“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times.”
This saying is not new. I would guess almost everyone reading this has heard some version of it before. Honestly, I have probably come across it fifty times in my life. But for some reason, when I heard it yesterday, it made me pause -again.
Maybe it is because of the stage of life I am in personally. Maybe it is because of the work we do every day with families, farms, businesses, and retirees. Or maybe it is because the older I get, the more I realize how much sacrifice existed before many of us ever arrived.
The saying hit me while listening to someone describe four generations of men in one family.
The grandfather walked to work, worked twelve-hour days, and eventually drove a twenty-year-old pickup truck because that was what he could afford.
His son drove a brand-new Chevy, worked forty hours a week, and created stability.
His grandson drove a loaded sports car to work and struggled to put in thirty-five hours a week.
Then eventually, the great-grandson found himself driving a used pickup truck again.
The analogy is pretty powerful because, whether we like it or not, history tends to move in cycles.
In our business, we spend a tremendous amount of time helping people navigate transition stages of life. Retirement. Succession planning. Educating children. Selling businesses. Passing farms to the next generation. In many cases, our role becomes part financial advisor, part behavioral coach, and part emotional counselor.
Sometimes we help people make smart financial decisions. Sometimes we help them avoid emotional mistakes. And sometimes we are simply giving them permission to enjoy the life they spent decades building.
One thing I have noticed over the years is how differently I view people after they are gone.
I have worked with some incredibly tough individuals. Hard personalities. Gruff people. Men and women who were difficult to get close to. People who, frankly, intimidated others.
But after they passed away, and after hearing more of their stories, I often realized something important.
Many of them were not hard because they did not care.
They were hard because life had been hard on them.
They grew up in a time where failure had consequences. They knew what it felt like to worry about payroll, crops, bills, markets, weather, debt, or whether there would be enough. They worked relentlessly because they believed they had to. The grind shaped them.
The next generation often still works incredibly hard, but the grind looks different now.
Today’s grind includes balancing work with t-ball games, soccer tournaments, concerts, vacations, hunting trips, and trying to create a life that includes more experiences and more family time. In many ways, that is a beautiful thing. It means the sacrifices of prior generations worked.
But if I am being honest, I think many parents and grandparents quietly carry the same fear.
Will the next generation understand what it took to build all of this?
Will they appreciate the sacrifices, or will comfort slowly erase the memory of struggle?
Will they continue to grow what was built, or slowly consume it?
I think about my own family often.
My great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy and Poland. They came here with almost nothing. One side of the family became carpenters. Another became butchers. My parents’ generation worked incredibly hard to become the first to pursue education beyond high school and to create what many would consider the American dream.
My brother and I have worked all sorts of jobs over the years, but today we both work white-collar careers, run businesses, and earn incomes that our great-grandparents probably could not have imagined.
Now I find myself thinking about my children someday, and eventually my grandchildren.
Will they have the same hunger?
Will they have the same resilience?
Will they understand that the opportunities they have were paid for by sacrifice long before they arrived?
I hope so.
More importantly, I hope we as parents and grandparents take seriously the responsibility to mentor them well. To teach gratitude. To teach discipline. To teach that while life is not always fair, character still matters.
Because bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Life does not always distribute outcomes evenly.
But ultimately, the focus cannot just be on what happens to you.
The focus has to be on who you become.
Maybe the goal is not simply to create “good times.”
Maybe the real goal is to create strong people who remain grounded even during good times.