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Coming up next on Passion Strike.
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I think there is something to be said about us as humans going on these quests sometimes with ourselves.
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And they don t have to be quests that we physically tap our feet on the ground.
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it can be an ultra endeavor of many kind.
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And many of them, we actually run inwards and we explore that unexplored terrain of our soul and our heart and human psyche.
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So for me, this journey, how would I say?
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It started from a dream, like literally bringing a dream that happened inside my mind as I was napping and bringing it to life.
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Welcome to Passion Struck.
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Hi, I m your host, Jon R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
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Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
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If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
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We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
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Now, let s go out there and become Passion Struck.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode 395 of Passion Struck.
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Consistently ranked by Apple as the number one alternative health podcast.
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And thank you to all of you who come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world.
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I am absolutely thrilled to share some exciting news with you.
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My new book, Passion Struck, is now available for preorder.
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And Passion Struck has been recognized as a must read by the esteemed Next Big Idea Club.
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To celebrate this milestone and show my incredible appreciation for your support, I ve arranged special bonus gifts worth over $300 for everyone who preordered.
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You can place your order now at Amazon or visit PassionStruck.com.
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This is my way of giving back to our inspiring community.
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Thank you for joining me on this journey, and I can t wait for you to dive into the book.
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Additionally, I have a special invitation for you.
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I m excited to introduce our new PassionStruck quiz.
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It s a unique opportunity for you to discover where you stand on the PassionStruck continuum.
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Are you an orchestrator who masterfully balances various aspects of life with passion and purpose?
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Or are you a vanquisher, conquering challenges and turning obstacles into opportunities?
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Take the quiz on passionstruck.com and find out which one resonates more with your journey to living a passionstruck life.
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If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, we so appreciate it when you do that.
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We now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we organize in a convenient playlist to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
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Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
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In case you missed it earlier in the week, I interviewed Dr. Anthony Yoon, a plastic surgeon, author, social media influencer with over 15 million followers.
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Dr. Yoon is author of the new book, Younger for Life, Fleet Guide, turning back the clock holistically using a process called autojuvenation.
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In our discussion, Dr. Yoon explores how virtually anyone can see great changes in their skin, energy, and how they feel using the power of their own body s regenerative abilities.
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I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews.
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I am blown away that over the past year, we surpassed over 30 ratings on Apple globally.
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Thank you so much for your support.
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And if you love today s episodes, we would appreciate you giving it a five star review, sharing it with your friends and families.
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I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners.
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Throughout the month of January, as we near the launch of my new book, I m going to feature guests who signify what it truly means to live a passion-struck life.
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Today, I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Amelia Elizabeth Lati, an extraordinary thinker and author of Gentle Power, A Revolution
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and how we think, lead, and succeed using the Finnish art of sisu.
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In our conversation, we delve into the essence of power, force that subtly weaves throughout every interaction, relationship, and decision we make.
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Elizabeth challenges the conventional narrative where force and domination are often mistaken for true strength.
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Her groundbreaking book, Gentle Power, is an illuminating journey
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to a new paradigm of power, one that harmonizes grit with compassion and personal achievement with collective well-being.
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At the heart of our discussion is the Finnish concept of Sisu, a philosophical cornerstone that Elisabeth employs to redefine strength.
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We explore Sisu s history, its global relevance, and its role in shaping a balanced, resilient approach to life, especially in decision-making, interpersonal relationships, and in navigating both crises and peaceful times.
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Drawing from diverse fields like Taoism, neuroscience, and systems
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Elizabeth offers an evidence-based perspective for transforming how we manifest power.
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Our conversation covers the enduring myths of toxic power and strategies to dismantle them.
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The paradox of gentleness, where true influence and resilience spring from vulnerability, empathy, and love.
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The critical role of self-care in cultivating gentle power.
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Elizabeth eloquently argues that understanding power is key to realizing that leadership is not reserved for a select few.
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Each of us is a leader, our choices resonating with those around us.
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Our interview is a call to action for each of us to embrace our role in the collective transformation our world is yearning for.
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It s an invitation to embark on a path of wisdom, resilience, and passionate strength that will not only elevate our lives, but inspire and uplift others to participate in a new revolution of human empowerment.
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Join us in this inspiring episode as we uncover the transformative potential of gentle power.
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Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
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Now, let that journey begin.
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I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have Amelia Elizabeth Lati on Passion Struck.
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Welcome, Elizabeth.
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Thank you so much.
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It s my honor to be here.
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For the audience, they probably just heard me use Amelia Elizabeth, but I m going to refer to you as Elizabeth throughout this episode.
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And I understand that this is a name change that you did almost around the midpoint, you could say, of our lives.
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And I was wondering, there must be some story behind this, and I was hoping you could share that.
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Thank you so much.
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It s a beautiful way to get started since we know that our brain is so wired for stories.
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I think it s a really gentle way to intro us to Sisu.
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Yes.
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My full name is Emilia Elisabeth Lahti and it s in my passport.
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So I ve had this name follow me since my origin, my birth in Finland.
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So what I did was I moved the underscore from Emilia to Elisabeth and it was around my forties.
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Strange things happen to the psyche around the forties transition when we sometimes get to clear out and step into kind of starting new.
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I think actually with this, I do want to mention a mutual friend of ours, Lisa Buxbaum, who you mentioned earlier, because with Lisa a long time ago, this is already 2012 when we were both attending UPenn, the Masters of Positive Psychology program.
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And we were doing this bus rides, New York, Philadelphia and back.
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And I remember Lisa telling me that sometimes when people start a new phase in their lives, that is very common in some spiritual traditions that they change their names.
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There was a little seed that was planted in my mind over a decade ago and now arriving to this place and point where I had been researching Sisu for a decade and using a different set of string as to what was more emerging in my life.
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So at the same time, I happened to come across the meaning of what my name means and I had for some reason never looked into it until in my 40s.
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And what I discovered was that Emilia comes from a Greek female name that is Amelianos.
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and it means to compete, to rival, to push forward, conquer.
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And then what Elisabet means is that it comes from a Hebrew name that means it s Elisheva and the root goes and translates into God is my oath, which to me is more of a yin and it s more about opening the hands from the fighter pose.
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into release and more of trust.
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And I was seeing how my relation to Sisu and life force and my own strength had been changing over the past years.
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So it felt very natural for me to actually shift to Elisabeth and also to invite more of that courage to
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soften world where the most sensible thing often is to build more masks and be tougher.
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So it is my little act of courage that I wanted to highlight by moving the highlight on the Elizabeth.
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Well, I love the name because it s my mom s name.
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Well, I have to say that the more I ve gotten to know Lisa, her workout ethic has to be one of the most arduous I ve heard of anyone.
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How she swims, I think it s two or three miles a day.
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Then she does spin classes or some other type of cardio and then lifts.
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And I think she goes in about four o clock in the morning to do all this.
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So I m not sure if you knew that about her, but it
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something that came out when I was interviewing her.
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What I remember from Lisa is how that strive and that life force that she has, it really how it extends to her work.
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Because 10 years ago, she was creating the movement that she is still spearheading.
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That s a really beautiful example, actually, because there are different subsets to Sisu as this power.
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And she really has this staying power and to consistently overcome and exceed oneself.
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So I think, yeah, she s very,
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a very Sisu-esque woman, I would have to say.
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I m glad she appeared in our podcast.
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Hi, Lisa.
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Well, today you and I are going to be talking about this word that you ve used a couple of times now called Sisu.
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And it s a word that I discovered about three and a half years ago.
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I was going through a creation of PassionStruck.
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And one of the things I was trying to immerse myself into was I eventually wanted this to become a community.
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And I was trying to come through a list of core values that would bring meaning to what PassionStruck is all about.
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and I discovered Sisu.
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And it was such a powerful concept that I incorporated it into that value system, which you can find on our website.
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But for those who don t understand what this is, you write in an article from 2016 that Sisu begins where perseverance and grit end.
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Could you expand upon that and its significance, especially for those who might be new to this concept?
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Sisu, it s a Finnish word from my native country.
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I m from Finland, was born there.
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And it s spelled S-I-S-U.
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It s over 500 years old, the word itself.
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And it denotes this kind of, it s different in a couple of ways from, or it complements in a couple of ways our toolkit of
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Psychologically, I would even say spiritually, in a way that we re talking about being spirited, that we have a life force and there s a spirit that we express.
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It complements that toolkit.
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I ll maybe start a little bit by defining what grit is.
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Angela Duckworth, she s been pioneering beautifully.
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And she also has a story in how I ended up studying Sisu.
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So she was a originating force for me or meeting her, but she defines grit as passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.
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So it s putting in the effort.
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It s what you had to really go through when you re creating passion struck, having a long-term goal and.
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putting all the effort in and perseverance falls into the same thing when we endure setbacks and frustration and we keep coming back to what we need to do.
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But then, when we are on the path to fulfilling our vision or a very classic
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example, actually, to think of it is if we think of a marathon, and in the marathon, whoever is familiarized with them with the process is usually at some point, there is this thing, what they call a wall, it s around the 36 kilometers, which I m now forgetting what is it in miles, but it s toward the end.
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And at that point, we have consumed the glycogen reserves from the body.
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And in a similar way, energetically or emotionally, we can come to a point where we feel that we have used all our consumable capacities.
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So we come to the end of our perceived mental or physical reserves.
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And yet what happens also in the marathon, that most people still, even despite this feeling that there is nothing more they can give, they stay with the practice a little bit longer, put one step in front of the other, maybe they have to slow down, but they keep taking that next step and the next step.
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And then what they notice is that this cloud kind of recedes.
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we are tapping into what William James, I love his concept, the founder of psychology, a great inspiration to me, philosopher, psychologist, American, he called it the second wind.
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So something intervenes and almost like lifts us.
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So Sisu specifically denotes this kind of new uplift and we are tapping into reserves of energy and resources
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that were unavailable until the crisis or the stress really invoked or pushed us, required, demanded us to go into that place.
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So it is us exceeding our preconceived capacities.
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I m so glad you brought up Angela because a lot of what we cover on this podcast is deep diving into behavioral science and positive psychology.
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And I have formed a tight relationship with both her and even more so Katie Milkman.
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It s important for me to really educate the listeners on these principles because they really are the core factors in how we evolve our lives into what we aspire to become.
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And in the case of Angela, I, a number of years ago, was really researching her book and the core concepts.
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She starts the book out by talking about West Point, as I m sure.
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I went to the Naval Academy, so I went
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I had a first-hand experience into this and she was talking about passion and perseverance and how grit was propelling these cadets through the program and ultimately to get commissioned.
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And as I was looking at it and reflecting upon my own experience while I was there, I found that there was one ingredient that seemed to be missing.
