The School of Greatness - The 5 Things That Will Make You Wealthy In 10 Years w/ Dave Ramsey EP 1415

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today!Dave Ramsey is an eight-time national bestselling author, personal finance expert and host of The Ramsey Show, heard by 23 million listeners every week. He has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Today, Fox News, CNN, Fox Business and many more. Since 1992, Dave has helped people take control of their money, build wealth and enhance their lives. He also serves as CEO for the company Ramsey Solutions.In this episode you will learn:The value of being generous.The secret to building wealth overtime. The character qualities of successful people.The number one thing that hurts or hinders marriages.How to shift our thinking from short-term to long term.For more go to lewishowes.com/1415Everything You Need To Know About The Housing Market: EP 1301Take These Steps If You Want to Become Rich - EP 1301Money Habits To Prepare Against Inflation, Market Crashes & A Recession - EP 1283The Biggest Lies You've Been Told About Money, Debt & Building Wealth - EP 1257

I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to pick up your copy of my book The Greatness Mindset today. You need to be on a written plan. In anything you're doing, if you don't do it intentionally, it's not going to occur.

No one wins anything accidentally. It's an intentional act. Winning always is. At marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business, money, no one accidentally gets wealthy. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin. You are an example of what you do consistently every day, year after year, decade after decade, playing the long game of what you can create in the physical world. And I think that's a good representation of what I've learned from you about building wealth over time. It's not about doing it quickly. It's not about trying to find some scheme that you can get into and build this overnight, but it's about doing the consistent integrity things over time to build this type of wealth. So again, it's just inspiring to witness. Thank you. Thank you. It's very inspiring. I'm the ugly tortoise. I don't want to be the hare. But you're consistent. It's amazing. It's amazing. You just keep showing up and doing the wise decisions. And I think that's what a lot of people are missing out on today, especially millennials today. I feel like they're just making decisions to look good as opposed to feel good long term, as opposed to having security and building wealth. And a lot of people are just in debt. I'm curious. I love your seven steps. I love how often you guys

just say it over and over again, but somehow how people just seem to miss it and not do the steps and it hurts them. I'm curious, besides the steps, the seven baby steps, what are a few things people can start doing to increase the odds of wealth over time, to increasing the odds? Is it something mentally they can do, spiritually they can do? Is there something in their relationships they can do differently to increase the odds? Well, I think the first thing is you have to have – I mean, we were sitting in one of our leadership team meetings yesterday,

as a matter of fact, here at Ramsey, and we were looking at a business unit. And they kept going, well, we need to do this. We need to do this. And we did not have agreement on the baseline data of what was actually going on. One person thought one thing was going on. One thought another was going on. And I said, we've got to back up. We've got to put data in front of us.

And once we all agree on exactly where we are, then we can discuss where we're going. And I think building wealth or having a high quality life in any area is a little bit like that. You need to back up and say, okay, what are the principles before I worry about the tactics? And the principles should lead us to the tactics. And the five money principles, if we wanted to pull some out, there would be common sense biblical things that are kind of boring. But if you lay those principles in place, then they'll lead you to the tactics. I mean, here's one, live on less than you make. Now, that sounds kind of almost glib, but the Bible says the borrower is, I mean, it says a foolish man devours all he has.

Live on less than you make. You need to be on a written plan. In anything you're doing, if you don't do it intentionally, it's not going to occur. No one wins anything accidentally. It's an intentional act. Winning always is. At marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business, you know, money. No one accidentally gets wealthy. It's just, oh, what happened? No one does that. So

that's a written plan. That's called a budget, you know, and so we got to have a budget. We got to live on less than we make. If you get out of debt mathematically, what it does is you have money to invest because when you have a $750 payment on your Ford F-150, you got no money. And so that money's going to Ford instead of to you. It's not going in your 401k. And so that's what the borrower is slave to the lender means. But also what happens when you get out of debt is you have this sense of freedom. You have this sense of autonomy, the sense of agency. You're not being controlled by the man, stinking Bank of America. It doesn't tell you what to do. Ford Motor Credit doesn't tell you what to do. So you don't have to keep a horrible job. You can move to a better job

and take that risk. But if you got to pay payments, you don't feel free. And so, you know, being out of debt, living on less than you make, having a written plan, obviously saving and investing. Obviously. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. Grandma said have money saved for a rainy day. We start with an emergency fund, and then we long-term invest. In the largest study a millionaire has ever done in North America, we did it here at Ramsey,

we discovered that the typical way someone gets their first $1 to $5 million is they have a paid off house and they have a really healthy 401k or Roth IRA combo in good mutual funds. And so they'll be sitting there with a million dollars in their retirement accounts after 10, 12, 15 years of doing this. And they got a half million dollar or $700,000 paid for house. They got a $1.7 million net worth. And so save money, save money. And the weird thing is that there's no, all the get rich quick stuff on TikTok and all that. It is all-

Crypto and everything. Everything. There's always some way. There's a new version of stupid every year. You know? And, but- Go ahead. No, go ahead. Why is that so enticing? Why do so many people jump into that with all

their money or all their savings or take out debt just to invest in the 17 new things a year that seem like one or two people actually made a few million dollars, but probably ended up losing it a year later? Why is that such an enticing thing for people who work so hard of making their money? Well, taking the long haul, being the tortoise versus the hare is not human nature. Our brains are wired by God for efficiency. You know, we want to burn the least calories possible to get the job done, whatever it is, which in the financial world causes us to look at get rich quick. And we don't think of it as stupid. I didn't world causes us to look at get rich quick. And we don't think of it as stupid. I didn't think of it as stupid when I did it in the 80s.

And I started with nothing, had $4 million worth of real estate, lost everything because I had borrowed too much money on the real estate and crashed my own life down on my head. I didn't think I was being foolish, foolhardy, impulsive. I thought I was burning the least calories to get to the goal. Yeah, you're being smart. I thought this is the way to go. And people that are buying crypto, that's what they think. I mean, no one thinks they're gambling. They don't think, oh, this has worse odds than a roulette wheel, which it actually did mathematically. But they didn't think that. They thought this is the least calories to burn to get to the goal. So that's just the human brain doing what it's supposed to do. We're just efficiency experts all the time and everything

we do. What's the least effort to get to the goal? How, how often does someone, when they know like, Hey, this is a big risk investment. This is the chances are of you making 10x on your return in one year or six months is so slim, or 100x returns in two years is so slim. But why do people sometimes go all in on the money they have or 90% of their money on things that have a 1% chance of actually getting more than a double return within a year? Well, there's two reasons. One is they don't believe there's only a 1% chance. They believe, again, it's the most efficient way to get there. I didn't think that there was a high probability I was going to fail doing nothing down real estate.

I did not. It never occurred to me, number one. And then number two, pride comes right before the fall. There's an arrogance. I understood that debt knocked over some people. I understood that sometimes people got in trouble. But I thought, oh, I can do this. I'm smart enough.

26 years of your wisdom, you could do this at 26. That's right, man. After 24 and a half years and a college degree in real estate, by God, I can do this. And there was that in there, that arrogant little twerp. He was there. And so there's a combination of this pride, and that then leads you to, again, these principles that lead you to bad tactics or principles that lead you to good tactics.

And the principle was a bad principle that I was functioning in, and just put a little icing on the cake of a little pride, a little arrogance that says, oh, yeah, I know. I know that for that guy, but I'm really good at math. And I grew up in the real estate business. And I know. I know things. Just ask me, you know.

And you see this. You can actually see that dripping off of some of the stuff that's posted on the Get Rich Quick stuff. Stuff that criticizes you, stuff that criticizes me, stuff that criticizes our friend Craig Groeschel or whoever. I mean, you can see anybody that's playing a long game, or Simon Sinek's Infinite Game, right? Anybody's playing a long game, the short-term thinkers all have to pile on, and there's always that dripping arrogance around it.

I couldn't recognize it because I was the same guy. I did the same. I would have been the guy trashing that guy. I would have been the guy trashing me when I was 26 because I would have been going, no, that doesn't apply to me. Yeah, I understand, Ramsey, but that's for regular people. I'm smarter than that. I'm not regular people. So there's that in there. So we got get out of debt. We've got live on less than you make. We got to have a budget. We got to save. And the last one is you need to be outlandishly, outrageously generous and walk around with an open hand.

What does generous mean for people that feel like they're struggling to live their own lifestyle of going out with friends once a week or having a dinner every couple of weeks or just doing some basic activities to enjoy life beyond free activities. How does generosity look like for those individuals? See, generous is not an action. Generous is a character quality. And like integrity, it's a character quality that you choose. You're not born with it. It's not installed. You have to say, I am a generous person. As our friend James Clear says, he says, our habits come from our identity, so change your identity and your habits will follow, right?

The whole Essence of Atomic Habits, his best-selling book, which is wonderful material. And so the, but I am a generous person. Okay, now what does that mean? Yeah, there's obviously a money thing. That might mean I give 10% to my church, a t person. Okay, now what does that mean? Yeah, there's obviously a money thing. That might mean I give 10% to my church, a tithe. That might mean I pick up the bill at dinner. It might mean I look across the room and someone's wearing military fatigues and I buy their lunch. It might, or a policeman, or a fireman, or a nurse. You know, I'm in scrubs. It might mean

something that simple tactically, but it could mean I just opened the door for something. Yeah, a generous heart. It could mean, because here's the thing. We all know the difference in a taker and a giver. We know the difference in selfless versus selfish. When you hang out with selfish people, you feel like you need to take a shower when you're done. And when you hang out with selfless people,

so I can just decide to do that. I don't have to have a lot of money because generous people are highly attractive. Not because they give you stuff, but they're highly attractive and they're very seldom depressed. They almost always have a positive outlook. They don't have a scarcity mentality. They have an abundance mentality. And all of this is just a decision. I just, I'm going to, instead of being, but what happens is

we become overwhelmed with the financial stress and we turn it in and we became navel gazers, worried about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, because I got to take care of me, me, me, me, me. And if I don't take care of me, me, me, get cut off and it doesn't take much margin to push all of that back as a decision and just say no i'm gonna leave a tip that's outlandish you know i watched a guy the other day park a mercedes he pulled up in a car i know the car because I looked at it one time. It was a $140,000 car. And he hands the valet five bucks. I'm like, dude, this is Ferris Bueller's day out. You just gave a guy five bucks to park $140,000.

You are out of your mind. That's a lack of generosity that could really cost you. I want them taking care of Mr. Ramsey's car like it's their daughter, you know? That's the tip I want to leave. For selfish reasons, hello. Protect your car. Exactly. I'm curious, what was the most generous year you've ever been financially?

You don't have to say how much you gave or tithed that year, but what was the most you ever gave back in one year? Can you remember that year? Yeah, yeah. It was the most you ever gave back in one year? Can you remember that year? Yeah, yeah. It was year before last. Because I had a goal. I met this, I've been hanging out with these generous guys, these guys that have a lot of money and gals, and trying to learn from them. And one of the things I learned is the intentionality behind their generosity. They're very careful. They do large gifts as if they're doing an investment. Really? They do due diligence. Can you explain?

