The girl from Bac Giang wore flip-flops to study in Hanoi, now co-owns 21 apartments in the US.

Graduated from college in 2020 - right when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. Phuong, like her peers, had difficulty finding a job. There were two options for the girl born in 1998 at that time. One was to work as a part-time bank employee, with the promise that if she did well, she would become a full-time employee. The second option was to work as a real estate broker, with no fixed salary, only commission when selling a house. Phuong weighed a stable job but without much future prospect, with a high-risk job but suitable for her interest in investing, numbers and the desire to be really rich to have money to take care of her mother. Without thinking too much, she chose the unsafe path - becoming a real estate broker. From Berea (Kentucky), Phuong moved to Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) - a strange city 1,000km away to take her first job. But the biggest problem now is that after paying the first month's rent, she only has $500 left to survive in America. The pressure to sell the house is greater than ever. Life abroad begins here for the girl born in a poor rural area of Viet Yen (Bac Giang).

After 4 years of studying at university with a full scholarship, Phuong did not have to struggle financially. Although she chose a more “difficult” path than most, studying two majors in Mathematics and Economics at the same time, working 20 hours/week - the maximum for international students, but compared to the struggle to make a living, her student days were still too peaceful and pleasant for the poor female student. Phuong's real estate brokerage company has a special feature, which is specializing in selling houses to investors instead of homebuyers. The houses she sells are usually old houses in remote areas. Investors will buy them, renovate them, then rent them out or sell them to others. This means that Phuong's customers are all sophisticated investors with a lot of experience in this field. "The real estate brokerage profession is almost exclusively for white people, men. There are very few American women in this profession. Therefore, I personally face many disadvantages. The whole company has more than 30 people, but only me and one other friend are female" - Phuong said. Most of her calls were rejected. Many people showed contempt, even telling her directly that "we don't work with women". But Phuong did not give up. While other employees only made 30-50 phone calls a day, she made 100 calls. "Whenever I had free time, I picked up the phone, even on Saturdays and Sundays". After about a month, among countless rejections, Phuong made a list of potential customers. She noted down all the customers' needs so that when there was a suitable product, she could introduce it to them immediately. "This profession is extremely competitive. There were houses that I had to sell within 45 minutes, otherwise my colleagues would sell them too". Along with the difficulties at work, Phuong faced the problem of surviving with only the last 500 USD in her pocket. Phuong humorously shared that she could be called the “lord of thrift”. No one could imagine that in the midst of prosperous America, a 22-year-old girl had to eat a lot of white rice to fill her stomach and many days she only dared to eat one meal. Most notably, instead of spending $96 a month on the bus, she rented a bicycle for only $17. To save $79, Phuong chose to ride a bicycle 5 days a week, despite the fact that it would take about an hour to cycle one way and walk from the parking lot to work. Currently, $79 is not enough for her to eat out once, but at that time, she was willing to do anything to save this amount of money. “The summer weather in Philadelphia is extremely hot. The road to the company has many slopes. To the point that every time I pass a bus right when the door opens for passengers to board, the cool breeze blowing out for just a few seconds makes me wish I could get on the bus immediately”. Along with tightening her budget, Phuong signed up to teach online through a website. Phuong taught both 60-year-olds and 2nd and 3rd graders, both formal subjects and unfamiliar courses. Learning was her forte, so she often received good feedback and took more classes. “These classes paid very little, but I had nothing to lose. I took them all, as long as I had money to live on.” Looking back now, I don’t know how I got through that period, but after all, I am grateful for every opportunity I received.”

In the second month after starting the job, Phuong started selling her first houses. After three months, she became the highest-grossing salesperson in the company, much to the admiration of many. When people asked her what her secret was, Phuong simply shared: “Become friends with customers instead of being a salesperson.” “I treat customers like friends. I take care of them, understand what they need, and always tell them the truth. If they say they only have 1 billion to buy a house, don’t try to sell them a 2 billion house… That’s my secret.” When the work started to get going, Phuong had money to buy more furniture, save money, and send it back to her sick and elderly mother. But God always wanted to test this little girl. Not long after her work went smoothly, she received shocking news: Her mother was diagnosed with stage 2 cervical cancer. “That was the most terrible news of my life.”

