Oh, you guys are good. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Wow. I tell you what, you know, I go around the world teaching all over the place teaching people all about this idea of debt and the idea that if you could get out of debt, you'd have some money. If you didn't have any payments, you'd have some money.
And and people look at me with two different problems with that. One is they get all sophisticated and academic. They start talking about well Dave there's there's good debt there.
There's good debt and and Wall Street has proven that recently Dave debt is a tool to be used for your good. And you know I used to believe that garbage too. I was in college and they used to teach us this stuff about leverage and internal rates of return and net present values.
And I'm not against education. I mean my financial education is part of where I am now. Academia is a good thing, but you can't believe everything you hear to the extent it doesn't line up with this because, you know, I got to thinking the borrower is truly slave to the lender.
That's not a we're not kidding about that. God's truth says that every single time. And I got to thinking about it and I'm thinking, who was it taught me that borrowing money was good?
This was my finance professor in college who was broke. A broke finance professor is like a shop teacher with missing fingers. You see, if you want to win, you ought to try finding some people that are winning and emulate or mimic what they are doing.
If you hire a personal trainer and you walk in the first morning and your personal trainer is 400 lb, we got a problem. If you've written a book on marriage and you've been married 14 times, bless your heart, I hope this one sticks, but I don't want to read your book. I was with a couple the other day that were 87 years old.
Been married 60 some odd years. You want to be married? That's who you ask.
You ask him how you married to her 60some years. She don't kill you. Men want to know these things.
Find a winner and emulate what they're doing. If you study Forbes magazine has the 400 wealthiest people in North America that it publishes every year. 67% of them, seven out of 10 of them are first generation rich.
They started with nothing became wealthy. When they surveyed the wealthiest people in North America, not your broke brother-in-law with an opinion, but the 400 wealthiest people in North America and they asked them what the most important key to becoming wealthy was, 75% of them said getting out of debt and staying out of debt. H.
But broke people always got a plan for a payment, don't they? Because broke people always want a car that they can't afford. They always want a stereo that they can't afford.
They always want some clothing or a vacation that they can't afford. And let me tell you how you can tell if you can afford it. You have the money to pay for it.
Unless you have the money, that by definition is you can't afford it. Because when you go into debt, then you're hooked to those payments. Now you're a slave.
Jesus said, "It's tough to serve two masters. " So, what are we going to do about this? How are we going to get out?
Well, we want to talk about breaking the bondage of debt. And how you really do it in a real practical, hands-on, realworld application. See, the truth is that if you spread a lie or a myth often enough, loud enough, and with enough sophistication, eventually people will begin to believe it.
And they will they will tell other people about the lie. And it's not that they meant to lie. They just believed a lie and they spread it.
It happens all the time. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Everybody stand up for a second.
Now, here's what I want you to do. I need you to close your eyes. I can see all of you.
And I will mess with you if you don't follow my instructions. I need you to close your eyes. And with your eyes closed, I want you to play my games.
I promise not to mess with you so long as you play. If you're wrong, I won't make fun of you. If you don't play, I will totally pick on you.
And we'll point the camera right at you. Here's what I want you to do. With your eyes closed, I want you to take your best guess with your eyes closed and point north.
No, sir. Up does not count. If you're wrong, it's okay, but give us your best guess.
This is funny. Open your eyes and look around. Uhoh, somebody's wrong.
Well, apparently some of you aren't lost because according to my compass, north is this way. Now, we have people pointing this way and this way, and a couple are pointing this way. Now, we're taping this in Oklahoma, and so if you want to go to Canada, north is going to be this way.
You can get to Canada this way, but it's the long way around this. You can argue about this, but you'll be wrong. You can start your own denomination, but you'll be wrong.
This is north. Now, I didn't know either. I've got a compass.
I cheated. But you know what? You and I have got a compass.
And it's not cheating to not be lost. Everybody have a seat. See what has happened with this is debt has been marketed to us so aggressively, so thoroughly with such sophistication and such manipulation for so long that Americans and people all around the world have begun to believe all deep down within their heart that they will never financially be somebody unless they use debt to do it.
Debt is the path to prosperity. If you want you a good car, son, you got to build your credit. You'll never be anybody unless you build your credit.
