The Psychology Behind Why You're Still Broke | George Kamel

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Nobody really cares how you live your life. What kind of car do you drive? It's really just how secure are you? It's insecure people who have the hardest time building wealth because every dollar has to be spent flexing to look rich instead of becoming wealthy.

He is a number one national bestselling author, a co-host of The Ramsey Show, and one of the top personal finance experts. We have the inspiring George Campbell in the house.

I found out over 60% of people 35 and under, social media is their number one source of financial advice. So you're watching a TikTok of a guy telling you to go open up this whole life insurance policy to borrow money tax-free and then go buy 10 pieces of property. All they're doing is being overleveraged, trying to get rich quick, and they're going to fall flat on their face. Or worst case, buy the guy's course for $3,000 and then be broke after that.

What does true financial freedom look like to you?

Hmm.

I think it comes down to If someone puts $1 million away in their early 20s, how quickly would that get to $2 million?

Well, it doubles about every 7 years. If you get— if you get a 10% rate of return, which is what we've seen in the S&P 500 over the last, you know, 50, 60 years, it doubles about every 7 years. So $1 million turns to $2 million. So let's say from 23 to 30, that's pretty wild. And so $2 million turns to $4 million, 4 to 8, 8 to 16. And you're going, okay, now you're in your 40s with $16 million because you got started early. Now it's depressing for everyone watching who's going, George, must be nice. I didn't have $1 million at 23. Yeah, neither did I.

You might have $10 grand maybe at the end of the year if you're lucky, right? Or if you're like, if you really saved well at 23, 25, like you got to start somewhere.

Yes. But the people who wait and go, well, I want to enjoy life now, investing is for later me. You're going to regret that once you see how the math works on it. And I always tell people the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today. And so drop the baggage and the shame and the regret and just go, hey, there's someone else out there who's even older than me who wishes they started at my age.

What is the mindset that needs to change in people in order for their bank account to change?

Oh, there's a lot of delayed gratification missing from today's culture. And it's, it's not all your fault. Like marketing companies, technology, it all exists to create everything to be frictionless so that your money passes through your fingers like sand. And the problem is, if you don't grab a hold of it and make a plan for it before the marketing companies do, it's over. It's game over. Your bank account's going to be back to zero and you're going to be paycheck to paycheck. And here's what's crazy, Lewis. You would think, well, people who make more money, it's much easier for them. I just saw a Goldman Sachs study 40% of people who make over $500,000 are paycheck to paycheck. So it's not always the case that you make more, you're just going to save more. If you don't get control of it, your lifestyle creep will just rise up to meet you. You have a bigger car payment, a bigger house.

So 40% of people making over $500,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck.

They're broke. There's nothing left in the month after they make all of their payments.

How is that possible?

That's my question. Now, if you listen to the Ramsey Show, You'll go, oh, I see how it's possible. They overextended themselves, overleveraged, got way too big of a house too soon because now you have to live a $500,000 lifestyle. There's expectations.

You don't have to.

Of course you don't have to.

You gotta buy the boat.

Sarcasm, by the way. People watching are like, wow, this guy's an idiot. It's sarcasm. But there's expectations you put on yourself, expectations your people around you put on you. And a lot of them are self-imposed truthfully, 'cause nobody really cares. How you live your life, what kind of car you drive. It's really just how secure are you? The more secure you are, the better your ability to build wealth. It's insecure people who have the hardest time building wealth because every dollar has to be spent flexing to look rich instead of becoming wealthy.

Wow, man. Would you— would you say that emotionally immature people could make lots of money, but they usually lose it all?

Oh, I mean, Dave Ramsey would tell you that. He's— he'll be the first to tell you he outearned his stupidity. In his 20s. He knew how to make money in real estate, but he was so overleveraged, so cocky about it that he lost it all because there was so much risk in his life. And that's why we are so anti-debt. It's because debt equals risk. More debt equals more risk. And if you go on social media, which I found out over 60% of people 35 and under are— social media is their number one source of financial advice. So you're watching a TikTok of a guy telling you to go open up this whole life insurance policy to borrow money tax-free. And then go buy 10 pieces of property. All they're doing is being overleveraged, trying to get rich quick, and they're going to fall flat on their face. Or worst case, buy the guy's course for $3,000 and then be broke after that.

What is the— if someone says, I have an amazing financial opportunity in front of me where I could double my money in the next 6 to 12 months, it's this revolutionary new thing, it's decentralized, it's this unbelievable opportunity. You got to get in now before everyone What do you say to someone that's like, I think I can double my money in the next 6 to 12 months?

Oh man. Well, number one, I go, why? What's behind that? Because usually it's one of three things. It's fear, it's greed, or it's pride. And I call those the Three Stooges of wealth building in my book Breaking Free from Broke, because at the root of it, I was looking back at all the Ramsey Show calls we've taken where someone fell flat on their face trying to build wealth faster than they should have. And there's nothing wrong with, with making a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with doing it in a shorter amount of time. But I love this, this biblical proverb. Proverbs 13:11 says, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. And so that's Tortoise and the Hare. And so the faster you're trying to chase something, the higher the chance you won't get there. So that's the scary part when someone goes, well, I'm going to double my money in 6 to 12 months. Who told you that? It's a guy, an acquaintance, or a guy I met at a party, whatever it is. They're full of it. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. I mean, there's no guarantees in this life. Anyone telling you anything is guaranteed to double your money, you're about to get hosed on this deal. And so the more boring it is, the more excited I get about the opportunity, quote unquote, because I'll tell you, Lewis, the only time I hear the word opportunity on the Ramsey Show is when someone is trying to justify a terrible decision, really. But they've convinced themselves that, gee, I have an opportunity to buy the house from my dad even though I'm broke and don't have the money. It's always an opportunity.

Opportunity to lose your money.

Yeah, but that's the— our human psychology. That's how we can justify it. If it's— well, it's an opportunity. I'll never get this again. And there's, there's always going to be another opportunity around the corner that is getting ready to make you broke.

And there might be 1 or 2 people here and there out of a million that like actually do this. Like, okay, I got that opportunity and it worked and they somehow made it happen. And that's the scary thing. You'll hear stories of people saying, oh, I put my money in here and we flipped this house and doubled it within 6 months and there's no problems. But for every one of those, there's a million of other people that lost their money on that same type of deal. Yeah, right. It's like, it's so rare. And to think that you're going to be the one, that's probably— I guess you could go for it. And know that you might lose it all.

Yeah, I've done that. Well, the people who always share that one win, you go click through their profile, they've got a course to sell you. So of course they have to keep up this facade that they'll show you the way to do it. Yeah. When really they either are lying or they got lucky or they're making their money from their course, not from their brilliant financial strategy.

Right, right.

So I always— I love to be skeptical and cynical when it comes to opportunities and get rich quick.

What is the net worth someone should have at 30, 40, and 50 in your mind? Oh, for them to feel like they're on the right track for financial freedom. And what does it mean if someone's behind those benchmarks at 30, 40, and 50?

I love this question because there is no magic answer. And if I told you, you got to have a million by 30, Well, I'm just the next shyster, you know, making you feel hopeless. And so at Ramsey, we are a transformation company that we're hope dealers in a sense, because it doesn't matter what's happening at 30. It matters on where you're going, what your current life is, and do you have control of the money you have coming in? Because I'm not worried about the person who's 30. I'm worried about the person who's 65 and never learned this stuff because you can make up a lot of ground from 30 to 60. Now, if you want me to give you a baseline, because I've done a lot of these videos on my YouTube channel saying, hey, here's the average net worth, here's the CAMEL financial scoring system of what would be an A+.

Yeah.

What is that? And so to me, that is you are debt-free, you have money in the bank, and you're investing for the future.

Debt-free minus your mortgage, your home.

Yeah. So now the mortgage, once you have that paid off and this is what happened to me, the home equity from my paid-off house plus our investment accounts was equal to over $1 million. So that's a million-dollar net worth.

Now, it's not—

At 30?

Yes. It's not liquid, though. People go, well, you can't count the house. It's an asset. I don't know what to tell you. Accounting term says net worth is assets minus liabilities. What you own minus what you owe. Now, liquid millionaire would be you have $1 million you could hit cash out and take that money. So by 30, I think a good goal, if you can do this, is if you can be a homeowner building equity and be debt-free with money in the bank, You're crushing it.

Whether you have a $200,000 net worth or $1 million net worth, any money in the bank, $5 grand, $10 grand, doesn't—

if you have 3 to 6 months of expenses and you have a home that is a reasonable portion of your take-home pay, like 25% or less, you are ahead of 99.9% of America at 30. At 30.

Not saying you have your home paid off, but if you have one.

Yeah, yeah. And we found the average millionaire in our millionaire study, over 10,000 were studied. The average age when someone hit millionaire status was 49 years old. So people who go, George, it's too late for me, man. I'm 35 and I thought I was going to have $1 million by now. Well, the average actual millionaire who's done it doesn't get there till 49. So give yourself some grace.

And that's what— just total net worth millionaire, right? That's exactly—

cash millionaire. Exactly. So my— I would say a good goal if you want to set one is to have $1 million net worth by 50. And that might mean by 40 you're at half a million, right? Right. By 30, you're at a quarter of a million.

And also, is this with dual income or is this with as an individual?

It depends. We see different numbers for household income versus individual income. You know, household income is about $80,000. Average American salary is about $67,000. And people always ask, well, how does that work with net worth? And I go, well, my wife and I, we are one entity. There is no her money and our money. And, you know, I hope we never get divorced. I hope, you know, We're married until death do us part. Um, but the truth is we have a similar lifestyle. It's not like your, your expenses double just because you got married, you know what I mean? It doesn't work like that. And so as far as net worth goes, her name's on the deed of the house, my name's on the deed of the house, our names are on the cars, and everything we own is ours. And so sure, would it be nice if you— she had, you know, we had $2 million net worth and now we're If you even split it, you'd still both be millionaires. Sure, that's a great goal. But as far as accounting goes, on paper, you guys are net worth millionaires, whether it's single or dual.

