Recently, we acquired a new member in our Foreigners family, who has been with us for two months now as a Relocation Consultant and counting. Michal Macko is from Slovakia and he has been living in Brno for eight years.
Living in the second largest Czech city long-term, Michal considers Brno to be the best city that he has ever visited and he plans to stay here for a long time. He likes that the city center is very small and that overall the city is not that huge. Like many people from foreign countries, he finds public transport very well designed and that is also a reason why he recommends this place to friends or people he meets. What he loves about Brno is the workout fields, the gyms, the climbing walls, and the pools.
Panoramic view of Bojin kuk, National park Paklenica
During the years Michal realized that he is not a traveler since it doesn’t really bring him joy to visit different places. “The only thing that matters to me is to be in a place, where there are people who I like and who like me back, too,” he states.
If you’d asked little Michal what he would like to be when he would grow up, the answer you would get is “an astronaut or an archeologist”, because he loved the universe and dinosaurs.
But things turned out to be quite different, as he ended up studying wood making, he has a master’s in economics, related to risk analysis and security management, and currently, he is doing his Ph.D.’s at the Centre of Polymer systems, related to the nanoparticles and nanomaterials.
After his studies, he has been dreaming of working with a large set of data, being very versatile, and still being able to meet clients in person.
Never felt like an expat
Even though Michal has been an expat in the Czech Republic for a long time now, he never felt like one. “Of course, you will always encounter people who like or dislike you based on some attribute such as belief, country, race, gender, and so on,” he admits. “But I have never felt that the fact I am a foreigner has had a larger impact on my life than anything else.”
Michal with his girlfriend at Plitvická jezera, Croatia
Nowadays, fully in working mode, Michal has a lot of duties and responsibilities and lesser leisure time, but still, he manages to do what he loves, like doing sports on a regular basis – gym or street workouts and running. He also enjoys the longboard and in general any kind of physical activity. But at the same time, he likes PC video games and playing board games with his friends. He enjoys playing the guitar and singing along. “Just name any kind of activity and I will probably like to join,” he laughs.
Michal believes that “time is the most valuable commodity that a human really owns”, and he would never allow himself to be consumed by things that he doesn’t want to do. One of which is stress. He succeeds in living stress-free, whether that is in the work field or his personal life. “You can’t always win, even if you try your best, sometimes the defeat is inevitable. Having this mindset has helped me a lot by putting me in an emotional comfort – and thus, in a stress-free zone,” he explains.
His attitude towards life is “Whatever you do – whether you like it or not – give it your best, otherwise don’t do it at all, cause you are just wasting your potential and TIME.” That, if you think about it, makes total sense.
Work at Foreigners: Focus & Priorities
If we turn to his work responsibilities at Foreigners, as he puts it, “they consist of providing a set of services from the real estate industry – communication with a client, identifying client’s needs and requirements, assuring tours, adding or updating the company’s property database, communication with landlords, and finally preparing and archiving the necessary documentation related to renting a property”.
Michal at Foreigners Brno office
When he first started this job he was looking forward to communicating in English and therefore improving himself a bit in this field. “Due to the coronavirus breakdown, I didn’t really have that opportunity since I had to work from home, but things are getting back to normal now so I am hoping for new opportunities to practice my language skills,” he declares.
In order to do his job so well, Michal admits that he needs to stay focused and dedicated. He works step by step and prioritizes what needs to be done. Thanks to that, he provides the best professional help to our clients.
And advice from Michal for you, readers? “Enjoy your life, stay true, and keep going forward!”
Would you like Michal or other of our Relocation Consultants to assist you in finding accommodation in Brno? Feel free to contact us via brno@foreigners.cz and also, check our offer of exclusive apartments.
If you want to read more of our interviews with people from Foreigners click below: