By: Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Nor, Finance Columnist
In a market driven by attention and rapid change, financial success is no longer guaranteed by talent alone. Today, it’s not just about what you know or how well you perform—it’s how clearly your value is recognized in the current landscape. This column explores the financial power of relevance: why it matters, how to build it, and what happens when you master it.
The Problem Isn’t Your Talent. It’s Your Timing.
We’ve long believed that success is earned through a combination of hard work, credentials, and years of experience. While these factors still matter, they no longer guarantee financial growth in a world that moves at the speed of attention. The real differentiator today is relevance—the ability to align what you offer with what the market urgently needs right now. This is where timing comes into play. You could be immensely talented, but if your skills don’t meet the moment, or if they’re not seen by the people who matter, your potential remains dormant. The harsh reality is this: the problem isn’t your talent—it’s your timing.
In the modern marketplace, relevance is leverage. It shapes perception, drives demand, and directly influences your earning power. Relevance is what transforms skill into income, and income, increasingly, depends on one powerful equation: Income = Visibility × Perceived Value. If you’re invisible, your value doesn’t matter. And if you’re visible but not seen as valuable in the present context, the result is the same: underpaid and underestimated. Meanwhile, those who show up at the right time, with the right message, in front of the right audience, often leapfrog more qualified peers. This isn’t about gaming the system—it’s about understanding how the system now works and learning to work it with intention.
Relevance Is Not the Same as Reputation
Reputation is built on past performance; relevance is measured by present utility. While a strong reputation can open doors, it does not guarantee continued opportunity in a fast-moving world. You might have an impressive résumé and a history of accomplishments, but if your message, presence, or skills no longer resonate with current needs, you risk fading from the professional conversation. Just like once-dominant companies such as Blockbuster, Blackberry, or Kodak, individuals who cling to past successes without evolving lose traction—not due to a lack of talent, but because the market has simply moved on.
Remaining relevant demands more than resting on a good name. It requires active engagement, ongoing reinvention, and strategic visibility. The truth is, even highly respected professionals can be outpaced by newer, more digitally agile talent—not because they are less capable, but because they haven’t updated how they show up. Today’s economy rarely asks, “What have you done?” Instead, it asks, “What can you do right now, and for whom?” Those who can answer that question clearly and convincingly stay in demand. Those who don’t, no matter their past, risk being quietly replaced.
The Hidden Costs of Irrelevance
Irrelevance is rarely loud or obvious—it slips in silently, often during periods when everything feels “okay.” You’re still working, still producing, still showing up—but gradually, things start to shift. Invitations slow down. Engagement on your ideas, posts, or projects dwindles. Your name stops surfacing in rooms where decisions are made. Instead of opportunities finding you, you begin to chase them, often with growing urgency. The danger lies in how subtle this decline is. By the time you recognize it, the damage is already done: your market position has weakened, and others have moved into the space you once occupied effortlessly.
The most dangerous part of irrelevance is that it doesn’tusually result from failure—it stems from stagnation. Many professionals focus exclusively on technical mastery, thinking excellence alone will sustain their careers. But in today’s attention-driven economy, excellence without visibility is undervalued or worse, invisible. If you’re not actively demonstrating your relevance—showing how your skills, ideas, or solutions meet current needs—someone else is. And they are reaping the financial and professional rewards that might have been yours. In a market that rewards not just talent, but timely, visible value, irrelevance comes at a high cost: missed opportunities, diminished authority, and ultimately, lost income.
Why the Market Pays for Relevance
The market doesn’t reward the most talented, the most educated, or even the most experienced—it rewards those who are best aligned with what the market currently needs. Being brilliant is not enough if your brilliance isn’t visible or clearly tied to solving today’s problems. In a noisy, fast-moving world, the most successful professionals are not always the most exceptional—they are the most obvious. That kind of clarity isn’t accidental; it comes from intentionally positioning yourself as a timely, high-fit solution. It means speaking the language your audience already uses, solving the problems they already know they have, and showing up in the places where their attention already lives.
If your income feels flat despite your efforts, the issue may not be your work ethic—it might be your relevance. Are you still marketing yourself based on yesterday’s wins, or are you reflecting the needs of today’s economy? Markets move quickly, and people make decisions—whether to hire, buy, follow, or invest—based on perceived fit and timing. Relevance makes you look like the obvious, low-risk, right-now choice, which lowers resistance and increases conversion. That’s the secret to financial momentum: not just being good, but being seen as essential in this moment.
How to Build Financially Resilient Relevance
In an economy that rewards agility over legacy, maintaining financial momentum depends on more than just competence—it hinges on sustained relevance. But relevance isn’t about being flashy or constantly reinventing yourself. It’s about showing upstrategically and consistently, where attention and opportunity intersect. To stay financially resilient, your message and presence must align with what your audience needs now, not what mattered years ago.
1. Stay Market-Aware
Relevance begins with knowing where attention and investment are flowing. Stay tuned in to your audience’s language, needs, and priorities by following industry news, engaging in forums, and observing emerging patterns. The most useful signals often come from the margins, not the headlines. If your work doesn’talign with current demand, you risk becoming obsolete. Staying market-aware keeps you adaptable and ahead of shifts.
2. Audit and Update Your Narrative
Your narrative is a living asset, not a static résumé. If your online presence reflects outdated skills or stories, it’s time to revise. People buy solutions, not summaries. Your message should highlight current relevance and outcomes, not just your history. When your story reflects what matters now, you build trust—and trust drives income.
3. Build a Visibility Ecosystem
To stay relevant, you must be seen by the right people in the right places. Focus on one or two platforms where your audience already engages, and show up consistently through content, collaboration, or conversation. Visibility isn’t just output—it’s presence, credibility, and relationship-building keeps you top-of-mind.
4. Solve Higher-Stakes Problems
The bigger the problem you solve, the more relevant—and profitable—you become. People don’t pay for your effort; they pay for outcomes. Position your work around results: what pain disappears or risk is removed because of what you do. This elevates your perceived value and positions you as essential.
5. Reinvest in Evolution
Relevance must be maintained through continual growth. Keep learning, refining, and listening. Pay attention to trends, tools, and how others are evolving. Small, consistent investments in skills and awareness compound over time. Staying relevant means staying curious, uncomfortable, and committed to evolution.
What Happens When You Master Relevance
When you master relevance, the game changes entirely. You no longer chase opportunities—they start coming to you. People recommend you without hesitation because your value is clear and current. Instead of convincing others to buy, hire, or listen, you spend more time choosing the right fits, clients, and partnerships. Your relevance earns you pricing power because you’re no longer seen as interchangeable—you’re seen as essential. You become part of higher-value conversations where decisions are made and influence is shaped. But perhaps the most powerful shift is this: you stop competing on credentials and start winning on clarity. When the market sees you as the obvious answer to a present, urgent need, it stops comparing you to others. This happens when your message, presence, and offerings are deeply aligned with what the market wants right now.
Conclusion: Relevance Is Return on Attention
In today’s economy, relevance is no longer a nice-to-have—it’sthe foundation of financial durability. Your ability to earn, influence, and grow hinges not just on what you do, but on whether the right people recognize its value right now. You don’t need to be everywhere or famous—you need to be strategically visible and clearly positioned around something that matters in this moment. Because in a market fueled by attention, you don’t rise to the level of your experience; you rise to the level of your relevance. Relevance is leverage. It’s return on attention. It’s how you earn not just income, trust, access, and opportunity. So ask yourself—not just what you offer, but whether the people who matter most still know why it matters?If not, your first job isn’t to work harder. It’s to get seen—on purpose.
Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim Nor is the Minister of Rural Development and Resilience in SouthWest Somalia and Former Permanent Secretary of Office of the Prime Minister.