MEDIJATOR Boris Trupčević

Guest Boris TrupčevićHosted by Srđan ŠimacMay 3, 2026

Boris Trupčević

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

Boris Trupčević has spent decades in the high-stakes world of media and management, collecting titles from journalist to CEO. But after achieving every ambition, he found himself facing a strange emptiness: "Every next success was emptiness." This paradox — that ultimate professional fulfillment can lead to a deeper personal void — prompted him to shed his corporate identity, literally walking away from it all to embark on a thousand-kilometer journey on El Camino. This conversation explores the profound difference between the self we present to the world and the self we truly are. Trupčević unpacks how professional identities can become "badges of a false identity" that limit us, and why true self-discovery isn't about finding something new, but rather "returning to yourself" by shedding the layers society, parents, and education have imposed. Readers will leave contemplating how much of their own identity is tied to external validation, and what it truly means to be a "traveler" through life, rather than a fixed point.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

Boris Trupčević calls his extensive LinkedIn profile — CEO, consultant, mentor, author — a "classic self-promotion," a "catalog" for people to know what they can discuss with him. The lesson is that the identities we carefully craft for the professional world are primarily for external utility, not internal truth.

Many thought Boris had "snapped" when he walked a thousand kilometers on El Camino, but he realized it wasn't about finding himself. "I think we truly return to ourselves," he says, shedding the programming from parents, society, and education to reconnect with our essential being.

The very concept of "I" is an illusion, Trupčević argues, because we constantly exchange six kilograms of matter and energy with our environment daily. The self is not an island, but a dynamic "node of paths and energies" where everything we do to others, we ultimately do to ourselves.

When a colleague unexpectedly asked "Who are you?" during a corporate workshop, Boris found himself answering "A traveler." This spontaneous response, unburdened by professional roles, reveals that our deepest identity often lies beyond the labels we consciously choose.

After years of intense work and achieving every ambition, Boris found that "every next success was emptiness." This realization shows how external achievements can become a "drug," pursued endlessly to fill a growing internal void, rather than bringing genuine fulfillment.

The many titles Boris accumulated — journalist, editor, CEO, author — eventually felt like "badges of a false identity" that made him believe he *was* his function. True freedom, he suggests, comes from recognizing that these roles can limit us, and we are much more than the labels we carry.

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