E498 Dave Ramsey

24:50Yeah, I thought I was going to be on the radio and sell some books on getting out of debt. And, I mean, who knew I needed 400 people in a tech department, you know? And so it's the same thing. You're exactly right. But the good news is that, like you said earlier, it's an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to grow. That way you don't just stay in the pressure washing business. And so I still enjoy the stage. I still enjoy being on the radio, on the podcast, the YouTube every day. We still do that show every day, three hours a day. I still enjoy all that stuff, but I also enjoy running this place.

25:24I'm running it with my son. He's the president now. That's awesome. We had breakfast this morning, and we're having a lot of fun working on the problems and looking at the new opportunities and all that. So the entrepreneurial side is fun. Yeah. Elevate every morning with Tommy John second skin underwear. Ooh. Don't you want more skin on you? Feeling groovy. What you put in your pants can make or break your day. We know that. Elevate every morning with Tommy John Second Skin Underwear. Tommy John's stylish and soft second skin underwear has dozens of comfort innovations like a supportive contour pouch and breathable, lightweight, moisture-wicking fabric with four times the stretch of competing brands.

26:14That's a lot. You know, I've been trying different pairs of boxer briefs for the past few months, and I'll say that Tommy John, they really got my number. That second skin, it's just like, God, it's just like feeling like part of your body's already in heaven. They do it well. Shop Tommy John's Friends and Family Sale right now and get 25 % off site-wide, dang, at TommyJohn.com slash Theo. that's right save 25 for a limited time at tommyjohn.com slash t-h-e-o tommyjohn.com slash theo see site for details you know when we started selling um a t-shirt online my friend kevin made it in his basement and he would ship it out and then um and then it grew and people wanted a different shirt and we put up something else and then a hoodie and then we had sometimes to have more and sometimes we had too much.

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28:01That's ShipStation.com and use code T-H-E-O. um what do you say to like employees who want to talk to their uh employer about getting a raise or getting like what is a good way to approach an employer about that kind of stuff like you know a lot of stuff in business like that are relationship things if you'll just switch the moccasins a minute where they're moccasins so if you weren't if you were the supervisor or you're the owner of the business how would you want someone to talk to you about it and so i I mean, I really appreciate when our folks come in and go, hey, you know, I'm making this and, you know, here's two or three positions in the marketplace that are more for the same position.

28:43And so, you know, what I'm curious about is what I can do to be worth what those people are doing. Because I want to be worth more to the business. And if they say it that way, oh, man, I'm like, yeah, okay, here, yeah. Matter of fact, you know, we probably have overlooked that. We probably just need to give you a raise. But maybe, yeah, maybe there's three things you need to do to level up to be ready to do that. And so it's an opportunity for growth and those kinds of things. Because really, if you're an employer, your team has to make you more or save you more than they cost. Or by definition, you go out of business mathematically.

29:18And so if you'll look at that as a team member, it's like, how can I add more value than I cost or save more money and depend on what they're working on? but then I cost, then, you know, it's kind of a no brainer unless the employer's a jerk and greedy or whatever. But most employers are just trying to figure it out too. We're just trying to go, especially small business people. I mean, we love our people, their family to us. And, you know, we want to, we want to help them win. We want their kids to go to college. We want to be with them 20 years and watch them grow up. You know, we want all that.

29:50We want good stuff for you. But we also don't want to close because we overpaid everybody and didn't make any stinking money. So then everybody loses. So you've got this balance. Employers got that stress they're carrying. So if you'll keep that in mind when you're asking, how can I add value that's more than I cost or save you more than I cost, then like I've got a lady in logistics. I mean, she saved us several hundred thousand dollars with contract negotiations with our logistics people and shipping more than she cost. Well, it's easy to say, yeah, you're worth that. that's a no-brainer i like sharing with her i mean we always tell people around here if you kill it and drag it home you know go out there kill it drag it to the cave i'll share it with you let's figure it out you know you bring in a million dollars in revenue we we can probably divvy that up we can probably figure out something to do with that yeah you know i don't i don't need to take it all home but also i don't need to give it all to one person either so we figure this out and um you can do that when you're adding value and so just look at it that way not like But on the other hand, I had a guy come in years ago, a long time ago, and he'd been to school half his life.

30:58He had more degrees than a thermometer. And he just, you know, he said, hey, man, you know, at these big companies, people that got this many degrees, they make a certain amount of money. And he said, I'm not making that here. We need to adjust my income. And I said, well, dude, I'm sorry. This is a small business. Your raise is effective when you are. we don't pay you for degrees we pay you for bringing in more than you cost and and right now you're not so you know he left and went work for corporate america where they'll pay him for those degrees and they can get away with that but small business can't do that yeah yeah what do you say like what is some of the add or even just like to to get a little bit more minute with it like what are just say somebody's out there listening like man i feel like i want to talk to my boss about a razor.

31:48I wonder how do they, what are some, should they tell themselves certain things to prep themselves to go in there? If they, should it just be comfortable? Because it's just a space where a lot of people get really uncomfortable, I think, you know? Yeah. You know, anytime I'm in a situation like that where I'm uncomfortable, where there's conflict or a negotiation, if you want to call it that, I found that the more options I have, the calmer I am. and so if there's only one thing i mean if i don't get this i'm dead but if you got like six people wanting to hire you and you know you want to go and go uh hey i you know i'd like to stay and i like it here and i like you i want to work but i got all this other stuff your body language changes you know you're yeah you're not you don't have to be cocky about it you know have swagger in or something but but you can come in with a lot of confidence if you've got options but if you've got it all dialed in.

32:40It's just one thing. And if I don't get this one thing, the whole thing's over and you add this drama, then you tighten up. You can feel that energy in there too. And it changes the conversation. Your vocal cords change even. Yeah. Yeah. And there can be things, even if it's not financial, you could get, well, is there a possibility that my car could be paid or insurance? I think there's always different possibilities of things you can ask for even that, you know. Yeah. I mean, depending on how the business is structured and what's going on, there's a lot of different things you can do and to help people and do different things.

33:10And sometimes we've had situations where someone was just in a financial situation, you know, they got in trouble and they come in, we sit down, we go over their budget and we go, okay, number one, we're going to get you in a situation. So you're never here again with your budget, how you're handling your money. But then number two, you know, your house is four payments behind. So we're going to catch the house up. And so that's just like a one-time thing. That's not a permanent raise because the raise wasn't the problem their mismanagement at home was the problem so you're saying you know we help them fix the mismanagement and then we catch them up now they're at even now they can run yeah um would you buy it would you still think it's a it's it's good to buy a house i'm a homeowner right like for the first time like last year or two years ago and sometimes i'm like is this the best thing to do like it's tougher to have like freedom to just go where you want you know you can't just go and then sometimes it feels like there's so many expenses with a home sometimes it feels like and i'm not saying it's true but it feels like i'm not really building up any equity or saving money what do you think about it dave well again the scope over the scope of time you making money without a doubt about owning a home absolutely i mean um again i'm old so i've gotten to see this thing happen you know i mean i got my real estate license three weeks after i turned 18 years old in 1978.

34:31And the first house I sold was to a buddy of mine from high school, which means he wasn't smart because he let me sell him a house and I'm stupid. And, um, but now I'm going to live in one of the rooms, but I just want you to know straight up. How's this going? But yeah, anyway, I sold him that house for 42 ,500 bucks and, uh, it's on East Ridge over in Antioch. And, uh, that house today would be probably 800. Wow. So, um, you know, and if you bought a house four years ago you've gotten in nashville i mean you made serious money on it in four years in terms of value increase but yeah the nickel dime expenses the messing with the repairs i mean crap the more stuff you own the more repairmen you have to know i mean it doesn't matter whether it's what it is whether it's got a motor in it or it's cars or houses or boats or all this stuff something's always freaking breaking there's always something screwed up that and it does get the feeling of just the hassle and the aggravation.

35:27There's no simplicity to it at all. Your life gets more complicated. So be careful what you wish for. Yeah. But home ownership in general, absolutely. We did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. I saw that. And the typical millionaire that we found, 89 % of them were first generation, meaning they did not inherit their money. That's not how they became millionaires. So 9 out of 10, that's good news for everybody. We all got a shot. Right. But the two things that got them there was simply putting money in their 401k and buying a house and paying it off. And so I'd meet a guy, you know, he's 42 and he owes, you know, he had a house of six or 700 ,000 bucks.

36:10And he had like six or 800 ,000 bucks in his 401k and he's 42 years old. So he's worth over a million dollars and he paid off his house. So home ownership is a key part of the first, you know, one to$10 million of net worth that somebody builds. And so, yeah, I'm a huge believer in homeownership. Don't do it stupid because buying a house you can't afford makes you broker. That's why they call them brokers. But it's a problem. Yeah. Yeah, this is your study right here. How did you come upon these millionaires? You know, we did a detailed study and sent out not just from us, but we just went to the population and found them.

