134: Thomas Erikson | Surrounded By Idiots - Sweden's Greatest Selling Author

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The following is with the man behind surrounded by idiots, surrounded by narcissist, surrounded by psychopaths, bad bosses, setbacks, and even… vampires.

He is one Sweden’s most successful and influential authors of all time. He is the incredibly interesting, and secret Stephen King o’phile – Thomas Erikson.

For interviews with Thomas in English, this is certainly unlike you have ever heard him before.

He leans into his thoughts about Jordan Peterson, he talks about antidepressants in Sweden, opens up on his worldview when it comes to finding meaning and happiness, he tells the incredible publishing story for surrounded by idiots, goes deep into Stephen King and even rounds on the interview by assigning a personality colour to various famous people from history Elon Musk to Jesus.

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• 00:00 – Introduction
• 02:37 – The Incredible Publishing Story For Surrounded By Idiots & How Selling Millions Of Books Changes You
• 27:07 – Serendipity From The Network
• 34:57 – Antidepressants In Sweden, Meaning & Happiness
• 47:18 – Jordan Peterson
• 1:00:35 – Great Communicators, Great Writers & How To Communicate With People
• 1:39:24 – Giving Elon Musk, Jesus & More A Personality Colour (DISC)
• 1:58:22 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History

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Curious Things Mentioned During The Episode

• Diamant Salihu
• Martin Schibbye

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The following podcast is with the author behind one of the most successful nonfiction books of all time. He's one of Sweden's most successful and influential authors, and of course, one of the best exports. It is the great Thomas Ericsson. He is the author behind Surrounded by Idiots, Surrounded by Narcissists, Surrounded by Psychopaths, surrounded by bad bosses, surrounded by setbacks, and even this year surrounded by vampires. Now you've almost certainly seen the surrounded by four-color uh book jacket in every single airport bookstore around the world. And pretty much wherever books are sold, his books, it feels like have been in the top ten for as long as I can remember, in fact. But that's just an illusion of recency bias. And in truth, the case is that it's just been such a phenomenally best-selling book that it is featured in everywhere that somewhere sells books because everyone wants a piece of it. It's a type of book where you read it and you start thinking, hmm, I know that this person is this colour. I know that this organization might want this sort of colour. And so it was a book that spread like absolute wildfire from personal recommendations, word of mouth recommendations. Now, Thomas Erickson is an immensely interesting character. He's definitely a bit of a secret Stephen Kingophile, but for interviews with him in English, I'm pretty sure that the following is unlike you've ever heard him before. Among the many topics, he leans into his thoughts about Jordan Peterson. He talks about antidepressants in Sweden. He opens up in his own worldview when it comes to finding meaning and happiness. He tells the incredible publishing story for Surrounded by Idiots. He goes deep into Stephen King and even rounds off the interview by assigning a personality colour to various famous people from history. These include the likes of Elon Musk all the way through to Jesus. Now it feels like I'm saying this every week, but again, this interview sets a new high watermark for the podcast. And alongside it, I can see that more and more of you are listening and as well reviewing. You're all bona fide legends. We're currently 126 reviews on Spotify. Now let's pump this up to over 200 before the beginning of summer. And please, I ask you to follow me on uh one of the socials. I want to get a better sense of who is listening. Uh and the best place for that is Instagram or Twitter. The links for both are in the description. But before we do the podcast, I just want to remind you that while this podcast took me five hours to put together, it will only take you five seconds to review. So make sure to pump your good, good juice into the algorithm. And with all of that out of the way, here is the great and powerful Thomas Erickson. It was quite interesting to read that the first time you wrote about the disc or four colored method uh in public wasn't actually in surrounded by idiots, but rather through the worldview of the behavioral scientist Alex King.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

That is true. I wrote uh crime uh novels to begin with. I'm actually not a natural author, basically, because I struggled for 20 years getting published, and when I finally succeeded, it was about this behaviorist guy, lecturer, and all of that. And he actually starts the first book by entering a stage saying, Sometimes I feel I'm surrounded by idiots. That was actually the starting point. I am surprised you know that.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

It's just such an uh unlikely avenue to take. Because, as you were saying just before, something like was it 12% of all Swedes own a copy of your book? I mean, a phenomenal bestseller. Yet the entry to writing happened through this fictional character.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Well, you know what I say. Life uh beats fiction nine times out of ten, I guess. I th I think it's like this. This is something that I have actually thought of quite a lot. I think it's like like whenever you're going to succeed with something in life, whatever you are looking for, it's never going to be exactly what you thought it would be. What will the success be like if you consider yourself successful, which could be measured in in numerous ways, obviously. But when you actually manage to do something worth doing, it's usually not what you or anybody else had expected. It's probably something else. For me, definitely so. I have been dreaming about being an author since I was, I don't know, since since I read my first Stephen King novel, basically. That would have made me 15, I think. And after that, yeah, I'm gonna be an author myself also. I didn't know how and what and and and and why and when. But you know, the the the cult around Stephen King was so so special. It's more like being an author than writing books because that's hard. Uh but I dreamt about that for for several years, and I tried to to write and write and write, and and I I got turned down so many times I had two filled uh folders we will, you know, just don't call us and we won't call you. And and and uh and uh finally I succeeded. So I wrote four fiction novels and they sold okay, maybe, depending on who you're asking. I I couldn't survive on them, you know, just couldn't. And then the idea about writing non-fiction actually occurred from a series of interesting uh coincidences, I would say. Uh but I was into the topic, so I knew everything about the subject itself. So I actually went to my actually I got emails from people saying this guy Alex King, who who who the uh the protagonist in those books were were called. Um interesting, nice stories. But you know, the tool the guy in the books is using, where can we learn more about those? And I I had to say I don't know, because I didn't know any books about disc. I do now. But here's the thing: if I had known about all the books written on disc as a subject itself, I would just have pointed people in that direction said you can buy this book and own that book. But I didn't know about any of these books, so so therefore that was kind of a coincidence. So after answering the question, I don't know, felt like 500 times. I just said to myself, maybe I'll put together that book myself. I know the topic and I obviously know how to write at least a little bit. So I'm gonna do this book and I'm gonna sell it to everybody, and everybody will be happy. And so I went to my publisher and they said, What is this? And I said, It's you know, about communication, behavioral styles, you know, and colours, you know, and it's gonna be called Surrounded by Idiots, and it's gonna look like this. It's my own design, the cover design. And they looked at me with horror in their eyes and said, It's a really stupid idea, you know. A book about idiots, it's a stupid title, it's an ugly cover. Forget about the whole thing, nobody wants to read about that. So just drop it. And I shopped around at all the publishing houses in Sweden, early 2012, 2013, something, and they all turned me down basically saying I was the idiot. And maybe I was. Maybe they had had a point back then, but but then again, I I had never been really good at taking advice when I felt something in my gut, so to speak. So I put the book together anyway, and I had to self-publish it as it's called. I had to finance it myself. I had no budget for marketing, no advertising, no nothing. I drove around, made boxes of the books uh in the back of my car, forcing them onto my clients. Take ten books, and I looked at it, you know, what is this? It just no, a five, two, take a book. Yeah, yeah, okay, but do we have to pay for it? You know, and that's how it started. So I struggled for the first year, and then I got in got the book into the airports of Sweden, and then just boom, it went like like mad. And the I mean the whole nation was wallpapered with surrounded by it for two or three years. I actually got kind of tired of it myself to see it everywhere. Sounds ungrateful, maybe, but finally I I I I realized this this is just I I can't I can't deal with this. And uh yeah, so and now it's traveling all over the world. Actually, so it's kind of it's really it's totally surreal for me, totally surreal, because it's just old stuff. I knew this 20 years back in time, so uh you know what's the fuss? But still, people seem to like it. 48 languages, right? 54 actually. Oh my goodness. The last week, five Indish languages, Indian languages in Indish, in in Indian languages. Oh my god. Because India is a huge uh nation, as we know, 1.4 billion people in there. So five of those languages my agent closed the last week, actually.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Oh wow, get no.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

So 54, yeah. Just to brag a little bit, I am actually the still alive most most translated Swedish author. There is, there's a couple of dead ones uh way ahead of me. Selma Lagliven Astraling, which makes it even more surreal because I'm still just you know this guy sitting in my home office, you know, trying to do the best I can. So, but yeah, it's it's uh it's fantastic, it's great. I'm very, I'm very grateful.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

What about the likes of it's Steag Larsen, right? The Go with the Dragon Tattoo series. Yeah. How many languages is he on? Uh close to 40 something. I mean, it must feel nice to have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

I passed him before. No, but those books were brilliant, of course. But he has sold, you know, of course, many, many more copies. But you know, it it's like if you're gonna, as I said before, if you're gonna measure success, you have to find the parameter that gives you success. So I'm going with many languages. No, but seriously, uh it's it's we have a lot of brilliant Swedish authors, but it's usually it's usually actually uh fiction fictional authors, fiction authors who who succeeds uh abroad. And that is usually because when it comes to non-fiction, all country has their own experts. They all have their own behaviorists, super psychologists, super inspirational personality, you know, uh mentor, coach, guru. So therefore, it's kind of hard to to manage to get a non-fictional book out there, actually. And that gives me great hopes for for well for for for the sequels, of course.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Uh, you said that it's quite surreal. Sweden was plastered with surrounded by idiots for so long, 54 languages. I would love to hear you uh, if you could open yourself up, maybe expose more than you'd like, but it's being edited, so whatever's comfortable with you. But if you could open the kimono after selling millions and millions of books, how that changes one's position in the world, how people change in their relationship with you, how they treat you differently, basically your reflections on the experiences from becoming a one of the best-selling non-fiction authors, literally, of all time.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

