While Dave Ramsey, born David Lawrence Ramsey III, didn’t come from money, he did come from entrepreneurial parents who instilled hard work in him at a young age in his home state of Tennessee. Ramsey opened up to the Nashville Scene back in 2007 and reflected on his childhood, sharing that his parents were both busy real estate developers. His mom and dad often made him listen to motivational speakers like Zig Ziglar and Dale Carnegie at a young age. In his documentary, “Live Like No One Else,” Ramsey recounted a story that upon asking his dad for money at age 12, his father replied, “That means you need a job, you don’t need money … What could you do to earn some money?” From there, Ramsey’s father took him to a print shop and helped him make cards for his own lawn service, Dave’s Lawns, and his first business was born.
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This yard business sparked his entrepreneurial curiosity, and made Ramsey a self-proclaimed “nerd,” but “not in the pocket-protector sense.” He told Nashville Scene, “I was a nerd in that I was entrepreneurial and I had my own yard-cutting service and I did all the accounting and I was a detail person.”
