Saturday Success: no role models, rule of the future & over-loving your kids
Making life & money work for you.
Welcome back to the Saturday Success Series email!
This week we have:
Master Yourself: No Roles Models? No Excuses
Master Your Money: Rule of the future
The Weekly Special: Don’t Love Your Child to Death
The goal here is maximum value, so let’s get to it.
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Master Yourself
We know a guy who lives an unenviable life.
In and out of sobriety. Ends up sick and suffering.
Makes money, spends more. Ends up broke and struggling.
Has 2 children he doesn’t really know because of his life choices. Cries about it. Tries to half-heartedly fix it.
He’s a pathetic excuse for an adult. No other way to say it.
Here’s where some people would feel bad for him. And where he plays victim:
He had no good role models. He had a mother with mental illness and pedophile father who wound up in jail, where he belonged.
But here’s the thing, he’s an adult man now.
No more excuses for living like a overgrown wounded child.
Find role models.
A boss. A significant other’s parent. An older friend. Tony Robbins on YouTube. It doesn’t matter where you find them.
Fix your shit and don’t pass down trauma to your own children.
And yes, being an absent parent is a version of trauma.
Once we reach our 30s, no one cares about our excuses. They only care about what we’re doing.
So, do better.
Master Your Money
Rule of the future: Value provided > time spent.
You get paid for the value you create.
Not the time you spend.
I mean sure, you’ll get paid at your 9–5 for the hours you clock.
But, if you’re running your own business, in sales, side hustling, etc. you’re getting paid for the value.
So aim to create incredible value. Then charge A LOT for it.
Weekly Special
Don’t Love Your Child to Death
My cousin was a genius.
Literally.
Then he was dead at 33.
His family lived the dream life.
My pretty aunt with her doctor husband and their 2 kids.
Big house, nice cars and private schools. Everything the American Dream tries to sell you, they had.
His name was Adrian.
When he was little, his mother was obsessed with him. Thought the sun rose and set with him obsessed.
The first day she put him on the bus to head off to kindergarten, she sobbed on the sidewalk. She was inconsolable.
He could do no wrong. In fact, he could do nothing. She did everything for him. He didn’t have to lift a finger. Anything he wanted, was his.
And she had the luxury of being in a position to give him everything he wanted. Doctor husbands in the 70s/80s provided such a life.
So, Adrian grew into an obnoxious, but still smart as hell, teenager. The future looked promising, on the surface.
As a teen, he demanded money and nice cars. In his early 20s, he demanded college, then med school, be paid for.
She obliged. Doctor husband helped. He was cheating on my aunt and had a second family on the side. He was in no position to argue dollars and cents.
And then Adrian reached adulthood. He was a 22 year old man who became obsessed. Not with his mother, but with himself. Just like his mother had been.
The obsessions? Drugs, alcohol, weird porn fetishes, illegal firearms. Strippers.
In fact, he married a stripper.
His world started to spiral, his money was running out. Turns out his doctor father had been embezzling and was cutting him off. Not out of some fatherly wisdom come too late, but simply because he could no longer afford his own lifestyle, let alone Adrian’s and my aunt’s.
So, Adrian took what money his dad gave him and moved to the Czech Republic. Cost of living is cheap. He would live like a king! With his stripper wife (originally from Czech) by his handsome side.
Except then something happened. And no one is quite sure what.
He died. In a library. No, a bar. Wait, maybe the street outside a bar?
Wherever it may have been the end result was the same. He was dead at 33. The boy wonder. The genius. The next doctor in the family.
Dead.
The speculation was that he had gotten a bit too rough with his wife and her brothers had not taken kindly to that. Understandable.
That’s the family’s reason given for why he died.
But the real reason?
He died because he was overloved.
His mother literally loved him to death.
Parents confuse spoiling with love.
They think being friends is an act of love.
They think making sure their child is always happy is an act of love.
They think taking care of everything is love.
They think requiring less of their children is nice.
They think discipline is mean.
But, discipline is what builds character. It’s what raises adults, instead of children.
Adrian never got to become an adult. He was forever trapped as a child in the web his mother wrapped around him.
I would implore you to reconsider your parenting methods if you fall on the too nice side.
Your children don’t need another friend, they need a parent who really cares about where they end up.
Thanks for reading! If you found this valuable, please share with someone who could use it. See you next Saturday!
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Here’s a picture of my family enjoying a BBQ on vacation. Have a great upcoming week!