Neti Neti

Free eBook about Superfoods

2012-01-24T17:47:00.000Z

Moro moro,

It has been a while! Like noted earlier, I have not and I will not spend much time on this blog anymore. Much has happened (e.g. I have been to 9 countries in the last 3 months), but my focus is now solely in Superfoods through the Four Sigma Foods blog and LUONTOlife Facebook page. So 2012 will be more about health and fitness than ever before.

Talking about health, I am still happy to say that our team has recently finished a very interesting project. I'm of course biased, but I think we have just created the world's sexiest and simplest book about (real!) superfoods! Plus it's free. You can get yours from here. I strongly recommend you to check it out!

Despite my lack of Neti Neti blogging activity, I hope some of my old post will serve as some kind of help to you also in 2012. A lot of the topics are pretty timeless so pls keep exploring your limitless self.

Have the best year ever!

– Tero

Join the LUONTOtribe

2011-10-19T21:00:00.000+01:00

Besides opening up the Four Sigma Foods blog, the LUONTOlifeteam has opened a Facebook page and a Twitter account. I’ll be partiallycontributing to the content. So besides the weekly longer stuff we will be sharingin the blog, you can also read faster snippets on the other channels too.

Join the LUONTOtribe from HERE!

A bientot,

Tero

Ps. Check Mikko’s first blog post about Cordyceps at FourSigma Foods

Enter Four Sigma Foods

2011-10-18T21:00:00.000+01:00

On my last post around one month I go explained my feelingsof hitting a writing plateau and becoming un-motivated to continue on the oldblogging path. On top of that I have become (even more) frustrated with theSelf-Help/Self-Leadership industry. Even though the idea is increasinglyimportant and noble, I feel unengaged with the people linked to it. Even thoughI still feel tremendous passion towards helping people with this subject, Imust try to follow my own advice and surround myself with people I feelinspired by (versus the opposite). A change was needed.

I have to also admit my own lack of capabilities to shapethe industry more and to say aloud that my written communication is clearly notin the same level as my oral. Most of my posts have been just yet anotheraddition to the overly simplified Personal Development boo-hoo, without thebeing able to express the deeper meanings behind various concepts. Shame on me,but if there’s something Self-Leadership ideology conveys to all of us, it isthat we can shape our own future and that’s what I also plan to do. Set themup, know them down, and move on… It was time to start a new blog.

Enter Four Sigma Foods (by LUONTOlife)

For the past one-year I’ve been working with a group ofadrenalized guys to give birth to a different kind of (super)food company. Theresult: LUONTOlife Ltd. This company has a mission to democratize superfoods.We want to educate, innovate and produce simpler and easier superfoods. Wethink that there’s too much marketing nonsense, low-impact products, andhard-to-consume solutions (e.g. powder sacks etc). As a part of thisdemocratization process we have set up a new blog called Four Sigma Foods (FSF),which I’ll be co-authoring. Me and my fellow author Mikko will be sharing(hopefully) world-class shit on Superfood, a healthier new lifestyle options,and much more.

I don’t know what will happen to Neti Neti, but in the nearfuture I intend to use 100% of my writing energy for FSF. For sure I’ll keep myNeti Neti posts live in blogger for several months no matter what. But if youhave enjoyed my writing even remotely so far, I’m pretty sure you will like thenew stuff even more. Or at least I promise it will be (1) more concrete, (2)more honest, and (3) much better written.

So please join me in my new journey into the world of superfoodswith my first post The Life of a Modern Man!

Fall 2011 blog update

2011-09-13T20:35:00.001+01:00

It's been quite break from writing into this blog. Actually I guess the longest break I have had while having this blog for almost three years now. But I haven't been standing still.

Summer 2011 – Not standing still, but flying high!

I have been recently transitioningto a new role inside HP so I also updated my website www.teroisokauppila.com a bit. Then I thoughtwhile I’m at it why not update the blog layout as well. I feel that my writinghas hit a plateau so I hope this external change will act as a defibrillator toget my writing veins pumping again. But then I realized that external changes don't always work the best for internal imbalances.

I feel like experimenting a bit more with writing right now. I feel my blog has reached a certain online life cycle, and at first I wasn't sure how to reinvent myself. Still I had nobody else to please and nothing tosell so why keep my writing in too tight reins. But then I got it! I though of something I can do, and I have been working on it for the past two-months to set it up. I think it will be something different and something interesting – both for me and people who like my stuff so far. Not gonna tell you quite yet, but you have to wait few weeks more. Anyway, I will be coming up with something cool.

Also now as Google+ has been released I have beenreconsidering my stand on social networks and Web 2.0 in general. Even thoughit hasn’t worked for me so far, it doesn’t mean it might not work one day.Still after few weeks of pondering I have come to the same good old decision torely on the tools I have set up now. I will still trust good ol’ gmail, Skype,and my website on top of this blog. Sorry if this affects the personal communicationtowards me, but you gotta say no to some things, right?

I wish all of you a sunny and relaxing start of the fall 2011!

Domestication of human beings

2011-08-04T20:45:00.000+01:00

Here's a blog post I have wanted to write for a long time, but not have had the balls to do it. To be honest, often I feel I write way too academic into this blog versus on how I explain the same things to my friends. I feel the latter is much more interesting, transparent, and most importantly honest. I have become too soft.

It's ironic that this softer approach has stopped me to write about the domestication on humans. This very domestication I'm going to address (ie. criticize) in this post has influenced me too stopping me to post this sooner. Life is funny. We're so mortal :)

So then to the topic. First I need to define what I mean by domestication here. To me it's in context the adaptation process where plants and animals are made to life in intimate way with us humans. The goal is of course to tweak the nature to suit our purposes. We tame them from their wild nature to be controlled by us. They can be domesticated for food, commodities, work, and companionship. Animals turn into pets and plants into house flowers.

Domestication of plants
I'll start with plants. They must have been the first thing we humans domesticated. Nowadays the ways are much more sophisticated as they were before but the modern farming has domesticated many plants far from their roots. Over 12.000 years ago we started to domesticate grains. Since then we have aimed make plants different. We have wanted them do produce higher germination rates, be more predictable in germination, grow bigger, be more aesthetic, taste sweeter, and change their biomass allocation. Here's a list of domesticated plants, but we all know that apples, bananas, and strawberries are not the same wild as they are domesticated.

Domestication of animals
Apparently the first animals domesticated was traditional farm and transportation species. Dogs, sheep, goats, cows, camels, and donkeys. Usually we need to to teach animals eat new foods they would not naturally eat. We need to make them breed in captivity. Some animals still refuse to do this. We need make them grow faster and at the same time make them less aggressive. Finally they need to understand the social hierarchy. Man is the boss! W have turned wolves into chihuahuas and wild bos taurus into cattle as we know it today.

Domestication of human beings
I'll now leave the plant and animals topic to others. Let the experts address this. Recently I have been more and more shocked on how we have domesticated the humans species. We have made ourselves tame and detached from the nature. Just like we have made first many animals to become lazy, obese, and dependent, we have made ourselves fat, lazy, and dependent. Majority of the world's population would not survive in the nature.

Here's four true situations that have happened to me alone within one week:

Young girl sees a butterfly in a small town and freaks out big time. She scream out of terror
Asian girl is touching grass near Interlaken with a wow effect. I don't think she had seen a real grass meadow before
Similar Asian tourists are admiring and taking photos of trees growing in the nature. Not planted trees, but the ones that grow "on their own"
European boy is struggling to eat a sausage with plastic fork and knife. He is trying to cut it for several minutes without success. He twists and turns but refuses to touch his food with his own hands

Technology and progress has made most of this happen. Smart phones, internet, cars, and hyper markets. You know what I mean. Still I'm all for technology and evolution myself. I don't think it's alone to blame. The blame is more between the chair and the screen. And the solution is anywhere else but not between the chair and screen.

We have become so fat that we find it hard to live even in the fast food urban life. We have become so lazy and uninterested that our favorite evening activity is watching Jersey Shore on MTV. We're so dependent on our governments, financial institutions, media, and multinationals that we would shit our pants if we knew the truth. Sad!

Just like domesticating plants and animals is in the best interest of humans, domesticating the humans species is in the interest of certain humans. It's clear that uneducated, not engaged, and lazy people are easier to manipulate. Without deep diving on who might be manipulating who, we must know that the choice is ours. It doesn't require money, fame, or power. It requires us to choose the power or love over the love for power. We need to love the planet, each others, and ourselves. Right here, right now. It's a choice! This will lead us to be more curious to explore the nature and our role in it. This will lead to individual point of views and more grounded sustainable solutions.

So don't become the chihuahua of human beings or the farmed strawberry of your town. Be the real thing! Be wild, strong, and unique! It's a conscious choice.

The Eiger North Face paradigm shift

2011-08-02T21:30:00.001+01:00

Last weekend I spent again few days enjoying the magnificent Bernese Oberlands. The two main factors bringing me back there are the picturesque lakes and the grand mountains. As a Finnish native, lakes are my second home, but to us Nordic flatlanders mountains are a new element. For that reasons especially the famous Eiger North Face always gives me the chills.

Climbing this north face has to be among the most classic things for any mountaineer in the world. I’m not a pro climber, but this specific north face does contain a more interesting human behavior aspect. As you might know, any so large challenge often emphasizes the importance of mental power. It’s not only about the technique or physical strength, but also about focus and inner game. These make it also an interesting case study for Self-Leadership.

Here’s first some context for you other flatlander and other mountain-illerates. The Eiger is a mountain in Switzerland with a 3,970m high summit. It's located next to two other famous peaks; Mönch and Jungfrau. Many tourists know Eiger as the mountain know it as the passageway to the Jungfraujoch -- the highest railway st.ation in Europe. The railway to the top of Europe goes actually though Eiger, which is pretty mind blowing. The Eiger name implies to its characteristic (German word "eigen") nature. The first ascent to the mountain was in 1858 through the west flank. The famous north face was climbed first time in 1939. Since 1935 over 60 people have died attempting the north face hence its nickname "murder wall". It's sometimes ranked as the TOP5 most dangerous mountains in the world to climb.

First ascents to this mountain took three days. In 1950 only one day. In 1963 it was done solo in 19-hours. During the 70's and 80's even the best did it usually in 9-10 hours. Only one Austrian shocked everybody by halving the old record with his 4h 50min time. This was what many would call a paradigm shift. A change in basic assumptions on what is possible. He broke the norm and redefined on what was considered normal. Too bad, it took 20-years before anyone broke his record.

Finally comes 2007. Young local climber Ueli Steck almost runs the mountain up and summits it in a bit under four hours. Not the biggest improvement to date, but a start of an important journey in the Eiger North Face history. Because only one year after this with higher self-confidense he made the impossible by climbing the mountain in 2h 47min!! This Swiss human-monkey speed climbs one of the toughest mountains in the world way under three hours. Something that not many people thought would be possible.

Now to the Self-Leadership lesson. In technology improvement is often linear (ie. Moore's law). It is somewhat predictable. I think that's why it doesn't serve as a good example for life itself. It is not predictable. The human factors is way too big to allow it. What we believe to be normal is limit until outliers come and reshape them. Progress comes in waves. Ueli Steck is a perfect example of a determined and focus outlier who shaped his own discipline. Another classic example is of course Sir Roger Bannister.

Now not all mere mortals need to climb deathly mountains to become Ueli Steck's. We can push to envelope in many ways. Usually when you say something can't be done, somebody in the world is already doing it. Challenging the norm can be done everyday both on an individual level and on a group level. This will lead to meaning and self-self-fulfillement. Or as Ueli puts it in the video below: it's all about progressing. You want to keep moving to have progress in your life.

