Dave Ramsey on Retiring, Getting Divorced, and Going Bankrupt

wealth does not ruin people it exposes who they are if someone says well $1,000 is not enough of course it's not enough it wasn't intended to be enough any skin color any sex Any Nation you come from if you want corn no exceptions you have to plant corn we've heard some news that you are considering retiring soon so Dave Ramsey welcome back on the iced coffee hour I'm on here twice I know that means your your uh popularity didn't completely plummet it didn't so here we are again and we've heard some news that you are considering retiring soon you did I did we did it's not true it's not it's not true really who did we get this information from well I mean scaling scaling back I'm 63 I've been scaling back for a long time four years ago I quit working on on Fridays does that count I feel like that's getting there yeah that's a step in the right direction we you know we moved my son uh 12 years he's been working here and moved him the operating board moved him him into the president's role in January um uh what is that now 9 10 months ago and he and I get to work together for the first time he's always worked for someone else here so we're having a blast working together uh so for this next season I'm the CEO and he's the president and um no I'm not someday I will retire but retirement for me will actually be I'll still do the show as long as I make sense if I quit making sense and I start hurting the brand then we'll have to take me off but um that'll happen to or become completely irrelevant and just an angry Boomer but but close now maybe but anyway but the uh uh yeah we'll do that uh and I'll stop I'll continue to speak uh as much as I can and those kinds of things I enjoy those things and so that'll be my retirement to do those things but I'll be down here most days how much thought do you put into Legacy in terms of building your business passing it on and making sure that everyone you give it to doesn't take it for granted way too much um I started uh 15 years ago um and operating board we set annual goals around uh brand transfer ownership transfer um uh and Legacy and Leadership transfer uh and those are all Legacy items succession planning if you will and so yeah we've been working very very hard on it for 15 years and it's harder than I thought it was going to be uh in our case there's really three elements the ownership issue which means I need to raise the Ramsay kids and teach them business Acumen over a series of decades which we've done to be wise owners because even if I got good leadership team if the if the owners are dumb and then they make the good leadership team do dumb things the good leadership team will leave uh and the company will go down okay the Legacy will be blown up so the you have to have wise owners and you have to have a quality leadership team bench depth they carry on the the values in our case is different than and would be in anybody in our space all of us um when you are the product of the brand You've Got a Brand transfer that's very difficult and that the others there were good best practices we found lots of people that had transferred you know generational businesses ownership wise and Leadership wise found lots of good data out there lots of good books and families we could talk to that had done it they're on Gen 4 gen five that kind of thing and so lots of best practices we could get but it's very hard to find somebody's done a brand transfer like ours uh because I'm was a stinking brand Y and when I'm not there what's the brand uh and so uh we started working on what we now call these days call ramsy personalities instead of doing a onetoone handoff uh it turns off turns out being the guy that follows the guys almost impossible it's it's almost 100% failure rate Paul Harvey Jr very seldom can take Paul Harvey seat casionally it works but it's it's so rare it's not something you want to model but we did figure out a one to many had a chance and so that's why I didn't put the whole thing on my daughter Rachel Cruz's shoulders and then we have now raised up a George camel and and a Jade warshaw and a John deloney and a Ken Coleman and we're in not only the money space but the other spaces and so that and we actually have started study we had have these dumb accounting measurements of whether it's working it's probably more than you wanted to know but you I'm curious but the uh uh when we started it was like okay I'm producing all the revenue off of my brand and so if I die today you know what happens to all these employees well they're screwed the whole thing's going to fold up like a bad tent you know that's where it started when I was 48 years old and we said okay then we need to measure nonay Revenue so if Rachel is going and making doing a book that's non-day revenue or if uh Ken Coleman goes and speaks somewhere that speaking fee is a nonay revenue right which is kind of a yeah weird we've had have dumb names for around here for stuff all the time um and so uh then we started calling it worse now it's called the survivability index that sounds a bit morbid it's like when we get now it's awful it's like when we get to Once year we do an estate planning meeting where we talk to all the leaders and all the owners and about what happens if Dave dies this year and I call it the Monty Python meeting I'm feeling much better it's just a flesh wound you know it's like oh my God it's horrible I'm sitting there talking about me dying for an hour and a half and yeah but you have to plan it because otherwise you just uh you ensure the failure of of the thing you've worked so hard to build are you treating your health differently as a result of that of of the survivability index of hey maybe I should go to the gym more get more exercise heier you know it actually takes the it takes the weight off of me the more and you know we had a goal of having by by the year 20 uh 2022 we wanted it to be a 50% of the revenue was not mine um and the great news is is that in 2023 we're at about 78% survive if I'm not here because it's not only that they're producing it but it's we built the business models out in such a way that it's not Dave dependent to continue to run okay for instance our high school curriculum is a520 million business in high schools they don't care if I'm live that that's got like a 98% survivability right and so like I don't know teachers are like Dave died we can't teach it anymore because I'm not even in the videos so hardly just a little bit and we could chop those out in 20 minutes so yeah that or they could chop those out I won't be here but um yeah that's that's kind of stuff it's very interesting it makes you think about your business model stuff and it takes the pressure off of that um and uh uh so it's just it's it's weird to it's awkward but if you don't talk about it you screw it up yeah I'm curious on passing on the Legacy how are you going to ensure that the people that end up taking your place are going to be able to fill those shoes because they're massive shoes to fill and a lot of the times like you were mentioning you need to take it very slow and you need to make sure that they work for it you mentioned your son now he's in the the role of being president of the company I heard from somebody that he had to climb that ladder one rung at a time it wasn't it was not easy so how intenal about doing that cuz a lot of people they mess it up General generational wealth usually only lasts like three generations as they say well again we studied some principles and and some of them were that that you can't obviously nepotism leads