Dave Ramsey’s Shocking Prediction For Housing Prices, Stock Market, & The Trump Economy

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  The US federal budget is on an unsustainable path.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  We're just spending like we're on crack. I mean, it's just nuts.

• 0:39Speaker 03

  We're gonna be broke really quickly unless we get serious about dealing with our spending issues.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  How can you possibly sustain this?

• 0:52Graham Stephan?

  How would you approach things differently?

• 0:54Speaker 02

  I would make Elon Musk look like Mother Teresa.

• 0:58Graham Stephan?

  For young people today, where do you see the biggest opportunities for them?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  This moment in time is the best possible time to be alive in the history of the human race. If you want to build wealth. So many people have become desensitized to the fact that you've got information of the entire world in their palm. You start a digital application of something, you can go to market with it for free. It's like having a magic wand. And if you will tap into that, instead of believing these horrible philosophies that are floating around about, oh, the economy is systemically flawed and you're screwed and, you know, boomers bought their houses with a basket of strawberries and now you can't buy... If you don't quit believing all that crap and instead go, God, anything's possible. Go do something.

• 1:48Jack Selby?

  Dave Ramsey, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  It's good to be back with you guys.

• 1:52Jack Selby?

  I really appreciate this.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  You guys have got the big dogs out there, the lineup that's been on the show lately. Wow.

• 1:57Jack Selby?

  Thank you.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:58Jack Selby?

  It is always

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Congratulations.

• 2:00Jack Selby?

  Super, super fun to have you on and your insights into the economy and everything financial. They're always extremely fascinating. So thanks again.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Fascinating is a word, yeah.

• 2:08Jack Selby?

  So we have to know, what are your predictions for the Trump economy in terms of jobs, stocks and growth? If you were just to lay it all out, what do you predict?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, anytime I predict the economy or politics, I'm generally wrong. So I hesitate to do it. So, but... I would say rather than my prediction, my hope is that what he's attempting to do works. Um, and so, uh, you know, the big beautiful bill really did do some wonderful tax things. Uh, the, the middle class got a huge tax breaks in 2017 and it was made permanent. So that anytime that there's less taxes, there's more money and that helps the economy. Uh, people have their money in their pocket instead of sending it to the stupid government. So that's a good thing.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Um, obviously if you can get, uh, the energy sector moving, uh, that's a one eighth of the, or one seventh of the economy, depending on how you measure it. Uh, and if you get, uh, drill, baby drill happening, that, that, that creates a boom. Uh, if you get interest rates to move slightly down, and he's having a big argument now as we speak about that, then you know, you could cause an economic boom and, uh, uh, get things moving and so forth. So, uh, there's a lot of reasons to be bullish. I honestly thought some of it would have happened before now when he came into office, but it, this is hard process, I guess. And I don't, again, I'm not very good at predicting it. And I've been predicting that the, we're going to have a boom real estate economy for, I don't know,

• 3:40Speaker 02

  unsuccessfully predicting that for like six consecutive quarters. So I'm about ready for it to happen, actually. If you keep saying it, eventually you'll be right, right?

• 3:48Graham Stephan?

  So all of this seemed like upsides. Are there any potential downsides that you see or any concerns with that adding on to a national debt?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I was a little bit caught off guard by, um, how all the tariff things, all the tariff discussions and arguments and grenades and whatever you want to call them is method of negotiating is pretty much a baseball filled window. But the, uh, I was a little bit shocked about how that froze everybody. They just sat on the sidelines like a deer in the headlights and watched till, let's wait to see how that happens before we do. Cause it doesn't affect a lot of people, doesn't affect us. We don't buy a lot of stuff overseas. Um, it doesn't affect Ramsey at all. And so why would we be sidelined? We were going to go, we should go do what we were going to do. And we haven't been, we haven't made a decision, but I'm amazed at the number of people in business

• 4:39Speaker 02

  that I talked to that, you know, they're like, wow, we're kind of waiting on this tariff thing to clear out. Well, why it doesn't even, but it, uh, it, it did more damage. Uh, the waiting to see what's gonna happen did more damage than, uh, than I thought it was gonna do and slowed everything down sluggish. Uh, because anytime you, cause you know, we've talked about this before, the economy self fulfilling prophecy. If people believe things are gonna be good, what do they do? They, they, they invest in new people. They bring on payroll. You give people jobs. They invest in buildings to put the comp company in. They invest in computers to run the thing on. You know, the money goes out the door when you believe, when you're hopeful. When

• 5:20Speaker 02

  you're scared, you pull back and you build the war chest and you quit hiring and you quit, uh, investing and you quit building up inventory and, cause you don't think it's gonna sell. And so, you know, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy in that if you believe it's gonna work, you do the things that causes it to work, causes the prosperity to occur. If, if enough people do it at a macro level.

• 5:43Jack Selby?

  So given the uncertainty, what would you then recommend for the average person? Should they alter their, their plan of action considering the, the financial environment right now?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 5:55Jack Selby?

  You would say tried and true, always do exactly.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Do the same principles over and over. The same principles work in up times and down times.

• 6:01Jack Selby?

  But then what about the, the state of the housing market too, with affordability getting really low? Cause you have rates staying up. You have, the home prices are staying up. Overall, it's getting much more difficult to buy a home. A lot of people are saying, maybe you should start considering renting when the American dream has always been to buy a house. What do you say to maybe a person that's debating between renting and buying a home now?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Long-term, always buying a home is a good idea. Buying a home you can't afford is not a good idea. Uh, so if the affordability issues are affecting you as a person, um, then obviously you need to sideline until you can get your situation straightened out. Here's what's interesting about that discussion is it, it applies to some people and it doesn't apply to others. Um, we talked to a guy who, I talked to a kid the other day who just came out of four year degree in, um, supply chain, brand new college graduate, making a hundred and forty, right out the gate. Uh, he's not worried about affordability in Nashville, Tennessee. He can, he can do it. He's freaking 23 years old. I mean, come on.

• 7:02Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  You know, he's not.

• 7:03Graham Stephan?

  What did he graduate with? What, what was his major in?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Supply chain.

• 7:06Graham Stephan?

  Okay.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Supply chain, uh, logistics. So, yeah, I mean, killed it. It's a great degree field. And, uh, you know, you talk to another person who's, uh, I talked to a lady the other day who just finished up her stuff in cybersecurity. She's making 400K. She's not worried about, you know, so she's not having this discussion. But it's people who are stuck in their careers and they're not advancing their incomes faster than the house prices or the interest rates are advancing, the cost, the affordability issues. And so then they start to read the news and they start to read the wealthy quality stuff. And they're like, oh, life's unfair. I can't buy right now. There's been times in my life I couldn't buy.

• 7:43Graham Stephan?

  But just because they could buy, does that mean that they should? Because just from what I'm seeing, this is the first time I've ever seen a housing market where to me even it makes more sense to rent. And I'm looking at properties and I've been looking at properties daily for years throughout LA, California, Vegas. And I'm looking at the rent to sale ratio. And throughout most of these areas, you could rent for half the price it would cost you to buy it. And when I'm looking at the interest rates and the property taxes and the insurance, I would rather just rent.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  It might be the case for a year or it might be a case for two years. I don't know. I, you know, again, I started getting my real estate license in 1978. We've had that discussion before. So I've watched this a long, long time. And, um, the, the thing I know is if I'm talking to a 40 year old and they never buy a house, the 80 year old version of them is going to be really pissed.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Because their cost of housing over that 40 years, 100% chance it's going up.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  100% chance.

• 8:49Jack Selby?

  What if they're diligently investing? Because you've seen these statistics before where if you had put your down payment in the S and P at the same time as buying a house, the S and P investment would have outpaced it by double. And that was from the 80s through today.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Except that the largest line item in your personal income budget for the typical American is housing. And when you buy a home and then you pay it off, that's no longer your largest line item in your personal budget and you can do investing. And so you flip the cash flow towards investing at that point. And the data from the largest millionaire study ever done that we did, 10,167 of them shows that the typical one to five million, the first one to five million of net worth that they get is in the 401k and investing in Roth IRAs and good mutual funds in the market and getting a home and getting it paid off. So they're sitting there a million seven net worth and they've got a $800,000 401k and they got a paid for $900,000 house.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  And they're 47 years old and they're millionaires. And that's, that's their first 1.7 million. Now, you don't get to 100 million doing that. That's a different world, but we're not talking about billionaires. We're talking about millionaires and, and sustainability. So I, I don't talk to happy 78 year olds and 83 year olds on our show that are renters. So it's not a long-term play, but on the short term, is there, is there times the market is dippy doodle and it's got, you got this hydrocline, so to speak, where it's flipped and the cold water's on top and the hot water's on the bottom, you know? Yeah, that could happen, just like when I'm diving. Same thing could happen. It's a weird experience, but, but it's not the norm. Eventually the, the warm water's going to be on top and the cold water's going to be

• 10:31Speaker 02

  on bottom.

• 10:32Jack Selby?

  It's interesting because your perspective is like financially maximizing. It's kind of like what people should be doing.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:39Jack Selby?

  And then your perspective is kind of like what people are doing because you have the whole idea of like, well, right now it makes more sense to rent because maybe you could be mobile with your job with rates and affordability as low as it is. It gives you the freedom.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  But that's not a 40 year play.

• 10:52Jack Selby?

  That's true. I mean, it depends.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  That's a 40 month play.

• 10:56Jack Selby?

  If you're reassessing all of the time and you're financially maximizing, that makes sense. Same thing goes for credit cards because you could still get the money back if you don't adjust spending habits and stuff like that. And that's, and that's what people like, if you are financially maximizing and you're super in tune with it.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  He was doing really good for a minute, wasn't he?

• 11:11Jack Selby?

  Where?

• 11:13Jack Selby?

