Money & Entrepreneurship Lessons at Young Age

So it wasn't a path that was really laid out from the beginning. For me, I would say an influential person in my life that helped shape my thinking about even being an entrepreneur was my grandfather on my dad's side. And I was actually adopted when I was five years old by my father. So my mom and my father got married when I was young. And then this new family kind of adopted us too. And my grandfather started STS tires, which is Somerset tire service in New Jersey. And he sold it to the big company that you know of as STS now. So he was an entrepreneur. He came from Liverpool to escape the war and he lived in a gas station until he bought that gas station.

Well first it was the freedom that he had. I saw that he had financial freedom. He was able to go on trips whenever he wanted. He took the family on trips. I also saw that where he kind of fell short in training up his children in different ways and kind of passing on that financial aptitude or education where I want it to be really much better at that and understanding that we could talk about money. He had money, never talked about money and it never kind of flowed through the generations. So at least in my household maybe it was different for other siblings of my dad’s. But it also showed me that just by having money doesn't educate you about money or being around money doesn't necessarily educate you about money.

And then he started a tire business and you know, through the depression became very successful through that tire business. And he lived a successful life. He was able to pass legacy onto his kids and that was an exciting, a person to watch. And even though he didn't get to see me be common entrepreneur, he passed. He was influential in that perspective. While you're kind of shaping my thought processes about do I go out and get a job or do I kind of start my own business? And even though I went to college and went the similar route that a lot of us take, I ended up looking at entrepreneurship as a really exciting place to be. So that influenced me a for business. 

You still need to understand it, educate yourself about it and get a background in it. So it encouraged me to be an entrepreneur because I saw the freedom that it created, but it also made me recognize that, you don't have to not talk about money. It doesn't have to be taboo. It can be a tool that's utilized for things that you want to get done in your life, whether that's giving or traveling or you know, any number of things. So I wanted to understand it more holistically. Instead of just having success over here and how does that apply? It really helped open my mind up to saying, okay, so having money is one piece of it. Keeping money, preserving wealth, passing it on generationally, that's a separate thing. And that also comes with its own lessons and own education that you have to explore.