Dave Ramsey: Get Rich and Stay Rich, Financial Decisions That Help You Build Wealth | Finance | E388

15:38Hala Taha:Young and profiters, let me ask you something. Have you ever missed an opportunity from a potential client and felt that drop in your stomach? I know I have far too many times. When my business first started scaling, Calls were going to one person, texts were going to another, and opportunities kept slipping through the cracks. That's why we switched to Quo, spelled Q-U-O. Quo gives your team one shared business number, like a shared inbox. Every call and text is in one place. Everyone sees the history. No more pointing fingers than I thought you handled it going on. Plus, the AI logs calls, summarizes them, and flags next steps so nothing ever gets missed.

16:15Hala Taha:Growing teams everywhere are upgrading to systems like this because once you've scale, your old setup just doesn't work anymore. If you're serious about building a real company, this is a foundational move. Make this a year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo, Q-U-O, for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. Again, that's Q-U-O.com slash profiting. Quo, no missed calls, no missed customers. I interviewed Michael Michalowicz recently, if you're familiar with him, and he taught me about something called the Parkinson's law, which basically as high earners get more money, when they have more money in their bank account, they just end up spending more because visibly they can see more money.

16:59Hala Taha:Do you think it's the same thing with credit cards? Like if you know you've got a$20 ,000 limit, then suddenly?

17:04Dave Ramsey:Yeah, it's out of sight, out of mind. And it's the same Parkinson's law applies to closet space too. In your home, if you have an empty closet, it's going to fill up. There'll be some junk in there in about 10 months. And so So your garage does the same thing, right? So that applies to everything. And there's a sense of that. And the way we've seen it, like in the old days, when I first started doing this on talk radio back in the day, we would have someone call in and say, hey, I got a$300 a month raise. How'd you celebrate? I bought a$400 a month car payment. You know, that's Parkinson's law too.

17:39Dave Ramsey:It's the same thing. If it's there, I have to spend it, right? And so, yeah, I do agree with that. And I think you got to watch that. And there's an interesting thing with the credit card, too, that kind of goes with the same thing. And, again, no one spends cash. I actually use cash sometimes. I'm a cash guy. I'm an old guy, so that's possible. I understand everybody's not going to do that. But what's interesting is if I'm going to buy something, I hand you money, you keep it, and I get the item.

18:10Hala Taha:Yeah.

18:10Dave Ramsey:It's like when you're a little child, you're trading toys. it's interesting visual that when you hand someone a card even if it's a debit card they hand the card back and you get the thing isn't that an interesting visual there's no trade took

18:26Hala Taha:place yeah that is really interesting and it probably makes you feel like you're not really giving up anything to get it exactly that's a frictionless problem we're talking about yeah okay so another hard line which is on the same line so we don't have to spend too much time on it, but there's no such thing as good debt. So even like mortgages on a house, you believe there's no such thing as good debt?

18:51Dave Ramsey:Eventually. I mean, we don't yell at people for taking out a mortgage on our programs and in our processes. I don't borrow money, period. I've never borrowed any money since I went broke. And I built everything with organic cash along the way, 100%. It means I I had to go slower than some people. I'm not as big as some people, but I'm fine with that. I'm not going to lose it either. So the thing that we don't equate with debt hardly anywhere in our society or in this discussion is 100 % of the time debt equals risk. Little debt, little risk. Small interest rate debt, small debt, little risk. Big debt, big risk.

19:33Dave Ramsey:But people don't think about it. They only talk about debt as if there's one possible outcome and it's a positive outcome. And we always laugh and say there's been, we've done detailed research and 100 % of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. So if you want to destabilize your retirement, go into retirement with a mortgage. Think about it. Because, you know, you're 80 years old now and you got a house payment. You're 78 years old and you got a house payment. This is not a plan. And again, referring back to that millionaire study, we found basically two things that caused people to get their first$1 to$5 million in net worth.

20:10Dave Ramsey:It was a well-funded retirement plan taking advantage of good mutual funds and compound interest. And that would be$700 ,000,$800 ,000 maybe after 10 or 12 years of working on it hard. And a paid off$500 ,000,$600 ,000,$800 ,000,$900 ,000 house. Those two things combined. the number of them that had paid off houses as a big component of their first million dollars was huge. There's a correlation between it and wealth building.

20:34Hala Taha:That makes sense. And to that point, you don't believe that you should have any debt into retirement. Like once you retire, you should be totally debt free.

20:44Dave Ramsey:It's the best way, obviously, to have a stable situation. And because the number of times I I talked to someone that, you know, they've got a mortgage and then they've run through their nest egg. And now they got a mortgage and they're trying to figure out how they're going to support that.