  Hold on, but let me just, let me just, you know, specify, you actually report on what people are doing. The fact of the matter is like, yes, you do have this contingent of people that maximize, but most people.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  My point is not that. My point is it's, it's a, you don't want to compare a five year plan with a 40 year plan. They'll lead you to different conclusions. And to say, I'm going to rent for 40 years would be ludicrous based on historical data. Yeah. Are there moments in time where a four or a five year plan that what Grant, you know, what Graham's saying, I don't doubt what you're saying a bit. I think that's probably accurate numbers. But it's not a 40 year plan. And so right now, if you're in a moment where you need the flexibility and you're in and out and you know, you're in, you're sitting in LA with your, as your example was, and you can rent for half of what you can buy. If that's the case, I haven't looked at the numbers, but I don't doubt, okay, I don't doubt your numbers.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  So, I mean, if that's the case, then yeah, for now, but don't, you know, don't make that your long-term game plan.

• 12:13Graham Stephan?

  I would agree with that. Really, it was up until 2021 was I, I was huge proponent of buying a house. 2022, I saw things starting to flip where I noticed rents just getting way too cheap for what they were. So now I'm in a very much like, I wouldn't buy something right now. I would rent. But prior to 2020, I was all about buying. I thought there were great opportunities out there.

• 12:37Jack Selby?

  You don't just realize it's hilarious? In 2020, I was buying my first house and he was like, no, Jack, don't do it. But he's telling everyone, oh, it's a great time to buy. And it was a good time. And now I'm buying a house because he's like, Jack, you should get this house. And he's telling everyone, no, it's not the right time to buy. That is like, Jack is the exception.

• 12:52Graham Stephan?

  It, in 2020, Jack's income was skyrocketing. In 2020, his income was going up. And I'm like, if you wait like a few years, what you would be able to purchase would be so much different from today. That was the reason why he was going from not zero, but like going from zero to one like very quickly.

• 13:09Jack Selby?

  So if I'm financially obliterating myself and buying a short term rental right now, what is your personal investing strategy for 2025? How are you allocating your money? What's your, what's your goal?

• 13:20Speaker 02

  I just put an LOI on a piece of commercial real estate. I don't know. We just went to contract on it.

• 13:25Jack Selby?

  Oh, really?

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:25Jack Selby?

  Congrats.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  It's going through zoning and if it, if we get through due diligence on it, we'll start developing.

• 13:30Jack Selby?

  What's the goal in mind with this real estate?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Forty years. It won't be for me. I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for my grandkids. So my son-in-law runs all our real estate, Rachel's husband, and he and I are having a blast. And he'll, he'll, he'll run it and someday, it's a wonderful piece of property and it'll take, it's a large deal and it'll take, it'll take a couple, a decade plus to build it all the way out.

• 13:53Jack Selby?

  Oh, really?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Several pieces of, you know, like it's from retail on the front, some office in the back and that kind of stuff.

• 13:59Jack Selby?

  What's your?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Hotel on it, that kind of.

• 14:00Graham Stephan?

  What's your secret to getting a good deal?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  On that deal, that particular one, I don't know that I really got a great deal. I usually buy stuff at, you know, south, south of 70% of retail appraisal. In that one, I'm, I am doing something I don't usually recommend. I'll just be authentic. On that one, I, I'm, I got a good price on it. It'll appraise for more than I've got it tied up for, I think. But what I'm really betting on, it's right on the edge of the growth ring. And so I'm just betting on, it's a great long-term play. So it's a value purchase rather than a, a price purchase kind of thing. And in that particular case, if we were buying a, you know, something that's cash, you know, a cash flow apartment right now or something

• 14:46Speaker 02

  like that, I'm just looking at, I'm looking at ROIs and looking at net operating income. I'm looking at the cap rates and just saying, okay, you know, what, what's my cash on cash? Cause I pay cash. And so. You know, what am I, what am I going to get out of this now? And how much, how poorly is it managed? And can I get the occupancy rates up and so forth?

• 15:07Jack Selby?

  How did the numbers shake out on this? And I'm also curious, obviously, you, you don't need to be doing any of this, but I'm curious. Are you just like scouring Loop Net still? Like you're like, you're like looking at deals, trying to find something, calling the person like, hey, you know, this is any offers on this?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I mean, Winston, he does all that.

• 15:24Jack Selby?

  So you have people that are-

• 15:25Speaker 02

  They came in and said, hey, here's four or five things we ought to look at. And I went, you know, I went down, drove the truck up on it and sat up on a piece of ground and go, yeah, traffic counts here and this feels good. And, and I know exactly that. I mean, this, I grew up in this area, so I've watched this progress for 50, 60 years, you know? So I got a good feel for it that way. Uh, feasibility studies in my gut, you know? And so, you know, and then we go and we do all the other stuff too. So we'll do all the stuff during due diligence, but, uh, no, I'm not scouring it. But I do, I, I just love messing with real estate. I, I grew up in the business and I, it's the, uh, the thrill of the chase and the building stuff is fun. And I just, and, and the numbers are great. You know, it's a great return on investment.

• 16:09Jack Selby?

  What sort of return do you look for?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Uh, most of our commercial stuff, um, you know, when it's built out and everything would be, uh, it's going to have an IRR up in the twenties, uh, but a, uh, a, uh, cash on cash would probably be 12, 14, most of the time.

• 16:26Jack Selby?

  That's fantastic. Yeah, that's phenomenal.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  But, um, but the IRRs, I mean, including your depreciation schedules, your appreciation and all that stuff. That's the IRR, right? Internal rate of return. And so, um, you know, we look, we want that to be up in the twenties or thirties easy. But, um, but there's a hassle factor involved in all this stuff that you don't have. You know, mutually, if I want to throw something in an index fund, I can make, you know, 11, 12, the last two years, 23, 24, but, uh, and not do anything hardly. Just it, just, you know, open the computer screen and look at it. But this stuff you actually have to work on. So I always laugh when people say real estate's passive. That's just stupid to me. There's nothing passive about it. Yeah, very active.

• 17:07Graham Stephan?

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• 18:12Jack Selby?

  I'm curious, are you seeing a lot of opportunity in commercial real estate right now? We have a friend, Ben Mala. I don't know if you've ever, yeah, okay. Well, he does a lot of commercial real estate over in Florida. He says that he sees a lot of opportunity because, you know, the loans on commercial is a lot, they're a lot shorter, and a lot of them are going to be coming due, and then they're going to have to refinance at a higher rate. It's going to then open up the supply. A lot of people are going to have to sell, and you could be really aggressive right now with, with lowballing offers on commercial real estate as opposed to residential real estate where there's going to be a little less opportunity.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, residential's the only place you compete with the end-use consumer. When you're in commercial, you're competing with other B2B. So it's, your, your other player is an investor. So everybody's looking for a deal, you know? But nobody's looking to pay an emotional white picket fence. For my Yorkie in the backyard price, right? Um, you don't have that with an apartment complex. It's just crunch the numbers, the numbers is the numbers and the per units. You know, what are these things selling for per unit? And, uh, what's that moving for? What's the, what's office space doing right now? Given that some people are working at home and how much of it's empty? And what's the future of that and so on? So you just kind of got to play those things through, but you're not, you don't really have the same competition.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  That's why I tell people, you know, the beginning investor, they say, I want to buy a duplex and live in one side and rent out the other. Two problems with that. One is your tenants next door. And two is, um, when you get ready to sell it, the buyer is probably not an emotional buyer, a retail buyer. It's probably another investor and, uh, which means wholesale by definition. And so it doesn't, you know, you're probably not going to see the same appreciation rates on something that the investor, that the investor market is your pool for resale.

• 19:55Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I would agree with that. I, so I did that. I got a duplex and I got.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Just step in.

• 20:00Graham Stephan?

  I was very, I was very lucky. That was, that was the first place that I was really like trying to house hack and, and get, but, and so I basically got this place for no money whatsoever. I went in, I fixed it up. I then refinanced it. I pulled all of my cash out, so I had $0 of my own money in this. And with the rent from the other unit and paying down the mortgage, it was a free place for me to live in the middle of Los Angeles. But I also got very lucky. I loved the tenants next door. They were awesome. So for me, that worked out really well, but I do agree with you on the appreciation aspect of that. Uh, looking back from a price standpoint, I would have made more appreciation buying a single family home. But in that case, it worked out really well from getting the rents.

• 20:46Graham Stephan?

  So they almost balanced each other out, but from appreciation, it would have been easier to, uh, sell a single family home.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Well, and you caught a wave in LA, which that wave's not cresting right now.

• 20:56Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, correct. So I wouldn't be able to do that.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  If you did that today, you could get your, did that exact deal today, it might break you.

• 21:03Graham Stephan?

