My name is Oscar Wu. I am a 19-year-old high school senior. While millions of students struggle to pay for college, and millions more graduate straddled with paralyzing massive debt as evidenced by the 45 million Americans who owe $1.6 trillion dollars in public and private student loan debt (according to an article that appeared in Forbes on February 25, 2019), and while only 18.6 million of those are on a regular payment plan (according to a Septemeber 20, 2019 article in NerdWallet), I have a unique opportunity to graduate from college debt-free while I learn important transferable employability skills. Through the Academy of Business Leadership College Trust Fund Capital Raising Campaign, as a part of a Semi Virtual Management Trainee Internship program, I will get a head start on my dreams to guarantee that I am one day able to achieve my life vision of becoming “a billionaire business mogul and generous philanthropist”. 

However, I cannot reach my dream without your support. Why should you support me you might ask? Let me tell you about how far I have come over the past six months of training at ABL to see how far I can go with your assistance.

Thanks to the training that I have received at ABL, I can see how much farther ahead I am compared to my peers. The program helped me develop my life’s vision. I have broadened my vision beyond merely getting to a good college to achieving my wildest dreams – something I never dared to contemplate at this young age, and at this early stage in my life. Thanks to ABL, I can now see my full potential. I can also see that I will one day exert great influence in this world as a preeminent global business leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. 

Using the mindfulness techniques I learned from the ABL Refounder, President & CEO Anna Ouroumian, I started to encourage myself. After a short while, I noticed major shifts in my attitude and disposition. I regained my excitement, joy, and hope for my future. My imperfections no longer held me back, but rather became signposts helping me mark the progress I made. Subsequently, I raised the courage to accept my imperfections, and developed a sense of confidence based on how far I have come, and not where I started. ABL has taught me to be more intentional about my personal growth, and to no longer get distracted by the limitations I have put on myself. Most importantly, I learned that I am worthy intrinsically as a human being regardless of any accomplishments. However, this is not where I started.

Two years ago, I came to the US to attend high school at Southlands Christian School after living in South Africa and China. Adjusting to my new life was not easy. While trying to build up my competence and to prove to myself and others that I had earned to be in this new environment, I put all my effort on varied activities regardless of whether I liked them or not. My struggles and my sense of insecurity and stress negatively affected my outlook on life and deviated me from my focus of what I really wanted to achieve. I felt extremely confused and unhappy when I tried to complete my tasks without the consideration of the values associated with those accomplishments. 

Fortunately, at that critical time in my life, I was introduced to ABL. From the first moment at the “Got Big Dreams?” Seminar, where I saw the extraordinary ABL Refounder, President & CEO Anna Ouroumian share her inspiring story while connecting with us students with such empathy, then listening to the various amazing speakers, I felt a sense of relief and hope. I knew I wanted to be a part of the ABL family, and its year-round program to center myself by shifting my disempowering beliefs that were paralyzing me. 

Upon acceptance and enrolling into the ABL Business and Leadership Institute (BLI) program, I started my training with Anna. In the program, I learned that I felt the way I did because I was motivated by anxiety stemming from long-held negative subconscious beliefs. I came to realize that my fear of failure emanated from feeling repulsion towards my background. I learned that this repulsion was mostly triggered by negativity from one person who constantly put me down and reminded me of my past failures and weaknesses. That person unceasingly stimulated guilt, shame, and anger in me. This enemy was not my new environment, or my new school; it was me. 

Thanks to the training that I have received at ABL, I have become grateful for both my disadvantaged background, and my past failures. I see them now as opportunities that will propel me forward and empower me to take on new challenges with confidence and conviction. Subsequently, I have become fearless in the pursuit of my dreams.

A little bit about ABL: The year-round ABL BLI program focuses on four initiatives: college, career, wealth creation, and philanthropy while teaching us how to acquire empowering conscious and subconscious beliefs to help us make quantum leaps towards our wildest dreams. ABL covers those four initiatives through three components throughout the entire year. During the summer, as part of one of the three components of the ABL Business and Leadership Institute (BLI), we get to attend the award-winning ABL Summer Business and Leadership Institute (SBLI) at the USC Marshall School of Business where we are taught by USC college professors, a top MBA, and the ABL Refounder, President & CEO Anna Ouroumian. 

While in this rigorous one of a kind program, we write business plans in a team setting, and we present our business plans to venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and corporate executives. One of my favorite activities in the program is the CEO Roundtable component where we have a chance to meet with top executives such as Cheryl Paller of Bank of America, and Martha De Laurentiis of the Dino De Laurentiis Company, in the finance and entertainment fields respectively (among many other fields), at their homes and their offices. 

Currently, I am in another key component of this year-round BLI program, the ABL Management Trainee Semi-Virtual Internship, where we will raise money to pay it forward and for our college trust fund while we learn transferable employability skills to prepare us to become entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and leaders in all fields. My goal is to raise $329,800 for my college fund so that I am able to study finance and major in Business Administration at the USC Marshall School of Business. As someone who has received a major scholarship to be able to attend the ABL BLI program, I would like to raise $58,500 for other students to receive the same opportunity. 

The ABL capital raising model was created and formulated by the ABL Refounder, President, and CEO Anna Ouroumian based on her life story and experiences. Though Anna grew up in orphanages in war-torn Lebanon, and was destined for a second-grade level education, she used capital raising to get to high school, come to America alone as a young teen with $160, and study at UCLA where she received the highest honor at graduation as outstanding senior as one of four out of 10,500 seniors, for her academic achievements as well as her service to UCLA, and the community. Anna has dedicated her life to making a difference in the lives of thousands of youth. Anna was able to persevere due to not seeing money as an obstacle. Just as she used capital raising to radically change her circumstances and help thousands of youth achieve their dreams, she is now teaching us how to do the same through a capital raising system of leveraging other people’s resources and relationships that she came up with. Her story inspires me greatly! 

I am here to ask you to consider investing in my future and the future of many other high potential students. ABL teaches us to see ourselves as “investments and not as charity”. I sincerely hope that you do consider investing in me as a “Champion” by making a one-time investment, and/or by becoming a “Super Champion” to help me capital raise so that through you, I may invest back in my community, and this great country! 

By not having to worry about paying back my student loans, I will be able to focus on my studies and immerse myself in all the opportunities that college has to offer to prepare me for future leadership roles. Moreover, being in this management trainee internship, I will learn transferable employability skills such as sales, marketing, branding, relationship building, relationship management, team building, time management, organization, project management, power networking and connecting as well as grit and stamina, among many other skills. In addition, having a team of “Champions and Super Champions” who are invested in my success, will hold me accountable to my dreams. I promise that for every dollar that I receive, I will one day pay it forward a thousandfold as a generous philanthropist. 

This capital raising campaign is not only to invest in my future success, but also in the success of other potential scholars. Capital raising for other students will allow me to show my appreciation for how much this program means to me, and for how much it has helped me to develop, and to continue my growth. I hope that I can show my gratitude through capital raising for other youth who are experiencing the same confusion as I did, and desiring the opportunity to transform to ensure that one day they too can fulfill their destiny, and become world changers, great leaders, and philanthropists.

Thank you for your kind consideration! Your faith in me and your investment in me and my dreams will allow me to pay it forward to millions! In addition, your investment in other youth through me will change their lives, and the lives of millions that they will touch!