Before I graduated high school, I signed a summer internship offer that made me the richest person in my household on a per-hour basis. J.P. Morgan had just piloted an immersion program for high schoolers interested in finance, and agreed to pay them $20 per hour to get their feet wet and learn for a month. While I was ecstatic about the opportunity and wanted to make the most of it, something about the situation seemed….off, to say the least.

As a 17 year old without a high school diploma officially under my belt, I already had more earning potential than my parents.

Coming to that realization changed my life forever. While my parents were very proud of me as I grew into my own person, there was some part of me that just felt guilty.
I felt guilty because I had some idea of the trajectory my life would hit once I went to college. I felt guilty because I envisioned a life full of experiences I would not be able to share with the people and community that got me there. I felt guilty because in all likelihood, my financial struggles had an end-date.

In a sense, I felt guilty because my parents did their job.

As a young adult, I long struggled with the tension between aspiring for financial success, and feeling guilty about potentially attaining it. While on one hand I had successful black people to model myself after, on the other hand I saw the stigma in my community associated with people known as “Uncle Toms” or “sell-outs”.
Growing up, my friends and I always wondered how successful black people attained their success, especially whether or not they had to trade in parts of their identity, culture, or more (sell-out) for their piece of the American Dream. I worried that the more successful I became, the more distance there would be between my community and me, and the more likely I could be seen as one of those sell-outs.
It seemed like the only way to avoid those labels would be to work in a field that directly contributed to the community: nonprofits, law, politics, activism, or education. I knew that there were wonderful opportunities in all of those fields, and the people who pursue them do great work. After all, I would not be here without the work of civil rights lawyers and activists, teachers and professors, and nonprofits like NJ SEEDS and MLT. However, in spite of my desire to do impactful work, I did not want to pursue those opportunities and felt lost as a result.
Learning
Fast forward to college. In my sophomore year, I had a conversation with a former teacher that completely re-framed the way I thought about wealth. Although I had exposure to wealthy people in high school, my conversation with him was the first time I could discuss the topic in a culturally relevant way.
He decoupled many ideas I thought moved in lockstep together. First, he explained that there is nothing inherently wrong with being wealthy. It does not mean you are selfish, or don’t care about other people. Being wealthy does not mean you are self-indulgent or too caught up in material possessions. There are wealthy people like that, but those attributes are not inherent to wealth itself.
Second, he explained that prioritizing your personal growth in the interim does not equate to turning your back on your community. On the contrary, the higher you grow, the wider the impact you can potentially have. To explain this idea, he described the idea of scale. It went something like this:
Him: “Wade, you can work for the nonprofit, run the nonprofit, or be on the board of 3 nonprofits, and donate $1 million annually so they can run for years to come.”
Me: “Ooooooohhhhhh”
My light bulb moment was not because I had some new-found moral justification for wanting to be wealthy; rather, it was because I finally felt like I had some options.
He made the point that none of those options was “better” than the next, and each role was necessary and important. But, I had the choice and ability to pursue any and all of them. He also pointed out that donating money to a cause is not sufficient for solving it, but it is necessary. For example, nonprofits rely on donations from people and organizations to fund marketing campaigns, hire people, increase the services they offer, and keep the lights on.
Around the same time as this conversation, I also spoke with Sumorwuo Zaza, a mentor & role model from high school. He exposed me to the idea of verticals. He explained that everyone who wants to impact their community does not have to work in the same areas. Some people will pound the pavement, some will be the voice of the people, others will work on policy, and some will do good through business. Again, all of those verticals were necessary and important, and you just had to figure out which role(s) you aimed to occupy.
Black American Dreaming
In the first 19 years of my life, it never crossed my mind that you could do good through business. Keep in mind that at this point in my life, 2012-2013, business was probably the last place you would expect anything "good" to come out of. Everywhere on campus, people debated about how “1% of the population has more wealth than the 99% combined,” and other similar topics (I use this example solely to make a point about the climate, and not to invalidate these discussions. I believe that conversations about wage disparities and similar topics are healthy for our culture). So before my conversations about scale & verticals, business had a negative connotation in my mind.
But after these conversations, that perspective changed. I started to think about the problems I faced growing up, and how I could create products and services to solve them. I started to see that wealth was neither a means nor an end, exclusively; rather, it could be a platform. Your success could benefit you and your family, while being a platform to benefit others as well. People like Bill Gates, whose scholarship helped fund my college education, and Oprah may come to mind.
Now, a sense of eagerness has replaced my guilt, and a sense of purpose has replaced any questions surrounding my motivations. I have seen how every experience I have had up until this point has been absolutely necessary for me to dream of a brighter future for myself, my family, and my community.
I have no idea what will come of my experiences, and I’m fine with that. Every milestone on my 2 year plan has an asterisk next to it that says “unless another dope opportunity arises”. While I cannot predict what will happen, I live every day knowing that the following things will remain constant no matter where my journey takes me:
I always aim to grow. I always aim to be genuine. I always aim to help others.
With those principles as my true north, I look forward to seeing what the future holds.
KINGSMITH.