Ikigai 4.0 – Flourishing Me

Last year 2017, I took a flight trip to go see the Total Solar Eclipse at the Oregon Eclipse festival. On the flight there, as I browsed through the inflight movies, I found a Japanese move called Honnōji Hotel. It was a very interesting move to me, as it is the only movie I have come across takes up the concept of Ikigai. A concept that I have applied to myself for many years. A concept of finding your passion, your mission, your profession and your vocation in life and combining it all together to your “true purpose” in life — Your Ikigai.

The Ikigai model has also been circling around in a viral way over the internet during last couple of years and it has been mentioned by World Economic Forum as one of their top posts of 2017. So it’s only fitting that I write this on my first trip to Japan, on my way to first Tokyo and then Kyoto and the World Shift Kyoto Forum 2018, where we are going to talk about questions and models just like this. And I think is time for an upgrade to the Ikigai model. So here I present to you the upgraded version that I call Ikigai 4.0 or Flourishing Me.

Ikigai 4.0 — Flourishing Me — Michael Sillion aka Captain Future

 

I have spent the last 6 years of my life studying and redefining my identity as a Captain of Spaceship Earth. I didn’t know it from the beginning, but Jason Silva later put words and a name in my mind for the identity I was looking for all along, all based on the quote from Buckminster Fuller quote:

“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully, nor for much longer, unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.” ~ Buckminster Fuller

The name and identity itself came into fruition during a Case Clinic at a coaching circle in the ULab mooc, where the name and the identity Captain Future was born.

For me, this was a pivotal moment. I have long been experimenting and playing with lots of different identities, titles and roles for the previous 4 years since I quit my job as a Systems Architect in the IT world. Still, I have been playing with roles and identities my whole life as a daydreamer and RPG player and game-master. But now it became much more real as I started to get custom embroidered T-Shirts with different titles on them like one of my favorites: “Holistic Thinking Ninja”.

During all these years I played with different models for doing so and most prominent was, of course, the Japanese model called Ikigai.

Ikigai  –  Image: Toronto Star

Society 3.0 and 4.0

The more I learned about and dwelled into Holistic Systems Thinking it became clear that none of the models didn’t cut it and Ikigai is more suited for the “competition-based” Industrial Economy world that Otto Scharmer calls World 2.0 or Society 2.0 in this excellent article: 4.0 Lab: Inventing the Future of Food, Finance, Health, Ed, & Management.

The world we are currently living in and constructing is the networked Society 3.0 that are so well described in Joshua Cooper’s book The Seventh Sense and by others like Seth Godin and John Hagel. A world where we are connecting and building social capital with bonding, bridging and linking.

The next step in our Civilization and Society will be a transition period into something entirely new. Like nothing we have never witnessed here on Planet Earth before. Otto Scharmer calls it Society 4.0 where awareness based systems-thinking will be part of how we do things together.

There is an excellent talk called The Transition from 2017 where Jordan Greenhall, Daniel Schmachtenberger and Forrest Landry talk about how we start prototyping this future with sense-making, compassion and systems-thinking.

Ikigai 4.0

In all this I think the Ikigai model is very outdated, so I started thinking and prototyping an updated model more suitable for today’s networked society 3.0 and tomorrows awareness based society 4.0. After a year of experimentation and prototyping, I have landed in an updated model I call “Flourishing Me”. A model to help people find their role, identity and support-structure for endeavours in co-creating and co-shaping a sustainable (or regenerative depending your preferred word choice) and flourishing tomorrow.

It’s all about adapting and exploring what role you can play in today’s society and moving into the transition period of tomorrows transformation of civilization. This is more explained in The Transition talk mentioned above.

I have structured it fittingly into 5 “flower-petal” fields. The 5 fields are:

1 –  💫 Enchanting  –  Flow States  –  Curiosity  –  Love
2  – 🚀 Level Up  – Mastery – Kick Ass At  – Augment
3  –  ⛩ Dojos  – Events  – Mentors  – Wisdom – Lifelong-learning
4  – 🖖 Enablers –  Network  –  Friends  – Family  – Resources  –  Time  –  Ambassadors
5  –  🌍 Value Creation  – Make Flourish  – Society –  Ecosystems Thinking - - Why?

Here I have chosen several labels on each field for your brain to more be able to reframe and keep a dynamic adaptive awareness around each field. And keep in mind that this is a prototype, and are so for the reason, that we should keep treating both the future and your role in it, as a prototype or betaversion in constant flux and transformation.

There are no chosen order to the fields and you can revisit and iterate each field as many times as you wish. Here is a “brief” description of each field and what you should think about as you apply the model to yourself. So take a big sheet of paper and start drawing your own flower of you:

1  –  💫 Enchanting  –  Flow States  –  Curiosity  – Love

What do you love?
What do you find enchanting?
What puts you into flow-states?
What are you naturally curious about?

What can you spend hours reading about in books or online or watch in YouTube clips?
What puts a spell on you?

Start this exercise to write down what you are curious about. Try to find at least 20 things and gladly over 50. If you think this is hard you have to start splitting up the one thing you are curious about into smaller and smaller subgroups.

Then in this field, you can put down everything that you are truly curious about. You also put things here that put you into various kinds of flow-states. If you want to know more about flow, check out the best book of 2017 called Stealing Fire with Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal or start with one of the many interviews with them.

Curiosity is a curious thing. Some parts of it is a skill. Something that you can train at and get better at. There are also 2 types of curiosity. General curiosity and deep down curiosity.

Call it what you like. There is also the myth about passion. That it is something you just can go find. Passion in most cases is something that you grow. Something that you nurture. Ken Robinson call it “Finding Your Element”. It is also that. It is many ways. If you haven’t found yours yet, or grown it. You can still do it. And you can change it and go and explore new endeavors. You just have to learn how to see and how to listen for it or them, like in my case because I have many.

Some will give you the advice to double down on just one or two things in life to become a master of and that can be true for many of us. Especially when you grow in levels and becomes older. It is also true that we need many more renaissance people who can dabble in many fields and not get lost so that they can connect the dots for others. To become system-thinkers and navigators for the rest of us.

In all cases we must strive to seek wisdom in whatever we choose to do and turn into full-time sense-makers and storytellers for the all things encounter in our journey.

Go make enchanting things.

2  – 🚀 Level Up –  Mastery –  Kick Ass At  – Augment

What do you want to get better at?
What do you want to become the best in the world at?
In what niche do you want to become the “go to person”?
What do you kick ass at?

What are you adapting to in an ever-changing world?
What do you wish you could do?
Where can we enhance and augment you?

In what things do you realize that no matter how expert you think you are there is still more to master than anyone can do in a lifetime?

This section is of course coupled together with your Enchanting section. Just like all sections are coupled together in some way. Think of what you actually train becoming better at or want to become better at. And are there things that you are good at or thought that you were good at that you have abandoned, with for lack of opportunity or lack of finding them enchanting in any way?

Are there any masters or skillsets that you admire or that you can mirror or remix from?

And this leads us directly to the next section of, in what Dojo (learning place) do you level up these skills?

3  –  ⛩ Dojos  –  Events  – Mentors  –  Wisdom  –  Lifelong-learning

Do you practice lifelong-learning in any way?
Where do you go to get you daily price of whatever you are trying to master?
Who is your mentors?

What type of events do you attend to and and how do make sure to level up in some way on each of them?
Do you practice things by doing and prototyping, or do you practice by practicing? Like with a personal trainer.

What does your Dojo look like?

And most importantly, do you surround yourself with the right kind of people in every episode and situation in your life?

For a long time, we have used schools to prepare our young for life as productive society members. And we have thought that both the nuclear family and in some ways schools can make us into model citizens that will live out a fulfilling and “productive” life. When we all now know that it takes a village to raise a child. And we also know that our brains stay plastic and susceptible to change for learning new skills and forming new neuron connections our entire lives. And we can even unlearn all un-favorable skills and behaviors we don’t like. And it is actually the un-preferable other way around, so we have to be careful and considerate in this.

Whatever we spend time on and trains, we become better at. That goes for all types of behaviours and skills. The rate and quality at which we do this are also extremely variable it turns out.

That is why we have to make sure that we seek out and adopt the very best approach to everything in life. We have to find the right Dojo, the right environment and the right master for anything. Be it everything from a simple app to actually go train for a master for our entire lives until we surpass them.

It is clear that we must rethink and redesign our entire society to include Dojos of all kinds and places, to better ourselves. Here I think there is a great opportunity for all public libraries all over the world to step into this role in an active way. To become the Dojos of Tomorrow.

4  - 🖖 Enablers  –  Network  –  Friends  –  Family  – Resources  -  Time  –  Ambassadors

Who are the friends, colleges, family members that you spend the most time with?
Do you have the right kind of backbone support to do all the things you were meant to do?
What do you need to make the next leap on your journey?

Who is your ambassadors who promote and speaks well of you?
Are you a member of the right networks or “Gatelands”?
Do you know the right Gatekeepers in your Gatelands (Networks) or the Gatelands you are trying to get into?

Do you make friends with people?
What relationships do you nature?
Are there any specific resources or facilities you need access to?

This used to be the classic question what can you get paid for doing? We now discover that we live in a world that is much more complex than just trying to answers that question straight out. Everything is connected in our now global world in some way, shape or form.

