Jeff Belonger motivated this post in his re-blog of Lewis Poretz's recent rant about Dave Ramsey - Say It Ain't So.
Full Disclosure: I facilitate FPU at my church. I volunteer for benevolence counseling for my church and I am a ministry-certified counselor with the Dave Ramsey organization. In short, I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan.
Jeff added his own comments before he re-blogged Lewis's post.
Now, this post has nothing to do with each of these posts per se, but how information when information gets dissemenated all over, can really get tainted and mis-represented at times. You can read Jeff's comments and his opinion is entirely his opinion. It is correct to Jeff and I would never take that away from Jeff. So, please don't misunderstand that I'm not attacking Lewis and Jeff.
What I really want to bring up here with these examples are we can only believe half of what we read and know. Including information we read on the Internet and yes, that includes Active Rain too. The rest of whether it is true or not comes from wisdom within, experiences with similar situations and discernment. Sometimes, powerful statements can taint your own judgment and I try not to let that happen.
I learnt this lesson in a very recent and hurtful example:
A friend told me that he feels that the way I lived was as if I could take my $$$ to heaven. I was first offended, then hurt by that comment. Later, decided to ignore that statement. What he has done was be quick to judge and even though he is considered a "friend" who knows my family very well, what he does and where he came from made him believe that living "frugally" was my way of believing I could take $$$ to heaven. Simply because I yearn for 2 nice LED TVs, I chose to continue watching TV on my tube TV. My husband takes lunch from home while he spend $7 for lunch everyday. Just alot of on-going examples make him feel that we are painfully neglecting living live NOW - which includes piling up cash reserves for the next 2 years because my husband's company was recently acquired by another big company. We see some potential layoffs happening in the future, but that could still happen 2 years down the road.
In the mean time, we've always lived a frugal life but that doesn't mean we believe we could take wealth with us. What he doesnt know are the beneficiaries to our will so how dare he make those remarks about my life.
Then again, I cant taint your opinion of "him" by saying that with his wife being laid off soon (and she is the bread winner in the household), he continues to buy "stuff" behind her back. Bla, bla, bla. Whether it is true, only he knows the answer to that. But see how you are always just reading one-sided opinion will always make the writer correct and the other party not so right???
That's exactly what I'm trying to relay here in my post. What you and I read or hear, we can only believe half of it. The rest is then up to our discernment, right or wrong. We take it with the guy up there. One can only live righteously according to his/ her definition.
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Loreena Yeo
Realtor®/ Broker of 3:16 team REALTY
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For All Its Worth, Believe Half of What You Read
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Loreena.. I actually agree with you 110%. Maybe you are missing the point of why I reblogged Lewis's post. It's not totally about what Lewis is applying towards the loan officer that charged a lot of money, and that they can use Dave Ramsey's name.... it's the fact that Lewis reached out to the manager several times and was shot down. Now, maybe Lewis's tone was a little out of control because of his passion. But my main point and the argument of others is that nobody from Dave Ramsey's group or company has contact Lewis by phone to go over this. The manager of the Dave Ramsey show even basically told Lewis to shove it, because of Lewis's tone. If any of my employee's ever had that kind of attitude, I would fire them on the spot. Not that we have to have that attitude or mentality of the client is always right. But we do have to speak to those clients, to get all of the facts. Would you agree with that or not agree? Lastly, this actually took place over 10 days ago and still no action from Dave Ramsey or his manager. And people need to know about this.
On another note, Dave Ramsey has given some good information, but I have found some information to be misleading or over the top... just Dave's opinion, but he sometimes makes it sound like they are godly statements that you should live by. Many people get caught up in this and lean on every word that a Dave Ramsey would state... thinking that it's 100% correct. I have a problem with that. People like this should say... this is my opinion. .. but they make it sound like fact, like a one way street. Gee, people can say the same about me. But when reading my blogs, even if I feel strongly about something... or when giving mortgage advice that I think is the correct thing, I still put in there..."this is my opinion".
Overall, this is not 100% about Dave and misinformation... it's making the public aware of someone of Dave's magnitude that just because he seems well respected, but when an issue like this comes up, that Dave and or his crew don't take action... don't take this seriously... or just get a hold of Lewis to go over his complaint. What does that say about the person? In my opinion, it says a lot... and I apparently am not the only one that thinks this. If you read many of the comments, many of them are just saying that Dave should acknowledge this situation... unless he has a manager that has not informed Dave. As I told a few people... if I was running a show such as this, I would want all problems and complaints to be told to me, to be brought to my attention... period.. because I value my reputation. The other point of this and a problem, is that Dave sells his name to other loan officers that use Dave's name and logo as an endorsement.. This is scary and can be easily abused... and if you look at the facts, it looks like this specific loan officer abused the endorsement and probably took advantage of a client. Again, just my opinion, and yes, we would need more facts. But again, the main issue was on how Dave's office... Dave's team, was handling this. ... poorly. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, but 10 days later and no response.. but a manager throwing it back in Lewis's face as a pissing match? That is not how you should be running a quality business, especially when you are proclaiming to be an icon, a figure in the mortgage industry. thanks PS.. and since we are on this topic, that it was mentioned in your blog... do we so blindly like someone, or value their information, just because it sounds good... or comes across polished and professional... and accurate, when it might be wrong or misleading? Just food for thought.