your 10 closest friend's income over a decade, your income will be within 15% of the average of those. Don't try to raise great kids. Raise kids in such a way that they become great adults. Number one, it's not an option because you're either deteriorating or you're growing. Your spiritual life, your emotional life, your relational life is just like your body. You know, it's either getting better, it's getting worse. Yeah. And there's not really no in between. Staceous is not an option. Once you realize that, you go, huh? I think I'll choose growth. And, okay, what's that mean? It means I'm going to have some sore muscles. And it means I'm going to be in the discomfort zone more than I am in the comfort zone because the comfort zone will eventually lead you to the discomfort zone accidentally. So I'm going to choose

growth.

Everybody, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the Growth Lab podcast this week. I have an incredible

guest, a person who's actually been a mentor for me from afar, Dave Ramsey, and we're in Dave

studio today. Dave is a bestselling author. In fact, I've read his book's Total Money Makeover and Entree Leadership. He's built an incredible mission-driven organization here at Ramsey Solutions. And Dave, I'm just so honored to have you on the podcast today. And thanks for hosting me. Well, absolutely. Thanks, my friend. We've been friends a long time. I don't know if I'm mentoring or not, but it's not from afar because you're just about a mile

over here. Well, I guess that's true. I guess that's true. Well, I want to start off sharing something

that I don't think I've shared with many people over the years, and that's just what an influence you had on me. So when I first got out of school, I was around $300,000 in debt. I had $200,000 in student loans, another $100,000 in a building. By the way, I wish I would have

learned some of your stuff before I got into all the debt. But I started reading and learning about, I started listening to your radio show. I started reading your books right when I opened my clinic. And I had some great mentors at the time

as well and how to run a business. And so I was able to generate a lot of revenue. But I was able

to pay off $100,000 a year for three years. And after three years, I was 100% debt free because of

following your principles. Wow, way to go. Yeah. Good, good story. I love it. And so, you know, by the way, I had friends who were kind of doing the opposite. They were buying escalades and motorcycles and spending way too much on homes. And so for me, it was like, no, get out of debt, start investing in real estate. And so, again, you've been a big part of, you know, blessing me and my family and our financials.

And also I had an opportunity to go to Entree leadership in Cancun. This is probably in 12, 14 years

ago. Yeah, this was in 2009. And it was such a great event. And I learned one of the things that I

started learning from you sort of early on was how to become a principled person is that you know rather than

sort of listening to everybody or listening to nobody there are very specific people in life that

we should listen to and the sort of there's a verse that I kind of go by with this and it's you're

familiar with it but it's by your fruit, you'll recognize them.

And so for me, I just tried to recognize people that were successful in certain areas who also

had a mentality that was very faith-driven. And you were one of those people. So one of the things I want

to talk today about and get some of your wisdom on is what are some of the principles that you

live by and operate under as a husband,

as a dad, as a business leader, as somebody who's helped a lot of people, you know, build their

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