We in America, we worship at the altar of the FICO score. Oh, great. FICO, our provider.
FICO. Thank you, FICO. How'd you get that?
Oh, Mr FICO sent it. It was because of my FICO. I work really hard to keep my FICO up.
And your FICO is a is a mathematical algorithm that inter that shows how you interact with debt. When you quit borrowing money, your FICO score will erode. How am I going to live?
See, we worship at the altar of debt. We think debt is our provider. Now, I don't want to get all religious or crazy on you, but you know, turns out God's your provider.
I know that sounds kind of bizarre sometimes when you say it sounds like, you know, some kind of preacher guy or something, but he really is your provider. It really is where it comes from. And sometimes he provides you with two hands and a brain to work.
Those who don't work don't eat. I read that. The diligent prosper, not the lazy at home watching TV.
That, you know, that it's in there. I mean, he he chose you. I mean, it's not like he's just going to roast the duck and throw it in your back window.
You got to go kill it and cook it, you know? But but God is your provider. That's how this stuff works.
And debt has been marketed to us so thoroughly that we now believe it's our provider. And to imagine living without debt requires a complete paradigm shift, a completely new way of looking at things. Let's play with some new ways of looking at things.
If you get a new way of looking at things, you know what's happened? Learning occurred. That's how you get a new way of looking at things.
That's why when you read scripture and then five years later you read the same scripture and you go, "Whoa, I never thought about it that way. " Why? Because you have a new way of looking at things, you had new eyes to see the exact same words and truth.
They leap off the page, grab you around the neck, and you go, "Okay, I got it now. " Gives you a different feel, doesn't it? And you could just kind of blow past it other times, and then other times you go, "Wow.
" And it's in there. So that's a new way of looking at things. That that is learning.
And that's what we're doing in here. We're learning today God's ways of handling money. God's ways of getting out of debt.
And so here's one. Let's look at this one. How many of you see the white candlestick or the vase in the middle?
Look, it's right there in the middle. Raise your hand when you see it. I'll wait till everyone sees it and raises your hand.
It's white. It's in the middle. Raise your hand when you see it.
I'll wait. It's there. Okay.
Good. Now, how many of you see two faces looking at each other? Good.
How many of you see two people getting ready to kiss? Sex fiends. Okay, now here's another one.
Men, I'll warn you about this one. I've been married 27 years, and you better watch your punctuation. A woman without her man is nothing.
A woman without her man is nothing. A woman without her man is nothing. It's all in the way you look at it.
And you better look at it right if you're smart boys. There's that's you know you get a new way of looking at things because now you've been taught punctuation matters. Here's another one.
You got to look at this one really careful. If you look at it careful, you'll see it. The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.
My wife Sharon and I, we got out of school. We got married. No, this is not marriage.
We had a little bit of student loan debt, a lot of money on our AMO card cuz I bought a couch on my AMO card. I don't think you're supposed to do that, but the guy at the flea market said it was okay. Um, and we started off our lives and we were eating off a card table, driving a 1902 Pinto, and and we were trying to get going and and we needed a television.
We needed a television. And so I went down to the electronic store and I got 90 days same as cash cuz I had no cash and I was a finance major. And so I'm going to get this free money, zero interest, cuz I'm so smart.
By the way, 80% of 90 days, same as cash, doesn't pay off in 90 days, and transfers to highinterest loans at your local finance company, 24 to 38%. With a prepayment penalty, just to go ahead and kick you one more time to remind you how dumb you were. Most people don't pay it off in 90 days.
And if you don't pay it off in 90 days, by the way, the 90 days isn't free either. They back charge you through that for the interest. It's how it works.
It's a game. It's called fishing, right? That's the deal.
And so, we started off our lives that way. And we went and bought a television. Then I went and bought a car I wanted that my wife I thought needed.
Yeah. Some of you guys have bought a car that you wanted that you thought your wife needed. Yeah.
You blamed it on her, in other words. Right. And and then we went to get a house.
Get a house. Get a house. Get a house.
Get a house. You got to get a house if you don't get a house. Oh, you don't want to be a renter.