21:01Hala Taha:Yeah.

21:02Dave Ramsey:And so it's devastating. Yeah.

21:05Hala Taha:OK, good advice. OK, one more hard line. Debt snowball over avalanche. So the argument is that avalanche method could actually help you save more money, whereas you prefer the snowball method, which pays off the smallest balances first.

21:22Dave Ramsey:Right. The avalanche method pays off the highest interest rate to smallest interest rate, which is purported to be mathematically advantageous. Then the debt snowball pays off the smallest debt to the largest debt, which is a feedback loop because personal finance is 80 % behavior. It's only 20 % head knowledge. We started the discussion with, why don't people do this? Because they don't get positive feedback. If you go to the gym for three months and you don't lose weight and your goal was to go to the gym to lose weight, you quit going to the gym.

21:53Hala Taha:Yeah.

21:53Dave Ramsey:Because you got no feedback loop. Okay. So the positive on that snowball is the feedback loop. I pay off the little one. It's like, whoa. And then I pay off another one. Like, whoa. And hope starts to kick in. And as you get more excited, you'll sacrifice even deeper. And the math gets better and better and better. But here's the big problem with the avalanche and people saying it's mathematically advantageous. It's actually not. Because if you're going to do the real math on it below the surface, you have to say, what's the probability of completion? Probability of completion because of the feedback loop with a snowball is way higher than the probability of completion on the avalanche.

22:30Dave Ramsey:Most people don't finish it.

22:31Hala Taha:Yeah.

22:32Dave Ramsey:Because they don't get positive feedback. Yeah. And so if you add in probability of completion and you got a high probability of completion versus a low one, you put that in the math, which is an actual proper, sophisticated way of looking at the mathematics, then you would say, oh, the snowball's actually mathematically advantageous.

22:49Hala Taha:Yeah. Well, you must be onto something because you've helped millions of people at this point get debt-free and become financially free. So I have a theme for this episode. I'm calling it Mo Money, Mo Problems. So back to the fact.

23:04Dave Ramsey:I like it.

23:04Hala Taha:That my listeners are doing really well. They're high earners. A lot of them are entrepreneurs. They're earning well over six figures, some of them a million dollars a year or more. And so I want to go through some financial scenarios that a lot of high earners might be facing, not just people. I don't think my listeners are in so much debt and things like that. I think they're just worried about the right moves to do now that they actually have money. So the first scenario I have is a 35-year-old person works in tech. They're making$300 ,000 a year. They've got a really high-paying executive job.

23:41Hala Taha:Their lifestyle is built around their high paycheck, but they see layoffs happening. Yep. And they're worried that, you know, one day suddenly their high paying job will just go away. So what do you think their plan should be? How should they prepare knowing that job security today is an issue?

24:01Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Well, job security is always an issue. And you don't want to fall for what we call the myth of continuity. The myth of continuity is because it's been this way, it's always going to be this way. It's not. It's not always going to stick there. It doesn't always. It's going to change. It's going to be better or worse 100 % of the time. So I think you need to work a plan that works when times are good and when times are bad. And that's the advantage of the Luddite Ramsey plan. You know, the Ramsey plan that's just so grandma basic. Live on less than you make. Have a written budget. Always be generous.

24:36Dave Ramsey:Always have an emergency fund. Get out of debt and stay out of debt. If you're doing that and you make$300 ,000 and you got an emergency fund, you don't have any payments, you're okay. You know, you're planning and you're investing for your future and you're generous. You know, you're going to be okay and you have prepared properly. Oh, by the way, that works if you don't get laid off too. Yeah. You'll still end up with a bunch of money. It works out great.

24:59Hala Taha:Yeah. How should you suggest that somebody who makes$300 ,000 a year budget? Like what should their steps should be in terms of creating a sustainable budget?

25:08Dave Ramsey:The only budgets that work is the married couple works together and they both have a vote and they both agree to it and stick to it. And you develop the plan before the month begins. And we call it a zero-based budget. And that's where you take your income before the month begins and you give every dollar an assignment, every dollar a name down to zero. Now, we're not talking about your checking account balance. We're talking about your budget. So if you've got$25 ,000 coming in a month,$300 ,000 plus or minus taxes, right? But I mean, if you've got that$20 ,000 coming in, then we're going to put$20 ,000 at the top of the page, and we're going to give every dollar an assignment, every dollar a name.

25:48Dave Ramsey:That's why we named our budgeting app Every Dollar. And then we're in agreement, and then we stick to that. And all you're doing there is being intentional. A budget, John Maxwell used to say, a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. And so we run about a$300 million company here. Every profit center has a budget. Before the month begins, before the quarter begins, before the year begins, we lay out rolling 12, rolling 18, what we're projecting revenues to be and where they're going to go and what the resulting profits are. And then we manage to that budget.

