My Uncle Was Stealing From Our Business for Years

Summary

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The EntreLeadership Podcast

Host: Dave Ramsey, Ramsey Network

Episode: My Uncle Was Stealing From Our Business for Years

Date: October 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, hosted by Dave Ramsey, centers on the real-world complexities of family businesses, integrity at work, leadership transitions, and setting culture within organizations. Calls from business leaders explore tough decisions, such as handling theft by a family member, fostering company culture in large, distributed organizations, and leading across generational divides. Dave delivers his signature direct, no-nonsense business advice, laced with empathy and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Navigating Family Business Dilemmas: Dealing with Theft by a Relative

Caller: Lee, North Dakota
(00:55-15:12)

• Background: Lee, transitioning 4th generation owner of a $4M/year service business, inherited difficult consequences from his father's leadership decisions, notably rehiring an uncle (by marriage) after years of theft.
• Lee’s Dilemma: Struggles to trust the uncle, who is a visible company figure and is facing lifelong medical challenges.
• Options Discussed:
  • Forgive & Move On: Dave stresses the personal, internal decision: “One is get over yourself and forgive him. If he's not stealing anymore, and it was five years ago, it's in the rearview mirror.” (04:01)
  • Terminate Compassionately: Alternatively, Lee can choose to part ways: “Or fire him... and here's some severance pay and you're on your way, dude. And you know, you can be kind and a little bit more flamboyant about it than that…” (04:39)
• Revelation: The Thief is Family:
  When Lee reveals the relative is his uncle, not by blood but by marriage, Dave reassesses the emotional complexity:
  “Well, that's different information. Okay… There are two options... Can I gracefully help him exit and take care of him...” (05:58, 07:43)
• Comprehensive Context:
  • 30-year employee, 60-ish, serious medical needs
  • Theft was “skimming off the till... repeatedly in small amounts” (07:27)
• The ‘Price of Admission’ for Family Business:
  • Dave reiterates: “You get all the benefit of the wonderful story of being fourth generation and you get all the downside of being fourth generation. And this is one of [those situations].” (12:42)
• Recommended Approach:
  • Generosity with Severance/Retirement: “When in doubt, I up it… You’ve got a lot of reasons to be crazy generous.” (09:42)
  • Initiate Retirement Conversation: Suggests framing the exit as a retirement, possibly with two to three years’ pay, for dignity and closure. (13:20)
  • Leadership Lesson: “There’s a lot of days when leadership has to… have the shovel out with the manure and nobody else shovels but leaders.” (14:41)
• Final Thought: Clean up problems in your tenure so you don’t hand off a mess:
  “Note to the generation before: if you clean the stable, you don’t have to ask your kids to do it when you hand it off next.” (15:05)

Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey:
  “You would not hire this guy in a million years if he wasn't already working there.” (11:19)
• Dave Ramsey:
  “The price of admission to be me is I got to deal with this uncle.” (13:01)

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2. Building Company Culture at Scale & Across Locations

Caller: Natalie, NY
(16:58-24:39)

• Background: Chief of Staff at a large multi-regional non-profit organization. Impressed by Ramsey Solutions’ unified culture, seeks advice to build similar cohesion despite not starting early and being spread out.
• Dave’s Strategy for Culture-Building:
  • “It’s a Herculean task... but it’s going to be worth the trouble to get there.” (18:48)
  • Start with core leadership (top 100–200), define honest, actual core values (“not what we wish they are”), and incrementally cascade through the organization.
  • Use “hydrostatic pressure” analogy: steady, incremental build-up will eventually break through and create change. (19:55)
  • Emphasizes learning from both your company and outside examples (e.g. Alan Mulally at Ford): Core principle—“If you want to be a ‘we,’ you have to align with these core values.” (20:46-22:46)
  • Warns against “aspirational values”—focus on what you actually ARE when at your best, not what you wish to be. (23:24)
• Practical Steps:
  • Workshops with leadership, iterative value refinement (“It’s actually a pretty emotional exercise.” (24:10))
  • Embed values into hiring, onboarding, and regular conversations.
  • Anticipate a 5-year timeline for significant culture transformation.

Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey:
  “If you’re going to work here, you’re going to be a ‘we.’” (20:46)
• Dave Ramsey:
  “People just want to know where they stand. They don’t want to be coddled.” (38:54)

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3. Multi-Generational Teams: Leadership through Clarity and Consistency

Listener Question: Austin, NC
(24:50-38:54)

• Context: How to lead teams spanning multiple generations, respecting different “expectations about work, communication, and leadership.”
• Dave’s Response:
  • “Their expectations... are not a concern. That’s a nice way of saying, I don’t care what their expectations about those things are. What I care about... is what your expectations are.” (24:50)
  • Core values and clarity beat coddling or accommodating generational quirks. Use strengths of each generation for project-specific value, but maintain uniform standards for culture and execution.
  • Leaders should set expectations and be unwavering in upholding them—regardless of age differences.

Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey:
  “Bosses push, leaders pull. Leader’s job is to serve.” (26:09)
• Dave Ramsey:
  “Otherwise you’re running a freaking beauty parlor and you’re having to treat the blondes different than the redheads... You cannot figure this out.” (29:42)
• Dave Ramsey:
  “People just want to know where they stand. They don’t want to be coddled… You don’t fit in here, you’re not a ‘we’ if you want to be coddled.” (38:54)

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4. Practical Business Finance: Managing Savings/Retained Earnings

Caller: Alex, Birmingham
(41:46-48:12)

• Background: Small business owner, 25 employees, $6–9M revenue, $3M “savings” and $1M “emergency fund,” wants to ensure solid financial strategy for idle funds.
• Dave’s Advice:
  • Emergency fund remains in high-yield savings (~4%+).
  • Retained earnings ($3M) should not be making just 2% ($60K a year): “There’s nothing that should have made 2%. Crap. You could have got that on a high-yield savings account.” (44:59)
  • Recommends conservative growth stock mutual funds (e.g., S&P 500 index), citing better historical returns for business retained earnings that aren’t needed immediately.
  • Encourage learning the basics, comparing current advisors with a Ramsey SmartVestor Pro, and not abdicating financial understanding.

Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey:
  “Don’t ever... Close your eyes and trust that they’re driving the car well. Don’t ever do that again. You want to know what’s going on.” (47:40)

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Memorable Moments & Language

• Dave’s Signature Tone: Forthright, sometimes blunt, often leavened by humor (“micro-barbecued microwave... that’s not the sign of a good barbecue!” (30:58)).
• Compassion & Realism: Encourages generosity but stays pragmatic about business needs and boundaries.
• Leadership Truths: Consistently highlights that hard, sometimes unpleasant conversations are intrinsic to good leadership (“That’s one of the days when leadership sucks.” (14:41))

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Summary Table of Notable Quotes & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:01 | Dave Ramsey | “One is get over yourself and forgive him. If he's not stealing anymore... forgive him.” | | 11:19 | Dave Ramsey | “You would not hire this guy in a million years if he wasn't already working there.” | | 13:01 | Dave Ramsey | “The price of admission to be me is I got to deal with this uncle.” | | 18:48 | Dave Ramsey | “It’s a Herculean task... but it’s going to be worth the trouble to get there.” | | 20:46 | Dave Ramsey | “If you’re going to work here, you’re going to be a ‘we.’” | | 29:42 | Dave Ramsey | “Otherwise you’re running a freaking beauty parlor... You cannot figure this out.” | | 38:54 | Dave Ramsey | “People just want to know where they stand. They don’t want to be coddled.” | | 44:59 | Dave Ramsey | “There’s nothing that should have made 2%. Crap. You could have got that on a high yield savings account.” | | 47:40 | Dave Ramsey | “Don’t ever... Close your eyes and trust that they’re driving the car well. Don’t ever do that again.” |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Lee’s Family Business Dilemma: 00:55–15:12
• Building Company Culture at Scale: 16:58–24:39
• Leading Across Generations: 24:50–38:54
• Financial Management of Retained Earnings: 41:46–48:12

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Final Leadership Takeaways

• Leadership requires balancing compassion with clarity and accountability—even (especially) in family businesses.
• Culture is shaped by living out real values, not aspirational ones, and develops through relentless, patient, top-down effort.
• Lead with consistency, set clear standards, and leverage generational strengths—but don’t let shifting expectations dictate your core culture.
• Financial stewardship is a leadership responsibility—understand where your money is parked, and don’t shy from seeking better returns.

“Better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders, so take courage and lead.” – Dave Ramsey (closing)

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is entree Leadership, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. If you got a question you want to ask. Well, if you want to be on the show, fill out the [e-mail] ask or call and leave us a voicemail at 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1071. Lee is in North Dakota. Hi, Lee, how are you?

[Lee]

Hi, Dave. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to speak.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Lee]

Well, I am an owner, operator of a service industry business and we turn about 4 million in revenue a year. What's unique is I am a fourth generation in the industry.

[Alex]

Wow.

[Lee]

Great grandfather started the business in 1954.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very cool.

[Lee]

Through my. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people love, love the context of that. After I work for them, it. It's a real good opener for conversation about. But anyways, so I'm now in the process of taking over the business from my father. And through his career, there's decisions he's made that have been great, and there's decisions he's made that out of his own mouth he regrets. And some of those decisions are still impacting the business today. So my question would really be, how do I navigate handling decisions set up by my father, who, if we go back on them, will have profoundly negative consequences? How do I navigate the transfer of ownership, upholding decisions like that that I don't necessarily agree with?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, that's pretty vague. I have no idea what you're talking about. So give me an example.

[Lee]

For an example of something that he has done that he regrets that I am now receiving the fallout of is there was a theft in the business and throughout that coming out by an employee, throughout that coming out and the employee apologizing and he was allowed to begin working for us again. And it has been years, but I find that my knowledge of what he did in the past is affecting the way I treat him as an employee.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what are the profoundly negative consequences? How many employees do you have? Well, how many employees do you have?

[Lee]

12.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Lee]

And.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so how many. How many years ago, many years ago was the theft?

[Lee]

About five.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And what does the guy do then? He.

