Rok Snežič: A good leader mustn’t be afraid of anything – even death

One of the most notorious figures in Slovenia, whose core business is currently in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on his love of taking risks and “bribes” as payment for work that people don’t see. I had some doubts about whether to include Rok in my collection. I know that women who associate with him don’t have the best reputation in the capital. He says that the boxing gym keeps him grounded and gives him the self-assurance a person needs to stay on top in business and in life. At the pinnacle of fame, at the pinnacle of financial success, at the pinnacle of victory. Profit. Adrenaline. And hedonism. The three things that Rok Snežič prizes the most. If he were to die tomorrow, he says, he wouldn’t mind. “Those who fear death are those who have never begun to live,” as the ancient philosophers used to say. “I especially like interviewing Maribor businessmen. You’re actually my first. But… it’s like going back to my childhood,” I explain. The truth is, Rok is a Maribor businessman whom people at home have always advised me against interviewing. But like my best friend, who started her own business in Odesa with a man her parents wanted her to have nothing to do with but who is now running for mayor and is one of the richest businessmen in Ukraine, I’ve always been interested in forbidden fruit.  The name Rok Snežič was one I’d heard in too many places for him not to be interesting to me. We soon found a common language. By coincidence, he happened to be in Ljubljana on the very day that I asked him for an interview.
 

After a short drive through the centre of Ljubljana in his Maserati, reminiscing about Maribor and looking for a suitable location for the interview, we stopped at a bar near the law court. An institution he is frequently required to attend… “You’ve got potential,” he says as we’re wrapping up. “If you change your mind about being a psychologist, you could be a journalist.” “I want to build my own empire. I’m going to rule the world, not spend my life interviewing the rulers of the present age,” I reply with a smile as we walk past the court entrance. “I have girlfriends your age but they’re not like you. They don’t think about life at all, only about eating at trendy restaurants and where their next pair of designer shoes is coming from.” I listen, trying not to laugh and thanking my lucky stars that he doesn’t follow me on Instagram – where I mainly post food porn and luxury resorts. “They lack self-assurance,” I reply. “None of them know where they’re going. Or who they are or what they want. Isn’t that true? I have a hard enough time finding female friends myself. Women who are attractive, ambitious and interesting enough for my standards.” “Women with a character as strong as yours can’t have female friends at all – they feel too threatened,” says Rok with a smile, and all of a sudden I feel like he’s becoming one of my favourite Mariborites. It occurs to me that we both know how to feed the other’s ego. We both possess a high level of emotional intelligence. In one way or another. And both these things are also topics of our interview…

Bribes as payment for work that people don’t understand

M: You mentioned a club in Bosnia, and also that your business ideas are always born out of your own personal experiences. Earlier, we talked about how important it is to put something of yourself into every aspect of your business. How important has this personal note been to you, in business? How important is it to do something you believe in?

RS: Do you mean, why a club in Bosnia? I have a theory that you should always sow your seed in more than one field. If you only plant crops in one field and then a frost comes, or drought, you will go hungry. If you sow seed in ten fields and three are affected by drought, you will still have enough to eat. That’s why I’m never only working on one deal. I have a club and I’m involved in lobbying and tax consulting. But everything is always in my hands. Each of my operations has its own team, I just supervise: I’m the supervisory body. And the advisory body that advises and supervises. It’s only when I’m lobbying that I work alone. When it comes to lobbying, I open the door and do the lobbying myself, because I can’t trust anyone else. It’s all about personal contact. People don’t understand lobbying, they think it’s the same as bribery, but that’s not true. Lobbying is about persuading people and arguing a case. If you know something’s going to be successful, you want to convince people of that. Of course, you have to know them, cultivate acquaintances, know people in decision-making positions. You can’t just turn up and offer fifty thousand euros for a deal: you have to explain the plan and convince your client’s customer that your client is better than the competition.

M: What do you think about the way the media talk about bribery and similar?

