This is the second part and continuation of yesterdays Blog sharing Chapter 1 of my Natasa Denman Reveals... 1000 Day to a Million Dollar Coaching Business from Home book..
So being with her I learnt obviously how to be around people who are different. In Macedonia, disability was not a common thing that you come across, so often times you get these looks and stares and uncomfortableness from the other side of people. Whereas for me, I just see it. They're just slightly different from everyone else, but they're just as much people and often times they're people that we need to look up to and learn from, skills around resilience and persistence, to get things happening in their own unique way, to be very creative when they get things done.
And that's what's really impressed me about her, so I took on that creativity and people person. And she also used to work in the bank, she taught me about money, about savings, and how to make sure that I also had enough of the future.
Because nowadays, she's been retired for about probably 15-20 years, and she's fully financially independent. I mean, everyone's ultimate goal is to be able to retire without being on a pension, or government support, which it still gets a little bit of, because of her disability, however most of her income is derived from investment properties, and rentals and other things that she's organised herself, to make sure that she doesn't have to rely on other people and can get that support for herself.
So just like Robert [inaudible] original book was developed, I like to say she was like my rich mum, because even though she's not flamboyantly rich she can sustain her life without having to work and have that passive income to support her.
And last of all, obviously my dear mum, who's a very nurturing type of personality and a person that has taught me about sacrifice, about that resilience, that dependence, and also who has had a very entrepreneurial spirit herself.
I believe her moving across at the age of 31 to a country where she didn't speak English. She came on a tourist visa at the time, to start up a life and to provide the education, the opportunities that Australia gives us, was an amazing move.
And I see that as her big leap of faith to move across the world and it also sacrificed two and a half years from being separated from her child, which was myself obviously and to set up a life here, so that I could then come over to something more permanent. How she ended up staying was that she met my step dad and then started dating and about 6-9 months later, when she was due to come back they actually decided to declare a de facto relationship and that was good enough at the time for the government to grant that permanent residency.
But as I said, it took two and a half years to actually arrive in this country myself, so it was the toughest two and a half years because back then we didn't have the ability or couldn't afford those phone calls between Macedonia and Australia; it was something like the equivalent of $50 a minute! And so it was letters that we would send back and forth, which took 2-3 weeks to get to each other. And as a little girl, I missed out in that period where you flourish into a teenager and you don't have your mum. However the other three strong women in my life looked after me so well and I was so grateful for that. And I was grateful for the opportunity that this particular experience gave me.
Although it wasn't the ideal situation to live for those two and a half years, I very much so learnt resilience, independence and patience in that time to be reunited with mum when I came to Australia.
That was a big, big learning curve as much as it may not have seemed like anything at the time.
Social life and school in Macedonia was also quite different to what it is here in Australia. People over there mainly value fun and being around other people.
So they work to live, they don't live to work! And this is where I've brought that part of me here and this is why the way I have developed the businesses is very much around fun and value and people.
So going and taking people on my Ultimate 48-Hour Retreats just ties in really nicely with those values and I was very much raised with a belief that the quality of your life is dependent on how many memories and holidays you can take and create with your nearest and dearest.
And that's the thing that I have always encouraged to happen in my life, because we spend about three months away in going to either long weekends, overseas, a couple of holidays per year, a big Christmas break, all of those things are super important to me and I value them highly over materialistic things than having a mansion or a Porsche or all those things. So I prefer to spend my money on memories, and trips and experiences over materialistic things.
So school was very hardcore. Over there you tend to do about 15 different subjects in primary school. I finished year 8 over there before I moved here and the quality and the standard of what you learn at the age you are is probably about 5-6 years ahead of what children learn here in our schools.
So when I came over here I was already ahead in maths, physics, chemistry, all of those types of classes were like so advanced back in Macedonia, that I just really academically did really well here and persisted with my inability to speak English, by achieving actually a standard of B's in normal English class, because what happened is that I actually kept going back to, they kept putting me in an ESL class, which is English as a Second Language, but I didn't understand why I was being put into this class and I kept going back to my normal English class so I never actually did ESL.
