Blog – Chika

The Cost of Could Be: How We Price Potential in Money, Society, and Love

4 days ago By cumeadi

“Potential is a promissory note from the future. We spend it daily—on people, projects, even ourselves—without always asking what it’s really worth.”

We talk a lot about value these days. Market value. Cultural value. Social value. But the one that feels the most dangerous—and the most sacred—is potential.

We build companies, cities, movements, and relationships around what might be.
We fall in love with people not for who they are now, but for who they could become.
We raise capital off of pitch decks, not profits.

In every part of life, we’re assigning worth to futures that haven’t happened yet.

But very few people ever pause to ask:
How much is potential really worth? And who gets to decide?

I. The Financial Side of Hope

I’ve sat in rooms where people raised $10M on a slide deck. No product. No traction. Just a compelling story and the right networks. It’s not a scam—it’s the norm.

This is what venture capital is: a belief engine.
You’re not investing in now—you’re investing in what might be. Optionality. Trajectory. The next unicorn.

But potential in business is never neutral. It’s dressed in Ivy League sweatshirts, polished pitch decks, and proximity to power. We reward people not just for their ideas—but for how much their ambition looks like success.

That means others—often more grounded, more creative, more resilient—get overlooked. Not because they lack potential. But because they don’t fit the script investors are used to betting on.

So we overpay for the obvious, and underfund the underestimated.
That’s not strategy. That’s bias.

II. Social Capital and the Gatekeepers of Belief

Potential gets priced in society, too.

A young woman from a top school is called “promising.”
A young man from Ajegunle with the same drive is told to “be realistic.”

Two kids with the same brain. Two wildly different valuations.

We pretend we’re meritocratic, but we’ve engineered a world where potential is often just recognition dressed up as intuition. We believe in people who make us feel comfortable. Who speak our language. Who mirror our idea of excellence.

So potential becomes a form of privilege.
Some people get to be a “work in progress.” Others have to arrive fully formed or not at all.

III. Relationships as Emotional Venture Capital

Let’s make this personal.

Dating is one of the most emotionally expensive markets for potential. We don’t just fall for who people are—we fall for who we believe they could become.

She’s a little guarded now, but once she heals, she’ll open up.
He’s figuring things out, but he’s brilliant. Just give him time.
We’ve had a rough start, but something tells me this could be it.

This is fine—at first.
But here’s the tension: you can’t build a relationship on a pitch deck.

You need a product. You need traction. You need behavior.

Too often, one partner becomes the investor, the coach, the emotional scaffolding. Meanwhile, the other is still “working on themselves.” And so we mistake effort for intimacy, and potential for partnership.

Eventually, someone checks their emotional bank account and realizes they’ve been the only one funding growth.

IV. What Most People Miss About Potential

Let me be blunt. Here’s what no one tells you about potential:

Potential depreciates. It loses value if it’s not acted on. Belief without execution just becomes burnout.
We confuse style for substance. People with charisma, credentials, or the “right story” often get funded over those with real grind and quiet power.
The ability to fail is a privilege. If you have family money, citizenship, or social capital, your potential gets subsidized. You get to stumble and still be “promising.” Others don’t get that luxury.
We stay too long in potential-based relationships. Because we’re afraid of being wrong about what we hoped for. But staying doesn’t fix it. Growth does.

V. How We Can Rethink Potential

This isn’t a call to stop believing. If anything, I think belief is the most radical form of action. But it should be disciplined belief—backed by curiosity, accountability, and clarity.

So here’s what I’ve learned:

In business: Bet on people others overlook. Often, the ones without polish are the ones with fire. Look for pattern-breakers, not pattern-matchers.
In love: Don’t date someone’s potential. Date their patterns. What they do, not just what they dream about doing.
In life: Be honest about your own. Your potential is real. But you don’t have forever. Trade hopes for habits.

Final Thought

We’re all speculating on something.
But the future doesn’t belong to those who sell the best story.
It belongs to those who can close the gap between what could be and what is.

So the next time you’re deciding whether to invest—money, time, or your heart—ask yourself:

Am I in love with the future?
Or am I just afraid to confront the present?
Me

Because the world doesn’t need more belief.
It needs better bets.

