Pod Insights The Quote of the Day Show | Daily Motivational Talks Dave Ramsey: "You Can Decide to Be Somebody Tomorrow That You’re Not Today." About this episode Dave Ramsey shares a powerful lesson on leadership, passion, and the lid keeping your organization from growing. In this fired-up talk, he explains why talented people who don't care are worthless, the John Maxwell principle that exposes the real ceiling on every team, and the one thing every great leader has to do that the conductor of an orchestra does every night. This episode will challenge you to stop blaming your team and start leading like it matters. Source: Dave Ramsey at the EntreLeadership Summit 2019Hosted by Sean CroxtonFollow me on InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 How many times you ever meet someone says, "Well, you know, I really can't, I really can't do the kind of stuff that you're talking about because, you know, I just graduated from high school." And so did Dave Thomas, who started Wendy's. What's your problem? Really? These are decisions. If you don't have the education that makes you proud, go get it. You don't have to have a PhD in management. That's absurd. You don't need that unless you're going to teach people who aren't going to run a business.
0:49 Speaker 01 Welcome back to the Quote of the Day Show. I am your host, Shawn Croxton of seancroxton.com. We've got my main man, Dave Ramsey, back on the show. Our QOD is this: You can decide to be somebody tomorrow that you're not today. So he's going to discuss how problems and opportunities and our wins and our losses and our mistakes all really come down to leadership or the lack thereof. He's also going to deliver the bad news and the good news about your level of leadership. Dave Ramsey's coming up.
1:25 Speaker 00 Small business accounts for 55% of the jobs in America today. And then since 1970, accounts for seven out of 10 new jobs. This is real. This is real. The free enterprise system is alive and well. Socialism sucks. I'm a capitalist pig.
1:50 Speaker 00 And here's what's interesting. All of the opportunity that's in front of you, all of the problems that are in front of you, all the opportunity that's behind you, all the problems that are behind you, are just about all caused by leadership or a lack thereof. The mistakes in our company, the things that we have done right in our organization to become the brands, the national brands that we've become over the last 20 years, 25 years, starting from a card table in my living room, have all been about leadership and learning how to do this right. And folks, here's the deal. You cannot lead without passion. This is the part where you open up your workbook. You cannot lead without passion.
2:32 Speaker 00 It's the entree leader's job to insert passion and passionate people into the organization's processes. The culture has told itself a lie and a bunch of us have believed it, that if we just hired talented people with enough dots and dashes and letters and degrees on their resume, that they're going to solve our problems. Talented people that don't care are freaking worthless. I want to get talented people that care deeply. How much you care as a leader, if you're mailed it in, you know what? You can expect your team to mail it in. If you demand excellence of yourself, if you study and bring it to make yourself approved, you cause things to happen, then you have the right to look around and go, "I demand
3:17 Speaker 00 excellence around me. I'm not being a but, I'm just causing things to happen at a very high degree." Why? Because I care so deeply. And I tell our team every Monday morning at staff meeting, "If you don't care deeply anymore, hit the door." We want people on the team that are bringing it. Hit the door. When your spirit leaves, for God's sake, take your body with it. When it comes to leadership, it's about variables that you and I can control. Leaders are not born. I have been to the hospital and visited my friends and relatives that have had babies.
3:59 Speaker 00 My daughter's having babies and they always come out and they go, "It's a boy, it's a girl." They never say, "It's a leader."
4:08 Speaker 00 Leadership is a decision, it's an intentional act like anything and winning is. It's not an accidental thing. It's choices that you make and they're variables that you control. They're controllables that you can control. Me too. My education, your education. My character, your character. My capacity, your capacity. Your passion. These are the things that lead you to win. These are the things that are limiting your organization. Your education, your character, your capacity, your ability, your vision are the limiting factors to your organization. We're gonna talk about this a lot this week and the bad news is it's up to you.
4:52 Speaker 00 The good news is it's up to you. You can decide to have better character. You can change your spiritual work, walk and, and drag your tail end into a church and learn how to behave. You can change your character and decide to tell the truth and be loyal and be worthy of trust, trustworthy. These are decisions you can make. You can decide to be somebody tomorrow that you're not today. You think the 32-year-old Dave Ramsey that started this thing could have done this? No, he was dumber than a rock. He had issues. I work on my issues every day. I work on my brain power every day. I work on my spiritual walk every day and God knows I need to.
