I think there are three key things that have crystallised for me having my daughters, Zara and Iman:

1. An understanding of unconditional love. The purity and depth of the love for your child is something I had, nor could have, appreciated until my first daughter, Zara, was born.

2. Appreciation of the true blessing that is being a parent. And more sobering, the tremendous responsibility that is imparting the lessons and tools that will better prepare my children to identify and seek the things in life that will fulfil them.

3. The importance of teaching them to understand the adage ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’. My parents taught me to separate the gifts and blessings in life over which I could feel proud and those for which I had no part to play; that what makes you in this life is to appreciate what I have and go forward every day with honest endeavour and application in creating the realities, opportunities and achievements for which I can feel proud. I hope to give my children every opportunity I have been afforded as a person and even more so to steer them along a path that sees them humble but ambitious, driven but considerate.