Ramsey Personalities put far too much emphasis on psychology and discount math in personal finance. Regardless of what they might believe (or push to their followers to maintain their brand), personal finance is a math problem.
As an illustrative analogy, consider a basketball player taking a foul shot during a game. For our discussion, also consider three factors: environment, psychology, and skill.
Environment includes the temperature, ambient noise (including jeers and cheers from the crowd), lighting, and even the score of the game (to name a few).
Environment is largely out of the player's control, so we'll disregard it to a degree for our discussion. That leaves psychology and skill.
How important is psychology? It is of paramount importance. When taking a foul shot, the player is alone. No teammate can help. The player must focus, with laser intensity, on taking the shot. This means blocking out all environmental factors as best as possible. If the player falters during this critical moment, the ball may not go into the basket. The player must be relaxed.
But will all this laser focus and self-motivation ensure success at the foul line? Absolutely not!
I don't care how psyched the player is or how much that player wants the ball to go into the basket, a lack of skill will ruin the shot every day of the week.
In the simplest terms, a free throw is defined by a mathematical formula that defines the trajectory from the player's hands to the basket through angles and force. That's right, math.
If the player hasn't perfected the use of math (executed through physics), then no amount of motivation, gazelle intensity, or cutesy slogans will help the player make that shot. Basketball is a math problem, just as personal finance is.
Without a strong foundation of skill (math) and confidence (psychology), with the knowledge of how to apply both in the environment, the player won't make the shot. There is no magical ratio like "it's 20% head knowledge and 80% behavior". That's a made-up marketing slogan by Dave Ramsey and has no use in real life.
You need both math and psychology to win in sports and personal finance. Don't let some financial celebrity tell you otherwise.
