When I first met Bjørn, he was in a very dark place. A mutual friend recommended to Bjørn that he contact me for help. I very quickly recognized something special in Bjørn. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was some hidden quality that was buried under a pile of problems. So I struck a deal with him; I help fix your life, you help me master the snowboard.
The hidden quality turned out to be Will. Pure will. The guy was responsive, bright and very attentive. With a no-fuss approach, he went straight into action mode and cleaned up problem after problem until there was nothing left to worry about. It took some 10 weeks of hard work until he erupted with a big smile “I feel great”.
Summer came and went. Autumn just the same. After first snow I got a text message telling me it’s time to hit the slopes. Soon after I was at the top looking down with a snowboard firmly attached to my legs.
Last time I tried this dangerous sport was some 10 years earlier. During my four attempts that time, I managed to get two concussions and three broken ribs, until I decided to quit before I would kill myself. This time, it turned out, I was in the hands of an incredible teacher. You will search long and hard to find a more warm and caring teacher than Bjørn. And for the first time, I managed to get down a big slope without punishing my body. I was nowhere near the skills of Magic Bjørn, but I was proud as punch.
Magic Bjørn possesses that top quality of giving without thought of reward. He’s always there when I need someone to talk to. I am proud to have him as a good friend.
“Det er ikke hvordan du har det, men hvordan du tar det” (Bjørn)
Geir Isene - uncut 
Snowboard is a tough thing, not so easy how it can be seen on TV. I’ve seen myself a Danish girl who tried for more than 1 hour to glide, but it was impossible. At the end of the day she performed 1 or 2 meters and she was more than happy. She failed maybe because she’s Danish, and their ski skills are really comic, but anyway, for me it was hard to understand why is so easy to glide. But it was. Without a special technique, you’re dead.
Sorry, I meant “why it’s so hard to glide”, not “so easy”.
Dragos, it’s your turn to ask the daring question. (You want to know how Geir helped Bjørn fix his life, right?) 🙂
Then it’s only a question away…
I’m all ears! (or eyes)
That wasn’t a question 😉
Okay 🙂 How did you help Bjørn fix his life? That’s our question.
A major part was this approach:
1. Write down all the things you wanted to do or should have done in your life, but didn’t. This would include ALL things from “I should have called uncle Sam a few weeks ago.”, “I should have painted the garage”, “I wanted to become a fire fighter before I turned 25 (I am 42 now and still not a fire fighter)”, etc, etc. Everything down on a large piece of paper. Everything – realistic goals or not.
2. Strike out those things that can’t be done (fire fighter before the age of 25 while you are now 42).
3. Strike out the things you decide you no longer want. What remains are the things that a person has the Opportunity, Ability and Purpose (will) to do.
4. Prioritize the rest.
5. Get going. Complete the rest of the list. Non stop. Just do it.
I follow through on 5 until the person gets done.
This is the most effective approach I have seen in fixing anyone’s life. It always work. It includes no psycho-therapy’ishness, only real life doingness.
I then do an Admin Scale of sorts (my modification of the Admin Scale after having done hundreds of them – I have turned that piece of Tech into a more workable method).
In the text message I got from Bjørn that early winter day, he included that he had never felt this good in his life. And it has remained so for the last two years.
In a month or so, we’ll be back in the slopes whipping me into shape.
Wow, thanks for sharing that! It seems to be based on some principles that I know from experience are workable (completing cycles, rekindling purposes – and just getting the person to confront, in this case his/her whole life), And the idea of all doingness is really good on a number of levels. Exciting data – you know how we all love to help! Good thing you don’t have issue regarding intellectual property :).
On the Admin Scale modifications, was it simply a matter of adapting it to some of your own business philosophy that you’ve written about in your articles?
It’s a simplification of the Admin Scale, more streamlined, adding a needed ingredient and dropping the unnecessary part.
Hmmm…I don’t know which is the more intriguing, the needed ingredient or the unnecessary part. Anyway, if you don’t want to go into it now, maybe you’ll write an article on this one day. 🙂
My new approach for helping a person straighten out his life (after the clean-up method explained above) – in the form of a HyperList:
Thanks! It looks like you have based the whole thing on a triangle: Vision-Action-Base.
