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I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver s seat of your life and unlock your potential.
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And that s why I m thrilled to share that my new book is out right now.
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It s called The Greatness Mindset.
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In it, you ll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward.
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This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago.
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It s everything I ve learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind.
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Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.
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You need to be on a written plan in anything you re doing.
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If you don t do it intentionally, it s not going to occur.
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No one wins anything accidentally.
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It s an intentional act.
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Winning always is at marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business, money.
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No one accidentally gets wealthy.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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You are an example of what you do consistently every day, year to year, decade after decade, playing the long game of what you can create in the physical world.
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And I think that s a good representation of what I ve learned from you about building wealth over time.
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It s not about doing it quickly.
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It s not about trying to find some scheme that you can get into.
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and build this overnight, but it s about doing the consistent integrity things over time to build this type of wealth.
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So again, it s just inspiring to witness.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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I m the ugly tortoise.
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I don t want to be the hare.
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But you re consistent.
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It s amazing.
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It s amazing.
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You just keep showing up and doing the wise decisions.
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And I think that s what
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a lot of people are missing out on today, especially millennials today.
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I feel like they re just making decisions to look good as opposed to feel good long-term, as opposed to have safety, as opposed to having security and building wealth.
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And a lot of people are just in debt.
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I m curious, I love your seven steps.
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I love how often you guys just say it over and over again, but somehow how people just seem to miss it and not do the steps and it hurts them.
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I m curious, besides the steps, the seven baby steps, what are a few things people can start doing to increase the odds of wealth over time, to increasing the odds?
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Is it something mentally they can do, spiritually they can do?
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Is there something in their relationships they can do differently to increase the odds?
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Well, I think the first thing is you have to have
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I mean, we were sitting in one of our leadership team meetings yesterday, as a matter of fact, here at Ramsey, and we were looking at a business unit and they kept going, well, we need to do this, we need to do this.
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And we did not have agreement on the baseline data of what was actually going on.
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One person thought one thing was going on, one thought another was going on.
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And I said, we got to back up.
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We got to put data in front of us.
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And once we all agree on exactly where we are, then we can discuss where we re going.
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And I think building wealth or having a high quality life in any area is a little bit like that.
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You need to back up and say, OK, what are the principles before I worry about the tactics?
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And the principles should lead us to the tactics.
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And the five money principles, if we wanted to pull some out, there would be common sense biblical things that are kind of boring.
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But if you lay those principles in place, then they ll lead you to the tactics.
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I mean, here s one, live on less than you make.
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Now that sounds kind of almost glib, you know?
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But the Bible says the borrower is, it says a foolish man devours all he has.
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Live on less than you make.
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You need to be on a written plan.
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In anything you re doing, if you don t do it intentionally, it s not going to occur.
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No one wins anything accidentally.
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It s an intentional act.
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Winning always is.
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At marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business, money, no one accidentally gets wealthy.
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It just, oh, what happened?
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No one does that.
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So that s a written plan.
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That s called a budget, you know, and so we got to have a budget.
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We got to live on less than we make.
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If you get out of debt mathematically, what it does is you have money to invest because when you have a $750 payment on your Ford F-150, you got no money.
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And so that money s going to Ford instead of to you.
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It s not going in your 401k.
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And so that s what the borrower is slave to the lender means.
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But also what happens when you get out of debt is you have this sense of freedom.
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You have this sense of autonomy, the sense of agency.
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You re not being controlled by the man, stinking Bank of America.
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It doesn t tell you what to do.
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Ford Motor Credit doesn t tell you what to do.
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So you don t have to keep a horrible job.
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You can move to a better job.
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and take that risk.
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But if you got to pay payments, you don t feel free.
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And so being out of debt, living on less than you make, have a rent and plan, obviously saving and investing.
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Obviously, in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil.
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Grandma said, have money saved for a rainy day.
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We start with an emergency fund and then we long-term invest.
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And the largest study a millionaire has ever done in North America, we did it here at Ramsey, we discovered that the typical way someone gets their first one to five million is they have a paid off house and they have a really healthy 401k or Roth IRA combo in good mutual funds.
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And so they ll be sitting there with a million dollars in their retirement accounts.
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after 10, 12, 15 years of doing this and they got a half million dollar or $700,000 paid for house.
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So they got a $1.7 million net worth.
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And so the save money, save money.
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And the weird thing is that there s no, uh, all the get rich quick stuff on Tik TOK and all that.
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It is all- Crypto and everything.
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Everything.
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There s always some way.
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There s a new version of stupid every year, you know?
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Go ahead.
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No, go ahead.
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Why is that so enticing?
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Why do so many people jump into that with all their money or all their savings or take out debt just to invest in the 17 new things a year that seem like one or two people actually made a few million dollars?
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but probably end up losing it a year later.
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Why is that such an enticing thing for people who work so hard at making their money?
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Well, taking the long haul, being the tortoise versus the hare, is not human nature.
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Our brains are wired by God for efficiency.
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We want to burn the least calories possible to get the job done.
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whatever it is, which in the financial world causes us to look at get rich quick.
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And we don t think of it as stupid.
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I didn t think of it as stupid when I did it in the 80s.
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I started with nothing, had $4 million worth of real estate, lost everything because I borrowed too much money on the real estate and crashed my own life down on my head.
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I didn t think I was being foolish, foolhardy, impulsive.
