{"id":26056,"date":"2019-08-22T13:09:09","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T17:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=26056"},"modified":"2019-09-30T14:53:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T18:53:25","slug":"how-do-you-get-ahead-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/how-do-you-get-ahead-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you get ahead in America?"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to September 2019<\/a><\/div>\n

\"UBS\u201cWhat creates financial success?\u201d \u201cHow do you move from zero savings to financial security?\u201d Those were my burning questions for many years. Now, things have improved personally. We have a city home with sweeping views of the skyline, and a country cabin set beside a quiet fishing stream. The desire to own a home and to have financial security springs from a circumstance I have not confessed to before writing this introduction. When I was young, I was homeless for a while. My parents were born to wealthy East Coast families and chose simpler lives as teachers. At age 16 after a quarrel with my father, I was out on the street, with nothing but a pack on my back. It was riches to rags in three generations.<\/p>\n

I slept in parks and scrounged for food, working a few odd jobs and getting thin. I was fortunate to get by with work, however I did go to sleep hungry, which many in America have never experienced. There were several times I spent my last dime, not knowing where the next one would come from. There is no poverty like being without a home for the night, having no means and no education. It was a humbling and unforgettable experience.<\/p>\n

Finally, a school friend\u2019s parents took me in, and I slept on a basement couch for several months while finishing high school. That summer I worked nights at a grocery to pull together the first dollars to attend college and in the mornings, slept on an abandoned sofa atop an apartment building. This created an indelible imprint. From that point forward I asked the question \u201cHow do you get this right?\u201d \u201cHow do you get ahead in America?\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next four years I worked my way through college. I figured out how to paint and roof houses, worked as a laborer loading ships on the docks and played music to earn my way and pay tuition. After college I married young and had a child. The financial pressure was on to provide for them. My wife was working on her degree, so it was up to me. I got a job with a firm that promised to train me as a \u201cfinancial planner\u201d, a brand new buzzword in 1982. Little did I know that management just wanted me to sell insurance and did not actually employ any financial planners!<\/p>\n

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