My detailed backstory
I. Shell and substance — who actually drove my life?
From the outside my life can look like a success story or a thrilling adventure. Today I know that for most of that time the adult Martin wasn't at the wheel. My choices, ambitions and fears were driven by five boys inside me — my inner children.
These are the places where my “system” took damage in childhood and youth. They are programs that ran in the background for decades, forcing me to chase status, money and recognition to fill an emptiness I couldn't even explain at the time. I only became aware of them during my “awakening” in therapy at thirty-five.
“Bike Martin” (age 3) — the feeling of not being enough
My younger brother and I were given bicycles. He got a tricycle and rode off immediately. I got a two-wheeler and couldn't ride it yet. As the older son, I felt pressure for the first time: more was expected of me, and I couldn't deliver. From that moment came a deep “not enough” feeling — the belief that I had to be better, faster, more successful to be worthy. That feeling fuelled my actions and achievements for life.
“Father-lost Martin” (age 3.5) — a broken father line
My parents separated and any contact between them stopped. I last saw my father in passing at age seven. The broken family and the broken father line deepened the feeling of abandonment and the “not enough.”
“Anxious Martin” (age 7) — financial anxiety and survival fear
I diligently saved money in a plastic butter tub. One month my parents asked to borrow my savings to buy food (they paid it back nicely later). The childhood fear — “what if my butter tub is empty, will we go hungry?” — laid the foundation for deep financial anxiety. That fear fuelled my later career in finance.
“Tooth Martin” (age 10) — outward insecurity
On a class trip I caught a minibus door so badly that I lost both my front teeth. That moment kicked off years of dental work and, more deeply, a long-running insecurity about my smile and my appearance.
“Jealous Martin” (age 18) — sexual trauma and insecurity
As a young man I took a painful blow to my masculinity and confidence when I learned details about my then partner's past that also touched my close circle and my stepbrother. It created enormous sexual insecurity and trauma I had no tools to deal with at the time.
These five boys are the reason I have achieved a lot in life — and at the same time the reason those five boys had to destroy me, so that the Dreamlife Mentor could be born.
II. Creativity and release — Drum Machine
Music has always been my outlet for freedom and pure energy. My journey began at the piano in Valga music school — I even reached the stage of the Estonia concert hall — but inside, the drums were always pulling at me. The moment music school ended, I invested all my savings and parental help into my first drum kit and started drumming at fifteen. A year later, at sixteen, I left home to study at Nõo Real Gymnasium, beginning my independent life.
That was the time the band Slith was born and so was my stage name Drum Machine. In high school drumming became a meditative discipline — for three years in a row I practised 3–5 hours a day. That dedication took me to the TV show “Talendijaht,” where I won an award episode and reached a final watched by 100,000 people. The drums also took me on tour with various music projects to Latvia, Finland and France.
At university we co-founded “Eesti Bänd” with friends. This wonderful crew has been my second family — we've travelled the world's corners together and shared energy with thousands of people, keeping alive the creative fire that balances day-to-day rationality.
- Big stages — 4 powerful concerts to crowds of 1,200–1,500.
- Mid stages — 9 performances to audiences of 200–300.
- Small stages — 4 performances at friends' weddings to 70–100 people.
- World tours — three big band adventures (Europe, the USA, Mexico & Colombia).
DM — Drum Machine
Four icons depicting the tension rings of drums.
The four rings represent the core of a classic drum kit: bass drum, snare, tom and floor tom.
III. Structure and outward chase — a career in finance
If music and drums were my emotional outlet, the financial world offered something else: structure, status and control. Moving to Riga at nineteen and starting at the prestigious SSE Riga wasn't just an educational choice — it was entry into a world where success is measured in numbers, titles and public admiration.
I deliberately built a “perfect life” others could envy. It was an endless chase for the next bigger salary, the higher position, the brighter title. I sincerely believed that if I climbed high enough, the inner emptiness and the financial anxiety carried from childhood would finally vanish.
