Ukrainian SlowLaner with outdated Socialistic core

[AnastasiyaBjorn]

Here's my INTRO, as you, guys, asked for a story.
I did my best to tell it in the most concise manner,
which at the same time will allow you to get an idea of a full picture.
So here is my story

…

I came to the United States in 2015, a single mother with an 8 year old son, fleeing my native town Horlivka (Donetsk region, Eastern Ukraine), where I was born and raised. Where I was working as an oral surgeon in maxillofacial department of Level 1 Trauma Hospital for 8 years, and was just about to open the doors of my own dental practice. It was supposed to become my passionately nurtured "child", a fine result of obtaining sufficient clinical knowledge and expertise in understanding what's the best dental patients' experience is and how it should be delivered. Where what's best for the patient is a priority, not the money they bring. On the day when I was supposed to see my very first patient in my own office, on July 28th of 2014, my city was mercilessly bombed. Myself and my son are literally lucky to be alive after 20 minutes long artillery shelling, with the nearest shell exploding as close as 200 meters from where we were hiding. I lost everything in a matter of a few minutes: my homeland, my plans on future, family and friends, everything I worked for, including my "unborn" business creation... We were lucky enough and endlessly grateful to end up here in the United States. With a dramatically changed understanding and value of life, piece, relationships and home.

Not only did I have to start over in my profession, I had to start over with everything: discovering for myself new home country, language, social circle, a safe and peaceful place to raise my son, to make new friends, to create absolutely new life from scratch, in the new to me Capitalistic Society with different culture, mentality, lifestyle, laws, values etc. Considering also that I was born at the dawn of the Soviet Era, and the socialist mentality was still dominating in the way I perceived the world, even though Ukraine tried to start changing its economy towards a capitalistic one.

I wasn't hoping to be able to continue practicing dentistry which I loved so much, oral surgery in particular. Because I learned how difficult the path of getting the dentist’s degree here is for an internationally trained dentist. My Ukrainian dentist’s diploma isn’t accepted here. One of the most ambitious positions for me in the USA was $14/hour ( as a customer care representative in a dental insurance company, where I talked on the phone for 8 hours straight) - for 9 months. That was the very first time in my life when I found myself hating my job! That feeling became my moving point and I made a great decision (at least I thought it was great, as I didn’t know any better), to get back to practicing dentistry - MY LIFE PASSION. I met acceptance requirements for the International Trained Dentist program, which included but wasn’t limited to preparation for and passing English proficiency Test and both Dental Boards in 9 months and with first attempts while working full time for a wage of $14/hr. This is a 2 years program that grants Dentist degree to Internationally trained dentists. I was invited for an interview at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine. Among 2000 applicants in 2019 I was one of 36 accepted. Could not believe my luck! (talking about LUCK). For that amount of competition it’s not enough just to have a great applicant profile, and believe me, mine was okay comparable to profiles of many other great ones. I graduated Rutgers and received my DMD in 2021 being super happy (and proud) to get back to practicing dentistry. Additionally having a net worth of 320 K in student loan debt, while being 39 years old “fresh graduate”.

Any other traditional American dentist of my age, who is fairly wise with money, is pretty much financially well settled and secured. But I was facing an absolutely different starting point: after losing everything I worked for, I now had to provide for my son and myself everyday life, to make savings and save up for a retirement, to pay down crazy student loans debt and achieve all other milestones of the SlowLaners' life. BUT in the time frame almost 20 years shorter than most of other SlowLaners commonly have. Like so many others, I didn’t know any better way of SCRIPTED life. Facing this new challenge I realized only one thing - what worked for others, won’t work for me. I needed a different plan, and went online doing hours, weeks and months of research. I went through dozens of books, podcasts, YouTube lectures, trying to filter to the best of my abilities bull sh..t from something that truly works, shifting on the go my entire socialistic paradigm on money and how it works. One of the more or less reasonable books I thought at that time was “Rich Dad Poor Dad’' by Robert Kiyosaki. It partially opened my eyes to the rat race mindset. Eventually, in another couple of years I finally came across Millionaire Fastlane and UNSCRIPTED . These two books finally gave me a shocking full understanding of what financial independence truly means. They also gave me new strong belief that my idea of getting financially independent fairly fast isn’t that crazy. Now let this Journey begin!...

 

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