#90: Don't die poor.

Happy Friday 🎉 I think I witnessed a crime and I did nothing about it. After leaving my class last night, a man carrying a suitcase in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other bolted into oncoming traffic as if he had stolen something, and it turns out, he might’ve stolen something. Nearly shoving me into oncoming traffic as well, the man sped past me while looking back intermittently to see if his assailant pursued him, still. The assailant? An old lady, who appeared out of the bushy hedge across the street—illuminated only by the streetlight above. The lady hurled cuss words and [barely] trailed the man, who was now 100 meters away and clattering into the trashcans and traffic cones in his path.

“I WANT MY F**KIN’ SUITCASE!”

I’ve never called 911 before. I thought it was only for the movies. Was this a 911 type of incident? I didn’t know. I froze. I considered tripping the suspected thief by sticking my foot out when he ran past me, but then, without full knowledge of the context, I remembered that in America, you can get sued after helping a drowning man. God forgive me.

LIFE & WORK
Don’t die poor.

Don’t die poor.

I saw this scribbled on the wall outside Sandbox Beach Club in Accra, Ghana, as my friends and I packed into our Uber to go to a less gentrified spot.

‘Twas the second inscription I’d seen in Accra that caught my eye. The first? A scribble on a miniaturized boat at Osu Castle that read, “So they are.” When I asked the tour guide what that meant, he said, “People in Accra like to write on things…”

My kind of people. Writing things down is powerful.

So, how do you avoid dying poor?

You should probably focus on fixing capitalism, but let’s be realistic.

Let’s make a plan.

There are five paths to not dying poor:


1. Get a decent job

2. Start a business

3. Marry rich

4. Be born rich

5. Crime.

My path to wealth, and likely yours, too, will come via 1 and 2.

If you fall in option 3 or 4, please—I can cook; I can clean. Sidebar me.

If you fall in option 5, all the best. I ain’t no snitch.

For option 1, it’s simple: you get a job that pays you enough to cover your expenses and tuck some money away for savings and investments. Over time, with the right discipline, you can live comfortably.

But…if, like me, you don’t have that kind of job yet, you need a plan.

Here’s my plan.

First, do whatever job you need to do to survive, but make an exit strategy. Sacrifices must be made in the interim.

I’m teaching classes and consulting, but I’m going to be a global health policy expert and a health diplomat. Job-wise, I’ll run large health organizations like WHO, Africa CDC, etc.

But how will I get there?

I looked for people doing the jobs I want to do and combed through their career paths online. Some of them I even managed to speak to. The first hurdle was I didn’t have the credentials and experience to hold those positions, so I set out to get the credentials and experience—hence the doctorate.

But credentials and experience aren’t enough. Far from it. Probably more than anything else, I’ll need luck.

But fortunately, you can manufacter luck.

You must become the best at what you do. But the best is an illusion. You have to create the illusion that you’re the best. You do this by making strategic noise.

I’ll publish online articles on global health policy consistently. I’ll make videos. I’ll speak on panels at conferences and take nice photos for LinkedIn and other socials. I’ll do this for as long it takes. Eventually, whenever anyone says global health policy, they’ll think of Shem Opolot.

For option 2, I know you want to own a business. Independence, working for yourself, blah blah blah. It sounds sexy, but business is brutal. I speak on good authority as someone who has started a few failed businesses.

If you have a good idea and people other than your sympathetic relatives have paid for it, then pursue it. Otherwise, get a job.

However, there’s a tributary from option 1 that can flow into option 2—the knowledge economy. If you’re good at something—accounting, sales, law, medicine, research, whatever—become great at it. Then, share your knowledge for free, build trust and credibility, and create a premium product once that you can sell thousands of times while you sleep. So many of your favorite podcasters, YouTubers, writers, actors, creators, etc., do this.

As I climb the Global Health Policy ladder, I’ll write consistently, sharing my knowledge for free, and then later, I’ll publish books and courses. I’ll charge exorbitantly for speaking engagements.

Take this newsletter, for example, this is the 90^th post on the 90^th consecutive week. In the beginning, only my loved ones and a handful of other people read it. Today, close to 700 people read The Friday Fix every week, and I barely market it. I actually still hide my face in my hands when my friends tell new acquaintances about it while I’m in the room. But some day, millions of people will read The Friday Fix and people will pay a lot of money to advertise on here.

Don’t underestimate the power of compounding. The power of stacking small efforts slowly, one at a time.

As long as you have breath in your lungs, warm blood in your veins, and useful skills, you won’t die poor if you maximize what you have in your hands and build from there.

❤️ Share The Friday Fix online, via WhatsApp, Twitter, or email.

THINGS.
A speech.

A picture.

As I make more friends in D.C., the city grows on me. This was at the H Street Festival last weekend. The city shut down the whole of H Street—equivalent to KCCA shutting down all of Kampala Road—and allowed a cocktail of local business showcases, food stands, and niche music stages to shake and stir up something chaotic and beautiful. Naturally, we were at the Amapiano stage.

J.C., the guy taking the selfie, is a talented musician. You should listen to his album.

❤️ Share The Friday Fix online, via WhatsApp, Twitter, or email.

FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist

Shem’s picks

✅ 2024’s 50 best hotels in the world.

✅ How work shaped our society.

✅ Make perfect scrambled eggs.

✅ Reminder: LinkedIn has games, and they’re pretty good if you’re into that sort of thing.

✅ Your brain is biased by default; here’s how to reset it.

Have a great weekend,

— Shem

❤️ Share The Friday Fix online, via WhatsApp, Twitter, or email.