Carrying Two Worlds: The Psychology of Survival and Success

The other night I was standing at a bus stop, music in my ears that reminded me of where I came from. Not the kind of music people stereotype, but music that spoke to survival, to struggle, to the world I knew as a teenager. I looked over and saw a young parent with their kids, maybe four in total, a baby, a four-year-old, a six-year-old, and an eight-year-old. And I thought: that could have been me.

Because at one point, that’s where the story was heading. I was a foster child, adopted at age two into a home that wasn’t a fairy-tale success story. As a teenager, I got caught up in a lifestyle that could have swallowed me whole. Later, I was a single parent on food stamps, trying to keep my head above water. If statistics had their way, if assumptions had their way, the ending was already written.

But here’s what’s rare: that’s not where I landed.

What I Made Possible: Education, Finance, and Global Reach

That same night, I went home and looked at the framed associate’s degree hanging on my wall. The one I earned in March. The one I finally put up after learning that a close friend of mine, someone who had been fundamental to my survival years ago, was killed in 2020. The news reached me late, but it still hit heavy. It was the reason I finally took the degree out of the box, hung it up, and let myself be proud.

Now, I’m in my first year at UW Tacoma, earning grades that show I belong here, 4.0, 3.8, 3.9. I’ve built a finance blog with nearly 400 published articles, read in more than 50 countries. I manage my own investment fund. I don’t just know Warren Buffett’s name, I study Charlie Munger’s quiet wisdom too. I read investment books the way other people read novels.

All of this is to say: if I met someone like me, I’d call them rare.

Grief and Gratitude: The Two Worlds I Carry

This year I lost a mentor, one of the most heartbreaking losses of my life. Their absence has made me think about legacy, about what I want to leave behind. At the same time, learning of my friend’s death years after the fact pulled me back into my past. Between the two, I’ve been forced to sit with both grief and gratitude, grief for what’s gone, gratitude for how far I’ve come.

That’s the strange weight of carrying two worlds:

• In one world, I am the teenager who survived instability, gangs, and chaos.
• In the other, I am the adult student, parent, writer, and investor who built stability from scratch.

Most people in my life today only know the second world. They know the me who raised a child into adulthood, who built something global, who sits in classrooms at UW. They don’t know the younger me who had to claw the way here.

Why Partnership Matters in Adulthood

That’s why I sometimes feel like I don’t have anyone I can fully talk to about it all. Not because people in my life aren’t kind or supportive, but because they don’t know both worlds. They don’t know the teenager and the adult. And that gap can make me quiet.

It also makes me realize the value of partnership. Not casual dating. Not playing around. Real partnership, the kind of relationship where you don’t have to hide one half of yourself. The kind where someone can hold both worlds and not flinch.

For a long time, that idea scared me. Opening up felt fragile. But lately, I’ve been more open to it. Not desperate for it, not chasing it, but ready to recognize it if it shows up. Because when you’ve carried as much as I have alone, you start to understand that love isn’t just attraction, it’s safety. It’s being able to talk about anything, past and present, without fear.

Just Getting Started at 35

I’m 35, and I feel like I’m only getting started. I’ve broken cycles. I’ve built stability. I’ve claimed a future that wasn’t written for me. And I’m still hungry for more, for impact, for legacy, for a life that honors the people I’ve lost and the people I still carry with me.

This blog is read in 50+ countries (and counting). If you’re a student, teacher, or lifelong learner from anywhere in the world, I’m honored you’re here. Economics belongs to all of us.