How Growing Up a child of political Refugees Led Me to Where I Am Today.

Aside from a lucky few, everybody has big challenges in life. Career difficulties and heartbreak and financial problems are simply a part of any human life, and I am NO different. I recently covered my career story in this piece, and it talks all about the jobs and positions I’ve held. It was a piece I LOVED writing, but I feel it’s now time to touch on these other parts of my life. The stuff that isn’t shiny and rosy - or even strictly ‘professional’ - but which created some of my core beliefs, convictions and gave me values that guide me till this day.

The early years

Both my parents were from a part of Hungary that, after the war, became Czechoslovakia. My father’s family is Jewish and lost everything. After years of growing up behind the iron curtain, he decided that communism wasn’t for him and escaped to the West. At the time, there was no real sense that the Eastern Bloc and its communist regime would ever fall, and so he committed to leave seeking a new life, well knowing it meant to never seeing his family again. How BRAVE! Can you imagine having to make such a momentous decision? He arrived in Frankfurt, fleeing via Vienna, with nothing more than a suitcase and 20 Deutschmark to his name.

My mum, on the other hand, was from a well-to-do family - her father was a notary. She, already pregnant with me, agreed to escape with him and meet my father on the other side of the iron curtain. First, she stoped in Vienna to give birth to me and stayed there for one year. She was lucky to have a remote auntie in Vienna that took us in for that time. Eventually, my mum and I continued our journey and joined my fathers in Frankfurt. My parents started their lives in ?freedom‘ from scratch, renting a tiny one-bedroom apartment. My father was keeping us afloat, holding down three different jobs. And that was the story of the first few years of my life…the two of them trying to find their way in a world so different and new to the one they had left behind…and me bumbling along.

A dollop of ambition

My mother is a brilliantly talented woman. She had finished her studies as a classical singer and piano forte and could have had a career as an opera singer and pianist. Instead she decided to give up her own ambitions to support my father who wanted to return to university. His original degree was not recognised by Germany, so he had to ?redo‘ it at a Germany university. Both knew, one needed an academic underpinning to get a well-paying job in ?the west‘. During his studies my dad still kept working, yet my mum financed the bulk of the family costs, working as a kindergarten teacher. That’s all I saw, my parents frantically working, yet finding it still difficult to make ends meet. Yet, there was no alternative, was there? They ?marched‘ on.

Eventually, a perk from my mother’s jobs meant we could move to a 2 bedroom apartment, and that’s where I spent the remainder of my childhood. When I finished my A-Levels, I knew I wanted to leave Frankfurt and study abroad. My eyes were set on the UK - a very costly thing to do at the time (and now too, of course!). A lot to ask, I know. But I found the full and loving support from my parents, who decided to sell their life insurance policies - to pay for my tuition and university life in the UK. That was a huge sacrifice from their side to help me build my future…a better future!

The sacrifice has kept me focussed on what matters

I don’t want to overstate this, because most of my ambition comes from my own desires and drive. But still, a big chunk of my motivation is also to repay my wonderful parents for always putting my needs and wants first. They put up with hardship for so long, and took huge risks, to give me a stable foundation from which to build a life. At every turn, from Lehman Brothers, to being a TV anchor, to working in VC, that humble life we lived together in downtown Frankfurt has always been at the back of my mind, reminding me how far we came. This keeps me humble on one side, but also gives me the strength and confidence that anything is possible!

From the first day I took home a pay cheque, I supported my parents financially. That makes me proud on more than on level. I am thankful that I had the privilege to grow up in a free and democratic society thanks to my parents’ courage and hard grind. Whilst money isn’t everything, it still remains a fundamental tool to lend stability and a sense of tranquility that allows us to focus on the things that matter - in particular, human relationships, personal expansion and development and contributing something good to our human society. They say: money doesn’t bring happiness…true! But being with out it over the long term can destroy it.