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And what that ingredient was
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intentionality.
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It was having, you could have that passion and perseverance to overcome the challenges, but if you didn t take intentional action, you didn t create this self-sustaining cycle that would lead to long-term success.
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And I was wondering what your thoughts on that are.
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That s beautiful.
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It actually was the first thing that comes to my mind because I ve been studying Jung recently and archetypes and myths as well because they allow us to put a story around a lot of these human phenomena that are
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sometimes hard to explain, even.
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But it makes me think of this story of there is a quest to go into the deeper parts of the psyche.
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And in that story, there s a story about these arrows of intentionality, where we have to have the courage to really, in a focused manner, aim our quest.
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into a specific part.
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And so when I look at my own life and I look at Sisu, I have to say that there is some kind of, it resonates with me what you are describing.
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I haven t really thought of it like this, but in those moments, even though I had Sisu, but I was lacking a purpose for some time, which was some years ago when I actually completed this very long, massive project for my PhD, which included running several ultra marathons in New Zealand.
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And I fell into a bit of a slope.
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And I only afterwards realized that what I had lost was this intentionality and a focus where to aim my all of my efforts.
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So I think you are onto something very pivotal there with the idea with the intentionality.
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Well, thank you for that.
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And when I asked Katie the same question, she actually agreed with me as well.
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So I m glad that it s resonating because I really think it s our intentions that aligned with GRIT or with SISU can take us to the next level.
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And I want to explore what you were just talking about in New Zealand.
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So last year I completed an exercise that David Goggin does called the four by four by 48 challenge.
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So you re basically running two marathons in two days.
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And I did it to benefit several veteran focused charities.
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And I look at how I felt and how much pain I was in after those two days.
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And I just started thinking about your incredible undertaking in 2017 of running 1500 miles
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across New Zealand in just 50 days.
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And even more impressive is you did it to support your global endeavor, Sisu, not silence, which is this whole thing is not only a testament to human endurance, but also to how you can persevere and help other people persevere through their own traumas, through that charity.
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And I was hoping that you could talk about
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how this experience, which, as you said, was part of your thesis, deepened your understanding not only of Sisu, but of yourself and your ability to overcome extreme challenges.
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Hmm.
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It was such a big, I sometimes call it an initiation and almost like this pilgrimage that opening the file, it almost requires that I need to take a little breath even now.
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And I think there is something to be said about us as humans going on these quests sometimes with ourselves.
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like the one that you referred to and this Goggins and they don t have to be quests that we physically tap our feet on the ground.
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It can be an ultra endeavor of many kind and many of them we actually run inwards and we explore that unexplored terrain of the our soul and our heart and human psyche.
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So for me, this journey, it started from a dream, like literally bringing a dream that happened inside my mind as I was day napping and bringing it to life.
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This dream took place in 2000, maybe 2010 or 11.
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And in that dream, I was running across this beautiful green country.
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And I was doing it to support men and women, girls or boys who had the very harming experience of being diminished in their families, family violence, domestic violence.
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And I was in that dream running across with the place that I understood was New Zealand and I was carrying a flag.
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And this dream followed me all these years and I never thought I would actually act on it, do something as crazy, talk about a dream that is completely out of reach.
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And that s the thing with Sisu is that Sisu steps in to fill in the cracks when we dream something or life puts us
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in a difficult situation when the walls of our lives starts crumbling.
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And Sisu is almost this like thing that comes and it fills in the holes.
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So we stay and we endure.
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So it is this fortifying capacity.
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And so when I was in the process of working through my PhD on Sisu, I asked myself that what is the way for me to actually look into this capacity of how do humans endure in the face of extreme adversity?
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because it s really hard to really imagine a test setting where you would research this with people, because what do you do?
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You put people in a burning house, and then you see what happens and you make notes.
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So it s not only ethically wrong, but in many ways, it s a tricky question how to go in that place.
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So I figured pretty soon that, okay, I can always be the laborator of one,
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and I can experiment with myself because I had a genuine interest at the same time to understand who I am and to really dive into the fibers of what is it, like how do I react when things get really tough and then memo everything, take notes, keep a really careful diary of everything and use that as part of my data.
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And at that point, I remembered this dream.
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And the interesting thing is, which I want to highlight now as people are listening, that sometimes when the time is right, we may have been holding on to a dream that just keeps following us.
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And then when the time is right, we just know that now it s the time to act.
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And when we do somehow miraculously, the energy also comes.
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So when I had this remembrance of this dream, everything in my body said, yes.
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So I wasn t forcing myself and it wasn t my mind who said yes, but it was my body that I felt this unexplained pull towards this completely crazy goal to start training, to run the length of New Zealand.
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I took two years and I wasn t a runner when I started this quest,
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And I ll share one takeaway from this journey because obviously it s so huge that there are maybe a couple of books that could be written about it.
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But the biggest thing for me was the shift point from Sisu as a quality of sheer one-way street where we decide on a goal and we keep pursuing it.
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And what happened was it s more nuanced and I would say wise and intelligent
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version of Sisu that made its appearance into my life, where I realized that Sisu and our action, our intentionality actually even, in a way has to be reinvented many times as we go, because sometimes the situation can change around us.
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And the wise action, and the thing that even requires more Sisu sometimes, is not to go and go onwards, to pass the point where we start to break.
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and where the price is so high that we re going to keep paying for it for a long time.