Renters are evil. Renters salvation is in jeopardy. You do not want to be a renter because this way our culture talks, isn't it?
You'll never be anybody. Get a house. Get a house.
Get a get a house. Get a house. You know what happens when broke people get a house?
They get broker. That's why they call them real estate brokers. A house is not a blessing when you're broke.
It'll take you apart and take you down. So, if you want to get a house, do some stuff about money that the Bible says so you're not broke anymore and then go get you a house. But I didn't do that.
I've been married about 15 minutes. People are in my living room going, "You need to get a house. Get a house.
Get a house. Get a house. Get a house.
" And so, we went and found a house with nothing down cuz that's how much we had to put down. They called it creative financing, which if you look it up in the Greek means too broke to buy a house. And so we bought a house about three blocks over from where I grew up.
Larry Bquette used to say, "We spend the first 5 to seven years of our marriage trying to attain the same standard of living as our parents. Only it took them 35 years to get there. I lived in the same neighborhood as mom and dad, had a better car than mom and dad, and for sure had a better TV and stereo system than mom and dad.
" 52% of the marriages end in divorce in North America today. Of those that divorce, the number one cause is money fights and money problems. Of those that divorce in the first seven years of marriage, 90% say money caused it.
Young marriages are falling apart everywhere. You know why? When you're like this, your leg gets tired.
They come in our office, they look like this all the time for financial counseling. Dave, can you get me out? When I went broke and started over, I discovered this was the truth.
That the borrower slave to the lender is the truth. Regardless of how you feel, this is the truth. And so regardless of what somebody one of the benefits of going broke is I didn't care what anybody thought anymore.
You get over worried about what people think. and you just go do whatever. And if they laugh at you, you just go, "Well, that's good.
" You just keep laughing and you just keep going. And so I just kept going. And people made fun of me.
Dave, you're not you're simple. You're not very sophisticated. The financial world thinks I'm a wiener in a steakhouse, you know?
And my net worth six times what any one of theirs is, you know? I mean, isn't it amazing? It's a concept.
But we got out of these things. And I want to show you how. How do you get out?
Well, the first thing was I discovered as I was reading through Proverbs, if you read Proverbs over and over and over again, you get a master's degree in finance. It's amazing. There's 31 proverbs, so you can read one a day.
Just get your little spiritual one a day. And so, I'm doing my little spiritual one a day one morning, and I've read through this a bazillion times, and I've heard this people call in on my radio show, they're getting out of debt, and they say, "I'm getting out of debt. " They have this thing in their voice that tells me that they're going to make it.
And then the others they call in, they're like, "Well, dude, sort of kind of like maybe this strategy and maybe it'll work sort of maybe. So what sort of do you do? " I'm like, "Well, I can't help you.
Call me back. " I didn't know what it was, but I said like, "Call me back when you're mad or something, you know? You got to get that thing going.
" You know, and I couldn't put my finger on it. And I was reading through scripture one morning and I hit Proverbs 61-7. And it says, "If you've signed shity, my son, which is old English Bible talk, forgot yourself in debt.
" If you've gotten yourself in debt, do this. Now, I teach people how to get out of debt, and I wanted to get out of debt. And so, I saw a do this, and my little ears went, "Oh, oh, whoa.
" Cuz I had a spiritual experience a few years ago. I discovered God is smarter than me. And when he says, "You're here and you don't want to be here, so do this.
" I'm listening for what comes after that. That's a big deal. If you're in debt biblically, do this.
Give no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids, and deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, a bird from the hand of the fowler. And I promise you, it's not very reverent, but I promise you, I went, great gazels. What am I going to do with gazels?
Great little animal metaphor. Talk about it in Sunday school, but I mean, you going to talk to people about gazels and death? This doesn't.
That night, God answered my prayer. I was scanning the channels and I hit the discovery channel and they're on the discovery channel. There was the gazels.
They were out there gazelling around. And what were they doing? Well, I said, "Well, you know, here it is.
There's the gazels. " And you know, the gazels were not there by themselves, right? You know, somebody else was around, right?