That is, of course, the right question. I don't know what the real answer is, really, because I am definitely still me. I have a very low profile when it comes to me, to Thomas. I'm an extremely private person. I can be personal, but I'm very, very private. Uh, and people who know me say that. And a lot of people who hasn't have known me for 30 years say, we still really don't know you. And I like to keep it that way because I have my private life, and that is up to no that's no one's no one's business what that is like. I think you know, I was in my late 40s when this happened. So had I been a young man, you know, 21, 22, maybe I would have been completely, you know, out there. I don't know. I think it's a good way to have a good thing to have some life experience to have been around a couple of decades uh doing things when you reach this level of well, I guess it's a level of success, I guess. And still I don't quite think about it in that perspective because again great books, uh giving lectures all over Europe, mentoring high executive people, you know, top managers, entrepreneurs, billionaires, literally, actually, still struggling with the same problems as as as you and I. So for so for but for me, it's kind of I did that before also. Uh I do basically the same things, maybe to a broader audience. Well, obviously the audience is bigger, but still I haven't changed so much what I actually do. When I'm on a stage in front of 5,000 people and talking about things that I find interesting, and I see the response and you know the feedback that I get from the audience. That's fantastic, it's great, I enjoy it, I love it. I'm very grateful to have that kind of job. But then I want to go home to my wife, you know. And she keeps my feet on the ground. She says, Okay, was it good? Okay, great. You can take the garbage house. Your turn, you know. You you walk the dog. And she she really, really, you know, she treats me like no superstar whatsoever. And I love her for it, and she has never changed her own attitude. Obviously, why should she? My kids hasn't either, and and my my my sister, no, no, nobody's doing that. Sometimes I meet people, you know, in in Sweden we don't we don't treat each other like like we don't we don't have many, many really soup big superstars. Well we do, but we don't treat them like that. If you're not Slatan Ibrahimovic, you're not allowed to do very much actually. If you sort of boost your ego too much and you try to sort of drift off in the stratosphere, Swedes will take you down and say, You're just like us, you know. Don't think that you are somebody. If you have heard about Jan Talagan, you probably have. Don't think you are somebody. Work really hard and and do your best, but if you succeed, shut up. Sit down, you know, and be like everybody else. And I'm sort of raised in that manner. So I don't, when I, you know, go downtown and go for for dinner or something, maybe people will recognize me, but they won't come up to me and say, Hey, I saw you on TV, you know. They just won't do that because who am I? Who who who do you think you are, you know, more like that. And everybody doesn't love my work. I I have I have uh some people who are criticizing me as well, which is kind of the way it should be. If you're gonna if you're gonna do something worth doing, you're gonna receive some criticism also. Otherwise, it's not important what you do. So so but no, I'm I'm still the same. I don't think I have changed at all. My life is a bit simpler, easier now, not simpler, but easier perhaps. But but still, you know, I mow the lawn, and you know, I I iron my own shirts the same way I always done, because I'm the best one to iron my shirts, you know, because uh I have a certain way to do that, and I'm not gonna, you know, change that because uh why would I? You know, seriously. I I'm working literally seven days a week. Maybe I won't work on Christmas, Christmas Eve, or or maybe midsummer's day or something. But I'm I'm up at five o'clock in the morning as I always been, and I I I work for a couple of hours, then uh grab some breakfast, you know, talk to my wife for an hour or so, and then she goes into her office and I go into mine and I work until you know six o'clock in the evening. So, and I haven't changed that because I love what I do.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Wow. And you're productive in those hours, sitting in front of the computer, presumably researching and then writing?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I'm not YouTubing at all, so I don't have time for that. You know, I'm really lousy on social media. I never scroll social media. I don't I don't uh binge uh YouTube videos on on strange things. You know, I I don't go down the rabbit hole that often. So so no, I don't. I just I just work and I research, and then of course I travel quite a lot. And when I give lectures, I was in the UK for a PR or tour just the other week. And that takes some time, of course. But uh but no, I I'm I'm living basically the same life as before. And I think that's kind of if you if you if you like what you do, you're gonna do it regardless. I mean, I don't get paid for writing the books. Nobody's paying me for sitting there, you know, 1200 hours approximately, because I'm logging the hours I sp I spent on writing uh surrounded by book about 1200 hours. So that's sort of a half a year working number of working hours. I think it's 2600. How many are there? But anyways. So I don't get paid to do that. I get paid to sell the books. I'm not even selling the books. That's the bookstores, you know, and Amazon, I guess, and and so on. So what I do is sort of I do it because it's fun and it's interesting, it's fascinating, it develops myself and my own character, and I think it's it's it's it's fan, it's great fan to get, well, in a way, I guess to get paid at the end of the day, to get paid something for something that you really love to do. So I'm very fortunate that way. And uh I know that, I'm fully aware I'm very fortunate. And and uh but no, I don't think I've changed at all. And I think people who knew me before would would actually acknowledge that. I actually think so.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

You don't get paid to write the book. Does that mean you're getting a steeper cut of what the actual final sales are? Like it's a more low-risk approach from the publisher's perspective? Is that a deal you've negotiated? No, no, no, no. Okay, but that's interesting that you would um forego any type of down payment for the book, I suppose. Since you have a bankable book that you can predictably sell.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, well, of course, I mean for a publishing house anywhere in the world, to invest in a book by Thomas Ericsson is of course a lesser risk than to invest a book in in, I don't know, Eric Thomason, if if he even exists, because who's heard about him? Poor Eric. Poor Eric, exactly. But you know, but you know what I mean by saying I don't get any money for writing a book, I mean those hours, I don't get paid by the hour. And you can never, you can never, if there was a formula saying this book will be a success, this is gonna be a bestseller, so yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna pay you up front a lot of money. If they knew that, the all books would be bestsellers and the other ones wouldn't be published at all. But you can never be sure about anything about this. I mean, who would assume that a book about idiots with a kind of offensive title would sell at all? And I mean, those I met early on there said it's a stupid idea, and so on, all of those things. They probably were right, but something happened dur during the path to to to to you know where I am today. So but but who knows? Who who knows really? It it's it's really it's a conundrum, I would say. And again, if there was a formula, everybody would use it. So are you familiar with Nasim Taleb? No.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Um, it's not that important, but rather he has an idea in one of his books, uh, just about the sort of random chance and distribution of a lot of different creative domains. Book publishing is a huge one of them. You say that the initial publicist said that Surrounded by Idiots is a shocking title, and this uh this artwork you've suggested is is gonna go nowhere. I think that the such a provocative title was a huge reason why people picked it up in the first place. And then once you get into it, you realize, oh my god, you know, you want to say you're a yellow, you're a red, and you want to therefore make them read it as well. And then it had this type of network effect that made it spread so well. And like you say in the book, businesses might buy a thousand copies at a time, make everyone read it so it makes communication easier among up and down the hierarchy. Yeah, but the point is that these publicists who initially said this is gonna go nowhere, the truth might actually just be their guess is as good as random, and rather you following your own gut instinct was the only right path that you could have taken. Because presumably you could have presented, you self-published it, so you got to take these decision makers out of it in an alternative universe where they take you on and they say, You know what, Mr. Ericsson, we love this, but Surrounded by EDIS isn't going to work for us. We want to call it the disc method for 2020. Some ridiculous title like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

There was actually an alternative. Before I got a contract with the the publisher in the UK, uh my agent actually found found found this small uh publisher, and he said, How about we redesigned it? Navy blue, white address, and it's it's gonna be called the communication manual, maybe. What do you think? And I said, I I don't I don't I don't I don't think so. No, please don't do that. I I won't sign that contract. And she was on to me for three three, four months, and I said, I won't do it, I don't believe in it. I usually get the question, how did you know it was gonna be a success? Of course I didn't know that. No, but again, my guess is as good as random, also, obviously. But I had something in my gut saying it felt like a good idea, and sometimes you need to go with that. I mean, I am more a sales guy than I'm than I am an author, probably, because I've been worked in within sales since my early 20s, and I trained tens of thousands of sales reps. And the sales guy in me said if I can find a title that is sort of provocative to make people at least you know what is that? Because the books are selling better in bookstores than online, because online you won't go look for the title surrounded by idiots, right? But you will see it at the airport. You will say, What the hell is that? Sorry, technical terms.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Sorry, but anyway, which is

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Okay, so you have to pick it up, and then the only reason you design uh the front cover the way you do is to make people turn it around and then read the backside the text on the back side of the book, back of the book. And I wrote that myself also, using sales techniques, you know, building a problem and then showing a solution solution, you know, and the benefits and everything. Classic sales technique. And they said, okay, this might be, and then they read the first chapter where I told them to don't buy the book if you know everything already. You can put it back, save your money. And that probably intrigued people and frustrated and annoyed enough for people to say, I'm gonna buy the bloody book anyway and see what it's about. So, yeah, but it's a series of because the salesperson within me thought it was a good idea. But the author with a low self-confidence, no. If I if I had thought like an author, I would probably never had tried to sell it in the first place. Because when my then publisher, I was a published author before, and I was sort of in the game, if you know what I mean. And they said, No, no, no. That's bad feedback. That's really you know, it's it's it's stupid. They didn't actually read the manuscript. No, they they answered me, I think, after 45 minutes, say thank you, but no, thank you. Don't call us and we won't call you. And I knew these people, these people were my my buddies at the time, and still they didn't read it. So that that that's really that that I felt really put down by that actually. And if I had gone with the author's style, losing my self-confidence, lose my motivation, nothing would have happened. But I was dumb enough to try it anyway. Sometimes that helps actually. Don't be too smart, just you know, go with the flow and see what's gonna happen. Yeah, it's it's it's strange.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

From the position here as the interviewer, and I've experienced so many times now, looking at the random walk of life of the guest and noticing these moments of converging pathways where things, had they gone another way, would have been so drastically different in the outcome. Um, and I think particularly with your publishing story, it is so it is so archetypal of that. I mean, you had already experienced the heights of finance, the heights of sales, uh you were self uh you are a published fictional author, and you come in with this uh non-fiction book, which will likely end up being the legacy, right? Probably. And yeah, it's just incredible the the random walk that is taken to have gotten there. And the fact that you're self-publishing it and just driving it around in the trunk of your car, uh, it all you know, it's all the mixings on top of the Yeah, but exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

That's what I just said before. You know, when you finally manage to to do something really, really, really good or or that makes you happy or successful or whatever you want to call it, it is usually not what you thought it would ex what you expected it to be. And and it's it's interesting also because a lot of people have told me, don't do it. Why are you struggling? Why are you getting up at 2 45 in the morning? Which I did when my kids were young, when they were small, small, and and and uh banging away on my my you know uh used laptop, uh trying to figure out how to write a book at all, and trying to build my own craft so to speak, trying to sort of work and and and fine-tune my skills, which I I probably had none. I had a lot of imagination, but I wasn't again. I'm I'm not a natural talent when it comes to to authoring itself. That that technique, that skill, that that that nerve, I don't know how to to to put it, but you know, I I didn't have it probably, but I wanted it so badly. I dreamt about it, you know. I I I wrote vision boards, you know, I was affirming things and I was sort of uh meditating, and it was all I'm gonna be an author, I'm gonna be an author. Still 20 years, god damn it. It's usually people would have given up and said, this is not for me. That is one of my my it's not a skill, it's more of a it's more of a personality trait, this uh conscientiousness that I actually have within me. I I I don't give up very easily. I I if I feel I'm onto something, I will try it probably too many times. And a lot of things that I have done and tried, I have failed with. So absolutely, I failed more than I have succeeded. So that usually goes for everybody, right? So what was the question again?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Uh I don't know if there was a necessarily question there.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Interesting reflections.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

The observation of the random walk, yeah, and how while life can be understood backwards, it must be lived forwards.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Life is life comes in mysterious ways.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

All right, so uh you mentioned this uh other side of your uh life, which is the coaching aspect. I'd love to hear a serendipitous moment that has happened to you because of your network, because of interacting with and learning from um all these disparate people who are in various positions of power. Oh. You mean things that I had picked up uh not necessarily a moment of serendipity that has come because of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

One thing that has struck me, I was coaching this guy a couple of years ago, two, three, three years ago. Uh this entrepreneur from he lives in London. Uh well now he actually lives in Silicon Valley. He moved uh last uh autumn, last fall. Uh he was living in London. He was the heir, not the sole heir, but he was the heir of a huge fortune. He, if it wasn't had been for a lot of lawyers involved and and trust funds and blah blah blah, he would have been uh a billionaire in euros or or in dollars. Really, really wealthy. Well, he didn't he didn't suffer very much because he was very, very, very industrious at the same time. But he looked like the perfect guy, he was in his late 30s, I would say. I have never met him in real life. I only met him online, uh zooming and coaching and mentoring him uh online. He looked me up after reading my books actually, and he had a friend who had a friend who I had been mentoring a couple of years before that. So he knew a couple of things about me. And he said, I like your style, I like your way you seem to be quite direct. Even though I put up a friendly face, I don't like uh people you know messing around and trying to trick me into something or fool me by you know well, not speaking the truth basically, because that's the red in you. I I I yeah, well, I can't help you if you don't tell me the truth. What's the problem? Well, I don't know. Well, you better find out, buddy. Uh we need to know. We need to know what we're going to solve there. But the thing is this, what I learned from him was that when you look at people, everybody that you meet, they are struggling. They have sort of evil. Well, they have this how should I put it? They have this struggles, their inner struggles, their intrinsical ghosts, you know, that are haunting them at night. And if you scratch the surface just so little, just a little little bit, you will see what they are fighting actually. And this guy was the same because I mean on paper, as close to being a billionaire, you know, three beautiful kids, a beautiful wife, you know, and he's living his dream life in London, you know, and having his own uh investment firm. And it looks looked brilliant. He had bought a new Bentley and all of this, you know, blah blah blah. And still, when I sort of got under his skin, he told me, Thomas, I don't know what to do. I'm so confused. And I'm scared. I wake up at night and I don't know what to do. I'm like, I have to protect my children, you know, I have to do this and that, but I don't know how should I prioritize my life? And for me, that was kind of, oh wow, that was first it felt like a conundrum, but still I realized everybody has their inner fears, their inner inner, well not the weaknesses, but but let's call it fears. They're afraid to to mess things up, regardless of how they have positioned themselves in the in the in the society, in the hierarchy in general, so to speak. That was for me an interesting experience because I mean on an intellectual level, I guess I understood that before. But to see it in reality, how he didn't dare to do certain things, because what would it make of him and how how will he come out of the tunnel at the end of the day? What will it do to him as a person if he did this or did that, if he fired that guy who was really bad for his organization? I said, Well, you if he's bad, you have to let him go. Yeah, yeah, but what if his wife calls me up and calls me names, you know, and I said, Well, hey, you you're the boss, you're the owner, the the entrepreneur, you you you you're the man. Yeah, yeah, but you know, still, you know, fiddling around in his head, you know, what if people feel think badly about me? What if they hate me? You know, what if this and what if that, you know, and and and everybody is struggling with their own fears. I guess it's fears. I guess it's fear we're talking about here. People everybody wants to be happy, and we all can be happy for for a short while, and then something happens, and then we're miserable. We could go just like this. And that I I learned from this to when people say, I want to be happy, especially young people tell me, I want to be happy. How can I be happy? And I say, What do you mean happy? Yeah, I want to be happy. Well, when? Well, all the time. I want to be happy all the time. But you can't be happy all the time. That's that's that's a that's a utopian nightmare. Because how would you know that you're happy if you're happy all the time, you know? You have to be feeling miserable and you have to struggle a little bit and feel bad, and then you feel good, and you know, and on and on it goes, that's life, that's the cycles of life, you know. No, no, I want to be happy all the time, and that's not gonna happen. It's impossible. You can't live in that sort of utopian future. Life is hard, even on the really, really famous and rich people. They are maybe they struggle with different things f than than you and I, but they are also struggling, and we don't sometimes we forget about that. They are basically in the same boat as us. A bigger boat, probably, but you know what I mean. And this is kind of fascinating and interesting. Uh it has taught me one thing well, as when you listen to this, obviously it has taught me many things, but is it it has taught me even though I might look successful in the outer world, and even though I might feel successful, I need to find I need to find a certain let's call it meaning. I need to understand why. I'm not going to go all Simon Sinegobia, but he was really right when he said start with why. And and it will always be correct. If you don't know why you do it, you have to find a sort of a meaningful way of living your life. And it's not about it can be about money, it could be about fame, it could be about, you know, many friends and and and or big family, it could be anything, a healthy relationship, all of it. But if it doesn't feel meaningful, it's not worth anything. It sounds a bit uh bit cliche ish, I know, but you need to come to that conclusion yourself, I think. I have. So therefore I still continue to work seven days a week, but for a different reason than I did before. Actually, now I do it because I think it's it's useful, it's beneficial, and I think I can do good. If I reach the right audience with the right well the right message, I guess when I when I talk to people who sort of bias my my vision for for how to live your life when it comes to how to deal with other people or how to lead other people, how to deal with yourself and deal with setbacks and all of these things, I I feel I feel really good. I would probably do it for free also. I take the money, but I would probably do it for much less money. That is absolutely the case. But I didn't know that. Ten years back in time, I actually wasn't aware of this, which for me is quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Thinking of um trying to be happy all the time, or not trying to be, but at least this misguided goal of happiness all the time is the right path. I'd like to ask you specifically about Sweden and the prevalence of antidepressants within the society. Um, an antidepressant is there to level out the mood, but without grappling with the lows, it's hard to understand the highs necessarily. You know, life must be in that cyclical pattern. So you know when things are really good and you can become stronger when things are really bad. And the antidepressant levels you out. Sweden is one of the highest per capita antidepressant um prescribed countries in the entire world. Mental health is an enormous problem everywhere, but particularly in the Nordics. There's the seasonal depression part of it. But I would actually say it's more a cultural explanation for why there is such bad mental health here in this country. As a Swede, as a behavioral scientist, tagging onto what we just said, I'd love to hear you reflect on that.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

That's a good point. And it's it's it's actually it's a scary trajectory that we are looking at. Uh what will what lies ahead? Who knows? I saw this recent study. Sweden is this the country in Europe where we work, but we're the second country on the list, how few hours we work per week. France is ahead of us, so they work even less hours per capita per week. Only one country are more mispleased with their daily lives. One people are more disgruntled, let's call it. That's the French. So we we and the French people, we work less than everybody else, but still we are more miserable than everybody else. So, what the hell is going on? It's a paradox, but still, it actually gives you an idea because just connecting, circling back to what I said before. If you don't know why you don't, if you don't have a meaningful life, you're gonna feel bad about yourself. If you don't do enough things that makes you feel worth something, that your days are worthwhile, that you are doing something meaningful that helps other people, or that helps yourself, or that you know that you contribute in in a way that actually matters, if I say say it like that. You're gonna feel miserable and you're gonna say to yourself, This is bad. I am I am I am looking for something, but I don't know what it is. I don't want to feel bad. So I'm gonna take a couple of pills to to feel less bad, but still not good, which is kind of as you said, it sort of equals the cycles out, it just you know makes you average all the time. Uh I know a couple of people with bipolar disease, and they say on medication I feel like everybody else, and I sort of miss those ups and downs, you know. And I think it's the same way with anyone. If you if you cut the best ups away, ups and and the downs uh uh as well, it's gonna be average. And that sounds pretty boring. I think the better we have, the the the higher the higher, let's say, uh uh let's say um well when it comes to you know not your status, but when it comes to you know the quantity of life, how the the the newer car that you have the bigger your house is and and all of these things, the the nicer clothes you're wearing. It has absolutely nothing to do with with your inner well-being, it's nothing to do with mental mental uh illnesses. It is it is obviously the more you get, the less, the the more frustrated you get because the more things that you achieve, the more frustration you get because somebody else is having even more. And I think social media is isn't helping because you know, 50 years ago you can compare yourself with a neighbor three kilometers down the road, you know, because he's oh he has got he's got a Mercedes-Benz. We only got a rusty Volvo here, you know. What's wrong? You can go up and ask him, How did you make so much money so you can buy? And he would tell you, well, you know, I started this business and this and that. And this these days you can compare it to anybody on the planet. You can see the rich and famous in Hollywood driving, you know, or at in Monaco driving in Lamborghinis, you know, and and going on their yachts all the time. So you feel miserable because they have more than I have, you know. But you know, they have they have probably not inherited it. Some people inherit fortunes, yes, they do. But most billionaires on the planet are well, they're not self-made, but they build the fortune themselves. Actually, they started with close to nothing. Most people are not born wealthy. There are people who are born wealthy, definitely, but most of the richest ones didn't. That gives you something. It's it's not enough to just sit there and complain and and long for a better life. You have to work really hard, but you need to find out where to begin. And I think in Sweden we have, I mean, to all the Swedes who might pick up this this podcast, I don't know how many will, but and we have been run by the Social Democrats for so long who tells us the government will take care of you. We will protect you, we will feed you, we will house you, we will do anything for you. And that g gives you a people of of well, it will give you a passive type of people because there's always uh this this net that will save me if something happens to me. The government will take care of me. I think that's good when it comes to the the less fortunate people in the in the society. We need a safety net for the obs absolutely fully for that. But for everybody who like me have the capacity to do much more than just sit there, I think it's bad. It's like a parent who are sort of helicopter parenting their kids because you're the best there is and you're so lovely and beautiful. You don't have to you don't have to to do anything if you don't like to do that. You you can just sit there, we will take care of you, you know. I think it's a bad idea. And in Sweden we have been doing that for a long time now. The government are stepping in with a good will, hopefully, to to for for a good reason to trying to protect people from you know bad things. I don't think it works it's working at all actually. Because it makes you passive, it makes you you know envious still for some strange reason. Is this all there is to it? What specifically is making you envious? Well, you know, if I am taught not to work really hard in order to succeed, and some people will still work really hard because they didn't they didn't pay attention, they will succeed and I won't. And again, it has nothing to do with money. I'm talking about money here, but uh it could be also could be to you know to to build a career as a lawyer or as a doctor or or to treat uh different types of status. Yeah, it's status, you know, it could be a cultural thing, it could be to live as an artist clothed with an empty free fridge, you know, but still, you know, you have this status, you you are somebody. It could be helping uh starving kids in Africa. It doesn't have to be physical things, it could be things that work, but you have to work really hard for it. And if the government and and your family and everybody's telling you, you don't have to work really hard, we can still take care of you. They are fooling you into it's a dead end. If you want to achieve anything in life, you need to work for it. That's what I mean. So but you will still see the successful ones who sort of landed the best job ever, you know, and who got the race and who, you know, bought the house and who have this wife who loves him or her or husband or everything, whose kids are lovely, you know, and well uh managed and everything. Because they worked for it. They didn't sit and wait.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

There's a am I making any sense of it? No, 100% thinking out loud here. It's it it it makes me think of this uh great sort of aphorism that uh comparison is the thief of joy. Yes, you know, like you could be so content and happy in one particular moment, but you open up your phone then and you see someone in a in a kind of similar moment that clearly is happier or is having a little bit nicer of a time, yeah, you know, or their crayfish party has the nicest liquor, and all of a sudden, you know, that comparison is has totally taken away from your joy. And a hundred percent the the the phenomenon of social media uh is the is is a is a forcing function of that comparison because if I try to think, you know, I'm just as susceptible as anyone else to try and you know comparing yourself to other people uh around you or in your field and trying to, you know, and measuring yourself against them. And I try to think of it as they're uh on a distribution of many, many different size circles. And at any given time, you should only ever compare yourself to those that are within that same circle. And that circle is determined by the opportunities that are presented to you, the the actual place that you're in. Because you don't know the conditions that brought someone who you're comparing yourself to to such heights. It could be things that you don't even have access to. Simple geographical location. If you're a podcaster in Austin, you have access to much better people than if you're a podcaster in Mongolia, right? True. So don't compare yourself on that spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

