Is This Really Your Goal?
94 ǀ POSITIV 3/2026
STYL
Is This Really
Your Goal?
Are You Climbing a Mountain
You Never Wanted to Climb
in the First Place?
At twenty–four, Denisa Lhotová had everything.
A successful and growing jewellery company,
Soul of Travel. Yet the more successful
the brand became, the harder she found
it to get up in the morning and keep going.
From the outside, it looked like a dream
come true. But in the evenings, she would
sit at home, stare at the wall and feel no joy
even in the things she had worked so hard
for over so many years. It was not redness.
She felt empty.
Why did you go to the Amazon?
I think a lot of people believe that once they
earn enough money or build a successful
company, they will finally feel fulfilled.
I reached that point relatively early.
And I realised that success on its own does
not give you the answer. Money is important.
A company cannot function without it.
But money alone does not give you a reason
to get out of bed in the morning. And that
was exactly what I had lost at the time.
I did not go there in search of adventure.
I needed to disappear for a while
from the world I had been living
in for several years.
I knew someone whose time in the Amazon
had fundamentally changed the way they
looked at life, and something was drawing
me there. I was not expecting a miracle or
any kind of enlightenment. I simply wanted
to understand why someone who has
achieved everything they had dreamed
of can still feel completely empty.
Looking back now, I realise that the Amazon
itself was not the most important thing.
What mattered was that, for the first time
in many years, I stopped.
You stayed with the Kichwa people.
What affected you most?
Above all, the relationships. Every
morning, they would sit together and talk
about what they were going through,
what made them happy and what was
troubling them. They did not suppress
their emotions or hold on to grievances
for weeks or months. Whatever needed
to be said was said. And the next day
began with a clear mind.
There was an enormous sense of lightness
within the community. I realised how
much mental strain we create for ourselves
in our world simply because we do not
know how to communicate openly
with one another.
And I realised something else as well.
All my life, I had thought I was brave
because I enjoy travelling, skydiving,
diving with sharks or trying things that
other people are afraid of. In reality, my
greatest fear was something completely
different – being alone with myself
for a while, without work, without my
phone and without constantly keeping my
mind occupied.
What did you bring back
from the Amazon into your business?
A company should reflect the values
of its founder. In the past, when making
important decisions, I mainly asked
whether they made economic sense.
Today, of course, we keep just as close
an eye on the numbers as any healthy
company, but the first question is different.
Is this a decision we will still stand by several
years from now? Will it help our customers?
Does it make sense?
I found that when a company is built on
strong values, it tends to be healthier
in the long term from a business perspective
as well. Money then becomes not the goal,
but the natural result of work done well.
Why Jungle Way?
It did not begin as a business opportunity,
but as the result of a personal transformation.
After returning from the Amazon, I knew
I no longer wanted to build a company
simply for the sake of growth. I wanted
to create a brand with a deeper purpose,
one that would remind people every day
of something we often forget ourselves.
| Text: MonikaŠevčíková, foto: JungleWay