Lessons about luxury from an entrepreneur in South Sudan

For years, I have studied what it means to live excellently.

As a Ph.D. candidate at NYU, I explored human potential across disciplines—literature, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience. I wanted to understand: what is it possible for humans to be at our very best?

Eventually, I left academia to pursue entrepreneurship (entrepreneurship itself, I have learned, being one of the best catalysts for personal growth and development). I have become an advisor to other luxury entrepreneurs with their own track records of success… but perhaps one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about excellence and true success has come from a place where you might least expect it.

The entrepreneur who lost everything

Mary is a widow in South Sudan, one of the world's newest and most economically challenged nations. When her husband died, she didn't just lose her partner. Under customary practice, she lost everything: her home, her property, her livelihood. The husband’s family took it all as this was “tradition”, even though it is not what is actually legal.

Most women in Mary’s situation accept this reality and try to struggle on from zero. Mary did something different.

Through an organization called OLENT¹, she learned about her constitutional property rights. She went to court and fought for what was rightfully hers. She won.

Then she used OLENT's business training to open a restaurant. Today, people come from across the region for what they call "the most delicious local food." Further, she doesn't just feed her community; she also employs others who thus earn a wage that allows them to help support their own families.

Mary went from dispossession to property owner to employer.

When I learned her story, I realized: This is what abundance and real luxury actually look like.

Not the designer handbag purchased to signal status. Not the members-only club that derives value from who's excluded. Not the possessions we accumulate to impress others.

True luxury comes from the freedom to create, from the pursuit of mastery in building something excellent, from the abundance that lifts others while lifting yourself.

The word we've misunderstood

The Latin root luxus meant abundance. It signaled flourishing and growth beyond mere survival. However, somewhere along the way, luxury got twisted into something else: a competition for status through exclusion. A luxury by which only a few can “belong”.

I've even identified a particularly destructive version of this: exclusion spite. This is when people want things not because they genuinely value them, but solely because others want them and can't have them. The pleasure comes from the denial itself. If everyone suddenly had access to the thing, they'd lose interest immediately. The desire was never intrinsic; it was entirely about comparison and exclusion. But this is not luxury. This is just emptiness and malice.

Six freedoms of true luxury

As I grappled with this contradiction, I started calling my emerging philosophy "Luxury as Liberation."² True luxury, I realized, offers six specific freedoms:

Freedom from comparison. When your worth comes from what you create rather than how you rank against others, you can finally stop the exhausting performance of status competition.
Freedom from emptiness. Work and purchases that align with your genuine values sustain you in ways status symbols never can. There's no hollow feeling after achievement when the achievement actually matters.
Freedom from scarcity thinking. When you focus on building value rather than hoarding through exclusion, you discover that success doesn't require someone else's failure. Excellence isn't zero-sum.
Freedom from inauthenticity. When your choices genuinely reflect your values rather than what impresses others, you're not acting anymore. You're being authentic. That's magnetic.
Freedom from the treadmill. Mission and meaning give you a compass, not just a ladder to climb. You can measure progress by your own standards and milestones rather than an endless race to stay ahead of others.
Freedom to self-actualize. This is the ultimate liberation and luxury: pursuing your full potential while creating conditions for others to do the same. Just like Mary did.

Restructuring my business

I’ve made a decision: I’ve now restructured my coaching practice around this philosophy.

I’ve committed 15% of my revenue to supporting OLENT's work in South Sudan. They teach entrepreneurship to youth, fight for women's property rights, and support market entrepreneurs building businesses under extraordinarily difficult conditions.

I’ve also committed the net proceeds from my books to support OLENT through the Atlas Network.

It turns out that luxury and liberation aren't opposites. They're the same thing, properly understood.

What this means for all of us

You don't need to be an entrepreneur to embrace this philosophy. Luxury as Liberation applies to every choice we make as economic consumers too.

Before your next significant purchase, ask yourself:

Do I genuinely value this, or am I buying it to signal something to others?

Am I choosing this out of authentic preference, or because I'm caught up in comparison and competition?

If everyone had access to this, would I still want it?

These questions reveal whether we're pursuing genuine luxury or just playing status games.

We also get to choose which businesses receive our money. Increasingly, we can support companies that:

Create excellent products and empower their workers with dignity.
Deliver premium experiences and contribute to their communities.
Pursue mastery in their craft and help others develop mastery too.

This isn't about perfection. It's about direction. It's about measuring excellence not just by quality and price, but by the conditions for human flourishing that a business creates.

In sum, what Mary taught me

Mary in South Sudan has taught me more about abundance and luxury than any five-star experience ever could.

She embodied what prosperity was always supposed to mean: Not hoarding and exclusion, but creation and abundance. Not status through comparison, but stature through contribution. Not success at others' expense, but flourishing that lifts everyone it touches.

Because true luxury isn't about what you keep from others—it's about what you create for yourself and the world.