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So, Sisu is not just an embodied toughness in its heart, it really is an invitation for us to know ourselves and start to track
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Are we still on the right path?
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Are we honoring ourselves?
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So this happened to me on day 12, when I had been running for 12 days consecutive, 30 miles each day, and I had developed this injury, and we weren t sure if I can continue.
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One way to go would be to keep pushing.
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maybe go to a point of failure and damage.
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But in that moment, I was able to reflect on myself and I realized that for me, the old paradigm would be to keep pushing it and go on because that would be easier, but to actually open a space of gentleness and change the plan.
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which meant for me that I went to see a doctor, I took a day off, I incorporated a little bit of cycling into it for a couple of days, then more running, then more cycling, and I was able to weave into this kind of path of moving forward.
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and getting to all the events that I was doing.
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And what I also noticed is that it allowed me to grow as a person toward more healthy expression of strength.
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And also, this was the thing that I saw that created the most inspiration with the people who were following it.
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because I think for a lot of us, we have a narrative that we re valuable when we keep pushing, but to introduce this gentleness and mercifulness as well into the package is something that makes us more wholesome.
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Well, I want to just explore this a little bit more because for those who are listening, not only were you running this, but as I understand it, you re having to do keynote speeches, you re talking to people throughout this entire journey.
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So there s a lot more mentally that s.
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encompassing you than just having to run the 30 miles, which was enough in itself.
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And interestingly, I have a friend, Kellyanne Jenkins, who last year did the seven by seven marathons and seven continents and seven day challenge.
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And they start that out in Antarctica.
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And the first day she s running, and I asked her, what are you running?
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And she said, we run in winter clothing.
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And that first day she developed blisters on the bottom of her feet that were almost the size of a lemon.
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And imagine that happening on the first day.
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And I understand that when you were running in New Zealand, it was extraordinarily hot for this time of year.
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And you also developed them.
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And I can t imagine being a runner myself, how you get over that pain when you ve got those blisters right there.
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How did you
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lock that out or get through that because it s something you would recognize every single step that you take.
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Yes, I definitely recognized it with every step I took and sometimes describing that it was blisters under blisters.
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And I do have to admit that on the second day of coming back to the van that we use for food and us and sleeping, I did come into the vehicle and I took off my running shoes and I swung them on the back wall.
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So it was like the pain was so much that I was I at that point realized the extent of what I was doing.
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The lesson here is that no matter how much we train and we prepare and plan, the real deal is when we actually get into the action and then we see how do we respond and we have to invent ourselves on the go.
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And this is
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part of human life.
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That s why we have so much discussion and research and philosophy and stories on overcoming adversity.
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It really is the true test and through that we get to know our character and we learn these unique coping methods that we can actually use.
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So we all have to go through those by direct experience.
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And for me,
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One of the things that was very important was the ability to stay very adaptable and stay very open to support from other people.
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I messaged a couple of ultra runners to ask, what do I do?
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We weren t expecting this in the beginning.
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It was going to be hard enough regardless.
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And then one of them said, just go as slow as you need, drop your pace, shuffle along in the morning, just take it easy.
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So here s a very, I would say an important remembering for all of us when we are going through extremely tough times is to lower the pace.
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Because otherwise, if we keep, let s say walking or sprinting the same pace into an uphill,
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we re fighting gravity.
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So we re depleting the energy that s already less.
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So really the wisdom of enduring tough moments is to stay porous and pliable to
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What does the situation need from you right now?
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So for me, it was to slow down.
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I sometimes say that the tiniest unit of Sisu, it condenses into one step, into one breath, and into one heartbeat.
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So that s what I did.
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I brought it so close that I only need to take the next step and the next step.
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And slow is good.
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And that somehow, one step after the other, slowly, I got to where I needed to go.
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But if I had been really hell-bent on keeping the pace, I think that s where I would have done the harm to myself.
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So adversity and dealing with it, there is an intelligence and there s a humility to the core of it.
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Well, I think that s a really important lesson for all the listeners to take away from this, because sometimes you do have to give yourself that grace and have the courage to acknowledge when you need to slow down maybe a little bit, when you need to reset how you re approaching things.
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It doesn t mean, as in your case, you re still not moving through it, but you re just re-approaching how you re trying to tackle the challenges ahead of you.
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So I wanted to switch our discussion now to your great book, which is titled Gentle Power, A Revolution in How We Think, Lead and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu, which was published by Sounds True in 2023.
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Congratulations on that.
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Thanks.
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As I was reading the book, I was immediately caught by the way that you use your words and the language, as you brought up earlier, these myths.
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You use languages very powerfully, and you start off the book with these words.
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Love is our base element of life, and love has always been there waiting for us to remove the veils that conceal it.
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Power is our base element too, and together with love,
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It lays the blueprint for how we express our energy and potential in life.
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And you call their harmonious expression, the title of your book, Gentle Power.
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Can you explore with me how this concept manifested and how it allowed you to show up for yourself from a place of kindness?
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It was really important to me, by the way, that the book starts with the word love.
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So that was a conscious choice and intention, like where I m now at age 42.
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Tomorrow, actually, is my birthday.
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The older I get, even though I m not so old yet, but I ve had enough of life experiences that have really shown me that ultimately it all started from love and it returns there.
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and everything that we experience in life are simply experiences that can help us remember that base element.
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And one of these really big experiences that ultimately maybe led me to change the name that I use to refer to myself as Elizabeth happened also in New Zealand.
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So there were these seeds that were planted and it took years to really sprout.
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But the experience there, when I was going through that extreme pain took place around the days, eight, nine, 11, 12, that were all very difficult days.
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And I almost feel like the whole 50 days.
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existed for this time period.
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And there s experiences before that and after, but I don t really even remember them so much.
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They re in my notes, luckily.
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But during this whole run, I was having a very intimate conversation with the road.
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And I tell about this in my book a little bit as well.
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Whereas the road would question me and I was having this dialogue because I was alone running.
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So I had a lot of time to think.
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what were the decisions I had made in my life and why and the mistakes and failures and all of these.
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And then, of course, it was my own psyche that I was having this conversation with.
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And then at some point, the road really made me pause.
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And I heard this question in my mind that the pain or the statement, actually, that the pain will stop when you make it stop.
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And that literally made me stop on my tracks.
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It was one of those things where an idea that has been circulating
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through your life, and it just comes home.
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So the penny drops, so to speak, and it becomes from a concept, something becomes embodied, and then you just know, and it changes everything, how you make decisions and how you treat yourself.
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And the sentence continued that this idea in my mind that I realized that it had been easier for me to be hard and merciless on myself, then to be kind and loving.
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And
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having this understanding of this, how I had been pursuing these difficult things and how it wasn t really the only way to go on about life, led me years after understanding that maybe it s time to shift from not learning through pain any much so more, that I saw where I also chose to always take the hard way.
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Sometimes we do need to choose because we need to understand something, but I consciously started to be more kind to myself.
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What happened as a result was
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a little bit something unexpected.
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It was this paradox that strength actually wasn t what I had been told or shown and what the world seems to reaffirm is that it s about this grind and push and force but actually that there was more strength in softening and actually that I noticed that it took more courage too.
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Today, where I stand when it comes to strength, leadership, doing these great things, I would even say a little bit extremely that it doesn t really impress me how much Sisu someone has and how much, so to speak, strength and how much they re able to push through if they don t have the love and if they don t have the ability to also remain merciful and gentle with other people.
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That is what we really need.
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And there s a reason why I didn t call this book Sisu, even though I started with the research 12 years ago and ended up pioneering the concept, the research.
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So it maybe logically should have been called Sisu, the book.
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but it felt much more important to put the name as something that is really inviting a way forward.
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So we re not in a place anymore where Sisu in its more constructive form, which is what I call gentle power, that it s a nice thing to have, but we really, as a humanity, we re in a place where it is a shifting point.
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that we really need to start also opening our heart and talking about the power of love and the power of gentleness and the power of being able to connect with one another, taking the risk that involves with staying vulnerable at times.
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That s something that is a lot of personal interest to me.
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And when I see that happening in leadership, when I see that inspiring how we make policy, that gives me a lot of hope.
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And gentleness is never passivity or it s never weakness, by the way.
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I m glad you brought up paradoxes because this is where I wanted to go next.
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Before we came on today, you and I were also talking about our mutual friend, David Yadin.
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And when I think about David, and you discussed this as well, one of the things that comes to mind is he is a gentle leader.
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When I think of Scott Berry Kaufman, I think of the same thing.
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Also, Dacher Keltner, who we both admire.
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And one of my favorite episodes from this past year was with Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis, both who are behavioral scientists.
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And they wrote this great book called Both and Thinking, which is really about the study of paradoxes.
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And I was hoping you could discuss the paradox of gentleness and why there is nothing so strong as gentleness and nothing so gentle as real strength.
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Yes, yes.
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I think one of the big lies that seems to be out there is this idea that gentleness is weakness, where it s actually really the opposite.
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When I give speeches on Sisu and I speak about gentleness, I do like to bring in the research component to it, because I notice that there is some kind of a fear that people have that when we start to talk about love and gentleness, that we re tricked into some kind of
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flowy, fluffy world where we don t actually put in the effort, which of course we need to put in.
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We need discipline, we need to have the intentionality that you spoke about.
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It s bringing together the wholesome concept as in the yin and the yang, which is the yin is the softness, the yang is the toughness, so they re not
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they re complementary, not opposing.
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So we need both of those.
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But when we look at the quote from Marcus Aurelius, for example, which is from Meditations, where it s translated as gentleness is invincible.
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And where I take that and why is it because how we are wired as humans, something that we cannot escape, we ve been
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wired through tribulations and trials and to ensure our survival into noticing the threat.
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And it s called the negativity bias.
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I m sure you ve mentioned it maybe in the show many times, but so we are hardwired to notice what s difficult, what s dangerous, what s a threat.
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which means that we gravitate toward those things.
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But when we get into a place where we get activated to protect ourselves or get defensive, something happens in our body, which I sometimes say the main thing to know about our body is that, and I m simplifying this,
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Big time now, so hope no one gets mad.
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But if there s one thing someone needs to know is that parasympathetic state is we are open for dialogue, we are in a way of that place of gentleness, we re able to have a communication with someone.
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we re not defensive, we are in a place of rest.
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So a connection is possible with me and another human.
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When we get triggered into that flight or fight, the fear response, that s when we go into the sympathetic dimension of our nervous system, which means that the evolutionarily older parts of our brain take
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control the limbic system which is there to keep us safe.
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Our ability for dialogue gets interrupted, we go into fight, we go into a world of separation.
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When we actually consciously focus on these qualities which gentleness represents, which are what Barbara Fredrickson
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has been researching for a lifetime, which is positive emotions.
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They, according to her research, they allow us to actually have greater access to our cognitive resources, better problem solving.
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We are able to take better calculated risks and be more courageous.
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We are in a place of openness where all these resources are available and our energy flows.
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So that state is extremely important for us when we are
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leading, when we are innovating, this place and time that we as a humanity are right now.
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It is complete madness to not put
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I would say everything we have into understanding how do we cultivate this capacity for gentleness and that place of parasympathetic activation into our daily lives because we must be able to stay in a dialogue with one another.
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For me it s been a simplified way again it s a matter of either we re open.
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We re having that communication or we shut down and there is separation.
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And I track this in myself when things happen.
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So it makes it a little bit easier to see, am I open?
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Am I closed?
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And from that point of view, gentleness is truly is the power because it allows that one thing we need in order to survive and in order to exceed ourselves, which is that we keep online, so to speak.
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I want to take that discussion you just did about gentleness, which was beautiful, and apply it towards leadership.
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In the book, you write about Yuval Noah Harari, who s a notable historian from Israel, and he s pointed out that despite the myriad of challenges that our world faces today, the most crucial struggle is evident in the lack of leadership.
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In light of what he says, how do you see this concept of gentleness and sisu playing a role in addressing the leadership crisis that we re all facing today?
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To me, where it places itself within this dialogue is that it can help give us a vehicle for very intimate personal development.
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I see leadership as a personal path, personal quest.
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It s not just something that some selected people have, but leadership really is about self-leadership.
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This is obvious.
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And why Sisu is such an interesting piece for the puzzle is because of its historical makeup.
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While it denotes this kind of embodied fortitude, this internal authority and our ability to exceed ourselves.
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So it is about human power.
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But in its origining culture in Finland, sisu also has this other flavor, which is that it has a quality that relates to how we do what we do.
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So there is an invitation, and I would say almost like a requirement, for integrity and to do well what we do.
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So that is built into this, that you do well even when no one is looking.
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It is attached to a certain kind of ethical coding, almost.
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Of course, Sisu can be done in a good way, and it can be done in a destructive way.
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So Sisu in itself is neutral.
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But in its cultural context, it carries this kind of flavor.
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When we look at leadership in our personal lives, people who are really using power,
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We need to root everything we re doing in these very difficult times that will test how we perform under extreme pressure.
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And we need to root that into some kind of a practice that constantly brings us into more alignment.
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into virtue, into making decisions that benefit the collective whole.
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And Sisu, as a quality that relates to human strength, has that inbuilt in it.
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I see Sisu for me as a person, as many authors often say, as I ve heard, that I wrote the book for myself.
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And I too, I wrote it for myself because throughout my life I ve struggled with this being too soft and too nice or then veering being way too like sharp with my decisions and like overdoing my boundaries.
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But following this like what does Sisu really feel like when I do it intelligently and with wisdom?
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It constantly offers me a chance to fine-tune how I do my own leadership.
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So
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Sisu, first and foremost, it s an invitation for knowing ourselves and knowing how we use power and knowing how we lead.
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And then from that self-understanding, become better actions, become better decisions, and then those spread into the larger social system.
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that can then create the movement and the shift in our collective consciousness that I do believe is on its way, but it needs all of us.
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It needs me.
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It needs you to do that private work in our daily silent lives.
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When I think of leaders in my own life who have used gentle power to do great things, one that comes top of mind is a close personal friend of mine, Chris Cassidy.
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Chris started out as a Navy SEAL and ended up applying to the astronaut program.
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eventually became the chief astronaut at NASA.
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But I remember talking to him one time about his first flight on the space shuttle, and I said, what was one of the biggest takeaways that you had from your first time in space?
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And he said it was the need in our life that we have to become perspective harnessers.
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And so I ended up writing a chapter about this in my upcoming book.
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But I believe that harnessing your perspective is one of the most important mindset shifts that we can make.
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And you write in the book that when you noticed that you could change your perspective to focus less on achievement and more on learning, which is so important,
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something shifts in the narrative.
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When you do that, how does every failure you encounter reveal itself as a lesson in love and power?
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Oh, that s so beautiful.
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To those who are not watching the video, there was a smile that started spreading when you reminded me of that line there in the book.
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It really goes to the very core of where I see
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my resilience resides.
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And when we start to look at everything as a chance to learn, suddenly we are looking at the world as this huge treasure trove where every single encounter with another person, every failure, every adversity, every triumph, it becomes almost like a teacher.
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It is that extended hand at the dojo of your teacher, the master, or your fellow student.
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with which you get to practice.
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When we start to look at the world with that, we also adopt the vantage point of being the eternal learner, which brings in humility.
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Which again, is part of that thing of staying open to one another.
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When I start looking at you as my teacher, and when I start looking at my partner like that, I imagine looking at your husband or wife, like they re your teacher.
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They re there to share life lessons.
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Something shifts very profoundly in that.
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There s a respect and reverence.
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There is that positive emotion of something opens in us.
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And these are some of these, goes under this idea of what I was speaking last week to a group of business leaders.
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And I have three keys to Sisu.
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And the first key was that you must choose your thoughts.
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And when this idea first came to me a couple of years ago, it was a revelation that I am not a victim of my thoughts.
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Not only are we invited to become aware,
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aware of them.
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But then with when we become aware, we can sometimes actually choose one thought over the other.
