Last week with our French Tech Sofia squad we organised the first edition of the annual awards. It was epic.​

Thanks to Wilfried Durand - VP of FTS and one of the first subscribers of this newsletter, we had as a feature speaker Jonathan Anguelov, founder of European unicorn Aircall.

Jonathan delivered an inspirational talk about his journey and the message from his book "Nothing to lose".

Many people in Bulgaria had no idea who he was, and in some cases even if they did, they weren't aware of his Bulgarian origins. His message was powerful in so many dimension, but I couldn't help but see the power of "origin story" :

• "Your past doesn't have to determine whether or not you are meant to succeed"
• "I am returning to Bulgaria for the first time in 15 years, and I am going to look at what's going on here, and invest here"
• From a TV interview "My mother was strict, very east European, never says "I am proud of you", after she died, I was alone in her apartment, and I found a box, when I opened it, it was full of article and newspaper clips about me, she kept them all these years while I was having the success with Aircall, she was very proud, she just never told me, that day I felt something deeply moving inside me, I drew a line in the sand, and made the decision to go as high as I possibly can, no limit, and keep making her proud"
• From another interview "Why after leaving the operations of the successful unicorn, you got into real estate ? reply : I was in real estate since I was 19, I bought my first asset a studio (last floor tiny apartment for service maids) with a student loan. Losing our home as a child was unbearable to me, I never wanted to live the feeling of losing my home again, it was my revenge on life, now I own a hotel property in front of the Eiffel tower, my dream as a kid"

Often under-estimated, reflecting on our "origin story" forces us to learn about how past events impacted us emotionally and shaped our world view. Becoming aware of them is powerful in so many ways because it :

• Helps find distinguished point of view
• Differentiates us because it's very unique and personal
• Connects strongly with others having the same struggles
• Creates a deeper meaning of why we do what we do
• Acts An infinite source of energy, when harnessed it can fuel any venture to reach summits !
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