Today I simply want to point you to Brendan’s blog. He’s back 🙂
Brendan and Tiril – both amazing people.
Bren’s back
Category Amazing people
Wassup?
Been busy lately. With moving into our new home, with interesting new projects, with coaching some amazing people. And so it has been quiet here on the blog. But I’ve got a new idea – what about writing a short blog post every day? Unfiltered thoughts, relating my everyday experiences or whatever pops to my mind. I will try it and see what happens.
The view from our new place – great for my telescope 🙂
Brendan suggested I read the book “Antifragile“. A life-changer. What’s the opposite of “fragile”? Most people replies “robust” or some synonym. But no, that’s not the opposite of “fragile”. If you think of a scale from -1 (fragile) to +1, the “robust would be zero. On the minus side of the scale we find the stuff that is harmed by shock or sudden change – like a fragile vase accelerating toward the floor. Stuff that are not harmed are in the middel of the scale, while stuff that benefit from shock or sudden change is on the plus side. While the story of Hercules beheading Hydra only to see two heads replace the former head neatly illustrated the plus side, there are more common-day examples. Like your body. Exercising your body breaks down muscle fibre resulting in a better body. Stuff that adapts, adopts, learn from getting hurt are “antifragile”. And that is far above something “robust”. And people can be fragile. Or robust. Or antifragile. I aim for the latter and have been for a few years.
It actually got me thinking about how I could benefit from the ultimate harm. Got me thinking about death. And I find myself not fearing death. Rather, I am intrigued by it. I really wonder what it will bring. I’m almost excited about that change, whenever it will come. A friend of mine, Egil Möller once said that he believed the purpose of life was to come to peace with death. Interesting.
Apart from my recent personal philosophical explorations, I have been doing some interesting projects in Å. Currently, I am involved in a few projects at Bærum Kommune (one of Norway’s major municipalities) where I am facilitating a cultural change toward 100% responsibility and focus on Deliverables rather than Tasks (ref. my article “Processes, Automation and Human Potential“). I have also been writing their IT strategy for the next 6 years and proposing a steering and financial model. I also concluded a three month project with Altinn (Norway’s governmental digital data hub) last week. Apparently I moved some people in that organization – one person started crying as he stood up during the dinner to thank me for the project. He’s a great guy and I think he finally understood what a great guy he is.
On the coaching side, I have been working with a dozen people simultaneously for a few months with several concluding during the past weeks. One guy, a 16-year old was suicidal when we first met half a year ago. We established a scale from -3 to +3, reporting every day how the day was. A score of -3 would be “I want to kill myself”, a -2 would be a really bad day, -1 a shitty day, zero would be a “who cares”-day, a +1 equals a good day, a +2 a really good day and a +3 would be a spectacular day. We quickly got up from -3/-2 to an average of -0.5. Now he is regularly reporting +2 and very seldom as low as zero. So, it can be done.
Also, Anette and I met with Dan Koon yesterday. That was fun. Dan is an amazing person. I am hoping to do some fun stuff with him in the near future.
I will probably write shorter posts than this on a daily basis. While on vacation during the next few days, I will write short posts from my mobile phone. Wonder how that will turn out. Up into the mountain we go – stay tuned for pictures 🙂
Amazing person: Tiril Eckhoff
It’s not because she aced it in the Olympics with one gold and two bronze medals and came from nowhere to be one of only three Norwegians who got three medals in Sochi. It is because of the qualities behind that, and the qualities that aren’t even reflected in her performance as a top athlete.
I knew she was capable of getting an Olympic medal. Last summer, during one of our coaching sessions, I started out “When you get a medal in the Olympics…”, she interrupted “Eh… my ambition is to get into the top 10”. I continued “When you get a medal in the Olympics…”, preparing her for what to come. To me she was obviously amazing.
Tiril Echoff is mentally much stronger than even Tiril herself thinks. But above all, she is smart. Not just intelligent, but acutely aware, able to adopt simple ideas to concrete results. Adding that she is studying engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology – although taking a break from her studies to bring a few trophies back home.
I asked her the simple question that so many top athletes struggle to answer, “What makes you so damn good at what you do?”. “I am smart”, she answered. She wasn’t in any way haughty or arrogant, just very honest. And she continued, “I am not the one to train the most, but I train smart – listening to my body, relaxing when I need to and doing my utmost when I can”. And she is honest about what helps her in life. Going through some rough spots has made her smarter and able to appreciate her top results even more. Tiril is very quick to learn – both from her mistakes and from her successes.
Even above all this, Tiril is a down-to-Earth and very empathetic girl. She’s light at heart and funny. And able to not give a fuck when it really matters.
