It’s Not Enough to Become a Man, You Have to Think Like One Too

Money Beliefs from Your Dad

There’s the archetypal moment when a son confronts his father and becomes a man.

Almost every guy I know remembers the moment he stood up to his father. Sometimes it’s with words, and sometimes it’s by picking him up by the lapels and pinning him to the wall. Either way, it’s a watershed moment, and the power dynamic changes forever.

A father’s definition of success or money beliefs should be confronted in the same way.

Here’s why:

The son of a very successful man can spend his whole life in financial competition with his dad, never feeling good enough.

Fathers pressure sons into joining the family business. Sons give up their dreams and are never sure that their success is real, not due to nepotism. Or sons are underpaid because they’re family and “someday all this will be yours.” Sons may clash with their fathers over the direction of the family business.

Sons follow their father’s career footsteps (medicine, tugboat captains, military). Is it because it’s familiar and easy, or it’s expected?

Fathers use money to control, manipulate or make their sons financially dependent, robbing them of self-respect. They own the houses their kids live in, threaten to cut them out of their will, dictate who they can marry.

Deadbeat dads teach their sons about scarcity and not trusting money because it never sticks around. Risk-averse fathers discourage entrepreneurship in their sons, wanting them to play it safe.

You become a man not just when you outmuscle your dad, but when you can think for yourself.

Photo credit: Kirk Douglas — Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Michael Douglas — ABC TV, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons