Dad's father was a coal miner, my mom's father drove a truck. The courage to lead a better life came early in life for both of my parents. As a child Dad worked with determination shining shoes, delivering papers, and selling Cloverine salve to miners and laborers to ease the sores and calluses on their hands. He discovered early in life that he possessed a gift for bonding with people and helping them take action to solve their problems. My mother also utilized her specialized talents for organizing and documenting information, earning straight A's in school while at the same time working in clerical positions to help pay the bills at home.
Experience is a powerful teacher.
Reflecting, even as a youngster, upon my parents childhood memories, I often wondered how they had delivered our family from such meager conditions to our comfortable middle-class suburban environment. Asking the right questions is the answer. Ironically, it seems that for Mom and Dad poverty was a springboard to creating economic abundance. As adults they worked together to found several highly successful financial businesses, leaving behind the chains of economic destitution into which they had been born. From them I learned that financial abundance is, above all things, a matter of choice.