In 1995, I was fourteen years old, and a magazine publisher.

Together with my brothers Lauri and Jetro, we published a monthly magazine Savannin uutisia (News from the Savanna), named after the fact that we lived in Senegal, in the middle of the savanna. The magazine cost 800 FCFA (about 1.5 US dollars in today’s exchange rates) and was sold to friends’ parents and other Finnish missionaries in Senegal.

At school, we had a PC with Windows 3.1 and an early version of Microsoft Works, so we could type the text and print it out on a matrix printer. After printing the text, we laid out the magazine using glue scissors. Page by page, we cut the text into suitable pieces (in the photo below, you’ll see how at times, we even cut the words one by one!) and glued them on sheets of paper. As illustration, we used clip art, photos cut from magazines and our own drawings. When we were done with the layout, we took our master copy to the copying machine at our parents’ work place and took a dozen or so copies of the magazine.

The content of the magazine was broad, everything from current events at school and in the small community of Finnish missionaries living in Senegal to jokes and fake ads for everyday products to a beginner programming course. One of our high moments was when we interviewed our teachers who had just had a baby. At that moment, I felt like a real reporter.

After five issues, we left Senegal, and the magazine with it.

This didn’t end my adventures in the world of publishing. I have written tutorials, blog posts and other types of articles on this blog as well as many other web sites.

But I never published another magazine. Until now.

Here comes the announcement:

I am re-launching Insanely Interested as a publisher of very targeted magazines for the insanely interested. I am already working hard on the first magazine, Bread, with the first edition targeted for a February 2012 launch. At Insanely Interested, I also publish a new, email only blog, Creative&Curious.

If you are interested to see where my experiments in publishing are taking me next, visit Insanely Interested right now. I’d love to take you on this journey with me!

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

Like this time every year, many of us are looking back to the work we did in 2011, asking the big questions once again: How did this year go? Did I spend my time on the things that matter, or was I just going with the flow, keeping up with my routines?

Throughout history, smart people have shared their tools for approaching the question. One of my favorites is this one from Derek Sivers. Quoting from his book, Anything You Want:

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.

Or said in another way:

Complete the sentence: “In a perfect world…” Then get to work creating that perfect world.

This is great advice.

But there is another idea that has been growing in my mind these past days, which I’d like to share with you. Here’s how it goes:

Looking at every possible path (you think) you can take, ask yourself: “If I decide to skip this opportunity, will I regret it when I’m too old to give it a try?”

Most item on that list of good ideas won’t create any emotional reaction. Maybe you’ll think that it would be a shame to not implement them, but that’s your analytical brain speaking.

And then there’s the one that makes you feel your heart beat. The one that scares you.

It’s the one that always returns, no matter how many times you bury it. And already now, you regret that you haven’t jumped in with both feet and explored it properly. If you regret it now, how much more will you regret when it’s too late?

That’s the path you will have to take. Stay on it until there is no question of whether it will get you anywhere or not. Work hard so you know you gave it your best.

This way, in the end, even if things don’t work out, there will be no need for regret.

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

I had never heard of Danny MacAskill until two nights ago when my brother shared a link to one of his videos on Facebook. I watched that video, then another, and before I realized I had spent an hour watching a guy riding his bike. His skills touched me: it was not just a bunch of tricks on a bike. It was art.

If you haven’t seen Danny MacAskill before, watch these videos now. You won’t regret it. Actually, even if you have seen them before, it’s still a good idea to take a few minutes to enjoy them now and remind you of the human potential!

I was thinking of writing about how complete dedication to whatever crazy thing you are interested in will make you interesting, or how relentlessly pursuing your burning desire no matter how many people will tell you it’s insane will make your life amazing, and how this is a call all of us can answer, even if the craziest trick we can do on a bike is to ride it with one hand.

But now, looking at this post, and watching the videos once again, I realize you don’t need all those words. All you need is Danny MacAskill, his bike, and some peace for your own thoughts to process what you see and how it all relates to your life.

Be awesome!

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | No comments

It’s the voice inside your head that tells you it’s time to quit.

It’s the sudden urge to surf the web and write clever status updates to Facebook.