Do you think it's easier to build wealth if you have a married couple who are fully committed to a vision of following the, you know, the Baby Steps that you guys have, being debt-free, being in alignment on values around money versus an individual trying to do that?

Oh yeah. I mean, it's a wealth multiplier to get married. There's a financial aspect to it. Even with a single income, like let's say a spouse stays at home and the other one works, there is still a wealth multiplier there because when you're not just focused on yourself, when you're single, you're just naturally selfish, right? It's not a bad thing, but you only have to worry about you. You don't have to worry about the kids and the wife. And when you get married, and especially when you have kids, which we're in this season right now, it shifts your focus entirely from I'm just trying to get by for me and live my life versus I'm trying to provide. I'm trying to project for the future, make sure my kids are good, that I'm leaving an inheritance to my children's children. As Proverbs says, 13— Proverbs 13:22, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. So now we're talking about generational wealth, and that causes you to make deeper sacrifices. Yes. You're willing to forego things that you might have enjoyed in your youth. The golf membership may turn into the college fund. Mm-hmm. And that's, I think, a wonderful thing. That's maturity and growth. And I hope you can afford both. You know, that's a good goal to like, yes, enjoy your life now. But the truth is, if you aren't on the same page, so single people have the— here's their life hack. Nobody's stopping them. Nobody's dragging them down. Because when you're married and you're not on the same page, it's nearly impossible to build wealth. We get that call on the Ramsey Show a whole lot. How do I get my spouse on board? They want to go into crippling debt. I'm trying to get out. Well, now you've got this tug of war.

What happens to most marriages when one person is financially, let's say, responsible and the other person is trying to spend, spend, spend and not try to save or invest at all? What usually happens in that marriage or relationship?

Well, you create a chasm and that chasm gets deeper and deeper until at some point you guys are roommates. Yes, you're doing life together, but you're basically Venmoing each other for bills and you have to untether at some point because otherwise they're going to drag you into the water and you're going to drown. And so what happens a lot of the times, the couple separate their finances. They basically separate their life. They happen to live together. Maybe they're basically co-parenting, but it's a really sad marriage. And the truth is, the spouse who's trying to better their financial future is resentful, and the spouse who's not is probably guilty and they have some shame.

They might be resentful too, saying, let's live our lives and let's buy this. Yeah, spend money.

Dave Ramsey ruined our life. This— I can't believe they drank the Kool-Aid and now they want to become debt-free. We used to have a fun life. What's wrong with the car payment? And so I've never seen it work out where they call in and go, You know, you have the couples who say, we've had separate bank accounts for 35 years and we have a great marriage. Sure, that's one issue. And I still think you would've done better had you combined your life entirely. Interesting. It's crazy. We're willing to combine a bed, our DNA, make children together. Yeah. And yet we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't, you're not gonna look at my bank account. You've seen me naked, but please do not look at my bank account. That's just wild behavior.

What is that wound coming from? When two intimate people who can have sex in the same day of meeting each other, in the first month of meeting each other, but won't talk about money and eventually after years won't align their, their money together. What is that saying about the wound or the psychological challenge that that individual might be going through?

Yeah, I found there's a couple of buckets as to why someone is very hesitant to combine finances. Number 1 is past hurt, trauma, baggage. So there was a previous marriage—

Around money?

Around money specifically. So there was a previous marriage. That spouse was out of control and now they're so fearful that they need to protect what's theirs. So there's, there's a fear element to it. There's a shame element to it is if they knew how I spent my money, they would not approve. There's a control element to it. You know, you see this a lot with narcissists. They're not going to have any purview into how I spend my money. They're not going to tell me. So there's all this fear, shame, control. These— I mean, these are not good emotions to be like filtering through your lens of how you're going to handle money. And what I found is that at some point there's some— what I call financial infidelity. And it's not always super malicious, but you find out one spouse has been saving up. They got $20,000 over here. Meanwhile, you're trying to pay off your debt and you're struggling.

What is financial infidelity and why is it so harmful to a relationship?

Financial infidelity is where there is not full transparency and accountability in a relationship when it comes to money, and that causes one spouse to do something behind the other's back, sometimes maliciously, sometimes it's addiction. That's another huge reason why couples are not willing to combine bank accounts. There's an addiction there, and once there's combined bank accounts, there's accountability, and they don't want that. They want to keep their vice. And so that's a huge thing we see on the show. Now, sometimes it's the most nefarious thing you can think of, right? They're cheating. I had— we had a call. This was so crazy. This is one of the most craziest calls we've taken. Rachel Cruz and I took this call. This woman said, me and my husband, our finances are out of control. Great. Normal call so far. He shows up to the apartment complex with a new car. Never told me. He's got a car payment on it. Took out a big loan. Never, never even discussed it with me. And she goes, and I'm no better. I've got my own financial problems. And he goes on all these vacations, doesn't tell me. And she goes, in fact, he's on one right now. And I went, I'm sorry, what? She goes, yeah. We said, where? Like, without you? I said, that's not a thing. It's weird. And she said, yeah, he's on a cruise. And Rachel said, does he do these a lot? She's like, he got a few more planned this year. So now our ears are perked up and I go, Amy, they're married. I think he's cheating on you. Like, I didn't want to just tell her, but I had to imply. And again, I don't know the full story, but you got to go. That's weird. Here's the craziest part. I said, do you ever go with him? She said, well, I wanted to go on this one. I told him I was going to book a ticket kind of jokingly. Next day he says, did you book it? And she said, no, I didn't book it. And he said, good, I don't want you to go.

This is— they're married.

This is a crazy— and they've got kids. Wow. And so this— these kind of calls break my heart. And it starts with they never got aligned when it comes to money. They were never on the same page. And suddenly things are bad. And that is the number one thing you've got to do before you ever put a ring on it. Yes. You've got to make sure that your money values are aligned more than anything else. You can disagree on politics and still have a great life. Even religion. You could get by if one of you is Catholic and the other one. But money, that will destroy you.

Isn't that interesting? I've seen couples who are like, one's Christian, one's Jewish, and they work— they somehow work out. Yeah. I have seen people who like, okay, we have different sexual tendencies or whatever, like we like— one person likes to have more sex than the other and they still work it out. But when money is not aligned, for whatever reason, there is so much friction that maybe they can stay together for a long time, but just suffer and eventually it falls apart. Why is money such a big indicator of the potential success of a relationship? Or the potential downfall of one?

Well, money, number one, is, you know, it's— people like to quote the verse and say, well, money's evil. No, no, no. The love of money is the root of all evil. So it's this love, this greed, this like, I can't be satiated. The discontentment is really at the root of that. But money is so emotional, it touches everything. I mean, any goal you have, money is usually a part of that goal. Even something like starting a family, having kids. That's gonna cost some money to raise a kid, send them to college. Maybe you want to cover the wedding. All these things affect your finances. Where you live, the kind of car you drive, everything that is visual in this world that you experience, money is tied to it. And then the other thing is we all have a way we grew up with money. Some of it was scarcity. So when you get some money, you're like, oh my gosh, this is crazy, I'm so rich, I want to spend, spend, spend because Or you go, I'm so tight because money was— even if you have $5 million, we get these calls and they go, well, I grew up poor and now I'm scared to spend a dime. Mm-hmm. Because what if I go back to that? Right.

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I had that fear. Yeah, it's a real fear. I was like, as I started to earn money, I just was driven to earn more. It was like, when am I going to feel safe? Like, when's the bank account going to be big enough where I feel like I'm not going to go broke. It took a while for me to, like, breathe and not just sleep on a couch when I could afford to, like, get a hotel room. I was like holding on to it for years.

Yeah, I just saw a great— Morgan Housel, who's a great author in the personal finance space, he said—

Psychology of Money.

Yeah, Psychology of Money, great book. And he said whatever the amount of money you have, you think you need double. So if you think you need $100,000 or you have $100,000, you want $200,000. If you have a million, you want 2 million. And he said the goalpost is always moving, which is so true. And I found this in the personal finance space. There's some people doing really well. They want more. But there's— and so I go, what is at the root of that? There's no actual values. There's no actual goals other than I like to make money. Yeah, that's a, that's a scary premise for your wealth building.

Well, here's the thing, though. You're making money. You do you have a goal for how much money you want to make or have invested for a future retirement or— Oh yeah. Do you have that? What's your number?

You know, as I've looked at it, there is the— there's the bare bones. Like, I could lower my lifestyle. And this is what I love. The more flexibility you have with this, the bigger the range. And you go, well, I could make this work on $1 million. Sure. If I had $10 million, I'd figure out a way to spend it. But the truth is, you know, there's always something fun and new to buy, you know, a property, a vacation home, more generosity. And so I do find that when I was in my 20s, $1 million was like, I made it, I could retire. And this has nothing to do with inflation. This is just like your prefrontal cortex. That's the number. Yeah. And the truth is, a lot of people have $1 million saved in retirement or less, and they have very wonderful lives. You know, they're not doing anything lavish, but they could survive off of that for the rest of their life and be okay. That's a real scenario. And so for me, I found like the, the $2 million mark for a millennial, knowing that, you know, 20, 30 years from now I want to be work optional. $2 million is like, that's a good baseline.

I found $2 million at 65 or in your 50s. In your 50s. Yeah.

Yeah. Because you don't, you know, I'm assuming I'm going to live a long, full life, God willing, you know, the creek don't rise, that I'll live in my 90s. Because when you look at the actual mortality rates and you look at the how long people are actually living in America today, the average age is like 78. But that's factoring in infant mortality and, you know, cancer. But if you make it to your 60s and you're in good health, there's a great chance you're going to go into your 90s. Wow. Barring anything crazy happening. Yeah. And so too many people aren't planning for that 30, 40 year retirement because they're going, well, if I die at 78, I retire at 65. I need a decade. I'll be good. Or even scarier, my kids will take care of me. And now we see the sandwich generation and Gen X is experiencing this.