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And when we start exploring with that, we start to create different realities.
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Because I think I want to bring Carol Dweck, who s also one of my science
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Shiro s who s had a lifelong career researching mindset and how Carol puts it that our beliefs are the single biggest, I m losing an English word here now, but that tell what our next action is going to be.
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So we can predict them from our beliefs.
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So it comes to the core really of that and the mind.
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Again, it is also this portal to how we use our Sisu and how we open to life force or how we close the valve from life force.
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Elizabeth, since you brought up Carol Dweck, who s also had a profound influence in my life, one thing I often talk about on this show is the concept of the psychology of progress, which I refer to as deliberate action.
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And it s something that you call action mindset or Carol would call
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growth mindset.
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Reflecting on the significance of an action mindset, can you discuss how embracing qualities like courage and Sisu are really not just abstract character traits, but really tangible through our actions?
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How can they fundamentally shape the course of our lives if we allow them?
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Oh goodness, I m so glad you added this, because now we really get to a perfect beautiful sphere and a circle with our conversation.
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Because so often, at least this has happened to me, where I know what s good for me, I have all these visions, maybe all the knowledge.
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I ve spent a lot of time in my life listening to podcasts, reading research and doing all the literature.
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But then when it comes to that point that really defines the game and the point which is taking that action, ultimately it is the bottleneck, right?
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That we can have all these good intentions and ideas and then it gets stuck in that bottleneck of do we take the action or not?
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And there are these three qualities to Sisu that those who like to read research papers.
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There s my paper that s open access, like all good research should be.
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It s from 2019.
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You can Google it with embodied fortitude.
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Introducing the Finnish concept of Sisu.
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And there you can find three different themes around Sisu.
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One of them is this extraordinary perseverance where we go beyond what we thought we re capable of going.
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So it s that Sisu begins where perseverance ends.
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One of them is Sisu as latent power.
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So that speaks of Sisu as this embodied fortitude, that Sisu is more about our somatic and visceral kind of quality of strength instead of just a cognitive
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that we most often speak about.
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It adds to that toolkit.
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And then the third one is the one that you mentioned, which is action mindset.
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And those people who
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express Sisu.
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What seems to be a core quality to that is this consistent, courageous, almost like a spine reaction where we start to lean into toward the wind or the uphill instead of shying away from it.
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And there s a very simple way to start orienting oneself toward that, which has to do with our brain plasticity, that we can start to adopt new habits.
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And I m a huge believer in simplifying things, starting very small, which is how I had to start so many things.
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And how we expand this sphere of what I call a sphere of life force and
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within which we can operate with more ease.
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It starts with doing very micro decisions in our daily lives where we consciously choose the comfortable discomfort.
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So it doesn t have to be something insane.
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No one needs to now go and sign up for a marathon.
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We can start with way smaller things.
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Just when you re doing something where you would rather take the easy way out, it could be like in my apartment building, the elevator is right there when I entered the building and right next to it, one meter away are the stairs.
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So this in itself doesn t develop Sisu, because Sisu is exceeding ourselves.
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But when I choose the constructive discomfort by taking the stairs, I am teaching my brain that it is okay to take the discomfort.
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And then when I practice this a lot, it becomes very normal.
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There s not that resistance anymore.
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When that time comes, when we are facing some adversity that life gives us, we don t arrive to that place unprepared.
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But just like a boxer would train before getting into the ring, it is very important that we start with these micro actions.
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so that it is more likely that we take the action in a moment when something really difficult happens.
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So it s all about putting these very small efforts over a expansive time period together so we fortify ourselves.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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Right now, Elisabeth, the world is filled with so much nihilism.
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We ve got epidemics around the world of loneliness, hopelessness.
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Yet amidst all of this, Finland has a remarkable achievement of being ranked as the happiest country in the world for six consecutive years.
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As someone who s lived most of your life in Finland, you attribute this achievement, at least in part, to Sisu.
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In your view, what lessons can other countries and cultures learn from this Finnish approach to help us get through these feelings that so many people are having to ones where they feel happiness and overall well-being?
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I think one important thing to mention here when it comes to Finland and Sisu and happiness, or I would like to call it more like contentment, to be honest.
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Every time when the statistics come out that Finland is the happiest country in the world, Finns are like, what?
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We just don t get it.
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And but one thing that has happened, which I would attribute to Sisu, it is this mindset and mentality of the action that we just spoke about.
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So Finland has a long history of actually putting the action in creating social structures that have created a structure and system for well-being.
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So when people function in society, there are these safety networks, nets and practices and social services, wellbeing services that will catch you, which contributes to a sense of safety, which is really at the core of our ability to have that sense of resilience and have a sense of belonging, which contributes to a sense of wellbeing and contentment or even happiness.
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So that is something that has happened since the Second World War, which is something, too, that Finland can gift are these practices.
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But also to keep the conversation very sober around Sisu, which I find is very important because it s almost too easy to hype Sisu as well, is that Sisu in itself is a tool that can be used well or poorly.
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So
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The ways how Sisu has been used well has created us the education system and it has created the welfare system that contributes to the structure.
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But at the same time, there are aspects that we really struggle with in Finland, which has to do with loneliness and depression and a lot of these other atrocities.
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So it always highlights to me
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how important it is to, when we cultivate Sisu, whether it s in Finland, and I speak about it a lot here, I always bring in this concept of warm Sisu, because we have a history of only focusing on the negative Sisu, which has created some negative outcomes as well.
