one year I made $250,000 the next year I made $6,000 we got sued 78 times going way back when you were 26 making a couple hundred, a year Flash Forward a year bankrupt I got my degree in real estate and I sold my first house 3 weeks after I turned 18 years old but I was good at it hustled started from nothing we ended up with about little over a million dollar that worth making a couple hundred a year but I'd borrowed too much money and I had a lot of short-term notes the bank got sold to another bank and a guy in another city looked down and said there's a kid 24 years old owes us a ion dollar this is crazy they said let's limit this relationship which is Banker talk for ruin his life and that started a snowball that took two and a half years to unfold and we were bankrupt at the end of it with a brand new baby a toddler and marriage Hanging On by a thread hello I'm Cody Sanchez welcome back to the big deal podcast today you are in for a treat if you are sitting alone in your business right now wondering how do I take it to the next step if you're struggling financially or unsure how to break through the level that you're currently at there is literally one guy who for more than 30 years is helping people change their complete financial future he's arguably the best in the world at it and he does it in a way where he's going to slap you in the face a little bit and then also make you feel better about it maybe even give you a little Nashville cookie in the end I think you guys know who I'm talking about I'm talking to the legend Dave Ramsey today and we've broken down stuff that I've actually never heard him talk about before for like how to grow a business in a way that is repeatable every single time and like what to do if you are sitting in the dark head in the hands unsure of what to do next so without further Ado let's get to the man himself Dave Ramsey okay first of all the book's amazing thank you for writing it well thank you and I uh I I have all these notes and I started writing notes for the podcast and then what quickly happened is it became notes for my employees and myself about all the things I need to do in my business which was kind of funny wow that's good that means it worked it did work it worked too well so now I have homework uh in tandem with this podcast but what I really liked about it is I don't think a lot of people realize how big your business is I mean we're sitting on your campus which is I believe $400 million and you didn't use debt to buy it is that right right we built it yeah it was uh the first yeah it's probably worth about 600 million right now but somewhere in that range but yeah we built it all and uh bought the first uh 42 Acres of dirt and then we' added 22 more acres to that so it's been fun it's incredible and I think the part that's the most interesting to me is you know going way back to your original story when you were what you know 26 had a couple million dollars in real estate net worth you know making a couple hundred thousand doar a year to flash forward a year bankrupt Financial struggle to $600 million office I know you've you've mentioned this before obviously but I think there's a lot of people that are more like the former you than the current you what was that like back then and what happened well we were um uh I got my degree in real estate and I sold my first house three weeks after I turned 18 years old so I've been in real estate my whole life mom and dad were in the business and so when I got out of college I bounced through a couple jobs pretty quick and then started buying and selling houses and I was doing a flip this house before there was cable TV or chip and Joanna were born you know and so it's a long time ago this is 1984 right so um but I was good at it I'm always good at making a deal and math is easy for me and that kind of stuff so I would you know Hustle and so I bought started from nothing we ended up with about $4 million worth a little over a million dollar net worth and um making a couple hundred a year at 24 years old in 1984 but I'd borrowed too much money and I had a lot of short-term notes the bank got sold to another bank and a guy in another city looked down and said there's a kid 24 years old owes us a million dollars this is crazy and they said let's limit this relationship which is Banker talk for ruin his life they called them um and that started a snow ball a bad snowball that took two and a half years to unfold and we were bankrupt at the end of it with a brand new baby a toddler and a marriage Hanging On by a thread so it's like my old Pastor used to say a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion I've been there done that and I don't care what Tik Tok says I've done it well it always makes me chuckle I remember showing a video to one of my execs and it was a man on a yacht talking about personal finance and the comments were like how could this guy this is a a scam whatever and it's Ray Delio and I was remember sitting there thinking if they think that he's not the real deal then who cares what they say about the rest of us on the internet because you've been there um it's a fascinating story because I was looking at the numbers of those that go into bankruptcy those that ever become a millionaire the number that I saw was less than 10% so like once you hit bankruptcy you have an incredibly low likelihood of ever hitting seven figures in net worth again and so I think so much of what you talk about here is really cool because you're like I've been there but for somebody who's in that position right now today and is struggling you talk a lot about how it's not necessarily just tactics although you give a lot of them and I want to talk about it but is being broke largely emotional too um it is and in our case um it was because I ran out of gas one year I made $250,000 the next year I made $6,000 because I spent the whole year trying to sell everything and do the right thing in air quotes and pay the banks what they were owed and the weird thing that we don't talk about a lot was we took the debt from 3 million down to 328,000 in two and a half years we almost made it but I ran out I was 28 years old I had a you know again little babies and a wife is scared to death she thought she married sir Galahad turns out it was goober and you know I just ran out of emotional gas fighting and we got sued 78 times um and all of them were right CU I owed them money and I didn't pay them and and you know so we're fighting the lawsuits the interrogatories the the uh you know they they capturing any asset they can capture rightfully so because we owed them money and didn't pay them but there weren any assets left we' sold everything and um but they were coming to take the furniture out of our house and I was um I was out of gas I didn't know I didn't know how to fight it anymore and I I just uh I but I almost made it you know the bankers weal to later I went back and paid them all back it took 10 years but the bankers that we talked to later all said we thought you'd file you know a year and a half for you did two years before you did most people would have but most people did but um but you know it was it was the worst thing that ever happened to me the best thing that ever happened to me because it's not how I wanted anyone else to have to learn something but the lesson is thorough yeah yeah do you think that other people can learn through that experience or do some people just have to go through it yeah you you can you you don't have to go through uh drug addiction to know it's bad uh you don't have to go say you know cocaine kills people I know that and I've never done cocaine so I don't have to go there um but um and you don't have to go deeply in debt and lose everything to figure out that debt will choke you to death uh you know basic Common Sense observation ought to help most folks get there but it doesn't um but we did a full CSI on it because we were not only broke we were broken uh so any Illusions I had to my my academic prowess or intelligence or whatever I thought I was obviously I wasn't and um so I got the opportunity to start from emotional and spiritual Ground Zero as well as financial and when you look at that you go okay what really happened here who's really at fault and you can choose victimhood you can go oh you know I just spilled hot coffee on myself turns out McDonald's serves hot coffee I think I'll sue them you know or you can say um uh I'm a clutch and I just spilled some hot coffee and um and I should have expected it to be hot since I