The classic way of living as a mammal and later like homo sapience on our planet, used to be to fulfill the now mythical Maslow’s pyramids of needs. Or not. Well, the whole model is very enticing if you don’t look to close. If you look closer it feels very painted over our human spirit with a very western, industrial society type of paint. And now we are swimming in the very virtual paint of the internet, digital networks, exponential tech and social media tools… to paint it over even further. One could go insane just thinking about it. And that’s just what we are starting to do in a very more rapid way. What Joshua Cooper Ramo calls the “Insanity challenge” of the 21st century.

So how to live in this world and not drown?

Add to that all the recent science of emotions and consciousness of what is really going on inside our brains. And when we mesh this together you have to actually navigate the world to fit you into it with all the other fields in this model, with endless opportunities and finite amount of time to do it on.

Yes we have to think very carefully about where all our enablers are in this world. And ask for help here. Ask for a lot of help. And then it also goes with without saying that you should help all that ask you for help in kind.

The meaning of life is 42 — “For Two” — We do it together! — Douglas Adams

5  –  🌍 Value Creation  –  What can you make Flourish  –  Society  – Ecosystems Thinking  –  Why?

Why?
Like Simon Sinek says: Start with why!

So sorry if you have gotten this far! You now have to answer this questions and then go back and redo everything from scratch. Just kidding. Or am I?

Why do anything?

In the world and time that came before us, many people have done just about anything, both good and bad throughout the ages. And it has still taken us to the point in society where we are today. We now live in global scale Civilisation. And we do so in millions of tribes, companies, organizations, societies and nations states. We consume endless resources, like they were anything but. And we pollute and rearrange complete ecosystems and habitats in a rapid and often catastrophic rate like we have never done before. This is all part of win-lose finite game mechanics that has taken us where we are today at the speeding rate we have done it. But the roads fork here.

We have to think and act very carefully when we chose what fork to embark on next. Because it is a choice. And it’s a collective global scale choice. A choice we have to make in a new and collaborative way that we have never done before. Or else we switch to a lose-lose game where every one loses and we crash our civilization into something we don’t want it to be… or we go extinct alltogether.

And all this we have start asking questions both on a societal level and on your own personal level like in this model.

So Why?

What does a better world look like to you?
How can you make sense of what is happening?
What do you wanna make flourish?

What can you make happen when you connects all your other fields together?
What value do you bring to the table?
What value are destroying or disrupting in doing so? (What is “the Shadow reaction” of what you are creating?)

What or who are you an ambassador for?
What part of a greater puzzel and system(s) are you operating in?

Flourishing Me

And in the center of it all is you. The worlds most perfect being. Just kidding. We have to go at this model with great awareness as not to become to ecocentric and instead see that we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Like Otto Scharmer says: To go from Ego to Eco!

So when you start connecting the dots of the mental model that is you, there can now emerge something that is the future possibility of you. It is here you should meditate on yourself. What can you become in relationships to it all?

Start Small or Big!

I know I went a little far out on the elaboration on these fields. And that is okay. If you just want to start small and at least start answering the basic questions on some of the fields that is okay. That is what I have done during the last 6 years. And I am in no way done asking my questions or answering them. And that is how the model goes. You are never done. Always lots of room for improvement. Let’s keep it that way.

So you can go about it any way you like. The world needs you to start thinking and taking this questions seriously at least. Or you can go the silly route and just make up a bunch of silly or made up answers for each part and see where that takes you. There is nothing more serious than silliness if we are going to take the creative path out of this and into a future where all of us can find our role and identity. If we start enabling all of us, we are sure to find those people that in a stroke of genius can find the first thread of a solution to a global challenge.

❤️🌍😃

And last and most importantly, we can never do this alone. We do it together! Seek out and surround yourself with the people that inspires you.

We can all become crew-members of Spaceship Earth! Each one of us has an important role to play in building better flourishing tomorrow. Let’s find yours.

Let’s do this!

With Love From
Michael Sillion  –  Captain Future

The Hour Of Need

Thank god I was able reach you in time. I write you in most desperate hour of need. As I look out the window I urgently think of the path ahead and threats moving in on me. Our quest that are before us is the biggest in humanities entire history. We are going to redesign an entire civilization. This is also a great opportunity for you and me. I’ve come over some key ingredients that will take us leaping into this future way ahead of everybody else…

All I need is your bank-account number and I can start transferring …

Co-Creating The Future at the first Burning Man Week event

Put Words To Your Thoughts

Just kidding. This is my beginning of new quest that many friends new and old begins on this day. Well it is actually several quests. The first one is the #Blogg100 challenge that me and many others jump on again this year where I will be sharing my story on this quest. It will be full my written thoughts and insights combined with some audio- and video blogs of the same. We will do this every day for the coming 100 days. Do join in this challenge. It’s okay to start late. The most important thing about blogging is that you write for yourself by putting words to your thoughts. In that process your thoughts become so much clearer and crystallized.

The first year I did this in 2013 really changed my life to the better. I found a sense of purpose and direction into the future that I am still navigating. This would later result that in the autumn of 2015 I redefined my role as Captain Future. A Future-captain. A person who helps others in navigating the future we want and setting their direction into this future. I did this in taking the #ULAB MOOC while pre-sensing my own future with the help of my coaching circle.

Co-Creating The Future

The other quest that starts today for me and others is the #BurningManWeek in Stockholm and the Burning Man European Leadership Summit. This week is all about we can take what is best for the co-creating and participatory culture of Burning Man and apply that in creating new form of innovation, leadership and democracy.

This is also the first official start this year for me, in our common theme this year in #PrototypingTheFuture. We will do this at a lot of great events in what we call the Impact Journey. It will have its cresendo in October with Nordic Impact Week in San Franciscio. More on that in coming episodes.

My part in this talking to people why and how we actually do this. I do this in all my channels like this blog, my podcast #Framtidspodden (The Future Pod) and my new audio and video show called #TheCaptainFutureShow

The Fire Bird

At the Burning Man Week we are also going to burn a big wooden Phoenix

The Burn of the Phoenix is gonna take place on Saturday 18:00 for the #BurningMan European Leadership Summit and Stockholm #BurningManWeek.

The #FireBird 🔥🦅 is also the symbol for the new #TibetanNewYear. It’s a symbol for turbulent times – Both challenges and opportunities in store for us 💥🌈

Let’s make 2017 a year where we move forward into the future. We do that to #CoCreate The Future and #PrototypingTheFuture as we go ❤️🌍🚀

/Lord Sillion
I’m Captain Future

Storytelling Into The Future

Welcome Traveler 4488 …

Can you use a narrative from Science Fiction to change our “real” Narrative?

As I watch the fantastic Travelers series on Netflix I jump up and down in my sofa thinking on my own mission – our mission. The mission to build a better world here on Planet Earth. Like in the “hypothetical” that I was sent here from another planet to make planet Earth the best place to live and visit in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

It is a Narrative that has been in my mind at least since I was 15. And I have used it many times to get my bearing for my compass into the future and as a silly “What If?” Question.

The question I get in my mind so frequently is this:

Am I alone in thinking about my Narrative in this way?

Clearly, the makers of great Science Fiction and other awesome stories think a lot about the messages they bury into their stories. My whole life I have been going alone not having anybody to talk about how to use this for real. Even now in my newfound quest as a Change Maker in a big global network of change makers I have yet to find many people, who get’s as excited as I do when I watch stories and then immediately what to discuss the story behind the story. Surely there must be a whole network of writers to the many great Sci-Fi series like the Travelers, Continuum, Orphan Black, Black Sails, The OA, Battlestar Galactica and of course Star Trek and others that meet at events and talk about this, or is there?

Must I move there to talk about this? Can I host events here in Sweden about it?

What I’m referring to now is that I would love to put together and host a very special and cool launch and premier event for the world premiere of Ghost In then Shell movie. The old Ghost in the Shell (GitS) movie from 1995 and of course  The Matrix  movie that was directly inspired by it both changed my life in so many ways. I now want to bring this conversation into the open – How new movies and TV-series can change the life of so many more people.

Or is it me being too silly for my own good and just think, that this is way cooler than it is?

Then we have futurist like Jason Silva that just makes me think otherwise. He really get’s in a creative spin and mind rush when watching some really good storytelling.

Watch or listen to Jason Silva on Impact Theory about it.

The Myth Gap

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And in his latest book, The Myth Gap and his talk on the RSA Alex Evans gives a very compelling insight into why storytelling is so important. He even quotes my favorite author Terry Pratchett on the subject:

People think that stories are shaped by people when actually it’s the other way around – Terry Pratchett 

It’s about this time in history – our must crucial yet. This is the time where we set the story and “The Myth” about who we are as a species and what we want our future societies to become.

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Who Are We?

Both Travelers and Ghost In The Shell ask really profound questions about who are as individuals and as a species and who we can be and where we are going.

Questions I have been pondering my whole life. Questions I want dig deeper into to find our quest. Questions I want to lift up to the surface to talk more often and vividly about. That’s what I do as Captian Future 🙂

Sillion Valley here I come!

As I now finally launches my company Sillion Valley I at least want to dig deeper into this what I can do as Lord Sillion – Capitan Future.

