It’s been an eventful few weeks.
How To Be A Rich Man…Or Woman! will be published in Poland soon. So I spent about a week and a half doing interviews, speaking with university students, and shooting videos to promote the release. It was a hectic but rewarding experience, and I’m very excited to have another title published abroad.
In my conversations with the people of Poland, I once again sensed an optimism and strength in them, in spite of the war in nearby Ukraine. (I was there in January for The Old Money Book release.) The country is poised for economic growth: everyone I spoke with in Warsaw and Poznan under the age of 30 spoke very good English. Small businesses were thriving. The skyline was dotted with construction cranes, marking new commercial and residential developments. Bentleys and Rolls Royce automobiles crowded the valet parking area at my Warsaw hotel, signaling the arrival of bold, new wealth.
I did speak with several Ukrainians living in Poland (some by choice, others not). They feared for their country, prayed for peace, and got on with their daily lives and work. I got the impression that agonizing and hand-wringing over what might happen in the future was not part of their psyche. They were tired but tough, their perspective forged with equal measures of faith and fatalism.
For a week, I was a regular at the hotel restaurant. A waitress who served me several times finally struck up a conversation. After a few pleasantries, she confided that she had fled Ukraine. When I told her that everyone in the United States was supporting her country and hoping the best for them, she nodded politely. But her resigned expression told me she was well aware of the ocean that sometimes separated the sentiments of a people and the actions of their government. In that moment, I felt she was worldly and wise, and I was naive and foolish.
Trying to minimize the awkwardness, I signed the bill, said a quick good night, and excused myself.
Two days later, as I crossed the hotel lobby to check out, the same waitress slipped out of a service entrance and almost skipped over to me. She had learned who I was (?!?) and that The Old Money Book was already published in Polish and How To Be A Rich Man…or Woman! would soon be available to purchase in Polish. She was delighted, grateful, and optimistic at the prospect of learning how to improve her life. She’d would buy both books in the coming days, she said.
Touched, I thanked her and shook her hand. She spun on her heel quickly, hurried back to the service entrance, and shot a smile back to me.
Waving goodbye to her, I paused to admire a refugee from a war-torn country hustle back to a job that was probably not her first choice in a country not her own.
“I hope you come back soon!” she called.
I smiled, warmed by the resilience of youth, and thought to myself…
So do I.
- BGT