I had to lose it all to realise…
Thor giving his TEDx talk titled “The perspective on Life After Failure
Quick introduction, I am Thor and live in Kent with my wife and 4 children. We moved back to the UK in 2011 after we basically fled Bolivia following the breakout of its civil unrest just weeks before we would sign a commercialisation agreement with the Government for our 0-emission energy generating technology that we presented to the countries President, his cabinet and number of VIP’s as an audience in collaboration with the elite engineering University EMI.
Keynote Presentation to Army Generals at the Workshop in El Alto, Bolivia
I was not able to appreciate the magnitude effect this experience had on my mental health. It almost destroyed me. Yet it still took me many more failures and similar experiences like these ones to realise that to take the Man-Up approach was a dead end.
I needed a deep personal transformation, which of course is easily said.
In June this year, I had the honour and privilege of giving a TEDx talk titled “ The Perspective of Life After Failure”, which you will be able to watch it here:
“Every story of a struggle is different, but they don’t make the struggle each of us experience less real or painful.”
It took losing everything, literally everything for me to discover who I am and admittedly, having received my ADHD diagnosis only in February 2022 at 39 years old, it still is an ongoing process and will probably never end.
I am an ambitious individual, who wanted nothing less than impacting the world through my ideas and technologies but that is all that I was. I felt that without it I am nothing.
After I licked my wounds and Manned Up from the epic Bolivia Failure, I went back at it though. I remember saying to my wife that if I don’t get the money together, I will leave it all behind. I did manage to get some funding in place (just in time) in order to realise the proof of concept aircraft, the TU523, that would be propelled by electric turbines and its energy source would be the generator we built in Bolivia. Whether the receipt of the funding was fortunate or unfortunate is debatable and open to individuals opinion.
Just as I was getting started with a small team, I receive the call from my mother, who tells me that my father, with whom I started these projects, suffered a stroke. Together with my brother, we drive 500 miles through the night. A few days later, my father passes away.
It felt like a huge injustice was done. I felt like the biggest failure not having achieved our goals together and I isolate myself as I am in a deep depressive state, as I now know. The fact that I tried to stay strong and kept my thoughts and feelings hidden away, not willing to talk to anyone about what was going on inside me, could only have one result. Failure!
Poor decision making and clinging onto the dream that my father and I had resulted in me once again losing it allover again.
Prior to that though, we did manage to develop the TU523 to a state that we were able to demonstrate it at our base at Lydd airport to the Media in a Keynote presentation out of which we received 2 investment offers. Despite signing an investment agreement that would facilitate the development of the next stage prototype, we were never received the investment and very quickly ran out of money after that. My wife and I sold our remaining assets in order to pay the salaries of our team in the hope that we could recover from this blow but in the end we couldn’t.
Thor with his scaled TU523 after his Keynote presentation at Lydd Airport
This was the beginning of my rediscovery journey, as I try to deal with my pain by writing my book “The Struggle for a Better Future” and teaching myself new soft skills. I discovered that I could be interested in things outside of what I knew. Growing food was a huge revelation for me and it played a huge part in the process of my transformation.
But I was still so eager to make this project work. I was never short of ideas and I believed that if I could demonstrate the effects, the lack of infrastructure has on those living in rural areas in developing countries through a documentary, I would be able to make the importance of my VTOL aircraft and the technology that drive it visible and comprehendible to the world.
The TU523, is designed to facilitate the transportation of shipping containers from A to B, without the need for new and expensive infrastructure by identifying its freight, land directly on it and take off vertically again, once the container is connected to the fuselage. Our calculations have demonstrated that the cost of transporting a container using the TU523, would be 25% less or at least the same cost as the transport by truck depending on the scenario.
Concept image of TU523 with shipping container
A film company affiliated with the BBC was interested in the story but the lack of funding resulted in any further discussion fizzling out, which is why I came up with the idea of doing it myself. I had no previous experience in film making and only limited experience in editing but thankfully, as I was looking for sponsors, I was able to take part in a 5 day editing course in London.
Proposed route across Africa for the Infrastructure Africa Documentary
However, my campaigns attempting to raise additional funding to facilitate the journey from London across Africa with the final destination in Cape Town was once again unsuccessful.
