This episode reflects on “Beggars Can Be Choosers” by Lynika Cruz, who survived homelessness from age 14 after her mother abandoned her in a pre-planned departure. Reading Cruz’s account of sleeping in trees, avoiding authorities, and digging through trash for food provided a stark contrast to the resources and safety nets most entrepreneurs take for granted, forcing a recalibration of what constitutes real hardship.
Key Takeaways:
- Privilege Requires Recognition and Action Coming from a loving family with resources and skills means there’s literally zero excuse for not succeeding when someone like Cruz made it from absolute nothing—this perspective should fuel relentless effort.
- True Street Survival Develops Unmatched Resilience Living entirely alone at 14, constantly sensing violence, and making daily survival choices builds a depth of character and determination that reveals how soft most business challenges actually are.
- Champagne Problems Need Context Even business failures, funding issues, or deal complications pale compared to not knowing where your next meal comes from or whether you’ll be safe sleeping in a tree branch.
This brutal honesty about comparative struggle serves as a daily reminder not to squander advantages that others would kill to have access to.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious. I wanted to go over some thoughts on gratitude. I know when everybody, anybody says that nowadays with all the mental health and know, Kuperman, et cetera type science, like, my God, it’s another.
Another thoughts on gratitude. Yes, I know we gotta be grateful, et cetera, et cetera. But it bears worth reminding in like multiple different dimensions, right? think we all, know, whenever we hear that word, it’s like, yeah, I remember, I should be grateful, yeah, yeah, Kind of brush it aside. But in order to really embrace it, I think it’s just, it really is a daily practice sometimes even a minute by minute, hour by hour practice to…
to really sort through this. And I was working through this book list that I’ve had and I just stopped adding books to my to read list nowadays. Like anytime like a recommendation just comes in, just say, sorry, I just, can’t put it on. I think I already have a list that I’ll probably dive before I ever get through it. But it’s like, okay, study by study beat.
Here I can actually knock out some of these books. Some are going to be more relevant. Some I can just do like AI summaries for and get through it. And I saw this book that was written by this author, this woman who was at Mastermind with me the first time I ever visited in Austin 2016, like almost 10 years ago. Her name is Lenika Cruz or it is I believe she’s still with us. Not sure as an ancient or anything.
And it was called Beggars Can Be Choosers. And again, it’s just got buried on my to read list for literally almost 10 years, forgotten about. I’m like, let me pick this up. Let me see what this was about. And I haven’t been in touch with Lenincus since we were at that mastermind. I honestly can kind of barely remember most of the folks there. I was a very different person at that point too.
And I started reading this book and really, really struck me hard because I’m not sure what country she grew up in. doesn’t seem to be the U S but was homeless for, I think a good chunk of her teenage years. And, you know, the short version, I would encourage you to read it. It’s pretty fairly short read. I’m not fully done, but around halfway, but her
her mom just abandoned her at age 14. Like even pre-planned it. It’s like pretty wild story. Like it wasn’t just like randomly one day. was like, hey, I’m going to take your younger sister and we are leaving to go off to try to restart somewhere else. And we’re just going leave you here. Like it’s just astonishing to me. And it like, she grew up in a really violent home. The dad was…
Not a good person either from the way she would tell it. And just really, really rough upbringing. then, without getting into too many of the details, but just how she had to adapt to life on the street in a city and just how wary she was and distrustful of people, especially being a young girl and trying to avoid the authorities from getting placed into welfare and…
you know, new foster home or anything like that. And so she’d be super, super careful, just, you know, again, really developing true street smarts from such an early age and just learning to sense violence. And I can see that sometimes in my own life, like I was on the total opposite spectrum. I grew up in, you know, fortunately a loving family. Yeah, at least my immediate family, Mike’s end family definitely.
had some issues, some very, very major issues, but my immediate family for the most part was stable by relative standards, lot of resources growing up, just like an unimaginable, know, northern suburbs of Chicago.
