Who was the unicorn builder in your family? I have been thinking about this a lot since @pyjama_ceo started the conversation here. Each generation has some sort of privilege over the others. My kids are very privileged with multiple nationalities and very large family on both sides. Having them in America was a conscious choice. Not just because my mother is American but because I am not and I have seen the downsides. To them, we are their unicorns. My parents are my unicorns. My mum left a village and a failed marriage with one child to come to Benin City to start all over again. She told me how she had to kneel in front of Holy Cross Cathedral during Mass for 3 months in penance for being an unwed mother. She endured that humiliation and met my dad in church too and her life changed. My father was another character. I learned a lot from his candid mistakes than anything else. He told me who NOT to become. It was because of his many marriages that I didn't get married on time. He warned me to take marriage seriously. Without him, I would have been lost. My paternal and maternal grandfathers were trailblazers. Children of relatively wealthy men who decided to get educated when it was still a novelty. Their education set my family on a different trajectory. My grandmothers too were unicorns. One was a homemaker who supported her husband and children while the other was a wealthy businesswoman and pioneer who died too early. I could go back on and on based on my illustrious family tree but something occurred to me this week. The wealthy people in my family were all extremely fortunate. They seized certain opportunities at the right time. While they may have had foundations that enabled them to become wealthy, they made the choices that kept them there. They were also very tenacious. My late paternal grandmother came from nothing and from an Ijaw fishing community. She became very wealthy from trade and entrepreneurship. Three generations after her death, that wealth means nothing. We started all over and were not dependent on it. All we have are her genes and a burning desire to build. This is the difference between us and Western families or even a lot of Asian ones. They learned about wealth and not just how to get it but preserve it. We optimized for education that gave us careers but we didn't optimize for education that builds wealth. The aristocratic class in those societies largely emerged from the merchant class. They figured out how to take advantage of things like banking and other institutions. I look at my family today, we are more fragmented than ever. For some weird reason, everyone believes that they can make it alone or their nuclear unit can advance on their own. The real unicorns we had in the past that we discarded were our communities. Extended family helped build us up and sustained us. I gained from it. My Uncle Henry is also my unicorn. He helped me become everything I am today. Others played their part too including Prof and Mummy Osuide. Community is what creates lasting wealth. Two months in England this year rewired all my thinking. I finally saw it. Wealth was a community feature. Poverty is the bug. I don't know how to put my extended family back together again but I am definitely going to teach my children the benefit of family as a community. Fortunately, my wife’s side of the family still has a semblance of it. It is something I am going to make sure sustains our future generations.