[Lee]

He is a front counter man, a greeter. What a lot of people would think of him because they only ever come in for the walk in service. A Lot of people would think of him as the face of the company. He's always the one at the counter that says, hi.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's just a guy that gets. He's just a guy that gets them what they want. If somebody else gets them what they want, they don't care. I disagree. You're attributing you're giving this guy way more power than he actually has. I disagree. I mean, so I guess you got two options. One is get over yourself and forgive him. If he's not stealing anymore, and it was five years ago, it's in the rearview mirror. I'm not going to hold it against him. It's a spiritual problem with you and your mirror. Right. Or firing. These are your two options. Right?

[Lee]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And either one of them is okay with me. I don't care. I mean, and just go, you know, my dad kept you and I'm sorry, but I still don't trust you. And so we're not. You and I aren't going to be able to work together. I'm so sorry. And here's some severance pay and you're on your way, dude. And you know, you can be kind and a little bit more flamboyant about it than that. And you know, a few more words, but you're under no moral or ethical or legal obligation to keep this guy. He works there at your whim. You own it. And so I'm not going to throw that weight around. But you're not under. And there's not severe negative consequences. I disagree. I mean, there may be one or two people whine a little bit, but just go, you know, the truth is I don't trust you. And I get what dad did and I'm not mad at you. And here's a stack of money to say we're sorry, but I'm not going to. I can't work with you. And so no sheriff in town, you know, and is that the truth? Am I saying it incorrectly or am I saying the truth?

[Lee]

No, you are saying you are saying the truth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Lee]

The only thing that you don't know is that he is also family.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, well, that's different information. Okay. And so what's his relation?

[Lee]

His relation would be my uncle. Not by blood. Married to my father's sister.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how long has he worked there? Total?

[Lee]

About 30 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good Lord. So how old is this guy?

[Lee]

60Ish.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. Can we help him retire?

[Lee]

No, probably not. The not. Not to put everything out there, but he also has is paying lifelong medical bills. Of just, I mean to have the medical bills are from an illness, to have lived past the age of 20 is a marvel in itself. But that takes so much. Which is probably why it's so easy to excuse and rationalize and forgive the theft that happened.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. As far as you know, the theft was a one time thing.

[Lee]

As far as I know, it was skimming off the top of the till.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Lee]

Repeatedly in small amounts.

[Dave Ramsey]

And he's not going on now obviously.

[Alex]

Right.

[Lee]

He hasn't continued since the five years ago since everything came to a head.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, Lee, again there are two options. One is you weigh out everything. 30 year team member, uncle got 60 years old, got medical issues and you know, how can I gracefully help him exit and take care of him so that I don't have to worry about him stealing from me or just, you know, it just becomes you and your mirror going, I, I'm gonna have to say the trade off here is not worth it. And so I've got to get over myself. And. But that, yeah, you're right. That's a, there's a lot of variables in this thing. There's a lot of pieces to the thing that are, that are all, that are all, that are all holding on to this. Yeah. And I. So you kind of get understand why your dad did what he did, right?

[Lee]

Definitely, I do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. The same reasons that you're not going to fire him today.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Natalie]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I'm going to start, if it's me, you're making $4 million a year, I'm going to start figuring out a way that. Because here's the thing, there comes a point that money doesn't buy happiness, but what it does buy is options. It gives me options. I'll give you an example. Okay. We had a situation where we let a team member go a while back a long time ago. And it helped us to establish kind of a value here. And I said, let's just be generous in the severance and let's be overly nice with the severance. It was a weird situation. It was awkward. I wasn't comfortable with everything. The way it went down. We weren't like a thousand percent right. They were 1000% wrong. It just needed to go away. And so what I told the guy is I said, look, this is awkward, it's weird. And so I'm going to be like way crazy generous and sitting with my leadership team. They're like, that was too much money. And I'm like, you know, when I'm 78 years old, or 88 years old on my deathbed, I'm not going to regret giving that guy too much money. I am going to regret keeping him in the building. And so in your case, I'm kind of gonna apply that. I actually did say that. And we do that occasionally. I go, okay, when in doubt, I'm gonna be overly generous. And that way in my old years, I don't look back and go, man, I cheaped out on that guy. I don't live with any regrets on who got paid what here ever. I don't have a situation ever in the history of Ramsey that we underpaid someone in one of those situations. I do not have one that I have any regrets about. So. Because when in doubt, I up it. You follow me? So here you've got a lot of reasons to be crazy generous. A, the guy hadn't done anything wrong today, B, he's 60 years old, C, he's a brother in law, D, he's got medical problems. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to pile cash on this. And so I'm going to start talking to him and go, I want to start talking to you about when you're going to retire. And I think it's sometime over the next two years. And then I'm going to help you with a retirement package that takes care of you uncle. And you're going to write some checks to get the guy out of your building and get your life back. It's a trade off.

[Lee]

I see.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or you're going to tolerate it and do this right here and keep putting up with it and you're just going to be going. But here's the thing. You would not hire this guy in a million years if he wasn't already working there.

[Lee]

Yeah, not if, not if I knew that. No, I wouldn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the whole situation, you just wouldn't enter into it again, right?