  Yes, I would agree with that. Now, speaking of debt, the national debt is on pace to hit 50 trillion over the next 10 years is what they're estimating. Do you see there being a huge issue with money printing and taking on debt within the economy?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  I'm the guy that hates debt more than anybody you've ever met. You know what I mean? And I'm baffled by the national debt.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Because, I mean, when I first started in my 30s, there was books out that the world was coming to an end, right? Bankruptcy, was it bankruptcy 1994 or something? A guy predicting that hockey stick in the debt was going to dry up the money supply and it was going to crash, it was going to, you know, squeeze the life out of the economy, choke it down. And, you know, that the interest rates, that the interest that the US is paying out of their budget line items is far exceeding most other things in the budget. And it was gonna, the thing was gonna flip over mathematically and it's gonna, we're all gonna die. Another one was coming economic earthquake. And another guy, one of my buddies that buys and sells, and I think the world of him, he and I are complete opposites, but I still love that guy, is Robert Kiyosaki. And Kiyosaki did a book about the ending, the coming end of

• 22:09Speaker 02

  the world, whatever, the coming economic collapse, or whatever he called it, I forget. And so, and it didn't happen. It's kinda like me predicting the coming economic prosperity for the last six quarters, but didn't happen, you know. So, I, everybody, and the other thing I've noticed, there's a lot of people writing books on the end of the world that do this stuff. And as I've gotten old, I've noticed that old white men really have this desire for the world to come to an end. I don't know what the problem is, but they, they keep bringing me these, they keep sending me these, these manuscripts that are half typed out, looks like something from a movie, right? And you need to, you need to tell the world about this, Dave, and it's the coming economic earthquake, the world's gonna

• 22:50Speaker 02

  end, you know. And, you know, I hate debt, and I don't like that we're doing this, but a long time ago, it was supposed to have collapsed everything, and it hasn't, which I don't understand. It baffles me. So, one of my good friends is a guy named Art Lafer. Art moved to Tennessee from California many years ago. And he's the father of supply-side economics. He was, he started Reaganomics. He was on Ronald Reagan's cabinet. And he's brilliant. He's got a PhD in economics from Cambridge. Okay, he's old money guy. Uh, he's in his eighties and he's just a wonderful guy. And, uh, he and I got in a big argument riding together on a plane about this. I'm like, Art, come on.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Explain to me. And he tried to explain it to me why it's okay, because it doesn't bother him a bit. And he's Mr. Economics, right? Um, and I'm like, and I couldn't understand why he doesn't. I, I still don't understand why it's not there, but, but I quit worrying about it is the summary of the story. I really don't understand why it has not done more damage already. I mean, you talk about 50 trillion. I mean, I remember when we're talking about 10 trillion. Trillion. My God. I mean, how in the world? You know, and, you know, we're just spending like we're, like we're on crack. I mean, it's, it's just nuts. How can you possibly sustain this?

• 24:12Speaker 02

  And yet for three decades I've watched us do it and it has seemingly had almost no effect.

• 24:19Graham Stephan?

  So could you argue though, that the effect is a devaluation in the dollar? Some inflation and asset prices have increased.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  No, because during the time we've done this, we've had inflation of 2% some years. We've had inflation of 3%. I mean, the CPI for 70 years has averaged 4.3. That's Consumer Price Index, the measure of inflation. I mean, we had 9.7 under Biden and we had some supply chain screw up and weird inflation, you know, post-COVID inflation and that kind of stuff. It was kind of an anomaly, but overall, if you chart inflation with the debt, it hasn't followed it. It's not been that. I mean, the worst inflation we had was in the seventies and there was hardly any debt then. You go back under Carter era and look at that stuff and gas prices and gas lines and we had double digit inflation. Year in and year out in the 1970s. And it was not tracking with the debt.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  It was not, it was not, it didn't, it didn't, you know, and because if you did that, you would think there was, if it was causation instead of correlation, you'd, you'd be able to track them both on a, on a graph and see them following each other, right? And they don't, which I, I truly don't understand. Art tried to explain it to me and I'm just not smart enough to get it.

• 25:30Jack Selby?

  So if you were in charge of the government, how would you approach things differently?

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Well, nobody would let me be in charge because I would cut all of their lives out. All of this, God, man, they got the nanny stuff. I mean, I would make Elon Musk look like Mother Teresa. You know, I mean, we would doze that thing down to, I mean, I, I could balance a budget, but no one would let you because of all the, because everyone's grandmother would be in the street starving and whatever to hear them tell it, which is bull crap, but.

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• 26:32Speaker 02

  You know, all these little pet projects, we'd have no streets, we'd have no army, we'd have no whatever, according to the, the people who go bananas as soon as you start cutting one little thing. I mean, look at how they reacted to cutting just ridiculous stuff under Elon. He brings up these things that you look, he puts them out there and any sane human, right or left, is looking at this going, this is moronic. And they cut it and then what do they do? They protest in the streets because we cut moronic stuff. So I don't know how you would do it politically or without causing societal upheaval of some kind, but mathematically you could do it. I mean, but, but none of this happens in a vacuum.

• 27:09Jack Selby?

  Roughly a quarter of the entire budget of the government goes towards social security. What are your thoughts on overall retirement income, social security? Should we push out the retirement age? Is this something that we should be dealing with? Or just say, okay, we need to take care of the people that have worked their entire life and maybe not been financially prudent and then give them social security?

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Well, social security was never intended mathematically nor philosophically or nor politically to be your retirement plan.

• 27:37Jack Selby?

  Couldn't have.

• 27:38Graham Stephan?

  Were like shaken out mathematically if they just kept individual accounts for each person for the most part?

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Oh, honey, if we had individual accounts and put it in 2%, I mean, it's a negative rate of return. Social Security is a negative rate of return. So if we put it, if we just put it in there and didn't spend it and gave it back out, you'd have more. If you just broke even, but if you put it in an account and got 2%, God, if you put it in an account and got 7%, you'd have like bazillions of dollars more. Bush tried to talk about privatizing a portion of it.

• 28:12Graham Stephan?

  What happened?

• 28:12Speaker 02

  W. And he got just destroyed politically because you're trying to, my grandmother is not going to be able to eat because of these evil Republicans and all this garbage came out. So, but I mean, the math on social security, it is the worst possible investment. I, I, you know, when Bush was doing that, I was on the show and I would come out and say, here's the math, guys. At that time, I was like 40 something years old. I said, okay, I've paid in for 25 years.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  If you just won't make me pay in anymore, you can keep all I've given you. I won't, I'll opt out, completely opt out. I'll not take it. And I will kick your butt with the remaining 20 years of my earning power. I will, I will have, I'll be just fine with the money I would have paid into social security, putting it into a CD, I would have had 10 or 20 X what they're going to pay me now at 65 years old.

• 29:06Graham Stephan?

  Why can't you opt out?

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Because it's just a tax.

• 29:08Jack Selby?

  It's just another tax. It's not like an actual.

• 29:11Graham Stephan?

  The reason why.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Because the smart people would, and that would only leave the dumb people.

• 29:16Graham Stephan?

  The reason why is because current workers pay for the people who are currently on social security. So all of our money goes to them and then future generations go towards us.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Fund has been robbed long ago. There's no trust fund. It's a cash flow mechanism now. But yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, and so like pastors, preachers can opt out on the grounds of, I object to the system on a religious basis, which as a Christian I could easily do because it's a horrible use of God's money. So I object to it on a religious basis, but I'm not a preacher, so I can't do it. But when preachers ask me, should I opt out? I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 29:52Graham Stephan?

  So you're saying everyone should become a preacher?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Apparently.

• 29:56Graham Stephan?

  That's a great side hustle video, right?

• 29:58Speaker 02

  But it's only your-

• 29:59Graham Stephan?

  It's frugal life hacks.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  The sad thing is only your pastoral income you can opt out on. So if you have a side of-

• 30:03Graham Stephan?

  There's probably a way you could be-

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Anything else you get is still subject to the system.

• 30:07Graham Stephan?

  You could shift income from one to another.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  What do we got to replace? You got to have a retirement plan, duh. You got to have a long-term disability because if you become disabled as an adult, you get SSI, which is a function of social security. And if you die, your kids are taken care of with social security. And so you need life insurance. But duh, you need all three of those things anyway if you're a responsible adult. That's part of financial planning. You need a retirement plan, you need a long-term disability, and you need life insurance to take care of your family if something happens to you. That's basic financial planning. You need to be doing that anyway, pastor. So just do what you're supposed to do anyway and opt out and use the money you would have been given those doofuses to fund your personal life and you'll come out way better off.

• 30:49Graham Stephan?

  So what is your balance then between having a social safety net and taking personal responsibility?

• 30:54Speaker 02

  I spoke in a church the other day and I was showing them the numbers that if we spend in America, if we took 20% of our Halloween budget and 20% of our pet budget, we the people could take care of we the people. Easy. There'd be no hungry kids. You could fund every, every harvest food bank, every hungry kid in America. There would be no hunger, except for systemic problems. But I mean, mathematically, there'd be the money to feed every hungry kid in America. 20% of your Halloween budget, 20% of your pet budget.

• 31:35Graham Stephan?

  How much are people spending on Halloween and pets?

• 31:38Speaker 02

  It's billions and billions and billions every year. I didn't even touch Christmas. I'm not the Grinch, okay? So I mean, but our consumption versus our generosity, we the people, and people are not as generous because they think it's the government's job and it's not. It's your job. If we would take care of each other, we could put the government out of business. We could make them irrelevant. And then suddenly- All these discussions start to have a different flavor. So one of my massive goals is just to increase outrageous generosity by typical individuals to a point that it actually makes a macro impact.

• 32:15Jack Selby?

  What would you say are the best real world applications of generosity for average people?

• 32:20Speaker 02

  You just look for something that is loving people well that are struggling. And how can I fund hungry children? How can I fund something to keep, you know, this huge problem with sex trafficking? Take something like St. Jude's Hospital.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  You know, it's only like a couple billion to run one of those things. And that's nothing out of our consumption budgets. Nothing. You could build 37 of those things in one year. If you just dial back a little bit of consumption and said, okay, we're all going in the charitable hospital business, all of us together. And it, you know, it's not required, but it's inspired. And that's the difference in taxation and generosity.

• 33:02Jack Selby?

  I suppose this is a very like weird niche dilemma to bring up, but every single time that I've like given to charitable organization, I have gotten probably two to three letters in the mail every single month for years.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 33:17Jack Selby?

  Because of that, which is obviously like not anything, you know, horrible, but we also, I mean, we also, we did St. Jude's.

• 33:24Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, we did St.

• 33:24Jack Selby?

  We did St. Jude's this year. But every time that so far, and you don't know where the money's going, which I guess is also up to the charity, like they could also.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Well, you, you could ask, you could just say, okay, or your book's open. And their, their books are open, by the way, you could, if you wonder where their money's going, just ask them, they've got it, you can jump on their site and look at it.

• 33:42Graham Stephan?

