At 26, I left a $100k career at a fast-growing startup to make it on my own. Here’s what I learned.

As a child of immigrants, it is & isn’t just all about money.

We can’t talk about this career change without talking about money.

I’ve spent a long time trying to untangle my deep-rooted fears, beliefs, and insecurities around money.

As the child of immigrants whose level of higher education (thanks for getting that Ph.D., Dad) catapulted us to upper middle class, I still never forgot the stories that my dad would tell, growing up as one of four in a small town in China. The sacrifices he made to get out of China, to attain his Ph.D. in Canada, to bring my mom over to America, to raise a family in a country completely foreign to his own.

And guilt. Only recently did I uncover the guilt that I’ve carried with me all these years, like the reckless spending on my dad’s credit card in college, a rebellion against the frugality I grew up with. The desire to live a life on my own terms, only to feel guilty about not being as practical, as thrifty, as savings-minded as the rest of my family… even as I started putting the bulk of my paychecks into my 401k at age 19.