to the destruction of Legacy so um meaning putting someone that's incompetent into a role because they happen to hit the DNA Lottery um you know happen to be in your bloodline that's just Dumber in a rock and the other thing is we want to put people in roles that they fit in David Green told me at Hobby Lobby he said the job is to climb a tree get a squirrel not a dog you know and so you know my children are the Bible says train up a child in the way he's is bent is the old old King James and train up a child the way he's bent the way he is made and and when he's old he'll not depart from it and so we did not put Rachel who's very good on camera very good on stage in incredible on social media uh horrible on details we did not put her in charge of accounting the whole place would be gone it would have burned down okay and and so you know put her put her where she's a dancing poodle I mean everybody I've got three kids everybody's got kid that comes out with a cigar and a bottle of champagne Rachel's that kid she's a party looking for a place to happen she's perfect for this and she's brilliant she's world class at it but to make her the CEO the the people would just leave not because they don't like her because everybody likes her but because they would have no idea what we're doing cuz there would we would not we would make it up every morning and you it's not and my son Daniel's quite the opposite he does not want to be on camera uh and on stage uh but he's very entrepreneurial and you know loves products and digital products and projects and design you know organizational design and all this stuff and so you know put put them where their put them where their strengths are and you got a good shot at doing that but you can't ensure the only thing we can do is to test and gradually do it so you know like for instance when we went to uh one of the moves we made was two years ago we went from the Dave Ramsey Show to the Ramsey Show and we thought it was a huge deal and the weird thing is we did not announce it we didn't even tell our 680 radio stations two radio stations called us and loved it none of the rest of them noticed our listenership in the comments was they just changed the name well that's cool well they're doing that succession thing they talk about okay that's cool and then it was over for us it was this big emotional thing and it was oh W are we making a chance are we going from Coke to original Coke and nobody cared but us so you think it was better not to announce it just do oh it turns out it was genius not to announce it okay uh in that case we just did it and then for the first eight months or so if I wasn't on the air the numbers were down I had a co-host like I do now on the Ramsey show but if or if I wasn't there at all it was two of them doing it the numbers were down now the numbers are up when I'm not there you're kidding serious so people don't want to see you anymore so distressing thisy not to be important and your plan works it sucks how how much does that hurt your ego it hurt F but now it's like but it was my plan I did it on purpose and so I you got this on one hand it's like it worked we're successful and on the other hand it's like they don't like me it's great it's it's it's a weird set of emotions to how do you set your owns plan to be less important and how do you set your feelings aside on something like that and don't take it personally and and view it objectively I have work you know the way you do it I intellectually make the decision of it's what I was trying to do so I really shouldn't gripe about it I was really trying to make it where this place survives without me hello and that it you know how how do you ensure that generationally it doesn't crash when Dave's gone you know and well you put it on before you're gone and you make it work before you're gone and then it did and Dad blame it it did and so you know it's the little boy Dave that's six years old and wants to be important that lives inside of me and still lives inside of everyone uh is he's got his little feelings hurt but the the man Dave who's thinking about Legacy and generational change and my grandkids and my great-grandkids and the number of lives that'll be touched because we did this right after I'm gone uh that guy's real proud but before we get into that I'm 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it's oracle.com sisted it is completely free for a test drive at oracle.com iced thank you so much Oracle and back to the podcast and also on your kids business aside how do you make sure that they don't go and become insane and do all these things that a lot of wealthy kids don't end up doing well like like you're a savant in business but you're also a savant in The Family Arena as well which I no I'm serious I like it's not spend more time with the ramies but I'm a lot of people we talk to like the wealthy people man they're kids they go off and they every wants to become an artist which there's nothing wrong with that but usually it's just a decoy because they can't find their actual ambition or passion seem but how do you Foster that well I mean there's a couple things we learned thank god um after going broke and our kids were growing up as we were growing wealth they they weren't born into wealth they were just it was just there by the time they were grown one thing is my friend Andy Anders says don't raise kids to be great kids raise kids to be great adults and so teach them critical thinking skills if I'm making you do something in you're 8 years old and we're having a big argument about it all the time I haven't really explained to you why I'm making you do it like you need to brush your teeth I want to brush my teeth I come up here I trush my teeth your toothbrush is dry now you lied and you didn't brush your teeth now we got two problems right and this has happened at the Remy house I can just tell it sounds like it has who's not brushing your teeth so what what's the big deal about brushing your teeth cuz you know I want adult children that have teeth that's why you do it right I mean how do you want them to turn out out I want them to have you know you know daughters are going on a date my son's going on a date in high school it's like uh I kind of think that's person's scummy that you why would you do that um because you might end up with them and then your life's going to suck you know if you you know plug your life into scummy over here and so we teach them I used to say we've got great in-laws I mean my daughter-in-law my two sons-in-law are fabulous they're world class and I used to say man I hit the in-law Lottery before Allison came along married Daniel and now it's I hit the in-law Lottery right but I quit saying that CU it wasn't it wasn't accidental I taught them how to pick and they picked well what qualities do you teach them to look for in a person that they pick like that I think it's kind of Common Sense everyone would answer that probably the same somewhat the same anyway uh Integrity work ethic uh a desire to serve others to not be abusive uh you know toxic human beings are going to exude toxicity right um and in our case we're a family of faith and so we're you know are you walking with God and so because that's going to lead you to these other character qualities as well is how it's happened with me in my life and happened with my kids so um you know but it wasn't like some kind of legalistic things like you must marry a Baptist no it's wasn't that it was more like look these are values that we have and here's a place you're going to find them is with people that think that way even then obviously