My father who is now approaching 89 years of age was — and actually still is — the kind of father who would always nudge me as we walked through life.

I was the kind of teenager  — and am also the kind of adult — who would push the boundaries to walk a slightly different path, and he in his own memorable way, would remind me where his idea of the path was.

He would remind me of the way he saw the world, and reiterate very simple principles over and over again.

As a teenager this was repetitive and exhausting and as most teenagers do, I tuned out of the many principles he would remind me of.

Now, I remember all of them all – one of them was Philótimo (Φιλότιμο).

As an adult, and now a father myself, I look back at his gentle nudging and see it in the way I parent my three children, and in fact, in the way I have managed my business and my career.

My father's gentle nudging was a way for him to remind me of the importance of maintaining culture. Where I incorrectly saw outdated ideas of a time — and a place — far gone from the relevance of my day-to-day, and the 'very important work' I thought I was doing; in fact within those principles sat something far richer and more meaningful that would benefit my creativity, my leadership and my own cultural integrity in the decades that followed.

A bizarre thing just happened — my father just called me as I was writing this and he asked me how work was going, and I told him the following:

Today I met with a Tiwi elder whom I am assisting in writing a group of documents which will act as the cornerstone to their community's cultural integrity.

It took me a while to explain this to dad as English isn't his first language, however, I boiled it down to a simple definition.

Imagine for a moment we had a flagship document that helped people understand concepts like Philótimo (Φιλότιμο) — an ancient Hellenic ideal which lacks an English parallel. I often think if it did, the Parthenon Marbles might already be back in Athens, but that is for another day.

My father understood this and paused long enough to take a breath and nudge me once again, to ensure I was doing this work in a way that didn't leave anyone behind.

Yet another one of his principles.

That's the thing with culture, it surrounds us and we must consistently remind ourselves what it means, and how we can elevate it at every opportunity.

It took me a long time — decades — to understand that this was what my father was doing. He was preserving our culture, our heritage and the principles that his community was built upon.

He was reminding himself, as much as he was reminding his son, what culture was, not to inhibit my creativity, but rather, to fuel it.

As creativity is the fuel for innovation and the leader of today, cultural integrity is what keeps that leader honest.

It's the nudge we need to ensure that identity and heritage are preserved within our communities and our workforces. Keeping alive traditions, languages, and customs so everyone feels a sense of belonging and connection to their past and their future.

It's the nudge we need to ensure that diversity and inclusion are upheld to enrich our society in a way that celebrates our differences and our broad lived experiences.

And it's the little nudge we need to ensure that through our connection and the preservation of everyone's identity and heritage, we ensure that we create workplaces and societies that are inclusive, lack conflict and fuelled by so much more.

These little nudges are so important.

My dad thinks so too.