just bought coffee and so in my case I signed up for this debt and um it was short-term notes well and then they chose to call them in a short term who's the idiot the one that signed it's the idiot so you got to learn from that and go okay what the Bible says the borrower is slave to the lender is real and I got to experience the shackles yeah you know you talk a lot about the Bible and money is is money biblical is your application of how you think about money biblical well there are it is for me um the um I was a baby Christian I just met God when all that stuff happened and um so I had to make a conscious choice of okay the information I'm reading in scripture which is all it's not uh spiritual necessarily in nature in the sense that um that it has to do with getting into heaven or it has to do with your relationship with God or something but it's more instructional like Proverbs is known for instance as the book of wisdom and whether your person of Faith or not you could get something from Proverbs just like you could get something from any ancient piece you could read Socrates or uh Aristotle and you can get something from that even uh even if we're not Greek you know and so um the you know the most of the biblical stuff is kind of uh if if you sat on your grandpa's knee in another generation they would be we would call it common sense and it's borrower slave to the lender or don't build a tower without first counting the cost L you get halfway up and you're unable to finish it and all who see you begin to mock you in other words have a plan a budget I mean we run a $300 million company guess what every Department every profit Center has a budget we have a plan we didn't build this building without first having a blueprint um and so that's kind of Common Sense uh and it's not really mystical at all it's not really uh some kind of spiritual Voodoo stuff but but um it's just God's love letter to me going hey son here's some wisdom and if you live this way you'll have a better life yeah common sense not common practice definitely amen yeah common sense is rare yeah nothing's more Uncommon Ben Franklin said yeah yeah it's true but you know it's interesting I I always wondered you know how like you go and you speak to a group of people and if you say like uh blank is the root of all evil everybody will fill in money but you've mentioned in this book and others that it's actually in the Bible they say depending on the the way you translate it that love or desire for money is the root of all evil so do you think that it is bad or evil to be rich no absolutely not no and I did an entire book on it yeah for the Christian Community uh as a matter of fact I'm positive it's not bad or evil to be rich um but it's also not good or posit you know you're not better either um money is aoral it doesn't have morals uh it reflects the morals of those it touches and so if someone is greedy and they get money then the rich are greedy someone is generous and they get money we call them a philanthropist and they change an entire community and feed hungry kids no one talks about them when they're mad and being envious or jealous but the vast majority and I've studied the wealthy for and been among the wealthy my just about my whole life and uh the vast majority of wealthy people are unbelievably other centered and generous human beings uh there are some jerks uh I've met the jerks too but among poor people there are jerks and so it turns out it's not really the money the money just reveals uh the character qualities or lack thereof of the person it touches and so now money uh wealth is not evil in and of itself um the um pursuit of it to uh to the degree it negatively affects everything else sure that'd be idol worship if you were a Christian or if you aren't it would just be dumb you know and so you know you give up your family in order to you know have an IPO well that's that's that's shortsighted and not fulfilling no one's 78 years old on their deathbed 88 years old on their deathbed and says gosh I wish I had done another IPO where's my grandbabies yeah so why do you think we are programmed to think that money is bad so many of us I think are programmed that way where did that come from um it's come from uh some toxic teaching in spiritual world uh sometimes sometimes some Churches have uh Twisted some of these scriptures and usually they do it in a demographic area where they're ministering to poor people and then so they they you know run that rich down um I was having dinner with some folks in Australia uh a couple years ago Australians and we were talking about this and they said um the Australians have quoted Aristotle they call it tall poppy syndrome as soon as someone's as soon as one poppy sticks its head up above the others it must be cut and so we want to tear down those that are ahead of us that's just jealousy and envy which the Catholics would call that one the seven deadly sins and so um you know it comes from uh you know negative human nature and that we just we don't want other people to win but again oddly enough those are usually poor people in poor in spirit uh not not necessarily poor in wallet but they're usually people who have not attained something most successful people they want to help others y uh they reach out and go you know you're you know you're uh just starting in a business that I'm already in I'll show you how or I'll spend time with you not you can't Mentor everybody that has to be mentored I don't mean that but I have to you know say no young man I can't run a business here I can't do that full-time but uh but but I'll help anybody I can um across the podcast world or the publishing world the speaking world I have uh talk radio back in the day all those guys are old guys are friends of mine and so we've been friendly competitors uh and most but again most successful people do lift people up it's usually people that aren't successful that uh want to pull people down do you think it's too crazy to think that part of the reason why we think money is evil because when you don't have money you're actually a lot easier to control like my belief is also if if we keep having like centralization of power throughout all societies right until eventually it reverts to the mean but then if you if you have a populace that has a bunch of money which is really just optionality Freedom push back then they're harder to control and so seems like over time they kind of want the few to have it because then you could control the few easier because they have a lot to lose but the many they don't want them to have the push back does that seem too conspiracy theorist yeah no that that's good I mean there's an influence in some of the Anarchy Anarchist movements of the Communist Manifesto and that's really what that comes down to is this uh if you read and understand and grasp marks um that's really you just described it it's um uh which is odd because the you know the the very propaganda piece of Communism is there for the Working Man which is absolute hogwash yeah doesn't work out you know and just all you got to do is visit operating communist countries today and I have and you have two probably and it's you know it's not it's not working out it's not it's not working and the weird thing you know in America today we're the opposite of that we're very hard to control yeah because of ease of access into almost any industry and um you know we're talking about business and starting a business running a business it's the easiest it's ever been in a America right now to start and run something because you could instantaneously turn on these things and be anywhere anytime accessible um on video on audio um you know you can set your pro you can set up a digital store in 20 minutes now and um all of a sudden you're in business and in the old days you used to have to you know haul stuff in a covered wagon put some boards up and you know build a country store and it was a lot of process and a lot of risk and we can launch stuff and iterate it so fast right now those of us that are already here and those that want to be here meaning in business uh it's it's a wonderful time for the little the little man can't get ahead oh more than at any time in history right now the little man can get ahead I agree and and also you know one of the reasons I really liked the book is there are a couple things in there that I think are true overall which is you had a line that was organizations are never limited by their opportunity they're limited by their leader um which I have found