I am literally the person who prided myself like I’m doing 12-hour days getting my business off the ground and

people cheered me on, right? It’s a time and a place. Working 60 hours constantly per week

should not even be something that the leadership folks would do. If you work 60 hours, there’s not going to be enough

for you to have all kinds of rest that your brain needs. Today, I’m joined by one of the most

influential figures in Finland’s gaming scenes. leading Dream Loop for over 10 years and leading over 40 console title

releases. He’s chaired the Finnish game developer association and helped shape the startup ecosystem in Finland through

platform 6 and tampered game hub. The leader in the group is the waiter who comes there and asks the team what

they need, listens to the team, takes the complaints, takes into their allergies and their preferences and then

gets it done. We break down humanled leadership, the hours tracking debate. nobody wants to

talk about and how to actually lead from the front as a leader. Some people say you’re going to be replaced by people

who use AI. You’re not going to be replaced by AI. Oh, never have AI write anything of your

own reports, anything of your own messaging. Use AI to be, you know, your editor in terms of telling you that,

hey, your grammar sucks. But don’t get your answers from AI because then your brain not registering those answers. As

human beings, we have not evolved in the past 2,000 years. Our brain is still uh

working the same as when we were at the early ages of civilization. If you care about growing your career in

games sustainably and getting your studio to ship at scale, please enjoy today’s playbook with Yonyi Lapalin.

Yonyi, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. I’m so excited. We

got so much to talk about cuz you’ve been talking a lot as well recently. I’ve noticed on your LinkedIn, it’s a

big discussion point in the comment section and we’re going to be talking about some of the things today. So for

people who don’t know, one of the most influential figures in Finland’s gaming scene, over 40 console titles led at

Dream Loop Games. He’s also chaired the Finnish game developer association and helped shape the startup ecosystem in

Finland through the Tampura game hub and platform 6. So today there’s a thousand1

things we could talk about. So, what we’re going to talk about mostly is about building and leading a studio that

ships. So, I want to get straight into it. So, Yonyi, for people who don’t know

kind of what was your like first break in games like how did this all start? Wow. That’s uh that takes me back

because um you know after I was done after I was done with like high school I

I actually thought that uh I had a future in the Finnish military. I think

I like discip the idea of discipline and uh the challenges and so forth and you

know of course going and doing my conscript conscription was really like challenging times uh especially doing

the reservoir officer course which really pushed uh us like mentally and

physically and I I I thought after that that I’m I’m going to continue with this journey and I will be applying to the uh

Finnish uh military academy which I did and u I got a place there and I was

thinking going there but then you know fate intervened I broke my ankle I ended up in the university of applied sciences

learned to program became the head of uh student union and part of the school’s

board and uh never never kind of looked back but even then I didn’t think that I

would go into game industry per se uh especially because this is like 2010 so

the Finnish game industry was still way way smaller than what it is now and we mostly had big boys back then like

Remedy and Robio and and such. Housemark of course and I I ended up on on paper

industry for 5 years first. Definitely not challenging, definitely not interesting.

Uh so I ended up um doing my second uh university degree back then and then

quitting and coming to Tampere where I then first started as a junior game

programmer in one of the studios here. That lasted maybe three months and then I started to plan on making my own

studio because had dumb had so many opportunities to start your own company

and getting into the startup scene and getting so much mentorship and uh

advisory different programs and so forth. So it just felt like, you know, that might be challenging enough, it

might be interesting enough. And, you know, I’ve been playing games my entire life. So even even making some like uh

games back in click and play and game factory and whatnot, those uh uh old tools that you had in early 2000s. And

as well, of course, like I had such a long history with tabletop role playing, so making games just felt natural. And

uh I I I was I was correct. It is very challenging field to jump into.

Beautiful. I can’t wait to get into that. So it sounded like just from hearing like three different points in

your life, you kind of quote unquote got bored like it wasn’t challenging enough, but I’m wondering that’s a big

challenge, right? Like 3 months into I guess a new career, you just decided, oh, I might as well start my own studio.

And that was Dream Loop, right? That was Dream Loop. Yeah. It’s been over 10 years now.

