A short excerpt from a YouTube video by Ramit Sethi (Mar 21, 2023) discussing how childhood financial hardship shaped O' Ryan's beliefs about money and parenting. O' Ryan describes a commitment to "grind" and provide materially for his children as a reaction to his mother's perceived failure; a commentator (Speaker B) empathizes but critiques the simplicity of that narrative.
O' Ryan grew up in a divorced household, and the lack of money played a huge role in his upbringing.
How can my mom, like, fail me like that? Like, how could you not grind so hard to get what you can for your kids? I'll break my back to buy my kids whatever they need, because what does it mean to you? Everything. It means that I'm providing for them. I'm not gonna hit rock bottom. Like, I'm not gonna fail. I'm gonna do whatever I have to do.
I. I may not agree with his spending habits, but I can totally understand how he got here and notice the simplicity of the story he's created for himself. He literally tells himself, my mom didn't grind. I'm gonna grind for my kids, because if I give them everything, it means I love them. On the surface, it's a logically coherent story, but if you dig into even one layer, it all starts to fall apart.