Looking for lunch in all the right places. And gazels, they have a cheetah detector right behind their ear. When they see a cheetah, they go like, "Uhoh, cheetah run.
on. Now, the Discovery Channel said that the the cheetah is the fastest animal on dry land. We had to slow this down so I'd have time to talk.
He goes from zero to 47 m an hour in four leaps. Now, it's starting to come clear to me. Here's how you get out of debt.
You deliver yourself like the gazelle from the hand of the hunter. The primary predator of the gazelle is the cheetah. Here's how you get out of debt.
You run. You got to bust it. You got Look, he picked out the college student, didn't he?
Hey. Hey. You want a free hat?
Hey, I'll give you a t-shirt. Just sign up for this credit card. You want a pizza?
Hey, come here, kid. You need to build up your FICO score. Come here, kid.
That was how you get out of debt. You got to run, baby. You got to put it in gear.
You got to go go. Kick it, baby. Check it.
You know how long we had to look for a clip where he gets away? The truth is that the cheetah doesn't catch the gazelle but one in 19 times. And yet he can outrun him.
Isn't that weird? What a great metaphor. Cheetah's after your family.
Run. This is how you get out of debt. You pop it around our place.
We find out that people get out of debt when they get gazelle intensity. When they quit caring what their broke friends think and their family who needs counseling thinks. They quit worrying about everybody else's opinion about what they drive and they sell.
They amputate the $40,000 Tahoe. And they're driving a hooptie, a piece of junk. They're going to drive like no one else so that later they get to drive like no one else because they want to change their family tree.
They want to send their kids to college. They want to change how their grandkids live and their great grandkids live. A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
They want to change and they get fired up. When you get fired up, you'll get out of debt. You can wander into debt, honey, but you can't wander out.
You got to bust it. The the the gravitational pull is too strong. It holds you in the orbit.
You have to kick the energy to break the orbit. It's the only chance you make it. And if you do, if you do it long enough, eventually you get to chase the cheetah.
Thank you, Photoshop. Second thing we're going to teach you to do is you need to do the debt snowball. The debt snowball is where you list all of your debts, smallest to largest.
You pay minimum payments on everything but the little one, and you attack the little one, regardless of the interest rate. Well, my medical bills don't have any interest on them. Shut up and pay off the smallest one.
Well, shouldn't we pay off the highest interest rate first? Wouldn't that be mathematically correct? Darling, if we were doing math, we wouldn't have credit card debt.
This is about behavior modification. The problem with my money is the guy in my mirror. I got to change my behaviors.
We had one mom going through our courses and put great big debt snowball. The form's on the back of your handout, by the way. The great big debt snowball, blew it up, put it on her refrigerator door.
She'd draw a big red line through it every time she knocked one out. The kids said she'd be walking through the kitchen looking at that thing going, "You're going down. " The kids are like, "Mom's losing it.
" But you got to have a game plan. When you knock off that smallest one, you feel good. It's like going on a diet and losing weight.
When you knock that next one off, you feel good. Every time you pay off one, you got more money to attack the next one down. The snowball rolls over.
It gets bigger. By the time you get to the bottom, you are wired because it's, you know, it's like, you know, it's amazing. I ran my ran two marathons one day the other day.
my first and my last all one day. Um, but it's amazing. I run halves now.
A whole marathon is just too tough for old guy. But, but I run these halves and it's amazing to me. I can run for two hours or hour and a half.
I can run 13 miles and I'm running along for all this time and I can still have a little bit left to sprint at the end. Isn't that weird? It's cuz you can see the end.
When you can see the end and the light at the end, the tunnel is not an oncoming train. You can go and you go, "That's it. That's the last one.
you get this thing going, you know, and people are like, just stay away from them. They're getting out of debt. They're just they're they are they are weird people and you become weird people because no, by the way, normal is broke.
You don't want to be normal. Bible says be a peculiar people. I made it an art form.
So, there's five things you need to do with doing the death snowball and with your gazelle intensity. Five steps out of debt. Let's look at them.
The first one is you need to save money. You need to save money. We teach people the very first thing to do with money, what we call baby step one, is save $1,000 as fast as you can.
Get a little bit of a savings account. Cuz if you just get in there and you start cutting up your credit cards and you have no money and your tire is flat, then you're like, you know, you're in here going, "Okay, I'm getting out of debt. That's it.