  I like doing things where I could see the impact or see the person.

• 33:45Jack Selby?

  Tipping.

• 33:46Graham Stephan?

  Tipping, but I'll give you a good example. This is, this is like the most memorable for me is I was eating sushi and it was maybe nine 30 at night and I see a mom come in with her four year old and she's doing DoorDash. And I'm thinking, she's a hard worker at nine 30 at night, picking up sushi with her kid. She can't get a babysitter, so I gave her a hundred bucks. And like that I felt great about because she's out there working and like a hundred dollars for her, I'm sure would go a long way. That made me feel good to see the impact that has on a person and to see the reaction when you do something like that.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  You know, and, and all the studies tell us that when you can see the impact, the generosity increases. And so, you know, how do we do that at a million dollar level instead of a hundred dollar level? And see the impact and you can do it. I mean, you don't have to give to some monolith and not know, throw the money into some black thing and never know where it went out there. But, um, and you know, for that matter, people, it's not unusual for wealthy people to just start something and say, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go, I'm going to go put a stop to at least some sex trafficking. I'm going to go out here and I'm going to make sure that these kids get fed and that means we're going to set up a food bank here and I'm going to make sure it's funded and I'm going to watch the people come in and get the food and, and you do it with a million dollars instead of a hundred. But yeah, I agree with you. The tipping

• 35:03Speaker 02

  is, um, tipping activates that part of your DNA that we're talking about right now. But if we did that at a macro level, you do away with social security because, um, because Dave Ramsey doesn't need social security. I don't have to have it. I'm, I'm fine. 1500 bucks a month or something, right? I don't need it.

• 35:24Jack Selby?

  Are you collecting social security?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I will. I'm 64. I'm getting ready to be 65.

• 35:27Jack Selby?

  So you've delayed it to try to get the maximum amount?

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. At a certain age, you just have to take. It's not, I mean, I don't.

• 35:33Jack Selby?

  What are you going to do with it?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  I don't, well, I don't even know it's there. I'll just, you know, just go into the account and we'll just keep going. But, um, but that, you know, the point is, is that it, you said the folks that are struggling, how do we take care of them? How do we have a safety net? I don't need a safety net because I've been, I've done my job, right? And for people that have done their job, they don't need a safety net. So, um, but, um, but also it's not fair to take the money away from me because I have paid in for 50 freaking years. And so, um, that wouldn't be equitable. That wouldn't be correct, but socially we could do it with a non-governmental process and people are cared for and loved. And, um, think about

• 36:15Speaker 02

  the, most of the universities were started as Christian institutions. Most of the hospitals in America were started not by the medical industry, but by the healing arts. And these were people doing this as an act of love, as an act of generosity with wealth that they had built. And it was the private sector, taking care of the private sector. And there's a lot going on that's very good in that area. But man, we, you could make the government irrelevant, irrelevant mathematically, and it would be an awesome day.

• 36:44Jack Selby?

  So we spoke about the underserved, the people that are struggling that need help. What do you do with just the lazy people that don't want to work? They want to sit back, relax, spend time on their phone?

• 36:57Speaker 02

  What we gotta stop and think about is what's good for that person?

• 37:00Graham Stephan?

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• 37:20Jack Selby?

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• 37:41Graham Stephan?

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• 37:53Jack Selby?

  They also just launched the Sprout Plan, made specifically for kids. For just $5 per month, your kid can get their own line, you monitor their usage, and you can even manage how they spend their rewards within the app.

• 38:03Graham Stephan?

  And if you need more data, they've got the Air Plan for just $15 a month for 10 gigabytes, or the Infinity Plan at $30 a month for unlimited. Still way cheaper than other carriers.

• 38:13Jack Selby?

  So guys, we've left a link down below in the description to try Helium Mobile today. Just make sure to use the code COFFEE to get $10 in cloud points, which can be redeemed for gift cards to your favorite brands after 90 days. Once again, guys, there's a link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Helium Mobile for sponsoring this episode.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  What we gotta stop and think about is what's good for that person?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Okay? What's good for that person is to discover the incredible dignity that having an empowered...

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Just having an empowered life where I go leave the cave, kill something and drag it home. The thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the metaphorical kill. The, um, they, they have a listless, um, the chemicals in their body are not doing what they're supposed to be doing because they're not active, they're not engaged. So what they're doing is not good for them. It feels good to eat too much chocolate cake when you're eating it, but it doesn't end up well for you. And so what's really good for that person? How can we love that person well? And is the way I look at that. And, and so what would, if that was my son or my daughter, what would I do as if I'm

• 39:24Speaker 02

  a loving father, not a harsh father, not a mean father, but someone who really wants what's best for them. What's best for them is, is they engage something, that they get the dignity of hard work, of getting a mental or a physical callus, um, that they actually get the, the feeling that we have all had by accomplishing some things, you know? And you don't get that sitting on your couch, um, playing Call of Duty, you know? Um, and so, uh, the highest depression rate ever, highest rate ever, the, the deaths of despair, we call them in the statistical analysis is the highest ever in the group we're talking about because it's, it's really a horrible life.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  And so whatever we've got to do to get them to engage and build a work ethic muscle for their own good is the best thing we can do for them. And sometimes that is what, you know, where you let someone suffer the natural consequences of their stupidity or their bad actions. I've done some stupid things in my life and the natural consequences took me out, you know, knocked me to my knees. Um, and it would end up being, you know, okay, next time you learn to duck, next time you learn to not do that thing, don't touch that hot stove, it hurts, don't sit on your couch and have no money and be hungry. Oh, being hungry would be a good thing. That would cause you to get off your couch, you know?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  And so a little desperation is really good for the soul. It's a great motivator. Now, again, I'm not trying to be harmful. It's an act of love and people say, well, that's tough love. No, it's just real love. Real love is not leaving them alone in their mess. That doesn't help. They're not being helped. If you really love your kid, you know, you make them brush their teeth so they have some.

• 41:15Jack Selby?

  One thing that I found fascinating is that Bill Gates always argues that he should be paying more in tax. What do you think Bill Gates means by that? Why do you think he's saying that?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Bill Gates is paying more in tax.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Than anybody.

• 41:30Jack Selby?

  But he says like.

• 41:31Graham Stephan?

  The tax rate, the percentage should be.

• 41:33Jack Selby?

  Didn't he say that on Oprah? He went on Oprah or some sort of talk show and he was like, I need, I should be paying more in tax.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  I have no idea what Bill Gates means, but um, I do know that 48% last year of Americans paid zero federal income tax.

• 41:47Jack Selby?

  Forty eight percent?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Zero.

• 41:50Graham Stephan?

  The top 10% pay something like, I think it's like 90 something percent of tax. Yeah. It's a very high amount.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  So Gates actually does not know, if he said that, he doesn't understand statistics. Because the truth is the evil 10%, the top 10% are paying the vast majority of the federal income taxes. It's already there. Um, I mean, and, and Trump even took it further. Because he drastically increased and now it's indexed for inflation, the standard deduction. And so you've got, now you're going to have about, this year, probably going to have about 92% of the people that file an easy return, that don't file an atomized return. So they're taking no charitable deductions, they're taking no interest deductions, they're taking no deductions because they take the standard deduction.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  But you can make, I think it's like, uh, I forget what it's gone to, it's not like 30 or $35,000 in standard deductions. And, and have zero tax. And, and so again, they're not doing anything wrong by paying zero taxes. It's just, they're not, they don't have any due under the current system. So to say that rich people need to pay their fair share is the most mathematically asinine statement that you could possibly make.

• 43:02Graham Stephan?

  What a lot of people do is they look at capital gains and they say, well, Elon Musk's wealth went from 100 billion to 200 billion. And he pays only that amount of tax, but they take into account the value of his company. Without him actually realizing those gains, but then anytime his company is worth less, they never say he should get a tax refund. They never mention that.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  You can't write, you can't write off those losses.

• 43:24Graham Stephan?

  Right.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Because they're not realized.

• 43:26Graham Stephan?

  Exactly.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  That they're realized, but they're not recognized in terms of tax code. But yeah, so, um, and.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Again, that's people just trying to make a case for why they haven't succeeded. If you quit analyzing Elon Musk's personal finances and analyze your own, probably be a good use of your calories.

• 43:45Jack Selby?

  Would you say there are any valid reasons for financial failure in America in 2025?

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Tragedy comes to someone.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  I've got two friends right now dying of cancer. And they're not gonna make it. And if they had absolutely zero money and left behind a wife and kids or a husband and kids, yeah, you could have failure. The twist on the answer would be, is there any reason for permanent financial failure? No, there's not.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Unless someone is just completely debilitated or has an extreme disability where they're unable to function. But if you're able to function in the marketplace, you can have a tragedy and it's a temporary thing. And during that time, they can't do anything. It's very sad and very real. But, you know, is that a permanent? No, that's a snapshot and life's a film strip. And so how many times do we hear of the, I mean, I talked to a lady the other day who went to jail for robbing a bank. And she was in jail for 10 years and she lost her kids to, you know, to her fam, you know, family services took them away. She lost everything.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Her reputation, her confidence, her looks, everything. She comes out of jail now. Can she start from below ground zero, subterranean, and still at 32 years old or 34 years old, still go make a life? Absolutely she can. But her biggest problem is like a buddy of mine who grew up in a really low income area. He said, you know, getting out of the hood is not as hard as getting the hood out of your head. So her biggest problem is overcoming her mindset and believing and having hope again and seeing a system that she could use from you guys or me that she could use to actually go and, okay, I can go get this job and then I could do that and then I could take