It’s the feeling of anxiety that keeps your finished work unpublished.

It’s the hopelessness that prevents you from changing the world.

Its name is Resistance. We need you to fight it.

If you have ever created and published something new in your life, you know what I’m talking about. You have felt resistance. You might not have known it by name, but you have felt it at work. And in the worst case, maybe it has succeeded in discouraging you from sharing your art.

I have good news: You can get to know it. You can trick it. And in the end, you can create despite its best attempts to stop you.

Start here, start now

This are the tools I keep close as I fight my resistant demons. I hope they can get you going as well:

	The one and only starting point to your journey to beating Resistance is Steven Pressfield’s The War Of Art, the book that introduced the concept to the world. The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance. * * *
	My first introduction to Resistance was through Seth Godin’s Linchpin. Linchpin takes Resistance from the world of artists and applies it to all kinds of important work. Or better yet, it says we are all artists now and need to fight resistance to share our gifts with the world. That will make us indispensable. * * *
	Seth Godin’s latest brain child, The Domino Project is doing an amazing job at publishing books and manifestos that help us deal with Resistance and get art out there. Check out Pressfield’s practical Do the Work, Godin’s own Poke the Box, or their latest release, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance for more inspiration than you can digest today. * * *
	If blogging is what you are struggling with, my friend Mark Hayward together with Joaquin Kierce has just released a free motivational e-book that will get you going: The Possibility Engine is a thirty-day coaching program that will get your blog in gear. * * *
	And finally, my own small e-book. Create! (with small children in the house) is based on my own experiences in creating and fighting resistance while living with first one and then two small kids in the household, and the tricks I have used to work my way through some of the obstacles laid by the Resistance. The book is mostly aimed at parents who feel the urge to create but can’t seem to find the time, but I have heard it can help others as well, so check it out even if you don’t have kids. It’s free. * * *

With the help, the next step is yours: take action and make a difference.

We are waiting for you.

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

For the past weeks I have been immersed in a building project I had dreamed about since last summer: I am building a playhouse for my two boys — on our apartment’s balcony. I have no previous building experience but slowly and steadily the small building is getting closer to completion. I am learning as I go, and it feels great!

It’s in the very same way that I taught myself computer programming as a kid, or baking my own bread in the past two years: jumping in with both feet, and doing something I had never done before. Just like that, without too many preparations.

In fact, I think it’s the only way to learn something new. So, if you are only doing things you already know how to do, you are leaving some amazing potential for learning unused.

If you need more proof, read the rest of this post. Otherwise, go on already and do something you have never done before: pick a guitar and look up the first chords from YouTube, set up a blog and write your first blog post, take a stand and bring some small change to the world.

At first, you will not be perfect. As proud as I am about my playhouse, I must admit that it has its faults. Just a glance at it will reveal that it wasn’t built by a professional. But I have created something, and that can be a start for a great new passion and a lifelong adventure.

So, I give you permission: today, do something you have never done before.

If that’s not enough to get you started, here is a list of 11 reasons why it’s good for you:

1. It’s fun!
2. You will learn a new skill, and help keep your brain healthy.
3. You will outdo your expectations. Your creation doesn’t have to fill the standards of a professional to be impressive. Breaking your own limits is all that counts.
4. It will get your creative juices running. Working with completely different tools than you normally do will almost definitely give you completely different ideas.
5. You will become a superhero. Crossing the borders of your comfort zone and succeeding in something new will give you courage and empower you to try out new ideas more easily in the future.
6. It will open up new opportunities. Doing what you have done many times before leads to predictable results. To clear room for new possibilities, you need to do something different.
7. You might become a better person. Picking up a good habit is also most likely doing something you have never done before — and it could also be something that will change your life for good.
8. You have the chance to make a difference in someone else’s life. Sure, if your everyday actions are already changing the lives of dozens, this doesn’t count. For the rest of us, giving our time and energy for a good cause is a great way to do something different.
9. You will learn to know yourself better. Doing something for the first time puts you in a situation where you don’t normally find yourself in. What better way to test your assumptions on the kind of person you are. The way staying at home with my kids has taught me that I am not as cool and patient as I thought.
10. You can write a blog post about it! I just did.
11. It’s the only way to get to doing it for the second time. If you dream of being great at something, there are no shortcuts: you have to start from doing it for the first time.

