Junior Bridgeman wasn’t the biggest NBA star—but he became one of its smartest success stories. After retiring from basketball, he built hundreds of fast-food restaurants, bought a Coca-Cola bottling company, and grew his wealth into more than $1 billion. His journey from the court to corporate boardrooms shows teens that real wealth isn’t about fame or luck—it’s about learning, patience, and ownership.

“Compared to Rockefellers and Carnegies, her fortune was modest. Compared to the life of an orphaned laundress, it was monumental. Madam C.J. Walker broke barriers of race, gender, and class, reimagining scaffolding built to confine her into ladders that lifted thousands.”