There are certain people we feel we know like the back of our hands – we have been their friends for that long. And then, probably due to self-training and self-improvement, we notice that they have greatly changed. And it is to their advantage that they have changed in a positive way.
Well, Mátyás Szarvas is a man just like that. Let’s admit that this sort of change requires a great deal of courage, as why would he have risked a perhaps uncomfortable transition when he is already a respected and well-known personality. Well this essentially humble man is also self-assured and brave, I can vouch for that, as I have had the honour of working with him for many years both as a colleague and as a friend.
As it so happens, quite a few year back, I made Mátyás responsible for a very complex set of tasks acting as the head of department at the Allianz Hungary Insurance Ltd.’s South-Alföld Regional office. Back then we had taken on a no small challenge by following the footsteps of National Nederland Inc. and attempting to develop an investment, life, and pension-fund insurance consulting network at the composite Hungaria Insurance Company, so far only known for its vehicle insurance business.
I needed people like Matyas, who posses a unique perspective, enabling them to consider the most unusual goals as perfectly natural. As a trainer, who trained the so called “new wave” specialist within the company- ten at a cycle, I needed him and his distinctive view on things. His extreme athletic achievements only made what he had to say more valid. It was almost tangible on the guy. The trainings that he ran, and still runs, are incredibly unique and impossible to duplicate. And despite all the above, in his case it is always his human side that remains in the foreground. His exceptional achievements do not act as oppressively dominant factors of his personality.
Very selfishly I robbed Bács-Kiskun County of its professional trainer and made him my directing deputy manager at the three county strong office. He was essential in the motivated leadership of the newly emerging network. What is special in him is his unique way of merging of business, sport and nature, his exciting way of thinking and his distinctively different take on things.
I think I talk in the name of all his students, trainer colleagues, bosses, employees, and leadership team members when I say that he was well loved, respected and looked up to. These are all very big things in the case of a man!!! What’s more nobody really noticed that thanks to his special ability to empathize, he had influenced them in ways that they were unaware of.
He left an eternal impression in all of us – and we have become richer for it!
I wish for many people to engage with world view of this empathic, kind, extremely humble MAN. I wish for him to be able to convey to those interested, his goal and success oriented faith, perseverance, willpower, his thirst for knowledge, in other words: who he is!
Respectfully:
Laszlo Ruck
ex department director
Allianz Hungaria Insurance Inc.