I'm I'm cutting these things up. I'm done, baby. That's it.
I'm done. " And and then you go out there and your tire is flat. You'll be back in here going, "Where's the crazy glue?
" because you've been leaning on these things. They're a rubber crutch, but you've been leaning on them. So, you put a little bit of money aside as your first thing.
Save some money. That's the first step. The next step is you got to quit borrowing more money.
You can't get out of a hole while you dig out the bottom. So, you got to say, "That's it. No matter what happens, no matter what the situation, no matter how desperate or how intriguing or what the big opportunity is, I am not borrowing money anymore.
And you get these things out and you have a placctomy party. And if you've got kids, have your kids help you cut them because your kids will remember that. When you're at the store, you say, "You remember you cut up?
We cut up the cards. Remember, I want that. I don't have any money.
I cut up the cards. Remember, you helped me cut them up. " But the kids will remember.
You won't run into your kid 30 years later. They're 36 years old, and they'll remember that day they were six years old and the family tree was changed. They'll feel it in their emotions.
Things happen when families take a stand. it things start to shift. It's a behavior modification issue.
It's a matter of character. It's a matter of where you're going to live. I'm not borrowing money anymore.
Next time I get ready to buy a car, I'm going to save a car payment for 10 months and write a check and buy cash. See, a car payment is $478. You put that in a cookie jar for 10 months.
You got $5,000. Will that buy a little car? Say yes.
Do I want to drive that car forever? Say no. I don't want to drive a $5,000 car forever.
But I could drive it for 10 more months while I saved up another $5,000. Then I'd have a $10,000 car, right? Because the good news about that $5,000 car is it ain't going down much in value.
It's pretty well done. I'm not borrowing money any more. And then God will go, "This is a test when your transmission goes out right now.
What are we going to do? How are we going to do? " And then he has the opportunity to show up.
Had a friend of mine decided he wasn't borrowing money anymore. Three weeks later, his car engine blew up. He had no money.
He had to have the car to get to work. He called me. He said, 'What do you do?
I said, 'I don't know what you do, but I'll tell you what you got to do. You got to, this is a decision right now. You're deciding how you're going to live the rest of your life right now.
This is a hinge pin moment. A guy at his church, he was telling him what was going on. The guy at his church goes, "Man, I got a I got an old pickup back here.
It's not anything fancy, but you can drive it for a few weeks. " He drove that old pickup for three months, saved it up, paid cash for a little car. The guy has a pile of money now.
That was just a few years ago. But he made a decision in that moment and allowed one of God's people to show up. God showing up through his people, go figure, to help him out and walk him through this thing.
Quit borrowing more money. The third one is prayer really works. Now, I'm not a theologian.
I'm just kind of a regular guy that loves Jesus. A and but I'll tell you this. The way I got it figured out is this.
You're deeply in debt and your heavenly father is crazy about you. God in heaven thinks you're awesome. You're deeply in debt.
And oh, good news. He owns everything. He's really rich.
Your dad is rich and you're in debt. Phone home, ET. check in, call home.
Now, I'm not saying God's going to give stupid people money because they will lose it. But if you're on a plan, I can tell you this over the years of counseling people. I've watched people year after year after year who are getting out of debt and are gazelle intense.
I've watched their incomes go up as they're doing that. Blessings occur. It's kind of mystical and weird.
Not really. It's kind of practical. You now became trustworthy.
worthy of trust. And the father looks and says, "hm, that one's growing a brain. We may be able to use that one.
" I don't want to phone home. He's mad at me. He's not mad at you.
Well, you don't know what I've done, Dave. Listen, how many of you have had enough kids that you had a stupid one? God has some stupid kids.
And don't you love the stupid one anyway? I mean, I don't care if I get an A or a C. I mean, I care, but I mean, I love the C as much as I love the A, don't I?
Cuz I'm a loving father, and I'm an imperfect father. He loves you anyway. If you phone home with the right attitude, and you hadn't called home in a while, he's not mad at you.
As a matter of fact, he'll throw a party, give you a new suit of clothes, put a gold ring on your finger, and serve filet minan. It's in there. Look it up.