Born into a poor family in Bac Giang, Phuong lost her father at the age of 2. The family only had mother and daughter to rely on each other. At the age of 15, Phuong left her hometown to study at the Foreign Language Specialized High School in Hanoi. Without the support of her parents like her friends, Phuong studied on her own, learned everything, and seized every opportunity to get a scholarship to study in the US. During her university years, not only did she not let her mother worry, she also saved her scholarship money and part-time job money to send back to her mother. "A few dollars in the US is just a small amount, but for my old mother in the countryside, it helps a lot." Phuong became independent early on, but her mother was always her strong spiritual support and motivation up until that time. "Now, when I am more confident and mature, I have many reasons to try to live well. But at that time, my mother was everything to me. I tried to pass the Foreign Language Specialized High School because of my mother, tried to get a scholarship to go to the US because of my mother, and tried to work hard because of my mother. Everything I have achieved is thanks to and because of my mother. Since I was little, I have been aware of my situation. I love my mother and tell myself that I must be successful, rich, and strong to protect both of us. That is why when I heard that my mother had cancer, the sky collapsed under my feet. If I lost my mother, what would I live for?

At this time, the single mother, nearly 60 years old, once again became a support, turning back to encourage Phuong. “My mother said, ‘Try your best, you can’t solve anything if you go back now’. That year, the Covid-19 epidemic was still very complicated, it was very difficult to go back to Vietnam, and where would I get money to treat my mother’s illness?” Phuong used her reason to pull herself up. She turned her pain into motivation – she had to earn as much money as possible to send back to her mother for chemotherapy. Just like Phuong, who was alone in America, her mother was also fighting a terminal illness alone. Her mother’s illness was rare, dangerous, and much more difficult to treat. Phuong was even more worried and didn’t know how to help her mother when she was half a world away. But as Phuong admitted, “I am someone who will find every way in the world to do what I want”. She looked at the name of the doctor who signed the bottom of the diagnosis paper and started searching online – Dr. Le Trung Tho. After much searching and elimination, she found Dr. Tho's email and decided to send a letter, sharing her situation and wishes. "To her surprise, only 1-2 hours later, the doctor replied immediately. He asked for my mother's number and said to rest assured, he would introduce my mother to the best cancer doctors in Hanoi. Later, he also guided and supported my mother a lot during her examination at Hanoi Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital and K Hospital." When her mother was introduced to K Hospital, Phuong also wrote a very heartfelt email to the hospital's board of directors. Once again, the heartfelt confidences of a child moved the hospital's board of directors. "The most miraculous thing was that my mother and I received a response from Dr. Tran Van Thuan, who was then the Director of K Hospital and is now the Deputy Minister of Health. He accepted and said he would ask the best doctors for help. After that, I knew he had done as promised." “I sent those letters in a state of not knowing where to turn and not thinking that anyone would respond. I am extremely grateful to the doctors who helped my mother even though I didn’t know who she and I were.” Phuong confided that during that time, she had trouble sleeping. Every night, she thought about her mother’s condition, not knowing whether her mother’s treatment would be successful. “I cried a lot, my head was always as tense as a guitar string. But the next day, I still had to get up and go to work. Neither mother nor daughter dared to complain to the other, they just encouraged each other every day.” Fortunately, with the dedicated help of the doctors, her body was compatible with the treatment regimen, and by early 2021, Phuong’s mother had completed chemotherapy, had good test results, and was discharged from the hospital after 6 months. Up to now, her health is still stable.

