Dare to Suck - Inspiring changemakers opening up to young adults (and their parents)

The final episode of Season 1 is ending with a great adventure!

We meet Markus and Jolle who both have an extended track record when it comes to sailing around the world and participating in prestigious events such as the Whitbread Round the World Race.

But this time their goal is to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat. 24 hours a day by taking shifts. 2 hours on, two hours off for 40-50 days, adding up to 1,5 Million oar strokes. 

Would YOU be up for it?

1. You don´t have to be the same as your friends or classmates. Come up with your own profile - think outside of the box. Be You!
2. Share adventures with your friends. - it´s half of the fun!
3. Adventures don’t always have to be huge and crazy but start with small things like taking a day off, backpacking across the shoreline of Helsinki, or having a cup of hot chocolate in the woods. 
4. Try different things when it comes to sports and the profession. Don´t worry that the decisions you have taken at some point, are final for the rest of your life. You can always change things again.
5. Nobody has superpowers. If you have a goal - be determined to reach it. Even if you fail from time to time - dust yourself off and try again. Try to combine different skills and focus them on one objective or around your project.

https://tworowingfinns.fi/ 

In this episode we will meet Luca Karl, who is a professional athlete and swimmer, competing in 800m and 1500m freestyle. 
Swimming has been an influential part of his life already during his early childhood days. Since then he kept moving from regional to national and finally international rankings, smashing records, and constantly improving on his performance.
But none of this comes for free. It deserves extreme dedication, clearly set targets and goals as well as the energy to keep on pushing forward despite the fact that the training might be boring or your friends might be having a good time on Friday evening, joining a party. 
An extremely inspirational story of a young professional athlete, who has found his Northstar.

1. If you are aiming to achieve big things it is probably good to wake up early every morning, smelling the coffee.
2. Some sports practices can be very boring. Take it with a smile and fool around with your teammates from time to time in order to lighten up the spirit.
3. Whatever you do in life - is it sports or business - set yourself a specific, clearly defined goal and work towards it. It will serve as Northstar and keep you on course during challenging times. 
4. Don´t underestimate the power of visualization. Visualize the upcoming race, negotiation, speech, etc. as it will prepare you in the best possible way.
5. Get away from social media from time to time. Just take a break. One example is to lie down on your bed for 10 minutes and briefly reflect on what has been good or bad during the day.

Ways to connect:
https://www.facebook.com/SUGeneraliSalzburg/
https://instagram.com/luca_____k 

Not one week passes without news of data breaches and confidential client data leaking. A lot of responsibility is left with the sole user, which makes groups like children, elderly people and language minorities especially vulnerable and exposed. This is why we decided to speak to Helinä Turunen who is an Information Security Specialist at The National Cyber Security Centre. She paints a reassuring picture that a lot is already done to keep citizens safe but there are also areas, which we should be vigilant about.

1. Myth busted: cybersecurity superheroes do not have to be excellent programmers. There you have it!
2. Overarching mantra: have a strong enough password, preferably store it in a password manager with a strong master password, make sure you have all your devices updated to the latest operating system or security standards, and ensure that you don´t share private information (name, home location, social security number, etc.) as hackers can build a profile of you.
3. Reduce the number of applications, the number of devices, and the number of access points you connect to. It will increase your level of safety and decrease the possibility of being a target for cybercriminals
4. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZtVsEsqjNs and see for yourself how Team Whack is hacking the site of a social media influencer without her knowing about it. Bottom line: you will never know when your security has been compromised.
5. Many countries in Europe have cybersecurity strategies and cybercrime units, which try to protect their citizens.
   Individuals and/or organizations can share suspicious information without having to fear exposure.

Ways to connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hturunen/, Twitter: HelinaT

Accounts to follow:
Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure (https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypponen/)

Coming out of school or university and finding your dream job has never been easy. For some maybe even impossible.
But as we are again entering a phase of global economic decline, the job market gets flooded with applicants from both sides of the age spectrum: young and old.

So it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd in order to get seen for what you have to offer.

That´s where the advice from Göran Hernberg comes in handy. He has been a professional recruiter for many years and can provide you with dos and don´ts along the recruitment process.

The Top 5 key takeaways:

1. The current situation and job market might look grim but don´t get discouraged - it is much less frantic than previous recessions. If you are fresh out of school/university, don´t be shy and ask your network of friends and their parents for help. Nobody will hire you if you are not skilled but at least you will get the opportunity to present yourself, which is much more difficult if you are one out of 500 applicants for a job.
2. You need to be clear in your CV. Don´t assume that the person reading your resume has prior knowledge of you or the companies you worked for.
3. Despite the current global turmoil, there is still a shortage of skilled people in many sectors. Seek and you will find!
4. Keep the CV short and concise while still descriptive. 15 pages are simply too much
5. It sounds cheesy but it is still true: During the interview - Be Yourself. 
   If you are not yourself then things are not coming naturally and you will most likely be called out later during the recruitment process.

Ways to connect:
[email protected]

Heidi Schauman is an experienced economist who, before joining Swedbank, served as chief economist at Aktia Bank and senior economist at Nordea Bank. Before this, she worked in various positions at the Finnish central bank, The Bank of Finland. 

Heidi holds a doctoral degree in Economics from the Swedish School of Economics, Hanken, in Helsinki (Finland). 

In this episode, she provides us with insight on what it means to be a Chief Economist as well as where the challenges of the profession lie.
We also elaborate on the importance of providing children and young adults with the possibility to build up their own investment portfolio in order to learn about the role of money.