to be incredibly true in any business that I've ever run what do you mean by that and how does making yourself better make you more money in business well John Maxwell my friend does a has written a bazillion books on leadership and he and I speak often together and he says in his bestselling book the 21 a refutable laws of leadership the third lid uh or the third law of leadership is the law of the lid meaning I'm the lid on my organization when I started this I was 30 years old um two and a half years out of bankruptcy healing psychologic I had PTSD and I didn't know what it was um healing spiritually healing in my marriage in my relationships healing in my finances from that tsunami that took me out in my late 20s um that's the guy that started this place he could not have run this place today he didn't have the skills he he was you know just a beat up wounded you know uh passion dude um that wouldn't be denied that's all that's the only thing I had was I just wouldn't quit um but but over the years I've read and learned and grew and healed and all those things and you know I'm a much better husband than I was when Sharon married me 43 years ago just ask her I'm a much better uh dad today my kids see me with my grandkids and they're like who are you you know and it's like um but it's you know it's uh we you know we get better and if you don't get better better don't expect your organization to grow cuz you're the problem with your organization I'm the problem with my organization that's the bad news the good news is I'm the solution and so I can read a book listen to a podcast go to an event uh put some more inputs in remove some of the lies that I believed about life and about business put in the real stuff from the people that have really done it not just ones who have a theory and then I'm a better all of a sudden I'm a better leader and now my organization can grow a little more and so you know I dropped in the other day I've got you know we've got 450 some odd folks just on our digital team and uh you know software Engineers platform engineers and you know we're building constantly iterating and writing and launching you know the every dollar app and all the other things we do around here that are digital which is almost everything in the building and um and I'm not I'm not a digital generation I'm a boomer so I drop in with all these brilliant kids that work for me and I'm sitting in a room I'm they might as well have been speaking German I have no idea what they're saying and I had to raise my hand after a minute I went hey guys I can't add value to this room right now because I don't even know what you guys are saying would y'all tell me what you just talked about for the last 10 minutes in English so I can understand without dropping all the acronyms and once they explained to me I I understood the concepts but they were just using a completely different vernacular and unless I get better and I'm not the only bottleneck in the place but unless the leadership team here does that and understands the business that we're in is uh working with and for people that have grown up with a magic wand in their hand which I didn't I had a rotary dial phone on the wall when I was a kid and so I'm old but that I I got to be relevant or I can't run the business yeah it's so true well and you one of the other things I loved that you talk about is that speaking of your employees that you never want an employee again that you've had them before you never want an employee again but you have 1,100 team members here what's the difference between the two and how do you decide if somebody's an employee or a team member well I think we've all had if you've ever hired someone or if you've ever worked anywhere for that matter you've observed people that were what I call employees they come late leave early steel while they're there and check Facebook all day and so um not much work right and so no productivity don't care they're there for what they can take rather than what they can add and so um around our organization we're a team we add value everybody here adds value and we're um and if you don't add value what are you doing here why am I paying you I need to get an Roi on this and it's not because I'm a Jerk It's just because if I don't get an Roi on you I can't pay the other guy y so we can want to make enough Revenue we can't pay payroll hello so um you know we want team members we want people who uh treat the place like they own it and when we have an argument and we have a lot of arguments around here every day they're wonderful arguments uh we have an argument about which call to play which play a call to win the Super Bowl which play a call to get the ball in the end zone we're not arguing about you know some irrelevant thing or some political internal thing like trying to you know we're not sitting around talking about somebody you know we're not we're just getting stuff done it's very utilitarian and so if you don't want to get stuff done you don't fit in at Ramsey I mean we get stuff done and you working with people that are smart the smartest people you ever work with in your life but they care deeply that's the difference you can hire smart people that don't give a crap and they're useless they're again for how who they can impress with their Brilliance rather than let's get something done because the people outside these walls is why this place exist not for the people inside these walls we got to love our customer by serving them and bringing them something that helps them change their life and if you're not doing that here you're you're really not a part of this team and so we we don't need employees if somebody's mailing it in you know wants a j o and you know I've got these many degrees I one guy more degrees than a thermometer he's like tell me how he how he was worth and I said dude you know um you know here this is a small business your raise is effective when you are it's not when you get another degree don't I couldn't care less about your certification except the except it gives you the ability to get something done and that's all it's good for and so I don't care about your experience I don't care what happened to the other place you used to work except to the extent it helps you get something done here for the good of our customers and that's who we serve and if if you can't get on board with that get your butt out of here don't let the door hit you in the butt yeah I loved when you said that uh profit is the reward for uh serving the customers that you have yeah and man it's it's so true so many people I think don't charge their worth don't get comfortable with profits don't want to talk about how much revenue they make but it's so true if you're not making any money it's because you're not really helping anybody bigger problems you solve the more money you make exactly and the more and the more scale you do it um so I mean I if I print one little book for $2 .50 and I sell it for $10 I help one person and nobody's mad about that y but if I sell you know 10 or 15 million of those and I get you know 10 or 15 million do of that profit um then somebody gets upset but I help 10 or 15 million people so I mean that's how this works and my friend Rabbi Lapin says that uh if you help people they will give you certificates of appreciation with president's faces on them such a good line yeah it is a great line I wish it was mine but it's a good line you got so many you need to give a few others out like you the onliners from here I went through your your ex or Twitter or whatever they call it today and I was like there's so many I want to just quote him this whole time um one thing that I do want to double tap on for you is you have some really specific ways you figure out if somebody is going to be a culture fit or not for you guys and I think we've all been in a job or a career where like we hang out with that person who's gossiping all the time and it's kind of fun in the moment it's like a little adrenaline hit and then afterwards you feel worse about yourself yeah it's like exactly gossip is like junk food so you don't let gossip happen here how do you one stop that in your company and two for somebody who doesn't run the company but is in a company what's the right way to kind of say I don't want to engage in this Behavior I think people are scared of doing that yeah in here in this place you're one of the owners and it's one of the things you value you're not technically an owner but you're an emotional owner it's one of the things you value working here and so just like you wouldn't allow um something more horrible like sexual harassment to occur you're you're not going to look the other way you're going to say oh we don't do that here and you know gossip is much less horrendous than that but U we don't do that here and we and if you want to be a we we're French we we if you want to be a f if you want to be we you can't do that here because that's not who we are and the team will protect the place because it's one of the things that they value when we survey them because they've never really worked in a place that doesn't do gossip and it's not like we have to fire a bunch of people we don't occasionally we do CU sometimes people just won't get it but that's okay um that means they need to be somewhere where they allow that that you know it's just one of the things we don't do here how do you start that though hand your negatives up and your positives down and you're going to have negatives there's 1100 opportunities in this building to be pissed off at somebody so you know when something happens not if something happens when you're frustrated with so and so when you're frustrated with a situation your project is not getting attention you can't get get the bandwidth on social media on this thing you're trying to get launched whatever it is in Ramsey that's frustrating you and it's like a all day long something frustrating you cuz we're trying to get stuff done and there's friction and so just count on it not if you have something that frustrates you when you have one place to air that and it's not at the water cooler it's in your Leader's office or his leader her Leader's office or another leader somewhere in the anywhere that's up is okay you can go talk to somebody in a whole different area and go look I just need a place event tell me about this and and then they can help you they can help you move through the issue one way or the other but when you're talking to people that can't do something about the issue that by definition here is gossip and usually it's talking about somebody is the problem and so and we all know and yet e even at 64 years old I have trouble remembering that if that person is sitting there gossiping in front of me then the next time when I'm not there they're talking about me we all know that but we act like we're the exception like well they would never do that yeah so yes they do 100% they do and and organizations move at the speed of trust and when you have a building full of that toxic garbage you cannot move it grinds the smartest people to a halt because now they spend all their time covering their butts sending out cya emails instead of productive questions and and so we'll sit down with you and go look you had a negative you talked about it here two or three people talked to us told us what was happening and if they brought it to leadership that you were doing this and you can't do that here and if you do it again then you know we're going to help you find another place to work because we love you and we love this place and we don't do that here and um just like if they were doing some other behavior that you don't want we're just not going if you tolerate it you get what you tolerate and so in the early days I had to really you know we had to I don't but once it became like a thing internally one of our core values now it self- polices like 99% I bet I bet once a year twice a year out of 1100 people leadership actually has to have a discussion with someone goes you can't do that and maybe we fire one person a year you know you would think out of a thousand freaking people but no they number one we tell people that coming in then they get here and after 90 days we review with them in their first 90 days and they go I couldn't believe the audio actually match the video you really don't do this and like no we really don't do this and we really don't borrow money and we really live on a budget and we really live on less than we make and really don't have credit cards we really do the stuff we teach we're not freaking Hypocrites and if you want to be a Wei this is what we do and so you know it it's it's an interesting thing culturally to to observe that when people actually believe it's going to happen they believe there's consequences and accountability they they will self- enforce yeah so good can you tell the story about the first time that you had to fire somebody sort of for this in the company and that it's such a good story and the salesperson yeah man one of my top sales people uh she was incredible she was selling so much and we were tiny there was only just a handful of us maybe less than 50 of us and but there was a cloud you ever walk into a place and you just it in in your in your spirit you sense or something wrong it's like almost like something runs down your shoulder it was just like this cloud we were doing good the numbers were good the the show was growing the the book sales were everything seem to be moving but it was just like this and I couldn't figure it out so we had a little we had a little staff meeting we have a staff meeting every Monday morning still and um you know I guess I guess I know probably 30 people or something like that and I had an appointment right after and I ran out to my car and when I got out the car I forgot my stupid keys I came back in to get my car keys and when I walked back in this person was having the second meeting and we've all experienced the second meeting where some one stands up and says what everybody thought what they thought everybody was thinking when the when the leader was saying otherwise so anyway she was just trashing me how dumb I was and it's one of the companies stayed open under my leadership and and her back was to me and she didn't hear me come in through the door because it was one of those silent closed door things and the other people are looking at me and they're like you know and and after I me I stood there and listened to her for about a minute and a half two minutes which is an eternity to hear somebody trash you in person that you're paying you know it's just like yeah and so um finally I guess something happened and the hair stood up on the back of her neck she turned around looked at me she goes oh blank right and I'm like yeah that's probably that's probably accurate and so um she goes well well well and she starts trying to I'm like hey um listen both of us are not dumb you're dumb if you stay here and work for a guy as bad as the guy you just described and I'd be dumb if I kept somebody and paid them money that feels that way about me that'd be dumb too so we're we're pretty much done come on in here and I'll sit down with you I'll cancel my other appointment and we'll we'll uh figure out your exit paperwork and she's like no no no no the worst part was when I got home and I told Sharon she's like I told you not to H I get that from kids too they're always right too aren't they I know it's 100% so we we actually now that's one of the reasons we also do spous all interviews good I wanted to talk about that yeah that's another thing and it just um the spouses go on the final interview both the person being hired and the leader leading them hiring them because the spouses can smell a rout a mile away yeah and I've had people being interviewed and the spouse looks at us looks at him or her and goes you don't want to work there right in front of us I'm like good that's the time to figure it out yeah before we go through all the onboarding before we go through all this we got the expense of recruiting in at that point but I don't have all the other stuff that's time to figure it out and then we've had people go we go home the wife my wife would say something like I don't know it just something feels bad and that's pretty vague but if my wife says that we don't hire them and that she's probably said it three times in 30 years she doesn't you doesn't play that card she's scared of that power she doesn't want to overuse it she but but if she if she has that feeling I I want her to say it I want her to say cuz every time she has that feeling somebody's doing cocaine or somebody's doing something you know something's going on and I'm just I'm just like like a la or retriever I just think everybody's great and I'll just hire everybody and she's like no there's I smell evil there there's something happening I'm like okay let's let's avoid that one and then we always find out later that that person that we avoided you know God protected us yeah you know my husband always says it's either an