Most 18-year-olds are getting ready to graduate from high school and start college, but when I was that age, I was starting my life over from square one. That was the year that I immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union. As a Ukrainian-born Jew, I had faced a great deal of antisemitism, hatred, and corruption. This ultimately led to a wave of mass emigration of the Jewish population in the 1990’s, my family among them. We arrived in Los Angeles when I was 18 years old with little money and no English. But through resilience, grit, motivation, and an openness to learning, I achieved my American dream: I got my MBA from one of the top programs in the country and founded my own multimillion-dollar company. reative solutions. The less you assume you have the answers and the more you are open to learning and adapting the more successful you will be. You’ll be able to weather challenges more easily, learn and grow at a faster rate and ultimately, succeed no matter what.