It took me one wrong turn to find my way.

That morning I woke up in Kranjska Gora a little before seven. The only plan I had that day was to walk to Lake Jasna while the town was still asleep. Somehow I felt that this was exactly the silence I needed!

I saw the mountain. I didn't see the road.

As I walked toward the mountains, I caught myself not looking at them as mountains. I looked at them as my future. I looked at what I wanted Mind Yourself to become one day. The goal was crystal clear. Almost tangible. The only thing I couldn't see was the road. The road was in front of me, but after every bend it simply disappeared. I could only see a few hundred meters ahead of me. Nothing more. And I thought how interesting it is that we often ask life for what nature never shows us. We want to see the whole road before we take the first step. We want the guarantee that we won't make a mistake. We want the certainty that we will get where we started.

Nature, however, works differently. It shows you just enough to take the next step.

I haven't lost faith in myself. I've lost faith in the path.

A few minutes later I saw a signpost. It said “Jasna over Baba”. On the right, a narrow gravel road branched off, climbing uphill. Without thinking too much, I turned. I didn’t turn because the road was wrong. I turned because I thought there might be a better way. It wasn’t long before the road got steeper. The terrain was getting wetter. The walking was getting harder. Instead of feeling like I was getting closer to the lake, I felt like I was moving away from it.

At one point I just stopped. The problem wasn't that I got lost.

The problem was that I had stopped trusting the path I had already taken. It was only later that I realized that I hadn't lost faith in myself that morning.

I lost confidence in the road.

That seemed much more important to me. How many times in life do we give up on something we deeply feel is right just because we don't yet see where it's leading us? Not because we've lost faith in ourselves, but because we've lost patience. We want proof that every step will make sense before we take it.

And life almost never works that way. I see the same thing in my work.

Sometimes people recognize the value of development, quality communication, or cultural change in an organization. They nod, they agree, they see the point. But when the time comes to take the first serious step, they often retreat. Not because they don't trust the people leading them. Not because they don't trust themselves. But because they can't yet see the whole road and everything that will happen after the first bend. Perhaps that's when the greatest missed potential arises.

Not because the idea was bad. But because we gave up too soon on a path that was yet to show where it would lead. I got back on the road and continued walking towards Jasna. Later I found out that the path I had taken led over a suspension bridge between two mountains. Ironically, I am afraid of heights. But that whole episode had nothing to do with the bridge anymore.

It had something to do with me, with us, with the man.

How many times in life do we take a path that feels right to us, only to be diverted because someone else thinks there's a better one? Parents lovingly steer their child toward a safer career. A manager abandons an idea because they're told it's too risky. An entrepreneur changes direction because the market says one thing and their intuition says another.

It doesn't happen because we are weak. It happens because sometimes it's easier to trust someone else's certainty than our own feelings. And perhaps that's the biggest trap. Perhaps the biggest mistakes in life don't happen when we make mistakes.

Perhaps they arise when we give up on the path that deep down we feel is ours.

Jasna gave me clarity.

That morning I finally made it to the lake. And yes – Jasna gave me clarity.

I sat down on a wooden pontoon, took off my sneakers, and dipped my feet into the icy water. The sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains, and there was no one around me. As I did my morning relaxation, I had the feeling that nature was doing something that we humans often forget to do to ourselves. Without a word, it was taking away what I no longer needed, leaving only what was important.

When I opened my eyes, I looked back at the mountains. They were still there.

Equally peaceful. Equally distant. Equally unattainable.

But I no longer needed to see the whole way to them. It was enough for me to know that I was back on my own.

Because maybe life doesn't ask us to see the whole path. Maybe it's just waiting for us to start trusting our own steps again.