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I get really inspired reading stories of people who came from nothing and made something of themselves, but that is not my story... Here are some relections on growing up rich
I found out I was "rich" in middle school when my friends started telling me I was a rich kid... I couldn't fathom what they were talking about because my conception of wealth was largely material
My friends all had nicer houses, and instead of driving minivans (like my family) they had suburbans so I was extremely confused when they kept insisting we were rich
My perspective was pretty warped - I knew my parents were both medical doctors but I had no idea how different professions compared (we didn't have a TV and all my friends had big screens and N64s and to say I was jealous was an understatement)
I found out later (as an adult) what they were referring to was the acquisition of my mom's medical practice (she was a partner) by an insurance company and parents became millionaires overnight
I remember shortly after than my parents sitting us all down to talk about our water bill. They said we needed to all take shorter showers because our water bill was too high (so naturally I thought we were poor and were close to losing our home)
I remember being incredibly frustrated every Christmas how my gifts were never the hot items my friends got (I got new towels and they got Pokemon cards lol)
I would also get so frustrated to see how generous my parents were with others but felt like they held back with me (they literally gave our car away to some people who needed it)
When we finally figured it all out, my parents firmly communicated to us that we were not going to get an inheritance from them, that their goal was not to set us up for life, it was to give us the opportunity to make something of ourselves
To enable this, they paid for our college tuition as a gift (graduating debt free is a tremendous gift)
Thinking back on it all I can't help but be blown away at their wisdom. See my parents had a bigger vision for their lives than to insulate themselves with comfort
Wealth creates tremendous potential opportunity, but so often it is waisted by selfish / lazy desires
Here are some of the lessons I learned:
There is tremendous freedom in capping your standard of living
Having a vision for life that is "others" focused is so much more fulfilling than building a kingdom for yourself
Making life easy for your kids sets them up for failure not success. (I learned this after graduating college and realizing I had no skills to get a job and I had squandered the opportunity my parents had given me, and that lit a fire under my ass to learn and grow)
By no means are my accomplishments impressive, I am the poster child of privilege, I likely won't achieve a fraction of what my parents have, but I will consider my life a success if I live these same values
To be generous
To be others focused
To cap my standard of living
To invest in things that last (relationships and building others up)
To be others focused
To cap my standard of living
To invest in things that last (relationships and building others up)
In case you are curious what my parents are up to now, they moved to Nairobi Kenya and my mom leads a newborn community health program and my dad is the leading infectious disease specialist in the country and is training and mentoring other doctors
As for their money, they gave half of it away immediately when they got it, and the rest now funds their work in Kenya and will continue to support that work even when they aren't there anymore ... That's pretty cool
