Risk and tolerance: Two generations follow the American dream

Gary Yung knows a thing or two about resiliency and starting over. It’s in his blood.

As teenagers back in 1950, his father and mother fled Communist Shanghai for Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. Within several years, they moved to New York, where they met and married. In the 1970s, they relocated when Yung’s father began a new career in the semiconductor space in burgeoning Silicon Valley. Later, his father risked everything he had to start his own company at age 50.

"He loved to trust his gut and bet on himself," Yung says. "He always said to me, 'I challenge you to lose it all and start over.'"

So when Yung decided to leave a long and lucrative livelihood in medical devices in 2010 to start over in wealth management, the move felt reckless, yet also familiar. The 2008 global financial crisis had just ended, and learning a new industry meant that Yung had to take a massive pay cut while supporting a wife and three young children. But he was passionate about finance and investing and believed he had the mettle to succeed. Today, as a Regional Director in JPMorgan Wealth Management, Yung knows that the bet he made on himself was the right one.

“On the surface, it seemed like one of the dumbest moves in my life, but in reality, it was one of the best,” Yung says. “I followed my passion. And from that point, I haven’t felt like I’ve worked a day in my life, because work wasn’t work anymore.”

Being the outsider

Making it in America was a lifelong goal for Abraham Yung, Gary’s father, and he'd often talked about it with his Princeton, N.J.-born son. To Abraham, "Coming to America was a major privilege and the land of opportunity," Gary Yung says. "You 'made it' if you came to America." But Abraham's lessons about risk and resiliency took on new significance as Gary considered the legacy would later pass down to his children.

As the Asian American son of a self-made immigrant, Yung learned the hard way that who you are and where you come from can play a large role in the “American Dream.” In Silicon Valley, he was one of only a handful of Asians in an elementary school class of 300 students. Up through high school, Yung says, he and his sister were often told that they didn’t belong.

“When you’re beaten down and told you’re not anything when you’re young, you always believe that,” Yung says. “I remember I had to be resilient, take the high road and just ignore what the critics thought. That’s hard to do as a kid, but a good early lesson on building a tough skin.”

Cumulatively, the words did lasting harm. As Yung matured, he came to believe that he was introverted, lacked self-confidence, and would never be accepted. It took years for him to overcome these challenges, find his voice and grow into a leadership role.

Outsider or maverick?

Yung's father never mentioned the prejudice that he faced, but he modeled how to endure pressure silently. Yung recalls with pride how Abraham refused to carry the strain of starting and running a new company home with him.

“He would risk everything and not be scared,” Yung says. “I am trying to be that person, because I find that if you’re stressed about the worst-case scenario, you’re not going anywhere. It’s the biggest deterrent to reaching your goals.”

Yung’s children knew little of his or his family’s struggles, and only recently started to learn the generational lessons their father (and grandfather) had to face. For his part, Yung has learned to balance his father’s risk-taking with a fundamental need for tolerance and understanding—and he’s teaching that to his children. “Risk taking comes with pain. It can make you an outsider,” he says. “Tolerance is how you learn to accept what’s in front of you. It brings calmness. Belief. Clarity.”

As Yung's children are starting to enter the real world, they’re adopting this balance. “When I talk about risk, and they know I take risks, I think they’re starting to believe it now,” Yung says.

Listening to the world

Making a mid-career industry shift from medical devices to wealth management in the embers of the global financial crisis sounded like a huge risk. But Yung realized that he had a deep and abiding interest in finance, economics, and business—and when he accepted that about himself, he realized that his natural interests and skills boded well for his chances of success. “I’ve always been a super reader on business history, economics, and markets,” Yung says. “That’s why the change felt so easy: I wanted to do my hobby for a living.”

But knowing what you want to do and finding a place where you can do it the way you like are separate challenges. Yung worked at a few wealth management firms before finding one that aligned with his values, interests and skills. After years of working at competitors, he was drawn to J.P. Morgan’s loyalty to successful, long-term employees and its people-focused culture that prioritizes decency alongside hard work.

Colleagues encouraged Yung to go into management, where his enthusiasm and interpersonal skills have been a good fit. His longtime passion for investing and finance has helped him to connect dots to a larger picture, boosting his team’s sales efforts substantially.

“I believe that the market leads you to where you belong,” Yung says. “Whether it be your relationships, your major, or your career, the world kind of tells you where to go and where you will be successful. You just need to listen.”

But listening for direction is easier when you have faith in your capacity to adapt. Yung and his father were able to make bold changes when necessary and learned to grow into their true selves. Whether that came from the need for self-reinvention or to outlast racism, it became easier for them to take risks once they developed the confidence to trust their strengths.

While his father brought this resolve with him to America, Yung has had to find it as an American. “My father never discussed it, but I know that his ambition took him to places where Asians were uncommon,” Yung says. “In my career, I’ve also worked to become a trailblazer.”

It’s this legacy that Yung is determined to pass along to the next generation. “Many times life throws you off for a reason, maybe to test you, and you just have to believe in yourself and battle back,” Yung says. "My parents taught me all you have is yourself to count on. It took a lifetime to truly understand what it takes to believe in yourself and how to do it."