Talking about her mother, Phuong always has the best words for her. “My mother is an extremely brave woman. She chose to stay single and raise her orphaned grandchildren until they settled down and thought about her own life. My mother gave birth to me when she was nearly 40 years old. My father passed away, and she decided to stay single and raise her children so that I could live a peaceful life. More than anyone else, I think my mother deserves the best things and I have the responsibility to bring that to her.” Phuong confided that this was also the reason why she always tried hard to study from a young age. Because she understood that it was the only way to help her escape poverty. “I was not the smartest student in the class, but I was confident that I was the most diligent. Since I was a 4th grader in a village school, I had dreamed of studying abroad. In 9th grade, when I was about to graduate, I heard a friend talk about her plan to take the Specialized Language exam in Hanoi. I was surprised and asked, ‘Can I go to Hanoi to study from 9th grade?’. I had never left the bamboo village, but I dared to take the bus to Hanoi to take the exam. When I passed the English major class, I was the only one in the class wearing flip-flops, while my friends wore shoes, carried nice backpacks, and talked to each other in fluent English. My image at that time was truly a country girl going to the city. Phuong still remembers when she asked a classmate who got IELTS 8.0 in grade 10 for the secret: "How did you get so good?" The friend answered: "I studied at an international school since kindergarten." She suddenly understood how big the gap was between her and her friends. During her three years of high school, every time she squeezed onto a bus from Bac Giang to Hanoi, the 15-year-old girl dragged all kinds of food to school to save money for her mother. The dormitory did not have a refrigerator, many times the food went bad, but she still regretfully ate it, not throwing it away. While her friends' families spent tens of millions of dong on English courses, essay writing... to study abroad, her mother told her that "if you want to go to university, you have to earn your own money". But in return, Phuong has a rare virtue. She never thinks negatively about her disadvantages. The moment she feels sorry for herself only lasts a few seconds in her thoughts. She just silently tries, silently strives forward. Without money to buy books or take extra classes, she borrows books from her friends. Not being able to go to an international school, she asks her friends to correct her pronunciation. "I am a realistic person. I just set goals, live and work hard for them, and do not indulge in negative thoughts. I am too busy to mourn my life". When she had a stable income from her real estate brokerage job, Phuong decided to build her mother a new, more spacious house. "After her cancer treatment, my mother had a wish that if she died, she wanted to die in a new house". Phuong and her mother’s old house was a dilapidated house. She felt that her mother’s wish was very reasonable. “If not now, then when?” – Phuong thought and immediately started building a house for her mother.

The house was completed when Phuong ran out of money, back to the starting point. But this time she was in a different position. Phuong continued her real estate brokerage job with increased knowledge and a growing customer base. She created her own real estate investment community for Vietnamese people in the US. Little by little, Phuong's account was filled. She bought her first house for $500,000, investing it to rent out. Then she pooled money with a friend to buy another row of 19 apartments in a building. Then she bought a house for herself. At the age of 25, Phuong co-owned 21 apartments - an impressive achievement that few people can do. Phuong paid a down payment for all of these apartments, then rented them out to use the money to pay off the bank loan. The surplus was the profit. Over time, the house price would also increase compared to the beginning, and that was the main profit.

Currently, real estate brokerage is just a side job, but it is also a key investment direction that helps Phuong move towards the goal of financial freedom in the future. After leaving her first company, she worked as a risk analyst for a bank. Currently, she is a senior manager for a mortgage company - a sector closely related to real estate brokerage and trading. She was also invited to study a master's program in real estate development at Columbia University (New York), the school ranked No. 2 in the list of best real estate majors in the US according to US News. When asked what strength helped Phuong overcome all those difficulties, the girl born in 1998 shared: "Maybe because I know that I cannot rely on anyone but myself." Phuong likes the slogan: "Be water". "If you can be flexible and agile like water, you can adapt to any situation. I will turn difficulties into motivation to reach the destination faster. In my opinion, people who can stand up after falling will survive in any situation." That is Phuong's survival secret to realize her life's dreams.