5:37 Speaker 00 Just like you. I'm the limiting factor to our organization and I fully intend to get the crud out of the way. I don't wanna be that. It's not gonna stretch any bigger than my brain, my ability, my trustworthiness, my loyalty, my character, my vision. Speak vision over your people. Start speaking things over them. Tell them how good they are. Tell them how, you know, I, I think you can do this. I really think you can do this. Or I don't think you can do this, but I'd be great to be wrong. I'd be happy to be wrong. I've moved some people into positions that thought they were ready. I didn't think they were ready, but everybody in the building but me thought they were ready, so I just looked at everybody and I said, "They're not ready."
6:18 Speaker 00 You know what? I was wrong. They were ready. I like being wrong. I like being wrong when it helps a whole bunch of people, when it gives people opportunity, and I get to turn around and speak vision over and go, "You know what? I was wrong. You're a rock star. You're a stud. You're a studette. You're getting stuff done." I like watching these young leaders in our organization rise up and step up and bring ideas in that I can't even spell.
6:49 Speaker 00 John Maxwell calls this limiting factor the leadership lid. If I recall properly, my friend John wrote this in the third chapter of his book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Now, John, you gotta know about John. John writes a book about every 20 minutes. Every time he has an idea, it becomes a dadgum book. I don't have that many ideas and I don't have that many books, but John does about two or three a year. He's ridiculous, but 21 Irrefutable Laws is still his bestselling book out of the nine million books he has written so far. And so, we love that book so much, we require our leaders to read it. And actually, we licensed it from the publisher and wrote a Dave foreword in it, so we have
7:31 Speaker 00 a Dave version now of my friend John's book. He calls this the leadership lid. We're the lid on our organization. The bad news is, I'm limiting my organization. The good news is, those are controllable variables. Those are controllables that I can affect. I can choose to be somebody next year so that we can do things next year that we didn't know how to do this year. I can choose to have a different level of capacity in my spirit, in my compassion, in the way I walk with our team through troubled times. I can choose to be a different man, a different woman. These are controllable variables, but they
8:09 Speaker 00 never happen randomly or accidentally. The way you change your education level is, you do stuff like you're doing this week, being here. You read a freaking book. Wow, you know? How many times you ever meet someone that says, "Well, you know, I really can't do the kind of stuff that you're talking about because, you know, I just graduated from high school." And so did Dave Thomas, who started Wendy's. What's your problem?
8:44 Speaker 00 Really? These are decisions. If you don't have the education that makes you proud, go get it. You don't have to have a PhD in management. That's absurd. You don't need that unless you're gonna teach people who aren't gonna run a business.
9:02 Speaker 00 But you do need to know something about accounting if you're gonna run a business. You do need to know something about leadership if you're gonna run a business. You do need to know something about marketing if you're gonna run a business. You do need to know something about the law if you're gonna run a business. You do need to know some stuff because stupid will get you hurt. I know. Well, that left a mark. Next time, I wanna know what not to do in that situation because I sucked at that one. That hurt. Dr. Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic since 1979, did a TED Talk that has been absolutely a classic standard, went viral. In it, he says, "The conductor doesn't make a sound. He depends on his ability to make other people powerful."
9:47 Speaker 00 Heard one guy say, "The conductor can't do his job unless he turns his back on the crowd and faces his team." "My job," he says, "is to awaken possibility in other people. Speak vision over my team." If the eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. If they're not shining, you have to ask yourself, "What am I doing that my players' eyes are not shining? What am I doing that my children's eyes are not shining?" Have you ever done something as a leader where you watched the shine leave their eyes? Yeah, I've done that too.
10:32 Speaker 00 I try not to do that anymore. Unless they're just like a wilting snowflake that's not gonna cut it and bring excellence. But I'm talking about the ones that are gonna make it. You know, they're on my team. Now, I mean, we go so hard, y'all. We're so excellent. You know what the primary gripe about working the Dave Ramsey organization is? We work too hard and we demand too much. Mwah.
10:57 Speaker 00 You don't want to do that, don't come on our team. Call the ambulance. Well, I mean, they just, they just kept, they just kept making me do stuff and they just kept speaking criticism over, and they just told me what to do and, and I just... You wilting little snowflake. You got through the HR process, we're gonna work on that in another lesson.
11:19 Speaker 01 That was Dave Ramsey wrapping up the week. His website is ramseysolutions.com and you can watch this entire talk on the YouTube. It's called Dave Ramsey at the Entree Leadership Summit 2019. I recommend any of Dave Ramsey's books. I mean, phenomenal books. If I had to recommend one, it would be The Legacy Journey. It's about being a better steward of your money. Really, really great book. Hey, that's it for me. Have a lovely weekend. I'll see you back here on Monday. Thank you for tuning in. I'm out. Peace.
12:07 Speaker 01 Dave Ramsey.
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