they're uh they come from uh different things and so you know every one of my kids has 100% of them have had fights with their spouses 100% of them uh spend time learning how to be married and often times see a marriage counselor or therapist that's there's nothing wrong with that that's just training and that but we taught them to do that too so we did it Shar and I did it so why not and so um read books on how to do marriage if you want to be married well and so all that stuff so all of that's the second answer your question Jack is how do you raise kids in a wealthy family the wealth doesn't ruin them wealth does not ruin people it exposes who they are wealth is ambivalent it's it's uh amoral it doesn't and in the case of you or me too it it it just magnifies Who I Am the good parts of me the bad parts of me get really big the more money I have so if someone has a problem with their temper and they get wealth and and they're rageaholic and nobody wants to be around them they're absolute bully out of control you know or if they're kind and very giving and they get wealth they become known for their generosity worldwide for their generosity it's like it's they're like a picture of generosity but they were already a person who was generous or they had already developed the generosity muscle before they got wealth they didn't suddenly become generous because they got wealth it just exposed who they are and the same's true with kids so if you raise kids that are lazy that don't work hard that don't tell the truth that lie that are intitled because they grew up and you know they were born on third base thought they hit a triple right then you give the money well they're going to be useless but they were already useless the wealth just showed us that how do you test Financial compatibility with a partner and is that something you could change about a person you can present someone the option to change and then they decide to change but you can't change other people on anything uh all I can do is present an idea and then you decide if you're going to pick it up or not you know the way we've taught it on the air for years is the the data tells us that if you can agree on four things prior to marriage the probability of you still being married 40 years later is very high if you can agree on your money because when you agree on how money is going to be handled you're agreeing on your fears you're agreeing on on your anxieties you're agreeing on your dreams you're agreeing on your values because money flows to those things so if you can agree on your money it's very important if you can agree on kids how many we going to have how we going to raise them are we going to be are we going to manage the children or are they going to manage us you know that kind of stuff um in-laws crazy as in the family cuz there every family's got crazy in it and if you don't think there's crazy in your family it means it's you and so um you know so anyway you got to deal you got how we going to have boundaries in other words and then the fourth is be in agreement on religion if we're going to be uh atheists then let's both you know let's be in agreement about that if we're going to be Christian you know it's been there very few cross religion marriages end up making it long term because again it's a value system thing sure it's what your it's how you live your life how you your decision-making Paradigm comes out of your value system and so that ends up there so the data says if you agree on those four things so once I know that and by the way number one cause of divorce is money problems and money fights if I know that and I'm dating then it becomes very important if we're going to get married that we're compatible or that we at least agree prior to marriage okay now you could start out and be going you know in the uh like in the case of uh Rachel tells the story of Winston taking her out on their first date and they used a credit card to buy the pizza you know and so you don't throw Winston away because he used used a credit card in the Ramsey family right did she want to yeah uh he he bought the pizza it's his problem right and so um you know that that's what's necessary but the um someone explained to Winston later on that's Dave Ramsey's daughter used a credit card you're you know made fun of him and then it was became a funny thing later but uh but you know that's not an indication that we're not compatible on one date it just said okay there's a thing there that the ramies don't use credit cards so we got to talk about this ahead of time and we got to decide how we're going to do that um so typically you don't have to be you don't want to be the same like my wife is a saver and I'm a spender my wife is a scarcity person and I'm an abundance person so risk I I'm more much heavier risk tolerance than she has um and and you need that balance that counterbalance um Larry brette used to say if two people just like get married one of you is unnecessary so you don't want to be just alike but you do need to have a value system like if if you detest for instance in our case detest being in debt you can't stand it and you marry somebody who just is going to borrow all the time you're going to have a problem hello I mean that no kidding and so or you like to have a plan and know where things are going and the other person refuses to participate in that you're going to have a problem but there's other stuff going on there beneath the surface anyway it's more than more than just the money the money is just revealing it I'm curious on finances and what keeps people poor how often can you chalk it up to systemic issues like credit and you know payday loans and different predatory loans taking advantage of people versus their own responsibility financial literacy versus just you know not being subjected to financial literacy as they're growing up yeah could be the economy too or could be the economy yeah that upbringing I think it's everything it's um it's all of those things and so where do we chalk it up to the ones that those of us like me that make it out I mean I didn't grow up with any money so what's the difference in me and my next door neighbor we had the same skin color we had the same accent we had the same uh elementary school and then why am I sitting here and he's not uh in terms of net worth okay what's different um so the systemic things are there and and they do take pockets of people and and there are industries that as you said you know from a Biblical perspective we would say he oppressed the poor it's one of the most horrible things you can do to take advantage of a widow and orphan and the poor you know it's just it's antihuman it's evil and so these businesses that feed on the poor are just they have at their very core a detestable immorality and so they are oppressors of the poor Lord help them you know it's not going to go well for them so you don't want to be a person that picks on the poor uh uh you instead want to be someone that lifts them up or helps someone not be poor but Mike Todd said I've been rich and I've been broke but I've never been poor poor is a state of mind and so it's um oh people like us you know we can't get ahead Eeyore is my spirit animal oh it's bad thank God it's Friday oh God it's Monday the little man can't get ahead we're stuck I sure hope the president fixes my life it's a victim mentality or an entitlement ality that causes you to not take action and put corn in the ground and then you're shocked there is no corn crop you have to plant something if you want something to grow there is no exceptions to that rich poor any skin