A1 Diesel CEO Aldis Ozols shares 4 nuggets to succeed after losing everything

Aldis Ozols, the Founder and CEO of A1 Diesel Limited and author of the new book, Win Life, Lose Millions, has synthesised his remarkable journey of extreme loss and successful rebuilding into four critical principles for bouncing back from professional or financial ruin.

During an interview on JoyNews’ Personality Profile with Lexis Bill on Thursday, December 11, 2025, Ozols—who lost a €17 million real estate empire in the 2008 crash, went minus €7 million in debt, and started over in Ghana—stressed that failure is not final but a valuable stage in the process of success.

Four Nuggets for Resilience and Rebuilding

Ozols drew upon his experiences, which range from growing up in Soviet Latvia to serving in Special Forces, to offer powerful advice on taking control and leveraging past failure.

1. Take Control and Full Responsibility

The first and most crucial step after a devastating loss is internalising responsibility, regardless of external factors. This mindset ensures that failure becomes a learning tool, not a repeated mistake.

“First of all, take the steering. Take control. When you take control, when you take responsibility for whatever happened, even if you know exactly that someone did that or this, study what was wrong from your side, how that happened.”

He explained that this radical self-assessment inoculates against future manipulation and failure:

“Then any next time when you will be in a similar situation, you will be much smarter; you’ll be more advanced, and nobody can put you in the same sack a second time”.

2. The Winner is Just a Loser Who Stood Up One More Time

Ozols firmly asserted that the difference between success and failure is simply persistence. The “loser” is defined not by the fall, but by the decision to stay down.

“I say the winner is just the same loser who decides to stand up one more time. The loser is the one who decides, ‘Okay, I’m done. That’s it.’ That is a loser.”

He encouraged those facing failure to leverage their hard-won knowledge:

“But the difference between a loser and a winner is when you still say no, I will try one more time based on what I know.”

3. Knowledge Accelerates Rebuilding (Experience is Key)

For older individuals who have lost established careers, Ozols offered a powerful message of hope: the time required to rebuild is exponentially shorter than the time it took to build the first empire.

“There are many who are now already 50 years old and suddenly lost everything, and they think, ‘my God, I built this for 20 years; it will take me again 20 years to build.’ That is not true. Now he knows. The same empire, he can build in two years because he knows a lot; if he is truly the one who did that before, he can start from any point and build it faster.”

This “experience dividend” is a massive advantage that second-time builders possess.

4. For the Young: Do More, Fail Fast, and Master What You Can Stand

For young people just starting out, his advice is to diversify experiences and accept failure as tuition.

“And for young men, I can say do more. Do more. Don’t be afraid to fail. Do more. Fail fast. Fail in many, many places. Do many, many jobs and learn at least what you can stand and, most importantly, learn what you hate.”

Ozols stressed that discovering what you truly dislike is just as important as finding what you enjoy.

The goal is to avoid the things you hate and master the things you can tolerate and excel at,

Ozols’ story—which includes selling his wife’s jewellery to secure his initial startup capital for A1 Diesel in Ghana—is a living testament to these principles of resilience, turning devastating setbacks into the foundation for future success.

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