

That's right. I have no control over it. So what am I going to spend my time doing? Nothing. Right. I'm not going to spend any energy on those goobs. One of the goobs is going to be in the White House. And that's just the way it is.

We're stuck with that. And I'm going to, what I can do is take care of my family, my friends, and my friends. I can control what I can control. That's right. I'm not going to spend my energy trying to control other people's crap. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.