How to Be Intentional With Your Money | Dave Ramsey

In the 1940s and 1950s, radio was how America was entertained. Television was not widely distributed at the time. Families would gather around the drama, the series, as they gather now around Netflix. And there was the Lone Ranger and Tonto, "Hello, Silver!" And Silver with his coconuts for sound effects, (imitating walking) next to the microphone, right? And that was the drama on the radio. One of the radio shows was a WGN Radio show in Chicago, and it was Sky King. Now, if you consider that we are in the 40s, airplanes were still a big deal, it was still cutting-edge technology to fly.

And Sky King was this guy with a great baritone voice, of course, he was a radio voice, and he would fly into any drama and he was the guy who would save the day and so on. And the voice behind Sky King was a guy named Earl Nightingale. And Earl quickly realized that there was no

money

in radio and he bought an insurance business, a general agency, and every Monday morning he had a sales meeting and he encouraged his salespeople and he sent them out to sell insurance and he was very, he was very successful at it, until the late '50s.

And one of the things that Earl loved more than motivational talks or encouraging his salespeople and preparing them to go out and sell insurance was that he loved to fish. And Earl decided that he was going on a fishing trip to Canada. Well, his sales manager came to him and said, "You understand that for the two weeks that you're going to be gone, sales are going to be down because when you get these guys online on Monday morning, they're going to be ready to attack the business." "And they go out and make sales. Without you here to cheer, the halftime speech for the football coach, they're not going to do their thing, man, and sales are going to go down." Well, Earl thought, well, that's not good, but I'm going fishing, so I have to figure this out.

He then returns to his old days on the radio and decides that he is going to record a talk. And he goes into the studio and records a talk just for the two-week vacation. And the way a recording was made in those days in a studio was not on tape, but on an acetone disk, a really flexible, very thin-looking disk. Are any of you old enough to remember getting a record on the back of

your

serial box, that sort of thing? It was a small, thin, flimsy record, it was meant to be played three or four times and five times and then it didn't work anymore, it didn't have a long lifespan, it was a short recording.

And he went in and recorded a 33-minute talk. They played it, sales increased while he was gone. They played it the next week and sales picked up again while he was gone. The return. When he returned, everyone who sold anything in the entire Chicago area was eager for a copy of this speech. He ended up formally recording the talk, printing records and selling them. And the best we can determine in the research we have done in the world of broadcasting, secular or ecclesiastical, is that this is one of the records that were sold from 1959 onwards. This is the first recorded talk, not music, but the first talk of any kind or unkind sermon to sell a million copies.

The talk was called “The Strangest Secret” and in it he talks about how the strangest secret is simply that you become what you think. Now this is a biblical truth. In Proverbs he says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A man becomes what he thinks about all day long." It turns out that what we focus on, what we concentrate on, what we think about, we tend to gravitate towards that, move towards that, become that. And whether it is good or bad, we will be magnetically drawn in the direction of the things we think about.

You become what you think is the strangest secret. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right." Now this was proven several years ago, and this is a great old story that I love and it was proven in this case. Now, do any of you remember the book or movie "Unbroken" about Louis Zamperini? He was a track star and he goes into World War II and goes into a Japanese concentration camp and finally comes out later, it's the story of his whole life, it's a wonderful story, a big, long book, "Unbroken," the book is better than the movie, is it generally true?

So Louis ran in the Berlin Olympics with the Nazis doing this, Hitler is coming to power and he was a mile runner, he was a kid from California and in the Berlin Olympics, Louis ran the four-minute mile and 21 seconds and he barely missed. a medal. That year's mile was just over four minutes. That was in 1936. In 1954, no one had broken the four-minute mile, no one. One guy did four minutes and one second and was there for nine years. It was widely thought and taught that the human body, the physiological condition of the human body, it was impossible for anyone to train enough, to go fast enough for the human body to cross a mile in less than four minutes.

If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. You become what you think. And one doctor even said, he prophesied that if someone actually ran a mile in less than four minutes, his heart would explode and he would die right there. Until 1954, Roger Bannister, famous for being the first human being, and this is a photo of him, to surpass the mile of four minutes, three minutes and 59 seconds. The record lasted 46 days. 22 people ran the four-minute mile over the next six years. I have told this story and I love it so much that the watch worn by the old man sitting in the trench while Bannister crossed the line went up for sale at Sotheby's Auction House in London.

Well, apparently I have too much

money

because I decided I needed that watch. What a great story and what a great thing to have in my safe for my children to fight after I die. So I went to bid on this watch, I set the limit of $10,000 and I wasn't going to spend more than $10,000 to buy this world class souvenir. I stopped bidding at $38,000. I bought this one on eBay for four dollars, okay? If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. The power of

intentional

ity. I'm going to be

intentional

in my life.

I will be intentional in my spiritual walk. I will be intentional about the dimensions, compartments, and departments of my life. You know, no one wins accidentally. You don't interview the guy after the Super Bowl and the little reporter runs up to the athlete and says, "How did you just win the World Series, the Super Bowl?" They never say, "I don't know, I just got off the bus. No, I've been training since I was six." It is an intentional act to win. And the power of intentionality goes with the power of believing in what we in our Christian walk call faith, what we believe.

And we just did it two years ago in Ramsey, the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied 10,167 millionaires in depth, with airtight research, because we knew that people wouldn't like the results because we knew some of the things we were going to find and we knew that some people wouldn't like it. So we were very careful, we had an external research company that helped us with the details, the control groups and the processes. If you know anything about research, it's very detailed to do it right and not get confirmation bias and this kind of stuff in there, detailed stuff.

Here's the interesting thing, if you get someone to say something, if like 60% of the people say something in a group like that, that's called statistically significant, right? More than half of them say this. 97% of the millionaires we talk to, when we ask them, "Can you become a millionaire today? And when you started, did you think you could become a millionaire?" 97% said yes. If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. When we interviewed the general public who were not millionaires, "Do you think you can become a millionaire?" 69%, still a lot, but significantly less than 97%, said they thought they could do it.

I probably wasn't planning on writing another book this year. Anyway, I'm not a great author, I'm good at selling them, but I'm not a great writer, but I was irritated by two things that kept appearing in my face. One is that I've been teaching these biblical principles to get out of debt, to save money so you can become rich and to be able to be outrageously generous, managing money for God, God's way. And for

your

family it is part of God's ways, right? And I've been teaching people these things for 30 years, and we call it the baby steps, you take the baby steps, you get out of debt, you build your emergency fund, you start your retirement, you start your kids' college, you pay off your house, You are the seventh baby step, woohoo, we are free, we did it and we move forward through the small steps.

And I kept meeting people all over America everywhere I went and they would come up and say, "Hey Dave, I've been doing your stuff for a long time, like I'm old, like I'm I've been doing this for 25 years, I've been doing this for you. listening and I am a millionaire of small steps and I did it, I did it, the things that you teach, I did it and it worked and I am a millionaire and I followed it. And I kept meeting these people everywhere and a lot of them and then I found myself, I do a lot of things with the media and God help me, in fact sometimes I look at social media, Lord Jesus, forgive me, and I kept seeing Out there the thieves of hope Have you ever seen the thieves of hope?

The people who will steal your hope, who will tell you it can't be done? They are the ones Eeyore is his spirit animal. "Oh, it's bad, America is over. You'll never be able to make it. It's bad. The little man can't get ahead." And I ran into these hope thieves everywhere and they were telling me that no one can do it and sophisticated economists who were hope thieves and people in the media who were hope thieves and I'm talking to little millionaires who say, "Dave, I did it." " (Audience applauds) Because the hope thieves out there, the first thing they tell you is this: "All the rich people have all the money and the only way to get rich is to inherit your money." You heard that, say yes.

Well, here's the thing, that's a lie. No, I mean I have data, facts, not your ruined brother-in-law with an opinion, facts. Well, when we study these millionaires, 10,000 of them, 79% received exactly zero in inheritance. That's eight out of 10. Five percent, when they received an inheritance, it was small, like four or five thousand dollars, which doesn't make you a millionaire in case you don't know the math. Another five percent received a large inheritance, like a couple hundred thousand dollars after they were already millionaires, so that didn't make them millionaires. So five and five and 79 equals 89. That means nine out of every 10 millionaires in America today were self-made, the first generation rich in God's blessings. (Audience applauds) Well, and your whiny little friend says, "But that's not fair." It's not fair out there.

The fair is where the Tilt-a-Whirl and the prize pig are. It's not fair. And: "Oh, it should be equal. Equality is fair." Not in the Bible. And by the way, equality is not fair. If you work 100 hours a week and the guy works 10 hours a week, you should get paid more. I have a face for the radio. I have friends who are pretty and they're on TV and stuff and they make more money because they talk to more people than I talk to. It's not fair. I'm in Nashville. I have all these musical friends. I can't play, I'm on the radio for a reason.

I mean, I can't, I mean, I have all these musical friends and they sell 10 million albums. I've never seen an album except one that I put on the record, that's the only time, it's not fair that they make more money from albums than I do. Of course it is. They serve more people. They happily help more people than I do with that. If I sell 10 books and help 10 people get out of debt, I should make a certain amount of money, that's fair. But if I sell 10 million, I should make another amount of money, that's fair. Fair is not equal because the effort, the talent, the education, the bothering to show up is not equal.

So don't let the complainers tell you, "Well, the game is rigged. The system is rigged." Then I met Condoleezza Rice, this woman is incredible. We were doing a leadership event and she came to talk to us. She is incredibly smart, her bag is smarter than me. The woman, competitive ice skater, world-class concert pianist, second woman to be Secretary of State, first black woman to be Secretary of State, chancellor of Stanford, grew up in a lower middle class family, an extremely racist situation in Birmingham. , Alabama. In those days, she called it Bombingham because that's when all the bombings with racism happened.

But she didn't define it, she wasn't defined by it. She didn't say the system is rigged. Is racism real? Oh yes, racism is real. Is sexism real? Oh yes, it's real. Not all of us have the same starting point to where we have to go. We don't all have the same starting point, and that's not fair,It just is. But Condoleezza said what her parents taught her about her was that "it doesn't matter where you come from, the only thing that matters is where you're going." So yeah, I started a little further back. I'm from Antioch, Tennessee and I'm not from one of those cool families, I'm just a redneck, so I started a little further back.

Some people started further back and passed me. Did you know that every demographic and every race we found in the study had become millionaires? Someone choseTo go from where they started to believe that I'm going to be intentional, if you believe you can, if you believe you can't, you become what you think. I'm going to point out this, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he and I'm going to do it. (Audience applauds) And then there are thieves of hope among my brothers and sisters in Christ, the ones who are too saved, you know them. "Christians should not be rich.

In fact, the Bible condemns the rich to hell." Have any of you heard this? Have you ever thought about it? I used to think that because I grew up in a totally Christian area. I'm in Nashville, there are more Baptists there than there are people. And yet, Scripture actually says this: "And you will remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get riches." The Bible does not say that money is the root of all evil. He says that "the love of money is the root of all evil." "Well, Dave, you know Jesus said, "A camel can't go through the eye of a needle, so a rich man can't enter heaven." One of my fellow pastors says, "Don't let the world teach ".your theology." And I'll help you with that, for the love of God, don't let Twitter teach you doctrine.

The scripture most quoted by the angry unbeliever who hates Christians: "Don't you know that the rich do not go to heaven because a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle"? All you have to do is finish reading the context and Jesus continues, "For the disciples were amazed. They said, 'Well, who then can be saved?' And he says, 'No one comes to the father except through the son.' "" (audience applauding) So let me be mean to you. Are you ready for it to be bad? Because it's a spiritual gift, okay, so let me be mean to you, if you believe with your toxic political beliefs or you believe with your toxic upbringing in Christianity that rich people won't go to heaven because of that scripture, let me help you. you with that, that is what theologians call heresy.