Von Mises and goal setting

2011-07-28T05:13:00.003+01:00

One of my closest friends Tero Luoma has been recently over-exited about the life work of Ludwig von Mises. He has been writing and talking quite a lot about Mises. Especially his thoughts the public debt seems more relevant than maybe ever before. I'm not a hardcore economist so I haven't really wanted to deep dive yet to the the whole Austrian School of thinking, but my namesake did mention something that resonated with me. He summarized the thoughts Mises had in the book Human Action about goals and life values. Good stuff!

Since I have not read the book myself, I acknowledge the possible broken telephone effect spreading this, but this is how I understood it. And even if I got it wrong, I still think that the thing below makes sense who ever invented it.

Human behavior is always objective driven
Our objectives can be either conscious or subconscious
The objectives are driven from our life values. People give value to their values. That's by the way something companies could also start thinking about
Every individuals life values can be seen from his/her choices
Human beings make choices that they believe will drive them towards their objectives

From these five simplifications we can make the following assumptions

Higher awareness of your life values will make you create better goals
Higher awareness of your goals will enable you to make better choices
Better choices lead to a better life

Now even how simple and self-evident this may seem, a person who has been practicing goal setting for a longer time often encounters a challenge where goal become too controlling. Life is not predictable and can't be fully managed. There is no perfect plan! This where the left-brain oriented Self-Leaderships tools/processes often fall. The confidence in the goal setting process can/will be challenged. The other extreme might happen and the over-hedonistic "living in the moment" lifestyle might take over. I have seen this happen both to myself and to several of my close one.

But if you agree with Mises, then you realize that the "living in the moment" lifestyle is a choice of giving your life to your unconscious mind. You might have mixed the concept of goals and plans. The former is about the summit and the latter about the path there. This lifestyle can also impose significant downsides.

So where is the balance? Honestly I don't know! I personally favor quarterly revisiting your life values and I would recommend everybody to do it at least once a year. I think this is the main thing. Then it's up to you if you would like to set more concrete goals. For me they work especially on things like sports and business, but not so well in personal relationships. We all need to find our own mix, but I do tend to agree that we all are objective driven people thus this topic is something to think about more than once.

I guess this post also outlines my current stand on Self-Leadership in general. I think it's more about searching higher awareness of yourself and the world than finding tools/hacks how to master it. I think that part will come by itself if your inner self is aligned.

Steroids and Self-Leadership

2011-07-22T17:16:00.002+01:00

On my last post I wrote about the smart drugs as a possible Self-Leadership tool. I covered how personal development related tools/techniques/processes aim to improve much the same things as smart drugs. Self-Leadership has often a cognitive focus and the phrase “you are what you think” serves as one of its core thoughts. Still it’s also well acknowledged that besides the mind aspect the physical and even spiritual well-being should be considered. There is a common understanding that a healthy mind lives in a healthy body. For this reason I would like to continue my drug related posts with the physical performance boosting substances – more commonly labeled as steroids – and their possible use as a Self-Leadership tool.

So first and foremost I got to explain and define the word steroids. There seems to be quite a lot of misunderstandings behind this word. Very commonly they are seen as a synonym for illegal anabolic steroids, which quite far from the truth. This kind of labeling is a perfect example of a limiting belief and judgmental behavior. Often (allegedly) caused by media mass manipulation, one starts to see something very natural as the ultimate evil without even checking the very basics of it himself first. I hope this post will at least clear some air around this topic.

Enter steroids

A steroid is a type of organic compound that contains a specific arrangement of four cycloalkane rings that are joined to each other. More simply they are hormones our body produces. Most famous steroids are cholesterol, estrogen, cortisol, and testosterone, but the list no ways ends here. There are several hundreds of different steroids we can find in the nature from various animals, plants, and fungi. We humans are a walking steroid factory and steroids are as organic thing as it gets.

Besides the natural steroid production we can also take steroids though synthetically produced drugs, and actually many do. Birth control pills are an example of a form of a commonly used legal steroid. One could argue that it helps females significantly in their lives.

Then if steroids are normal, then what are the illegal “steroids” we read about in the papers? What is the difference between these organic compounds and the things that for example Ben Johnson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds used? Well first we got to note that the word steroids are used often as a synonym with all performance improving drugs. So usually things like human growth hormones, amphetamines, and EPO are also wrongfully called as steroids. Truthfully the "real" illegal steroids are usually different kind of anabolic steroids.

Anabolic steroids are made out of the male sex hormone testosterone. It helps athletes to grow more muscle and recover faster from workouts. And that's why it's so popular. Funnily the most common user are gym rats using it for recreational use rather than professional athletes in their profession. It's illegal and when used on higher dosages can cause damages to our body. There's quite controversial opinions to the downsides of anabolic steroids, so I'm not going to touch too much this topic. I cam recommend the documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster for those who are more interested in this part. It's quite a neutral and holistic view on the topic. You can also check this list outlining few known anabolic steroids.

So then what kind I do to boost my steroid production without taking these drugs? Well, actually more than you might think. Here's a quick shopping list on things that have been linked with better steroid production. Please note again that I'm not a doctor and that some of these statement are not FDA or whatever approved

Sleep better. Be it either more or higher quality
Don't stress so much
Drink less/no alcohol
Do so called compound exercise that stress the whole body in stead of isolated muscles. Usually training hard and less is better than slow and long for hormone production
Eat more zinc
Eat more garlic
Eat more omega-3 fats
Eat more vitamin C. Or actually any vitamin for that fact. Vitamins D and A are specially good
Lose body fat. This is to build more testosterone. Excess body fat will usually build more estrogen as our body fat contains an enzyme called aromatase
Eat more raw cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. Other vegetables help too. If it's green, it's usually good for you (e.g. kale)
Cleanse your body from excess toxins
Avoid new toxins. These could include things like food pesticides, GMO foods, plastic containers, conventional perfumes. Many of these contain so called xenoestrogens. We do tend to get too much of it making our estrogen vs testosterone balance not-ideal
For guys: don't burn your balls. Hot baths and tight rock'n'roll pants can kill your "swimmers". Give the juniors some air
Eat pine pollen. I might write more about this later

My personal opinion in this topic is very similar to the one I have on smart drugs. I think it's important for people to understand the importance of proper research, dosage, and risk-benefit ratio. I would not use synthetic drugs, but I could use whole foods and natural ways to consciously improve my organic steroid production. I think a boosted steroid production can make a huge difference on our quality of living.

Smart drugs as a Self-Leadership tool

2011-07-19T04:24:00.001+01:00

Last night I finally saw the movie Limitless. It’s a decent Hollywood flick with an interesting theme – smart drugs. I think smart drugs (aka Nootropics) are an extremely intriguing topic especially for people interested in Self-Leadership. In this post I’ll try to give my two pennies worth on the topic.

I’ll start with some context. What is again the purpose of Self-Leadership? Well, there are many answers but two quite common ones are:

Aim to live your life to your fullest potential
Improve yourself in order to be better, faster, and stronger

Basically Self-Leadership is a set tools and processes for the individual to accomplish this higher self.

Then enter smart drugs. These nootropics can be drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, or functional foods that improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration. In brief they aim to improve your cognitive capabilities. They usually effect the brain’s supply of neurochemicals like enzymes and hormones by enhancing the oxygen supply or nerve growth.

Nootropics come in many forms to serve various purposes, but here’s a quick laundry list to start out with

Illegal drugs like amphetamine, LSD, and Cannabis
Legal subscription drugs. I’m not going to list them here in order to avoid advertising. You can Google hundreds of them in ten seconds. Still note that some illegal drugs can be also prescribed. Example could be amphetamine though products like Adderall
Legal stimulants like caffeine and tobacco
Supplement like Omega-3 and B –vitamin products
Mainly adaptogenic whole foods like Panax Gingseng and Lion’s Mane

Now I think it’s clear that the reasons behind taking smart drugs are very similar to the reasons why one would look into Self-Leadership. The growing demands of the 21^st century push people to look for new options and drugs always seem to be the “easiest way out”.

I’m not a MD, but from a Self-Leadership point of view I have noted the following takeaways.

Labeling all smart drugs as demonic is pretty naive. As you can see from the list also coffee could be labeled as a cognitive enhancing smart drug. Because even natural products can produce these results one should look into it before labeling it as a complete fraud.
Dosage makes the difference. Basically everything in this world is toxic when the toxic is high enough. You can eat too many carrots and apples too. At the same time smaller dosages of synthetic products can be good for you. It’s all very relative.
It’s all linked to your objective. Some smart drugs might not be the most sustainable solution on the planet, but they might make you perform better. Because of this is boils down to your objectives. How high do you want to go? And are you willing to pay the price to get there?
Not all risk-profit ratios are the same. Some things just have a bigger downside than others without actually providing that great benefits. The interesting part is of course the opposite.
Do your research. Even though history has shown that the current research is more than often wrong, it still doesn't mean you should not look into it before making your decision. At least after that you have made a conscious choice making it easier to carry the responsibilities later.

Finally my personal stand on using smart drugs: I would not use synthetic smart drugs but I am already using several natural products. This is where I draw the line. If it comes from the nature it can be good. Still it doesn’t mean it always is good. I could consider synthetic version in only extremely severe circumstance linked to more personal health rather than aiming to improve my career linked performance. I guess the main reason for this is that I do not fully agree with the classic personal development described above. I think Self-Leadership is more about living your life in your way. It’s not about becoming smarter, richer, or more famous than you naturally are. Call me a traditional guy, but because of this "cheating" with smart drugs is not necessary.

Who are you?

2011-07-17T12:23:00.000+01:00

You are not your name. You can change your name.

You are not your religion. You can change your religion.

You are not your native country. You can move to anotherplace.

You are not even your citizenship. You can get a new one.

You are not your style. It’s so easy to change styles.

You are not your hobbies. They also come and go.

You are not your habits. It’s a known fact that you canchange those too.

You are not your family. Just anyone who has divorced orbeen adopted.

You are not your skills. You can learn new and sadly alsoforget old ones.

So what are you? Like really. What is you? What is sofundamental and so deep in your core that you can’t change?

One concept, two approaches

2011-07-14T05:13:00.002+01:00

Last weekend I attended two different parties. On Saturday Iwas in the Geneva Lake Parade and on Sunday at the Montreux Jazz Festival.Fundamentally they are the same thing; People having fun and listening to musicby the Lake Geneva. Still they are completely different. The first one is wild,fast, and local. The second one is stylish, laid back and world famous. The ambiances are just completely different even though many of the same peopleattend both parties. I guess the photos below explain better what I mean.

Lake Parade

Montreux Jazz Festival

When the same people attend two different events, they canautomatically behave differently. They are following the “blueprint” of theevent. One one day you behave like a teenager and on the other like an adult. So basically some pioneers and early adopters set up an atmosphere longtime ago that all the other people follow. To me this is an interestingphenomenon in life and it illustrates how we take things how they are given –in good and in bad.

Of course this is a good thing in general. Different things serve different needs. Simple. The only thing that makes me cautious is the sheep effect where the individual blindly follow the group. Especially young people who take an example of the older people doing crazy sh*t. Not good.

"It is better to do one's own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins."

~ Lao Tzu

Ps. For the record, I did not like the Lake Parade at all, but I would rank Montreux as one of the best festivals I have ever seen.

A dog lying on a nail

2011-07-11T05:20:00.000+01:00

A backpacker was walking down the street in Thailand when heencountered an old man sitting on his porch and a dog lying on the porchwhining and groaning.

He asked the old man why the dog was acting that way . . .

"Because he's lying on a nail" the old manreplied.

"Why doesn't he get up?" the man asked.

"Because he's not hurting bad enough" the old manreplied. . .

Isn’t this also very human? I mean why do we only pursuelife-improving changes when we’re hurting way too much? Why do we awake to thecorruption of politicians only after they get caught big time? Why do we buildspeed bumps near schools only when some innocent child gets killed first? Whydo we start regulating investment banks only after they have crashed the globaleconomy? Why do we show our love for our close ones only after we have lostthem? Life can be strange...

xkcd's view on this is a bit different

Angry Birds

2011-07-10T06:09:00.000+01:00

Bloody Angry Birds! Why is this so addicting? And why did they make it also for Chrome? Now as it's free and also available to us non-smartphone users, it's too hard to resist...

