African Millionaires in America | VOA News

it is the world's most dominant economic power with an iconic concept that has made it the number one destination for most immigrants the american dream douglas azee is one of the two million africans who decided to make it a new country and who was able to transform his life beyond the restless accumulation of material goods the self-described wealth strategist and award-winning insurance agent is now climbing into the wealthiest one percent club of society i wanted to learn more about wealthy families how do they keep wealth in the family from one generation to the next so i actually wrote a book called creating generational wealth an immigrant from nigeria is now a top-of-the-table member of the million-dollar roundtable an exclusive club for the top insurance people in the world well wealth is basically um you know the money that you're gonna leave for your children's children you know because there's one thing getting rich is one thing and being wealthy is making sure that your family your generation they your name stays in the family legacy forever at conferences like this one douglas often shares his personal story of making it in america i've been in the financial service industry for over 20 years an entrepreneur on a technology company and also real estate the next award goes to douglas eve [Applause] when he is not invited to talk or receive an award he uses the opportunity to expand his network a word that he has quickly come to associate with his net worth the first time i made a million dollars i mean i felt good but then i realized where's the money it was all in stuff and then i had to say to myself man you know if you keep spending the money you're not going to have the money and warren buffet he has two favorite quotes the first one is never lose your money his second quote is don't forget rule number one never lose your money you know so i had to change my mindset and start teaching myself how to make sure that i keep every dollar that i spend i paid back with simple interest and compounding interest a lot of people miss that part it's called self-financing so one thing we try to teach is show people even if you make fifty thousand dollars a year thirty thousand dollars a year i show them how much that money is valued 20 30 years from today with an increase and i say you know what guess who else knows the value of your money the federal government the banks the media [Music] with eight businesses under his belt douglas's philosophy is simple hard work pays off and when it comes to it the cash value king as he calls himself uses his money to enjoy life and discover new hobbies [Music] beautiful so don't mess with me man [Music] to a 2019 study by the pew research center one in 10 black people living in the u.s are immigrants 40 of all african immigrants aged 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree or higher hi this is dr colada how are you doing dr akindele colladay is a certified psychiatrist principal investigator at the collada research institute and president and ceo of cal psychiatrist services he is also a successful serial entrepreneur and philanthropist i'm originally from nigeria but now practicing in the united states a psychiatrist first and foremost and then sub-specialized in child psychiatry and adolescent psychiatry and also and in addiction medicine so i'm triple boarded and i also do research clinical research for upcoming medications and treatment health so i have a team here that works for me we have mid-levels we have social workers so we have nurses and we have the front desk staff in today's wall and my office we're doing mostly bachelor practice i'm consulting for one two three four five hospitals across america in different states so we virtually see these patients in different locations and environments to be eating the hospitals or in the clinics or sometimes in their homes and eventually because in psychiatry you don't have to touch a person but with today's technology you could basically see everything and know everything just look at the computers and prescribe medications or do counseling or do therapy whatever you need to do to make them move forward that the medication is not working does she use melatonin also in my practice i've witnessed an increase in an uptick in people looking for mental health compared to before the pandemic i was seeing an increase of over 30 percent above what used to be in terms of people looking for help hey how are you how about yourself good so what are we doing today i want to see if i can get a refill okay any side effects no i see a lot of private patients i see a lot of athletes and i see a lot of patients through insurance campaigns i see some pro bono patient that i do for free everybody comes in differently and that's what we do whatever it takes to move them forward from there this condition to this condition in a good way okay so that's how we go that's how we roll [Music] 9 p.m we meet dr akin in a completely different setting tonight he invites us to his brand new luxury lounge in las vegas hey hi how you doing welcome everything good tonight everything's wonderful okay let's go party somebody asked me this how come a doctor is opening a restaurant this service is service for the people in many varieties be eating medicine be it in the clinic or be in the restaurant where you eat good food or where you dance or what you sing or where you enjoy comedy all that brings about wellness and health in all of us i own my own pharmacies since 2009 we work hard every day we wake up in the morning six a.m and we go to work but we also play hard and that is the reason why we have splash for people who work hard and at the same time party [Music] according to a 2021 article published in kiplinger.com the states of maryland had the second highest number of millionaires in the united states of america in 2020 this is where we meet adisa berry a decorated minority and woman business owner who came