worth

A man in Lagos once told his mentor, only half joking, that he would finally feel like somebody the day his account hit nine figures. His mentor asked him a calm question. What number did he feel like somebody at ten figures. He did not have an answer, and that is the mistake many of us make without noticing. We calmly attach our worth to a moving target, so it keeps moving further away no matter how much we earn.

Here is the mix up. Net worth is a calculation. Add up your assets, your house, your savings, your business, subtract your debts, and you get a figure. That figure is useful for planning, but it is not the same thing as your worth as a person, and it never was. A market crash can shrink your net worth overnight. It cannot shrink you.

Consider two women in Abuja. One earns ₦12,000,000 a year and feels permanently behind because her old classmate earns ₦20,000,000. The other earns ₦3,500,000, pays her rent, feeds her family, saves something every month, and sleeps peacefully. If you ask who has a better relationship with money, it is not obviously the higher earner. Worth, properly understood, includes peace, skill, character, relationships and the calm respect people have for your word.

In the diaspora this shows up often. Someone in Manchester sends ₦300,000 home every month and still feels she has not done enough because someone else on Instagram sent more. Her worth to her family is not a leaderboard. It is the school fees paid, the mother who can breathe easier, the sibling who finished university because she stayed disciplined with her salary.

The healthiest people separate the two ideas cleanly. They build net worth because it buys options, security and generosity. But they locate their actual worth somewhere sturdier, in their competence, their integrity, and the people who can trust them. That way, a bad year in business does not feel like a verdict on their soul.