The Top 5 key takeaways from her story:

1. Children and young adults can/should start building their investment portfolios already at a young age. Kids need to understand money. Where it comes from and what´s its roll.
2. Start small. 20 Euros are perfectly fine in serving as an entry-level. 
3. Explain the different investment options to your children before investing. Focus on companies that are familiar to them. That way they remain interested and find investing easier to understand. After all, they are the consumers of the future and might see things differently than adults.
4. Let the kids take out potential wins as tangible “fruits” for their willingness to invest.
5. Some banks offer stock-market games where children and young adults can “get their feet wet” with artificial money and create virtual investment portfolios.

Ways to connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-schauman-b257731/
[email protected]
https://twitter.com/schaumanheidi?lang=en 

Taneli started his career as a strategy consultant but quickly changed to follow his calling.
He founded Suomen Avustajapalvelut, which provides disability care nationwide in Finland. Today the company employs more than 500 care service professionals who are passionate about helping their customers to live their life to the fullest.
In this episode, Taneli provides us with great insight into the current and future state of healthcare services as we seem to move closer to a crisis.

The Top 5 key takeaways from his story:

1. You deserve to live the life you want to live, regardless of any physical or mental limitations that you might have.
2. Countries should have more discussions around the question if healthcare professionals are rewarded appropriately.
3. As an entrepreneur: try to differentiate - what brings value to your customer and what does not bring any value. That way you can focus on what is important and accelerate in those areas.
4. Look at the big trends in the word when thinking about your next business. Don´t get caught up in day-to-day life too much. Try to see what might happen during the next decades. Is there anything that you could provide, which provides value in the bigger picture
5. Don´t go overboard with taking risks but generally speaking, don´t be too risk-averse. Take (managed) risks!

Ways to connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanelitenhovuori
[email protected] 

Books to read:
Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Ayn Rand: Atlas shrugged

After finishing his education, Ari´s calling was loud, clear, and unquestionable: Welcome to the corporate world.
Rising through the ranks as a star management consultant and top manager was amazing at first but during an assignment in the US the famous “Wall” was hit and questions arose if this is all there is.
Many moons later, Ari is heading Lumi Power Yoga but has not lost touch with the corporate world either. The only big difference from now to then is: now he really enjoys it.

1. When we hit points where we are lost, we look for solutions and alternatives, where we otherwise would not have looked.
2. Becoming an entrepreneur does not necessarily have to be a crash-boom-bang event. Sometimes it takes years of transition from working as an employee to becoming independent. In that scenario, you have to be prepared to go the extra mile and do two jobs or more simultaneously.
3. Yoga and Mindfulness provide us with tools on how to deal with pressure, stress, etc. It should be taught already much earlier than during adult age.
4. Our current education system is much more about knowledge than about building “centered and present” children
5. Advice to my 15-year-old self: Go out there - discover - do stuff - don’t play safe and don´t be afraid to fail. (Don´t try this at home ;)

Books to read:
Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson
Atomic Habits, James Clear 

Ways to Connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isorautio/
https://www.lumipoweryoga.com/
[email protected]
https://www.instagram.com/LumiPowerYoga/
https://www.facebook.com/lumipoweryoga/

This special edition has been inspired by the 2020 US presidential election. 
The journalist-, podcaster-, and producer team Peppe and Magnus have been living in Santa Monica, Los Angeles for almost eight years and will provide us with refreshing perspectives and insights.
When preparing for this episode, our main intention was to have a look at the political landscape of the United States of America. We ended up with a much deeper (global) analysis of what is important in order to be part of the democratic process and an insightful, evolving human being. 

1. Without political discussion, democracy dies. Things will not change unless people get engaged and speak up about their beliefs and get engaged. 
2. Bear in mind before complaining about leaders, politicians, or their agenda: it is us who are creating them. It is us who are voting for them. It is us who give them space to say and do what they say and do.
3. Journalism is a hugely important part of democracy. Calling journalists “enemies”, stifles transparency and cripples the democratic process.
4. Have you won more often in your life than you have actually gambled? How much of your brilliance is connected to you as an individual and how much is connected to the circumstances you have been born in?
5. Accept when you are wrong. Be generally more interested in learning new things than being right all the time.

https://maggieprod.com/
https://play.acast.com/s/magnusochpeppe
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanette-%C3%B6hman-60196511/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnus-silfvenius-%C3%B6hman-24189584/

Esports is not really sports - right?
Well - actually - wrong. There is a lot that goes into the preparation and playing of tournaments as you will hear in this episode. That´s why former professional gamer and current CMO of ENS, Joona Leppänen, prefers the term "competitive gaming".

The Top 5 key takeaways from his story:

1. Professional esports teams are far away from being a setup of only a few gamers. ENCE for example employes 17 professional gamers and a support group of 10. 
2. esports is not about playing the game and only playing the game. The theory is a massive part of it (e.g. analyzing the own game and the games of the competition) as well as actual physical training and working with nutritionists, physiotherapists, and mental coaches.
3. Today´s world is leading more and more to a situation where we as individuals are making choices on how to best consume emptiness our lives. No longer is football competing against ice hockey and F1 - these days streaming platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Youtube and Twitch are competing against all sports in terms of attracting viewers.
4. Being a professional gamer requires extremely thick skin. There are naturally big rewards to be gained in case of success but the overall pressure is unbearable for many. “Be as good as your last game or better” does not leave a lot of errors and requires enormous dedication to keep on grinding.
5. esports has already been massively popular at the beginning of 2000 in countries like South Korea.

Ways to connect:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joona-lepp%C3%A4nen-550a1766/

Accounts to follow:
https://www.ence.gg/
https://www.facebook.com/enceesports/
https://www.instagram.com/ENCEesports/
https://www.twitch.tv/ence