- 19. I wrote a project to the Labour Office and won a 70,000 EEK start-up grant.
- 19. Moved to Riga and started studies at SSE Riga.
- 21. Studied as an exchange student at Ege University (Izmir, Turkey). To make it memorable, my friend and I hitchhiked there from Tartu — 36 cars and four weeks of adventure later, we arrived.
- 21. Recognition for entrepreneurship — the Anders Wall scholarship (75,000 SEK).
- 21. First role as an analyst at Trigon Capital.
- 25. Operational leadership (COO) at Mogo (Eleving Group) Estonia.
- 27. Took responsibility for the whole unit — became the head of Mogo (Eleving Group) Estonia.
- 28. Top of the career ladder — co-founder and CEO of LandCredit AS.
- 30. Giving back — leading the SSE Riga Support Foundation NGO (€423,000 in scholarships granted).
IV. Family and the “perfect” facade
My 15-year journey with the mother of my children was, in effect, a methodical construction of the perfect life. We moved purposefully through the social ranking: marriage, children and reaching the top of material wellbeing.
Our life looked like a glossy magazine spread — a 164 m² prime property in Pääsküla with a big garden, a luxury Audi Q7 in the driveway, and we were on the threshold of financial freedom, with a joint net portfolio over €500,000 (gross €600,000). Going through Gordon's parenting school became an important tool for staying focused on conscious parenting.
Behind that facade, however, was a classic “Nice Guy” — a man trying to be socially expected and “good” for everyone. I avoided conflict, suppressed my real needs and tried to be the perfect husband and father, hoping that would buy me peace of mind.
But around 2019 the picture started to crack. I started looking for an exit through meditation, hoping to quiet the deepening anxiety and emptiness even an “ideal” family life couldn't fill. It was the silence before the storm — the feeling that I had hidden myself away so far that an explosion was only a matter of time.
- 17. Met the mother of my children.
- 25. Got married.
- 27. Birth of our first daughter.
- 29. Birth of our second daughter.
- 30. Completed Gordon's parenting school.
- 30. Entered the world of meditation.
V. The explosion — when the system gives up
What looked like a success story from the outside was, on the inside, a free fall. At the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 all my “inner children,” physical exhaustion and a crumbling financial foundation collided. It wasn't one event but a series of blows that made my “gilded cage” unliveable.
The collapse started physically. The birth of the second child and chronic sleep loss pushed my body to a dangerous edge by the end of 2019. On top of that, “Eesti Bänd” had two big concerts coming up, for which we rehearsed two weeks in a row until 4 a.m. before going back to work a few hours later. I literally disappeared — losing 9 kg in three weeks (down to 66 kg at 188 cm) and on the verge of fainting on stage during drum solos. The batteries were empty, but I kept burning, because the “Nice Guy” couldn't surrender.
Onto the physical exhaustion came a series of blows that destroyed my identity. Each event painfully struck a “little Martin” inside me — programs that had ticked silently for years and whose existence I knew nothing about at the time:
1: July 2019 — a €70,000 hit
Through an investment mistake, a large loan I had given to a relative and his business partner went bad. I felt I had made an unforgivable error and let down my brother, half of whose money was in it.
2: December 2019 — losing the job
It became clear that the LandCredit AS business model wasn't going to play out as hoped. It was a huge blow to my ego and ambition. The choices were an 80% income drop or a new job — and I had no strength left to start a new project.
3: January 2020 — court saga and health
I lost the dispute over that same €70,000 loan in Harju County Court. The win should have been certain, but the loss came down to a tiny notary typo in the notarised debt acknowledgement. At the same time I went through a painful operation that left me physically helpless for a month.
4: March 2020 — a new and expensive home
We bought a 164 m² home in Pääsküla, using the last chance to take more loan against the higher income. It was a rational and successful place to park capital, but the mortgage payment grew 2.5×.