True. I understand where you're coming from with this. But on the same token, the thing is this when you it depends on your ambition, I guess. If you want to achieve something, if you're not happy where you are, as you said, don't compare yourself to people in a whole other division of life. Right. On the other hand, if you do that and you are aiming for sort of putting yourself in the same position, I want to be one of those guys. I want to be so good. I want to learn so many languages. I want to write all those books as they do. Well, who are you going to compare yourself to? You need to compare yourself to somebody who is a little bit ahead of you still. As the old saying goes, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I think there's something, some truth to that, because if you're only sort of hanging around with people who are like you or a bit less fortunate than you are, so you can feel like the star, where will you get your own personal development from? Who will challenge you and say, I did this, you know? So so this is this is it's a balance that is very, very tricky. And for me, I I am struggling myself with this. I mean, I'm Jesus, I'm 57. I should have figured it out by now, right? But still, I probably haven't. I have a very, very, very, very small group of close friends. It's two guys that I known since I was in my early, well, one as a teenager and one in my early, well, no, late teens, actually, my first job. And who I'm still keeping. But everybody else is gone because they are either envious or I envy them. Probably, probably. But these two guys, we have found a balance. Doesn't matter where we are going in life, we will still treat each other like we did when we were youngsters. And that's the best way to do it. But I can't use them as role models to take the next step because they are in a totally different field than I am. One is an ex-banker, and another one is just he's this he's some sort of genius, IT genius. And I I don't even understand what he's talking about. I usually say to them, don't talk about your job because I won't follow. Yeah, but I'm developing this program and all this and that and blah blah. Then you lost it. Stop talking. I don't know where you're going with this. So so so so we we're friends. That's all we is we we are. But if I'm going to challenge myself, I have to look at other authors, other lecturers, other coaches. I can't look at Tony Robbins because you know he's sort of in another universe than I am, and I I'm fully aware of that. I would love to be Tony Robbins, but I can't compare it to him because he he's he's he's uh he's so brilliant, and I I can probably never be as good as he is. Uh, but I can be better than I am now. So I have to find somebody who is a a bit ahead of me, you know, and try not to be envious, but rather be inspired by. And that is actually it's it's it's it's simple, but it's not easy, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

What about Jordan Peterson? Jordan Peterson someone who is uh maybe more of an analogous comparison than, say, Tony Robbins, behavioral scientist, influenced by the worldview of Carl Jung.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

True. He's a Jungian.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Is this someone that you maybe project onto as a level of comparison or ideation?

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Jordan Peterson is very special. He's a psychologist, and I'm a behaviorist, which is not the same thing, especially if you ask the psychologists. But that's fine. He's he's a very, very special person. I tried to understand him for a couple of years now. I I was uh I was uh late uh late to the table when it comes to Jordan Peterson. He was so they had tried to sort of let's say kill him many times before I sort of got my eyes on him. He's a source of inspiration for me in one way when it comes to that. He actually doesn't give up the things that he thinks is that he thinks are are worthwhile. He he he is he's driving, I'm not sure what his agenda is. He's saying a lot of things that I really really can't understand, to be frank with you, Ryan. Some things I I I seriously I I don't get it. I don't know where what it's up to. But you don't have to agree with everybody all the time. Some things I don't understand why he's sort of he's all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

But what about the specific because for when it comes to behavior is when it comes to exactly because he came onto the scene talking about understanding behaviour, understanding personality types.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Yeah, that that's that's the same field as I am on. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

And that's and for me, that's where Jordan Peterson is absolutely at his best. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

He doesn't need to talk about Canadian truckers and and it's about it's about politics and it's about you know uh I don't know, so many different things. And and then now it's snowed in on this uh CO2 thing as well. And I I I never to I never discuss politics because somebody will hate me, whatever I say, and I don't need that. So I'm I'm not even I haven't made up my mind what I should believe about this and that anyway. But Jonah Peterson is he's a source of inspiration when it comes to he he is very conscientious when it comes to the things that he strongly believes in, and I can respect him for that. He can be a bit a bit uh too much many times. Again, usually when it comes to topics that I don't fully understand. Why is he sort of raising his voice when it comes to this and that? But I totally understand why people respect him. I totally understand why he has as big an audience as he does. I completed us because he's a professional, he's definitely a source of inspiration for millions of people all over the planet. And I I read some of the criticism when it comes to regarding him, and some of the I yet I don't some people criticize him for talking to young men. That I didn't understand. Why would he be criticized for that in particular? I could imagine criticizing him for other things, but these things who who picks up his his his his his message, so to speak. Young men need somebody to to look up to as well. They need they need role models who people who can behave, you know, and navigate to properly in the world, I guess. And but he's a superstar also, so so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

I wonder if apart from I wonder if a possibility is the right answer, really. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be one, it's more just understanding your worldview when it comes to this, right or wrong doesn't really come into it. But I wonder if Jordan Peterson, apart from a religious figure, could be the most projected onto father figure in history, just by a number of people.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

He will be remembered. He has written something into the history books for sure. And uh as an orator, as as as a lecturer, as as uh as I said, as somebody who is inspiring a lot of people, and the religious parts I don't know, but I don't think it's as much about religion as it's about finding something worthwhile. I mean, he talks about the meaning of life also, maps of meaning, which is a book I haven't opened. I don't know if I would understand it fully. Uh, as English isn't my mother's tongue, I will be struggling with the language. Definitely, I totally admit that. Uh, but still, I think it's about finding a good, mean strong and powerful meaning in your life. And for that, he will be respected, he will be remembered. And still, people will always hate him because haters are gonna hate. And again, he doesn't he doesn't do much to keep them keep them at bay because he he puts his nose into everything. So, of course, people are gonna, you know, react on that. I'm I'm fig trying to figure out if he likes this sort of heated debate. I I I don't know really. I haven't followed him closely, so I can't say for sure, but I guess he knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Yeah, I mean, I as well, since he came back, haven't followed him that closely just because Yeah, he was a wave, he was really Yeah, he he got addicted to benzodazpines um and apparently almost died, crazy stuff. That um, you know, and was out of out for a year or so, and then he came back and you know, started becoming an expert on trans, on uh on politics, on agriculture, on climate change.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

On everything I'm struggling with understanding, he's everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

But at the plateau of 12 rules for life, and before that, his entire explosion onto the podcast scene, he was repurposing the lessons of Nietzsche and Karl Jung and just driving home so passionately, and something I really respect and loved about him, you know, the idea of adopting responsibility, and that's the answer to life, and that's the you know absolutely talk about that too. He's an opportunity to be responsible.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

It's like such a strong call to action. Exactly. I mean, when I when I when I talk at universities, I I talk about responsibility too, and I I had that in one of my books, Surrounded by Setbacks, which actually isn't about setbacks at all, it's about it's about building a career, building a future for yourself, accepting setbacks as a part of life. As I said, it's going up and down, and it is what is you can't be happy all the time, and and so on and so forth. But when it comes to responsibility, that I that I actually agree with in 100%. You have to accept responsibility. We are lacking people who are willing to take responsibility. That that type of message I fully buy, completely 100%. There we are on the same page, him and I, definitely. And I I wish people more listen to what he actually says when it comes to responsibility. It's a positive thing. It's amazing because you're gonna feel good when you realize, oh, I managed that situation because I stepped up. I didn't I didn't back down, I stepped up, and now now I'm I'm a bigger person, I'm a stronger person. I feel much better about myself. This is this is you know, this is almost egotistical, really, because it makes you feel good when you sort of fill in those shoes, and people look at you and say, Wow, you are a source of inspiration yourself now because you stepped up, you didn't back down. For me, that has always been a really important part of my own career to not back away from hard situations, tough situations, awkward situations, moments where I would like to just you know, just shoot myself out through the window, but just say, Don't call me anymore about this, but you know, still saying okay, sitting down, you know, and trying to figure it out and dealing with conflict, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

Uh does a specific situation come to mind?

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Absolutely. I I'm thinking about my wife actually, because because we met late in life. Uh we have only been married for I think it's six years now, I think. You gotta know that one. I gotta know it. She is actually not sure herself. She doesn't even remember the date, which I I I harass her uh heavily about that because no, no, but seriously, joking a little bit. But jokes aside, the thing is this uh she's my third wife, and I'm her third husband. Yeah, exactly. So what do we know? Well, we know a lot, we know a lot more about relationships than people who haven't um went through two divorces. We know what doesn't work, and we have figured out what works, and that is actually to take the bull by its horn every single time. When I see in her eyes, oops, I messed up, I sit down and say, Okay, let's hear it. And then she gives it straightforward, she just tells me this is what it is bam, bam, bam. And we have this rule never go to bed angry, never try to fall asleep and angry, and we can't. So sometimes we have to talk half through the night because we have to figure certain things out when it comes to this and that. It doesn't matter whether it is can be small things, big things, but to communicate in an open uh in an open-minded way, I guess, and realizing just because I'm right, you don't have to be wrong, actually. It's not not that simple, usually. And for me, that has been about taking responsibility, which I didn't do as a young man. And I know that. I my personality is changed, has changed throughout life when I learn these things the hard way. Because when I when I'm uh sort of dodging you know, a question I don't want to deal with, it it will come back and bite me somewhere, you know, sooner or later. So I better deal with it now because that makes the conflict much much smaller if I deal with it immediately, even though I I can see in my wife's eye because that's a conflict that I care about. Business-related conflicts, they don't bother me one bit. I I don't I really don't care because I can't agree with everybody all the time. This that's impossible. But when it comes to her, she's my Christina is my kryptonite, kryptonite. I can deal with close to anybody on the planet, but she's my kryptonite and she knows it. God damn it, she knows it. And I am willing to go through hell and back for her, and she knows it, but still I can't let her do get have her way all the time because that's gonna make sort of a tilted relationship. So I need to balance it up a little bit, and it is hard, but I I'm doing it anyway because what's the alternative? That that is for me one example of taking on the responsibility, trying to figure it out, not saying, ah, you're an idiot, you know, you're stupid, you don't listen, you never pay attention to me, you know. You I'm gonna move back to my mother's for three weeks, you know. No, no, sit down, let's let's talk about it and see where it's going. Let's agree to disagree. Sometimes that is the case, also. But trying to, when we communicate about our communication, because she understands the colours as well, she knows that it's profile backwards, forwards, in and out, she has she has it down to completely. So I'm saying you're going full red, you go in complete beast mode now. That's too much red, you know. You sit down, you know, I know, I know. It's don't analyze me. Well, it's hard not to, you know, really, because you know, this is sort of not difficult to to see. So and she said, You you're going all blue now? She said, Don't ask all these questions. So we can could we can use this as a tool, and then we start laughing. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, and to negotiate what's gonna happen with this particular issue, regardless of if it's a big one or a small one. Doesn't really matter because I mean everything relates to everything, everything affects everything. If it's a small thing that I said, yeah, just swipe it under the rug, never mind about it. No, it's gonna come back sooner or later. It's gonna come back. I need to deal with it immediately. And it's hard. Sometimes I feel really, really bad, and I can see in her face, couldn't you just have let it just be? No, I I I can't do that because we have given each other, given each other a promise to deal with everything that we are not satisfied with. You told me and I told you, we need to live as we preach, so to speak. We need to sort of m navigate our relationship the way we said we should do it. And and as we are talking about how we are talking to each other, it's working, it works as a charm actually. And it's so I don't have to hide anything. I don't have to keep things to myself. I don't have to I have to of course use the proper timing sometimes, of course. And and and so so does she, but but but everything is uh in the open, I mean everything is on the table and it's okay. We don't keep secrets to each other. We we really don't. Uh and it's so easy to to have that kind of relationship. It it's it's it's like magic, actually. But it takes a lot of work. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fool you to believe something else. It takes a lot of work, it certainly does.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

