Paola Minekov

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Photo: My father Ivan Minekov and I at the opening of Legends, his art exhibition in the European Parliament in Brussels.

In the 25th anniversary edition of Yorkshire Womens Life, I spoke about the advice my father, sculptor Ivan Minekov gave me, before I left Bulgaria at 18 years old to study in Israel. It was one of those moments that feels decisive even as you’re living it, though at this age you can't quite understand how deeply it would affect your life. My father, who had built his life through discipline and vision, didn’t offer me a long lecture or a list of practical instructions. Instead, he said just this:

“Reach for the sky and you’ll be amazed how far you’ll go.”

I packed my life into a single heavy suitcase and stepped into a country where I didn’t speak the language, where even the simplest interactions required courage. Everything was unfamiliar, slightly intimidating, and yet full of possibility. I remember standing there, somewhere between fear and excitement, wondering if I had overestimated myself.

Years later, I understand that his advice wasn’t about ambition in the obvious sense. It wasn’t about chasing status or accumulating things. It was about scale – the scale of your thinking, the quiet permission you give yourself to imagine beyond what feels reasonable.

We talk a lot now about goals, about being strategic, about setting targets that are measurable and achievable. There’s value in that, of course. But what those frameworks rarely explain is why aiming higher than necessary can change the course of your life.

If you only ever aim for what feels realistic, you tend to arrive there quickly and stop. You stay within a predictable radius of your own expectations. But if you reach further, just beyond what feels comfortable or sensible, something shifts. You might not land exactly where you intended, but you rarely fall short of where you began.

I didn’t become everything I once imagined or wanted. Few of us do. I never became a ballerina, for example. I found myself painting ballet dancers instead.

Following his advice I achieved things I never dreamed I would.

That, I think, is the truth behind my father’s words. Dreaming big is not about guaranteed outcomes. It’s about momentum. It stretches your perspective, introduces you to unexpected paths, and moves you further than cautious thinking ever could.

Looking back now, nearly three decades later, I can see how that single sentence travelled with me. Through uncertainty, through pauses, through reinvention. It wasn’t something I consciously repeated to myself every day. It simply became a way of moving through the world, a reminded when I needed it.

Personally. Professionally. When I feel down I remind myself: Reach for the sky and you’ll be amazed how far you’ll go.

And in the end, he was right.

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