color any sex Any Nation you come from if you want corn no exceptions you have to plant corn if you want something to come into your life you have to cause that cause and effect wise what to happen it's like in the investing world that we all talk about all the time the interesting statistic is 96% one study showed of whether someone is able to build wealth in their retirement plan has to do with whether they actually put money in it it's not the rate of return it's not the 12 B1 fees it's not no load versus load it's not bogal passive investing versus buying mutual funds from a broker it's none of that it's did you actually take action and put money into the freaking account you know and did you plant the corn you know did you plant the corn don't and then you stand back and go well the corn reason the corn didn't grow is I didn't have right fer fertilizer no you put no corn in the ground you know and so there is definitely uh Prejudice out there because there's ignorant people out there there's definitely racism out there there's ignorant people out there there's definitely sexism out there because there's ignorant people out there and those are systemic things that affect your personal economy it affects the opportunities that are in front of you it affects all of those things but there are yet and yet in every one of those cases we can find many many examples who people that overcame those things I mean I'm from the south and I have a Southern accent which by definition for some people in the north because they're stereotypically idiots uh they immediately assume that because I have a Southern accent that my IQ is lower than theirs that's you know but is that a barrier for my broadcast yes I had to go take voice and and get some of I got rid of about 80% of my country fried redneck accent I kept a little for flavor but um but the uh but you know but I I had to work on that because people in Boston are like I don't even know what he's saying and it can't be right because it sounds like he's broadcasting from a double wide you know and so but that's a barrier that's a systemic barrier and so you've got to deal with okay that's a blocker uh how much has they got to get over it and how much have I got to get over it and how much is somebody saying you're never going to make it because of that and I go make it anyway but before we get into that running a business can be incredibly rewarding but obviously you still need the basics and fundamentals down if you want your business to run smoothly this includes items like a CPA bookkeeper separate Payroll Solutions and so on plus and I say this from experience the more your business scales the more complicated it gets and the more you need to pay attention to this well with today's sponsor Collective you can make sure that you don't only just do that but you also save thousands of dollars and countless hours in the meantime Collective is the solution for contractors Freelancers and self-employed entrepreneurs that 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there social media just gave my voice sure but do you feel like other people hearing victim mentalities online they could more relate to it and they get and it might again they just it's a it's a campfire they can get around it's just a very large campfire sure and that tribe is the victim tribe and you you know you found your people and you know it's a bunch of trolls and um you know I'm going to whine and gripe and blame everybody else and it's this and that it's this and that because I refuse to go plant corn you know yes I'm I'm I'm validating and saying I hear you I see you that those things are real they've happened to me you know you here's a weird one okay the number of people that are successful on network television that have no hair that are male think about it I None yeah okay so I'm I'm a victim of baldis you have some hair but hey I refuse to go get a tpay or a hair implant so I'm probably not going to be on the cool Channel with the HD beautiful people I'm on there as a guest cuz I'm a dancing animal but but other than that yeah when you were losing your hair did you ever have the desire to get a transplant to toe or like try to keep it at all or you just embracing it for a while I didn't think anything about it and then it was gone and I thought well now it's on a book cover and so if I go get a if I go get hair then they're going to go wait minute you used to not have hair and that's weird and you know so I'm you know it's like glasses I could I you know I wear contacts you know when I'm playing golf or scuba or doing anything Sports wise you know we do a lot of water skiting I wear contacts I wear contacts almost all weekend uh or when I get home but I you know but 25 million books with these glasses so it was like Dave what' you do what you do what's different what's different took the glasses off but yeah so I still wear the glasses that's we did a podcast recently with Ty Lopez who said that he keeps his glasses on even though he got lasic and he takes the frames out so that when he's on camera you don't see the reflection of the glasses oh wow because his brand is so recognizable with him wearing glasses yeah I couldn't get lasic so I didn't do that but I actually have some blanks they're glasses but they don't have any prescription in them in case I've got the in in case I got contacts in I can reach in my backpack and throw them on and jump on stage and not think anything about it oh my gosh yeah it's crazy but I mean it it's just no I never thought anything about it I don't it's not I I I've never been uh I'm not one of the Blessed people that um has been able to open doors using my appearance so it's never been an issue so going back to money um do people just know what's what they should be doing and what's best for them and why don't they do that if people know they should just contribute what do you think the reason is that they just decide I'm not going to do this I know I should be saving but I'll do that tomorrow I'm not positive but I think it has something to do with hope um I like pizza but I know if I eat like the whole thing that I'm going to continue to be an Loompa I'm going to continue to be overweight right and so so why is it that you know um a I don't want to pay the price to get the different result or B I don't believe that if I do it it's really going to work that's that's called hopelessness lack of Hope and so I don't believe if I save money I can really be a millionaire and even if I became a millionaire million is not enough and so I'm not going to do any of it just cuz I don't believe it's going to end up with a better life for having saved that money so I'll just spend the money and have a great great weekend and then Monday I'll be broke and have anxiety about my money again because I don't believe it's going to work but so half of our job on Ramsey show has been over these decades is to inject hope cause people with math or cause people with a discussion or cause people with uh humor or a story or someone else's debt free scream to believe they can do it it's one of the reasons we have eight bazillion debt free screams on YouTube because I'll guarantee you there's somebody like whoever's watching this like you there's somebody like you on there CU I mean there's 8 million I don't know how many hundreds and thousands now of those debt free screams on there so there's a single mom that's 52 years old that cuts hair and she's on there and so if you're a single mom and you cut hair she's on there she did it it makes that's social proof you know makes her believe she can do it that's hope