Hunters and farmers

2011-07-06T05:47:00.000+01:00

There's an old metaphor in sales about the difference of new customer acquisition and managing an existing accounts. The people who are specialized in getting new leads and new customers are "hunters" and the people who develop the customer relationship in the long-term are "farmers". First group gets paid only once for their success and the job is often tougher, but then again the reward is bigger too. Being a hunter can be a risky play unless you trust in yourself a lot. The second group needs to think more strategically, have a lot of patience to small details, and know the industry a lot deeper. If done right, this can create a nice residual revenue source.

Usually large corporations can afford to hire and train specialized hunters and farmers. Different characters usually excel in these quite different roles. Entrepreneurs and small companies must on the other hand focus on both at the same time. In this case good leaders have seasonal focus areas on one or the other thus creating more effective and efficient funnel management.

Life can be also sometimes much like sales. We all need to both build new things in our life and then develop some of them further. Both are needed. And as life of an individual is much like the life of an entrepreneur, one must keep focusing on both hunting and farming. This can be sometimes quite a balancing act.

My personal quest for a drastic life makeover has taken me far in the past few years. Traveling around the world, trying new extreme sports, living in many countries, and changing employers several times have been more the life of a hunter. I have been hunting for new experiences in life. Now because of better self-awareness or even maybe because of seasonal change I have been transitioning more towards the farming bit. Developing my closest relationships, my career, and routines. And like always, change can be difficult if not managed right.

I think one of the core ideas of Self-Leadership is that, even you can't always control what happens to you in life, you can always control how you react to them. For me it means right now a paradigm shift from hunting to farming. As I was raised in a family farm one could argue that it should be easy, but change always takes effort. This is what I call improvement.

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine"

~ Robert C. Gallagher

Surprising Moscow

2011-06-30T17:52:00.000+01:00

As part of my recent visit to Finland I also scooted off tothe great Eastern neighbor Russia. Me and my friends Perttu and Miika flew intothe biggest European city Moscow. Since the trip was a pleasant surprise to me I have been trying to write an extensive blog post about it. So for four weeks I have been almost daily been trying to put words on the paper (ie. into blogger).

I have tried make my usual pros and cons list, fact sheets, highlights, and even write in a story format, but nothing is really capturing the spirit in the right way. Just listing stuff about the nightlife, modern skyline, their respect for Finns, false images received from James Bond movies or comparing it to St. Petersburg was not enough. It was just words without any soul in them.

So finally I decided to compress it all into something shorter. After a quick shower I summarized the whole thing into three words: better than expected. Maybe the Self-Leadership lesson of this is that sometimes good enough equals perfect enough.

For friends and family I have still attached few photos. Quite likely they will anyway convey the feelings better than any of my words would.

Expensive ice cream at GUM

Kremlin and the Red Square

Saint Basil's beauty

Enjoying local cuisine in a house party

One of the Stalin's Seven Sisters

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and the tourist

Soviet style monument celebrating cosmonauts – The conquerors of space

Matterhorn

2011-06-27T18:31:00.001+01:00

Matterhorn – The most stunning mountain in the world. Highly recommended!

Ps. If you haven't already noticed, I'm not right now in a huge blogging mode. It's +33 degrees outside and I have some of the best hiking places within a short train ride. Life is about prioritization ;)

Tampere for a tourist

2011-06-22T19:15:00.000+01:00

Besides the obvious Self-Leadership topics, I have beenwriting in this blog quite a lot about traveling. I have covered briefly my twopennies worth on places around the world; From Panama to Bali and from theAmazon to Sahara. As I was recently visiting my native country I realized Ihaven’t yet written anything about the most obvious place. Several of myinternational friends have found Finland and my hometown Tampere to be quiteexotic and a place they know very little about. For these reasons I decided toquickly cover the area I grew up in from the point of view of a tourist.

Quick facts

Tampere is a large Nordic city in Southern Finland. It has210.000 inhabitants and 340.000 in the Greater Tampere Region. This makes itthe biggest inland city in the Nordic countries. The neighboring small townslike Nokia, Ylöjärvi, Kangasala and Valkeakoski are a big part of the dynamicsof Tampere all with a distinct own background. Tampere is often called as theManchester of the North due to its industrial history, but today the threelarge universities with +38.000 students make it more like huge talent pool for innovation.

The city itself is located between small rapids. The rapidsflow between two lakes. For these reasons water is a dominating element in thecity structure. Besides constant surrounding of water Tampere is known for strange black sausage, ice hockey, and jolly accent. Tampere is a pretty laid back big city and maybe for that reasons it's constantly ranked as number one place to move in Finland. The people from rural Finland find it as an easily approachable city to move into if they want to pursue new challenges.

The weather in Tampere is relatively mild like in all other Gulf Stream related areas. During summer it can go up to +30 celsius, but then again -25 celsius is not rare sometime during the winters. Tampere is also the 8th rainiest city in whole Europe by the amount of rainy days. In my experience the rainy days are quite mellow and there's less wind that in other cities in Finland.

Things to see or do

Näsinneula. The most iconic symbol of Tampere is the tallest observation tower in the Nordic countries - Näsinneula. It's 168m tall and it overlooks the whole city. There's a great amusement park below it and a top-notch revolving restaurant at the top. It's very similar to the Space Needle, but my bias it that it has way better views and food than the Seattle counterpart.

Ice hockey game. Tampere is a hockey town. The two local team Ilves and Tappara are Finland's most successful and second most successful hockey teams, respectively. Too bad they both have sucked most of the time I have been alive. Despite the bad performance of these two team recently this city has a true hockey culture. Tampere is also a home to the first ice hockey arena that hosted our first World Championships (in 1965). If you are from Canada, please do not bother to go to a local game. You will be disappointed. Otherwise you should definitely check out this unique experience if possible.

Pyynikinharju. Tampere hosts few unusual geographic things. Beside having Finland's only fjord, it also partly host the world's longest esker. For those who are not familiar with eskers they are long winding ridges of stratified sand formed usually by ice pushing the gravel etc to big piles in former glaciated areas. Now right next to the Tampere city center there's the world's highest esker, which is also part of this world's longest esker. Got it? Anyway it's a great place to go for a walk, check out another observation tower, and eat there the best doughnut (aka. munkki) in Finland.

Student party. Like I mentioned before Tampere is a student city and since education is fully free in Finland the student life can sometimes be long and hard. There's also so many bars in Tampere that even as a local it sometimes still blows my mind. Bad combo! In the best (read: worst) student parties people wear overalls and get absolutely sh*t-faced. The biggest party of the year is Vappu (May Day) that is said to last until it gets dark. Too bad due to Finland's unique midsummer nights it doesn't get dark before September. Disclaimer: I'm not at all a fan of these parties, but they are quite Finnish. So enjoy at your own risk.

Unique museums. I go to be honest. Museums in Finland and in Tampere suck. The only reason why I mention them is the fact that they could serve someones niche passions. Tampere has the world's only spy museum and Lenin museum. We also have a real Moominvalley and the Finnish ice hockey museum. If one of them makes you tick, then go. Otherwise a big skip on this one.

Things to keep inmind

The best time to visit Tampere is from April to September. This way you will not suffer from the cold and dark Finnish winter.
For a Finnish city Tampere is very easily accessible. Beside being the Finnish Ryanair hub it's also located right in the center of most important other Finnish towns like Lahti, Helsinkin, Turku, Vaasa, and Jyväskylä. Easy to get in and easy to get out.
Get a local contact if possible. Do couch surfing, contact a local international organization (e.g. AIESEC or Rotary) or what ever. Language wise you don't need a local, but due to social reasons you do need. Finnish people can be shy and introverted without little help. Local can also show you the lake distruct outside the town, which is one of the best things in whole Finland.
Understandthat it is not about the sights, but about the lifestyle. Finland is boring. I mean boring from the touristy angle. Not so much special things to see, but more special things to feel by "just" being. Slow life and peculiar cultural experience are plentiful.

WTF - Welcome to Finland! :)

Living in sleep deficit

2011-06-15T17:47:00.000+01:00

One corner stone of Self-Leadership is recovering from stressand harder periods of life. For these reasons many experts have spent quitesome time mastering the art of sleeping and learning the hacks on improvedrecovery times. I’m not an exception here and I even personally value propersleep over many other classic personal development fundamentals such as reading books. Proper rest and quality sleep are priceless assets. They are likeprerequisites to wellbeing and happiness.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor'sbook.

– Irish Proverb

Despite even the best attempts there might be times ineverybody’s lives when you need to cut back on sleep. Traveling, larger workloadsor external factors such as noise in your neighborhood might cause one to cutback on sleep for several consecutive days or even weeks. For few days youmight feel fine, but the gradually the small lack of sleep accumulates andcreates sleep debt. This is exactly what has happened to me in the last threeweeks and going.

By the way sleep deficit in this context mean partial sleepdeprivation. I have never suffered from total sleep deprivation in the truestsense and actually never even been able to stay awake for over 24-hoursstraight. Even in the army I needed to take even random 10min naps to survivelong war exercise.

Sleep deficit is naturally not the healthiest thing on the planet.It’s a very controversial topic, but still it’s widely known to build fatigue.So because of the one-sided (negative) view on sleep debt I would like to raisefew positive side-effects I have encountered after the recent weeks oftraveling, meeting friends, and long night delivering previous commitments havecaused me.

Positive side-effectnumber one – Automated prioritizing

One natural thing that causes and/or happens in sleepdeficit situation is piling work / tasks. You have more to do that you havetime for. As a go get’em kind of a guy it’s often hard for me to so franklyskip tasks, but when not getting enough sleep I tend to automaticallyprioritize things and not deliver on some of them. In a long run an unhealthyhabit, but for a high performing individual like me it’s a healthy break. For exampleI don’t feel at all bad for not updating this blog in the normal pace recently.

Positive side-effectnumber two – Lack of perfection

There’s a time and place in life to do remarkable work. There’sa time to perfect your book for 3-years or fine-tune your invention in yourgarage for months. Despite the importance of these perfection requiring momentsthey are exceptions in otherwise a quite predictable life. Writing emailmessages, cleaning your house, and cooking dinner are all example of commonsituations where good enough level is exactly that – good enough.

Positive side-effectnumber three – Simple happiness

People say that tired people look and act like they would bedrunk. Maybe. For an absolutist like me it could be the closest moment I get tobe physically drunk. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know if this is true or not,but I do agree with the little “tipsy” feeling I have been getting. There arenatural downsides to this, but in general I have felt very relaxed, carefree,and joyful. This happiness doesn’t deliver from very complex or sophisticatedissues, but more from things like breathing fresh air or finally making it tomy own bed.

Still despite the fact the past three weeks have been surprisingly good despite the lack of sleep, I'm still waiting tonight when I can finally start taking it easy :)

Start up scene

2011-06-07T18:56:00.018+01:00

I have recently become a keen follower of the so-called start up scene. I love to read smart bloggers and industry followers on what is new out there. I love to watch interviews about some of the prominent start up experts. I love to check out new small company websites to see how they execute on their ideas. Despite the inflation of the word “start up” I have become to see this group of people as of one of my tribes.

Kevin Rose and Tim Ferris – The Random Show. Always full of amazing stuff coming from these two angel investors.

The start up scene is quite tech focused, which I like. I happen to believe in the positive transformations technology can offer to our world. The scene is also very West Coast USA even though the people inside it are very global. I love the open minded, curious, entrepreneurship drive, and sustainability focused mindset that the people in the Valley have. Of course my work in the grandfather of Silicon Valley (ie. Hewlett-Packard) and my love for San Francisco has influenced this but not as much as one might think. I have started to see it a bit like my mental home.

