The Power of Preparation | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real, raw, relevant. And I'm going to take a swig of my water before Ron does his.

I'm going to get a haircut right after this. You know what? 'Cause it sticks out right here when it starts growing out.

Fuzzy? And it sticks out in your neck, in the back?

Well, I can't see back there, but I see right here. I keep it so tight when it starts growing.

And you have your little man hairs that stick out on your—

It don't grow like back.

Eyebrows? Hey, do they do your eyebrows too? Mm-mm. They don't?

You talking about like a barber? Barber's the one that shaves you and trims you and things. So I'm a barber? No, baby, no, you're not a barber. Barber's massage.

Oh, really? That's weird.

They put them things in that right there and they just— they give you a shave and they cut you and get you slick and get you trimmed. Barbers know how to do it.

But I have to cut your eyebrow hair and your ear hair.

I need you to do some things here and there. It's not going to hurt you.

Your old man hair is what I call it.

I have one.

You do have a rogue.

I have one right here.

It's a rogue hair.

It's right here. But my hairs are light, so you can't see. That's a pretty good thing that you can't see 'em, 'cause I can't keep up with it.

Yeah.

But why did that happen?

I tell you, you need a weekly routine.

Why'd that happen?

I don't know. See, you gaining long hairs and I lose them. We have to draw on our eyebrows.

Well, see, we have to fight to keep this, but they start growing here and here and all those crazy places. It's strange. It's strange. Why is that?

I don't know.

No, it don't happen. You don't— you— it grows where you don't want it to, and it quits growing where you need it to grow.

Awkward.

I don't know how that is anyway, but I have been doing carnivore diet, and you hadn't said a thing about it to anybody.

Oh, I have said a thing about it. I told you you look great. Not to who?

Podcast audience.

Podcast audience.

Yes, it's been hard, guys. It's been hard.

Ron has been doing carnivore.

I've been doing carnivore for Oh, what, about 7 weeks?

Meaning what? You've been eating all meat?

Well, let me tell you, straight carnivore is straight meat. But it wasn't for the fact of meat, it was for the fact of sugar. When these lifestyles, I don't like a diet. I've never done a diet. I don't like a diet. I like a lifestyle. I chart a course that I think is a healthy lifestyle. And you know me, once I make a decision, I pretty much stick to it.

True.

And so anyway, you know, I did for the blood pressure stuff, and back in my early 40s, I did some things and I changed and I stayed with it for 15, 20 years. And then, you know, then comes the joints. So blood pressure's in the 40s, then I'm, you know, in my 50s, late 50s, the joints thing start, 'cause I've been rough on my body.

You've had a knee surgery.

I've been rough on my body. I've had 18 broke bones in my life. I've spent about 3 and 1/2 years of my life in some sort of plaster cast. Another almost half a year in a back brace. Not quite a half year, about 4 months.

Now you're experiencing some shoulder issues.

Well, I've had knees and shoulders, and I don't even remember like a knee injury. I was one of those guys, I played wide receiver and tight end, and how I never got a knee injury, 'cause receivers are really susceptible to knee injuries. 'Cause everybody's flying at your legs trying to bring you down, trying to tackle you low. But I, you know, I had a torn meniscus. And when I found out I had it, I said, "I don't even know how I did that." So, I got that operated on, but I'll be honest with you, it wasn't right. It still wasn't right.

But we went to the Warriors game last night and it was like you had an epiphany.

You said, "Wow, maybe that's what happened to my knee." Well, all the guys, what would happen, we went to the Warriors game and when they would come sit on the sideline, they had trainers come and wrap their knees. Yeah.

And he was not a fan.

All of them were sitting there with knees wrapped. And I'm sitting there and said, "You know what? I played basketball literally my entire life up through some level of college." And I said, "That's punishing to me." Then, you know, I played all the other sports as well. I wrestled for a short stint of time, played football since I was old enough to walk. And then I did a lot of dumb things like riding behind motorcycles on a skateboard.

Run.

You know? Carpenter. You know, jumping outta trees and concussions and all kind of other things I've had.

And you wonder. You wonder where our children get it.

Well, they ain't broke near the bones I have, and I don't want 'em to. But anyway, I said all that to say this, you know, one thing we talked about, and we're going somewhere with this, actually, they got all these diets, and I don't care, you know, there are a lot of ways to get somewhere. Low carb. There's a lot of low carb, vegetarian. Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff to get somewhere. Yeah, the fast. You can outdo Ozempic. I mean, there's just ways to get there. Now, you have the fasting. Intermittent fasting. So anyway, there's a lot of ways. There's no one way. There's a lot of options to get there. This ain't like coming to God. You know, there's one way, Jesus. Getting to different weight goals and body mass index, there's different ways. But one thing I noticed, Hope, that every single diet/lifestyle had in common was this, and that was sugar is the devil.

Yep.

All of them across the board. Sugar's the— and it's the devil, not just because it becomes a source that your body burns and it can't ever burn fat 'cause it's burning sugar, but also because of terrible inflammation in the joints. So I was experiencing for the first time in my life limitations. You know, I'd have to get up and I'd have to sit there a minute. And after I got outta the chair and shake it off a little bit and get, get my knees going. I'm not used to that. You know how I go. Shoulder, really having to go work out, boy, just, mm. And I'd lay on my shoulder to get up in the morning. I bought you a shoulder thing. Yeah, and you even bought me a pillow to try to help me with my shoulder. So I'm just having these things and I'm like, man. And so I'm hearing about the carnivore diet and they talked about in the first 4 to 5 weeks, inflammation will go down and pain will go down in joints. I said, I'm gonna try it just to, See if it was true. Hope is amazing.

See, I just don't understand.

It's amazing. You know, since I have— So I do eat some vegetables, but I'm not eating any carbs and I'm not eating any sugar. And guys, when I tell you I'm not eating any sugar, it's been difficult now. They say also about the second week, your cravings start to be curbed. That has not happened with me. That's a lie. That's not happened with me. And I never was a sweet guy. Have I ever been a sweet guy? I've never walked around and eat sweets.

Ron, every night of your life, in your 20s and 30s, you ate a bowl of ice cream.

'20s and '30s? I'm almost 60.

I know, but you said never.

But I mean, I'm not a sweet— Do I ever order a dessert after we go out to eat? No, you don't. Ever. I mean, you know, somebody else orders one, I'll take my fork, take a bite, but I don't sit there, I don't even think about getting a dessert menu after we go out to eat. Soft drinks, I cut 'em back to one, and that was after church on Sunday for my throat. I just didn't like. But the fact is, I've cut it all out. I probably crave it more than I ever have. I mean, we were at a place the other night and everybody at the table ordered a dessert after dinner.

I didn't order a dessert.

And I mean, I sat there and I mean, I wanted, well, some person's eating cheesecake and I just looked at it.

That was Kellan.

Imagine how. I was imagining how it would taste in my mind.

How did Kellan eat? That's our grandson. How did he eat that whole big old piece of cheesesteak?

I don't know, my kids can eat like that, but my grandkids. But I think what I do wanna tell everybody is I've done the carnivore. I do eat occasionally vegetables, but 70% of the time, just meat. The other 30%, I'll add vegetable to it. No carbs and no sugar. Now, it didn't really say take carbs outta your diet. It said take sugar out. To sugar and carbs.

[Speaker] Yeah, 'cause carbs turn to sugar.

[Speaker] My body has really, especially in my core, I've seen some areas, I told you the other day, I've seen some areas of my body I hadn't seen since I was probably 25. Because of how you throw your body into ketosis, it burns fat 'cause it no longer has sugar to burn. And not only that, I feel like my two knees are brand new. I cannot believe what is happening now. We're gonna get 6,000 comments on YouTube in there telling me how unhealthy and that you don't need to do this when you do that.

And that was my rebuttal.

