I went to my first therapy session yesterday.

Turns out, the things that made me successful were the same things destroying me.

What I'm about to share, I haven't told anyone besides my fiancée.

The darkest chapters.

The stuff I buried.

I'm not writing this for sympathy.

I'm writing it because putting words to these moments helps me make sense of who I am.

And if even one piece of this resonates with how you were raised or what you've been through, maybe it does the same for you.

Our traumas shape who we are, and the more we understand how they shaped us, the better off we will be and our loved ones around you and me.

So when I finally sat down with a therapist for the first time, I didn't know where to start or how it was going to go…

Therapist: “Today I’m going to fill out your intake form and ask you a few questions about your past.”

Me: “Okay great, this is going to be easy!”

“So… Tell me about your childhood.”

“Never mind..”

I was born in a US Army base in South Korea in January 1997.

My dad met my mom when he was stationed in Seoul.

Growing up, I never saw my parents show any affection.

They never even told me the story of how they met until I asked them when I was 21 years old.

They never said “I love you” to each other, and they never said “I love you” to my brother and me. Never complimented us. Never said they were proud of us.

When I cried, they’d yell: “you don’t deserve to cry!”

When I complained about my chronic migraines, they used to say I was just making excuses.

In Korean culture, it used to be okay to hit your kids when they acted out.

And I was a very rebellious kid. So you can guess what happened.

I thought of running away several times and I ended up sleeping at my friends’ houses a lot because I was worried about being home.

I used to hold a deep grudge against my parents, but now I give them a lot of grace.

I was not an easy kid to raise. I was very troublesome.

They are not bad people, and they were not bad parents. They did a lot of things right. I’m just highlighting one reason why I am so messed up today.

They were going through life for the first time, just like you and me, and they were raising me just like how they were raised by their parents.

It’s extremely hard to break the toxic patterns of parenting that are passed down from generations.

Home was hard. School was worse.

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Bullying and Racism.

My troubled home life, bullying, and racism caused me to act out in school and get into a lot of fights.

Middle school was my worst years.

I got into over a dozen fights and got suspended several times. Almost expelled at one point.

In middle school, everyone was white. I felt like the only asian kid in school.

The racism was brutal. I was called the “chink” and the kid “with the slanted eyes.”

They’d always visibly slant their eyes with their hands while calling me their favorite racial slurs.

6th grade was the worst. I wanted to disappear during this time of my life.

7th and 8th grade got a little better, but I still had a really hard time in school and always felt like an outsider.

Reflecting back at this time of my life, I now know why I am always seeking positive affirmation from people.

I’ve always worked hard for rewards, worked hard for my old boss to give me a pat on the back, and worked hard for my employees to tell me how great of a job I was doing.

It was an unhealthy way to live, but who doesn’t love attention right?

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High School Era:

Everything started to get better in high school.

High school was the first time I started playing football.

I was one of the worst kids on the team, but during the offseason after my freshman year, I worked on my skills everyday to get better.

I wrestled to get tougher and stronger.

I lifted weights to build muscle.

I ran track to get faster.

During sophomore year football try outs, I was an entirely different person.

I was in the starting lineup for the first time, and this was the first time in my life that I learned that hard work really pays off.

But, then I was immediately humbled my junior year. I barely saw the field, and in my senior year I started only a few games.

Sitting on the bench was miserable. I felt small again. It made my hard work and dedication seem like it wasn’t worth it.

I told myself that I would never feel like this again.

A part of my insanely high drive to work and beat other people definitely comes from this time in my life.

One of my best friends in high school convinced me into playing rugby my sophomore year, and I fell in love with it.

I actually became really good at this sport. I remember my last summer before moving to San Diego, I scored 9 times and led our team to 1st place.

When I look back at my high school years, I hate to admit…

I think those were the best years of my life.

If we spoke a year ago, I would have lied to you (and myself) and said that my working years in real estate was the best time of my life.

But, if I’m really being honest with you and myself… high school was the best.

Why?

Because I had the best friend group during that time of my life.

We didn’t argue about politics, we didn’t talk about work, we weren’t addicted to social media, we went on adventures, and hung out all the time.

That’s the beauty of being a kid that you don’t appreciate until it’s gone.

You can easily see your friends every day, and no one is busy.

I laugh to myself when I think about feeling “busy” in high school.

Now, everyone either has a wife, has kids, has a stressful job, or is too worried about what’s going on in the external world to be present.

Then I left for San Diego, and everything fell apart.

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The reason why I became so addicted to work:

It was my escape from all my problems.

Ever since I moved to San Diego in 2015, I have felt like an outsider.

I have never had a solid friend group that I fully vibe and connect with.

People made me feel very small in college.

When I first came to the dorms at San Diego state, I bunked with two randoms, and they were the complete opposite of the people I would hang out with.

I joined the rugby team, but I never got cleared to play a game during the regular season after I told the trainers how many concussions I have had in high school.

Looking back, that was a blessing. I could have been dead right now, if I lied and kept playing.

I didn’t fit in with the culture of the rugby team anyway.

Everyone in college seemed like a binge drinker to me. The cool thing to do was to join a fraternity and binge drink with women.

I never loved the tradition, but I wanted to have a college experience, so I followed along like a sheep.

My confidence was at an all time high before I left for college and when I got there it slowly went down to an all time low.

I rushed one of the top fraternities on campus the 2nd semester of freshman year, and after I got in, I didn’t know that people who rush spring semester were looked down upon by my peers at the fraternity.

