Born and raised in Philadelphia, Sa’aadat Wilkins is a businessman dedicated to helping others help themselves. He’s created his own business focused on bringing a new level of financial literacy to the masses to help change the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle that’s a reality for so many people across the globe. Today Sa’aadat is here with us to share his entrepreneurial journey, some insight into his business and his best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Sa’aadat, let’s start at the beginning of your journey. What first inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
From a young age, I always looked at everything from a business standpoint. I remember growing up, all my friends and other kids loved candy. I was never a fan of candy but my mom always put candy in my lunch box. I never got an allowance but I knew a lot of the kids at my school got allowances. So I used to sell my candy to make money to buy pizza for lunch. I loved pizza, I was nine years old, selling these little fun size candies to get my pizza, my favourite food. Growing up I remember googling the most profitable career paths. Looking at the list, I knew I didn’t want any of that, I wasn’t interested in any of those jobs. My dad wanted me to go into healthcare. So I told my dad, everything runs on business. I said, think of it, our favourite restaurants, stores, even hospitals are a business. I want to be part of that life. And from then on I pursued entrepreneurship to be a business owner myself.
Sounds like the entrepreneurial spirit was in you since childhood! Tell us, what is the concept of the business that you have today?
The concept is to educate and inspire as many people as I can. Education is key to everything, and we’re teaching people how to invest through trading in the financial markets.
How does the information gained from your business help people?
We’re helping people to personally develop their mind and leverage their income to create freedom in their everyday life. This keeps them five steps ahead of the majority as they can use their income to create other sources of wealth, invest and/or become business owners.
Sa’aadat, what goals do you have for your future personally and for your business?
My personal goal is to just impact as many people as I can. What do I mean by that? I want to break as many generational curses. As a matter of fact, I want to break the main generational curse – financial illiteracy. According to statistics, 50% of the people in the US, that’s 125 million adults, are living paycheck to paycheck. 21% of the population are struggling to pay their bills. Meaning after they get their paycheck, they have little to no money left after paying their bills and living expenses. It’s not their fault because it was never taught to them. I believe that if this curse was erased, it will open so many doors to the next upcoming generation.
My goals for the business are just to put as many people in a position to win. Also expose them to something positive in a world full of negativity. I come from a poor and very dangerous city. So the way I look at it is if some of these people here just had some development and someone to actually have their back and guide them, that community will be better as a whole. And I’m a firm believer in impact over income. And I plan to impact as many individuals as possible.
Those are very admirable goals, Sa’aadat. Getting your business to where it is today must have been challenging. What kind of adversities did you face growing up and growing your business?
Personally, I grew up with a single mother with four brothers in a two bedroom home in a dangerous and poor neighborhood. I grew up around a lot of gun violence and poverty. Basically I grew up seeing a lot of people that I didn’t want to be like. And the only person that I really aspired to be like was the future me that I imagined in my head.
With the business, I faced countless setbacks with both trading and building my team until I realized, it’s not about me. I was trying to be the best trader, the best builder in history, which created an ego inside of me until I realized this business is not based on who is the best trader but how many people’s lives you can actually positively change. That’s the real reward of being a leader as well as just being a decent human.
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Sa’aadat. In closing please give us three pieces of advice you would offer to an aspiring entrepreneur?
Definitely, these are my best pieces of advice that have helped me on my own journey in business:
- First is to stay curious and network with strangers. Ask questions about anything you don’t know and remain a student of the game.
- Plan, execute, rinse and repeat consistently, and you’ll start to see results emerge.
- Things are always going to start off slow, but you have to keep that vision in mind. Perseverance is key. One thing I’ve learned is that everyone has their time to shine and your time will come. You just have to stay consistent and keep going. Your time is going to come.