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I thought I was burning the least calories to get to the goal.
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Yeah, you re being smart.
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I thought, I thought this is the way to go.
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And people that are buying crypto, that s what they think.
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I mean, no one thinks they re gambling.
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They don t think, oh, this has worse odds than a roulette wheel, which it actually did mathematically.
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But they didn t think that.
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They thought this is the least calories to burn to get to the goal.
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So that s just the human brain doing what it s supposed to do.
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We re just efficiency experts all the time in everything we do.
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What s the least effort to get to the goal?
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How often does someone, when they know like, hey, this is a big risk investment,
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The chances are of you making, you know, 10x on your return in one year or six months is so slim or 100x returns in two years is so slim.
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But why do people sometimes go all in on the money they have or 90% of their money on things that have a 1% chance of actually getting more than a double return within a year?
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Well, there s two reasons.
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One is they don t believe there s only a 1% chance.
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They believe, again, it s the most efficient way to get there.
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I didn t think that there was a high probability I was going to fail doing nothing down real estate.
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I did not.
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It never occurred to me, number one.
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And then number two, pride comes right before the fall.
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There s an arrogance.
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I was smart.
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I understood that debt knocked over some people.
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I understood that sometimes people got in trouble, but I thought, oh, I can do this.
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I m smart enough.
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26 years of your wisdom, you could do this at 26.
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That s right, man.
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After 24 and a half years and a college degree in real estate, by God, I can do this.
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And there was that in there, that arrogant little twerp.
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He was there.
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And so there s a combination of this pride and that then leads you to, again, these principles that lead you to bad tactics or principles that lead you to good tactics.
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And the principle was a bad principle that I was functioning in.
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And, you know, just put a little icing on the cake of a little pride, a little arrogance that says, oh yeah,
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I know that for that guy, but I m really good at math.
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And I grew up in the real estate business and I know, I know things.
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Just ask me, you know.
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And that you see this, you can actually see that dripping off of some of the stuff that s posted on the Get Rich Quick stuff.
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Stuff that criticizes you, stuff that criticizes me.
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Stuff that criticizes our friend Craig Groeschel or whoever.
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I mean, you can see anybody that s playing a long game or, you know, Simon Sinek s Infinite Game, right?
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Anybody s playing a long game, the short-term thinkers all have to pile on and there s always that dripping arrogance around it.
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I couldn t recognize it because I was the same guy.
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I did the same.
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I would have been the guy trashing that guy.
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I would have been the guy trashing me when I was 26 because I would have been going, no, that doesn t apply to me.
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Yeah, I understand, Ramsey, but that s for regular people.
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I m smarter than that.
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I m not regular people.
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So there s that in there.
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So we got get out of debt.
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We ve got live on less than you make.
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We got to have a budget.
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We got to save.
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And the last one is you need to be outlandishly, outrageously generous and walk around with an open hand.
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What does generous mean for people that
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feel like they re struggling to live their own lifestyle of going out with friends once a week or having a dinner every couple of weeks or just doing some basic activities to enjoy life beyond free activities.
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How does generosity look like for those individuals?
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See, generous is not an action.
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Generous is a character quality.
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And like integrity, it s a character quality that you choose.
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You re not born with it.
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It s not installed.
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You have to say, I am a generous person.
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As our friend James Clear says, he says, our habits come from our identity.
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So change your identity and your habits will follow, right?
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The whole essence of Atomic Habits, his bestselling book.
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which is wonderful material.
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But I am a generous person.
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Okay, now what does that mean?
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Yeah, there s obviously a money thing.
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That might mean I give 10% to my church, a tithe.
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That might mean I pick up the bill at dinner.
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It might mean I look across the room and someone s wearing military fatigues and I buy their lunch.
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It might, or a policeman, or a fireman, or a nurse, you know, I m in scrubs.
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It might mean something that simple tactically, but it could mean I just opened the door for someone.
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Yeah, a generous heart.
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It could mean, because here s the thing, we all know the difference in a taker and a giver.
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We know the difference in selfless versus selfish.
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When you hang out with selfish people, you feel like you need to take a shower when you re done, you know, and when you hang out with selfless people.
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So I can just decide to do that.
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I don t have to have a lot of money.
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Because generous people are highly attractive, not because they give you stuff, but they re highly attractive because they re they and they re very seldom depressed.
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They almost always have a positive outlook.
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They don t have a scarcity mentality.
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They have an abundance mentality.
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It, and all of this is just a decision.
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I just, I m going to, instead of being, but, but what happens is we become overwhelmed with the financial stress and we turn it in and we became Naval gazers worried about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
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Cause I got to take care of me, me, me, me, me, me.
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And if I don t take care of me, me, me, me, the lights get cut off and it doesn t take much margin.
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to push all of that back as a decision and just say, no, I m going to leave a tip that s outlandish.
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I watched a guy the other day park a Mercedes.
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He pulled up in a car.
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I know the car because I looked at it one time.
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It s a $140,000 car.
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And he hands the valet $5.
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I m like, dude, this is Ferris Bueller s day out.
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You just gave a guy five bucks to park 140,000.
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You are out of your mind.
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That s a lack of generosity that could really cost you.
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I want them taking care of Mr. Ramsey s car like it s their daughter.
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That s the tip I want to leave for selfish reasons, hello.
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Protect your car.
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Exactly.
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I m curious, what was the...
