Entrepreneur Preston James Ephraim II operates a thriving business, but the co-owner of OM Juicery considers that his most important role involves passing on a set of values for his three children to live by.
Mr Ephraim, 44, is the father of Preston James III, 18, who is to graduate from The Berkeley Institute this month, and begin biology studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia in the autumn, and Christopher, 13, and Liliana, seven, both of whom are home-schooled.
He said: “I think the first value is to instil a sense of belief and trust in themselves that they can do and accomplish anything if they put their mind to it and that the only person who will ever say no is the no that comes from the inside. That’s how I’ve always raised them.
“The second thing is to expose them to everything too so they can understand that we’re just all one expression, like one big flower blooming and that no one is right or wrong.
“So, I take them travelling to other countries and other experiences and expose them to multiple ethnic foods and people and cultures so they can embrace all of it and then deduce or come up with their own way of living and being and also have this sense of peace and patience and acceptance with people.”
Mr Ephraim said he encourages his children to forge their own identity.
“I remember my son Preston said, ‘You know, dad, I want to be like you.’ I said, ‘Well, no, if anything, I would want you to be the best version of you, whatever it is that you came here to do, and I will gladly support you in that.’”
He added: “Do what you love. There are so many people that aren’t doing what they love, they’re doing what they do to survive. If I could pass on anything, when you do what you love, it’s not hard work. And then when once you love it, once you’re invested in the love, then that’s reciprocated in the people that you interact with, and then it comes back to you monetarily.
“People aren’t so hard-pressed on trying to make it work because they’re automatically coming from a space of openness, of expansiveness, of the piece of the puzzle that they came to this planet to give and offer. Move from your heart space. Do what you love.”
He said: “Just be courageous in your life and do what sparks your heart and in that turn you will spark other people’s hearts and then that’s how you live a fulfilled life.”
An example of that ethos from Mr Ephraim’s own life involves the origin of the OM Juicery business.
He had a practice in Bermuda as a US board-certified nutritional counsellor when a client who worked a busy job in international business fell ill. Mr Ephraim advised the client to eat more living foods, juices and smoothies before taking him on as a client.
Soon, Mr Ephraim took on a second juicing client – and a business was born.
“Between those two clients, they referred me out. I had no idea we were going to start a cold-pressed juicery.
“I’ve been making smoothies and juices from the age of 13 – that’s when I started. I didn’t have an idea that I wanted to do a business, it’s just what I love to do.”
Mr Ephraim and his wife, Megan, launched the business on a kitchen counter in 2016, and now have a store on Queen Street in Hamilton.
Their cold-pressed juices and immunity-boosting fire tonic elixirs are available in supermarkets, gas stations and on the Sargasso Sea platform.
Mr Ephraim said cold-pressed juices are “completely living juices – they have no additives, no water, no sugar. You drink between two and three pounds of food per bottle”.
He said the nutritionally dense juices boost the immune system, help cognitive function, and improve motivation and energy levels.
Mr Ephraim and his family embrace those healthy living values at home.
“How I’ve raised my children when it comes to food is I lead by example. You won’t find candy in our house; you won’t find processed sugars. However, what I’ve always said to them is this: ‘If it’s something that you want, you have aunties, you have uncles, you go ask them for it.’
“Now, they have a resting place inside the home where it’s not allowed or it’s not occurring and then they get to have now a place of choice, a choice point – when I go to my uncle’s house or I go to my auntie’s house or my best friend’s house I eat this, and this is how I feel. But when I come home, this is how I feel.
“So now they can have discernment between the choice, and I think that’s absolutely powerful as opposed to telling them ‘Just don’t eat it.’ Because then it’s like, well, why?
“Typically, what I’ve noticed with all these years of working with children and working with adults, with counselling, is that as soon as someone says ‘don’t’, what’s the first thing they want to do? They want to go against what you told them not to do.
“So we leave it open, my wife and I, we leave it open. In our home, we just don’t have it, but we’re not going to say, ‘You don’t have it’. If you want to have it, go have it. It’s just not going to be here.”
That philosophy is leading to healthy outcomes.
When he was 12, Preston said that he wasn’t going to drink sodas or eat candies anymore because of the way they made him feel.
Mr Ephraim said: “If I had told him ‘You’re not going to have it’, then he may not have had that discernment and power of choice to notice the cause-and-effect relationship of it. I think that that’s powerful when people can have that for themselves.”