Pirates of Silicon Valley – The Social Network of the 90s

Most of the world’s companies are sized as small or micro. They are also notably made out of agile and passionate people. I see these as two big enablers that can lead to gigantic improvements on our society if done right. I think its globalization at best. I get turned on! I get excited about what we could accomplish. I can see how that innovation can literally change our lives. And all this seems to make me also perform better at an individual level.

Self-Leadership is by definition focused on the individual. Still a huge portion of the goodness and wellbeing is linked to other people. So it’s not a discipline focused only on the self, but also how that self is working with other people. For me the tribes I choose (or they choose me) have a huge influence on my personal behavior and possible thriving. When I find I group of inspiring people I connect with (e.g. the start up world) I get more out of me hence consciously focusing on those groups is also self-leadership.

So what is your tribe? And do you spend enough time with them?

A tribute to Banksy

2011-05-31T06:45:00.001+01:00

On my previous post I wrote a bit about my relationship to street art. This time I want to share some quotes and art by the master of this art form – Banksy. He’s not only one of the great artists of our time but also a world-class prankster and controller of media. All things I admire. Kudos!

"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little."

“Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."

"A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves."

"Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass. When winter came the bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself 'I hope that busy little bee will share some of his honey with me.' But the bee was nowhere to be found - he had died of a stress induced coronary disease."

"People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine."

AND FINALLY MY FAVORITE QUOTE FROM HIM:

"The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit."

Street Art

2011-05-29T09:32:00.001+01:00

I got extremely interested in graffiti art in the mid 90s. As a young teenager I got my first Internet experiences mostly by looking for graffiti photos around the world. To be honest didn’t appreciate so much the art itself – the tag style doesn't make me tick – but I did think of it as a purer form of art. Making art on the street seemed to be the most truest and natural form. Anybody could do it and it was given for the people free. It was like the punk movement that had caught my attention though my older brother few years earlier. Just like I think the quality of the first Misfits recording is music-wise very mediocre, the go get’em attitude of these guys is quite hypnotizing.

After those years I appreciated graffiti art (and punk) from distance, but something was missing. Being a rebel for the sake of yelling was not enough. There had to be some content too. And like I wrote before, I appreciated science over art at those times.

Around 5-years ago I got introduced to the concept of street art through my old colleague. As an amateur art lover it seemed to me be like doing graffiti’s but with a message. Also the wider variety of techniques opened new visual styles I started immediately like. After that I traveled around the world as saw many kinds of street art. A great journey I might say.

These days especially it seems like I sometimes can’t get enough of street art. My theory is that due to my decision to make a meaning from the inside (ie. through the corporate world) I spent my days solving things logically – and to be fair – in a very conservative way. So this left-brained approach needs some originality and outside the box thinking next to it. It gives me balance and peace of mind.

Street art – highly recommend!

Facts about life

2011-05-24T05:47:00.000+01:00

Facts about sex

2011-05-21T05:43:00.000+01:00

Facts about STDs

2011-05-19T05:39:00.001+01:00

Facts about obesity

2011-05-17T05:39:00.001+01:00

Facts about sitting

2011-05-15T16:36:00.000+01:00

Art over science

2011-05-13T21:42:00.000+01:00

I happen to be a strong believer in science. All the goodness it and will offer to the earth. I think science and especially its reasoning logic is one of the few bigger solutions against the greedy and corrupt human nature. Still, if I needed to choose between art and science, I quite likely would choose art. It’s more organic and closer to nature.

All art is but imitation of nature.

– Seneca

Growing up I was a very logical person and more keen on science. I spent hours and days trying to figure various scientifically proven issues out. Art. Well, I didn’t care so much for it. But when I have learned more about scientific things then the more I have come to value things that can’t be fully explained with reason but with a feeling. Often that feeling comes though art.

Now art can be many things and come in many forms. I think I finally fully realized this in 2008 on my first visit to the NY MoMA. Some art turns me on and some doesn’t. If I would need to choose a favorite form, I would choose movies. At best times it combines the story of books, the dialogue of theaters, and visualization of photography all combined with amazing music.

My friend recently linked me this downhill movie called the Life Cycles. No matter do you like DH or not, you got to enjoy this movie. It has it all. If you are too busy/uninterested to watch the whole thing, I would recommend the following three short clips. Check the out in HD and full screen.

Movie 1 9:45-10:47, for some examples of amazing post-production

Movie 2 1:05-2:10, for some great story telling

Movie 3 0:00-0:45, for some of the best camera drives I have ever seen

Self-Leadership tends to be quite heavily either spiritual or technical/scientific. Art is an often-left part of overall wellbeing. It doesn’t seem to fit in the never-ending search for greater efficiency mindset. But are we trying to accomplish with it? Inner goodness or outer performance? I think even the definition of managing oneself would indicate that the former comes first. Maybe art could in that. I know it has helped me.

We’re part of a mankind, not just one country

2011-05-07T09:38:00.000+01:00

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

– John Donne

Overrated benefits of reading

2011-05-01T06:49:00.000+01:00

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

– Albert Einstein

I think one of the most overrated tools of Self-Leadership and Personal Development is reading. One hears from pretty much all directions that you should read a lot and you should buy the latest “hit” book. I beg to differ. Just like Einstein quoted above, I also feel that after reaching a certain base knowledge one should not waste time too much reading education content. It kills personal growth and turns you into a lackey of the writers you read. I don’t think parroting others serve in any ways to the core objectives that Self-Leadership tries to accomplish.

I think news, short blog posts, and Cliff Notes are ok on small dosages, but that excess reading seems useless. It’s just an easy mental escape. It gives us a false illusion on growth since we collect several smart sounding thoughts from various (great) writers. But they are their own thoughts that you just parrot. They are not your own. You rarely truly learn anything from reading book or for that matter of watching educational videos.

I acknowledge I might be slightly alone with this opinion. I will not get cheers from Amazon bestselling authors and I think this is very understandable. One thing you must understand is that the people encouraging reading are themselves writers. It’s beneficial for their agenda. They want to sell book and get you to join their tribe. They want to hook you on content, be it useful or not.

Personal growth requires space, own thinking, and life experience. And the best place to get these is not nor from this blog or from some NY Times bestseller. The world is out there for the experience part and the nature for the quietude.

Kind regards,

Tero – Yet another useless blogger

PS. Please note that I say it’s overrated, not completely useless. There’s a time and place for inspirational books, but in small amounts. And please note that reading books for entertainment purposes is also another thing.

And the winner is…

2011-04-28T06:18:00.000+01:00

Be it hundreds of thousands of years of evolution or just more recently built internal greed, but we humans love winning. We’re addict to victory. We love to first kick ass and after that rub it in to the losers face. Or why otherwise we would keep score from anything and all the time. We enjoy it so much that studies so that more people would rather take for example 5% raise as the only person at the office than 10% raise like all your colleagues.

“Winning isn't everything...it's the only thing.”

– Vincent van Gogh

As a kid I was a sore losers. Just ask my brother! From the get-to in all games – small or large – I had my game face on and I was invariably in it to win it. And since of course I didn’t always win there was many occasions when I furious after losing. I yelled, kicked, and screamed. Sometimes I blamed the bad referee, bad teammates, or some other external factors. I was a bad loser, but (luckily) it also built so much character. One of the best things I have ever gotten from Personal Development industry was a set of tools to be a better loser and winner.

I still value playing and games above many other things. And I still go for the gold consistently. Nothing wrong with that, right? I just try to win compassion towards the loser and to win with respect towards the person who outplayed me.

“Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything.”

Vince Lombardi

The best part about games is the fact how they teach about both you and about others, the latter being an often-undervalued fact. And that’s the reason why I my close ones to play games with me. It’s gives you so much; more than most books or hours of meditation. That’s the reason the winner of the game can be absolutely anybody. You just got to search a bit what did you win each time.

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."

– Plato

From Geneva I would like to recommend…

2011-04-25T06:02:00.002+01:00

…Bains de Paquis. I don’t think Geneva would be Geneva, as we know it, without Bains de Paquis. Basically it’s a sauna-restaurant combo with a swimming possibility. It’s located right in the city center next the to the Jet d’eau water fountain. All throughout the year they offer probably the best price-quality ratio lunch with mere 12CHF (that's cheap here!). During winter they serve a world famous Crémand fondue. During spring you might want to stop by for a cheap breakfast with the swans and ducks. During summer it’s of course all about swimming and maybe a stop by the sauna-hammam or even a quick massage. In the fall there’s an amazing Festival of Dawn (Festival de l’Aube) with a FREE concert and FREE coffee at 6am before work. Ain’t too shabby!

…Migros. Migros is Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain and one of the biggest enterprises (ie. a Global Fortune 500 company). It’s based in Zurich and is not unique to Geneva/Suisse Romande alone, but I wanted to add it to this list. Migros is cheap by the local standard and the co-operative model was originally based on a semi wholesale principle (“mi” is half and “gros” is wholesale in French). But to me it’s not the cheap price or even their excellent customer loyalty card, but their ethic choices. Despite being the leading chain here, they refuse to sell alcohol, tobacco products, porn magazines, or plastic bags in their core supermarket stores. They also have a nice emphasize on their Migros Bio organic food line. I admire this kind of firm opinion from any industry leader who so often aims to please everyone (and hence really no one). That’s why I often shop at Migros over otherwise very similar competitors.

[Pub] Migros : Aliments frais et bio (2009)

…Jonction. This is a neighborhood in Geneva that is famous for being the confluence of the two local rivers Rhône and Arve (hence it’s name). The sight of the rivers meeting is spectacular due to the huge color difference between them. On the banks of Rhône near the Jonction is also my favorite forest running trail here and a very popular place to go swimming in the river. There’s just something about the atmosphere in this part of the city I love.

Photo taken by the talented Josh Fassbind

…Glocals. This is an unbelievably popular and active community of expats and international people in Switzerland. Few nice chaps have run it on a voluntary basis, but the active user group who shares best practices in the forum and organizes all kinds of free activities creates most of the additional value. Since most people move here alone or knowing only few people a group of helpful, well educated and very social people have adopted Glocals as the number one spot to connect with similar minded people. Some use this everyday and some only attend their big parties, but I would guess most gain a significant value out of this social network. It’s not Facebook, but it’s very global and very local which really makes it that much more powerful.

…Bout-du-Monde. Unlike it’s French name (End of the World) would imply this part of Geneva is very nice. Basically Bout-du-Monde is like a tiny peninsula due to the fact that the river Arve surrounds it from almost all angles. A large part of this petit district is made out of the sport center there, which was the reason why I originally found it too. It’s almost a full sport center where anyone can practice several dicplines (soccer, handball, basketball, tennis, BMX, climbing etc) for free or for few francs. No tourists or luxury shops here, but just a normal nice sport center with picturesque mountains next to it.

…Janus. And finally I would like to recommend Geneva’s best-kept secret – Janus the two-headed turtle. True story! I already wrote about him before and have not that much to add to that. You just have to see him yourself if you are in town!

If you are interested, I have also written similar list of Vancouver and Paris.

Pros and Cons of Geneva

2011-04-21T05:55:00.016+01:00

I have quite many friends coming to visit me here in Geneva during the summer so I thought now would be a great time to revisit my series of city analysis. I will roughly stick to the same formula I used from my previous home cities Vancouver and Paris.

Like always my views are still little prejudiced, but since these come from a guy who has lived here only for some 8-months this will help other newbies and people planning their arrival here.

You can read some of the basic info on the city from here. I wrote it just before my move into this Peace Capital.

“Everybody likes to go to Geneva.”

– Ernest F. Hollings

+ Lake Geneva. This lake that the locals call Léman is one of the largest lakes in whole Western Europe. Despite it being more beautiful in the other end of the lake (in Vaud) its beauty still party defines the whole Geneva. It’s nowadays a very clean lake and safe to swim in. Visibility is several meters and the mountains around it make it even more impressive sight.

+ Mountains. Mountains surround Geneva. On the other side you can see the Jura Mountains chain and on the other the Alps. In a clear day one can see Mont Blanc perfectly. The power of the mountains truly makes Geneva’s skyline superb.

+ Cleanish. Geneva, like all Switzerland, is quite clean. There’s no excess trash on the streets and people do not litter. The best part of this to me is the free water fountains, which are located all over the city. It’s handy to fill your water bottle anywhere you are.

+ Sporty lifestyle. The Genevoise, like most Swiss, do love sports. Be it tennis, biking, running, skiing, hiking, or what ever but they practise it. It’s quite hard to find obese people here and maybe that’s why most sport organization are based in this country. Anyway, I find it very enjoyable to live in a place where people cherish sports and an active lifestyle.

+ Airport. I know the Geneva Airport with its one runway is no Heathrow, O’Hare or Haneda Airport but considering the small size it’s extremely handy. The airport is only 4km (!) from the city center and it’s well connected with the Swiss railway system to the whole country. Due to its small size the queues are reasonable and service level is very high. The airport is also a big hub for EasyJet many others. It's so centrally located in Europe that you can scoot off all over the continent within few hours.

+ Expats. Geneva is really international city with over 180 nationalities residing here. Over 40% of the habitants here are classified as expats making them a very visible demographic. I value the fact you hear over 20 different languages spoken in an average day. Most of the expats here are world’s most talented and skilled people in their own niche creating constantly some very inspirational conversations. It’s not rare to meet people, who have for example horseback ridden across Mongolia, played golf in the US open, or trapped antimatter!

+/- Price levels. Almost all people around the world complain how expensive their city is. But when bottle of water costs $8 in a café, normal running shoes $250 or club sandwich for two with soft drinks over $100, you can say a city is expensive. On the other hand salaries here are “competitive” and tax rate “reasonable” leaving it a zero-sum game.

“… the response I usually get is that salaries are good and Switzerland is a fine country.”

–Franz Jaeger

+/- Everybody knows almost everybody. This is a small provincial town made out of around 185.000 habitants. It’s not rare to bump into people you know on a daily basis. Some like this, and some don’t. I guess it depends who do you bump into :)

+/- Local people. A common complain here is that the local people are boring and hard to approach. Definitely both the local and national culture is very reserved and conservative. On bad moments it shows as racist and introvert behavior. Still in most occasions there’s positive conservatism and life value driven attitude. As a Finnish native I value this more careful approach, and personally I have had only positive experiences with the locals so far.

- Very limited amount of choices. This goes for almost anything. There are only few specialty shops each. This small city offers only a small selection of stores, cafés, bars, and restaurants. Most of them are decent, but imagination is sometimes needed to get new experiences.

- Pick-pockets. Switzerland is well known to be a safe country to live in, but Geneva can be an exception. It’s not like Paris where you need to watch your back all the time and even fear physical violence, but pick pocketing is quite common. Especially the busy tramlines and the area around the Gare (train station) can be a bit wild. You just need to watch for you wallet and acknowledge that there’s some crime even here.

- Housing. A small rental room can be around $900 and a low quality studio $1.800 per month. Sad part is that the price here is a smaller issue compared to the availability (or lack of it). This city is overcrowded, which ironic for a town of this size. People are without a place sometimes for months and when they find something its actually quite old and in a bad condition.

- Too many smokers. Just way too many.

Summa summarum. If you move here from a city like London, where you have lived most of your life, you might get bored. If you move here to do an unpaid internship, prepare to loan some money. But otherwise this city will quite likely be very livable for you. For me the best sides of Geneva are also the things I value the most in my life (e.g. nature, safety, and inspiring people) making it a great home right now!

Your life is your message

2011-04-19T07:02:00.000+01:00

Not your words alone or what is written on your Facebook wall. It is your life. It is who do you spend time with. It is how you behave when you are alone. It is how treat strangers. It is how you operate in difficult times. And others do notice these things even if you try to hide them.

Just by looking at ones calendar you can learn what are his or her values. And by following someone’s consistency you learn even more. Maybe that is why only some friendship withstands the test of time.

If you would like to see an example where ones behavior showed that persons true skin, read this crazy/funny thread

The power of naïve mind

2011-04-16T06:55:00.000+01:00

A common comment I hear from people who accomplished meaningful things in their lives is that they would not start out again after knowing now how hard the work is. They appreciate the life and journey they created and would not trade it away. Still in hindsight the thought of starting it all over again scares the crap out of them. There are easier choices to take.

With this kind of comment they encourage people to act while they are naïve and don’t know everything about everything. Isn’t this slightly the opposite that our educational system teaches us? You know, to be ready before starting to work towards your dream and passion.

If I look at my own life, there is some great work I have done I would not start to do again knowing how hard the creation process was. Isn’t that a bit sad? I guess it is but it also explains why so many young entrepreneurs and people from humble backgrounds end up shaking the planet. Just look at the recent success of Facebook. Mark might have initially shit his pants back in 2004 if he would have known where that life would take him. All the adversity he would face.

Recently I finished a project that started out as a tiny task, but which turned into a gigantic production taking away a huge load of my time. I loved the end result but honestly would have not agreed to do it if I knew all the work it would include. I also started another project 6-months ago that resembles the more recent one. The only major reason I started it was because I was naïve of all the great things I could accomplish though it quite easily. Now as it gradually enfolds how hard it really is, it is already too late to back up. And that is great, isn’t it? Without my naïve attitude I would have never embarked on this meaningful journey :)

Marketing hogwash

2011-04-13T06:20:00.000+01:00

Noise, noise, noise… Seems like everybody is nowadays just aiming to be louder. From individuals to enterprises, our aim is to create more noise in the Internet, more noise at the office, and more noise among your peers. Quantity is valued over quality.

Seems like Edward Bernays created a propaganda monster we have been feeding for so long that it has grown bigger than we are. It would be so easy to get carried away with this mindset because it doesn’t require that implicit thing called innovation. It the noise ideology you can succeed if you just act like a busy bee and keep doing the leg work yelling to everybody anything.

I know I could here use several examples from social media or the enterprise world in general, but I think I will leave it to people like Seth Godin who do a much better job at it. Instead I would like to turn this same phenomenon into a self-marketing context. Many promote their greatness before they have even some kind of a proof-of-concept. They promote themselves and their future even before they have shipped.

Do not aim to create self-marketing hogwash just for the sake of creation. Maybe rather aim first to fine-tune the product itself – that being your own behavior!

What I think Self-Leadership is not about

2011-04-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

Roughly 15-months ago I wrote about the basics of Self-Leadership. Then I talked briefly how Self-Leadership, Personal Development, and Time Management are often systems where one tries to balance different elements in his or her life. After that post I have started to believe more and more that it’s actually that desire to use various logical system that stops us from truly managing ourselves.

People usually lean on Self-Help books or Personal Development gurus when they are in a desperate need of change in their life. They are either people in a deep dip or people looking to reach the stars. When these people start to apply some timeless life wisdoms and tips, they usually tend to get instant results making the system/gurus/term gain religion like beliefs within this person. It becomes an “ism” just like any other “ism” in the world.

My best intelligent guess is that when a lost individual finds a system where s/he can lean on, s/he will gain balance and hence fall in love with that system. But that balance can be deceiving. Then Self-Leadership becomes like a streetlight: it’s good to lean on, but offers very little enlightenment.

So it is not the system or life wisdoms that count, but the journey to find yourself and then live life like you want to live it. And that journey is by the way individual. You can be, even at your very greatest hour, the worlds second best Anthony Robbins but you can be the world’s best yourself.

So summa summarum: Self-Leadership is not about pre-built systems or about left hemisphere of your brain dominating your life.

It might be – and only might – about very simple philosophies your try to live upon.

“I am afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it – and that's all I got.”

– Sabrina Ward Harrison

The day after tomorrow

2011-04-07T06:15:00.000+01:00

“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people:

those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.”

– John M. Richardson, Jr.

Tomorrow and today

2011-04-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow

A poem by Michael Mack

Tomorrow smile at someone

That you've never seen before.

Take time to think of others that

You feel compassion for.

Tomorrow tell somebody

How they brighten up your day.

Let random acts of kindness

Put your feelings on display.

Tomorrow hug your children

Somewhat tighter than before.

Be sure to think of all the things

You can be thankful for.

Pat your dog a little longer.

Hug and kiss your husband/wife.

Thank your God for granting you

Another day of life.

Today

Nothing to write about

2011-04-01T19:57:00.000+01:00

Wanted to update the blog, but realized that I got nothing to say. Many things on my head, but nothing to write about. Tons of new ideas, but nothing to write about them. Funny! I guess there's a big difference between structured and unstructured data...

I will leave it to this. There's already now too much useless noise on the web so need to add more.

The tale of Ralph Guldahl

2011-03-25T06:47:00.000Z

Ralph J. Guldahl was an American professional golfer. Who was clearly one of the best players in the sport between 1937-1939.

To me the interesting part about this player was the things what happened after 1940. Following few years of golf dominance Ralph Guldahl wrote an instructional book about golf. In this book he analyzed his swing to the smallest detail. Unfortunately for Ralph this overanalyzing caused him to lose his game totally. It didn’t only drop him from lets say world’s TOP3 spot to world’s TOP30 spot, but it completely killed his game. He could not play at all.

Overthinking is a natural part of life for most of us. Some are aware of it and some are not. I have read about a research showing that overthinking is prevalent especially in young and middle aged adults, with 73% of 25-35 year-olds identified as overthinkers. It has been apparently also shown that females overthink more than males. Well, I don’t know how reliable this research is, but I can tell that at least based on my empirical dating research I have seen that females overthink a lot more than males :)

What ever the stats of other people are, I can honestly say that I’m an overthinker. What’s the definition and metrics? I can’t answer that, but I do feel that I personally overthink some things.

Overthinkers are like modern IT services: they focus on being in the cloud and don't see the value of a clear sky...

There are quite few Self-Leadership books sharing their two cents on how to tackle overthinking. I don’t know how good they are because I mostly only follow one rule – the Go Rule. My friend Mikael “Mixu” Mäkinen in his Managing Oneself interview also mentioned this rule. I think life is for living and whenever I find myself overthinking something too much on my own standards, I usually try to let go. No more analysis. No more scenario building. I just move to full throttle and try to enjoy life. It’s anyway usually a bliss!

Who makes your sandwiches?

2011-03-23T18:29:00.000Z

I read a great anecdote from my friend Antti’s blog. I don’t where he found it, but I would like to share it with you. Since it’s in Finnish I’m freely translating it to you.

On one construction yard the workers had a habit to gather around in noon and eat the lunch together. During one of these lunches one worker opened his lunch box and said: “Damn! Not again peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I hate peanut butter and jelly.”

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, but nothing changed with this mans lunch time rant. Everyday he complained about his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Gradually the other workers started to get irritated of this guys behavior. Finally one fellow worker said: “Dude. If you hate peanut butter and jelly so much, why don’t you ask your wife to prepare something else?”

“What are you talking about?” the man answered. “My wife? But I’m not married. I make my own sandwiches.”

So who makes your sandwiches? My prognosis is that it is you...

Brazil through few photos

2011-03-15T21:33:00.001Z

One of the world's most beautiful skylines – Rio de Janeiro from the Sugarloaf Mountain.

Me and my homeboy Cristo Redentor.

This is how you get electricity and an internet connection in a favela. Little MMJ cord and you are good to go.

Injury situation from a Fluminense game. Can you imagine that in Brazil there was only 937 spectators to see a game of the current champion? Well, there was.

Perfect example of the inequality in Brazil: The lavish sambódromo and carnival performances are right next to some tatty buildings.

Beach art from Copacabana. No other explanations needed.

Shifting gears after Rio in the Amazon. It still puzzles me that the river goes 14 (!) meters up and down between the two seasons.

Am I the only one or is this the perfect reenactment of the Creation of Adam at the Sistine Chapel?

Coral snake. Actually a dead one. The local indian whacked the heck out of this one before it bit anyone. The indigenous people show no mercy for these guys.

In Paraguay at the Itaipu Dam. This was one of the world's largest construction works in the 20th century and contains enough metal to build about 380 Eiffel Towers. Impressive.

Under the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls. As you can see, it was a bit wet there.

The only Self-Leadership related tip in this post: the rocks under waterfalls are very slippery. Be careful. And by the way this tip can be way more useful than the normal ones I share and actually way more accurate.

If there's one thing Brazilians love more than soccer and samba, it has to be showing the thumbs up signal. You will never go wrong with it. Trust me.

The famous Lapa steps and one happy traveler at the backend of my trip. Once again the most important goal was accomplished – I came back home safe

Life at Favelas

2011-03-13T19:53:00.001Z

For those who are not yet familiar with the term, Favela is shantytown area mostly found in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. It is an area where the police (or the army) have little or no control at all. It is an area where most do not have running water, sewerage system, electric, indoor toilets, or internet. This is the modern Wild West where you better be quick or be dead.

Favelas were born in the late 18th century when former slaves with no citizenship right settled down. They could not own land so therefore they just decided to start housing the hilly terrains surrounding Rio. Today there are apparently over 700 Favelas in Rio alone. The biggest Favela Rocinha has an estimated population of 300.000 people. In total the Favelas in the Rio State hold 4 million people and 54 million people in the whole country. People living there (favelados) aren't kept in any official records so therefore the exact population is just an intelligent guess. But one thing is sure: the numbers are growing. Most favelodos start having babies' immediately when they become fruitful. I personally met a 28-year old young man who already had two (!) grandchildren.

Here's a photo I took from one rooftop in Rocinha. The brightly colored houses are government built houses for families whose previous apartment was destroyed in the recent mudslides.

Like mentioned, Favelas are for very poor people. In Brazil the top 10 percent earns 50 percent of the money leading into a stellar 34 percent of people living below the poverty line. Favelas are the extreme showcase of this unequal distribution of wealth. Due to lack of jobs, drug lords and their cocaine business run the Favelas. Cops rarely interfere with their moneymaking. The drug wars also lead to high homicide rates. Some experts estimate that during the decade between 80-110 people per 100.000 inhabitants were killed. To give you an example how high this number is I can tell that the whole world's highest official intentional homicide rates are in El Salvador and Honduras, which have between 67-71 homicides per 100.000. For this reason we can truly say that the Favelas in Rio are easily among the world's most dangerous places to live in. And sadly, I'm a gringo that stands out from the crowd with my fair skin...

In Rocinha I hired a local guide to grant safe entrance. On the other three visits I didn't do this. I would recommend the former to grant mental health during the visit. I recommend the latter only for serious nutcase gringos.

Rio is dominated by three favela gangs; ADA (Amigos Dos Amigos), Red Command, and Third Command. Each of them moves several million USD worth of guns and drugs from their favelas each month. I heard some crazy figures from the local experts. Even more crazy is that one of the above-mentioned gangs is run by a 24-year old young buck. He moves every few night into a new apartment in order to keep himself invisible. Many gang leaders stay in their post only few years before usually getting shot.

One quite famous and inspiring movie about the Brazilian poverty and drug-dealing situation is the City of God (Cidade de Deus). Highly recommend it!

I have now visited the Favelas on few occasions. I have to say that they are impressive in many ways. They are located next to the urban tourist attractions and hold some breathtaking views to the ocean. The contrast between Rio's prosperous neighborhoods and the Favelas is massive! People there usually earn something like R$ 600-800 per month and the normal rent is about half of it; R$150 on the more bottom of the favela (more dangerous) and R$ 400 on the top. Rio can be very expensive and therefore that money is not a lot.

If there was one lesson I learned from the Rio Favelas, it is that 'be thankful'. Be thankful of what you have and enjoy it to the fullest where ever you are reading this. Maybe you can even help someone to get a head start and make a meaning. But first help yourself and then you can truly help others. And a good start is to start smiling and start enjoying what you have right now.

At the Iguazu Falls

2011-03-11T11:39:00.001Z

Iguazu Falls are the famous waterfalls of the Iguazu River located on the border of the Brazilian State of Paraná and the Argentine Province of Misiones. Actually the falls almost also border with Paraguay making it a cross-road for three Latin American countries. The falls itself are often listed among the 7 natural wonders of the world and compared only to the Victoria Falls between Zambia and Zimbabwe. For these reasons it is nowadays a famous tourist attraction where masses come for a quick one-day stop the take few photos, buy a t-shirt and get a scarf. In-and-out style sightseeing. Not me. I wanted to at least deep dive a bit more into this magnificent place.

During my four-day trip to the area surrounding the falls I had the chance to visit both the Brazilian and the Argentinian sides of the falls. The Argentinian side is much bigger (about 75%), but both were for sure worth the (hefty) entrance fees. I was there during the rainy season, which made the water level quite high and the power of the fall massive. Luckily I got no rain during my stay, but only +30 Celsius sunshine every day. The setting could not have been much better.

This photo is from the Argentinian side of the falls

Compared to for example to the Niagara Falls this place has a lot more to explore. Both the flora and the fauna are much nicer here. There are roughly 2.000 different plants and 600 species of animals here. On top of this the falls itself are just blame amazing! Besides seeing the power of water (which you can also see at Niagara) here you can see multiple picturesque parts of the wide falls. Loved it!

Here is me absolutely stoked after seeing the Garganta del Diablo.

Like I have written multiple times, I do value the power of nature a lot. It makes you humble and thankful. We are from the nature and from the soil. Becoming more in touch with the nature helps me to be achieving these two things, which in my books are both huge virtues. Plus seeing places like this is just sheer mediation and mindfulness.

Here is a video of a similar boat trip under the falls that I also did. Videos and photos can't really capture the power of the falls, but they can give you a small teaser.

The key take away here is that, since most people are looking for internal balance like the Holy Grail, achieving it even momentarily is valuable. Being thankful, humble, and mindful often helps. My ways to rock the boat are often linked with the nature and places like the Iguazu falls. For you it might be bowling night with the lads or spending one day at the flea market. Who cares how you do it, but when you find a way, then maybe you try to find time and money for these moments. There are very few amount of justified excuses to skip them. $40 entrance fee or lacks of legal vacation days are not one of those. It just isn't.

The Rio Carnival

2011-03-09T07:46:00.002Z

Since 1723 the fun loving Cariocas (people from Rio) have been celebrating the world's most famous party - The Rio Carnival. This samba festival is basically a two-week city-wide parade. There are hundreds of parades all over the city, which are made out of people and samba school floats. Some schools are professionally organized and other made out from local communities. Street parades (blocos) are open to all and the main parades (in the Sambodromo) are only for the competitive professional samba schools. This competition is the highlight of the carnival.

There are also other very big carnivals in Brazil during the same time for example in Sao Paolo, Salvador, Manaus, and Recife. These carnivals are always held forty-six days before Easter and therefore the dates vary every year a bit. This time it started in early March. The roots of these festivals are partly pagan and partly catholic, but the background relates to a part of the year when you do not eat meat for awhile. Suits me!

Carnival is most famous holiday period in Brazil and the Rio Carnival the most famous of them all. So if there is a place to be right now, it's Rio. This thing is huge. The amount of tourists, beer consumption, and free sex goes sky high. For a shy Nordic boy the experience can be a bit overwhelming :)

A photo from a street party in the idyllic Santa Teresa

Personally I was more of an semi-passive observer than a crazy party animal during this carneval. I took part in most of the classic things, but remained in a chill mode instead of running from one bloco to another since 7am. The amount of carnival performers (over 50.000) and the energy they carried was fantastic. The smiles and bouncy dancing that even retired people showed was very admirable. I also fell in love with the drum sections and "living in the moment" mindset. The constant turn offs were inflated prices, heavy drinking, and dirt on the streets. We also got quite a lot of rain during this years carnival. For a first-timer the pros outweigh the cons, but I would not very easily come here again during this festival period.

Like with many other things in life, the new unique experience was worth the while. It was worthwhile to understand different people and to understand what things I do not enjoy. I could have called this fact already before the carnival started, but to me that would have been narrow-minded thinking. Now I know for myself. You might need to figure your opinion on your own. Enjoy the journey!

A park size of Europe

2011-03-02T16:29:00.004Z

Close your eyes. Then picture Europe. I mean from Portugal to Russia and from Greece to Norway. After that picture that almost nobody lives in this area anymore and that from now on it would be only one big park. Well, this is how I felt while I visited the Amazon rainforest this and last week. With roughly 7 million square kilometers the Amazon rain forest could be alone an immense country. Two thirds of it is in Brazil (60%) followed by Peru (13%), and the few minor parts in other countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

As a nature freak I still can't stop wondering the biodiversity of this place. Every tenth known species comes from here. As an example I can state that we have scientifically identified roughly 1.4 million species on this planet, but we acknowledge that in the Amazon there is 2.5 million insect species alone. Also one in five birds in the world live in the Amazon and one square kilometer of the rainforest can contain over 1.000 species of trees. Wow!

Here's a photo from our piranha fishing trip. These bastards are pretty damn smart. They are really good at grapping your bate but not the hook...

That being said the forest is also a very dangerous place. Jaguars, anacondas, cougars, electric eels, piranhas, and poisonous frogs inhabit this place. Despite going there on an organized tour I constantly was on my toes because of these aspects. I saw dangerous spiders, small Caymans, crazy monkeys, and even fresh jaguar poo. The guides were few local natives accompanied with an ex-jungle war specialist. Could not have made it out a-okey without them. Being an ex-scout from Finland means nothing here...

If I would need to summarize the whole experience in one word, it would be 'breathtaking'. If I could continue that somehow I would emphasize the power of stories. From morning to the night I heard different stories from my guides. They told stories about the forest, about the river, about the animals, about the locals and so on. Even if I wanted to, I could not share all of the cool stories here so I would just like to remind again how powerful tool a good story is! Stories sell, facts tell.

Here's a photo I took from one of these dangerous spiders. The guide just held it with a stick while the photo was taken. Do not try this at home :)

I have now one of my best holiday trips ever behind me. It was only a small tiny teaser to what the Amazon could offer, but still this place blew my mind off. Looking forward to continue my explorations when I return to Rio tomorrow.

Keep rockin' the free world,
Terito

Good, Better, Brazil

2011-02-25T15:23:00.011Z

It is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country by geographical area. It is also the world’s fifth largest country by population. By nominal GDP it is the world’s eight largest economy. It is the second biggest producer of natural resources and world's leader in biofuel production. Quite likely it has the widest biodiversity from all the world's countries. Another nice fact is that over 85% its energy comes from renewable sources and that it has the most amount of fresh water of all countries in the world. Oh, and they also pretty good in soccer. It's no longer an emerging market it is a dominating market. This is Brazil, one of the powerhouses of planet Earth.

In the next weeks I will be exploring this exiting country using Rio de Janeiro as my travel hub. I chose this "Marvelous City" for few reasons. First of all I think it's by far one of the world's most diverse cities. Seems like it has almost everything. Beaches (like Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon), big companies (Vale, Petrobras, and Globo Organizations), culture (Maracana, Christ the Redeemer), inequality (ie. Favelas next to the luxury flats), and most of all absolutely gorgeous nature. The second reason is that during my visit there's the famous Rio Carnival, which I plan to take part in. And the last reason is that in the upcoming years it will be the center of global focus through the 2106 Olympics, 2014 World Cup, and the attention on the BRIC -country growth. I'm keen to see how's the city now and learn more about its culture.

Besides Rio I will also take a trip to the Amazon Rainforest and the Iguazu Falls, but I will elaborate more about these later. Now I need to stop using this computer and hit the town. It's +32 degrees and no clouds. Brazil, here I come :)

The fuel of life

2011-02-22T06:18:00.000Z

We call it many things: internal fire, energy, passion, drive, life force, qi. It is the thing that fuels our actions. It is the thing that makes us push the envelope even harder. It is the thing that takes us into the uncomfort zone. It is the petrol of innovation.

People with a lot of this life force are often individuals who have dreams. They have a vision. A purpose. After that come concrete goals, skills, networking, and all that jazz. It is the sense of direction that helps us get started.

Some people are scared to get started. They are afraid to take the first step and dream. And here I especially refer to dreaming big and dreaming “real”. Personally I have always found dreaming easy and not that intimidating at all. I love stories and dreams to me are basically just a bunch of sweet ass stories. The scary part for me comes after the dreams end and reality kicks in.

After I have grown older and realized that even most of my wildest dreams are now within my reach, I seen dreaming from a new perspective. I realize that dreams come true. They happen and therefore they weigh a lot. They are by now means meaningless. That’s why you got to watch out what you dream, because quite likely you will get it.

Starting this week, I will start filling yet another set of old dreams. More info in the future posts. I’m feeling absolutely awesome; yet a bit doubtful of what stories I should start dreaming next. Those dreams will be my future fuel of life so I better at least try to get them right…

Two ways of beautiful

2011-02-17T22:41:00.001Z

The first way of beautiful – the physical way

The second way of beautiful – the mental way

Both of them are cool in their own way. There is a time and place for everything. The second way is just a bit more sustainable, but also harder to find...

Something about Hewlett-Packard

2011-02-14T05:34:00.002Z

Already during my brief tenure at Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), I have received several questions about the company from my friends. To my great surprise some people think HP only does “Xerox machines”, that it is at least twice smaller than Apple, and some apparently haven’t even heard of the company at all. So due to selfish reasons I decided to compile some facts about the company in order to share this link to some of my friends. I hope you, as readers will also learn something new about this company.

Basic facts about the company*

HP is the world’s largest technology company by revenue ($126 billion in 2010)
HP employs 304.000 people around the world (the figure might have changed after the recent M&A’s)
HP has over 1.000.000.000 customers in over 170 countries
HP’s headquarters are in Palo Alto, California, USA.
The CEO and President of is Léo Apotheker.

HP’s history – from garage to Main Street*

HP was founded in Palo Alto over 70 years ago (1939) by two Stanford graduates Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (hence the name Hewlett-Packard)
The company was started in Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of US$538
One of HP’s earliest customers was The Walt Disney Company, which bought oscillators for the movie Fantasia.
HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley
HP is often identified as the producer of the world's first mass-produced PC (HP 9100A, introduced in 1968)

HP’s business – 101 (mandatory)*

With $126 billion turnover HP is 10^th in the Fortune 500 ranking
HP has today three business groups. Massively simplified the three focus areas are computers, printers, and anything for the enterprise.
So HP for example sells desktops, laptops, cameras, inkjet printers, laserjet printers, large-format printers, mobile phones, servers, data storage, network hardware, software, IT services and much more
Since HP works in almost all IT segments and price-points, it both competes and collaborates with most of the other large IT companies (e.g. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Canon etc)
Newsweek ranked HP as the greenest big company in America (2009)

HP’s business – 202 (optional)*

In fiscal year 2010 HP grew 11.4 billion USD in revenue. That makes almost $1 billion each month or half of Google (they made $23.6 billion in 2009)
HP basically ships 3 PC’s every second, 3 printers every second, and one server in every 10 seconds
HP competes in 19 solution/product segments, and is #1 in 15 of them
HP is now focusing on three technology shifts: information explosion, digital transformation, and environmental sustainability
Interbrand ranks HP as the world’s 10^th best brand right before companies like Toyota, Luis Vuitton, Apple, and Nike
HP Corporate Objective were drafted already in 1957 by the founders

Random, yet interesting, facts about HP*

HP still today sells its signature RPN calculators
Bill and Dave innovated many of the modern management models such as flex-time, Management by Objectives (MBO) and Management by Walking Around. The collection of their management philosophy is often called the “HP Way”
Steve Jobs also credited Hewlett-Packard’s culture as the inspiration for Apple Computer’s creative approach to engineering and management. Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak also worked for HP early in their career
HP registered the 9th Internet .com domain in history (hp.com in 1986)
HP is now building flexible displays. A monochrome prototype has already been created, and a color display is expected within three years.
HP Labs is working with the Central Nervous System for the Earth (CeNSE) project, a highly intelligent network of billions of nano-scale sensors that can feel, taste, smell, see, and hear what is going on in the world.

Here are links to some of the facts I used:

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/facts.html

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/hp360_ww.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjTWJWq26Bs

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/HP_in_brief_010309.pdf

http://wcam.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Exclusive_Outlook/Historical_Figures_EO/David_Packard_Insert_Wcam.pdf

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/corporate-objectives.html

http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/best-global-brands-2008/best-global-brands-2010.aspx

*all data pulled out from the sources on Feb 13^th 2011

Health and fitness are not synonymous

2011-02-12T07:43:00.000Z

For the past few years I have been quite conscious about the fact that health doesn’t always equal with fitness. Or should I say that being fit doesn’t mean you are healthy. Unfortunately still too often the fact that I am conscious of something doesn’t mean I would act wisely regarding it. For the past 1.5 months I have felt this fact in my body very vividly.

I have probably my best training season behind me. And this goes as well to quantity as well as to quality. But health doesn’t seem to be in the best shape. Due to proper diet I haven’t caught any nasty illnesses, but my muscular and join conditions are not in top shape. No injuries, but limiting issues.

In general we can be quite certain that moderate exercise is good for the health. It has been shown to be part of longevity. But fitness as we know it today does require more than just moderate exercise. In a competitive world the level of fitness seems to require occasionally going to extremes. And athletes do push the envelope most time.

When you train, you actually create physical stress in your body. Each time you train, you suppress your immune system and cause damage in your body (joints, muscles, nerves etc). This is good as long as you remember to nourish your body with proper nutrition and rest. But to get fit, we often push so much that the recovery often doesn’t happen. We might “overtrain” or just cause another setback

Injuries often come during our peak fitness.

In some sports where you peak very young (swimming, gymnastics etc) athletes might get away with unhealthy lifestyles during their peak career, but I don’t think this will take away the effects of some actions in long term. Most top athletes are fit but not healthy. Chronic pains and illnesses are common. After the active career several health problems come to light. Another aspect is becoming or being injured. Like said, striving to become fit increases the chances of injury. And when you want to be fit, the worst thing on the planet is gradually recovering from a past injury. Athletes tend to start pushing too fast too soon.

Doing sports is an addiction. A healthy one, but it still is one. And quite often it takes over you and starts to control your life. A good health regimen becomes your boss. It says when you do what. This is a perfect example of when you are no longer managing yourself, but the program is.

Becoming fit has many pros. One of them is growing your ego. Do not let that take over with the cause of your health. You will regret it when you have an injury or an illness.

What I love?

2011-02-06T14:39:00.001Z

I love waking up early. I love my alarm ring tone. I love the fact that my friend has composed it. I love to drink water in the morning. I especially love the bitter taste of my MSM water. Since I often add herbal tincture drops into my MSM water, I actually start my day by drinking alcohol. And since I'm by normal standards an absolutist, I love the irony behind this fact.

I love wiping the sleep sand of my face. I love taking a pee right after I get up. I love the relieving feeling it gives me. I love doing some kind of physical activity in the morning. I love how it energizes my body. I also love reading in the morning. Nowadays I love reading mostly blogs. They often offer knowledge in perfect bite-size pieces. I love snacking while I read. I love soaked chia seed porridge. It's nourishing yet keeps me feeling light.

I love taking a warm shower in the morning. I love my organic beer-egg soap my friend gave me. I love the fact that it’s the first soap I have ever had that doesn’t smell good. I love that after the shower I can do nothing for a while. That’s the beauty of waking up early – quietude. I love that I’m healthy. I love that I can walk. I love that there is a purpose and meaning in my life.

I love living in Geneva. I love the high quality of life that Switzerland offers. I love public transports. I love how it's my form of solitude. I love how I can meditate while sitting in them. I love international cities. I love colorful people. I love the smell of fresh mountain air. I love clean nature.

I love working intensively. I love to learn. I love my job. I love my smart colleagues. I love that my current employer is very flexible. I love the fact that my leadership team is human. I love the fact that I can go for a run during lunch time. I love how in just five minutes I’m in the forest. I love the running trails there. I love how strangers greet each other while running. I love how I say “salut”. It's way off, but sounds nice to me. I love to drink my green smoothie after the run. I also love to snack raw cashews and dried mango in the afternoon. I love both of them so much that I eat them in front of my computer despite the fact that they tend to leave crumbles inside my keyboard.

I love how the night falls in. I think darkness is soothing. I love to do something simple after work. Currently I love going to a Bikram class 4-5 times per week. In the evening I also love to eat fatty things. Avocado is my absolute favorite. Homemade organic guacamole is hardly to beat.

I love sitting by my computer in the evening. I do enjoy having the whole world just one click away. I love how easy it’s to connect with my friends anywhere in the world. I love the simplicity of my MacBook. I love the fact that I don’t have to rush my day through. I love how I can be active, without being stressed. I love how people love me. I love how every time I open my email something wonderful is waiting for me. Something surprising. It’s like having Christmas every day. But most of all I love that I can love others! How cool is that?

I love going to sleep. I love sleeping in a cool room. Your own bed and sheets are one of the nicest things on this planet. Well, I do love the wool socks my grandma made me even more. I love my journal. I love how just before going to bed I write three things I’m grateful for. I love that everyday I have something write about. I love that I exist. I love that I have found myself. I love that I can live my own life in my own way. I love that I can love myself. It would be hardly to think I could love everything else above without it.

When the pendulum swings again

2011-02-01T05:29:00.000Z

Based both on my personal experiences and as well as on empirical research, I have seen that many people live like a pendulum swinging from one side to the other. We go from one extreme to another extreme. After our New Years resolutions we tend to go to the gym like crazy and after few months (or even weeks) we tend to go from 100 to 0 and fully stop training. You know what I’m talking about. We get excited of a new hobby (e.g. yoga) or a topic (e.g. raw foods) and then we deep dive into that topic for a limited amount of time. This intensity will not last and we might go after that into the other extreme. I call this “Pendulum Life”.

In general Self-Leadership is often viewed as a set of tools to live a more balanced life. This means it’s used to balance the swings of the pendulum. It’s used to live a more smooth and consistent life. Therefore people who go from extreme to another are often viewed as unbalanced individuals who by this way of behavior try to hide their uncertainty.

I understand the negative points of Pendulum Life, but I don’t think it is all bad. I mean if you are not moving your pendulum, then you are not truly living. I have already written about how great men have great faults. Change for the good doesn’t come if somebody is not willing to go the extra mile. If somebody is not willing dedicate his life to studying medical mushrooms in wild forests, we might not have some extraordinary superfoods we currently have. I also think Michael Jacksons extreme actions changed the world and how we accept people who are different.

I think Self-Leadership should not stop the pendulum from swinging, but to give more speed for it through focus. No need to go from one extreme area to another and be hyper. You can live a balanced life in core and still keep the pendulum going on with some other areas.

On a personal note I would like to have stability on family, friends, and health. But there are many other fields where I think I can’t truly make a meaning and ship something to this world without doing something beyond normal. I need to push the boundaries. So after years of trying to balance things out, I have come to accept the fact that ultimate balancing is dull.

AVERAGE = BORING

We all are one

2011-01-28T05:38:00.007Z

Here’s an excerpt from Matisyahu song King Without A Crown:

“You're a slave to yourself and you don't even know.