and and sometimes you hear me just do it with math and you go you know $100 a month save for 25 to 65 is you know going to be somewhere around a million million and a half depending on what your rate of return is but 10 to 12% somewhere in there that's what you're going to have $100 a month so shut up go do it they go I didn't know I could do that that sounds attainable sounds like I could do it well you can do it you can do it and or I got $100,000 in student loan debt and I don't know how I'm going to get out okay well what do you make $100,000 okay well what about $25,000 for 4 years you could be out in four years or what about $33,000 for 3 years could you do that or could you work a little extra and be done in two years and live on almost absolutely nothing and your friends think you're crazy yeah I never thought of that but sixth grade math I did a long division from the sixth grade no Insight here it's just hope that is so I've never thought about it being hope but it makes sense it makes because the math really is so easy it is sorry yeah you're fine you're good that is that is a that is a unique take I did not expect you to say that but I I actually really like that you would never go to the trouble to go out in the sun with a hoe and dig up the ground and put the corn in the ground and then make sure it was watered and then make sure the weeds are killed and then keep the animals off of it so that the corn would grow you would never go to that trouble if you didn't believe corn was going to grow that's hope why would you plant corn and go to all that trouble it's easier to sit at home watch Tiger King on Netflix I mean why would you go to all that trouble right you know why would I put myself out there why would I risk embarrassment why would I um sweat versus not sweat why would I be tired versus not be tired unless I believed it was going to work I think that can be applied to just taking action in any direction in life as well same as like you know maybe being a YouTuber a lot of people they they want to be a YouTuber but they feel like even if they put in all the time and effort to make all these videos and put themselves out there they're not going to be successful at it so why bother in the first place well 100% of them that don't try won't get there true yeah I mean we've done detailed research right true true so I mean you may just embarrass yourself you probably will actually I do certain I've made a good living embarrassing myself but but yeah it's uh sometimes I look back and I go what in the world are you doing there's one running around YouTube right now somebody posted on there uh of me at on a Christian bad it was like a Saturday Night Live skit bad Christian TV and I'm on there and and it was like I was 31 years old it was 31 years ago and I'm just like yeah and you can get out of dead and here's what this says and I'm saying it's very country fried and I got this little combover going cuz I hadn't lost my hair yet to your point and all this stuff but and but the comments on YouTube are like he still he's saying it better now he actually looks better now but he's saying exactly the same thing it's like yeah that's true it's still the same thing but it's somebody dug that up and oh it's it's it's a clown show it's awful look at what's something that you think you could be doing better about your own finances I could spend more time um more carefully and aggressive aggressively is not the word more intentionally uh investing I'm a little bit halfhazard I just buy a mutual fund put it on a pilot forget I own it I you know I'm looking at real estate and I'm checking I check my llc's I check the you know the rent rolls I check that stuff I you know I don't like vacancies you know I don't like tenis not paying I want I'm going to know that stuff but I haven't sat and went okay I could move that and I could do that and can manipulate that I probably could do a lot better at that I I I tend to set it and let it go too much and that's not a that's not a suggestion people it's saying saying a weakness it's something I could do better at the good news is I'm a little bit add a lot and so if I screwed with it as much as my brain told me to I would have undone half the good stuff that happened by leaving it alone so it's worked to my advantage to set it and forget it a little bit but I'm also missing some things that I could I could tighten up some stuff and do a little better but it's not it's it's okay we're okay I have a question on one of the I would say one of the most common critic criticisms that people have of you which is kind of like this undertone of a slight refusal to change which would be obviously the debt thing which I actually don't NE I I agree with that I like your debt takes but also unlike the Thousand emergency fund and other aspects that you've kind of like held true for I don't know 30 probably yeah 30 plus years at this point do you think that overall that's worked in your advantage do you think that maybe you've cemented yourself in with these positions a little bit too hard or are you content and satisfied with it what do you think about changing in on these like core beliefs could that be productive well there's two buckets that those things fall into um and uh uh not to be smart alic or anything but if we thought that we needed to change them we would have changed them they're not said it and forget it there stuff we we see the criticism we go well you just didn't understand this or didn't understand that but so so uh for me your most powerful wealth building tool is your income and when you don't have any debt you have you've eliminated the vast majority of risk and you've freed up this cash flow to Bill wealth and um and if then in an asset the same thing occurs for instance a piece of real estate if it's paid for the cash flow is going zoom zoom it cash flows more than if you have debt on it duh you don't have a payment so you've increased your cash flow you've lowered your risk you've increased your cash flow you've lowered your risk stay out of debt and so mathematically and I've proven in my personal life and tens of millions of people have proven it becoming baby steps millionaires that you know going on that path so that's a principle for me that falls kind of like it's the law of gravity MH you can either like it or not like it but it's still a law it's still that's just so no I'm not changing that one that one's not that one's not mine that's something I observed you know wealthy people doing I observed it in scripture I've observed it where in places where I felt like I had a body of truth that this is a it's as Dependable as a law of gravity for for in another one is you know I'm not ever going to tell you to to that budgeting doesn't work because 100% of businesses that are successful budget each p&l within the business I've got 14 pnls inside Ramsey we budget those we not because I'm Dave Ramsey but because that's how you run a freaking business you know you don't you don't accidentally become successful it's it's a you know we plan it and then we measure against the plan we plan it and we measure against the plan and uh Zig Ziggler said if you aim at nothing you'll hit it every time and so you plan it and you measure against the plan same thing as the succession we were talking about earlier all of that you plan it you measure against the plan you got to have a survivability index God help us you know you plan it you measure against the plan and so you know someone there's been books or people come out and say you don't need to do a budget budgets are stupid budget no they're not it's