The Crash That Broke Me And Fixed Me

The Crash That Broke Me – and the Blueprint That Fixed Me

I knew something was wrong when I saw my mom’s name on the caller ID. It was unlike her to call in the middle of the night. When I picked up, she was crying.

“I don’t think he’s going to make it,” she said. A few days later, we lost him – our close family friend.

He was a big part of my childhood. My brother and I used to spend every summer weekend in northern Wisconsin on his boat. He loved pulling us on the tube, trying to knock us into the lake.

If you’ve ever lived somewhere with brutal winters, you know how precious those 12 weeks of summer can be. You try to squeeze out every ray of sunlight you can. And that’s exactly what he taught us to do.

When he passed, I didn’t just lose a friend. I lost one of the last reminders of what life felt like before I let money consume me.

At the time, I was completely wrapped up in crypto. My emotions were chained to the price of bitcoin.

If it went up, I would be euphoric. If it went down, I felt like my world was collapsing. I’d wake up in the middle of the night just to check prices.

I couldn’t enjoy dinner with family, a date with my fiancé, or a single quiet moment without refreshing CoinMarketCap.

When my friend passed… it broke something in me. And it forced me to see how unhealthy my obsession had become.

Because the truth is, I wasn’t just emotionally wrecked from loss… I was financially wrecked, too.

I had loaded up on bitcoin and Ethereum during the 2018 bear market – when bitcoin had collapsed 84% and Ethereum 94%.

Every paycheck I got, I’d check the fridge, decide if I had enough food to last the week, and then drain my account down to my last $10 to buy more crypto.

I’m embarrassed to admit this. But at one point, I even had to call my mom and borrow money to cover my electric bill. My bank account balance had gone negative.

I was convinced crypto was the biggest moneymaking opportunity of my lifetime.

And you know what? I was right about the opportunity – but wrong about the execution. I’d turned something revolutionary into something destructive.

When my portfolio rocketed to $1 million, I thought I had made it. Then the 2021 crypto crash came.

I lost the majority of my net worth. And when my friend passed, it compounded everything. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. The emotional toll was unbearable.

That’s when I realized… I didn’t own crypto. Crypto owned me.

From Overexposed to Empowered: What Teeka Taught Me About Risk