RS: People can’t see where the line is between lobbying and bribery. If someone comes to me and says he wants to do business with a state-owned enterprise, I can offer to help him, but I’m going to want an advance for lobbying expenses. Lobbying also involves dinner invitations, a lot of time, travelling expenses, and so on, especially when it comes to lobbying abroad. I also do a lot of lobbying in Republika Srpska, where nothing moves unless you spend a bit of money. Ten dinners, ten toasts – and a dinner can cost a thousand or two thousand euros. I ask for an advance of at least five or ten thousand for lobbying, and a lot more than that for abroad, because then you have to factor in hotels and travel costs as well. After that, we agree on my fee. First of all the client has to pay my expenses, regardless of whether or not I’m successful. Hotels, dinners, transport, fuel. And then the fee that we agree on if I get the job done. And this is what people mistakenly see as a bribe. When what’s really happened is that I’ve succeeded in setting up a deal with a state-owned enterprise by presenting my client and the advantages he brings and arguing why he is better and why they should choose him. It’s true that you have to know a particular circle of people just to be able to get in a room with them. If you don’t know anyone, you’re not going to get in. That's a fact. That means you have to move in certain business circles, so you get to know people. But people still don’t understand that this isn’t bribery. That it’s a fee for my work, for my effort in getting a deal done with a state-owned enterprise. Then someone will say “Oh, Snežič has taken a bribe of thirty thousand, forty thousand euros.” But that’s not true. That’s how much I cost. If you can afford me, you’ll afford me. If you can’t, you won’t. That’s my argument. In Bosnia or in Serbia, lobbying still isn’t properly legally regulated. In Slovenia a lobbyist has an ID card and issues an invoice for lobbying, but in Bosnia it still isn’t viewed positively. They still think it’s all about bribery, so there you act instead as a kind of go-between. That’s why in Bosnia I put “mediation” on my invoices for lobbying. If I were to put “lobbying”, that could be seen as bribery, a criminal offence, because lobbying is not yet enshrined in law there. So you have to study the legislation and take a careful look at the environment, because in Bosnia a fifteen-thousand-euro invoice for lobbying services paid by a Bosnian company could quickly lead to a criminal complaint of bribery. In Slovenia this approach is perfectly normal: it’s lobbying, which is what I do.

M: I understand. If I’m not mistaken, the prime minister’s partner Tina Gaber used to be a lobbyist, didn’t she?

RS: That’s right. Tina was a good friend of mine. She used to spend summers on my boat. These days she tends not to pick up the phone, but she will again, I assure you. My first business was in the black market. Why? What was my “why”? These days there are lots of popular books with titles like Find Your Why. My why was always to pay as little tax as possible: to render as little as possible unto Caesar. I’ve always loved that, I freely admit it. I wanted to be my own boss and for them to take as little as possible from me and for as much as possible to remain in my pocket. My guiding principle was why work for non-governmental organisations, for Luka Mesec and Miha Kordiš, if I can have that money in my own pocket? I never called it tax evasion, it was tax optimisation. It’s true, though, that the line between tax evasion and tax optimisation is sometimes very thin. And that it’s easy to cross over into tax evasion when you’re trying to optimise taxes.

MB: What do you think of the philosophical idea or hypothesis that one should be true to one’s mission and that the money will look after itself? I was always taught that if you’re good enough at what you do, money is just a by-product of that.

RS: The money never looks after itself, Minka. If you want the money to buy something, you have to work. And anyone who says they like working full days for nothing is lying.

M: Mm, so you don’t work for personal glory? That doesn’t interest you?

RS: No. Not me. I believe that glory, or fame, comes with money, for the most part. If someone has money, they’re famous. There aren’t many famous people who don’t have money. Very few people are famous and poor. Most famous people are rich and successful. If someone is poor, we probably don’t consider them famous, we’re more likely to see them as a fool. As my uncle used to say: “When I was young, I thought money was everything. Now I’ve grown up, I know it is.” Or: “Money isn’t everything, but it helps everywhere.”

Women are seeking security, and some thoughts on capital as energy

M: You said that women are mainly seeking security. My philosophy is that money is a necessary condition for quality of life, but it isn’t everything. It seems to me that these days it doesn’t necessarily buy happiness.