It'll change your life. Prayer really works. Ask for some help.
Number four, sell something. Sell so much stuff the kids think they're next. Name the dog eBay.
Put the kid and cat I mean put the cat on Craigslist. You got to sell stuff. If it's not bolted down, dump it.
Not that Craigslist. Has he got his own list? Oh my gosh.
Most of you don't need to sell your house. Most of you that's not it. But some of you need to sell your car.
Some of you out of control. I have people call me up, you know, Dave, I make $32,000 a year. How do I fund my kids' college?
Uh, well, how much do you owe on your car? I was calling about college. Yeah, I know.
But how much do you owe on your car? 28,000. You make 32,000, you're driving a $28,000 car.
Dude, that's stupid. See, that's biblical counsel right there. amputate the Tahoe.
You can't get traction with a $600 car payment and nobody's impressed really. They're not. They act like they are and about 20 minutes after the toxic smell wears off the new car smell, they're not impressed anymore.
That's it. Number five, take a part-time job or an extra job or some overtime or something like that. My grandmother used to say, "There's a great place to go when you're broke to work.
" Work is a surefire money-making scheme. If you read scripture, our God is a God of work. The diligent prosper, don't work, don't eat.
It's all in there. I'm just praying and waiting on God. No, that's Christian for lazy.
There's a time you wait on God. I'm just kidding around. But but a lot of times when my brothers and sisters in Christ say that, I just give them a little kick.
Move. Get moving. You know, because you're just rationalizing in the name of Christ, being lazy.
Get off your tail end and go kill something. You got to get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. That's how it works, man.
We're a people of action. We're not a people of passivity. We're a people that's proactive and causes things to happen.
Get out there and knock something down, man. Make a mess somewhere. You know that go make some money.
It it'll solve a lot of There's only two sides of the equation. The income, the outgoing get the outgo down and the income up creates margin in the middle for giving and saving. This is the formula.
So, you really do have to make some more money. Do you want to work crazy for the rest of your life? No.
You work like no one else. So later you can work like no one else. You know when I work whenever I want.
You know why? Because I used to work all the time. Now I do what I want to do when I want to do it.
I'm spoiled rotten. But there's a way you get there. You spoil yourself rotten by pouring on the coals.
Making a difference for a period of time. Intensity for a short period of time blows things up. Do these five steps.
They will absolutely get you out of debt every time. Think about it with me. If you had no payments, if you were gazelle intense and you used the debt snowball and you prayed and you worked extra and you quit borrowing more money and you sold stuff and you got completely out of debt, breathe that in.
No payments, man. If you didn't have any payments, how much could you save? Wow.
How much could you invest without a house payment? You know, you invest a house payment, how fast that's a million dollars. Wow.
You could do some stuff with a million dollars. How much could you give if you had no payments? Talked to a lady the other day, paid off her house and she said, "You know, I've been wanting a dining room suit for so long and now I can buy a dining room suit every month.
" Isn't it weird? I had a weird experience after we got completely out of debt. I walking through the mall and I saw all this stuff and I could buy anything in there and suddenly I didn't want any of it.
It was the weirdest thing. It changes your life. It releases you to be who you really are.
Your father has a plan for you and it's not to serve other masters. It's to serve the master. And it's hard to do that while you're being pulled in 62 different directions.
Bust free, baby. Get intense. Run.
Bust into this thing. It's It's a violent process. Embrace the violence.
It'll change everything and it'll take you exactly where you need to go. Father God, I just ask that you remove a spirit of debt from these households that are represented here over the airwaves and that are represented here in this room. That Father, that you take your these folks eyes off of stuff and you put their eyes on the future that you have for them and you give them a vision because where there is no vision, the people perish.
And we are perishing as a people. Lord, just step into this situation and pour your spirit on it and remove this need for stuff and then allow us, Father, to have the stuff that you want us to have because a loving father gives us good gifts and we're thankful for the things you do give us. We enjoy nice things from you, but we need to know they're from you and not from FICO.
So, Father, show these folks how to do this stuff. Inject a spirit of gazelle intensity into everyone watching this right now in Jesus name. Amen.