Crazy. So that’s not a common story. Have you seen any other people who’ve done that like a

few months in start their own studio and then just keep it kicking after 10 years or

Well, I don’t think that is in any way a common story. I think most of the most

of the uh cases where the studio has been around over 10 years, those people

have already when they founded the studio known what they’re doing. We definitely did not know what we were

doing. We were just a couple of couple of junior guys who u just had to grow

being seniors like overnight. And uh we even went and we wanted to do

our own game back then. We wanted to do this game that would be an online multiplayer game and not an MMO. Dear

God, we were not that stupid back then. Yeah. But uh then we eventually turn it into

um the idea into a first player uh sorry um uh single player a little bit

narrative first kind of a game. But funnily enough even after 10 years we have still not shipped that game because

we got uh busy with all other projects. So that one is still kind of like a finding its time and version of that

that we would believe to be the one that we want to uh get out eventually.

Super cool. So, just curious here, like the games that you said you were playing all your life, is that similar to the

games you’re making now? Cuz like for people who don’t know, like Dream Loop, yes, you make your own IP games, but

also help a lot of other companies make their games. And I can imagine there’s a lot of different types of games that

you’re making at Dream Loop. I’m wondering, is there like a specific focus that you have? Is it similar to the ones you were playing before?

In a in a sense, of course. Like, uh, I was a console kid myself. uh did play PC

as well somewhat, but actually I just got my first like really games worthy PC

maybe like 8 years ago or something like that. So up until then uh I was mostly

playing I’m a veteran compared to you. I’ve been playing PC games since

well let me let me find Yeah, it was at least 2007 so 18 years. I was like nine

but I was like I was playing I was playing a lot. I was on mini clip all day, then MMO and Runescape. So, I did not know that eight eight years. So,

console was the main focus. Oh, yeah. I uh even in uh in the lobby

of my apartment, I have this massive box of like uh Xbox 360 games that I’m

taking to the uh game museum here in Dumbre because, you know, they some of those are for museum purposes and some

of them are just going to be props and stuff like that. But I had so much especially at the time of the Xbox 360.

I had so much games. Like I I just my Friday uh was that I would go to

GameStop and I would just buy for the weekend like two to three new games and just play them as much as I played them

and next week I would uh get some new games. So if we fast forward to today because

that’s such a cool story and there’s so much we can get into. So, if we’re looking at today’s landscape,

like what do you think Dream Loop is doing better than other studios kind of right now? Like kind of is there a magic

source or a specific trait that you see like Dream Loop has compared to the other studios you’re working with?

It’s probably uh I would credit it to the

taking the right approach with risk management. uh Dream Loop for example

have never taken like uh big risk investments. We have like two angel

investors who have come with a you know friends and family type of case early on

and we never really taken like big uh risk investments and I think that has partially been then driving us into a

place where we put our eggs into a lot of baskets. It means that we have not been able to immediately be focusing on

one thing doing our moonshot. But it also means that uh you know not taking a moonshot means that you there’s not that

um high risk for you to uh fall down as you’re as you’re going so high. Uh I

think that’s one of the biggest thing is like you said we’ve been working on over 40 titles in the past 10 years. helped a

lot of uh lot of studios and publishers with their games. Like we talked about

Buckstorm and Fire Shine um Untold Tale. Sorry, not Untold.

Unfold Tales. No, Unfold Games. There’s way too many similar names. Unfold uh

Unfold, who made the Dark and is now working on the Bloody Hell Hotel. And we

worked with Funcom. We worked with the Layers of the 2 and so forth. We’ve been

uh having our hands in such so many projects and

it’s been of course at the same time it can be not so media sexing to work on a

smaller part on many uh many projects. But when it comes to risk management, if

one of those get cancelled or something doesn’t go well, you’re still you’re

still um getting money from the other sources that are going well and that are are

getting to the targets and so forth. That’s interesting. So, if I’m let’s say

y 10 years ago, but in a different parallel universe, 3 months in, I realize I want to start my own studio.