• 45:53Speaker 02

  this class and I could do this and I have a career path and then I could start saving and investing and, you know, mathematically, can someone starting from nothing and no reputation that's a convicted felon become prosperous over 30 years in America? Absolutely. But they gotta believe they can and they gotta see the system and have access and that. But if you don't, you know, if you can't get out of your own head, then no, you ain't got a chance. How do you help people get out of their own head and believe in the system? You gotta show them a system that they believe. It's called hope. Bible says, "Hope deferred." In other words, hopelessness makes the heart sick. It's a sickness of heart.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  But when desire comes, it is the tree of life. And you guys have heard it and seen it on our show and on yours. Someone calls here and they say, "Well, this is my situation. This, this, this, this, and I think I'm bankrupt." I'm like, "Uh, no, you're not bankrupt. If you sold that and you did that and you moved that over there and you quit trying to hold on to that, uh, you're not only not bankrupt, you're gonna actually come out of this with a positive net worth and then you go from there." And here's, and they go, you can hear the light bulbs going off on their head, right? And it's because it changes their perspective because they were in the middle of the forest and couldn't see the trees. So it wasn't math, it wasn't the systemic problems with the economy that were keeping them down. It wasn't wealth inequality that was keeping them down. It wasn't all that bull crap. It was they

• 47:18Speaker 02

  couldn't see their way because they were so deep in the forest. And all we did is take a chainsaw to the sucker, you know, and go, "Okay, guys, here's what you do. You do this, this, this." Because we're on the outside, we're not emotionally in their headspace. I don't have their depression. I don't have their blues. I don't have their dysfunctional daddy in my head, you know, or whatever the crap is going on, right? But if I go, "Okay, if you do this," and they go, "Yeah, that would work." And you start to hear them and you, they're the ones that are gonna do it. You can hear the ones that aren't gonna do it too, right? But they go, "Wow, yeah, I hadn't thought of that." And you mean, I'd have to get rid of that, but I hate that. I wouldn't want to sell that, but I would to get free. You know, to be free and to be able to start again and and and that energy, you'd feel the energy coming right back up. But that's headspace. That's not math problems and it's not systemic problems with the economy.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  And it's not house prices versus affordability indexes or any of that crap. It's belief. How do you feel when you could tell someone's not going to follow your advice? Like they just took up the time on the air that we could have used for somebody who was going to. And so I end up going.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  You're on hold and you're gone. I will argue with you about three times. And about the third time you come back at me and like, I'm wasting my time. You called me up to get me to endorse your stupidity and that's the wrong idea. I'm here to help you get a path, see a plan, see a way of going. And if you can't see that, then I'll move on to somebody else. It's like, you know, like lady had, you know, I had an Escalade and she owed like 85,000 bucks on a stupid Escalade, you know, and um, and she's like, I can't do this and this and this. And I'm like, lady, you're broke. You need to sell the Escalade. Well, that's a nonstarter. I'm not doing that. And that was the fourth time I'd gone at that thing and I just went,

• 49:05Speaker 02

  move on. I can't help her. She didn't really want to be helped. She wants a magic wand and we don't have fairy dust here. We have calculators.

• 49:13Jack Selby?

  On the topic of shifting mentality, you said you were 63?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Four.

• 49:18Jack Selby?

  Sixty-four. Okay. My dad's 63. And I was out to dinner with him recently. And he said, it's only a symptom of the past five or so years. He's been wrestling a little bit more with mortality. It's making him reflect on his life, thinking what he would have done differently. And I think that it's really altering his perspective. He's never mentioned this to me before, but he said it's only like a product of around this age. I'm curious if this is something that that you started thinking about recently. And if so, what does it look like when you're wrestling with mortality?

• 49:47Speaker 02

  For us, it's not been like regret. I'm not looking back going, oh, I screwed that up because I did screw up a lot of stuff in my life, but I'm not. I don't want to go back into it again. It was, it's been a good ride. I'm fine. But the going forward is you start counting your days. You go. And so my wife and I have adopted a saying, if someone calls us up and wants to do something, we we go, why wouldn't I?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  We don't say no to a lot. We just go do it, you know, whatever, you know, why wouldn't I? We're going on a cruise. All right, let's go. We're flying to Croatia. All right, I'm in. Let's go. And so, um, whatever, or, you know, uh, you know, she was, we've been learning to play golf together for the last five years. And so we're finally getting tolerable at the stupid sport.

• 50:31Jack Selby?

  What's your best round?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Um, seventy-eight.

• 50:35Jack Selby?

  Seventy-eight? You're hiring coaches, huh?

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Oh, all the time. Yeah, lots of coaches, yeah. To get rid of-

• 50:41Jack Selby?

  You destroy me, destroy-

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Play golf with this body, you have to have coaching.

• 50:44Jack Selby?

  That's, that's phenomenal.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  That's not average. You said my best ever.

• 50:48Jack Selby?

  Well, that's still phenomenal. My best ever is a hundred.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Okay, all right. Well, anyway, that, so we're learning to play. So, anyway, she's playing with these clubs and two or three of her friends are playing with these clubs and they're like, you know, I, you know, whatever. And I said, well, let's get you, get the guy over here and have a professional fit you in a set of clubs and get you some real much better golf clubs. You're gonna get rid of these Walmart things. And she's like, why wouldn't I?

• 51:11Speaker 06

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• 51:42Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  You know, it doesn't matter what it costs. It's an irrelevant amount of money in our world today. I'm not bragging, but I mean, what else am I going to spend it on with this many years left? To your point, to your question. And so, and I'm 65, so 85, 95, I mean, you know, and what part of that is debilitating health? I'm not able to do stuff. So, um, hey, we're going to Scotland and play golf for 13 days. Y'all want to go? Why wouldn't I?

• 52:34Graham Stephan?

  At what point in your life do you think it's healthy to adopt that why wouldn't I framework?

• 52:38Speaker 02

  When you can afford it.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  The, uh, the problem is when you're 26 and you're broke and you go, why wouldn't I? It's like, yeah, and you're financing out your ears and then, yeah, that's why you wouldn't. I can tell you why you wouldn't. But, uh, in this case, we, we have the money. It's an irrelevant amount of money compared to the overall situation as a percentage of net worth or percentage of income. Um, and whatever the thing is, if it's a luxury item or a generosity item, we're looking over, we could give that, that situation and why wouldn't I?

• 53:10Graham Stephan?

  What percentage do you look at where you just say to yourself, it doesn't matter? Is it 1%, 5%, .1?

• 53:17Speaker 02

  We ask ourselves a question, if we take that much money and burn it in the middle of the floor, will our life changed? And so if it changes our life, then that's a high percentage of your net worth or too high a percentage of your net worth, you know? I'm not talking about gives you indigestion. I'm not talking about makes you sad. That would, if you burn money in the middle of the floor, either one of those would occur, right? But, but the point is that what happens is when you strain and struggle and fight and scratch and claw through this thing of building a business and building wealth, um, sometimes you never learn to let go and be generous to others and to yourself to enjoy some of it. But it's not, it's not 80%. I'm not, I'm not putting 80% of my money on something.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  I'm leaving an inheritance to my children's children. I want to, that's a biblical thing for me. I want to do that. And so, you know, I want to change my family tree and I have, um, assuming I don't do something extremely stupid. In the next 20 years, which is but going on a cruise is not going to do that. Or, you know, catching a plane to Scotland is not going to do that. Or giving a million dollars to something is not going to do that. I mean, these buildings are worth 650 million. So I'm probably OK, you know, you know, so that kind of thing. So I'm not bragging. I'm just saying, you ask, it's a ratio thing for me. Uh, it does it, does it? Have I got too much tied up in stupid, you know, in consumption or in generosity to the point that I'm harming the nest egg, that I'm harming the mothership?

• 54:42Speaker 02

  And that's what I'm always asking myself because I think I, as a Christian, I want to be responsible before God for managing his money. And he says, take care of your own household first, or you're worse than unbelievers. I'd take care of my wife. She put up with this stuff for 43 years. I mean, she deserves some golf clubs. Hello, I mean, you know, so, you know, that kind of thing. So that that's there. And then I want to leave it in a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children, children. I want to do that. God loves a cheerful giver. So I want to be outrageously generous. So those are the three guiding scriptures that keep me in line and, and managing his money, uh, in a way that I get to have an incredible life and I get to be a blessing to others, too. For young people today, where do you see the biggest opportunities for them?

• 55:28Speaker 02

  I think I truly believe this, and I think I've got good basis for the belief that today in the United States of America at this moment, with all the political poop, this moment in time in our economy as it is structured at this moment, and the way things move at this moment is the best possible time to be alive in the history of the human race. If you want to build wealth, if you want to, if you want to become somebody, if you want to go do something. I've got so many Gen Z's on this team. And the thing I have learned about the Gen Z's and millennials is that they've grown

• 56:10Speaker 02

  up with this thing in their hand that answers any question that they want answered instantaneously. They've got information of the entire world in their palm. They can push a button and stuff shows up on your front porch in a few hours. It's the weirdest thing. It's like having a magic wand. And what that has done, for those of you that have this native, that you've had this your entire, you know, adult lives or semi adult lives, you've had this at your access. You can stop, you can get an app to do anything is you have a built in, if you let it function, a built in abundance mentality. Because this thing says anything's possible.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Because anything's possible. That's an abundance mentality. And if you will tap into that, instead of believing these horrible philosophies that are floating around about, oh, the economy is systemically flawed and you're screwed and, you know, boomers bought their houses with a basket of strawberries and now you can't buy. If you don't quit believing all that crap and instead go, God, anything's possible. Go do something. It was a lot harder to be Bill Gates or Michael Dell in their garage than it would be today. I mean, you think you start a digital application or something, you can go to market with it for free. Doesn't cost anything. You don't even have to know how to write code now. AI will do it.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  I mean, an idiot like me can write code now. I've never written a lot of code in my life. But I can open up chat GPT and have a website in a few hours that's really nice. And if I don't know how to run a store, I put Shopify on there until I learn how to run a store. And it costs me nothing. And all of a sudden, my ideas are in the marketplace and the marketplace can talk back to me and say, your idea sucks, so adjust it, iterate it. And you can iterate it quickly and easily because it's not an analog product. It's a digital product. It's the best time ever to make money. I mean, you can go make money, just like, I've never seen anything like this.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  We actually had to have brick and mortar analog. I had VHS tapes, for God's sakes, I was selling. You know, I carry books around the trunk of my car. There was no internet and God, man, if you could just touch a button and it goes automatically to a warehouse that I don't own and they fulfill it for me and I make us and my book goes out there and, and oh, by the way, I wrote that book in about a fourth the time. And if you actually want to go crazy, AI will probably do your audio version and it'll sound just like you. The last book I did, we almost used AI to do the audio book because it sounded, it was, it was about 94% perfect.