Amazing person: Sandra Lyng
She’s not only an amazing artist with a fantastic voice. Sandra Lyng is a warm and empathetic person with a strong will – a fighter with a tough determination to reach her goals and to deliver the goods. She is one of those people I have coached that understands an idea at once and swiftly transforms it into action and results – without hesitation. She may look the blonde, but she’s one smart cookie. And very funny.
The one quality that stands out the most, is her willingness to help others. Like whipping me into shape – after yesterday’s training session, I can hardly move with muscle pain in odd new places. While I was exhausted, Sandra didn’t even work up a sweat. She’s way too fit.
Her latest song, “Don’t care” is just out on iTunes (Norway), Spotify and other other outlets. Here’s the song on Youtube:
And her previous release:
Visit Sandra’s page on Facebook. And watch out for this girl in the years to come 😉
UPDATE: Sandra has a new blog 🙂
Asking the youth for the simple solutions
Every year the organization “Operasjon Dagsverk” (eng. Operation Day’s Work) arranges for students in junior high and highschools to contribute one day’s work to a charity cause.
The students takes responsibility for finding a place to work for a day. The company that accepts the student pays NOK 300 to that year’s charity and puts the student to work. This year the money goes to an educational project in Guatemala. The day was this Thursday (31st October).
My oldest son, Niklas (14) asked if he and two friends could work at Å (a-circle.no). Obviously I took the opportunity. I got the idea of charging them with the task of creating two generic business models – one for Project Management and one for IT Service Management.
The boys got to work and in less than two hours, they delivered an intriguingly simple model for Project Management. Their “SUKK”-model pinpoints responsibilities in a project far better than the ruling model of PRINCE2.
Their model for IT Service Management was even more succinct and with excellent focus on exact responsibilities. While ITIL is perhaps the best professional model for corroding responsibility in an IT organization, their SAO model goes straight for the kill with no wishy-washy or overlapping responsibilities.
In addition to this, I got them to define the term “delivery” and had them write down exact deliveries for roles such as “a baker”, “a teacher”, “a student”, “a Prime Minister” and “an architect” as well as writing down their own personal deliveries in life. I have done this exercise many times with groups of executives and experts from businesses and government agencies. These boys were amazing and I believe they did a better and more efficient job than any other group I’ve seen.
The NOK 900 generated amazing value as I will use the results from this day in many seminars and talks to come.
Thanks to Niklas, Isak and Alf-Johan.
A successful day
You either learn something new or complete something old. That is the hallmark of a successful day.
An amazing person that stands out as one of the most energetic, creative and bold people I’ve ever met. David Melchior is an IT manager at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. He was the original inspiration for the article “Processes, Automation and Human Potential“. The above quote was but one of the gems that popped up during our meeting today. But that alone made it a successful day, as I learned something new.
Anette
Now that Anette is headline news in both online and printed media, I thought I could serve the media hunger by adding a bit from an insider’s view.
I already did a blog post titled “Amazing person: Anette Iren Johansen“. At that time, we had been a couple for only a few weeks. After another several months, my understanding and love for this amazing girl has deepened considerably.
She’s a geek in a blonde wrapping. Being a student of chemistry and other natural sciences at the University of Oslo, she recently inspired me to take up a subject there as well. Today I attended the second lecture in Observational Astronomy. Since we are planning to start with astrophotography soon, and since I want to add a spectroscope to my telescope, this course should prove inspirational.
Anette is a multi-talented girl with skills ranging from a performing musician to chemist. Since the Church of Scientology managed to side track her from her university studies, she is now wrapping up the geek education she was coerced to leave many years ago.
Anette is always focusing on helping others, even to the detriment of herself – something the Church of Scientology knew to exploit viciously… as they so often do. But the girl has balls, taking on the church in several different ways. I bet she’s moving up on their harassment list pretty fast.
Most of all, Anette is fun to be with. Light and playful and a great “bonus mother” for my three boys. Although she experienced heavy suppression from her time in the church and an abusive relationship, she is on a path of recovery and life is brighter every day. It’s an honor to be able to help her in this progress.
If you haven’t yet visited her blog, you should. She’s an amazing photographer, and she’s got some interesting stories to tell – not just about her audition to be Tom Cruise’s next wife.
THIS is what it’s all about
Nuff said:
Skills and arrogance
“Could you explain what ‘Knot Theories in N-dimensional space’ is?“, I asked while we walked down the stairs to the ground floor and down the long corridor to the soda vending machine. The Chemistry Department at Oslo University was the venue for the weekly meeting in the role-playing association. It wasn’t much fun to have John Rognes as one of the players in my role-playing world. He was far above anyone I’ve known when it came to problem solving and getting the player characters out of a tight spot. It seemed to passify the other players. But that night I at least got to pick his brains about the passion that brought him mathematical fame. At age 18, he had won prizes in several European countries for his theories that only a handful of people would understand. He was a mathematical genius at the age of three and excelled in math and natural sciences since.