Now let me help you with the heresy. Heresy is when anyone can't get there, what you are saying is that prostitutes can go to heaven if they ask Jesus for forgiveness, drug dealers can go to heaven if they ask Jesus for forgiveness, murderers can go to heaven if They ask Jesus for forgiveness, but not those rich people. The blood of Jesus is not strong enough on the cross for those rich people. That's called heresy, technically speaking, if you're in seminary. Okay, so don't practice heresy on Twitter. Okay, it's bad for you. There are a lot of things on Twitter that are bad for you, so I'll help you with this.

Here's a: "Well, the evil one percent has all the money. They shouldn't have all the money." Oh God, here we go. Okay, I'm a math guy. So here's the thing: If your household income is $39,000 a year, you're in the top one percent of earners in the world. You will officially go to hell. Well, that's how absurd this line of critical thinking is when you take your religion and make it toxic to justify your victimization. Do not do it. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. I'm going to intend to win the Super Bowl.

I may have a harder start, I may not have been good as a child, people may be mean to me for reasons they shouldn't be mean to me, but it doesn't matter, I'm still going to keep going. win the Super Bowl. I'm not going to give up yet. The Bible teaches cause and effect. We reap what we sow. And so if you plant corn, you'll water it, you'll put fertilizer around it if you're a farmer, you'll hoe it around it, you'll keep the weeds out, and then you'll get corn if God decides to send sunshine and rain.

Now Saint Andrew said: "We have to work as if everything depended on us and pray as if everything depended on God." So the Bible is a constant dance between our faith in God and his provision and our faithfulness, getting out of line and doing the work. So if you want some corn, you have to plant corn. Pesky Christians pray over mud holes that have no corn in them and can't figure out where the corn is when they haven't planted corn. That's irritating because it makes Christians look stupid. Corn comes out. It's not going to be like that.

You're supposed to reap what you sow. Plant the corn, the corn will come. Lord, I pray for money. Try saving some. I'm joking a little, but we've all heard these things and somehow we have to reject them in our culture. I do believe that God is a God of provision, he is a God of grace. I have walked with so much grace and among all the foolish things I have done in my life, he has been so incredibly good to me that it makes me cry every time I think about it and I am in no way belittling that.

In no way am I taking credit for success, but you have to work and those who don't work, Paul said, don't eat. And we somehow distort all of these things and we somehow spiritualize our inactivity or the fact that we are paralyzed and overwhelmed and scared and we don't know what to do. And instead of breaking through that and saying, "Somebody take my hand and help me out of this hole," and his brothers and sisters come to his side, pull him out, give him a chance to do something, the community is approaching. you and loves you well.

Do not abandon the gathering of believers. All of these things are Scripture and they all come together to make it so that we can make these things happen in our lives. Our Christian life and the study of the Bible and the community in which we walk transform our lives because we learn to plant new and better things in our lives. And I have something I call displacement theory. I learned it from my wife. My wife is like a shepherdess, she's kind of a health nut and she's in perfect shape, she has no body fat, which is both wonderful because she's my wife, but look at me, she's also embarrassing, OK?

So she goes and walks six miles or 28 miles or whatever she does in the morning and works out four and a half hours or whatever she does and then she goes in and puts things in a blender that humans shouldn't ingest and she thinks it's fun. And when she pours it into a glass, it looks like nuclear waste and it's good for you. And then she has a little nuclear waste mustache and says, "Do you want some?" And I say, "No." And she finishes drinking that nuclear waste and she leaves the glass in the sink, she turns on the hot water and the hot water goes into the trash and the clean water, as she runs, she starts displacing the trash.

And if you leave that glass, like you've done before, that saucepan in the sink and just let the hot water run over it, it will boil everything and in a few minutes, the cleaning will have displaced the dirt. This is the Christian walk. If you put good things in, you will have good things and that will take out the garbage of the past. It will expel the past. Well, people in my neighborhood, I don't care about your neighborhood, clean up a little. People who grew up say, I don't care, clean up a little. People who don't have a chance to start in life, shut up, do some cleaning.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. You can do it. It's called hope. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." "Do not be conformed to this world. Do not be like them, but be transformed." As? The displacement, the renewal of your mind, new things coming in and creating a new you, a completely new way of seeing things. Sharon and I have been married for almost 40 years. I am very happy and she is very happy that she is not married to the guy she married.

