What If You Don’t Believe You Are Worthy?

I was never able to understand why we were in such poverty, growing up in a small Ukrainian village… My dad. His dad. And Kebab stands. What it have to do with self-belief?

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My dad had a very strict father, who would always tell him, “You have to study hard. If you don’t study hard, you are not worthy of anything, you are as good as the knowledge you’ve got!”

Those words became so deeply ingrained in my father’s subconscious mind that they determined his entire life. He graduated from 2 universities with honours and he is one of the smartest and most intelligent people I know indeed.

But, as I’ve already shared, we had a poor life. We never had money. Our dad couldn’t provide for his family. Our parents never bought my sister and I any gifts for birthdays and Christmas, not because they didn’t love us enough but because they couldn’t afford it.

And it was always unfair. Especially when I watched dad’s friend, Alek. And Alek has a few of the kebab stands. He was nowhere near as smart and as intelligent as my dad but he was rich.

And I couldn’t understand why it was so unfair.

Dad’s friends would ask him, “If you are so…