RS: Hmm, okay. But anyone who does something, anyone who tells you in an interview that they work because they like working, will probably say that because they like their job. But if there’s no profit for a company, there’s no motivation. And what does the state do? It wants to destroy your motivation for work. If you earn a million euros and in March, after submitting your accounts, you end up paying half a million to the government, your motivation to work will disappear. I tell people they should start businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina, precisely for this reason. I want them to be able to keep nine hundred thousand of the million they earn, not just five hundred thousand. And with that extra four hundred thousand they are better off buying a nice car or enjoying it in some other way, rather than giving it to NGOs for bicycle protests or whatever. And unfortunately our government is currently giving – if I read it correctly – two hundred million to NGOs to count crickets and rats. Can you see the sense in that? Power. Capital is power.

M: It’s a kind of vital force, isn’t it? This summer I spent some time trying to convince a colleague of mine of my theory that money changes people but not necessarily only for the worse. That it gives them self-assurance, because money is also power. And the power to handle multiple responsibilities, the energy you get from being in charge and making decisions, gets under your skin and makes you more attractive.

RS: You can achieve a lot of things with money, you can afford a lot and achieve a certain influence. Without money, you have no influence. Very few people with no money have influence. Money is power. In politics and in business. I have nothing against people who work for state-owned enterprises, and the person who is appointed director of Petrol has power, but he hasn’t earned it himself. You come in and you have a billion euros to spend, but it’s not yours. I respect entrepreneurs who have built something on their own. An owner-manager builds his business from the ground up and he’s the one who can sell it, destroy it or cash out. But when someone is only working for a salary and the chance of a bonus – nice as it is to get a bonus – the next day he might quarrel with the owner and the owner will say his nails are ugly and that’ll be that. I could never work for someone else because I can’t be dependent on whether the government is going to change tomorrow. We all know that who gets a job generally depends on who is in power – the left or the right. And I would never work for any state enterprise, or for a company where someone else is the owner, because I couldn’t stand the idea that they could sack me from one day to the next. Get your things and go. I couldn’t tolerate that.

The owner can have a bad day, can bawl you out and tell you to go to hell and you just have to bite your tongue. I can’t bite my tongue. I’ve never bitten my tongue in my life, for anyone. And I couldn’t work at a state enterprise either, because, as we all know, it’s politics that appoints people in state enterprises.

A leader does what he wants, goes where he wants and lives how he wants

M: You come, you go. The wheel of fortune.

RS: You come, you go. Governments change. Elections happen every four years and you always have to bow down to them. I respect CEOs. Many of my friends are CEOs of state-owned companies, but I know that they have to bow their heads to every new government that comes along, keep their mouths shut, swallow a lot of things, offer their services to every government, make promises, and keep their heads down. I can’t do that. I’m my own person. The point is, someone who is the owner and director of a company can do whatever he wants. Get up when he wants. Go where he wants. Freedom. Even if you’re the CEO of the biggest firm in the country, Petrol for example, you still worry about whether you’re going to keep your job every time the government changes. You have to kiss the ring of the supervisory board even though you’d rather tell them to go to hell. That’s why I say that, for me, being the CEO of a state enterprise does not equal success. Being the CEO of your own firm is success. If the business is strong. But if you’re the CEO of a state enterprise, you could be gone the next day because the government will change and they’ll put their own person in. I’ve always had pride, so I will never bow to anyone. I’ve never called anyone boss and I never will. Not for political reasons and not in private. So that someone can fire me from one day to the next?

M: Given some of the rather controversial stories about you that have appeared in the media, would you say that you enjoy living on the edge, that adrenaline is one of the things that motivate you?

RS: I still kickbox. I was national kickboxing champion in 1996. I stopped competing in 2008, when I was ranked second. I used to be a boxer, too. And I’ve always had my pride. In business and in sport. Business can also be a fight. And I’ve never bowed down to anyone. I was a boxer, an athlete, and I still box and kickbox in the gym. They say that sport gives you self-confidence. I’m self-confident. They can say and write what they want about me. I know who I am. I know what I am. That’s why I don’t care what anyone writes about me. I laugh at the media. Success never goes unnoticed. As long as they’re talking about you, you’re in. It’s when they stop talking about you that you have to ask yourself if something is wrong. As long as they are writing about you, you’re the man. It’s only when they stop that you have to ask yourself what’s wrong. That’s my theory. I have other outlets, of course, but media attention sustains me. If I wasn’t in the media, I’d think there was something wrong with me, that I’m doing something wrong. If I don’t read something about myself on a website in any given week, I tell myself that I must be doing something wrong. Because as soon as they stop writing about me, I feel bad. I feed on the things they write.