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What was the most generous year you ve ever been financially?
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You don t have to say how much you gave or tithe that year, but what was the most you ever gave back in one year?
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Can you remember that year?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It was year before last.
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Um, cause I had a goal.
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I met this, I ve been hanging out with these generous guys, these guys that have a lot of money and gals and trying to learn from them.
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And one of the things I learned is the intentionality behind their generosity.
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They re very careful.
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They do large gifts as if they re doing an investment.
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Really?
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They do due diligence.
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Can you explain?
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Well, they do due diligence on the organization.
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If they re wasteful, they re not handling money well, they don t treat their people well behind the scenes.
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89% is going to overhead and 11% is going to hungry children, then this is a problem.
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That means somebody s got too nice a car in a pile, right?
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And so they investigate and go into it.
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That s one thing they do on large gifts.
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And two, if you ve got an organization that s weak and their money is struggling and you give them too much, you can destroy them.
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Really?
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Much like a lottery winner.
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Right.
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They re not ready for it mentally or emotionally.
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They don t have the character to carry it.
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Interesting.
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They don t have the processes and the systems and the organization and the nonprofit or the ministry to carry it.
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And so you can actually, you know, you go into a church of 30 people and you tie the million dollars, you can ruin the place.
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So what questions should you ask an organization, a church, or a foundation that you want to give a big sum of money to, what questions should you ask the leaders
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to know that they have a mindset capable of managing that much money?
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Because typically if you come from not having enough, and that s how you ve always been, and then all of a sudden you get more, you may not be ready for it.
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So what questions should we ask before we make those investments, and give that generously to know that, okay, this person is actually at the right stage of their life to handle this big lump sum of money, and all the donors that I m going to bring them.
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My daughter, Denise, runs our family foundation, handles all the Ramsey philanthropy, and the thing that she and I have agreed on in that is I want her to approach the ministry like we are venture capitalists, and we re gonna buy them.
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Like looking at their books.
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I m gonna buy them.
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If I m gonna buy them, I wanna know how they re running the place.
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I wanna know their HR issues, I wanna know their systems and processes for growth,
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I wanna know how they manage things, how chaotic is it?
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Is there accounting systems in place?
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I wanna know the delivery mechanism of the actual goal of the ministry.
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Again, feeding hungry kids, how are we feeding hungry kids?
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What s that look like?
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What s the cost per kid?
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How many kids do we feed?
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And what s our goals and what s our vision for that?
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And just like you re buying it.
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And then you can come alongside them and partner with them.
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And we re not trying to take them over.
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We re not trying to run them.
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don t wanna do that.
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God gave them that to do, not me, not Denise.
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But we re gonna approach it that way as due diligence, and then that gives us a different set of eyes.
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And here s what s weird, because we teach leadership, and because we run a large business, we actually can help them sometimes.
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by advising them and say, you know what, if you would just change that a little bit, then we could change our giving like this.
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And we re not trying to tell you what to do.
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We re not trying to rob you, but we re just trying to come alongside you and love you well, help you, you know, increase your capacity, increase your efficiency for the goals that God s given you to do here.
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And it s a lot of fun.
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It s a lot of fun.
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And so it changes our mindset of just instead of like, we re going to throw some money over the fence, hope it all works out.
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If we come alongside them as if we re buying them or as if we re a venture capitalist and we re going to partner with them or something like that, then we re going to bring our advice.
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So obviously then the Ramsey Family Foundation does not give to ministries that borrow money.
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Obviously.
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That s a deal killer for us.
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That doesn t have to be for everybody, but we teach people not to borrow money.
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Why would we then give money to someone who s kind of dumb?
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So we wouldn t do that.
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But back to the other thing, my goal was I saw one guy, he gave away a million dollars in a year.
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I thought that would be very, very cool to figure out a way that we...
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And many years ago, we were able to do that the first time, many years ago.
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And then I thought, well, what can we do next?
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I want to give away a million dollars in a day.
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Wow.
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And we pulled that off.
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Come on.
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We pulled that off.
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That s inspiring.
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It included the gifts to our team for Christmas.
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It included supporting several ministries simultaneously at Christmas, a children s home in the area,
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It included buying some stuff for this thing and that thing.
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We did it all.
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Brought everybody under this roof here and did it all.
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This huge celebration one day.
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Not to point at us, but it was, I gotta tell you, it was one of the most fun days I ve ever had in my life.
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Because generosity is...
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It feels good too.
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It does.
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It s a blast.
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It s the most fun you ll ever have with money.
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Now you said, I think you said the year before last was the most that you gave.
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Yeah.
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That was that million dollar day.
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That was it.
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Okay.
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So, so essentially like a year and a month ago or something, right?
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It was, is that what it was like?
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I guess.
1
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
A year and a half ago or something like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m curious.
1
SPEAKER_01
Um, every, uh, every individual that I ve interviewed or talked to, you know,
2
SPEAKER_01
10 plus years my senior.
2
SPEAKER_01
They all talk, who I really admire, they all talk about generosity and giving and making it something you do early on in your life in any way capacity that you can and giving more and more the more you are able to give more.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they say the thing that always happens is I always make more when I give.
2
SPEAKER_01
Even like a little bit uncomfortably when I give more than I think, ugh, can I really do this?
2
SPEAKER_01
The next year always becomes bigger.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious, was the last,
2
SPEAKER_01
year, one of your biggest years?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it will be.