I will dedicate the whole of 2017 to see how I can apply “Ontological Design” in using stories and conversations about how we actively design the society and future we want. To be “A Force For Good“, like Dalai Lama and Daniel Goleman puts it in his latest book by the same name. To totally change the conversation this year.

What we focus on and what we talk about is what will happen. It’s how the brain works. And lately, the conversation has been about special events and special people who we don’t want.

Let’s instead focus on what we want. Start testing what we can do. To prototype it into existence. Build a global network of trust with Change Makers – Rebels – Guardians – Stewarts and Captains of Spaceship Earth.

Who is with me?

Who wants to create cool events around Sci-Fi and “What If?” Questions with me?

Lord Sillion
/I’m Captian Future

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Also, listen to me and Michael Kazarnowicz talk about Ghost in the Shell in my podcast Framtidspoden

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Are We The Passengers? Or The Crew?

Watching Passengers I can see the parable to our story.
Are we the Passengers?
Or are we the Crew?

Just like my last text on The Revenant this is also about being slumbering awake or wide awake. My movie reviews is usually about what I take with me after watching a good story – The open and the hidden messages and parables.

Narration and Narrative

Much can be said for the movie’s story – the Narrative – and the Narration. I will go into deep thoughts of what spurred me and what I take with me as I narrate this to myself 🙂

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!

We humans have lived on earth for a long time. We do so in an ecosystem with gazillions of symbiotic creatures living both inside us and around us in “Nature”. It is only now in the last 100 years that we have new narrative to consider. That just like the passengers of Avalon we are traveling on a spaceship through space. Most of us are asleep in the sense that this is not included in our daily narration nor in our journeys, missions and quests in life.

The fact that a critical failure, in they way a planetary ecological system works, will be the end many species continued existence as we now it today. Life will go on. We on the other hand may or may not survive a big extinction event. An especially the way live and the system we have curated and given birth to over the last couple of thousand years. Namely our societies, cultures and our entire civilization.

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We Live On A Ship

Some have been half awake to the fact that we human are now the biggest force in shaping the future for life on the spherical rock going around the sun. And smaller group have even be “awoken” to and are trying to internalize the narration that this is indeed a ship we live on – going through space. A Spaceship. And just like both the real life versions like ISS or the Apollo missions to the Moon and the numerous versions in fictional stories of Space Fantasy and Science Fiction, we need to treat it like a ship. A ship with functions like life-support and climate-control. We also have a whole crew of species “running” the ecosystem. There is also us Humans. Who have just stumbled half awake onto the bridge and accidentally started pressing a lot of buttons in what Otto Scharmer calls “Organized Irresponsibility“. Now wide awake we Captains of the Bridge has to come up with a way not to crash or self destruct our ship before the time runs out.

Sounds like any kind of movie you are familiar with?

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Wake Up!

Well Passengers certainly got me thinking in these terms. It also raises some other interesting “What If?” questions. Like: What is right to do? In the beginning Jim is faced with the question if it is right to wake Aurora. Then later we all learn that he should awoken many more because they would have been doomed anyway. So what first seemed selfish and questionable later turned out to be essential to the brink of being fatal. Back to that soon.

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So what is mine and your quest? Our quest?

Who shall we awake from the dream that everything is going to be okay? (or “Not” okay). In an awake state we can narrators of our own life. To make the change we want to see in the world.

Here we have heroes like Elon Musk, with his awakening projects and companies like Tesla and Space X, being a big role model how we can do this on a larger scale and still within the narration of the old capitalist system. We have Narrator and entertainer Leonardo DiCaprio awaken us with both factional stories like The Revenant and the documentary Before The Flood. Injecting us with inspiration to do more and be fully awake and alive in our surroundings.

It’s Skill Time!

What are your skills as crew-member? And what skills do you want to learn to be part of the journey on this ship?

I think we both need to specialize in deep-skills that it take years to master. In an ever evolving dance of lifelong learning and adapting.

And we need the type of Meta skill that Joshua Cooper Ramo calls the Seventh Sense. The ability to se and understand the networks world we live in and that are on the horizon of the future.

And for that we have all the tools and skills that Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer has bundled up as Theory U. The skills of Presencing, Crystalizing and Prototyping the future we want to emerge.

Evolving The Future

Going back to Jim and his decision only to awake Aurora could have been a much better decision to wake more people. Well he tried to wake the crew but failed in his defence. Still with the proper training of Presencing skills he could have sensed a future coming where he definitely would have needed a hole team to prevent the missions from failing and everyone from dying.

How do we create and evolve the networks, hubs, events and meetups? Where all this happens? How do we create positive Social Fields – Collective Behavior Patterns? So that we can take the collaborative steps in ensuring that this spaceship runs well and continues to evolves us and all living things into a prosperous flourishing future?This is where I see my role – and my need to learn – the skills needed – to nourish this Awakening. To become a Evolutionary Leader. And you can too by studying some of the:

[Seven Competencies of Evolutionary Leadership as Foundational Framework for Developing Designers of Alternative Economic Futures]

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Does anything of what I have said so far intrigue you?
Does it resonate?
What are your thoughts?

It sure intrigues me. That is why call myself Captain Future. A silly way to talk about the need for a crew of Spaceship Earth. And it’s not a solo job. I need a core team of crew members and they need me. And we need many mote teams working in unison to solve our missions and quests.

Are you with me?

/Lord Sillion
I’m Captain Future

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Oh and what would you do to see a star up close?

Before The Flood

Are you like me wide awake and slumbering awake at the same time? What is your wakeup call? Here I will talk about some of mine this year. And Leonardo DiCaprio is part of 4 of them all tied together. The Revenant – His UN Speech – Before The Flood and A World Unseen.

Join me in things like #ULAB and Evolutionary Leadership. So that we are prepared to enter the bridge of Spaceship Earth!

Who Is The Revenant?

After just finishing watching The Revenant I now connect beck to my thoughts I got from watching the documentary with the same and amazing Leonardo DiCaprio – Before The Flood – I followed up by watching the documentary made about the making of The Revenant and about the journey it took to make it – both physically, cognitively, mentally and foremost spiritually. Its called A World Unseen and can be watch free online.

And I am now lastly watching Leo’s second speech at the UN from this year 2016, as the UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change. This speech also powerfully ends the Before The Flood movie and I was moved to tears listening to him speaking about our organised irresponsibly of transforming our only home world and only way of staying alive having a prosperous, flourish and just society and civilization.

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This is a wakeup call for us all. We are now having the hottest winter ever at the North pole and 2016 was the hottest year on Planet Earth, that we know of, since the dawn of man. Some of us has been awake and seeing this with clear eyes for at least the 40 last years. Still during 2016 there is a whole new movement and awakening all over the world.

Tools For Crew-Members

We all have new tool and point of intersection to use, that is also unprecedented in human history. Suddenly we can talk, make plans, meet, rally and take action all over the globe. What was only the privilege of kings, generals and priests of the olden world is now available to us all to use and transform the world with. We now have a global apparatus to take the reins and the helm of this Spaceship traveling around the Sun.

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Can we connect to what it is to truly be alive on a planet as part of an amazing ecosystem? Can we take parts of the ecosystem with us to another planet and become multi planetary?

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As so many of us have woken up this year I have seen many pledges to make 2017 the year that so many more of us connect, stand up and actually change the course of history. With all our problems and challenges all over the globe reaching critical awareness we can now make sense of what we are doing collectively.

I have spent the entirety of 2016 learning many of the tools we need to make this change real, through courses like #ULAB with Otto Scharmer and the Evolutionary Leadership community. Are you like me at the forefront of leading the “The Future That Emerges” please join me and other in planning and doing how to best make 2017 a where get a new direction into the future.

They do also talk about some of the solutions at the Before The Flood site.

We run our Spaceship Earth the way we want it to run before the flood – we do it Before The Flood.

Join me on “The Bridge”

I am Captain Future

Navigator of the Future

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My Earth

Join me and the other future heroes as we embark on the endeavour to create a better future on Spaceship Earth!

Awe of Nature

I’m having one of my biggest moments of awe in my life. It has lasted 10 hours and has really culminated at the end. I’m flying to San Francisco from Amsterdam. We have been flying first leaving the fascinating flat Holland by the sea. And just when we where passing over Greenland the clouds disappeared and we get to see the amazing Greenland glaciers that are quickly melting away and all the Icebergs in the fjords.

Greenland Glacier

Then it was mostly clouds all the way to Alberta square farmlands. Then we saw them. The Canadian Rocky Mountains. So beautiful and endless. Then after some more farmlands in Washington state the large Volcanos stared to appear both close and by the horizon. Just awesome peaks standing over the rest of the horizon all white on top.

Canadian Rocky Mountains

We truly live on beautiful planet. That is why I choose Earth to live on. To make sure that it stays a beautiful place to visit in the galaxy. Our utmost communal challenge is to become Stewards, Guardians, Captains and All crew members of Spaceship Earth as soon as possible.

Volcano

My Core

I’m just taking into my core of this amazing experience so far. So much awe and so much to work for. And now I’m going to stay in San Francisco for 9 more days during the whole of Nordic Impact Week. I’m going to meet many more Future Heroes and Future Captain who understand the gravitas of the expedition and endeavour we are about to embark upon.