to america more than 30 years ago from burkina faso today this self-made millionaire leads a successful electrical construction company with an annual revenue averaging 25 million dollars when i came to this country my major was accounting i got my bachelor in the county and then i had a part-time job with the construction company and i worked for the construction company as a controller of the company for about 12 years noticed that many cpas are not familiar with construction accounting and it's something that i had already understood very well in school and i mastered it very well so when we used to have cpa coming i had to explain them about the construction county and then i opened my own business and i was doing construction accounting then when my business partner joined the business he said uh i guess i know you want to do construction management but my background is electric if you want we can take that route of the electoral vote i said hey any opportunity that can grow the business let's go for it and that's how we got ourselves into election business yes in order to claim her place in this male-dominated industry adisa spurred no efforts even if that meant going outside of her skill set i'm a women-owned business i'm a minority too so when you go to apply those kind of certification they want to make sure that you at least have a good knowledge about the business so how do you get it you have to educate yourself i was going to evening classes you know cutting all this wiring you know doing receptacle you know taking those electrical courses i don't have to be on the job site but i still have to do it when i was uh putting a fossil my teacher he's like you know what let me tell you one thing the definition of a businessman is somebody who takes a risk the risk can be positive and the risk can be negative and he or she is mentally prepared for whatever the outcome of that risk is going to be tell the stories on you today thank you i never thought about being rich but the first risk opening my business that's the first risk at and these are all temporary feelings it's temporary and i'm glad i took that risk for most americans buying a house is often considered as one of the first investments on the path to building wealth so i got a few condos in this building and some in this building too and that building also every time one comes on the market you have to get it very quick if you don't you miss it now i got addicted i keep buying one after another one after another and then i refinance a house and get money to buy another one can do the green gate to the right have a great day but to las vegas we are headed to dr raquel's mansion located in an exclusive gated community we join him and his wife as they celebrate their son raymond's first birthday it is an opportunity for the celebrity psychiatrist to reconnect with the people who matter the most in his life hey everyone yes sir are you going over there it's a big horner for me to have my entire family in the united states come from every city to represent this the honor and to celebrate with me raymond's first birthday i think what we're doing is probably way bigger than raymond's birthday is a family reunion which gives me a lot of blessing especially coming out of college and we haven't most of us haven't seen each other for more than three four years and to have them come with their children far and wide is a blessing and i'm so grateful for that my nieces are here the best monkey he's genuine he's caring and he's always there that's my daughter alexandria what is your favorite subject science yeah okay okay science is good that's how you get to be a doctor eventually for this important birthday dr akin did not skimp on the means exclusive party venue with a breathtaking view on las vegas exotic meals and rarest wine and champagne for all but beyond the glitz and glamour dr akin is most keen to show his son the love of a father that he craved as a boy i never knew my real father until i was done with the secondary school i grew up in a village and i had no water and no electricity and i grew up with my grandmother we had to go to the stream in the morning to take a shower in the stream little river and then fetch the water come back home and then you have your breakfast then you go to school my father at that time was the one of the nigerian ambassadors but they were divorced with my mother my mother remarried so i had a stepfather back then there were no emails there were no instagram there were no facebooks and we had to write letters with the and it would take three four months to get a reply back and now whenever i get that reply back from him and i used to be my most beautiful month and year in life that my father actually wrote back to me okay that's your first birthday the smallest one it's gonna be big for you yeah i never met my father until i was 12 years old my mother told him that i'm really really very rebellious it was about time that we met so when we met he had remarried twice he said to me the best legacy i have for you and to every of his children is education after that you are young [Music] and he meant it every water we nigerians understand that education is a way out anyway we value we cherish you know we cherish education oh my god it's so good you always tell me i'm like one of the hardest working doctors i know and i know quite a few because i'm a nurse myself we went to europe and i ended up in a country back then called czechoslovakia i learned the language and that's how i went to medical school in a foreign language i learned it and spoke it better than english then and graduated as a doctor i went back to nigeria i was employed an old company to take care of an oil rig of over 800 people that's how my real business career started because it opened my eyes to what could be possible and before then i created the first program in nigeria called flying doctors so the governor at that time in patakot i gave him the idea he said he could