“Why Should I Go Broke Trying to Impress Other Broke People" | 3 Lessons I Learned from a Money Mogul

“You don’t look like you earn £10,000 a month.”Someone once commented this under her Instagram post.

She paused.

What, exactly, does someone who earns £10,000 a month look like?Should she be draped in Chanel from head to toe, suffocating in Dior, with hair down to her ankles… just to prove that a few extra zeros live in her bank account?

That didn’t sit right with her. And honestly, it didn’t sit right with me either.

This week, I sat down with an extraordinary woman: Joy David.

By the age of 24, she had lifted her entire family out of poverty.

She grew up with just her mum and younger sister in a face-me-I-slap-you house - the kind of home where walls are thin, rooms are tight, kitchens and toilets are shared, and everyone lives close enough that even small disagreements echo through the building. Privacy is a luxury. Peace is something you learn to negotiate.

Yet, when Joy speaks about her childhood, she does so with warmth.

She describes the small circle of her, her mum, and her sister as an adventure. Even deciding what they would eat that night felt like a shared mission.

By the time she was 8 years old, Joy was already calculating how much she would need to earn and by what age, to put her younger sister through university.

Scholarship after scholarship, opportunity after opportunity, she kept aiming higher until she landed a fully funded place at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions: The London School of Economics.

And by 24, she was doing what she had once only imagined:

• Funding her sister’s private university education

• Putting her mum on a monthly salary

• Renovating their family home and furnishing it

• Earning over £10,000 a month

• Working toward her first £1 million within five years

I’ll let Joy share the hard-earned wisdom herself in this week’s Family Meeting episode.

But today, I want to talk about something softer.

Because sometimes, the most valuable part of a conversation isn’t what’s said… it’s how the person thinks.

How they use their 24 hours differently.How they see the world differently.How they move through life with intention instead of reaction.

Here are three things being around Joy quietly taught me.

1. Aim High. Then Aim Higher.

I mean bloody high.

Even when there is no clear path. Even when the steps don’t exist yet.

Say it. Write it down. Be public with it, if you have the courage.

Never let “this isn’t possible” become part of your internal language.

Joy has been aiming for the hills for as long as she can remember. Every scholarship, every job, every business move was an act of faith as much as it was an act of strategy.

She once said something that stayed with me:

“Even though we were poor kids, we never acted like poor kids.”

Her aunties and uncles used to call her and her sister “Margaret Thatcher’s children.” Make of that what you will.

But the point is this - someone, somewhere along the line, taught them to believe in a future they couldn’t yet see.

Your mindset will take you further than any opportunity ever could.

2. Knowledge Is the Real Game-Changer

The bridge between face-me-I-slap-you Joy and LSE graduate Joy wasn’t luck.

It was knowledge.

Education (formal and informal) is one of the few true levellers in a world obsessed with status and access.

Now, some of you might be thinking: I’m already educated. This doesn’t apply to me.

Respectfully, it does.

There is always a gap between the person you are and the person who builds financial freedom, autonomy, and choice.

The version of you who wants millions, ownership, and independence does not know the same things you know today.

Closing that gap requires obsession - with learning, with people, with rooms that stretch how you think.

This is why they say your network is your net worth.

Not because your friends don’t matter - they do. Keep your bestie.

But a room full of people who have built what you want to build will teach you things no motivational quote ever will.

3. Boundaries. Boundaries. Boundaries.

I know. You’re tired of hearing the word.

But that’s because it touches everything, including money.

Financial boundaries look like:

• Deciding how much you can realistically send “back home” without collapsing your own future

• Saying no before you’re depleted - emotionally and financially

• Structuring support instead of responding to constant crisis

Joy putting her mum on a salary wasn’t just generous.

It was strategic.

It turned random 1 a.m. emergencies into something predictable, sustainable, and dignified for both sides.

In many Black and immigrant households, this dynamic has a name: Black tax.

It’s the invisible bill that arrives when one person “makes it” and becomes responsible for everyone else who didn’t get the same chances.

While community care is beautiful, unstructured obligation can quietly stop even the most successful people from building real, lasting, generational wealth.

Boundaries don’t mean you don’t care.

They mean you care enough to build something that lasts longer than one lifetime.

Money isn’t just numbers.

It’s memory. Pressure. Responsibility. Identity.

And if we don’t examine the stories we inherited about it, we risk spending our lives trying to look successful instead of becoming secure.

This week, connect with someone already doing what you hope to do - via social media or through your personal circle. Let me know what else you learned from speaking with them.

🎙️ Family Meeting - where wahala meets wisdom. Watch the full episode on Youtube here (released 6pm today) or on Apple and Spotify (already released).