For me it becomes ever more clear that this is why I choose to live on Earth in this interesting time of history. To build a global movement of changemakers. To connect and elevate others. That’s why I find the Theory U – U.Lab course: Transforming Business, Society and Self so fascinating and right in time to spread the tools to make sustainable change.

/Lord Sillion
Your Future Captain

–

Matt Damon – Our Future Quest

Matt Damon is favorite actor of mine, as to may others, as will be come clear in a few seconds. Not only has he done some awesome roles in some awesome movies like Good Will Hunting, Rounders, The Informant and The Martian. He is also awesome in real life, where he uses his powers to do good in the world. So when I came across this commencement address at MIT this year 2016 my mind was blow away, how he articulated our challenges and our opportunities to solve them.

Movie Magic!

Movies and storytelling is more important than you may think. I would go as far as to say that they are the number one source of shaping our future here on Spaceship Earth. I have talked a lot about the power of storytelling before: The Storytelling Animal.

This is of course one of the reasons we look up to people like Matt. Also like someone said in the comment to the speech: Matt is far better at leading us into the future than what traditional leaders and politicians are. And still he makes it very clear that he isn’t running for office. No one sane person wants to dedicate their entire life into “gaming” that old system.

Could we then use movies and science fiction to show and tell people about alternative ways to lead and run Spaceship Earth? I most definitely think so.

The Simulation Argument

Do we live in a simulation or is the entire universe a simulation?

It’s topic that has come up several times this year. Elon Musk mentioned it and here Matt Damon refers to a fascinating conversation on the topic with Neil deGrasse Tyson this spring that I have written about before too: #HackTheFuture.

I also just read this article on BBC on it today: We might live in a computer program, but it may not matter.

Be The Best You

Here is Matt’s take on it:

There is a possibility we live in The Matrix.
That our entire universe is a simulation. What to do then?
Do really interesting things so the simulators don’t shut you down.
What if the universe isn’t a simulation?
Either way … What we do matters … What we do affects the outcome.
Because this world, real or imagined, has some problems that we need to drop everything to solve.

And by that he means what I’m doing and talk so warmly about. We have to be interesting. To be the best version of ourselves. Constantly levelling up ourselves through curiosity, the right attitude and lifelong learning.

By Hacking our own future!

Turn Towards The Problems You See

Turn Towards the problems you see and look them in the eye.

What are you going to do about them?

Look at the world and see it for what it is.

Hack The Future!

We don’t have all the answers. And that is ok. It is a lifelong quest to find new insights and answers.
Judge me by how good my good ideas are, not how bad my bad ideas are.
You got to suit up in your armour. You to be ready to sound like a total fool.
Not having an answer isn’t an embarrassment, it’s an opportunity.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Continue to listen and do lifelong learning.
Keep listening.
The world needs our ideas, good and bad.
Listen to online lectures and pods. Just keep listing to every part of society.
Democracy demands compromise even when you are 100% right.

Not ever problem has tech solution. We can’t science the shit out of every situation.

There is more at stake today than in any story ever told.
And how lucky we are the we are here and we are us.
Turn towards the problem of your choosing. Drop everything and solve it 🙂

– Matt Damon

–

So Simulation or not, there is now question what we have to do …

I invite you to join me in this quest to build a better future. There are so many quest we can go and solve together. And many of them are urgent. They are critical if we as humans are going to continue to live here on our Spaceship. Or else we get off at the next stop. And it’s cold and lonely out in space away from our beloved former home.

I choose to believe that the universe loves me and that we live in some kind of Matrix, where I can decide my own future and how I act and what I do. My own form of Free Will 🙂

–

/Lord Sillion
I am your Future Captain of Spaceship Earth

–

 

Peace In Our Time

Peace In Our Time – Famous words that is somewhat difficult to live by and make happen. And an absolute must in the long-term if we, as humans, are going to continue to live on our beloved Spaceship orbiting the sun.

We Come In Peace – To Plant our Flags of Peace

Mission Peace

It was about a week before the big event here in Varberg on August 27th 2016, that I was contacted by Anna Linton. She is one of 2 founders and the Creative Manager for the big peace concert called Notes For Peace. The Challenge was this:

During the day before the evening concert, there are to be lots of activities spread out on 8 stations around the fortress in Varberg. There were also to be a quiz walk with a stop on each station. Beside the ordinary quiz question on each station, there where also to be a dialog question around peace on each station. Now Anna needed a Conversation Hosts on each station to get the dialog going.

All The Conversation Hosts – Christian Dahlqvist – Daniel Stintzing – Michael Sillion – Jörgen Welter – Christian Grönlund -Anna Numell – Steve Cook -Kajsa Jeppson – Rebecca Tomstad – Lisa Vallo – Martin Jordö

Was I up to the task to find suitable hosts for each station that would spread joy and love?
Yes I was!

I reached out in my network and after a couple of days I had a made a team of 11 amazing people. I’m all for building a community around each event I go to, so I started a Facebook chat with all the Conversation Hosts and got them to answer 2 of my favorite questions:

1.Why did you chose Planet Earth to live on?
2.And what do you have burning passion for?

The answers I got made me all warm and fuzzy inside ❤

How did it go then? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is a big topic and I must go deeper into my inner parts first.

Tony Stark: Isn’t that the end-goal? Peace in our time! – Avengers: Age Of Ultron

What Is Peace Then?

Yes, what is peace and how do we achieve it?

There are 2 meanings of the word peace:

1.freedom from disturbance; tranquillity.
2.a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.

I call them Inner and Outer Peace. We start with Inner Peace because I, as many others, believe that to have true Peace and Prosperity we have to start from the inside.

Whoa, wait? Now you through another word in there, prosperity?

Yes, I will come to that in a moment.

Finding Inner Peace is no easy task. For starters it is not something that is either on or of. It is a practice and a skill. Like the legend of the to wolves:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Or Yin & Yang that is featured so prominent in mine and my daughters new favorite movie:  Kung Fu Panda 3. It’s about finding oneselves true value and becoming a better version of oneself.

Master Oogway finding Inner Peace in Kung Fu Panda 3

Outer Peace then? The old definition of peace is the absence of war. The period between 2 wars. And for a long period in human history this has been the case. War and violence has been big part our history. But that is slowly coming to and end. Hearing Steven Pinker talk about his research and reading his book: The Better Angels of Our Nature, makes it clear that our modern society has never been so free of conflict ever before in history.

Here is what I think. I think that Outer Peace should no longer be the absence of war but the opposite of war. Not something we get when we are not fighting in some way our another but something we aspire to and work hard to achieve.

A new way of life. To build a better prosperous and flourishing society here on Planet Earth. Where we can all share the riches of our way of life and live in harmony with the fruits of a both socially, economically and ecologically sustainable society.

And it will always be struggle and journey to train in the skills needed to maintain such a society. Both on larger scale by finding Outer Peace between us and first foremost by staring in training and helping every citizen feeding their good wolf on the inside.

Peace is a skill we need to learn and become better at, and finally master in each and every generation born. – Lord Sillion

Is it like Alain de Botton says in this fantastic conversation: Design Matters. We are fragile human beings, that are barely holding it together under the surface. Civilisation is a thin veil.
Or isn’t it?
I think not.

One thing for sure is that every one of us can easily through a bone to the bad wolf now and again. And we know that it is not so much dictated how we are on the inside, but also in what company we are surrounded by. It is very easy to follow the tribe as a social animal.

And here in lies all of our responsibility. To be the good company of others.

To speak up and act when we hear, see and feel that something is not living up to the way we want our society to be.

Varberg Calling

My “interest” in Peace probably started when I was young. Learning of the importance kindness from the comic Bamse. Later in my thirties and came across The Scarry Guy who had a very unique way being on a mission to create World Peace.

My real journey began late in 2014 when Started working on project called Varberg Calling For Peace celebrating the 100 year anniversary of peace conference held here in Varberg in 1915 that in some way or from laid the foundation for the League of Nations.

We helped many interesting projects come to life in the name of peace and I also for the first time came into contact with Mark Nelson and his concept of Peace Innovation Lab.

Here you can here me talk with Jon & Malin about Varberg Calling for Peace in Swedish.

Together! We create the Future Together!

Prosperous Profiteering
[We Come In Peace ;)]

Of course one of that absolute largest reasons we still have war in the world today is the Military–industrial complex and other Companies and Conglomerates that profiteer on selling stuff to people with fear in their hearts. People who have fed their bad wolf a long time, both on the receiving and severing end of the deal.

The reasons we are so good at killing each others in some parts of the world is that we have the tools to do it, on a mass scale. And once we have done it, it escalates into a bad spiral with people feeding their bad wolves.

There is no denying that when there is profit to be made on a large-scale, on war-profiteering, there we will always be some bad apples willing to do it. And as long as we let them continue and that they have the money and power, to continue buying their permission to do it, they will continue.

One way to protest is to continue to say no and no, again and again. We have done that for many years and it’s a slow progress.

The other way that Mark suggest is that, we in an ever-increasing scale, make it more profitable to make money on making peace. We outcompete war. We invent ever more peace technologies that connects the world and make it easier to feed the good wolf in both ourselves and our fellow tribesmen and human beings.

All we want is, not to be alone and feel connected to the people around us. Both in peace and war. And I don’t know about you, but I much prefer connecting in Peace.

And it’s not that we lack suffering and challenges that brings us closer. Because according to Sebastian Junger (the author of Tribe) we never feel so connected and close together as when we are faced with a threatening environment or challenge.

We can just chose, to put the real challenges of living 9 billion people together on a Spaceship going around the sun. With enough for everyone, to live an interesting life.

We have so many fuck-ups and man-made problems to deal with for now to go around the world, that we have our hands filled for years solving our 17 global challenges. So let’s concentrate on them. Is it going to get a lot worse before it gets better or the other way around?

It’s time to Unfuck the world.

–

Peace Day [P-Day]

Now how did it go on the big P-Day here in Varberg. Notes For Peace as the event is called is continuation on the Varberg Calling For Peace project and was born during that process. And as such they made it into whole experience.

Inner Peace Yoga

It all started in the early morning with some morning yoga on one of our fabulous beaches in Varberg where everyone was invited to dress in Peace White. I and Daniel, one my fellow Conversation Host, where the brave souls who went early to a modernly chilly morning wind by the sea to do yoga barefoot in the soft sand. This fabulous grounded feeling alone made it worth it. And the awesome feeling to feel connected to other brave souls all clad in white by the sea was a feeling I will not soon forget.

Morning Yoga on the Beach all in white

Host Lunching

Then by noon it was time for all us host to get together with lunch to get to know each other and share our stories why went to create a better society together. Almost all them is people I have the privilege to get to know during my 5 year journey in becoming a Future Captain. Most of them did not know each other is was a very warm getting together lunch  where everyone could tell their story in response to my 2 questions above.

We all hugged and I felt truly connected to my fellow humans. ❤

Host Away!

Then it was time for our “Away mission”. All of my host got their own station with their own activity and questions to discuss with all the people taking the Quiz Walk. The stations or questions was as below. Feel free to comment below on what you feel and think.

1 Fairy Tale Time
This was some nice sofas where children and families read fairy tales together. Here we talked about our favorite music and why music is important to peace?

Christian on The Fairy Tale 

2 The future of Transportation
How can you make a better world with sustainable transportation?

Christian talking the future of electric vehicles

3 Our 17 Global Goals
This was a guide to UN’s 17 Global Goals.
What goals are important you and how do you want to work with achieving them?

4 Speakers Corner
At Speakers Corner there were some really inspiring people giving short 8 minutes talk on creating a better world all day. I was one of them. More on that below.
Here the question was: What people are important to you?

Daniel on important people

5 Bravery and Courage
This was the climbing cube station where we talked about bravery.
When are you brave?

6 Making Someone Happy
When did you make someone happy?

Steve & Martin about making people happy

7 Yoga & Mindfullness
The last 2 stations where at the our city beach in Varberg and here pole could attended family yoga and mindfulness also with their feet in the sand.
Question: How do you rest your mind and brain?

Anna at the Yoga beach

8 What Is Peace? & making Peace Flags
Here people could make their own peace flags and plant them in the sand. (Do you have a flag? Stealing Empires with the cunning use of flags – Eddie Izzard)
We talked about: How do you create Peace?

Kajsa talking about What is Peace? and making Peace flags

–

In the name of Peace
[Should we brand it peace?]

During the evening all we hosts got together again to eat and talk in the sunset on-top of the Fortress wall, all while the Peace Concert where warming up below. Our best conversation we had, was around the brand and name Peace itself. This was a big questing that we struggled with during our whole celebration year of Varberg Calling for Peace in 2015. Because as I say below many of the people involved in our projects and that showed up on our open call meetings, where not the people busy working making money and creating our common future. The very people we wanted to show up and take part in commercial projects creating our future.

To many peace is has its roots during the hippie- and peace-movements during the 60ties and the 70ties. World Peace is something that volunteers and help organisations are working with and not something business and people do in their daily work and activities. Peace Work is something that you do by giving charity.

The rest of the times we are busy working and doing our hobbies.

This is of course the big challenge as we build our future with all our collective thoughts and activities.

Peace and Prosperity will only come when we work on it full-time in our companies, communities, families and societies. Should we then call it Peace?

Or what should we call it?

Much of what we do when we build a better future,  some of us have chosen to call it Impact. Like Impact Investing, Impact Navigators, Impact Journey and the Nordic Impact Week we are going to now in September in San Francisco.

Is this a good word for Peace?

Even the artist have a hard time telling us what Peace is, as I will talk about now below.

All the hosts talking about what peace is and how do we create it?

The Main Chorus 

Now it was time the main event or The Main Chorus of the P-Day. (pun intended)

The event took place on really massive stage in front the Fortress and the sea in Varberg. Together with Stockholm Concert Orchestra and some of Sweden’s most cherished artists, when it comes to spreading the important message of love, took on the stage infront of a massive crowd.

The weather had been on top all day. After a couple of cold and rainy weeks we got 3 days of fantastic summer heat culminating on this day. All artist delivered some their best songs accompanied by the Stockholm Concert Orchestra. And the main treat for me and many of my geek friends was when the Orchestra played the whole Star Wars medley on their own. I had goosebumps all over my body and soul.

It was a perfect commentary and “What If?” question on war and peace. Can we only get peace by fighting a war to get it? Like our latest World War II. Or the rebellion in Star Wars? (Is the rebellion good or bad?) Is Peace worth dying for?  (when so many people die fighting other fights).

Notes For Peace – The Concert!

I had also spent the week leading up to P-Day watching a lot of content on love and war. Like Oliver Stone’s documentary series on what really happened with World War II. And Alain De Botton on Love. And of course listening to the fascinating book Tribe by Sebastian Junger.

And when it came to the artist they all shared their thoughts in peace. Peace is love. And it comes from your heart. So the consensus is that Peace starts with Inner Peace at least.

But what comes after? Like I have talked about above. If we are going to live in a world  of peace and prosperity we have to get so much better at doing it. How do we do that?

And that My friends some of us talked about on stage at Speaker Corner during the day:

–

Björn Natthiko Lindeblad – Am I my thoughts? And am I my flesh costume? 

I Want A Peace Of Your Mind!

Speakers Corner is warm place for me to talk about, because I am a Public and Keynote Speaker myself. I was give a spot to do a 8 minute talk on stage with many of my fellow speaking heroes like Micke Gunnarson and Björn Natthiko Lindeblad. I was really exited and wanted to deliver something extra on the subject on Peace. As I am a Future Captain and call my self Captain Future of [Framtidskapten in Swedish] I wanted to inspire people with tools and thoughts about how we create the future.

I gave a quick glance of my concept I have put together over the years that now finally has name 🙂

Lord Sillion asking how we create the future on Speakers Corner

SKATE into the Future

I have collected and curated thousands of hours of content on how become better versions of ourselves and create a better future for all of us. I wanted sum it up in one short model where I try to include everything important. Into a toolbox that I call SKATE into the Future.

My talk on stage: Lord Sillion – SKATE into the Future. Since we live on the side of Spaceship Earth – Steve choose to film it tilted 😉

Here you will get the very short and summed up model. I do workshops, seminars and keynote speeches on this topic as a Future Captain. Please join me in this quest.

[S]illy

To solve out problems we need to get creative and invent the future. Innovation & Creativity all starts with Silliness, Humor and Curiosity. In order get a great idea we need to have 100 silly ideas first. Eventually one of those ideas evolve into an awesome idea by having sex with other ideas. And it do that in company of other ideas.

Get Silly and have Silly ideas!
Laugh and get people around you into a happy and silly mode!
Be curious! Ask a lot of silly questions!

Steve being Silly

[K]ind

In Kindness I mean the skill and ability of empathy, compassion, mindfulness and happiness. The ability to feed the good wolf in oneself and others.

You all know people who are good at this skills when you meet them. And it is skill, because you can must train it, to be good at it, on daily basis.

It’s all about being kind to and aware of yourself, and your surroundings. By having an Open Heart, Open Mind and Open Will. Join in on the Ulab course this fall: Transforming Business, Society, and Self – Leading from an emerging future and learn these skills. And celebrate kindness.

[A]wesome

We can all be awesome at something, if we choose to. It takes practice and dedication. It’s part of doing lifelong learning and by realising we are never fully learned in a skill. It is also about finding what is true for ourselves. On how we can contribute to building a better society and future.

The pursuit of knowledge and awesomeness is a lifelong quest. In that quest we also transform ourselves, our mids and literally rewire our brains to new level of understanding ourselves and the world around us. I have written another great post on how we Level Up Our Minds.

Level up you Mind, Body and Heart in a lifelong quest towards Awesomeness!

[T]ogether

We are not alone. Well, many of us are today. But we are not supposed to be. We are a highly social animal that have lived in small to medium-sized tribes during our entire history, just until last 1oo years maybe. Then we were sold on the idea of individualism and living alone or in a nuclear family in a house by ourselves. Sure we go and work with others during they day but we all feel that there is something missing. We all feel it when we are on social media. Some say it’s strange to hug your smartphone the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do before you fall asleep. It is nothing strange with that. The smartphone is our connection to the tribe that our souls are missing.

This is the backside of our society. Loneliness, depression and suicide are on our biggest problems in our modern society. And we can fix it. Just becoming aware of it will start us thinking, talking and doing something about it.

All of our challenges, innovation and events we will do together. That’s how we do the future and win! 

