Scott Barry Kaufman is a big inspiration to me in research and the human sciences. He is a humanistic psychologist, the creator of self-actualization coaching, and simply a refreshing person who brings a sense of “keeping it real” to the world of self-development.

Scott is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, the director of the Center for Human Potential, and among the top 1% most-cited scientists in the world for his research on intelligence and creativity (= wow, the academic sisu this has required).

He also hosts The Psychology Podcast. With over 25 million downloads, it’s one of the leading psychology podcasts globally.

Scott’s foundation lies in humanistic psychology, which emphasizes the importance of meaning, wholeness, and the lived experience of being human. Rather than sinking into all sorts of neurosis over what the ego likes to label as “good–bad” or “right–wrong,” this perspective invites us to feel into all the complexity (and wonder) that comes with being human.

We spoke about a wide range of topics, such as creativity, human potential, feeling like an impostor at times (and why it can actually be a good thing), his hopes and hesitations about the future, and what it means to be true to your heart.

Last year, Scott published his 11th (!) book, Rise above! You can explore Scott's work and many valuable resources at scottbarrykaufman.com. I warmly recommend checking it out. The site is a treasure trove of insight.

The conversation we had moved something in me, which I felt afterward. What I can make of it is that witnessing authenticity stirs us, brings us closer to our center and to each other. It feels grounded and safe, and we are indeed finely tuned to sense it.

Especially in the context of a recorded conversation, where we tend to seek to perform and give “the right answers” (which is, of course, very human), it felt beautiful to witness such realness.

The discussion brought back a thought my Aikido teacher once shared with me: “It’s easy to be clever. It’s much harder to be loving.”

Thanks for listening and for being part of the sisu journey <3

If you enjoyed the content, please leave a review if you like, or share the podcast link so it can find its way to people who might enjoy it.

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Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

Right now, outrage seems as rampant as complacency, and both are lost opportunities from the vantage point of of life force. Being a "constructive badass" is a path to growth, change, and leadership amidst high pressure situations. The more we develop the skill of constructive dissent and engage in the art of insubordination—how to speak up with courage and clarity—we create degrees of freedom for courage in the everyday.

For this Sisu Lab episode, I had the joy of interviewing Professor Todd Kashdan, one of the world’s most cited psychologists and a curious thought leader on courage, character, and all things psychological flexibility. This conversation rocked such a unique flow of exploring life, ideas, and the co-creative space possible between curious humans anywhere that it felt like a real highlight. The experience itself, to me, speaks of how can help each other rise to our best just by being genuinely excited about each other (like kids!) and viewing moments of interaction as opportunities to unearth something valuable together.

Todd and I jammed about:

• How to dissent effectively without breaking connection
• Why good people may struggle to be brave when it matters most
• The difference between being a principled rebel vs. a reactive troublemaker
• Why true change-makers often face delayed rewards—and how sisu can help us stay the course
• Balancing activism with mental health, and what keeps us going through long fights for change
• The gift of witnessing each other fail—and grow and heal together
• What it means to be an “upstander” (with a nod to educator Jackson Katz)
• How everyday acts of courage and kindness shape the bigger environment we call our life

Todd’s insights come from decades of research—and deep skin in the game. He’s the author of several brilliant books, including Curious, The Upside of Your Dark Side, and most relevantly: The Art of Insubordination.

🎧 If you’ve ever struggled to find your voice in the face of injustice—or wondered how to process with combining courage and compassion (or to navigate the difference between power vs. force)—this is for you.

If this has value to you, please share with everyone you know. And let me know who you'd like me to interview!

Thanks again, Todd. This was exquisite! 

Shownotes:

Todd's website and books: www.toddkashdan.com.

Rainer Maria Rilke: Letters to a Young Poet.

Jackson Katz TEDx with over 2 million views.

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

I’m joined for a conversation by Monique Borst, an entrepreneur, advisor and performance coach with 15 years in senior leadership positions. Monique has said, "Our businesses and personal lives are a mirror reflection of where we are on our own self-development journey, and can only be as successful as we are aware and in control of our thoughts and emotions."

Together, we’ll unpack what it means to lead with strength and empathy, to balance resilience with grace, and to embrace vulnerability as a force for healing.

When we do this work that can take a bit of sisu not just in the traditional way of doing something physically tough ... but the courage it takes to steal the gold from the night of subconscious to find the treasures we discover in our quiet, inner places can illuminate the everyday moments of business, leadership, and community.

For this episode you can reflect if you like:

💡 What does gentle power mean to you?

💡 How can we, as leaders and as humans, step forward with balance, authenticity, and wholeness?

The episode is dedicated to the memory of dear late friend Stéphane LeBlanc, a Canadian pioneer of conscious leadership.

