Profession and Values - June Insight

My name is Njideka Appolus-Chu,  I am Ajuriobari's mom. I am an accountant by profession and worked with leading financial institutions in our country before venturing into entrepreneurship. Dedicating myself to starting and nurturing a business to success and simultaneously managing my career as a banker was almost impossible. I was able to manage the infancy of my  business on the side, during  weekends, but for me to  grow it significantly, I had to put in more hours, that leaves me with no other choice than to quit my job. Walking away from a promising, steady income and a long-term opportunity for something unpredictable was scary -- especially for one who has never run a business before. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to address this. I  just thought through my decision logically and did not ignore my instincts.              

Values:                                      

Value is the amount of worth ascribed to something, the degree to which something is prized or has merit. Values are the beliefs that each person considers as important for him/herself and possibly for humanity as a whole. Values are very important in parenting since they deeply influence all behaviors, attitudes and affect our decisions and relationships. For a value to be truly your own, you must act on it and your behavior must reflect it – not just verbally accepting it, or think that you should follow it.

The following common sayings refer to the important concept of acting in concert with your values in order to have internal integrity:

• walk the walk not just talk the talk;
• actions speak louder than words;
• children do as they see, not do as they are told to do.                      

Values are subjective and personal, they change over time with age, they can conflict with one another. Values provide clarity, guidance, and impact relationships. My family values include but not limited to: hard work, kindness, generosity, respect, independence,  honesty, creativity. Growing up in a large family with my both parents entrepreneurs,  we had helps, both males ( boys who were apprentices to my father) and females(girls who were house helps to my mom). My mom made sure that chores were shared amongst us all. She did not discriminate. In fact, I remember vividly that I shared doing dishes with the two girls that were staying with us at a time. I was the youngest but my mom made sure I did my chores when it was my turn. When asked, my mom's response was " I CANNOT TRAIN SOMEONE'S CHILD AND LEAVE MINE UNTRAINED".  My mom believed that getting us involved in house chores is training and preparing us to be better people in the future.  I also believe the same, so I get my daughter involved in doing house chores with the service staff in the house. I encourage parents who are not involving their kids to start doing it. There are age-appropriate chores for kids of all ages from toddler age.  Getting the kids involved in making decisions on things around the house is also another way of making them responsible. That way we will be able to raise a Godly and responsible generation.