So something that stood out to me from what you just said was how you in a in the business world, uh in your professional life, um no matter how bad the situation is, whatever, you can manage it perfectly fine through rational communication. Your wife might be your kryptonite. But that you know really does open up what is the heart of surrounded by idiots, which is actually how to communicate to people up and down the hierarchy and across the different colour spectrums. Who do you think of when I ask you who are great communicators?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

I think Jordan Peterson is one of them actually, because he dares to speak the truth. He uses sometimes a little bit too many words and he gets carried away. But I think he's great that way because he tells people the truth. You don't have to guess where he's going. You don't have to guess is he's is he really saying what he believes to be true, or is he sort of trying to he never sugarcoats anybody, he says he just gives it to you bam, like that. I think that's a good example, actually. Some politicians are good communicators, but politicians can't be trusted. None of them can be trusted 100%. So therefore I'm not sure to be completely honest with you. But he's a good example. Uh who else? There's a lot of people. There's a Canadian guy, an old guru called Brian Tracy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

Okay, never heard of him.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

I think he had has, I guess he's still around a little bit. He has a he's has a way of words that resonates with me when it comes to inspiration and motivation, you know, how to reach your goals and so on. He's really crystal clear, hands-on. And usually people who are good communicators they don't have this extremely high, let's say, intellectual super level that makes you feel like an idiot if you haven't, you know, taken 10 years at a new university. Sometimes Jordan Peterson falls into that trap because his his language is quite complex. And as a Swede, sometimes I don't follow. I I I that is the case. I have to sort of rewind and see what was that. But if you can bring out complicated topics and make people understand and say, aha, now I get it. Using the simplest words possible, that is for me an excellent communicator. That is probably I'm not gonna say I'm the best communicator in the world, but I think I'm good enough. And my books are actually a proof of that because some people say it's too simplistic. And I say, Good. Now you get it because I don't write for university professors. This is not a scientific paper. This is a book to reach the big masses of people. I want to reach tens of millions of people, and therefore I need to speak in a way that actually people understand. That is why I use a daily, say, average language, which is much, much harder than I need to translate psychological papers and and research and studies into regular language, which is much harder than just to quote somebody, actually. So I need to work a lot on explaining things in a way that makes it easy to wrap your head around. That is takes that takes most of the time when it comes to putting a whole book on 300 pages together to make it understandable.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

That was actually something that jumped off the page uh to me when I was reading the book. That it it is an example of simplicity being the ultimate sophistication because I could I could you know I could see all the drafts that you would have had to have gone through to take that paragraph from what it would have started off to just the simple sentence that ended up coming through. Yeah. And and I really uh just for your own uh you may be blowing smoke up your ass, but I I really did I did notice it and I thought it was amazing because I in my own writing I strive for that as much as possible. Um, and I really think back to you know this famous essay from uh George Orwell on writing, uh, where it basically just says uh do not use a more complicated word if a simpler one will do. Exactly. And you look at the legacy of his writing, he communicated generational ideas of fascism, totalitarianism, communism more clearly and better allegorically than anyone else did.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Exactly. You could put 1984 in the hands of a 10-year-old and he will understand it. He will understand it. He might not like it, but he will understand it. It's incredible, it's incredible, it's fascinating, and it's so true, so true. It is so true. And I write and I rewrite, and I I my my biggest weaknesses when it comes to writing, I the words come too easy to me. So first draft I had to cut 25%, usually, because too many words describe and re-describing and you know over over explaining, let's say, so it makes it I mean treating people like they're stupid, which they're not at all. People are usually not stupid, that's very rare that they are. Um there aren't as many idiots out there that you might uh that you might um presume actually. There are some idiots, 12 or 15 maybe. They move around a lot, so you run into them all the time. So yeah, but only a very few. No, but but but it it that that is actually to build your craft, and that is something I learned from. I mean, I could take uh I could take John Grisham as an example, actually. Looks a bit far fetched, perhaps, uh you know, John Grisham. John Grisham?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

No, I don't know him.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

You don't know John Grisham.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

I feel like it's fiction, you know, the firm. Okay, yes. The firm. Watch the movie. Watch the movie. Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Oh dear. Okay, unlike you anyway. But anyways, if if you want to read a legal thriller, you have to read John Grisham because he has a way of words and he says basically, I mean it's about law. It's about you know the courts in in in the States and you know and and legal systems and really complicated stuff, but you understand it immediately because he uses so basic language. And he says, never use one word more than you need to. Take every uh uh unnecessary word out of it. Just cut it out. You don't need all those words. Use as few words as possible. You read 400 pages of John Grisham before lunch. That is actually no joke. I can read uh a hundred pages an hour easily because it is so it's so simple. It's just it just flows and flows and flows. And I want to write my surrounded by books the same way, even though the topics are different and all of that. When you you know what I'm what I mean. But it it's a good way to make yourself understandable, and that's that's that's uh that's uh that's a skill in itself, and yeah. But back to your question, good communication is understandable communication, I guess. And you communication happens on the receiver's terms. People hear what they hear, they see what they see, and when your messages filter through the layers of you know uh different kinds of skills they have built in over years and and and experiences and and and and uh trainings and educations and you know attitude, uh prejudice, whatever it is, opinions what comes out, it is what it is. You can't control it. So you have to be as precise and as clear as you possibly can. That is that is a special you have to work on that craft specifically, I would say, regardless of the topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

Christopher Hitchens said that he aspires to the writing of people he's embarrassed to share the page with. Um particular novelists he had in mind, I think Nabokov or or Solbello. I'm not sure the people he mentioned particularly, but I thought it was a it's a beautiful way to say how how deep his admiration is for certain authors and people he really aspires to. Who comes to mind uh for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

When it comes to non-fiction, I like Malcolm Gladwell. I think he has uh a sort of uh wittiness, even though I I yeah, I I he he's uh he's good, he's really good. When it comes to fiction, it would be this unknown guy, John Grishom, or maybe Stephen King, but they are very different when it comes to style. Stephen King's because he's my he's my sort of I don't know, he's my muse in a way. I can't describe it. And it's not about the horror, it's not about the the blood and the gore. That's that's nothing to do with it. It's the storytelling that really talks to me, that moves me, that makes me when I see a new Stephen King novel, my wife says, Well, see you. She just shuts the door and says, Will who knows when a few days? Yeah, see you in a couple of days. Yeah, if it's this, you know, 1200 pages, see you next Monday or something. So, so yeah. Otherwise, as you can see here where we are sitting, uh, I read quite a lot. This is a part of my library.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Yeah, I've I've I've been actually taking note of some of the interesting titles on the on the bookshelves. Okay, this is a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

Uh but uh but again, usually people who who and this might sound come off, I don't want to come across as as being rude to somebody, but the higher education you have, the more university points that you have, the trickier it's gonna be for you to express yourself in a way that people will actually get the first read-through. Because you are so used to really high-level intellectual language, or or and you're probably really, really super smart, but really intelligent people are struggling more because they understand it the first time they see it. They under they they they get it. They don't have to rewrite or edit anything because yeah, it says so in there. And when I take a look at it, I I just don't get it, you know. Uh so therefore, and and I can see that when I I work a lot of when it comes to recruitment, and the best managers that I have met, the best leaders, they haven't gone to university at all, but they knew they know people. They understand how to talk to people, how to talk to human beings, to individuals. You know, just sit here and have a nice chat, you know, and make people say, Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it. Instead of writing complicated emails with all the right words in there, you know, instructions, you know, long, winded, really strange stuff nobody's understanding. So that's it, it's it's it's a bit of a it's a paradox in itself, also. So they have to practice another craft, I guess, than than I would have to. Well, I went to university as well, but I'm not I'm I don't consider myself an intellectual really. I'm more of a down-to-earth guy in a way. That's my own view on myself, and I I don't know what you think, but uh uh it is what it is. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

I guess it is up to other people, actually, whether you are a public intellectual or not. It's sort of on them. Yeah, yeah. Um, I would like to return. We've gone on about an hours-long journey back to 15-year-old picking up Stephen King. I'd love to hear how you reflect on reading his uh autobiography, particular moments that stood out, and whether his incredible story of persistence and how Carrie was in the trash can, and if his wife hadn't picked it up, it might have never happened. None of us would know who he is.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:05

And by autobiography, you're referring to on writing, I guess. Yeah. Well, that story I knew since before, because uh in a lot of Stephen King books, he has this uh afterward where he tells you a little bit of a story where this story came from and where that story came from. And I wrote I I I I I read those even more thoroughly than the book itself because that was about the man himself. And that was what was sort of built a myth about Stephen King. And I have let's see, 1980, the first book was translated into Swedish. I was 15 years old. In 1990, there were more books about Stephen King than by Stephen King. That is actually another joke. These days I'm not sure. I still I have a Stephen King library, about 500 copies, different translations of Kerry have nine varieties of actually in English, and I have it in English.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

Yeah, you really are Stephen King.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

I'm a complete Stephen King nerd. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm done with, you know. But you know, I'm sort of I'm sort of a freak when it comes to Stephen King. It's a bit of a joke of my wife comes with it's in your dictionary, would you like to have it? It's a signed copy, it's gonna cost you a monthly server. I say, no, no, no, no, no. Don't point me in that direction. Who's no who knows where it's gonna where it's gonna end? No, but but the thing is, the the myth about him when it comes to I I read the books about Stephen King. Everything that I could put my hands on when it comes to the man himself, even more than the stories, because as I said, this is not this is not what you're asking for. I understand that. But still, the myth when it comes to being an author, for me it was sort of a sort of a mythological creature, some sort of superhuman who was sitting there, you know. I can see this this typical picture of sitting there, you know, um uh close to to to maybe at a lake somewhere, you know, and the fog was rolling in. You heard a bird, you know, somewhere and you're drinking sipping some red wine and and then crafting and building fantastic sentences together into paragraphs, into chapters, into books, and everybody was like, Oh, you were you're a genius. That was sort of an I don't know where that came from. I don't know. It sounds really silly when I say it. As uh above uh, I mean I'm not even in my middle age anymore, probably. So where did it come from? I'm not sure. And I've I found you know things I've been reading in school. I my sister came with some some notebooks from my second grade of school when I was what eight years old. Stories about this this uh Neanderthal guy, you know, who met a dinosaur and smacked him on the head, you know, and dragged him home for dinner. And you know, really. Oh my god. I think I have been a storyteller more than I could remember, really. I think it's in me because I am this, I have this aesthetic drive within me. I like to start with a blank piece of paper, a complete empty piece of paper, and to put something on it. I could probably have been a painter, an artist, you know, a musician, but I can't read notes. Uh I turn into writing, I'm not sure how that happens. My father is very, very, let's say, uh he could play the piano, he can sing, he can, he can draw you know portraits of people, he can do a lot of stuff, but he's an engineer at the same time, which is sort of strange. But this artistical drive is in the family one way or another. For me, it's words because I can I can deal with words. When I read Stephen King, the first book I wrote was The S The Shining, and I was so blown away by the whole thing, The Shining, and it's it's a classic now, and it's nothing new under the sun. I get that. But you know, as a 15-year-old boy, the first Swedish edition, I just and I closed, I closed it and just looked at it and said, Wow, wow, goddamn, this was so good. And I showed it to my mother and said, Oh, that's a horror story. Oh, how no, no, you shouldn't read that. You can't sleep at night. No, no, you don't get it. It is I'm completely blown away. The story, and I remember just the third and the fourth book, and then Pet Cemetery came, and I that was the moment I said to myself, I I am gonna be a writer. Because Pet Cemetery was the best, maybe still the best book I've ever read. It came mid-80s, somewhere way back in time. And again, the storytelling, he had it for a year in his drawer, it was so horrible. I didn't think anybody anyone would publish it. You know, just that story. Oh, I need to read it immediately. Of course, I need to read it, you know, that has to be good. And it was good, it it was so good completely. The thing with these things, we we talked about envy and we talked about comparing yourself with other people. When I compared my own writing with Stephen King's writing, people who listens to this must think the guy is a bit stupid because he can't compare himself with Stephen King. I understand I can't do that, but still, you know, I was a teenager, so what the hell should I do? What were the options? So I still compared myself to Stephen King. Tried to write like Stephen King, which of course was impossible because I didn't know, I didn't understand how he did it. The problem is he can't explain exactly how he does it because he just does it and then he rewrites it a couple times and then it's done.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Yeah, he just says he he commits to a daily routine.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:38

Yeah, exactly. He can't really say exactly how he does it. He talks about you know using your best language and you know cutting out words and a little bit about editing, but he can't really give you, he can't really hand you the manual. Because I read on writing probably ten times, probably. Wow. Okay, and it it's really not in there, really. It actually isn't in there, which makes it even more mythical, right? He's a genius, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

I'm not a genius. So then if we're analyzing great communicators, Stephen King is a great communicator on the page. Yeah, I would say that. What are what are some like really tangible things that make for great communication? Simplicity in words, that's one we've covered. Yeah. Um, you mentioned Tony Robbins before, so clearly there's a huge presentation charismatic aspect of it. Absolutely. But I'd love to hear um just your go-to instinctual response to what makes for great communication.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

There is uh there is a Swedish guy called David Phillips, David JP Phillips, who is actually quite big in the US also. He's a lecturer, an author, and uh he's building a management consultancy now. He's excellent. And he lives not far away from here, but he's really big abroad, bigger abroad than in Sweden. And he talks about the storytelling all the time: the storytelling, story to build a story, tell a story. You have to tell a story. You can't just put facts upon facts upon facts. You need to tell a story. You have to have anecdotes, you have to make it believable, you have to make people feel something. You have to reach out to people's emotions to make it and say, Yes, that could have been me, or I'm glad that wasn't me, you know. Something. You have to make people feel, you have to touch them emotionally. That is definitely the best way to make a good communicator. And storytelling is one way of doing that. To make people say, Ah, interesting, I want to know how it ends. Surrounded by it, they are full of stories. So many stories in there. All the books are stories, and stories of my own life, also. I'm quite, I think. I don't, I hope I'm not oversharing my own experiences, but it's a part of it, it's a way of being personal without being private again, because I'm very private. I remember I said that. Uh, but being personally going to tell people this is my struggles. I did this, I messed it up, you know, and then I figure this out, and and here's the story behind, and and and here's what I've learned. Here's another book, you know. There, there it is. Uh, storytelling to create a connection, and it goes, you have to use people's emotions to do it. You have to make them feel something. If they put the good the book together, or if you you know turn off Netflix after you saw the movie, and it's kind of yeah, yeah, I guess it was an okay movie, that's a bad movie. If it's an okay, okay, that's that's really bad. I I can't remember what was the name again, you know. That's really serious feedback. Ooh, that's bad. I hate it, that's better, because that touches touches me in one way or another. Because but I don't I can't remember who who was in it, you know. That's not good. That's not good. You have to you have to sort of reach out to people and make them feel something. And I think it's better if you can, as Stephen King actually said, if I can't scare people, I want uh I wanna I wanna freak them out, or if I can't freak them out, I want to at least make something really, you know, make them make them disgusted if I can and make them feel something. I need to touch them. I need to make them say, oh, something. If I can't do that, it's not worthwhile actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:11

Let me um at the risk of opening myself up to criticism, or ask you what is really at the core of why I'm asking these communication questions. As a host of a podcast, I'm trying to facilitate the best possible communication from the guest. I think you're particularly qualified to sort of say what it is, what creates a great interview, what creates great conversation and communication between people. And forgive me for the vague openness of the question, but I'd just love to know where you take it in interviews you see yourself and where you project onto.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:47

When it comes to interviews, let's say let's just narrow it down to interviews, let's say. It could be a newspaper, it could be a TV interview, it could be a podcast. Uh well, obviously, you have to be well prepared, which you are. You obviously read the book. Sometimes I find myself uh in a TV studio and they say, Okay, so you have a new book out. Tell me what's in it. I'm going, oh God, you haven't even read it. Have you opened it? Do you know what it's about? Well, I read the back page, you know. Yeah, that's bad. Well prepared is, of course, one way. You have to make people feel comfortable. You have you've probably seen this before. I'm quite used to this. I'm comfortable, and you're a nice guy, you know, you're friendly and smiley and open-minded, and you know, you're not very antagonistic at all. You haven't asked me anything that I could be offended by or or or even intimidated by or anything. It's just a regular conversation. Great talk, I think. I hope you think the same thing. So that's one thing to have a way of making people feel comfortable. And you do that by being, you know, sort of uh sort of reading the other person. If you see that I'm a bit nervous, you could you do you shouldn't say you don't have to be nervous because that's only gonna make me even more nervous. You're just gonna be friendly and nice and take it easy, you know, and ask me open-ended questions. So, how was your day? What did you have for lunch? You know, make me talk about anything. Oh, I see lovely wallpaper. I is this some sort of what is this? Is it English? As you can see, I'm an Anglophile. You can say something. And I tested you by comment commenting on your accent, which didn't work at all because I guessed wrong, so I feel a bit stupid. But hey, still, at least you didn't say New Zealander. No, no, no, no, that would have been I I know, I know. I I understand. It's like Swedes and and uh and Danes or Swedish and Norwegians. We are kind of the same, but still very not the same at all, you know. No, I I get it. No, but you make people comfortable, you know, and then allow people to sort of just depend do we have six minutes or do we have 120 minutes? That's of course a big difference. Here we have a little bit more time so we can talk for an hour, an hour and a half, it doesn't matter. In a TV studio where they have six minutes tops, sometimes it's three minutes, you need to prepare me also short answers, you know, as a few words as possible because we have a list here of questions, you know. So I also know what's the name of the game here. How was how is this gonna be done? Because if I don't know the rules in this conversation, maybe I mess it up and you're gonna get frustrated with me and you're gonna say, Oh, he talks too much, or he talks too little, or why is he using so few words? Because I thought it was six minutes, yeah. It's two hours, you know. Oh, I didn't know, but you told me. So you prepared me also. Therefore, I am much more comfortable, uh, actually. And you know, interested in people, of course. You're obviously interested in people, otherwise you wouldn't have the job that you have. You wouldn't do this if you didn't think it was uh uh well interesting and and and uh inspiring in a way, or or two perhaps, hopefully. Um questions is my favorite because people have to elaborate a little bit on the answers. If you say, Did you like this? Yes. Did you like it? No. Okay, that's a dead end. Why didn't you like it? Then I can give you something, right? That's better. So how, what, when, and and who, and all these things. Yeah, could you give them an example? No. That's a closed question, but you know, open-ended questions, like Kipling said. Kipling, another author, Rudy Kipling, the jungle book, you know, that guy. He he he said, when I go to party, he was very popular in the in the British uh, you know, uh upper society, the the the the novelty, you know, when it comes to well the the lovelier people in the late 1800s, something 1875, somewhere around there, in in England. And and he was very popular, actually. And and uh and everybody wanted him at uh some soury or some dinner party. We need Kipling, you know. If you get Kipling at the table, you know, your your evening is you know, you're lucky you, you're you're gonna have a you have a imagine having that as a reputation, the pressure every time. Well, well, so finally somebody asked him, so what do you do that we don't understand? Why are you so bloody popular? Why are you so so so so nice and so friendly? Everybody likes you. Why is that? What do you do? What would you say during a dinner talk? Didn't dinner conversation? I'd hardly say anything, he says. I say close to nothing. I ask I bring my six best friends with me. Open-ended questions. Who, why, what, when, how, and and and why, maybe. Yeah, so. And that makes people talk. Who do you know here tonight? And how did you get here, and what do you do for a living? You know, and they just keep talking. Because he said, when you make people talk about themselves, they will like you. He knew that 150 years ago. So, as an interviewer, if you make me talk about myself, everybody wants to talk about themselves, right? Well, not me, of course, but but everybody else, ha ha well you know what I'm getting at with this. And you do that. You can always fine-tune and finesse this more and more and more and make even even better well even more use more well-phrased questions, I guess. But it it it this is the direction I would say. When I wanna make people talk, I ask open-ended questions about them. What do you think? How did you come up to this conclusion? When do you think you're gonna make up your mind about this and that? And why do you disagree with me on these topics? You know, that is how I do it, and I think it's that's what I do when I'm coaching people. I have to make them talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

And it reveals a lot of information to you as well to inform actually what the question you might want answered is.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:47

Absolutely. I mean, I have said a lot of things uh here today that I hadn't planned at all. Based on on the topics that you're sort of steering me into, I guess. And I'm feeling very comfortable. And you know what.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

What's funny as well is since we started, we've been going off the questions written down, not the questions prepared. Okay. And that is sort of like the random walk as well. I'm so sorry. Because there are questions in here that are but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

What do you have on the screen then? Give me one of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:15

Yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:16

Look, take the really hard one. We'll try. Don't start with why, but that makes me sort of defensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:22

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:23

Why we well, why is uh it's a no-no.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:26