the only possible way to win no one accidentally wins at anything so that's a principle like the law of gravity the Thousand thing is different um that's not a principle that's just a baby step and we could change it if we wanted to but if someone says well $1,000 is not enough of course it's not enough it wasn't enough when I put it in place 20 years ago it wasn't intended to be enough we're not saying a $1,000 emergency fund is adquate it's more adequate than zero and it's and it it makes you a little bit scared because you only have a th so you get your button gear and get out of Deb and baby step two using the Deb snowball then I did my job it's not supposed to be adequate and so you know it needs to be inflation adjusted well inflation adjusted means that it was adequate no it's not adequate 3 to 6 months of expenses is a proper emergency fund that's baby step three after you're out of debt that's adequate and that automatically adjusts because it the way the formula is it's it inflation adjusts or whatever 3 to six months of expenses are different today than they were when I started teaching it 25 years ago but the formula inflation inflation adjust right the $1,000 was never meant to be adequate it's meant to be inadequate uh to keep get you you know get you off the couch and get you go get out of debt people that follow The Total Money Makeover baby steps for financial piece they're out of debt not counting their house on average 18 24 months that's your risk window for living off $1,000 it's not like I'm saying for the rest of your life you should only have $1,000 of course I didn't say that so that would of course I should be criticized if I said that and yes I should change that if I said that but I didn't say that that's not how this works the way it works is three we're trying to get to three to six months of expenses that does inflation adjust you know I'm still putting all the rest of the baby steps do automatically adjust by the way the formulas are set 15% of your income going into retirement five doesn't have a formula put money for your kids college was very vague because we don't know what how old your kid is or how many kids you got or how wealthy you are or whatever so you got but you need to be doing something for educating your kiddos so they don't live in your basement and so all this stuff and and you know uh so everything all this stuff moves 25% of your income going to going to a thing it's 25% of your income why does that happen going to going to a 15-year fixed rate mortgage for your personal residence why that automatically adjusts with interest rates it automatically adjusts with house prices um so it doesn't need to be changed if you put more than that in you're still going to have sque squeezed your disposable income you still don't have the margin to invest the margin to be generous you don't have the margin to buy a couch so you put the stupid thing on 90 days same as cash and then you wonder why your butt's in debt because you didn't keep margin in your budget that's why these are basic things but they're all formula based except the $1,000 and I never intended it to be adequate and I guess it makes sense when you look at just baby steps it is a baby step uh I like what you said about your principles the ones that have never changed it's not actually based off of what you believe to be true but it's on objective reality and you kind of just see yourself as a mouthpiece for that reality that's best practices I mean you I went when I went broke and went and talked to Old rich people and they all told me the same thing live on less than you make get on a budget stay out of debt and I wasn't doing any of that that's why I went broke I was deeply in debt didn't have a plan I thought I could out earn my stupidity how did you get that hope though after that I was hopeless so I was I was at the bottom I was bankrupt everything was gone you know and so man I got hungry kids and a wife that wants to leave but she doesn't have a car and you know but uh yeah so I'm like I got to you know the stuff I was told apparently didn't work cuz I did it perfectly I mean I I believed The Leverage thing and went all in baby and you know it hit me in the back of the head and it wasn't cuz I was dumb I was anything but dumb I was really good at it how did you keep your marriage together during that time the truth is probably too much information probably too much information but anyway the the um um we used to laugh and say we held on to each other just to get a better grip you know it's like we fought a lot uh it was really brutal but the uh uh cuz she was really scared she was terrified and my self-esteem was destroyed because I got my uh confidence Out of My Success and when my success was gone I didn't I wasn't there anymore I was just a shell um I was an arrogant little jerk and so I had to rebuild we were not just broke we were broken and so um that's why I can still hear it when people call that are in I can hear it in their voice even all these years later I can it still hits me and my stomach gets up in my throat but the um we had two little babies a and there really weren't any good options I mean leaving wasn't going to fix it uh although we fought like crazy but um so we just said um do the next thing do the next thing get up go to work get some money pay the light bill get the lights turned back on get up go to work get the water turned back on get up go to work and change the diaper and feed the kid and take the kid to school and put some gas in the car and we really were just almost zombified you know literally living um dayto day emotionally and we did that until we started making money again and I I got back into six figures which in those days was substantial money and um uh we went about three years and then everything kind of we got we weren't rich but I mean we were not desperate anymore broke we were paying our bills and we had money and we could go to the grocery store and not freak out we had a budget and we were out of debt and all this stuff we almost out of debt and once all that happened then all of those stored up feelings that we had stuffed down just to get the day-to-day done rose up and that's when we almost divorced was 3 years later really cuz we'd stuffed it down you know and then it just blew up it boiled and blew up and we ended up sitting with the marriage counselor for like 3 years after that and um that lady to this day is one of our best friends she saved Our Lives she saved our marriage so I'm curious how does your wife get over not blaming you for that situation and maybe not holding on to any resentment and how did you get back your self-esteem do you think think that was just because you started making more money and then that came back or do you think you worked on something differently within yourself part of it was a spiritual walk um a psychological emotional walk and that I realize I put my faith in the wrong things you know if if you put your faith in stuff or in your net worth then it's always going to let you down that's a hollow thing it's a good thing to do to go do those things but putting your faith in that and or or drawing your self-esteem from that you know it's um it's gone and what determines whether I like me what determines whether I'm a good person or not is not based on my net worth or based on my cash flow or based on any of those things those aren't those can be results of being a good person and doing the right disciplined things that we were talking about earlier but uh but they're results they're not they're not causal and so uh just becoming a person of character