What's the sandwich generation?

Well, they're trying to raise their kids and save for college and cover their own financial world while taking care of mom and dad. And so they are stuck in the middle of this sandwich. And mom and dad, I mean, we get this call a lot. They got nothing. There's no— maybe a tiny pension, maybe some Social Security. Average Social Security payment is now $2,000. It was only meant to replace 40% of income, and too many people went, well, the government will take care of me in my old age. And that's— those are the most heartbreaking calls, because unless you can continue working, there's not a lot you can do when you're in your 60s and 70s to recoup from not saving for retirement. Like we talked about earlier with that chart, you know, at 60 you might turn that dollar into $1.60 for from 60 to 65. You're not even going to double your money.

It's not much.

And so you really need to get started early. And back to the original point, money is, is so emotional. And when you don't have it, it is like oxygen. You need it to survive. And then once you have it, it can become a tool to help you live out your values and goals. But devoid of those values and goals, it is a never-ending chase. It is hell.

And I've heard you argue that getting out of debt isn't just a math problem, it's a behavior problem. So what is the identity shift that someone has to make before any budget or plan will actually start to stick for them?

Mm. The mindset shift they need to make is that they are not a financial genius. Too many people go, well, I'm going to try my way. And I go, hey, how about try it the way that millions of people have done first? If that doesn't work, if you hate that, you can try it your way. And the truth is, we don't want to submit ourselves to someone else's plan. And we wanted to feel like it was our idea, that we have control of it. And so when I gave up control to say, maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the room, maybe I should listen to this guy Dave Ramsey who's helped millions of people before me get out of debt, I'll try it. And so that's what I did. I was $40 grand in debt when I started at Ramsey at 23 years old. Student— mostly student loans, some credit cards, because I opened them to get my SkyMiles and cash back thinking this is the Plan, build your credit score, go into a little bit of debt, get some miles. American dream. Bada bing, bada boom. Get your degree. Little did I know I wouldn't be making $40 grand out of college. And so here I am going, how am I going to pay this off? And then I went through Financial Peace University, which is our flagship money course, and I followed the debt snowball method, which says, hey, forget interest rate. We are not trying to be mathematical geniuses here. We're going to focus on the smallest balance first. And that gives you a quick win because you can knock out the $1,000 balance way faster than the $10,000 balance. Yes. Regardless of interest rate. And so that gives you an actual psychological win that causes momentum. That's the behavior shift that needs to happen. And if you just want to focus on math, you're going to have a real hard time getting out of debt because it's really not about math. And we see this on the debt-free stage. People lose £100 on their debt-free journey And the reason is it's a transformation game.

Yes.

When you make a sacrifice and you see a result, you then go, where else could I implement this?

Yeah, in every area of life. And I feel like for whatever reason, you might have a stat on this, but in the last 5 years, I'm assuming debt has just increased so much by individuals, first with COVID and kind of the free money that people got and just spending online all day and whatever. They probably just stayed in that process.

Yeah, we are over $18 trillion in just consumer debt. Really? It's pretty wild.

What is the average debt of an American today? Do we know?

Yeah. If you have debt, the average is about $40,000 in the consumer debt and then about $100,000 once you factor in student mortgages and all kinds of debts.

$40,000 in credit card debt?

That's all consumer debt combined. So that's your, you know, the average if you added up their cars or credit cards and took the average of that. But I mean, we're seeing the numbers continually go up. We're at $1.67 trillion in auto loans. That's a record. $1.66 trillion in student loans. Oh my gosh. Another record. $1.3 trillion in credit card debt as a nation. That's a record.

What happens to a nation when $1.6 trillion in credit card debt turns into $10 trillion in credit card debt? What happens to individuals and a nation?

We point fingers at the president and say someone needs to do something about this. Inflation's out of control.

Wipe us clean of our debt, right?

Yeah, because as prices go up, The problem with debt is it makes it more palatable to, you know, take in that amount. So new cars now are almost $50 grand. Average new car payment is $750. Holy moly. Now, if we said, hey, you can't use debt to buy cars, what would happen to car prices? They'd go down because nobody's willing to spend $50,000 on a car.

You just buy used cars.

Exactly. Same thing happened with college tuition. Why did it skyrocket faster than almost anything else? Because colleges realized all these loans are backed by the government. Parents and families will continue to just take these out like Monopoly money. We can raise prices and no one's going to care. That's the scariest part about debt, is it's sort of— it's like, you know, you're boiling the crab here and you don't realize it's too late until it's over. It's in you. You're already in crippling debt. And so it's the— that's the biggest mindset shift you can make is to just take that off the table. And say, I'm only going to buy things I can afford. The exclusion being your mortgage. Obviously, you know, a $300,000, $400,000 house, very few people are going to have the foresight to go save cash for that. It happens. Yeah, it's hard, but it's few and far between. So mortgage is the only one we won't yell at you at. But every other type of debt is avoidable if you're willing to have that delayed gratification. And I know you drove a $4,000 car.

I had the car for 5 years back in the day.

Now, you could have went out and got a $20,000 car.

I was like, this gets me from A to B. Why do I need to spend all this money when I had a 1997 Cadillac Eldorado Buritz? It's a pretty sweet car. It was nice, but it had no radio, it had no AC, it had no Bluetooth, so it didn't have the conveniences of, you know, I had to entertain myself.

No CarPlay?

No CarPlay.

Oh my goodness.

No, no flat-screen TV in the front there, but it got me wherever I needed to go.

Yeah, well, that's because you were, you were secure and you knew exactly You're not trying to impress everyone else.

I wasn't trying to. And I was like, I'm using this whatever $500 or $800 car payment a month that I would be putting into a car payment plus insurance plus whatever else into my investments every month. Like, that was going automatically into my investment account, and it was building for my future self to say thank you. And I want to be— I want to look in the mirror at 50 and 60 and be like, look back at my younger self and say thank you for not spending all that money on that stupid thing that you wouldn't want a couple years later anyways. Yeah, you know, like, thank you for setting us up for success. Now look at this rich family life we have, you know, not just financially, but a rich life where we get to take adventures and create memories from experiences and trips and travel the world or whatever we want to do. Because of you at 25 and 30. Thank you. I want to look back and say thank you to my younger self.

Yeah. And that, that's some vision casting. You got to think about what the 10-year-out version of you is going to be proud of versus regret. And so it's a pretty good filter to go, you know, if I can just avoid financial regrets at 25, I'm going to be okay when it comes to building wealth.

Now, I've still made some regrets, you know. I'm still a risky guy, you know. It's like, what if we try this? Let me roll the dice on this project and see if it works.

Yeah.

And you can take more meaningful, calculated risks because you've set yourself up.

I have a goal for how much automatically is going away every month for a future goal.

Yes.

So it's like, all right, if I'm going to buy some expensive lattes every day because I've automatically saved and invested the amount that I want to, that's on me. I'm going to live my life how I want and how I choose, right? You know, I'm not going to be like Graham Stephan. I'm going to have sushi. I'm going to enjoy the sushi and not save until I'm 60 to eat sushi.

He'll get it paid for. He'll do like a sponsored post. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Get the meal covered. But that's true. You know, when it comes to that, the budget is what freed me on that. Like, everyone thinks the budget is some, you know, straitjacket mechanism for people who want to be tightwads. The budget allowed me to go, no, I budgeted for the frivolous coffee purchase. Yes. Every couple of days. Yeah. And I budgeted to invest $500 into my kids' college fund. And so once you actually create the budget, it frees you. It's permission to spend.

Then there's no guilt or shame because you plan for zero and you're like, man, I'm automatically saving and investing every month. I can do whatever I want with this money. Exactly. This is my money to do anything.

Being intentional allows you to be more impulsive. 100%. When it's in the budget, you kind of sort of have your impulsive line item.

I like that. But the financial system right now, I feel like, is designed to keep people in debt between credit cards, loans, and the buy now, pay later offers. What would you say then is the biggest debt trap that people are falling into right now?

Buy now, pay later has skyrocketed, and it's scary how many people are using it. Uh, it's over 1 in 4 Americans use buy now, pay later. 1 in 5 are using it to cover groceries. Oh no, it used to be the frivolous entertainment.

I can't afford the laptop.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the furniture, the appliance, that, you know, that's the old school. And now people are just using it to live and just adding it to the tab. And what's really scary is that 40% have been late on their Buy Now Pay Later payment, which then triggers the fees, the interest. And the craziest part to me is not even the interest and fees. It's how much more it causes you to spend. And there's data on this. Klarna will brag to retailers saying, "Hey, put Klarna under your cart and it will add up to 40% for your order size." Come on. On average, 40% more. Because think about it, Lewis is buying a $100 pair of jeans. Well, I see this Buy Now Pay Later. Now it's just $25 today and I can do the other $25 2 weeks from now, another 4 weeks from now. So what happens? Well, now your cart went down to $25. We can add some more stuff to the cart. And so you don't feel it. Again, to my original point, it's become so frictionless to spend money and it's exactly how companies like it. And so you have to add friction back into your life by saying, I'm not even going to have my, my debit card info tied to that account, let alone my credit card info. I'm going to not have any of these buy now, pay later apps on my phone that are going to tempt me to go spend more. And you have the value. Your identity is I'm a guy who doesn't borrow money. I'm a guy who pays for things in full, who saves up over time, and I'm really intentional. And once you do that, it's become real easy for me to not go into debt.

