These 5 New Yorkers radically transformed their lives. Here’s how they did it.

As we move further into 2024, we talked to five New Yorkers who’ve faced extraordinary challenges and examined how they started over.

From losing the ability to walk, to struggling with mental health, these New Yorkers have experienced loss – and they’ve also learned how to start over.

Some were helped by therapy or peer mentorship; others found strength in faith, fitness, or writing. The specifics of how they transformed their lives vary – but a unifying theme among them is that everyone was shaped by their communities.

Here are their stories.

“I had to try to figure out why I kept doing these things.”

When Saul Serrano, 51, graduated from high school in New York City in 1990, he joined the Marine Corps.

He hoped to escape the dangers he’d witnessed growing up in Midtown, where he’d been surrounded by drug dealing, gun violence and substance abuse.

But instead of finding solace, he said he experienced racism and bullying during his four years in the Marine Corps, and received a bad conduct discharge after leaving without approval.

“That was very difficult,” he said on a recent morning in Lower Manhattan. “I lost a lot of my honor and a lot of respect there.”

After his expulsion from the military, Serrano worked hard to rebuild his life, and got a job in security, before working at FedEx for 10 years.

“I had everything,” he said. “I had a house. I had a wife. I had kids, cars. I had a good income.”

But within four years, Serrano got involved in a wire fraud scheme that led to the unraveling of his life as he knew it. He wound up spending time in prison with several years of probation.

“It was kind of a pattern,” he said. “I had to try to figure out why I kept doing these things.”

During his time in prison, he participated in therapy and a drug treatment program, and credits both with helping him understand the influences that were driving him – such as a desire to fit in and to be accepted.

After…