I want to become a good dad I want to become a good husband I want to become opening a business a good leader I want to I want to learn how to I want to be somebody that when I look back and I'm 80 years old look back and go that that was a pretty good ride you know not look back and go man I wish I hadn't done that I wish I hadn't done that I wish there's a lot of stuff I've done that dumb but I don't want to do things of character that character problems that regret so that changing that and then with her um you know her Terror came from her bless her heart she thought she had married sir Galahad and it turns out it was goober you know I mean it was like the guy that she counted on let her down and so she had to also say oh I'm not I can't place my faith in him and then over time how did she have confidence in me well it's track record I mean it's like uh if somebody was an alcoholic and I've got a good friend alcoholic he's been he got his 20-year coin the other day not hadn't touched alcohol in 20 years and uh his wife really trusts him now but 20 days after he went to AA she didn't trust him yet but he's got a good you know he's been a he's not been an alcoholic for a long long time well he would say he's still an alcoholic but you know what I'm saying he's not drinking right uh for a long long time and so uh the further we get from this and the more wealth we get the more she realizes I'm not the guy the same person that made those bad decisions I'm not this crazy risk-taking fool that believes that you know that the rules don't apply to me in terms of the principle of debt free that kind of stuff so fact that we've lived these principles and we still do at the Ramsey and one of those principles is I don't do things um uh we said in the old days we don't buy anything over $300 without talking about it today we would say we don't do things of size without talking about them we don't do give large charitable gifts um without us agreeing that that's a good thing to give that to a good person to help a good situation that we want to put money into I don't just say hey honey look what I did I don't go buy a boat I don't go buy a car to this day I still don't I call her and go hey this is what I'm looking at I'm thinking about this I just found this I think I might get it is it okay with you yeah that's fine so I'm curious do you guys have any Financial disagreements today or is mostly anything almost everything's good at this point like if you say I want to buy this boat would she ever say no I don't like that boat's too big too much money I don't know if a disagreement is like no you should not do that yes I want to do that is type of disagreement but what we do is she says I think I want to go to um she's did a trip with a bunch of girls went to a dude ranch a bunch of her friends all right she said I don't think I want to do that I said okay how you doing that I'm doing this and this and this and I said um I think you ought to do it but you probably ought to do it this way the travel arrangements and the other stuff and she went I thought of that yeah okay so that if that's a disagreement then you know we take each other's input and so um you know uh uh but even on little stuff we do that and so that's just communication and a relationship is what it amounts to but I did all kinds of stuff that Sharon didn't even know I did not because I was hiding it from from her I just didn't need her permission before and I mean we've owned real estate to this day we'll go out to eat somewhere and I'll go hey you know 40 years ago we owned that house right there for about two days I flipped it and she's like you're kidding no she goes a friend of mine lived in that house and I went like 10 years after I flipped it right but but she's like but she's I bought houses the woman had never seen you know that's weird if you think about it but nowadays we would never do that we get ready to buy a commercial property or we'll get in the car and we'll go drive on Sunday afternoon I go WN and I are looking at doing this deal over here and here's the numbers on it she yeah okay but um most of the time that's what it sounds like but very very few things but again we've got 30 years of doing it right and doing it with lots of communication and lots of agreement um we're building our third house together and that one will test you yeah sure cuz you argue about stuff all the time I mean we were picking out cabinet hardware for God's sakes last night and I'm like I don't like that she goes my kitchen I went good point get it if you want it so she gets the kitchen what do you get I'm guessing the garage the basement I mean there's all kinds of stuff I get believe me I get I get plenty but it's you know and I'm like and I didn't hate it I just didn't like it you know and it's like I'm not a decorator screw it whatever I'm curious how do you change where you draw your self-esteem from where you place your values from all of these like external things like status wealth respect from other people and stuff like that where you were beforehand through that transition of like I guess more internally facing values like do you respect yourself are you a good man are you a good husband are you a good father to to your kids how do you like make that your primary thing I imagine it takes a lot of time it it it is not an instantaneous process it's a it's a decision it's a series of decisions uh I guess um I feel like it's a biological thing to to command respect from other people to want to elevate your status oh I think we all do that I mean I want to be liked I don't like all the dayve Ramsey hate that's out there I don't love that it hurts my feelings I'm human being you know it doesn't but but the difference is do I draw my self-worth from the comments on YouTube oh God help us that's a good point that would be bad right be very bad yeah that would be horrible it'll change by the day yeah the video it's like I can't decide if I like me or not oh God I mean that's that's a funny way of saying the whole thing in a way is um am I taking a poll uh and that's what affirmation is from anybody the thing I had to figure out was if I'm going to listen to someone uh and let them have influence over my emotions and over my decisions it needs to be people really close to me that love me not people in the distant world of the internet throwing grenades they don't get a vote um and so they think they've got a vote which is humorous to me but they don't have a vote I don't even read the stuff I mean George kemel he follows all this stuff he' come in and tell me stuff they're saying I'm like really that's fun let's do a little bit on that and uh but I don't I don't sit cuz I don't take a poll I'm not I didn't say what I said or do what I did to make that person over there happy I did it to help somebody else and if it didn't work it didn't work anyway so how do you change that it's a decision where you place it in my case I cheated Jack because everything I believed in was taken from me when I went through bankruptcy my status uh my confidence uh my belief in uh the financial principles that I had learned getting a finance degree which are all leverage-based uh my you know my wife's uh um admiration was gone my uh I I don't know there was no you had to find something I didn't have a choice in my case so I cheated but if you got a choice I guess you'd have to just choose and say you know what this feels shallow I feel like a reality star instead of a human and so this feels like a shallow way to look at life and I'm not I'm going to just choose not to do that anymore and sometimes we see