Reggie Nelson - Opening Doors: How Daring to Ask For Help Changed My Life (And Will Change Yours Too)

First published in the UK by Blink Publishing

An imprint of Bonnier Books UK

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London, WC1B 4DA

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Hardback 978-1-788-704-72-4

Ebook 978-1-788-704-73-1

Audio 978-1-788-704-80-9

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

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Copyright Reggie Nelson, 2022

Reggie Nelson has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Blink Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

For my mother, Rita, and my big sister, Caroline, thank you for your love and unwavering support in all that I have done up until this point.

For the Price family, thank you for providing me with visibility, guidance and hope. You have changed mine and my familys lives forever.

To my late father, George. I wish you were here to see how things panned out for us. I love and miss you. Rest in peace.

CONTENTS

O ne of the biggest lessons I have learned in my journey so far is that life itself is not linear. There are moments of ups and moments of downs, but they all shape up to make a story. The story my story that you are about to embark on was written because a lot of people had heard about it through social media, on TV and in the news, but not many knew just how or why I did it.

Up until the point of writing this book, my life was shaped by three doors: my childhood door, a new opportunity door and a careers door. If you opened the door to my childhood, you would discover me as a young boy who grew up with two loving parents, but someone who also had to navigate the struggles of poverty, family alcoholism and a lack of guidance. If you opened the next door, you would find me as a teenager, taking a bold leap of faith and deciding to change the course of my life. Lastly, if you opened the careers door, you would see how life-changing the power of mentoring can be and how much of a difference a positive role model and the right work ethic can make. This last door acts as a gateway for the other two doors as its the events that happened in my childhood and with the new opportunity door that allowed me not only to change the direction of my life but would forever alter the course of my familys life too.

GROWING UP

I m a big believer that everything truly happens for a reason and that your hardest moments create the best stories. My life is very different to how I expected it to pan out when I was younger. Im not a footballer, nor in prison, nor dead the last two options being unfortunately all too common routes for a lot of young people that grow up in the environment I grew up in. Visibility of wider careers and entrepreneurial opportunities was and is still deeply lacking and this often leads young people down a path that they never set out to go down, usually one that leads them into serious trouble. Sometimes choosing the wrong path is a result of peer pressure, the need to make a name for yourself and earn respect. However, most of the time, I believe the main reason they find themselves going down the wrong path is because of poverty: the need and desire to create a better life for themselves and their family. I fell into the latter bracket.

Nobody told me that by the time I was 22 I would be working closely with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, that I would also be working in hyper-competitive sectors such as asset management, or that I would get booked to travel the world and speak on matters that were important to me. Instead, my upbringing and surroundings placed me in a dim echo chamber, where I couldnt see beyond what was in front of me, so although my council estate was just 14 minutes away from Canary Wharf, the secondary central business district of London, I didnt have any reason to believe that I could ever work there or become a part of that elite. Not having a clear route out of poverty and having to navigate that complex journey is probably one of the main catalysts as to why I got myself in some situations that were less than positive, but on the flip side is also the reason why I was forced to think innovatively, in order to take my life into my own hands.

Growing up in Newham, east London was pretty challenging. My family dynamic was a conventional one, but almost with a twist. My mum and dad were both born in Ghana, West Africa, and decided together to leave Ghana in search of a better life and so migrated to Europe like the American Dream. The story behind their departure was almost Romeo and Juliet-esque as both sets of parents didnt want them to be together, so they decided to go on a journey away from their home in the name of love, so the story goes according to Mum. Their first stop was Germany, where they lived for two years and then France, where they lived for one year, and their longer settlement was in Holland, where both my sister Caroline, who is two years older, and I were born. Throughout their travels my parents attempted to build their lives and set foundations for themselves. It took a few attempts, but Holland was where they felt the most comfortable. My mum was a factory worker and my dad was an electrician to begin with.

Early on in my mums life, she was told that she was unable to have children, so to have a healthy daughter and then a son in the space of two years was a miracle for her.

We moved from Holland to the UK in 1998 when I was three years old and settled in London, where I have lived since my arrival. London is where I like to call home. I love London and often say to my friends that I couldnt see myself living anywhere else besides London. When we first arrived, my mum worked as a cleaner (and later, trained to be a carer and a cook) at an old peoples home and my dad was a security guard. Their working hours were quite abstract, so some days were your conventional nine to five, while others consisted of night shifts and my sister and I being looked after by various cousins, aunties and friends of my parents. My parents worked insanely hard to provide for us all but financially, we struggled. At times, Mum would work more than one job to ensure that we were looked after. She would wake up, leave the house around 4:30 in the morning to go to her first job, then leave from there and go directly to her second job, then come home and repeat it all again. My parents didnt see each other or spend much recreational time together during the week because of their work schedules, but weekends were more relaxed where they had more time.

Being an adult now with not even half the responsibilities my parents had to endure has helped me understand the challenges and pressures of building a family in a place that was foreign to them. Having such great resources in a land of promise at their fingertips but not being able to access them because of their limited formal education, lack of financial capital and zero professional career visibility must have been frustrating. The pressures of life led to my parents turning to alcohol for comfort. They were heavily addicted to alcohol, at first my mum more so than my dad, then that reversed. There were constant arguments at home and the verbal would often turn physical.