36:48We had a research firm in New York City looking over our shoulder to make sure our research methodology was tight because we knew we'd get a ton of pushback from people who think that America's dead and there's no chance for anybody to win. You can't get up off the bottom. Little man can't get ahead, that whole thing. You're saying that's not true. The problem is little man gets ahead every day in America. We see it right here. And I've met them for 30, 40 years doing this. I run into them, and some of them did it because they did our stuff, but some of them just said, you know, I'm going to live on less than I make.

37:20and um you know it's a it was an interesting interesting result so these are the top five careers of the millionaires that you guys looked at yep engineer what we found was which what occurred most often okay engineer was number one the most often occurring among the people we surveyed that were millionaires was engineer number two is accountant number three was teacher which is surprising number three management business number five is attorney medical doctor didn't even make the top five. And we always think of doctors and lawyers, you know. Yeah. But they're actually number six, but they're notoriously bad with money.

37:54They make a lot of money, but they're like music stars or something. They're notoriously bad with money. And so that was interesting. We couldn't figure out at first what these things had in common because they don't seem to have anything in common. What we finally figured out is all five of these are process people. You follow a process, a set of rules, and you learn the rules and you follow the rules. You're an engineer. There's only one way to build that building and it doesn't fall, right? If you're an accountant, it's not art. You don't get to make up how you do accounting. There's one way to do it.

38:30Teachers have a lesson plan they have to follow. Business has always a set of best practices. Attorneys, there's the law, and you can only conduct yourself in court a certain way or the judge will smack you backwards, right? And so all of these are process people. So they discovered because of the way the brain worked that led them into these careers, they discovered the process of living on less than make, living on a budget, starting to invest, being generous, paying off their house, that kind of stuff. And they followed that process. And that's what got them there. It was not that the interesting thing is one third of them, 33 percent, made less than a hundred thousand a year.

39:08Wow. They were not making bank. They were not earning their way into it, really. Yeah, because you would think teachers, you always hear, we got to pay these teachers more, you know. And we do. I mean, that wouldn't be bad at all. But the way the teacher's brains work, they do process. And that's the secret sauce. And all of those, I guess, you have to have an education for. Well, that's true. We have to go to college. Do you have to go to college to be a teacher? I don't know if you have to. You do? Yeah, definitely. Sorry, teachers, I didn't. Some of mine didn't go. Some of mine. Some of yours didn't go to class.

39:41mine didn't either someone would be in classes with me i was like what it's like rick flair came on here one time and he said he was in a rehab facility for drugs and alcohol and he looks over one day at lunch and one of the doctors is also in the facility that's not good sign yeah it's like well that's definitely you're at a hooters bro i'm like you're not you're just at a hooters um yeah that's what the people say a lot of times is it does feel like that now it feel there's a lot of energy in the air. It feels like the American dream isn't possible, that it doesn't exist. Where do you think a lot of that energy comes from?

40:21That that is the, it feels like that's the consensus these days. Would you agree with that? It feels like that? There's a lot of, there's a lot of loud people that have that. I don't know that it's necessarily a consensus among Americans. Because consensus means that most people agree with it? Right. Right. Okay. So I'm not sure that, but there's enough, there's enough people that are making noise in that regard, but there kind of always has been. I mean, if you go back to the, you know, the seventies with the hippie movement, it was the same kind of thing. Right. And so there's always been a, you know, my group, the baby boomers.

40:55And so there's always been somebody in the group that felt like the system was rigged, man, we got to get the system, you know, we can't beat the system. The little man can't get ahead, you know, and so the neighborhood I grew up in people say that you know and they never said it with like enthusiasm it's like the little man can't get ahead yeah like eeyore is their spirit animal oh yeah where's my tail yeah it's just that's it and i'm stuck and life's bad and you know and no you're not get up off your butt and go get a pressure washer i mean there's stuff to do you know so uh and most of these people again these millionaires um and a million dollars is not that's not a billion dollars that's a million.

41:34There's a lot of difference. Millionaires don't have jets. Millionaires don't have seven cars and four houses. No. They've just got a paid-for house and some money in their retirement. That's what it amounts to. And so people kind of have a different mindset there, and they think, okay, I can't be like this rock star. Well, you might not be. There's not as many billionaires as there are millionaires. Yeah. But anyway, can it be done? Yes, it can be done. And there's a lot of loud noises out there. I don't know where that comes from. I think it starts with, and one of the reasons I pushed back and did this study, and then we ended up doing a number one best-selling book on it, Baby Steps Millionaires, pushing back in the marketplaces against those voices is because it's not true that you can't get ahead.

42:19And when you convince someone that it's true, you're stealing their hope. And you shouldn't steal people's hope, man. That's evil. Yeah. And so you ought to encourage people to go do stuff. Now, you should not encourage them to go on American Idol if they can't sing. Yeah. Okay. But you should stop their nightmares, but also encourage their dreams. So this hopelessness that goes with that, I feel stuck. I'll never get a house. I'm a Gen Z. I'm a millennial. I can't get ahead in today's world. You boomers bought your house for two baskets of strawberries. And so now I'm stuck and you don't understand and housing is so expensive.

42:57Honey, it's always been expensive. I was doing an interview on NPR the other day and the lady said, you know, I was riding with the Uber driver and the Uber driver said his daughter is a dancer and a barista and she couldn't get a house. And I went, that's been true in every generation. If you serve coffee and you're in Nashville and you're a dancer. You can't get a house. Those are not career fields that you're going to make enough to be able to afford a house. That's not a new thing. That doesn't mean the system has failed. Yeah. And who's buying Java off a stripper either, to be honest? I didn't say what kind of dancer.

43:36I didn't have any idea there. Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought, yeah, I didn't know. But yeah, I'm like, who also, I guess it would be nice though if a stripper just shows up as a nice cup of coffee actually that's probably not a bad deal don't they have that nude barista uh drive through or something where's that at you know that is a thing that's right yeah that's a while back that's old news yeah it's old news but it definitely still i think some people pretend like it's new news every day when they roll up there like let me see the headlines huh uh not sure exactly how we got there but okay well yeah but i'm just saying that's a unique business right there that's kind of wild you know that'll be gift me um but the the back to your thing that the thing is hope is a decision and it's got to be based on you know you've had the actual reality in your life of going from collecting cans to sitting here i've had the reality in my life of going from mowing grass to millionaire in my 20s to losing it all i'm so dumb i had to do it twice twice.

44:41So, you know, I've got that reality. And so when someone says it can't be done, I went, uh, wait a minute. Hello. Um, and I don't really, I'm fairly smart, but I'm not a rocket surgeon. I mean, I don't, I don't really know how to do stuff. I just, I'm figuring it out as I go. Right. And, and so I think anybody can do it. No, it's good to hear. Yeah. I think people having a hope like that is important, you know? And I think that's, yeah, it's just really important to hear that. Yeah. If you take away somebody's hope, cause I guess that's what a lot of this, this, uh, these loud voices are doing, right?

45:17I never thought about that that much. They're just trying to take away hope because once they have your hope, they can kind of keep you there. Well, if they're running us, if they're running a game, you know, and they're, they're manipulating, that's one thing. And that's particularly evil. But the other one is just, they really have lost hope and so they're angry and they don't want and they want to loudly proclaim that it's not possible which makes them feel okay that they're not winning that they haven't gone and done something yet and because winning's hard man it's hard yeah it takes a lot of work man yeah i was talking they had uh kid rock was on a couple weeks ago and he was talking about how um yeah if you want to really if you want to have success you're gonna have to probably work 60 hours a week six 60 to 80 hours a week, he was saying.

46:05For a period of time, not your whole life. I mean, we started this thing, man, I was 16 hours. My wife had, you know, and she's like, I was a single mom for two years, you know? You were gone. I was on the road doing book tours. I was out speaking everywhere. I was going crazy, going to cities, trying to get radio stations to carry the show. Back when talk radio was the thing, and that's how we all got started was in talk radio. Oh, yeah. Did you ever meet Paul Harvey? No, I didn't. No, I didn't. That was so cool. I know y 'all's timelines. It's iconic. It's off. Yeah, yeah. I knew all the guys that are current, Rush and Sean Hannity, and all those guys are all contemporaries, and they're all friends and people that have been around the business like that, and a lot of the new guys that are doing really good work too.

46:48Yeah. But anyway, we're just out there hustling, man, and you've got to leave the cave, kill it, drag it home. And my wife grew up on a farm, so she's like, yeah, hard work's how you do this, so get after it. Now, you can't maintain that. It was two years. It wasn't 20. 20, I would have lost my family. You can't maintain relationships. My kids would have been messed up. And so by the time my kids got on up, I didn't miss a prom. I didn't miss a hockey game. I didn't miss whatever. The big games, I mean, little stuff I'd be going during the week. But we started putting these dates on the calendar, and we would book our events around them.

47:26You couldn't book on top of that. And I still do that. Yeah. Yeah. When people talk about, when people talk, like you hear a lot of discussion these days about how inflation is going, is getting so, is growing so fast, I guess, that it's not, that the wage, minimum wage isn't keeping up with it. it feels like detrimental. Like if you like, it feels sometimes impossible. If you look at the minimum wage, you're like, how is this going to, it would feel impossible almost. I feel like if you were trying to take care of a family or something on that, you know? Well, truthfully, minimum wage has never, I don't think since even it was formed in the seventies, I don't think any time in history, minimum wage has been enough to take care of a family.

48:15So you've always had to think beyond minimum wage if you wanted to excel, if you wanted to have, you know, A, build some wealth, or B, just take care of a family, those kinds of things. So minimum wage is not designed. The entry-level jobs are – that's not designed. What's more disturbing than minimum wage is that wages in general, average household incomes, have not kept up with inflation. And so that's alarming. That's more alarming because that's the whole population. It's not just this segment that enters, you know, entry-level stuff at minimum wage. Because, you know, if we go all the way back to minimum wage, I'm cutting grass for$3 a yard in 1972.

48:57Okay, a thousand. There were dinosaurs in the yard. We had to get them out of the yard. But, you know, I mean, 1972,$3 a yard. But minimum wage was$1.65. My buddy's working at, you know, Burger King flopping whoppers, and he's making$1.65. five, if I can cut that$3 yard in an hour, I'm making double minimum wage at 12 years old. And that's how my little math brain was working. So I'm running that mower, you know, I'm going. And so, uh, so you even cut somebody's yard and just go to the door and be like, Hey, just cut your yard. No, I mean, that was my job. I, they were one of my clients. I had to go cut their grass.

49:31But some people, I bet if you rolled up to my door and knocked on my door and said, Hey man, I just cut your yard. Will you give me 10 bucks for it or whatever? Except for that other the guy you hired to do it that's coming next week. But yeah, there's a problem with him. But yeah, I mean, you've always had the opportunity to beat minimum wage. So you don't want to sit and say, okay, minimum wage is my gauge of whether I can go win, because I can go do something that beats minimum wage. Right. So that's kind of a political football that gets kicked around a lot, I guess, then. It is. And it enters into this discussion falsely.

50:05It's a false narrative where I think the real narrative that is a little bit scary is that wages have not kept up with inflation. And because we've had this unusual surge in inflation and it's blamed on Biden politically, but some of it's his fault, his policy issues. But most of it is just the lingering results of the pandemic. And so the shortages of things always drive prices up on anything. Anything there's a shortage of, prices go up. And there was a shortage of freaking everything. Remember supply chain and all that stuff people are talking about. And so everything shot up. Real estate shot up because people sat around in their houses during the pandemic.

50:48And then when the sun came out and the curve was flattened and all whatever, and we're all back out, well, these people all wanted new houses. I mean, they came out of their house like a Baptist after a casserole. They were going for it. They were getting it, you know. And house prices, you know, 20, 21, wow. That was an artificial thing, though, that was created by the market being dormant and people being trapped. And then this idea of looking around at their house going, my house sucks. I need a new house. Boom, they hit the market hard. And it's still not recovered from that. It's still got the ripple of that.

51:23And some of the other things are that way, too. too. But there's some things, again, policy issues, but most of it is just the smoothing out of that. And Trump nor Biden should get the credit nor the blame. It was more how the marketplace was functioning. So you think that inflation will come down? Is that the right term to talk about inflation? Yeah, I do. I don't think it's permanent. Again, to the extent that the politicians leave their hands off of stuff, both parties. But the marketplace will smooth out. Again, demand, prices go up. Number of people want to pay that. No. So now demand goes down, which brings prices down.

52:05So the thing smooths out eventually. You find this equilibrium, this balance. And the problem is the shortage drove the prices up, and the shortage remained. And then people's appetite, they just kept coming, man, like freaking piranha. and that the marketplace surges is what drove the pricing as much as anything. Now, that's not true in oil and gas at the pump. That's a whole different subject. That's not true on a few other things. But housing, for sure, bread, grocery store cart, yeah, all that for sure. You always hear about the national debt, right? People talk about that all the time. And it just keeps going up, apparently.

52:44Like, is that a real thing that affects, it almost seems so fictional now that it's like, is it a real thing that could cause something to happen in like in our lives or like, is it like, what is it? You know what I'm saying? Cause everybody's like, you know, it's just zillions. They're making up amounts of money now. Some kid told me yesterday it was 65 zillion jirjillions. And I'm like, that's how much it is. I mean, right now it's 34. It's a number that I don't even know. How can you teach kids numbers in school, but you can't even teach them a number that would let them explain the national debt?

53:25Yeah. You know, I went through a period of time in my 20s when I was first starting to do this stuff, late 20s, that I was worried that the hockey stick of this thing, the growth of the debt, was going to cripple the economy and even cause a complete collapse. And, you know, so I've observed people in my world write books on the end of the world. You know, here's the economic end of the world coming, the economic end of the world.

53:59And they keep being wrong. So I don't want to write that book. So is it concerning? Yeah, it's concerning because anytime a group of people, us, keep spending more than we make and we keep electing people that don't have any ability to curb their appetite for our money, it's – man, that philosophically, spiritually is scary. Mathematically is scary. Is it going to cause a crash? Apparently not because – I mean I've been doing this a long – I've been watching this. this thinking when, you know, when, you know, but it's not. And obviously what the national debt, what it does do factually is it robs money from the economy that could be producing something.

54:50And so, because what happens is, is the government issues a bond. That's how they finance the debts, treasury bonds, T-bills and T-bonds. And so they issue that bond and then an investor goes and buys that government bond because they're going to pay him interest on it. If that investor had done something else in the marketplace with that money to produce something rather than sit on this bunch of fat in DC, it would have ginned up the economy. I see. So it's stealing money from the economy in that sense. And it's becoming a large, the interest only on it is becoming a larger and larger portion of the quote budget, unquote, as if they've got a budget.

55:35Yeah, I have, I put money into kind of T-bills. I'm kind of a say, Oh, it's you. I know it was, it was you. Okay. Because there's a lot of me, I don't trust the stock market that much. I feel like it's so manipulated these days. I feel like there's like darker forces that are like, you can use the media to control it and like, can like create articles to affect how the market goes. So that's kind of like, so I prefer something like a T-bill or something like that. That's just like a safe, I know what it's going to be pretty much. Well, there's always been falsehood and manipulation in the market.

56:15There's always been to a degree. Do you think it's still a safe place for people to invest? I do. I've got I've got millions and millions of dollars in mutual funds. So the way to offset that is, number one, if you don't, I believe it's there. I believe it's a very small percentage. And I don't know where it is. Exactly. I can't point and say that guy, that one, you know, that girl, that thing right there. I don't know exactly where it is. But I mean, is there people that fluff the thing? Absolutely. They fluff it. Absolutely. There are people that, you know, that right before the news article goes out, they sell their stuff.

56:49Insider trading happens all the time. Sometimes they get caught and go to jail. It's illegal. But does it happen? Oh, it's common practice. Is it so widespread that it makes the investment improper or imprudent? No, I don't believe that. Otherwise, I wouldn't be investing. So I invest. So if I'm in a mutual fund, I'm in 90 to 200 different stocks, and it's stuff that you drive by every day. It's McDonald's or Home Depot or Dell Computer or Apple or Exxon or whatever, right? Yeah, Rooms to Go or whatever. All that. And so in those 90 to 200, is there some percentage of that problem going on? Yeah, there is some percentage.

57:36But not enough that it, in general, those 90 to 200 companies, I'm spread out wide enough, diversified. I'm spread out enough that I'm catching all the good, and it's more than offsetting the falsehood that's out there. And it's more than offsetting that. So as Home Depot makes more money, then I'm participating. As whoever, Apple, makes more money than I'm participating because I'm one of the owners of the company. tiny, tiny little bit when I own, you know, in that 90 to 200 stocks. So that's how I don't buy single stocks mainly because they're higher risk and much more volatile. And you're much more prey to what if that was the company that was screwing around?

58:18Yeah. Then boom, you know, you bet the whole dadgum farm on that one horse race and that guy fell. No, we're not doing that. So I don't like that much risk. So I like the diversification of mutual funds. That's where my, all my retirement is. It's what we recommend, what we teach. So I only do two kinds of investing. I buy real estate that I pay cash for and I buy mutual funds. I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back, and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL. I'm not kidding when I say NFL by Abercrombie broke the internet last year. And I think this season's lineup is even cooler.

