The Financial Story Men Inherited and Never Agreed To
Why the Men Who Have Everything Still Feel One Bad Year From Broke
TLDR: Every man swore he wouldn't wind up like his dad. Then his dad's voice started running his money decisions anyway. You didn't choose this belief about scarcity, struggle, and never-enough. But you're the one living it. Here's how to finally stop.
The pattern you swore you'd break: and keep finding yourself trapped inside
“I don’t want to wind up like my dad.” Every man says it at least once during his life.
Whether as an angry rebellious teenager who’s sick of ‘the man,’ or as a frustrated adult who’s seeing generational patterns repeating as he experiences existential crisis.
Maybe it’s to do with relationships or health; most frequently I’ve seen it related to money and financial stability.
Culturally, for centuries, men have been expected to be the providers – keeping family safe, making sure everyone’s needs are met from three meals a day and a secure home, all the way through college and beyond.
Learned behaviors indoctrinated by a father who didn’t even know he was in a cultural system.
And it all got placed on your shoulders to carry from his generation forward.
Thanks Dad.
What Did You Watch Your Father Believe About Money?
When you think back to your childhood and your parents’, particularly your dad’s, relationship to money, what do you remember the most?
For me, I recall this litany:
· “There’s never enough to go around.”
· “I can’t afford that. You’re crazy.”
· “Everybody’s got their hand out for something.”
· “Everybody’s got their hand in your pocket.”
· “Every time you get a dollar, there’s somebody there to take it away.”
That’s what he’d say. Now that I understand life and attitudes better, I realize that these words all are statements and behaviors coming from his lack mindset. He truly believed there was not enough to go around and that everyone was competing for the same money.
He was born during the Great Depression, so I can understand his perspective. He grew up during the years of the greatest struggle that the United States has seen in the past 100 years. His formative years were marinated in not-enough, life is a constant struggle survivalism.
That marinate soaked deep.
40 years later, in the late 60s and early 70s, when the economy was booming, he only saw the same survival challenges. His eyes were blind to possibilities and abundance, because he could only see who, in his imagination, was coming for his stuff.
Just like his early years were a masterclass on survival, he brought that doctorate level training to bear on his children.
Repetition creates validation. Suddenly, generations born into a more abundant world, beyond mere survival, are trained to see only financial stress and feel the walls closing in.
What Did You Tell Yourself You'd Do Differently?
I remember hearing one of my middle school teachers talking about money, particularly the idea of being wealthy.
She said her dad’s idea of wealth was, “Every time I reach in my pocket I have a dollar.”
In the 1970s, to a teenager, that sounded like a solid plan, and the idea underneath it is still valuable, even adjusted for inflation 50 years later.
It was such a different philosophy than the one I heard that was centered in a zero-sum story that not only wasn’t there enough to go around, but what did go around wasn’t enough.
(Cue images of Depression-era soup kitchens. That’s the world my dad grew up in.)
One of the biggest fears men have spoken to me about is fear of losing their financial base, their nest-egg, everything they have saved and worked for. The fear that is right behind it is they’re afraid that what they have won’t be enough.
This is one of the reasons that winners of lottery jackpots wind up in bankruptcy within three to five years at a greater rate than the general population. Their story about money, their relationship to it never changed.
Is This His Story or Yours?
When you compare your habits to his, what do you see?
Savings patterns? Investment patterns? Spending habits? Credit habits?
Do you believe that “you need money to live” or have you realized that you were born into this world with no money, so life does not require money…living a certain lifestyle requires a given level of income.
Are you a slave to the idea of a lifestyle? How might you be equating living a lifestyle to pure survival?
The answers to those questions will reveal a pattern. That pattern always leads back to the same question:
What story did you choose for yourself, or did you not even question that you could?
Maybe you saw his way and decided to do exactly the opposite. While you may not have directly inherited his money patterns, reaction for the sake of reaction still carries an attachment to his story. No matter how much you gather, there’s a good chance you’re still going to want more, because the submarine named SS Never Enough runs even in the deepest of waters.
Survival knows survival – it’s a primal response. It wants reassurances. It wants protection.
And no matter how much it gathers, it’s constantly on guard against loss.
You didn't choose this belief. But you're the one living it.
Now you can see them, and once you’ve seen them, you can’t unsee them.
You inherited beliefs that you thought you couldn’t change. You’ve had enough life experience validating them, that they feel like Capital-T Truths…but they aren’t.
Your money patterns are not a life sentence. They’re a story you can rewrite.
Your inherited beliefs have created the outcomes you’re currently living with. Unlearn them and declare your own money story. The financial world around you will change.
You can feel it deep in your body, below your core, down to your foundational seat. The ground under you is shifting. The Undivided Man shows you the inheritance you no longer have to carry.
Fourteen questions. Less than five minutes. Uncannily accurate.
Let me know your results. I’d love to read it.