I was like, "But how is that an end goal?" Well, I'm waiting to see, you know, I get my blood work every 3 to 6 months. I'm waiting to see my next cholesterol number. 'Cause the negative side of that can be an increase in cholesterol. But Hope, there's even people that fuss over cholesterol.

Yeah, who say that it's really not a thing.

They say it's not nearly a thing. That it's a big pharma— And that the big pharma has made gazillions off of cholesterol, but the lack of cholesterol can lead your brain to dementia 'cause your brain is like such and such percent cholesterol. That's why babies need so much fat in the development of their brain. And so, I've put a lot of study and emphasis into being healthy because as you've known since you married me, I have always exercised, I've always worked out because I had looked at ministers. And the fact is, if you don't have your health—

It's true, you have nothing.

You don't have anything because it doesn't matter how anointed you are if you have no strength to bring it forth.

It doesn't matter how much money you have.

And it is, yes.

If you can't go and enjoy it.

And I've seen so many that spend all their health getting wealth, and then they get the end of life and they spend all their wealth trying to get their health back.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And so, I have, you have seen me over my life, try to put a plan in place where I can do at a high level for a long period of time. I hope that those things pay off for me. I hope that they do. And we've said all that to say this, we got a few things we wanna talk to you about preparation on, but first we've got an ad.

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Amen.

Amen.

We love these guys, we really do. And it's hard to eat fresh because when you buy perishables, that's fresh, but you have a timeline. You gotta eat it. Organic, you mean. And any kind of perishable.

Yeah, but organic goes quicker than anything.

Yeah, organic goes the quickest of all. It's the healthiest of all, but you've got a short timeline in which you can use it and cook it. And sometimes with our schedule, that gets quite difficult. But anyway, let me go back to here. But that really has worked for me.

So why did we say all that?

We said all that to talk a little bit. I wanna just spend the last few minutes we got On the subject of preparation, we have been on these podcasts, Hope, now for years. And a lot of what started this podcast, and it's been an overflow of our testimony, your book, and they was like, "Man, you need to get on there and talk about people." By the way, in the 30, now going on 9 years I have been with you, 39 years, I've never seen a spray tan look this good on you. So anyway. But anyway.

I can't with you right now.

I told you last night at the ball game. I said, when they cut them lights on last night.

You are mean. He's looking at— No, I'm not high-fiving you.

Baby.

He's been messing with me for the last 3 or 4 weeks about how white I am. How pale and ghostly I am. And I mean, he will not stop. And I'm about to slap him.

So anyway, I'll get some spray stuff in the mitts. Have you just spray tan?

Take me somewhere. Take me to the beach.

Got time right now.

Oh, my. Well, then leave me alone about my skin.

I think your tan's great. But anyway. The subject of preparation, we say, "I'm gonna bore our life in front of everybody about all our mistakes and everything we've done wrong." We don't talk a lot, really, I don't think, about what we did right. There are some things we did right. We don't talk about 'em. And it also sounds like when you do something right and you try to teach it, it's like you're talking down at people or being on your soapbox. So humbly today, we come and, believe it or not, me and Hope have been one or two things we actually did that wasn't a train wreck, you know, we didn't have to overcome a million hurdles, it was things we did right. Number one is we have always tried. Now that is defined differently probably a little bit for me and you. We have always tried from the onset of our life, we did see, ministers' lives cut short and ministries cut short because of extremely unhealthy lifestyles. And that includes a lot of things. I'm not just talking about going to the gym. That's not what I'm talking— I'm talking about stress lifestyles, schedule lifestyles. My dad was one of them.

Sleep.

My dad.

Vitamins.

I've told people a million times, my dad, there's just never been one like him to me outside of Jesus. But horrific health lifestyle.

You can't go as hard as we go and not take care of yourself. And expect to live a long time.

We try to give ourself, when I say that, we try to eat.

We do.

Somewhat properly today. I mean, if people would've saw what we ate, I ate a grilled chicken salad and you ate, you know, tuna salad with carrots. Yep. I mean, would I love a double Whopper? But yeah. Would I love a Biggie fries? I would, but I don't.

Right.