You want to live the fast life but your brain moves slow.

If you're trying to stay high then you're bound to stay low.

You want God but you can't deflate your ego.

If you're already there then there's nowhere to go.

If you're cups already full then its bound to overflow.

If you're drowning in the water's and you can't stay afloat.”

When I listen to this Jewish reggae artist I can’t stop wondering how universal his lyrics are. A person from almost any religion or any culture could have said these wisdoms.

I consider myself as a cosmopolitan. And I mean it in the way that I’m a person who believes all is one in this universe. Right now I believe that when you are at home in all parts of the world and conversant with many spheres of interest, you realize we are all the same. Jews, Christians, Islamic and Buddhist all talk about the same things. I have written about it before and I am still amazed how little we acknowledge our similarities.

Jack LaLanne – Rest In Peace

2011-01-25T21:35:00.000Z

I have previously written a post about some people I admire. If you read this post, you might remember that one of them was my fitness hero Jack LaLanne. Well with mixed emotions I'm sad to say that he has recently passed away. Well I guess we all die one day, but this guy seemed to be on fire even when he was over 90, so I kind of assumed he would still be with us for a long-long time. He lived with full passion even during the very last years of his life and with this attitude shipped tons of goodness into this world.

He taught us a lot. Definitely a person whose life is worth checking out.

Jack, R.I.P!!

Djemaa el Fna

2011-01-20T07:46:00.001Z

Howard Hillman has called it as “the world's most exciting and energetic gathering place”. UNESCO calls it is a “veritable open-air theater”. Anyway Djemaa el Fna (or Jamaa el Fna) is the main square and the centerpiece of Marrakech. It is the living movie of Aladdin. Fascinating, vibrant, and unique.

Djemaa el Fna was founded in the 11^th Century around the same time as the city itself. The old town (Medina) was surrounded with high walls in the 12^th century leaving the square in the center. And almost right after that the Koutoubia Mosque was built in one corner of the Djemaa el Fna Square. Its minaret is called the Eiffel Tower of Morocco and it’s one key element of the square look-and-feel.

Today the square almost looks the same as during the times when for example Winston Churchill and Yves Saint Laurent fell in love with it. During the day you can buy fresh squeezed juices, spices, dried fruits or small artwork. Playing with monkeys, checking the snake charmers, or getting a henna tattoo is common too. During the night the square turns into a public party. There are strange dancing boys, musicians, acrobats and other entertainers to set up the atmosphere. Also a large part of the square is dedicated to local street cuisine.

One could guess that the show is for tourist, but guess again. It’s also a prominent meeting place among locals. Some of these things have been going on for over hundreds and hundreds of years.

To me the square is both a symbol of this desert city but also the classic Arabian Nights experience. Going through the square and the never-ending souks (narrow market street maze) you begin to relive that culture. You see what you have been told as a kid. It's like being in a movie. And that’s the beauty of traveling. You see for yourself. You experience for yourself.

One can read and study things as much as one wants. One can understand them and even try to build ones own theory around it. But living them by yourself is another level. It is a much higher level! That’s why academia often fails to attract some great minds. That’s why Self-Leadership can’t be learnt only from books.

Little bit on the Sahara Desert

2011-01-17T09:21:00.001Z

On my trip to Morocco I was also able to fulfill a very long time dream to visit The Great Desert of Sahara. I spend three days near the Algerian boarder to see the stereotypical sand dynes. What a trip! Here are my two cents on this natural wonder.

Sahara also offers maybe the most beautiful nigh sky I have ever seen

First and foremost I have to say that Sahara is HUGE. I only saw a tiny friction of it and even still it was mind-blowing. The desert is over 5000km wide and covers about the same area as the USA or Europe. It’s the world’s second biggest desert after Antarctica (another place I will most definitely see in the upcoming years). Many people think Sahara is all sand and dynes, but actually majority (about 75%) is apparently rocks and pebbles. Personally I needed to travel about 12-hours into the desert before finally hitting the dynes.

Sahara is a rough place. Not many species can survive there. Actually only about 500 plants can and that’s not that much for an area that big. There are still enough Dromedaries for everyone to ride on and too many lethal animals for the faint-hearted. When I was climbing a 250-meter dyne mountain with my “4x4 technique” in the middle of the night, with only my 1000-series Nokia to illuminate my path, I was also asking myself “are there a lot of scorpions around here?” :)

Without my Berber Selham I would have been absolutely freezing in the cold Sahara night

I love places like this. They really expand our mindset. They show how small we humans are. They also show how far from the nature the Western world has become. We are like domesticated and over-produced animals. You know, we are now the Human Chihuahuas.

So the Self-Leadership tip of the week: go to the nature! Quite likely it will be better personal development than the book you were going to read.

Berber – A free person

2011-01-15T08:36:00.000Z

I spent the majority of the last two weeks in Morocco. More specifically in the Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz regions, which is a very Berber oriented part of North Africa. During this time I was able to deep dive into the Berber lifestyle and learn how they feel about managing their own lives. I though I could share some of the stuff I learned in this blog.

I will start out by few words about the Berber people. Berbers are a group indigenous people living in North Africa. Even Berbers can be even found in Egypt, most of them live near the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and Algeria. They have their own language (actually at least three distinct dialects), but not an own country. Some people say there are 15 million Berbers, but roughly 30-40 million speak their language. In some Arab countries they might be treated as 2^nd class citizens, that doesn’t stop them from living their own life in their own way.

Berbers are nomads. Even the name Berber (Barbaros) has Greek roots relating to a stranger or an outsider. But they like to call themselves rather as free and noble people (Imazighen). They have lived with Jews, Christians and now mostly with Muslims. They have changed religion when needed. To me their lifestyle is like a strong tree in the desert. It bends with the force of even the strongest desert storm and therefore never breaks down. But still it has sturdy roots it never forgets.

The Berber superstar: Zinedine Zidane.

I picked three interesting things from the Berber lifestyle.

1. One wife, one problem. Four wives, four problems.

As most Berber people are Sunni Muslims, they could marry up to four females. But they don’t; they only marry one woman. They seem to think that less is more. They also tend to marry for life and don’t divorce on-demand like some other Sunnis. There is no right or wrong way, but I think this detail shows how they value simplicity. One Berber man told me that with one wife, he only has one problem. And one problem is doable.

2. Make and buy what you need. Not what you want.

Due to tourism and globalization, the hard-working and linguistically talented Berbers have been able to start making a better living. Despite the higher incomes, the Berbers still keep mainly focusing on primary industry (mainly raising cattle) and handicrafts. They live heavily on exchange economy. You raise a chicken and then change it to what you need in the huge Berber Markets. You do not spend on excess, but focus on what you need. Most things are made in-house and therefore have a personal touch to them. Didn’t see anyone with iPhones or iPads. Why buy one, when the 8-year old Nokia still works.

3. When you live nowhere, you live everywhere.

Simple. Their philosophy is almost Buddhist. Life agony comes from clinging on to things. You loose the ability to live in the moment. But when the past 1000 years you have been pushed around, I guess you learn how to embrace the things you have now. Tomorrow is too uncertain with these people. Still they are not lazy, but they work like they would live forever.

I still have a lot before I can truly understand this culture, but I can already now strongly recommend walking the unbeaten road and visiting some real Berber villages. We all might learn something from them.

Being on vacation

2011-01-10T05:32:00.000Z

I just ended a roughly 2,5 week holiday and I realized some interesting things about myself. It’s funny, but being on a vacation is just a state of mind. You know, some people actually “work” more when they are on a holiday. They are super active and they need to do all the stuff they never have time when they are working. So actually physically they come back from the holiday more exhausted, but mentally more relaxed. Ironic.

Personally I worked everyday when I was on a holiday. Of course we should define what “working” means, but it’s very clear that I did not actually kick back and sleep in for the whole 2,5 weeks. As I grew up in a small farm in Finland I have been grown into the idea that everyday you will work. Not by force, but because that’s what you enjoy doing.

So what’s the difference between working and being on a vacation? To me it’s all about the threshold between building fatigue and recovering. In both sides you can sleep a lot and work a lot. The question is: where is your threshold? This personal limit is mostly on our head and is very vague.

If you turn this idea of working during a vacation upside down, you realize that you are on a vacation when you work. So from now on I know I can have a vacation anytime I want. It’s just a state of mind. Just switch into a level of recovering and I’m cool. Simple in theory, but might be hard in practice. I guess that’s actually the summary of everything in life.

Do what your love, but make it your profession

2011-01-07T14:28:00.001Z

Many Personal Development “gurus” talk on and on about doing what you love instead of doing what pays. I completely understand why in this competitive, capitalistic and materialistic society this is such a hot potato. Still I think we are missing out here on one important aspect – monetizing.

Since we no longer live in a hunter-gather or pure exchange economy, we are depended on other people’s expertise. Some more than others, but we need to get money in order to survive. Equally important is the fact that we enjoy what we do and that we grow both as human beings and as professionals. You can approach this from few aspects. Here’s a love-growth-cash triangle to demonstrate what do I mean.

Many people take a job to pay the bills and work on what they love on their spare time. I think here you are missing out on a lot of your potential. Combining the two elements doesn’t get you even close to what you could do by growing your “one thing” in all aspects.

This means you need to appreciate more what you do, find out how you can learn more from it right now and how to monetize it. The two first ones often come quite easily if you follow your heart, but the last one requires some work. It’s still definitely the one that comes last for me, because if you start with that one then you might get lost on the way. So as a naïve opinion, please love what you do, but also strive to make it your profession as soon as possible.

Ps. All of the graphs above are from Jack Cheng. He has created some amazing stuff I recommend you to check out.

Some Eternal Goals

2011-01-04T14:10:00.001Z

I have devoted already now few last posts to goal setting. Please forgive me the monotony, but it’s the “season” for this kind of topics. Quite often friends ask me about my New Year goals and the direction I have. Nowadays I find this topic to be boring. Yes, yearly goals are important but I think even more important is your “Eternal Goals”. The come quite directly from your core values and in theory should not change every year or even every decade.

Here are few of my Eternal Goals:

1. Be healthy

2. Live life with high energy

3. Don’t live your life in a hurry

4. Chase and capture your dreams

5. Don’t hurt people on purpose

6. Strive to be happy

7. Love, don’t hate

8. Smile more

What are yours? And have you thought about what are you life values? Maybe you should think about these before you deep dive into the yearly ones! It’s best to start building the house from the base.

What we can do in a year

2011-01-01T11:56:00.001Z

Happy New Year!

2011 is here and we are ready to make into a good one. Right now many people whom are consciously or unconsciously into Self-Leadership are planning their yearly goals. Personally I think the goal setting process and seeing how people work on them is very interesting. It’s actually quite insightful.

One thing I see very clearly right now is that most people fail to execute on their great New Year promises. The goal is nice, plans are there, but the end result is a fail. The New Year gung-ho attitude fades away and people return to their comfort zones. People give up and lose hope. This is sad.

In my experience we humans tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in one year and underestimate what we can do in five years. This leads to big New Year promises we fail to deliver. After a rough start we give up and stop working on our dreams completely. We also make very small long-term dreams. It’s crazy how good we can become at something in mere five years.

So my 2011 New Year goal-setting tip is to be more patient with your yearly goals and more ambitious with your long-term ones.

It’s not only about fulfilling goals

2010-12-30T10:36:00.000Z

I have been actively setting goals for a good six years. Most of the time the smart goals I have written down, have also come true. Actually almost without an exception they have come true. But not always I have been content with the end result. A different man has arrived to the finish line.

I think this is one key idea to remember when setting New Year goals. It’s not so much about fulfilling goals, but how will the pursuit of these goals change you as a person. So think twice before you firmly commit to any objective.

Sometimes it's not about running across the country, but also about finding yourself.

Vent Week – Stop being so negative

2010-12-28T09:47:00.000Z