Notes From Gordon: The School of Hard Knocks

As a teenager I attended what in those days—the 1960s—was considered to be America’s most prestigious preparatory school: Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

I graduated with honors and headed off to college with a rigorous, classical education under my belt… totally unprepared for life in the real world. So much for prep school.

My real education began when I left Boston University in my third year with my bass guitar in hand and lived in a U-Haul trailer, cooking baked beans over Sterno and jamming with some of the best musicians around—blacks, Puerto Ricans, Asians, folkies, druggies, jazzers, you name it.

I was now enrolled in The School Of Hard Knocks and leaving the middle class life of “Leave It To Beaver” behind. It’s called living in the real world. The cost of tuition? Priceless. An education like this isn’t available for the largest of student loans.

By my early 30s I had been at various times a band leader, an entertainment agent, a cocktail pianist, a recording studio engineer, a synthesizer programmer, a cab driver, a limo driver, a sailing instructor and a woolen mill manager (to help my retired dad).

By my early 40s I could add to that list a home schooling dad, a public speaker on constitutional taxation, a talk radio guest, a newsletter publisher and a financial risk consultant specializing in moving my clients’ nest eggs out of harm’s way, so that the next round of soaring inflation or stock market crash wouldn’t hurt them.

In the years to follow I helped families across America lock in their net worth and secure a solid retirement. I helped small businesses streamline operations, outperform the competition and create a legacy for their families. Although I never thought of myself as a “life coach,” I think I even saved a couple of marriages.

Looking back it’s clear that nothing truly worth knowing was taught to me in school. As most of us do, I figured life out on my own. But that’s the nature of acquiring wisdom. If only wisdom came in a can?

The next book I write will be geared to young people just starting out in life. I’m thinking of naming it, Reality Slap: The Young Person’s Guide To The Modern World. What do you think?

My hope is that it will help them navigate the maize of false constructs and societal fabrications that pass for normalcy these days. As I taught my kids, you have to be smart enough to know when to act dumb enough to fit in. Works for me!