LDS billionaire, Carlos Wizard Martins worked side by side with his father when he was young selling goods. As part of working with his father he would go into the stores, and do business with the owners. In an e-mail interview with the Deseret News Martins said,
“My father was awakening in me a sense of responsibility and a spirit of initiative… Without knowing it, I was learning how to sell, to negotiate, to offer a product”.
A Billionaire in the Making through LDS Missionaries
According to the Deseret News, when Martins was 12, his parents began searching for a religion they could raise their children in, this is when the missionaries knocked on his door. His family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and unbeknownst to him, the time he spent with the missionaries was preparing him to build a multi-million dollar company. The missionaries started teaching him English and encouraged him to apply for school at Brigham Young University.
Martins served a mission in Portugal when he turned 19. After his return home, he married his wife, Vania. When Martins was 26, he was accepted to BYU, and moved to Utah with his wife and twins to earn his degree. After graduation he returned to Brazil as an executive in a large company with the hopes of moving himself up the corporate ladder.
A Multi-Million Dollar Opportunity
While working, a co-worker approached him and asked him if he would teach him English. After work Martins would teach this co-worker English in his living room. Martins said,
“After this first student, another came and then another and another. As time went by, the number of students increased.”
What started out as a side job for Martins was now making more money than he was receiving at work. He quit his job and focused his time and money on a language teaching school he called Wizard. According to the Deseret News, the classes in his living room ended up growing into a company with 3,000 schools in 10 countries, with over 1 million students per year. This language school franchise, Grupo Multi, recently sold for $719.6 million dollars.
In addition to making his own billions from “Wizard” and other investments, Martins helped over 100 people in Brazil become millionaires. This prompted him to write the book, “Awaken the Millionaire Within”.
Martins wrote to Deseret News and said,
I believe that every successful person carries within himself a feeling that he is fulfilling a mission, since any victory loses its meaning if we do not use it for even greater purposes.
