All posts tagged Dave Ramsey

Dave Ramsey, a personal money management expert, is an extremely popular national radio personality, and author of the New York Times best-sellers The Total Money Makeover, Financial Peace and More Than Enough. On Oct. 15, 2007, Ramsey added television host to title when “The Dave Ramsey Show on Fox Business Network” debuted nationally. Ramsey knows first-hand what financial peace means in his own life – living a true rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story. By age twenty-six he had established a four-million-dollar real estate portfolio, only to lose it by age thirty. He has since rebuilt his financial life and now devotes himself full-time to helping ordinary people understand the forces behind their financial distress and how to set things right – financially, emotionally and spiritually. He resides with his wife Sharon and their three children in Nashville, Tennessee.

• Enduring organizations have core principles that guide daily decisions.
• Dave’s assistant creates a “tour book” of the people he’s going to meet when he travels.
• He reminds himself: If I decide to do something unbelievably stupid, I have no idea whose lives it will impact.
• Leadership is service. There are no exceptions.
• With blessing comes the weight of responsibilities.
• There are no good leaders that aren’t good servants.
• In order to serve as a leader you have to have tremendous courage.
• With blessing comes the weight of responsibilities.
• Leadership is service. It’s looking out at a landscape for an opportunity to serve.
• You have to say, “On behalf of those people [the people you serve], I will do what God is calling me to do with excellence that shames other people.”
• The diligent prosper.

Keys to Leading a a Great Organization

1 – People matter.

• Everyone matters.
• Everyone you interact with, your competitors, everyone… they all matter.
• To the extent you understand that people matter increases your boldness and your courage.
• Maybe everyone you disagree with doesn’t need to be put to death.
• From Thou Shall Prosper: Our heavenly Father is inordinately pleased when we are obsessively, compulsively, preoccupied with the needs of others.
• When you take on the needs of others, courage will overwhelm you.
• Our opportunities in life come through other people.
• When you aren’t concerned with the needs of other people you are self-centered.
• When people are a commodity and quit mattering, the soul of the endeavor dries up.
• The more you understand that, the more attractive you become.
• The more you do that, you’ll find more courage.

2 – Incredible team and culture matter

• Building an incredible team around you to do the endeavor God calls you to do may be the most rewarding things you do as a leader.
• Dave prays before he hires anyone.
• They don’t do exit interview because if they are gone why does it matter.
• Sometimes you have to look at people and say, “This is not working is it?”
• We sometimes to let people fly and be free, and let them find their calling in another organization.
• Build a culture with a team that’s in the building.
• Your team should have a servant-hearted culture.
• Build a culture with excellence and passion by keeping the right types of people and intentionally compensate with over-communication.
• Talk about things that companies don’t normally talk about.
• Team matters.
• An excellent team that is intentionally built Scripturally causes you to have courage.

3 –  Slow and steady matters

• What happens after your courageous act is where the hard work begins.
• We live in a culture that praises microwaves, but Crock Pots are what win in leadership.
• Excellence is found in the ordinary.
• Young leaders fail because they believe that “one thing” will lead to their big break instead of realizing that every thing they do is what matters… slow and steady wins the race.
• The tortoise always wins in a culture of hares.
• We live in an ADD culture of hares that can’t focus.
• The tortoise will always win… being slow and steady gives us courage.
• What matters is finishing.
• You don’t finish when you are always looking for that “breakout moment” while you are neglecting the process it takes to win.
• You win by doing the little things right every single day.

4 – Financial principles matter

• You have more courage when you have more money.
• Get your financial house in order and you’ll have more courage.

5 – A higher calling matters

• Wherever you are, your ministry needs to be seen as a higher calling.
• That will affect the excellence level of your work.
• Chick-fil-a pursued a higher calling other than frying chicken… they’ve revolutionized customer service.
• A higher calling changes the way you play the game.
• You won’t go against conventional wisdom if you don’t view what you do as living out your higher calling.
• A higher calling gives you boldness, creativity, innovative ideas, and courage.
• Jesus is the central thing… the rest of it is the dressing around it.

Leadership Takes Courage

• Leadership in a culture that’s gone crazy isn’t for the faint of heart.
• We need to be men and women of courage.
• What will you do with the “dash” of your life? Between when it begins and when it ends.
• How you live you life will require courage.
• The world and our churches require us to be courageous leaders.