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1:01:54If someone had like a, they have a, you know, some money they're thinking about putting it into the market or they're thinking about buying like maybe a small apartment building or something like that. Do you feel like that's a good choice for people? Yeah, I don't get in partnerships on them like we discussed earlier. I just buy them. but yeah real estate makes more if it's good income producing real estate you'll make more on it than you will in mutual funds mutual funds average 10 12 percent real estate you ought to make 17 to 20 including the tax benefits the appreciation is going up in value and the cash flow those three things do it uh the problem with real estate is um it's a pain in the butt you got to deal with it uh you know the roof leaks uh the the whether it's commercial office building, whether it's a house, doesn't matter.

1:02:39And so, and I've got a lot of both and, but there's all, you know, there's a tenant that doesn't pay or does pay or it's empty and I can't get a tenant. You know, there's a hassle. There's a hassle factor to dealing with it. Even if you hired management, I mean, my son-in-law runs all the Ramsey real estate stuff and he and I grew up in real estate, so I love working with him on it, but he handles the day to day to day. I don't screw with all that today but but it's a pain so this idea that i hear this stuff on social media stuff was real estate's passive income bull crap nothing passive about it your butt's active i mean you're right in the middle of it or you're getting screwed one of the two yeah you get in oh yeah i got into some real estate and it was uh it was a night it was so much extra work that i didn't realize you know complaints somebody's airbnb in the building somebody's um you know started a fire or something, you know, because they didn't want to use the heat in their unit or whatever.

1:03:36It's like, you can't just do a fire. Like, you got to... You need a fireplace. Yeah. Yeah. Just crazy. People just, yeah. People just, yeah, doing fires. Yeah, just stuff like that. I think a lot of alarming stuff. But yeah, there's no easy real... There's no easy way to it. Well, I mean, the T-bill, you know what you're talking about? That's... You buy it and you forget it. They send you a check. It's not as big a check, but there's no hassle. Yeah. You know, mutual funds, a little more risk because you're in there with all these companies. There could be something going on. Even if you're in 90 to 200 and limited the risk by spreading it out, you've still got more risk than you would in a T-bill, but you're going to make a little more.

1:04:17You want a little more hassle? Go to the real estate. You're going to make a little more. So you don't want to be, you know, I try to just say it's a risk-return ratio. If I'm going to take some risk and have some hassle, I want some extra money for that. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the stress it causes. It's like, do I want to be because I'll notice, yeah, like some stocks is too much stress for me because I'll check them too much and I don't like it. And then it's like I spent, you know, 30 minutes of my day dang checking stocks and that's my time I could have just had him doing my work. I buy a mutual fund, set it, and forget it.

1:04:49I don't even know what the market has done this year. Wow. And I do this for a living. Wow. I don't keep up with it. Because I'm not betting on this week. I'm saying, okay, look at what the stock market has done since 1980, since 1990, since 2012. Look at what I would have made if I would have put$10 ,000, what it would have made. And that's how I'm playing it is the long haul, the long play. Wow. God. well there it is 1992 a thousand dollars would have turned into five thousand dollars was there was there ever a stock that you bought dave where you were like man i wish i would have held on to that that you just remember like even when you were younger was it one i never bought single stocks ever uh the only dumb thing i did is i bought gold one time uh this buddy of mine again you know these buddies in my 20s he was making money and he had this got gold guy that we could buy options on gold, which we don't even buy in the gold, just buy in the right to buy the gold.

1:05:46And he said he put in$5 ,000, and if it goes up, the option goes from$5 ,000 to$50 ,000. I'm going 10x my money. And 14 times in a row, this guy had hit. He put it in, and he had predicted, and he said, okay, we need to go in right now and put$5 ,000. I dropped$5 ,000 in there. 15th time he didn't hit. It's all or nothing. So I lost the whole 5 ,000 and no sign of 50, right? Yeah. I'm done. You think it was a pyramid scheme or not? No, no. It's an option. That's how options work. It's an uber high-risk situation. It's super crazy. It was just gambling. I mean, it's just gambling. You ever been in a pyramid scheme?

1:06:27No. I've been in a couple.

1:06:32Are you talking about multi-level or pyramid? I mean, I don't know what it was. Whatever level it was, I lost on it. I know that. You didn't get off the ride fast enough. Oh, yeah. No, we had, yeah. Oh, yeah. One, I was a child. I got involved. I'd saved up, I mean, probably most of the money I had. And I got into this thing, and it was a scam. And that was horrible. God, that killed me. And then another time, they had a dude, somebody was selling like glitter mining or something in our area. And they sold a bunch of shares of that shit. and screwed everybody. I remember in the 80s, everybody decided that emus were going to be the new meat.

1:07:11What? Really? Why? All these rednecks are buying. This is unbelievable. All these rednecks are making emu farms. It's like ostrich meat, right? Oh, come on, brother. It was a big deal, and a lot of people decided they were going to sell everything and open an emu farm. Really? And because for the meat, it's like ostrich meat. It's like, I don't know, it's a big bird meat, big white meat. Just bring up a picture of an emu, brother. I can't find a dang eat. You can't find one now, I guess. Here, you got the commercial. There he is. Scroll down a little bit. Let me see what we got. See, he's got a little meat on it.

1:07:48Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah, so it's hilarious, though, these rednecks around Tennessee, they were having emu farms. Damn, you ever had any of them? No, I managed to stay out of that scam. That was one of those fad things that didn't work. Yeah, that's a damn tall turkey, huh? Beanie Babies. Everybody's collecting Beanie Babies. Dude, I remember Beanie Babies. They were going to get rich on Beanie Babies. Oh, yeah. And now they have two garbage bags. Women fighting, like cage match fighting in the airport gift shop to get the Beanie Baby. Remember the Princess Diana Beanie Baby that came out? There it is.

1:08:22Yeah. It's supposed to go for like$10 ,000. Never happened. Never once. Nope. Sorry. My dog plays with them now. But we had the whole freaking collection, not because it was an investment, but because my wife was freaking obsessed, and I was traveling, and she's at every airport she's been there. So, yeah, see$49 ,000 on eBay for the princess. Never sold, though. No, that's the thing. Never sold. Didn't happen. Never sold. Yeah, they had my buddy won his family's football pool. It was like their NCAA, their college football pool they did every year. He won us like$600, dude. He was so excited.

1:08:58he could have changed his life. And instead, his mom convinced him to buy a Christmas village of like rare Christmas village houses. Oh, yeah. They're back. They're back. They're happening right now. My buddy to this day is... He's big into Christmas houses. No rent. Rent in much. The tenants don't make much noise. And the streetlights are always on. Electric bills low. Oh, yes. running into a lot of issues, but God, that just broke him, man. He never recovered from that. Dude, I met a dude yesterday in Tennessee. He said he took out an$800 life insurance policy on his wife. I'm like,$800? That's pretty insulting.

1:09:45Well, yeah, that's what I felt like. I'm like, dude, do not tell her that. I was like, she's going to be pissed off. He's like, well, my truck payment's$7.99 a month, so. that solves um yeah speaking of like yeah like kind of traps i guess like what are like so a lot of things you've spoken out against crypto i know i'm not a crypto fan i lost two thousand dollars in crypto just like every one of my friends did when it first came out right um like nfts things like that that kind of pop up that really they're almost to me some of them seem like the modern day pyramid scheme in a way. The emu farm.

1:10:24Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of emu farms, baby. What do you, how do you, why are more people falling susceptible to these types of things, do you think? We always have. It's human nature. We want, we're wired by God to look for the shortest path, to look for optimum, to look for the best, the quickest, the easiest. And there's nothing wrong with that. That makes our lives better because we create inventions and things that make our lives better. That very wiring created the automobile or created the iPhone or created things that make our lives better. And so that's a good wiring. But where it gets off track is where we think we can short circuit a proven process.

1:11:07And it causes you to jump from investor to speculator. And investor is always the crockpot. They're always the long play. They're always saying, okay, I'm going to invest in mutual funds. I don't care what stock market did this year. I'm thinking, what's it going to be in 20 years? What's it going to be in 15 years? And how am I going to be doing? And so I'm thinking long term. The speculator needs a quick flip. And so Bitcoin has never really been about investing. It's a speculation. It's a short-term play. No one bought that and said, you know, in 20 years, this is going to look brilliant. No one did.

1:11:44They all thought quick money, easy money. No one flips houses with nothing down that they saw on TikTok. You know, quick flip, quick flip. When a builder even builds a home that they're not custom building, they call it a spec house. It means speculation. They're speculating that they're going to sell that house. It's a short-term play. They're not building that house in that subdivision hoping to sit on it 10 years. They're building it hoping to sit on it 10 days. Right. And so it's speculation. So where you mess up is where you can fall into scams and get rich quick and violate basic investing principles is when you move from investing, which is long-term mentality, to speculation, which is quick hit.