5: March 2020 — Covid-19 isolation
We got to enjoy the new home for one week before the country-wide lockdown began. Four walls and uncertainty about the outside world deepened the inner pressure further.
6: April 2020 — reality lands
My role as CEO ended. Income fell 80% and I received a decent severance. I felt like a failure, completely worthless.
7: April 2020 — a downward spiral
Dissatisfaction with myself turned into an attack on the marriage. I felt cornered and unimportant in my own family, fuelling the victim role. Old themes of sexual trauma and insecurity surfaced, and thoughts of breaking the family and abandoning the children began to spin.
8: May 2020 — the cherry on top
I lost the loan dispute in the Tallinn District Court — a tiny notary typo cost my brother and me €70,000.
That was the last drop in my cup. Two days later, in Valgamaa at my stepfather's birthday, the final explosion happened inside me. I broke completely at thirty. From the outside I had lived an ideal life and achieved more young than most people do in a lifetime, but inside I was deeply unhappy and depressed. I lost any sense of meaning and any will to live.
I walked to the fridge, took a beer and started drinking. I didn't stop drinking and using nicotine for the next three days. I didn't speak to anyone, my eyes were glazed, I was non-contactable, and I was thinking about suicide for the first time in my life. I just drank and drank and surrendered on every front.
On the fourth day my wife called my friend Eerik and explained the situation. Eerik called me and got me to write down everything that was happening inside. I wrote eight pages of that black emptiness and read it out to my wife. That confession was the end of the old Martin and the start of a very difficult, four-year transformation into a new “me.”
VI. Four years of transformation
After the explosion I dropped into a deep depression. Antidepressants began, and years where suicidal thoughts were daily companions. I came very close to one attempt; only the existence of my children kept me from it. To avoid breaking completely, I started looking for solutions to stabilise me.
My transformation became a journey through extremes, spirituality and the depths of human relationships.
1. Silence underwater — active meditation
Diving became my lifeline. Underwater was the only place where the world's noise and the painful inner monologue were silent. There you had to breathe calmly and steadily — it was the first real therapy for my nervous system.
During this time I did over 400 dives, trained as a Dive Master and an ice diver. In total, I spent more than two months on boats in the Egyptian Red Sea. In freediving, I held my breath for 5 minutes and went down to 26 metres.
DM — Dive Master
3 large and 21 small rings forming the bubbles underwater.
Since Dive Master also gives the abbreviation DM, I decided to stop at that licence level. And, well — “Master” is a pretty cool title to carry!
2. Sexuality and the anatomy of relationships
I went deep into the world of sex and sexuality to root out my deep traumas and insecurities. At the same time I started working very systemically on my marriage — family therapy, a clinical psychologist, the Imago relationship course and books were a daily part of my life.
As an extreme example, my wife and I entered an open relationship, which led me into a 1.5-year polyamorous triangle. That time offered both incredible trips and euphoric peaks and falls into dark holes. We stretched the elastic as far as it would go, until it was clear: our shared road was over.
At thirty-two, after fifteen years together, we decided to divorce and split the assets. Every other week I became the single father of two small children (3 and 4.5). My parents' pattern repeated, but I promised myself I would not abandon my beloved daughters.
3. Business, spirituality and journeys through myself
There was still much work in this period that helped me rebuild — and burn the old patterns to the end:
Justice and a financial win
I didn't give up. I changed lawyers and won the second round in court — the full €70,000 plus interest came back. It was an important win.
The billion-euro dream collapses
With university classmates we founded NestCap. We planned to build a billion-euro investment fund where I was again COO. We were raising the first €11 million (€8 million was already in) when the market shifted and the project collapsed like a house of cards. Two years of work and €40,000 of personal money disappeared in a moment.
Going deeper into self-management techniques
I went through the Ingvar Villido I–V trainings and the first dedication of Babaji Kriya yoga. That gave me practical tools for steering my inner world.
Journeys of consciousness
I started exploring the mystical side of consciousness — breath journeys, mushroom journeys, an Ayahuasca journey (a near-death experience for me), an LSD journey, peyote journeys, sound journeys and dance journeys. Cannabis was added to my menu.
Inner relationships and reconciliation
I fell out with my mother and we didn't speak for 8 months. Things only improved when I started accepting her as she is and allowing myself to be myself.
Twenties revisited in my thirties
I lived against the social grain. I experienced both falling in love and being cheated on again, lived through shorter and longer relationships. Over the years I rooted out my sexual insecurity completely and replaced it with conscious sexuality.
At thirty-three I entered the world of Tantra, where life immediately handed me a witty lesson. On a Tantra ABC course a stone got into a nut, and I bit my front tooth in half.
4. Tantra, “Tooth Martin” and Drum Machine
That was the moment I could really work with “Tooth Martin” (my outward insecurity). I just accepted the situation. I walked around without a tooth, smiled wide and made people's day, until the tooth was put back. It was the start of liberating myself from the fear of others' opinions.
That experience opened a new door. A few months later I was invited to the Estonian Tantra Festival to perform on drums. Drum Machine wowed hundreds of people across two consecutive summers, drumming over DJ music. It was pure improvisation and creative flow.
At that first festival I met my current partner. Our setup is conscious and honest: we both have two children from a previous marriage and two separate homes. In weeks with the children we live separately; in child-free weeks we live together — a model that lets us hold both closeness and the personal space we need.
5. The last abyss and freedom from “the home that owned me”
At the start of 2024 I hit bottom again. I was thirty-four. It was the deepest, darkest place of my life. In a short time my then relationship fell apart through cheating and a big Egyptian boat project I had poured all my passion into failed. I dropped into a deep depression and started my third antidepressant course — but this time it didn't work.
It was a completely new and frightening level.
The addiction cycle
Alcohol was no longer in my menu at this moment. A few months earlier I had been on a three-day drinking trip in Albania with friends, followed by a six-day hangover. That was my limit — I quit alcohol overnight. But the inner emptiness still demanded to be filled. I sat on my couch for two months and used cannabis, mushrooms, snus and e-cigarettes uncontrollably. I had only one rule: no weed before 17:00. But from five in the evening until the early morning hours, I went non-stop. I built up such a tolerance that I could no longer “out-smoke” cannabis — I could keep using it endlessly without anything changing.
Medical heavy artillery
I went to my GP and honestly told her where I was and what I was using. A lot of Xanax was added on top. I was sent to esketamine treatment — a controlled procedure where the substance is dripped into a vein. I went through 16 sessions (€100 each), where I experienced mystical and visual journeys. At the same time I went through 10 sessions of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), where weak direct current was applied to my brain to “restart” the nervous system.
The gilded cage became a prison
My mortgage payment was €2,000 a month. I was in my fourth year of being “unemployed,” living off savings of about €100,000 at that point. The projects I had tried in between had failed. I was desperately considering only options that would bring in more than €2,000 a month, just to survive. My friend Olav said something at the start of the couch period that haunted me: “You don't own this home anymore — this home owns you.”
Breaking point and freedom
After two months of “burning” on the couch, Olav's line finally landed. I decided to let go of the broken family home and put it on the market. The instant the decision was made, a huge weight came off my shoulders. The same day I stopped using substances, started selling the house and made myself a promise: I will not spend another winter in Estonia. It was my fourth seasonal depression in a row, and I knew I had to change my environment.
VII. Awakening — the birth of a new Martin
I realised I couldn't build a new life on old ruins. After deciding to sell the house, I did a material purge — I sold or donated almost everything. Only the drums (Drum Machine), the dive gear (Dive Master), a Ford van and a single suitcase remained.
