Letter to the Young One — Career Advice on Leverage, Wealth, and Farming

Letter to The Young One

My dear ones,

I’m writing this not because I’m old or bored, but because I’ve seen the trap too many walks into and call it “purpose.” You’re both young, bright, and standing at the edge of life’s real game. I want you to read this slowly, and maybe one day, you’ll thank me for not wrapping it in fancy words.

Look at Tolani and Michel. Tolani is just 24, a graduate of Dubson in Computer Science and Economics, already working as an entry-level cloud engineer at Connected Intelligence. Michel, 25, finishing her master’s at UC Berkeley, joined the same company as a cybersecurity expert. Michel earns over five million naira a month, lives in a duplex on the island, with a car and all sorts of allowances. Tolani earns 1.2 million, has her own apartment, and her car is almost on the way too.

Now let’s be honest — they don’t have two heads. They just made smarter early-life decisions. They budget less than 20% of their income for food, while someone else breaks their back under the sun to grow it. Tell me, does that sound fair? To sweat day and night on a farm just to feed people your age who earn twenty times more sitting behind a screen? They’ll still downgrade your work as “low value.” You’ll age faster, look worn, and barely survive. They call it “sustainable food production.” I call it modern slavery dressed in fancy words.

At your age — especially in your mid-twenties — your time is your most expensive currency. Spend it learning high-paying skills or building something that can thrive without you. Don’t fall for the emotional blackmail of “feeding the world.” The world has never been fair to feeders. Compete. Learn. Win. Etch your name into relevance.

Some jobs are noble but pointless; they’ll never get you into the room where power and influence live. Others might sound big but can’t scale, which means your income will always have a ceiling. Stop worshipping sweat. Sweat doesn’t make you rich; leverage does.

Instead of being the one hustling endlessly, be the one who hires others. If Michel can earn five million monthly working for someone, then imagine how much that someone earns to pay her that comfortably. Reverse-engineer that. Don’t hate the game; master it.

When you’ve built wealth, freedom, and control over your time, then you can return to the farm — not as a labourer, but as a legacy. Let it be your quiet investment, your retirement therapy. Then you’ll work not for survival, but for peace.

And one last thing, Connected Intelligence, the company where both of them work, was founded by me. I was just 28 when I built it. That one decision to step away from “what looks noble” and walk toward “what builds power” changed my life forever.

Learn from it. Don’t repeat the generational cycle of struggle disguised as virtue.

Selah.