Women's Day 2021: How My Mother, Terese Alexander, Inspired My Journey
Since March 8th was International Women’s Day I wanted to share how a very special woman in my life, my Mother, has directly influenced my own entrepreneurial journey to build Airfryerable.com .
My Mother, Terese, is the oldest of 10 children and together with my Father, they had 7 children (of which I’m the 2nd oldest) all of whom have gone on to build their own families and each be successful in their own right. Through it all she’s always been the anchor of our growing family.
She is a talented, hard working woman who worked full-time as a teacher throughout my life and pioneered leading-edge school curriculums. She even had an interesting encounter with Megan Markle’s in-laws: The British Royal Family 👑.
As a Commonwealth Scholar my Mother was one of a few who were invited to Buckingham Palace for tea with Princess Anne (Prince Charles’ sister). Unfortunately, the taxi she took that day ran late and dropped her off at the wrong entrance. Funnily enough, by taking that entrance she actually ended up standing next to Princess Anne on the balcony and together they waved to the audience below, which was where my Mother was originally supposed to have been had she been on time 😁.
Despite her many accomplishments her job as a teacher wasn’t enough to satisfy her creative mind. From the time I was little, she was always using her creative skills in resourceful ways to earn extra money to support our family.
From hosting cooking classes in our living room on the weekends to making and selling sculptural, 3D cakes for neighbourhood parties, she did it all.
She was most ‘famous’ or her whimsical appetizers, known colloquially as ‘shorteats’ that were both tasty and shaped into cute characters. From shrimp bunny toasts to egg sailboat sandwiches.
Despite being so well known for her shorteats that she made and sold to local socialites hosting decadent parties, she was committed to empowering those around her to build businesses for themselves. So in between fulfilling orders, she hosted weekend classes to teach other ladies how to make shorteats themselves.
Over the years her entrepreneurial spirit has never wavered. Long into retirement, at age 76, after several years of painstaking work my Mother took her shorteats and self-published a beautiful coffee table book called “Fantastic Fancy Shorteats”.
Now in her later years her memory is dwindling, but she has never forgotten about her book. She was leafing through it the other day and joyfully told me “one day I will go to ‘the other side’, but this book will never die!”
I don’t think I truly realized it all these years, but simply witnessing my mother’s determination and perseverance as a working, pioneering leader has deeply influenced me, especially my entrepreneurial ambitions.
Seeing her ‘do it all’ even in her older years demonstrated to me that life is meant to be lived to the fullest!
I recognize that not everyone has the opportunity to be exposed to similar situations as I have with my Mother, which is why I am committed to sharing my journey to hopefully inspire others to jump head first into starting their own dream businesses.
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