It was such a joke thinking back to it, but it made me so angry that it started to bring me back to my dark days in middle school.

During the first two weeks of getting hazed, I got in two fights and was one strike away from getting kicked out of the group.

I was miserable most of college.

I was too insecure about myself and my body to be with any women.

For the first 5 semesters, I was in a major and career path that I couldn’t stand (Pre-Med).

It wasn’t until my breaking point of taking Organic Chemistry & taking magic mushrooms at a concert during finals week that made me switch to communication.

When I changed majors, my parents were livid and didn’t speak to me for years. The only message I would get from my mom was job openings for “real careers.”

That story is for another article, but the message that I am trying to give in this long winded story is that:

I felt smaller than most of my peers in college and I wanted to make sure I won after we graduated.

I probably won financially and in business compared to most, but I lost in many other categories that make you successful in life as a whole.

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My Traumatic Brain Injury:

I had a horrible concussion the summer going into my junior year. It was diagnosed as a concussion, but I think it was a TBI.

I had a terrible doctor.

I had the worst insurance growing up (Medi-Cal), so what do you expect?

The quick story:

I was at a 7 on 7 football tournament in Oakland.

During these tournaments, there are no pads and no gear.

I was playing slot receiver and I ran an out route.

The quarterback throws the ball high, and I jump up to catch it.

While I am mid air, the defender runs up and pushes me as hard as he could.

I land head first on the turf.

My vision went completely dark for about 15 seconds and felt like my brain was spinning in circles in my head.

I have never been the same person since that injury. Everything became more difficult.

My vision has never been the same, math became way harder in school, my ADHD got way worse, and I got terrible migraines all the time.

I probably should have stopped playing contact sports after that injury, but I was too young, too stupid, and too proud to quit.

I got at least five more concussions after that injury, and it has taken a huge toll on me to this day.

But, here’s why I think that I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that major injury.

That injury made me worse at everything immediately after.

It made me worse at football, in academics, at communicating, etc.

So what did that do?

It made my young self work even harder at everything I did.

I worked out on my own after group work outs, I started studying at the library, etc. This work ethic has built who I am today.

But, if I’m being completely honest, I wish I didn’t have this work ethic sometimes.

Most entrepreneurs are high functioning individuals with either diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD.

This injury made my ADHD significantly worse. It made my mind wander more, think more about random things.

To this day, I am a wanderer and always thinking about what’s next.

Successful entrepreneurs need to see pathways and solutions that others can’t.

Before this injury, I couldn’t think past what I was going to eat for dinner that night.

All of these things, the childhood, the bullying, the injuries, the insecurity, they all fed the machine that built my career. Here's what that machine produced.

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The Results Today

I have a lot of work to do in order to rebuild myself again, but I am extremely grateful for my life partner, Kristyna and my three rescue dogs.

She has been my rock through all of my ups and downs in the past 6 years, and I don’t know if I would be alive without her.

When I told my therapist everything that I had been through the past 8 years in my career, her jaw dropped to the floor, and I finally realized why I am so exhausted.

Saying it out loud is so much different. Here’s what I said in a nutshell to save you the time:

My senior year, I was in class from 8am to 7:40pm two days a week and working the other four days plus Saturdays, cold calling property owners 150 times a day.

I closed enough deals before graduating to pay off my student loans and more. By 24, I launched my own brokerage. By 26, I had built a portfolio worth over $60 million with a personal net worth over $10 million.

I felt invincible and kept trying to go bigger.

This is when I got my ass kicked.

From 2024-2025 I hired over 40 employees and grew to 5 major cities in California and in Chicago.

These were the hardest years of my life.

I sold some properties to keep growing the business, my stress was through the roof, I couldn’t stand managing this big of a company, and the liabilities were $115,000 to $150,000 depending on market costs.

Revenue was unpredictable. Up and down constantly.

I went through the most stressful decision of my life, which was to sell the business at the end of 2025.

At the same time, Kristyna and I went through the most stressful home remodel that ended up going 4x over budget with a lot of fighting during the whole time.

The stress made me ruin my syndication partnership which I will slowly be bought out of.

And then my childhood trauma, everything you just read about, kicked in harder than ever.

It told me to start another business. Get bigger again. Win again. Prove something again.

That voice has been running my life since middle school.

The little kid who wanted his mom to finally say that she was proud of him.

The kid who got called a chink wanted to prove he belonged.

The kid who sat on the bench wanted to prove he was good enough.

The college kid who felt small wanted to make sure he won after graduation.

And he did win. On paper.

But the version of winning I chased almost cost me my health, my relationship, and my sanity.

I burned out. Completely.

What I Want You To Take From This

I didn’t write this so you’d feel sorry for me.

I wrote it because I spent 28 years not understanding why I operated the way I did. Why I could never stop. Why enough was never enough. Why I kept chasing a feeling that never came.

It wasn’t until I sat down, looked back at every chapter, and connected the dots that it finally made sense.

The trauma didn’t just happen to me. It became me. It became my operating system. And I never questioned it because it produced results.

That’s the trap.

When your pain produces success, you never stop to ask if the pain is running your life.

If anything in this article felt familiar to you, I am not going to tell you what to do. I’m not a therapist and I’m not a guru.

But I will tell you this:

Sit down and write your story out. All of it. The stuff you haven’t told anyone.

Not to publish. Not to share. Just for yourself.

Because you can’t change a pattern you don’t understand.

And you can’t understand a pattern you’ve never looked at.

I don’t know what I am going to do next. But for the first time in my life, I’m not in a rush to figure it out.

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