At the age of 23, I packed a suitcase, bought a one-way ticket, and left Latvia behind.

On the surface I looked the same as other young Latvians looking for better opportunities in Ireland which at the time was one of the hottest economies on our planet.

But the truth was far less obvious. I wasn’t even aware of what was going on within me at the time.

I wasn’t moving towards anything.I was running away.

Away from the chaos of my life in Latvia — the drinking, the desperate attempts to fit in, the complete inability to determine anything in my own life.

Away from all the people to whom I could never say NO.

Away from the feeling that I was a total loser.I believed that if only I had more money, things would finally change.

That’s the version of me that landed in Ireland in 2002.

Immigration was an Eye-Opener: Different Life is Possible!

Back home I just felt lost. And the very fact of buying a plane ticket to Ireland somehow made me realise that I wanted to start changing a lot of things about my life.I wanted to lose weight and get rid of my beer belly.

I wanted to start keeping fit.

Stop the internal mess that was manifesting itself in my physical reality.

Coincidentally (or not?) one of the guys who we shared a house with in Ireland was into running, so I started to run with him. I also started working out on my own. The warehouse job was also physically taxing, and I lost all my excess weight in a matter of a few months.

And the money was also a game changer for me. When I received my first weekly salary I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a dream come true.

My old ways of trying to fit in and drinking didn’t change however. And soon enough I hit a rock bottom which shook my entire being to my core.

My drinking almost cost me my job, which would have meant losing everything and heading back home to Latvia, back to poverty and hard survival.

It was a wake up call.

Wake Up Call: Drinking Was Ruining My Life

I was so afraid of what my life could have become, that I just went cold turkey. I continued hanging out with the boys, but without a drink. It was something new, something never experienced before… And for the first time since my late teens which is when I started drinking regularly, I had a sober mind.

Again, coincidentally (or not?) I got hold of a self-help book and realised for the first time in my life that I had massive anger issues. I was suddenly becoming acutely aware of my shortcomings.

I was becoming more and more self-aware of how flawed I was. Back home I was blaming everyone else for my bad life. Now my focus started shifting slowly inwards, and I started seeing how much work there is to do.

Sidenote: It was September of 2002. I took my next drink in June 2003 and became just as hooked as before. I kept repeating the same cycle of abstaining, then drinking for the following 17 years.

New Identity: Meditation + Harmony Seeking

When I came off of the drink, I felt like I was reborn, a different man altogether.

I felt much calmer, less tormented. I started meditating for the first time in my life, I heard the inner calling for spirituality. And I liked that new version of myself: no aggression, peace, love.

I remember wearing an Indian shirt around the house, and other guys were making fun of me, but I didn’t care, I finally felt I had found something I had been looking for my entire life.

But really what happened was – I suppressed my inner demons because I didn’t know how to face them. I thought that I simply had to start behaving differently, and that my new discipline was enough to become this new person, full of love and harmony.

I didn’t realise that I needed to integrate my healthy anger in order to be able to draw boundaries. I thought that I had to suppress it completely, because for me, it was associated with everything bad in my life: drinking, fighting, stress, survival.

And sure enough, this suppressed anger would keep coming out again and again. I was snapping out at people, and I would hate myself for doing it, and I tried to suppress it even harder. But the harder I tried, the deeper the inner conflict became.It would take me another 20 years to finally understand how this suppressed shadow really works, but this was a start for me nonetheless.

Dealing with English Fluency Issues

Immediately upon arriving in Ireland, I realised that I could barely hold a conversation in English, and every time I opened my mouth I felt stupid and inadequate.

And when I started becoming more and more self-aware, this inability to speak in English properly was something that I was very, very ashamed of.

I could clearly see how my inability to speak properly was preventing me from getting a better job and starting a proper career, and finally being happy (in my mind more finances would make me happy). So I put all my efforts into that.

I started studying English grammar extra hard, started building a huge English vocabulary, cramming it non-stop. As you can imagine, my ability to read and understand English skyrocketed, but I still couldn’t speak fluently.

It would take me 5 years till I discovered that in order to speak well, I actually had to focus on speaking and repeating naturally occurring English phrases.

Founding & Running English Harmony as a Functioning Alcoholic

I quickly found out that many immigrants in the world are dealing with the same type of problems that I had.

Having been struggling with spoken English, and figuring out how to deal with it was the perfect formula for an online business.

In 2007 I started EnglishHarmony. In 2010 I created an English fluency improvement course called the English Harmony System.

I was helping other immigrants and foreigners with their English fluency, and I liked it. I liked the positive feedback. And I also liked the extra money that I started making. And I decided to make my oline gig into a proper business bringing in full time income.

In the meantime the same old demons of alcohol, aggression and fear kept tormenting me. They didn’t just leave.

New demons joined – long periods of procrastination and inability to do anything on my English Harmony project for days on end.

It made no sense to me. Why? Despite the fact that English Harmony became my entire focus, and I wanted to become my own boss really bad, why was I having such a hard time?

At times it felt like I was spiraling out of control. I would compensate for the previous night’s excesses with working out the following day, crazy stuff. Running when hungover was typical for me back then.