people in the public eye do that to their credit they they decide okay they got into it from a very shallow appearance-based perspective or whatever else and then later on we find out you know they really there's a lot of character in there and they just they made some transitions later on but it's it's a series of choices it might be growing up a little bit that might be part of it we're talking about changing for the better for your own personal finances and you said it's hope and I feel like it's a combination of both hope and necessity like your finances need to get so bad to the point of like I have to change but I also believe that if I do change I can make a difference you know yeah but also you know that would not be um necessity wouldn't drive Graham to do an investment that he's never done that would be he would change but the reason he would change is Hope true only it wouldn't be necessity he would just be we go that looked pretty good I've never been over in that space but everything I've seen about good I talk to that guy it's good I got that that pretty good and I get best practices there and there's some track record there I can and you know you line up your basic principles of investing but you could go to a place you've never been to that's uncomfortable change uh based only on the hope it doesn't require necessity you don't have to go broke to um learn to stay out of debt you don't have to go broke to learn to be on a budget you don't have to go through drug rehab to figure out drugs are bad you know you can you know have to hit bottom to do it but it it's it's a thorough teacher uh but I don't recommend it yeah we we just got the sign we only have 5 minutes left I have two questions the first question is I was talking with someone they're well off financially and I asked them if they could go back in time would they have changed anything and they said maybe just maybe take it a little bit easier during like their most active years where their body was at Peak Physical performance to like go out experience the World Travel and enjoy those things while they were young what do you think about that there there's nothing wrong with that idea um but again I I feel like we intentionally made all of those decisions at the time because it's always a tradeoff and you just want to do your trade-offs intentionally okay so if if we're going to go on a trip and not work a we're going to be out the money for the trip B we're going to be out the money that we didn't work and so if I'm I had a opportunity the other day to um do a speaking gig at a a substantial fee but I had already promised my wife were going to be in another country at that time and we've already booked the trip and I would lose I would lose that but I could have net it out and but I I've already decided what I'm going to do and so it's a trade-off I made an intentional decision tradeoff so we've always done that intentionally so I don't have regrets on that I don't I don't wish I had done it another way I mean I wish I hadn't been as stupid as I've been sometimes but I guess everybody's done that LE but yeah but but no in general in general that it's not a bad idea but I I feel like I've been intentional enough that feels like someone that's they just kind of did stuff on autopilot rather than thinking about what's the trade-off what's the trade-off what's the trade-off and um so like we traveled and I mean I work my butt off going and doing Live Events and this kind of stuff and but we said all right the trade-off is not fair if we don't Book Live Events on kids birthdays so I'm at home I did not miss a kid's birthday I coached Daniel's ice hockey team when he was a little guy and I didn't miss those games I booked booked events around those and if somebody came up and said well you can come to no I already made this other commitment to my son I'm going to do that so I made it intentional trade-offs I either gave up business for personal and and when I didn't I gave up personal for business but on a a wise way a wise enough way that the kids didn't lose their minds because they didn't have a dad how do you find the balance between that how do you know how much time to spend with your family versus how much time spending with the business number one that's something Sharon I talk about a lot so in the old days when I was go go go go go sometimes she and my assistant Patty who's been with me 23 years they would come in and go you're tired uh you're you're you're burning it we need to dial this back both of them they they would gang up on me and I go you know what you're kind of right I had thought about it I was just getting it I just out there getting it I was hustling grinding so people in my life that I love that that I trust to help me dial it back and keep it in Balance um and and it's never in Balance uh uh in the moment ever it's always in Balance over time in other words I'm 100% at work right now so I'm not in Balance yeah you know but over the scope of this week you know Sharon and I had dinner last night out just the two of us so in the scope of this week I've been a husband in the scope of this week I'm keeping my grandson tonight I'll be Papa Dave you know in the scope of this week I get a balance or scope of this year I get a balance if you're training for a marathon you're not in balance in that six or eight 10 week period of time you're you're running in the morning and you're running hours not just minutes you know that kind of a thing and I've done like 15 half marathons so you're not in balance in the moment but but you get people in your life and you look for balance over time over a block of time and then you don't get caught up in the well I don't want to work much cuz I'm such a good dad bull okay or I work all the time because it's so important that a good dad provides that I never see my children you know that's dumb too okay so we got to vasolate between these things you talk to your son every single Tuesday Daniel we do and I want to know are there certain things that you share with him about life about fulfillment about business practices because you're trying to train him to take over the entire company eventually one day at least that's from what I've imagined yeah are there certain things that you share with him that you haven't shared publicly certain values certain beliefs that you think will take him far or is it all just no there's no secrets no secrets there's no secrets it's just life and you know we have breakfast every Tuesday morning and we get those things in we also get those things in when we're arguing about something we also get those things in when we're in operating board member and there's six of us working on a project together um that those things just show up in the Rhythm of Life uh we might sit and talk about football at breakfast okay sure yeah final question to end it off Jack really short one if you could borrow $1 billion 0% interest for 10 years would you do it no no easy question no question even though you could put it in treasuries and pay off after the 10 years lock in 10e treasury right now 10 or 5% no no it's not worth it no I I don't borrow money there we go love it thank you so much for your time I really appreciate this you just got to remind everyone to subscribe and hit the like button hey subscribe hit the like button it's the iced coffee hour right here it is thank you guys for watching awesome enjoyed becoming friends with you too thanks for hanging out have us back anytime thank you everyone in the production room thank you cool beautiful thank you so much we could easily go another two hours doing this