one thing dave did which was pretty smart was to hook his program in to evangelical churches – i mean isn’t the US population something like 40% evangelical christians?
i think that the fact that he is culturally and religiously who he is makes a big segment of americans trust him even more than if he didn’t mention christianity at all. i personally have a massive aversion to that brand of christianity tho so … no more debt free screams for me! i’ve also been completely out of debt for 10 years now so i think that process is less interesting to me at this point.
thinking about him and ramit – clearly they both have blind spots that make their advice not work for everyone. don’t get me started on “unsophisticated” – does ramit really think that a guy who spent half of his salary on a truck is gonna aspire to “sophistication”? ramit wants to be sophisticated, so he assumes everyone wants the same. classic smartguy error in thinking.
I listened to Ramsey for a bit, but his treatment of employees is so bad (i.e. he might congratulate single mothers on his show, but his company has repeatedly fired women for getting pregnant if they aren’t married) that I couldn’t stomach it for very long. Ramit seems to have some blind spots, but at least for me he hasn’t crossed that threshold.
Good point. I know “sophisticated” truck people who actually use the truck function of their trucks. I also was bragging about how snooty I am up thread (sorry everyone?) but my main self challenge in life right now is figuring out how to get out of my desk job and into an outdoor job, so I’d say I do personally aspire to sophistication but then, I guess no one else would see that? It’s hard to explain but I think I just get what Ramit means by sophisticated. I also totally agree with Ramit on the “hold space for feelings” monologue. I am in those circles where people say that a lot and it drives me up the wall because it literally doesn’t mean anything. Sure, I “get” the phrase, I’ve been through enough therapy and spend a lot of time reading about therapy but it literally doesn’t mean anything and no one can actually explain it to me clearly.
I think Ramit’s podcast concept is super interesting but he isn’t good at hosting a podcast. I think the audio of his conversations with people is great, I think he’s a great conversationalist. His host moments speaking to us make little to no sense lol. He seems to be good at being incisive and specific, and curious about individuals, so trying to spin his conversations out to an audience doesn’t land.
ETA: An article for others who are curious/not in the know. And another article. One more that’s from a local source. TLDR is they have a behavioral morality clause to their employment and that’s why they are able to do this kind of thing.
Yep. As @AllHat linked to it’s because of the morality clause in the employment contract and technically it’s ‘premarital sex’ that they were fired for. There was a lawsuit filed at some point that was discussed on one of the ask-a-lawyer youtube channls I sometimes listen to (maybe a year ago? not sure, time has no meaning), and if I remember right their opinion was that the clause itself wasn’t discriminatory* and the company could do what they wanted regardless of how intrusive it was, but if they were only enforcing that clause against women they were likely to have a problem. But Dave has lots of money and I’m sure very good lawyers so I have no idea what, if anything, might come of it.
ETA–just reread this and it occurs to me that I should have said that the clause itself is discriminatory as hell, but per lawyer not illegally discriminatory as in discriminating against a protected class in and of itself.
how much do we want to bet that there have been multiple rants on cancel culture on his show while he is actually cancelling employees for reasons that are none of his business
Totally agree on the holding space thing. It feels kind of dismissive to me? Like it’s saying the bare minimum nice thing but without any content or direction? I mean I get it, in a sense, but it doesn’t really resonate with me at all. I prefer actual feedback or someone’s opinion to that kind of thing.
That’s a really interesting point about how he’s a good conversationalist but not a good host. Apt! Maybe he will get more finesse over time. After criticizing him so hard for only interviewing super rich people I kind of want to go back on my words! I think he should stick to rich people who are positive they aren’t rich. I think he relates to them better and can probably be of more help to them.
“holding space” is kinda nice to me. i don’t have anyone in my life who says that to me in a dismissive way, only in a way like “i’m happy to be here with you as you feel this” and sometimes that’s just what i need more than advice or feedback. in some specific environments, it would probably be annoying, but i dont go to those environments anymore
mostly, it’s something my therapist says, in a very kind way.
I feel this same way, and in my circle of friends + in therapy it’s such a common thing to say and it kinda bugs me. To me it is the equivalent of when I was in Christian circles and everyone would say “I’ll be praying for you”. It was just an easy and socially acceptable thing to say (in those circles) that was neutral without having to get too involved. (not meant to dismiss that people praying for other people is a kind thing to do if the other person consents to it/asked for it…but in my circles very rarely were people actually praying when they said they would).
This is interesting. I’ve never heard someone use that term! It’s interesting that it is so common in some circles and not in others. I’ve honestly never heard it before!
I feel like “holding space” is “I’m here to listen while you talk, and I won’t jump in with solutions/ advice/ telling you what to do”. Because this is what I do when Ponder or I or my kids need to get their feelings out and feel heard and understood.
I also now want Ramit to go back to rich people. I thought he’d have something useful but I think he should have started with less rich people in his circle of understanding, not truck & toys people.
Anyone else got another good show/ podcast with another different view on money we can pull apart?
There was an (I think Canadian) show called Til Debt Do Us Part that I used to watch that I thought was pretty good…it was aimed more towards people who were paychek-to-paycheck or who had large debt loads, and I thought the host did a great job of walking through the problems and different challenges to help resolve them (although some of the ‘relationship’ challenges seemed odd to me). The host was Gail someone…Google tells me Vaz-Oxlade, and it looks like she’s hosted a couple other shows too, but I don’t think I’ve seen either of those (Princess and Money Moron)
ETA: Wikipedia likes a different spelling of her name
This is the good use of the phrase, I think, and when people use it like this – I’m here, I’m listening, I’m a shoulder, I won’t get you advice you haven’t asked for – it’s representing something really valuable.
And then there are all the instances where it’s definitely on the trite/“praying for you” end of things.
I don’t think people are necessarily trying to be dismissive when they say it! Like it isn’t about the environment for me at all it’s just a general dislike/pet peeve. I think it’s just not very warm to me. There is something clinical and detached about it, a bit robotic even. It sounds like something a psychologist I’ve never met before would say to reassure me that I’m allowed to talk to them freely, or something, lol. Maybe it makes me feel like the person doesn’t know me at all? Which closes me off. I feel compassion from others when I feel like they are relating to me as an individual and really trying to understand what I’m saying, what I need in that moment, etc. Just a personal preference I think!
Ah I should have known that folks here would be familiar with it! I only ever saw one episode, but it’s good to know there are archives there if I want them…
I would be very down to discuss another podcast if anyone has one to recommend!
From trawling my podcasts app, here’s some that I might try (note: all I’ve done is skimmed episode titles and description):
Yeah, I’m with you for sure! Ramit’s strength is in being able to say “you’ve made it, even if you don’t make another dollar you’re going to have X million dollars in 10 years, so what can you do to have a Rich Life without guilt?”. I mean, that’s his niche. People who don’t have money and need advice have plenty of other options.
