The Year Everything Fell Apart — And What It Taught Me About Wealth
Mar 25, 2026What happens when everything you built—your businesses, your identity, your sense of certainty—collapses almost overnight?
Not quietly. Not gracefully. But like an explosion.
There was a year when pretty much everything I had created over a decade unraveled. And at the time, I thought it meant one thing:
I failed.
I’m not sharing this as advice. I’m sharing it because no one prepares you for the moment when the life you worked relentlessly to build stops making sense. No one teaches you how to navigate the space between who you were and who you’re becoming.
And that space? It’s disorienting.
From $50,000 a Year to 13 Companies
Right out of school, I got my first “real” job. I made $50,000 a year—which at 23 felt like an absurd amount of money.
But I hated it.
I hated watching the clock.
I hated being told when to show up.
I hated feeling contained.
So the second I could qualify for a mortgage, I bought property. I had been obsessed with real estate since middle school—designing floor plans, watching HGTV, reading investment books. It felt natural. It felt aligned.
That first house turned into another.
Then came:
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A children’s store
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An art studio
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A 30,000 sq. ft. co-working/art space
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Coffee shops
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A yoga studio
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A wine bar
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A bar restaurant
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A real estate office
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A coaching company
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More businesses than I can even list without losing count
Thirteen companies in ten years.
From the outside, it looked bold. Impressive. Ambitious.
From the inside?
I was in survival mode the entire time.
Building From Survival
I didn’t realize it then.
But anytime there was profit, I reinvested it into something new. Cash flow was always tight. Momentum was everything. Slowing down felt dangerous.
I had gotten divorced. I was raising my daughter. I felt like I had to create absolute security on my own—because uncertainty was unacceptable.
So I built.
And built.
And built.
Not from clarity.
Not from a legacy vision.
But from a quiet, constant urgency.
Then came 2019. I had just opened the hardest business I’d ever tried to establish: a bar restaurant in New York.
And then COVID hit.
New York shut down.
For a year.
The rope bridge I had been sprinting across snapped in the middle. And I was free falling.
The Collapse Wasn’t Just Financial
I eventually closed and sold the businesses. I told myself I’d rebuild. I believed I could.
What I didn’t anticipate wasn’t just the financial impact.
It was the identity collapse.
We’re taught life is linear:
School → Job → Growth → Stability → Up and to the right.
But real life is cyclical. It loops. It fractures. It pulls the floor out from under you.
And when that happens, the first instinct is shame.
“What did I miss?”
“What did I do wrong?”
“Why couldn’t I hold it together?”
But here’s what I’ve learned:
Most breakdowns aren’t failures.
They’re identity transitions.
We just don’t have language for that.
The Void
After everything closed, I didn’t rush forward like I thought I would.
That was the original plan: rebuild smarter, safer, stronger.
Instead, I hesitated.
Because a deeper question surfaced:
Who was I actually building for?
Was I building from alignment—or from the need to feel needed? To feel important? To feel secure?
For the first time, I stopped long enough to ask:
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What parts of my old identity were authentic?
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What parts were fueled by fear?
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What did I truly want my legacy to look like?
That pause was brutal.
It felt like standing in a minefield where every step could explode. I didn’t trust my instincts. I didn’t trust my decisions. I didn’t trust myself.
But collapse doesn’t erase identity.
It reveals it.
What This Taught Me About Wealth
When I say “wealth,” I don’t just mean money.
I mean:
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Capacity
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Emotional safety
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Self-trust
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The ability to imagine your future again
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The energy to sit with your child and actually listen
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The patience to not snap from burnout
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The courage to entertain new ideas
Before the collapse, I would take an idea and sprint.
After the collapse, I turned that off. Fear disguised itself as focus.
And here’s what I realized:
You cannot build your way out of survival mode.
You have to design your way out.
If you don’t know:
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Who you are
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What matters to you
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What kind of life you want
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What kind of legacy you’re building
Then your businesses, investments, and assets will always sit on shaky foundations.
I built empires without a clearly defined legacy vision. Without knowing the deeper “why.”
And that made everything fragile.
Identity first.
Then wealth plan.
Then assets.
Not the other way around.
The Myth of Just “Starting Over”
Starting over isn’t about rebuilding fast.
It’s about sitting in the unraveling long enough to remember who you actually are.
Not who you were in survival mode.
Not who you were trying to impress.
Not who you thought you had to be.
But who you are now.
That’s what The Start Over is about.
Not burning your life down.
Not reinventing recklessly.
But rebuilding intentionally.
Final Reflection
If the version of you that built your current life no longer fits…
If you feel like you’re standing in that quiet, unsettling in-between…
If you’ve mistaken identity transition for failure…
You are not broken.
You are evolving.
Collapse is painful.
But it can also be clarifying.
And sometimes, losing the empire is what allows you to finally build a legacy.
Call to Action
If this episode resonated with you:
✨ Join the waitlist for The Start Over to get early access and behind-the-scenes reflections as I finish the book.
✨ Subscribe to the Audacious Founder podcast so you don’t miss future episodes.
✨ Join my email list for deeper, more personal insights I don’t always share publicly.
You don’t have to navigate the void alone.
And if you’re in your own identity transition right now—this is your permission to slow down, ask better questions, and build from truth this time.
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