Name: "Bosses Push, Leaders Pull" | Dave Ramsey on Leadership
Uploaded: 2024-05-06T13:00:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video '"Bosses Push, Leaders Pull" | Dave Ramsey on Leadership' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video '"Bosses Push, Leaders Pull" | Dave Ramsey on Leadership' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-05-06. Transcript available.

What are some, like, obviously you've learned a lot of financial lessons over
the years, like, what were some personal lessons that you had to learn along
the way, too, that, like, kind of helped you?
Like, was there some things that have kind of stood out to you, you feel like?
You know, I, um, yeah, I didn't know how to lead.
I mean, like you said earlier, we're talking about hiring an employee.
Yeah.
I just, I was so dumb that I thought if you hired people that they would, like,
work.
Yeah, they knew what to do.
Well, no, that they would just actually work.
I thought, I thought they would just show up.
I thought they'd be on time.
I didn't think they'd steal.
I was so dumb that I thought all that.
And so I just, like, if you could fog up a mirror, yeah, let's go do this
together, man.
Come on, get in here.
I'll put you on payroll.
Let's go.
And then I got all this crazy and all this drama and all this other stuff.
I was horrible.
And I was, I was pretty much a boss.
Bosses push, leaders pull.
And, man, when I was 32 years old, I didn't get that.
And we hired our first person when I was 32.
And so, you know, over the years, I've had to learn to not be behind.
Because, I mean, if you're a boss, you're just at the back of the cattle and
cracking the whip.
And it's like you're moving at the speed of the slowest cow, you know, like the
slowest common denominator in the room.
You know, it's like, you know, if you're a leader, you're standing at the train
going, we're leaving.
Anybody want to get on?
Because this thing's going.
Right.
You better keep up because we're going hard and you better get it.
And so, I had to get around front of that and say, all right, I'm going to lead.
And then I went to this Christian conference with a guy named John Maxwell, who's
become a great friend.
He's one of the top leadership speakers in the world.
Is he really?
And he said, you know, you should be a servant leader.
And I went, say what?
I'm the one writing the check.
I ain't the servant.
I'm confused here.
And I thought he meant subservient.
And what he meant was you got to love your people and you got to care what's
best for them.
And sometimes that means telling them hard truth that they don't want to hear.
Sometimes it means they can't work anymore because they can't behave.
You know, that kind of stuff.
And so, I realized I had been serving my kids by making them brush their teeth
against their will.
You know, so they have some teeth later.
That's serving them.
So, it's a servant leader, right?
And so, yeah, I'm good with servant leadership.
And so, I had to learn that.
Again, I sucked.
I was a horrible boss because I just, I was going so hard.
I thought everybody else was going hard and I was pissed off because they weren't
keeping up.
And I'm like, well, you hired a bunch of donkeys and expect to win the dadgum
Kentucky Derby.
And no donkey ever won, man.
So, we had to look for thoroughbreds and have a donkey-ectomy.
And it was a problem, man.
And so, yeah, I sucked.
And I'm a world-class leader today.
It's one of the things I'm best at.
I love our people.
I love our team.
The way this place functions and operates, it's one of the best places in
Nashville to work.
Probably one of the best places in the world to work.
And it's not perfect.
We screw up.
But we treat people right.
We care about them.
And we expect high things out of them.
We expect them to get it.
And they do.
We've got a great team.
Wow.
Yeah, I think that's something that I did have slowly like had to, yeah, that's
been a tough journey for me.
Like even just having a few employees and it's like you're suddenly a, yeah,
you're suddenly a boss.
You don't even want to be a boss.
Like some of that, too.
I think just a realization like, oh, I'm the boss, I guess, you know.
And they're like, well, yeah, you are.
And I'm like, well, I was just trying to get crap done.
You know, who knew, you know.
And I needed somebody to do that thing.
And you brought you in to do that thing.
And then you brought all your crap with you when you did that.
Now I got to deal with your crap.
So, you know, and that's been a 30-year journey.
That's huge.
Boss versus leader.
That's so, it's really, it's such a good way to look at it.
And would you go to conference and stuff to learn about that stuff, too?
Because I'm sure you had to evolve in that space.
I did.
I read like a maniac.
And so I'm going to read, you know, leadership books, business books.
I still read like crazy.
I love to get new information.
And this digital age, an old guy like me, I got, I get, I get, I'm sitting in
these meetings
with these studs and I don't even know what they're saying.
And they work for me.
I'm like, what did you just say?
So I have to keep up.
I mean, I got to, I got to work hard.
I got to pedal hard just to stay on the bike.
And so, yeah, I still do that stuff.
And I still, you know, hang out.
The good news is some of the guys that are the best writers and thinkers in the
world
have become friends over the years now.
And so they're my running buddies.
So we hang out.
I get to talk offline with them and they're still teaching me stuff.
It's cool.
Yeah.
Did you find yourself having unrealistic expectations about going into business
spaces?
That's, that's some things that I've struggled with in my life, especially
recently.
It's like just unrealistic expectations that things are going to work or that
they should
be a certain way, like not leaving space for anything really trying to just
really have
a lot of my own will, I guess, in some ways it is, but also it's just, you know,
observing
you from the outside, I think you probably suffer from, uh, this intense desire
to be
excellent.
Yeah.
And, um, all that means is you're excellent.
And so if you demand that of yourself, it's okay to demand that of the
situation of the
project and even the people, um, I work my tail off.
And so I don't hesitate if somebody's not to go, Hey, come on, pick it up.
Right.
You know, it's not like I'm kicking back and asking you to go down.
No, we're, I'm going.
Right.
So keep up.
Right.
You know, and, and the same thing with a project, we get on these projects now.
So I do, I have, I've still have unrealistic expectations.
I do have a reality perception after 30 freaking years of doing stupid stuff.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, I'm convinced we've survived about 90% of our ideas that everything
that good
that's happened to happen on about 10% of them.
But when you're starting it, I mean, you're going for a walk in the morning and,
uh,
you know, or you're, you're, uh, sitting on the dock, having a cup of coffee at
the
lake and you had this idea, they're all good then, you know, but when you're,
you
know, half a million dollars in and you go, Oh, this sucks.
This is awful.
And so you, you've come to the realization that even though we demanded
excellence,
even though we drove the lane, put the ball in the hoop, even though we didn't
have product market fit, something's off, pricing's off, something's off.
And, um, I mean, but if you're, if you're not trying stuff, you're not growing,
right?
You got to try stuff, but you're gonna, you're gonna screw up a lot of it, even
though you
demand excellence, but I don't have a hesitation at all expecting excellence
and, and, uh, expecting
it, you know, why would you enter something you didn't think was going to work?
Of course we think it's going to work.
Yeah.
You know, like a stupid reporter the other day is like, did you ever have any
idea it would
be this big?
And I'm like, well, of course I did.
I'm getting people out of debt.
There's like, everybody is my market, you know, of course I thought it, but
what I didn't
know is how much work it was going to be.
I didn't have any idea I was going to have a hundred million dollars in payroll.
You know, I didn't have any idea that it was going to take that to do it, but I
knew
there was a lot of need.
I knew that it could be big, but I didn't, I didn't know what, how bad it was
going to
be, how hard it was going to be.
Yeah.
I think that's the thing that, you know what, that's funny when I hear you say
that.
Cause yeah, as I was, as like, I started to get busier with stuff that was
business, I just wanted to be a comedian, you know, and then got into podcasting.
And then you have an employee, then you have employees and then people, they
have feelings
and risk and you have, and they have feelings.
Yeah.
And then you have relationships with them, you know?
And so, and so it's like all of these things, next thing you know, it's like, I
spend a lot
of my day, most of your time gets gone kind of because you have, there's
another responsibility.
And so then I'm just like, man, I'm just, I never, I didn't expect this much
more work
to come out of, um, I think just having some goals, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought I was going to be on the radio and sell some books on getting out of
debt.
And I mean, who knew I needed 400 people in tech, in a tech department, you
know?
And so it's the same thing.
You're exactly right.
And, and, but the good news is, is that it, like you said earlier, it's an
opportunity to
learn, opportunity to grow, um, that way you don't just stay in the pressure
washing business.
And, um, so I, I still enjoy the stage.
I still enjoy the being on the radio and the podcast, the YouTube every day.
We still do that show every day, three hours a day.
Um, I still enjoy all that stuff, but I also enjoy running this place.
I, and I'm running it with my son.
He's the president now.
And he and I, you know, we had breakfast this morning and, and we're having, we're
having
a lot of fun working on the problems and, you know, looking at the new
opportunities
and all that.
So it's, it's the entrepreneurial side is fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.