My Nigerian mother and my English father modelled hard work in a way that I never understood growing up…
My dad worked a full time job late into the evening and when his work was done, he would go and join my mum at her job in a small, hot, fast-paced restaurant kitchen until the early hours of the morning.
They came home when I was asleep and went to work when I was asleep.
When my mum left the restaurant, she opened a corner shop called KJS and would work all day and all night.
She would end up sleeping in the back room of the corner shop on a bag of rice because local kids would break in, steal things and vandalise the shop because she was pretty much the only black women in the area.
As a kid I was so scared of mice and rats… and I remember being mortified when I visited her corner shop and saw rats / mice had been eating the bag of rice she used as a pillow / bed.
My dad again, would finish his full time job, and go straight to my mum’s shop and help her until late into the night.
The most remarkable part of this, isn’t just the fact that they worked 7-days a week to provide for their family.
It was their attitude towards their work.
They never ever described or viewed what they did as hard work.
I never ever heard them complain even once about “working hard”.
They seemed to view work as the ultimate privilege, honour and opportunity.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realised that they were my biggest professional inspirations and influence – not because they gave me profound advice like some parents do, but because they set a profound example of gratitude, hard work and personal agency.
By always being there to help my mum, my dad hardwired a belief into me and my brothers: as a man, your job is to be a true teammate for your partner and to live in service of them.
It’s their example that has enabled me to pursue my own dreams with a level of focused gratitude that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“My parents were tasked with the job of survival and I with self-actualisation. What a luxury it is to search for purpose, meaning, and fulfilment.” – Bo Ren
