I Am Not Reformed

My wildest project was building the Power Balance brand in Europe and all the extreme turbulence and highs and lows that came with it. I was also involved in the parent company in the US and carried the full weight of that story. Everything went up extremely fast and came down just as fast.

When people ask me about it, they’re curious and expect a certain answer. Either they’re asking out of schadenfreude or they genuinely want to know how it goes: someone makes mistakes, gets back up and becomes a better person. For me it went quite differently.

After that intense phase I found myself just standing there. I wasn’t reformed. I had simply become more awake. To some that sounds boring, but for me it was important. You have to go through things yourself and only then do you really feel what they do to you. Everything else is lifeless theory.

More awake means I notice faster when something is off. I pick up on signs I would have missed before. I still make mistakes. Different ones, but still enough.

People want to hear about that one moment when everything becomes clear. The morning you wake up and suddenly understand. That moment didn’t happen here.

I wound down the company in Europe. That meant months of dissolving contracts and conversations about money that was no longer there. At some point I had to admit to myself that I had messed things up for which I had no particularly good explanation. Not for myself and not for anyone else.

Eventually distance came. And with it reflection. Reflection happened automatically while thinking things over and at first I sugar-coated everything. To others and to myself. Without the sugar-coating my thoughts and the way I told the story felt uncomfortable. I thought deeply about everything that had happened, about the people, and I tried to see the different perspectives. But I didn’t think: Now I understand better. The creeping realization was: That was me. I got to know myself in hindsight.

I faced a lot of criticism. Whether it was justified matters, but either way it always gnaws at you. The criticism was that I had sold placebo. That was the polite version. Some called it fraud. There was also a lot of admiration. But most people expect a lesson at the end. That one sentence that sums it all up and justifies what everyone was thinking in the back of their mind. Placebo, quackery or admiration. I never found that sentence. There is no insight that outweighs the loss and no justification for it having been worth it.

What I did take away: a sharper eye and a faster reaction to bullshit. Whatever that means. Fraud, stupid accusations or just pointless comments. And despite the sharper reaction I no longer trust any quick judgment. Especially not my own. Because I know there is more to come. A thought that gets fully explored gets checked off as done. Done. But then a new one arrives. And the old one is old.

I realized I’m not the entrepreneur who comes back and tells everyone how to do it right. I talk about it because it’s more honest than glossing over it with silence. I often thought maybe it helps someone who is stuck in the same loop. Think a thought through to the end. Close it. A new one will come. A better one or a more honest one. It doesn’t matter. Because it won’t have been the last.

There is this reflex to wrap everything into an arc. The perfect, rounded explanation for everything. The final thought that ties it all together. I always wanted that. But something has changed. The change is not a triumph. It came over time and I recognized that experience doesn’t automatically make you wise. It makes you more attentive. More alert. Open to the next thought.

I’m not writing this to prove that I’ve changed. The alternative would be to pretend there is a happy ending. That would be the next layer of sugar-coating. But what I took from that time is that I trust my own judgment less than I used to. What initially seems like weakness was for me one of the few real advances. Because there is always a next thought and the previous one is old. The new one is always more honest.