grew up in a family of my dad, my mother, my brother and sister. I’m the oldest. My dad and his brothers grew up on a farm. They had very little. Their family was poor. My grandmother was a schoolteacher. She raised eight kids. My dad and his brothers started a very successful company which, after becoming publicly traded, ranked of 27 in the Fortune 100. Once my father and his brothers had all of their success in business, my father’s priority was to give my brother, sister and me freedom that he had never had. He discouraged me from working because he had to work from a very young age. He didn’t mean any harm by that of course. He really gave us a lot of freedom. That was great. Along with that though, my parents never told us much about money or educated us in what we would now call financial literacy. Mostly my dad just gave me money when I needed it or asked for it. My point is, I didn’t grow up with any discipline around money or planning or anything like that. It wasn’t a terrible problem from my point of view. My dad would sometimes tell me that I was spending too much money and that I should spend less. The problem with that was that there were no numbers attached to that statement. It was all too vague for me. I would try to remember to spend less for a little while but it didn’t really lead to any type of quantitative changes. I was very involved in the world of horses in those days, which even then was a pretty expensive endeavor. I guess you’d say that’s what created what my father felt were a lot of expenses. He kept asking, “Would you spend less?” or say, “I want you to spend less,” or however he would say it. I really wouldn’t do it. The Rocky Road To Freedom| Page 1 | © Hartley Goldstone | Navigating The Trustscape™
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