A Simple Guide to Happiness and Success

By Dean Gould

Life isn't easy and it certainly wasn't for Gerry Gould. But as an optimist with drive and ambition, he found a way to come back from financial ruin four times in his life. He survived WWII, 9 plane mishaps, and many other challenges in life, including losing his wife and oldest son, both at young ages. Through it all, he kept moving forward, always making miraculous comebacks, never accepting failure as his fate. His sage advice and his life can be used as a guidebook and benefit anyone looking for a compass to happiness and success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dean Gould
• Release date: May 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301080229

Dean Gould

Dean has spent 25+ years in a career with small, medium, and fortune 500 companies as a as an award winning sales director and manager manager. He worked for Johnson and Johnson 20 of those years and has been "Sales Manager of the Year" multiple times along with many other service awards for top performance. A key ingredient to his success is his ability to identify and hire people with the characteristics in people that make them successful. In this book, he adds a personal touch, by using his highly successful father as a focus to distill 51 Factors of success and happiness. He believes anyone who can learn to apply as many of these factors as possible will benefit immediately with a successful and happy life.

Book preview

Forward

I wanted to write this book to use my life experiences as well as my dad's, to use as a simple guide for you to a financially successful and happy life. Being financially successful doesn’t mean you will necessarily be happy so the two can be and are often mutually exclusive. You see that with famous movie stars, athletes and lottery winners. My dad has gone from being dirt poor as a child to financial successful, then encountering devastating financial challenges and personal tragedies, through it all, he found a way to live 88 ½ of his 89 years, happy, healthy, and as icing on the cake, very successful financially. He found the balance throughout his life to enjoy happiness and health.

But in the end, all the money, cars, and toys don’t mean a thing. Your regrets on your death bed won’t be, I wish I had worked harder, or bought more things. Someone just said to me, You never see a U-Haul trailer behind a Hertz. Somehow my dad found balance throughout his life and had it all; most importantly he’s had happiness and health.

Still, at my age, married fifteen years to an incredible wife, two beautiful children, I’m still trying to emulate the greatness in his life - happiness, and success. So, I’ve written this book to be as much of a guide for me as for you. I’ve still got the second half of my life to live, so it’s not too late for me to improve. I also wanted to chronicle dad’s amazing life for my children and future generations of our family, and yours.

I believe his life story is an inspiration providing valuable lessons to anyone trying to live a life of meaning and to succeed in this crazy world. His is a story of a man who from a very young age was out on the street, surviving and making things happen. He is a classic self-made man who, no matter how tough things got, he always believed he would once again succeed - and he always did. But more important than his success, through the good times and the bad times, he has lived his life with joy and happiness. Isn’t that what it’s all about? How does he do it? Where does it come from? I believe happiness is a key ingredient to longevity, good health, and happiness. Yes, happiness begets happiness. Fake it till you make it! We can control our emotions - my father has controlled his emotions for 89 years.

Money magazine recently published an article that said today the wealthy are working harder and are much less happy. This is the opposite of the wealthy people at the beginning of the 20th Century. The wealthy worked less and were much happier. There is a balance. This book will delve into the many aspects of finding happiness, health, longevity, meaning and success in your life. This book will contain the details and steps that you can use to achieve success, meaning and happiness in your life, no matter how old you are.

Hopefully you will find gems in this book that will help you build the courage to take a chance on something you believe in. Most importantly, you will take away the ability to believe in yourself and your children, as Gerry Gould has done his entire life.

Through his 89 years, there are many interesting and meaningful stories and anecdotes that provide you with a basis for living your own meaningful and successful life. After you finish, or use only parts of it, the Table of Contents will serve as a quick reminder of the things to do to stay on track for happiness and success.

Let me say this, happiness for many people is incredibly illusive. I hope there are a few thoughts here which can make your life a little better. When people suffer from depression, anxiety, or lead a sad life, I can’t say this book is going to change your world. I hope it does. Certainly, the help of a trained professional is in order and probably is already. But, my dad’s life is worth retelling and if this simple guide even just brings a smile to your face for a moment, then I hope it was worth the $1.99 to get it there.

1 Anyone Can Succeed in America - No Matter Who They Are

We’ve had an Irish Catholic and an African American President. We have both male and female representatives in Congress from almost every nationality and race. There is nothing in this country that can stop anyone from at least lifting their family to a better way of life than they had growing up.

Nathan Rodman was Gerry's grandfather, born in the Ukraine, in 1875. Through an arranged meeting, he met his wife-to-be Dunya (which means well-regarded in Russian), and lived happily together for 60 years.

