What happens when your career plan intersects with your family’s legacy? For Chan Weitian, a software engineer and startup founder, it meant swapping out code and venture pitches for laundry machines and customer tickets. In this episode of Clean Your Toilet, Barbara Latimer explores with him the messy truth of second-generation succession: duty, identity, and the quiet weight of stepping into a business you didn’t choose.

Most people imagine family businesses as inheritances waiting to be collected — stable, profitable, and ready for handover. But what if the reality is far less glamorous? What if the “succession plan” is simply a hole that needs plugging, and you’re the only one who can do it?

Weitian grew up helping at his parents’ dry-cleaning shop, folding clothes and tagging orders, long before he learned coding. Later, he built his own path in tech, chasing the excitement of startups. But when his parents began to step back, the choice wasn’t abstract — the family business needed him. Returning meant more than just operating machines; it meant reconciling two very different worlds: his parents’ survival-driven entrepreneurship and his own generation’s search for strategy, innovation, and purpose.

And that’s the tension at the heart of this conversation.

On one side: tradition, built on sacrifice and sheer willpower. On the other: innovation, built on systems and fresh ideas. Between them lies a messy middle that every successor must navigate:

How do you honor your family’s story while writing your own?

Where’s the line between responsibility and self-betrayal?

Can a legacy business become a platform for reinvention, not just repetition?

Weitian speaks candidly about the guilt, the pragmatism, and the unexpected pride that come with taking the reins. His journey reminds us that trailblazing isn’t always about starting something new — sometimes it’s about breathing new life into what already exists.

If you’ve ever:

Felt the pull between personal ambition and family responsibility

Wondered if “duty” and “dreams” can coexist

Inherited something you weren’t sure you wanted

…this episode is your reminder that the mess of legacy can also be a workshop for growth.

🧼 Responsibility is the clean water.

🚽 Resentment is the blockage.

💩 Guilt is the residue that lingers if you don’t clear it out.

Keep the cycle running, choose what to preserve, and remember: every system — whether code or cleaning — needs maintenance to keep flowing.

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