F yes or it's a no with hiring yeah exact every time I go against that I regret it later exct every time but I've never thought you're trying to get the work done I'm trying to get the thing filled and so I tend to just GL I kind of had that n push that to the back I know better yeah but the resume is good yeah but I know but he the way he treated his wife at dinner nobody would hire that guy but yeah but I'm going to and I'll make it okay it's like it's like missionary dating it's like dating somebody and you're going to change them you know oh crud no just date somebody of quality hello yeah it's true just I've done it oh I've done it wrong so much yeah but you do have really good ways to go about it I thought the spousal interview was the most I've never heard of that before I thought it was really smart um and also I think if somebody else can put up with them for a long period of time it's also a great sign I'm like this other person who seems reasonable can thinks you're good enough to stay with for a decade plus okay I like that some of our best team members when we sit down at the final interview with the SP the four of us go out to dinner you're more impressed with their spouse than you are them and you go well if you can pull that off then you're probably going to make it our if you can attract her you can attract him then you know yeah that's good and keep them I really liked that um I also liked how you think about a screening process that is sort of the same every single time what else do you think makes it possible to hire a players every time or all the time or often how do you screen people to find the best people we just remember the pain of when we didn't yeah every time I every time I let crazy in the door I cuz crazy will screw up the building man oh my God they just there's not enough drugs on the planet to handle some of these people man so so true oh and every business owner feels that way yeah yeah but every time I find the door they used we put a lock on that door so all I and all I got to do is go the last time I ignored this it just about killed me the last time I put loyalty ahead of Integrity it just about killed me the last time I thought well I knew this guy back you know 20 years ago yeah but every time I ignore these things that are tickling at the back of my spirit in my you know in my brain then I it kills me so yeah we and so we try to say okay we're going to do different things checks and balances to do that and we're going to measure them and we want more than one person to look at them and we're going to take time and every time we say oh this is this we we just got to get them in here and we shortcut oh every time it screws it up take your time and do it right it or you get to do it over yeah it's the old mom thing it's like you know anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time you know well or you get to do it over and and and then not only then but you got all the Lost productivity of all the humans that had to deal with that person that came in that shouldn't have been here yeah and um it's just it it and the good news is these days there's hardly any of them they're very very they know what they're getting when they come in here and if they want to sign up for this and pull off our interview process they're freaking pathological if they got through it if they're nuts cuz we we're going to spend enough time with them different settings calm discussing asking questions lots of questions let them ask anything they want to ask we don't need them we we just need them yeah you know and it's okay it's not we don't emotionally need you to be here but we'd love to have your help you know what's interesting I'm curious have you ever fired somebody that you regretted firing or do you usually wait too long to fire um I have I promise promised myself when we opened that because I I in my early in my 20s I struggled with a temper with anger and it's been part of my spiritual walk to no longer struggle with that and I don't struggle with it today but I promised myself I would never fire someone while I was angry and I haven't I've managed to pull that off I did um wait two days to calm down before I fired a person that um had uh uh you know a major thing they had done and I was definitely angry um but I just said I'm not even going to look at them I'm not going to deal with it I'm not going to be in the same room with them until I get my head straight then I walk in and then I go then I can be kind um but also you know do what do what's necessary because this person cannot be a part of our organization and do those kinds of things it's not optional and so um but yeah I mean that you get that but you know again with the four or five times you could I could that has happened yeah then I can look back and go every one of those were because I kept them too long yeah cuz I ignored the signs and I'm again my loyalty to the person well they've been here 10 years I owe them they poured their life out for this place I I'm going to so I'm going to give them one and and you end up becoming an enabler if um if you're not really careful as a leader and I struggle with that but um but I I it's never gone on so long that it destroyed the company or something like that that but man that's the pain point for me you can feel it just talking me talking about it yeah well it's interesting because I found every owner I've ever talked to has the same thing which is we usually wait too long even when we know it's not right yep and I I ask the question all the time because I need to remind myself I always keep people too long too and and I think it's a little bit of like a God complex too I'm like no I could fix them I could help them I don't want to be mean and I have to remind myself that it's actually doing them a huge disservice because they could be amazing somewhere else it's just not a good for me exactly and so you've been at this longer so it's nice to hear you say it's exactly the same thing you're you're exactly on it and it is a bit of a God complex but it's also just a a kindness thing and you know um I'm a southern guy and so like we're specialists at passive aggressive so um you know we're like bless your heart bless your heart and that could mean slit your throat or it could mean bless your heart and so um you know it's uh but we were taught that you know it's not nice to have conflict yeah and truth is what I the thing I picked up about 20 years ago and I say it all the time and our leadership is indoctrinated with this is to be unclear is to be unkind and so when I sit with you three times and tell you that you're not cutting it at this this is this work is not how can we help you to get you there because this is not we're not going to continue like that when I tell you that three times uh there's probably not going to be a fourth and we're going to talk about that the second time is there's not going to be a fourth okay we're going we're going to have a discussion here because I'm not going to sanction incompetence it's not an option um as much as I love you and as much as I love hanging out with you and doing stuff that doesn't matter you still can't be here because we got to get our work done uh guess what if I suck on this microphone people don't listen hello I get fired so that's how it works yeah you know I I want to actually talk a little bit about entrepreneurs I think it's a super lonely Journey this book is for builders in particular and owners and one of my favorite Parts is your categorization of where somebody is at in business because I think all of us have felt in business numerous times hey um my business is struggling I'm not making any money hey we're making a ton of money but it's moving so fast I don't know what to do next and you kind of categorize entrepreneurs into a few different types five levels treadmill operator Pathfinder Trailblazer Peak performer Legacy Builder five stages the five stages what are these and why do they matter as an entrepreneur well most of us the entrepreneurs um the uh oddly enough the um you're you're if you have dyslexia you uh are more likely to be an entrepreneur than anything else the uh uh if you have ADHD or um add um confirmed or unconfirmed Dave talks too much he hyper was on my report card every single year um unconfirmed but probably you know and so um medically unconfirmed but the uh uh you know so you're you're probably in those categories because what happens to those of us that have those different things is um we we live our life doing workarounds and that is the ultimate definition of an entrepreneur you're you're you're finding a problem and solving it you're doing a workaround for somebody that doesn't even think that way doesn't even know they have a problem and you're going and solving it for them and that turns into a product a service that becomes very profitable and very much of a blessing to the customer um as we talked about earlier so uh we find a high degree of those folks and and we start as a treadmill operator we start with I'm going to go get this thing done and you get up on treadmill and you start running and running and running running running running running and you get home at night and you're exhausted and you go what'd you do today honey I have no idea but I work my butt off and but some stuff moved around I know that and uh it's very chaotic and and it's very dependent on you and that's the problem it's not sustainable you don't yet own a business at the treadmill stage you own a you own your job because if you don't show up up you don't make any money you don't show up the customer doesn't get anything because nothing's produced because you're the producer and uh you're the uh the producer of Revenue and the producer of the goods and services and so that's how it started here that's where it starts with most people and then you begin to go okay this isn't going to work I'm going to die of burnout um uh I may I may die happy because I don't work for somebody else but I'm going to die of burnout I got to get some other people helping me and that's called delegation and You Begin this dreaded hiring process we were just talking about and you learn oh this is hard hiring and firing is hard but it's harder it's not as hard as uh working by myself and trying to do everything myself so um you know we start adding folks and doing time management and working on the right things working smart not hard um get a little bit of work life balance all of a sudden you can actually be home before 10: at night uh you can actually not have to panic about payroll every Friday because you actually get some cash reserves we start putting some things like that now we're starting to run a business and that moves us into that Pathfinder stage and um uh from there you start doing some planning and you actually think past Friday and uh you know I that's that's the stage I learned the phrase strategic thought I was very I'm totally tactical I I mean get it done get done right now and we'll deal with it later but no and so I was just constantly running through the linth trying to figure out how where the end of the bushes were and some guy standing up above goes if you turn left you get out of there you know and so that's strategic thought you got to get above the problem and look give it the 30,000 foot View and so I always laugh and say I got to the point I finally started hiring people that are NBAs I don't have an MBA and um but I've got great admiration for that level of business education and 100% of the NBAs I've ever hired I guess it's indoctrinated in every program are wonderful strategic thinkers they are taught to get above the problem uh and I always laugh and go okay the NBA's taught me how to get above the problem I taught them how to work because I when in doubt I work my butt off you know so you know that that's the the Trailblazer stage uh and and then that stuff starts to work and you start to do something you mentioned earlier and you go I'm going to put some systems and processes in place so humans don't have to do everything by paper we don't have to kill so many trees and this thing is analog as it can be this thing this this p&l ought to automatically spit out it shouldn't be like sharpen a pencil we ought to start putting these systems and when you do that added with a strategic thought and you get the second layer of leadership your first layer of leadership is just you got other people leading now you're leading people that lead people that lead people now you're moving into Pathfinder Pathfinder is a sweet spot money is coming in you're bailing it you're bailing money you're making money you're good at what you do it's a Well oil machine we always say around here and that's a fun time uh it seems like midest touch Everything You Touch turns to Gold uh the danger is you start to believe your own press clippings and you don't iterate fast enough you don't kill it before it needs to die uh and so we break stuff before it needs broken around here so we don't get stuck there because you can you can try to you know you can be Kodak and say I don't you know film is the way it's always going to be digital cameras are never going to happen um and then all of a sudden you're gone you're a memory you can be Blockbuster and be a memory if you if you stay in the Pathfinder stage and don't constantly iterate and break it before it's broken and new products and learn skills you didn't have and bring in leadership that's that's smarter than you constantly and figuring things out blowing your mind mind with how smart they are um and that that keeps Pathfinder vibrant and uh then you've got to realize you're that you're Immortal and you're not going to outlive this thing called life and I did that at 48 uh 16 years ago uh we hit the Legacy Builder stage and we started working on succession plan then how how does this brand survive um how does this leadership team survive how does this I don't work my whole life and build something and then just evaporate because I do that's kind of dumb and especially for a guy that teaches Financial responsibility and so um you know we started working on at that point the Ramsey personalities were born the early iterations of them the leadership team has always been good and strong so that was fairly easy handoff at my death or retirement um the um ownership you know the Next Generation has got to be able to carry the have the wisdom and the character to carry the thing um the My the Ramsey kids as we call them were younger at that point they're all old people now they're all in their 30s and 40s but um and they're very capable so we got ownership dialed in we got leadership dialed in we got a brand transfer lined up where you don't have to have me on the microphone to survive you don't have to have me doing a book to survive um and so today uh our uh survivability index which is our accounting metric says that 96% of the revenue Will Survive me if I die today uh next year 96% would survive me um how do you measure that do you have like a little you have an algorithm yeah we run a we run through all the pnls we ask all the leaders to look at their product lines and um give us a case uh study as to why they believe what they believe and then you know what would happen for instance we've got we've got one that's probably 99% our high school curriculum is um you know 10 it's a $25 million a year business and uh people buying higher High School curriculum to teach it in high schools it's almost zero dependent on me I'm not even in it um and so it's got my it's got Ramsay on the outside but Daniel Ramsay is my son so still you know it survives CU they don't care if I me um when the thing was 100% me on talk radio and the revenue from talk radio that year was 35 million uh and I die uh that'll be a rush limbo event yeah uh it'll evaporate that that Revenue will evaporate that um affiliate uh network will evaporate which is what's happened with that one um largely not completely but largely because there was no succession planning and so um and Russia is a friend of mine it's a sad cuz he was Elvis of talk radio yeah um but uh that network is not uh I mean it's probably uh little more than 10% of what it was before he died so it's you know the actual show itself I'm saying but the uh not the company I mean the company's iHeart so they're fine but the um the um anyway it's not to run them down it's just that that's what happens if you don't have a brand transfer in our world the podcast World well what's interesting is that every business should have this ability for the owner to quote unquote die in some way shape or form move on get a new project do a new Revenue line and it should still survive theoretically um but a lot of businesses obviously don't have that and I think this type of business which as you described as like a Content or media business has typically the lowest survivability because it's a personality so it's actually a really interesting way to learn from the business that would typically have the lowest survivability in order for any business to increase