For someone who has been in credit card debt, student loan debt, deferred their debts for later dates for a long time, and that has been their identity based on their behaviors, how do they shift their identity overnight or over time to be a completely different identity and not be a person who goes into debt? Because it's a behavior, it's a mindset that they've had that they've embodied. Maybe it wasn't by choice originally. Maybe they made a poor decision financially and it just snowballed the wrong way. But because of that action or that circumstance, it has become their identity. How do they shift the internal identity first so that they stop making those choices externally?

There's a humility that comes first of going, hey, maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Maybe the way I've been doing it, even though it's normal, isn't actually optimal from my financial future. And then the other piece of this is you got to decide what kind of person you're going to be. Are you going to be a person who just always has a payment because that's what your parents told you and society told you, or are you going to kind of swim upstream? And I just talked to a bunch of college students yesterday at Arizona State University, largest public university, and it was scary to me how many of them had some student loan debt, had some car debt, had some credit card debt, And they were so nonchalant. They were like, well, I'd rather see the money in savings than pay down the debt. Not that exciting to pay down the debt. Very exciting to see my savings grow. But they're not realizing there's a false sense of security when you're hanging on to debt while having some savings built.

It's not real money.

Exactly. When you owe a lender $40,000 and you got $10,000 in the bank, the math says you're broke. Yeah. And that's the scary part, is you have to realize I can do so much better if I invested this car payment instead of gave it to Toyota lending for the rest of my life. So that's the math I do with college students, especially the young people. I pull up my investment calculator, I go to RamseySolutions.com, I plug in the numbers and go, what's your car payment? $500 a month. Great. Let's pop that in. If you keep carrying a car payment and just trade in the car, get another car, $500 a month, maybe even more, you are missing out on $1 million to $2 million plus. Uh-huh. That you would have had without even investing, just trading the car payment.

One of our team members here is a, you know, a younger team member. He doesn't have a car yet and he lives very close and he walks here and he's like, I'm thinking about getting a car. I go, you know, do what you want, but don't get a car for as long as you can because you can walk or take the subway or the bus and just invest that money at 23, 24, 25. Like, I get it, you might need a car eventually to be able to get around the town or something, but What would life look like if you didn't have a car for the next few years?

And if you get by without it, what would life look like?

And maybe it's not as convenient. Maybe you've got to take a couple Ubers here and there, or you got to take the bus and it takes a little more time, or you take the subway, or you ask a friend for a ride, or you get a bike. I have a friend that doesn't own a car. He has a bike. He goes all around the city. He says it's faster because that tracks in LA. That definitely tracks traffic. He says it's faster. His kids go in the back of his bike. He goes everywhere on a bike in LA.

I bet he's in great shape too.

Great shape. He knows all the bike lanes. He's got the app that tells you where to go to save time. And it's like for 10 years— his name's Michael Schneider— he hasn't had a car in LA. He goes to the airport in his bike and leaves it at the airport.

Chains it up at the airport. At the airport.

Everything. And he goes, it's created freedom in my life. Financial freedom also, but also just I'm outside, I see nature, I, I'm choosing to go places intentionally. I get a workout.

All these things like the minimalist. It's kind of that simplicity mindset of just how can I do more with less? Yes. And even to cars, the car is just the first portion of buying the car. Then you got gas, maintenance, insurance. I mean, we get calls on the Ramsey Show. They go, well, my car payment's $1,000, but the insurance is $300. Then gas was costing them $1,400 a month. Oh, 'Cause one of these gas guzzlers—

$2,500 a month right there.

Exactly.

Imagine putting $2,500 a month into your investment account.

That's how to shift that. Once you go, you need to get angry. And to your point, you say, what is it going to cost someone's mindset to shift who is carrying that debt? It's anger and pain. That's got to be the catalyst because you know this. I want to be in as good of shape as you, but I'm not at a point in my life where I'm so out of shape that I'm angry enough.

That it's not big enough pain.

Yeah, that's why we're inspired when someone drops 150 pounds. If I dropped 10 pounds, you would barely notice, you know what I mean? And so that's where there needs to be enough pain. And so what I try to do in the Ramsey Show and when I'm talking to people is pull the rubber band back to make them feel that pain because we've been desensitized. We're really good at avoiding pain even when it's there. Gosh, we've got so many vices in our life and distractions and, you know, anti-boredom devices.

Yeah.

We never have to actually experience our pain. We don't even know the amount of debt we're in. We're not going to look at the credit report or the bank account because that's negative energy. And so when you're actually forced to deal with the reality that causes some pain, now we— now we can start somewhere.

Yeah. What is the one thing people buy to look rich that actually guarantees they'll stay poor?

Oh man. I mean, the car is the most glaring. The house is the biggest. That's the biggest purchase that people buy as the like, I've made it. And you see this a lot. The scariest part is this happens with high earners, six-figure earners. They have the hardest time downgrading their lifestyle because now you have to live the six-figure life. You got to have a nicer house, got to have a nicer car. And if you live in a crappy neighborhood with a beater car, people go, wow, I thought they were doing well. Apparently not. Or it's again self-imposed where they go, well, I feel like I need to prove to myself that I've made it. So it all goes back to that insecurity. Yeah. And when you're secure in yourself, you're self-aware, you know who you are, what your identity is, what values you have around money. That to me, like that person is going to build wealth whether they make $50,000 or $500,000, because otherwise you can make all the money in the world. And if you're insecure with no self-awareness, with no real values or goals, just kind of untethered, you're going to go spend it all.

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That's so interesting. So if you're emotionally or psychologically insecure, you're going to be financially insecure as well. It sounds like either making poor financial decisions to look more successful or more secure, um, or just not having the confidence in yourself to go earn money based on your, your lack of worth. Yeah, it's funny because I was— I'm not saying I had it all figured out money-wise. I definitely have my money challenges, but I was so happy living in a 2-bedroom apartment until I was 40 years old. That might sound weird, but it's like I didn't need more. I was also never married So I was like, why buy a house?

Do you need a 5-bedroom house right now? I don't need this in LA.

And I was like, I don't want a starter home, like a 3-bedroom home. I have—

just to say you have a home.

Yeah, I didn't need that. I was like, let me just invest. I live fine in a 2-bedroom apartment. No, I had a nice 2-bedroom apartment and it's—

it wasn't a dump. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I didn't need that to flex, and I didn't need a nice car to flex. The only reason I bought a new car was for like a tax purpose for the business eventually. Otherwise, I had my $4,000 car for years and, and then I was like, all right, I think I want like GPS, you know, I want like radio. That was essentially what it was. But until then, I was happy in a 2-bedroom apartment, a $4,000 car in my late 30s.

Wow.

And I was fine.

You know what? I found out that this— and this is something I'm guilty of— once you go to a certain level, you can never go back. And the best example I have is Keurig. So I drank Keurig in college, right? I had the Keurig coffee machine. That was my college go-to. And then I found out about the Aeropress. Now making espresso, making lattes.

You're like, man, I'm like a—

and now, wow, I can't drink the Keurig anymore. Now I have a fancy coffee machine. I get single origin beans and I grind them fresh in my Baratza Encore grind, you know.

Yeah, you're a barista.

And now I go to a hotel with a Keurig and I go, oh, I can never drink that. And I found out this crazy This is what I realized. It's an epiphany. Maybe someone else has figured this out. The happiest people are the ones who can drink a Keurig happily. Yes. I'm jealous of them.

Or even powdered coffee, instant coffee. Yes. You just put it in some water and—

I used to judge them and say, "Wow, have some class, have some taste." And now I just look at them and go, "Must be nice." Must be nice to be free. Must be nice.

Yes. Psychologically, you're free from needing it to be a certain way.

So now translate that to the financial world.

Oh man.

Now I'm jealous of the person who has a simple life, The car that gets from A to B. Yeah, it's got a little fender bender here and there. It's not the prettiest. And they are happy as a clam because they're debt-free. They bought themselves freedom by avoiding the debt. By not—

by not paying for anything.

Exactly.

They bought themselves freedom by not overspending.

So realize that once you get that nice brand new car, you're going to have a real hard time ever buying a used car again. It's going to feel like a real downshift.

No, I can't do it now.

It's so hard. It's human nature.

Maybe I could with a car because I just don't care enough. But I have a Tesla that I really love. I'm just so comfortable in. Yeah.

But I'm like, OK. That's true. I'll never not be able to have a Tesla anymore. Electric, man. It changed my life. Well, the self-driving changed my life. I realized how little I enjoy driving once it did it for me.

And it's just better than you. Yes. It is better.

6 cameras—

It's better than you.

—100% of the time watching versus my human brain.

It's a superior machine. It is. It's unbelievable. It's hard to go back to like the Stone Ages. When I drive my wife's car now, I'm angry.

I'm like, oh gosh, I have to hit the pedal on my own? I have to hit the brake? This is insane. And so that's a great analogy for just human evolution and our standards. And so that's why it breaks my heart when people live beyond their means. They have the hardest time ratcheting down.

If you're going in debt to go beyond your means, it's going to be really hard to go back to a level you're not comfortable with.

Yeah. Versus someone who's like making $45 grand, who's not living above their means, but they're just having a hard time getting by. I could help that person all day long.

Gosh, you know what? When I was in high school, my mom bought me a $1,000 car. It was like— what was it like? It was a Honda Prelude and it was probably 1993 or something like that. It was stick shift. It was a two-door. It was so— beaten down, but it was like the coolest thing for me to just be like, I'm driving my stick shift, a little two-door car. I was happy in that car. $1,000 car. It only lasted for like a year and a half, but I was like, this gets me to school and back. I can go like see my friends. It was the coolest thing.

Isn't it funny how you look back at that nostalgia with like joy? You're like, that was when I may have been my happiest, and because you were living the simplest.

I mean, now I was struggling and psychologically and relationships and all these other areas of my life.

But sure, you didn't have the maturity. Exactly. Yeah.