Would you recommend kind of everyone start a studio in this way where they’re not going moonshot onto their student

project for example trying to make that and get a publisher? They should be kind of having multiple fingers in multiple

pies to make sure the revenue goes because I feel like this was a choice that was made quite early on. I don’t

know if I’m getting that right. Like is this something that kind of most people should do when they want to kind of

start their own studio, try to build their own team? Well, for us it was uh of course because we merged together

with Vasara Entertainment. That was another team based here in Tumbre in the same spaces where we had our office

space. And with them we got the game called Stardust Galaxy Warriors which we

then decided as our first uh work together as this combined two studios

would to take that game uh on the consoles and make a definitive edition of it and kind of upgrade the version

that was on on Steam back then. By the way, Steam had 7,000 games back then

total. Only 7,000. Yeah. Yeah. You could probably scan them all in an afternoon if you really went for

it. Yeah, it was completely different world 10 years ago. Like now there’s I think over 140,000. So it’s

drastically has increased. So with that we we decided to go on

consoles and that was the first thing that we kind of wanted to do. When we were doing that uh other people were

interested us to help them with the console side of things. for example, Funcom.

And eventually through that we uh we started to do porting and eventually

that led into co-development that we’ve been doing now in the in the longer period of time and uh we still of course

work on our uh own games as well as for example like the I’m on observation duty

games with uh Notovia now. Gorgeous. All righty. And yeah, 120,000

according to Gemini right now on Steam. It’s funny, I checked on Steam website sales says 30,000 games. I think they

haven’t updated their kind of data on the little Google search. Yeah, mad. All righty. So, Yonyi, with all the stuff

that you’re doing like which problem are you obsessed with solving now?

I know it’s like um I know that in the modern times everyone are trying to figure out the question around uh

utilizing AI to cut down costs or improve uh games and experiences

uh different kind of uh hacks and methods and processes and I’m I’m interested to

not fixing something but focusing more support on the people in the industry

because no matter how much we have tools. If our people don’t sleep at night,

none of the uh use of tools is going to be any beneficial for anyone.

All right, let’s dig into it. So, I’ve scanned your LinkedIn and there’s this

one post that went super viral and had a lot of, let’s put it this way,

discussion in the comments and it was about tracking your employees time and yeah, the comment section was quite

spicy. I was wondering kind of why did you start tracking employee hours and

kind of how does that evolve cuz that’s not a common thing you hear where someone openly talks about tracking the

employee time especially now. Yeah, it’s it’s very simple for us. It

is for all of us when we spend more time

working for the company that time is away from whoever we’re you know having

any anyone else in our lives you know our family our friends our hobbies our

like part in the industry and so forth. you’re taking you’re taking that time away from somewhere and uh as a company

as the leaders in in that company want to you know track that down so that we

can give it back and we also want to use it as an indicator also for the fact of

are you doing good? Are you getting enough rest? Are you uh potentially

having uh something in the project that is making you spend so much time? Are

you leaving something unsaid and so forth? All of this helps us to and

especially our HR and producers to see like, hey, something is not right.

You’ve been at the office 3 days in a row until 9:00 p.m. when you have arrived at 9:00 a.m. Like what’s going

on? what is going on? I’m guessing that’s happened, right? Like give me an example cuz I feel like

the reason I want to ask for the example here is I can imagine CEOs hearing like great I can’t wait to track my hours

time but I want to see what that actually looks like in practice. Like how does that conversation happen? Yeah. I mean the most of the to answer

the question why people are staying so long. It’s most of the time it is the ownership that they take and at the same

time I agree with everyone who says that uh when people have the opportunity to take ownership you know they perform

their best and then there are people who

take it as a mantle that was given to them as the hero opportunity to showcase

the world that uh they are the they are the superman of their uh their field

that now that they’ve been given this mantle they will for sure uh deliver and

put everything that they have on it which in anyone’s mind when you think

about it is is courageous. It is definitely something that is heroic, but

at the same time, we don’t often see the hero comics like what h how how are the heroes feeling

after that massive battle that they won? Like there’s no chapter next that showcases Spider-Man being in a hospital

for a month or or similar. They just, you know, they basically shrug it off off page. Unfortunately, us humans don’t