1:12:29I want quick money, easy money, quick money, easy money. And that's that wiring that's positive wiring gone astray, become toxic. And in a sense, that's what happened to me when I went broke in real estate because I was buying houses. I was doing flip this house before Chip and Joanna were born, you know. And so we were getting it. And I've owned like 2 ,000 houses in my life. So I was churning them, man. But I was doing it on 90-day notes, short-term notes, because I was not buying them as a long-term play. I was buying them, fix them, and flip them. And the bank got sold to another bank. They look up and they can call my notes in 90 days.

1:13:04So they called a million, too, in 90 days, and it crashed me. Because I was a speculator. I wasn't an investor. Now, I would have told you I was a real estate investor. Right. But the actual definition of the term investor means longer term horizon, long window. And so if it's, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday. If I got to move it this calendar year or in the next two calendar years to make money on it, then you're playing the roulette wheel. You're playing Texas Hold 'em. That's speculation. You're gambling then. And that's a different thing. It's okay if you want to do some of that, but quit calling it investing because then it causes you to put too deadgum much money in it because you lose your butt then.

1:13:41and that's where you get scammed is you're looking for something for nothing quick, a quick turn, double my money fast because I don't think I can get there long term. So I'm so desperate and so scared, so fearful, so greedy that I got to get it right now. And that's what I was doing. And it worked. I got a million dollars worth of stuff, but I didn't keep it because I built a house of cards. Obviously, when you work, sometimes it's weird. People ask me, what hobbies do I have and stuff? But the weird thing is like a lot of my hobbies became my jobs, you know. Is that kind of what happened for you or do you still like have things you like to do outside of?

1:14:20You know, as I got further down in the business in the last several decades, I actually do have things I do outside of here. But in the first few decades, it was just, you're right. I get great joy out of the stuff we do. Yeah. We help people. you know a lot of people are real scared they're broken they're about to lose their house they've been through bankruptcy their marriage is on the rocks whatever we're able to help them and that that's you know it's wonderful i have a lot of fun doing the show still uh again i um i mean once you've been on stage with an audience our our gig's a different gig but it's still you know it's fun to be with people yeah and it's fun to be people people that want to be there you know and uh it's addicting in that regard so i enjoy that whole thing i enjoy that scene i enjoy running the business, but also have picked up a few things away from here so that I, distractions and I don't know if they're hobbies, I guess, but I end up collecting stuff or whatever, doing that kind of stuff.

1:15:12And yeah, but there's nothing wrong with, especially in the first couple of decades with almost all your energy doing that other than family stuff. Yeah. Um, what are some, like, obviously you've learned a lot of financial lessons over the years. Like what were some personal lessons that you had to learn along the way too, that like kind of helped you? Like, Was there some things that have kind of stood out to you, you feel like? You know, I didn't know how to lead. I mean, like you said earlier, we're talking about hiring an employee. Yeah. I was so dumb that I thought if you hired people that they would like work.

1:15:51Yeah, they knew what to do. Well, no, that they would just actually work. I thought they would just show up. I thought they'd be on time. I didn't think they'd steal. I was so dumb that I thought all that. And so I just like, if you could fog up a mirror, yeah, let's go do this together, man. Come on, get in here. I'll put you on payroll. Let's go. And then I got all this crazy and all this drama and all this other stuff. I was horrible. And I was, I was pretty much a boss. Bosses, uh, push leaders pull. And man, when I was 32 years old, I didn't get that. And we hired our first person when I was 32.

1:16:24And so, you know, over the years I've had to learn to not be behind. Because, I mean, if you're a boss, you're just at the back of the cattle and cracking the whip. And it's like you're moving at the speed of the slowest cow, you know, like the slowest common denominator in the room. You know, it's like you get on. If you're a leader, you're standing at the train going, we're leaving. Anybody want to get on? Because this thing's going. Right. You better keep up because we're going hard and you better get it. And so I had to get around front of that and say, all right, I'm going to lead. And then I went to this Christian conference with a guy named John Maxwell, who's become a great friend.

1:17:03He's one of the top leadership speakers in the world. Is he really? And he said, you know, you should be a servant leader. And I went, say what? I'm the one writing the check. I ain't the servant. I'm confused here. And I thought he meant subservient. and what he meant was you got to love your people and you got to care what's best for them and sometimes that means telling them hard truth that they don't want to hear sometimes it means they can't work anymore because they can't behave you know uh that kind of stuff and so I realized I had been serving my kids by making them brush their teeth against their will you know so they have some teeth later that's serving them so it's a servant leader right and so yeah I'm good with servant leadership.

1:17:48And so I had to learn that. I, I, again, I sucked. I was a horrible boss. Cause I just, I was going so hard. I thought everybody else was going hard and I was pissed off cause they weren't keeping up. And I'm like, well, you hired a bunch of donkeys and expect to win the dadgum Kentucky Derby and no donkey ever won, man. So we had to look for thoroughbreds and have a donkeyectomy and it was a problem, man. And so, yeah, I was, I sucked and, and I'm, I, I mean, I'm a world-class leader today. It's one of the things I'm best at. I love our people. I I love our team. The way this place functions and operates, it's one of the best places in Nashville to work, probably the best places in the world to work.

1:18:24And it's not perfect. We screw up, but we treat people right. We care about them, and we expect high things out of them. We expect them to get it. And they do. We've got a great team. Wow. Yeah, I think that's something that I have slowly had to, yeah, that's been a tough journey for me. Like even just having a few employees and it's like you're suddenly a, yeah, you're suddenly a boss. You didn't want to be a boss. Like some of that too. I think just a realization like, oh, I'm the boss, I guess, you know? And they're like, well, yeah, you are. And I'm like, well, I was just trying to get crap done, you know?

1:19:00Who knew, you know? And I needed somebody to do that thing and you brought you in to do that thing. And then you brought all your crap with you when you did that. Now I got to deal with your crap. So, you know, and that's been a 30-year journey. That's huge, boss versus leader. It's such a good way to look at it. And would you go to conferences and stuff to learn about that stuff too? Because I'm sure you had to evolve in that space. I did. I read like a maniac. And so I'm going to read, you know, leadership books, business books. I still read like crazy. I love to get new information. And this digital age, an old guy like me, I'm sitting in these meetings with these studs.

1:19:37and I don't even know what they're saying. And they work for me. I'm like, what did you just say? So I have to keep up. I mean, I got to work hard. I got to pedal hard just to stay on the bike. And so, yeah, I still do that stuff. And I still, you know, hang out. And the good news is some of the guys that are the best writers and thinkers in the world have become friends over the years now. And so they're my running buddies. So we hang out. I get to talk offline with them. And they're still teaching me stuff. It's cool. What about like fiction? You read anything like that ever? Oh, yeah, always.

1:20:05Yeah. All the Jack Carr stuff. You read Jack? Yeah. Yeah, I read all that stuff. And Brad Thor's a friend. I read all of his stuff, all those spy novels and stuff. Fiction makes airplanes fly fast. Yeah, it does, huh? Yeah, Jack Carr, that's wild, dude. Yeah, I was like a big John Grisham fan when I was growing up. Yeah, I read all of his. Every one of his. Daniel Silva's the guy. He writes like the character, the prognosis is an Israeli Mossad spy, you know, versus Jack Carr's is a former SEAL team. And, you know, and Brad Thors is all the same stuff. You know, they're all former Delta, former SEAL or whatever, that kind of stuff.

1:20:49So it's in the same genre. And I've read all of his stuff, too. But again, I just thought, yeah, I do read fiction. Something you like. Yeah. Yeah. When people look at like there's an election this year, it's an election year. When people look at the election, do you feel like who they vote for could have an effect on their future finances? Sure. Sure. Not as much as the candidates would like you to believe. Right. It turns out that I've done stupid stuff under every single White House, and I have done smart stuff under every single White House, and I've increased the size of our business under every single White House.

1:21:29None of them have been dumb enough to destroy my life, and none of them have ever sent me any money. Yeah. So most of them don't even send me my money back. So what happens at your house is way more important than what happens at the White House. But, yeah, policy does matter. it changes whether we've got three dollar gas or five dollar gas you know um you know uh and and that matters because if you're running a heat and air company and you got 30 trucks out there and you're trying to feed your family trying to feed that guy who's on that truck's family and the gas price doubles on that run that truck down the road to fix somebody's heat and air it changes the whole p and l on that company and then that guy wants a raise and it ain't there because some duber at the white house turned the faucet on or off on the oil and that stuff matters that shows up.

1:22:13And so, you know, policy does matter in that regard because it affects things. And policy during stressful times matters because whether people feel—Ronald Reagan didn't do anything special, but he made people feel like it was going to be prosperous. Whether you agree with him or not, he was a motivator. He was aspirational. And so— That's a good point, huh? He didn't really have any magic wands that he waved at the Reaganomics or, you know, And Art Laffer that wrote the Reaganomic stuff lives here in town. He's a friend of mine. He was on Reagan's cabinet at the time. He's in his 80s. Wonderful man.

1:22:50Brilliant man. But Art Laffer did not turn America around, Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan made people believe again. And when you can believe instead of believe everything's bad, it's horrible, it's divisive, we're not going to do anything. People sit at home and they don't do things. And then the economy starts to – that stuff does have an effect. But you can win in any situation. So vote for who you want to vote for. but don't vote for them because they're going to fix your life because they're not. That's a great statement. Yeah. In the end, it really comes down to you, doesn't it? You still believe that it really seems like that.

1:23:23Yeah, I really do. You know, John Stossel wanted to interview me many years ago, went back when he did 2020 and all that stuff. And he was a scary dude because, you know, if he's going to come at your throat or whether he's going to be a friend in an interview. And we went down there and we were sitting off stage, or on stage, I guess, doing the interview. And he said, you know, I've read all your stuff. And he goes, I think, I don't think you're as much of a conservative as you think you are. He said, I think you're a social conservative and an economic libertarian. I went, okay, I'll go with that.

1:23:56And so, yeah, the economic libertarian would say, you know, if it's to be, it's up to me. Get up, go mow some grass, get you a pressure washer, get your butt in gear. and, you know, the government's just something you got to overcome. They're in the way. They're not going to lift me. If I'm waiting on the government to lift me, all I can think about is the DMV line. Yeah. I mean, come on. You know, so I'm not, so I'm that guy. But it comes out of my Scotch-Irish redneck history. You know, I mean, the Scotch-Irish have always been fighting everything. They've always been independent. Yeah. I think of Braveheart, you know, independent.

1:24:31Hot blood pressure too. Yeah. Always looking for a fight. Yeah. You know, always looking to stir something up. If there's no drama, just make some. And so I've made a good living doing it, though. Yeah. Where'd you meet your wife at, Dave? College. Oh, you did? Yeah, marketing class. Nice. And you went to college in Tennessee or not? I did, University of Tennessee. You did? We both graduated from UT. Nice, dude. Is there a better place to see a football game than Neyland? Wow. It's a religion. Yeah, it really is. It's wild. It's so sweet over there. When they're winning, especially. Yeah. It's kind of nice lately.

1:25:04Yeah, it helps. The past two years has been definitely a good time to get on board. Not good being with 110 ,000 people when you're losing because they are angry rednecks. But, yeah. I'm one of them. I'm like, oh, I'm pissed. But, yeah. Do you go to some games ever? We had suite seats for years when our kids were down there. And so we'd go down almost every game. But the kids are grown and got grandkids and we're traveling doing other stuff. So we gave those up. So I'm not mad about it. It's just kind of that phase went away. Yeah. I'm watching on the TV now. But a better experience anyway. Yeah.

1:25:37So go Vols. Where did you meet your wife at? At school, do you remember? Where? At school? Yeah. Yeah, in marketing class. Oh, in class. You saw her, huh? Yeah, she was cheating off my paper. Was she? Really? But she was cute, so I thought it was a good idea. Let her look over, huh? It was a good idea, yeah. It's your paper. It's your paper, honey. Have you ever been approached by, like, I know you've had different, obviously, books and programs for people to achieve wealth and to save their money. Have you ever had a package or something you've taken to a shark tank or to something like that where they've tried to?

1:26:20No, because we kind of bootstrapped every bit of this. It was just like we make a little money, we try something new with that money. We make a little more money, we try something new with that money. And again, we've lost a lot of money, done a lot of stupid stuff doing that, but we've also done some things right that have worked. And so, I mean, we're the second largest talk radio show in America, 680 stations, about 10 million listeners on talk radio alone. Hannity's number one. Rush was number one. Hannity was two. We were three. Rush passed away. Not a good way to get to be number two, but it happened.

1:26:50I mean, he's Elvis. He invented rock and roll. He invented talk radio. So it was— And both of them did pills, too, I think, to be honest. I have no idea about it. I've done them. But I'm just saying, yeah. I have no idea. But yeah, anyway, so anyway, we started in that world when it grew and grew and grew and grew. And I remember the day a guy walked in my office and said, hey, we need a podcast. And I'm like, what the flip is a podcast? And I said, why do I need one? He goes, it's the thing. And man, it was a long time ago. So we were one of the first podcasts on Apple way back. Wow. And because a lot of people on talk radio didn't want to put it on podcasts because it competed with their radio stations.

1:27:29Right. So you're competing with your own numbers. Yeah, and you're messing up everything. And now, I mean, Spotify, Apple, we're number one, two, three on Apple, right in there hovering, me and Rogan and some NPR murder mystery stuff or something. Always. Always hanging out in the top 10 there. So we're bouncing around in there, and we've had a billion and a half downloads now. And I'm like, what's a podcast? So, yeah, you start new stuff. And then YouTube, good God, the numbers on YouTube are just cray cray. Yeah. and so gone up into the right hockey stick and so now those two have now eclipsed um the talk radio business and so now i'm a podcaster apparently um at least you evolved with it though you know well yeah i mean because we're platform agnostic i mean we're wherever the wherever the action is that's where we're going to be and we didn't abandon when we didn't we're still dancing with the girl that brought us you know so we're still with talk radio still got 680 stations still love talk radio uh but and you know we're on sirius xm sirius xm came on it was two companies Sirius and XM.

1:28:29We went on both of them and everybody's mad. You can't be on both and be on talk radio. I'm like, yeah, I'm on everything. I'm on podcast and then we put it on YouTube and then, then, you know, Facebook live. I mean, crap, we'll try anything. TikTok. Good God, help us. We're on TikTok. We're all are. So, you know, it's like the Chinese, they say. That's it, man. Tic-tac. Here we go. but the, but hey, you know, and cause you never know which one of these things is going to become the next MySpace and just disappear, and you don't know which one of these other things. So I don't want to bet this whole thing and all these 1 ,100 people are counting on me on one single platform.

1:29:04So we're always innovating, always changing and moving. Yeah, because you kind of don't know what the next thing can be that's really going to go well. There was something you said a second ago where you made some money and then you put it back into the company, right, or you tried something new with it. That, I think, is a big, like one of the craziest things that ever happened to me was I was podcasting in my apartment. And a guy came along and he said, hey, man, I'm going to give you some money. You can get you a studio, you know. And he bought some ads from me. He said, I'm going to pay some ads for a pizza place.

1:29:44It was in my neighborhood. And he said, I'm going to give you some money. You should use it to get a studio. And my first thought was, I want to keep that money. You know, I never had any money. I'm keeping this money. I'm not getting a studio. I'll just do it in my apartment until it fades out, and then I'll have the money I made from the ads. But he was right. He just saw that thing that I couldn't see of putting the money back into getting myself a studio, which then now I have a studio. It's a little bit of a different place when people come. It's more of a business. And, you know, it was so hard for me to see that, though, you know?

1:30:19Well, and we get to see, I mean, those of us that are fanboys of your work, we'd see a whole nother side of you that, you know, there's standup and then these long form interviews that you're doing. And I'm here. I said, who knew that was going to happen? But I mean, I've seen a bunch of these long forms that you've done. And so it's a whole different thing. And it's where people start to recognize what those of us in the business of being on stage or in front of a microphone have known. We know for those of you out there, you don't know this necessarily, but most of the top flight comedians are very bright.

1:30:52You know, comedy is hard. It's more than one of the more hard art forms to do. Acting, you can be dumb as a rock and be an actor. Yeah. Because you just try to be somebody else. That's all you're doing. It's a process. Sorry, you actors that are friends. Yeah, sorry. But, I mean, comedy is, you're messing with people's lives. You're messing with every part of things that means something to them. and you're twisting it at just the right way with the right hesitation, the right move of the sentence structure and everything. It's very difficult. Doing motivational speaking or teaching, I teach our guys, if our audiences, if we got 2 ,000, 3 ,000 people in an audience, if they don't laugh every seven minutes, we're going to lose them.

1:31:35And we're not comedians, but we have to study what you guys do. So getting to see you do this is brilliant. It's a smart thing to do. It's the same thing. Broken did the same thing. I mean, he moved from comedy into those long forms. And what everybody loves about Joe is the fabulous interviews. Yeah. And I'm a fanboy of his. I watch a lot of his stuff. Oh, yeah. He's so good at learning information. He's so good at retaining information. He knows a lot about a lot of stuff. Oh, if you stop. I had dinner with him the other night after the UFC fights. And, yeah, you're just ready to learn, brother.

