The Other Side of Wall Street: In Business It Pays to Be an Animal, In Life It Pays to Be Yourself

2. Bagel Boy

I was two years old when my father left and three years old when we transitioned from a large house in New Jersey to a small apartment in Great Neck, Long Island. The world as I knew it had turned upside down; we lived in a new town, my dad was gone, my mother worked all day, and it seemed like someone else took care of me every other day. It was a confusing time, with rapidly conflicting emotions.

Looking back, my parents’ marriage, a fast-tracked union facilitated by the Vietnam War during a time of intense geopolitical uncertainty, was doomed from the start. None of that mattered to a toddler; we were one of three divorced families in the town, and my childhood felt anything but normal.

My mother was a kindergarten teacher but ...