38 years ago my wife and i got married
we were stupid
we didn't do any pre-marriage counseling
i was a hell raising beer drinking
hillbilly good salesman though so i sold
her
and about the time i started buying and
selling real estate i left that other
thing and i grew up in real estate
business mom and dad they were in the
real estate business so i thought i was
going to flip this house and that's back
before there was cable tv to tell you
how
and so i started buying houses and
flipping them and and i got rich
starting from nothing by the time i was
26 years old i had about four million
dollars worth of real estate a little
over a million dollar net worth and i
was making about 250 000
cash taxable income a year that's 20 000
a month i don't know what neighborhood
you grew up in but the neighborhood i
grew up in we called that rich
it was fun too y'all
that car you always wanted if you ever
got some money i want that car mine was
a jaguar i wanted to get me a jaguar
because nobody in my own neighborhood
could even spell
jaguar it was exotic you know so i got
me a jaguar man within 90 days maybe i
was a jaguar
i was having fun
and sharon and i we had never traveled
really much a little bit i mean we went
to florida on our honeymoon that was
about it and and we started getting some
money we said what do rich people do and
they found out they go to hawaii so we
went to hawaii
rednecks in hawaii y'all wow
that water is so blue
it was unbelievable
we loved it too man it was a blast we
liked it so much we got home and planned
another trip two months later we went
back again it was fun
and we got sharing some these sparkly
things and they weren't big enough so we
got her some more it was fun y'all
sometimes i hear these people say all
those rich people are miserable
now
i am not here to tell you money will
make you happy because money will not
make you happy money will make you more
of what you already are
if you're unhappy and you get money you
will be unbelievably unhappy
if you're depressed and you get money
your depression will darken
if you're a jerk and you get money you
become a big jerk
if you're sweet and you're generous and
you love giving and you get money you
become what we call a philanthropist and
you change entire communities entire
people sectors you become more of what
you already are
when you get money
it doesn't fix your marriage if you have
a bad marriage it'll make it worse
and the crazy that's in your family
so we're cruising along everything's
pretty good and only i had done some
stupid stuff
nothing illegal i didn't cheat anybody i
didn't lie i didn't commit fraud i
didn't do anything like that but i was
just stupid
how many y'all ever done something dumb
with money how many of you didn't raise
your hand have a problem with lying
i borrowed too much money and we were
doing a lot of it on 90 day notes
because we were flipping these houses
and our bank our largest bank got sold
to another bank out of state and a guy
looks down and goes there's a kid 26
years old owes us a million two
on 90 day notes
let's limit this relationship which is
banker talk for ruin his life
and
we weren't late on a single note but
they called all our notes because under
the paper i signed they had the rights
to do that if they just swirled and they
squirreled
i was the idiot that signed the paper
that allowed that to happen
never dreaming that anybody would be
that way
our second largest lender heard we were
in trouble and called another eight
hundred thousand so we got two million
dollars due almost immediately and it's
all tied up in real estate we spent the
next two and a half years of our life
losing everything we owned
one year i made 250 thousand dollars the
next year my taxable income was six
thousand dollars i spent the whole year
selling stuff trying to pay my bills
because i was told you're supposed to
pay your bills if you say you're going
to
two and a half years later we were at
the bottom our marriage is hanging on by
a thread because the number one cause of
divorce in north america today is money
fights and money problems
we didn't get a divorce sharon said i
would have left but i didn't have a car
with a brand new baby and a toddler and
our marriage just barely hanging on and
my hopes and dreams crushed we were
bankrupt i remember standing in the
shower with it so hot i could just
barely stand there and i would just
stand there with a shower in my face and
cry because i was so
scared
it took a while
instantaneously things don't heal do
they it takes a little time so we didn't
instantly bounce back when you fall that
hard it's more of a splat
and so we start handling money this way
we started doing these five things that
i'm going to teach you this morning if
you do these five things 100 of the time
they work because they're from god i
didn't make them up i stole them all
from the bible and your grandmother
they're called common sense
i just sold them better than anyone has
ever sold them in america's history
that's all number one get on a budget
jesus said don't build a tower without
first counting the costs unless you get
half way up and you're unable to finish
and all who see you begin to mock you
and say this man began to build and was
unable to finish
my friend john maxwell says a budget is
people telling their money what to do
instead of wondering where it went my
friend zig ziglar used to say if you aim
at nothing you'll hit it every single
time it turns out winning at something
is an intentional act no one
accidentally wins
they never interview the football player
after the super bowl's over and goes how
did you do that how did you just win the
super bowl i don't know i just got off
