Published on 07, Sep 2023

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxA_JSIiorPjzlKSQyyd-yNtkVbq3TZCE0xwi5gg32o/edit

The above sent for publication, not the below.

Multimillionaire Businesswoman Aja Yada: Pressure Makes Diamonds

Aja Yada, the owner of several million-dollar companies and creator of a trading strategy course for working mothers, is using her life story to correct a common misconception. “So many people believe that in order to accomplish their dreams or reach financial security, you have to be part of a small percentage of society,” says Aja. “If you are not in that 1%, then you have no chance. My own life shows that the opposite, in fact, is true - anyone can accomplish their goals or build wealth with the right mindset, knowledge, and consistency.”

Today, Aja is a multimillionaire CEO who manages over twenty employees at ______ (NAME OF COMPANY). However, her beginnings and childhood were more humble and pointed towards a life of hard work and tenacity, not necessarily one of financial wealth.

“I was born in Atlanta into a lower class, broken family,” Aja reveals. “We lived on the east side of the city in a neighborhood that wasn’t the projects but wasn’t Beverly Hills, either. My mother and father were never together, so I experienced a lot of instability like so many children unfortunately do.”

From infancy until Aja was seven years old, she was shuttled back and forth between different homes, alternating between living with her single mom and her aunts. When her mom got breast cancer, Aja’s life experienced yet another earthquake.

“That was definitely hard for me to process and cope with at such a young age,” she remembers. “It felt like the ground under my feet was constantly shifting, and I had a hard time understanding who or what I could rely on.”

When Aja was almost eight years old, she moved in with her dad and stepmom, with whom she found some of the stability that she had been craving. “Life was still difficult, of course, but I did feel more grounded,” she says. “I got a chance to be in one place and have the structure and consistency that I needed.”

Aja was only thirteen years old when her mom passed away from breast cancer. The shock and pain of losing her mother led to her searching for a way to cope with that void. She found it in investing.

“This wasn’t as out of left field as you might think,” Aja says. “I had been interested in investing and trading since I was about eight and dreamed of being my own businesswoman. When my mom died, I needed something to focus on, so I started teaching myself the ins and outs of investments.”

Aja watched YouTube tutorials, studied online articles, and began reading book after book to pick up tips and jargon. The more her knowledge of investments grew, the more determined she became to create a life for herself. Becoming a mother as a teenager only solidified that conviction.

“I now had a daughter to take care of, and I took that responsibility very seriously,” says Aja. “I had a vision of the kind of lifestyle I wanted to give her, and myself, so when I was 19, I founded my own health-and-wellness company.”

At 23, Aja met her husband, Yahdan Yada, when the two attended the same mentorship program. She smiles as she remembers the connection they both felt when they met. “It really is true what people say, that you will know you have met ‘the one’ when you meet them,” she says. “We both knew that we had found who we were destined to be with. Our relationship blossomed from there.”

Aja explains that she and Yahdan were both natural entrepreneurs and that he was working to completely redo the infrastructure of his own business. While it was making six figures, they both could see the potential for it to generate multimillion-dollar revenue. Yahdan could also see that Aja was a born organizer and leader, and he asked her to lead the overhaul.

“I took full rein of the rebuild, the website, the shipment facilities, everything,” she says. “Over time, I helped make him into a multimillionaire. It’s very important to me that people know he has helped me, too, however. Yahdan gave me $250K, and by investing it in real estate, stock options, and crypto, I have about $10M. All of this was a major turning point for me and really developed my business expertise.”

Today, Aja juggles running her rapidly expanding business with prioritizing the needs of her family. While she loves being a CEO and growing a successful company that provides for its employees, she loves her family even more. Her children, she says, are her greatest investment, and she remains a hands-on mom.

Her other priority centers on helping more single mothers to understand the steps they can take to empower their own futures. “I understand how difficult it is to navigate life and to provide for children financially, emotionally, and mentally,” says Aja. “We play these different roles all at the same time simply because kids don’t understand that their mom needs a break.”

While Aja acknowledges that being a single mom while working to be professionally successful is, and will always be, difficult, she recommends that everyone dream big. “Challenge yourself every day,” she says. “Teach yourself about financial literacy like I did so that you understand how to build your wealth. Make sacrifices to become successful, but make sure they are the right ones. Don’t work so hard that you forget to provide for yourself emotionally. And, remember: there is nothing that can break you. You can achieve anything and everything if you believe you can do it and take steps.”