I don’t have a lot of familiarity with the Admin Scale but, in terms of comparing datums of comparable magnitude, I was trying to spot the added needed ingredient. What I came up with was currency – “current situation” and what the individual is “currently delivering”. I lIke it. Also, you simplified the area of “Action” into one type of action instead of several on the Admin Scale. And you’ve dropped out Policy (surprise, LOL). How’d I do? 🙂
p.s. Maybe you should re-post it all the way over to the left so the right portion of the lines doesn’t get cut off.
You did excellent. There will be a separate blog post on this in the future.
Hooray! (On both counts. :))
Or, if it works, just make the indentations less and replace the current comment. (For future readers – and posterity, :))
Nope! Men are not so curious as women 🙂
+1. Dragos, you are my kind of sexist. hahaha
🙂 🙂 🙂
Typical European man for you. (hahaha – touché, Dragos. :D)
But actually, I don’t have a problem with what you said. I was thinking recently that it’s a very good thing there are differences among us in attitudes and viewpoints – how else would we ever see things from another angle, or be inspired to create new ideas? And then I realized this is exactly what Socrates meant about thesis-antithesis-synthesis. I got a chuckle out of coming to the same conclusion, just from my own experience. Me and Socrates, LOL. (Maybe I knew him “when”… :D)
Anyway, that’s why it’s good to get your comments, even occasionally – a fresh viewpoint! 🙂
I’m Latin, maybe you know how Latins are 🙂
You mean besides lovers?
I don’t mean nothing. I’m a gentleman 🙂 But I’m Latin 🙂
Just watching movies you can see all the stereotypes of Latins – Latin Americans, at least. For one thing they’re supposed to be lazy with an attitude of “mañana”. But not long ago I was telling a friend what I’ve observed that relates to the way Mexicans speak. There is so much warmth in the inflection of their words. He is familiar with the Latino culture in general and said that’s true for other Spanish speaking people too.
It’s not just the way they speak, either, it’s their general attitude – warm. And I figure that must be a result of a high affinity culture. Would you say that’s true of the European Latins? And do Romanians fit that group? (I have no doubt that you are a gentleman, btw. :))
There’s actually something to “stereotypes” that can’t be denied, IMO. Culture has a big influence on personality.
Romanian language is 80% similar with Italian, not with Spanish. Many of us love also Italian music, men are big fans of Juventus, Milan and Inter, famous Italian football teams and also the food is mostly the same. 2 million Romanians are living in Italy, by the way.
Wow, Italian has always been my favorite language to listen to. But I didn’t know that Romanian is that close to it (being the stereotypical American not much in the know about other cultures or languages, LOL). The stereotype for Italians is not just warm – it’s fiery!
Of the three – music, food and sports – I’m guessing you like them in that order. 🙂
Marildi, I have to be honest: I follow Italian football every week, but I like more non-Latin music. Norway is fantastic about it, cause many people listen really good music: from vintage (’50 and ’60’s) to electronic, synt-pop and of rock (I’m not exacty a metal fan). About food, not much preferences: put a glass of red wine nearby and it’s ok 🙂 But only a glass, not more 🙂
I like your music preferences too. But here is an example of a wonderful piece by an Italian composer. Tell me if you don’t agree :).
Oh God…opera is a wonderful cultural act and they joke about it…:) That blonde is sculptural, her dress is stunning, but after this silly performance she lost the chance to have dinner with me 🙂
Ha ha! I guess Victor Borge isn’t your kind of humor. (Something to do with him being Danish… ? :D). I laughed out loud at some of it. And even with all the comedy that singer still has a beautiful soprano voice.
It has Spanish comments 🙂
By Joe Green … 🙂
Yes, the Spanish comments were special for Mr. Francisco :).
And I agree, the Joe Green line was funny. (Juancito Verde to you :D.)
Another very funny part was when she bursts out loudly and he gets out the seatbelt and puts it on. Hilarious!
“. . . because she was Danish.” LOL!
I wasn’t joking at all:) Danish people are known as the worst skiiers in Scandinavia, cause their country is completely flat and their tradition in skiing is…zero!. In February they have 1 week holiday and many of them came in the resort I’ve worked for skiing. I was told that in a day crowded with Danish, Norwegians prefer to leave the slopes, That’s because Danish, in their…”innocence”, are extremely dangerous and cause cause accidents on the slopes.