the bus and it just
winning is an intentional act if you're
gonna have a great marriage you're gonna
work at it if you're going to have great
kids you're going to work at it they've
had your kids turn out the nurturing of
their mother the fear of their father we
met we had a plan
all the boys in the youth group are
scared of you great
awesome keeps away wusses and jerks we
don't want those
as sons-in-law our daughter's in law and
it's just a plan you don't win with
money accidentally you're not going to
win the lottery
you're not it's not a random lightning
strike it's a series of i planted some
corn and corn grew
wow
as you sow so shall you reap
i plant nothing
nothing grows
the same rain comes the same sun shines
but nothing grows
if you manage money for a company called
you incorporate and you manage money for
you incorporate the way you manage money
for you now would you fire you don't
answer that
the second thing is get out of debt
the borrower is
slave to the lender
100 of the mentions of debt in scripture
are negative there is no good debt in
scripture
when you read about a hundred percent of
the messages are it's a curse you're a
fool
you're a slave
a hundred percent of the messages in
scripture biblically speaking debt is
stupid
and so what happens is we go to school
and we get us a little student loan
gotta have old sally may in our life and
then we get a master card borrowers
slave to the lender so we should get a
master
and then we go buy a car we can't afford
we know we can't afford it because we
have payments on it and then we go buy a
house we can't afford and we look up
seven years into our brand new marriage
trying to live the same standard of
living our parents were living only took
them 35 years to get there and we fast
forward with debt into something we
can't afford we can't breathe we're
stressed out all the money comes in all
the money goes out and now all we do is
think about how we're gonna make it to
friday we make eighty-five thousand
dollars a year we don't have money for
food
this is normal in america today people
come in our office they look like this
all the time they're like dude can you
get me out yeah i'll get you out it's
gonna hurt though what do you mean we're
gonna have to amputate the tahoe
you're gonna have to do things where you
quit caring what other people think
you're gonna have quit spending money
you don't have to buy stuff you can't
afford when money you don't have to
impress people you don't even really
like you have to reset your value system
instagram breath
watching other people's highlight reel
and thinking that should be your life
comparison will kill you
so we made the decision we're not
borrowing money anymore
you're weird
you're right normal's broke
you know what you have if you don't have
any payments
money
weird thing
everything changes you even make
different decisions about your job some
people stay in toxic job situations
because they have to pay their bills
you suddenly are free to go um i think
i'm going to open up a competitor to you
people because you aren't really good
people and i don't want to work here
anymore so that's fine it's a whole
different thing it's a whole different
mindset so a guy called me from
average car payment america by the way
is right now 529
over 84 months according to the national
auto dealers association if you take 529
that you put into a good chevy truck and
you know it goes down in value like a
rock that's where chevy got that like a
rock and
if you take 529 from age 30 to age 65
put it in a decent growth stock mutual
fund in a roth ira you'll have about 5.6
million dollars in there instead of
having a car i hope you like your car
that's what it's costing you i'm not
saying don't have a nice car i'm just
saying maybe your nice car shouldn't
have you
maybe we got to think different about
this a guy called me from over in west
texas
like baby you're gonna kill me i'm gonna
kill you i'm in tennessee you're in
texas what'd you do he goes truck
payment how much is your truck payment
769 dollars dude really it's no fun is
it you guys just killing me i bet
i said how much is your house payment he
said we live in a double-wide 550 bucks
[Applause]
[Music]
dude if your truck payment's bigger than
your house payment you might be a
redneck
so we got out all the plastic and
we lit some candles and we told the kids
to gather around and we had plastic
surgery
citibank what's in your wallet money
you're weird dave you don't have any
credit cards nope this is my wallet
green president's faces
four pieces of plastic my debit card on
my business which you have to have money
in there to use those okay my debit card
on my personal account my driver's
license and my handgun carry permit
the next one is interesting
foster high quality relationships
do you know you become who you hang
around with be not deceived evil company
corrupts good habits
if you hang around with people that go
the little man can't get ahead
we're just stuck
i sure hope we can elect someone who'll
fix my lies they're spirit animals
eeyore
if you're hanging around with that guy
guess what you're going to be that guy
when they say take it easy they mean
take it easy
i mean hound dog in the sun on the porch
you cannot motivate these people you
hang around people they're getting it
done baby let's get up leave the cave
kill something and drag it home game on
man we got things to do we got people to
see you're gonna read the same books
your friends closest friends read you're
gonna see the same movies you're gonna
watch the same netflix series you're
going to talk like they talk you're
going to pray like they pray you're
going to be generous like they're
generous but if you run around with