Well, they do due diligence on the organization. You know, if they're wasteful, they're not handling money well, they don't treat their people well behind the scenes. Eighty-nine percent is going to overhead and 11 percent is going to hungry children. Then, you know, this is a problem. That means somebody's got too nice a car in a pile, right? And so they investigate and go into it. That's one thing they do on large gifts. And two, if you've got an organization that's weak and their money is struggling

and you give them too much, you can destroy them. Really? Much like a lottery winner. Right. They're not ready for it mentally or emotionally. They don't have the character to carry it. Interesting. They don't have the processes and the systems in the organization

and the nonprofit or the ministry to carry it. And so you can actually, you know, you go into a church of 30 people and you tie the million dollars, you can ruin the place. So what questions should you ask an organization, a church, or a foundation that you want to give a big sum of money to? What questions should you ask the leaders to know that they have a mindset capable of managing that much money? Because typically if you come from not having enough, and that's how you've always been, and then all of a sudden you get more, you may not be ready for it. So what questions should we ask before we make those investments and give that generously to know that, okay, this person

is actually at the right stage of their life to handle this big lump sum of money and all the donors that I'm going to bring them. My daughter, Denise, runs our family foundation and handles all the Ramsey philanthropy. And the thing that she and I have agreed on in that is I want her to approach the ministry like we are venture capitalists and we're going to buy them. Like looking at their books. I'm going to buy them. Yeah. If I'm going to buy them, I want to know how they're running the place.

I want to know their HR issues. Yeah. I want to know their systems and processes for growth. I want to know how they manage things, how chaotic is it, how is their accounting systems in place. I want to know the delivery mechanism of the actual goal of the ministry. Again, feeding hungry kids, how are we feeding hungry kids? What's that look like?

What's it cost per kid? How many kids do we feed, and what's our goals, and what's our vision for that? Just like you're buying it. And then you can come alongside them and partner with them. And we're not trying to take them over. We're not trying to run them. Don't want to do that.

That's their problem. God gave them that to do, not me, not Denise. But we're going to approach it that way as due diligence. And then that gives us a different set of eyes. And here's what's weird. Because we teach leadership, because we teach leadership and because we run a large business, we actually can help them sometimes by advising them and say, you know what, if you would just change that a little bit, then we could change

our giving like this. And we're not trying to tell you what to do. We're not trying to bribe you, but we're just trying to come alongside you and love you well, help you increase your capacity, increase your efficiency for the goals that God's given you to do here. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And so it changes our mindset of just, instead of like, we're going to throw some money over the fence, hope it all works out. If we come alongside them as if we're buying them or as if we're a venture capitalist and we're going to partner with them or something like that, then we're going to bring our advice. So obviously then the Ramsey Family Foundation does not give to ministries

that borrow money, obviously. Right, right. That's a deal killer for us. That doesn't have to be for everybody, but we teach people not to borrow money. Why would we then give money to someone who's borrowing? That's kind of dumb. Right. So we wouldn't do that.

But back to the other thing, my goal was I saw one guy, he gave away a million dollars in a year. I thought that would be very, very cool to figure out a way that we, and many years ago, we were able to do that the first time, many years ago. And then I thought, well, what can we do next? I want to give away a million dollars in a day. Wow. And we pulled that off. Come on. We pulled that off. That was inspiring. It included the gifts to our team for Christmas. It included supporting several ministries simultaneously at Christmas, a children's home in the area. It included buying some stuff for this thing and that thing. We did it all, brought everybody under this roof here and did it all in this huge celebration one day.

Not to point at us, but it was, I gotta tell you, it was one of the most fun days I've ever had in my life because generosity is fun. It does. It it's a blast it's the most fun you'll ever have with money now you said i think you said the year before last was the most that you gave yeah that was that million dollar day that was it okay so so essentially like a year and a month ago or something right it was is that what it was like i guess a year and a half ago or something, right? Is that what it was? I guess, sure. A year and a half ago or something like that. I'm curious. Every individual that I've interviewed or talked to, you know, 10 plus years my senior, who I really admire,

they all talk about generosity and giving and making it something you do early on in your life in any way, capacity that you can and giving more and more the more you do early on in your life in any way capacity that you can and giving more and more the more you are able to to give more and they say the thing that always happens is i always make more when i give even like a little bit uncomfortably when i give more than i think ah can i really do this the next year always becomes bigger i'm curious was the last year one of your biggest years? No.

No? No. But it will be over a decade. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, we're being impacted by outside variables like everyone. I mean, we've got supply chain is affecting, the economics are affecting, energy costs are affecting, hiring, cost of labor is affecting us, everything. So, no, we're actually not up immediately following that. But I am 100% convinced that over a decade, we'll be way up. Because I've done it before. I've

stretched and done it before, done an unusual thing, had the celebration with no thought of the return. If you do it with a thought of a return, then that's you telling God what to do. That doesn't work. He thinks he's God, so that won't work. But this idea that, again, generous people are just more fun to do stuff with. They're more attractive. They're more fun. More attractive. And you just end up having opportunities come. Let me think about it in a simplistic way. Let's say you were a leader in an organization and you had two people working for you, vying for a

promotion. And obviously, what are we going to do here? One's the selfish, look like he's weaned on a pickle, you know, and the other lady is she's generous and she's kind. She's always doing, she's always stepping outside of her own job description and helping someone else get the project done and not taking credit for it. Who gets the promotion? Of course. Of course. And it's not because, you know, it's not because you're somehow beholden to her for that. It's just, that's who I want to work with every day. People with good attitude. That's who I want beside me. I don't want Mr. Weaned on a pickle hanging out. I don't want to hang out with this guy. Right. You know, he's awful. It's awful, you know? What do you think happens to people that never give?