Why do they end up being in business? I'm very much a big believer that history repeats itself, and what I had witnessed growing up in my childhood, was that pretty much most of my family, being business owners, from the lemonade shop of my grandma and grandfather from my mother's side, to the business that my dad had, my dad had a TV repair business, he was electronically savvy and used to repair people's DVD's TV's all sorts of electronic equipment.
My grandfather, together with my dad, had within the same shop, he repaired people's shoes and that was his own business. My uncle, who was my dad's brother, also had a business where he was a locksmith. He used to cut keys and do things like that. My aunty, her legal firm. And so I was constantly surrounded, my immediate family all had their own businesses. And sometimes as times were amazing and very abundant, and other times everyone was sitting quietly, hoping that it will turn around, just like it is nowadays, because business is always going to be on an upwards spiral. It will go up and down and have those lulls.
So I'm very much a big believer that the reason I've ended up doing what I do right now is because that's always the way it's been done and my family has always been chosen to live life on their terms and their own time. And they have worked very hard and had always been really, really creative and entrepreneurial in that way.
As I said, we were more of a middle class type of family, rather than say in the rich people, but we had everything and we went away on all the holidays that we desired and we wished for.
So Macedonia was a wonderful country; I often go back and visit every couple of years on average and I've taken back my kids, my husband, and we have traveled to Greece and we use it as our base and we travel around Europe, which is wonderful, I feel like we're at home when we go back.
I can connect and keep in touch with all of my friends, thanks to the power of Facebook and social media, I just love having that as my background, I'm proud of it and I like the way it makes me feel when I go back home and just to do things differently then what we do here, which is so wonderful and it really I guess appeals for my need for variety and adventure.
The very last thing I wanted to bring up around my childhood was the words that my dad said about me before I left, which really stuck into my head and something that had made a big difference in how I was going to tackle life moving forward.
What happened was that I was in his shop and I was in the spare room and I could hear him talking to one of his customers. And I guess he was very heartbroken to have me leave the country and obviously not be near him, but this is what I believe, was the real, real, core issue behind what he said, but at the time I didn't know this.
And what he said to his customer is that she's going to go over there and she'll be a prostitute basically, because he had this perception or belief that anyone that goes out to a Westernised country turns into this loose girl who ends up being very rebellious and gives up her body to everyone.
Those were the words that really stuck in my mind and fortunately, the person that I am what I've always continued to do so in my life is to prove men wrong about what I was going to turn out to be like. Similar things have happened with my step father here, where he always thought that once they get into their real world, things wouldn't be as easy as what I think and those were not my beliefs. Obviously I understand those were their beliefs, but it's interesting how it was a protection mechanism of some sort to say that and to be unaware obviously of how things were going to unfold.
So those were the words that I left, my father left with me before I came here. I have a reasonable relationship with him. We catch up whenever I go but not so much while I'm here, but very much so, there are things that I believe he is very talented at. He knows things that I've learnt from him, but there's those weaknesses and moments where there's irrational actions being taken and I come from an understanding that he's doing the best he can with what he's got, and if he knew better he'd do better. So I just choose to respect him as a parent and I know that I also have a lot of his traits within me.
So I have to be grateful and there's no love like the love you have for a parent. So therefore I believe that I have got traits from both him and my mum and the person that I've become today is partially because of things that I have observed, I have heard, I have experienced in my life and also because of things that I've been told along the way, which a lot of the time have been about being encouraged and told that I am good enough, I can do anything that I set my mind to and that there are people that are proud of me.
So that was the first part of how my childhood unfolded in a very obviously succinct summary of the main events that I believe I witnessed in that time.
And in the next couple of chapters we'll look at the adolescent years while I was here in Australia, settling into a new culture, a new language, and then we're going to have a look at the adult Natasa in terms of once I left home and what has been my learnings throughout all of that.
I trust you enjoyed a little insight into my Inner Child.
Love Nat x