You can find our guest Monique Borst on LinkedIn, where she shares her thoughtful content and her website at MoniqueBorst.com,

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

The following interview is with distinguished neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty and it's a listen that is likely to make you feel a bit stronger and make you think more deeply about leadership, your daily habits, and the gift of life. I have been following Dr. Doty's work for about a decade and was deeply honored for this chance to learn from the master himself. He is a compassion researcher, NY Times bestselling author, and philanthropist. Dr. Doty is also a clinical professor of neurosurgery and Founder & Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University School of Medicine.

He recently published a new book called Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. We had a thrilling and heartwarming conversation - a warm recommendation to add this seminal book to your near-future reading list!

You can find Mind Magic here: Mind Magic on Amazon (leave a review if you read the book and find it inspiring - this is always invaluable to authors <3) and learn more about Dr. Doty's work on his website: James R. Doty MD.

Finally, here is another fantastic interview with Dr. Doty by John R. Miles.

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

This episode is about the paradox of putting healing and performance in the same sentence. Join me for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Phil Maffetone, a visionary in endurance sports for over four decades, an author, musician, and coach. Known for his MAF Method, which emphasizes aerobic training and fat-burning, Phil’s approach has helped athletes achieve world class level of performance. However this method applies to every-body out there to create more sovereignty, health and happiness.

In today’s episode, we delve into Phil’s groundbreaking philosophies and practical tips for enhancing fitness, well-being, and body awareness. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or a beginner, discover MAF to ultimately to become your own coach, make sustainable decisions, and cultivate resilience and self-leadership. Plus, we explore topics like nutrition, intuition, meditation, and making lifelong healthy choices. Tune in for a conversation around ideas that have deeply impacted my own journey over the past decade!

Philip's homepages: The MAF Method
https://philmaffetone.com/

The Music of Philip Maffetone
https://maffetonemusic.com/

The Maffetone Method Running Group on FB that I mention (9.7K members and it's a very active and friendly group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/1452390158396719

MAF Profile: Mission to heal: https://philmaffetone.com/maf-profile-mission-heal/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3dj0exmFNSb61qyTw8UnkPeCk1cskOg-_zGshXKLYo9mq5yJo_TPtAOuU_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw

Phil Maffetone speaks about the details of MAF, nutrition, running, recovery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TPrenWWK9U

"We are in this for fun and to bed happy" another great interview with Phil (Floris Gierman) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyE2J5pcWcA

Phils's Red and Yellow book of endurance and fitness that were mentioned in the show can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Philip-Maffetone/author/B001K88UYE?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Enjoy the exploration!!

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

Welcome to a new season of the Sisu Lab podcast! In this episode, I got heart to heart with emotional intelligence and wellbeing expert, Dr. Emma Seppälä. We dove into the mortal mortar life, took a dip the river of life force and finally, circled into the gentle powers we all possess within to elevate our humans condition: We talked about 

sovereignty.

Big word.
It will change and challenge your world.

Sovereignty is also the primary topic (and name) of Emma's book that comes out next week. Pre-order Emma's new book by April 18th and join her (and me as her discussion host!) for an online fireside chat as a pre-order gift. Find the books'a beautiful landing page at www.iamsov.com

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

In the spirit of the season, here's a true gift from Aalto University in Finland in the form of an introduction to a framework called systems intelligence (SI). While the name might feel a even a bit cerebral, this work has deeply changed my personal overlook on life and relationships some ten years ago. It's also the practice to which I root my sisu to raise it from only a quality of surviving hardship to an expression of leadership with a hope of creating something of higher good around us.

SI was originally developed by professor Raimo Hämäläinen and professor emeritus Esa Saarinen at Aalto University. They highlight that SI is a key competence we all possess as humans. It begins with "thinking about our thinking," as Saarinen puts it, to understand what actually drives our habits, patterns and actions. SI is about better thinking - not only about thinking or thinking more (that's why it is an update to systems thinking). Thinking about our thinking takes us to 'the source' of our action to illuminate a path toward better actions and when we place this understanding within a system, it becomes a dynamic inquiry towards excellence with regards to everything we connect with - within and outside.

Below are four points from Hämäläinen ja Saarinen (2007, p. 59-60) that I mention in the episode (I've added a question to each point to use for self-reflection) & further reading.

With this... thank you for your support in 2023 and may we both have a steady, strong year of sisu of the heart and love deep in the bones ahead!

***

1.     Acknowledging that one’s action and behaviour is the result of one’s thinking. (“What constitutes my mental models, beliefs, assumptions, and interpretations?”)

2.     Acknowledging that one’s thinking is likely to be one-sided and a far cry from an accurate grasp of the bigger picture; the holistic system around self is likely to be reflected in one’s thinking only partially and possibly in a distorted form. (“How well do I know what I don’t know?”)

3.     To act more intelligently in systemic environments, one must engage in meta-level thinking regarding their thinking. (“How do I use my thinking?”)

