Any life coach can promise to help with problems like career changes, leadership development, and entrepreneurship. However, not every life coach looks like you and has a compelling story of how they’ve helped themselves first.
YW Consultants, LLC is a group of Black, male life coaches with a proven track record of helping build, train, and support companies and organizational leaders from all walks of life. So, whether you’re looking to inspire your team, or inspire yourself to start a business and build a team, this group of dynamic brothers is here to help.
The magic of YW Consultants lies within the coaches’ compelling stories of triumph. Rather than learning their techniques from a course or a book, the coaches at YW have lived through adversity and used those experiences to craft their formula for how to succeed.
The company was founded by Yusef Andre Wiley, a former gang member from South LA who was incarcerated at the age of 21. Rather than becoming institutionalized or returning to gang life, Wiley converted to Islam while in prison and began educating himself to prepare for a new life upon release.
“When I went to prison, I was reading at a 3rd-grade level. I reeducated myself inside. I became a Sunni Muslim. That turned on a lightbulb in my head. So that’s what started my education. All the problems I saw, I came up with solutions and those solutions have become workshops that I began teaching,” Wiley told WeBuyBlack.
Wiley began creating and teaching empowerment workshops while still incarcerated. Those trainings formed the foundation of what would become his first business, the Timelist Group
— a pre-release and post-release rehabilitation program that also provides housing for parolees and that to this day, continues to provide training at seven prison facilities in California.
His work in creating Timelist Group is also how Wiley met the coaches who are now on staff at YW Consultants.
“All our speakers came through the organization,” Wiley said. “I was in prison with them when we started doing lectures. We were together in the chow hall … in the gymnasium … they’re the cream of the crop. Now they’re in leadership positions.”
As he continues to grow the business, elevating Black men and centering Black male experiences is something that Wiley plans to continue. Just as he created a business that helped him and his friends rebound after jail, he still ensures that his company gives opportunities for formerly incarcerated people and he is looking forward to using his talents to inspire the next generation of social justice activists and entrepreneurs.
“African-American men don’t get the recognition we should from the media. When you turn on the news there’s always a high-speed chase or something like that. But the true story of resilience and hope can be found in what we have to offer.”
Visit YW Consultants and get inspired today.
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