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Despite having been raised by a family of entrepreneurs (ie, all of the men on both sides of my family), I have had to learn essentially all of my money-legal-business lessons on my own…
…and you can rest assured knowing that everything that I learned in these matters was learned in the slowest, most difficult, most absurd ways possible…
….one of the worst of which inspired my 2024 book ADMINISTRATIVE ANARCHY IN AMERICAN ACADEMIA which you can download here as a free PDF:
The emphasis of this series “Older and Wiser” will be to share some of what I have learned, especially with regard to “Money, Business, and Legal Matters” with occasional mention of a few non-curricular topics like watches, travel, wine/whiskey which are largely unknown to us when we are younger, less experienced, and—obviously—less worldly because we have not had the time to experience and appreciate the nuances that later become obvious to us.
“Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.” Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
“You can only know what you have lived through. If you have not lived through something, then it is not true.” Kabir
My Uncle was Right about This
My maternal-sided “Uncle Steve” was a successful entrepreneur-architect that ejected from his hometown of Houston Texas as soon as he graduated from (to my knowledge) University of Houston’s architectural program. After many years of being poor—famously not being able to pay to cross a toll bridge in order to get to a job interview—he co-founded a successful architectural firm and eventually made millions of dollars, while not necessarily adhered to any strict codebook of ethics.
The only thing of any marginal value that he ever barely mentioned to me related to business success is that he had to deal with and overcome his “stuff” in order to advance in his career, for example, overcoming his personal insecurities when cold-calling potential clients so that he could sell his architectural services.
As microscopic as this insight might have been, it at least stayed with me for all these years, and I have noticed both this problem and its solution in myself and in the young people (and a few older people) that I have mentored and supported (eg, microloans and macroloans) along their entrepreneurial paths.
Our insecurities and “areas of ineffectiveness” clearly impair our abilities to advance with regard to Money, Business, and Legal Matters, but these same weaknesses adversely affect our Health and personal/romantic Relationships, as well.
Today, I drew it out—how our “stuff” keeps us from advancing in Money, Business, and Legal Matters
Our insecurities and “areas of ineffectiveness” clearly impair our abilities to advance with regard to Money, Business, and Legal Matters, but these same weaknesses adversely affect our Health and personal/romantic Relationships, as well.
People who are insecure, unassertive, undefined, undefended, and ineffective will have consistent and persistent problems with:
their relationships
their romances
their jobs, careers
their health
their money
their legal interactions
Our insecurities and “areas of ineffectiveness” clearly impair our abilities to advance with regard to Health, Money, Business, and Legal Matters, but these same weaknesses adversely affect our Health and personal/romantic Relationships, as well.
People who are insecure, unassertive, undefined, undefended, and ineffective will have consistent and persistent problems with:
their relationships—inability to assert and communicate wants and needs, inability to defend boundaries
passivity
codependency
resentment
inauthenticity
willingness to accept abuse and neglect, bullying
their romances
passivity
codependency
resentment
inauthenticity
willingness to accept abuse and neglect
staying in relationships with psychopaths, borderlines, etc.
their jobs, careers
underpaid
overworked
no advancement
no assistance/assistants
invisible
underappreciated
free overtime
multitasking and covering for other inept empoyees
accepting abuse and mistreatment from bosses, managers, coworkers
no vacation
taking work/calls on weekends and after hours
their health
no maintenance visits and lab work
no interest in personal health
willingness to do little or nothing
failure to comply with basic medication and nutritional needs
failure to accept the reality of health, disease, and consequences
overwilling to take the easiest route, failure to seek a second/third—fifteenth opinion
obesity
hypertension
chronic illness without major effort to find solutions
their money
broke, nearly broke, periodically broke
no savings
no financial plan
no financial hope
passivity—assuming that things are going to work out miraculously and without any effort
their legal interactions
failure to read every line of the contract
failure to hire their own attorney
accepting the contract as it is
failing to notice that the contract being offered is obviously written and strategized specifically for the people writing the contract and paying for the contract to be written to their advantage
over-trusting
assuming the best, hoping for the best because being naive feels better than seeing the world for what it is
A fantastic lecture on all this passivity and naivety is THE NAIVE MALE by the late great Robert Bly
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-naive-male/1326461124 — includes sample
https://www.audible.com/es_US/pd/The-Naive-Male-Audiolibro/1615449574