26:24Dave Ramsey:We manage to that. And that's what you do in a household. And so we always say, you know, if you work for a company called You Incorporated and you manage money for You Incorporated the way you manage money for You Now, would you fire you? And I would fire somebody here if they have budget P &L responsibility and they don't do a budget and they don't stick to it. They just willy-nilly go do whatever they want to do and impulse a Porsche. You know, I mean, you just can't operate that way and be successful. Winning is an intentional act and budget is where we become intentional with our money.

26:55Hala Taha:Yeah. Now, I know a lot of earners, high earners, you know, as they start to break, you know,$500 ,000 a year, a million a year, they might lose sight of like needing a budget. They might feel like, well, I make so much money, I don't need a budget anymore. Do you feel like there's any problems with that kind of thinking?

27:13Dave Ramsey:Yeah, because it's just chaotic and wasteful is what ends up happening. You're not going to go broke because of it. You know, you're making a million dollars a year and you're spending like a crazy person. That's fine. You're probably going to be okay until you quit making a million. But the problem is you just didn't get the best squeeze for the juice, right? I mean, you didn't get the best, you know, I don't want to have, I don't want to make that kind of money and look up 10 years later and have nothing to show for it. That would be like having a hangover. Yeah. That'd be awful. And so I want you to win.

27:42Dave Ramsey:I want you to get the most out of this as possible. All a budget is, again, is a spending plan. It's not to be restrictive. restrictive. It's just you're telling your money what to do, and then you stick to what you want to do. It's your deal. You decide. And the same thing's true in a company. And so, you know, if we were running, instead of a$300 million company, if we were running a$3 billion company, we wouldn't say, oh, we don't need to do budgets now. Yeah.

28:09Hala Taha:Okay. So let's take the scenario of somebody who's been making a lot of money in their 30s. They haven't been saving that much. They haven't thought about retirement. They hit 40 and they realize they only have a couple hundred grand for retirement saved, even though they've been making a whole bunch of money in their 30s. What should they do next?

28:27Dave Ramsey:Well, obviously you got to play some catch up and there's some urgency, but not panic. I love urgency because it gets people moving. It gets me to change. I like urgency in my own life. I think it's a good thing. So, you know, let's just, again, I, the framework we always use, and you're aware this is the baby steps. And so we're going to make sure you're out of debt and have an emergency fund. Once you've done all that, then let's start stocking some money away. Let's start putting 15 % of your income away. If you're 40 years old, you make an average income and you start putting 15 % of your income away, plus or minus a match in a good Roth IRA and good mutual funds that give you market rates of return, you're going to be a multimillionaire easily in 25 years mathematically.

29:10Dave Ramsey:And so, but you've got to do it. You can't just talk about it. It's not theory. The number one problem with retirement planning and retirement investing is not what people put money in. It's that they don't put money in. You got to put money in there for there to be some money in there. It's a pretty simple math thing. And so that's what you've got to gear up here is just get some urgency and start, we got to start stocking some money away. We got to get this 401k jacked up and we got to learn a little bit about this and have some motivation and quit spending like we're in Congress.

29:40Hala Taha:Yeah. Okay, last one is about taxes. So somebody owns a business, they're making, you know, let's say$5 million a year, and they've become obsessed with saving on taxes. They're like me, they moved to Austin to try to save on taxes. And so much of their decision-making energy around their business is saving on taxes. What's your thoughts about that? You have to, in business, make first good business and economic decisions.

30:17Dave Ramsey:While you're doing that, if you can do that in such a way that it saves on taxes, fine. But if you do something to save on taxes, and when people get obsessed with this is what we do. I've done it too in the past. Not in a long, long time, but I used to do it. If you get obsessed with, I hate taxes so bad that I'm going to do this to save on taxes, but it's stupid. It's bad business. It's a bad financial decision. And so I won here, but I lost 10 over here. And that's a bad idea. An example of that is the simple buying something that is not needed because you can write it off.

30:57Hala Taha:Mm-hmm.

30:58Dave Ramsey:Well, I mean, if you spend$100 ,000 on an item that is expensible in that calendar year, depending on the category of the item, but let's call it expensible, and you're in a 25 % tax bracket, you save$25 ,000 in taxes. You don't save$100 ,000.

31:14Hala Taha:Yeah.