people that don't you won't i'm not
talking about be snubby to other people
i'm nice to anybody whether what
religion you are even if you're from new
york i mean i'm gonna be nice to you
okay
i love you you're sweet we're gonna be
friends i got all these friends are way
different than me either they don't vote
right but i still love them and i'm nice
to anybody but i'm talking about who my
closest crew is the six guys carrying my
casket who are these men because those
men are reforming me
and i gotta be real careful because
eagles don't flock you gotta
intentionally gather them together
turkeys flock be intentional about who
you're hanging out with because your
income over a 10-year period of time
will be within 10 percent of the average
of your 10 closest friend's income some
of you are like i need some new friends
yeah well you might you don't have to be
mean to the old ones but you know if
you're gonna quit drinking you probably
shouldn't run around a bunch of drunks
you know if you want to get in shape
maybe you ought to run around with
people that eat stuff that keep you in
shape i'm not hanging with that crew but
you know
y'all but so you know what i'm talking
about right we know the formula we don't
let our kids run around with juvenile
delinquents because we know that you
know little johnny's a weed head your
kid runs around little johnny your kid
will be a wheathead
you know this
the next one is save money the bible
says in the house of the wise or stores
of choice food and oil
and the rest of that says but a foolish
man devours all he has if you spend all
you make you're a fool when you save
money grandma said save for uh
you know why grandma said that cause
it's gonna rain
life is coming and when you got a pile
of money it helps you got 30 dollars in
the bank and no debt and they lay you
off you're gonna be okay you got thirty
thousand dollars in debt and no money
they lay you off you're like
what are we gonna do
wise people save money now here's what's
interesting if you do this stuff it
works so if you get on a plan no one
plans on purpose to lose
no one goes let's have a plan where we
spend everything and retire broke no one
says that right so when you actually do
a plan you will get out of debt because
you figure out when you don't have any
payments it's easier to save and easier
to give right and so you live like no
one else so later you can live like no
one else so when you get on a plan you
will start getting out of debt and when
you got that because you're hanging out
with people that are thinking different
right we're going to foster high quality
relationships then you'll be saving
money and so all these things work
together and the natural byproduct is
the last one you will automatically do
it god says be outrageously generous
he loves a cheerful giver you can't give
when you're broke i never noticed poor
people feeding hungry kids or you're
poor shaming no
you know me money
not i'm mad at you if you're poor i've
been poor i've been broke i know what it
looks like i know what it feels like i'm
not mad at you if you're there but you
know
change
time to do some different stuff man quit
listening to those same people that got
you there have a different way of
looking at things look at the bible
what's the bible tell me about handling
money and
change it puts you in a position to be
outrageously generous being generous is
not an act
being generous is a character quality
it's who you become
generous people smile more they can even
have a conversation where they listen
some they've been around people who are
just takers generous people are the
givers they open the door for you they
can't help but notice needs because they
no longer have their eyes on themselves
because they got self under control take
care of your own household first then
put you in position to be
outrageously generous so try this one
out because they told me to be done in
40 minutes that's when the holy spirit
leaves and um
so
thanksgiving's coming here's what i want
you to do
leave early when you go to grandma's
house for the feast put the kids in the
car we're only 30 minutes early and i
want you to drive and park right in
front of the waffle house on the way to
grandma's house i want you to leave the
kids in the car leave your spouse in the
car leave the car running it might be
cold i don't know just come sit there
kids put screens down watch i want you
to go in there i want you to sit at the
counter i want you to have a cup of
coffee
and she'll come up and she'll pour your
cup of coffee
when she does
i want you to look into her eyes
they'll tell a story the bible says the
eyes are the windows to the soul and she
pours that coffee
happy thanksgiving
pull out three of these
100 bills
i want you to leave them under the
saucer slip out
go sit down with kids hey kids watch god
show off
let me tell you what she'll do
she'll pick him up
you know who's working
waffle house
somebody needs a job
you know who's working waffle house on
thanksgiving day
somebody needs a chop dad this right
here is life-changing baby she'll pick
this up and she'll go
[Music]
just bless her heart it's been so long
since anything good has happened
she thinks it's a trick
i want you to take 300 and i want you to
take your spouse on an unbelievably nice
dinner and i want you to enjoy some
money but i dare you to have more fun
with 300 bucks than that that's as fun
as it gets right there ladies and
gentlemen you have the opportunity to
just impact stuff when you're not broke
anymore because you decided
you were going to
follow the spiritual transformation of
not being conformed to this world but
being transformed
by the renewing of your mind