[Music]
[Applause]
we do not suffer by accident this is a
quote from the author Jane Austen and I
couldn’t agree more
as I share my experiences on finding
purpose in the pain I’m the first born
of seven children and both of my parents
are from Ghana the pain surrounding
barriers to education is one my family
is known for generations I remember my
dad telling us about how he had to Trek
for hours often barefoot to beg for the
basics he needed in order to go to
school it was really hard to comprehend
at the time but I often look back and
think about how different my life would
have been if he hadn’t overcome his
obstacles of poverty and fought for his
right to get an education my dad was
actually the first in my family line to
learn to read and write and to go to
school so going down the line I ended up
growing on council estates across
Cambuur in Peckham and when I was
growing up South London wasn’t the
up-and-coming area that it is today for
many of the children I grew up with
education wasn’t a priority at all let’s
just say they focus on other
extracurricular activities in a way to
shield us my dad would be very very hard
on us he forced us to go to after-school
clubs and after-school tutoring with my
uncle he would go on and on about how we
were so privileged to live in the UK and
how we had such amazing opportunities
before us it was clear to me that the
pain of his path was propelling him to
create a better future for us through
his perseverance and persistence and to
be honest my reluctant hard work after
doing a series of exams I ended up
securing a place within a prestigious
boarding school now my time at boarding
school really opened my eyes to the
harsh realities of life it allowed me to
see the beauty of life on one hand and
also the harshness and the other here I
was in these classes surrounded by all
these wealthy kids who would talk about
their weekends quadbiking with their big
brothers
or their holidays abroad and at this
point I had never even left the country
I often felt isolated and second-class
and one particular day stood out to me
more than others we went away as a
school to play another school in the
game of rugby the game got very very
heated and unfortunately we ended up
losing as arguments went between the two
teams someone on my team referred to the
other team as council estates come not
realizing I had grown up on a council
estate myself and so this really hit me
to the core and I felt for myself it was
the first time I could actually see be
in equality in life and I determined
even as a teenager to one day be a part
of the process that evens out the uneven
playing field years down the line I
ended up working in the city as a senior
recruitment consultant and to be honest
I felt like I had made it in life I was
in my early 20s and I was earning a lot
of money and then it dawned on me that I
was becoming a lot like those snobbish
kids that look down on other people I
realized that I began to tie my identity
with how much I was earning and I began
to look down on other people just like
those kids I determined in my heart
there and then that I had to make a
change and I had to wake up every day
and live for purpose and not live just
to make money in the stumble to find my
purpose I reflected on my pain as a
teenager and how I wanted to even out
the uneven playing field my wife and I
had been supporting a charity based
across Southern Africa could house of
Wells whose mission it was is to reach
out to the lost abandoned orphaned and
the most vulnerable children in the
region we were so inspired by their work
that we started supporting them every
single month on a monthly basis and then
one day I just started scheming and
dreaming and thinking about ways in
which I could support this charity in a
larger way I started dreaming about ways
in which I could support them in a more
sustainable way than just my personal
giving every single month I had always
been really passionate about fashion I’d
always been really passionate about
watches so I thought why not combine my
passion for fashion with my passion for
compassion and in December 2015 I lost
my watch brand vitae London vitae is
latin for life and our whole mattress to
be the fashion brand changing lives so
with each watch we sell we provide a
child with the years well from school
uniform to see them through school for a
year and before starting vitae there was
about a process over about a year where
I was contacting loads of different
retailers contacting loads of different
factories to understand the market
inside and out and to really understand
what I was about to get into when that
year was done I decided enough was
enough
i sat down my wife and I said hey babe I
really want to leave this really
well-paid job bringing in all this money
and take our house savings to invest
into a business and an industry that I
have no experience in whatsoever and
luckily for me she said yes the journey
so far has been such a beautiful
struggle and we’ve been going for just
under two years and since launching
we’ve managed the distribute over 2,000
items of uniform to children in need
we’ve seen our work featured on the
likes of CNN the BBC BuzzFeed we’ve also
managed to partner with the anti-v
Africa Music Awards which was an amazing
highlight we’ve seen celebrities like
Ava Duvernay and Emeli sandé and
Richard Branson buy our watches and buy
into what we do to the point that they
share it with the world but in the midst
of all these high moments and these
great moments that you see publicized on
my social media all the time there’s
been so many low moments and I feel like
in the mists of those low moments and
the pain of those low moments I’ve
probably learned a lot more than I
learned in the really great moments of
success so I would love to share a
couple of key things that I’ve learned
in my journey so far the first key thing
I want to share is that I would
encourage everyone in the room when
starting a business to live like no one