have off pages. we need to uh live all the moments of our lives and hence those

people who really push hard that they really take um really take that ownership and they embody the project

while it is meaningful good and sometimes good for the project but all of that is immediately lost if that is

done by the health of that individual and most of the time caused by

themselves not by uh not by demand set to them and when I say themselves it

might not be just that one individual but that the team’s dynamic is such or that there is another coworker that is

kind of like a setting that example or so it it is very much of as with

everything with human beings we we’re a group like uh we we’re looking to be

part of a group and that usually can lead into it this is interesting yi because I’m in my

bubble right my bubble marketing agency. I’m like, “Let’s go. Let’s do more. Hell yeah.” And I’ve

never consumed, I guess, like my side of the world where I’m trying to learn how to do better business. Yeah. You should

make sure your people aren’t working too hard. And when I’m thinking about what you’re

saying here, I’m like, is working like, let’s say, 60 plus hours a week kind of ever justified in a

studio if you’re not like the owner or leadership? like do you feel like this should kind of be a deacto rule so to

speak or is this just kind of like your way of doing things because I’m hearing you now and I feel like this might be

just the better way but I’m curious what you think. No, honestly, I think that working 60

hours constantly per week should not even be something that, you know, the uh

the leadership uh folks would do because if you work 60 hours, there’s not going

to be enough for you to have all kinds of rest that your brain needs.

What if I left my work on? I know. I know. But, uh your brain unfortunately cannot get everything that

it needs from your work. How are you so sure of that? That’s my maybe this is my question like how are you so sure cuz obviously I don’t hear

many people coming up and saying this and I

am the literally the person who prided myself like I’m doing 12-hour days getting my business off the ground and people cheered me on right there’s a

time and a place but it’s interesting seeing how much confidence you have in I’m just curious

where it comes from. Uh before getting that um I’m going to ask you a question that I want to be on the back of your

head while we go this through. Go through in in your mind um everyone who

are past 55 and they’re part of game industry that you know

and then think about just how often they are in conferences and so forth. Now the

the reason why I’m I’m so confident about this is because um our brain needs more than just sleep

in order to recover. It needs creativ creative rest. Uh for example that can that you can get at work. But to be

honest, most of the time the challenges that you need to um

go ahead and and figure it’s related to creativity, but it’s not um it’s not a

creative work for yourself. You’re not getting the creative freedom on doing it. You’re still doing a service for

your team, for your client, and so forth. Now, I’m not even going to get started like how in the modern day

you’re not going to get a sensory rest while you do your work. Like, tell me

tell me a type of a type of a work where you don’t look any kind of a screen or

listen to any kind of uh audio or something like that. It’s like you need to be a lumberjack pretty much to have

sensory rest for your um for your work. This is so funny, Yonyi. I don’t mean to

interrupt, but today was the first day in a long time where I went for a run with my older brother in the morning to

start the day. And I made it a point not to listen to a podcast or something. And it sounds silly, but I feel great. I

have so much energy. I don’t know what’s happened. It’s kind of frustrating actually cuz I’ve been quite tired like

the last couple weeks and I haven’t been exercising thinking, oh, I need to do a bunch of work before kind of December

kicks in because then I will be resting. But yeah, literally waking up a bit earlier, doing the run, and I feel a lot

better. And I’m like, it’s like it’s so annoying. Like, is the answer that simple sometimes? Like just

something with no audio? Cuz in my head, I want to listen to that podcast. I want to have that. I want to maximize my

time. Like that’s the mindset. But hearing you say that, I just connected to this morning. I was like, “No,

great.” There is a there is a this whole old saying at least in the Nordics is that

when you’re feeling all move on just go and walk in the forest and you can you know uh face your challenges after. And

that’s that’s the thing. It’s like most of the time your brain starts to be so overwhelmed with all the sensory

information that it’s getting that all it need is just to watch the sky and the trees and you know the path that you’re

walking. I did kind of the same thing as you when I when I was in South Korea. um

in Seoul a couple of weeks ago. I woke up the first night at like 2:00 a.m. and I just couldn’t fall back asleep because

of jet lag or whatever. And then after I got bored in my hotel room, I was like, “Yeah, I I I have my like sneakers with

