A couple of days in the past, throughout our year-end assessment, my fifteen-year-old son requested me a query that made me pause and smile in quiet disbelief.
Not about what I earned this yr.
Not about the place I travelled or what I used to be constructing publicly.
He requested:
“What did you make investments on this yr? What do you personal? And what continues to earn whenever you’re not actively working?”
It was an trustworthy query. A management query. And I realised how confronting it could be for a lot of girls, even extremely completed ones, to reply it with out hesitation.
As a result of it forces a special type of audit. One which strikes past earnings and into construction. Past effort and into sturdiness. Past how spectacular our yr appeared and into what really modified beneath the floor.
Many high-achieving girls will finish the yr with sturdy résumés, full calendars, and enviable existence, but quietly really feel extra financially uncovered than they did twelve months in the past.
This isn’t as a result of they earned much less.
In lots of instances, they earned extra.
However incomes properly just isn’t the identical as constructing wealth. And for too many ladies, that distinction solely turns into clear at year-end — when the numbers don’t fairly match the trouble.
I’ve had variations of this dialog repeatedly in latest weeks. Senior professionals. Founders. Ladies with sturdy private manufacturers and visual success. When the noise dies down and the yr is reviewed actually, a well-known sample emerges: earnings flowed, however safety didn’t deepen. Exercise was excessive, however possession didn’t develop. Visibility elevated, but monetary resilience remained fragile.
This isn’t a private failure. It’s a structural one.
More and more, that construction is formed by FOMO — not the loud, apparent variety, however the quiet, respectable model. The stress to maintain up with existence that sign success. To say sure to alternatives that look prestigious. To keep up visibility even when it’s unpaid or poorly priced. Journey, occasions, generosity, aesthetics, and obligations are all justified as “a part of the season”, whereas possession is deferred to later.
FOMO doesn’t at all times look reckless. Generally it seems accountable, polished, and well-intentioned. However when left unexamined, it turns into one of the crucial environment friendly methods high-achieving girls erode wealth whereas showing to advance.
For many years, girls have been inspired to measure progress by earnings, titles, and way of life upgrades. We rejoice promotions, applaud growth, and equate busyness with development. However we not often ask the quieter, more durable questions: What do you personal? What are you constructing past earnings? What protects your selections when life shifts unexpectedly?
The uncomfortable reality is that this: many ladies are incomes properly inside techniques that go away them financially uncovered.
Publicity reveals up in several methods. It reveals up when a lady realises her way of life just isn’t one she might maintain independently. When generosity outpaces construction. When visibility outpaces pricing and compensation. When obligations quietly start to outrun property. And when life occasions, resembling sickness, divorce, caregiving, and enterprise shocks, reveal how skinny the margin for error actually is.
It additionally reveals up at year-end, when the spreadsheet refuses to lie.
12 months-end, when accomplished correctly, just isn’t a monetary abstract.
It’s a wealth assessment.
A year-end wealth assessment for high-achieving girls
Earlier than entering into a brand new yr, it’s price pausing for a special type of audit. To not decide your self, however to orient your self.
Ask your self:
Incomes vs. Proudly owning
What did I earn this yr — and what did I personal on the finish of it?
How a lot of my earnings translated into property, fairness, or long-term positioning?
Construction & Sturdiness
If my earnings paused, what would nonetheless shield my selections?
Do I’ve buffers – monetary, authorized, and structural – for all times’s inevitable shifts?
FOMO & Life-style Strain
The place did spending selections quietly comply with momentum moderately than intention?
What was justified as “a part of the season” however delivered no lasting worth?
Visibility vs Worth
The place did my visibility enhance with out truthful compensation or leverage?
Did recognition translate into possession, fairness, or strategic positioning?
Threat & Resilience
Did I make monetary selections from design or from stress?
Am I positioned to remain within the wealth-building recreation, even after setbacks?
These are usually not budgeting questions.
They’re management questions.
And the solutions decide whether or not effort compounds — or quietly dissipates.
One of the crucial persistent myths working in opposition to girls’s monetary safety is the assumption that stability comes later — after the subsequent promotion, the subsequent contract, the subsequent season of progress. However wealth doesn’t arrive routinely with success. It should be designed, protected, and stewarded intentionally. With out intention, greater earnings typically funds greater publicity.
Because of this so many high-achieving girls really feel uneasy even once they seem profitable. They sense that one thing is lacking. Not cash, however construction. Not ambition, however insulation. Not drive, however sturdiness.
These conversations are sometimes averted as a result of they really feel uncomfortable. Questioning monetary preparations is usually framed as mistrust. Preparation mistaken for pessimism. However preparedness just isn’t negativity. It’s dignity. It’s the potential to decide on with out worry, to reply moderately than react, and to stay regular when circumstances shift.
Yearly that earnings just isn’t translated into possession, leverage, or long-term positioning is a yr the place effort dissipates as a substitute of compounds. Yearly that monetary selections are pushed by stress moderately than design quietly will increase publicity. And yearly, girls are celebrated for incomes, however being taught to construction wealth is a missed alternative — not simply personally, however generationally.
Which brings me again to my son’s query.
If the subsequent era requested you what you invested on this yr—what you personal and what earns past your every day effort—would the reply make you proud? Or uneasy?
That discomfort, if it exists, just isn’t a verdict.
It’s data.
And knowledge, used actually, can develop into the start of a shift.
The yr forward will demand extra readability, no more hustle. Extra construction, no more pressure. Extra possession, not simply extra earnings. The ladies who recognise this early is not going to solely shield themselves — they may quietly redefine what success seems like for these watching behind them.
Wishing you a unprecedented yr forward — not by default, however by design.
Udo Maryanne Okonjo: Chairwoman, High-quality & Nation West Africa. Founder, Radiant Collective Capital
