When I started earning my own money at sixteen, the situation in Bulgaria offered far too few opportunities for young people. There was no internet, no mobile phones, nothing to watch on TV – in fact, color TV sets had pretty recently come out. You were not allowed to travel freely abroad, and even if you had been, how could you afford it? So I decided to go into business – can you imagine? I’d rather not grumble and whine because I’d read it did no good. I decided it was all up to me. At the time, I studied economics at а high school of business and finance, and the school subjects exposed me to the works of Peter Drucker, Adam Smith, David Ogilvy, etc. I realized the times were always good for some and bad for others, but most importantly – we were free people, just like we are today, which is priceless. I started with a very humble capital, literally half the salary of my wonderful mother who would give anything up for her family. My journey so far has been an extremely difficult one, and I won’t be lying if I say that I’ve worked my butt off! I still have the occasional nightmare of getting up at 5 AM and having to go out in the total dark and biting cold to buy fruit and vegetables for the market stalls I managed.
Today, I organize seminars and training sessions and work as a business coach, meeting lots of people, and quite a few of them think that we live in a time of no opportunities, that markets are over-saturated and dominated by huge corporations, leaving no room for small businesses. Knowing how large a number of SMEs bankrupt only discourages these people further. They keep working for companies they don’t like, selling their time for money without finding any pleasure in their job or satisfaction in the way they spend every day and every hour of their lives.
I, of course, believe that the present day offers more opportunities than ever. I am convinced that our future is the projection of our thinking, so if a person is convinced that there is no bright future ahead of them, that’s probably the case. If they don’t see any opportunities, perhaps there won’t be any. But in fact, any healthy and free individual faces thousands of opportunities. The entire world is theirs to take, with all of its beauty and abundance.