When people are depressed or anxious, usually thoughts, behavior, and emotions are in a negative feedback loop, feeding off one another and maintaining the negative mood state.

The Croatian people are in such a collective depressive loop. But how do we get out of such a loop?

When I talk to people about the situation in Croatia they all see no way out of the current situation. They have resigned to their conclusion that things are the way they are and nothing is going to change.

This PERCEIVED helpless situation is also fuelled and amplified by media who like to focus on all negative news, and those who are in marketing know PERCEPTION is REALITY.

Croatians suffer from mass Folie à deux (French for ‘madness of two’) also called shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD). It is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are “transmitted” from one individual to another.

We can’t get out of the depression if we keep feeding it. We are a nation of sadistic voyeurs. We enjoy watching politicians hack into each other, instead of having them offer solutions to our problems. The internet and TV are filled with people stating the obvious, our problems are such and such. This just feeds the depression.

Reality is, things, so easily, CAN change. The change needed is within the mind of the collective. To see change you must be that change. It first begins with YOUR mind, getting rid of that negative self talk and starting to be that change you are looking for. But like a computer program stuck in a loop it looks like it needs an external reboot for us to start creating a positive feedback loop.

So, what is the much needed panacea?

Before I started the subcommittee at the Melbourne Knights the soccer club was in a similar situation as Croatia is today. The club had problems and the community had collective negative self talk about it. This was a collective depressive feedback loop. The negative self talk resulted in people saying the club should be shutdown, the land sold etc etc. This negative self talk made young people not come even more just furthering the problem.

However, that was not reality. The problem was not unsurmountable. The club was a business like other bussiness’s. Only difference is that it was a community run business. However, being community run actually made the problem even easier to solve.

The subcommittee arrived on the scene at this capitulation point.

What we had in reality was a marketing and business problem. The club was not acting like a business but instead like a charity begging for money. A charity people no longer believed in. The board members who were all successful businessmen were not running the club like a business even though they were bussinessmen.

I often said we need a subcommitte to work on turning the club around. People scoffed saying why don’t you just join the committee. I didn’t want to be on a board that focused on day to day management issues. I wanted a group that was focused only on creating ideas that would turn the club around.

I knew they wouldn’t allow us young guys to take over the club as we werent SUCCESSFUL businessmen like them. However, they didnt see the value in marketing and I couldn’t turn that ship around from the cockpit, I had to get under it and move the rudder directly. Thats why I asked the subcommittee be separate so that we could show them they were wrong. With totally free reigns no one could say we were spending too much on marketing etc etc.

Now we had the structure to execute the much needed marketing. We had several brain storming sessions and in one Dom Dedić said their is no longer an Octoberfest in Melbourne why don’t we create a Croatian one. We all looked at each other and thought now thats a great idea and said let’s do it. With several name variations thrown around Croktoberfest was born.

People probably won’t admit it but Croktoberfest was the event that took the club out of capitulation and smashed it through despondency, depression, apathy, indifference, reluctance and straight into optimism. It was like a penny dreadful stock on the stockmarket that was on the verge of delisting getting a big deal turning it into an overnight ten bagger.

Why do I tell you this story?

Well Croatians United, 20 years later, is the subcommittee Part II.

This time its not about turning a club around. No its bolder and bigger, its INSANELY MASSIVE. We are going to turn a WHOLE narod around.

Its going to be like Robert Modrić said –

“Okrenut će mo ovu državu, to če bit tektonske promjene, to će ljudi moji bit društvena, socialna, duhovna, ekonomska REVOLUCIJA”

MASSIVE events and projects that will be like Croktoberfest and take us into optimism and onto a positive feedback loop.

I know you don’t believe me and think its INSANE.

Podižem grumen zemlje ponosne
U ime svih naših žuljeva
Zemlja pamti sva naša leđa zgrbljena
I molitve naših kraljeva
Jedan narod, jedna zemlja, jedan put
Isti korak, ista nada, isti trud
Snaga je u svima, čeka vjekovima
Nebo zna i pjeva sa nama
Mi smo prvaci, mi smo prvaci
Sav ovaj sjaj i pobjeda
I pehar naš
Znam da vrijedio je bola
Mi smo prvaci
Jedan narod, jedna zemlja, jedan put
Isti korak, ista nada, isti trud
Snaga je u svima, čeka vjekovima
Nebo zna
Jedan narod, jedna zemlja, jedan put
Isti korak, ista nada, isti trud
Snaga je u svima, čeka vjekovima
Nebo zna i pjeva sa nama
Mi smo prvaci, mi smo prvaci
Sav ovaj sjaj i pobjeda
I pehar naš
Znam da vrijedio je bola