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Thursday, July 17, 2025

A legacy of happiness

by

20140108

In one of your ar­ti­cles you men­tioned that Sam, your son, is a film­mak­er. I de­duced that you're okay with that. Well, if Sam were African, he'd have a dif­fi­cult job con­vinc­ing his par­ents to al­low him to pur­sue this path. And it would be much hard­er if his dad were wealthy and fa­mous. What gave you the courage to let Sam do his thing, and what ad­vice can you give to promi­nent African en­tre­pre­neurs whose chil­dren de­sire to fol­low their own paths, away from the fam­i­ly busi­ness?

Fes­tus Mbuimwe, Nairo­bi, Kenya

Par­ents faced with this ques­tion need to ask them­selves what's im­por­tant to them. My fam­i­ly comes first, and help­ing and sup­port­ing my wife, Joan, and our chil­dren, Hol­ly and Sam, is at the top of the list. Joan and I do not con­sid­er our lega­cy to our chil­dren to be wealth or fame, but the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue hap­pi­ness by fol­low­ing their own paths.

Just as Joan and I both made our own de­ci­sions about what we want­ed to do, with our par­ents' sup­port, we want our kids to have the same ex­pe­ri­ences. My par­ents were in­cred­i­bly en­cour­ag­ing, hop­ing on­ly to help me suc­ceed in my en­deav­ours. My grand­fa­ther was a judge and my fa­ther was a bar­ris­ter, but they nev­er pres­sured me to pur­sue a ca­reer in law, and I didn't have the de­sire to fol­low in their pro­fes­sion­al foot­steps. In­stead, my moth­er's pas­sion for en­tre­pre­neur­ship turned out to be a ma­jor dri­ving force for me.


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