He's not perfect, but he's a lot better than that idiot she married 40 years ago. Displacement, I'm getting better, I'm getting better. Give me 40 more, I'll probably lower them. So what God wants for you is what I want for you. He wants you to have a budget because Jesus said, "Do not build a tower without first counting the cost, lest you end up halfway and not be able to finish, and everyone who sees will begin to mock you and say, "This The man began to build and could not finish."" You set a budget to be able to live with less than what you earn because "a foolish man devours everything he has." You live on less than what you earn to get out of debt because "the rich rule the poor and the borrower is a slave to the lender." You get out of debt and have money to save for an emergency because "in the house of the wisest, choice stores, food and oil." Are you already feeling the displacement?

You take the savings that you start to accumulate, that emergency fund, you're ready for a rainy day and then, of course, then you're ready to accumulate some wealth and "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it produces a harvest of righteousness. " You can become a millionaire in small steps. And as you get rich, you can change your family tree because "a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children." And then by doing that, you become outrageously generous because "God loves a cheerful giver." By the way, that's the end of the game and that's the beginning of the game, outrageous generosity.

The rest of the stuff in between is just how we do it. Look, I was at the grocery store the other day and I'll close with this because they told me that the holy spirit comes out after 30 minutes. I don't go to the supermarket much, my wife, bless her, she does most of the time. But when I go, I'm kind of an efficiency expert. It's kind of a Nascar pit stop for me. Nearest parking space. Once I have my stuff, I'm scanning the lines. Have you ever done this? Okay, that line is a little longer, but the one I was reviewing looked like it had its stuff going.

I'm going to make a little longer line, we'll go through there because I'm choosing the quickest line to get in and out, the whole game gets in and out fast. Is everyone with me, does anyone do this except me? So I walked in there the other day and I love generous people, generous people make us smile, generous people make us cry, right? Now I go in and select the line and there's a woman in line and she has two kids who were all over the place about everything. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. I'm old school, Dad and Dad Dave here.

And then she has these purchases and she hands the guy her card and she gets rejected. Well, I hate to admit it, at first I didn't look with sympathy on this woman. I'm standing like three back and now when the card comes up, that's the business I'm in, right? Helping people who rejected cards. And then I start looking at the kids a little more carefully and their clothes aren't very good. And then I look at her and the windows are the eyes of the soul, or the eyes are the windows of the soul, I'm sorry and she's not having a good week, she's not having a good year.

You can see the pain. Have you ever done that? Do you look at someone and see them slipping away? And then she hands him another card and the card gets declined and this whole thing quickly falls apart. Now I would like to tell you that I was the generous one, but I was slow to pull the trigger because it took me a minute to recover from my initial superiority, but standing there, the guy right behind her was Superman. Now I didn't realize he was Superman because he was dressed like a Hispanic construction worker with mud on his boots.

But suddenly, Clark Kent comes out, extends his hand and pays for his groceries. She starts to cry. The receptionist starts crying. I start crying and I'm not even involved. And she tries to say, "No, no, no, no, no." She doesn't understand anything, she only speaks Spanish, but she does speak a denied card, she does speak having a bad year. They raise $300 and he pays for the food. That's why we do what we do, because you want to be that guy. Generous people make our eyes water. Generous people make us smile because we can see God appear in line at the supermarket.

Put yourself in a position to be him for the rest of your life and try not to be self righteous like me and beat him. Put yourself in a position to be outrageously generous. And then, if someone who is crazy is drinking Haterade because you got rich and are incredibly generous, just tell them to drink another pour. It's all good, drink your Haterade. God and I walk in generosity. He's letting me do this. It is the privilege of a lifetime to be able to help others with the money he allowed me to manage. (Audience applauds) You can do it.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If you believe you can or you believe you can't, that is faith or lack thereof. You'll be right either way. He decides, you become what you think. God, we thank you for your provision. We appreciate his guidance. We thank you for your love. Oh, you have lavished us beyond our wildest imagination. Help us to be kind, to have self-control, to be incredibly generous and joyful in giving what You gave us to steward. In the name of Jesus, amen. (Audience applauds) Let's go to church, let's thank Dave. (Audience applauds) And Dave, thank you for experiencing that.