do what he said i'll fly down to any part of this state that i've never seen a doctor give me the tools the governor then gave me a clinic a clinic was parked in a helicopter with two nurses and we flew around the state to places that we would line they don't see people that have never seen a helicopter live they've never seen a doctor live they'll line up and now stay there for three four five seven days in the village [Music] so far no disaster not that i was looking for one it's a good day it is said that courage and resilience are two virtues the first immigrants in america carried with them this is still true for those arriving today it is also what pushed these african high achievers into positions of success i came to us from burkina faso in 1986 september 1986 my ex was living with he was renting a room in the house we were staying in that room and i was going to school i had my daughter when i had only one year left for my school and i was struggling with my daughter trying to study and take her to the babysitter it was really a lot of work to do i went through that and i graduated and remember when i was done with school i would send my resume everywhere to companies or look at any employment i don't receive any response and my london told me uh you know what you need to take all these uh african degrees that you have on your resume and take all the experiences that you have from africa from your resume just leave everything that you did here in the united states i removed everything then somebody a company called i wasn't home my landlord was a white person and when the call they heard the voice message and then when i came back he listened to the voicemail and he told me oh somebody called they really want you to to calm them back because they have a position for you they have an opening and i would say exciting i got the number the same day i called the company as soon as they heard my voice they said oh the position has been filled less than an hour when did you fill it out i didn't know what to do i used to take my daughter to the park and this lady heard me speaking french with her she like oh what brought you here in the united states and i told her i studied accounting she's like oh you know what we got there um i have two partners and um we have a business but the business is really in my basement we just starting up we don't have anybody to help us with the books and i told him well i had to take my daughter to the babysitter i paid the lady five dollars an hour oh okay so we can pay the five dollars an hour that company moved out from her basement we took over a whole floor in a building our village wanted to go to america that's the god's own country you know that's where the black americans are fought for for freedom so i lived in canada until i was 23 and then i left and went came to america through seattle i ended up in a dmv i've been here ever since so my boy that i came to stay with in dmv in maryland in virginia he had an old car you know that he wasn't driving as much so i bought it for like five hundred dollars owes the honda civic i paid 500 for it and i started actually that would be that became my house for a little bit you know became my house while i was waiting table i hope so i'll go in the car um sleep there in the morning i became friends with a guy that owns a motel you know the the motels you know the manager there i'll go tell him hey listen you know i work at i hope i don't have i don't want to stay in but can i use your your rooms and just shower in the morning you know i just want to use a shower have my stuff you know he said okay cool she allowed me to sleep in his parking lot in my car and then in the morning i'll go and you open one door i'll go and take a shower now go to work so most of you didn't know that i was taking the car they even know that i saw a lot of people that walked at the same ihop and the same people were out they were comfortable they didn't that was like they were fighting to become managers i'm like nah i gotta get out of this place man i won't be no manager here i mean especially when i saw people in the financial industry that were making money i didn't know nothing about finance i just saw that man they making money in this business talking to people about saving money i could do that i didn't became superstar right away you know but i learned i had good mentors and i'm a learner i always like to learn just reading books finding successful people you know that are open because not everybody's open to talking to you some people you might have to pay you know which i did you know i paid a bunch of folks that uh i wanted to learn from and some some folks are just they were willing to teach you but you still got to be in their class you know you got to pay them to do that and i don't mind investing to learn in my business we recruit other people so some people have put invested money you know giving and they just stab you in the back they lie to you they steal from you you know and you're like wow you know this guy did all this and this guy still did that but you just leave it for god and let god deal with them that's all one of the company doctors was with me at the bar one night and asked me what's your specialty i tell him i'm a family practitioner so he told me he's a physician he's a general practitioner he's a surgeon he's occupational physician and he's also has an mba so what am i doing here exactly i said you have five things he said yeah i got all the ja that's me that's that changed my life and i resigned after a week and came to america that i'm gonna be so specialized in anything that can let me be that's my life it's a story insulted me in my country yeah i decided to be the best so that nobody could challenge me anymore strong men cry it's actually not a sign of weakness sign of strength because i have emotions i'm human i feel pain i feel joy i feel anxiety i feel unhappiness i feel blessed so i'm not shy to shed tears for things that means a lot to me basically i have no business being there so that was very insulting to me so i made a decision in my heart that i i i need to get there so that nobody would ever talk to me like that anymore in my life in my medical school psychiatry was my no goal i barely had the sea to pass i didn't like it i did my three more rotation medical school i was good but then i went back home to nigeria i found out that one in every five patients i saw had a psychiatric problem i have no clue what to do with them and i felt ashamed i let my people down i do it i want to do it and that's how i ended up doing psychiatry and when i finished i got challenged like you did adult psychiatry what happened if children show up and they have psychiatric problems i'm like oh that too beside the fact that we not even up to a hundred two hundred cancer characters in america i wanna do it i went and did it when i got child and adolescent psychiatry behind my back in psychiatry we also have what is called addiction issues and they say fellowship in addiction i decided to do it again and put it aside everything else and when i finish with addiction then i find out that i'm not only like child and adolescent psychiatrist i'm also an adult psychiatrist and also an addiction guy so that complete the circle for me um in that aspect but then i went in and did psychiatric administration fellowship to be a sea of hospitals so that if i walk into a hospital somebody want to hire me i don't hire me i told them i know how to run it and i can prove it to you by my certificate so i had all that then after that nobody has ever asked me for a resume literally i just have to talk to you they asked me when do you want to start if making a difference sometimes requires courage and resilience a giving back can also happen in the most surprising ways like for douglas who literally gave away a part of himself so back then my ex-wife you know nice young lady were together for a while she helped me with my papers so her sister's husband they applied for life insurance through me so i gave him a coverage and everything and then he got declined but he also got a call from the insurance company that his kidney was failing and when i heard his story because his dad died at the same age and then his wife was pregnant and they have three kids already and he was 34 years old so i'm like okay so i went without even my wife then knowing i went to the innova fairfax hospital and said let me test and see if i could be a match for him and i did i went and tested i wasn't a match even the doctor said listen you all don't match but you know two percent chance this will work if you do it you're only related you don't have any you know i said listen forget all that i said at the end of the day it's god that's gonna make you work it's not me you know so i did and boom as soon as we put my put my kidney because you know you have two kidneys so one is working the other one is just sitting around waiting so the one so they took the one that was working and as soon as they put on him boom he started using it started working immediately but i yeah so my kidney lasted on him for about 10 years the longest they've ever seen mostly they said seven years i didn't even know it didn't last that long if i'd known the only it doesn't i thought it was going to last forever i didn't know it was only 10 years they should have told me that so long story short he's back in the waiting you know back waiting for additional kidney but he was able to see his son graduate and all that good stuff his baby you know so which is great you know [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] when i came to us i didn't speak any english and when my first child was born my daughter i got sick and i was admitted to the hospital and two women from the church took my daughter at their house and they were nursing her because they had young kids about the same age and my daughter and i was in the hospital for a week and they took care of my daughter during that time and they would breastfeed my daughter they didn't even think twice to think whether my daughter i have any disease that my daughter got from me they were nursing my daughters i guess this is the faith [Music] i was in a nursing home several years ago and i was in there for several months and i got sick and i had to go to the emergency room and spend the night well to keep my room at the nursing home it cost 400 which we didn't have and later i found out that adisa paid that [Music] and nobody else knows that but my husband and i in fact i didn't know it for a long time until he told me and she's come through many times in our lives to support us when we've needed it she's always there one phone call away my sister she went to an employment office to collect an employment she met this old lady daughter who went there also to file for unemployment and then the two of them were looking at each other and they introduced authority and uh they both said they're from burkina faso so they exchanged numbers and then she she brought her mom to my house and now cook africa our food like cornmeal and with okra and then the old lady ate it and then that's how we started the cooking so every weekend i would cook for the whole week for her the daughter will come and pick it up and i've been doing that for about six years [Music] thank you so much she had a stroke she had blood clock on her leg they did the surgery all this stuff and now she's uh and the ventilator so breathing to you and feeling to all this stuff [Music] that's what we have to do that's [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you so much [Music] ah [Music] kobe when i got it i was in the hospital for eight days with no family member just you in that room in icu and all you see is nurses come in take your blood so it gives you time to reflect especially when you know you could die you know serious so that changed the game that that helped me you know realize a lot i was moving very fast a lot of