"You Have An Absolute Emergency On Your Hands"

Summary

Episode Overview

Theme:
In this episode of The Ramsey Show Highlights, hosts Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Delony advise a caller, Jamie, who faces urgent financial and career uncertainty after learning she will soon be laid off. The conversation centers on how to respond decisively to unexpected job loss, tackle anxiety, and take immediate, practical steps to maintain financial stability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jamie’s Situation: Financial Pressure Meets Job Loss

• Jamie shares that she has worked hard to pay down debt, leaving only her mortgage ($98,000) and substantial student loan debt ($142,000).
• She’s just learned she’ll lose her job in about a week. Her severance package is $16,000 before taxes, and she has about $25,000 in her 401k.
• Jamie voices her anxiety at facing major debt and unemployment simultaneously, especially given a history of social anxiety and prior time out of the workforce.

Recognizing an "Absolute Emergency"

• John Delony cuts to the heart of the problem:

  • "You have an absolute emergency on your hand." (02:20 & 02:58)

• He affirms Jamie's feelings, noting the risk of old coping patterns resurfacing (like isolation or avoidance), but insists decisive action is the only way through:

  • "You are not who you once were." (03:14)

  • "Your body wants to drag us right back into 'this is how we always handle things.'" (03:18-03:31)

• The hosts highlight that losing a job triggers grief and shame, and it's important to recognize but not surrender to those feelings.

Action Plan: Immediate Steps

• Don’t “Turtle Up”:
  • John strongly advises against retreating or procrastinating:

    • "We're not going to turtle up... We're going to grieve it later. What we're going to do is start applying for jobs like mad." (03:41)

• Apply Broadly & Urgently:
  • The hosts suggest Jamie widen her search beyond ideal roles:

    • "We're not looking for careers... We're looking for two jobs that we're going to go to in the morning and in the evening." (03:53)

    • "Apply for coffee shop jobs. Apply for maintenance jobs. Waitress jobs. Everything." (04:51)

• Find Immediate Income & Stability:
  • Dave sets a bold but motivating goal:

    • "If you could work so hard that you didn't need to touch the $16k, that's the goal. Throw that whole thing at the debt once you get some stability." (05:06)

  • However, both hosts reinforce that using the severance if needed is nothing to be ashamed of.

Leveraging Skills & Background

• Dave and John encourage Jamie to tap into her experience and degrees:
  • Jamie has degrees in interior design and psychology and previously worked in interior design.
  • Dave advises:

    • "Contact ten interior design companies in your area and say, 'Hey, I have a degree in interior design. I’m ready to start tomorrow.'" (07:03)

• They offer to send Jamie Ken Coleman's Find the Work You’re Wired to Do for career assessment and guidance.

Psychological Insight & Motivation

• John normalizes feelings of anxiety and stress but stresses pushing through is key:

  • "The thing about anxiety, that's the worst, is the only way through it is through it." (08:01)

• The importance of action:

  • "We're gonna go, we're gonna act... There will be no hours left unspent twiddling our thumbs." (07:19, 07:22)

  • "The energy has to go somewhere. It can paralyze you. Or you can do it to solve this present emergency." (07:35)

Household Tips: Keep Moving

• Dave draws a powerful analogy:

  • "An object at rest stays at rest. Once you stop, it is so hard to get moving again." (08:58)

  • Both he and John joke about how easy it is to get stuck in inaction or comfort, urging Jamie and listeners to push past inertia and get moving.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• John Delony: > "You have an absolute emergency on your hand." (02:20 & 02:58)
• Dave Ramsey: > "If you could work so hard that you didn’t need to touch the 16k, that's the goal. Throw that whole thing at the debt once you get some stability." (05:06)
• John Delony: > "We're going to feel the social anxiousness. We're going to feel it and then we're going to go through it because we have an emergency on our hands." (04:05)
• Dave Ramsey: > "An object at rest stays at rest. Once you stop, it is so hard to get moving again." (08:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Identifying the Emergency: 02:20–02:58
• Affirming Jamie's Progress: 03:05–03:18
• Immediate Action Plan: 03:41–04:57
• Financial Strategy (Severance and Debt): 05:06–05:21
• Job Application Strategy: 04:51–05:57
• Leveraging Skills & Degrees: 06:30–07:05
• Motivation to Act: 07:18–07:35
• Dealing with Grief and Anxiety: 07:45–08:34
• Analogy: Inertia and Action: 08:58–09:25

