Jade Warshaw (20:44)
Woo. That's for you guys, man. That's for you guys. All right, all right, all right. Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. Man, you guys are rock stars. That was like. I felt like I was coming out to the wwf. I was ready. That's awesome, man. It is so good to be on this stage. I remember when I was on the other side of this thing, matter of fact, some of you guys watching on livestream, I remember sitting in your shoes just waiting for an event like this. Cause I needed it. I needed to lap up as much of the inspiration as I could. And so, man, it's not lost on me to stand up on this stage today in this situation. It's an honor. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for each and every person in this room. Let me start by saying that. But if you're watching on the livestream today, we're talking about taking control, taking back control. And like Dave said, I know something about that. My husband Sam and I, some of you know this story, some of you don't. We got married one week after college graduation and it was a good time. But slowly but surely, we started to unravel the truth that we had $460,000 of debt. Yeah, you can react. It's a lot of debt. It's a lot of money. And here was. This was the messed up part about it. The messed up part was we felt like we did everything right, right, you know, 18 years old, they said, you need to go to college. We say, yeah, we need to go to college. And culture said, not only do you need to go, but there's a student loan for that. You can go to whatever college you want. Just take out a loan. And so we did. Then we graduated college and they said, good job, you graduated college, you got your big boy job, you deserve a new car, you need a car. And guess what, there's a loan for that. So we took the loans. We had a Hummer H3 baby payment. $435. Woo. Let me tell you. Then Culture said, hey, you work hard, you deserve a life that you can't afford, but we can help you fund it. Credit cards, take out a few credit cards. We did everything right. Where did it get us? Pile of debt, stress, worry, sleepless nights, man. So if you're listening here tonight, if you're on the live stream and you're frustrated, man, I get it, I understand it. I've been exactly where you are. If you're overwhelmed, oh my goodness, I understand. But I also understand that many of you are on the cusp of making a big choice tonight. You've been listening to the things we teach. You've heard a little bit about it. And the truth is, the ideas that we teach. The folks in this room know the ideas that we teach. They are simple, right? They're simple to understand. Yes, simple to say. But the truth is. What's the truth? They're hard to do. It's tough, right? You guys know it's tough, man. But you can do it. I'm living proof that you can do it. Not only can you do it, it's worth it to do it. You can absolutely, positively take back control of your money. Yeah, you can. I like you guys. I do. But you need a system. You need a system, and I don't have a whole lot of time. I can't belabor it tonight. So I'm gonna tell you three things that Sam and I did to take back control of our money. It's gonna work for you, too. The first thing you need is a why, okay? You need a reason why. I would call it a purpose to proceed. Like, why in the heck, Jade, am I gonna go along with the stuff that you and Dave are teaching? Why would I do that? I know my why. Can I tell you my why? Oh, Lord have mercy. It was 2008 when Sam and I discovered our debt. And I don't know if you guys remember 2008, a little time I like to call the Great Recession. Oh, my goodness gracious. If you remember, let me paint you the picture. All hell was breaking loose. Gas prices out of control, real estate bubble bursting, 401ks. People were literally selling off their 401ks at the bottom, just losing thousands, hundreds of thousands by the day. It was a hurricane. And Sam and I were right in the middle, just getting waylaid, just getting pummeled by the storm. Now, let me just explain this for a second, because I'm a Florida girl. I don't know if you noticed. I'm a Florida girl, okay? And in Florida, we have hurricanes, okay? I'm not talking about the football team. We have storms. And. And with a hurricane, a lot of people get it twisted. They're like, oh, the worst part of the hurricane. You don't wanna be in the eye of the storm. Like, no, no, no, no. With the hurricane, you got the big storm swirling around, then you've got the eye in the center. The worst part of the storm is this area. If you can see right in here, this inner area just before you get to the eye, it's the most severe weather. Sometimes there's tornadoes that drop down in that area. Terrible. That's where Sam and I were the