But from that $1,000 car, I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. So maybe I could go back and have like a— I mean, listen, I could do anything if I had to. But, you know, if I was going to buy a used car that was like maybe a stick shift, like truck or something, just to have something to get me around, maybe it's like, all right, cool, I can enjoy this.

That's the new thing now, is we want to go back to the old school analog, like add friction back in. I want it to be difficult to drive the car.

I think people really want want that. I'm seeing— I'm getting all this content fed to me of homesteading. My wife really wants to have like land. You like live in Tennessee, you're probably essentially homesteading yourself, you know. It's like you guys live in Tennessee, you've got like the—

my friend Dr. John Deloney, that's like his thing. He wants to just have a ton of land, be able to live off the fat of the land, have the garden.

And it's this idea of having, you know, a little piece of land, a few acres, having your own animals, chickens, growing your own food and living off-grid where you don't need to spend money on a car, on rent, on electricity, on utilities, the chaos of society.

Exactly.

You don't have to be bought into the machine, right? You can just save your money, invest it so you can buy your piece of land and live off-grid. What do you think of that lifestyle? I feel like it's coming back, or I'm just being fed this content that more people are doing it because they don't want to be spending so much of their time making money to pay bills. Yeah, they want to be spending their time with their kids, teaching their kids, tending to their animals and their land, having quality time, making bonfires, playing board games, and living that dream. What do you think about that life, or people wanting to go back to that way of living versus the conveniences of life? I think most people love the idea of it.

I think they would hate the reality of it, of how hard it is to get old real quick and how much sacrifice it actually takes. I mean, go ask a farmer, like, I want to live on a farm. And do you know what time they're up? Yeah. Do you know how much they're working during that day just to, like, get by and survive and tend to the fields and the crops and the animals and the cattle? It's an insane amount of work. So the homesteading became popular on Instagram. And so then you find out, well, it's kind of a farce because they had all this family money and they kind of started the trend. And you're like, okay, so you need $5 million to own all this land, build something beautiful on it, and then maintain it with help and, you know, labor because you're not going to do it all yourself. So it's a little bit of a fantasy, but the idea behind it is I want to get out of the noise. I want to get out of the chaos, the consumerist culture, the grind, the treadmill. That part I relate to. I think we're just jumping to the most extreme, the pendulum swinging so hard because we're so exhausted by this life we've created for ourselves.

Where do you feel like it's going to be by 2030? You know, I keep hearing about this 2030 agenda. You know, no one's going to own anything and be happy. The Great Reset. The reset. They've been saying this since 2020, right?

Since it's like the people with COVID guessing the, like, the last day of the earth. Like the apocalypse. Right, right, right. Like, oh, we miscalculated. It'll be 3 years from now. So nobody knows, you know, only the Lord knows when it's all coming down. I live my life—

In terms of the financial situation. Yeah, not like the world.

They're saying there's going to be a crash and it's too good to be true. There's a bubble with AI and, you know, there's all kinds of financial institutions going, hey, the market's not going to be good the next decade. It's going to be a real rough and tumble. But then it always comes back. Well, you look back, what were they saying a decade ago? Same thing. No one predicted where we'd be today. Yeah. And so I think there's a lot of pessimism and that's what gets clicks. If you went, hey, the market's going to continue to do great, keep on keeping on, I'm tuned out now. There's not much you can say there. Yeah, but you can dig all day long into how terrible things are going to be. So I'm a glass half full kind of guy when it comes to the future of the economy. Everyone thinks, you know, everything's inflated in the stock market right now because of AI and technology. And I'm like, What if you're wrong and AI actually bolsters the stock market for the next decade? And we'd see, you know, we saw returns like 25% up, 23% up, 17% up in the last 3 years. Wow. And then people go, George, you always say 10% returns. Nobody's getting that. Mike, you're right. If you've been actually investing, you'd notice it's been more like 17, 20, 23, 25% the last couple of years.

Yeah, but if you average it over the next 40 years, if you get 10%, that's amazing.

Exactly. And that's what we've seen. I mean, there's more up years than down years in the stock market. If you go look at the charts and there's not a whole lot of years where there's a crash like 2008, and there's a whole lot of years where it's up 10, 12, even 20%. And so I'm not like a, you know, pie in the sky guy. I like to look at the data to inform what could happen in the future.

Yeah. What does true financial freedom look like to you?

Hmm. I think it comes down to peace for me because you see a lot of people with billions of dollars who have no peace in their lives. They don't have good relationships. Their family doesn't like them. And so when you think financial freedom is just a number, you have missed the mark completely. It is so much more than that. And so financial freedom is, do I have to do what I'm doing to get by or do I have options? So it's option, it's margin, it's the freedom, it's the flexibility to go live where you want to live, do what you want to do without being beholden to payments or a paycheck. So yes, once your assets can replace your income, that technically is financial freedom, because you technically have that passive— you know, I'm going to call it passive income. Sometimes you're working. If it's real estate, nothing passive about it. You're working to manage it. Exactly. But if it's in the stock market, if it's in an index fund that spits off 10%, on a given year and that replaces your expenses for the year. And that's why living on less than you make is so important, because if you make $1 million but you only spend $100,000, well, when there's a shift in the economy, you have total freedom. When you have cash in the bank to cover 1 to 2 years of your expenses, you're never going to worry about selling off your stocks the worst time in the stock market. So to me, financial freedom is creating that level of peace in every corner of your life so that you can be healthier, in every corner of your life.

What's this idea of the doom loop? Oh, yeah, the doom loop. What is the biggest doom loop you see keeping people broke right now in 2026? So Dr.

Arthur Brooks was on my YouTube channel and he was talking about the doom loop as far as, you know, it was more about addiction in that regard. But then we connected it to money and it was fascinating to see the sort of hedonic treadmill of payments and emotional spending. So we see this a lot with retail therapy. It's a great example. You go out and the most exciting thing is the process of the purchase. The next most exciting thing is when you get the purchase, and then the diminishing returns, it like skyrockets down. So what happens? You feel guilty about making the purchase because it was likely impulsive. It was more than you should have spent. It was on a credit card or buy now pay later. So what do you do when you are anxious, guilty, feeling shame? Well, now I'm going to DoorDash a $30 burrito to eat my feelings and then go buy more stuff to get that next dopamine hit. Mm-hmm. So that's what it's all about, is we get addicted to the dopamine hit, whether it's sports betting or the prediction markets or retail therapy. Choose your poison. Alcohol, whatever the thing is, whatever you do the most, you need then more of it to keep up. And so that creates this doom loop that Dr. Arthur Brooks talks about. And it's so prevalent in the money world across the world. I mean, if you look at all the most popular trends that are hurting people— sports betting, prediction markets, pornography, alcohol, gambling, gambling apps, buy now pay later— all of it is cyclical and causes you to go get more of that thing. None of it is like, hey, I got it, I'm good. It's, hey, come back in. And now because it's on my phone, they can market to me. It's a new notification saying, hey, 17 of your friends just bet on this thing. Do you want to get in on it? So now there's socialized peer pressure on top of technological addiction. And then we're wondering why we're all broke, miserable, and anxious. What do you think?

The Polymarket is a really bad thing. I haven't— I've like been seeing people talk about it. I haven't been on there, but what is this? What is this? And do you think it's a bad thing?

The Polymarket? Yeah, I'm going to go as far to say it's a cancer on society. Wow. It is like everything that is wrong with the world put into one terrible product. Because what's happening is you're getting a lot of especially young men who already aren't doing great as far as their vices. And so now they've marketed this thing to be like, well, it's not gambling. You're just sort of predicting on a future event. You're hedging your bets against the future. But it's not gambling. And the companies will even tell you that, the CEOs. I mean, John Oliver just did a great deep dive on prediction markets that is well worth the watch. And he broke this down. And what happens is these companies have doubled in valuation every year or two because everyone's cashing in on it. So now CNN's got the Kalshe-sponsored, you know, predictions down at the bottom of the screen the whole time. And so now it's normalized. And when something gets normalized, like we've seen with, you know, you name it, legalized dispensaries or gambling apps, as you know, Supreme Court said, hey, states can decide. What does every state decide? We want that money. Yeah, let's open it up. So now you have especially young men. There's an epidemic of young men that are glued to this thing and they are going, hey, I'm going to bet if Donald Trump's going to burp today, I'm going to put $200 on that. And now there's people streaming. They get— they make their money by streaming themselves following these predictions. Really? Yes. It is insane how far it's gotten. You know, it's like you used to be streaming video games. Okay, that's— if you're into that, that's right. Now they're streaming if they made money or not on their predictions.

They're just waiting all day just saying, okay, we're waiting for the news to break. If someone— if this happens, how do they even know if this thing actually happens?

They'll like livestream the C-SPAN, you know, show to see what they say.

I mean, how do they know if some of these things actually do happen? Like this I don't know, burping thing. Yeah, say like, how do they even know?

Well, it's all algorithms and computers tracking it all. And here's what's crazy: the top 1% are getting 84% of the profits. Top 1% on the— on these prediction markets.

How are they getting that? So they're predicting—

very few people are actually making a profit is what's happening. And the stats are crazy. I mean, there's $44 billion made in predictions. Like, that's the pool of money. These companies made $256 million last year just in profits from people losing their money. I mean, so it's, it's no better than Vegas. And in a lot of ways it's worse because it's so normalized, socialized, and it's in your, in your palm 24/7. You can bet on anything happening.

It's not gambling. It's not considered gambling legally is what they're saying.

Exactly. So they've avoided taxes. They've avoided a whole lot of things by convincing everyone that It's not gambling.

Where do you see these prediction markets playing out over the next 5 to 10 years? Like in terms of individuals spending money on these things over the next 5 to 10 years?

I'm not a betting man, but I would bet that it gets worse.

You had to put a prediction. Yes. Prediction marketing.