If this resonated…

Subscribe to Chika.io for new essays every month
Share this with someone stuck between what is and what could be
Reflect: Where are you overpaying for potential in your life right now?

Don’t Give Caesar What Belongs to Odogwu

3 weeks ago By cumeadi

There’s a line by Burna Boy in the new Shallipopi – Laho remix that hit different:

“No be me go give Caesar wetin belong to Odogwu.”

It sounds like a bar. It is a bar. But it’s also a thesis, a warning, and a battle cry.

Let’s break it down.

In that moment, Burna wasn’t just talking about some abstract biblical Caesar. He was calling out a system—a habit—where we hand over our power, our culture, our genius, our gold… to someone who didn’t earn it. Someone who didn’t even know what to do with it.

Caesar is the West.

Caesar is the colonizer.

Caesar is the gatekeeper who wants your sauce without crediting your kitchen.

But Odogwu?

Odogwu is the name you earn when you stand ten toes down. When you don’t fold. When you carry your people with pride, chest out.

It’s Igbo. It means “the great one,” the warrior, the heavyweight. Odogwu is ours.

So when Burna says he’s not giving Caesar what belongs to Odogwu, he’s not just flexing. He’s protecting something sacred. He’s saying:

I won’t sell out. I won’t water it down. I won’t hand over my worth just to be accepted by a system that doesn’t see me.

And that bar hits even harder when you think about how often we do just that.

Think about how many of our best ideas, our stories, our traditions, our brilliance—get exported, repackaged, and sold back to us.

How often we let someone else define what’s valuable.

How often we call it progress, when it’s really just polishing our diamonds for someone else’s crown.

But the tide is shifting.

You can feel it in the music. You can feel it in the fashion. In the food. In the swagger of the global South. In the way young Africans are building, owning, creating—and refusing to ask for permission.

There’s a new generation of Odogwus rising.

And they’re not waiting for Caesar to clap.

So next time someone tries to gaslight you into giving away what’s already yours—your voice, your story, your culture, your genius—remember the lyric.

Don’t give Caesar what belongs to Odogwu.

Own it. Guard it. Build on it.

Because that thing you’re sitting on?

It’s gold.

And it’s yours.

#MentalNote · Big Ideas

THE HIDDEN TRUTHS MANIFESTO

3 weeks ago By cumeadi

20 Unspoken Insights Shaping the Next Era of Humanity, Technology, and Consciousness

Introduction: The Power of the In-Between

In a world saturated with information, what’s rare is wisdom from the seams—those truths not yet obvious, not yet profitable, or still inconvenient to say aloud. This manifesto captures 20 emerging insights—drawn not from consensus, but from patterns, contradictions, and quiet signals across culture, technology, psychology, and philosophy. They are not predictions. They are invitations.

We are entering a liminal age. The edges matter now more than ever.

I. The Ontological Shifts

1. Hyperconnectivity is eroding the boundary between signal and simulation. Our nervous systems are recalibrating to synthetic coherence. The real threat is not misinformation—but mis-feeling.

2. Consciousness isn’t a state—it’s a rhythm. Being is not binary. It pulses. The truest intelligence may emerge from resonance, not computation.

3. The soul of a civilization is stored in what it forgets. Our archives are filled with noise. Our ghosts hold the signal. Watch what cultures erase.

4. Laughter is the last truly encrypted signal. Authenticity will be harder to simulate. Laughter, like grief, might remain a final frontier.

5. The planet may already be sentient—just not in a way we know how to listen to. We frame Earth as object, not interlocutor. New science will rediscover old animisms.

II. Technology & Time

6. AI will break the concept of “talent.” When mimicry becomes trivial, differentiation will shift to curation, friction, timing, and soul.

7. Economies will compete on resonance, not just resources. Coherence is currency. Cities and nations with vibrational alignment will outperform those with raw capital but no story.

8. The next colonialism is sensory. Attention was phase one. Emotion, impulse, and identity are next. Sensory sovereignty will emerge as a human right.

9. Most of the world’s best ideas have already been had—but weren’t scalable in their time. The archive is an oracle. Indigenous methods, ancient city-planning, spiritual ecologies—they’re not outdated, just awaiting infrastructure.

