Learn when to stop taking risks that will harm your family, freedom & independence

The first time I saw the movie, Baby Driver, I'm not sure I truly understood it. I must have had misplaced priorities as a teenager which explains how watching it again yesterday felt different and I was seeing every character in a new light.

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You see Doc had a Heist rule. He never worked with the same people twice except Baby, who was an expert driver and owed him a huge debt. Baby was working endlessly on each heist to pay back the debt he owes Doc while the rest were a part of the crew for the money.

I know every other person who watches this movie might say Doc made a mistake by thinking Baby was his lucky charm so he could do another money heist with the same people twice without anything going wrong. But I think Doc's mistake was not knowing when to stop. Where to draw the line... Where to say, "I have enough" .

When Baby finally paid off his debt and thought he was free to pursue whatever he wanted, he had no idea that the greed that lived and bred in Doc would stir up his confidence level to the maximum and push him to make bad financial decisions.

And it's the problem that I saw with Doc. If he had said, "Oh well, Baby has paid off his debt, this could be a sign for me to stop pulling off heists too". Instead, he said, "Baby, you are my lucky charm.. blah blah blah" and it became his undoing.

I realized long ago after reading the psychology of money that knowing where to stop isn't just applicable to Robert Greene and his laws, it applied to every aspect of our lives including our finances. It is not just about going to war, winning them, and drawing a line. Even the things we do when we talk about making money, keeping them, and investing them have a limit too.

Doc should have had enough to keep him going for as long as he was alive but he did not know where to draw the line.

Hold up! I have another example for you. Blake Carrington in the movie, Dynasty made the same mistake and he lost everything. It turned out he did not know where to stop when it came to acquiring things and accepting business deals. He outrightly placed the lives of his family at risk for a few extra dollars. His ego was always standing in the way of making better financial decisions. And at the tail end, he lost all his assets and his home. His entire family was asked to move out after his competitor got everything from him.

Morgan tells a story about Joseph Heller. According to Morgan, Kurt Vonnegut told Joseph that the host billionaire had made more money in a single day than Joseph Heller. Joseph did not dispute this fact, instead, he answered that he had something the said billionaire would never have.... Enough.

And this is exactly how we see rich people do crazy things and they always risk the things they have for the ones they don't truly need. Blake Carrington for one did not really need the extra barrels of oil that led to his downfall. Of course, he was able to do without them after he lost everything. This proves he did not really need those barrels of oil. But he risked all of his assets and even borrowed from his wife's foundation to secure the oil and watched everything crumble.

More people in history do not learn when to stop. And of course, a few have learned to have enough of everything they wanted. They learned to master the hardest financial skill which is getting the goalpost to stop moving.

The feeling that you are falling behind could make you take greater and greater risks and this happens when you are comparing yourself with others. If you are mostly taking those risks because of social comparison then you have a lot of work to do about your confidence level. And that's because trying to keep up with other people's wealth will certainly wear you out.

Having enough doesn't mean that you stop creating financial goals and hitting them. No, absolutely not! It only means that you have to realize that your inability to deny a potential dollar will catch with you soon and you might be pushed to a point of regret. So learn when to stop taking risks that will harm your family, freedom, independence, etc.

References

Baby Driver(2017) - Movie

The Psychology of Money - Book - Morgan Housel

The 48 Laws of Power - Book - Robert Greene

Dynasty - TV Series - 2017–2022


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