worst. $460,000 of debt. Now, don't get it twisted. Some of you watching online tonight, maybe even in this room, you're in a situation where you're like, hey, where I'm at, Jade, it's sunny, it's 70, it's calm. That's what the eye of the storm feels like. Everything looks good. The birds are chirping, sky is blue. But you and I both know, if you're in the eye of the storm, if the wind blows just a little bit to the left or to the right, you lose a job. Wife gets a diagnosis. Somebody steps off the curb, breaks their leg. Next thing you know, they're on disability. All it takes is one thing, the wind will blow just a little bit and you go from sunny and 70 to being waylaid, pummeled. You know what I'm talking about. I'm going to be honest with you. When it comes to a storm, a financial storm, an economic storm, the place is not to be, is not on the edge like Sam and I were. The place to be is not in the middle, in the eye of the storm, the place that you want to be above the storm, you gotta get above the storm. I'll tell you the first time I ever heard that concept. This is story time right now. The first time I ever heard the concept of flying above the storm. In 2008, back, you know, when it was just Dave Ramsey on the show, it was called the Dave Ramsey Show. I was listening to the radio and Dave was on and he was talking about. Somebody had called and he ended up talking about real estate in the midst of a great recession. And he said, you know what? For me, I'm not really feeling the effects of the recession because I positioned myself above the storm. Right now, real estate is cheap. So I'm buying it up. And I'm listening to my radio. Like, what? What is this, man? He is sitting in his air conditioned studio with his UT Vols tumbler talking about buying up real estate. Y' all know what I'm talking about? Cause it's cheap. I was mad, yes. Here I am getting knocked out and he's saying, it's easy to buy up real estate. I got mad. And do you want to know what happened? Shortly after that, the old brain clicked on and I got smart. I said, wait a second now. If he's above the storm, it's because he worked to get there. It didn't just happen. It wasn't luck. He worked to get there. And I very quickly went from being angry to what I'm gonna call probably the most righteous jealousy anyone could ever have. I was like, I hear what this man is saying, and I want it. I want it and I can get it, but I'm gonna have to work hard and do something I've never done before to get it to fly above the storm. I made a decision that day with my husband Sam, who's back there somewhere. He's in here somewhere. I said, I never want to be in this situation again. I don't know if you guys have noticed this stuff, but these economic hardships, these downturns, it's all like cyclical, right? I'm thinking back, like, all right, you got like the 2000s when it was like all the dot com stuff in a Y2K. You had that. Then it was like 9, 11. And then we came to the great recession and then we had Covid. And then have you noticed it's really bad for a while and then it gets good and then we forget and it gets really bad again. And then we forget and it gets good. Right? It's cyclical. And I said, man, I don't know what it's going to be, but something's going to happen again. And I never want to be getting waylaid by the storm. I want to get above the storm. And sure enough, yeah, a while later, Covid happened, and we were able to fly above the storm just like Dave Ramsey. And so you have a choice today. There's really only three options. Time's going to pass anyway, right? Right. It's going to pass because when we started getting out of debt, it was 2008. We did our debt free scream in 2018, 2017, the time is going to pass and you have three options. You could be the same. Let me tell you, being the same is not an option. I don't have time to talk about it, but look up the parable of the tenants Staying the same is not an option. Couple years passes, you never, you know, you never paid off the debt. You're still leasing a car, still living paycheck to paycheck, still arguing with your spouse about the same old arguments. That's for the birds. That's ridiculousness. You have opportunity in front of you. Staying the same is not an option. I feel like I'm talking to my kids right now. No, sir. You know, you could be worse off. Worse off. You Never paid off the debt. And before you know it, you know you didn't see it coming. But you got laid off. And now you're having to borrow on credit cards to make ends meet. And you're having a hard time keeping up with the mortgage, and you miss a few payments, and then you miss a few more, and suddenly you're house is at risk. You're thinking about filing bankruptcy. Oh, my goodness, it's worse.