[Lee]

Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And there's just too many things wrong with the whole discussion. This is not a proper hire, which means it is time for him to go home. And so the good news is that he is approaching retirement age. And so we can have a valid discussion. The customers will understand, the team will understand, he can be treated very gently and you can be very generous. And if I'm you, I'm just going, I'm writing some checks here to cover dad's mistake of not dealing with it at the time. Your dad had an out, but he was compassionate and trying to be kind. He was trying to be good to the guy. But in the process as you said, he set up something he regrets. And so, yeah, he had a way to send him home finally and it didn't work. He didn't follow through. So that's gonna cost you some money. It's a cost of buying into this in a. You know, you get all the benefit of the wonderful story of being fourth generation and you get all the downside of being fourth generation. And this is one of.

[Lee]

It's hard to live with other people's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Work, but it's what you're signing up for. And you know, if I was you, I would trade it. I think it's a fair trade. I get to be the fourth generation doing this. But the crap, the price, the price of admission to be me is I got to deal with his uncle.

[Lee]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you know, so there's always an upside and a downside on the scale. And I think the scales tip in your favor still. I think the price of admission to be used, a good price. I like it. I'd be you. So I would. But I'm going to start talking to the guy and say, hey, we got to start talking about when you're going to leave and how I'm going to take care of you so you're able to leave. And then you got to figure that out in a way that is generous but reasonable to your company and has an end to it. It doesn't go on forever and ever. Not like I'm going to pay you your salary for the rest of your life to not be here. That's not what I'm talking about. But if I was firing this guy, I might give him two years pay. So we might start trying to figure out, instead of firing him, we're going to call it retirement and we're going to get him to volunteer for it and we're giving him three years pay. I don't care. He probably didn't make that much anyway. And so, you know, you can do a lot of things and he, he goes on and does something else and, or whatever. But yeah, ouch. It's going to be a hard conversation regardless of what you do. But I think it's hard conversation you're going to have to have. And that's one of the, one of the days when leadership sucks. And there's a lot of days when leadership has to do. Has to have the shovel out with the manure and nobody else shovels but leaders. That's who does it. That, that's part you. You just hold your nose and get the shovel out. And that's man. I'm sorry, that part I hate. But that's an interesting discussion though. And note to the generation before if you clean the stable, you don't have to ask your kids to do it when you hand it off next. So do your job as a leader and then you don't have to hand your kid the mess.

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[Dave Ramsey]

As a small business owner, it's your job to set expectations for each role in your company and make sure those expectations are met. But you can't hold your team accountable to something you didn't communicate. Our free Key Results area template will help you set expectations and create role clarity for every member of the team so you can feel confident that everyone is working on the right things to drive your business forward. Go to entreeleadership.com roleclarity to download the template for free and start setting clear expectations for your team. Natalie is with us in New York. Hi Naffatali, how are you?

[Natalie]

Hello and thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help? Good.

[Natalie]

So first, a little bit about my role in company and why I'm asking the question today for some context. So I'm the Chief of Staff, second in command at an organization that's been providing services, support and hope to people going through challenges for over 25 years. And we primarily serve individuals with special needs and their families as well people facing behavioral and mental health challenges now we've grown to thousands of employees across multiple business units and disciplines. And our size is probably comparable to Ramsey Solutions. But there's one caveat. We're spread across five regional offices with site based programs and thousands of home and community based employees. Now, why I'm interested in this today, because I've spent two incredible days at your headquarters last week. And what struck me most was how deeply the culture runs throughout the organization at every level. Now, I've heard about the Ramsey culture for years, as I mentioned to you last week in person, that have been following your financial advice for over 20 years, since a roommate in Yeshiva was reading the Total Money Makeover and I was able to put my hands on it and I was hooked ever since. And I've joined the ENTRE leadership team about eight years ago. But getting to actually see it, feel it, and experience in person made a huge impression. One thing I heard over and over from every person I spoke with was that everyone is a culture creator. And that idea really stuck with me. Now my question is, how can a large company create that kind of culture if it didn't start as early as you did?

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a very good question. Thank you for calling. I appreciate it. I think it's a Herculean task. I think it's going to be a large task and it's going to take some time, but. And it's gonna take a lot of calories. You're gonna burn a lot of calories doing it. The only thing I can assure you is it's gonna be worth the trouble to get there because it's just such a joy to work with people. Only people that are bought in and aligned and sold out for the cause. The good news about what you guys do is it's just such a wonderful service and it's compassionate. You draw in the people that want to go to work. There are compassionate people because they want to serve your clientele. And that just means you've got good people. Very few people in your bunch are there just for the paycheck. They have a compassionate heart. They have a nursing heart, a caretaker's heart, or they wouldn't be doing it. So that's good news.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it's not just the size of the company and not just that you're starting later. Those two things are an obstacle. The third obstacle is they're spread out all over and that's going to add to the complexity as well. So I think you're going to have to have some patience and just do the way I would view it is like the pressure of water building up behind a dam. It's hydrostatic pressure. And we just keep building the pressure, building the pressure, building the pressure, building the pressure. There'll be leaks that spring out in a good way and eventually there'll be a breakthrough and you'll see kind of a flood. But I think you start with your key leaders, you pull in the leadership team, which I would guess if you're with what you're describing, you probably have a leadership team of 100 to 200 people. Right?

