Christian Polk pushes a man who blames family responsibilities for avoiding financial risk to separate excuse from reason. The man lives with his parents and wants to provide better, but fear of failure keeps him stuck. Polk argues family should motivate him to break the cycle, not trap him in it.
I know I have to do this, but it's too much, man. I got kids, I got— I can't do it now.
I get where you're coming from, man, but help me understand. When you say like, you know you have to do this, what makes you say that? Seems like this would help me. But why even invest in your skills? Like, why actually do this? Why do you feel like you need to make more money? Because like, that's kind of what we need to focus on right now.
I need some way to figure it out.
What I'm saying is, what do you want that money for? Because I know you mentioned family, right? Yeah. Can I be super straightforward with you without you getting upset at me?
Go ahead.
You said like, hey, I can't do it because of family. And also you're saying like, hey, I need to do this because of my family. It can't be both, man. They can't be the excuse you tell yourself on why you can't take risk, and they can't be the reason you need to take risk. They have to be one or the other. So what do you want to allow your family to be? Your excuse or your reason?
Reason. Why? If they're my excuse, I guess I don't do anything about it. Nothing changes.
Be real with me, man. If nothing does change and we allow them to be our excuse, cuz it is a choice, what is the day-to-day ramifications in your mind?
Living in my parents' house and I, I'm looking over the way I don't want them to live that kind of life.
If they had to live that life, it's kind of the path we're going down right now. What impact do you feel like that actually have on them?
It's just so terrible. I can't imagine living in a grand house or like that. It's pathetic.
How are we ever going to break out of this cycle and give ourselves more opportunities if we don't learn how to actually start making the money we need to be making? How are we going to do that? Something has to change. So what do we actually need to do to make sure things do change and we don't stay in the same cycle we have been?