I believe you! It just struck me as so funny! European humor and race and class crack me up. With entire countries the size of American “states” the people still manage to keep their language, borders and culture separate! For instance, it has been surprising news to me that Norway has so many “norwegian” languages to know to successfully understand everyone around the country. In American English, I speak with a distinctly Western accent. This is the accent you hear when listening to LRH tapes. It has a distinctive drawl and is the language of western cowboys. But the English around the entire USA minus the local accents, idioms, and colloquialisms is all perfectly understandable to one another – including you guys from Scandinavia would have no trouble understanding or being understood at all.
I have this Dutch friend who once told me that in Holland it was common for his friends to make fun of people from Belgium because of their love of “fried food.” I have no idea of the reality of this “joke” but when he told me, I did not get it and just gave him a blank stare. I still don’t get the joke. LOL.
Dear Chris, I will try to explain what your Dutch friend told you. Not the joke itself, but the context. Holland and Belgium have not just a common border, but also a common history. With good and bad period of times. Holland and Belgium are both very small countries, so doesn’t matter where you stay in Holland, you can still say that Belgium is your neighbour. It’s not the same like in US. In America, if you live in Arizona, Canada is your neighbour just on the map. But in a tiny country like Holland, Belgium is really the neighbour, in 30 minutes of driving you are there. And in Europe ALL the neighbours have something to “share”. I mean they teasing each other, they make jokes on each other, they pretend that their food, drinks, habits are far more better. These kind of things have roots usually back in the past, usually in the Middle Age.
France and Germany, Sweden and Denmark, Romania and Hungary, Italy and Austria, Russia and Ukraine, everybody who share a border also share an entire history of frustrations, love, hate, jokes, friendship and everything what a human beeing can spread.
French are saying that “Germans are like bears, they go to bed at 9 PM, so they doesn’t enjoy their life”. Germans always reply that “Correct, we work all day long, but every family have a Mercedes, we never take the bus”. Another example: Hungarian language is very slow, the opposite how fast is Spanish, for instance. Because of that, Romanians says that in a restaurant if a customer is Hungarian there is enough time for waiters to take their own lunch until the Hungarian will finish to tell his order 🙂
So, Chris, this kind of stuff are very common in Europe 🙂 Nobody gets upset, there are just jokes between different European nations.
Ah, that’s a great look. Thanks for the insight!
Another wonderful amazing-person story! And awesome photos too.
Hi all,
First, Thank you Geir for the kind words and that you are sharing your perspective of me :). I would like to add that “my list”, when it was time to priorities, it was about 30-35 items long. The breakthrough for me was after I had taken care of 15 items (or about halfway mark). To see what I had done the last couple of week, gave me a sense of accomplishment. I had not had in a long time and that boosted me back to my normal self. However, now I am not my normal self anymore… I am much, much better than that. 🙂 I never finished this list and sometimes I even add to it. The list has become a living part of me. I keep it close in a Redbook and try to stay below 5 items at a time. This greatly reduces my stress and gives me great control of my life. Why keep the list in a book? I could lose it. The items are things in my head. I can always retrieve them. But to have a visual aid of my accomplishments gives me great confides in times of self-doubt.
Geir, you helped me through dark hole in my life for that I am forever grateful. But you made my life a more happy and enjoyable, and for that I owe you one…. Big one…. Just give me a call next time you need a favor (like your moving project this winter) I will be there with a smile.
Your friend forever.
Bjørn
BIG HUG
Excellent Bjorn! I may borrow some of your ideas.
Bjørn, thank you for the sequel to the story! I can see that besides Geir’s method being a way to handle problems (no matter what they are!) it can also be a continuing – or general – way for a person to organize and run his life. Great addition to this “tech” :).
(Btw, maybe you can let us know later how Geir does on the slopes. ;))
Hi Bjorn! You found the treasure of your life: real friends. Be happy! 🙂
Treasure is an understatement. Geirs friendship is worth his weight in diamonds, emeralds and pearls. If you asked me to trade my time with Geir for this type of treasure, I would say no, because I am confident that this treasure will not give me as much enjoyment in life as Geir will.
I will remember your words, really…very touching. About the “treasure”, it was a metaphor, of course, not a money treasure.