So it ain't, well, do you want to? Yes, I want to. Yes, I would.

We drink a lot of water.

I love to slam, I drink water all day long. I drink unsweet tea.

Yeah, we don't drink a bunch of sodas.

I don't drink any sodas.

I do drink some occasionally.

You do?

But I don't—

Not like you did. No. Not like you did. And I, at one time, you know, I would carry a Mountain Dew in my hand all day and then wonder why I couldn't sleep at night.

Yeah, I do love some coffee. Now, me and you love our coffee in the morning.

But that's not bad. It's what you do to coffee. I've heard several doctors. We don't put sugar in our coffee. I don't sit there and do 6 shots of caramel and 2 shots of vanilla. We don't do all that. We just pour coffee. I get a little bit of cream. You don't do anything in yours. What am I saying about all this? This, we have tried to prepare from early on for longevity.

Going the distance.

And we do have an audience, especially in our church, that is increasingly younger. And one thing I would look back and tell you, you gotta start now. You start now. I noticed out here in the Silicon Valley, they'll tell you to take your youth and just grind, miss sleep, sleep on the floor, do whatever you gotta do until you make it. I really question that. I think it's the— I think it's the habits that you start out with early that tend to be whether or not you're gonna be able to go the distance. And so I would tell people in their 20s, you have to have schedule releases. You and I always took Mondays off, always, 'cause I never saw my dad have a day. I saw my dad grab for one wherever he could, but he never had a day. So I looked at it and said, I'm gonna have a day. And that day is with Hope. And then we do a getaway. Now you say, "I don't have any money." Well, me and Hope didn't have any money either, but we found a way. Sometime, if it wasn't nothing but calling somebody's house we went to college with, like a Steven and Sherry, "We gonna come down and see y'all Friday and Saturday." Or we'd pack up a picnic and just go spend the day somewhere at a park. We always had the destressors. So, those were habits I think we started early and we did them often. And we still do them to this day.

And if you don't plan for it, it will not happen.

Don't happen. We did it.

And then, you're gonna pay the price in your marriage.

We did that right.

Because you don't have that loving feeling anymore. You don't have the butterflies in your marriage. Why? It's because you have not sown into each other.

Now, how much do we—

And had intimate time.

And how much money did we have when we was in our 20s? Hardly nothing. We started all 3 college funds for our kids. We did. And all 3 of our kids had college funds ready for them. Would it have paid for all of it? Probably not. But they all 3 had college funds. We started off $25 a month. $25 a month. For each child. And you say, "We don't have the money." We started $25 a month. Well, you know, you start doing $25, maybe one day you can get up to $100 a month. And you do that for 20 years.

And we had life insurance when we first got married.

Exactly right. 25 years old.

We had life insurance. Things we did. $200 a month for life. That's back in the day, in 1990, what? 1993, '94?

Baby, I had life insurance before I had health insurance.

Yes.

I had life insurance before I had health, 'cause I wanted to make sure you're taken care of, God forbid. Yes. And before— 'cause it was a while, actually, before we were able to get the church to a place to have any health insurance.

So, we prepared then—

That's the key. That's the key.

—for what we wanted in the future.

That's the key. Another thing. And this is our thing. This is not Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone. I'm not trying to take you into, you know, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." I'm not taking you. Go watch YouTube and listen to those guys, because this looks different for everybody. But once we got able, we were able to— the thing about building wealth is can you increase in revenue but hold your lifestyle? If you increase, if you get a raise and raise your lifestyle, then you never get to build wealth. So you and I had a way that we wanted to live and we climbed. But once we got to that way we wanted to live, there's about a 15-year thing where you could have drew a line and saw our houses look the same, our cars look the same, and our vacations look the same because we held the line right there. And then anything we did above that was wealth creation. I really was not able to start that till my 30s. So I'm gonna be honest with you, I was not able to do that in my 20s. Late 30s. Yeah, late 30s. And a lot of those things with me asking you not to get attached to a house, we used homes, foreclosures, remodels, we used it to build wealth. Except for the recession, we did really well. We did really well. And other things we did, you gotta understand, guys, wealth usually will never come from a paycheck. Wealth comes from an investment. People that are wealthy, most of them are not getting up and working, you know, an everyday something. Yeah.

