The First Steps Toward Adulthood
There comes a moment in every child's life when the world suddenly becomes much larger. Not because the streets have changed. But because our way of seeing has changed. For me, that moment had arrived. The quiet years of the mining community were behind me. Liège was slowly becoming my new home. I was no longer a little boy.
But I was not yet a man. I stood between two worlds. Like so many young people of my generation, I knew my childhood would not last forever. Soon, I would have to find my own path. Earning my own living was not a distant prospect in those days. It was simply part of life. My parents had worked hard throughout their lives to give us opportunities they themselves had never known.
And that was exactly why they wanted what was best for my future. My father and my oldest brother had chosen a field of study for me: electromechanics. Their choice was understandable. We lived in the Liège region, where the steel industry was a major employer. They were convinced that technical training would give me the best chance of finding a secure and respectable job later. To them, a diploma meant security.
And after everything my parents had endured in life, security was no small word. But deep inside, I felt that my interests lay elsewhere. I wanted to learn languages. I was drawn to commerce. To people. To sales. To the world beyond the factory gates. Even though I had always been among the best students, I was never truly motivated by that technical program. I was capable of following the lessons.
But my heart was not in it. Over the years, that difference became increasingly clear. At home, it regularly caused disagreements. My father and oldest brother saw a secure future for me. I saw a life that did not fit who I was. None of us had bad intentions. We simply viewed my future differently.
But as a young man, I did not yet have the calm or experience needed to understand it that way. The tensions continued to rise. Until one day, barely three months before I could earn my A2 diploma, I impulsively decided to leave school. It was not a carefully prepared decision. It was the decision of a young man who felt he should finally be allowed to determine his own life. That choice caused serious tension within our family.
My father could not understand why I was giving everything up so close to the finish line. Today, so many years later, I understand his disappointment much better than I did then. He had worked and sacrificed all his life so that his children could study. My decision must have been difficult for him to accept.
But it was not an easy period for me either. I knew very clearly what I did not want. I simply did not yet know exactly how to reach what I truly wanted. Alongside that uncertainty, however, something else was growing within me. Curiosity. I wanted to discover the world. Meet people. Speak languages. Engage in commerce. Understand how businesses worked. How products were made and sold. Why some entrepreneurs succeeded while others did not.
Without my realizing it, the entrepreneur within me slowly began to awaken during those years. Not the entrepreneur who dreamed of becoming rich. But the one who saw new possibilities everywhere. Who believed almost anything could be improved. That part of my character would accompany me throughout my life. Sometimes it would lead me to great successes. And at other times, to painful disappointments.
But I could not change it. I always preferred trying to open a new path rather than simply following one others had already laid out for me. My parents would recognize that quality in me many more times. Sometimes with pride. Sometimes, undoubtedly, with concern. For those who choose their own path also risk losing their way. And that happened to me more than once in life.
But each time, I had to learn again. To fall. Rise. And begin again. Perhaps that was precisely where my true passage into adulthood began. Not on the day I left school. Not on the day I found my first job. But at the moment I began to understand that choosing your own road also means taking responsibility for its consequences.
At the time, I did not know which people I would later meet. I did not know that coffee would become my first great passion. I did not know that ceramic tiles would one day change the course of my life. I did not know that Marco would later become my business partner. Nor that life would bring me both extraordinary successes and profound pain. All of that still lay hidden beyond the horizon. I was simply a young man.
With countless questions. Countless dreams. And unshakable confidence in the future. Perhaps that is youth's greatest wealth. We do not know what life has in store for us. And that is precisely why we dare to dream. When I think of that young Renato today, I cannot help smiling. He still knew so little. Sometimes he made decisions he would have done better to consider a little longer.
But he possessed one priceless quality. He never gave up before he had at least tried. That quality would help shape my entire life. For better. And sometimes for worse. But without it, I would never have become the man I am today.