31:15Dave Ramsey:But you bought$100 ,000 worth of stuff you didn't need. So you gave up$100 ,000 to save$25 ,000 because of your obsession with taxes. I mean, your accountant said something stupid like, you need a write-off. But you don't need a write-off that bad to trade a dollar for a quarter. Yep. That's dumb. And that's a very simplistic way of that motivation of tax savings getting out of hand. And I've seen a lot of small business people do that. Oh, I bought this because of my accountant. Yep. I need a write-off. And no, not if you don't need it. All expenses coming off the bottom line of it or coming out of the P &L of a business should be looked at through the lens of, I need a return on that investment.

31:53Dave Ramsey:Oh, and I can write it off.

31:55Hala Taha:Yeah.

31:56Dave Ramsey:Not zero return on investment, but I get to write it off. That's a dollar for a quarter. Don't make that trade.

32:00Hala Taha:Yeah. I find myself, you know, thinking about taxes and making these decisions all the time. I hate them.

32:07Dave Ramsey:I get I get really angry at that time of year. It's really hard for me. I hate it. But I still I have never been able to wait. You know, this idea. It always makes me angry, too, when people say, oh, the rich pay no taxes. I don't I'm pretty rich and I don't pay a lot of taxes. I don't know who those people are. I don't I haven't been able to get out of it. So, you know, we're very diligent and very careful. We try to learn any techniques we can, but it has to first be economically, give me a rate of return on the investment from a business expense perspective. Then it's a good tax move. Not it's a good tax move and it sucks over here.

32:44Hala Taha:Yeah, makes sense. So I feel like that was super helpful for everybody who's a high earner or has a business. Now, I also have listeners who are, you know, wanting to be high earners. They're Gen Z. They might be taking their first job. They're in college. What do you feel is the biggest money mistake that younger people do right now?

33:01Dave Ramsey:Well, the Gen Z and millennials, we've got a thousand folks on our team and probably 700 of them fall in that category. And so I have become a huge fan of those two generations. And part of it is from a business perspective and from a career and earning perspective. So here's what you've got at your advantage if you're a Gen Z or a millennial. You grew up with this thing in your hand your entire life that's a magic wand. You could push a button and anything happens. Stuff shows up on your porch. You can access the world's knowledge. You can do anything with it. Find out what the weather is, dodge a tornado, whatever it is, right?

33:43Dave Ramsey:It's all right there in your hand. And so because of that, that's not native to my generation. That's native to your generation. And what that gives you guys is your abundance thinkers. You think anything's possible because anything has always been possible. I just wave this wand and stuff happens. It's amazing. And you really, gosh, and that's the good part. The bad part is sometimes what goes with that, and to answer your question in long form, is impatience. I want it right now because I've always gotten it right now. and you don't get good barbecue out of the microwave. Good barbecue has to be cooked a long time, like all weekend.

34:26Dave Ramsey:I mean, you're in Austin, Texas, good barbecue, right? There's no such thing as microwave barbecue that's good. That's not a sentence anywhere. And so look at your career like barbecue. You got to cook it. It's going to take a while. It's not going to be instant. It's going to be sometimes frustratingly slow. and especially if you're used to not things being slow, right? And so just guard against that. And that's normal immaturity, whether you're 55 or 25, the ability to delay pleasure for a greater good. But it's amplified in this case, and it's not immaturity, but it's amplified by this fact that your reality has been things are quick.

35:11Hala Taha:Yeah.

35:11Dave Ramsey:And quote, unquote, easy button. And, you know, building a good career, building a brand, a depth of knowledge. You've been at this seven years. Yeah. And you're kicking it, girl. I mean, I'm so proud of you. You've done such a great job. And everybody knows who you are. It's, you know, you're blowing up. But it's seven years, not seven minutes.

35:32Hala Taha:Yeah.

35:33Dave Ramsey:And you show up all the time, and you're sharp, and you're on it day after day, time after time. And every time we turn it on, we get the same girl, right? Same lady. And so that's why you're winning. It's just persistence over time.

35:47Hala Taha:Yeah. Now, you mentioned that you have eight grandkids. Are you worried about AI and technology? And do you worry about their careers and their ability to get that experience, given that AI might be taking a lot of these entry-level jobs?

36:04Dave Ramsey:No, I think AI is fabulous. AI is, I wasn't worried about the internet when it came on, too. I started before the internet, right? So I wasn't worried about that. I wasn't worried about when cable TV came on. It didn't bother me. Every one of these things represent opportunity. There's going to be more AI millionaires in Gen Z and more AI millionaires out of millennials than any group of millionaires we've ever seen. Because they're going to take it as a tool and learn how to use it. It works for you. You don't work for it. Period. If you just look at it as a tool, it's like, am I worried that Henry Ford started making cars and so we don't have to ride in a horse and buggy?

36:40Dave Ramsey:No, it means I can get to someplace faster. I can deliver my goods and services faster. It's called a business opportunity, man. Let's get with it. This is efficient delivery mechanisms, right? And efficient work mechanisms. Now, if you're doing something that AI does now, you may need to do something different and make it work for you instead of it replacing your job. But hey, welcome to the world. I mean, if you used to make whips for horses and bridles for horses, you had to get a new job because Henry Ford put you out of business, you know? And so, yeah, that's cool. But yeah, AI is wonderful.

37:11The thing I do worry about with my grandkids is the access to evil, that the phone and that the AI, it gives a gateway into children's

37:27Dave Ramsey:lives of evil that shouldn't be there.

37:31Hala Taha:Tell me more about that.

37:32Dave Ramsey:Well, we end up with stuff like sex trafficking.

37:34Hala Taha:Yeah.

37:34Dave Ramsey:And we end up with people being groomed, and we end up with 12-year-olds bullying each other. and the misuse of these wonderful technologies, the evil misuse. And some of it's just so horrendous. And so we have to teach our kids to not get addicted to screens and to not think that everything on there is what it says it is, because most of it isn't. Most of it's a lie, including your Instagram reel, because your life's not really that pretty. None of it is, right? And so that's, you know, I see me in the morning, right? My hair doesn't look this good. And so, you know, that whole thing, right? So we got to teach the kids that, you know, what's real and what's artificial intelligence.

38:20Dave Ramsey:Artificial sweetener is different than sweetener. You know, so we have to teach some good spiritual and philosophical foundations for those kids to not become victims of this. And I do worry about that with the little ones in particular because there's some real nasty stuff out there.

38:35Hala Taha:Yeah. Well, hopefully it all works out and, you know, kids get educated on how to tell what's AI versus what. I'm sure that will be like part of school moving forward because it's going to be such a big part of our lives.

38:46Dave Ramsey:I think you guys will catch on faster. It's my generation. I had a thing pop up on AI on me the other day. And then it's a fraudulent thing of me saying something I don't say, you know.

38:56Hala Taha:Of you, actually, like a video of you? Yeah, it's a video of me.

39:00Dave Ramsey:And it's not even really good. It looks like a kung fu movie. Like it doesn't match, right? The words don't match, but it went everywhere. And like my 65-year-old friends are emailing my wife going, what did Dave say that on Facebook for? Dave didn't say that. Oh, no. They're more susceptible and naive, I think, from your generation. Your generation is naturally cynical for good reason about, you're like, is that real? Immediately, first thing goes into your mind, which is awesome. So I think you're protected that way.

39:25Hala Taha:Yeah.

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42:00Hala Taha:Hey, App Fam, question for you. When somebody Googles you right now, are you proud of what they see? Or would you say, ignore that, it's under construction? For two years, I've been there. At one point, our site didn't reflect the level we were operating at at all. It felt so outdated, and every small update required way too much back and forth. That's why I love Framer. Framer lets you design and publish a premium professional website without writing a single line of code. It's fast and you can launch pages in minutes. You're in control, no waiting on developers, and the designs look modern, clean, and polished on any device.

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43:09Dave Ramsey:Consumer facing, the fastest growing thing is the EveryDollar app. It's exploding. And we've spent an amazing amount of money, time, effort, intellectual calories on it, iterating it and building it and iterating. And we do every day. We're going to every day making it better. And it's going nuts. The broadcast properties is what we call them, but they're not really broadcast. We still have a talk radio show that is also on YouTube and also on podcasts, the mothership, so to speak, the Ramsey Show. So, and those things through, you know, all the different platforms we're able to monetize with ad revenues.

43:56Dave Ramsey:It's pretty substantial. And that revenue has moved. We still have a lot of talk radio revenue. There's still people listening to talk radio. I don't know where they are, but they're out there. And so that revenue is still very real. And we've still got one of the largest talk radio networks. So that stream is still there. I don't know how long it's going to be there. I don't think in 10 years I'll look the same. But, you know, the Spotify's and YouTube's of the world have had a huge impact. And so we're on everything, and we're monetizing it with ads and with product delivery mentions integrated into show notes and integrated into the show bodies and so forth.

44:42Dave Ramsey:We have a high school curriculum that has been taught now, and 48 % of the high schools, 7 million students have been through it.

44:49Hala Taha:Oh, wow.

44:50Dave Ramsey:And it's continuing to grow. There's a real move in that world to adopt. The adoption process to adopt curriculum in high schools has been mandated by the states in 38 states to teach personal finance. Oh, wow. And we're the premier curriculum in that, the best by far. And so that's continuing to grow, thank goodness, because that's a great thing if you can get this stuff in high school. Obviously, we've got the publishing arm. We're still putting out number one by selling books every year and have for decades. It's not a huge percentage of our revenue, but it's still a great brand mix and a great tip of the spear, so to speak, as we go forward.