Now, go do it — and don’t forget to come back and tell me what you did and how it went!

Related posts:

1. 6 Inspiring Examples of People Doing Great Work
2. How I Saved Money, Got Things Done, And Had a Great Family Holiday

© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments

Midday in the Kalahari Desert is not quite the time or place for a run. With heat rising from 39 to 45 degrees Celcius (about 113°F), most sane people would take cover from the sun, sitting under the lone tree they can find, drinking water and waiting for the air to cool down.

Not !Nam!kabe, !Nate, Kayate, and Boro//xao, or any of the other persistence hunters anthropologist Louis Liebenberg has observed since his first trip to the Lone Tree area in 1985.

They hunt: Just like their ancestors, they pick an antelope or a kudu and hunt it down by running after it until it either drops dead, exhausted by the heat, or has to stop for long enough so that the hunters can easily kill it with a spear.

This hunt is stunning in many ways: It helps explain the role running may have had in our evolution. It shows the strength of human team work as the hunters work in teams consisting of young and old runners, men, female, not forgetting the children either.

But most importantly, it shows something very special about the human nature: our ability for hope.

When the runners start their chase, the antelope quickly loses the trackers and it would be easy to dismiss the whole project as impossible. The antelope is so much faster than a human can ever be. But the hunter doesn’t let go of hope. He imagines the dinner he will be able to prepare to feed his family, and he remembers from earlier runs that if he trusts in what he is doing, he will be the last one standing, no matter how hard it seems at start.

And so he runs.

More than ever, today, we need hope.

One night on Easter week, I was chatting with my brother Jetro — one of the smartest people I know. What started as a lighthearted discussion about Finnish politics soon proceeded to the heavier waters of the state of the world in general. Starting from the economic crisis, we went through one issue to the next, each of them making us feel further stripped from any power to fix the problems of this world.

There’s no denying it, this world is in a pretty bad shape.

If it was just one issue, let’s say climate change, chances would be pretty good. Our governments have solved big problems in the past.

But instead of one, there are so many it’s hard to keep track: peak oil, poverty, loss of biodiversity, a clean water crisis, all kinds of issues with pollution, a raising level of inequality, a financial crisis that seems to have no end, to name a few.

Just listing these words on this page makes me feel so desperate I want to hide and pretend I have never heard of them.

But as we talked about these unsurmountable obstacles, I couldn’t stop telling myself that there must be something we can do about it. I don’t know what it is. But there must be something.

That’s hope. A fragile, scared kind of hope. But hope nonetheless.

For me, being human means clinging to hope and acting accordingly, even if in the end, we might fail. And this time, the odds really are against us. Failure is more than an option, it is the likely outcome. But unless we try to reach the unreachable and to build a sustainable world for our children to live in, we are not being true to our humanity.

Right now, more than anything, we need to cultivate hope. By hanging out with people who believe making a difference is possible. By getting down to work and building on top of small victories. By taking initiative and jumping right in.

That is our only way out.

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

After four months away from the 9 to 5 workforce, I have lost track on a lot of what is hot on the internet today and what is not. If you asked me to name the most interesting Twitter memes or most important e-books released in the past months, I would have to admit I have no clue. Most of my thoughts revolve around things that are not digital or buzz-worthy: stories told by my son, building a small wooden playhouse on our apartment’s balcony, the books I read at night before falling asleep.

I didn’t deliberately set out to distance myself of the digital world though (Sam Spurlin and Tammy Strobel, among others have done that with good results) — it just happened. But the outcome has been eye-opening.

One night, while reading the wonderful book about simplicity, Twelve by Twelve, a word from the book stuck to my mind: “Pilgrimage.” After a few pages, I had to put the book down, take the closest piece of paper I could find (a torn envelope) and my trusty pen, and write it down. Then I went back to reading. Very soon, I noticed there were more words to get out of my head. The moment was almost magical — not in a supernatural sense, just very fascinating — realizing that this big picture of my world view had been building inside my head all along I thought I was only thinking of diapers and children’t games, and now it was ready to come out.

