Photo by Ketut Subiyanto for Pexels
Let’s not pretend we didn’t see it coming. The world has changed. And no one sent us a formal announcement, but the signs are everywhere. This is for the so-called brilliant ones, the top 10%, the ones with glowing GPAs and framed certificates. And this is also for the ones the system quietly labelled average or worse.
Back in the day, we all knew the rules. If you finished with a first-class degree or were the teacher’s favourite, your path was laid out like a red carpet. You’d get the job. You’d get the respect. You’d likely out-earn and outshine everyone else.
But if you finished with a third class or struggled with math, society gently (or not so gently) pushed you to the sidelines. Even dreaming of success in business or the arts was a joke. You couldn’t afford to take risks. No connections, no capital, no chance. Everything was locked behind a gate. And the key belonged to a small club of elites.
Then the internet happened. And without permission, it levelled the entire game.
Today, that girl who failed mathematics and cried after every test? She works remotely from her apartment in Iyana Ipaja, making £2,000 a month as a digital marketer for a UK firm. Meanwhile, her classmate with a first-class is stuck in Lagos traffic every morning, earning N500,000 as an associate at a company in Victoria Island. Still respectable. But not the story anyone expected.
What about the boy who barely passed his way through university? He saw a tweet about a fully funded scholarship, applied in 30 minutes, and now studies in Sweden, tuition-free, monthly stipend included. His former classmate, the brilliant one, never saw the tweet. He’s doing a master’s at home, somewhat frustrated.
This is not fiction. This is the world now.
A skit maker on TikTok buys a new Benz every year. Meanwhile, a corporate executive with two MBAs prays his bonus hits before bills are due.
Someone invested $1,500 in Tesla stock in 2013. Not because they were smart. In their own words, “I just liked Elon’s confidence.” Today, that $1,500 is worth over $100,000. Another person bought Bitcoin in 2011. Why? “Someone in a forum said it could be the future.” They forgot about it, found it in 2017, and boom, millionaire in USD.
Were they geniuses? No. They took a risk. A survivable one. And in this new world, survivable risk is the new superpower.
There was a time only billionaires could invest in oil. But anyone could buy Tesla at $5. Anyone could buy Bitcoin at $1. It was cheap. But it worked. A doctor in the U.S. recently posted that, for the first time, her earnings from YouTube and Instagram passed her salary from medicine. She’s still saving lives. But now, her camera earns more than her stethoscope. We were told intelligence would always win. But what we’re seeing is that access and action are now just as powerful, sometimes even more.
Today, you can live in Makurdi and work for a company in Berlin. You can learn to code for free on YouTube. You can launch a skincare brand from your room and build a customer base on Instagram. You can be a dropout who runs an Amazon store, making more than your uncle, the architect.
This is no longer a world of gatekeepers. It’s a world of search bars and bold moves. Information is now currency. The Microsoft job in Paris doesn’t care if you were head boy. It cares if you saw the opening early, knew how to apply, and had the skills to back it up.
Don’t get me wrong, intelligence still matters. But intelligence without curiosity, without boldness, without hustle, just blends into the noise. The world has changed. The girl they called average can now outperform the genius, not because she suddenly became smarter, but because she paid attention, took a risk, and moved fast.
The question is: Will the genius sit up? Or will they cling to old rules in a world that’s already rewritten them?
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Featured Image by Ketut Subiyanto for Pexels.