45:34Dave Ramsey:We've got a thing called Smart Dollar that is our corporate HR benefit to teach our lessons. It's like the old Financial Peace University, but taught in corporate America. And so like U-Haul has done it. Costco is doing it. Companies like that. And a lot of small and medium-sized companies are buying that. And that's a massive thing. It's real quiet, but it's because it's B2B. So the consumer doesn't really see it that much. But it's really massive and really moving. And then our Entree Leadership brand has exploded. It's gone crazy. We coach about 10 ,000 small businesses. Oh, really? On how to run a business.

46:15Dave Ramsey:And it came out of the old book I did about 15 years ago called Entree Leadership. It was how we ran our business, and we started teaching other people how to do it. And so that's—I love entrepreneurs, and I love small business people because I've been one my whole life. Yeah.

46:31Hala Taha:Now, I learned, I was listening to some of your interviews that you've done recently, and I heard you say that the radio show lost money for like 10 years or something like that. Like, it was like not making money for many years. So, how do you think of certain aspects of your business that actually don't make money? And can you talk about some of the biggest lead generators that might not really make money, but are still important to your business?

46:57Dave Ramsey:Well, that's exactly what it was, it was a lead generator. And so we didn't look at it as a, we did look at it as a P &L that was losing money because I wanted to fight through and actually get some ads sold to cover the cost of running the stinking thing. But it took forever. But the reason we kept doing it and didn't close it, if we had another business unit that was doing that, we might close it. But it was generating all the leads. You know, we were generating bestselling books because of the show. We were generating arenas full of people because of the show. We were generating all these other things because of the show, because talk radio in those days was in its zenith.

47:35Dave Ramsey:It was like a podcast today, like one of the top podcasts. We were one of the top talk radio shows. So that's why we kept it going. Now, we've had other areas where we lost money, but it wasn't generating any.

47:49Hala Taha:It wasn't causing any, you know, and so we just closed those.

47:53Dave Ramsey:That's a failed experiment. Welcome to business.

47:57Hala Taha:Yeah. And so I know that you have a podcast network. You've got the Ramsey Network. I'm not sure if you know this about me. I have a podcast network as well. I have the Yap Media Network. It has 45 shows. So I represent people like Jenna Kutcher and Russell Brunson and Trent Shelton. And I've had Amy Porterfield and Lori Harder and all these really big business self-improvement podcasters in my network. I grow and monetize them. So Ramsey Network is an amazing network and you've got awesome personalities. I've interviewed a lot of people that have, you know, shows under your network. How do you think about talent?

48:32Hala Taha:How did you start deciding that you wanted to have a network? In my mind, having a network is sort of the pinnacle of creator entrepreneurship. Like you're not just a creator entrepreneur now, you monetize other creators. It's kind of the top of, you know, the mountain, so to speak. So why did you decide to start a network and how did you first start picking your talent?

48:56Dave Ramsey:Really good way of saying that. I hadn't actually looked at it that way. That's really smart. The reason we did it was because we started studying 18 years ago. Yeah, I'm 65. So 18 years ago, we started studying succession planning on family businesses. And so we figured out, okay, you've got to train the next generation, Gen 2 of owners. You've got to have a stable full of excellent leaders to be able to, when I'm not here, to run the business and so forth. The thing we couldn't figure out and we couldn't find any best practices on was how to have this place survive when I die if I'm the only talent.

49:42Dave Ramsey:And if I'm the only on-air persona, right? And because Paul Harvey Jr. usually doesn't make it. And good guy, but he didn't make it. He wasn't his dad, you know. And sometimes that happens with a pastor when they pass away. If their son or daughter tries to take the church, it doesn't work. Or sometimes it happens with a small business. So we started studying and we figured out Rachel, my daughter, is a huge, got a huge social footprint, does extremely well, was really blowing up at that time starting. And we said, well, I hate to put the whole place on her shoulders. It's not very well diversified.

50:20It's also emotionally crushing to carry the whole weight of everything your dad built.

50:25Dave Ramsey:And then if you stumble, oh, it's double hard, right? So I wouldn't do that to my own daughter. And so we started coming up with this idea of one-to-many rather than one-to-one handoff. And so it was a succession plan to brand handoff. And so we started studying, okay, what percentage of our revenue comes from me running my mouth? And in those days, it was 98%, right? And we said, well, what happens if I die? That means this whole place folds up. Bad idea for all the people that work here, you know? And bad idea for have worked 25 years to build something and it just dies when you do. Mm-hmm. So we said, all right, let's start building that.