[Natalie]

So we have the top layer and then mid level management, which is about 100 people.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, yeah. I would start with those hundred and say, and you know, let's break out into a few groups and start establishing exactly what our core values are, not what we wish they are. This is who we are. And if you're going to work here, you're going to be a we. You've got to do those things, but be tied to those core values. And then we go about creating a culture that is aligned to those core values as leaders within our leadership team. And then we start talking to the rest of the team and it's integrated into the hiring process. So as you have attrition and someone leaves to go work somewhere else or gets married or dies or whatever else, and they leave, you add someone else, they're added in, and from day one, you're hiring them to be someone that creates culture that is aligned to these stated core values. But it's gonna be incremental. I mean, it starts with the leadership team. And then you start having them systematically work with everybody and get buy in. This is who we are. And you don't get to stay here if you're not a we. So Malloy took over Ford and Ford was going broke several years ago and he turned it around and he established that there's some things that we are going to do. And if you want to be a we, if you want to be working here, you're going to do those things. Now Ford is obviously a huge organization. It's obviously, you know, and he obviously was coming late to the party and it's obviously spread all over the place. But he just made a statement that this series of values, here's some activities, here's some things we do, here's some things we don't do. And if you're a we, if you want to work at Ford, this is what we do.

[Natalie]

I like the comparison to Malloy and Ford because we're late to the party, we're 25 years into this.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So yeah, he said he had, you know, regional managers and he said all the regional managers at Ford have to be in my office for the next year every Tuesday for a meeting. And one of the regional managers called up and said, well, I can't do that. And he said, well, all the regional managers at Ford are going to be in my office on Tuesday. And the guy goes, well, I can't do it. He goes, yeah, I know. But all the regional managers at Ford, if you want to be a we, you're going to be here Tuesday. And you know, how do we define.

[Natalie]

What the we is?

[Dave Ramsey]

Is that that's the core value, that's the values.

[Natalie]

And how do we get to take a crack of them? Because we tried it a couple of years ago and we chose some aspirational values to use pattern Manteoni's language. That's a mistake and apparently it' fell flat.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, it's a mistake because it's what you wish you were, not what you are. So you say, correct. When we do, when we are our best version of ourselves and we make a decision on hiring and firing, or we make a decision on an HR thing, what drove that decision? And it could be something like you.

[Natalie]

Say we when you say we, is it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm talking with your leadership.

[Natalie]

We owe the 12 people that are on top or the hundred mid level.

[Dave Ramsey]

