Book Review ·- Part Two
I wasn’t afraid of success. I was afraid of who I’d become.
The hidden belief underneath the money block — and why growth felt like betrayal
It started with Hugh Jackman.
I was reading the book this week when a thought I’d been carrying around started to make noise. I’d seen somewhere a few years ago that Hugh Jackman had been paid something around $20 million for a film — Brad Pitt, same kind of number. And I remembered hearing actors who worked alongside them talk about their comparatively meager wages. And my immediate, automatic reaction was: how can they accept that much while others are barely getting by? That’s so selfish.
I sat with that thought for a moment. And then the book caught up with me.
Because what I had just done — without even realizing it — was judge someone for earning abundantly in a world where others earn less. And beneath that judgment was a belief I had never consciously chosen but had clearly been living by:
“How can you take so much while others are getting so little?”
The thing is — acting can be a short-lived career. The window is often narrow, the competition brutal, the uncertainty constant. Why should Hugh Jackman feel shy about taking what he’s worth at the peak of his power? And beyond that: being financially comfortable is precisely what allows people to give back, to fund causes, to support others — in ways that are meaningful to them, on their own terms.
I knew all of this rationally. But the feeling was still there. And that gap between what I knew and what I felt — that’s where the real work lives.
THE PATTERN UNDERNEATH
I still have a bout of shyness about earning more than others.
I still have a bout of shyness about having some money saved while someone in needs is asking for financial assistance..
Once I named the judgment I had about someone like Hugh Jackman earning so much, I started seeing the same belief everywhere in my own life.
It showed up in small, familiar ways:
- The big tip I received and immediately felt obliged to share, as if keeping it for myself would have been greedy.
- The achievements I routinely downplay, especially in rooms where I sense I might be pulling ahead.
- The instinct to make myself smaller so no one else has to feel the distance.
But the pattern that costs me the most is this: whenever I move up, I feel responsible for bringing everybody along with me.
On the surface, that sounds noble. And part of it is. It comes from love, loyalty, and a genuine concern for the people around me. But underneath, if I’m honest, it is also something else: the belief that I do not fully have the right to move forward unless everyone is moving with me.
In that belief system, advancing alone — even temporarily, even naturally — starts to feel like betrayal.
So, I stretch myself. I slow down. I invest energy, money, time, and emotional bandwidth into pulling people along who are not always asking to be pulled, who are moving at their own pace, on their own path. And in doing so, I quietly drain myself of the resources I need to actually get where I’m going.
This wasn’t generosity. Or rather, it wasn’t only generosity. It was guilt wearing the costume of generosity. A deep, unexamined belief that getting ahead was somehow taking something from someone else — and that the only way to make it okay was to make sure no one got left behind.
But life does not work that way. People move at different speeds, in different directions, toward different things. And trying to synchronize your growth with everyone around you doesn’t protect them. It just delays you — and eventually exhausts you both.
WHERE IT COMES FROM
This belief came from somewhere real.
This belief did not come from nowhere. It grew out of real human instincts:
- Empathy for people who have less.
- Loyalty to the people who knew me before I changed.
- A deep awareness of inequality and a fear of becoming unrecognizable to the people I love.
Those are not bad things. They are beautiful things. But the mind, trying to protect what matters, can build a whole safety system around them:
“Stay close to others, and you stay safe — morally, socially, emotionally.”
So, without realizing it, you start placing invisible ceilings on yourself. You cap your earnings. You downplay your growth. You try to carry everyone with you, even when it costs you everything. Not because you are weak, but because somewhere inside, expanding began to feel like separating — and separating felt like a form of abandonment.
THE REFRAME
Growth does not have to mean moving away from people. It means becoming capable of more — and then choosing, from that expanded place, how you want to relate to the people you love.
Not everyone moves at the same pace, and that is not a moral failure. It is simply the truth of how individual lives unfold.
I realized my mind had fused two ideas that were never meant to be the same:
OLD BELIEF: “If I do better, I am leaving others behind.”
Reframed as:
NEW BELIEF: “My growth increases my capacity. My relationships are a separate, intentional choice.”
You are not responsible for carrying everyone to your next level. You are responsible for getting there — and then deciding, freely and clearly, how you want to show up for the people you love from that new place.
That is a different quality of giving entirely: one rooted in choice instead of guilt, capacity instead of depletion, love instead of obligation.
Expansion and loyalty are not opposites. They never were. I just needed to separate them — so I could hold both without one suffocating the other.
THE OXYGEN MASK EXPANDED
You cannot give freely from a place of guilt.
We have all heard the airplane analogy: put your own mask on first. But the version I needed to hear went deeper than self-care.
It was not just about preserving my energy. It was about noticing the quality of what I offer when I am depleted.
When you are running on depletion, generosity changes shape. Giving from guilt, staying small out of loyalty, and slowing your pace so others do not notice the gap widening may look loving on the outside, but inside they create pressure.
Over time, that kind of giving stops feeling like a gift. It becomes:
- Resentment in disguise.
- An attempt to manage other people’s feelings about your growth.
- A way of proving you are still good, still loyal, still safe to love.
Staying resourced is not selfishness. It is what makes real generosity possible. When you grow from a place of fullness, you choose your people with more clarity. You show up from desire, not obligation. And that creates a completely different quality of presence — one rooted in freedom, not fear.
THE DEEPER QUESTIONS
Do I belong if I grow?
This is what was really underneath everything. Not: will I have enough money? But:
Am I still a good person if I have more? Is expansion morally safe for someone like me? Do I still belong to the people I love if I outgrow the version of myself they knew?
These questions don’t resolve in a single insight. They soften over time. They loosen their grip as you gather evidence that growth and belonging can actually coexist — that you can have more and still be you, still love the people you love, still be rooted in what matters.
But they have to be asked. Because if you never name the fear, it just keeps operating silently — as a ceiling you mistake for your actual height.
“I am allowed to grow without abandoning my values or my people.”
That’s the anchor I’m holding onto right now. Not a finished belief — just a permission slip. A quiet reminder that the two things my mind fused together were always separate. That moving up is not the same as moving away. That expansion is not exile. That more does not mean less than who I am.
I’m still reading the fabulous book – The Money Is Coming · Sarah Akwisombe.
And part three is coming.
Salima
Just me thinking out loud over here