On feeding the ego and weapons

M: People say it’s not good to have a big ego, but one of my interviewees told me something that struck me as very interesting: that you have to know how to feed your ego. That this is essential.

RS: That’s true, but these CEOs I was comparing myself to earlier pay PR firms like Pristop to keep their names out of the media. Because they’re afraid that if someone writes something bad about them, their supervisory boards will call them up and say: “Pack your things, you're out!” No one can kick me out, because I’m my own boss. There’s no party leader who can call me up tomorrow and tell me I’m out of a job because I would reply to him: “Who do you think you are?” There is literally no one who could say anything to me. Who could call me up and tell me I have to do something the way they want – that person simply doesn’t exist. Because you can’t buy me and physical force isn’t going to work on me, because of boxing. I also have a gun, for personal protection, so it would be really hard for anyone to threaten me in any way. I shoot regularly at the firing range. I have a personal protection weapon, I have a firearms licence, I even have a gun with me now, in the car we came here in. I always have it on me, because I’ve received a lot of threats over the years. In 2008 they firebombed my Aston Martin. But I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of death. They’ve firebombed my car, shot at me. I always say: what is fated to be, will be. Whatever destiny has in store for you, that’s your destiny. I’ve had a few fights in my life, I’ve been attacked. It’s no big deal. What is fated to be, will be. When something is meant for you, it’s meant for you. No doubt about it. I’ve been through a lot in life, from shootings to all kinds of things. I’ve been doing business in Bosnia and Republika Srpska for more than twenty years and I’ve often been in situations where I’m armed and facing people who are also armed. But you can’t be scared, Minka. If it’s your fate, it’s your fate.

M: You’re not afraid of death, then?

RS: No, not at all. I’ve looked death in the eye many times. I’ve even been shot at, as I told you. But when it’s your time, it’s your time. You never know when it’s going to be. And you always have to be ready: that’s my theory. That’s why I carry a pistol, for personal defence, and I’m always ready. Although Slovenia is a very safe country, even if they did firebomb my car here in 2008. In Samsara they even shot at me in 2008. It got a lot of coverage in the media at the time. I’ve also had to fire my own gun more than once, and I’ve suffered injuries, but it’s always been when someone is attacking me. I’ve never been convicted of any kind of violence, because if you have a licence to carry a personal protection weapon you have to have a clean record. I’ve always defended myself.

On fortune favouring the brave and the importance, in business, of knowing when to pull the trigger

M: Aristotle says that fortune favours the brave. What do you say to that?

RS: That he’s right. The brave and the slightly crazy. You always have to be slightly crazy. It comes in handy. And you have to dare. Courage and a little craziness. If you’re in a business and you’re monitoring its growth, you perceive its potential. If there’s anything of the economist about you – personally I’m a lawyer – you see when you can grow and when you can’t. When you see that you can’t grow any more, you sell. Because I don’t like declines and stagnation. It’s better to sell up and get out. To find a new venture. A company is not my child, my children are money and my brand. When I see that I can make some money from what I’ve created, I take the money and run. I don’t have an emotional attachment to my companies.

M: Oriental philosophies teach that there are two currents in life. One going up, up, up. The other going down, down, down. My main goal in life is to catch the former. To only go up, up, up. But this euphoria, this optimism of victory – this gives you success, financial or otherwise. I would like to be the opposite of it – sufficiently subtle for the variations in the current, so as never to fall out of this first current of victory and growth. You say you don’t have an emotional attachment to your companies. What are you attached to in your life?

RS: There’s no doubt that you form attachments to things, but not to a company. A company is just a vehicle, a way for me to make money, generate profit. But when you reach a goal, you have to know when it’s time to sell. When it’s time to pull the trigger. If you see that you can’t grow any more, you sell. That’s my theory. In my twenties I went travelling in America and I’ve been back there several times since. I never studied there but I did have an apartment for a while. In America they have a ruthless way of doing business that I like.

