My story
Two sides of a coin
We are going to spend some time together exploring your life and achieving your goals, so I believe you have a right to know something about me.
Probably you think you had the craziest and most demanding life. Well, let me tell you about mine…
When I was fourteen years old, I sailed on an open sea for over two months. At the age of fifteen, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice on the Polish Scouts sailing-ship Zawisza Czarny. During the maritime workshops, I was trained as a leader and speaker. Later on I used that knowledge in the course of my two year adventure as a radio presenter. After I graduated from a university in Poland, I moved to the Czech Republic. I worked as a negotiator and soon as a manager of big and complex teams. I completed my Ph.D. at the most reputable Czech university at the same time. During the following years I lived, studied and worked in the USA, Spain, Slovakia, Poland and finally the United Kingdom. I have two great kids and a loving husband.
Sounds easy and interesting, doesn’t it? So what if we looked at my story from a different perspective. I have got a lot, but nothing came for free!
I became a girl scout and a sailor because my parents were working so much that I hardly saw them at home. To qualify for the 6 months Columbus sailing race, I was chosen from over 200 fantastic kids from the whole country during a long and very demanding qualification process. Within my work on catholic radio, my programmes were considered to be too open minded and scandalous so I had to defend them in front of the general manager almost every week. To be enrolled at the university, I had to beat eleven other candidates for the same position. In the Czech Republic, I first started as a translator and had to work extremely hard to improve my quite poor (to be honest) knowledge of the Czech language and fight for a better future at the same time. Believe me, it is not easy to be in a managerial position in the Czech Republic when you are a woman. And I was not only a woman but I was a foreigner and a woman! It took me eight long years to complete my Ph.D. studies and to finalize a very complex, investigative thesis. I was about to resign many times. Well, I actually did resign a few times. Every time I got up and started again. I had to leave my friends and life whenever I left for a new country. Since I am an introvert, I then had to laboriously build my life from scratch again and again. I have a husband, who comes from a different culture. Believe me, we are sometimes very explosive combination. Only wisdom, love and tons of patience let us stay together for over 19 years so far. And last but not least, I have two wonderful daughters. It took us many years to make this happen, many disappointments, tears, moments of resignation and prayers. But I did it and I am so proud of myself!
I gave up hundreds of times, and always stood up again one more time. I cannot count how many times I was told my goals were impossible. But you know what? I never cared. I always believed that I have a choice. I can win, I can loose, but I just have to try again a little harder.
Is my life perfect? No, far from it. I have days (and not so few of them) when I feel very low. But then I stand up, fix my crown and try again. Because I want, because I believe, because I have a choice.
So, here I am to help you clarify what your goal is and to help you make it possible to achieve it. Why? Because I am sure we have a right to be happy, because I believe we always have a strength to get up one more time and fight on, because we are unique yet we have a lot in common at the same time.