When people are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in childhood, they are often made to feel like outcasts. They’re told they need to try harder, that they have a learning disability, that they’re disruptive. Many people with ADHD don’t even fully understand their diagnosis because of harmful stereotypes perpetuated by the people around them. It’s made to feel like a badge of shame and one that many people bring into adulthood with them. But stock market trader Ryan Persad reclaimed his narrative and sees his ADHD as a core part of his identity. “Being a person with ADHD might seem like a setback to the everyday common person,” he says. “But in fact, I feel as if I was gifted with a superpower.”
The Florida based stock trader started his first successful business venture aged just 13. His media company called WSHHU grew to over six figures by the age of 17 and helped him build a substantial social following. Persad released he could use this following to have a positive social impact, and decided to change his social media handles to ADHDRYAN to bring awareness to the condition and wider mental health issues.
When the young entrepreneur turned 18, he turned to the stock market and utilized his knowledge from years of constant study and research with the ultimate goal of both furthering his knowledge and growing his income. Referencing the English-American computer programmer and businessman John McAfee, “Making money is easy…the difficult thing in life is not making it, it’s keeping it,” he says.
Having beginner’s luck on his side and making a substantial income from a year of stock market trading, he knew this was the path he wanted to follow. “But then I was faced with another roadblock,” he explains. “How was I going to now preserve the capital I made from the markets without putting all my eggs into one basket?” This motivated him to establish a safety net when he was 19. Eager to further his knowledge and grow his assets, he became a licensed realtor.
While having this reliable skillset to fall back on, trading still proved to be a lucrative game. One year later he generated close to seven figures by diving into full time stock market trading. “But that’s just where my story begins,” he says. He’s confident that his ADHD has enabled him to thrive in a notoriously tricky industry with finesse and class. “One of the traits of a person with ADHD is the mindset that you can do anything. This is called omnipotential,” he explains. “Me being a very omnipotent person with a massive financial success, you can bet I wanted to challenge myself to really shoot for the stars.”
The journey only seems to be going upwards for the young self-starter, who successfully built two six-figure Shopify stores from scratch with a startup cost of $500 at the age of 20. “ I decided to scale two Shopify stores to truly test my capabilities,” he explains. “Due to the facts, I believed anyone can get lucky, but luck usually doesn’t repeat in the process more than once.”
Now being a member of the prestigious Forbes Council and a former recipient of the Global Financial Literacy Award, seeing the fruits of his labor come to fruition has only reaffirmed the belief in his ability — something he was only able to access once he realized an ADHD diagnosis was not his whole identity. “Once I established that the only thing stopping anyone from crushing any goal they set out for was themselves and their mindset, I became limitless” he says.
The true measure of his achievements has not so much been the financial numbers, but the impact he’s had on the people around him. “I received a phone call from my previous football coach about a year ago. He called me just to tell me that he was proud of the man I have become,” he explains. “He proceeded to ask me ‘what impact will I have in this world?’ Such a simple phrase that carried a massive amount of power!”
This phone call would prove to have a huge impact on him, triggering the realization that not only could he teach anyone how to make “an abundance of money trading in the stock market”, but he could also help them make money while learning his exact trade methods. “I knew the puzzle was put together,” he says. “My calling is to inspire. My calling is to motivate. My calling is to teach. My calling is to give people the financial freedom they deserve.”
Persad is now the CEO and Founding Investment Expert of Options League, a company in which he utilizes his knowledge in the stock market to help others achieve financial freedom while they learn. Members invest in themselves and their financial future by paying a monthly fee or lifetime access fee. In return, 90% of the members make their fee back within the first week and 10 times that figure within the first month.
“But here is the real kicker,” he explains. “ I decided not only were my goals limitless but that the impact I could have in this world was as well.” Persad went on to found Unique Brainz, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness to mental health. It is sponsored by his company, and donated 75% of all revenue generated from members to it. “Not only do I help members make money in the stock market while they learn. They also get to support a cause bigger than themselves while doing so.”