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Conclusion

This episode serves as an urgent motivational blueprint for anyone facing financial and employment uncertainty. The hosts, balancing empathy and tough love, stress that in a true emergency, feeling paralyzed is normal—but the only way out is through relentless action and self-belief. Jamie’s courage to call and commit to change becomes a lesson in resilience for all listeners.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Jamie]

I've been following the plan for quite a while. I got rid of my car, I paid down all my debt. The only two things I have left are my student loan debt and my mortgage. My mortgage I owe 98,000 on and unfortunately on my student loans I owe today 142,000. Last Wednesday I learned that my position at my job is going to be eliminated and I will be without a job on February 1st or on 2nd and I am kind of freaked out.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I feel like you have a right to be.

[Jamie]

I don't have. I only have about 25 in 401k and obviously I'd want to get that student loan debt out of the way. But with my separation I'll get a seventh package but it's only going to be about 16,000 and that's before taxes. So I am not sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that floats you. Three months. What do you think?

[Jamie]

Yes. Yes. Three months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[John]

What do you do?

[Jamie]

I am a facility planner.

[John]

For a.

[Jamie]

Guy who's not very large healthcare company. I manage the plans before plans and where people sit and. Okay, so like physical things like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

You help with the logistics.

[John]

Chance of getting a new job quickly.

[Jamie]

I hope. Well, good. But I. It took me a couple of years to get that job.

[John]

Okay.

[Jamie]

So John, I'm glad you're on this call. You'll understand this. I was on disability for some years and was able to get back into the job market and this was the position I landed and it's been a really good position for me. I work from home.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

So I'm kind of nervous about, you know, kind of the things that go around with social anxiety and those kinds of things. So.

[John]

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a word problem. I'm gonna give you a word it will be. But I'm gonna give you a word that most it might cause some people listening to inhale sharply. Okay.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[John]

But I'm telling you this word because I believe in you and I trust in you. Okay. You have an absolute emergency on your hand.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[John]

You have an absolute emergency on your hand.

[Jamie]

Yes. And agreed.

[John]

And you have proven to yourself you have documented evidence over the last few.

[Dave Ramsey]

Years.

[John]

That you are not who you once were.

[Jamie]

Exactly.

[John]

And these kind of big events, a job loss of somebody passing away, who we care about, our body wants to drag us right back into this is how we always handle things.

[Jamie]

Right.

[John]

And what, you have a bonafide emergency and you've got a tiny little Runway to land the plane. Right.

[Jamie]

Right.

[John]

And so what we're not going to do is turtle up. We're not. We're going to grieve the heck out of this thing. But I'm going to say this, it's going to sound crazy. We're going to grieve it later. What we're going to do is start applying for jobs like mad. And we're not looking for careers, we're not looking for exact replicas. We're not looking for perfect work from home situations. We're looking for two jobs that, that we're going to go to in the morning and in the evening. And we're going to feel the social anxiousness. We're going to feel it and then we're going to go through it because we have an emergency on our hands. And on the other side of this, you're going to be so freaking strong that the landscape of jobs available to you will double or triple in scope. You get what I'm saying?

[Jamie]

Yes, I do.

[John]

It's going to be hard, it's going to be scary, and your body's going to want to go back to what it has done in the past, which is turtle up and just. And wave the white flag. And we're not doing that this time. You've come too far.

[Jamie]

Exactly. And that's exactly why I'm calling. Because I felt like I was. My, my instinct was to go back to that old thinking. It's like, no, I've come so far. Why would I do that?

[John]

We're going to apply for coffee shop jobs. We're going to apply for maintenance job, we're going to play for waitress jobs. Everything. Everything.

[Jamie]

Okay?

[John]

Everything. Because what you need right now is A, a reason to get up in the morning and B, you need money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Think about this. If you could work so hard that you didn't need to touch the 16k, that's the goal. Throw that whole thing at the debt. Once you get some stability, that's the goal. You're going to be on Cloud nine.

[Jamie]

Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I just make that the goal.