A leader has to stay afloat, wherever he is thrown

M: So would say that a characteristic of a good leader is that he is able to stay afloat in any situation?

RS: Yes. You always have to be able to get back on your feet. That’s why I don’t think much of the CEOs of state enterprises. If they give you a budget of a billion to manage, it’s hard to squander that in four years.

M: Aha. We were saying earlier that one of the characteristics of a good lobbyist is the ability to persuade. And here we seem to be entering something of a grey area: the word manipulation has a negative connotation, but sometimes it’s necessary. Perhaps what makes this essential skill good or bad is the end you are pursuing?

RS: It’s a very necessary skill. You have to be a good manipulator in the true sense of the word, a manipulator with arguments. You have to know how to manipulate and persuade with arguments. Bluffing is not enough. You have to manipulate your lobbying target with arguments, so that they agree to something that perhaps they wouldn’t have agreed to if you hadn’t gone to them. It depends, of course, what kind of negotiations these are, Minka. If you’re trying to sell me a car, I’ll look at the price, its features, and how much it costs in Germany. But if you’re selling a service, you have to have a little imagination in order to show that what you’re offering is five times better than the service someone else is offering. With a car, we all know how much it costs, but with services it’s different. There’s a big difference between marketing a service and marketing a product. When you’re selling a service, you have to be even better at manipulation. That X factor that causes the sheep, to use your expression, to allow themselves to be led by a leader, to follow him across all borders, work for him and believe in his dream: that represents safety and security. This is the difference between the sheep and the wolf. Sheep look for a job that pays 2,000 euros a month. They want to think as little as possible, have a steady salary, work from eight to four, mow the lawn and, at night, watch films with their wife. That’s what ninety per cent of Slovenes are used to. They don’t want to take any risks, for fear of – heaven forbid – having to pay compensation or being threatened with prosecution. Five per cent like to live on the edge, to use the expression you used earlier. They are prepared to take risks and, if they fall over that edge, they will pay a certain price. But they’ll survive. You have to take risks. That’s the point. Many people who earn 2,000 euros a month just lie down and go to sleep. They have nothing on their minds. But a small percentage take lots of risks, and that’s how they succeed.

The further you go, the greater the risk

M: When I look at successful people around me – influential, rich, whatever – it seems to me that the further you go, the more dangerous it becomes. And the more you’re afraid of losing everything you have. Is that true?

RS: You have to hold on, have courage and be prepared to risk – even prison. It happens. When it comes to white-collar crime, it’s a thin line. Two false moves and, for the prosecutor’s office, that’s already abuse of position. The prosecutor’s office has experts for that, financial experts, but for the prosecutor’s office in Slovenia, anyone who is successful is a criminal. Look at the last fifty trials of prominent entrepreneurs. They’ve all been there. Zidar, Tovšak, Probanka, Kolektor, Jankovič… Everyone who is successful in Slovenia ends up in court. Half of them manage to wriggle out of it. The other half don’t. Everyone who works bends the rules. And anyone who wants to succeed understands that you can’t do everything according to the letter of the law. You have to take a few risks and be creative. But the prosecutor’s office loves to pick holes in everything, because they’re jealous of capable people. And it’s not about whether you’re on the left or the right. Mr Jankovič, who is on the left, is facing so many investigations that even he doesn’t know the exact number. If you’re one of the have-nots, it’s easy to be angry with those that have. I always like to associate with people who are successful, because together we can get things done. Take this weekend for example… partners in Zagreb, partners at Zemono. They’ll keep me busy the whole time. And why would I be a partner with someone who’s never done anything? In the business sense, I mean. If a friend of mine has power and money, we can put those things together. If he hasn’t, I will have to help him.

M: Do you think being realistic with oneself is a characteristic of a good leader?

RS: Also knowing where you can succeed and why. But that comes with experience. When you’re young, you throw yourself into everything. But in business I try to stay in the present, I don’t think strategically about the future. I make sure I get a couple of clients each month and focus on current deals. You don’t know what’s going to happen in five years. At the moment I’m getting a lot of calls from abroad and I have a lot of clients, but because I don’t like the current policy of Golob’s government, I’m also setting up businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina and telling people to hang on to their money and enjoy it. That’s becoming my core business. I’d like them to be able to hold on to more money.

