Geopolitics as a Personal Finance Lesson
Geopolitics is the macro version of our individual lives, and it offers valuable lessons for managing our finances and opportunities. Consider what a resource can be. It can take many forms:
- A unique skill
- Specialized knowledge
- A financial or physical asset
You may not yet have the capacity, tools, or visibility to develop a resource fully. Seeking collaboration is entirely reasonable, but never surrender ownership or control. Once those are lost, recovering them can take a lifetime, and sometimes they are never regained.
Seek collaboration, but never surrender ownership or control.
A Lesson in Ownership and Self-Trust
I am drawing this lesson from a geopolitical situation in which one country has benefited for decades from another country’s resources. Now, as the resource-owning country seeks to reclaim what lies beneath its own land and its leaders prioritize national interests, the other country is challenging that effort in court.
The situation shows how easily control over an inherent asset can become contested once it has been handed to someone else.
The same pattern can appear in our personal lives. We may lack self-trust, hold limiting beliefs, or become dazzled by another person’s apparent success or following. As a result, we convince ourselves that we cannot develop or benefit from our own assets without them.
Protect Ownership and Stay Resourceful
Never give away your ownership or control. As human beings, we are remarkably resourceful: an idea, skill, or asset rarely has only one possible use. With time, reflection, and persistence, we can usually find another way forward.
And if someone asks for your whole hand when you have only offered a finger, treat it as a red alert.
The same applies to shared purchases. When you buy an asset with someone else, make sure it is held in an entity you both own, or that both of your names are clearly on it. Ownership is ownership.
If someone asks for your whole hand when you have only offered a finger, treat it as a red alert.
A Workplace Example
I learned this through an experience with a woman who joined our office with strong presentation and course-development skills. At the time, I had already created several courses and gathered the raw material. What remained was to shape the content into an e-book, refine the modules, and organize the learning journey from beginning to end.
The Partnership I Nearly Entered
I proposed that we develop and sell the products together and split the proceeds equally. Fortunately, I never followed up. Over time, it became clear that we were not compatible, and today we no longer speak.
Had I entered that arrangement, I could have tied my work, and perhaps my ownership, to someone who was not the person I believed her to be.
What you build, know, and own is yours. Collaborate generously, but protect the foundation.
Journal Prompts
- What skills, knowledge, or assets do I already own that I may be undervaluing?
- Where have I assumed I need someone else in order to benefit from what is mine?
- Is there a collaboration in my life right now where ownership or control is unclear?
- When have I been dazzled by someone’s success and almost given away more than I intended?
- What is one step I can take this week to develop one of my own resources myself?
Salima
Just me thinking out there over here