I wrote along pies alone on me chasing it as my word: Together.

[E]levate & [E]xplore 

We are all procrastinators. And we all boost ourselves in the company of other great people. We are terrible at making good decisions on our own. They way to solve this is to spend time in the right company. Where we all inspire and lift each others up.

And when we all perform better and are held accountable for our actions, it is much easier to go out and explore a brave new path into a more prosperous future!

Elevate and challenge others to become the best versions of themselves and seek out the company of others who can elevate you in kind. And go out and explore a better path and direction into the future together!

Love – In The Name Of

Events like Notes For Peace is just the beginning of a trend towards a more prosperous future. Still it’s not going to be cakewalk either into the future. There are many people lock into the other arc of fear and feeding the bad wolf. But at least we get to celebrate with this big amazing events and getting together. They have their events in mass media and social media bubble spreading fear, hate and missinformation.

Note For Peace ended with all the artist singing U2’s – Pride (In the Name of Love)

We just have to make our events warmer, better, more often and spreading love in more that one way. So ….

Join in on the celebration towards a more peaceful society ❤

And thanks everyone embarking on this journey and exploration into our future!

Remember: SKATE into the future:

Be Silly!
Be Kind!
Be Awesome!
Be Together!
Elevate Others & Explore Our Emerging Future!

–

/Captain Future
Your Future Captain of Spaceship Earth

–

SKATE into the Future: Silly – Kind – Awesome – Together – Elevate & Explore

Attractive Mega Cities

The cities of today and the cities of tomorrow are being built all over the world. Some completely without afterthought and some go all in with tech, ecological sustainability and future foresight. Still almost every one of them lacks both design thinking in Beauty and Social Collision Density. What can we do about that?

What We Create – Create Us Back

With so many people living and moving into cities now and in the future, it’s a shame that so many cities are downright ugly.

Yes! Beauty of cities are not luck, nor in the eye of the beholder. Alain de Botton and the School of Life has put together an excellent guide to how we build beautiful cities. Many of our most beautiful cities were built during the renaissance. And it didn’t happen by accident. For them it was a philosophical mission. They knew that everything around us affect us and to get better citizens we have to put them in a better environment.

It is called Ontological Design – Everything we design, build and create -In turn design us back 🙂

So yes, we know how to do it, and yes, we can do it in modern times as well.

The challenge is 2 things:

1. The intellectual confusion around beauty
2. Lack of political will

–

Beauty –
And The Intellectual Confusion Around It 

We all now an ugly cities when we see it. And we all know a beautiful and attractive city when we see it as well. We even have scientific tourist data to support this claim.

Successful urbanism is never an accident
For the Renaissance it was a philosophical mission – Alain De Botton

The School of Life as put forth 6 things that we know makes a city attractive :

1. Order and Variety
2. Life on the streets
3. Compact
4. Orientation and Mystery
5. The right scale
6. Make it local

I highly recommend watching the entire clip and listen to Alain explain all of the 6 factors.

Political will

The second obstacle is the political will to set at rules and regulations to stop disastrous commercial developers, to get free hands on how to do things without too much afterthought at all. They all need a strong firm guidance in how they build properties that will make a city beautiful.

Our Cities has always been about glorifying the center of power. From the Temples and Castles of the olden world to today’s modern religious temples, our Towers of Capitalism, that in most cases are both alienating and ugly.

What will our temples of tomorrow look like and can we make them beautiful and inviting for all citizens?

We can make this happen. It is our cities. We all benefit from having beautiful cities from personal wellbeing to a flourishing tourist economy and a booming creative connection economy.

–

Mega Cities and The Connection Economy

And as we head into the future it becomes ever more apparent, that the emerging connected Mega Cites is the way many of us will live in. And then it also becomes ever more important who can build the coolest and most beautiful Mega Cities to live in. Both making the many smaller cities, that makes up one Mega City, more beautiful and making all the infrastructure, that connects them and resides in them, more beautiful as well.

The one who speaks best for that is Parag Khanna in the excellent talk at The RSA: Connectivity Is Destiny. We need to build more infrastructure and connections in and in-between our cities. Nations and borders won’t define our future. Connections and Mega-Cities will.

And let’s not forget to make all the infrastructure Beautiful as well!

Then we should really take on the responsibility to make it A New Renaissance in creating and build our future homes here on Spaceship Earth.

Thanks to Science Fiction and things like the Venus Project, we have been promised the cities in the future will look really cool indeed. Still I see new building being built all over Sweden looking really ugly or boring. Something must be done. And it is not just that. We have to design our cities to live in them for a creative future as well. One thing to take in mind is a thing called Collision Density.

Collision Density

To make our Cities and Mega Cities thriving in the future we have to take into account something called Collision Density. Something that several European Cities has going for the already like London, Barcelona and Berlin. It’s where there are dense creative city centers with lots of walkable areas and natural meeting points. Where creative people of the future like Artists, Thinkers, Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, Makers, Dreamers and World Changers can bump into each others both serendipitously and at lots of creative events.

This is easily done with lots of co-working places and enabling lots of cool meetups and events.

Bubbles and Cross-Fertilisation

It’s important that people can meet and get together both inside their own sphere of interest and outside it. It can be their profession or the hobbies or common interest in some form of Art, Culture, Game or Fitness that unites them. So it is possible to get this going even in smaller cities if there are strong communal breeding ground for some niches.

But at the same time is also important that the city design enables intertwingle between several bubbles to enable Cross-Fertilization and avoid group-think and stagnation. And that infrastructure enable fast, cheap and easy access between the cities that makes up a Mega City, so that people easily can visit other spheres of interest that aren’t local.

I would go as far as to say that make traveling between cities free or almost free using sustainable infrastructure.

So design Cities and Mega Cities that enable Collision Density, Easy Travel and Cross-Fertilisation.

Tomorrowland And The Renaissance 

Do we want to live in cities that looks like the one in my favorit movie Tomorrowland or do we want some modern version of the beautiful stone Renaissance cities? Or some form of unholy mix?

City Of Tomorrowland

It is clear that we are lagging behind in making beautiful and sustainable cities of both today and tomorrow.

Let us change that!

/Lord Sillion
I’m Your Future Captain

–

–

Beauty in A New Renaissance

–

We can make the Future Green & Beautiful

4. Inspiration för Almedalen

Hur mycket inspiration och kunskap kan man ta in, innan Almedalen? Själv kör jag hardcore bootcamp inför framtiden. Här tipsar jag om några av mina favoriter 🙂

Vill du bara ha den absoluta snabbaste och bästa listan finns här en Youtube-lista med mina bästa tips:
Insights for the Future and Almedalen.

Välkommen till fjärde delen av en serie med guider, inspiration, tips och hård träning för att hjälpa dig förberedda dig för Almedalen. Introduktionen med en lista till alla tips hittar du här: Framtiden i Almedalen eller alla inlägg här: #FramtideniAlmedalen. Och min guide hur man blir en AlmedalsNinja från 2015.

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Yuval Noah Harari – The Myths we need to survive

Huvet på Skaft

Inför Almedalen är det bra om du har huvudet på skaft. Att du ser världen, människan och våra samhällen för vad dom är. Att ha en holistisk helhetssyn. Detta är inget som man antingen gör eller inte gör utan en utvecklande process av din egen hjärna i symbios med med de personer du omger dig med. Vi vet mycket mer om oss idag än vi gjorde för bara 10 år sen. Detta pussel vi lägger tillsammans. Vi gör det med att fylla våra pusselbitar med forskning, tankar och samband. Dessa pusselbitar representeras oftast av böcker, föreläsningar på Youtube, poddar, artiklar och dokumentärer. Ju fler pusselbitar du tar del av desto mer heltäckande på blir ditt pussel och din uppgradering av din hjärna. Detta märks kontinuerligt när du får “mindrushs” och aha-upplevelser.

Och just när man trodde att man har fått en ganska bra bild av verkligheten och ditt pussel av den så hittar man en ny bit igen.

Mind Blown Again! 🙂

Hur går vi då inför Almedalen som närmar sig fort. Var är du i ditt pussel-läggande? Hur mycket nya tankar kan du ta in, innan Almedlen? Läser du eller lyssnar du eller tittar du på video helst? Eller någon kombination?

Oavsett din tid, preferenser eller ambition kommer jag nu tipsa om några av nyckelbitarna, som många av oss pusselläggare är överens om att detta är bra pusselbitar för alla människor att förstå. Flera av dom kommer som separata tips i min blogg med. Här ska jag dock ge dig The Cream of The Crop för att levla upp dig så mycket så möjligt inför årets Almedalen.

We need to be aware of all the myths we collectivity believe in as a human race, so that we can create new better myths – Yuval Noah Harai & Lord Sillion

Böcker – Pappersbok, ebok eller ljudbok

Att läsa andras böcker är att kunna ta en flera års värde av kunskap och livserfarenhet på bara några timmar. Bättre än så blir det inte. Här är dom som jag tycker är viktigast av alla dom jag lyssnat på. Har du inte tid att lyssna på hela böcker innan Almedalen så finns här en Youtube-lista med deras bästa samtal online:
Insights for the Future and Almedalen.

