Summer gave me time to think. And think I did.
I looked back over my life and career and found myself wondering about the sheer variety of things I have been interested in. At times, even I have wondered why my interests seem to jump from one thing to another.
At the same time, I began asking myself: what has actually been the thread running through my working life — if there is one?
I made a list of the things I have done over the years, had long conversations with friends and people close to me, and eventually with AI as well. Little by little, I began to see a kind of continuity.
PSYCHOLOGY
Few things in my life have been as clear to me as my choice of what to study. When I realized, as a young man, that there was an entire field of science devoted to understanding the human mind and behavior, I knew what I wanted to study.
I became a psychologist.
COACHING
Once I entered working life, simply understanding people was no longer enough. I became interested in how people change — and how can I help people when they seek change.
I studied coaching and gained a wide range of methods that I still use today. But at the same time, new questions began to emerge.
PERSONALITY & WORKPLACE NORDIC
I have always been fascinated by the question: how and why are we so different from one another?
When I came across the WorkPlace Big Five personality assessment internationally, I knew I wanted to bring it to Finland. Together with my colleague Hilkka-Maija Katajisto, we founded WorkPlace Nordic, and over time our toolkit expanded to include the EQ-i 2.0 emotional intelligence assessment, 360-degree assessments, and other tools.
I am no longer actively involved in the day-to-day work of WorkPlace Nordic, but understanding personality and using different assessment tools remain an important part of my work.
EMOTIONS & EMERGY
Early in my career, I was already puzzled by how little we talked about the emotions people experience and express at work, even though emotions influence what we do all the time.
I began immersing myself in research on emotions, developed emotional skills specifically for working life, wrote books on the subject, and eventually Emergy was born. Through Emergy, we have spent years researching, developing, and training emotional skills in the workplace. Today, Emergy is led by my wonderful colleague Ira Leppänen, but I remain actively involved in client work and selected development projects.
GESTALT
At some point, however, I began to long for an even deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
For me personally, Gestalt was a transformative discovery. It is an integrative approach that draws on a range of traditions while placing particular emphasis on our experience in the present moment — on working with what is happening here and now. Gestalt brought experience and embodiment into both my own life and my work in an entirely new way.
My own journey from a rationalizing overthinker toward a more holistic way of experiencing life has been a long one — and it continues.
Gestalt had such a profound impact on me that, after graduating as a Gestalt therapist in Denmark, I wanted to bring organizational Gestalt into Finnish working life. This led me to bring an international Gestalt in Organizations training program to Finland, delivered by international trainers as Emergy AUTHENTIC LEADER program.
PSYCHEDELICS & HUMANZIO
And then psychedelics came along.
About ten years ago, I read Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind. I knew very little about psychedelics at the time, but the book sparked an enormous curiosity in me, which eventually led me to a guided psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands.
The experience was profound.
It felt as though I had discovered an entirely new — genuinely next-level — way of exploring emotions, the mind, human existence, and ultimately life and consciousness itself.
I wanted to understand more, and I became the first Finnish psychologist to graduate from the international psychedelic-assisted therapy training program at the MIND Foundation. Out of this continuing exploration, my newest brand, Humanzio, was born.
At the same time, interests that had accompanied through my life — Eastern philosophical traditions, existential questions, mindfulness, meditation, and nonduality — began to weave themselves ever more clearly into the same larger whole.
And after looking at all this apparent “jumping around” for long enough, I realized that perhaps I had not been jumping around at all.
Perhaps I had simply been approaching the same question from different directions, moving layer by layer a little deeper.
At the heart of it all has always been an endless fascination with what it means to be human.
What moves us? Why are we the way we are? How do we change? How do we become more aware of who we are and what might be possible within us? And how can we help individuals, leaders, and communities grow more fully into who they are?
Today, all of this takes many different forms in my work.
I work with organizations and leadership teams, particularly around questions of emotions, leadership, change, and human interaction.
I train coaches, facilitators, consultants, and other development professionals to use Gestalt and other experiential and transformative approaches in their work.
And through Humanzio, I work with people who are looking for a deeper change in their lives, a new direction, or perhaps a spark they have somehow lost along the way — with psychedelic-assisted retreats in the Netherlands as one of the approaches I offer.
And then there is one of my favourite assignemts: KEYNOTE SPEECHES
They give me the opportunity to bring almost everything I have described above together and speak about emotions, leadership, change, humanity, and what it means to grow as a human being. There has been quite a personal transformation here, too: I used to be terrified of public speaking. Today, I genuinely enjoy stepping onto a stage in front of even a large audience — and I am delighted to have received wonderful feedback on my talks.
Perhaps, in the end, our life’s work is not simply about what we do.
Perhaps it is more about the question we find ourselves returning to again and again, at different stages of life, from different perspectives, and through different methods.
For me, that question is what it means to be human.
What is the thread running through your life?