I was a functioning alcoholic, and I still kept quitting the drink for a few months at a time. When I was sober, I would get myself together, give my business 100%.

But ultimately the day would come when the little mischievous voice inside my head started whispering again: “Hey, surely you can now just enjoy one drink, right?”. And then I took one. In a few days, the same voice was back again – “now you deserve another one, you’ve worked so hard!”

Inevitably, it lead to the same old scenario – drinking myself to a blackout, waking up dying the next day, not remembering a thing. Hating myself to the core.

Brother’s Death + Reunion With My Dad and My Past

Despite all my ups and downs, internal turmoil and my struggle with my alcohol addiction, I managed to have a family, a day job and an online side hustle. We bought our family home after 11 years of renting. A great milestone.

I was always busy, always doing something. Never having time for fun stuff, my typical answer when someone said – “are you doing anything tonight?” was – “Yes, of course, I have a business to run!”

But inside… I still felt empty. Never at peace. Never enough. Always unhappy about one thing or another.

And then just after New Year 2014 I got the terrible news of my brother’s passing.

I met my dad after many years of no contact. He was one of the people I had run away from, among others.

My reunion with my grief-stricken dad and other extended family members was an emotional challenge the likes of which I had never faced before. I felt torn apart, guilty, ashamed for having run away, and I pushed my own emotions and feelings deep into the proverbial closet.

I realised that life is too short, and I decided to make amends with the family, because after all – they are all we’ve got, right? So I started regularly traveling back home to be with my dad and family.

Procrastination, Burnout & Hitting Rock-bottom

Slowly but surely, I kept burning out in my day job, and I desperately wanted to make EnglishHarmony.com big enough to be able to live off of the income it would generate.

Yet when I attempted to transition to doing my English Harmony business full time, I was experiencing the most severe procrastination bouts I’d ever had.

I would literally sit in my home office the entire day browsing the Internet watching stupid videos, instead of doing my business. Why? Because I had this feeling inside. I just couldn’t do anything. So I stayed in my day job where I was feeling that everyone was trying to squeeze my life force out of me… And I ran my online business in the evenings and late nights. It was as if the more squeezed I felt, the more I could get done. As if there was something inside of me that demanded that things have to be hard.

Back then I wasn’t aware of the subconscious programming that was guiding my life on an autopilot. I was simply desperate and thought that there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

Eventually I quit my day job because I was so burnt out I felt that I would go mad if I stayed there for longer. But my subconscious programming led me to another job where I was feeling even more desperate.

This was the rock-bottom moment for me. I realized that I had to change something in my life.

Starting English Fluency Coaching Out of Despair

Throughout my entire life I never really believed in myself.

Everything I had achieved was out of fear of having to experience the kind of poverty I lived in back in Latvia. Everything I had achieved was done while fighting my demons.

I had been running the English Harmony project for a good number of years at that point, yet I was completely stuck and unable to move it forward.

I had dealt with the English fluency issue, yet I couldn’t deal with a much larger issue: how does one scale a side-hustle to a full-time business? I had no creativity, no inspiration. I was creating new projects under the English Harmony umbrella, but they weren’t really successful. Now, in hindsight, I know the real reason. With so many emotional blocks present, I couldn’t even expect anything different. It’s impossible to express oneself if the energy is not flowing freely.

While sweeping the floor during my night shift in a warehouse, I realized that I had to do something. I couldn’t take it anymore. And so I decided that I had to start an online English fluency coaching program so that I could possibly one day quit this job that I absolutely hated. And do the thing that I loved doing full time.

And so I did. I opened the Fluency Star coaching program, and people started signing up for it, and it was a great success. It made me realise that I can make things happen, if I really wanted to.

That being said, the overall income from my business still wasn’t sufficient to pay the mortgage and the bills. I was feeling like I was spinning my wheels, getting somewhere, but not really where I wanted.

Starting a Career in Tech While Marriage Was Spiralling

In spring of 2015 I enrolled in an IT course.My way of thinking was: “If I get a stable career, I’ll finally have decent income, and then I’ll be able to stop this eternal struggle. I’m so tired!”

I did very well in my IT studies. I was always good at studying and getting good grades. You see, external validation and praise meant everything to me. Again, back then I was unaware of it, just like I was unaware of so many other subconscious programs running my life. All I knew was that I had to get a good job, so I gave it my all.

I studied during the day, while coaching my clients at English Harmony at night. Still always busy, never resting. For the greater goal of making it one day, and then being able to sit back, and take a breath.

In 2016 I got my first IT job. I was over the moon.

So you would think – happy days, right? Finally I could rest a bit, and enjoy the fruit of my struggles, and enjoy life.

Well, not really. My new job didn’t change much in my emotional patterns. I was still the same old Robby trying to please everyone, and being angry with the world. My marriage started spiralling.

And then I found myself completely lost in a new relationship – a whirlwind of emotions and madness I find hard to believe even now…I was so desperately trying to find myself everywhere – work, business, relationships. And I completely ignored the only place where my true self was waiting to be discovered – WITHIN. But I had to suffer a bit more, because at that time I still didn’t have the right instruments to bring about real transformation within.