51:08Dave Ramsey:Today, we've actually transitioned finally to where it's about 96 % of the revenue would survive if I'm not here.

51:17Hala Taha:Oh, wow.

51:17Dave Ramsey:And so hopefully people would be sad, but revenue-wise, they're okay. Yeah.

51:23Hala Taha:Do you suggest that every business have some sort of show or way to get an audience in the way that you guys do at Ramsey?

51:36Dave Ramsey:No. You need to think about how you can interact with the public, but not like, for instance, in Entree Leadership, we've got a bazillion heating and air companies.

51:50Hala Taha:Yeah, what are they going to talk about?

51:51Dave Ramsey:The guy running the heat and air company doesn't need a show.

51:53Hala Taha:That's true.

51:54Dave Ramsey:Probably. He might, but he might not, or she might not, okay? Every dentist doesn't need a show.

51:59Hala Taha:Mm-hmm. But do they need some kind of interface with technology and with these platforms?

52:06Dave Ramsey:Yeah, yeah. Some Instagram and, you know, whatever the platform is appropriate to where their audience is, to where their customer base is, they need to be there. And so, but when Twitter got hot a thousand years ago, when it was a big deal, when it first started, there was a whole period of time people ran around saying, everyone needs a Twitter account. And everybody doesn't need a Twitter account. Yeah. They don't. And for sure today, they don't. But everybody doesn't need an Instagram account. Everybody doesn't need a podcast. But, you know, you need to think about, is there a place for this?

52:38Dave Ramsey:And do I have something to say that somebody actually wants to hear? Can I provide a service? Can I give information that's helpful? And, but Instagram Reels will do that. You don't have to go all the way into the podcast world to do it.

52:54Hala Taha:Yeah. And sometimes it could be real life having billboards or something like that. Exactly. You can go back to old school analog stuff.

53:00Dave Ramsey:Yeah.

53:02Hala Taha:Okay. So you mentioned that you were really excited about this app. It's called the, is it called the Everyday app?

53:07Dave Ramsey:Every dollar.

53:08Hala Taha:Every dollar.

53:08Dave Ramsey:Every dollar has a name. Yeah.

53:10Hala Taha:And is it a subscription model?

53:12Dave Ramsey:Yes.

53:12Hala Taha:Talk to us about why that excites you so much and why you focus so much on that in your business.

53:18Dave Ramsey:Well, in this case, from a revenue perspective, it's wonderful because the subscription model is obviously a recurring revenue. I don't have to go leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home every morning. It's already coming in. It's what we used to call in the old days mailbox money, right? And so it's the beautiful thing about having some bestselling books. I still get royalty checks literally in the mailbox. and from books I did 20 years ago because they're still out there selling at some level. So that's mailbox money in that sense. And so subscription is recurring revenue. That's a wonderful thing.

53:51Dave Ramsey:The thing, though, in the digital setting, like an app or something like that, that's subscription, is it forces me as the owner and my team to be of service. every stinking day. Otherwise, you get the churn dragon, and they leave, and they'll stay because they didn't get helped. And so if I can be of service to you every day and be a little bit better tomorrow than I was today, and a whole lot better this time next year than I was today, then you're going to stick with it. And so it challenges me to love my customer better and to add value to their life better because the net business result is they stick around.

54:43Hala Taha:Yeah.

54:43Dave Ramsey:And one of the sayings we have around here is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. And so if you keep your app iterating, you keep your digital offering growing and getting better and changing with the market because 100 % of the time tomorrow's different than today. Always getting better, always getting better, always serving more, always being more helpful than you were. People will stay with you. And then you have this wonderful thing called recurring revenue. If you don't meet that challenge, your subscription model will fold up like a Walmart tent. You'll crash because you'll become so stinking irrelevant in 20 seconds.

55:22Dave Ramsey:And the other good news is that you can fix it quickly. You can change it quick, easy. I print a book. It's analog. I can't fix it. There's a mistype in the thing. I can't fix it. I find it four years later. I can't fix it. I can't recall all the books because of one misspelled word. No. But I can jump on this stinking app or a website or whatever, a digital product, and we can iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate, and get better and test and test and test and test and work and help you and let you yell at us and let you smile at us. Man, we have all this wonderful interaction with our customer.

55:56Hala Taha:Yeah. Trust is so important, especially with a subscription model. A lot of the people tuning in here are creator entrepreneurs and their whole business is basically trust and people buying their courses or their mastermind subscriptions. What are your thoughts about building trust with your audience? Like what are the key things that we need to do?