At age nine, Nathan started as an apprentice silversmith in Russia, making silver for the Russian Orthodox Church. It required an artistic ability and when he became a master goldsmith, he was the youngest.

Nathan was drafted into the Russian Army as a sharp shooter. Using his skills in jewelry, he created a hair trigger for his gun that made him the regiment’s champion sharpshooter. In 1901, age 26, he was notified that his oldest son had died. After winning a sharp shooting contest, he was given a weekend pass. With $12.50 in his pocket, he used that opportunity to escape to America to set up a life for his family.

Sailing from Hamburg, the crossing took eight days on the second-rate ship S/S Pretoria. Like many of the hundreds of thousands migrating to America, he was in steerage, it was the dead of winter, and he was wet, cold and miserable. And, like the hundreds of other men in the room, he had a bunk of straw with a sheet over it next to his bucket. The room was rank with the stench of seasick men. They were fed only two meals a day of porridge, soup, and bread. When he was able to get out for fresh air, he was confined to the cargo deck crammed with boxes and cranes. That is where he was standing when his ship passed the Statue of Liberty on a cold December morning. Luckily, Nathan's brother Max, living in New York, had already escaped from Russia and helped him get started.

By the way, the Statue of Liberty was given to us by the people of France and dedicated on October 28, 1886. She is in a robe and represents Libertas, the Roman goddess of Freedom. She is holding a torch, which is to bring light into the world, and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law). Inscribed on the tablet is the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. I have seen her from a distance but never traveled to Liberty Island to see her up close. I never knew until writing this book that at her feet lie broken chains representing freedom. She is an icon that represents freedom, the United States, and the good for which this country stands.

It took Nathan four years to secure himself so he could send for his family. He passed away in 1953, age 78.

Gerry’s oldest brother Morty, graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School at age 14, City College at 18, and Columbia University with a Masters Degree at 19. He went to Washington during the war to work for the Railroad Retirement Fund in Washington, making $2400 a year. He sent his mom Ette half of his income - $100 every month to help her out. Later, Morty went on to become the Director of the United Kingdom’s Desk, the highest achievable civil service rank. One of his duties was to write speeches for Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon.

Gerry’s other brother, Larry, was Valedictorian of both his Junior High and High School, as well as having the highest regents average ever achieved in the State of New York. He had the highest entrance exam score ever achieved at New York City College. He was also a member of Mensa - the high IQ society that provides a forum for intellectual exchange among its members.

Gerry recounts:

My mom was Etta Rodman, born in 1899. She came to the US from the Ukraine when she was four. My dad, Herbert Goldstein, was born in 1895 in Harlem, New York. When they got married, Herbert was 20 and Etta was 16. As a young man, Herbert participated in six-day bike races. His sister was Bertha (Aunt Birdie) and his brother was Benjamin.

My grandfather, on my father’s side, was born on the German Hungarian border, and passed away by the time I was born.

I was born June 28, 1924, in New York City’s Washington Heights, in the upper North End of Manhattan, near the George Washington Bridge. The family lived at 375 Ft. Washington Avenue, Washington Heights, around 177th Street, East of Broadway.

I never lived in anything other than a high-rise apartment until I moved to Florida. We played a lot of games in the streets. Most of the games were some form of gambling and while I wasn’t a reckless gambler, it did teach me about the concept of risk/reward.

******

They used to play stick ball, pitch pennies, and roll marbles into Philadelphia Cheese Boxes. Philadelphia Cheese was packaged in a wooden box 16" long. They cut them into various point configurations and played for points.

The other game was Bottle Caps. They filled bottle caps with wax or lead, then pitched them to the curb. The one closest to the curb wins the other caps. When they had the money, they would pitch coins instead of the caps.

Between the ages of six and eleven, Gerry and his family moved five times, all in the New York City area.

When Gerry was 11, in the depths of The Depression, he became a Boy Scout and spent a lot time at the Camp. The Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941. It didn’t end until WWII. In the depression, 25% of the people were out of work but 75% were working.

As little boys, his parents fought constantly - yelling and screaming. He remembers sitting on the edge of his bed holding hands with his brother Larry, listening to the screaming. Larry and Gerry were closest in age and were always the best of friends.

In 1937, when Gerry was in Boy Scout Camp, his father had a heart attack. This was too much for his mother. He came home from camp to find his dad had moved out.

His mom Annette (Ette) and the boys went to live with another family. Luckily, when their welcome ended after three weeks, his brother Morty’s soon-to-be wife Rita, was able to get her uncle to allow them to live in one of his many apartments rent