That they just earn for themselves or they keep it in their business and they only put it back in their business, but they don't think about giving outside of the business? I think their growth is stunted. Really? To me, again, it falls in the same category as integrity. What happens to someone who cuts corners? You can win. You can prosper to a degree. But all the data tells us and all the life experience tells us that the people with fanatical levels of integrity

are the ones that do the biggest stuff. The crooks really don't get ahead at the end of the day. The people that are selfish, they could get some stuff done, but the people that are selfless, they just have a tendency because people trust them. That trust factor comes in. Things move at the speed of trust, as they say. And all those things come into play and you just don't become all you were designed to be. The other thing that happens with generosity is your creativity increases. Yes. Because you're releasing chemicals that you don't release when you're selfish. Your productivity increases. The quality of your relationships increase. I was speaking at a little

Baptist church in Kentucky one time, beautiful little church, and the guy, many, many years ago, and the old pastor had been there for 40 years and i did a tithing lesson hardcore you know baptist tithing lesson which i love and uh the guy came up afterwards and he goes well you left one thing out sure pastor i mean you've been doing this longer than me what i leave out he goes you know i've been doing this 40 years i've never had a tithing couple in my church get a divorce and i I went, why? Because the tithe is magical? Because some people think that in Christianity, you know, because I don't think that.

He said, no, because when you're unselfish with your money, you're unselfish with your wife. And you're unselfish with your husband. And you serve each other in the marriage if you're serving the community with your giving. It's the same muscle. And he goes, you're just easier to stay married to. When you're tithing, when you're serving the community with your giving. It's the same muscle. And he goes, you're just easier to stay married to. When you're tithing, when you're giving.

When you're giving. When you make giving a standard part of the rhythm of your life, you build that generosity muscle, and it affects every relationship you're in, particularly the key relationship in marriage. It changes the way you parent. Because if you don't give in one area, if you're saying, I'm going to hold back my money and I'm going to keep it here, you're probably not going to give generously to your spouse or to your kids or to your friends

or community, right? Because it's a character quality. Interesting. You know, it's like the guy that says, ah, well, you know, I hate the IRS. I hate taxes. So I don't really put everything on my tax return. Okay, so you're a liar. You're a cheater. Where are you going to cheat me? That's what I started thinking. I'm not impressed. I hate taxes, but I pay every stinking penny, not because I believe in taxes and not because I'm scared of the IRS IRS because neither one of those things are true, but it's because it says something about me. I got to look at me. And that's an integrity issue. It's a every penny, every cash sale of a book on the back table goes into the accounting system

and we pay freaking taxes on it. I got audited not long ago. I paid precisely zero in the audit. We were so stinking clean. And it's not because I'm scared of those doopers, because I'm really not. They're a pain in the butt, but I'm not scared of them. It's a matter of integrity is integrity is integrity is integrity. Generosity is generosity is generosity is generosity. These things, these are character qualities of the successful people that I've met. Yeah, that's beautiful. Speaking of marriage, it seems like money affects marriages a lot. I'm curious what, or it could empower marriages or it could hurt marriages if not handled properly.

I'm curious, if you were to give advice on a couple dating for a few years, looking to get married, what are a few questions they must have and align to about money that might be uncomfortable to have those questions, but will actually get you clear on, hey, are we the right match in terms of our money mindset, in terms of what we're going to do with money for the next? of our money mindset, in terms of what we're going to do with money for the next? And maybe you have this question in the first few months of dating, you don't wait two years, but what are those questions that people should be asking before they align with someone romantically long term? Well, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. I'm talking to a young couple about this, and I do often in a marriage seminar or something like that, is a pre-marriage counseling session or something like that. The number one cause of divorce is money fights and money problems out there, the stress of money and the arguments over money. And so if you said the number one cause of death is getting killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox, then you would analyze how not to get killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox, right? Then you would analyze how not to get killed by a

bear on the way to the mailbox, right? And so if you're going to get married, you should really look at the number one freaking thing. Hello. This is the number one thing that either hurts or ends marriage is what I'm hearing you say. Yeah. And the odd thing is, is it's actually circular. It's an infinity loop because it feeds back on itself, meaning that it also, the quality of your marriage is a high data point indicator as to whether or not you build wealth. Yeah. And so very few people drag a spouse kicking and screaming into millionaire status, you know? You mean it doesn't happen by accident? You know, so I'm bringing the princess with me, right? Come on, baby. And I'm going to put on my back, and we're going to haul you over there. It doesn't usually work, okay?

Or I'm bringing the guy who's lazy and won't work, and I'm going to outwork him, and the lady says, and he's a little boy, and I'm going to be his mommy, and I'm going to drag him all the way into millionaire status. Not working, baby. Right. So it goes both directions. So that's thing one. If it's the number one cause, then, yeah, it ought to be something really you discuss.

So preventative maintenance, right? Yes. You know, it's, you know, preventative health. If the number one cause of death is obesity, we probably ought to think about obesity, you know? I'm curious then, what's a question a woman should ask to her man, you know, within the first few months of dating about money? should ask to her man, you know, within the first few months of dating about money, where she could get a sense if he's fully honest and integrity with what he's saying, and not just saying something to make her, you know, feel happy. What is a question she can ask to feel like, okay, this man I'm dating and courting, and we're getting into this life with,

I feel like I can trust him with money for the future. Yeah. Well, money is a reflection of our values, how we handle money. And that's another reason that it's very important because if your values are not aligned, you're going to struggle in any relationship, but certainly in a marriage relationship. And so, you know, talk about the basics of money, debt. I love debt. I'm going to use it all the time. You know, I want zero down everything. I'm going to buy a zero down truck. I'm going to use it all the time. I want zero down everything. I'm going to buy a zero down truck. I'm going to buy a zero down stereo. I'm going to buy a zero down couch.

I'm going to put nothing down on the house. And you hate debt? Okay, we got a problem. We're going to have to work through this or we're going to have to – this is a deal killer. Okay, how about saving? I don't think you got to save money. You can always get you something. I always thought you could out-earn your stupidity.

I tried that for years. It didn't work. So my wife, however, is a natural saver. You can always get you something. I always thought you could out-earn your stupidity. I tried that for years. It didn't work. So my wife, however, is a natural saver. So when I joined her club is when we started winning. So bless her heart, she didn't know this going in, but I made a hard life for her the first seven years. So saving and debt, how about generosity?

I don't believe you ought to give. If you give, you end up with less. it's mathematically factual yeah which it is actually but that short-term thinking that's a finite game instead of an infinite game again using simon's premise on his book uh and so generous the things we just talked about now how about how about living on are we gonna live in chaos are we gonna live with a plan yeah i want to live with peace? Are we going to live with a plan? Yeah, want to live with peace or chaos? Are we going to live with future-minded or YOLO? You only live once. Thank God it's Friday.

Living for the weekend. Our marriage theme song is Huey Lewis and the News, right? I mean, come on. Is this us? And if it is, then – because what's this tell you? Anyone that lives short-term thinking, we know they're emotionally immature. Yes. Spiritually immature.

And so you're marrying someone or you're dating someone that's emotionally immature. And they're fun. They're always fun. But it's not fun in the long term because it brings about stress. The fruit of this is nasty. And so now do we have to be perfectly aligned on all those things? No, we just need to understand where the other person stands and are they so far over away from us that it's a deal

killer? Because my wife is more of a saver than I am by nature. I had saving for me as an intellectual act, a spiritual act of my will. It is not a natural rhythm. Okay. She naturally saves everything. The leftovers in our refrigerator are grotesque. I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, she saves everything. So, but so to the extent that I can stay close to her on that, then we've got harmony. We have both obviously with what we've been through agreed, no doubt. Right. We are both plant have become planners over the 40 years of marriage. I'm always been a detailed planner. I had to get her to join me more on that. So, you know, but it's better if you do it on the front end than the way we did. It's a lot harder the way we did about kill each other. So you want to be in agreement on that. And all the data tells us

on marriage and divorce statistics. And we've studied this for years is number one cause of divorce money. The other three, if you can be in agreement on them, religion, kids, whether to have them and how to treat them, and how to deal with crazy people in your extended family, your mother-in-law, and your lazy brother who does cocaine, and whatever it is. How are you going to deal with it? How to manage it all, yeah. How to manage boundaries with extended family.

And if one of you thinks that children should just be let run wild and the other one is an over-disciplinarian, we're going to have a problem. Or I want no children and I want 17. That's going to be an issue. Or I don't believe there's a God. And I think anyone who believes there's a God's an idiot. Oh, by the way, I think there's a God. Oh, see, this is a problem because now I'm an idiot. So there you go. And so these are the things. But if you can agree, because all of these things are representative of your values and what your beliefs are so when you can agree on your money what you've ended up agreeing on is your dreams your fears your visions you're in agreement you're in alignment on those not only what they are but how we're going to go after them then

and now you've got real harmony and you've got a high probability of building wealth that's the odd part of it. That's the infinity loop. How it comes back in on itself. Do you think love is enough? If you have religion, kids, family boundaries, kind of all in alignment in harmony, but money is completely apart, but you love each other. You've been building this life together for a year or two.

And you're like, should we get married or not? But we are so far apart. One's the fun and undisciplined person. One is the extreme saver. And you know, detail oriented plan person is, is love enough to have a successful long-term healthy marriage. If money is not there. Uh, I think you've got to be close. You don't have to be exactly aligned, but you've got to be generally thinking. Because the problem is this. Resentment is going to set in, and resentment will kill love. The eye roll. When you roll your eyes, that's the beginning of the end.

Right. Is that called the four horsemen? Exactly. The four horsemen of the apocalypse. Yeah. Les Parrott teaches about that, and that's some standard John Gottman background stuff. But that's one of the four, and that's the big one, by the way, of the four. Yeah.

And so, you know, if he won't work, he won't keep a job because he just doesn't think that that's that big a deal. It's not a problem. Eventually, you lose respect and the eye rolls. Yeah. And that's that big a deal it's not not a problem eventually you lose respect and the eye rolls yeah and that's the beginning of the end that's one of the four the most the largest of the four horsemen by far so if you can't keep um now again my wife and i joke about our differences on saving right right but they're not that far apart. Sure. I mean, and we freely admit hers is a natural rhythm. Mine's a built-in, I had to decide to do it because I see the benefits of it.

So I intellectually will it. It's against my DNA. You don't like it. Yeah, I really don't. I mean, the only reason I save money is so I can give more and have more. Yeah. The only reason, I don't do it because I get joy out of saving money. It's zero.

Right. You know, but I can give more and I can buy more. Yeah. And those two things bring me joy. So there you go. But, but that, but that, again, that at least we though are in alignment that saving is important, even if it might be for two different reasons. If I absolutely believe that it was ridiculous to keep any money saved and she's had to have

some money saved to have peace because she's constantly in anxiety because there's no rainy day fund, then that's going to eventually tear up anything you do. Sure. What's the difference between saving and investing at your kind of scale? Or someone who's bringing in over a million dollars a year in their business and they've got some extra cash, what is the difference between saving and investing? Is there a difference at that level of like, okay, some money is just saved in an account and others are invested in different areas?

