Hardly a day goes by when you see on the news another tragic stabbing in London. I hear a lot of community leaders and young people now talking about the lack of opportunity, aspiration, government spending, which then leads to them getting into the wrong crowd were joining gangs. 
I’ve got no opportunity 
Austerity is not for me 
I ain’t got no opportunity 

I grew up on a council estate in a rough part of London, well Camden was rough before it became gentrified, and we went through similar issues, but the gang violence was nothing like today and there was no drug dealing. 
But I had to make my way out of the so-called “ghetto” and get on with life, row my own boat as it were. 

The fact is, opportunity is everywhere in a wealthy western country like the UK. Education is free, unlike many parts of the world where kids drop out after high school. 

The reason I mention this is because I was really pleased to read about a young man that went out and look for opportunities and found it surprisingly quickly. 
Reggie Nelson came from a family that didn’t have much money and live in an area of South East London where expectations were low. Sounds a bit like my school where The aspirations of going very fa were limited. 
However, a few miles across London in Kensington was a place where he knew there were lots of wealthy and successful people. Rather than being envious of those people, he went out to find out what it was that made them successful. 
It was inspired by Joan Rivers show in America called “how do you how did you get rich” where the host asked rich people how they got that way. He decided to give it a try himself in London, so he Googled the richest area and hopped on the train and got out of Gloucester Road in the Kensington and. Chelsea area. 
Talking to Jeremy Vine on radio 2, Reggie immediately noticed but it was a different world and a completely different environment from his home. 
He Started approaching people in the street and just asking them how they became successful and he was rejected by a few but then he saw a man getting out of an Aston Martin and he asked him how we got to own such a nice car. The man was friendly and said that education was the key in and getting forward and gave him £40, even though he was not even asking for money, just advice! 

He then went to a road where there was a long row of houses and started knocking on doors. At first he received some negative responses and some people were frightened to open the door or telling to go away through the intercom. But the second door that was opened was a lady called Elizabeth Price who actually invited me in to have a chat. Then her husband, Quinten Price, came in and offered to mentor the young man. He he worked in asset management in the city. To cut a long story short he went there for an “experience day” and later work experience, which is not easy to obtain by the way, and a few years later has completed his Education and has nabbed a plum in the city as an analyst for my old company Legal and General. 

Some might look at him and say, he was lucky! 

L & G are a great company and one of the UK’s biggest insurers, fund managers and commercial property developers. 
Quick story after the late 1980’s crash. 

The great thing about this story is that here you have an 18 year old kid at the time who had the initiative and the balls to hop on the train to part of London which was a completely different world from where he lived and actually knock on doors and talk to people. 

I would love to interview him for my podcast because he can really inspire young people. 

Obviously Reggie still had to put in the work and get an economics degree at Kingston University in order to get a good job in the city - so it wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter – but the inspiration came from meeting people and a mentor could help him along the way. 
The story also illustrates importance of networking and getting to know people. Because it’s people who will help you along the way. We do business with people, we work with people we have to get along with people. 

Finally, the story illustrates that little wealthy people are as bad as the media betrayed them to be or as they are betrayed in the media. They often betrayed as fat cats to live in their ivory towers away from everybody else, but actually they are more often than not nice people who do a lot to help the community and the charities they support without making a song and dance about it.