Recently I went to watch the Blue Story movie, a modern-day love story with a street element. The movie is centred around two friends Timi and Marco, who due to conflicting postcodes become enemies. I thought the movie was amazing and personally connected with it on so many levels, I remember just playing football with friends, fast forward a couple of years we have problems just because we are from different areas. I remember the journeys to school navigating through some many different ends all of which have problems from each other. The postcode war has been going on long before me and will continue if we do nothing about it. I’ve seen friends gone to jail and the loss of lives over what a postcode? We have to save us. The reality is before we get new stories, we need new role models.
In this post, I will explore why the perceived heroes in our communities need to change before anything progresses.
For a long time trap stars, bad boys, hustlers and gangsters have been the heroes and influencers in our community. Guys wanted to be like them and girls wanted to be with them.
So naturally, as a young boy, I was heavily influenced by that lifestyle, you see the glamour of it and not the actual reality. At that age, they appeared to have all the money, the girls and the power. I couldn’t wait to start sending guys to the shop. They showed us the importance of loyalty, taught us how to move correctly, how to defend ourselves, and showed love to people they barely knew.
From them, I learned a lot which I still apply today: for example the importance of entrepreneurship. In year 7 I started selling sweets, getting to the point of making an average of £10-20 a day. I started doing events at university, starting a contracting business and e-commerce business. They taught me never to gossip, so I’ve always avoided the kitchen talks at work, which I’ve seen land a lot of people in trouble. I was exposed to real violence so a director shouting could never scare me, work deadlines are not real pressure to me. I was taught to always have a safety net, I put mine in index funds. I’ve watched them and thought about legal ways I could do the same.
But from them, I have also had to unlearn a lot. I grew up thinking it was cool to be a ladies man, never really processing the way we are hurting our sisters. This is something I have only recently truly understood. In chasing money I have missed out on precious time with friends and family but also wasted on clothes and jewellery. In trying to take short cuts I almost lost my MSc degree.
The true reality of that road lifestyle doesn’t get spoken about enough – only a few make it out clean. The majority ends in three ways… 1. you realise you were not built for that life and go legit 2. dead 3. in jail. If we don’t help our communities this cycle will keep on repeating itself.
Why did I look up to them? Because they defined “cool”, and were accessible. So if we want to break this cycle we have to reinvent what cool is, and try and be active in our communities.
In order to re-define cool, we need to carry ourselves knowing that there are people that will follow in our footsteps. Don’t get comfortable: we need to raise up and push on until we hit the highest heights possible in all areas of our lives. We need to step up, it’s not enough to be doing well, we need to be the best we can be. I’ve been guilty of getting complacent, I started doing okay and felt like I can chill. But I have realised now there is so much further I need to take it, and I promise you I will.
I’ve seen a lot of us that start doing well, get that little corporate role or a business idea takes off, and instead of reaching back and helping others they want to disassociate themselves from the problem. That might be cool for them, but to me, the real value is in how many people you can put positively influence. Buying bottles in the club is not sharing my success.
We need to become the heroes our community needs and stop waiting for someone else to come and save us.
We need to engage with our community and help as many as we can. We can’t save everyone, but let’s do what we can. If you’re scared for your safety, do it through a charity (Chance UK, I’ve personally worked with them in the past) or with a friend. From my experience when people see you’re genuine they will welcome you with open arms. You might ask why should I even care, just think where you would be if you had the you that you are today or the you that you have the potential to be.
This year has taught me how many people are looking towards me. It wasn’t something I was really ever conscious of. But now that I am, I have got to show them the right way. I will make mistakes but I will also keep trying. The whole reason I wrote the £17,000 to 6 figures, wasn’t to stunt or flex, I wanted to show some of the youngsters in my area that we are not limited to what we have seen in our environment.
So if you want to change the stories, start by becoming one the heroes your community needs.
- Find a charity to support either with resources or time.
- Mentor someone at risk.
- Be accessible/ Visible in your community.
- Become the best you possible. People are watching you.
- Focus on the work that needs to be done, criticising rarely changes anything.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Rossevelt