• 58:59Graham Stephan?

  Wow.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  And we decided the edit to clean up the other 6% was too much. It was easier for me to sit down, do the 16 hours to record it. But dude, that's probably the last one I'll ever record. The next audio book that Dave Ramsey does will probably sound a lot like Dave Ramsey.

• 59:13Graham Stephan?

  Kevin O'Leary said that he went to Dubai and they did a whole AI imaging of him. He said a few phrases. They got a few hours of him, but now they could edit in real time, any advertisement of him without him ever being involved in it. They just type in the script.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Which is a little scary, but the point is it's huge opportunity.

• 59:34Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  You don't even need AI to do it. You don't need to certainly need digital to do it, but you've got ease to market. You know, if you, old econ class was what are the barriers? It's, it's how difficult it is to get to market. How trapped is that market? How hard is it to pass the test to become one of those? You know, how ease of entry? It's easy to become a real estate agent. It's hard to become a securities salesperson because you've got to pass a series six, series seven, 63, which is a lot like CPA exam, real estate test I took in 27 minutes. So, I mean, it's ease of entry. But in general, can I, what's it take to suddenly just take my idea out there?

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  So to sit and do nothing at the best opportunity in the history of mankind is such a, is so sad and such a freaking waste. I'm so excited for your all's generation and what's going to happen? What's going to happen to Ramsey when I'm gone? And the stuff that these, that the people in this building are working on right now is mind blowing. And it's just, man, the scale can go, hockey stick up and to the right. I'm just, it's a good time to be alive.

• 1:00:39Graham Stephan?

  So for those that aren't capitalizing on the amount of opportunity around them, what is the primary obstacle that's preventing them from doing that?

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Headspace, belief.

• 1:00:50Jack Selby?

  It's just belief that if they, they plant the seeds, the corn will grow.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Exactly. And if you don't plant seeds, a hundred percent of the time, corn will not grow.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  That's the problem. And so sometimes when you plant seeds, there, there's not a lot of rain and, and it suns too hot and you don't get a good crop. Sometimes when you plant seeds, God brings the rain and the sun and it's perfect and you get a bumper crop. You don't control the sun and the rain, but you do control whether or not you plant and a hundred percent of the time you're planting, you, you're going to get some kind of a yield on that. And you may learn something that next year you plant differently, you iterate, and you change the product line. I mean, the, the number of things we do today at Ramsey tactically to deliver goods and services to the customer that we did 10 years ago is really close to zero. Of course you've got to iterate and change how you're doing

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  it and what you're doing and the way it looks and the way it feels. And the way, the way the book business is versus when I did my first book. When I did the first book and I was on the Today Show, people actually watched the Today Show back then. It was crazy. And, and, and there were these things called bookstores and they had books in them and people went there and, and I would have a thousand people in a line to do a book signing. I can't even imagine that happening today. No chance that would happen today. And, and so, um, I don't think there's anybody that famous hardly that, that would be, maybe, maybe Taylor Swift. Okay. But, but I mean, who's going to say to, to go to Barnes and

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  freaking Noble and stand in line, everybody got their coffee to get a book signed by somebody you think something good about. Okay. Doesn't happen much. If I did a book signing today, there'd be 14 people there. I mean, it just wouldn't come.

• 1:02:34Jack Selby?

  I disagree. I bet you would get a thousand people showing up.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  I don't. I really don't. I, I mean, I, our, because A, well, it just doesn't, it's not the way people are consuming the product anymore. It's shifted. And so to continue to do it the same way and not iterate and follow where people are is the thing. So a friend of mine does, does a reality show. I was talking to him yesterday and it was very successful.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  10 years ago and they took it off and they quit and they retired and now they're trying to come back with version 2.0. Okay. And but when they did it before it was on cable. And I was talking to him yesterday. He said, you know how many people have cable? I said, no. He said, nobody. He goes, it's a problem. He said, we suddenly woke up and realized we put out a reality show on cable and expected somebody to watch it. It's hilarious. Nobody's watching it. He goes, we've got to reboot this thing and we're, we got to get Hulu, we got to get YouTube TV. Um, you know, he said, I've got to re, I'm doing a distribution deal for the fall. I've got to reset all these episodes we've done and send them out again and try to restart this thing again. Otherwise, we're going to have to close up the tent on it. But, um, but yeah, he's like, the marketplace moved and we acted like it

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  didn't. And so we're sitting here with nothing. It's not working. So yeah, you gotta, you gotta follow around what's happening.

• 1:03:50Jack Selby?

  So if you take a person that's struggling with their finances and their current situation right now, I feel like back in the day, the advice would have been, okay, we'll start cutting back a little bit on your expenses, start saving a little bit more money. Whereas now, if you're reiterating your strategy, seems as though the best solution would be to try to take on some more work or be more creative in making more money. So what would you say to a person that's struggling right now in 2025? Should they lean more into cutting their finances? Or should they lean more into trying to expand on their income?

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  Oh, the answer is the same as it was 30 years ago. Both. Yeah. In the old days, we would just say, go deliver pizzas. Um, which now is DoorDash or whatever, right? But, um, but we said, go, you know, go to Papa John's, they'll hire you if you can breathe and you bathed and maybe bathed and, um, you know, and they'll, and you can deliver pizza, right? And, and when you go to the front door and people ask how you're doing, say, better than I deserve because that way they might know that you're listening to this show. That's why you're working an extra job. They'll give you extra tip. And so use the code and um, so get your income up. Yeah. And cut your expenses. And the same thing's true today. Get your income up, cut your expenses. The difference is that. If you are a teacher, there's no reason you should do DoorDash.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  You should do online tutoring at 50 bucks an hour. And you can set it up in about 45 minutes. And there's no, if you want to get your income up, I mean, it's just, uh, if you've got a PhD in something, you know, uh, on the online classes, you can make seriously good money as your side hustle. You know, and so you've got, again, the, the, the world that we live in today just gives you so much ease of entry into things. You don't have to get in your Chevy Chevette and deliver a Papa John's. There's a lot of stuff you can do to get your income up temporarily, uh, with an unreasonable number of hours. And, you know, and unhealthy work, life balance temporarily. Because you have an unhealthy freaking mess you created and you've got to dig out of it.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, and you got to sell the car that's 50% of your dad gum income. And so, and you got to not go on vacation and you don't need to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. Until you get this stuff straightened out. So yeah, you got to do both. You got to get your income up and your out go down. And that's called margin. And the, the more extreme you do that, the more margin you'll have, and the lot, the less time you'll spend in hell. The faster you'll get out. So I, I recommend ripping the Band-Aid off. I mean, like, make your broke friends think you've joined a cult. I mean, go bananas for a short period of time. That intensity gets you out so much faster than trying to wander out.

• 1:06:32Jack Selby?

  Let's say you seize control of a person's life. That's not doing great financially. They're a little confused, a little lost. Maybe let's just say they're 25 years old. This is not supposed to be me. I'm 26 for the record. Not Jack. This is, this is someone else and they're not pleased with where they're at. What exactly would you do? Would you be like, okay, get a job, work 80 hours, find a girlfriend. You want to make your wife, you know, find a local church. What would be like the actual directional things that you would, you would tell them to do?

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  My friend, Henry Cloud, um,

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  Is writing a book right this second on a concept he's taught for years called, figure out what your desired future is and then reverse engineer out of your desired future. This is where I want to be and this is where I am. Then if where I am is not where I want to be, what must be true that's not true now for me to get there? And so that will lead you then to the tactical things that you're pointing to. Once you solve that, what must be true for me to be the 10 year old, the 10 year from now version of me to be have the, you know, have this net worth, have a career that looks like this, a spiritual walk that looks like this, a physical condition that looks like this, a relationship with good

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  friends, high quality relationships, and possibly even one of those being your life mate, your partner, your wife. You know, what, what does my, what is a, the perfect version of 10 years from now look like? And then reverse engineer what must be true to get there? And so if I want a robust spiritual walk, yeah, that'd be involved. And, you know, if you're Jewish, you'd head off to the synagogue. If you're Christian, you'd head off to a good church, or if you're not anything, head off to a good church and figure it out. Right? And be forewarned, there are people in those churches that aren't perfect, but that's why they're there too. So, but, but either, either way, you can learn things there. Oh, and watch who you hang around with because you're going to become who you hang around with. You know, and so if all your

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  friends are sitting in doom scrolling all day long and don't have any ambition, and all they do is smoke pot and doom scroll, you can pretty well be assured that 10 years from now, you're going to look just like who you hang around with. Be not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. You will become who you hang around with. All the data shows that. Tons of research that shows that not only your physical condition, the words you use, the books you read, the movies you like, it, you know, you become who your crew is. And so pick them carefully.

• 1:09:04Graham Stephan?

  What are the biggest problems you see today with men when it comes to work, life, money and family?

• 1:09:11Graham Stephan?

  A fun little story here, but when Jack and I started the Ice Coffee Hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves, from the best audio equipment to use, the best cameras, how to book guests. It was a challenge. Every day was a unique experience that we had to figure out ourselves. That's why if you're starting your own business, you know just how relevant today's sponsor is, and that would be Shopify.

