Failures

Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, which has now become historic, had a great impact on me, especially the part where he spoke about connecting the dots. It's worth paying attention to people of Jobs' caliber, and generally to those who have created something lasting, achieved something exceptional, and possess the ability that sets them apart from this crowd of 7 billion. We must observe every move of such people, hang on every word they say, and cherish every moment we can spend near them because their life is their reference, and if we have the intelligence to incorporate and utilize the information and thoughts they share into our own lives, then we should do so without hesitation, because at the end of the path we embarked on because of them, there will be something great that will be ours alone, and only we will have control over it.

Connecting the dots, when we realize that nothing happens by chance, and 8 years after Stanford, I too understand what Jobs was talking about back then. This is a story about how failures are an indispensable part of our development, and if we don't encounter them, we are on the wrong path. This is my story, the story of the birth of LifeTilt, which would never have happened if I hadn't failed, or if life hadn't knocked me to the ground, and if I hadn't felt that it was over, there was no way forward, no way to get back up from there. Just a story, nothing more, an example that most often a series of tragedies is needed to find your way because sometimes you have to lose to win everything later.

March 2009.

Breaking up with the greatest love of my life. A breakup that cruelly affected me, after which I felt there was no way forward, and suffering longing became a part of my daily life. I woke up with pain and went to bed with this gnawing feeling for months. Everything reminded me of her, and nothing helped, nothing alleviated the suffering. Alcohol and women didn't help; wherever I went, whatever I did, everything reminded me of her. I could only talk about her, and I couldn't escape her, but I didn't want to either. A girl who tore out my soul, a girl whose loss made me feel like I had lost everything. If my best friend hadn't been by my side then, I have no idea how I would have gotten out of that state. I talked about this girl on Juventus radio, the reporter on RTL Klub mentioned her, and she is the girl for whom, wanting to prove myself, I started writing this blog.

I wanted to do something to make her notice me again, to create anything to prove to her that I was no longer the unpromising, useless jerk I had been during our relationship. It was the biggest failure of my life that I lost the woman I loved more than anyone, for whom I would have done anything, and then when I realized what I had lost, I couldn't get her back. I came to my senses too late, I took those steps too late, steps I should have taken then, instead of just talking about them when we were still together. If it weren't for this girl, if it weren't for this breakup, this blog would never have been born. It was with this girl that I realized what a man's true duties in life are, that a man is nothing without goals and a vision for the future, that a man has a duty to achieve something and never be satisfied with what he has. A man should only be interested in first place, and possess dominance, ambition, and the ability to overcome any difficulty life throws at him and emerge victorious from the battle. To this day, this kind of ambition and unquenchable desire for continuous development drives LifeTilt forward. You owe LifeTilt to this girl and to this failure of mine, and I owe almost everything to this girl.

August 2010.

At that time, I was still working at Vodafone, but already in a state where it wouldn't have taken much more for me to shoot a few rounds in HR. My problem wasn't with Vodafone, but with the entire corporate structure, which strips away your dreams and tears out all your individuality, like a relationship with that certain ill-chosen other half by your side. Fears, petty games, the "company above all else" mentality, endless meetings that lead nowhere, outdated relationships, the dread of losing the monthly income that, with each passing month, further chains the potential within you. I knew I had to leave, but of course, like most people, I didn't have the courage. We talked about freedom, and how good it would be, and what if... Childhood dreams shared during cigarette breaks, waiting for that big break that would eventually come, because it couldn't always be like this, and then as we put out our cigarettes, the fire of our enthusiasm dwindled, and we went back to drudgery with dreams and hopes in our heads.

Of course, it's nice to believe that everything will be better someday, but to achieve that, one needs to act, not just self-gratify in one's mind for years, as I did. Some are content with this lukewarm nothingness, but they are insignificant nobodies who will achieve nothing in life. Some are proud to be human, while others need money and fame. Some are drawn to art and knowledge, others to adventure, to be a hero. We believe in a thousand different Gods who are not with us when needed, but sooner or later we realize that there is no other power, only an undying desire working within us that drives us forward...

At Vodafone, there are continuous internal training courses that you can take based on recommendations. These training courses are indispensable if you want to move up to a higher position, which naturally comes with more money and more responsibility. At that time, I was working in a team, and our task was to write fleet contracts, meaning we determined tariffs, per-minute charges, the amount of data included in the package, the basic subscription fee for each company, etc. It was a terribly shitty job, and I hated it like hell, partly because I simply cannot work in a team that I don't lead. This was October 2010, three months before the birth of Tilt, when my department head asked me to come to his office; he wanted to talk to me. We sat down, and he offered me a higher position, but of course, I would have to complete a training course for it. "Damn it," I thought to myself. I want to leave all this, and now they want to tie me down even more, and especially, I would tie myself down. To this day, I hate myself for saying yes because I compromised again and chose the safe path instead of taking a risk and starting something new that would make me happy, and even though it might end in failure, at least there would be the possibility of self-realization. I was like a typical woman who doesn't leave a shipwrecked relationship, even though she has long known it's not working, no longer wants to be a part of it, and then the guy comes along, smiles sweetly for a week, makes a gesture, and the girl stays in this joke of a relationship, doomed to fail and not even funny, where she's just lying to herself and prolonging her suffering.

