How coming from a poor family never stopped me from reaching my dreams and how you can too.
This is a story about you, about me. Although I will write my story, I know by heart that many people went through the same difficulties that I did, they succeeded nevertheless.
I love writing not because it makes you popular or it plays with your ego seeing some thousand users have read your article and so more people start following you. I love writing for one reason, it is the way to leave something behind that someone who lives in the next street or the other side of the world can use and maybe reading your articles they may be able to take a new direction, or just avoid something without having the same problems that I had. No, I don’t have a youtube channel and no I won’t sell you tips on writing. I just write.
That is a perfect reason for me to keep writing.
This is exactly what happened with two of my previous articles. Both “How did I pass the AWS job Interview and become a Technical Account Manager?” and “How I passed 3 AWS Certifications in 26 days and saved $24.000 in one day”. Yes, they have received a couple of thousand reads each of them. I have received emails from India to Turkey to Germany from people I never knew they existed, or read my stories saying one thing in common:
It helped them..
If you are born around the ’70s like me you probably will remember the pressure we had from our moms. We loved playing street football. You get 2 stones each, place them with a meter or two in between to the opposite side and use them as the gate, they whistle to call all kids that are outside to come and do a football match.
Well although the football was awesome, you eventually tore apart some part of your shoes, which were in no way Nike or Adidas sports shoes. They were nameless, spots looking, hurting most of the time, but you had great fun with them. Now the most difficult of all was to go back home and having to explain to your mom that you tore your shoes apart. You mom would start saying “You did it again”, and you would feel bad seeing your dad repairing your shoes.
They did repair, not because they loved it, or my dad was a shoemaker, they did because we could only afford only one pair of shoes / a year. You would go to get a shoe each year when you were starting the school semester and it would be your only pair of shoes for the rest of the year. Anything happens you had to find a way to deal with it.
Then it was new years time. I am sure you will resonate with this, but new years time was not a “Party time” for neither me or my family. It was time to get together with the family and be able to eat well. That's it. I remember the rest of the year not being able to eat as much meat as we would today. I remember my grandmother telling me to have more bread, it wasn't because she was tight-fisted, it was because we could probably only afford 1/2 k of minced meat a week for 5 people? She had to find a way to distribute this all throughout the week, so she did...
Nevertheless, they were the best food I have ever had to this day. Not even the best restaurants I have been to are able to compete with Grand-mom’s dinner.
I know this happened to most of us.
Are you still with me?
Then as a poor kid, you had to learn how to deal with the rich kids. I am not saying they were bad. Really they were great friends, but you couldn't afford to go to the cafeteria to have something to drink with them. While they were ordering their second coca-cola, you would just have water.
It made things difficult.
Then it wasn't only when you were a child.
I remember how hard it was to convince my family to buy my a computer. I wasn't a child anymore I was finishing high school, getting ready for the university, and I was about to take the university exam. For those who are not familiar with how the educational system works in Turkey. There are only so many universities on the west side that only plenty can get in. You either would spend 1.5 years studying for this 4-hour exam and pass it or you would end up not being able to go to university.
I knew I was in love with this magical box. I knew all about it, reading whatever was written in chip magazine that I would borrow from my friends. I knew about overclocking, the internet, but just couldn't afford to buy a computer.
I had to convince my parents to buy a 1200$ box which meant not much to them. I went after my father 2 years 1994–1996 asking when we would buy one. Then I convinced my grandparents to help with a part of the payments( Yes everything in Turkey you would do monthly payments, nobody had 1200$ to spend). Then finally I had applied for a scholarship that would pay me around 70$/ month and told my father I would use this money to help the payments. And in 1996 I went to order my first computer
A Celeron 300 with 2 MB of memory, 200 MB of hard disk with 14” CRT monitor.
So I thought it was the end, I was really passionate about computers, but there were still difficulties ahead. I had to negotiate my time with my parents. In those years you will remember we would use the phone line to access the internet. You would pay :
- ISP around 27$ to get a monthly connection package
- Pay for using the phone line( We are talking about $$/minute it was golden back then)
- Have the phoneline busy every time you connect to the internet. You would hear your mom calling you “Get out of internet I need to make a call now!”:)
We survived. My family knew I was up to something, and that I knew what I was doing. They trusted me so I did work even harder. Every time I would connect to the internet, it eas to find useful information that I would read and read again and again until I learned it by heart.
I am sure a lot of you had to go through this. All 70’s generation connecting to the internet via 56K modems.
Then in 2005, I got news. I went to my parents and said I want to thank you both. They asked me why.
Me: You remember the days you bought me a computer? And let me use the internet?
Parents: Yes
Me: Well, I received a job offer from Spain. They want me to come work with them. Thank you for putting yourself at risk and for trusting me. Because of this, I am here and I am going to go to Spain,
They were sad and they were happy. They were happy to see I was going after what I loved, and that they were right in trusting me, and they were sad that I would leave my country.
This I thought was the last, I was getting somewhere.
In order to not to put any more weight on my parents, I arranged everything. The tickets, passport fees were paid bu the company, but I couldn't ask them for anything else. After all, they had done for me more than they could afford.
They would ask me if I had enough money to get to Spain, I would say yes, and it was true. But what I didn't say was I didn't have anything else. In September of 2006, I came to Spain/ Calella De Mar with only 7 Eur equivalent of Turkish Lira and my one baggage.
In my first days in Spain for 10 days, I lived on Pan amb Tomàquet, in 1 bedroom old hotel room, provided by the company until the company that I started to work for did advance me some money.
Then I started, like the rest of you, I worked, worked and worked more. And the rest is… Well, I am here.
So why did I explain all these?
I explain al these because it brings me to the message I wanted to share with you. It is the same message any people coming from a poor background would share with others.
Being poor was not enjoyable, and most of the time is the reason why I don't want to recall some of my childhood BUT it left me gifts on the way, which in return made me the person I am today:
We are humble: We were brought up humble, had to deal with a vast amount of situations which then made us more humble.
We think of other people than we think ourselves: When we were growing up, it was not only us it was us and the rest of the many people going through the same situation. We get used to thinking and caring about others, surviving as a whole is always more important than surviving alone.
We value people not money: Having nearly nothing, you learn to value other things like people, friendship, helping, being generous and sharing with others.
We emphasize: Having been there, done that helps us understand what it is like to be in the same situation. We know how hard it is.
We are content and happy with little things: This is what you learn a, long the way. If you are coming from a poor family you also had to pass days with a ball only. You were happy, so was I.
Finally, a lot of what we do today, who we are, how we see things, are shaped by all these memories. Being poor can be a curse, or it can bring you gifts you can rely on all your life, making you understand things that you wouldn’t if you hadn’t been there.
If you find yourself saying “ Being poor was the best thing that happened to me”, then you are one of us.
Never forget where you come from so it can guide you where you want to go.
I have been helping a lot of you decide “What is next for my career?”. If you are on the same journey and need help deciding, feel free to send contact me via Twitter or LinkedIn