56:17Dave Ramsey:Well, I mean, I think of it as just a relationship. And how do you build trust in a relationship? What does it mean to be trustworthy as a dad or a husband or a mom? What does it mean to be worthy of trust? Well, one thing comes to mind immediately is obviously telling the truth. Being authentic is another thing. That's a form of truth. Another thing is incredible consistency. You know, earlier you were challenging me on some of the things that are said about me, negative all over the place, about he's a hard line on this. He never changes. He never changes. And for that reason, I'm very trustworthy.

57:00Dave Ramsey:You may or may not agree with Ramsey, but you 100 % know we're going to say it again. Exactly the way we said it before. Because we really do believe it, and we really do believe it's best. and so it's a trustworthy source because it's, you can count on it. It's solid. We know what's going to happen. It's repeatable. And so if you think about someone you hire that's on your team and you can trust them, well, they've proven their competence, they've proven their integrity and it's all repeatable.

57:35Hala Taha:Yeah. Okay. So I end my show with two questions that I ask all of my guests. Okay. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

57:52Dave Ramsey:Quit trying to figure out how to make money before you figure out how to help someone. Figure out how to help them first. Then figure out how to make money on it.

58:09Hala Taha:And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? This can go beyond finance.

58:17Dave Ramsey:Open hand, generosity. Again, if you can put other people's best interest ahead of your own, God will take care of you. It works out, and it has for 40 years. I prospered beyond my wildest imagination when I quit trying to take care of Dave first. Instead, I said, I'm going to love that person well. I'm going to love that person well. Somebody's not going to like it. Somebody's not going to understand it, but I don't care. I'm going to do what I think I would do for my little sister, my little brother, my mother, my dad. I'm going to treat them like I would treat family. And I'm going to do the right thing.

58:55Dave Ramsey:And then I'm going to try to figure out how to be wise about it where I can actually stay open. And that's worked out really well. Yeah.

59:03Hala Taha:Any other last words for the entrepreneurs tuning in right now?

59:08Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I think it's an excellent time to be in business. Probably the best time in human history right now. I think if I am so excited for a 25-year-old entrepreneur right now, you're going to make some mistakes. You're going to stub your toe. You're still going to get a bloody nose. Oh, well, have at it. Do it anyway, man. but this is the best time in human history. You can get a product design idea to market so fast right now. You can serve people so quickly and so easily right now. If you ever were going to be an entrepreneur, anytime since the sun came up the first time, this is the time right now.

59:45Hala Taha:Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

59:47Dave Ramsey:Oh, RamseySolutions.com. Yeah, it's all there.

59:49Hala Taha:Amazing. Well, for all those links in the show notes, Dave, it is always such a pleasure to talk to you. I had so much fun today. Thank you so much.

59:55Dave Ramsey:Thank you. Thanks for having me.

59:59Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, I have to say it was super inspiring to sit down with Dave Ramsey face to face. Now, Dave is somebody who's in my world. So he owns a media company. He's got over a thousand employees and he's got a huge office and studios in Nashville. And this was one of the most inspiring moments for me as a podcaster, just flying out to Nashville, interviewing Dave Ramsey in the flesh. going to see his amazing studios and offices and everything that he's built. His company makes$300 million a year, and it's just so inspiring. And so I want to go over some of the top things that I learned with him on that day.

1:00:39Hala Taha:And here are the three things that I want you to remember from this conversation. Number one is adding friction to your spending. Dave broke down how easy swipe spending fuels lifestyle creep, especially for high earners, and why chasing points can distract you from the real goal. Make spending harder on purpose. That means removing saved cards, stopping the mindless swipes, and forcing every purchase to be more intentional. Second, treat debt like risk, not like a math game. Dave's message was simple. Debt always increases your exposure. Bigger payments mean less breathing room, less peace, and fewer options when life hits.

1:01:15Hala Taha:Entrepreneurs need optionality, and optionality comes from fewer obligations. Third, build a plan that you will finish. Dave explained why the method that gets completed beats the optimal method that gets abandoned. That means a clear budget, quick wins, and automatic habits like consistently investing and staying focused on progress over perfection. So my challenge to you is to make a move today. Add friction, cut a payment, assign every dollar a job. Small disciplines choices compound into freedom. All right, Yap gang, if you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, share it with a friend who needs a money reset.

1:01:50Hala Taha:Now, Yap fam, if you prefer to watch your podcast on videos, I'm doing a lot more in-person content this year. So this episode with Dave is uploaded to our YouTube channel. I highly recommend if you want to level up your finances to rewatch this and actually watch the video because I think there's something special about watching a real life conversation. So if you like to watch your videos, check out YouTube. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha or Instagram at Yap with Hala. And I love interacting with you all. So make sure you DM me. Let me know what you think about the show.

1:02:21Hala Taha:Let me know any feedback that you have. Until next time, this is your host, Halataha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.