2
SPEAKER_00
It will be over a decade.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, because I mean, we re being impacted by outside variables like everyone.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we got supply chain is affecting the economics are affecting.
2
SPEAKER_00
Energy costs are affecting hiring.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cost of labor is affecting us.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
So now we re we re actually not up.
2
SPEAKER_00
immediately following that, but I am a hundred percent convinced that over a decade we ll be way up.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I ve done it before.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve stretched and done it before, done unusual thing, had the celebration with no thought of the return.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you do it with a thought of a return, then that s you telling God what to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t work.
2
SPEAKER_00
He thinks he s God, so that won t work.
2
SPEAKER_00
But this idea that, again,
2
SPEAKER_00
Generous people are just more fun to do stuff with.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re more attractive, they re more fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
More attractive, and you just end up having opportunities come.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let me think about it in a simplistic way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s say you were a leader in an organization and you had two people working for you, vying for a promotion.
2
SPEAKER_00
And obviously, what are we going to do here?
2
SPEAKER_00
One s the selfish, look like he s weaned on a pickle.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the other lady is, she s generous and she s kind.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s always stepping outside of her own job description and helping someone else get the project done and not taking credit for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Who gets the promotion?
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s not because you re somehow beholden to her for that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just, that s who I want to work with every day.
2
SPEAKER_00
People with good attitude, good energy, good effort.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s who I want beside me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t want Mr. Weaned on a Pickle hanging out.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to hang out with this guy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s awful.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s awful, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
What do you think happens to people that never give?
2
SPEAKER_01
That they just earn for themselves, or they keep it in their business, and they only put it back in their business, but they don t think about giving outside of the business?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think their growth is stunted.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_00
To me, again, it falls in the same category as integrity.
2
SPEAKER_00
What happens to someone who cuts corners?
2
SPEAKER_00
You can win, you can prosper to a degree, but all the data tells us, and all the life experience tells us, that the people with fanatical levels of integrity
2
SPEAKER_00
are the ones that do the biggest stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
The crooks really don t get ahead at the end of the day.
2
SPEAKER_00
The people that are selfish, they could get some stuff done, but the people that are selfless, they just have a tendency
2
SPEAKER_00
Because people trust them, that trust factor comes in, things move at the speed of trust as they say, and all those things come into play and you just don t become all you were designed to be.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other thing that happens with generosity is your creativity increases.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because you re releasing chemicals that you don t release when you re selfish.
2
SPEAKER_00
your productivity increases, the quality of your relationships increase.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was speaking at a little Baptist church in Kentucky one time, beautiful little church, and the guy, many, many years ago, and the old pastor had been there for 40 years, and I did a tithing lesson, hardcore, you know, Baptist tithing lesson, which I love.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the guy came up afterwards, and he goes, well, you left one thing out.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sure, pastor, I mean, you ve been doing this longer than me.
2
SPEAKER_00
What d I leave out?
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I ve been doing this 40 years.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve never had a tithing couple in my church get a divorce.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I went, why?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because the tithe is magical?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because some people think that in Christianity, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I don t think that.
2
SPEAKER_00
He said, no.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because when you re unselfish with your money, you re unselfish with your wife.
2
SPEAKER_00
and you re unselfish with your husband.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you serve each other in the marriage if you re serving the community with your giving.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the same muscle.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, you re just easier to stay married to.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you re tithing, when you re giving.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you re giving.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you make giving a standard part of the rhythm of your life, you build that generosity muscle, and it affects every relationship you re in, particularly the key relationship in a marriage.
2
SPEAKER_01
It changes the way you parent, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because if you don t give in one area, if you say, I m going to hold back my money and I m going to keep it here, you re probably not going to give generously to your spouse or to your kids or to your friends or community, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because it s a character quality.
2
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s like the guy that
2
SPEAKER_00
Ah, well, you know, I hate the IRS.
2
SPEAKER_00
I hate taxes.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I don t really put everything on my tax return.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you re a liar.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re a cheater.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where are you going to cheat me?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what I started thinking.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t, I m not impressed.
2
SPEAKER_00
I pay, I hate taxes, but I pay every stinking penny, not because I believe in taxes and not because I m scared of the IRS, because neither one of those things are true, but it s because it says something about me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I got to look at me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s an integrity issue.
2
SPEAKER_00
Every penny, every cash sale of a book on the back table goes into the accounting system and we pay freaking taxes on it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I got audited not long ago.
2
SPEAKER_00
I paid precisely zero in the audit.
2
SPEAKER_00
We were so stinking clean.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s not because I m scared of those dupers, because I m really not.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re a pain in the butt, but I m not scared of them.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a matter of
2
SPEAKER_00
Integrity is integrity is integrity is integrity.
2
SPEAKER_00
Generosity is generosity is generosity is generosity.
2
SPEAKER_00
These things, these are character qualities of the successful people that I ve met.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_01
Speaking of marriage, it seems like money affects marriages a lot.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious what, or it could empower marriages or it could hurt marriages if not handled properly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious
2
SPEAKER_01
If you were to give advice on a couple dating for a few years, looking to get married, what are a few questions they must have and align to about money?