4.     One’s framing of the environment and its interconnected systems is likely to reflect their subjective assumptions. Reflection on how I frame and look at things is an intelligent path to life in systems. (“How do my beliefs guide my thinking?”)

Further material: 

Systems Intelligence Research Group, Aalto University
http://systemsintelligence.aalto.fi/

Systems intelligence: A key competence in human action and organizational life. Hämäläinen, R. P. & Saarinen, E. (2007). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240789681_Systems_Intelligence_A_Key_Competence_in_Human_Action_and_Organizational_Life

Perceived systems intelligence and performance in organizations, J. Törmänen, R.P. Hämäläinen and E. Saarinen (2021), https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TLO-04-2021-0045/full/html

Being Better Better - Living with Systems Intelligence (2014) https://sal.aalto.fi/publications/pdf-files/being_better_better_living_with_systems_intelligence.pdf

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

By now researchers have made wonderful strides in mapping the mental and physiological side of human capacity. We understand how muscles grow and endure, how fatigue plays into our vitality, and we also have a plethora of concepts (such as resilience, perseverance, mental toughness, grit and so on) to help us describe the curious landscape of what makes humans endure. What we know less about is the life energy behind this enduring and persevering that becomes visible usually only when we are about to run out of it.... join me for an episode of sisu lab in which I share some words and concepts around the elusive topic of human spirit... elan vital, Wille zum Leben, qi, chi and so on...

Show notes

The Energies of Men William James, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1907), pp. 1-20 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2177575

The Energies of Men William James (1914)
https://ia802608.us.archive.org/18/items/energiesofmen00jameiala/energiesofmen00jameiala.pdf

Embodied fortitude: An introduction to the Finnish construct of sisu Authors E E Lahti (2019) https://internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/672

A Wife’s Letter Rabindranath Tagore (1914, Translated from Bengali by Prasenjit Gupta) https://parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/gStreerPatra1.html

Twin Tracks: The Autobiography by Roger Banniste
https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Tracks-Autobiography-Roger-Bannister/dp/184954686X

Työstä ja elinvoima by Prof Eero Riikonen (2013)
http://www.psykologia.fi/arkisto/vanhat-numerot/vanhat-numerot-ghost/283-psykologia-2014-04/kirjat/339-tyosta-elinvoimaa

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

Sisu speaks of the extra reserves within individuals everywhere to endure challenges and take action against slim odds. However, while sisu denotes extraordinary power to overcome the extraordinary and do the extraordinary, it can also end up creating extraordinary problems. This would most likely happen with mindless sisu that is out of balance, is done at all cost, and happens usually when we are out of touch with our blind spots.

The possible negative outcomes of unbalanced or hard sisu include harm to our mental wellbeing and physical health, as well as to other people and team success. On today's episode, musings on constructive vs unconstructive sisu and an exercise at the end (for the truly brave) to gain understanding of your own sisu and what's its overall impact to people around you.

Stay strong and love even bigger!

Show notes

World Happiness Report
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2023/

Tim Lomas and cross-cultural research on the determinants of wellbeing
https://www.drtimlomas.com/blank-s59cw

Amy Edmondson's research and trainings on psychological safety
https://amycedmondson.com/psychological-safety/

Harvard Business Review: What Is Psychological Safety? by Amy Gallo
https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safety

E. Elisabet Lahti: Embodied Fortitude: An Introduction to the Finnish Construct of Sisu at International Journal of Wellbeing 
https://internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/672

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.

Welcome to a new episode in which we muse on how to deal with life's headwinds - and how to do it with less damage and more grace. Take aways from ultra running that apply to everyday life (thanks, fellow adventurer & runner Annastiina Hintsa) and a note on deep-seated humility, as well as making our awareness and body our allies in the process.

For this episode, finally after years of procrastination (not as bad as the Ironman which took 16 years to conquer) I learned to do sound editing and created a start tune. Please listen and give feedback on anything - sound levels, user friendliness, and so on, as this is a  "home-baked" passion project. Tune selected out of numerous is licensed from lovely Dutch composer Evert Zeevalkink, aka, The North (on Spotify), and is called Stand my Ground.

Until next time... may we both sisu and smiles galore <3

Show notes:

Resources on sisu at sisulab. Direct link to podcasts and research: https://www.sisulab.com/blog

Harvard Health: Basic intro to understanding stress response: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response

Support the show

Sisu is a reserve of inner strength but it's also a way for us to know ourselves and impact the world in a positive way. Cultivating these reserves of inner strength starts with self-care and continues through self-inquiry. its power then extends to the world through our inspired acts of deep courage and compassion.

Thanks for tuning in! You can find out more about sisu, find links to research, and check out Gentle Power: A Revolution in How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu at www.sisulab.com.

Sisu is great, love is greatness.