its survivability because at the end of the day Apple like of course it misses Steve Jobs and his Brilliance but not really important at all to the survivability if we just look at it mathematically based on its Revenue I had never thought about that before because most media companies one are bad business models right they have super lots of volatility third party ad sponsors no proprietary products and huge keyman risk and so you basically Diversified all of that away which is interesting I and you know when you're diversifying it has to be quality so the ra when the ram personalities were sitting doing the Ramsey Show MH which was originally the Dave Ramsey Show now it's called the Ramsey Show yeah and when they're sitting and doing it um you know I took several weeks off and Shar and I were out of the country and when I came back uh the ratings were up it's distressing makes me mad I don't feel as important well it's you know it's interesting too because um I think that's probably a reason why egoic a lot of us don't put these things in place it kind of feels good to oh yeah yeah well being and and even with a small business that you know I talked to a guy the other day one of our people were coaching in Entre leadership he's a at one of our events he's a owns a heat and air company and he's like um he's the only one that can do it and I'm like you're not Jesus that job's taken the Messiah is gone he been you're not him you're the only guy can run a heat and air company you got to be kidding me what kind of self-importance is this I can tell you this one the the biggest when we watch these uh succession plans gen one to gen two the founder yep turning it over is the hardest succession plan emotionally because the founder is always a hardhead we're always stubborn we're always self-important we're always U have that Messiah complex we always have that and and it can be in any business media is particularly bad because we dare to step on a stage or in front of a microphone which requires another level of ego but uh yeah you really got to fight against that and and start to realize okay it's the message that's important it's the method that's important and and someone else can do it and if you don't believe me watch when someone else does yeah you know it's a great Point like one of our portfolio company CEOs he he's an incredible operator he's run this business really well for a long time but to get to the next level you can't do the same thing to get to nine figures as you did to get to low level eight exactly it's just not going to do it and so what's fascinating is He surround himself kind of with this like band of marry fools and they were okay for the level he was at before but they are actually detrimental for the next level and so I actually gave him this book because my point was like you have felt good and benefited from the fact that you were the head of the table and everybody listened to you and in your next venture if you are the person everybody's listening to and they aren't smarter than you you're never going to make it you got to walk into that room of youngsters and not know what they're saying right if you're not that guy then you're going to die you're going to get taken out the marketplace will Shar you head from your shoulders yeah it's bad it's brutal out there yeah you really got to get over your own BS yeah which is hard and again but it takes a level of that to start something the people that don't have that oomph that it factor that I'm going to throw my shoulders back and show the world you know you know if you're if you're just a timid little mouse you're not going to start anything so you got to go bust into it you got to knock stuff down you got to create friction and piss some people off I mean that's you got to go do that and then but once you get to doing that you got to realize okay the best way to keep doing this is have people smarter and even better at and more energetic than me around me yeah and kind of get excited by that like look who I attracted you know I we just hired a new president for my company and he's gonna he's going to chuckle that I'm talking to him about this but he come came from this other company Mr Beast right and so big huge YouTube company and so I'm like you know Mark we got to do a press release to show that you came on board he's like I don't need that I'm like no it's for me I'm like I'm really excited that I attracted you to the business this means that you know you're a signal to the marketplace that we hire great people people that are better and smarter than well and then we're coming yeah look out we're coming here we come yeah that's right and notify the competitors exactly I shouldn't do that but yes you're right yes you're right what what would you say to a young a young Builder that crazy type of human that wants to do the psychopathic work of building a company what would you tell them to do where should young Builder start today well I mean the the first thing that and I just talked to our team about this morning in staff meeting reminding them yet again one of our core values here is if you help enough people you don't have to worry about money so too many times when we start something we are enamored with our own idea our own ability and the idea is the thing rather than the customer and what I want to do is I want the person that is not inside the building to be blessed to be changed to be served to have their mind blown the people inside the building I'll get their mind blown H not so much not so much you know that doesn't do anything what happens is when all those people out there all over the world I get the opportunity to help one of them with their budget I get the opportunity to help one of them with their marriage I get to help one of them with their spiritual walk I get to help one of them with their small business when they you know and so we don't build anything for us we build everything for them and when you first start that's not natural that's uh that's paradoxical because you're you're kind of into what you're doing and you're like oh I'm kind of good at this and this is kind of cool and um it was for me anyway and so when I did the first cassette tapes or VHS tapes you know I was like wow look at that guy he's he's funny and he's good and and uh it kind of started coming to me no one cares except your mama and your wife and they also don't care that much so you know it's like but that I think that's a thing serve serve serve and and if you can find a way to make other people's life better and um and let them be the hero in the story as my friend Donald Miller says don't you have to be the hero you can be the guy and um you know that kind of stuff it it makes it it just makes you have a good quality life and you've got a good philosophical spiritual underpinning to your business then that you can okay we're about service we're about service and when you interact with an organization a business that is uh that is about themselves you feel the take rather than the give and when you interact with a company that is all about service you you come away with your mind blown because they're fairly rare that's such a good point yeah I wasn't it Don Miller that talked about the fact that um you think that you're Skywalker as the business owner but you're actually Yoda I need to remember so that often and I love that visual I love the visual because one you're like you know you're not the sexy young hero of the story you're like the wrinkly green old you know kind of in the background and then also that everybody thinks you're the hero in the story so since they since they think they're the hero if you put yourself in the hero seat they don't want to talk to you yeah it's true but if you're if you'll show them how to live their life and be the hero in their life then that's that's the story brand is the book that Donald did and the talk he's he's a wonderful uh communicator and uh uh but they uh the idea of a story arc in a as a marketing plan MH and the idea that okay I'm going to position myself and we did that um he mentions it in the book we do that with a debt-free scream yeah and uh the people get to be the hero and they they scream I'm dead free on that stage right out there and um that's not like I love Dave like I'm deathy I'm the hero thank you Dave and Ramsey for showing me how to be the hero to change my life and uh so anytime our team is instructed anytime someone comes up and says you changed my life they were say oh no no no no we showed you how yeah it's so