Plan talk and possible excuses

Must admit I get excited when there is a chance to talk about the plan with someone new.  Last night, there were plenty of chances for that.  I am in Omaha visiting my brother and his family and last night we went to my sister-in-law’s sister’s wedding.  The family is a large mid-western sort with eight athletically oriented siblings, almost all of which have significant others and children.  That, along with friends and extended family, made for a large wedding with plenty of time for conversation about The Plan.  Was nice to chat, but I think it would be good to have a Dan Plan ambassador around to explain the basics whenever someone new wants to hear about it..

All in all people were encouraging and interested. In the future, I Think I need to bring cards for people so they will remember to check out the site and follow along as The Plan gets rolling.

On the negative side, the general consensus was that it would not be possible to do if I had children.  I don’t agree with that, but understand that there are concerns with such a drastic change in life when there is a family involved.  To help explain my thoughts, I asked my brother to explain a bit.

Matt, why do people say that it would not be possible to do The Plan if you had children?

“One is that it’s an excuse.  You’re doing a cool thing, and people say here’s why I can’t do a cool thing ‘because I have kids.’    Part of it is legitimate, because if you do have children you have a responsibility for them, you have that additional responsibility for them so it makes you more risk adverse.  For you, because you don’t have kids it makes you a little easier to absorb the chance of not succeeding.”

what’s the difference of The Plan and a normal job?

“The difference is that the distributions of outcomes is much more variable for what you’re doing.  The actual value and expected outcome in my job doesn’t vary.  For what you are doing, the outcome could swing from five dollars to two million, maybe 50 percent of the time you would not be able to feed your family.  In your situation you would like to live an interesting life and that is worth more than the security of having a job…  Most people are drawn towards a stable life even before they have kids because evolutionarily there is the best overall chance of perpetuation.”

“the reality of what you are doing is a chance.  There is a high possibility that you will fail and that is why it is a rational argument for people to not take the chance you are doing.  A lot of times people can take chances in their life without taking financial risks, for example going to art school in the evenings while they keep their day job.  They can take a chance and try something new, but if it fails they have not risked their job and their financial security, and it’s a tragedy that more people don’t try to take chances like that in life.”

There are definitely some points worthy of argument in there, but all in all I think that he makes some good points.  It is good to weigh the risks and the possible rewards of any decision, especially one that involves quitting your day job..

I’ve thought about it for more than a year now and have no hesitations or reservations about The Plan. For me, the possibilities of transformation definitely outweigh the potential risks involved.