New Life, New Family, New Awareness Rising + Emotional Struggles Continue

In 2017 I moved out of the family home and rented a place on my own.

Then I met my future wife, an event that was a game-changer. Finally I met someone who was the perfect fit for me. She moved in with me a few months later.

For a while, things were great.

But then inner demons started becoming even stronger.

All the demons. The demons of alcohol, anger and hurt, and the demons of the constant grind and not being able to sit doing nothing. Still always busy, always planning. Wheels were always turning in my head, never resting. My dad, for one thing, was a constant reminder of the way a real man should be – always doing something, right?

I kept looking for the answers though, because I did realise something had to be done. I started doing cold therapy, swimming in the sea in the winter, Whim Hoff breathing, you name it. And don’t get me wrong – all of these things helped me stay sane and survive, sure. But even the coldest water couldn’t wash my anger and pain away…

In the end, it was my body that simply said: “Enough.” In 2020, I took my last drink.

Years of abuse had turned into physical symptoms I could no longer ignore. I could literally no longer handle my drink, even a couple of drinks would turn me into a useless, pain-ridden insomniac. After a lifetime of struggling with alcohol, I won the fight.

My struggles weren’t over though.

Now that I no longer had a drink to stop me in my tracks, I was hell-bent on success and making it in life. What did it really mean for me to make it? Well, more financial security, and then more, and then some more. And surprise surprise, I burned out again. I had been entirely immersed in my career, constantly trying to take it to the next level, doing one certification after another, always studying, always learning, always working.

But this time something shifted.Instead of looking for a new escape, I reached out for help.

In January 2021, for the first time in my life, I started real therapy.

Later that year, my son was born.

Failing at a New Venture + Learning About Subconscious Programming

2023 was the year I truly understood something fundamental.

Having tried, and miserably failed at a new online gig, I realised that the old patterns of procrastination and not being able to do anything I have planned haven’t gone anywhere. Just like my emotional instability problems.

My girlfriend, who was herself deep into self-discovery, showed me that my entire life had been driven by subconscious beliefs I didn’t even know existed.

The inferiority from my teenage years.

The “life is shit” mindset.

The belief that achievements would save me.

The constant fear of failure.

The constant pressure to prove myself.

The panic whenever something went wrong.

The anger outbursts.

The eating issues that never disappeared.

The burnout cycles repeating again and again.

The feeling that no matter what I built, it wasn’t enough.

It was not my DNA having been wired that way.

It was my subconscious programming.

Deep wounds driving adult behaviour on autopilot.

So in October 2023, encouraged by my girlfriend, I started undergoing a new kind of subconscious mind coaching, and that’s when the real transformation began.

I realised that I had been carrying a ton of guilt with me my entire life, and I started releasing it. I learned that all the answers are within.

From Awakening to Helping Others Wake Up

In 2024 something beautiful happened.

My girlfriend discovered hypnocoaching and introduced me to it.

It took the work with my subconscious mind to a whole new level!

In August 2024, we moved to Spain.

A new beginning, but this time not an escape – a conscious choice.

I started healing old wounds that I didn’t even know I had. And I also started learning the very same instruments of the subconscious mind transformation myself – NLP, NHR, hypnosis, regression. My girlfriend and I both were learning this skill and we were constantly doing sessions on the fellow students, and each other. That was the most transformative time of my life.

My relationship changed.

My reactions changed.

My entire sense of self changed.

And I realised that this kind of work with human transformation is my true calling. Helping someone else overcome their limiting emotional patterns, beliefs and changing the way they think and perceive themselves – there is nothing cooler than that.

Early 2025 I started working with clients.

And throughout 2025 I continued doing the inner work: anger, burnout, fear, phobias, overeating, emotional shutdowns – all of it. I had my fiancée doing the sessions on me and it was a magical experience!

In 2025 I finally got married to my fiancée.

Life started taking on a brand new shape. Profound feeling of trust and inner peace. Knowing that everything is OK, and there is no need to worry about anything. That was something I had never had. I had always been anxious, stressed out and gaining the ability to be in the moment was a game changer.

I started feeling more connectedness. With myself, with the world.

English Harmony Reborn

I was an immigrant who’s struggling with spoken English.

And I was also struggling with my addictions to alcohol and food.I was burning out at my job.

I was angry, and carried a lot of pain in me.

Since English Harmony originally was aimed at foreigners struggling with English fluency, it felt natural to me to expand it.

Expand it to all immigrants to English speaking countries and environments, who are not only struggling with English, but also fighting their inner demons and fears.

Immigrants who are burning out.

Feeling rejected.

Feeling not good enough.

Immigrants who are working harder and harder and feeling worse and worse.

Those who think they are the problem, when in reality… it’s their subconscious beliefs running the show.

Just like mine were.

This is why I do this work.

Not because my life has been perfect – but because I know exactly what it’s like when it isn’t.

And I know how to help you walk out of that darkness.

Because I’ve done it myself.