I had 6 weeks to prepare. I received all the help and needed to score 75 points. By then, I had made peace with my fate and started to enjoy it. A new position, a leadership role, I began to feel like those real assholes who pretend they've achieved something in life at high school reunions, like middle managers. I wrote the test, already planning my life with more money in my head, then the results came. 73 points. Damn it. 2 points less than needed. That evening, I got mercilessly drunk because not only had I given up on myself, but even the job I had dismissed as worthless hadn't worked out. My self-belief collapsed, I hit rock bottom, and experienced the whole thing as a huge failure, but this was the point when I realized I had to make a change, and it was only a matter of time before I left Vodafone. If I had passed the exam, there would be no LifeT!lt today.

June 2012.

LifeTilt is booming, the first season of Slim3 is a huge success, exceeding all expectations. By this time, I had been in contact with a dietary supplement company for a while, and in December 2011, they offered me a management position and asked me to work for them. I accepted the offer and resigned from Vodafone. We started working together with big plans, because by then, LifeTilt had generated a 300% increase in revenue for this company. I was given a free hand, and among my first actions, I laid the foundations for the women's line, splitting the company and creating a branch exclusively for women. One month after our agreement, problems began, and the owner asked me to stay in the background because my person was so divisive within the profession that my presence at the company had a negative business impact on him in the eyes of other manufacturers' executives. I stayed in the background and managed things from there. By then, preparations for the second season of Slim3, which was to lay the groundwork for the aforementioned new women's line at the company, had already begun. I won't go into too many details, but it was already becoming clear that we wouldn't be able to work together for long, because they thought that by hiring me, they had also bought Tilt, but there is no amount of money for which anyone could get Tilt, and degrade it into a marketing channel to become a manufacturer's marketing page, because if that had been the case, its whole essence would have been lost, and Tilt would have crashed and burned. Our positions drifted further and further apart, and then, six months after starting our collaboration, we agreed to go our separate ways. I left Vodafone because of the manufacturer, meaning I fell between two stools, so we agreed that I would create a company, a separate webshop, which would be a secure source of income for me and where I would sell their products.

The webshop was ready, everything was set for launch, then the manufacturer, 3 days before signing the contract, pulled out and announced that they did not wish to work with me in the future. I had to re-evaluate everything, throw my previous plans into the trash, and rebuild my future from scratch, which at that time looked quite bleak. I don't know who has been kicked in the balls and punched in the stomach at the same time, but I went through something similar in those few weeks. At this point, all my connections with them broke, and I stood there like an idiot, feeling very stupid because I had left Vodafone and now didn't even have this. If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have launched the Programs, and I wouldn't have met the woman who gave me the idea to launch my own brand. If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have even thought about starting a movement, for which my own products would provide the financial and economic background.

The essence is to experience failures, and whether you emerge from these setbacks as a loser, licking your wounds for a lifetime, chasing a "what if" illusion, or as a winner, learning from your mistakes and moving forward in life strengthened. Failures are life's gifts, the strongest force that in most cases steers your life in the right direction if you've gone off track. Don't cling to constancy just because you're used to it, dump your partner if you're suffering in a relationship because if it's bad now, it won't get better later, only the suffering will last longer, and there's nothing sadder on this earth than compromise. Don't cling to jobs if you feel this is not the path your heart dictates. Move on, take risks, realize your dreams even if everyone around you laughs at you, give it your all, put your heart, your energy, everything you have into it, and the results will not be long in coming. Most people cling to point "A" where they live, and if it ever ends, no matter how disappointing and unpromising that point is, they collapse and feel that life has badly screwed them over. But don't forget one thing. For your happiness and to experience a full life, you may first have to fail at point "A", then "B" and "C", to finally reach "D", which is you, where you can start living in the noblest sense of the word. This requires failures, intensely difficult moments, weeks, months, but you have to live through them and move on.

Life is a competition, a continuous struggle. Sometimes you will fail, and you must fail, because there is no war won without losses and lost battles. Life is a qualification round, and it's up to you how long you stay in the competition, and what place you finish in the end. Don't drop out in the first round, don't be among the failures, don't be the rejects.