owes you anything I know this sounds
very pessimistic but bear with me when I
started my business I feel like I had a
bit of an attitude of entitlement and it
was a great idea
and you I had a great product so I just
assumed people were just buying to what
I was doing I feel like with this social
media generation because we see the
success on the surface level and we
don’t see all the work that goes into
actually making that business a success
we often feel like just as a flash of a
pan we can see our business do well but
one day I actually dawned on me that my
siblings even my siblings or my cousins
and those closest to me they woke up in
the morning they got dressed they went
to work they worked very hard to earn
their money so there was no way I could
ever tell them what to do with that
money I had no right to have that
attitude of entitlement to expect them
to buy into what I was doing and when
that realization came to me it was it
was amazing because it really opened my
eyes to start being a lot more grateful
when they did buy into what I was doing
because I didn’t expect them to you and
also it pushed me to work a lot harder
I had to ensure the quality of my
watches were as good if not better than
my competitors coupled with the fact
that I wanted the price point to be
again as good or if not better than them
I held focus groups not just with a few
of my friends but I held focus group
with external people so they can be
brutally honest about the business so I
would really encourage everyone to live
like no one owes you anything the second
thing I would love to encourage everyone
with is to start small since since
starting the business obviously we’ve
had some great traction we’ve seen some
great awareness grow out there so people
often come up to me and they’re like
well I’ve got this amazing idea I want
to start this I want to start that and
one particular girl came up to me and
said she’s got this phenomenal platform
that she wants to start which would
encourage more women to get into the
world of technology and I was literally
blown away by her idea I kind of sat
back and then I the first thing I said
to her in response is so what have you
actually done so far and like so many
other people that I’d met on the journey
she turned back to me and said she had
done nothing I feel like so many of us
are so intimidated by the scale of our
dreams that we end up doing nothing at
all but I would encourage everyone that
if you
can just take one step every single day
before you know it you would have scaled
a mountain so in conclusion I just want
to ask everyone in the room what pains
you the most what in the world
agitate cyou the most because you might
find your purpose within this if I
didn’t look and seek for the pain in my
life and the thing that I wanted to
change the most hundreds of children
would not be in school today because
remember this we do not suffer by
accident thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
we do not suffer by accident this is a
quote from the author Jane Austen and I
couldn’t agree more
as I share my experiences on finding
purpose in the pain I’m the first born
of seven children and both of my parents
are from Ghana the pain surrounding
barriers to education is one my family
is known for generations I remember my
dad telling us about how he had to Trek
for hours often barefoot to beg for the
basics he needed in order to go to
school it was really hard to comprehend
at the time but I often look back and
think about how different my life would
have been if he hadn’t overcome his
obstacles of poverty and fought for his
right to get an education my dad was
actually the first in my family line to
learn to read and write and to go to
school so going down the line I ended up
growing on council estates across
Cambuur in Peckham and when I was
growing up South London wasn’t the
up-and-coming area that it is today for
many of the children I grew up with
education wasn’t a priority at all let’s
just say they focus on other
extracurricular activities in a way to
shield us my dad would be very very hard
on us he forced us to go to after-school
clubs and after-school tutoring with my
uncle he would go on and on about how we
were so privileged to live in the UK and
how we had such amazing opportunities
before us it was clear to me that the
pain of his path was propelling him to
create a better future for us through
his perseverance and persistence and to
be honest my reluctant hard work after
doing a series of exams I ended up
securing a place within a prestigious
boarding school now my time at boarding
school really opened my eyes to the
harsh realities of life it allowed me to
see the beauty of life on one hand and
also the harshness and the other here I
was in these classes surrounded by all
these wealthy kids who would talk about
their weekends quadbiking with their big
brothers
or their holidays abroad and at this
point I had never even left the country
I often felt isolated and second-class
and one particular day stood out to me
more than others we went away as a
school to play another school in the
game of rugby the game got very very
heated and unfortunately we ended up
losing as arguments went between the two
teams someone on my team referred to the
other team as council estates come not
realizing I had grown up on a council
estate myself and so this really hit me
to the core and I felt for myself it was
the first time I could actually see be
in equality in life and I determined
even as a teenager to one day be a part
of the process that evens out the uneven
playing field years down the line I
ended up working in the city as a senior
recruitment consultant and to be honest
I felt like I had made it in life I was
in my early 20s and I was earning a lot
of money and then it dawned on me that I
was becoming a lot like those snobbish
kids that look down on other people I
realized that I began to tie my identity
with how much I was earning and I began
