Tomas Samalionis, an Instagram influencer based in the United States used to work in the steel company for years before finally pursuing his passion to become an entrepreneur. In recent years he has turned to creative musical pursuits dabbling in DJ and music production. In 2014, he released a debut EP called “Magically” on the Italian label Boiler Underground Records.
Creatively known online on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud and more as Samaslife, his musical genre is best described as techno house. In our interview with Tomas, we focus on learning more about his professional life.
Tomas, tell me a bit about yourself?
I was born in Lithuania, the Baltic region of Europe, in the small town of Siaullai. Growing up I attended and graduated Sauliu Ragaines high school with a special concentration on arts. I was also quite sporty and trained with Siauliu athletic school. After high school, I attended Siauliai university where I studied art and design. It was during my studies that I developed a passion and interest in photography.
In 2002, I immigrated to the United States of America. I started off working in a steel industry taking on various positions such as QA lab leading director, ISO quality council, raw materials buyer, sales manager and operations manager. All whilst attending various management and leadership seminars. In 2015, I left the steel company in pursuit of entrepreneurship to start my own company and collaborate with many other businesses.
How do you organise your time?
My golden rule of time management: each day, prioritise that tasks that are the most crucial to complete, and do those first. Once you’re done, the day has already been a success. You can move on to other things. Most importantly, you’ve finished the essential tasks. Making a lot of commitments can teach us how to juggle various engagements and manage our time. This can be a great thing.
What do you think is your greatest strength?
I don’t like talking about myself. I can just imagine that every interviewer who asks this question answers a million times: I’m a hard worker. I’m well-organized. I’m committed. I’m a team player. I’m the go-to guy when there’s a problem. I’m always calm. I never get rattled.
In short, I’m content with myself. I like learning and I like to succeed. Disappointments and failures do not bother me. I get over them quick and start looking for new ideas and projects.
What are some of the mistakes you wished you could’ve avoided?
My biggest mistake is that I did not leave my job in the steel industry earlier. I could have started working for myself a lot earlier. Fear and over calculating kept me away from true myself. If anything, mistakes are beneficial. Learning from them helps steer ourselves in the right direction. We can actually learn faster and make us smarter when we successfully apply those learnt lessons.
What is your best life advice, motto or favourite quote?
In the end, we always regret the life we failed to live. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take in life. In other words, you can’t succeed unless you try. Regardless of what you do, if you don’t remain completely committed to something, you’ll inevitably reach of point of reflection where you wished you could have done more.