2
SPEAKER_01
that might be uncomfortable to have those questions, but will actually get you clear on, hey, are we the right match in terms of our money mindset, in terms of what we re gonna do with money for the next, and maybe you have this question in the first few months of dating, you don t wait two years, but what are those questions that people should be asking before they align with someone romantically long-term?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, there s a couple of things to keep in mind.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m talking to a young couple about this and I do often in a marriage seminar or something like that is our pre-marriage counseling session or something like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
The number one cause of divorce is money fights and money problems out there, the stress of money and the arguments over money.
2
SPEAKER_00
OK.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so if you said the number one cause of death is getting killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
then you would analyze how not to get killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And so if you re gonna get married, you should really look at the number one freaking thing, hello.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is the number one thing that either hurts or ends marriage is what I m hearing you say.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the odd thing is, is it s actually circular.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s an infinity loop because it feeds back on itself, meaning that it also, the quality of your marriage is a high data point indicator as to whether or not you build wealth.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so very few people drag a spouse kicking and screaming into millionaire status, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it doesn t happen by accident?
2
SPEAKER_00
So I m bringing the princess with me, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Come on, baby.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to put you on my back, and we re going to haul you over there.
2
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t usually work, OK?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or I m bringing the guy who s lazy and won t work, and I m going to outwork him.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the lady says, and he s a little boy, and I m going to be his mommy, and I m going to drag him all the way into millionaire status.
2
SPEAKER_00
Not working, baby.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
It goes both directions.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s thing one.
2
SPEAKER_00
If it s the number one cause, then yeah, it ought to be something really discussed.
2
SPEAKER_00
So preventative maintenance, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s preventative health.
2
SPEAKER_00
If the number one cause of death is obesity, we probably ought to think about obesity.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious then, what s a question a woman should ask to her man within the first few months of dating about money?
2
SPEAKER_01
where she could get a sense if he s fully honest and integrity with what he s saying and not just saying something to make her, you know, feel happy.
2
SPEAKER_01
What is a question she can ask to feel like, okay, this man I m dating and courting and we re getting into this life with, I feel like I can trust him with money for the future.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, money is a reflection of our values, how we handle money.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s another reason that it s very important because if your values are not aligned, you re going to struggle in any relationship, but certainly in a marriage relationship.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so talk about the basics of money.
2
SPEAKER_00
Debt?
2
SPEAKER_00
I love debt.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to use it all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want zero down everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to buy a zero down truck.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to buy a zero down stereo.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to buy a zero down couch.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m going to put nothing down on the house.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you hate debt?
2
SPEAKER_00
OK, we got a problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re going to have to work through this, or we re going to have to.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is a deal killer.
2
SPEAKER_00
How about saving?
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ll save money.
3
SPEAKER_00
knows you ll get you something.
3
SPEAKER_00
I always thought you could out earn your stupidity.
3
SPEAKER_00
I tried that for years.
3
SPEAKER_00
It didn t work.
3
SPEAKER_00
So my wife, however, is a natural saver.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when I joined her club is when we started winning.
3
SPEAKER_00
So bless her heart, she didn t know this going in, but I made a hard life for her the first seven years.
3
SPEAKER_00
So saving and debt, how about generosity?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t believe you ought to give.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you give, you end up with less.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s mathematically factual, which it is actually.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that short-term thinking, that s a finite game instead of an infinite game, again, using Simon s premise on his book.
3
SPEAKER_00
So generality, the things we just talked about, how about living on, are we gonna live in chaos?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are we gonna live with a plan?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, wanna live with peace or chaos?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are we gonna live with future-minded or YOLO?
3
SPEAKER_00
You only live once, thank God it s Friday.
3
SPEAKER_00
Living for the weekend.
3
SPEAKER_00
Our marriage theme song is Huey Lewis and the News, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, come on, is this us?
3
SPEAKER_00
And if it is, then, you know, because this, what s this tell you?
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyone that lives short-term thinking, we know they re emotionally immature.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
spiritually immature.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so you re marrying someone or you re dating someone that s emotionally immature and they re fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re always fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s not fun in the long term because it brings about stress.
3
SPEAKER_00
The fruit of this is nasty.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so now do we have to be perfectly aligned on all those things?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, we just need to understand where the other person stands and are they so far over away from us that it s a deal killer.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because my wife is more of a saver than I am by nature.
3
SPEAKER_00
Saving for me is an intellectual act.
3
SPEAKER_00
a spiritual act of my will, it is not a natural rhythm, okay?
3
SPEAKER_00
She naturally saves everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
The leftovers in our refrigerator are grotesque.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s just, I mean, you know, she saves everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
So to the extent that I can stay close to her on that, then we ve got harmony.
3
SPEAKER_00
We have both obviously with what we ve been through agreed, no doubt.
3
SPEAKER_00
We are both, have become planners over the 40 years of marriage.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m always been a detailed planner.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had to get her to join me more on that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s better if you do it on the front end than the way we did it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a lot harder the way we did it by killing each other.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you want to be in agreement on that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And all the data tells us on marriage and divorce statistics, and we ve studied this for years, is number one, cause of divorce, money.
3
SPEAKER_00
The other three, if you can be in agreement on them, religion, kids, whether to have them and how to treat them.
3
SPEAKER_00
and how to deal with crazy people in your extended family, your mother-in-law, and your crazy brother, your lazy brother who does cocaine, and whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
How are you going to deal with it?