All this money in their paycheck.

They didn't get up this morning and say, "I gotta be at the office by such and such time," like I did.

No, they've learned the discipline not to go out to eat or not to do whatever it is your thing is, so that you can put that amount of money into some type of investment, for future.

Yes, and you gotta think long-term. You gotta think long-term. Unless you are a skilled day trader, you need to think long-term. So you gotta get to a point where you, this is the way we wanted to live. We'd like to live in this neighborhood. I don't want my cars breaking down. This is the school, you know, the school district we want our kids in. And then you need to hold the line and then start preparing and you need to start building wealth.

And it's self-discipline. The bottom line, basis of everything we're talking about. We're talking about wealth, we're talking about health, we're talking about marriage, we're talking about savings, all these things. Even your relationship with the Lord, growing in that, is all based on discipline. Everything we're talking about.

The first house we had that I would call where people would go up on it and go, "Wow," the first wow house. Okay. What people don't know is that thing was sitting out in a field abandoned.

It sure was. With weeds.

Do you remember I took you to see it and you was almost in tears? You were in tears. I don't want this. I don't want to live in this house. I took you at night. It was a flashlight. And it was literally abandoned out in a field on 17 acres in the middle of the town. The address was like in the middle of nowhere. Well, the house was out in the middle of nowhere. And I took you out there and I'm like, "Hope, we could get this for nothing. We could get this for nothing. We got friends that would love to come in and give us good prices to remodel it." When we got through with that house, everybody tells us to this day, that was their favorite house that we ever lived in. Why? Because of the way we were willing to do it. And so another thing I would tell people is we've also had side hustles. I work hard. I've never slighted the kingdom one bit. I give everything I got. Like this weekend, we came in, we were beaten, man, but we came in guns blazing Sunday morning. And, but other things, I've done several things on the side. You do things on the side. Why? And just, we get, okay, we're gonna give this much time to it. We don't want it to encroach on the rest of our life, but I can do this. And what does that mean? Not being lazy. Wishing and hope is not a strategy. "Well, I hope something changes before I get old." That's not a strategy. No, you better get creative. Exactly right. And we have a strategy for everything we wanted to do at every single— So, any next level we wanted to reach, we had a plan.

It's two things. It's creativity and discipline. It's saying, "God, what have you put in me?" God, there's, there's more in me. I want to maximize every single thing that you've put in me. And then, Lord, show me how to be disciplined enough to make this work. For me, we've never really— go back to the food. We, we've never eaten bad. We will eat bad occasionally. We will splurge. But I just got some bloodwork numbers back and I had a number that was way too high. I mean, I said, "Errr." You did.

100%. I'm gonna give you credit.

I'm talking about draw a line in the sand. I said, "I'm not going on medicine. I'm not doing that. I am disciplined enough and I am strong enough that I am going to make this work on my own." And you have.

You have. I've watched you.

And just sitting there wishing and hoping—

Hope is not a strategy.

It's not going to do anything. It's not going to prepare you.

"I hope these numbers go down." No, it doesn't do anything.

Or saying, "Oh, I'll just go get on medicine." Yep.

We're not against medicine. We're not against medicine. But the fact is, you know, when it comes to cholesterol, high blood pressure, you can have all kinds of side effects. And when I took it at one time, I did. I had terrible side effects from it, and I didn't wanna live that way. So what'd I do? I made major changes to my lifestyle.

But you know what else I'm proud of though, Ron? I'm almost, we're almost 60 years old. And that sounds so crazy to say, but at 57, that was the first time I've ever had bad numbers. I mean, I know a lot of people because I do insurance—

Oh, in their 30s.

Who I run these applications for, people in their 30s who are on tons, blood pressure, cholesterol, you know, hypertension, all kinds of things. And I'm almost 60 and just got my first bad reading.

