Yahya Bakkar has learned many helpful details about life and business in his pursuit of success. However, one crucial lesson stands out — sometimes taking a different approach makes all the difference.
Like most successful entrepreneurs, Yahya holds many titles — wealth advisor, personal branding consultant, speaking coach, lifestyle entrepreneur, and angel investor — to name a few. So, to lump some of those titles together, Yahya is a business mentor. But, as you can guess, he’s not your typical business mentor, nor did he follow a traditional path to get to his current position.
Forging a different path
Yahya says he is fueled by a desire to forge a different path than his family. With both parents disowning and abandoning him, Yahya struggled to find his way early on, wasting four years of college only to drop out. He says he was trying to live his parents’ dream, which was for him to become a doctor. Spending time on a passionless path was the final setback he needed to find his way.
Besides his personal failures, Yahya says he has learned a lot from growing up in a ‘distant’ family. He states, “My father was a businessman and a very successful one. But business for him was always an escape and an excuse not to be present with his family. I’m changing the direction of my family tree and redefining what’s possible.”
Following his passion brings success
Needing to earn a living, Yahya started his speaking and coaching career with a barrage of factors against him. However, by following his heart and doing something he loved, he has turned failure into triumph and debt into wealth. After eleven years of speaking worldwide, Yahya realized traveling was not conducive to raising a family. Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps, Yahya shifted his business model to become a successful business mentor, specializing in wealth management.
These days Yahya’s goals include realigning how a family does business and remains a ‘family.’ And Yahya is not just applying this model to his own family. It’s how he does business with all his clients. He helps them make and manage money — yes. But he also helps them do so without compromising the family structure. “My mission is to help experts build highly profitable impact-driven businesses without sacrificing their family, freedom, or fulfillment so that they can build a legacy for the ones who matter most of them.”
As a business coach, Yahya says he helps business owners build generational wealth and become more substantial family providers. He also helps affluent families prepare their heirs to transfer wealth and wisdom that will protect their legacy. Yahya states, “Everything I do is driven by my purpose, which is to build the family I never had and empower leaders to leave a legacy.”
A different approach makes all the difference
Starting with a mountain of debt from a college experience that failed to provide a degree, Yahya has undoubtedly made the most of his skills. Knowing he had a lot to offer and finding a way to get out there and create his career, Yahya has empowered himself and others.
Yahya explains how his approach to wealth management is unique: “In the private wealth management world, when it comes time for estate and succession planning, most advisors only focus on trusts to save as much as they can on taxes. But that’s only one side of wealth. In order to preserve that wealth within the family for multiple generations, I focus on addressing and healing the family wounds that can destroy trust over time. That way, we can transfer the vision, values, and wisdom that will protect that family’s wealth beyond their lifetime.” Though he is not your typical wealth manager, Yahya’s success so far is proof that sometimes taking a different approach makes all the difference.
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