10. The most powerful act in the next 50 years might be a radical slowdown. Stillness isn’t escape. It’s rebellion. In an economy of speed, slowness is the ultimate edge.

III. Society & Meaning

11. Childhood is being outsourced to algorithms. Emotional scaffolding is no longer built at home. Identity is now a platform-level construct.

12. The future belongs to those who can sit with paradox. Complexity won’t be solved, only harmonized. Paradox fluency will be the master skill.

13. We’re underestimating the psychic cost of persistent partial presence. Anxiety isn’t pathology—it’s evolutionary resistance to ambient fragmentation.

14. Death may no longer anchor meaning. Lifespan extension, data immortality, and identity diffusion will unravel the narrative spine of civilization.

15. Global South ingenuity is constrained more by narrative friction than capital. The main barrier isn’t money. It’s the inherited epistemologies that limit what people believe they’re allowed to build.

IV. Cultural & Philosophical Reframes

16. The next great export from Africa isn’t oil or music—it’s metaphor. Ancestral logic, oral cosmology, and multi-dimensional storytelling offer new operating systems for post-singularity life.

17. Language is about to fracture in slow motion. Algorithmic dialects, meme languages, and subcultural codes will replace global lingua francas. The internet is not unifying—it’s atomizing semantics.

18. Innovation will look more like excavation than invention. The future is buried. True progress may require humility, not hubris.

19. The most radical tech shift is not generative AI—it’s the return of intentional community. We are rebuilding the village with APIs and group chats. Belonging is the new infrastructure.

20. Taste will matter more than intelligence. In a world where anyone can access brilliance, it’s how you filter, align, and sense-make that sets you apart.

Investment & Tech Hype: A Realignment Ahead

These 20 insights point to an inevitable shift in capital flows and startup psychology. Investment will slowly move from:

Efficiency to Coherence
Disruption to Resonance
Extractive platforms to Restorative ecosystems
Utility-first tech to Meaning-infused tech
B2B/SaaS monocultures to culture-native, place-rooted infrastructure

We are exiting the API-for-X era and entering the ritual-for-X era—where software must plug into felt realities, not just business logic. Tech hype will pivot from AI acceleration to AI attunement. The winners will not be those who automate everything, but those who re-enchant it.

VCs will need to develop spiritual imagination. Founders will need paradox fluency. And builders? Builders will need to listen as much as they invent.

The question is no longer: What can we build? The question is: What wants to be built through us?

Let this be your prompt. Your prayer. Your playbook. The future is listening.

#productideas · Self-Revelation · Technology

Culture is the New Interface: What the Village People Firewall Taught Me About the Future of Tech

1 month ago By cumeadi

When we released the Village People Firewall for April Fools’ this year, it was a joke—sort of. Yes, it spoofed the hyper-complex jargon of cybersecurity and metaphysical tech. But underneath the satire was a real critique: most technological revolutions are framed through a Western, highly academic lens. And that’s a problem.

In the era of quantum computing, climate dashboards, and AI models with billions of parameters, a lot of people—most people—are left out of the conversation. Not because they lack intelligence or interest, but because the language, metaphors, and cultural assumptions behind these technologies don’t speak to their lived realities.

Whose Revolution Is It, Anyway?

We talk about carbon footprints, but what does that mean to a farmer in Kano who just wants to increase his yam yield by 30% before the rains stop? We rave about quantum entanglement, but what does that mean to a nine-year-old girl in Dakar who’s more interested in charging her tablet off a solar grid so she can watch cartoons—or maybe, teach herself to code?

The problem isn’t just access. It’s interpretation.

The Western Bias of Tech Discourse

Much of modern technology is developed and discussed within paradigms shaped by Euro-American academia, media, and venture capital. The metaphors we use—“clouds,” “nodes,” “quantum leaps”—are often opaque to anyone who hasn’t been steeped in those specific cultural and educational systems.

And yet, culture is interface. Without the right cultural lens, even the most powerful tools can feel irrelevant or suspicious. That’s what Village People Firewall poked fun at: how absurd it is to think you can roll out innovation without embedding it in cultural logic people understand.