3
SPEAKER_00
How to manage boundaries with extended family.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if one of you thinks that children should just be let run wild and the other one is an over disciplinarian, we re going to have a problem, or I want no children and I want 17, that s going to be an issue.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or I don t believe there s a God and I think anyone who believes there s a God s an idiot.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, by the way, I think there s a God.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, see, this is a problem because now I m an idiot.
3
SPEAKER_00
So there you go.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so these are the things.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you can, because all of these things are representative of your values and what your beliefs are.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when you can agree on your money, what you ve ended up agreeing on is your dreams, your fears.
3
SPEAKER_00
your visions, you re in agreement, you re in alignment on those.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not only what they are, but how we re going to go after them then.
3
SPEAKER_00
And now you ve got real harmony and you ve got a high probability of building wealth.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the odd part of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the infinity loop how it comes back in on itself.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you think love is enough if you have
3
SPEAKER_01
Religion, kids, family boundaries, kind of all in alignment and in harmony.
3
SPEAKER_01
But money is completely apart.
3
SPEAKER_01
But you love each other.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve been building this life together for a year or two, and you re like, should we get married or not?
3
SPEAKER_01
But we are so far apart.
3
SPEAKER_01
One s the fun and undisciplined person, one is the extreme saver and detail-oriented, planned person.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is love enough to have a successful, long-term, healthy marriage if money is not there?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think you ve got to be close.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t have to be exactly aligned.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you ve got to be generally aligned.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because the problem is this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Resentment is going to set in, and resentment will kill love.
3
SPEAKER_00
The eye roll.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you roll your eyes, that s the beginning of the end.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is that called the Four Horsemen?
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_00
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
3
SPEAKER_00
Les Parrott teaches about that, and that s some standard John Gottman
3
SPEAKER_00
background stuff but that s one of the four and that s the big one by the way of the four is yeah and so you know if he won t work he won t keep a job because he just doesn t think that that s that big a deal it s not not a problem eventually you lose respect and the eye rolls yeah and that s the beginning of the end that s one of the four the most the largest of the four horsemen by far so if you can t keep now again
3
SPEAKER_00
My wife and I joke about our differences on saving, but they re not that far apart.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we freely admit hers is a natural rhythm, mine s a built-in, I had to decide to do it because I see the benefits of it, so I intellectually will it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s against my DNA.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t like it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I really don t.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the only reason I save money is so I can give more and have more.
3
SPEAKER_00
The only reason, I don t do it because I get joy out of saving money, zero.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I can give more and I can buy more.
3
SPEAKER_00
And those two things bring me joy, so there you go.
3
SPEAKER_00
But again, at least we though are in alignment that saving is important, even if it might be for two different reasons.
3
SPEAKER_00
If I absolutely believe that it was ridiculous to keep any money saved, and she had to have some money saved to have peace,
3
SPEAKER_00
because she s constantly in anxiety because there s no rainy day fund, then that s going to eventually tear up anything you do.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
What s the difference between saving and investing at your kind of scale?
3
SPEAKER_01
Or someone who s, you know, bringing in over a million dollars a year in their business and they ve got some extra cash.
3
SPEAKER_01
What is the difference between saving and investing?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is there a difference at that level of like, okay, some money is just saved in a, you know, an account and others are invested in different areas.
3
SPEAKER_00
Savings is short term, investing is long term.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Pretty simple.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you can define what that is, but I generally eat things three years and less.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m just saving the money.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m really not putting it in something that s going to be going up and down because I need the money there.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, uh, and so I ve got to have them access to it.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it needs to be, it s not going to earn a lot, but it s stable.
3
SPEAKER_01
Gotcha.
3
SPEAKER_00
Investing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can ride a wave cause I m playing a long game.
3
SPEAKER_01
What s the percentages of saving investing that people should be at?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, you should have an emergency fund personally of three to six months of expenses, the standard rainy day fund.
3
SPEAKER_00
Past that, you need to save up and pay cash for whatever you re purchasing.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you ve got a car purchase in your future, Christmas this year is in December.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you didn t know, you got to get ready for that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that kind of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
I thought it was November.
3
SPEAKER_00
They move it occasionally, but just in case, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
But just in case, a reminder.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so those are savings items.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then past that, everything else would go to investing.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, because basically one saving is for protection, the emergency fund, and the other is for purchases to avoid debt.
3
SPEAKER_00
Paying cash for my car, paying cash for my couch, paying cash for my trip.
3
SPEAKER_00
And those are short-term savings.
3
SPEAKER_00
Christmas, I m saving short-term savings items.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then long-term saving items, obviously retirement, kids college, general wealth building, beyond that to do other things.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so then I get into, at our level, now that we make a lot of money, we re a little bit mixed up in that
3
SPEAKER_00
we get so much over in the investing pile, then a lot of it is not for 30 years from now.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of it is for six years from now.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I ll throw money over into a mutual fund until I use it to buy a piece of real estate or something like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that s a little different.
3
SPEAKER_01
Are there different investments that entrepreneurs should be making outside of their own business versus maybe employees?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is there different types of investments that those individuals should be making?
3
SPEAKER_01
And how many different
3
SPEAKER_01
styles of investments should they make?
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, number one, never invest in something you don t understand.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s a mistake people make all the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Number two, you should always have an array of investments, a diversification.
3
SPEAKER_00
The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, spread your portions to seven, yes to eight, for disaster may come upon the land.
