Learn to live life accepting the face of defeat

A good year deserves a proper pause

I took a three-week break at the end of what was, objectively, a very successful year.

2025 was demanding, but many things came into place. I served passionate clients around the world. I travelled to beautiful places. I swam in new waters. I met people who make a difference and helped some create real impact in their businesses. From the outside, it would be easy to call it a good year and move on.

But there was more to learn.

Life is difficult. Full stop.

Looking back, not only at the past year but at the past five, I arrive at a simple conclusion: life is difficult.

Not in a dramatic sense.

Not because lots of things went wrong.

But because the moment where life is easy might never come. One problem solved, the next one appears.

World events do not help. A war one hour’s flight away. Another eruption of violence right at Europe’s fringes. Economic and political volatility creeping into everyday decisions. Are we drifting towards a new global conflict, or is this simply old men trying to show off one last time?

Either way, the result is the same: noise, insecurity, and a quiet loss of control.

So it seems worth asking a different question. What is actually within our reach?

Difficulty itself may not be the problem.

Difficulty, not fun, may be the point

Life is neither a competition of how much fun we can have or how much sorrow we can collect to harvest other people’s pity.

Difficulty will find us, and has found me, all by itself. The difference is made by how we deal with it.

To me, meaning does not grow out of ease. It grows out of effort. Out of resistance. Out of staying with something when it stops being pleasant. And then staying a little longer, well past the point where others move on.

I worked hard. Too hard.

In 2025, I worked hard. Too hard at times.

Not only at my desk. CrossFit felt more like cross-torture. I went all the way in delivering the best of my team and of myself to my clients. I cycled more kilometres than I had in years. I ran my morning runs whether I felt like it or not, in shorts and a T-shirt, no matter the cold.

Some clients did not appreciate the work immediately. Some pushed back hard before they saw the point and grabbed the impact.

That is part of the deal.

Impact comes from endurance, not brilliance

I founded W-focus in 2011 based on a simple rule of engagement. We do not do PPPM. Perfectly Polite, Perfectly Meaningless conversations may keep things smooth, but they rarely change anything. We aim for IPP instead. Interesting, Personal, and Provocative conversations, held with professional empathy.

Without friction, no shine.

Brilliance helps. Experience helps. But what matters most, again and again, is endurance. Staying present when it would be easier to smile the challenge away. Holding our ground when discomfort shows up. Coming back when the first reaction was rejection.

Our life-long warranty is not a slogan. It is simply how we work.

Run after fun. End up with nothing.

Many people I observe seem to be on a quest for fun. Riding the top of the wave. Moving from summit to summit. Best wine. Best steak. Nicest beach. Top-class hotel. Fun in between.

Happiness becomes the absence of hardship.

We run after fun.

We end up with nothing.

Fun is not actually much fun. It is merely a pastime. Life is already short. Filling it with distraction rather than substance feels like a bad deal.

Discomfort has a function

While reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, three fragments stayed with me:

“Suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.”

That feels less strange, and more credible, the older I get.

“If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself.”

“The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.”

Apparently, avoiding hardship creates more of it.

Something similar is described in The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. The argument is that we have slowly shifted from discovery mode to defence mode. Instead of exploring, testing, and learning, we try to avoid, cancel, soften, or mask what feels uncomfortable or non-likable.

The intention may be protection. The outcome seems to be fragility.

What are you willing to struggle for?

Pain is unavoidable. Welcome to life.

The real question is quieter and more personal: What are you willing to struggle for?

I chose professional independence over the safety of a salary. Depth of craft over opportunism. Building something meaningful, with lasting impact, at the price of the inconveniences that independence brings.

What about you?

What are you willing to feel bad for, for a while, to give what you really want a fair chance?

Things I wrote in 2014 still hold

More than ten years ago, during a McKinsey training, we were asked to define our six-word personal essence. I did the exercise myself.

Passionately loving and struggling.

Always learning.

Never giving up.

Later, I formulated a personal motto:

Learn to live life accepting the face of defeat.

With more life experience, and plenty of hardship, both still feel uncomfortably accurate.

Depth feels like a better place to begin

Perhaps lifelong learning is not only about acquiring new skills or insights. Perhaps it is about staying curious when things feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or unfinished.

Hardship is where things become real.

Only if you are willing to accept the consequences of your choices do you have real choice.

Now that this new year has begun, I am at peace with the idea that ease is not the target. I will continue to choose depth. Engage for impact. Pick the battles worth fighting.

If this way of looking at work, learning, and life resonates, I explore these themes further in my videos. Not as answers, but as invitations to think, reflect, and try again.

I wish you a good and courageous journey through 2026.