“Sure“, he said, “It’s easy“. He then went on to explain his theories in less than 10 minutes with a simplicity that even my grandmother could follow. I was stunned. I still am. And on top of his obvious genius, he was a fun and social guy. And bereft of arrogance.
I sometimes wonder why Brendan doesn’t display any arrogance. He has a remarkable background with amazing stories from Northern Ireland, plays golf like a pro, can easily make a living as a street entertainer with juggling and magic, competed in the World Championships in Foosball, beats the crap out of me at the pool or snooker table, is the most excellent instructor I’ve met, runs half marathons… etc. Everything the guy touches becomes a product. And he is a social and fun guy to be around.
Maybe the lack of arrogance is because Brendan doesn’t need to prove anything. Just like John. And so many other guys with great skills who are just confident at what they do. Not looking confident and having to prove it, but just being confident.
Report from the US Tour
OMG! Brendan, Anette and myself did a US race in one week, with two days in New York City, one day in Phoenix/Grand Canyon and four days in Los Angeles. We met with more than 35 people in more than 20 meetings covering anything from business to Scientology, HP calculators, art and music. We had a blast!
A picture tells more than a thousand words. And this time I will let the pictures do the reporting:
New York City
Times Square – New York City is like the real Bladerunner
Anette & Geir kissing as part of the “making out in front of churches”-series
Beautiful Central Park
Two squirrels in the park
Brendan and Geir trying hard to follow the rules of the Soup Nazi
Had a late coffee with Tony Ortega. Intriguing talk with a highly intelligent man. And way too interesting to remember taking any pictures… so here’s his official FB pic.
Zana – we had an interesting chat 🙂
Meeting Victoria and her wonderful and loving family.
Meeting Dave in Little Italy talking about Life, the universe, everything.
Martin the genius DJ
A taste of Martin’s music (he’s half of the duo CLMD):
Phoenix & the Grand Canyon
Visiting Chris (our resident blogger) and his gorgeous family. Love’em to bits.
Chris took us to Grand Canyon… OMG!
Got real close to an elk up there.
Saw the outside of Hubbard’s home in Phoenix (he lived there for about a year back in the early 50’s). No one answered when we rung the bell.
The almost staff-less but huge and beautiful Church of Scientology in Phoenix.
Los Angeles
Making out in front of Celebrity Centre International (Scientology’s VIP church).
Meeting Jeff and Karen – what a wonderful, energetic and creative couple. The planning of some counter-OSA-ops was fun.
I did a series of videos at Karen’s detailing my various experiences in Scientology – from my work with OSA Int to my meeting with David Miscavige. I will do a blog post for each of these videos as the are produced and released on Karen’s channel. Karen has done lots of videos, like this one:
Attending a show on Scientology at the Silent Theater (Cine Family). Got invited by Karen and Spanky. Winged it… got on the panel and did a demo session. Awesome fun!
Here’s Tory and Mark’s video on what went down that night:
Doing a demo session with the organizer of the event, Hadrian. He was a good sport and as funny as they come. He even said he had some gain out of the two auditing questions he was asked.
JD Shapiro talking about his script writing for the movie Battlefield Earth. Some interesting insight right there.
Meeting the lovable Tory Magoo 🙂
Spanky and me in the garden behind the theater. You just gotta love that energy and compassion.
The happiest place on Earth 🙂
Doing the “Star Tour” at Disneyland.
Boat trip down at the wonderful Newport Beach with Mike and Betsy. Great couple. Very interesting talk.
I’d take it if someone had begged me to live there.
…especially with this pelican outside the door.
Jason the Writer and Video Producer with Brendan looking over Newport Beach.
Tom and Anette on Venice Beach. Tom’s a cool chap.
Meeting Garth and Joe at our “mini HHC” (the yearly HP Handheld Club is in the autumn). Great to meet with some fellow geeks and talk HP calculators. Yeay!
Talking Incas and her upcoming book and TV series with Theresa. Fascinating stories!
At Aida and Dave’s. The powerhouse Mexican served authentic food from her home country – all made from scratch. Oh yummy.
The view from Aida’s is not bad… not bad at all…
Jason the Writer invited us to the Magic Castle with a really fun show 🙂
Spent hours with Jason – but with him and us being so much into the conversations, we forgot all about taking pictures together with him and his family…
…but Anette did take a picture of me kissing one of Jason’s bunnies…
…and his duck. After which Angie took us on a Black Widow safari around their house. That woman’s got balls of steel.
Flying home
There are so many pictures we didn’t take in all our awe and rush. It was a week we will never forget. And with people we will have many years ahead with great friendship and lots of fun. Next time we’ll go to…
Geir Isene - uncut 