And we give God glory for that because God's gracious and merciful unto us. But we are disciplined as well. We have tried to do things. And that's what, here again, preparation, just preparation. It's not that I'm giving you, it's not that we're coming and being, giving you a mastermind class on anything, but all these are things that we addressed early on from college. I knew one day, okay, when I graduated, my dad was never in a position to have money for me to go to college. So when I got saved and I gave, I was conflicted 'cause I knew I didn't need to be on a bus going all over the place playing basketball. That part of me was over. I lost my passion. You knew God used that in doing college. Yeah, he did. And for as much as I loved it, I lost the love for it immediately.

And you found out purpose.

I got saved and I found my purpose and I need to be studying for ministry. I didn't wanna do that anymore. But I knew 2 or 3 jobs. What it was gonna take. Exactly. So here again, I'm like, Not judging my family, not that. I want my kids to have a little something to be able to do this if they desire one day to go to school. And I thank God that we did that. And another thing is, you know, when you talk about investing, you know, the Bible even talks about the way to kingdom authority. What is authority? Authority is when you own. Rulership. Rulership, dominion, ownership. In other words, "You have been faithful in little, take charge over 10 cities." Okay, what was he talking about? I had your 5, I invested it, and now here's 5 more. I had your 10, I invested it, here's 10 more.

God wants to see what you will do with the season you're in before he'll open the door for anything greater.

Nobody wants to talk about the business mind of God. But when he talked about kingdom authority, he didn't talk about it in terms of paycheck. He talked about the dividends off an investment. And so I just saw this, now I think this was like 2023. I saw this 2 years ago and it was recording the previous year. So if I mess my year up, don't get mad at me. Let me give you the difference. The CEO in 2022 of Coca-Cola, made $7 million a year. Now, who wouldn't love to make that? Okay, that's what he made. Warren Buffett, an investor in Coca-Cola, made $33 million. Wow, wow, wow. The dividends from Coca-Cola paid more than the salaries, and the dividends are taxed— I could go on and on— at a much lesser rate than income. What is he doing? Planning for the future. So, when it came to, you know, what are we doing now? We're preparing, probably, in a way we've never prepared. Never prepared.

Yeah, we've hunkered down even more in our 50s because, you know, most people retire in their 60s. I don't know that we'll ever retire, what that looks like. But we have really hunkered down financially and become, instead of spending more, we've become more disciplined in putting more into stock, not really stocks, but more into our— We're diversified. Yeah, we've got some in crypto. Assets. We've got assets.

We've got real estate assets.

Our IUL policy, which grows. Our life insurance policy. It's an indexed policy that grows.

We branched out in things like this. We do have ads for this. These things are monetized. Some social media stuff's monetized. So what we've done is we've branched out. Annuities. But we're trying to hold the line and put those things in for another day.

We're also investing in our grandchildren. We have bought policies for all of our grandchildren.

We've bought policies for our grandchildren because what does a wise man do?

A wise man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

To his children's children's children's children. And so we're just trying to be biblical in that. And here again, none of these are large numbers, but it is something disciplined. It's doing a little thing a long time till something big happens, which is diligence. It's my definition of diligence. So I would just encourage people. Zacchaeus is my— when I preach on and teach on preparation, Zacchaeus is my biblical model. Zacchaeus was a wealthy man. In fact, the Bible says he was very wealthy. Very rich. He was a tax collector authorized by Rome to tax all of the Hebrews. They could charge them any rate they wanted. Caesar's like, "Give me this, you can keep everything above that." I think they're from California. So they were authorized. Exactly, from California. They were authorized by the Roman government to rip people off, and people hated tax collectors. They just hated them. And so, He was short in stature, heard Jesus was coming, went ahead of the crowd and climbed a tree. Then all the crowd gathers around. Everybody else is eye to eye with Jesus. One person is in a tree. Who does Jesus go home with? The one who's prepared. He went ahead and he prepared himself. And the one who was prepared was the only one in Jericho, a very major metropolitan city, And that day, they got the blessing. The blessing goes to the prepared. He went and he got in position. So we have made a major part of our goal for our senior years, when we're no longer the lead pastors of churches and whatever else, what was our goal? Our goal was not, we wanna be stinking wealthy. Our goal was, we don't wanna change our lifestyle. I don't want to get to that age and I gotta stop everything. So what am I trying to do? I'm trying to plan in such a way that the way I live now can be the way that I live then. And so what are we doing? We're making steps now in preparation, 'cause it's just not gonna be there when I get there unless I prepare for it. So what do I want you to get out of this?

