I joined the corporate world in a junior role. I was hungry, curious, and I enjoyed it. I was surrounded by smart people, big clients, and projects that taught me quickly.

I grew. Within a few years I was leading client teams and working on tenders worth tens to hundreds of millions. It was a great school. In many ways, a good school.

But the more I grew, the more I saw the other side. Politics. Constant fight for attention. Pressure to perform. People doing great work but not getting real recognition.

For a long time I told myself that's just part of it. That's how the game is played. And if I'm good enough, I'll find my place in it.

But a game where you always have to be stronger than your own body eventually stops being a game.

Corporate by day. My own project by night. In 2020 I founded LEEPA — an app where people could exchange things and skills they no longer needed or could offer to others.

I was at the screen from morning to night. Four to five coffees through the day. More in the evening to keep working on what mattered to me.

From the outside it might have looked like ambition. From the inside it was becoming exhaustion.

I remember the anxiety in my gut. Days without mood. The feeling of being drained but still having to function. It wasn't one dramatic collapse. It was a series of small signals I had ignored for too long.

And the harder I pushed, the clearer it became that this wasn't how I wanted to live.

Maybe you know it too. You don't burn out all at once. You just get used to being a little beside yourself.

For a long time I knew I wanted to leave the corporate world. I just couldn't let go of the security, the role and the place I had built.

Then came a moment that made it simple: if I'm not living a happy life, it's not fate. It's my decision.

Three days later I resigned and decided to go all in on LEEPA. I didn't have a perfect plan. But I knew that if I stayed, I'd lose something more important than security.

I'd lose myself.

Today LEEPA is part of WERENEXT — an international two-day festival of fashion and art.

The Amazon had pulled at me for years. I love forests and always wanted to see the rainforest. But when I really stepped into it, it wasn't exotic. It was coming home.

I immediately committed inwardly to protecting it. So that my children, their children, and the generations after would have the chance to experience what I felt in that moment.

I spent ten days alone in the jungle. Morning mist. Cool air. The smell of wet forest. The sounds of the rainforest. Birds, cicadas, hummingbirds. A river flowed nearby, and I drank from it.

No phone. No digital noise. No city. No switching between screens.

Just nature. The sun. And ever-present life.

There I found calm, courage, and a relationship with my own body. I understood that what I put into myself transforms not only physical energy but also mental space. How I think. How I feel. How I act at the end of the day.

You don't have to go to the jungle to realize it. Sometimes it's enough to stop drowning out your own body.

Later, in the Andes, I sat on a large stone in a place of power. There was a heavenly stillness. And a simple inner certainty came: I don't need to search for anything more. This is it. This is the way.

In that moment I knew AINI had to come to life.

Not as another energy drink. Not as a tool that squeezes a person a little more. But as a drink for people who want to create, work and live with a clear mind — without losing themselves along the way.

AINI stands on a simple principle: when you want something from the world, you first have to give something to it.

That's why every can protects 1 m² of the Amazon. And why I don't want to build a company that grows by depleting people or nature.

AINI isn't just the result of a journey. It's an invitation to create your own — without losing yourself along the way.