The sale didn't only bring emotional release — it changed my financial reality completely. My net portfolio grew above €400,000 which, together with drastically reduced fixed costs, meant I had reached financial freedom “from the other side,” through cost minimisation. While the winter trips I take to nourish my spirit keep the portfolio on a gentle downtrend, this is my conscious choice — inner peace is worth more than the row of numbers on a screen.
I was free. But the road to true freedom still demanded a few last storms.
6. The crash and the first detox
Summer began and with it new adventures. I was full of energy and ready to go full throttle, but that momentum got an unexpected and painful end — I crashed an enduro motorbike and badly twisted my knee. The next month on crutches was a forced pause, but in that very summer I made an important decision: I quit snus and e-cigarettes. The cleansing of my body had begun.
7. A panic attack on stage and honesty with the daughters
In November 2024 “Eesti Bänd” celebrated its 15th anniversary. Just before the Tallinn concert, I had made the decision: in January I'd go to Asia for three months to learn how to be alone with myself. It was a skill that had been completely missing from my life until then. Fear, uncertainty and the fact that I hadn't told anyone came on stage with me. I gave a 1.5-hour show in front of 250 people, experiencing for the first time in my life what it means to be on stage in the middle of a panic attack.
I was most afraid of telling the daughters. When I finally did it in the car after the concert, they only asked: “You'll go and come back, right?” After my yes, they calmly announced: “OK, we'll live with mum until then!” and went back to playing happily. That moment, plus my friend Olav's brutally honest line — “The kids will be just fine without you, you'd better look at how you'll be fine yourself” — broke the last barrier of guilt in me.
8. A sober triumph in Riga
The next stop was Riga — a show in front of 1,200 people. It was the best stage moment of my life, and the band's. Most importantly: I was completely sober both on stage and at the after-party that lasted until morning. That experience gave me a mystical new energy and the knowledge that I don't need “fuel” to shine. I was ready to shift into the next gear.
9. Systemic therapy: Andres Põhjala
Before flying to Asia I went to therapist Andres Põhjala for seven weeks in a row. It was systemic work that gave me the most important tools of my life:
Karpman's drama triangle
I finally understood how I had spent years in the victim role, and learned how to step out of it.
Dr. Joe Dispenza's “Rewired” series
That series gave me the intellectual “click” and the deep motivation needed to reprogram my brain.
Peace with my mother
Andres helped me make peace with my mother and understand the patterns of her childhood. After that session my relationship with my mother improved overnight.
Discovering and holding the “little Martins”
- We gave “Bike Martin” training wheels so he could safely start riding.
- We built “Anxious Martin” an ultra-safe vault for keeping his treasure.
- We brought “Jealous Martin” back from the bridge in Räpina, where he had been imprisoned in a traumatic memory.
- For “Father-lost Martin,” we summoned hundreds of Martins in imagination — from childhood to adult man. I took the role of father in front of all of them, hugged them all, and felt the emptiness that had tormented me for decades simply dissolve.
These inner-child practices are still with me today. I keep a systemic check-in with them, to make sure none of them is “activated” anymore.
Thank you, Andres Põhjala, for the wonderful work we did together!
10. Human Design: Elena Koit
Andres also recommended I look into Human Design and pointed me to Elena. The conversation became so interesting and meaningful — thanks to my “interesting indicators” — that Elena postponed her next meeting so we could go an extra hour deeper. We spoke for three hours in total. I came out with enormous insight and a very strong foundation for the user manual to my own life I still use today.
Thank you, Elena Koit, for that powerful and guiding video call!
11. Asia and the Camino: the final awakening
In January 2025 I set out. The Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt. I finally also quit cannabis and mushrooms. Although I've never been a big coffee drinker, I said goodbye to coffee on this trip too. I put extreme focus on sleep, training and healthy nutrition.
