Josh Allan Dykstra the author of the book Igniting the Invisible Tribe: Designing An Organization That Doesn’t Suck is one of the keynote speakers and mentors in Startup Iceland 2017. This year we are giving a copy of the book to everyone who buys a ticket to Startup Iceland. We are also starting to host smaller meet ups to talk about Personal Data, Health, Wellness and Technology. The first of those meet ups is the launch of the Vodafone Stökkpallurinn competition. If you participate in the meet ups, you will have a chance to get an autographed copy of the book and also a 10% discount of the early bird ticket price. This offer is only available during the meet ups. So make sure you make it to the meet ups.

Now that is out of the way, lets me jump into the book. I like Josh’s writing he walks you through his thinking, and a lot of questions that he asks along the way are things we never stop to ask ourselves. For example, why should work suck? have you taken the time to ask yourself why are you in the job that you are doing right now? Yeah, yeah, I get the usual answers, I need to eat, pay bills, rent, car payment etc etc but why are doing this specific job? Have you taken the time to figure out what your strengths are to find a job where you can shine? I am pretty sure you have not. A lot of us accidentally or habitually get sucked into our jobs and then it more or less consumes our lives. My journey was no different until I got fired, then I had a chance to think about what I really wanted to do and work on something that has a bigger meaning for me and a purpose that is worth pursing. The book will inspire you to ask that question before you face a challenge like getting fired.

I am listening to Tim Ferriss podcast of Ricardo Semler. I have heard so much about Ricardo Semler but I have not read his books, looking at some of the things that Josh talks about in his book and the work of Ricardo Semler, I cannot stop connecting the dots. There is so many ways to look at humanity and the work we do. Ricardo challenged some of the assumptions and was able to show tremendous results based on taking the unconventional path. A lot of us do not take the time to challenge what we are handed out which includes how we work and how we build teams and the culture surrounding our work. I want to encourage everyone to experiment, create a work environment and live by the following quote by Ricardo

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Here is Ricardo’s TED talk about radical wisdom for a company…

We live in exciting times, almost any challenge that is worth pursing is pursuable and solvable, if you are willing to commit time, energy and resource. I call this first principles thinking, but others call it different things or have written books about it. You can become part of a community, contribute and create value for yourself and to the community, even if that community is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you don’t really speak the language, yes, I am talking about Iceland and my participation in this startup community. Building a vibrant startup community in Iceland has been my mission and the reason I do that is because it helps founders and entrepreneurs. Once the purpose is clear you more less figure out a way to move through obstacles, challenges and opportunities. What I found in the book was an approach to finding your purpose. All of us need to find something that inspires us, inspiration the word in itself is interesting, here is a description from Merriam-Webster site:

Inspiration has an unusual history in that its figurative sense appears to predate its literal one. It comes from the Latin inspiratus (the past participle of inspirare, “to breathe into, inspire”) and in English has had the meaning “the drawing of air into the lungs” since the middle of the 16th century. This breathing sense is still in common use among doctors, as is expiration (“the act or process of releasing air from the lungs”). However, before inspiration was used to refer to breath it had a distinctly theological meaning in English, referring to a divine influence upon a person, from a divine entity; this sense dates back to the early 14th century. The sense of inspiration often found today (“someone or something that inspires”) is considerably newer than either of these two senses, dating from the 19th century.

I hope the book inspires you and I hope all the initiatives that we host through Startup Iceland inspires you to take action and look at your life from a different perspective.