1:32:06If you're going to sit down with Joe Broken, you better be ready to learn something. It doesn't matter if it's over a bowl of soup, a microphone. Yeah, he just loves learning, sharing information. He really is kind of like a library, you know. But what is the mentality that people – it's more of like the mentality of like investing back in yourself, you know, because there's that fear that I want to just save this, you know. Well, that – yeah. If you realize that no matter what you try, some of it's not going to work. Give yourself permission to fail. then you say, okay, we're going to put this money in.

1:32:42We're going to take some home and enjoy it and be generous with it in the community and invest some of it. But we're also going to invest some of it in the best investment, which is the freaking goose that's laying the golden eggs. Let's have lots of these geese. Let's figure out different things we can do, different ways we can move this business around. Do we move to podcasting? Do we move to YouTube? Do we build a studio? Do we build an event center? Or do we, to create an environment that is a whole different thing than when I rent a theater somewhere else, which we do both. And we'll always go to these other cities and always be on tour, always do these things.

1:33:18But the events on this campus feel way different to the customer when they come in here. Because we can control all the freaking variables. I mean, we're Nick Saban playing home game. I mean, we know who cuts the grass. We know who dialed the microphone in. I got a 2 dB drop from the front of the stage to the back of that auditorium. Wow. 2 ,500 seats. It's tight, and it's dialed in. And you know how that sound crap is. It sounds even worse in our world because we're voice. Music, you can just turn it up if the sound's bad. Yeah. But, man, you get in these auditoriums, you got bounce back, stinking hockey arena, stinking hitting the concrete wall coming back at you.

1:33:54You can hear yourself three times and can't even tell what your timing is on stuff. Yeah, that's the worst. You know what I'm talking about. So we've got all that dialed in. And that's a reinvestment back into something we know is going to work. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, man. Yeah, I think that was a tough thing. It was tough for me to realize that one of my greatest assets can be myself. Yeah. You know, and be like, well, what if I really want to invest in something to invest in myself? Yeah. How does generosity play? Like, there's a lot of fear around generosity sometimes, you know, about like, I have to made this.

1:34:25I have to keep it all for me. What has your journey been like with that in life, or what have you learned about it? You're exactly right. There is fear around that. And fear, the motivator is, is if I give it away, I'm going to have less. Which mathematically, you know, if I take$1 ,000, I give away$100, I go$900. So yeah, I get less. But that's a short-term mentality. And what I finally figured out after studying this all these years and watching people who are generous, there's a real correlation between people that build wealth and people that are generous. very few wealthy people are really super greedy and don't give.

1:35:01Most of them are very big givers. They're big tippers. They're not like tight. They're not like mean about money. They're very open-handed because they know they can get some more. So what happens is generosity is not an action. It's a character quality like integrity. Integrity is not an action. There are actions that come out when you have integrity. There are actions that come out when you are generous. Generous people are the one who hold the door open for you. Generous people help you pick up the groceries when the stupid bag, they fall out and they're rolling all over the parking lot in the grocery store and you're embarrassed.

1:35:30But the generous person runs over and joins the party and helps you pick up the canned goods and all that. That's the generous person. The generous person is other-centered instead of self-centered. And here's what's weird. Think about who you want to work with. Think about who you want to work for. Think about who you want on your team. Think about the vendor that you want to do business with, the next deal you want to do on an advertiser. You want to deal with a selfish person or a selfless, other-centered person, self-centered or other-centered? Well, generosity makes people highly attractive.

1:36:05We want to be around generous people, not because they're going to give us money, just because of who they are. They're just open-handed. They're thinking about other people. And so there's this huge correlation between generosity and prosperity. You tend to prosper because people want you around. They want you in the deal because you're not there for what you can get. You're there for what you can give. And we're all going to win together. We don't have to kill each other to win, you know. And so that's how like Rush or Sean and I in the old days or other people in the talk radio business. Laura Ingram was doing a talk radio show in those days.

1:36:40She's on Fox Personality now. You know, we're all friends, even though we were competitors. We were head to head. If I knock Hannity off a station, I get that station. So we're head to head. But we also know I don't have to kill him to win. I mean, I have to completely – so we don't – I never talk bad about my competitors in that world because I want to be a generous person. I want to be a – and I'll help them. I've actually helped every one of those people do different things over the time. And so it's just interesting that – and then the giving of money is a natural result for someone who has the character quality of generosity.

1:37:16generosity. So, you know, and I watch people. Okay, here's the stupid thing. This guy, I was watching the other day, he pulls up in front of me at the restaurant, the valet parking right here in Nashville. We have valet parkers everywhere. Yeah. And, um, churches even have them. Yeah. I mean, who's working valet? Okay. The Lord is my valet, dude. I'm telling you, man, that's, it's, well, there's that. So I'm, but the guy that's working valet, he, he's out there in the sun. He's out there in the rain. He's putting up people's garbage. Uh, they, they, they're not nice. You know, this is who's working the valet.

1:37:51And this guy pulls up in a Mercedes and I know the car. It's a great car. It's about 120,$130 ,000 car. And he hands the valet$5. Dude, that's just stupid. So I pull up my truck, you know, it's a nice truck, but I pull up my truck. I hand the guy 20 bucks. I'm like, please take care of my baby. And you know where it was when I came out? It was sitting right there, you know? So who prospered here? Everybody won. Everybody won. But you didn't give Ferris Bueller's day off the keys to your Mercedes for five bucks. I mean, what kind of moron? I mean, seriously, that's just short-sighted. That lack of generosity is short-sighted where it sounds like I'm some kind of big guy because I gave 20 bucks or whatever to park my stupid truck, but I'm not but there's a payoff there I ate my truck didn't there's nothing wrong my truck is sitting right there I don't have to wait on it when I come out the kid had a good night yeah at least partly because of me so I think everybody came out on this transaction yeah that's how generosity works yeah that's interesting it's been slow to learn for me not slow but I think it's just been uh yeah I just came from such a fear mentality yeah you know we just didn't have any money so it was like i remember i'd keep my money in a day i'd hide it yeah god i would hide that money i would spend half my day hiding my damn money boy i met this guy digging up dirt and hiding oh i understand i met this guy's a orthodox jewish rabbi and we become good friends rabbi daniel lapin he wrote oh he's hiding some he wrote a book no no he wrote a book called thou shall prosper and he said the problem is when you have that fear is you think money is like cake Like if I get a slice away, I got less cake.

1:39:34He said money's not like cake. Money's like candles. When you light it, you still got your candle. When you light another one, you still got your candle. You light another one, you still got your candle. That's how money works. Money will grow around you when you're doing the right stuff that you're supposed to be doing. That's like a beautiful picture.

1:39:53What role has faith played in your life? You mentioned it a little bit. How's that? What's that been like for you? It's central. And because I, as I said. I know you said other-centered earlier, which I thought was a term you hear a lot of times. Yeah. I guess that's maybe a faith phrase. I don't know. But it's, honestly, it's taught me how to be a better human being because I really wasn't a good one. You know, I grew up. The crap we did, man, and the way I behaved in my early years of my life. Were you just a dang anarchist or whatever? Yeah, apparently. I did all kinds of just redneck stupid stuff.

1:40:32But I needed to be a better person. And it turns out, again, better people have better lives. So the whole character shift through the faith walk of meeting Jesus and changing that, it cleaned up my view of things. It cleaned up my actions and how I react and those kinds of things. Because, I mean, again, I grew up where it was, you know, a Scotch-Irish thing. It's like a temper thing going on. So you can't do that and win out there. You can't be a jerk everywhere. And so you got to go in. You know, they don't want you back on the show if you're a butt in the green room. And so it turns out that all worked out for me.

1:41:20So, you know, the re-transformation, the be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, Romans says in the Bible. And so the renewing of my mind over 45 years. And I'm not a rive, don't misunderstand, but like I said earlier, I'm a lot better husband than I was. I mean, even with my grandbabies, I'm playing my grandbabies. My kids are like, who are you? I'm like, well, I can hand this one back. This one smells bad. It's broke. You can take that one home. But, yeah, who are you? Papa Dave. I mean, come on, man. You wouldn't let us get by with that crap. I'm like, yeah, I know, but I had to make you behave or whatever.

1:41:59You can take this one home. You can teach it. But, yeah, it's central to everything. I know who I am. I know where I'm going. It affects how I deal with kids, marriage. It affects my money. It affects how I lead in the business. It affects our decisions in the marketplace. So, yeah, I guess it's central to everything if you want to look at it that way. It's changed my life. Yeah? Really? Yeah, absolutely. Completely. Wow, that's amazing, man. It's nice to hear. Did you, when you look at your future now, like what are things that you still want to do? You've had so much success and such the opportunity to lead people, to make financial choices.