[Jamie]

Sure. That I'm doing the right thing now.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not a bad person if you touch the 16 grand. I'm not mad if you use the severance, but how cool would it be if you didn't? And it really propelled your baby steps. Instead of waiting three months, the money runs out and you go, well, I guess I need to find a job. Now, that's not going to help anything.

[Jamie]

So I'm not going to do that.

[John]

We're going to apply for fancy jobs, and you know the difference what I'm saying? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but we're going to go get waitress jobs, Home Depot jobs, whatever, and we're going to apply for the facility management jobs. These bigger picture things are going to take longer, have longer processes. We're going to apply for those in the evenings and at night.

[Jamie]

Okay, sounds good.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're going to send you Ken Coleman's Find the Work youk're Wired To Do. It has the Get Clear career assessment in there, and what it's really going to help you do is figure out, hey, what are the skills behind the work I've been doing that I really love and enjoy and I'm good at? And what other roles can I apply that to? Because right now you're thinking, I need. I'm going to type in these keywords, and I think there's so many underlying skills. You can take a logistical nightmare and clean it up and organize it. Sure. That's an amazing skill to have that you can apply into anything. Project management, that would be a great field for you. What is your degree in?

[Jamie]

I have a degree in interior design and a degree in psychology.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love it. Have you pursued interior design at all as a career?

[Jamie]

I did, and that's kind of why it took me so long to find this job, because I felt like I wanted a very specific commercial job and it just wasn't happening. So then I was. I found this job recruiter. Reach up.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, on top of your, you know, your job shopping, I'd contact 10 interior design companies in your area and say, hey, I have a degree in interior design. I'm ready to start tomorrow.

[Jamie]

Okay, I will do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, you got the degree in it. You spent a pretty penny to get it. Might as well give it your best shot. This might be the on ramp you needed to go. I needed to get laid off in order to go pursue the thing that I really wanted to Do.

[John]

But here's your key word.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[John]

We're gonna go, we're gonna act.

[Dave Ramsey]

There will be no hours left unspent twiddling our thumbs.

[John]

Yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna close your computer screen and go for a quick walk around your neighborhood, and you're gonna put your head on your pillow exhausted because you've been working so hard. The energy has to go somewhere.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[John]

It can paralyze you. Or you can do it to solve this present emergency. Exciting.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's, she's paralyzed in excitement right now. That's so great, Jamie. Thank you for the call. John, let's talk about this, because a lot of people, we talked about this on the show, that it's, it's like losing a loved one. Like the grief of losing a job.

[John]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And the shame, the guilt, the fear. It's like all the emotions.

[John]

And in her situation, having a diagnosed anxiety condition. The thing about anxiety, that's the worst is the only way through it is through it. And so you're gonna have all of this, these feelings, you're gonna have all these emotions. She has an emergency, and millions of Americans have an emergency. And what many people do when there's an emergency is either they run around bananas or just creating more mess, or they just take their foot off the gas, put the car in park and exhale. And she doesn't have that luxury. She owes a couple hundred thousand dollars in various things.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[John]

So we're going to have some direction. We're going to go get a job, get some money, get some connections. We're going to, to apply for some jobs. We're going to read a book. We're going to have coffee with somebody who's in a job adjacent. We're going to go do a bunch of stuff and the weight of this. Dude, I got fired. They took my job away.

[Dave Ramsey]

That took my life.

[John]

Will be there. But we're going to. We don't have the luxury of just stopping for a season. We got to go get a job and we're going to go, go, go, go.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love that. An object at rest stays at rest. Once you stop, it is so hard to get moving again.

[John]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

You get comfy, you get your favorite blankie, you're watching your favorite Netflix show, and you go, well, that's a problem for tomorrow. Me?

[John]

Yeah, it's hard, George. If I'm, if it's like 9 o', clock, I go to bed early because I'm a nerd and I sit on the couch and just, I'm going to watch one show. It is so hard to get up from the couch and just go to my room to bed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, right.

[John]

I should have just stayed up and gone to bed and got the extra 30 minutes or 45 minutes of sleep. Similar here, man. If you exhale and be like, well, I've got this 16 grand, that 16 grand will be gone before you can sneeze. And now you're gonna be in a real mess. So you got a job. You're taking your job away in a month. Tiny little severance. It's time to hit the gas and go.

[Dave Ramsey]

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