this author, where she just had to just adapt and change. Every single day was just a fight for survival and just how deep she had to reach into herself to keep
Finding you know kind of the light That she had within herself and know and you know just creating these visions of hey My life is just gonna be better one day and I just got I got to keep Putting one foot in front of the other and just continue to make a choice and take an action to Reach for that next step because again if you don’t take action, this is like similar to that
topic I talked about, I think about a week ago, just, you know, in order to find luck, have to, um, you have to take action. And she arrived at this conclusion as, homeless 14 year old with literally no, no friends, no, um, no help, uh, at all, like truly, truly alone. It’s rare to think about nowadays. Like I don’t think I’ve ever read, uh, in depth perspectives from, from somebody who, uh, know, dealt.
first-hand with homelessness, especially at a young age for an extended period of time. And she did manage to win, and I haven’t got to the part of the book where she managed to turn her life around. Obviously she was at this mastermind where I think it cost us all like 10 grand to be there for this weekend together in Austin. So clearly she found a way to come from literally nothing and find some level of success.
later on in life and again, just like reading an account like that. just, again, just really, really compelling first off to read. Just can’t believe another human being had to go through this and, you know, survive through it and not just give up and also have to put in perspective for myself of like, sure, you know, everybody has their key problems we’re dealing with and
You know, lot of champagne problems in comparison. I’ll have certain stressors, but there is just like, no, it’s hard to imagine how bad things would have to be in my life to get to that point. Like even if my business failed or ran out of money, like I would still have all these key skills that I could get back on my feet.
I hope I would still have my family that we could sort things out together. I still have family resources if really needed to work that angle or friends who would believe in me and support to get back on my feet. to get to a point where I would have literally no one, I think the only way to do that would have to be completely self-inflicted or just had some psychotic break or just.
made every single poor decision possible or got hooked on some crazy drug that just threw away everything in my life. Like think that’s the only route. And I’m not going to discount that I think, because again, we all have to continue to make, make choices every single day. And some people we think are kind of on top of the world, like they just go down the wrong path and could end up on the street. It’s happened before it’ll happen again. So I’m not going to just consider myself completely immune to that. I think that’s.
You know, you’re just risking fate if you don’t take your life into your own hands and know that you have to stay on top of things to avoid that. ultimately, I think that’s the only possible route where I would just have to completely self-combust and sabotage myself to truly end up alone. But if I was really just making a solid effort and things just didn’t work out in various ventures or whatever.
Um, I think there would just always be a fallback to get to. And so, uh, yeah. And that just was a reminder for just, you know, really having gratitude and coming from a loving family, a loving home, uh, the ability to have resources and get educated and skills built and not having to worry about, you know, digging through, um, know, dumpsters or trash bins to get, to get some food or
Like Lynika, I mean, she was just sleeping in trees, just outside all the time or sleeping underneath train cars and, still having to be cautious. Like you can’t get a good sleep out there. Imagine sleeping up, up in the high branches of a tree, trying to be away from people that might be, you know, trying to, you know, get you. Um, I just, I can’t, I feel like I would just never be able to sleep. Um, and yet, you know, she just did that for days and weeks, months, uh, at least a year on end, as far as where I’m in the book.
Again, just astonishing, absolutely astonishing. And to know that that’s not, she’s not the only one that’s ever had that story. Like you think about even, I don’t know what city you’re in. mean, Austin, we have a decent amount of homeless. Not as bad as it was a few years ago, but you know, lot of these folks just on the street, it puts the perspective in. Like when you pass them by and I’m sure most of us listening here, tuning in, like you probably have seen.
seen a number of these folks out on the street in your communities, or at least if you visit some of the cities, and to really be thinking about how hard this life is. And the fact that probably a lot, most of them do not want to be in that position. It’s hard to imagine any who really do. So, some sense of empathy, I think, for our fellow humans, and a reminder of how much better we have it and not to squander.
the advantages that we have, like use everything you’ve got to make it because so many others would literally kill for the opportunity. That is just a keen reminder and that’s like, okay, if Lenny could make it literally homeless at age 14, nothing at all and she found a way to be successful in life, like I have zero excuse, like literally zero excuse. So keep that in mind.
Hopefully this resonates with you all. With that, SeriousLand.Capital for any of your funding needs, zero cost review of your land deals at Land Daily Diligence Facebook group and LandPricer.ai for the most reliable land pricing tool on the market. With that everybody, subscribe and share. you enjoyed this one. Take care. Bye.
