Embrace the Training Wheels

I spent some time with a young man recently who is trying to gain the courage and confidence to make a big financial decision. He wants to invest, but the dollar amount feels heavy. It’s a huge responsibility, and he wants to get it right. Is he taking too much risk? Is he possibly putting himself in a bad spot? Is this a wise move? He’s saved up for a long time, so this is a big deal to him. It was $200. Yes, two hundred George Washingtons. This was a massive deal for him, but for you and me, it was yesterday’s trip to the grocery store.

I loved this about him. I loved how he desperately wanted to get it right. To him, in his season of life, in the context of where he’s at, $200 is a ton of money. I admire his desire to learn, grow, and live up to the responsibility. While it may have only been $200, this will surely set the tone for what’s to come in his journey. These are the training wheels of stewardship. If he learns to handle a little, he’ll eventually be prepared to handle more. Herein lies the problem with so many people in today’s culture. They never learned how to handle it when it was only $200, thus they are woefully unprepared to handle it when it’s many multiples of that.

I was thinking about my own journey recently as I was writing a check to contribute more equity to Northern Vessel. Within about four months of being open, we had outgrown our space. After a handful of owner meetings, we decided to renovate the space to make it more efficient, better align with the realities of our business model, and create more customer seating. A few things struck me as I was writing out the check: 1) we’re so blessed to be in a position where this is even a need, 2) Sarah and I are blessed to be in a position where we can financially do this, and 3) how intense this would have been for 19-year-old Travis who had very sweaty palms when attempting to make even a small stock market transaction.

The only reason I was able to do what I just did was because I had embraced the training wheels and slowly grew into it. That’s the opportunity I have, that’s the opportunity this young man has, and that’s the opportunity you have. Each day is an opportunity to get a little bit better, gain competence and confidence, and grow our capacity to take on more in the future. It sometimes feels like a slow journey, but you’ll be there before you know it! Embrace those training wheels!

Walking the Line Between Guilt and Growth

Welcome to the unexpected third installment of the unexpected three-part series about parenting and money. Thanks to Pax’s broken arm and a lot of reader feedback, this has turned into a fantastic discussion. Over the past few days, I’ve received a lot of questions and wonderings from parents. Many share a situation relevant in their life, then ask if it’s perpetuating guilt or growth. In short, there are a lot of parents doing a lot of good parenting…..in less-than-ideal circumstances. I thought it would be worthwhile to share one common example, as it carries a lot of parallels to many different scenarios we as parents may find ourselves in.

Scenario: A teen driver gets a few speeding tickets, which inevitably results in the family’s auto insurance rates going up.

Healthy Option: Make the teen pay for some or all of the incremental insurance cost. This allows them to take ownership of the situation and models the adult reality that actions have tangible consequences. Growth can happen here and the teen feels some level of organic, external pain.

Neutral Option: The parents pay for most or all of the incremental cost and you never again bring it up in conversation as a way of reminding them of what it’s costing you. Mistakes were made, costs were incurred, and we all move on. There’s neither growth nor guilt.

Toxic Option: The parents pay for all of the incremental cost and periodically (or frequently) bring it up to the teen. It gets brought up whenever there’s conflict, the next time they make a mistake, when you want to illustrate how much you do for your kids, or when you need/want something from them. You “help” your teen by paying this cost, but then turn around and use it as a weapon to manipulate, control, and push guilt on them.

There are a million similar-but-different situations we encounter in our parenting journey, from the time our kids are toddlers to the time they are caring for us in our old age. All we can do is the best we can do, each step of the way. Parents, I feel for you. Life comes fast and it doesn’t stop. To make it even harder, every time we figure out this whole parenting thing, our kids develop into the next stage and the rules change once again. It’s a wild ride, but a beautiful ride.

You got this!

There is No Impact Without Failure

During yesterday’s keynote address at a high school FBLA conference, I stressed the importance of failing. We live in a culture that tells us to avoid failure. Even parents protect their children from failing these days. Not only do I dislike this mindset, but I actually think we should pursue failure. In my talk, I shared two primary reasons why failure is important on our journey:

1. There’s nothing worth doing that doesn’t involve the risk of failing. I jokingly mentioned there was still a chance I would botch my talk and completely humiliate myself. However, there was one surefire way I could have avoided the risk of failure. I could have simply stayed home, which would be much safer and ensured nothing bad could have happened to me. On the flip side, staying home also meant I had a zero percent chance of making an impact. You can’t have one without the other.

2. When we fail, we learn. Failing is never fun, but it stretches us and helps us grow. When we put ourselves in uncomfortable situations and force ourselves to figure it out, we will absolutely fail from time to time. Simultaneously, we’ll also learn, adapt, and stretch ourselves. That’s exactly why something that may be uncomfortable at first eventually becomes comfortable. In the absence of failure, there’s an absence of growth.

I’ll leave you with the wise words of the GOAT, Mr. Air Jordan. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. And 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”

We Don't Know What We Don't Know

As I always do, I recently asked a clear but open-ended question to a prospective coaching client, “why are you here?” The answer to this question tells me a lot about someone and the direction this conversation could/should go. Some people have a very clear objective, while others have more of a gut feeling this is a conversation worth having. On this particular day, the husband had a short and concise answer. “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

As we unpacked their financial lives and careers at a high level, it quickly became apparent to me they are doing better than probably 95% of people in this country. In most areas of their finances, they are thriving and have achieved tremendous success. To an extent, they are aware of this. However, they also don’t have much to compare it to. They explained how they try to do the best they can, but don’t always feel confident they are. I immediately confirmed how well they are doing, and tried to put it into a context that would move the emotional needle for them.

On the flip side, there are a few areas where they lacked focus, insight, and progress. Again, they weren’t really aware of how much they have fallen short in these particular areas. They immediately took note of these shortfalls, presumably for future reference.

When I asked what they attribute all their success to, they responded, “we don’t know what we don’t know, so we just keep asking questions and try to learn.” It seems a bit ironic: they know a lot about these topics because they humbly admit they don’t know a lot about these topics…..which enables and propels them to learn about these topics.

I know I’ve been guilty of feeling like I knew a lot about a topic, which caused me to stop learning and growing. I want to be more like this couple, though. Humble, curious, and open to grow. There’s always something to learn, and someone to learn it from.

What’s one area of life you want to grow in 2023?