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But to foster Sisu in a constructive way, where we bring in that self-leadership and we bring in the understanding of also cultivating compassion and that gentleness,
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And through that way, we can actually take the things that have worked in Finland and also take the next level in some part of the world.
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We really need to bring all of our collective wisdom together in this time and maybe create something new, like a really functioning paradigm of leadership that is based on strength,
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toughness, this intention, as you put it in arrows of intention, and then also bringing in the heart, bringing in the care, the caring structures, the caring systems, and the compassion.
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That s something I really want to see and
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I don t see that quite happening anywhere in the world yet, but I have complete confidence that this consciousness that we re seeing, that is inspired by the adversity that we re facing, it will propel us to go on a next level.
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And it is with all the struggle that s happening and it can get us down and it gets me down.
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sometimes, but I turn my gaze into what is possible.
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And I feel that invigorates and it gets me to work more for the good future.
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Okay.
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And then the last question I had for you is, I understand you did a survey of over a thousand Finns and Finnish Americans, and you found a fascinating finding on Sisu.
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While the majority of people from the survey believe in the potential to display Sisu is innate, an even larger percentage think that it can be cultivated and developed over a lifetime.
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So to bring this home for a listener,
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What would be one of your biggest pieces of advice on how they can get started on this journey of cultivating Sisu into their life?
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The most important piece that it all starts with is to recognize that there is this innate, inherent strength.
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within you.
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What I noticed when I ve been speaking about Sisu abroad with people who haven t even heard of it but they always recognize this when I describe Sisu as that you re walking through that dark forest and then you come out of the other side and you overcome so there s a light bulb so we recognize what that is.
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What I ve also noticed is that the people who are the strongest amongst us, sometimes they don t recognize that they have Sisu.
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Is to really open a space to embracing this idea that there is so much more strength, so much more life force and potential within us that we might notice in a given moment.
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So opening to that.
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Secondly, having some kind of a daily
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micro practice that allows you to ground to your parasympathetic nervous system.
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So meditation, breath work, going into nature.
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Nature is, by the way, a huge part of the Finnish culture.
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I do associate that to Sisu, that Finns spend a lot of time outside and really connecting with the elements, or I do that.
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So recognizing that there is potential for Sisu,
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Secondly, having a practice, whether it s a micro thing, whether it s simply honing the practice of meditating three minutes a day, like really make the goal so small that it simply starts to grab hold.
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And then thirdly, and this is so important, is to build a community around you, whether it s one other person or two, but have those people who are your Sisu companions.
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That you make a deal with someone that, hey, we re going to check in on each other.
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We share our stories of Sisu.
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immense power that not only lives in, or how I would say it in my PhD, is that Sisu doesn t only live in you, it doesn t only live in me, but Sisu also exists and is co-created through this space in between us.
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So that is a big untapped potential that honestly, it s also a lot of fun.
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We are created to be in communion and companionship with each other.
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And it s really going back to basics, taking care of ourselves, having a joint space with other humans and taking small steps at a time.
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Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth, for that explanation.
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And if someone wanted to learn more about you and Sisu Labs, what s the best way for them to do so?
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Well, SisoLab.com and all the links are there.
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Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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You are someone I ve wanted to have on for quite some time.
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So it was truly an honor for us to have you.
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Oh, thank you so much.
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I really feel very uplifted by this exchange and what I learned from you.
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So thank you for having me.
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Really nice.
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I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Elizabeth Lottie, and I wanted to thank Elizabeth and sounds true for the honor and privilege of having her appear on today s show links to all things.
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Elizabeth will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com.
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Please use our website links.
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If you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show.
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Videos are on YouTube, both on our main channel at John or miles and on our clips channel at passion struck clips.
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You can sign up for my personal development newsletter at PassionStruck.com.
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You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles.
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You can sign up for our work related newsletter on LinkedIn.
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You re about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview that I did with Jen Drummond, author of the brand new book,
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break-proof, seven strategies to build resilience and achieve your life goals.
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Through our discussion, I will guide you on Jen Drummond s audacious journey to conquer the seven second summits.
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With no prior experience in mountain climbing, Jen set out to complete a feat that many thought was impossible.
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This isn t just an interview, it s a vivid testament to the unyielding human spirit of being passion-struck
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a narrative that echoes the essence of a go-getter and underscores the vital importance of maintaining life balance, setting ambitious goals, and embracing the fullness of life.
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My coach kind of laughed.
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He s like, Hey, Jen, I ve got the perfect world record for you.
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I think you should be the first female to climb the seven second summits.
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At that point in my life, it sounded like a tongue twister.
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I didn t even know what he was saying.
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I m like the seven what?
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It was the seven second summits.
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It s the second highest point on each of the seven continents.
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It has only been done by one male.
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It s harder than the first seven.
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You would be the first woman.
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And he goes, think about it.
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Seven continents, seven mountains, seven children.
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It s a jackpot.
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I m like, it does sound like a jackpot.
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I ve never slept in a tent though before.
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Like we ve got things we got to figure out.
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And he said, you ll do it.
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I m like, okay, let s say yes.
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To me, it checked the boxes of traveling and experiencing the world, doing hard things.
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And I felt it would be an inspirational pursuit for others to step into theirs.
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The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting.
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If today s episode on Sisu with Elizabeth Lottie inspired you, then definitely share the show.
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Greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about.
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In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
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And until next time, go out there and become Hash Instructor.