to look down on other people just like
those kids I determined in my heart
there and then that I had to make a
change and I had to wake up every day
and live for purpose and not live just
to make money in the stumble to find my
purpose I reflected on my pain as a
teenager and how I wanted to even out
the uneven playing field my wife and I
had been supporting a charity based
across Southern Africa could house of
Wells whose mission it was is to reach
out to the lost abandoned orphaned and
the most vulnerable children in the
region we were so inspired by their work
that we started supporting them every
single month on a monthly basis and then
one day I just started scheming and
dreaming and thinking about ways in
which I could support this charity in a
larger way I started dreaming about ways
in which I could support them in a more
sustainable way than just my personal
giving every single month I had always
been really passionate about fashion I’d
always been really passionate about
watches so I thought why not combine my
passion for fashion with my passion for
compassion and in December 2015 I lost
my watch brand vitae London vitae is
latin for life and our whole mattress to
be the fashion brand changing lives so
with each watch we sell we provide a
child with the years well from school
uniform to see them through school for a
year and before starting vitae there was
about a process over about a year where
I was contacting loads of different
retailers contacting loads of different
factories to understand the market
inside and out and to really understand
what I was about to get into when that
year was done I decided enough was
enough
i sat down my wife and I said hey babe I
really want to leave this really
well-paid job bringing in all this money
and take our house savings to invest
into a business and an industry that I
have no experience in whatsoever and
luckily for me she said yes the journey
so far has been such a beautiful
struggle and we’ve been going for just
under two years and since launching
we’ve managed the distribute over 2,000
items of uniform to children in need
we’ve seen our work featured on the
likes of CNN the BBC BuzzFeed we’ve also
managed to partner with the anti-v
Africa Music Awards which was an amazing
highlight we’ve seen celebrities like
Ava Duvernay and Emeli sandé and
Richard Branson buy our watches and buy
into what we do to the point that they
share it with the world but in the midst
of all these high moments and these
great moments that you see publicized on
my social media all the time there’s
been so many low moments and I feel like
in the mists of those low moments and
the pain of those low moments I’ve
probably learned a lot more than I
learned in the really great moments of
success so I would love to share a
couple of key things that I’ve learned
in my journey so far the first key thing
I want to share is that I would
encourage everyone in the room when
starting a business to live like no one
owes you anything I know this sounds
very pessimistic but bear with me when I
started my business I feel like I had a
bit of an attitude of entitlement and it
was a great idea
and you I had a great product so I just
assumed people were just buying to what
I was doing I feel like with this social
media generation because we see the
success on the surface level and we
don’t see all the work that goes into
actually making that business a success
we often feel like just as a flash of a
pan we can see our business do well but
one day I actually dawned on me that my
siblings even my siblings or my cousins
and those closest to me they woke up in
the morning they got dressed they went
to work they worked very hard to earn
their money so there was no way I could
ever tell them what to do with that
money I had no right to have that
attitude of entitlement to expect them
to buy into what I was doing and when
that realization came to me it was it
was amazing because it really opened my
eyes to start being a lot more grateful
when they did buy into what I was doing
because I didn’t expect them to you and
also it pushed me to work a lot harder
I had to ensure the quality of my
watches were as good if not better than
my competitors coupled with the fact
that I wanted the price point to be
again as good or if not better than them
I held focus groups not just with a few
of my friends but I held focus group
with external people so they can be
brutally honest about the business so I
would really encourage everyone to live
like no one owes you anything the second
thing I would love to encourage everyone
with is to start small since since
starting the business obviously we’ve
had some great traction we’ve seen some
great awareness grow out there so people
often come up to me and they’re like
well I’ve got this amazing idea I want
to start this I want to start that and
one particular girl came up to me and
said she’s got this phenomenal platform
that she wants to start which would
encourage more women to get into the
world of technology and I was literally
blown away by her idea I kind of sat
back and then I the first thing I said
to her in response is so what have you
actually done so far and like so many
other people that I’d met on the journey
she turned back to me and said she had
done nothing I feel like so many of us
are so intimidated by the scale of our
dreams that we end up doing nothing at
all but I would encourage everyone that
if you
can just take one step every single day
before you know it you would have scaled
a mountain so in conclusion I just want
to ask everyone in the room what pains
you the most what in the world
agitate cyou the most because you might
find your purpose within this if I
didn’t look and seek for the pain in my
life and the thing that I wanted to
change the most hundreds of children
would not be in school today because
remember this we do not suffer by
accident thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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