The key to happiness is to keep growing and developing, even through hardship.

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For years, I thought I knew what would make me happy.

I wanted freedom from the chaos that defined my childhood. I dreamed of finding love and building a family. I hoped for the success and recognition that would come from a significant career. Basically, I thought happiness meant the absence of struggle, the presence of love, and the validation of achievement.

And I was partly right. My children, my family, and my career all bring me joy beyond measure—exactly the kind of happiness I always knew they would. That part wasn’t a surprise.

But there was something else I didn’t expect.

When I look back at the moments when I felt most alive, most myself—they weren’t always peaceful or easy. They were moments of growth. Of becoming something I hadn’t been before. Amazingly, my happiness has been tied to my development.

I was always happiest at the top of my class, not because of the achievement but because of all the things I was learning. I was happiest in the countryside with my grandfather, learning to drive before I could see over the wheel, learning to shoot, to be self-sufficient. I was happiest traveling through Europe with theater troupes, learning routines and lines, absorbing new languages and cultures.

The pattern was always there. I just didn’t recognize it.

I’m a learner. That’s who I am at my core. I’m not a person who arrives at happiness—I find happiness in continuous growth.

When I joined CBS Group at 25, I wasn’t just taking a job. I was choosing a life of perpetual development. Every restructuring teaches me something new. Every challenge pushes me beyond my current capabilities. I’m never finished learning, never done growing, and that’s exactly what lights me up inside.

But here’s what makes it even more meaningful: my development and Georgia’s development are intertwined.

I grew up as Georgia grew up—after all, my country in its current form is younger than I am. My childhood paralleled my country’s painful transition from Soviet republic to independent nation. We both struggled. We both had to reinvent ourselves. Back when my grandfather told me I would “make change,” I thought that meant doing something grand and dramatic. But now I understand: making change means developing continuously alongside the country I love.

As I learn and grow, I bring those skills to building a stronger economy, better systems, and more transparent institutions. As Georgia develops, I have new challenges to master, new problems to solve. We’re developing together, and that’s where I find my deepest satisfaction.

My children get to grow up in a Georgia that’s stronger than the one I knew. Watching them learn and grow brings me the profound happiness I always knew it would. But what has surprised me is how much joy I find in my own continued development alongside theirs.

Development isn’t just professional growth. It’s a way of being in the world. It’s staying curious when you could become complacent. It’s embracing challenges when you could choose the comfort of the familiar. It’s believing that tomorrow you can be more capable than you are today.

That belief sustained me through everything—an abusive marriage, building a career in chaos, every moment when giving up would have been easier. Because even in the darkest times, struggle was teaching me something. Every hardship was developing me into someone stronger.

When I was young, I thought I wanted freedom from hardship. Now I understand that what I actually want is the freedom to keep developing despite hardship. That’s the real gift my grandfather gave me—not just the belief that I could make change, but the skills and mindset to keep growing no matter what obstacles appeared.

Eleven years into building one of Georgia’s most significant holding companies, I finally understand what happiness is. Yes, it’s family, the love I always knew would matter. But it’s also development. It’s growth. It’s the perpetual state of becoming.

My grandfather was right. I am making change—in my country, in my company, in myself—and as long as I keep developing, alongside the people I love and the country I’m building, I’ll keep being happy.

The journey never ends. And thank God for that.