Savings is short-term, investing is long-term. Okay. Pretty simple. And you can define what that is. But I generally think it's three years and less. I'm just saving the money. I'm really not putting it in something that's going to be going up and down

because I need the money there. Right. And so I've got to have access to it. So it needs to be, it's not going to earn a lot, but it's stable. Investing, I can ride a wave because I'm playing a long game. What's the percentages of saving investing that people should be at? Well, you should have an emergency fund personally of three to six months of expenses, the standard rainy day fund. Past that, you need to save up and pay cash for whatever you're purchasing. So if you've got a car purchase in your future, Christmas this year is in December. If you didn't know, you got to get ready for that. And, you know, that kind of stuff. I thought it was November. They move it occasionally, but just in case, yeah. But just in case, a reminder. And

so, you know, those are savings items. And then past that, everything else would go to investing. You know, because basically one saving is for protection, the emergency fund, and the other is for purchases to avoid debt. Paying cash for my car, paying cash for my couch, paying cash for my trip. And those are short-term savings. Christmas, I'm saving short-term savings items and then long-term saving items obviously retirement kids college general wealth

building uh beyond that to do other things and so then i get into at our level now that we make a lot of money we're a little bit mixed up in that we get so much over in the investing pile and a lot of it is not for 30 years from now. A lot of it is for six years from now. And so I'll throw money over into a mutual fund until I use it to buy a piece of real estate or something like that. But that's a little different. Are there different investments that entrepreneurs should be making outside of their own business

versus maybe employees? Is there different types of investments that those individuals should be making? And how many different styles of investments should they make? You know, number one, never invest in something you don't understand. Yeah. And that's a mistake people make all the time. Number two, you should always have an array of investments, a diversification. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, spread your portions to seven, yes, to eight,

for disaster may come upon the land. So don't have all your eggs in one basket, we say in the financial world, right? And so the biggest thing when we're in our entree leadership, where we're working with small businesses and we work with tens of thousands of them every year, the biggest thing, I got a guy heating air. He's got heating air companies, got 20 trucks. He's got 40 or 50 employees and he's got no investments outside of his company. It's his own business. Yeah. Everything goes back into the business and that sets him up for two problems. One is he's not diversified and if that goes south, he's completely baked. Two, he's got no exit strategy at retirement because he's got no money. And so it makes it very difficult. He has to sell

that business. That's his only nest egg. And so he or she that owns a small business is much better off to also have their own 401k, their own Roth IRAs and good growth stock mutual funds and build up some extra wealth in it. Hey, go buy a piece of real estate that the business is not in, in addition to that. Outside of the business. I mean, we've got about $450 million worth of real estate on this campus that's all paid for. But in addition to that, I've got a whole bunch of real estate that's not this place. You inspire me.

I'm not bragging, but I mean, it's not this place. It's not this investment. 100% of our real estate is not Ramsey buildings. Thank God that would be unwise because then as, cause if, what if the tenant failed, well, you lost your business and your tenant. Right. And I got a big dad gum empty building over here. This is some real estate investing standpoint. That's scary. I'm curious, you know, it seems like the seems like a lot of the wealthy get into real estate at some point. I have followed your advice. Not all of your advice. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've followed a lot of your advice about my car with cash. I didn't understand real estate,

so I put it in a real estate fund as opposed to buying it and managing it and figuring out how to fix things and deal with contractors and all these different things. Yeah, the REITs are doing good. Right. So I put it in a fund. But I kind of want to get into real estate. And I don't know if I should or not. I want to because I feel like it's a great asset class for long-term wealth.

It is. But I don't fully understand it because I've never bought investment properties. I've been buying properties since I was 18 years old. Mom and daddy were in the real estate business when I was growing up. I got my real estate license three weeks after I turned 18. So I've been doing this for 50 years almost. I mean, I've been around it for 50 years. I've been doing it for 40 plus. And so the real estate is very romantic. Yes. Especially on TikTok, you know? I mean, it's like nothing can go wrong. It's all great.

I make $30,000 a month in my Airbnb. When in actual fact, it is exactly the opposite. Everything will go wrong. Right. Count on it. The roof is going to leak. I had a refrigerator ice maker bust the other day, fled the whole freaking house.

I got mold and remediation. I got one and remediation. I got one little house over here. It's completely down for six months while we rebuild the whole stinking thing. There's nothing romantic or fun about this. The renters aren't paying for it. Crap. Because there's no renters.

It's full of mold. Okay, hello. So this is life. So real estate makes more money than other asset classes, but has tremendously more hassle. You don't like the hassle, but how do you manage the hassle? You buy a REIT instead. Okay.

Unless someone else do it. Because some of the REITs are doing very well, real estate investment trusts. Or buy into something like that where you're doing a limited partnership and you own 133rd or something like that. And someone with a long track record is doing a good job. They're doing it with low, low or no debt and that kind of a thing. You go that direction. And here's the thing.

There's classes of real estate that are less hassle. Okay. Warehouse, almost no hassle. Right. Because you can, you rent those out triple net and the, the tenant takes care of everything,

taxes, insurance, and repairs. I've been studying this. Do you feel like it's better for someone to get into triple net investing versus single family properties? Single family homes are the largest hassle factor. Right. Because there's drama. Yeah.

There's more drama there than in commercial real estate, than office buildings. You get some drama in office buildings or in a retail center. I've got some of each, but very seldom. I mean, the workout class guy goes broke in your strip center, and there's a little drama. But it's a lot different than... The tenants stay longer usually. Yeah, and they're looking at it through business eyes rather than my wife's mad because the dishwasher's out. Right.

You know, and so there's a little less explosive diarrhea associated with it, right? Sure. So I mean, it's just, you know, but- Less emotional. But, you know, so if you want to, you know, one way to get to residential would be doing a large number of apartments, like a 50 unit or 250 unit apartment. And then you've got onsite management handling all that. And again, you're stepping back and just watching the metrics, and they are managing the drama that work for you. And so

that's okay, too. I don't have any apartments, but I'm not against them. But again, whatever you do with real estate is more hassle, even a warehouse is more hassle than a mutual fund. Mutual fund, you put it in there, and then you open your email, and there it is, you know? No hassle. Right. No decisions. You don't get to make it is. No hassle. No decisions. You don't get to make any decisions. No one asks your opinion. You just get an email.

But you're going to make a 10% or a 12% rate of return. And most of my real estate has an internal rate of return of 17 to 20, including tax write-offs, growth, and rent cash flow. Right, with all those benefits. Are you more into the commercial real estate then or residential? We've got a bunch of each, but we're probably going to move from the single families over towards more commercial as, as our, my son-in-law runs all of our real estate and he's sick of it. He's sick of the single families. They just drive you nuts. I mean, comparatively to the other stuff. And you know, would you rather have $10 million in one strip center

or, I don't know, 20 houses that are half a million dollars? Oh, my gosh. Right, right. And, yeah, it's different. Yeah. But, hey, houses are a great place to start if you wanted to do one. Gotcha. And if you can manage a tenant in a house,

you can definitely manage a business tenant. A few final questions for you, Dave. I wish I could talk to you for hours and hopefully I can come back and do more of these in the future. Let's do it. Anytime. But I want to ask you about how someone who has been, you know, maybe grew up in a family where their parents didn't have the best money values or the best, let's call money principles, and maybe just weren't able to save that well, you know, we're in debt. And the kids kind of picked up the same patterns, the same habits and the same models. How does someone go from maybe more of a debt mindset or a poorer

mindset into an abundance in a richer or wealthier mindset? If they've been modeling from their parents, if they, you know from their parents if they you know they were used to debt they got into debt early on they got credit cards early on like how does someone switch the mindset first before acting with these steps and actually believing something completely differently inputs yeah you become who you hang around with and what you read the old charlie tremendous jones quote five years from today you'll around with and what you read. The old Charlie Tremendous Jones quote, five years from today you'll be the same person you are today except for the people you hang with and the books you read.

So, you know, inputs. Who are you reading? What podcasts are you listening to? Here's the thing. If you want to stay poor and you want to stay in a scarcity mindset, watch Tiger King. If you want to win at life, listen to Lewis on his podcast because it's about greatness.

Yeah. You know, and Tiger King's quite the opposite. Right. So what are you consuming? You know, are you spending all your time on the cable news network? Because I got to tell you, they're not selling anything but fear. And if you turn the channel one over, you get the weather channel, and the tornado is going to kill you.

Did you know that? Get a helmet on quick. And so, oh, my God, what are your inputs? And I became hyper aware of that during this last season we've all gone through with pandemic and all these other things. The stress level for all of us that were carrying responsibility during those days, and the fear of people out there, I started going, okay, you guys need to change your inputs, because your brain's about to explode with fear. And because everybody's just watching the count

all day long, you know, it's like, oh my gosh. And so I had to really be very conscious to pull back and say, I'm not even going to turn on the computer. I'm just going to open up a book, my Bible. I'm going to go for a walk with nothing in my ears and just hear birds sing. You know, oh, my gosh, you got to watch your inputs, okay? And that's how you change it. Because a buddy of mine who came out of the hood, he said, getting out of the hood is easier than getting the hood out of you.

And, you know, because, you know, I remember people I grew up with, little man can't get ahead. You're always going to have a car payment. You know, the corporations, I was with a relative the other day. He goes, corporations, corporations, corporations. I'm like, who are you talking about? It's like this evil boogeyman that was floating in the air somewhere were corporations. And he owns a business.

I said, are you incorporated? And he said, yeah. And I said, you're a corporation. You know, it's just, what is this? But it's, you know, but this is a little man can't get ahead thing. If you hang out with those people, then you believe it. If you hang out with people, say, take it easy and they mean it, then you're going to take it easy and you're going to be mediocre

and you're not going to leave the cave, kill something and drag it home. But, you know, what are your inputs? Who are you hanging with? Your income is going to approximate the income of your 10 closest friends. You need to pick your friends real careful. Amen to that. And your mouth is going to sound like theirs. You want to have a trash mouth? Run around these people with trash mouth. You'll suddenly be saying stuff like that. I've caught myself doing it. I'm like an eight-year-old little boy. I mimic the people I run with. I've caught myself doing it.

I'm like an eight-year-old little boy. I mimic the people I run with. I'm curious. You've spoken about the Bible a few times. If you could only share one quote from the Bible that you love the most, what would that quote be? What would that line be or that sentence be from the Bible that really speaks to you the most? If you had to repeat this over and over,

and this is the only quote that you could think about or repeat over and over or read, what would that be? Well, that's like asking you which kids you're favored or something. But I would have to go all Christian on you and go back to something about, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, because it all starts and ends there. But out of that, then there are life lessons all through Proverbs, the book of wisdom. There's, you know, the one I put in Total Money Makeover, our bestselling book today, it is Romans 12 too. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What we were just talking about, you know, you know, don't, don't be normal. Look around. You don't be normal. Normal's out of

control with your food, out of control with your money, out of control with your relationships, out of control with your mouth. Don't be normal. Be transformed. And how you do that? Your inputs, the renewing of your mind. I love that a lot. I've been here for, I don't know, 10 hours in Nashville. I landed late last night and I've spoken to a few people just getting from the airport to here, getting to the hotel and everyone's like, Hey, what are you doing in Nashville for? I would say, I'm coming to see Dave Ramsey. And every person I've talked to is like, he is so well-respected in this community and he does so much good. And everyone knows who Dave is in Nashville, right? And they also say they also know him around the world,