Managers, that's fine, you can start there. You can start there and do it. Do an off site with them and say, we're gonna establish who we actually are, not who we wish we were in a good way. These are the positive things that allow us when we're the best version of ourselves, this is who this company really is. Unless we're screwing up. Now, I'm not saying we're identifying our weaknesses. Everybody can do that. That's a different exercise. But when we are operating properly in our best selves, this is how we do our values. And These are our four values, our five or 10 values. I don't care how many you got, but write them down and work on them. It's actually a pretty emotional exercise. We've done it a bunch of times. But it clearly establishes then if something or someone is not aligned with that, they can't stay until unless they get aligned. So you're opting out by you're saying, I'm not willing to do that, then you're opting out. You're making a decision to not be here anymore. And instead of saying to people you need to do this or you need to do that. Instead you say, this is who we are. If you want to be here, you can select to be here by doing this. If you don't do this, you're selecting to not be here. And that gives them the dignity of choice then all the way up and down the ladder. But yeah, you could start with your top 10 or 12 leadership, core leaders, whatever it is, 15, whatever, and do an off site for a day and do these exercises. It's not going to be perfect, but it's better than not doing anything. And you ask how to do it. It's going to be a large task. You're going to do it over and over and over again for as long as you operate. And it'll get more and more defined and more and more clear. More and more people will have a history in this discussion. And then you change your onboarding, you change your hiring to match up with those values and say you're not a cultural fit, this person doesn't fit here culturally because they don't think like we do. They don't want to do things the way we do them. And so you're not a Wii, you're not going to get to be a we, we're not going to hire you. And that changes then because now you're putting people in there that already are aligned and they're easily going to do it. So it'll probably take you five years of messing with this pretty regularly and constantly with hydrostatic pressure to get the, to get the, to get the needle to move. And, and I think you can do it. I think you, I got to tell you, it's gonna, it's gonna be a hard task, it's a doable task, and again, it's worth the trouble because it creates the cleanliness in the environment to where people can know what is expected, know what's safe, know what the guardrails are. And I can go 100 miles an hour as long as I stay inside those guardrails, but I can't go two miles an hour if I get outside them. And so trust has increased, relationships are deepened and productivity goes up. Speed by which you get things done goes up. So it's worth all the trouble. But man it, you know what you're setting out to do and you're being wise about how you're analyzing it and you, you've identified the variables that are against you. But I think you can do it. And, and I, again, I do think it's worthwhile to pull this off. So if I'm. You have at it, brother. Thanks for calling. Our question of the day is from Austin in North Carolina. Dave. My team has multiple generations working side by side with different expectations about work, communication, and leadership. How do you lead across those differences without playing favorites or losing your core culture? Their expectations about work, communication, and leadership are not a concern. That's a nice way of saying, I don't care what their expectations about those things are. What I care about, Austin, is what your expectations are. My expectations, as the owner of Ramsey, about work is that you do it. We have work ethic. We roll up our sleeves. We get crap done. We work at work, and you work while you're at work. You're not checking your personal Facebook all day long. And so I don't really care how old you are or what generation you are or whatever, you know, whatever influences you had. That's irrelevant. My expectation is that we work. My expectation about communication is that we do a lot of it all the time. Even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's a uncomfortable conversation, a conflict. We just communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. We talk all the time. To be unclear is to be unkind. And I don't care if you're 22 or 42 or 62, I. I expect that, and I'm going to give you that, and I'm going to give it to you in equal doses. And so, you know, well, you need to be more gentle with the gen zers. No, you don't. You need to tell them the truth. And if they can't handle that, they don't need to be here. And, well, the boomers expect. I don't care. I'm going to tell them the truth. And if they can't handle that, they don't need to be here. Well, the exercise. I don't care. I'm sorry. I'm not being mean, but you're coming at this like you're gonna keep all of them happy, unique to their little nuanced crap in their generation. And I can take into consideration how they will hear it and how to communicate to them based on what set of ears and eyes they're using. Are they a boomer like me? Are they an X or a Z? A millennial? What are they? And, you know, so I can take that into consideration and how I'm gonna communicate with them, But I'm still going to say communication matters and leadership matters. Leadership still serve us. Leadership's not a position with a corner office. And I get to tell people what to do. That's Just a boss. Bosses push, leaders pull. Leaders job is to serve. Leaders job is to knock down blockers so the team can get their stuff done. Leaders job is to take care of the high conflict situations and solve them so that everybody can get back to work. Job is to shovel out the manure and keep the drama out. My job is to lead and show the way and have some vision. And that's my job, is to lead. And if they don't like that, then they shouldn't be here, regardless of their age. And so, you know, we don't. Well, you can't do that with millennials. Yeah, you can. You can if you hire millennials and they know that that's what's expected. We expect you to work. Well, millennials want to work from home. I don't care. Then they can work from home, but they can't work here because we don't work from home. We work from work. So this is who we are. And so they don't get to set it because of the. Set their expectations upon the organization. The organization sets its expectations upon them and they conform or they're not a we. And that's not being mean or dictatorial or autocratic or any of that. It's just being consistent. Because otherwise you're running a freaking beauty parlor and you're having to treat the blondes different than the redheads, and you can't keep up with all the freaking drama. You cannot figure this out. And it's like, okay, now I have to remember they're Gen Z. So I can't. I can't tell them the truth. Okay? They can't. You can't handle the truth. You know? Yeah, you know, you know, what is it? What is the deal here? Right? Of course you can handle the truth. And so maybe you're just not a grownup and we gotta talk to you about that. But I run into that with 55 year olds that are still emotional children. That's not unique to an age group. So, yes, the different age groups have different tendencies. They have different things that their generation remembers as important or not important. Seas and millennials, for instance, grew up with a magic wand in their hand. And so they're very abundance oriented because they think if they push a button on their phone, magic stuff happens. Like stuff shows up on their front porch, you can get the answer to any question. I mean, it's like a magic wand in their hand. They think anything's possible because for them, if they push a button, anything's possible. And that's the Good news. The bad news is they're impatient because they're used to