When Quantum Meets Juju

Take the mock research paper we released—The Quantum Spiritual Interface. It was dense with metaphysical jargon and spiritual pseudoscience wrapped in quantum computing lingo. But it hit a nerve because it mirrored how tech often gets presented to the rest of the world: powerful, inaccessible, and totally disconnected from local wisdom.

And yet, what if there’s a real insight here? What if your grandmother’s stories, or your neighborhood herbalist’s rituals, or your community’s shared rhythms, were seen not as folklore but as operating systems? Systems for meaning, safety, identity, and—even—optimization?

Designing with Culture at the Core

Instead of asking, “How do we get more Africans into tech?” we might ask, “What does technology look like when it emerges from African ways of knowing?” What if rural farmers drove climate tech strategy, because they already understand seasonal cycles better than most PhDs? What if the interface for AI wasn’t chat boxes but talking drums, market banter, or shared communal rituals?

Designing from this perspective isn’t just inclusive—it’s more effective. Culture isn’t a distraction from innovation. It’s the operating system beneath it.

Reframing the Frontier

So yes, the Village People Firewall was a joke. But it was also a provocation. If the spiritual internet exists (and honestly, who’s to say it doesn’t?), maybe it starts in places where science hasn’t looked yet. Maybe it listens more than it logs. Maybe it understands that firewalls aren’t just code—they’re prayers, taboos, social contracts.

As we build the future, let’s not just ask what’s possible. Let’s ask possible for whom? Because until we design with cultural context in mind, the biggest breakthroughs may still feel like someone else’s revolution.

#MentalNote

37 at 37: Lessons from a Year That Humbled Me, Grew Me, and Set Me Free

1 month ago By cumeadi

I turned 37 today. A strange number — not quite a milestone in the eyes of the world, but for me, it feels like one.

In the last 12 months, I’ve been broken open and put back together more times than I can count. Leaving Google stripped away the illusion of security. A divorce ended something I thought was forever. And a handful of other moments forced me to sit with myself in ways I hadn’t dared to before.

But through all that, I didn’t just survive. I lived. And maybe for the first time, I lived in a way I’m proud of. Not because everything was polished or perfect, but because it was honest.

Here are 37 lessons I’ve learned. They are not commandments. They’re reminders — from one soul in progress to another.

1. Grief and gratitude can coexist.

Some days I cried for what I lost. Other days I was overwhelmed with awe at the life I still get to live. I used to think you had to “get over” pain before you could feel thankful. But the truth is, some of the deepest gratitude I’ve ever felt came while my heart was still cracked wide open.

2. You’re allowed to start over, even in the middle of your life.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve already built something. If it’s no longer right for you, you can walk away. You’re not obligated to keep living a life that doesn’t fit just because it took you a long time to build.

3. Money is important, but time, peace, and purpose are richer currencies.

After the layoff, I realized I’d been using income as a proxy for success. But what I really wanted was freedom — to think, to heal, to create without fear. Money buys comfort, yes. But peace? That’s earned through alignment.

4. Therapy is not optional. It’s maintenance for your soul.

I don’t know how I would’ve made it through this year without therapy. It gave me language for what I was feeling and space to feel it. Your car needs a mechanic. Your spirit needs a witness.

5. A broken heart is proof you were brave enough to love.

I used to be ashamed of my heartbreak. But now I see it differently. A broken heart doesn’t mean you failed — it means you were courageous enough to open it in the first place.

6. Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation.

I learned to release people in love — to let them go without needing to bring them back. Some closures are silent. Some peace happens without a reunion.

7. Walk. Often. Alone. Without a destination.

Walking became sacred to me this year. It was a space where I could listen to my thoughts without distraction. I started noticing trees, the shape of clouds, the feel of my breath — and I started noticing myself again.

8. Your job is not your identity.

When I left Google, I felt like I lost part of myself. But over time, I realized that identity should be rooted in essence, not employment. You’re more than your LinkedIn bio.

9. Some friendships expire. That’s not betrayal. That’s seasons.

People change. You change. Some bonds strengthen with time, others fade. That’s not failure. That’s nature. Not everyone is meant to walk the whole road with you.