You're just not gonna be healthy. Exactly.

What I want you to get out of this. You're not just gonna have a good marriage. No matter where you start, $25, Yeah, do something. Was the college fund, $25. I mean, $25, okay? You spend more than that at Starbucks every week. That was where we started our kids' college fund. By the time they were clicking off 18, 19 years old, there was a couple of years or more tuition in there. And it, you know, so just taking steps to hold my lifestyle here, so I can prepare for there.

Do you know that's, that's the majority of the policies that I write for people is the million-dollar baby policies? I'd say half and half normally. And we call million-dollar baby policies, it's juvenile policies. It's people— it's a policy for somebody who's 18 or under, and they are the indexed policies that mimic, that kind of mirror the S&P 500.

So they buy it for their kids?

Yeah, they buy it for their children. And in And it's a death benefit policy, but it's also a cash value growing. So they can borrow against these policies for their kid's first car, for their kid's college fund, for their kid's first house, down payment on a house. Tax-free.

Tax-free.

So it's a— there's so many things out there that you can do for yourself and for your children.

I don't know if we'll ever do it. If I did, I might bring somebody in and we interview them to do it because there's so many minds better than ours. We know a little bit, but there's people who do this for a living and they would be glad to come on this podcast. But I had a meeting with the ministers in my RF last Thursday, a Zoom meeting, and I did a teaching on decision-making, wise decision-making. And after that, I went into the chat with them. I said, guys, I want some stuff from you that you think could really be beneficial to you. Do you know the one that kept coming in repeatedly, repeatedly? Help us prepare financially. Help us prepare. Can you tell us things that will help us prepare financially? And number one, that let me know we need to be taught 'cause we don't know. Number two, I was glad to hear the fact that they're thinking like that 'cause most of these guys are young. Most of these guys are not— there's a few of 'em my age, but not most of 'em. And so that was a good thing to say, you know what? I'm gonna get a nap.

When I go to 'em and say, "This is what will help you prepare for—" And they'll go, "Oh, I just, I can't afford it." I'm like, "You can't afford $150?" They can.

"You can't afford $200?" Most people can, but it's a matter of how you spend your money. It's discipline. It's how you spend your money. It's how you spend your money and what you value. Yes. And what you value. So, this has not been a funny talk, or it's been all comical. We've learned about preparation a little bit, and we've learned about your 10. Oh my gosh.

You know, or the lack thereof. I'll have me a tan soon. You got pretty—

summer is coming. You got pretty olive skin, though. Anyway, anything we want to tell them before we leave today?

Just tell them how awesome you look with your abs showing now. I don't have my abs, but I'm not doing carnivore. He's doing it. I'm not.

I don't have abs. But I do look different. I do look different. I think I've lost about 14 pounds. I know you have. It's crazy to me. Really, I got a wrangly kind of frame. On me, that's a lot of weight, honestly. But anyway, I just wanted to help some people take inventory of these categories of your life. We're an expert in none of 'em. But one of the things we did right out of all these things we got on here and confessed and cried and walked y'all through it, and this is the way back and this is how we restored One thing we always did is we thought about tomorrow. And I want to get tomorrow in mind.

Yeah, if you want to be better in any area, something's got to change. Exactly right.

Only new actions bring new results. Old actions don't bring new results. New actions bring new results. So, what are your desired outcomes? Take actions today. Amen. All right, guys, we love you.

Thanks for being with us. Until next time, it's Ron and Hope Unfiltered, real, raw, and relevant. See you soon.