My realisation, this project needed to DIE before it could be resurrected again. I needed to be ready to let go of this dream to be able to be able to answer myself this simple question, WHY!
Why do I want to realise this project so badly.
It took me a few more years until I was able to let this project finally go, as I embarked on a journey with my new skills in video editing. I started a journey on YouTube, where I was able to share my discovery that there was life after failure. It was almost therapeutic talking about my own but also the challenges we as a family were going through on a weekly basis. But nothing can replace the benefit of working with a therapist, as I have learned.
I was able to turn this new found passion into my work, putting together music videos for the well known music producer Stuart Epps, who has worked with Elton John, Oasis and Robbie Williams just to name a few. Through Stuart, I was able to work on the “Wash Your Hands” song written by Mike Read in March 2020, as we went into our first lockdown that is now used by several schools in the US for educational purposes.
It was very rewarding and fun to work on something “normal” where I was still able to put my own creativity into, so that I was finally able to let my project rest.
Just like many other people, the pandemic did have a massive effect on my mental health, once again. We also learned that my now 20 year old daughter and my 4 year old son are autistic. Learning what that means and trying to accommodate for their needs came as a huge challenge. It was heartbreaking for my wife, when I would be the only one allowed to change his clothes, make his breakfast and carry him.
My wife and I participated in several courses teaching us about autism. We didn’t tell anyone about his diagnosis for about 1 year, where we felt, that we could defend ourselves with the knowledge that we gained. A lot of people want to help and mean well but it can feel overwhelming when we are bombarded with possible solutions and even ways to heal autism. I discovered that the those on the spectrum have a super power and knowing what I know now, I am certain that my father was also on the spectrum.
It was the diagnosis of my children that lead to my own diagnosis with ADHD and I couldn’t help but analyse the past years. All over a sudden a lot of things started to make sense. I have discovered that neurodivergant individuals are gifted with a super power but just like with everything else you need to learn how to use it properly. I didn’t know how to use mine, so whist my hyper focus lead to the success in Bolivia, achieving the virtually impossible, it is that same hyper focus that lead to some of my failures.
If you are actually still reading, You actually Rock! I would have probably given up by now but let me finally get to the point of it all.
I AM BACK!…. Well I want to be at least.
Thor on stage after his TEDx talk in WhyteAve, Canada
While working on these projects with my father, we, just as many others predicted the scenarios that we are about to face. I don’t like talking about doomsdays as I consider myself a rather optimistic person, but that is exactly why, I don’t want to be inactive waiting for someone else to solve the problem of the energy crisis, infrastructure crisis, food crisis, poverty crisis, and all the other impending crisis’ .
If the Pandemic, has shown us anything, it is that, if there is a will there is a way, as the rollout of the vaccine was extraordinary, without wanting to get political.
The TU523 is not the answer to all the transportation problems, The RT, our generator is not the answer to all the energy problems, The Electric turbines, allowing the TU523 to fly, are not the answer to electric propulsion BUT, each of these can be a “small” contributing factor in making the world a better and safer place again. They can make a “small” contribution in solving the ever increasing energy and environmental issues.
In addition, by talking about my own mental health journey and personal challenges I don’t expect to heal the world of mental health but maybe I can inspire someone else to open up and share their journey with others and create an atmosphere, where especially we men, step out of the stigma that we have created for ourselves and learn to open up and rediscover ourselves.
I can confidently say that without the love and support from my wife and children, I would probably not be here to write this email. It took me a long time to learn how to speak up and ask for help and whilst I appreciate the importance of it, I am continuously learning every day.
“The best view comes after the hardest climb!”
To come to my final point, I needed the TU523 to be successfully developed for myself, to create the legacy for my father, for me to pacify my guilt for him not having been able to see it realised. But today, I want it to be far more than just a piece of technology. Whatever the future holds, the technology and my journey of self discovery and surviving, will always be connected, so I would love for the future of the business to not only focus on its technological breakthroughs but for it to be a safe place where we can allow and promote better understanding of our own mental health and change the culture away from a Man-Up mentality.
I realise this might all sound very crazy, but in case crazy is something that you are into, then I get it touch.