Uh well, I mean, I could talk about you've got uh idiots, psychopaths, bad managers, lazy people. I could comment on the company that you keep. But uh rather with uh Jordan Harbinger, do you remember him? Yes. Okay, because I hold him California the same way you I wouldn't say the same relationship, but the same way you admire Stephen King, maybe John Grisham's better. You see a lot of things in John Grisham that you really, really respect and admire. I'm the same with Jordan Harbinger. And so I was very happy to see that he'd interviewed you before. I wonder if you could, this is very meta, but reflect on your podcast with him, the interview, what you remember, what made him a good interviewer.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:07

This was uh this is a couple of years ago, if I can recall this correctly. We talked about psychopaths. Yes, right? Yes, thank you. Yes. He was also very well prepared. He had this certain topic. He wanted to talk about psychopaths, psychopathy, manipulation, you know. Uh, we touched upon narcissism a little bit because they are obviously related. And he was very well into that. And he asked me a lot of questions about okay, now let me recall this. He asked me about certain individuals. He asked me, Do you think Trump is a psychopath? We talked about that. And then he emailed me a year ago and asked me, Do I think Putin is a psychopath? He was very much into a specific field, let's say. That made it quite easy. We didn't stray away and he didn't ask me about my life and my wife or my kids or my career. But he wanted to know what you can teach me about psychopathy. So that made it quite simple to follow. That's another another way of doing, I would say. But he was also very well prepared. He had read the book. He could take quotes from the book. What did you mean exactly by this? You know, so that made it very easy for me to just elaborate on what he sort of where he put me in a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:25

Anything that stands out in his style of speaking, I I noticed with Jordan he is so good at driving the direction of the conversation without you feeling like he's explicitly taking you there. Uh it's in the mannerism by which he frames the question, by the like the language he uses.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:47

Yes, but then again, Ryan, you have to remember I am a behaviorist, and what I do is to study how people are communicating. So while he was asking me questions, I was studying him because I had his face on the screen, you know. So therefore, I I'm not gonna try to look like some some some guru here. So sorry, sorry for if if I come across as some some some big ego here, but I kind of knew where he was going. And as I wanted it to be a good interview, I wanted to, of course, look good myself, and I wanted to make him feel good about me and say, Oh, it was a brilliant interview. That was an and that was a good interviewee, you know, me as as a the as a guest on his podcast. So I wanted to follow his directions so he would be happy with it, which he afterwards told me he was. So I guess we sort of managed to cooperate on this without having to say it out loud, if you know what I mean. Uh but I'm quite used to this. And and some interviewers aren't that brilliant. Some start with trying to annoy me and to see what happens. That doesn't work at all. As I mentioned, there's been some, well, not this old now, but you know, there's some some some some writings in the media a couple of years ago about this and that when it came to me and my books because they didn't think uh they didn't like it for several reasons. Uh again, criticism is a part of it, so there's nothing there's no big deal. But some interviewers start by saying that what do you think about the criticism? So they want to sort of shake me a little bit, but that doesn't work at all. That only makes me irritated, but I will never show it to you because that's not professional. So they want to get away with it, and and they can't sort of they they can't how should I put it, they can't trick me into a corner where I'm gonna raise my voice, you know, and start to use more uh colourful language, let's say that doesn't work at all because not even my wife can do that. That is usually what I receive as feedback for you, but how can you keep so damn calm all the time? But I am a calm guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:01

I will say there was there was this terrific anecdote that you gave in one of your interviews where the where there was the Swedish psychological society, I don't know, but people were having a go at you because you weren't a trained psychologist, and they were saying, Therefore, this is BS. And they were saying terrible things about you. Yes, they did. Um, but then you got in a room with them, they all immediately start smiling, shaking your hand, being very nice to you, and by the end, they want you to promote their stuff. Yeah, and I thought, brilliant, you know, because that there as well is like elite communication, managing someone who's a bit hostile into becoming your friend.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:42

But it's kind of a rational way of looking at it because when you when you think about it, when you I mean, that's why social media is so dangerous, because you can hide behind a screen, you can put up some phony face, some dog or cat or whatever, and call people anything on in the book, you know. You can you can use any name you want to label people with. You do you will never have to take responsibility. It's easy to write, write the columns in the in the newspapers, you know, and write do podcasts about this terrified, terrible guy, uh Thomas Erickson, who he he's such a he's such a bad person. He's not a psychologist. I have never claimed to be a psychologist, which is sort of interesting. I have never said that anyway. Behaviorist is not the same thing. I have never but, anyways, but the thing is this when you have me in front of you, it's much harder to be really, really mean and nasty. Some people can manage that as well, and that has happened too, so so for sure. But if you're smart enough, you realize this doesn't look good. And the thing, what I think, and I think people I mean, intelligent people usually realize this. When I call people names and when I sort of behave in a bad manner towards somebody else, I basically reveal more about myself than about the other person. Because I mean if you observe a conversation with somebody, it's really hostile, really, really and you can see interviews with this. I mean, Jordan Peterson has has put up a lot of these things when the the the reporter has been super hostile. And I can I you can see the agenda, and so can he, obviously, because he's a professional and all of those things. But when you look at it, you feel you don't have to agree with Mr. Peterson, that's not the point. You might disagree with him on the subject, but you feel bad when you see the conversation, when you see the dialogue, because it's so hostile and it's so mean, and they don't listen at all to what he's actually saying. And again, it doesn't have to be you may forget about the topics, that's not the thing, but the atmosphere in the room. And the thing is this people might not always remember what you tell them, but they will remember how you made them feel. Again, the emotional thing here is really, really crucial. If somebody makes me feel bad, they will make other people in the room feel bad as well. And that's going to fall back on them. So, therefore, it's smart to actually open up and say, okay, I'm not after you as a person, I don't like your work. Fine. That's a task. That's sort of a task-oriented question. I can respect you as an individual, that's a people-oriented question, uh topic, right? Because the task and the person, it's it's not necessarily connected in that simple way. So if you can sort of disconnect yourself from those things, okay, I I can I I can respect you, and we can have a grab lunch together, but but I will I will debate you on these things. I'm totally, I mean, completely respect that. Completely in on that. That's no big deal at all. But when you attack me as an individual, when you start by saying he's a fool, he's an idiot, he doesn't know anything, then you know their arguments aren't that strong really. Because if their arguments were strong, they could sort of, you know, they could take apart my books and say this is wrong because of this and that and so on. But they can't do that because I'm only describing the disk profile as it works. I also know it is not ironclad when it comes to the science behind it, but I have never claimed it to be. But it is out there. You can see it as, you consider it as uh, you can consider it as uh consumer advice if you want, because they are are doing millions of these ones all over the globe all the time. Uh so it's good to know what it is. For me, it's like like let's say you you I write a book about the combustion engine, let's say. Not saying it's the best engine in the world, but this is how it works. You know, you put some petrol in there, you know, and it's gonna be fire, and it's gonna be some some exhaust there and everything. And you can call me up and say, You're an idiot who didn't write about electrical engines, you fool, you stupid, what do you know? You you're nothing, you're not and you're not an engineer. And I can say, Yeah, but did I describe the combustion engine correctly? But that's not the point. Yes, it is the point, because it's a book about combustion engines. That is kind of where we was at. And then we when we sit down in the same room and I say, Well, do you agree? Is this the combustion engine? Yeah, well, I guess it is. Yeah, electrical engines are also very good, you know, and so and this and that. So for me, that's kind of I don't know. I don't know. I mean, people are people, usually people are kind of okay, you know. You have to be open-minded, everybody has their own agenda. If you understand, you can play along, you can just say, sorry, I'm not doing anything interviews with you. So I don't know. It's not a biggie for me. I I I don't feel I don't sleep badly for these reasons at all, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:40

What stood out to me most from that was that if they're attacking you, they've got a weak argument. And that's you know, that's comforting as well, uh, when one does receive criticism. Where does it come from? What where's it directed at? Um, we've got 10 minutes left. So I'd like to ask you. I have to triage questions here. Um I won't ask I want to talk to you about sales, but I won't ask you it just because we don't have enough time. I will instead divert to uh one observation I made uh from the book, and then as well, um actually speaking about uh personality colours a little bit with the final 10 minutes that we've got. Okay. The first was an observation. When you were describing in the chapter on body language for blue people, I couldn't help but realize you were describing every single Finnish person who had ever existed.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:41

Yes, they kind of keep themselves to themselves now, don't they? They they're sort of introverted. They have this introvert uh cultural blanket on top of everything they do. But at the same time, uh when you get to know them, they are just like you and I, but you have to sort of get to know them. That's done by Koske and Korvar, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:05

I I've never met a bad Finn. No, they're they're incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:09

You know, you know, they are so they are so good. Working in Finland is the best way that you you can sort of it's so easy because they would tell you what they are going to do, and then they would go about. They would just go and do it. It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:24

Um, they really cut the crap. And as well, there is just as a um, I don't know, to to buttress a little bit of a cultural understanding of where Finland's coming from, especially modern-day Finland. There is a chapter in Jared Diamond's book Upheaval, incredible short chapter on uh Nazi occupation of Finland and World War II and then communist resistance, um, how the culture survived it, how they um managed to, as a small tiny population, fight off the big bad Soviet army, um, and then where they are now as a culture because of it. Uh it's just incredible, but it it's that sort of transitions into a broader question of how these colour um uh personalities are distributed across different cultures. Do you find that certain cultures have a higher percentage of a certain color type than others?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:22