1:42:41You helped my stepdad pay it off our house because of knowledge he learned from you. Wow. I remember that. And so it took him a little bit, but I remember one day he told me he'd heard it. And then probably 11 years later, eight years later, something he said, house has paid off. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I love it. What are things that still excite you? You know, things that move the needle. And I get to see something move with a little bit of scale out there where we can affect someone's life. And then I run into him. And, you know, this YouTube thing with a billion and a half downloads on that thing.

1:43:19Now, it's a whole new market that talk radio was old white guys, right? Yeah. Right. But YouTube's youngsters. And so Sharon and I were in Best Buy. And these two kids are like 17 years old, run up like I'm some kind of freaking rock star or something. Like, man, I love your YouTube stuff. It's like, man, I just paid cash for my first car because I'm watching you. this stuff on tiktok's so funny and man thank you and there it was like sharon's like golly they're 17 years old man it's great yeah it's gonna make you feel good that kind of that kind of stuff is worth that makes it worth coming down here every day and and you know flipping on the switch on the microphone coming up with something figuring out a way to connect and uh and be authentic you got to be real about it you can't just you can't manipulate these platforms they're too they're too nuanced and they're there's um people can see a fake a mile away yeah yeah i I think it's true.

1:44:13I think, well, it's interesting. Yeah. I think especially now there's so much stuff out there. It's like, um, yeah, you want to try and be as authentic you can to your own experience, you know, and you've had a lot of great experiences. And so you want to be able to share those, you know, um, in a way that feels comfortable to people. And, um, and obviously you guys have been doing that and doing it really well. Um, yeah. What do you say to somebody like right now? Like, what is some of your just basic advice? If there's somebody who's, you know, uh, they feel like maybe they don't have a chance or What would you give just a, what's your kind of pep talk, your financial guidance for somebody like that?

1:44:46Somebody who's just like, you know, they don't know if they can figure it out. They don't know if they have a ton of hope for themselves. You can't change everything about them, but what are some things you remind them of? Yeah. Dr. John Deloney, that's one of our Ramsey personalities on our team, has done a lot of trauma studies. He's got a PhD in counseling. And he says when you're in the middle of trauma, Like he's been on police calls when they go in and there's a murder or suicide or something in the home, extreme trauma. And your body physically reacts to trauma. And he says the way to walk through those things is facts are your friends.

1:45:28Your feelings are not true. and so when you feel stuck and hopeless you got to back out and start looking about okay here's what's really here's the numbers and here's the reality of the marketplace facts are your friends and so oftentimes when someone calls on the ramsey show that's all we're doing they call up and they're overwhelmed they're frozen they're paralyzed they don't know what to do and we're going, now, wait a minute, how much you make a year? We'll make$100 ,000. Okay. And so, and we just, we're stuck. We can't move. We can't, we can't figure out what to do. I'm like, okay, how much you own your car?

1:46:04$56 ,000. Okay. All right. And how much, you know, do you have in retirement? Nothing. Okay. How old are you? I'm 26. Okay. All right. And, you know, and okay. Now, so the facts are that you really have plenty of money coming in and you bought a car you can't afford. Sell a stupid car. Yeah. He goes, oh man, you're like a genius. It's like sixth grade math. But all we did was peel back the drama that all of us, our bodies just freeze up. We just get in hopelessness. Yeah, freezing is a response to trauma. I'm freezing up. We're stuck and we don't know what to do. And all we do is cut the dadgum trees down so you can see the forest, you know, and can't see the forest for the trees.

1:46:53And And it's like, you know, a lady called not long ago, and she said, they're foreclosing on my house Friday. What am I going to do? I said, I don't know. It was Monday. We had five days. What are we going to do? I don't know. I said, one thing you can do is just go get another house. She went, you can do that? I went, yeah, just go get something to rent. People will rent to you? Yeah, people will rent to you. So you're not going to be homeless. She made$120 ,000 a year. I was like, we'll just go get you another house. But let's learn about the details of the foreclosure and see if we can stop it.

1:47:28We were able to actually figure out how to stop the foreclosure. But, you know, the reality was her whole life was coming to an end on Friday. And it's a house. There's one on every corner. Just go get another one. Yeah. You know, it's like, but we get just, you know, we get just hammered. We had another one that was really sad. A lady was being foreclosed on a different one. And her husband, 36 years old, was a roofer. He fell through the roof and got killed. And she's got two little kids. And the workers' comp didn't pay out. They waited like forever. So the house got behind. And she's getting ready to be foreclosed on.

1:48:02And we're like, she owed$60 ,000 on a$300 ,000 house. I'm like, no, you are not getting foreclosed on. We are stopping this. This is not happening. You're a widow. Somebody's going to take care of you. And another roofing guy called our office while we're on the air and caught the house up. So, I mean, we said we're going to take care. Other people stepped in and heard the story started taking care of us. You're not getting foreclosed on. I'm 100 % sure it's not going to happen. We're not losing a house,$300 ,000 house for 60K. But she was completely overwhelmed. Other people had taken her power.

1:48:33The situation, the variables had taken her power. She could not see. She was frozen up. And all we did was we weren't there. And so we weren't frozen up. And we could see what everybody, everybody listening, everybody watching could see the same thing. Of course we're not going to let that house get sold. Nothing else, you sell it for$200 ,000 before Friday. You're not going to give it away for$60 ,000. So we're going to do something. Yeah, the fear. People get stuck. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all we do. Is unlock them. Yep. Help unlock them. Yep. With facts. With facts. To somebody that's starting out right now, they're just starting out in the world.

1:49:08They got their first couple of jobs. They just got out of college. How much money do they need to save if they want to have some freedom in the future? What do you tell them, Dave? Well, the first thing we tell them is get out of debt, everything but the house, and then have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. We call it the baby steps. There they are. And so once you're at baby step three and you have three to six months of expenses, you don't have any payments but a house payment. So you save three to six months. You have savings to pay off for three to six months in case something happens.

1:49:35Exactly. It's a rainy day fund. You don't – it's not a I want a bass boat. It's a rainy day fund. It's not a I need a new couch. It's a rainy day fund. You don't touch that. If you're going to buy something else, you save up and pay for it. But to answer your question, baby, step four is invest 15 % of your income. When you don't have any payments except a house payment, you can save 15 % of your income. And the average household income in America right now is$72 ,000 a year. If you save 15 % of$72 ,000 from$30 ,000 to$65 ,000, you're going to have about$5 million in mutual funds. Say that again?

1:50:07So if I'm like 5x wrong, you're still a millionaire. Shut up. You really can't screw this up. But you can screw it up because you live in America and you can get a$1 ,200 car payment for a freaking car you can't afford to impress people to stoplight who don't even care about you. And that's what we do instead. Or I need another truck. Or I need another whatever. I mean, I'm the same guy. But, yeah, so then we say for kids' college, six is what your stepdad did. We pay off the house early in 11 years. By the way, oddly enough, 11 years is the average millionaire that paid off their houses in 11 years.

1:50:4011.2 years in the study that we were talking about earlier. So that's one of the things that people did to become millionaires. Yeah, they walked right. We call them baby steps millionaires. They walked right up this. They get their house paid off in an average of 11 years. Some of them seven years, some of them 14, but an average of 11. Wow. And then when you don't have a house payment, dude, I mean, that's$2 ,000,$3 ,000 a month. Oh, yeah, dude. You got bank to be generous with, bank to be investing. and you can take a bath. You can relax at your house and get in the bathtub. Stack and cash, that's it.

1:51:10God, maybe that's what I want. I'll buy a dang bird bath and sit in that thing. If I'm debt free, I'll sit in the front yard in there and use some dang soap up. Dave Ramsey, anything else that you want to share with us that you think? We've covered a lot of neat stuff, I think. I feel like we've been through a lot of avenues. It was an honor to be with you. Yeah, you too, man. I'm impressed with what you're doing. It's so good. Well, thanks, man. I just feel like watching your career and watching you clean up and get, get right and doing, doing stuff. I watched your, your content shift. You're doing really good.

1:51:42You're doing great. I'm, I'm, I'm proud to know you. Thanks, man. Yeah. It's so crazy. Yeah. That I, I remember my stepdad said that. And then like two years ago, I'll be like, man, wouldn't it be crazy if we got to have Dave Ramsey on, you know? And then here we get to. And then you could tell him you were underwhelmed. But we didn't lose hope, man. Anyway, that's true. We didn't lose hope. That's true. And so, yeah, you so much. Thanks for the guidance. You guys can check out the Ramsey show. And then there's just so many YouTube clips. There's probably a clip for almost everything these days.

1:52:15For everything you want to find out about finances, how to take care of yourself, how to move forward, they can call into the show daily? No. Every day. You can call into his show every day if you have a question. And there's some great videos of some of the best questions that they've had online as well. Dave Ramsey, thanks so much, man. Thank you, brother. Yeah, appreciate it. And best of luck, and I hope to see you around town sometime. Well, hang.

1:53:05Thank you.