My Favorite Hobby

Wind blowing into my face, my eyes where after few seconds the tears come out and I am speeding and crying but this are not the tears of sadness but the tears of joy. Stop. Here I am in the most beautiful place in the world, surrounded by mountains covered in snow. Sun is shining, even though it’s minus ten but I haven’t even noticed because I’m too happy. I have the feeling of being on top of the world and that there’s nothing that can stop me. It’s great to have a passion that makes you feel like this. I’m lucky to have one.
During the time that most of people like to spend drinking warm tea and reading a novel, I’m cruising through snow, both my legs strapped to a wide plank of wood and fiberglass, practicing sport known as snowboarding. Writing this essay helped me to realize that I haven’t chosen this hobby by a coincidence. Both of the characteristics of this sport changed the world history. Events like the French revolution of 1789 or the uprising in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1943, would not have happened if people hadn’t had courage and belief in freedom.
Courage. Many people who know me well say, that I have courage. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I was raised in this spirit by my entrepreneurial parents who had big respect for hard work. I learned that hard work will always be rewarded. I helped in my family’s business, since I turned 14 and I learned the pros and cons of having your own business. Even though the disadvantages seemed big to me at that time, as an only child I knew that I would run the business one day. By the time I turned 18, I was fully at peace with this idea.

It’s hard to imagine how big my shock was when one year later my father got a brain cancer and passed away and a year later our self-built family company. The shock was big and lasted long but I knew one thing – I had no plan and I needed one. I put myself together and made a new plan – studying, developing myself, investing in what my father used to say “nobody will ever be able to take away from you” which is knowledge. Where I am today, doing what I do is the result of that experience and my patience, persistence and hard work. Freedom.
During an exchange programme for students, we played a game in which each of us had to choose 3 words representing our values. Surprisingly I had no problem to choose the number one “freedom”. I found that amazing to discover, that freedom was more important to me than things like “family”, which was the number two, “love”, not to mention – “career” or “development”. Even today I know that only through “freedom” can I achieve all the other values that are important to me. It organizes my priorities and my moral system. It’s the freedom of my own choices and the freedom of always standing for what I believe in.
Moreover, it is also about honesty and respect to other people, which are my personal code of conduct. And when necessary it is the freedom to give up some of our freedom out of love and respect for others. Courage and all the notions of freedom described above are helping me to be successful in business. I am always a promoter of honesty and transparency in the workplace, as well a big supporter of the sustainable development agenda. What makes it different but not less exiting than my sport activities, is the fact that I don’t have to do it in minus ten degrees Celsius…