$20. Is it going to be better or worse? I think it's going to be very similar to buy now, pay later, where these companies grow and grow and grow. There's more competition. The industry grows as a whole. Now it's, you know, just like FanDuel and BetMGM just integrated themselves into the media. We're going to see that and we're already seeing it. CNN and CNBC, they're already weaving that in there. Hey, Polymarket said this and Kalshi said this, and they're choosing which one you're going to partner with. And now these companies are making a lot of money by including this. Into their broadcast.

Is all money made good money made? Oh, are there unscrupulous— I mean, profiteers? What is the psychology and the— what happens in the, the mind and the nervous system of a human being when they make money in a certain way where they know maybe that's not the best way, or maybe it's not in my, my value system, or maybe I've had to shift my value system Yeah, to justify making this, whether it be through drugs and alcohol, through sex, through porn, through selling their bodies, through gambling, through prediction market, whatever it is, something that's out of alignment with their core values, or they've had to shift constantly their value system to make sense of how they've made money. Is all money made good money made?

Absolutely not. I tell you that because the calls we get on the Ramsey Show, we get people who are they're questioning, hey, how do I leave this field? I don't feel good about it. And it's not even as nefarious as that. It's, I sell whole life insurance or I'm a car salesman, and now that I'm debt-free, I don't want to feel like I'm a part of this system that's putting people into crippling debt. And so the good news is there's a huge financial industry out there. A lot of it is debt-related, but there's a lot of great pockets where you can actually help people and know that it's not hurting them. And that it's not about your commission, that you were a sort of fiduciary. You're doing what's in their best interest versus what's best for your own pocket. And that's where I think if it's eating away at you, that's your body telling you this is not the job for you. So that's not a judgment on whatever job you have, but if you're a person who says, this is my identity, this is the moral values I have, the political values, whatever it is, when there's that, that cognitive dissonance that will eat away at your soul. And so there's a soul tax to be paid. And the longer you stay in that job, the harder it's going to be to recover. And so I always encourage people, do something where you sleep well at night knowing you actually help people. Otherwise you have to either justify it of why it's good or you have to make peace with it. And making peace with it is way harder. Yeah.

Do you believe the American dream is dead?

If your American dream is owning a private jet, yes, the American dream is dead. That, that's the bar we've set for ourselves of what the American dream is. You know, it used to be like, you know, a house, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, a car. And now we're mad. That was the boomers' generation. We're all angry at them for ruining everything. So now the new American dream for a lot of people, I think a healthier one, is debt freedom. Like, we're all aiming at freedom and peace now, which is the healthiest version. The most unhealthy version of the American dream is get rich quick. I gotta step on everyone else to get to where I want to go. And at the end of it, you go, okay, the goal is to make a lot of money. If you polled 18 to 25 year olds and said, what is your goal in life? Make a lot of money. I mean, that's the most viral, uh, call I did on the Ramsey Show. We uploaded to TikTok. It was an 18-year-old who said How do I turn $100,000 into $1 million by the time I'm 25? And I went, okay, so you're 18, 20, so 7 years. You want to turn $100,000 into— you need $900,000 in growth or make that much in 7 years. So I asked him why. He said, I don't know, it was just a question. As soon as I poked one hole in it, he got spooked. But he had no real goal other than— here's what he was really saying. I'm scared if I don't have $1 million by 25, it's too late for me to ever build wealth. Wow. That my life is going to suck if I don't have $1 million by 25. So the American dream, the definition is squishy now. And depending on who you ask, the American dream is to make $100,000 or it's to make $10 million. And so you need to set that bar for yourself, but you need to do it for the right reasons. And it all goes back to how secure are you? What are you actually aiming for? Do you have a family? Because that changes your goal significantly versus the young single guy who just wants to make a lot of money and live a lavish life. And you can go read Ecclesiastes. Guy named Solomon tried it. Richest guy in history had it all. And he went, everything is meaningless. At the end, he said, eat, drink, be merry. Yes, have a good time, but know that none of this really matters in the end. And I was like, that's a— that's a mic drop that I think a lot of young people need to hear. And you hear rich people say it all the time, right? Money's not everything. And they go, well, I'd like to find out for myself.

Yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say. Easy for you.

If you don't got money. Yeah. As you sit on your yacht, one of your many.

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Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T Business Wireless, checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes.

AT&T Business Wireless. Connecting changes everything. You know, and so that's the hard part is you kind of need the experience.

How do young people believe older people who have money when they say money is not everything? It's just angering to them.

They don't want to hear from someone who has it, right? And so that— and that's again where life experience comes into play. You kind of have to get a taste of it, of the thing that you want, to realize it's not going to fulfill you.

I tell you what, money is— hasn't been the, the reason I am fulfilled, but it adds a lot of fulfillment. Yes, it adds a lot of fulfillment because you've used it as a tool, because I've used it as a tool. And being broke wasn't enjoyable either. You know, being broke wasn't fun and fulfilling. But when I was broke and I found a way to create joy in my life, I was happy. I didn't want to be broke, but I found a way to be happy. And I think that was interesting. I was like, oh, I can enjoy life with very little and I can still have a great time. And have these adventures and have this sense of freedom where I can just jump on a bus and go across the country and like try this new thing and it cost me $50. I don't have anywhere to go, but I can do something adventurous. Like that, that idea of wonder was enriching in my life. Yeah. Once I flipped the interpretation of where I was at in my life, when I was like, oh, I don't need to be rich in order to have a good time, I can do free things and create cool moments in my life. Now, it didn't mean I wanted to stay poor. I didn't want to stay broke, but I definitely—

it's not a virtue to say I'm going to stay broke forever.

No, no, I didn't want that. I was also scared because I didn't know how to make money, and I didn't understand money. I didn't have the knowledge or the emotional intelligence around money, so I was scared of money. So it took me some time to like really start researching and having a language around money and having conversations around it and asking and questions around it to where it felt more accessible for me to earn. I had to learn how to develop internal value and self-worth so that I could receive money. And I think that was a process for me. But I'll tell you what, I thought, you know, having money and earning money has created more value and confidence in me to enjoy life. But I think— I don't think I would have been fulfilled had I not learned how to also create inner peace in the journey. Exactly. There's a lot of people who have a lot of money who are stressed out and overwhelmed all day. And the poor person saying, well, I'd rather have that rich guy's life or gal's life and be stressed than be poor and stressed. Yeah, there's an argument for that, but there's also an immense pressure and immense um, that I've seen wealthy people who are internally sick have, where they commit horrible actions in life. They do really bad things with the money. They commit suicide because they don't know how to handle it emotionally and psychologically. And so if you are internally sick and have a financial abundance, that's not a good combination. Yeah. And so it's learning how to have Freedom and peace is what I heard from you. That is really American dream. If you can have inner freedom and inner peace and be debt-free and then learn how to create financial freedom for yourself, whatever that number is for you, then you can create that fulfillment of life with it as well.

Exactly. And Dr. Arthur Brooks, he said there's 5 things you can do with money and one of them doesn't bring happiness. And this goes back to your point. So the first thing you can do with money is you can buy stuff. Second thing you can do with money is buy your time back. That's a great one. Third thing you can do is buy experiences, spend money on experiences, especially with people you love. He said that one has the one of the greatest ROIs. Fourth thing you can do is save money, invest money. Also great. Very good feeling. And the fifth thing is giving money away. And the one thing that won't bring happiness is buying stuff. Yeah. And what is the one thing we focus on as a consumer culture? Buying stuff. Because guess what? Rich is visible. Wealth is invisible. And so stuff equals rich to a lot of people.

It showcases you're rich. Yeah.

No one— I'm not going around with a t-shirt with my 401 balance on it. You know, I don't have a shirt that says I have inner peace and a 401. That could be some good merch.

We'll work on that.

That's good. Buying your time back. That's one of the things I've been doing recently, having kids now, is How much stuff can I delegate that I don't enjoy doing or that takes me a lot of time so that I can be more present and focus on things that I'm good at or enjoy? That's a game changer for me. And then buying experiences. I mean, this is the vacations, the trips, the memories. Like when your kids are older, that's the stuff, the core memories made from like 10 to 16. Those are formative. Yes. For your kids. And so that's where I want to focus on instead of Yeah, but I had some pretty sweet stuff that my kids ended up having to send to Goodwill after I died. Right. And so that, to your point, the older you get, the more mature you get, the more secure you get, the more you focus on those other 4 areas. And too many people have overindexed on stuff because the easiest one to show people that you've made it and to show yourself that you've made it.

If someone is a compulsive buyer of things, What is missing inside of them that requires them to constantly buy online, offline to feel good?

Well, the root of that is discontentment, and the— what's underneath that could be a myriad of things, but namely it is there was something that happened in my life, probably a past trauma or a childhood, a scarcity thing, where I learned that the way I could cope was by getting a thing. And that thing could distract me for enough time that I didn't have to deal with the real pain underneath. Man. So that's the heart of it. And most people, if you polled them and said, hey, what's really going on? And I sat, you know, they were with a therapist for 3 weeks. We could probably get to the root of, I see what happened. That trauma, you didn't know how to deal with it. You didn't have the tools to deal with it. So you just said, I'm going to go into a bunch of debt to try to feel something. Because I'm not getting this thing over here. And so there's a lot of just unhealthy behaviors underneath the surface that manifest themselves as impulsive spending. And sometimes there is addictive behaviors that need to be dealt with. And that's why I always tell people to add friction back in your life, take away all of your ability to impulsively spend, whether it's through accountability with a spouse, removing your debit card info, don't have the app on your phone. You know, it's like if you had a bunch of junk food in your pantry, are you going to be more tempted to eat junk food? 100%. And if your pantry is filled with, you know, clean foods— I mean, the green room over here, we were just joking about how clean the foods are. Everything's high protein. All the drinks are super clean, no sugar. And I'm going, yeah, well, Lewis Howes is going to be healthier if he doesn't give himself access and temptation to the things he knows are bad for him. Yes. And yet when it comes to money, we give ourselves unfettered access to all the things that are destroying our life. And then we wonder why we're not where we want to be. We're not feeling how we want to feel. So the solution is so much more simple than we would give ourselves credit for, but it's to add friction back to our lives, make things intentionally a little more difficult, because that's where the true peace and growth lie. And the easier you try to make life, the more comfort you chase, the more miserable you'll end up being. And Michael Easter wrote a great book on this called The Comfort Crisis, where he talks about it, kind of how we got here. And he has a whole, you know, a website called 2% where he goes, 2% of the people take the stairs, 98 would take the elevator. And so it's do the hard, uncomfortable thing because that's what creates a fulfilling life, not chasing the easiest path that was laid out before you by marketing companies.

