I love my Uncle. He’s always been there for me and he is the best Uncle I could ever want.
But my Uncle has a serious problem.
You see, my Uncle is a bit of a dreamer, and in recent years every business he’s started has ended in failure. He’s articulate and bright, so he gets hired to run huge, multi-billion dollar businesses across the country. But each time, despite his good intentions, he always drives the business bankrupt.
So while my Uncle used to be rich, today my Uncle is bankrupt. Miraculously, he has held onto his businesses and continues to try to make them work. But his monthly bills on them are 150% more than his income! Sadly, he’s already tapped out everyone in our family to finance his debt. Each of us that is working owes about $150k to help him get out of debt.
The worst part is that my Uncle has stopped listening to the family. Because of his position, a lot of outsiders want to manipulate my Uncle, and they do so over and over again. This is probably what hurts his businesses most.
Obviously, this has been extremely stressful for our family – so much so that recently we’ve started fighting. Half of us want to cut my Uncle off and tell him “enough is enough!” But we all love my Uncle and so the other half really wants to see him succeed in his next endeavor. Since he won’t listen to us, some of us have stopped giving him his allowance, and now he’s really angry. He says that we promised him an allowance and that we have to keep giving it. But times are hard on all of us, and he’s making it worse.
And of course, as is typical with my Uncle every four years or so, he has a new business venture he wants to start. The business sounds great and he makes a compelling pitch for it. If it works it might help a lot of people! But my Uncle’s track record is so poor. He’s got so much debt and other problems, that we just have to say no. This is going to be a tough lesson for my poor Uncle, but he’s risking the financial security of the entire family now. We simply can’t allow him to ruin all of us.
So, Uncle Sam – God Bless you. I love you and always will. I hope you recover, but for now I have to cut you off. Once you have your existing businesses in order, we can talk again. But until then, I can’t help you take on more challenges. You need to finish what you start before you start more.
Love,
Your devoted nephew, Mike.