There is a saying about wealth in America that it is shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. At times I have felt that is true. I have had nowhere close to the success in business my father had. My business is a small pet sitting and dog walking company that feels like it is barely hanging on at times. I am sure it is mostly me. At one point I was the driving force behind the company. Working hard to do the visits myself, put out live videos, and all this other stuff.
Then the kids came and I’m too embarrassed to do a single live video and show the state of our house. The state of the house has sent me into a mass depression that I can never escape from because my wife won’t let me clean it. All this stuff that has sat around for months can’t be thrown away because it might have some sentimental value or we might need it one day or some other reason that this thing that has sat at a bottom of a pile of papers on the kitchen table for three months is the most important thing ever.
Sorry, I am a bit perturbed about this right now. It all adds to the feeling that I can never measure up to what was expected of me.
I have thought long and hard about that saying shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves and I think it is two fold. That third generation sees the rewards but not the hard work it took to earn them, and the second generation doesn’t teach the right lessons.
Look at investing and myself. I learned more from a Peter Lynch book than I ever did my father. When I talked to him about it and asked why he never taught me his answer was he always had someone do it for him.
He took over my grandfather’s business, made some good deals, and gave the money to the bank. It was the bank that invested it. It surprised me with how hands on my father was that he wasn’t more involved with his own money or that instead of pushing me to invest and teaching me how he never even brought it up.
The real lesson of creating generational wealth isn’t that you have to spend money to make money it is that you have to invest money to grow money but first you need money. Growing money and living off the income of investments is easy as long as you have that initial seed money. The average person can’t walk into the bank with an MLS report showing that the loan value, taxes, and insurance on a property would be less than the rent and borrow money, but a person with enough money can.
The state of life is wishing we knew what we know now then, but we can never go back. All we can do is pass on knowledge to the future generations so they don’t make the mistakes we did.
David Huzzard Writes 