“Wealth attracts friends; poverty selects them.” – François Villon

Many will not share my personal convictions regarding prosperity. As for wealth, I would say it is first spiritual, then mental, then cognitive, and finally material.

The poor will believe that wealth is primarily material. That, too, is a misconception. Wealth is, first and foremost, spiritual. The tangible manifestation—the material things we see with our eyes—is only a reflection of what is unseen, the intangible. True wealth is primarily intangible, invisible, and therefore spiritual. Behind the ownership of hundreds of container ports lies a genius, a spirit, a thought system, a steadfast mentality, a committed team, a lifestyle, a human class—in short, a heritage that is both material and immaterial.

Here’s a simple test: If you give 1 million CFA francs to Dangote, within a year that amount will likely have become 10 million CFA francs. But give that same amount to a homeless person, and chances are it will be gone by the following year. That money will go toward healthcare, food, or shelter. It will be used for primary needs while the person hopes to find work. The most ambitious poor person might generate at most 500,000 CFA francs from the 1 million received. So, the issue is not the absence or lack of money, but the energy, strength, and mentality behind that money.

Secondly, wealth is mental, given that only those with a steel mindset can venture into entrepreneurship. If you are not mentally strong, don’t go into business—otherwise, you risk dying from a stroke or ending up in jail. I would rephrase it this way: before starting a business, fuel yourself with courage and self-denial; if necessary, take part in leadership training programs where you’ll be tested through all sorts of challenges.

To face my fears, I’ve sometimes spent nights alone in the forest. I’ve spent nights alone on mountaintops during both dry and rainy seasons. I would imagine myself alone in the middle of the sea, with no way out—how would I react? Or alone in a forest, face to face with a leopard—would I make it out?

Many people fail socially, not because they lack skills or talent, but because they lack boldness and mental strength. The world football champions are not always the national teams with the most stars, but the ones who never give up. So, are you ready to never give up? If so, know that you’ve just claimed your very first victory in the jungle of social success.

Thirdly, wealth is intellectual, cultural, or cognitive, in that one must be educated—sitting on a school bench, browsing the internet, or learning from ancestral wisdom. Someone must pass knowledge on to us. In such cases, we inherit the cognitive wealth of someone else. Thus, the person who imparts knowledge to you—your teacher—will partly determine the trajectory of your destiny.

African universities should strive to recruit the best specialists in their fields to train students and faculty. Instead, they are still entangled in debates over regional balancing. A sad reality for Africa!

Indeed, Africa’s greatest tragedy is that it has been disconnected from its cognitive heritage. Africans lost all their wealth the moment they accepted that their ancestors’ history began with the slave trade and ended with the colonization-decolonization process. What happened centuries before that? Very few Africans know. Even Asians and Westerners often have a better grasp of African history, languages, and cultures than Africans themselves. Where are we headed?

The sum of all our spiritual, mental, intellectual, cognitive, and cultural wealth contributes to the creation of material wealth. The real issue here is that most Africans have almost no idea how to transition from spiritual wealth to material wealth—let alone from cognitive or cultural wealth to tangible wealth.

In which schools are Africans trained in these kinds of disciplines? Prophets in their fields—like POUGALA, whom I salute—will always remain misunderstood until the day Africa experiences its first chalk revolution: the revolution of education. For since independence, Africa has never undergone an intellectual revolution, despite the sacrifices of founding fathers like Cheikh Anta Diop. Who will lead this revolution in Africa?

The example of China should inspire us! In the past, it won major intellectual and cultural battles. The Chinese are like soldiers, and a soldier is only a soldier when on the battlefield. When not on the battlefield, he is a reservist. If you do not want to become reservists, you must go to the front lines. But know that the first battles to fight will be against yourselves—against your personal convictions and the systems of thought and action in which you and your fathers have been shaped since colonization…

This text is an excerpt from the book “Succeeding at All Costs: The 5 Fingers of Success” written by Jean-Paul Marie (Pastor Samuel Binyou).

We invite you to read the next article: “WHAT DOES WORK MEAN TO YOU?”

RENOUNCING POVERTY. RENOUNCING POVERTY. RENOUNCING POVERTY. RENOUNCING POVERTY.