The list grew longer and longer, every word adding something to the image of a life that is good enough, thankful, and I might even use the word blessed. A life that brings joy to me, but also adds to the common good.

Here they are: 24 words to describe what living a good life is about — or my collection of buzz words:

1. Mindful
2. Present
3. Compassion
4. Love
5. Supporting
6. Imperfect
7. Gifts
8. Grateful
9. Pilgrimage
10. Slow
11. Fair
12. Earthly
13. Beautiful
14. Handmade
15. Culture
16. History
17. Story
18. Timeless
19. Art
20. Permaculture
21. Enough
22. Humble
23. Connected
24. Small

I am not adding any explanations to these words. They are powerful words on their own, and if they ring true to you, I am sure you will find your own interpretations and conclusions.

When you do, I’d love to hear what thoughts these words create in you. And maybe one or more words that you would add to the list?

Related posts:

1. 6 Buzz Words that Can Change the World

© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments

Back in January, inspired by this post at Think Traffic, where Everett Bogue and Pat Flynn debated over whether a blog should have comments or not, I decided to turn off commenting on this blog.

Now, a couple of months later, I am turning comments back.

What made me think running the blog without comments would be  good idea in the first place? And what made me change my mind and turn them back on? This post is my attempt at explaining what blog comments mean to me — and maybe we can even have a short chat about what they mean to you, at the end of the post…

I have been missing your voices.

Why I thought it would be a good idea to turn comments off

Some people become obsessed with checking their RSS stats, some go nuts over the number of visitor they get every day. For me, the number one blogging related obsession became the number of comments. I couldn’t stop checking if I there were new comments to a post I had written.

When I realized what was happening to me, I didn’t feel so good about it: It was as if I wasn’t writing for the sake of sharing my thoughts and trying to understand the world better, but just for comments. I was like that small kid who keeps telling his parents to cheer for him every time he does something even the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

I didn’t want to be that kid.

I wanted to write because I had something to say or because I wanted to understand something better. Somewhat along the lines of what Jon Foreman has once said about his songwriting:

“I write about things I don’t understand, so mostly God and women.”

This was the personal reason for why I turned off the blog comments.

A couple of other reasons that affected the decision were ideas I got from reading that discussion at Think Traffic:

1. Responding to comments can take too much time at some point in the future, so if I might turn comments off then, it’s better to do it already now when there aren’t that many readers who might get angry at me.
2. Not having comments brings the content in the center.
3. A blog post is more powerful than a comment, so it would be better if everyone just wrote blog posts discussing each other’s ideas. I still like this idea but in practice I don’t see it happening almost anywhere on the internet.
4. Maybe Twitter could take the role of the comments as the main channel for discussion?

While all of these ideas hold some truth in them, I found out that they are not that relevant in my small, humble blog’s case.

Why my blog needs comments

Let’s face it, with about 700 RSS subscribers and about 60 to 100 daily visitors, my blog is far from A-list.

1. If  this blog became so popular that responding to comments would take hours, then I could save time by turning off comments.
2. If I was Seth Godin and had a never-ending pool of interesting anecdotes and educational stories to share, putting my content in the center would make my posts even more interesting.
3. If all my readers had blogs, there might be posts about my posts online, and we could have a discussion through blogging.
4. If all my readers were using Twitter, then we could discuss through it. (Although 140 characters is quite short for a blog comment!)

None of these conditions apply to me and this blog.

And that’s not all. Without you guys commenting on my posts from time to time, I am just shouting here on my own, with no one telling me when what I write is complete crap.

Someone wiser than me once said that we write to clear our thoughts and publish to test our conclusions. I couldn’t find who it was who said it but I agree.

And that is why I turned comments back on today.

Most people won’t comment. But the ones who do will give me something new to think about. I don’t expect you to comment right away (I am sorry for shutting our communication channel) but I can’t wait to hear your voices again.

From now on, this blog will be a two way street again, for the rest of its lifetime.

Related posts:

1. Blog ACTION Day: Water

© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments

The world is full of amazing people doing amazing things.