10. Joy is a muscle — the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

At first, joy felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford. But when I made space for small joys — music, dancing in the kitchen, laughing with friends — they began to stitch me back together.

11. Your body remembers everything your mind tries to forget.

I held so much stress in my shoulders, my gut, my chest. Our bodies are storytellers, even when our mouths are quiet. I had to learn to listen to it, care for it, and stop ignoring its whispers.

12. You don’t have to prove your worth to anyone.

Not through productivity. Not through perfection. Not through hustle. You were worthy the day you were born. Everything else is just performance.

13. Be kind to younger you. They were surviving with the tools they had.

I used to cringe at past versions of myself. Now, I try to hold them in compassion. That person did the best they could. You’re here because they didn’t quit.

14. You can be both healing and high-functioning.

I didn’t fall apart every day. I still showed up. But inside, I was healing — slowly, awkwardly, sometimes painfully. That duality is real. Let’s stop pretending it’s either/or.

15. Love is not a transaction.

It’s not something you earn by being perfect or doing things right. Real love is given, not bartered. And when it’s real, it doesn’t keep score.

16. Boundaries aren’t walls. They’re doors with locks you control.

Boundaries taught me who deserved access and who didn’t. Saying no protected the yeses that matter most.

17. Ask for help. No one makes it out of this thing alone.

I used to think independence was strength. But vulnerability — saying “I need you” — is actually braver. Let people in. Let them show up.

18. Rest is productive.

Some of my best ideas came after naps. Some of my deepest healing came from staying in bed. We are not machines. We are soil — we need stillness to regenerate.

19. When in doubt, go outside.

The world inside your head is sometimes a trap. The world outside — the sky, the trees, the wind — it reminds you that life keeps going, and you can too.

20. You’re not behind. You’re on your own damn timeline.

Comparison is poison. Everyone’s journey is customized. The sooner you stop measuring your life against others, the freer you become.

21. Create something that doesn’t need to go viral.

Not everything has to be seen. Some things are worth doing just because they make you feel alive. Paint. Write. Build. Make.

22. Talk to your parents like people.

They carry regrets too. They have stories. Seeing them as full, flawed humans changed everything for me.

23. Not everything broken needs to be fixed.

Some things are meant to fall apart. Some endings are mercies. Let them be.

24. Drink more water. Seriously.

It sounds dumb. But when I was sad, tired, foggy — water helped. Sometimes what feels like an existential crisis is just dehydration.

25. Love people while they’re here.

Call them. Visit them. Tell them the truth. Don’t wait for the eulogy to write your love letter.

26. Solitude isn’t loneliness.

I learned to enjoy my own company. To make meals for myself. To be enough, without needing to be surrounded.

27. You can be proud of surviving and still be sad it happened.

I made it through things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I don’t romanticize the pain — but I honor the endurance.

28. Say “I don’t know” more often.

We don’t always need answers. We need curiosity, humility, and the courage to keep asking better questions.

29. You don’t always need a plan. Just a step.

Some of my best moves weren’t mapped out. I just took the next step, then the next one. Direction reveals itself.

30. Silence is an answer.

So is distance. So is inconsistency. Believe what people show you, not just what they say.

31. Fall in love with your morning.

I started waking up early not out of discipline, but desire. Mornings became sacred — a place to hear myself before the world got loud.

32. Nobody knows what they’re doing.

We’re all winging it. The ones who look like they have it together are just rehearsing their own script. You’re doing better than you think.

33. Success feels different at 37 than it did at 27.

I don’t chase clout anymore. I chase calm. I want meaningful work, not just impressive titles.

34. Your worth doesn’t decrease when your relationship status changes.

Being single isn’t a deficiency. It’s just another way to be whole.

35. Hold space for joy — even in the mess.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Find joy in the cracks. It belongs there too.

36. Tell people you love them. Even if your voice shakes.

Don’t assume they know. Say it. Say it often. Say it out loud.

37. You’re still becoming.

I thought I’d be “figured out” by now. But I’m still unfolding, evolving, softening, growing. And honestly? That’s the best part.

If you’re reading this, thank you for being here.

Here’s to being 37 — not perfect, not finished, but fully alive.