Amazon delivering it that afternoon. They're pissed if it waits till morning to get there. And so some of these things take time. You gotta cook some stuff in the microwave, but you also gotta cook some stuff in the crock pot. Welcome to business. And so barbecue, micro barbecued microwave. There's no such thing as good. There's only one way to make barbecue right. Cook it long. And I don't care if you're a Z and you're impatient. You're used to Amazon Deli. If you want good barbecue, you gotta cook it all over the weekend. Smoke it to where the neighbor's dog is howling. That's when you get good barbecue. It's no micro beep is not the sign of a good micro. I mean, not the sign of good barbecue. Okay? That's not where it comes from. And that doesn't matter what generation you're from. But you might not understand that if you come from a generation that's used to having things instantly show up in your life. And so we just have to talk about it, that's okay. But I'm not going to reset based on their expectations of work. Otherwise there would be no work. I'm not going to reset based on their expectations of communication. I expect high levels of communication even when it's uncomfortable, and I deliver that. And I expect that out of everybody here, period. So I love this. This is cool. And we do not play favorites across generations in our core culture. Now, what I do look for across with generational differences is the strengths of a particular generation to add value to a project or a situation. For instance, I'm a boomer. I'm 65 years old. Digital. And phones are not native to me. A black rotary dial phone with a cord on Mama's Kitchen wall is native to me. Okay, so I don't get the way your brain works. If you grew up your whole life with a magic wand. And so if I'm producing a product that's going to be on a phone that's a digital product, I don't expect me to be the best person to add value to that. I expect someone who it's their native tongue, their native language, their native mindset to add value to that. And so I'm really looking for some Z's and millennials to be sitting in the room when I'm working on that project. And I really do care deeply about what they say. And some of us dinosaurs need to learn from them. Because we're working on a product that is native to them. If I'm publishing a printed book, a hardback book, that's one of those things that you read in if you haven't seen one in a while. And sometimes they're on your mother's coffee table if you haven't seen one in a while. If I'm doing that, I've produced between Ramsey personalities and me, some about 100 number one bestsellers. So I don't really need your opinion on that. I know my generation knows how to do that and that is native to me. Very easy for me to get my head around a book and book marketing and so on. Now it's marketed in a different set of venues. I have to deal with Amazon now. I have to deal with the fact there's hardly any bookstores left open. I have to deal with a bunch of other things. The stuff we did, the marketing processes that we used have changed. But building and writing and selling a hard back paper book is something I know how to do. So I don't mind the other people of my age group being in the room adding value to that conversation. And I might discount your knowledge if you think all digital is better because it's not always better. Sometimes it is. So anyway, that way. But who can add value to the project based on their generation and who has less to say about it based on their generation? I should have less to say about a digital product because I don't even know how the freaking things work. I have to have somebody hired to just fix the things I break. And so you know that I'm incompetent even though I own the place to do that. And I need to be aware of that and lean into the generation that it's native to. So that's one way I will acquiesce, if you will, to the generational thing. But otherwise they don't set the stuff here, we set the stuff here and they conform. All generations do equally. And there are no favorites other than you might be a favorite. If we're working on a project that you would, your generation would know more about than mine would or vice versa. So there might be a favorite that way, but that's not age discrimination. It's just actual understanding who has something to add value to the project and who doesn't. And so, you know, there you go. I mean, if you, if you're going to make really good biscuits and you were raised north of the Mason Dixon line, I don't know, I'm questioning whether you Know how to do that or not. So, you know, so we can discriminate based on that. That's a joke. You guys can write me letters later if you want. It's okay. But anyway, so whatever. I mean, Southern people do some things, Northern people do some things right. So there's stuff you can distinguish like that. But they don't get to set the tone of the core value and the core culture, and they don't get to set the tone of how we do things. They just get to add value within the framework of the tones that we set, and they conform to that. And they love it, by the way, because it's very, very clear. People just want to know where they stand. They don't want to be coddled. I take that back. Some people want to be coddled, but the people that work here don't want to be coddled. They just want to know where they stand. You don't fit in here. You're not a we if you want to be coddled. Because I just learned how to spell coddle a few weeks ago. So it just doesn't. It's not an option. It's not something we do. So we love you. We want. We want to work with you. We love. We want to get the best from you. We want to hear your ideas. We want you to plug in, use your stuff, and we want you to be learning and adding value and communicating and working your butt off and so on. And leaders serve. Leaders aren't to be served. As Simon Sinek says, leaders eat last, not first. And if you don't believe Simon Sinek, it's in the Bible, too, by the way. So, yeah, I think it's fine. But I think you're going at the question wrong. Is my point, Austin, is we're gonna set the tone and let them conform. And we're gonna do that with a lot of humor and a lot of fun and a lot of clarity, but also unbendable, inflexible on that. When you work here, you work, I work. When I'm in the building, I'm working. I'm not screwing around. And so my team has no question that I'm going to be on time and I'm going to get the production stuff done, and we're going to do whatever we got to do. And they know I'm going to do it. They know I'm going to show up. They know I'm going to do my part. So they do their part. And it's not. It's just respect is all that Is. And so that's cool. It's a good question, Austin. Thank you for writing that in. I like it. Good, good, good. Little rant. You let me get on there. I like it. A lot of fun. If you're a small business owner working 60 hours a week, you gotta check out Entree Leadership Elite. Elite has the AI powered tools that help you scale without burning out. When you join, you'll answer two prompts and get a custom growth plan your team can start executing right away. Plus, you'll have the tools and rhythms that keep them laser focused on what drives growth so you don't have to carry it all by yourself. Go to entreeleadership.com elite or click the link in the show Notes to see how it works. If you like what you're hearing, guys, we could use your help. You could share the show, you could follow subscribe. Whatever those buttons are there in front of you, push one of them. Makes a big difference around here. Push that little five star one right there after all the five stars. All the stars. Not half the stars. Not part of the stars. All the stars. And leave us a nice note. All those things help move the show forward on the algorithms and the various platforms and. Or so I'm told by the smart people. And it's working because a bunch more of you are listening than used to. So thanks for hanging out with us. We appreciate you being here. Alex is in Birmingham. Hey Alex, what's up?