3
SPEAKER_00
So don t have all your eggs in one basket, we say in the financial world, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And so the biggest thing when we re in our entre leadership, we re working with small businesses and we work with tens of thousands of them every year.
3
SPEAKER_00
The biggest thing, I got a guy heating air, he s got heating air company, he s got 20 trucks, he s got 40, 50 employees, and he s got no investments.
3
SPEAKER_00
outside of his company.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s his own business.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, everything goes back into the business and that sets him up for two problems.
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One is he s not diversified and if that goes south he s completely baked.
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Two, he s got no exit strategy at retirement because he s got no money.
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And so it makes it very difficult.
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He has to sell that business.
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That s his only nest egg.
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And so he or she that owns a small business is much better off to also have their own 401k, their own Roth IRAs and good growth stock mutual funds and build up some extra wealth in it.
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Hey, go buy a piece of real estate that the business is not in.
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in addition to that.
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Outside of the business.
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I mean, we ve got about $450 million worth of real estate on this campus that s all paid for.
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But in addition to that, I ve got a whole bunch of real estate that s not this place.
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SPEAKER_00
You inspire me.
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But I m not bragging, but I mean, it s not this place.
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It s not this investment.
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100% of our real estate is not Ramsey Buildings, thank God.
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SPEAKER_00
That would be unwise.
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Because then, what if the tenant failed?
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SPEAKER_00
Well, you lost your business and your tenant.
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And I got a big dadgum empty building over here.
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This is, from a real estate investing standpoint, that s scary.
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I m curious, you know, it seems like the wealthy, a lot of the wealthy get into real estate at some point.
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SPEAKER_01
I have followed your advice, not all of your advice, I ve made a lot of mistakes, but I ve followed a lot of your advice about my car with cash.
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SPEAKER_01
I didn t understand real estate, so I put it in a real estate fund.
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SPEAKER_01
That s okay.
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SPEAKER_01
As opposed to buying it and managing it and figuring out how to fix things and deal with contractors and all these different things.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the REITs are doing good.
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SPEAKER_01
Right, so I put it in a fund, but I kind of want to get into real estate.
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SPEAKER_01
And I don t know if I should or not.
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I want to because I feel like
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It s a great asset class for long-term wealth.
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SPEAKER_01
It is.
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But I don t fully understand it, because I ve never bought investment properties, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I ve been buying property since I was 18 years old.
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Mom and daddy were in the real estate business when I was growing up.
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SPEAKER_00
I got my real estate license three weeks after I turned 18.
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So I ve been doing this for 50 years, almost.
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I mean, I ve been around it for 50 years.
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I ve been doing it for 40 plus.
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SPEAKER_00
And so the real estate is very romantic.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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Especially on tik-tok, you know, I mean it s like it can nothing can go wrong.
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It s all great When in actual fact it is exactly the opposite everything will go wrong, right?
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Count on it.
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The roof is going to leak I had a refrigerator ice maker bust the other day flood the whole freaking house.
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I got mold and remediation I got one little house over here
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It s completely down for six months while we rebuild the whole stinking thing.
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There s nothing romantic or fun about this.
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The renters aren t paying for it.
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SPEAKER_00
Crap.
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You know, because there s no renters.
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It s full of mold, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
Hello.
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SPEAKER_00
So this is life, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
So real estate makes more money than other asset classes, but has tremendously more hassle.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t like the hassle, but how do you manage the hassle?
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SPEAKER_00
You buy a REIT instead and let someone else do it.
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Because some of the REITs are doing very well, real estate investment trusts, or buy into something like that where you re doing a limited partnership and you own 133rd or something like that.
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And someone with a long track record is doing a good job.
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They re doing it with low or no debt and that kind of a thing.
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You go that direction.
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And here s the thing, there s classes of real estate that are less hassle, okay?
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Warehouse, almost no hassle.
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because you rent those out triple net and the tenant takes care of everything, taxes, insurance, and repairs.
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I ve been studying this.
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Do you feel like it s better for someone to get into triple net investing versus single family properties?
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Single family homes are the largest hassle factor because there s drama.
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There s more drama there than in commercial real estate, than office buildings.
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SPEAKER_00
You get some drama in office buildings or in a retail center.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve got some of each.
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But very seldom.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, the workout class guy goes broke in your strip center and there s a little drama, but it s a lot different than... The tennis stay longer usually.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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And, you know, they re looking at it through business eyes.
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rather than my wife s mad because the dishwasher s out, you know, and so there s a little less explosive diarrhea associated with it, right?
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SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, it s just, you know, but, but emotional, but, uh, you know, so if you want to, you know, one way to get to residential would be doing a large number of apartments, like a 50 unit or 250 unit apartment.
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Uh, and then you ve got onsite management handling all that.
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And again, you re stepping back and just watching the metrics.
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and they are managing the drama that worked for you.
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And so that s okay too.
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I don t have any apartments, but I m not against them.
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But again, whatever you do with real estate is more hassle.
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Even a warehouse is more hassle than a mutual fund.
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SPEAKER_00
Mutual fund, you put it in there and then you open your email and there it is, you know.
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SPEAKER_00
No hassle, no decisions.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t get to make any decisions.
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SPEAKER_00
No one asks your opinion.
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You just get an email.
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SPEAKER_00
But you re going to make a 10% or 12% rate of return.
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And most of my real estate has an internal rate of return of 17% to 20%, including tax write-offs, growth, and rent cash flow.
