How Millionaire Mentor Cedric Nash Went From a $36,000 Salary To $90M in Annual Business Revenue

Cedric Nash, also known as “Your Millionaire Mentor,” is an award-winning entrepreneur, wealth coach, and the founder of The Black Wealth Summit, an annual event he created to provide wealth literacy to the Black Community.

Nash is also the author of the recently released book Why Should White Guys Have All The Wealth? He started his career as a consultant earning less than $40,000 a year, became a millionaire at 31 years old and scaled his business ventures to $90 million in annual revenue.

Nash shared that a common thread he noticed while reading other personal finance books was that the books did not address the challenges Black people face in a white man’s world when trying to become wealthy.

“We face unique challenges when it comes to increasing our income and opportunities. I went from $36,000 a year out of college to making millions scaling my business with no outside investments, no rich parent, and no rich uncle. I want to give people the roadmap to do it,” Nash told BLACK ENTERPRISE.

During the interview, Nash shared that, today, he has built a net worth well over $50 million by following principles anyone with the right mindset and discipline can apply to build wealth. He shared some of those principles during our interview.

Expanding His Network

Nash credits four millionaire mentors he met as a young man with helping shape what he thought was possible for him.

“I had these four millionaire mentors. They shaped my mindset and gave me a vision of what to do with money. They were in my neighborhood. They were building houses and owned buildings. One of my mentors was a consultant when I was in 11th grade, and he inspired me to become a consultant. He was a janitor at a prison but had to stop working when he hurt his back. He was always reading, was an avid investor in the stock market and started buying real estate. He had a basement apartment and I asked if I could live there. I paid him to live there just because I wanted to be around him.”

Educating Himself

Nash, inspired by his mentor, focused on educating himself outside of school. He credits books like How to Be Your Own Stockbroker, The Magic of Thinking Big, Think and Grow Rich, and What Makes the Great Great for preparing him to become wealthy. Reading expanded Nash’s mind to what was possible and provided tools he could use to build wealth. He prepared himself by processing information that he would be ready to use once he had accumulated funds to start investing. Nash inherited $10,000 after his grandmother’s passing. At the time, she was earning $200 a month working at a laundromat. Nash invested his inheritance in the stock market and continued to invest on a regular basis.

Creating a Plan

Inspired by his mentors and new knowledge, Nash wrote a plan of what he wanted to accomplish over the next five to ten years. “I remember graduating from college, looking at the buildings named mostly after white guys. I wanted to do that too. So I wrote a plan of what I wanted. I lived very frugally and bought my first condo right out of college. I wrote a plan for the next five to 10 years and then went to work. I put that piece of paper away and found it years later, and I had hit 99% of those goals.”

Nash emphasized the importance of having a plan and documenting your starting point, end game, budgeting, and clarity on how much wealth you aspire to have.

“What’s your current net worth? How much cash do you have? How much income do you have to work for? How much income do your assets automatically produce for you? Your endgame is that point where you choose not to work anymore or decide to use your gifts and talents in the ways that you choose to.”

“Which assets do you want? How much income do you want to generate from those assets? Do you want to be just financially comfortable or financially independent? Do you want to be rich or ultra-rich? So you need to have a very specific target that you’re aiming towards.”

Figuring Out How to Earn More and Invest the Difference

Nash believes that an essential part of building wealth requires earning more money. You have to figure out how to increase your earnings so you have more to save and invest.

“Creating a plan for your investments is key. You have to earn from your main hustle, side hustle, and, eventually, investment hustle. But, if you fix your mindset and add a willingness to do the right things with your money, you will be on your way to wealth.”

Nash believes that building wealth is possible for anyone who is wealth-literate and has the right mindset. But, once we acquire the wealth, to make a long-term positive generational impact, we have to teach the next generation how to grow money and pass it down to the next generation so that the next generation can live off the income that those assets generate and continue to grow the assets.

About the Author

Anne-Lyse Wealth is a certified public accountant and communications strategist for business leaders. She is the founder of The ALW Communications Agency, which helps leaders amplify their brands through storytelling and PR, and the Plutus Awards-nominated Dreamoflegacy.com, a platform dedicated to inspiring millennials to build wealth with purpose.

Anne-Lyse is a freelance writer for Fortune Magazine, Business Insider, and Harvard Business Review Ascend, among other publications. She is the author of Dream of Legacy, Raising Strong and Financially Secure Black Kids, and the host of The Dreamers Podcast.