I thought some bigger inner “click” would happen somewhere among the forests on the Camino, walking alone. But it happened unexpectedly already in the first week of Asia. I finally understood how to apply Dr. Joe Dispenza's “Rewired” work in real life. I was systemically awake. I was free. This was no longer just a trip but a new way of being that I won't trade for anything.
Returning to Estonia I was a New Martin. My relationship with my daughters changed completely — where before I would wait for the children's weeks to end, because I couldn't handle myself, I now started genuinely enjoying the path of being a father. I spent two weeks with the children in Estonia and at the end of April set off into the next stage of my solitude journey.
The Camino de Santiago became the complete enjoyment of my new state and lifestyle — six weeks and 800 kilometres alone on the northern coast of Spain. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life! Incredibly, the last 200 kilometres of the Camino finally healed the knee injury that had bothered me for a year.
Coming back from the Camino I spent a whole month with the daughters in a row. It no longer drained me — I enjoyed that time and our connection fully. It was the confirmation that the change is permanent.
12. Dreamlife: a life without a facade
Today my life has changed beyond recognition, but this time not on the outside — on the inside. I no longer live in constant survival mode, nor seek fulfilment from things outside myself. Dreamlife is no longer a luxurious facade for me, but a deep inner state and freedom:
I no longer need to “fix” myself, because I have finally accepted myself exactly as I am. And I love this cool character!
I have cracked the code that lets me live fully, in peace and presence. It is an art of living and a biological setup that I share with others today — because everyone deserves a life worth living.
VIII. The calling — the birth of the Dreamlife Mentor
2025 carried on on a wonderful wave. But something was different — people around me noticed the change. Friends and acquaintances started asking more and more often: “How did you get here? What happened? What practices are you using?” I realised it can't be answered with a short “elevator pitch.” The inner world and the state I cultivate and live in every day are too deep to convey in a few sentences. At the same time an irresistible wish rose in me: I would love every person to feel the peace and freedom that I experience.
The thought of sharing my journey and methods started to grow. I understood that to do that I had to write down and structure my experience systematically.
I wanted a name that fit my existing “DM” line — like Drum Machine and Dive Master. With AI's help I arrived at Dreamlife Mentor in September 2025, and a logo binding three deep meanings was born.
DM — Dreamlife Mentor
Four interconnected gears.
Reaching a full — that is, Dreamlife — life takes the balance of four levels: Sleep (the largest disc and the foundation), Mind, Body and Spirit. If one gear jams, the whole system stops.
HeartMath® + a nudge from Andres = the birth of the Dreamlife Method
In November 2025 I discovered the HeartMath Inner Balance™ Coherence Plus sensor. I started experimenting with it alongside my practices and the result was striking — the sensor showed a very strong state of body-mind balance (Coherence). Surprisingly, my own techniques matched one-to-one with HeartMath® techniques, which have been successfully researched and applied for over 30 years. It was huge confirmation: I am on the right path and I'm doing the right thing — for myself and for others.
Exactly a week later, while chasing the sun in Turkey with my partner, therapist Andres Põhjala unexpectedly called me. We hadn't spoken for four months but I still had two unused sessions. Because I no longer had any need to dig in my inner world, I made him a proposal: “Andres, let's meet as friends — support and prod me so I can write the Dreamlife Method down systematically.”
Andres agreed. In a couple of weeks the Dreamlife Method was on paper as a draft.
The final test in Tenerife
In December 2025, in Tenerife, my new state was put to the test. We stayed at a friend's, Risto, who is materially in a much better position than I am. After a long time, “Anxious Martin” and “Bike Martin” were activated — I started comparing myself to him.
It was a powerful moment, because I could apply the Dreamlife Method in real life, from a very deep place. And it worked.
A few days later the same situation repeated with another successful friend, Indrek, and again I came through it cleanly with the help of the Method.
Back in Estonia I put my foot down. All my focus went into building the program and the materials. I don't share theory — I share a system for the art of living that has literally saved me and built me a life worth living.