It's (Not) Just an Exercise

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. No, not because it’s NBA playoff time (though that helps!). It’s the final session of my high school money class. During our time together, we’re going to do one of my favorite exercises, which is meant to help them understand what young adult life looks like. Until now, they have very little income, very few bills, and very little need to be fully intentional with their finances. That will surely change within the next handful of years. In the exercise, I give them a theoretical young adult monthly income, a handful of known monthly expenses, and ask them to create a full monthly budget for the life they want to live. The energy is always high, they complete the exercise with optimism, and it ends up being a referendum on their values/interests.

Then, it gets fun (for me, at least). After completing this budget, I ask them to draw pieces of paper from a hat. Each piece of paper has a dollar figure on it, representing the monthly debt payments they’ve put into their life through the choices they’ve made. Student loans, car loans, and credit cards. I explain to them that many decisions will be made between now and when they start this theoretical budget. For every decision they make, there’s a consequence (positive or negative), and these consequences will impact our life (financial and otherwise) for years to come.

The next step of the exercise is for them to do the same budget process as before, but this time factor in the monthly debt payment they pulled out of the hat. This is where the mood changes. I can see the stress on their faces build as they try to make the numbers work with this new reality of debt. Many of their wants/hobbies get removed, their giving shrinks, and they must find ways to get creative with housing and other basic needs. Needless to say, the tone shifts from optimistic to frustrated and overwhelmed.

While this is an innocent exercise for them, it’s the reality for millions of adults. Many of us have made decisions that resulted in negative consequences for years/decades to come. Myself included! While we can’t go back and magically undo any of them, each day presents an opportunity to make different decisions for our future selves. More importantly, we all have younger people in our lives who still have a chance to avoid many of the painful outcomes we’ve experienced. Let’s encourage and equip them! They deserve it.

To Be Or Not To Be (Your Own Boss)

Yesterday, an interesting and unexpected topic came up in my high school money class. A few students mentioned wanting to someday start their own businesses. This is when another student made a few counter-cultural comments. She expressed her confusion about why so many people want to run their own businesses, citing their typical lack of enjoyment and lack of skillsets in the area of actually running the business. Many students were quick to defend the be-your-own-boss concept, citing freedom and control as primary reasons.

This is the moment the questioning student called foul, fairly pointing out that the whole “freedom” argument seems to be one of the few reasons people use to justify their decision to be their own boss. She smells what I oftentimes smell. Today’s culture says being your own boss is THE definition of success. There’s even a mantra that says “stop making other people rich” by quitting your job and becoming your own boss. I think this trend is far overblown….and quite toxic. It causes people to feel guilty about pursuing traditional employment. Today’s narrative is that working a traditional job is enslaving one’s self and limits your ability to have financial success. Both of these are brutal lies. Some of the happiest and most successful people I know have traditional jobs.

I believe this is one of the many reasons most small businesses fail. So many people start their own businesses out of a sense of need. They think that’s what they are supposed to do. Being your own boss is HARD….and we can be the worst bosses in the world. In my years coaching businesses, there’s a general truth that I can almost count on. Business owners are brilliant at their craft, but far from it on the business side of things. Many business owners wish they could offload the whole “run the business” piece of their life and focus on what they do best. That seems an awful lot like what people do in their traditional jobs.

I love small business. It’s rewarding, it’s hard, and it’s exciting. I can’t imagine doing anything else at this point in my life. However, at the same time, I recognize it’s not for everyone. I wish we, as a culture, would stop elevating it as the be-all-end-all for everyone. It’s not. For many, their traditional job will be their very best life…..and they shouldn’t feel one ounce of shame for that. Embrace it, enjoy it, and do your good work!

* We published a podcast episode about this topic almost two years ago. It’s titled 016 - The Toxic Notion Everyone Should Aspire to Be Their Own Boss. You can find it on APPLE, SPOTIFY, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It Always Makes Sense.....In Hindsight

Yesterday was the first session of a financial class I host for our church’s youth group students. This is our 10th year, and it’s always one of the highlights of my spring. In the first session, we cover God’s ownership, contentment, and the difference between needs and wants. As we were talking about needs vs. wants, we had what is always a fun conversation. Many needs and wants are clear. Food = need. Video game = want. Clothing = need. Luxury clothing = want.

Other categories, however, always drum up a lot of debate. One such category is cell phones. Is it a need? Or a want? 10 years ago, the room was split. Having a cell phone was important…..but a need? Today, cell phones receive a near-unanimous vote for the “need” camp. I don’t disagree with this assessment.

The conversation took an interesting twist when we started talking about life in the 90s when cell phones were around, but not used the same as they are today. I explained how I had a cell phone mounted in my car, but I couldn’t carry it around with me. One of the students asked why we didn’t all push more toward having portable cell phones. A very simple question that, in hindsight, seems quite obvious. However, I explained that it just wasn't a thing and we didn’t even think about it as a thing. Who would even need or want a phone in their pocket 24 hours per day!?!? It seemed unfathomable to us back then. Then just a handful of years later, we all carried phones in our pockets.

In hindsight, this all makes sense. It’s like that with a lot of things in life. It’s easy to feel stupid when looking back, thinking about how much we missed the boat on something. A decision we made, the way we lived, something we bought, who we spent time with, a job we took, or even a job we left. It’s so easy to look back with perfect 20/20 vision, but life is anything but clear when we’re in the middle of it. We only know what we know. We have to make the best decision with the information we have at the time, then move on.

Many of us like to play the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. It’s a game we always lose. The odds are stacked against us because we get to judge our prior selves with clarity. It’s an unfair fight! It’s like today’s Lebron James playing 1v1 with his 5th-grade self……It will no doubt be a vicious beating. What’s the answer to this? Two things. First, grace. We need to give ourselves grace when we screw up. We most likely made the best choice with the information we had. Sometimes that goes well, and other times it’s a dumpster fire. It happens. Second, we can learn from it. We will most certainly screw up again in the (near) future, but we can get better each time. Let’s not waste a good mistake.

Always remember, life is lived through the windshield, not the rearview mirror. Have an awesome day!

We Ruin Them Young

Last night at youth group, we opened registrations for the money class I teach each year. This will be the 9th year hosting the class, and we’ve taken 175 high school students through it over the first eight years. Walking alongside these kids is always one of the highlights of my year. One of my favorite parts about the class is a scholarship program we developed in conjunction with it, where students who go through it have the opportunity to apply for a scholarship when they are seniors. To date, we’ve granted $48,000 in scholarships thanks to a number of generous financial partners who have chosen to bless our youth in this way.

After announcing the class, a few students approached me with questions, comments, and stories. I’ve done this long enough to know these stories will be told, but they never cease to amaze me. One student shared that she, at 17 years old, already has a $350/month car payment. Another student shared about her college plans, which will result in more than $100,000 of student loan debt. That’s her number, not mine. That’s a literal number she, her parents, and the college have discussed and somehow have gotten comfortable with. This is for a bachelor’s degree, mind you. Both of these kids, even before exiting minor status, have already made significant, life-altering financial decisions. Rather, I should say their parents allowed them (at best) or encouraged them (at worst) to make these choices.

These young adults don’t know what they don’t know. They are making decisions today that won’t present their true impact until years down the road. These are the scenarios that may someday result in resentment and anger toward their parents. The parents likely mean well, and the kids trust their parents, but I’ve seen this story play out enough times to know where they’re heading. I regularly meet with clients who have to process these situations from earlier in life and hopefully offer forgiveness to their parents. These deep wounds come up meeting, after meeting, after meeting. Many of these parents don’t even know there is deep-seated anger. After all, they were trying to help their kids and sincerely believed they were serving them well.

As I try to close out today’s post, I’m not sure what the takeaway is. Maybe it’s that we adults and parents just need to do better. Whether we have kids or not, there are young people looking at us. What we do and what we say has the potential to make a profound impact on their life. Let’s use that influence for good.