22 Year Old Entrepreneur, Javed JKMT shares how he went from making pizzas in East London to getting dough in Dubai.
The graft is often bred into us as teens and into young adulthood, we are told to work as hard as we can to provide for ourselves, for families and for a weeks holiday once a year. I was working as a full-time pizza boy when I started learning about vision boards, goals and how you can truly shape your life to suit your needs. Growing up in Hackney, I simply existed, my father was a mini-cab driver and I had lost three close friends to knife crime before the age of 18.
It was my father’s entrepreneurial spirit that led me to believe there was more to life than this, and the graft was in myself, I had to do this alone.
Whilst studying my BTec in Science, with dreams of university and a 9-5 job in the business sector I watched the film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This kickstarted a London craze for trading and I admit, I could have researched some more and treading more carefully. However, it was whilst working part time at Domino’s alongside college and living in my parents council estate that I took a risk. Investing £1000 of my savings I had gathered working part time. This is one of the times in my life where risk-taking has not paid off immediately and I lost it all within a matter of hours, however this did not deter me. I knew I could find success with this somewhere.
Jumping in with two feet, I became addicted to the adrenaline and excitement of trading and risked the £10k my Dad had saved for University. Coming from my background, university was such an important thing for my Father, it offered me a chance to build a life different to the upbringing I had experienced of hand-to-mouth living.
I lost this again.
This is what it took for me to realise I needed to sharpen up, train more and work to re-pay the debt I had accrued. As a 19 year old college student, I was working full time at Domino’s in an effort to replace the money I had lost leading to loss of my focus in college and the eventuality of teacher’s telling me I wouldn’t be accepted into University with my attendance record. I had reached rock bottom and I needed, I wanted a way out from this. Watching a change in his Dad’s behaviour after admitting to his losses, I knew I had to prove I was worthy. I wised up, depositing a small amount to my trading account and paying my Father back every time I received a Domino’s pay check.
Within months, I had transformed my prospects, my father’s belief in me and my finances. By the end of 2016, I had gone from £11k debt to nothing at all. The following two years, I cleared £350k in my trading account. Going from £11k debt, dropping out of college, living in a council house in Hackney to clearing this amount, building a life in Dubai and buying a house for my family over two years has been an incredible journey.
My aim now is to show millennials that it can be done. You can transform your life through investment and finance management. It’s evident that so many fall into the trap of a student overdraft due to lack of understanding of money management and I want to change this.
Turn your tests into your testimony.
I believe, the worst risk you can take when it comes to making money is by not taking any risks at all, that leap of faith to get you into a new world you haven’t discovered before. People say that the sky is the limit, but there’s footsteps on the moon? I took that risk, that leap of faith, now I take those steps in Dubai, from walks to Dominos from my council house in Hackney East London, to walking to my Bentley from my 4 bedroom villa in Dubai. Proving if you stay committed to a craft for a few years of your life, prioritising it, disciplining yourself to save up. The sky isn’t the limit, your imagination is.