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The Rightsous Mind – Jonathan Hadit

Sapiens – A Brief History of Human Kind – Yuval Noah Harari

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Trowing rocks at The Google bus – Douglas Rushkoff

Bold: How to Go Big, Make Bank, and Better the World – Peter Diamandis

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Netflix dokumentärer

Här är några av dom bäst dokumentärerna jag tittat på den sensate tiden på Netflix. Har du några egna favoriter?

Inequality for all

Alphabet

Valley Uprising

Requiem For the American Dream

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Some more inspirational people

Jag måste nog ha dille på inspiration. Jag spenderar min dagar med att lyssna, se och läsa väldigt mycket från inspirerande människor. Jag skulle vilja skriva om allt. Jag har istället samlat ddim mest inspirerande pod-avsnitten jag lyssnat på i en Blogg som jag kallar: Pod Of The Day. Kolla in där. Här nedan listar jag några till som jag ännu inte skrivit om 🙂

Parag Khanna – Connectivity is Destiny

Raj Raghunathan – If You’re so Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

Peter Diamonds – Inside Quest

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Wim Hof – The Iceman on Tim Ferriss

Kelly Starrett – What does it mena to be human

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Digital Samhällskunskap – Facebookgrupp

Daniel Priestley on our challenges

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Annan läsning

Här är några ara perspektiv att ha med sig

Are ‘Innovation Districts’ Right for Every City?

Yuval Noah Harari: the theatre of terror

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Inspirerande Fiction

Här är inspirerande fiction i form av 3 Tv-Serier om framtiden, nutiden och dåtiden som alla speglar våra mänskliga drivkrafter och ambitioner.

The Expanse – om en tänk framtid då människan koloniserat solsystem. Inte så trolig utveckling men ett spännande tankeexperiment om framtiden.

Billions – Om vad som driver mänskor med höga ambitioner idag. Skyr deras quest inga medel?

Black Sails – Kanske min absoluta filosofiska favorit nu. Vad vad det som drev mänskor till expansion och “entreprenörskap” (egenmäktigt förfarande) i Karibien under the Golden Age of Piracy. Har skrivit en lång blogg om vad jag kallar The Buccaneer Spirit, entreprenörskap i Karibien.

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/Lord Sillion
Eran Framtidskapten 

Spaceship Earth

What is The Future and how do we create The Future?

We live on a ship. A ship that travels through space. We call it Spaceship Earth. And just like a ship at sea, we have start running our ship like a proper ship. If we want to ride this vessel into prosperous future for the human race and living on this rock in space, we have start rowing and smiling in the right direction.

We are the Captains of Spaceship Earth – Jason Silva & Buckminster Fuller

We have to have a system and systems-thinking on everything we do on this ship.

Who does what? and why? We need lots of Future Captains to divide us up into smaller parts of the crew to make sure we follow a global plan.

We need start training every crew member in the proper way to run a spaceship.

We set up dreams and visions and stories on where we want to take this ship.

We all have to intentionally muster up to join this crew. There is no plank to walk people of into space yet, people that want to crash this ship on a space-reef.

Because this is where we are heading in full speed at the moment. To a space-reef. What must we do to get everyone onboard for this journey into the future and change course?

Ken Robinson has some thoughts on what skills we need to teach every crew member: How To Create The Future.

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I made a RAW audio-blog on how we create the future: What Is The Future

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I  also found the great text by Daniel Priestley on the subject:  The 6 real issues hiding behind the 3 typical scapegoats.

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I’m Lord Sillion – Captain Future, a Future Captain on our Spaceship Earth.

Will you join at the helm and bridge of our Spaceship Earth?

Join me in #Almedalen this summer to raise the conversation about our spaceship.

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https://soundcloud.com/lordsillion/what-is-the-future

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3. Levla Upp inför Almedalen

Vad har du för operativsystem i din kropp, hjärna och hjärta? Är det dags att uppgradera till något modernare inför Almedalen? Levla upp dig själv och din verksamhet med hjälp av rätt attityd och livslångt lärande 🙂

Det finns tre skills – färdigheter som det är bra att levla upp – öva på inför Almedalen och livet som helhet. Och som alla färdigheter är dom en färskvara. Det betyder om du inte övar på dom regelbundet så blir dom långsamt sämre. Och alla färdigheter går alltid att förbättra och levla upp livet ut. Dom tre essentiella grupperna som jag identifierat genom mina studier och resa, samt själv praktiserar och jobbar på att levla upp, är de kognitiva, sociala och kroppsrelaterade färdigheterna.

Här blir det en sammanfattande guide till alla. Flera av dom kommer som separata inlägg med. Dom ingår alla i mitt koncept, som går under arbetsnamnet
Level Up – Yourself – Your Business & Society

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Välkommen till tredje delen av en serie med guider, inspiration, tips och hård träning för att hjälpa dig förberedda dig för Almedalen. Introduktionen med en lista till alla tips hittar du här: Framtiden i Almedalen eller alla inlägg här: #FramtideniAlmedalen. Och min guide hur man blir en AlmedalsNinja från 2015.

Förändring – Förbättring

Vi är ju alla i Almedalen för att vi vill skapa någon form av förändring i samhället, våra företag och våra liv. Och när vi säger förändring menar vi nästan alltid förbättring. För ingen vill väl ha det sämre? Dock innebär ju oftast en förbättring att vissa punkter får man kompromissa på. Så att dom blir, eller upplevs som “sämre”. En generell upplevd förbättring är i alla fall målet.

Ilska – Frustration

Många av dom drivkrafter som driver oss till förändring bottnar oftast i problem och utmaningar. Att något är långt ifrån hur det borde vara eller att vi ser en tydlig väg till förbättring.

I den gamla världen var ofta en lösning på detta att göra någon form av revolution, organisera oss, ta till vapen och faktist slå ihjäl eller driva bort dom som stod för problemet. Detta är känslor och drivkrafter som ligger kodat djupt i vad det är att vara människa. Det är forfarande bra att vara frustrerad över något som drivkraft. Det gäller bara att kanalisera den rätt och dansa med känslorna.

För kreativitet och problemlösning kräver ett helt annat mindset för att vara riktigt produktivt. Nyfikenhet, Sillynes, Samarbete och Humor är det som fungerar klart bäst här.

Livslångt Lärande

Det handlar helt enkelt om att hänge sig till en “Quest” av livslångt lärande. Att ständigt lära sig se nya samband, få nya insikter och och skaffa ny och förbättra dom färdigheter man redan har. Jay Shetty släppte precis denna fantastiska video om livslångt lärande, 13 juni:

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Time To Level Up

För att maximera vår kreativitet går jag nu igenom de tre områden som vi alla kan levla upp inför Almedalen. Hjärna – Hjärta -Kropp

1. Hjärnan – Kognitionen

Kognitionen sammanfattar jag ganska brett här, som våra färdigheter att tänka och resonera. Vår IQ i modern tappning. Vår hjärnas förmåga att se samband och koppla samman intryck och idéer. Vår kunskap om oss själva och vårt själva sätt att se världen. Hjärnan blir bättre på detta om man tränar den och över åren blir antalet synapser som kopplas samman allt fler. Jag skriver om både Peter Sages och Robert Kegans forskning om det hela här: Elevate Your Mind.

Här gäller det att förstå att vår gemensam “Hive-Mind” är den riktigt stora tillgången för vårt samhälle. Vi levlar upp den genom att dels levla upp varje enskild hjärna och samverka och utbyta tankar med varandra. Och på så sätt bygger vi en fantastisk Hive-Mind i vårt samhälle.

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META: I’m writing this blog about it

Övningar som är bra att göra här inför Almedalen är tre som alla kan göra:

Ny insikter

Här gäller det att stå på axlarna till dom jättar som vandrat före oss. Och lägga pussel med sina insikter. Både genom att ta in nya pusselbitar hela tiden och förändra det pussel man redan har i hjärnan.

Bästa verktygen här är böcker, poddar, videoföreläsningar, MOOCs, artiklar, bloggar, meetups, events och konferenser. Eftersom detta ett av dom ämnen som ligger mig närmast om hjärtat och det faktum att Almedalen är ett ända stort Meta-event. Nästa inlägg kommer gå på djupet om detta.

Bästa tipsen som du lätt hinner med innan Almedalen är 2 ljudböcker, 2 podcaster och förstås denna guiden i bloggform 🙂

Böckerna som jag och väldigt många andra tycker är absolut bäst här är
Jonathan Haidt’s – The Righteous Mind

Sapiens – A Brief History of Human Kind

Poddara som innehåller mest bang for the buck här är:
Inside Quest – Särskilt avsnitten med Peter Diamandis – Jason Silva – Tony Robins – Steven Kotler – Marshall Goldsmith

Digitalsamtal – med Carl Heath och Anders Thoresson.

Journaling

Att sätta ord på sina tankar är det bästa man kan göra varje dag. Det har flera bevisade positiva effekter. Det finns flera bra metoder att göra det på som samlas under namnet Journaling. Jag har experimenterat med alla av dom ofta i kombination. Det är fantastiskt när det görs ihop med att ta in nya insikter som under punkten ovan. Här var Leonard DaVinci en mästare på journaling.

Pen & Paper Notes

Skaffa ett bra block och några fina pennor som du har med dig. Använd det för att skriva ner dina tankar och ta anteckningar när du ser eller lyssnar på något intressant. Hjärnan är oftast bättre att komma ihåg något när du skrivit det taktilt med din hand.

Skriv ner dina drömmar och sätt upp visioner och planer för att förverkliga dom i ditt block.

Blogg och dagbok

Skriv och analysera din dag eller något event eller ny insikt du fått. Publicera det publikt som en blogg eller behåll det som en privat dagbok.

Ljudblogg & Videoblogg

Har du inte tid att skriva prova att prata in dina tankar. Även detta är ett bra sätt att sätt ord på sina tankar. Jag brukar tala in i det i appen Voice Memos i iPhone när jag går ut med hunden på kvällen. Blir det bra lägger jag upp det på Soundcloud som mitt LordTalk.

Det går även lätt att spela in video och ladda upp på Facebook eller Youtube. Eller live-sända med Bambuser eller Periscope.

Podcast

Du kan även bli mer ambitiös och skapa och producera en riktig Podcast och/eller videokanal på Youtube. (Går att lägga upp samma content på båda som Inside Quest)

Spela spel & Brädspel

Att spela kognitivt krävande spel med någon for av problemlösning är en av de bästa saker du kan göra för din hjärna. Jane McGonigal förklara det bra på Tim Ferriss Show. Själv spelar jag den moderna typen av designerbrädspel så ofta jag kan med dina vänner.

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2. Hjärtat – De Sociala Färdigheterna

De sociala färdigheterna är kanske de viktigast vi har. Och ändå har väldigt få en tränare i sociala färdigheter idag. Och väldigt få hade en lärare i skola som lärde ut dessa och det finns fortfarande inte som ett huvudämne i skolan. Lägg sen på den digitala dimensionen, då har det hos vissa personer och kretsar helt spårat ur, hur vi beter oss som människor mot varandra. Och det påverkar oss alla även om du och jag oftast vet hur man gör. Och som färdighet är det något vi alla behöver träna på varje vecka.

Le och andas

Ett av dom bästa och snabbaste tipsen här, är att inför varje samtal du ska ha med någon avsett typ allt ta några djupa andetag och le.

Lyft andra

Genom att lyfta andra människor på ett medvetet sätt skapar vi ett samhälle med goda ringar på vattnet. Hjälp andra med deras utmaning genom att först och främst fråga vad dom behöver hjälp med idag. Navid Modoro skapade en fantastiskt rörelse och en Facebookgrupp där främlingar kan och vågar fråga varandra om hjälp.

Lyssna

Lär dig att lyssna på andra. Vad är deras historia? Lyssna bakom orden. Försök föreställ dig vad dom känner. Alla älskar en bra empatisk lyssnare.

Förstå Andra – Förstå Dig Själv

Insikten att alla andra har en helt annan världsbild och erfarenheter och story än vad du har är den bästa vi kan göra. Vi människor ha utvecklats i tribes som förenades av en story och troende som vi håller heligt. Det är denna story som gör oss människor. Det du behöver göra göra är att hitta det du håller heligt och förstå att du blir väldigt upprörd när någon kritiserar din heliga ko. Sen ska du hitta det andra håller heligt och förstå att de gör lika dant när du kritiserar deras heliga ko. Sen hittar vi en gemensam story emellan oss.

Jonathan Haidts bok som jag nämnde ovan är fantastisk här. Se hans föreläsning om det här: Jonathan Haidt: “How Human Beings Got Morality, Religion, Civilization, and Humanity”

Happiness Comes First

Lycka kommer före framgång. Forskningen kring detta är ganska övertygande och Shawn Achor har sammanställt den i sin bok The Happiness Advantage. Så sök ut vad som gör dig lycklig i livet först. Använd det för att sprida positiv energi och glädje runt dig. Då blir det lättare att vara kreativ och hamna i flow med.

If happiness is on the other side of success your brain will never get there. What we’ve done is push happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society. Our brain works in the opposite order.

If you can raise your happiness in the present then your brain experience something called the happiness advantage. Your intelligence raises, your creativity raises, your energy level raises.
— Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

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3. Kroppen – Fysiska färdigheter

Vem är din livskamrat som du ha med dig livet ut? Jo din kropp. Hur behandlar du den? Får din kropp den kärlek den behöver? Här är många av våra instinkter och cravings den direkta utmaningen i vårt moderna västerländska samhälle. Det går dock att hitta sätt som gör att vi mår fantastiskt när vi gör vår kroppar tjänster istället för mot-tjänster.

Här hjälper Kelly Starrett dig i mn guid: What does it meen to be human? 

Och sen visar ju modern forskning på vad vi vetat länge att om vi tar hand om oss själva som blir vi både mer kreativa, roligare att jobba med och mer framgångsrika. Alla vill umgås med någon som utstrålar energi och glädje som smittar av sig.

I Almedalen får vi prata om hur vi tar hand om våra kroppar bättre. Mycket av dom utmaningar vi ska lösa ihop framöver kommer gå lättare om våra kroppar spinner som vältrimmade katter.

Sova

Min och många andras akilleshäl i vårt moderna samhälle. Att få bra sömn och att få tillräckligt mycket sömn. Vår moderna el-uppbelsyta livsstil Gärdet inte lättare för oss. Sen finns det många inklusive mig som blomstrar kreativt på kvällar och nätter. Detta i livsstil där vi förväntas att gå upp kl 7 och göra all möjliga uppgifter innan vi ska iväg till ett “Dagtidsjobb”. Det är klart att det kraschar.

Sov mer och sov bättre. Är du en morgonmänniska lägg dig tidigare. Är du en nattmänniska och kör du night-sprints som mig. Sov mer på dagen.

Och oavsett. Om du ska göra något kreativ och känner dig trött. Ta en tupplur eller en powernapp. Forskning visar att vi kan få upp vår Kognitiva förmåga med upp till 10 IQ efter en snabb vila. Detta måsta vi prat metod hur vi ska lösa. Vi pratar med varandra om det i Almedalen.

Och lyssna på Arianna Huffington och hennes nya bok om att sova bättre.

Rörlighet – och Träning

Hur rörlig är du? Kan du hoppa ur sängen med fullrörlighet och springa mer för trappan? Den andra “Villain” för våra kroppar i det moderna samhället och vårt sittande och att vi inte rör på oss medvetet.

Detta är så viktigt att det kommer ett helt avsnitten det kopplat till Kelly Starrett och hans tankar om vad det innebär att vara en människa. Stay tuned. Vi kan sammanfatta det med några saker:

Rör på dig under dagen varje möjlighet du har.
Ta ditt möte under en promenad. Ett så kallat Walk n Talk. Stå upp med datorn vid ett ståbord, gärna med ett fotstöd att alstra rycken med. Ta mikropauser där du gör rörlighetsövningar. Gör en just nu innan du fortsätter att läsa. Ta trapporna. Spring uppför trapporna. Studsa över saker 🙂

Få upp din rörlighet med Body Balance eller Yoga. Dansa!

I Almedalen kör #Skolvåren sina Walk n Talk även i år. Gång med på ett av dom.

Det brukar finnas flera LunchBeat i Almedalen på luncherna. Var med och dansa och rör på dig där. Och hitta någon morgon-yoga kanske. Och Visby är fyllt av backar. Spring uppför dom bara på skoj. Utmana varandra.

Kost och näring

Food. Vi behöver alla näring anpassat till vad för kropp omsätter. Också en gigantisk utmaning i vårt moderna samhälle. Särskilt som stora multinationella företag har satt upp försäljning av drycker och mat, som vi inte alls behöver, precis över allt.

Du behöver inte gå “Cold Turkey” på precis allting. Försök istället bara en sak. Och be din familj eller dina vänner om hjälp. Oftast blir det att man dricker och äter samma som dom man umgås med.

Hitta någon ny vana inför Almedalen. I själva Almedalen är det svårt nog att få ihop alla måltider. Man går på olika event under dagen som serverar frukost eller lunch. Man får oftast ta vad man får och ibland har man otur och det är slut. Fråga varandra var man hittar bra mat i Almedalen.

Och drick mer vatten och mindre alkohol. Testa Almedalsdrinken och drick varannan vatten på alla mingel. Och Visby är varmt under dagen. Se till att få i dag både salt och vätska under dagen.

Level Up Club – Almedalen

Det blir ganska mycket att levla upp på en gång inför Almedalen. Och precis som alla färdigheter som ska förbättras fungerar det oftast bäst med någon form av lärare eller tränare. Och att göra det ihop med några anda, så att det skapas social motivation att faktiskt göra det. Ni kanske behöver en Framtidskapten som hjälper er?

Ta hjälp av vänner och familj. Och precis som Jim Rohn och Seth Godin sa i sin senaste blog: Raising the average

We are each the average of the people we hang out with and the experiences we choose – Seth and Jim

Hitta dom som lyfter dig, hjälper dig och peppar dig in i LevelUp-mentaliteten. Sätt i ihop en Level Up Club. En grupp som alla har varandras ryggar i att bli sitt bästa jag inför Almedalen (och livet som helhet).

Start a Level Up Club – Almedalen!

/Lord Sillion
Eran Framtidskapten i Almedalen

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You want to be around people who lift you up the way you think, who lift up your mindset
That will take you to new dimensions and horizons, that you can never ever imagine yourself

If you are the smartest person in the room change room
– Jay Shetty

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