Men who come from nothing, and became succesful, what was your story?

14 comments

1. I’m better at making decisions about my life than my parents were about mine (or theirs, for that matter)

2. Parents came from a foreign country, Broke af all my life. They made it with the good ole entreprenurial spirit. They loaned me 2k to start a vending machine business. paid my way through lawschool. Worked in a lawfirm couple of years. opened my own firm and all my income goes into investment properties. im still young, but I see that Im a success, with the hopes of continued success.

3. Both my parents were high school dropouts. My dad eventually went back and got his GED. They bounced around a lot and finally settled in one location. My dad constantly had issues with authority and would always find ways to sabotage good employment. Despite that, some things my dad did really well were work hard, have a questioning attitude, and an ability to learn things quickly.

   I am one of five children and my dad worked 2-3 jobs to support us most of his life while my mom took care of us at home. He very much emphasized when I was growing up to do better than him and pushed education as a priority. With this background and drive, I went to college and got an engineering degree. Furthermore, I complete a masters in engineering as well while working full time. I now live a comfortable lifestyle and don’t stress about the same issues my dad did most of his life.

   TL;DR: humble origins, first gen college student, successful life.

4. •Born in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

   • Moved to America at young age with mom. We shared one bed and one room together. Until my step dad came along.

   • Step dad dies, of a heart attack. Depression kicks in. Mom can’t afford the house . No child support. Section 8 now. Rats and roaches in the crib.

   • Had to leave stuff under my door to be safe. And saw about 2 per day running around. Family back home crying and I can’t do nothing. Finally in high school. One teacher sat me down and told me I got potential.

   • I took his words, joined wrestling and track, got into a great university. My mom was secretly saving money for me. Got a car with it. The hoes, got cheated on real bad, but u live and learn.

   • Let my creativity run like my high school teacher said. Created something, it blew up. Met the love of my life , travel, Beamer and montcler on at 24 writing this.

5. Grew up relatively poor in a small redneck town. Made good grades, went to college and graduated with a degree that I’ve never used. Fell into a job that I knew nothing about, but I’m personable, hardworking and not afraid to try something new. Here I am years later, like the Talking Heads song wondering, “Well, how did I get here?” I’m extremely lucky, like Forest Fuckin’ Gump lucky.

6. I started with nothing and now I have some stuff and things

7. A focus on developing self-discipline in my teen years plus tasting peak success in late teens made me truly believe that almost anything IS possible. It’s all talk and bullshit until you actually win at something big but then it’s cemented for life. Everyone says it but it takes a big win for most people to genuinely believe it.

8. Define successful.

   For me, I was born as the unwanted kid in a dirt poor eastern european “family” consisting of a narcissist with undiagnosed yet obvious borderline, and a schizophrenic with Joe Biden style pedophilic tendencies. Years of abuse both at home and at school made me into a mental(and physical) wreck that I am to this day. Anyway, the day of my 18th birthday, I just walk out. To the streets. Still better than what I’ve had to go through before. Had the job prepared, didn’t have enough cash stacked yet, but managed to recover by delivering pizzas. Then, I went with the only thing I was good at other than driving: computers. Used my 3rd place in a semi-local competitive PC assembly tournament as leverage, got myself a job at PC repair shop. During downtime, I’ve used internet tutorials to improve my coding skills over what I could learn before when I had a C64. Then, got hired as a mobile tech support in one of local banks. Continued to code on the side, and a year later, I’ve got upgraded to main sysadmin. Then I’ve gone the full software dev/devops path, switching jobs yet again to one of Europe’s biggest ecommerce companies. Then, in 2019, I’ve decided to make my freelancing gigs as priority, which gave me a massive income boost. Three years later, at 32, I’m sitting on 2M net worth, and $170k/year.

   Mentally, I’m still not in a good place, and I likely never will. After 8 years of trying different psychotherapy methods, I’ve come to a conclusion that psychotherapy is a meme pseudoscience aimed at monetizing broken people. Physically, we don’t yet have the technology to fix me, and what can be fixed would take several years to do, which considering that currently my prognosis is that I’ll likely die by 35 thanks to now-stage-3 CKD(which was likely caused by extreme malnourishment in the “childhood”) doesn’t really seem worth trying. Relationships? At 32 I’ve never even talked to a woman outside work, and at 28 I’ve completely given up trying after a yearlong tinder experiment that left me with exactly zero likes received(not matches, likes) despite living in a 600k city. At this point I’m unable to even imagine myself in any kind of romantic or sexual context, even though I’m definitely not asexual.

   I guess you can take a man out of trash, but you can’t take trash out of a man.

9. I learned a trade, opened my own business. Hired good employees.

10. Well. I feel like i can answer this. When I was in middle school there were many time we ate beans and cornbread three times a week because we couldn’t afford anything else. I was 100% on my own at 19. Couldn’t afford the deposit to have the gas turned on so I made due with one borrowed space heater. But through years of hard work, mistakes, an ex wife, more hard work. I feel like I am successful. I have a large nice house that will be paid for in a few years. Vehicles that are less than three years old. Awesome wife. Great kids. Couldn’t ask for better. Except maybe a lotto winning so I can retire. lol

11. Community college while working for two years. Transferred to university for engineering degree. One really hard year living on air. Got a job in my field that paid *just enough*. Next year got a better job that allowed relative luxury like deodorant and socks. First pro job, kept living small, saving cash. Worked my ass off to impress my boss. Boss was fired, so I told him I liked working for him, gave him my contact info, then quit. Next job 25% more pay. 9 months later old boss calls me offering a 100% raise and lots of overtime. Kept living small and saving money. Worked my balls off. Met a set of people that kept me working at good pay for years. Saved and invested.

12. Grew up poor. Was a great athlete but had to work at the grades. Worked full time while in college full time. No handouts. No help. Got a good job… worked my ass off. Bought my first house etc. raised my family. I’m not loaded but I do ok. More importantly my kids are doing really well.

13. My parents came to the usa and settled in West Philadelphia where I was born born raised. I played sports but always excelled at basketball. Dropped out of high school to run the streets where I met my future best. His family adopted me and we were like cousins. They took me in, gave me shelter and food and an education. My new uncle Phillip was a judge and allowed me to clerk for him a couple of times. That’s where I found my love for Law and went to school to become a lawyer.

14. Who the fuck is going to be successful and hang out on reddit.