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SPEAKER_01
Right, with all those benefits.
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SPEAKER_01
Are you more into the commercial real estate then or residential?
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SPEAKER_00
We ve got a bunch of each, but we re probably going to move from the single families over towards more commercial as, as our, my son-in-law runs all of our real estate and he s sick of it.
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SPEAKER_00
The single families, they just drive you nuts.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, comparatively to the other stuff.
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SPEAKER_00
Would you rather have $10 million in one strip center or, I don t know, 20 houses that are half a million dollars?
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
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And yeah, it s different.
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But hey, houses are a great place to start if you wanted to do one.
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SPEAKER_00
And if you can manage a tenant in a house, you can definitely manage a business tenant.
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SPEAKER_01
Few final questions for you, Dave.
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I wish I could talk to you for hours and hopefully I can come back and do more of these in the future.
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SPEAKER_01
Um, but I want to ask you about how someone who has been, you know, maybe grew up in a family where their parents didn t have the best money values or the best, let s call money principles and maybe just weren t able to save that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, we re in debt and the kids kind of picked up the same patterns, the same habits and the same models.
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SPEAKER_01
How does someone go from maybe more of a debt mindset or a poorer mindset into an abundance and a richer or wealthier mindset if they ve been modeling from their parents, if they, you know, they were used to debt, they got into debt early on, they got credit cards early on, like, how does someone switch the mindset first before acting with these steps and actually believing something completely differently?
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SPEAKER_00
Inputs, you become who you hang around with and what you read.
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The old Charlie Tremendous Jones quote, five years from today, you ll be the same person you are today except for the people you hang with and the books you read.
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SPEAKER_00
So inputs, who are you reading?
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SPEAKER_00
What podcasts are you listening to?
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SPEAKER_00
Here s the thing.
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If you want to stay poor and you want to stay in a scarcity mindset, watch Tiger King.
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SPEAKER_00
If you want to win at life Listen to Lewis on his podcast because it s about greatness.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know and Tiger King s quite the opposite, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So what are you consuming?
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SPEAKER_00
You know, are you spending all your time on the cable news network?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I got to tell you, they re not selling anything but fear.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you turn the channel one over, you get the weather channel and the tornado is going to kill you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you know that?
4
SPEAKER_00
Get a helmet on quick.
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SPEAKER_00
And so, oh my God, you know, what are your inputs?
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And I became hyper aware of that during this last season we ve all gone through with pandemic and all these other things.
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SPEAKER_00
The stress level for all of us that were carrying responsibility during those days and the
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fear of people out there, I started going, OK, you guys need to change your inputs because your brain s about to explode with fear.
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SPEAKER_00
And because everybody s just watching the count all day long, you know, it s like, oh, my gosh.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I had to really be very conscious to pull back
4
SPEAKER_00
and say, I m not even gonna turn on the computer.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m just gonna open up a book, my Bible, I m gonna go for a walk with nothing in my ears and just hear birds sing.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh, you gotta watch your inputs, okay?
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SPEAKER_00
And that s how you change it.
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SPEAKER_00
Because a buddy of mine, he came out of the hood, he said, getting out of the hood s easier than getting the hood out of you.
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SPEAKER_00
And, you know, because, you know, I remember people I grew up with, little man can t get ahead.
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SPEAKER_00
You re always going to have a car payment.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, the corporations, I was with a relative the other day, he goes, corporations, corporations, corporations.
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SPEAKER_00
I m like, who are you talking about?
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SPEAKER_00
It s like this evil boogeyman that was floating in the air somewhere were corporations.
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SPEAKER_00
And he owns a business.
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SPEAKER_00
I said, are you incorporated?
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SPEAKER_00
And he said, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And I said, you re a corporation.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, it s just what is this?
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s this little man can t get ahead thing.
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SPEAKER_00
If you hang out with those people, then you believe it.
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SPEAKER_00
If you hang out with people who say, take it easy, and they mean it, then you re going to take it easy.
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SPEAKER_00
And you re going to be mediocre.
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SPEAKER_00
And you re not going to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.
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SPEAKER_00
But what are your inputs?
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SPEAKER_00
Who are you hanging with?
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SPEAKER_00
Your income is going to approximate the income of your 10 closest friends.
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SPEAKER_00
You need to pick your friends real careful.
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SPEAKER_00
Amen to that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And your mouth is going to sound like theirs.
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SPEAKER_00
You want to have a trash mouth?
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SPEAKER_00
Run around these people with trash mouth.
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SPEAKER_00
You ll suddenly be saying stuff like that.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve caught myself doing it.
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SPEAKER_00
I m like an eight-year-old little boy.
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SPEAKER_00
I mimic the people I run with.
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SPEAKER_01
I m curious.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve spoken about the Bible a few times.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you could only
4
SPEAKER_01
share one quote from the Bible that you love the most.
4
SPEAKER_01
What would that quote be?
4
SPEAKER_01
What would that line be or that sentence be from the Bible that really speaks to you the most?
4
SPEAKER_01
If you had to repeat this over and over and this is the only quote that you could think about or repeat over and over or read, what would that be?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s like asking you which kids are your favorite or something, but I would have to go all Christian
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SPEAKER_00
over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
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SPEAKER_00
I really love hearing the feedback from you, and it helps us continue to make the show better.
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And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.