M: Interesting. I think if I earned a hundred grand, I’d rather keep ninety than fifty.

RS: It’s human nature, Minka.

M: We’ve mentioned financial prosperity as an indicator of success. How do you keep control of yourself and avoid falling into an ego trip and thinking you’re king of the world, which is counterproductive to success and giving your all?

RS: You always to have maintain a good self-image, but I know I’m not the handsomest, the smartest, the strongest. There’s always someone better.

Just because you’re dead, that doesn’t mean that you lived

M: When I was younger I was really into spirituality. I used to go on meditation retreats and I love churches. When people describe someone as spiritual, they are probably thinking of someone like a monk in a monastery. I think, though, that authenticity and a lack of hypocrisy are the two highest and most spiritual characteristics a person can have. Living what you are, even if it’s contradictory. If you think about it, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute but she had the courage to combine this with becoming one of Jesus’s disciples. She wasn’t afraid to follow the call of her soul wherever it led her. Hesse’s Siddhartha was a spiritual prince who spent a period of his life doing business and maintaining prostitutes. He needed this period for his own development. By going to confession after participating in orgies, Rasputin sought contact with Jesus – he said that only after you have sinned are you a sufficiently humble and genuine creature, sufficiently elemental, to be able to find God. I’m not saying we need to model ourselves on these people, but I like the fact that they seem to have lived their true selves. And if you have arrogant tendencies, nothing will kill your potential quicker than suppressing them so as to appear nice, right? You have to be what you are and you mustn’t be afraid of defending what you are.

RS: That’s right. The fact that they’re constantly coming after me proves that I’m in. If I wasn’t in, they wouldn’t come after me. If I’m keeping them so busy, that must mean I’m somebody. I’ve already told you that. Someone, I can’t remember exactly who, some philosopher or other, once said: “Just because you’re dead, that doesn’t mean that you lived.” If people are constantly writing and talking about me, then I’m in. If not, I’m a loser.

M: I read somewhere that those who fear death are those who have never begun to live. You have also said that you’re not afraid of death.

RS: I think – a bit like what you said earlier about that time at the airport – that I’ve already survived everything. If I go tomorrow, I go tomorrow. I’ve experienced enough in life. If tomorrow’s my last day, so be it.

M: Haha. Do you think a good leader also has to deal with people, or is it only about profit?

RS: In my view it’s more about profit, because the sheep love their 2,000 euros. Give them 200 euros more and cut out the table tennis at work. A lot of managers who organise team-building sessions and so on feel the same way I do, but they won’t say it. Team-building is superfluous and an employee shouldn’t have to look at me at the weekend as well. Give him an extra 200 euros and let him do his own thing. I’m realistic. Would this employee rather be with his girlfriend or playing tennis with you? Come on! But no one has the guts to say it, because they’re afraid of the reaction. That’s why I’m lucky. If you don’t like something, don’t call me. I have enough work and enough money. I can count my real friends on the fingers of one hand. The others are just interested. I’m very vengeful. If someone tries to cheat me, I’ll find them. No matter how long it takes.

The essence of a deal is a win-sin situation

M: Do you think that making deals and building trust and lasting partnerships is actually a question of energy? To what extent do you see the world of business deals as an interplay of powerful energies?

RS: A win-win situation and money: that’s all a deal is. Both parties have to earn something, that’s the only energy. We both have to be satisfied, we both have to get something out of the deal. There’s no energy or love in business, Minka. There’s a lot of talk these days about “leading with love”. You yourself tell me that concepts like this are even starting to appear in Slovenia, but I’ve got enough experience behind me not to fall for that nonsense. I just laugh at it. I don’t like playing games in business, but I have to play the game, because I want to make money. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes action in business, a lot of set-ups and dirty tricks. But I tell everyone that if they ever screw me over I’ll find them, even if they go to the ends of the earth. Not my corporate lawyer or someone else, but me personally. And then we’ll sort it out.

M: Have you ever worked with debt collectors, Rok?

RS: I haven’t, but I know what they are. I don’t know which ones you’re thinking of. Some of them come to your house and ring the doorbell, others send you warnings and harass you on the phone. Luckily none of them has ever called me. Anyone who rang my doorbell to try their luck would soon regret it, and I wouldn’t answer the phone to those other ones if they were bothering me. I’m not on social media and I don’t even have a personal email address, precisely for these reasons. Because I don’t owe anyone anything, I don’t have these problems. I’ve always paid everyone everything I owe them, if that’s what your question was driving at. Contacts and money: you need both. Without one or the other, you can’t do anything. At one time I had money, because I’d earned it, but I didn’t have contacts. Now I have both. If I’m not mistaken, my family is at number 37 on the list of the richest people in Slovenia, but I have no business ties with them whatsoever. We’re scattered around Maribor and we see each other a lot, as you know, but in business I’m neither dependent on them nor associated with them. I’ve created everything myself.

The sweet taste of victory

M: At my last session with my therapist – I go to therapy as a form of mental hygiene – we identified winning as one of my principal motivators. People can have different areas in which they want to win, but the taste of victory is a very powerful motivator.

RS: Victory is always sweet. I feel adrenaline when I step into the ring, when I embark on a risky deal. Not when I’m wondering whether some idiot has packed my parachute properly. Or by betting a million euros on red at the casino. Russian roulette isn’t for me: you end up killing yourself for nothing. I’d rather take a machine gun and head straight into the enemy’s lair. And see how many of them I take with me. I’d die too, but at least I’d take some of them with me. Russian roulette is a game for idiots. There’s no adrenaline there. Hard work certainly isn’t a pleasure or a characteristic of a good leader. I’m more of a hedonist than a masochist. I don’t enjoy torturing myself. I’d rather go somewhere and enjoy myself. I don’t enjoy going beyond my limits. I think that’s a healthier way to live. I like sports, I go skiing, diving, cycling. I get pleasure from sport. Not from working for twelve hours like a masochist. I go cycling for a couple of hours, go to the gym to train, I like hiking in the mountains. On my own. I’m not going to enjoy sitting in an office for fourteen hours. Self-love is essential. You have to love yourself. I love myself more than anything in the world. If two people are shooting at each other, I’m not going to get involved. But if someone shoots at me, I will try and eliminate him immediately. You should always keep your own house in order and not look too far beyond it. I always know what I want. Money and power. There’s no need to beat about the bush here. I need money in order to live life hedonistically, buy good things and travel to nice places. A lot of money. And also power, it’s true. The only boss I call boss is God. But God helps those who help themselves. That’s not how I was raised, however. My parents are atheists. It was my own choice to get baptised. I started going to church on my own. I felt a connection with God, a kind of love from Him, an understanding that something higher exists. I found this path on my own. My absolute favourite thing is talking to myself. About what’s right and what isn’t. I have meetings with myself about what’s worth doing, about the pros and cons of a situation. Those are my favourite kinds of meetings. And I am my own moral arbiter. A good leader has to be a manipulator and a charismatic figure in order to be able to persuade others. That’s why, to put it bluntly, a small, fat, dumpy little man cannot be a leader, because he doesn’t even know how to look after himself, let alone others. A lot of men let themselves go once they have money, because they think they can have any woman they want. Or money gives them self-assurance, because they can buy everything with it.

M: So you agree with the view that money can buy you love?

RS: Absolutely, although I don’t usually buy it, because I can get it for free. I don’t need to buy love, I have enough self-assurance to be able to get a woman with my appearance and with what I am. Both these things, it’s all power. Women love power and security, like I told you. A women wants a man with power by her side, to give her security and to feel physically attracted to him.

M: And that brings us to the end of our interview.

RS: Bravo, congratulations. You conducted the interview like a professional journalist. You’ve got a lot of potential.

This interview was part of my master’s thesis on the psychological characteristics that (pre)determine success in Slovenian business and politics. A full version of the interview will appear in the forthcoming publication The Dark and the Light Side of ‘Ruling the World’: Insights of Leaders into the Psychology of Breaking Through and Staying on Top in Slovenian Business and Politics.