More Than Enough By Dave Ramsey Book Review Part 3
Every Sunday here at Ask Mr. Credit Card we review a personal finance book. This week we continue our review of “More Than Enough” by Dave Ramsey.
If you missed the first two parts of the review, you can read them here:
Chapter 5: Hope: Balm For The Soul
You will never have more than enough unless you plug into one of the most powerful traits that we as humans can possess: hope.
Hope is the powerful fuel that causes the engine of your life to develop all the horsepower it was designed to have. Values that bring vision and unity will always be put into motion when hope comes on the scene. Hope creates motion.
I used to think “cute”, when someone mentioned the word hope. I made the mistake of thinking of hope as a sissy word with flowers and valentines around it. After years of watching folks get more than enough I have realized that hope is one of the most powerful things that can or cannot happen in someone’s life.
Hope is steel covered in velvet. It can seem soft and cuddly, but hope is the core of what makes people become what God designed them to be. Hope, and it’s sister, Faith, always create action.
Hope moves us forward when logic and energy are gone.
Losing hope is the first and only stage of giving up. Once the hope is gone, there is little point in pursuing a particular point of action.
It’s easy to lose hope in difficult situations. It’s easy to let yourself sit down, give up, and wait for someone, anyone else to handle your problems.
Most of us have learned, at one point or another, that sometimes there just is no one else to hand our problems off to. That is when we must look inside of ourselves and either find a new reason to hope, or plot a different course of action where hope does exist.
They can take everything, but they only way you lose your hope is you have to surrender it.
Hope is an act of the will, it is a decision.
Loss of hope from being gut punched one too many times can happen to any of us. What causes some people to be able to get up again while others can’t seem to find the energy?
Someone once asked Paul Harvey, the radio commentator, to reveal the secret to his success. “I get up every time I fall down,” was Harvey’s answer.
Vince Lombardi said, “It is not whether you get knocked down, it is whether you get up.”
The folks who get up again and again and keep going until they get more than enough from life are the folks who do not accept failure as destiny.
Instead they are always reminding themselves that failure is not an indicator of the future, but just a building block to get there.
Dale Carnegie believed that when he said, “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
If hope is an act of will rather than an emotion, then it stands to reason that we can find hope in any situation, no matter how ugly, if we simply choose to.
In fact, I would say that many of the world’s most popular works of literature all rally around this theme: Finding hope in the midst of darkness. Whether it was Frodo and Sam in the darkness of Mordor, Edmond Dantès imprisoned in the Chateau d’if, or even David as he faced the overwhelming might of Goliath.
There is nothing we enjoy more as humans than the triumph of hope over failure. And yet we look to our own lives, and see our battles as small. “Balancing a budget! Pah! That’s no triumph of hope, that’s no heroic act!”
But what if it is? Having just enough hope to take that first, all important step is an act of heroism. And it will take you on a journey as far and as fantastic as that of the greatest fictional hero.
The Real World
Life gives us some events that lend us perspective. Every so often things happen that make a real pointed statement showing us what is real, and what is important.
Those events, even if tragic, give us energy because our hope is made fresh when we have a clean measuring stick to use to measure our other problems against.
This is another universal theme – we have all had this happen. When true tragedy befalls us or those we love, it puts all other problems into the back seat.
That argument over dinner no longer has the same weight that it did once you find out a friend or a loved one is in the hospital.
If you are losing hope in your financial situation, do a quick check up on your perspective. Is there anything that is leading you to blow things out of proportion? Are there any fears that you can face to put things right again in your heart?
Chapter 6: Accountability: How To Get An “A” In Conduct
Our lives are like gardens. If fertilized with continued learning, watered with spiritual renewal, pruned from bad influence, and weeded of bad habits our lives will be beautiful.
If left unattended, the bugs of bad influence and the weeds of bad habits will take over and ruin our lives.
Ok, I’ll admit this speech reminded me a little of Dolores Umbridge, the evil headmistress of Hogwarts…
(Gratuitous Harry Potter clip below)
Frightening connotations aside, this is good advice. As is Ramsey’s advice to find a gardener:
Clifford G. Baird says we need gardeners in our lives. The gardeners will be positive influences, hold us accountable for our behavior, and insist that we make a habit of what is good for us. Accountability and support are the tools of the gardener.
I can think of people in my own life that act as gardeners for me. They bring out the very best in me, and constantly encourage me to do more, better…best.
Close friends and mentors that believe in you are irreplaceable because they help to build you up and encourage you to find your own strength. Do you have gardeners like that in your own life?
When there are no gardeners:
All too often we don’t have gardeners in our lives. Financial problems, marital problems, career problems, spiritual challenges, and health problems will attack each of us.
No one makes it through life without challenges. Some of the challenges are so big we feel we will sink under their weight.
When life ties you up and throws you in a pit you have to make choices. You have to decide what to do at the bottom.
When some folks get smacked so hard they can’t breathe, they choose to sit and examine, and talk about those scars the rest of their lives.
Clifford G. Baird says, “People wallow in mediocrity knowing what they should do.”
We know in our minds that staying in the pit isn’t smart; but it is our pit, and it feels safe.
Our very own pit is like sitting in a dirty diaper. We are sitting in a mess and it stinks; but it is warm and it is ours, so some folks choose to stay.
Isn’t that the truth? If you’re in a financial pit, or any other sort of pit, take the time to sit down with yourself and go over your options. If you’re tired of being in that pit, how can you get out?
Can you take on a second job? Work longer hours at your first job? Cut your budget and make extra payments on your revolving debt?
Whatever you choice, the best place to begin is with a plan of action. Set your goals, write them down, take them to heart, and work to achieve them. It’s amazing that many of us allow our problems to get us down, when the solution isn’t that difficult – it just involves facing our fears and admitting that we are in that pit to begin with.
That concludes this week’s review of “More Than Enough” by Dave Ramsey. If you want to read our future reviews you can grab our Free RSS feed so that you don’t miss them.
Have a question? Read the book? Leave a comment below!
Keep Reading:
