No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

HAVING SOMETHING TO TRADE

We all feel insecure no matter what we achieve. Long before the word dyslexia was invented, I used to see numbers inverted, or upside down. I was allowed to leave second-year algebra in high school and take art instead. Yet I've been in the money management business for a life-time. And my business, now at age 75, is bigger than it's ever been. Everyone I grew up with was terrible at something: sports, music class, rope climbing in gym, Latin, or physics. My high school accommodated me and let me concentrate on writing, reading, and drawing.

There was also a manual arts building that taught shop: electrical, carpentry, and plumbing. We called it the “nyuk nyuk” division, and yet most of those guys ended up being incredibly successful in life. Much more successful than anyone I knew who had been voted “most likely to succeed.” One of these guys in nyuk nyuk eventually became the most successful plumber in the richest town in Massachusetts. He used to make my manual training projects in the eighth grade: the bird feeder and the cranberry picker/letter holder. And what he did with his money was to buy raw land in our town for eventual development. Reminded of the nyuk nyuk days, he just laughed. “We were the best jocks in the school,” he'd say. He was right about that. “And we had the last laugh, too.”

Being labeled in early life can be a destructive thing. I run my billion-dollar money management business that involves much more than ...