Dave has been more generous to our church than he could ever describe and this is what God is calling us to be and I just want to ask youright now because I know that whenever people talk about money, there can be heaviness. and a burden and a guilt and a shame and a I can't and I won't, but I think you just heard a word that can change the way you think. And how many of you really believe and think that you can honor God with what he entrusts to you? Would you raise your hand right now?

LeaveLeave them up for a minute, leave them up. Let them stand, all of our churches, if you're watching online right now, put them wherever they are right now in an act of worship and recognize that God is entrusting them with resources. He trusts you to manage them. And when you are faithful in a little, he will trust you even more. You can put your hands down. I'm going to pray for you in a moment, but let me talk to you about how you can be faithful. You can start with Dave's book, "Baby Step Principles." Start by being faithful.

Start by getting a plan. Work the plan and honor God and watch God bless you along the way. And as Dave says, you can live today like no one else, one day you can live and give like no one else and you can be that person in the grocery store and you can be that person in many people's lives if you are faithful. . So God, today I pray for faith to believe that You have given us what we need to honor You. Help us to be faithful God, to take a step, when it may seem like a small step, but take a step the next day.

We thank you for Dave, we thank you for the way he teaches your principles so that we can live in a way that honors you. Give us wisdom, give us faithfulness, God. I pray that there are people who are not just little millionaires, but little millionaires who are generous beyond measure. Help us to start where we are, to honor you and believe God, that as we are faithful, you will pour out your blessings so that we can bless others. We pray this in the name of Jesus. As you continue to pray today, no one is looking around you, just an attitude of worship and prayer.

When we talk about money, sometimes we are aware of where we have fallen short and where we have not got it right, we have all made mistakes. When we talk about life, when we are in church, when we look at a message, sometimes we are aware of our own sinfulness. We have all made a mistake. We have all fallen short. We have a debt, not just a financial debt, but we have a sin debt. But the surprising thing is that we have a very generous God, because God loves the world so much that what did he do?

He gave, gave, gave to his only son, Jesus, so that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life. If you are aware of your defects, your sinfulness, we serve a God who showed his love on Earth through the person of Jesus. God became flesh. Jesus lived without sin, gave his life and God raised him from the dead. So anyone, and this includes you, no matter how badly you have failed, no matter what you have done, anyone who calls on that name, the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven today. . .

I think there are some of you who are seeing it online, you're seeing it in church, and you know you need forgiveness. What are we going to do? We will turn away from our old life and become disciples of Jesus, we will follow Jesus. When we confess our need for him, God forgives all our sins, today we become new. Wherever you are looking at those who say yes, I want his forgiveness, I want his grace, today, I choose Jesus, I want to be his disciple. I give him my life. Those of you know that you need his forgiveness, today you surrender, today you surrender your life.

That is your prayer today. Say yes Jesus, I give you my life, that is your prayer. Would you raise your hands high right now? Can you celebrate with me today as we see people in all our churches turning away from the old life and walking toward a new life? For those of you online, you can write it in the comments section: I choose to follow Jesus. Just write it in the comments section. I choose to follow Jesus and today it is a great honor for us to celebrate the moment you experienced the grace of Jesus. We are going to pray and you can pray out loud wherever you are, we will all pray together.

Pray, heavenly father, I need your grace, I need your forgiveness, I need Jesus. Jesus, save me. Forgive all my sins. Make me new. I need your power. I need your spirit, to live for you, to show your love. Fill me with your spirit, that I can do your will. Give me the faith to know that I can serve you, to make a difference. I give you all my life. Thank you for the new life. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Could everyone celebrate great worship of the good God who is full of grace and love? (audience applauding)