What would you say is your biggest struggle with money today? From being, you know, at the Ramsey Show and teaching these things and applying it, what is your biggest challenge still that you deal with around money?

I've done the, um, StrengthsFinder assessment, and my number one was Futuristic. So I'm always so focused on the future, and I have financial plans for days. Until I am 98. Here's what the net worth might be. Here's what I could do. Here's all the variations and projections. And I have a really hard time stopping myself and say, stop, you're good. You don't need another goal. Be content with the life you have. Be present with the people around you and stop being so focused on, okay, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And that is, that is the one thing I really struggle with today. And part of it is because I'm a nerd and I just enjoy it. Yeah, it's like a hobby for me. It's fun. I don't golf, I don't work out. Yeah, I make financial projections on my phone and whittle, whittle at them and have fun with that. But there is a real truth to it that I am— I need to work on my own version of what contentment looks like when it comes to wealth, because I know the goalposts will move. Yeah.

Once you hit it, then what?

Yeah. You see this with the FIRE movement, Financially Independent, Retire Early. Yeah. You'll see the threads and they'll go, hey, our goal is $2 million, but now we're thinking $5 million. Just with the way things are going and kind of how we want to live our life. And then when they get to $5 million, what happens? Well, I think $10 million. Yeah, with inflation, I mean, I feel like $10 million is probably a safer bet. Then they work jobs they hate that are burning them out. They're making great money, a couple hundred thousand dollars if they're shoveling it all away. That's kind of how the FIRE movement works in your, in your 20s, 30s, and maybe even 40s. But then they're burnt out and they spend the rest of their life trying to recover from the marathon they just ran that wore them out. And so there's a, I think, just a healthy balance of moderation here of be intentional, but don't lose your soul to some financial goal.

Wow. What is the— what is the philosophy of the FIRE movement?

The philosophy is I don't want to have to work till I'm 65 and not have that freedom to do what I want to do, to set my own schedule. And therefore what I'll do, which this is the one good thing about it, is that delayed gratification. I'm going to work my tail off. I'm going to make as much money as I can, spend as little as I can, and invest the difference. So it's just taking a good thing to an extreme. Anytime, anytime you take something to an extreme, it usually ends up being unhealthy. It's like financial minimalism. Oh, yes. And so it's cool because they, they're not living flashy lives. They're driving the, the older cars. They're not taking all the trips. But at what cost? And so I'm a big fan of live your life how you want to live it now while preparing for the future. And then you can change some dials on there. You don't need to work to your 65, but let's also not villainize work because what happens is they find an encore career because someone who's making $200,000 had a lot to contribute to society.

And you stop giving value to people just to like sit on a beach all day. You get bored real quick.

I'd be bored. Exactly. And so they find themselves with an encore career doing the thing they probably should have been doing all along, maybe even making more money because they're good at it.

And they found like, oh, I'm good at this and people find value from this and I get paid really well and wow, amazing.

Exactly. So there's a balance to be found there. And that's the one thing I'm struggling with is how aggressive should I be? How can I ratchet down and enjoy life more now and spend more on, you know, my wife wants to go to Disney. My daughter's 2 and a half, my son's 7 months, and you're like, that's— and you're like, oh, it's just for us. And that's okay.

It's not for the kids because they can't enjoy it.

Yeah. Once I had it, once I told myself it's okay, not everything has to have intense utility for it to be good. And I'm such a utility guy, really. I have a hard time letting go and going, this is a waste of money and it was worth it, man. I want to waste money in the right ways.

That's what you did with that jacket. Exactly. You know, you wanted to look good. I want to look good for Lewis.

I said, let's really spread. Now Lewis wants—

I love that.

Next time we're going to be in matching jackets. I like it.

Yeah, I like that a lot.

If I had muscles like you though, everything would be short sleeve. I just want you to know that I'm hiding a lot here. I like that, man. That's cool. I appreciate it.

What's one thing, if you had to spend and indulge money that you would never spend on something in the next 12 months, that would bring you more joy and live in the moment now, what would that be? Oh, thing, trip, item, whatever.

So the, the two areas that we focused on, my wife and I, because now she stays home. So we met at Ramsey, so the money goals and values align already there. It's beautiful. We saved a lot of time on our, on our dates without having to talk about all that. Sure. And so she ended up staying home when we had our first kid after her 9-year career at Ramsey. And so my big focus, I said, hey, the home is now your office. So when we bought our new house, I really wanted it to be beautiful. And the amount of upgrades you can do to a home on a new build, it's insane. So much. And so we did a lot of splurges because I wanted— we like an aesthetic home and it's just for us to enjoy. We're not like, like, you know, no one's seen the inside of our house all the time.

So you want to enjoy it.

Exactly. And I realize a lot of times when people go spend a lot of money and want to leave their house and go to bars and eat out, it's because their own space is not a fun space to be in. It's kind of depressing. And so I wanted to make our home really beautiful. So we put a lot of money into that to make that an awesome space. And then car, I finally upgraded because Dave was making fun of my, my cars. I didn't do it for Dave, but I did get a Tesla just to piss him off again. So I got a newer Tesla. It's 13 years newer than my last one. Wow. Which, you know, technology, I mean, it's way better. Started about 13 years. Way better now. So that was an absolute game changer. And in my mind, the fact that Old George would be like, you did what? Are you serious?

Brought you a lot of value. Yeah. And every day you get to experience that value, right?

Exactly. So there are things that I still think are like— I think I'll go to the grave thinking they're a waste of money. Things that I like— DoorDash, for example. Oh yeah. Even when I'm— if I was a billionaire, I would still be like, yeah, I'll just go pick it up. I'm not— I'm not going to pay double for that same burrito. I'd have to be real desperate. You know, if you live in LA like here, I get it. It would take you 3 hours. To go out and do anything in LA.

Yeah, it was at least 5 minutes down the road. Yeah, pick it up.

But I actually enjoy doing the things myself. I enjoy going to the grocery store. That's cool. Versus getting Instacart. Yeah, I like the, the hunt and the search. So that's cool. The things I think I could ratchet down and enjoy more are those experiences and trips where I go, you know what, this is really— the kids may not remember, but we'll have the photos and videos. And so that's the part I'm giving in to my wife.

What's the one trip Oh, so you guys got to do Disney then?

I think we have to at this point. Yeah, in the fall, whenever I did. So I used AI to tell me what is the best day to go to Disney with the least amount of crowds. That's great. As I get older, I think I have like sensory issues. I don't like loud environments. Yeah, you know, crowded environments. So I need it to feel like I can breathe.

Good luck at Disney. Exactly. There's no off day.

That's why I'm like, what is the day with the least amount of people? I don't care if it's miserably cold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll be out there in a jacket.

There's no cold here in LA either.

You'd be nice. Yeah, I should come to— that's where I need— forget Orlando. Go to Orlando. It's just so much closer to Tennessee as the crow flies. That's true. You know, you take a trip with a toddler and an infant, you're like, maybe we should have chosen the shorter flight. That's true.

That's true. Uh, this has been awesome. Uh, George, you've got an amazing show, YouTube channel, Smart Money Happy Hour. You're all over social media. George Campbell on social media as well. And you're doing a lot of man-on-the-street content now, which is kind of cool. So you're going out there and you're asking people, the real people, what's going on, and you're getting the content.

Harassing strangers. I like that. It's a lot of fun. That's— it's voyeuristic, I think, is what people enjoy about it.

I got to try that at some point. It's figuring out like how much time it takes. You said it just takes too much time. Oh, it's a good—

you know, you're out there 4 or 5 hours in the elements.

You might get a video, right?

I mean, you've been solicited by strangers in the street. Yeah. Not exactly.

I'm going to my next thing. Yeah.

Now you're a more intimidating figure. Right. But I also think people would rather talk to you than me. So I think you've got a shot.

Never know. What if you offered people $100 to give you a conversation?

Have a conversation? Wow. We should try that. I'll see if Dave Ramsey is willing to foot the bill. Yeah. So, Dave, we need $1,000 every shoot to talk to 10 people.

Hey, you get a lot more videos. But you don't want—

if then they're forced to talk to you. I want them to. I want them to want it. That's true.

Want it? Want to suffer with me?

Exactly. Reveal yourself. I think the reason people love it and watching it is because they want to see how they stack up. It's a little bit unhealthy, but also very entertaining. Yeah. And I can do my best teaching in a casual conversation versus a direct-to-camera. Yeah, it's not as heavy-handed. That's good, because now you're learning through their mistake and me pointing out, hey, if you invested this much, you could have this much in retirement. Wow. And I convinced an 18-year-old day trader to open a Roth IRA and invest instead. Right there. He said, I've never heard of investing. What is that? I said, you know how to day trade, but you don't know what investing is. And I said, if you delete the day trading app, I'll give you our budgeting app, EveryDollar. I will show you how to open a Roth IRA so that you're actually building for the future instead of speculating, hoping to make a buck. And so that was— I feel like I did a good deed that day.

What's the difference between day trading prediction markets?

Who, you know, they're very similar in that they're both speculation. You're just sort of fingers crossed. It's, it's gambling, but it's better branding. I find day traders tend to be more sophisticated because it is more— you need to have more know-how. Yeah, anybody can say, you know, what's gonna, you know, what's gonna happen on the news, and what's gonna happen is the Strait of Hormuz gonna open this week? Yes or no?

That's an easier thing than learning how to day trade and going through a prop firm, being on there all day or whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, it takes a lot of time. And the truth is, you know, 97% of people do not profit if they stick with it for a year. And so day trading— so it's a real— the stats are sad. You have a better shot making money with a multi-level marketing company, wow, than you do day trading.

What is one stat around money or the economy right now that has blown you away?

Oof. 4 in 10 people have $0 in savings. That one kind of shook me, and it spoke to this idea that why are we going into crippling debt? Because we don't have any money to pay for the thing. And so there's this endless cycle. It's a doom loop where I don't have the money, so I go into debt, and then another thing happens, and I have to keep going into debt because I wasn't able to save up because I was making the payments. And that's how you get stuck in the cycle. And I think if more people realize that your emergency fund is a never-go-into-debt-again insurance plan, they would make it a priority. They would get rid of the debt, free themselves of those payments, stack the cash in a savings account, in a high-yield savings account. Don't touch it. It's a break in case of emergency, not I want to go on the trip impulsively. And if you did that, we would see such a shift in the economy. When it comes to how stressed people are, how anxious they are, the kind of jobs they had to work, you know, and that's the most heartbreaking calls when people are working because they have to and not because they want to. And that's where these people end up if they keep living this way. And so no matter how old you are, it's never too late. And we get calls of people in their 60s and 70s who finally decide enough is enough. I'm going to— I'm going to have a life of dignity even after, you know, 4 decades of mistakes. Wow. And bad decisions. You can still turn it around, it's just harder the older you get. Yeah. So when 20-year-olds go, man, I'm so dumb, I go, great, you got it over with early. Now you get the rest of your life to make wise decisions.

Yeah, don't wait till you're 60. Yes. What would be 3 money rules, if you could only apply 3 in your 20s and 30s, that every person had to do in their 20s and 30s? What would those 3 money rules be?

Oh, I love this. Okay, uh, number 1, take that off the table. Mm-hmm. Mortgage excluded. But if you can take that off the table and say, I'm not going to have a credit card, I'm not going to go into credit card debt, I'm going to avoid a car payment by saving up and paying cash, upgrading over time, your life will be so much better than all of your peers who got there faster. You know, it's the hair. They have the nicer car before you did. But man, when you got there, it was so well earned and you got peace the whole way there. So taking debt off the table would be number one. Number two would be investing in a Roth IRA. That is after-tax money that grows tax-free and you don't have to pay Uncle Sam ever again. That to me is the greatest life hack, meaning if you could have $2 million of net income because it's in a Roth IRA and it doesn't take much, $100 a month at 20 will get you there versus, you know, you have to spend hundreds more as you get older. So maxing out a Roth IRA is a life hack. If you can do that, the sooner the better. You're going to retire with dignity, taking debt off the table. And lastly would be the budget. Download the EveryDollar app, list out your income, list out all of your expenses. You don't have to spend 6 hours whittling away at an Excel spreadsheet. All it is is saying, hey, here's how much is coming in, here's how much is going out. Am I happy with that? Are there any tweaks I'd like to make so that future me is proud of myself? Instead of going, man, I made great money, I got a raise last year and I didn't feel it at all. You took on a bigger payment, you spent more on eating out. And so, you know, you give yourself the wiggle room, you're going to take it. And so adding that friction back in by staying on a budget, taking that off the table and investing early through a tax-advantaged retirement account like a Roth IRA, I don't see how you couldn't have a life of financial freedom and peace. What's the budget app again? You guys, it's called EveryDollar. EveryDollar.com or what is this? Yeah, EveryDollar.com. Or you can go to your App Store, Google Play and get it. Our team upgraded it recently to where it has the Ramsey principles baked in. So we'll actually show you custom recommendations to find more margin based on everything you've told us. That's cool. So it's really cool because it's no longer just putting your numbers in. We're carving out a path for you to get out of debt faster, get the emergency fund faster, and have more margin to build wealth. And so it's really— it's been souped up in the last 6 to 12 months. And that's cool.

We're really excited about EveryDollar.com or EveryDollar on the app. That's right. Or what I'm hearing you say, the theme throughout this is if you can create financial friction in your life right now, you can eventually become financially free. Tweet that.

That's exactly— I should have said that earlier. You got a way with words.

Well, I'm just hearing what you're saying and I'm repeating it back. That the more we create financial friction, meaning take the— take debt off the table, take credit cards out, like make it harder for you to say, oh, I have to take my cash out and buy this now. Do I really want this or not? When you do that and you create a budget and a plan to start investing the moment you hear this, like, how can I start somewhere investing for my future? You will create more financial peace and freedom later.

Exactly. That's the whole goal of the YouTube channel is to convince an entire generation from, you know, 20 to 45 plus. I mean, I have people who are in their 60s watch it. People who are 7 years old watch it and go, thank you for, number one, making financial principles understandable and entertaining. Because I think if we can use humor, it kind of takes down the wall of like money's scary and money is shameful and money's guilt. Instead, it goes, let's laugh while we learn about what the heck a Roth IRA is and And you know, what are— what's worth spending money on? Because money is— it's a tool. And for most people, it's an obstacle. And so that, that gap between turning money from an obstacle to a tool takes a lot of hard work. And that's what those Ramsey principles allow you to do that with a purpose. Live and give like no one else. Generosity is on the other side. That's the most fun you can have with money. And I think most people don't realize that until they're way later in life.

How many Ramsey, Ramsey principles are there?

There's 7 baby steps. Yeah, that sort of lay out the financial plan. It's pretty simple. Baby step 1, $1,000 starter emergency fund. Baby step 2, get rid of all your consumer debt using that debt snowball method. Baby step 3, save up 3 to 6 months of expenses in an emergency fund. Baby step 4, invest 15% of your income into tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Baby step 5, if you have kids, put some money aside for college and like a 529 plan, an education savings account. Let it grow with compound interest. And growth. And then 6 is pay off the house early. And you have the margin to do that because you have no payments. And so you can pay off the mortgage early. And then Baby Step 7 is this endless mountaintop experience where you get to live and give like no one else, build wealth, max out retirement, go on the craziest trips. I mean, the things that we hear people doing— we had a call, can I go on a $25,000 European vacation and take my whole family? And we were like, yeah, you're worth $5 million. Let's go ahead and do it.

Yeah, if you've done all these other steps, exactly, you've earned it.

And then we get the call of someone who wants to go on a $2,000 trip, we have to tell them no because they're $100,000 in debt. And so it's— it really is dependent on your financial situation.

If you were able to add one extra value to the Ramsey values yourself, from everything you've learned in life, what would be the George Campbell money value that you would add?

That's a good one. I'll give you a tactical one. And that is to invest outside of retirement once you've got your retirement locked in. So once you're investing 15% into retirement, I love the idea of creating this, this freedom fund, this bridge account where let's say you do want to be work optional in your 50s. You don't have to work until 60 to access those retirement accounts and you have the freedom to go, you know what, I'm 50. The kids are about to head to college. Let's take some crazy trips. Let me take a year off.. And so when your boss, you know, starts mouthing off to you again, you know what? I'm out of here. I don't need the money. I'm good. And so that to me is, is the path to financial freedom that a lot of people don't think about, that they can invest outside of retirement. But I have a Smart Spender framework that I would add to layer on top of the Ramsey principles, and it basically is your permission to spend. And so S is for self-awareness. Will this really add value to my life? The M is for motive. Am I buying this for the right reason? A is for affordability. Can I afford this in cash, in full? The R is for research. Have I actually researched all of the options out there? Is this the best option, retailer, and price I can find versus impulsively clicking the first thing? And then T is for timing. Is now the right time to buy this thing? It may not be a bad thing, but it might be the right— the wrong time to buy that thing. This is opportunity cost. You know, if I, I can't put $5,000 toward the car fund that we desperately need. And so if you can go through those and say yes to all of them, you can spend with, with such intentionality and confidence. And too many people just don't have a framework to spend. They just do it impulsively or with guilt and then go, I shouldn't have done that. Yeah.

Where can they get that framework?

That's in my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I've got a whole chapter called Spending is Self-Control. Where I walk through how to sort of free yourself when it comes to spending. And I, I wrote that chapter for me as someone who needs to let go. So I need to create a framework for myself. That's great. I feel good about it. That's great.

Um, this has been awesome, George. I got one final question. I asked you this before in the last episode, if people haven't seen it on the Delta flight yet, you know.

That's right. I love— that's so cool, by the way, the partnership with YouTube. Yeah, it's good.

Um, but I'm curious if your definition has changed, so I have to go back and see what it was before. But what is your definition of greatness?

Mm, do you have one that you're— is there a standard definition that you use?

Everyone has something different. Okay, everyone has something different. I can share my— I've shared mine on here a bunch, but it's, um, I won't muddy the water. No, don't spoil it. Okay, but it's, uh, it can be whatever's on your heart or mind right now.

Greatness to me, it's got to be something that is inspirational and aspirational. Doesn't have to be. This is me telling you. Yes. Okay. It's something that you never arrive at. I think it's, it's almost like a virtue of bettering yourself, not for yourself, but for everything and everyone around you. To me, that's, that's true greatness. If you're great just for yourself, that's ego and narcissism. But if you are pursuing greatness, pursuing personal growth, professional growth, so that you can create a legacy, make an impact, bless those around you. There is no better definition of greatness to me.

My man, George. Thanks. Thank you, Lewis. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, You are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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