I participated on the Sisu2015 gala on Saturday, where I gave one of the best Keynote speeches of my life so far. Of that speech, I’m very happy… and even proud! This is a post I should be written in Finnish, but since pretty much every Finnish citizen knows, what Sisu is all about… this is in English. I want to spread the message of Sisu, and this obligates me to write the post understandably for everyone! And I write the most of my posts in English anyways, so THIS one, should be very international.
“Sisu is the knowledge deep inside that it is fulfilling and worthwhile to do the hard, seemingly impossible things. When you use your sisu, you draw upon powerful forces that show up only when you choose to face challenges head on.” -Mark Tuominen, one of our sisu family members
You may find a lot of information about Sisu on the internet, so I won’t bother trying to specifically explain Sisu to you. I guess people have found my fighting back quite full of Sisu… and that’s why was I chosen as a Keynote speaker on Saturday. This much I must say on the topic myself: I owe almost everything to Sisu.
In my rehabilitation, I have had to face those “seemingly impossible things”… And after being numerously told that, “neeever gonna happen…”, “Why can’t you be happy with just being alive?” and “I wouldn’t bother even dreaming”, I have just kept on dreaming, and followed my dreams… Here I am, now… not living my dream… but I’m really happy!
Finally, I must say the best thing about Sisu: Sisu walks hand in hand with positivity in me. I didn’t know, that this character would be so encouraged by all of the team Sisu members! I just thought that, I am a positive of a guy, who just happens to be pretty filled up with Sisu, too. I never saw it as a package deal… It is, though. No one loves the really serious laboring kind of Sisu, I mean, it is Sisu, too… But being positive is FUN! I’m proud of being so positive. I love Sisu.
- Sisu… I was in Austria… FightBack… Florian… FightBack and Sisu are not the same thing, but they tend to go hand in hand.
- I was granted the number one Sisu Euro of all time. I’m feeling so honored!
- Me, Emilia and Peter “the Angry Bird” Vesterbacka.
- Almost the whole Sisu – crew, ft. some Icehearts! I’m trying out, what it feels like to be a short person…
- Philosopher Esa Saarinen was present, as well. I love his Blazers! So stylish… Playa.
- Emilia Lahti gave a very good speech about Sisu itself! She came back on stage, at least twice…? There she’s talking about the Sisu- celebration coins! 10 and 20 €.
- On Sunday we visited Validia, the rehab center I’ve been at myself, to cheer up this Vesa. He suffered a spinal cord injury 8 months ago. He’s suffering quadriplegia, but he’s a Fighter. It was so precious to make him smile. All the Best Vesa!
P. S. The Sisu presentation, was so far my favorite one to give. Sisu and the FightBack attitude, are like a brother and sister. I love them.