• 1:09:30Jack Selby?

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• 1:09:46Graham Stephan?

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• 1:10:02Jack Selby?

  Shopify also makes marketing extremely easy with simple email and social campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling. Plus, they handle literally everything, from inventory to shipping to returns, basically all of the complicated stuff you do not want to deal with.

• 1:10:14Graham Stephan?

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• 1:10:20Jack Selby?

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• 1:10:40Graham Stephan?

  There's something that comes up often on the podcast is the emphasis on diversification. And a lot of people right now are diversifying into gold and silver. And with everything going on in the economy, it makes sense why. Like, the dollar is already down 9% this year, while gold is up 25%. That is a major shift in purchasing power. And it might not feel like it right now, but it certainly adds up over time.

• 1:11:01Jack Selby?

  Plus, with potential rate cuts on the horizon, hard assets like gold and silver have historically done really well in that environment. So if you're holding too much in cash, you could be missing on some upside.

• 1:11:10Graham Stephan?

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• 1:11:24Jack Selby?

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• 1:11:32Graham Stephan?

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• 1:11:37Jack Selby?

  So if you've been thinking about protecting your wealth with some real assets, now could be a great time to learn some more before any potential rate change hit.

• 1:11:43Graham Stephan?

  Head to noblegoldinvestments.com/iced to get started today or schedule a free consultation. Again, that is noblegoldinvestments.com/iced, or you could also click the link down below in the description. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the podcast. What are the biggest problems you see today with men when it comes to work, life, money and family?

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Men have been devalued and trivialized and been the villain or the clown of everything for a good 20 years. You don't see a TV commercial where the dad is the hero, he's an idiot, or a sitcom where the dad is the hero, he's an idiot. The 12-year-old is the smart one and they smart off through the whole script. And they're the brilliant one, you know? And the, but the dad's a doofus and the mother rolls her eyes at the doofus that she picked as a life partner. And if you do that to any segment of the economy long enough, eventually they begin to believe it.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  And so we have 7.2 million men that are able-bodied, able-minded, that are not engaged in the workplace right now. They're doing nothing. They're sitting. Because the entire culture has said, you're a doofus, you're a buffoon, you're valueless, manhood, masculinity is toxic by its very nature. And so you're of no value. And the problem is it's destroying not only economics, but social fabric as well. Because we do know the data on kids, particularly daughters.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  The cues they take from their dad are devastatingly impactful, good or bad. And so an engaged dad who builds confidence and gives their daughter hugs growing up until she leaves home and even after she leaves home, builds a confident daughter, a daughter that is not sexually promiscuous, a daughter that finishes college, a daughter that will not be victimized in the marketplace. That comes from their dads. The data shows that. And so when the dad is not engaged, it's horrible for the social fabric. And it messes with sons too, but it's a different thing. The father wound on the son, a sons is different.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  But, and it's very real. But economically speaking, what we're doing is, is we've got 7.2 million of these guys doing nothing, zero. They're being supported by a disability check and they're not disabled, but they signed up and claimed disability. They're being supported by their girlfriend, their mother. They're being supported by something else. They are not generating an income in the marketplace. And so their personal dignity has just eroded. And to get those people back re-engaged, if we open up a whole bunch of factories in America because manufacturing comes back to America with this Trump stuff, I don't know who's going to be in there working.

• 1:14:54Speaker 02

  I don't think those guys want to go back in there. I think they have gotten pretty comfortable sitting on their couch and lost hope. And so we've got to say, okay, being male is not evil. Being male is not necessarily holier either, but it's not evil. And it is different than being female and it is a thing. And ladies can produce wonderful, creative things and wonderful incomes in the economy and so can gentlemen. And so, you know, let's go be gentlemen and ladies and let's go do the best things we can for our society, for our culture, our community and each other and get re-engaged

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  and quit telling everybody that the worst possible thing you could be is a, you know, a white guy. You know, that's like the worst, like the worst human on the planet in America. It's the only one in America that no one takes up for.

• 1:15:52Graham Stephan?

  So what do you think those people need to hear to make a change today?

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  On what?

• 1:15:58Graham Stephan?

  If you were to speak in terms of owning themselves and making a change in the workforce?

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:16:03Graham Stephan?

  And in their lives.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  It is a, you know, it's a destiny thing. It's a, you do have the power. You do have the power to do things. You do have the ability to just stand up and decide, I'm in business. You can just decide I'm going to do these things. And, and all of a sudden you are, I mean, and it's an empowerment idea or message is called hope. And, you know, I think where we lost connection was that if I do all the right things, I'm not going to get the result. If I plant the corn, I'm not going to get corn. I'm going to get poison. Poison's going to grow. Nightshade's going to grow out of the ground if I plant corn. Somehow we got this disconnect and we've got to go back to believing the cause and

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  effect of hard work, cause and effect of generosity, the cause and effect of kindness and compassion, the cause and effect of having good quality relationships, that there's a tie in, that these things are not compartmentalized, that they are all, there's a holistic view to all this. So you start to understand, okay, building a net worth of a million or $2 million is not compartmentalized. The tie in is that we found 83% of them have an onboard spouse that works as their teammate.

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

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• 1:17:50Speaker 07

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• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  That's not a disconnect. That is causal. That's not simply correlation. And versus if you interview the general public, you know, 40% say their spouse and them are on the same page, but they're not, obviously not winning in these areas. And that, you know, so when you start to believe in the cause and effect, then you go, okay, it's really important that you and I get on the same page, darling, and that we are pulling this wagon together instead of apart. And what questions do you ask? Or what questions should someone ask their spouse to make sure you're on the same page? Let's start talking about that desired future and be in agreement on that. If we've got our desired future laid out in HD, high definition, we can see the sweat beads

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  on it. We can see the hair color on it. We know exactly what winning looks like. It'll change, but for today, we're in agreement that that's where we want to go. Then we can start reverse engineering together. What sacrifices have we got to make? What must be true that's not true today? What price do we have to pay to get there? When we started this business, I had just gone broke a couple of years before. We had nothing. I made $130,000 flipping real estate the year I started this. And it was three years after I'd gone bankrupt. And I really wasn't flipping it. I was just tying it up and selling the position, selling the confidence. And I did the numbers and I said, Sharon, we would sat down and looked at it.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  And she said, this stuff with your teaching at church, this financial peace stuff, this is really helping people and you, we need to talk about that. Okay. So we're praying about it. I'm like, okay, I think God is telling us to go just do that and not do real estate anymore. But if we do, best I can figure selling a few books and a few speeches and I'll, you know, having a little class, I might, might make $62,000. Here's the numbers. Here's how I get there, which is half of what I made the year before. I got little babies and a wife who's just gone through a bankruptcy. And we're looking at this and she, and I said, do you think we ought to do that? And she said, I think we're supposed to do that. I said, you, you really think we're supposed to take a pay cut in half? This is the weirdest stupid conversation. She says, not a pay cut in half, it's a step.

• 1:20:23Speaker 02

  It's what, it's what we must do to get to where. And she said, can you imagine how many people are in debt? If we helped a few million of them, how much that 62,000 would change? And we talked about it and we said, okay, but you know what this means? It means I got 16 hour days for the next two years. You're going to be a single mom who's just gone through bankruptcy. I'll be here, but, but I ain't going to be here. I mean, I'm going to be on the road, hawking books. I'm going to be talking to radio stations to get them to put me on. I'm going to be in a ballroom speaking somewhere. I'm going to be at the back table selling books. I'm going to be at the office till 11 o'clock at night counseling somebody who's broke. I mean, that's what this means. And she's like, yeah, but let's give it two years and see what it does. And for two years, I worked 16 hour days.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  But so what do you do? What am, why am I bringing that out? Not to brag, but obviously it worked out. Okay. No kidding. Life's good, right? But the, we laid out the desired future, where we want to be 10 years from now. But here's the price that must be paid to get there. And only then together could we do that. If she had been at home going, you know, we need to work life balance. You know, I'm here with these little kids all day long by myself. And what are we doing? Financial peace, my butt, you know? If that, if that had been the routine, which she never said a single word like that at all, to her credit, I mean, she was a freaking warrior. And she sent me out the door with lashes on my back. Get out there, you know? And so, um, quite the opposite.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  So, but if you, if we weren't joined at the hip on this, if we weren't aligned on the price that must be paid to get to the desired future, we couldn't have done it. We couldn't have done it. And so people say, well, what about Sharon Ramsey? Sharon Ramsey's the hero of the story. The whole story. Because I, unlike most of the people that I know, I have not had to deal with a high maintenance spouse who's always driving the train off the tracks the whole time I'm over here trying to work. Instead, it was quite the opposite. It's like, we're pulling together, we're pulling together. And anyone that says or does anything about this place, you don't want her in your life.

• 1:22:29Graham Stephan?

  Now, what would you do if she were not as supportive? And what would you do in the case where she says, well?

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  Talk about it until we got aligned to where we both are in agreement. We both have to believe that the price we're paying. And if we don't, we can't do it. And so we have a saying in our house today is, uh, when in doubt, we don't. So like if we have a, we had a generosity thing, a substantial one come across our plate the other day that we were looking at, we met with the people and I'm like, yeah, this looks great. I think, and she's like, I, I don't know. I just, I don't know. Something wrong in the air. I just can't, I can't tell what it is, but I don't feel right about it. I, I called the guy up and I go, we're, we're not, we're not in right now. We're not going to be able to help right now. Well, did we do something wrong? No, you didn't do anything wrong at all. It's just Sharon and I have to be aligned because it's too

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  much money for us to not, I mean, a hundred bucks will do, you know?

