I See Too Little of Sweat Capital

Call me a white-privileged brat, but what got me here is self-made passion and sweat capital. I could have chosen to jump on the bandwagon of a ready-made, multi-million investment firm of my dad, but I chose my own path.

There are definitely people less fortunate than me, but there are also many more privileged - those who don’t do much good with their lives, despite their all-doors-opening capital. Often controlled by their family's expectations, they lose their freshness, their originality, and the chance to find their own path and passion.

But what’s even more common and more problematic is simply failing to recognize one’s own potential or privilege.
Whilst, what sweat capital is: the effort, learning, and failures you invest before anyone hands you a title.

They say: 'Never meet your idols'. But mine was my DAD.

Where does the real privilege start? When we are born into it and then use it wisely, for your own purpose, or when we gain it by purely hard work and perseverance?

My personal story starts with a family investment and consulting firm AV Inwestor, run by my beloved father, who has always been a master and an inspiration to me and many more. And that already is a hard to find equation. He has launched it just few months after my birth, with the clear goal: family-oriented and succession.

I was in more boardrooms than classrooms

So for many years, I have been brought up and passively involved in a lot of my dad's business activities. Endless meetings, conferences, private conversations, negotiations, milions of phone calls and deal memos. Well, I mostly listened and brought coffees, and trust me - this too, was a privilege.

But most importantly, I travelled. Far and wide across the world.

I was dropped off and left on my own in Florida, Croatia, Italy and Łódź, Poland (which trust me - was the most extreme one of them all).

Now I can finally speak up because it won't get my parents into any custody troubles. But my teen years were like a space travel without a satellite connection.

(Maybe that's why I look like a bored, veteran professor in my international relations aula.)
This is not a goodbye note, but a testament to what liberal upbringing + sweat capital can offer you.

And that’s why I sometimes look around, and feel like an alien - especially at my own Generation Z and wonder: We are here thanks to sweat capitalism. But where is the sweat capital now?
Where is the hunger? The urgency? The willingness to not just show up, but to create?

Generation of Privilege

There are, undeniably, people who have less than I do. But let’s not forget there are always and also many who have far more, at least on paper. Money, access, connections. All the right keys. But not the muscle to turn them in the lock.

Some of the most privileged people I’ve met are the least self-directed. Not because they lack opportunity, but because they lack freedom. Money don't always buy you freedom, but makes you a prisoner to all the material and non material that come with it that need to be taken care of or else you lose them. Take this very closely-observed use case example by me:

A mid-sized, family-owned company, founded in the early 1980s by a visionary, highly specialised entrepreneur in the communist Poland, (at the time, we had an electrician named Lech Wałęsa was elected as the President of Poland), who built his fortune from scratch in the area he was very passionate and specialised in.
Today, he’s in his early 70s, still hovering over the business, but getting further from the success that the company once was. Time and a series of poor personal choices have taken their toll.

Decades ago, a scandal rocked both the business and the family: an affair with his longtime secretary led to the dissolution of his marriage. The fallout wasn’t just personal. It planted a long-lasting crack in the foundation of the company’s values and big disappointment of his children leading to escaping home to another continent.

Now, two of his children from that failed marriage hold senior roles in the company. Not because they earned them, but because they inherited them. Despite lacking even the most basic business competence, they’ve been installed as department heads.

The staff turnover rate is alarming. Decisions are made emotionally, not strategically. Every outsider brought in to help restructure the company eventually hits the same dead end: their ideas are rejected or diluted by the incompetent heirs, who see any challenge to their authority as a personal threat.

The result? Stagnation. Demoralization. And now, visible decline. The company is burning through capital, losing key clients, and on the brink of insolvency - not because of market forces, but because the very people who were supposed to carry the torch have no idea how to hold it. They don’t want to build. They want to sit. They don't lead. They obstruct.

What their father built through vision, work ethic, and decades of sacrifice is being quietly dismantled by successors who have inherited everything except the will to protect it.

This is what happens when sweat capital is replaced by entitlement capital.
When legacy becomes a liability.

They are raised under the weight of their family’s expectations, held hostage by comfort, and paralyzed by the very things meant to set them free.

They talk of legacy, but it's just vanity.

They speak of building something, but they don’t sweat. They don’t burn.

And maybe it’s not entirely their fault. Maybe we’ve created a culture that celebrates shortcuts, signals over substance, visibility over value. But here’s the hard truth: privilege means nothing if you don’t do something with it. The true privilege isn’t having access — it’s knowing how to turn access into action. It’s the courage to choose the harder road when the easy one is already paved for you.

The Myth of Inheritance

I could have joined the family business at the top. Sat in one of the dad's offices, travelling the world with him on private jets to Hong Kong just to host a panel. Let the last name do the talking. But I didn’t. Sure it helped me and still does plenty of times, but I am working on my own little projects.

Not because I wanted to prove a point but because something in me knew that if I didn’t carve my own path, I’d lose the most valuable thing I inherited: my sense of purpose:

The so-called Ikigai, a Japanese concept meaning “a reason for being” — is often described as the sweet spot where your passion, mission, vocation, and profession overlap. It’s what gets you up in the morning, even when the work is hard.

What has been inherited - is the ambition combined with ADHD-driven creativity.

Well, what if you're not born with it?

Silence. Practice silence.

A Harvard study shows that performing creative tasks in a quiet, distraction-free environment significantly improves creative thinking compared to working with background noise or music. The absence of external stimulation allows the brain’s verbal working memory to focus, making unexpected connections and ideas more likely to emerge.

In other words: if you want to unlock your creative potential, sometimes the best place to start is by simply sitting down in silence — no distractions, no noise, just your thoughts.

Sweat capital isn’t just about hard work — it’s about cultivating the right conditions for your mind to thrive.

Hard Work is Not a Vibe

We need to bring sweat capital back into fashion. Not as a hashtag or a hustle aesthetic, but as a mindset, a value system. I don’t mean burnout culture. I mean real effort with a splash of aficionado.

Showing up when it’s inconvenient. Staying humble and always ready to learn. Studying when no one’s watching. Failing publicly, making dozens of mistakes by taking risks only to come back smarter. The grit that isn’t photogenic.

Because while we chase likes, virality, and brand deals, there’s a quieter revolution waiting: doing the work. Sometimes, the work nobody is willing to pick up.

And let me tell you: nothing, not even privilege, replaces it.

The sweat capital is the currency that turns potential into power. And if we don't start investing it, we’re all going bankrupt, lonely and depressed.