Yes and no. The thing is, statistically speaking, if you actually look at the numbers, and now we are in the industrialized world, let's call it, because that's where we have the data. Uh the numbers are very, very similar. The the rate of reds, yellows, greens, and blues are kind of sort of the same all over the globe. There's a little bit of difference when it comes to the US and Europe. They have a little bit more of reds and yellows, and we have a little bit more of blues and greens, meaning they are a bit more extroverted and a little bit we are a little bit more introverted here in the old world, as we like to call it, which makes every Chinese guy make really furious, and I completely understand him. But we still do that. It's weird and strange, who knows why that is. Uh, but we know Americans are more open, they are more sociable, they have a way of dealing with people that we are sometimes liking. And I say Europe, which is a lot of nations and many, many cultures, so it sounds kind of silly, but still, they're really good at you know being open-minded and asking questions, you know, showing interest in people and communication and everything. So I think they're excellent at this. And that's an extrovert uh trait. But in the the small differences, but it comes to we are talking about half a percentage with a difference. It's very marginal when you when you compare Sweden to Finland. Very different nations. We are sort of well, cousins at least. We are they are not a part of Scandinavia because Scandinavia is actually only Norway and Sweden, but we sort of think they are kind of with us anyway. And and the Nordic country is also Denmark and Iceland. But the fins are very special when it comes to very different when it compared to the Swedes, because they are more they have this introverter culture which makes them not talk at all unless they know who you are. They will answer questions very, very grumpy and I don't know yes or not. So that's just how it way it is. And in Sweden, people are more relation oriented. We are more people orientar. We have this green blanket on top of things. If they have this this blue and maybe red blanket, they are task-oriented. But when you get to know the people in Finland, you realize there are as many yellow fins as there is that there is there are yellow Swedes. And the yellow trait that would be, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, smiling all the time, you know, or Tony Robbins, type talking, you know, loud and bombast just like this, you know, with pompous like this. That's the yellow treat. But you have to get to know them again because the culture is what it is. If you Germany, exactly the same number of each and every colour, but in Germany they have this blue blanket. They have this blue culture, all this in ordning, you know. In Italy or in Spain, you know, talking with the whole body, you know, and waving in France blah blah blah blah. That's really yellow, but still the same number of blues and greens again. But the culture differs. Why are the cultures the way they are? That's an interesting thing. When it comes to Sweden, I have a theory that I can't prove, but I'm gonna research it when I get older. The thing is this: we are we have a lot of green behaviors in Sweden, even though we have no more Greens than they have in Denmark. And they are more yellow and red in Denmark. They are much more, you know, BAM-like this more straightforward and and like this. In Sweden, one million Swedes, 20% of the population emigrated to the States around the 1900s, around there, because of skarcity of everything. You know, we were a poor nation. We people were starving. People died from starvation. Literally, actually, that is true. So people just went on an adventure. And who left? Introverts or extroverts? The extroverts, meaning the red ones and the yellow ones. So they left. This is not in the DNA, but of course, they were exporting this culture, and the US is built of is a nation built on immigration. If you exclude the Native Americans. So my apologies for that, I didn't say that, but I am fully aware of that. But if you know what I mean, people are moving into the states still, those are the people looking for a little bit of adventure, which is more of an extroverted uh trait. So left here in Sweden were more uh greens and blues waiting, you know, and pondering and thinking, let's see what happens. Maybe they will send a letter and tell us if we should go to and well, I don't know. So they kept this mentality back home, I would say. I can't prove it, but it feels logical.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:02

That is fascinating and opens up what could be a huge thread. I just want to confirm with you how much time you have left. Go on. Okay. That's a great theory, uh tantalizing theory for why Sweden maybe a lot of the yellows and reds left, but then that exposes you to the question of is your personality colour nature or nurture? 50-50 on average. And you said you don't have data from only you only have data from the industrialized world. Is there really no data on on China, Thailand, Indonesia, India, like giant populations out there who are very culturally separate, but it'd be easy to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:46

Well, when I say the industrialized world, uh uh I'm not saying the the the Western world because that would be wrong, because we have data from from Japan, from South Korea, from uh Singapore, uh we have from uh Hong Kong, we have from Taiwan. We don't have anything from China. We actually we don't have that. Is that an industrialised is is is China I mean it's not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. How how free are people? I don't know. I've never been there. I can only read up on these topics as every as can everybody else who hasn't been there. So I don't know. Therefore, but we don't have any we I don't have any data from there. Uh I am receiving emails and comments online from people from every continent on the planet, including Antarctica, which is kind of strange. We are looking to see if we can see who who the hell is down there. I I really don't know. I'm getting emails from Australia, from Canada, from Mexico, from Brazil, India, Japan, Poland, Norway, UK, US, France, everywhere. Literally everywhere. I got an email from Azerbaijan the other week. I had to look it up on a map. A young lady wrote to me. And South Africa, which would be not on the same grid as as us, basically. But still, everybody is making the same reflections. Ah, oh, he's yellow and I'm blue. Now I understand why we are struggling with our communication. Oh, my husband is red, I'm so green, you know. Now I now I get it. He's not an Asian, he's not mean, he's just red, I get it. And they have they ask the same questions all over the globe. People are doing the same assumptions and and interpreting this type of language. It's like a second language to read, know how to read and use the colours. Let's call it a second language. Uh, people reflect upon it the same way, which makes me understand that people are people all over the globe. People are very, very similar. I had an online conversation with my publisher in India uh yesterday morning, and we they asked me exactly the same question. Well, what about the rest of the world? What do we know? And I gave them a couple of examples and said, Yeah, that's the way it is. And though India and Sweden are very, very different. India is a democracy, it's the biggest democracy on the planet. The president is actually chosen by the people, though, I even though I don't know how many go to to give their vote, I don't know. I lack that knowledge, so don't kill me for that. But still, it's considered a democracy. Uh, it's very modern, they are very high tech in many regions, they are really, really super high tech. People are very, very well educated. But the society and the culture is so different from what you and I have experienced in our lifetime, if you haven't been in India. And they said, I understand completely. Now, why are you going out with this? This makes perfectly sense. And for me, That is fascinating. People are literally the same all over the planet. If you get to know them, but you need to pay attention. You sort of need to be aware. You need to sort of take everything out and sit there and you know just absorb what's happening in the room. Because then you will realize the silly similarities all over the continents are so many compared to the differences. The differences are in culture. That's the difference. It's only cultural differences. But when it comes to individuals, you know, a yellow guy, he likes to crack a joke like a yellow guy on the other side of the planet. A joke is a joke, it's a joke. A blue guy will be an engineer in Russia, as in New Zealand, you know. It's just a blue behavioural trait. That's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:49

So across the different countries, the colour distributions are the same, but there is a wash of a dominant cultural colour over the top of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:58

Yeah. Well put.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:00

Alright, Mr. Erickson. Final two questions, really, but it's rapid response, no big one. I'd just love to list some names of famous people in the culture. Dead and alive. And hear you diagnose them with a colour personality. I'll do my best.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:17

Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs. Oh my. Steve Jobs, a visionary thinker. I would say a super red. I met one woman who worked with him and she got stuck in an elevator with Steve Jobs one time. He said it was the worst 15 minutes of her life. Oh my god. She felt like a wet spot, you know, on the on the on the sidewalk afterwards. He more or less verbally killed me by asking questions and then actually talking down to her extremely much. He very, very bad behavior from his side.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:53

Did you read his biography by Walter Isaacson? No. You read that, you come out of it on the other end, thinking he is one of the biggest pricks who ever lived. But at the same time, you really admire him. Yeah, he got the job done.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:12

Yeah. I'm not saying he didn't succeed, he was obviously quite successful.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:16

He made people invent things. He didn't invent much himself, but he was a driving force. Obviously, I understand that. But that's not the same thing as saying he's not red, because red behavior can be very harsh on other people. And it is a bit bullish and a bit aggressive when they're waking up on the wrong side this morning. They are not going to be super kind and super friendly. That is just the way it is. And he had some really bad behavioral traits within him, unfortunately. And some good ones, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:45

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:47

Elon Musk. Ooh, Elon Musk. Is he a human at all? He is obviously some sort of genius. I think he's pretty blue, but he's we have to separate behaviors from drivers because drivers is the what motivates a person. And he is an inventor. He's curious as hell. But blue people are usually very curious. An engineer can be very, very curious. And he has this drive to solve the big problems of our time. He wants to solve, you know, the climate issue, he wants to solve, you know, transportation, he wants to solve his his apple and he he bought Twitter. Why? Why did he waste one dime on that? I don't know why. But he has something, he's aiming for something. He wants to do good. So that's that's his vision. His behavior is blue. And if you see him on stage, you realize that because he's very uncomfortable on stage. He can talk, but if he loses his notes, he's he's he's done, completely done. He doesn't know what to do. When the teleprompter breaks down, he he's completely on his own, you know. And that's the blue way to see it. And he he can fiddle with details and that I know he works really very, very conscientious, very, very analytical, very detailed oriented, and very, very extremely obviously very very smart. I would like to see his IQ test.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:04

Absolutely. Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:07

Red Olaf Palmer Olaf Palma, X Swedish Prime Minister. Ooh. I was so young. I would say I would say a combination of red and yellow, I would say. He could also be very rude. Very, very rude and very intolerant. He could be very critical towards people. He he Yeah, okay, nobody will know this, but but me as a Swede probably. But he was also achieving a lot of results, but he was not a friendly person. There's something called the Palme hate in Sweden. A lot of people actually hated him. He was shot down on the street, which is a tragedy. Nobody deserves that. Only Prime Minister in Sweden who have been killed, actually, in in in you know, in this day and age. That's a tricky one. I was definitely red because confrontational, quite demanding. So I would say probably mostly red. Jesus Christ. Green. But with a strong drive. Jesus was was probably green, very friendly, very open, but he had a drive. He had, of course, he had a soul something called a traditional uh drive based on his values, if he existed. But I have actually read the Bible front to back. I I read all of it as a 16-year-old boy. I read it after this. Is gonna sound strange. I read it after The Shining, actually. That is actually true. Yeah, there's a long story behind that. I decided to read something really difficult, and I did. Uh Jesus Green, uh, people-oriented, very friendly, very open-minded, very protective for the weak, obviously, and uh looking to build a better world. I mean, the the love message from Jesus, let's say, let's assume he was there. Uh I think you can buy that.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:21

I could play this game all day, but I'll just finish with three more. Yeah. Uh Daniel Eck.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:27

I don't know. Okay. He's very private. I would say probably blue-ish. Very, very private. He never shows himself in public almost ever. Makes no interviews whatsoever, right? Very seldom. Very seldom. Very seldom. I would say blue. Avici. Avici? I have no idea. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:45

Uh Joe Rogan.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:49

Joe Rogan. Uh Joe Rogan is red and yellow. Yellow and red. Yellow and red. He likes to talk, use a lot of words. He's quite open-minded, but he's also when he has made up his mind, he won't back down. He's quite tough, also. Basili can be very entertaining, and he's a comedian, right? We tend to forget about that. On stage, he's quite funny, also, quite funny. Uh so I would say yellow and and uh maybe mostly yellow.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:19

Yeah. And finally, the man, your favourite, Stephen King.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:25

Stephen King. Stephen King is uh he is a combination of blue and yellow. I'm not sure if it's more he was more yellow as a young man and less blue, but he's mostly blue now and and and a little bit less yellow. But a combination of two, which is the two contradicting factors, those are going in two directions at the same time because yellow is extrovert people-oriented, and blue is introvert task-oriented, which makes him kind of a complex person. When you see him on stage, he can he can make jokes and be very entertaining, but he's working at his desk basically all day long, completely alone. You could not do that if you were only yellow, you would sort of suffocate immediately. So I have analyzed him before. I would say today, as a 75-year-old guy, blue and yellow, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:17

Well, finally, uh, question I'd like to ask every guest, if possible, if you could witness a conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive. So if you're gonna listen to a podcast, who are you listening it to?

SPEAKER_00 1:58:34

Oh, that's a good one. I would like to hear a conversation between Jesus and the prophet Muhammad. I would like to see how that went. How would it go? One who says I am the Messiah, another one says, No, I am the Messiah. One is a prophet, no, I am the last prophet, but they both have God as their father, let's call it. If I'm not don't if I'm not too misinterpreting anything here, that would be a fascinating. Uh could we throw in like Buddha in there or something? Sure, sure. No, that would be Mohammed and Jesus. I would love to hear that. I could listen for days to those two guys uh discuss and and uh talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:27

Amazing. Well, Miss Ericsson, I can't thank you enough for inviting me to your stunning home and uh for being so generous with your time and so open with your answers. Thank you. Thank you. This is my office, you know that. I don't live here.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:42

This is the office, it's quite a stunning office. Yes, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks, sir.