[Alex]

I'm doing fine, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Alex]

Thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call and thank you for all the insights and the principles you have showed and presented to us over the years. But 20 years ago, I started a small business here and we are operating a lot following your principles. We are a debt free company.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool.

[Alex]

With about 25 employees. We have set aside as a company two different buckets for the lack of better words. One is a savings bucket and one is a emergency fund. The savings bucket has in it about $3 million and the emergency funds, it's about $1 million. We are a last year 6 million. This year we already passed the 6. We're on our way to $9 million.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go, revenue. Proud of you. What kind of business is this?

[Alex]

It is in the low voltage sector.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh man. Good for you. Well done. You guys are working your tails off, man.

[Alex]

Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. The question that I have for you though is we have allowed a company that I'm not schooled into the whole financial how to, how to invest and how to do things. I'm a hard worker, but I know where I belong. And we have hired other company that, that could handle some of those money. So the $3 million that is a savings makes about $60,000 a year. It is in that portfolio that the wealth management company manages. And then the 1 million which we use it for, like I said, it's an emergency fund. That fund is in the money market and makes about 4%, give or take. The question that I do have for you is, is that a good approach to that or should I look into something different? Is that a good return or should I start buying properties and houses and other things that I'm not necessarily comfortable with handling?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, the problem with that is if you need the money for the business, it's money for the business. And if it's tied up in real estate, you can't get it out. Right. So did you say you made $60,000 on 3 million?

[Alex]

So when I look at the, at the thing, when I look at what it does, obviously it's invested in the stock market. So you, you know, given, you know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Take and up, I mean, $60,000 a month.

[Alex]

It says there that obviously is invested in things, but when I look at it, it says that it will. The amount, the worth, the net worth of what has been made, it would be like 60,000. And I'm thinking, okay, it's 2%, man. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's nothing that should have made 2%. Crap. You could have got that on a high yield savings account. You could have got four. So that's not invested. Nothing has made 2%. I mean, in a year.

[Alex]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, there's something wrong. Don't you think you are me making more than 2%?

[Alex]

I do. And I'm sitting, you know, I. Those are money and savings in my mind at least initially I was thinking if I don't lose them, at least I'm okay. You know, I have made those, I put them on the side. But on the other hand, they are in a stock market. I could lose them for that matter.

[Dave Ramsey]

If this, you're not going to lose all of them. But they go, it's going to be up and down more than a high yield savings account. So what I would be doing is in your case is I would have the million in a high yield savings account. It'd be earning about four, four and a half, five somewhere in there. Okay. And I would have the three million invested in some basic, you know, growth stock, mutual funds, even an S&P 500. But you would have made a whole lot more than 60,000 bucks if you were invested in something like that. So we've got a portion of our retained earnings in something like an s and P500 index fund or a basic mutual fund. Okay? So what happens there is it's going to range. It's going to do what the stock market does, which every five or six years loses a little bit. And the rest of the time it makes something and almost always makes more than the stupid high yield savings makes. So you're going to hover in the 10 12% range. The last two calendar years, 24 and 23, you would have made 20% on your money. But that's not normal. But that would have been 600,000.

[Alex]

Yeah, for sure. It doesn't do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And so that's where ours is parked. I mean, if we had 3 million sitting in a S&P 500 over 23 and 24, we would have made 600,000 a year on it per year. And now this year, maybe not this year's not been as radically cool, but it's not down. I mean, we're fine. We're making money. So, you know, sit down with a smartvestor Pro, go to ramseysolutions.com and sit down with one of them and talk about where I can park this money that follows the market. Now here's the thing. You put 3 million in there, you might look up one year and it's 2.7. You might look up another year and it's 3.6. But you're not going to. You don't have a situation in stock market history where you're going to have zero.

[Natalie]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so but, you know, if you can make 10% on it on average, you know, or even 8%, it's a lot more than the high yield savings. And you can handle a little bit of volatility because honestly, if something comes up and the thing's at 2.9. Cause it's down a little bit, right? Then Instead of up 600, it's down 100. That doesn't break your back. It doesn't put you out of business. So if you had to. If you had to dip into it. So the times that you're gonna dip into that 3 million, you're gonna have a long notice. Number one, you got a million you're gonna go through before you get to it. You'd use the other million, the original million, first before you got to it. And the other time would be like we're buying something, we're buying another business out or we're buying a huge piece of equipment that we wanna double our dadgum production or something like that. And so we're gonna pull a million dollars out of there. Then you could look at that and go, well, I can wait a month to do that. Let's see if this market rebounds a little bit. It's, you know, Trump burped or something. So we've got to worry about the market for the next 30 minutes and that kind of thing. But you can afford a little bit of volatility there because you've got a lot of lead time before you would get to that 3 million. So that's how, that's how we do our retained earnings. We break it apart between. We keep some money very liquid that we can get to that's completely safe, like a high yield savings. And then we've got some others in basic growth stock mutual funds. So sit down with Smartvestor Pro. If the wealth management people are not making you but 60,000 bucks on 3 million, there's a problem, something's wrong. You need to learn what's going on. You need to figure that out. You got $3 million worth of lessons you want to learn there. You want to know what's going on. And don't say, well, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough to learn this. It's not that hard. A good person in the financial advising world can teach you the basics where you can feel comfortable with your own decisions instead of just holding your nose, closing your eyes and trusting that they're driving the car well, don't ever do that again. So find out what's going on with your guys. Talk to the Ramsey Smartvestor Pro in your area and compare and then decide if you're going to stay with your guys and learn what they're doing and they're going to do a better job. Or are you going to move this? And that's what I would look at doing. So, hey, really good question, man. Very cool. Congratulations on your success. I'm very proud of you. Very well done, folks. Remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders, so take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us on Entree leadership.