You know, I never vent… So I’m just going to let it all out.. 26, I have a great full time job where the opportunities are absolutely endless. I can make over 200k a year if I somehow figured it all out. I've gotten lucky on a few deals but nothing is really clicking for me It's been 2 years now and I feel like I haven’t learned anything. Out of pure frustration I have simply not been able to get passed the hump. I really love my industry and the idea of being excellent at this role. I have a lot of the required skill set, but I just can’t put everything together. I honestly never finish a task. It’s really upsetting to me that I can’t just buckle down and get all of this down. This has led me to not want to pursue certain deals bc I can’t speak about the market like other brokers can. I have become a shell of myself. I just can’t figure this stuff out and have gotten to the point where I’m literally coasting doing the bare minimum out of pure frustration. I hate myself for it but I can’t put it into that next gear. It’s driving me wild and making me resent myself. Also, I actually just realized that I'm dyslexic. Coming from a low income family you kinda just accept things as they are and you never think that there’s a really anything wrong with you bc that’s just how life is. I was a very spaced out kid, often called lazy. Everyone – teachers, principals, friends etc.., would all say that I’m level with the other kids and I’m very mature and smart for my age, but that’s bc I was smart in mature in other ways, and the would blame my laziness for my lack of good grades. So I just figured I wasn’t book smart and was street smart. But the truth is, I am book smart, I just can’t learn how I was taught. I still don’t know how I learn best but I know I’m smart enough to understand just about anything. Growing up I would just remember something for an exam and then poof it’s gone. If you ask me today to tell you to point out a noun, adjective etc. in a sentence I wouldn’t be able to do it. I never paid attention to those little details, I kinda just did w/e I had to do without learning anything. That’s the issue with my job. I just do, but nothing sticks. Things are explained to me but as someone is talking I’m worrying about remember what theyre saying annnndddd poof it’s gone. You may say, well you graduated HS and college…Yeah you’re right, but high school and college are extremely easy when you’re a great manipulator and a cheater. I honestly don’t know how I passed through middle/high school, but I was definitely pushed through during elementary school. I remember taking those standardized exams and getting a 30, 40, 50 etc.. Never held back, never talked about it with anyone. In middle school and the beginning of High School I just kind coasted in the 70’s.. Cheating here and there, and just getting by. But my Junior and Senior year something clicked and I realized I need to go to college, something that was never really discussed in my household. So the cheating increase, the late nights of studying increase, the trickery inside the class room increase.. Overall graduated in the low 80’s but it was always due to some cheating or some sort of finagling on my part. I never really used other people to cheat off, but I always had little ways of getting through whatever I had to get through. College was even worse. I legit cheated on everything. I had old tests from older friends/teammates, I had old papers from just about everyone, I had a little cheat note with me at all exams. It’s kinda of sad looking back on it but I did what I had t, or maybe I did what I wanted to? Idk… I graduated with a decent 3.3 as if I had earned it but I know that I haven’t, I’m simply good at figuring out how to get by. I’m a schemer.. and I no longer want to be.
Then comes my family life. My mother is physically disabled, my sister is disabled (mentally and physically), and my father works a very very low paying job. My father has always been the only one to support the family. We come from the bottom, Grew up in NY on probably around what 30,000/yr would get you today. Your dad supported a family on that much? Yes, bc if he earned more my sister and mother would lose their medical assistance from the government. He would earn like $15,000 on the books, and the rest cash. We lived in a tiny house and just a very frugal lifestyle. We are a very close nit family and I was raised by the most caring parents/gms in the world. I was so oblivious that this literally had NO negative effect on my childhood. I wasn’t one to really think about a lot of stuff, I was a dreamer and a doer. I would just act and dream about whatever was cool at the moment. So the fact that I was raised poor isn’t a bid deal to me at all, I am 100% grateful for it. I always had a good social life, always had good friends. Being broke never held me back AT ALL so I’m not complaining about that. What the issue now is… what the hell am I gonna do going forward? My father has ZERO savings. ZERO assets. ZERO anything to be honest. He works a labor intensive job where more hours = more pay, but he’s 55. He busts his butt, works 16 hrs a day + he refs soccer on the weekends. My mom is finally on Medicare and my sister gets small stipend from the federal government. Growing up my mother was in the hospital 4-5 months out of the year for about 10 years straight going through surgery after surgery. She’s probably had about 100 surgeries.. I’m so used to this that when people tell me they have to go to the doctor or get surgery I don’t really understand why it’s so serious. I am 100% happy to support my father, mother, sister and gma. I know this is my responsibility and I’m proud that I will have to do it.. But HOW? How do I successfully do it? The job I have now gives me the opportunity to do so… AND I CAN’T FUCKING FIGURE IT OUT.. It’s so fucking frustrating.. If I could just make 150k a year.. My parents would move back to brazil, I would send something like 30k a year to them and everything would be perfect. The opportunity is right in front of my to succeed, but I’m so worried about failing that I can’t seem to take that next step…