I am Gerard Adams
Entrepreneur. Investor. Philanthropist. Super-Connector. Mentor. Leader creating leaders.
This is my story
I grew up in New Jersey with two
lower-middle-class, hard-working parents and two sisters.
My mom worked six days a week as a front-end manager at a supermarket, and my dad worked at Prudential which is how I first learned about business and the stock market. Both of my parents were strict but I always managed to get in trouble somehow. No matter how much trouble I caused though, my dad would always leave notes in random places throughout the house with quotes from leaders to help me understand what it meant to be a leader.
I went down the wrong path.
I went down the wrong path in high school — selling Eko t-shirts, fake IDs, and weed. It really hit me during my last semester when all my friends were sharing how they got into top universities like Harvard and Stanford. When it was my turn to share, embarrassment filled my body because I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.
I dropped out of college.
I ended up getting accepted into Caldwell University, also known as "Last Chance College." It was there that I realized that the system just wasn’t right for me. I wanted to live life on my own terms so I hired a mentor who inspired me to drop out of college to go all-in on entrepreneurship.
I got my first mentor and I hustled.
Determined to learn about business, making money on the internet and the stock market, I worked 18-hour days with no pay for my mentor, learning everything I could from him. When I was 20, I learned the entire business and had enough earnings to launch my first website: StockSpot.com. It was a website where stock traders could suggest picks and a ranking system would rank them based on their results.
I made millions… and then I lost it all.
When I was 24, StockSpot.com was worth $10 million. I was on top — traveling the world, buying exotic shiny cars, and running out yachts on every beach you could imagine. But in the same year, the stock market crashed and I lost everything.
My mom reminded me of a powerful truth... I felt like such a failure and disappointment. I visited my mom who encouraged me to try again. I’ll never forget what she said that day…
“They can take your money and your possessions but they’ll never take your mind.”
My second venture, Elite Daily was born.
It was time to rebuild.
With whatever money I had left, I turned my apartment into my office. With two 19-year-old interns, I came up with the idea to start a publication that was for Millennials by Millennials called Elite Daily.
Elite Daily became my second 8-figure business
Elite Daily became the largest Millennial publication in the world, gaining an average of 80 million unique monthly readers. We even won an Emmy! Our small three-man-team turned into 200 employees and became my second 8-figure business by the time I was 30.
Sold Elite Daily for $50 million
We sold Elite Daily to Daily Mail, a multi-billion global corporation, for $50 million. I was also listed as Business Insider’s Top 100 Most Influential Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
Though I was set for life, I still felt like I was meant to do more, so I started an Instagram account with a mission to build a leadership brand to educate Millennials who had aspirations to become successful entrepreneurs and leaders of their generation.
Leaders Create Leaders was born.
I hired my good friend, Jeff, to create my very first show: Leaders Create Leaders. We produced everything ourselves, launched it for free on social media, and traveled together to different parts of the world filming stories of leaders, their impact, and the multi-million dollar movements they created.
This was also the year I won the Magic Johnson’s 32 Under 32 Entrepreneur of the Year award for the city of Newark.
I created a movement and became known as The Millennial Mentor™
Leaders Create Leaders grew to be more than just a show… It became a movement. Before I knew it, I was known as The Millennial Mentor™. I even won the Leadership Maverick Award for the state of New Jersey.
My mission...
I am relentlessly committed and devoted to self-mastery, changing the world, and helping other entrepreneurs and leaders like you do the same.