• 1:23:20Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  She gripes at me about over tipping all the time, but that's tough deal with that. But I'm not talking, but I'm talking about on major decisions, we need to be aligned or when in doubt, don't. I mean, we don't, I don't come home and buy, I don't buy a car and come home and go, look what I did. And I can afford to buy whatever car I want. I mean, it's not, but we just, we talk about stuff like that before we do that. We certainly don't buy a property. The property I was talking about early in this conversation, she was in the truck when I'm sitting on the thing. We drove up on the piece of land. I'm sitting there looking at the traffic, looking at the thing. I'm like, okay, what do you think? She goes, oh, this is good. We're doing this. But if I had bought that thing and she was not aligned, all I would, I'd hear about it forever or vice versa, right? If she was trying to get me to do it and I didn't want to do it and it wouldn't work. It doesn't work when you're not pulling together.

• 1:24:07Graham Stephan?

  When did you go from feeling rich to actually being rich?

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  I don't even know what that means. Um.

• 1:24:14Jack Selby?

  Well, let's, let's say like, like going through this bankruptcy at that young age. Obviously that's going to be, it's going to create some scars that are going to take a while to heal.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Defining scars, yeah.

• 1:24:25Jack Selby?

  When would you say you finally felt rich after that? Because you could get rich and be rich, but you may not feel rich after such a traumatic event of filing for bankruptcy at that young age. So when did you actually feel wealthy?

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  Well, we did end up making 62,000 that year. Exactly 62. Yeah, we actually hit it. The projections were devastatingly accurate. And the, um, the following year made 104 and the following year I made 250. Um.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  And then I did a book deal. That was sweet. And, um. Took off. Somewhere along in those years, uh, in those early years right there, I remember Sharon, we went to the grocery store. And, uh, we had envelopes with our grocery money in it. And I said, you know what? Let's do something different. And we go to the grocery store. I want you to go in the grocery store and we've got the money. I want you to buy everything you want. And she filled up a whole buggy with stuff without, I said, don't look at the price. If you see something you want in the grocery store, let's just get it. And obviously it was not a huge amount of money, but it was. It felt like we were okay for the first time.

• 1:25:46Speaker 02

  You know, it felt like we can, we can buy anything in this grocery store. And we're okay. We're okay. It felt okay. That sounds silly, but it's a, it actually happened and. She tells that story occasionally still to some of our friends. She's like, I remember that time we went to the store and. And it wasn't like we went to something in New York and she bought a purse, a coach purse, which she has done too, but that there's nothing like that. That stuff is, that stuff's, by then it's like, yeah, whatever. And it's just stuff. But, um, but yeah, going to the grocery store when we had been worried about feeding our family. And the lights and water had been cut off at the house when we went broke. I mean, and, and just like a handful of years later, here we are and we can go into that same grocery store where we were.

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  Counting coupons and doing every little thing and we could just buy a basket of groceries. Anything we wanted. It, it felt like we were okay. And, and then you go through other stages emotionally at different net worths and different incomes where you start to go.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  I mean, I remember buying a car when it became irrelevant. That was a weird moment, you know, it's like whatever I wanted to buy, I could buy it. And it's not, it's not a relevant number, you know, and to me, I'm a redneck kid buying a car or buying a good big old truck or something is like, that's a thing, you know? And so, um, but it's like that grocery buggy, it was irrelevant, but it was relevant.

• 1:27:13Graham Stephan?

  Are there different tiers to wealth that you've noticed where doors have opened up at seven figures, eight figures, nine figures? And what are they?

• 1:27:20Speaker 02

  Definitely. Um, I, I, I don't know that it's a certain tier, but, um, when you reach the point, I always call it the, uh, the pinnacle point where you pedal and pedal and pedal and pedal and pedal to get to the top of the hill. And finally you're there and you're in Tennessee and that means you can go down the hill. And what that is mathematically for me, and I've taught people this and I've had a lot of positive affirmation that this is accurate. When you get enough money that your money makes more than you make, that's an interesting point. When your investments generate more dollars than you generate, meaning that if you didn't work, you'd be more than fine, right?

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  Um, when you're, when you're, you know, when you get a, let's say you get $2 million and you've got it in mutual funds and you say, okay, I could pull, I could pull a hundred and 50 off of that a year and not touch it, it still grow and I'd be just fine. Um, and you, you know, you've been living on a hundred and you've been making a hundred and you get to that point, well, that's a, that's a, an emotional point in the person's life. Um, and, and I think that's different for different people that come, come at it from different angles, different backgrounds, different things. I mean, you come from another country where you were in poverty and you come here and the great American dream is in front of you and you grow, probably doesn't take as much

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  to have those emotional moments as it might some kid who started middle class and goes to a good school and comes out with a four-year degree. And it probably takes that person a little more to, um, have that same exact feeling than it does someone else. Uh, but, but either way, you get to the point where the money. These are different, to me, they're different flashpoints where the money becomes let, uh, the, the, the things the money is doing becomes less and less relevant because there's enough of it, whatever the investment is. And it's, um, it's a spiritual thing almost, an emotional thing almost, but it's certainly a mathematical thing.

• 1:29:21Jack Selby?

  Is there any tier to money that you have not yet accessed? We hear about like the FU money is what people say, like Rogan has that Rogan says he has that. Is there any sort of tier that you have yet to eclipse and you're looking to, or is it all the same?

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  You know, I, Joe certainly has done that. Congratulations, Joe. Um, the, um, and I,

• 1:29:48Speaker 02

  I don't think that's an amount of money. I think that's an attitude. Um, you want to get to the point that you're, I think what he's saying is you're not dependent on someone else. I don't have to have your approval or affirmation, whoever you are, anyone. I've got enough that I can function without, if that network wants to throw me off, if that thing wants to cancel me, well, screw you, you know, you're, and you're fine. And we're certainly at that point here too. Um, but I don't really approach it like, who can I flip off? It's more like I'm approaching it like, who can I serve? Cause I get a lot more personal satisfaction out of service than I do flipping off, although I'm willing to do both.

• 1:30:29Jack Selby?

  Okay. Well, I think we got to wrap up here, but I have one last question. So we recently had a conversation with Charlie Kirk and everyone loved this part of the podcast. I gotta ask you, is it ever acceptable for a girl to pay on the first date?

• 1:30:46Jack Selby?

  Or should a guy always pay on the first date?

• 1:30:50Speaker 02

  You know, I, again, I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't bother me either way. Uh, I grew, uh, the Ramsey women that grew up in my house, my daughters are massively competent and confident and they would not be freaked out one way or the other. They wouldn't bother them one way or the other, which is really what I would want for them. Um, but what I did find out is I've got two absolutely incredible sons-in-law. Both of them are just studs. And I used to say I hit the son-in-law lottery and I, and I quit saying that. I didn't hit the son-in-law lottery. We taught those girls how to pick.

• 1:31:35Speaker 02

  And we ran off some losers and explained to them why they were leaving.

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  Now, you can't, you're, you're done. You're done. You just move on. And You would encourage that? Oh, no, I did it. I said, you're done. And up until what age? Well, they were in high school, but I mean, I'm teaching these girls, what do you want in a husband? Don't date somebody. How do they obey you, though? I feel like in high school, They have a choice. They live in my house and eat my food. Wouldn't that make them better at like sneaking off? It could. It could. But basically, we not only ran them off, we told them why. Okay. You know, we told them why. This guy, this guy, look, this is the trajectory this guy's on. How did you know that? Well, when you're talking to him, you can see. I mean, he's, he's smoking a lot of pot. He's not gonna make it. You know, it's not gonna work out. And so, um, never seen a successful pothead.

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  I've known a bunch of them, but I've never seen one. And so, except that smoking pot. And so, you know, no, you're not going out with Bobby. Bobby's a pothead. So, um, um, three weeks later, Bobby ran his car in a ditch and would have hurt my daughter who would have been sitting there, you know? And that true story that happened. And so, everybody's pissed. Bobby's mother's pissed. My wife was a little pissed. My daughter was certainly pissed, but Bobby ain't coming. We're done. Anyway, we went through all that thing to say, Where are you now, Bobby? That's it. Where is Bobby now? Crypto millionaire now. I changed his name. That's not, I changed his name. That's not his name. Yeah, he's, he made all his money in cannabis, but, um,

• 1:32:58Speaker 02

  but, uh, anyway, the, the, we, what character qualities do you want in Prince Charming? Because that's gonna be your husband and you're gonna spend a long time with him. Who do you want in a man? What are you looking for? And, um, I think our daughters would tell you that they would want a, a relationship where they had a vote, where they could bring their competency to the table. And it, you know, we've got a partnership here. It's not the man telling the woman what to do, because that ain't gonna fly with my kids. I can tell you that. It doesn't fly with their mother either. So, um, we're gonna have a partnership. You're gonna trust my competency and I'm gonna trust yours. And then we're going to join together and we're gonna serve each other.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  Now, what, how does that, what does that say about who pays for the first day, money on the first day? Probably says the guy is, because he's probably wanting to serve this, this princess. This is his queen. He wants to serve her. He wants to love her. Well, he wants to do something for her, but it's not an obligation. It's a, it comes out of his character, probably. But if he doesn't, it probably doesn't disqualify him. I wouldn't run a guy off because he didn't pay for the first date. I wouldn't have done that, but I would run one off for character qualities. They're, you know, lack of integrity and, you know, you have a known reputation and yeah, we don't, we're not, we're not trying to, trying to run, use our daughters to fix the world. That's not what we're doing. No.

• 1:34:24Jack Selby?

  Well, Dave, it is always an honor to have you on the show. It's always such a great time. I love the maximal personal responsibility theme. It's one of my favorite things. I love it. I absolutely love it. So thanks for that.

• 1:34:36Speaker 02

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:34:36Jack Selby?

  Hopefully you guys see it's valuable. Thank you for watching. Thank you to the team helping produce this.

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:34:41Jack Selby?

  On this time.

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:34:52Speaker 06

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