things was happening success was coming like my mom got sick while i was in the hospital she had covered so my fiance now when she heard that i was sick and then she flew in from georgia and just to kill my mom while i was in the hospital you know because i've known her for a long time for 11 years so just even she wanted us to be serious while back like man like i'm good especially you know reason when you've been married before you don't want to jump right in so i'm like but i'm like you know what so this time around we like had to have to propose to her apart from the instant connection that we did have from the first day i had never felt anything as strong and to be honest on that day i knew that that was my husband it just wasn't the right timing but i i knew that was my husband the first day i noticed he was he'd be quiet in a corner where he's observing everything his vision was very quiet i could tell that he was very humble um and then in a follow-up conversation the next day he had told me about the kidney and situation i just hadn't heard anything like that before and as we carried on being friends and you know his brother's kids that he was going to look after that just touched me that usually it's women that always want to do all those things i don't know many men that do and i just feel like that was special he's very proud of what he'd achieved but you can always still get the humble side of him building wealth does not guarantee being happy but building a happy family is generally the reason why for people like douglas generational wealth is a big part of the legacy that one leaves behind [Music] in 2010 2011 i told her the story about you know i have the son in canada but i don't know where he's at you know and she took it upon herself to go find him he said just give me his name and i did and she went online instead of looking for him so she called me one day and said listen i think i found your son she said let me send you what i have his name is kevin james chukwuka so i gave him my last my eboo name you know when he was born that was the only thing i asked because they didn't want me to his grandparents are irish so i was young back then you know i'd even know that was my first time experiencing racism to the highest level i sent me a message saying that i was his father's cousin because luckily we have the same last name so it was easy right and then i said that your father has been looking for you for years um because there's so many people with the same name and no picture so i literally had to go through everybody and just and then he responded and he and he was very excited um to like hear from anyone who's his father's relative in any capacity i united with my my son we talked i flew him out he came get to visit we went to different places now he has his own he's doing his own business he has a delivery business and he also has his own son now he has a so i have a grandson and he actually named the son my last name is you know and um his business is called easy delivery yeah so good kid doing his thing you know been through a lot in his life but he fought through it [Music] it looks beautiful i like the fire placement thanks do you guys want water my daughter when she reached the age 15 and nine months she went and she got her driving license she was driving the boys you know taking them groceries shopping for the sport game dropping them to school so i was focusing more on the business this is the main level you're walking this is study dining my daughter is a designer and she she got into real estate she got her real estate license her body joined him and pretty much doing it together and i'm very impressed about what they do [Music] my oldest son too in the middle i'm really proud of him too he's an i.t designer [Music] he worked for one of the big five tech company [Music] [Music] all the way down the marble that's an elevator hard work pays off man 1993 i was still in canada man when this house was built i was like 27 years old and that is mine not bad for a guy from west africa with no color degree of living the american dream [Music] i never dreamed about american dream i'm grateful that god really helped me and he gave me that opportunity to realise and to live my american dream to arrive i've never been an a student and tell anybody i was an a student but i never gave up i fall i wake up and do it again and fall woke up and do it again it is different from repeating the same mistake over and over and over but i learned from my mistake when i fall i learn why it did fall i know there's more educated africans in this country than in any other part of the universe please tell your story let's tell people what we do so that nobody would think that we are from a whole country because we ain't from a whole country we have brands it is time for us to just stop being timmy and let the little brown boys and girls emulate you and copy you and be like you and become you and do better and that's what i'm going to teach my children and that's why i'm doing this i just want to start something no matter the size of their fortune or the color of the dreams african millionaires in america are changing the narrative by blazing new trails and giving hope to many immigrants a proof that the american dream is still alive and well [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Voice of America

Views: 2,367,224

Keywords: voice of america, voanews video, voa, world news, asia news, china news, iran news, voa videos, russia ukraine, international news, voanews, breaking news, press freedom, immigration, nato, olympic, sport news, radio, day in photos, refugees, covid 19, covid news, coronavirus, covid vaccine, us president, us election, sotu, president biden, biden, harris, blinken, us capitol, america, foreign policy, democratic, ukraine conflict, crimea, donbas, olympics, oscar, afghanistan, white house

Id: a9ZpIMrheCk

Length: 43min 34sec (2614 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 20 2022