You would be one of them if you only knew what your amazing thing is.

A month ago, when I jumped to my new challenge of becoming a stay at home dad to my two boys, I created a plan full of action for every night after the kids go to bed: specific goals such as writing 2 blog posts every week or finishing my first e-book in January. I was sticking to the plan rather well, until I realized that I was mostly just repeating what I had been doing for the past three years: doing things for the sake of keeping myself moving.

Nothing wrong with doing, and I still believe creating is a key building block for a great life. But this line from Twelve by Twelve stopped me on my tracks. I was missing the middle step:

See. Be. Do.

By all this doing, I was avoiding my three big questions:

1. What do I believe in? I am Christian, I think. However, what that means is not so clear to me. I have a haunting feeling that if I decide I really want to follow Jesus, it will lead me to waters I am not sure I want to go to. But half-assed Christianity just for the sake of redemption doesn’t cut it for me.
2. What really is the state of this world? And what can I do about it? The world is an amazing place full of opportunity, yet at the same time it’s a place where injustice keeps growing and the divide between the haves and the have-nots widens every day. I can take advantage of the opportunities, or create opportunities for others. Can I do both? Who can I help today?
3. What do I want to use my life for? I believe it’s up to each of us to define the meaning for our own lives. What is my answer?

All these questions are closely linked to each other and it will be scary to answer them, but I will take more time out of my schedule and attack them now that I have the chance — resisting the urge to move straight to doing. I’m eager to see what comes out of it.

I believe I am not the only one in this situation, so I dare ask you to think about the questions to which your actions are answers. Are they the questions that sneak in to your mind when you shut the distractions? Or are you busy answering the wrong questions?

Get to know yourself today: Don’t do. Just listen. See.

Then, let the questions sink in. Think about them. Be.

And only after the two first steps, answer those burning questions. Do.

Related posts:

1. Tough Questions Kids Ask: Why Do We Eat Fish?

© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

For the past days, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about bread. That happens to me from time to time.

I have a new iteration of my levain growing for some baking experiments tomorrow and the next few days thereafter, and although I could leave it still, I can’t help but go count the bubbles every half an hour, and write down the events in my small baking notebook.

(If you live near my home in Vantaa, Finland and would like a loaf or two, let me know. I think I will have a lot more of them than my family can eat pretty soon.)

Another baking related project from the past year and half has been to try every recipe from Richard Bertinet‘s first book, Dough. I have been working through the recipes slowly, at the same time trying different breads from books such as Crust from the same author, or from the baking forum, The Fresh Loaf.

Baking my way through the 51 recipes in Dough (I have four left), I have come to understand the power of simplicity in a whole new, very practical way.

The book is a basic introduction to baking great bread at home, and although by now, I have already grown out of its target audience, I really recommend it for anyone considering the way of life of  a home baker. Its recipes range from baguettes to a variety of breads with more exotic seasonings, and the thing is that the best breads are the ones with the least impressive ingredients.

Breads with fancy ingredients like nuts, pecorino, or pancetta may sell books (don’t get this wrong, they sure taste good too), but when you want to bake a great bread, you use four ingredients:

1. Flour
2. Water
3. Salt
4. Yeast

If you want to still improve the bread, instead of adding anything new, you remove the fourth ingredient and grow your own yeast.

That’s the perfect example for the  minimalist ideal:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

With all the unnecessary ingredients stripped away, you are ready to focus on what makes baking special — the magic of bread, where the building blocks couldn’t get any simpler but possibilities are without limits.

• You can change the timing and let the dough rest longer in a cool place. The flavor will be completely different.
• You can experiment with the way you work the dough.
• You can change the distribution of water and flour and create completely different breads.
• You can try new ways to shape the bread.
• You can heat your oven differently to see how that changes the results.
• There’s no end to learning.

All of these things you miss when you impress yourself with special ingredients.

It’s the same with life, really.

When you focus on stuff and showing off, you are destined to miss the fine details that are there to bring beauty to your every day. Like baking your own bread.

Now, enjoy your life and heat up the oven. I know I will.

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© Jarkko Laine, 2011. | Permalink | One comment