We are all TRUHOMA - Ana Lukner at TEDxLjubljana

Ana Lukner is the founder of Anina zvezdica (Anna's little star), a charity which collects unperishable food and gives it to people in need. She explains her experience and the principle her life and work are based on - TRUHOMA, true and honest marketing.

Everything that I am today,

and everything that I do,
is based on what I've been through.

Especially for the last ten years.
Because before that --

I am thirty today,
thirty-one in fourteen days --

before that,

the first twenty years of my life
were absolutely wonderful.

I was raised by wonderful parents,

who gave me love and taught me
what's important in life.

I was able to travel a lot,
I was very active, I was playing piano,

I was very active in sports as well,
playing tennis.

And all of that opened many doors for me.

So right after high school in Ljubljana,

I was invited to go study to the United States,
on a full athletic scholarship.

I came to California when I was eighteen
with a full scholarship,

everything in front of me,

and I was feeling so lucky.
What could even go wrong?

Everything is perfect,
I'm at the top of my life,

I'm 18 and I have so much more to give.

Well, 10 years ago, when I was 20,
all this had a rather scary ending.

Something happened to me
that was definitely my first turning point in my life,

and completely changed me,
I can see and feel that very strongly today.

Since I was so active and involved in everything

I didn't have much time for partying,
going out, boys, flirting.

When I was 20, I got my first boyfriend.

He was very involved in basketball.
He was on the national team.

He was my first love, the first guy
I held hands with in Ljubljana.

We were together even after I went
to the United States, even though I knew

it was a big challenge, since I was so young.
Was it going to last or not?

But destiny took it's own way.

One day I called my father home,
and said, "How are you, dad?", he said

"Ana everything is fine --",
we were just having a casual conversation

but I felt immediately that something was wrong.
Ten minutes later he told me

that my boyfriend died instantly in a car crash.
We were both 20 at that time.

I can honestly tell you -- I have to zoom into present now
because today his father passed away --

it is really hard, I just found out a few hours ago.
I'm zooming back to past now.

When my dad told me,
my whole world collapsed.

Nobody could really understand me,
I was half the world away,

I was by myself. I had friends there but they didn't really understand me because nobody knew truly who I am.

So I got really depressed.
I was down, emotionally completely broken.

I lost faith in life, which I had so much before
because I thought nothing could happen to me.

That's when it started. I got really depressed,
I flunked out of college one semester, took a break.

Playing tennis kept me going.

Through these couple of months I realized
that this [person] wasn't Ana.

I couldn't always be like that,
this isn't what I am supposed to be.

So I somehow stood up, finished college
with very good grades. I came back to Slovenia.

I still wasn't being myself,
I was still trying to find my way.

I came here and did my Master's [degree]
in a year and a half, realy easily.

Every time I put something in my head, I know that it's
only a matter of matter of operative work [to do it].

So I finished my Master's with a ten.
Good job, Ana! Not so proud of that today.

I'm much more proud of what I feel
and what I do currently.

I got a job which was very good, for two years,
in a huge pharmaceutical company.

Very good experience, but after two years
I realized this is not making me happy.

I was put in a little box, I couldn't think
with my own thoughts and my ideas.

So I quit. Everybody asked me
if I had a back-up plan.

"No, I don't know what I'm going to do."

I did a few things in between, and then I met
some people from Switzerland and Lichtenstein

and saw a huge opportunity in solar energy
that was evolving fast in Slovenia in 2009.

I agreed with them to open
a daughter company in Slovenia,

develop a huge business development project

which would have been the biggest in solar energy
in Europe if it had succeeded.

I devoted my entire one year in this project,
involving a lot of companies from here,

Unicredit Bank, lawyers, Ernst&Young,
quality control management team from California,

from Germany -- it was really huge.

And after twelve months, the investor, my mother company told me they don't have any money to invest.

The entire project flopped.

All the costs that occurred were left on me,
so I paid for everything.

So because of this project, today I have a loan.
I was really disappointed.

This was another huge disappointment in my life
because I devoted so much of me,

and failing one more time left me without words.

I mean, what else can happen to me?

When I was going through all of that,
I realized there must be something good about that.

There must be a way for me to find.
So I stood up again, and again something hit me.

A couple of months later,
something bad affected our family.

My mom, 67 at that time, was diagnosed
with a very rare dementia disease.

It's not Alzheimer's, it's frontotemporal dementia,
and there is no cure for it.

For the last 3 years, my mom
doesn't really remember who I am.

Maybe 20 per cent of time she knows
who my father, my sister and I are.

We've been trying to be very strong
and supportive about that.

So, many things happened to us.
And all of that evolved and awakened me

to become who I really am today.
I realized that you have to live a raw life,

you need to go through a raw life, experience bad things,
and embrace them with open arms

to fully understand who you are and to really find
your inner morals, value, truth, and honesty.

What kept me going for the last 10 years,
was a strong feeling I couldn't describe years ago.

But I could finally put it into words
a year and a half ago.

I was running and I said,
"This is it. This is who I am."

It's called TRUHOMA. This is my engine,
my soul, how I survived until today,

this is what kept me going.

It's the belief in me, in totally honestly saying to all of you
"This is what you get."

No hidden motives,
just truly and honestly me.

I will tell you what TRUHOMA means.
It's a very strong word and statement.

It's applied to three basic things in life
-- true and honest marketing.

Today I have two companies,
I'm not dependent on anybody.

We're very innovative and we've just been starting
for the last three years.

It's really hard but I'm aiming for the longterm.

I believe if we are true and honest at what we do,
we will be the winners in the end.

This is what I apply in my work,
through true and honest marketing.

Further, true and honest management
is the second important thing in companies.

You have to have true and honest people,
and everybody that relates and coexists in the company

and creates a successful business story.

But the bottom line of everything I believe we all are,
is true and honest mankind

which means that we are truly and honestly in sync
with ourselves, and what we do and believe.

This is what kept me going for the last 10 years
and keeps me going now.

I will show you a perfect example

that totally describes true and honest mankind
and the TRUHOMA movement.

This is my charity that I do,
only in my spare time.

It's called Anina zvezdica (Anna's little star).
It's whole concept is basically

to collect unperishable food for people
that are socially disadvantaged.

First af all, through Anina zvezdica, I and my team
want to prove that you don't need any money --

in my example, I am not in the green,

I have a loan because of my business fiasco
from 2 years ago.

So you need no money, you need time and devotion,
and it has to be 100 per cent.

So that's what we are proving
with Anina zvezdica.

The second very importiant thing
and motive is to help people in need.

The third and most important motive
is to bring all the people together and show

if we all have true and honest mind, we can do
something seriously miraculous here on Earth

and I think this is what has been missing
in the last years.

Especially since the materialistic phenomena
has been here.

On the one hand, I'm grateful that we are in crisis now
because it is finally awakening us

and showing what is truly important in life.

I think that Anina zvezdica has been proving this
for the last three years.

It was funny the way it started.
All my life I knew I wanted to help,

it was just a matter of time when to start

because I trust everything has to happen
with a reason and spontaneously.

In January it will be 3 years
since my first action.

For my birthday I didn't want presents,
I just wanted my friends to come

and bring some food.

I wrote them an invitation saying,
"Come, bring some food from your closets,

you don't need to buy anything.
We can hang out, chat and see what we can do."

Everybody loved my idea so much that in the end,
we made 37 happy families.

It was a great feeling.

The problem was
I didn't know any of these families.

So I connected with a social organization in Šiška,
Ljubljana, that helped me find these families.

I told them I really wanted them to have kids,
and they said no problem.

Every time I bring food,
I meet them and talk to them.

It's not like I give them the box
and say bye.

Why do I want to talk to them?

Because the fourth motive od Anina zvezdica
is maybe to change their lives.

I ask them, "What is your problem,
why are you in this situation?

What is the solution?
What are you going to do?"

The most rewarding thing for me is an example
from last year when a family came to get food

but this year they came and they brought food.

They changed their life story.

I want to inspire them and motivate them
to change something for themselves as well.

The second charity action
took place in April 2011.

I made a website and told my friends
to please invite their friends.

We expanded a little and in the end,
we made 105 happy families.

The feeling was great because at that time
I realized this was a good idea

because people started to believe
in my organization

because there was no Euros
transfered to the account.

Everything was just seen in food.

And for the third charity action, a lot of companies
said they want to be part of it, too.

There were two channels
of co-operation with companies.

One was that companies,
which produce food, donated it.

The other one was to involve employees
who started gathering food in their company

and then they brought it to me.

Furthermore, kindergartens, elementary schools,
highschools, faculties joined me.

When I see little kids aware of what is going
on in their lives --

that there is poverty and hungry kids around them,
it's like education for them.

It's very important that they know what's happening,
at their young age.

Last year we made 523 happy families.
It was just great.

Many people say I have such great PR,
but I don't have any.

All the media are contacting me by themselves.

Why do they do that? Because they believe
in the story as well, they want to be a part.

Media are tired of only talking about bad things.

They want to share the good things, finally.
So it's awakening for them as well.

This year in April, we made another progress.
We made 700 happy families.

This was an even bigger logistic
and organizational project.

More volunteers, my little stars,
joined my project and we are all fully devoted.

Now, my fifth action is just finishing.

Not yet, I still have a lot of work.

In two months, today is my first day off.
Before, I was working all the time.

I have my job in the morning
-- I'm also a speaker --

and in my free time, which is totally devoted
to Anina zvezdica,

this is what I do,
because this is what I love.

And along with my little stars,
this is what we achieved.

We have more than a hundred people
involved that helped.

We have more than 50
educational institutions that took part,

we have more than 90
Slovenian companies that took part,

and most of all -
I don't even know if this figure is all right -

because I think
it's more than 40 tonnes [of food].

We will make more than 2500 happy families
before New Year.

My goal is to share the food with them
by December 28th, and I hope to do that.

(Applause)
Thank you.

Many people ask me why I do so many things.

They just end up in such a beautiful mosaic,

all of them together, and I learn from myself.

It's something so beautiful
and I want to share it with everybody.

Today I know why I am here --
I want to inspire everybody to change the world,

to make it better, and most of all,
I want to connect people.

I think with Anina zvezdica I've proven this.
I want to share it on other fields as well.

Why do I want to do this?
Because I strongly and unconditionally believe

that everybody in this world
is true and honest mankind.

We're all TRUHOMA.

Thank you.
(Applause)