but they know him here in Nashville in a big way because of his heart. I'm curious. It sounds like 40 years, I don't want to date you here, but it sounds like 40 years in business that you've been doing business, decades of wisdom, lots of mistakes early on, and I'm sure you constantly are overcoming challenges. What is the thing that you feel like you need to transform in your life or business or internally to get to the next level of leadership for yourself, to make an

even greater impact or to renew your own mind in a way of transforming something that could support you at the next level. Wow. I mean, like there's a laundry list that's so long it's ridiculous. I mean, there's so much work they've still got to do. One thing I was working on this morning, because this just happens to be top of mind, is don't sweat the small stuff. I get so passionate about everything and sometimes

the wrong things. And if you travel around Nashville a little bit more, you'll find people that don't like that. I'll just tell you, they don't agree with me on that. And they don't like Dave and there's plenty of haters out there, believe me. Uh, and some of them are well-earned just like some of the respect is well-earned and some of it's not, right? But don't sweat the small stuff. Yeah, really. I mean, because I do, you know, because I die on the wrong hill too often. Really?

Yeah. Because an example of what that might look like is like the little detail that doesn't go the way you want it, then you get, you know, passionate about it. You know, I was in a church board meeting many, many years ago, and one of the old guys in there, he like 80 years old we're in there arguing about something about around the church and he gets up and starts walking out we're like where are you going he goes y'all aren't arguing about anything that matters in five years wow and i do that i argue about stuff that matters by the end of the day because i a i like to argue i'm a hillbilly right but be I just I'm so wired up and over

caffeinated and passionate and everything else that personality style and I just have to it's a maturity thing I have to work on it's 62 freaking years old you know I mean come on wow what do you think is the quality that you appreciate about yourself the most oh lord would it be humility? Humility? How do you answer that question? Come on. What do you think is the thing, though,

that you are proud that you have inside of you or the thing that you do consistently that has made a big impact for your life and the people around you? I hope somewhere around my tombstone that has made a big impact for your life and the people around you i hope somewhere around my tombstone it says he left it all on the field i hope somewhere around my tombstone it says he loved people yeah because those are the two things that i believe about myself the again haters don't believe those about me but um i you'd have to ask somebody else to be

sure about that right right i love that. Was there anything that you struggled with overcoming where you doubted yourself that took you a long time to overcome that doubt and start to believe in yourself? Yeah, I think any time we, and I'm no exception to this either, any time we make a grave error that does have large impact it takes some of your confidence and it takes you a while to trust yourself again in that um so like when i went broke it not only i not only lost everything, it broke me. I was broken. I went from the arrogance to the other end of the spectrum where I really didn't trust my own judgment because I had destroyed everything. It was a nuclear landscape after that.

And so it took me a while to trust myself again in money. I had to earn my own trust back as well as earn my wife's trust back. And earn your money back. And earn the money back in the process. But I had to put a pattern in my life that was trustworthy that I began to trust. First, I trusted the pattern and the truth of the principles. And later I began to trust myself to apply them. But that's a wound from trauma is what it is. And so it's much like I've got a friend who went through a divorce, and he doesn't trust himself to pick a wife.

Interesting. You know, he thought he was a good judge of character, and the lady he married was not a good person and was a mess. And so she messed him over big time. And so he's wounded, doesn't trust himself again. And I think that's one of the hardest things. And in business, it's the same thing. I trust the wrong people inside the building, and then I have to clean up the dadgum mess for the next 18 months, you know, and, and that's my fault. And so I got to trust myself on my judgment of the person's character. Again, that's very hard. I'm so grateful for your time today.

You too. Um, Ramsey solutions.com. You've got some amazing books, the Ramsey show, the Ramsey network, like everything you guys do i love watching the content i love consuming the content i love learning i love the jokes you make on your social media i just think it's hilarious uh and your sound advice that you give people in coaching you give people live so i i really want everyone to follow you you guys have an amazing youtube channel podcasts everything um do you have a new book coming out soon do you have anything no no i did millionaire baby baby steps millionaires last year yep it was a number one that i hope that's my last one for a while now we've got a lot of ramsey personalities books coming out i just read uh own your past change your future i

just read that dr john deloney yes incredible yes he was like he's got a new one coming out june 6th that I was reading the manuscript this weekend. I cried three times reading the manuscript. It is unbelievably good. He's a great writer. Oh, and he's brilliant. He is a really smart guy. His wallet's smarter than me. I recommend that book for sure. I read that one as well. So I want people to get the books. I want people to subscribe to you everywhere on social media. We'll have everything linked up. Is there anything we can do to be of service to you today? Oh, you have.

Just being here and being our friend. And we admire you and what you're doing. You're just doing so good, man. You're kicking it. You are doing it. I love watching somebody go win. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

I asked you these two final questions, and I'm going to wrap it up here in 60 seconds. I asked you these two final questions before, and I'm curious if the answers are different today. This one is called the three truths, hypothetical scenario in question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day. And for whatever reason in this world, you have to take all of your content and wisdom with you. Everything you've ever created, the books, the content, it goes to another place. But we don't have access anymore to your wisdom.

But you get to share behind a message of your three final truths, the lessons that you would share if you could only share three of them to the world. And I know it's kind of off the cuff real quick, but what would those three truths be for you? People matter, stuff doesn't. people matter, stuff doesn't. Never saw a rider truck following a hearse. God is real. It'll change your life. And I'll go with my own ones.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Yeah, that's good. That's great. Final question, Dave. What's your definition of greatness? Service. I acknowledge you for being of service. Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. And thanks for being an inspiration, Dave. Thank you, brother. I love you, man. Thank you. Love you, brother.

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