incredible you know and you can notice it kind of everywhere in the headquarters it's one of my favorite things whenever I get to come to a company's headquarters because I feel like you can almost immediately tell what the soul of a company is by the place that they choose to build it's your physical manifestation of of who you are and who you think your company is and so you know when I came there's only one other company that I've seen that's as intentional as yours which is my friend Andy forel at first form different brand but you know the the truck you have with the books that you used to sell out of the back of it then the cookies that you give people to sit in front and how you built a studio thinking that they might watch it for free um you know then the fact that you have a wall with uh everywhere somebody signed if they've become debt-free and also somewhere they can take a picture it's like the headquarter is for the company but it's also for the the individual and the P person and I think those little reminders it goes back to your point of like well once you set it and you enforce it a few times it becomes self- enforcing and it's even in in the way that you design everything here so I I didn't realize that when I was a first time founder and I'm I'm learning it more and more the more businesses we build well this is the fourth building so I didn't realize it early either makes me feel better we've gotten better yeah but but how cool that you know as a builder you can do that same thing so I think it's really interesting I just have a few com uh questions I want to struggle or I want to uh summarize with my dad has this line that I always go back to about being a builder which is like you're not in the game unless you've sat in the dark head in the hands completely unsure of what to do next and if you have then you're in the game then you've played what would you tell somebody that is in their business right now and they are struggling they are in the pain cave and they don't know how to get out um the only thing we've done and there's nothing uh I tell entrepreneurs this all the time because I I deal with them like you do that are there they're in that anytime I'm talking to an audience of a thousand people a certain number of them are in a pain cave right um is is first do a gut check and say why am I in this business am I in it just to make money uh you may be done U because pain cave may be telling you it's time to quit because you suck and you know it's not going to make you money your your goal was to make money your only goal was to make money I'm not against making money don't misunderstand but that's your only thing um money's great get you some but if you eat enough Lobster it tastes like soap so it's just there's only so much you can do with money so but if you're not in it just for money you're the second category and you you want to make some money you want to bless your family you want to do those things but the reason you're in the business is because something's burning inside of you you can't not do it you have to do this um if that's you and and you're in there with your face and your hands uh welcome to the club you're in the game take the next step take the next step don't sit if you're in the pain cave it's time to stand up and step out and step out take another step take another step and pretty soon you'll see light and you can work your way out of the cave um there'll be a little light up there a pin light then it'll get bigger and then it'll get bigger and um but um you you um and and I guess this third P or other than take the next right step and keep taking the next right step the second piece of advice would be on that is um when you do get into the light you're going to laugh when you look back about what you thought was going to kill you how small it is you're going to laugh at what a drama queen you really are and I look back at some of the stuff that I thought oh God this is the end and I look back and I'm going that that was the end you were a complete wuss you know it was like no way true but you know but you don't get that perspective until you get out into the light when you're in it it feels like the world is coming to an end that the that's the end that's you know the last thing now there's one more and if you if you walk your way out and you look back it's uh when I look back at stuff 25 or 30 years ago and I'm think that that almost took us I thought that was going to take us out I thought we weren't going to make it um it's humorous to me how stupid I was that I thought you know it's that big now but time gives you that perspective it I thought it was the end of the I thought it was a 10-story building it's so true I keep this meme on my phone that's uh it's like a picture of a just just it's like a drawing but of a man that just looks like he's going through it and he's staring up at God and he's like you know why have you presented me the most horrible challenge yet and you see Jesus look down at him and he goes man just go take a walk outside and get some vitamin D and get off your phone and I giggle every time I look at because the solution is like you said it's one step in front of the other and also realizing that entropy is physics which just means problems get worse and worse and worse but we become more capable of fixing them yeah so it's a great it's a great reminder and also man thank God there's problems otherwise we'd make no money because that's the only way we get paid right easy yeah yeah I think you're right so this next book will be one of now the next the next series of 30 million books you'll have sold um oh your lips to God's ears exactly um when you put this in the next gen's hands what's like the one thing if they could take one thing out of this book as you can tell I have a ridiculous amount of notes in this thing but if you had to pick one what would you hope somebody takes out of this um we have learned around here and it's true of this book and this material that there is great hope in a clear path that um if I can see that this is where it's going then I can keep my energy level up when you can't see where it's going we experience burnout when you can see where it's going it's only fatigue and so um I can see where it's going I can move from treadmill to Pathfinder I can use these six drivers in business that we talk about in the book and um these are systems and paths that help me make the next thing and it's a uh buy a guide a Yoda that's trustworthy because not only have I been there done that but we've also been there done that with 10,000 businesses so this is not think tank Theory this is not Academia uh this is actually people freaking running businesses and it probably won't work if you're running a a you know 700 billion doll business or something it wouldn't work for Apple uh that's not what it's written for it's written for the veterinarian uh for the heating and air guy uh for the young podcaster for the uh whatever somebody that starting and or is in the early stages or they've been running it for 10 years and they just feel stuck and they don't know but well you're supposed to be there now and somebody needs to tell you that and show you why and then show you what the next things are to level up and uh so the clear path gives hope I love that well I think one of my richest friends told me that if you can do one thing in life it's uh if you can buy somebody else's 10,000 hours you should and so this is a pretty cheap price tag thank you for sharing it with us oh thank you it's honor to be with you great job Same by the way you guys little sneak peek we are sitting in uh Ramsey Solutions headquarters in Nashville Tennessee this place is wild it's somewhere between 4600 million multiple buildings this huge campus that they built with zero dollars in debt and now if you've ever built a business or a building you know how ridiculous that is what's super interesting about this headquarters too is that it's one of the most intentional headquarters I've ever seen you know all around me are these little notes these little messages to all of you to the people out in the audience who are actually making change in their lives by becoming financially free and so I'm going to give you a little sneak peek of this go to Instagram you can check out the stories of the headquarters I think you'll see what I see too which is don't despise humble beginnings because man if you can start out where he did and get to where he is today I think we'd all be pretty happy with that [Music]