me, so I’m just going to go for a run.” It was like 6:00 a.m. in Soul. I was just uh going for a run, and there was a

good thing there was a couple of parks really close by, so I just went to uh uh run around. I saw people uh you know

sleeping in uh on on the street with in their um suits and whatnot. I guess the

you know company party had gone a little bit long and uh I I didn’t have music or

anything. I just watched the scenery. I I ran maybe 3 three and a half kilometers and came back and then I just

went to the conference and I could go through the entire day with little

caffeine and such just to because you know made sure I got my oxygen, made

sure I got my rest for my like for my sensors and uh in general you know

always doing a little bit of exercise helps. Yeah, for sure. So, is there a way we

encourage this within a studio? Cuz I feel like trying to watch my language here, but

like is it almost parental like in a bad way when you start telling the team, hey, stop working so much or hey, have

you exercised? Like I’m wondering that dynamic if you ever get any push back cuz I feel like it’s a delicate matter. I don’t know if I’m kind of putting

maybe it’s not delicate but like it feels delicate. Oh, it’s Oh, we saw the we saw the LinkedIn comments. It’s very delicate

topic. You can very quickly no matter what you say because it doesn’t matter

what you say, it matter what people hear. The moment that you start to talk about this, there’s a lot of people who

hear uh that the parental tone because of, you know, their background and uh

they start to say that you’re not treating people as adults and you’re taking away their freedom when you’re

just trying to make sure that you know in in the moment of uh hecticness, in the

moment of their heroism, that they remember to look in the mirror and be like, “Are you are you rested? Are you

okay? Did you sleep well last night? Did you have, you know, did you eat well?

Have you when you seen last time your best friend is your is your uh spouse

and uh pets and kids happy with what you those are good KPIs. They should be

those are very good KPIs. So in in that sense like I don’t think anyone who’s been in this

industry and are over 55 now that they are doing 60 plus weeks

Because if they have uh survived that long in the industry that they’re uh

reaching towards their 60s, they have been able to figure out how to stay in

this industry and keep their company uh moving forward without them extending

themselves uh so drastically because there’s this saying I don’t see a lot of people do it but it’s a big

statement right now at least on LinkedIn in my little bubble on in the states there’s a thing called 996. Don’t know

if you’ve seen it, where they have this founder startup mentality where until

they accomplish something, they will do 996, which is 9 hours a day from 9:00

a.m. Sorry, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. 6 days a week. And they will do that until they achieve something, usually in the

same room all together hustling. And then there’s like these people saying, “Look, let people do the 996 if they

want to do it.” There’s people saying, “No, this is objectively stupid. What the hell?” And hearing you speaking now,

like what’s the math on that? Six days times 12 72 hours a week. Yeah. I like Yeah.

I’m wondering if this is a US, Europe, Nordic thing because I know

Nordics they’re quite like for example Finland has less than an 8 hour workday. I think it’s 7 and a half hours I guess.

Seven and a half hours. Yeah. Yeah. like nationwide you’re even this is a cultural thing nationwide as well

like work is not your life where I feel like that’s not the case in when I was doing recruitment especially in the US I

didn’t see the case at all like people had two jobs it was very normal and in some of the Eastern European countries I

got that a lot where they were just like just give me more time you know I’m happy to do 10 12 hour days some of them

most of them worked on the weekend say most I’m generalizing but like there was a clear distinction when I spoke to a

candidate depending depending on where they’re from. And yeah, it’s it’s weird because when I

speak to you, it makes so much sense, but then I guess I remove myself from this conversation, Yonyi, and then I see

online and I see how it’s like in Cypress and or just other countries. I’m like, ah, it can’t be that simple,

right? Just work less. I don’t know. It’s in a in a sense

I don’t say that for efficiency either way is the right way

as long as the person is able to like keep up with it. Now, when you’re in

your 20s, I think many agree that it is way easier to dedicate yourself to your

work and just go on and on long days because what is what is outside of your

work uh at that time? You might not be like uh in a steady relationship yet.

You might not have kids yet. Uh your friends might be mostly your co-workers, so you can, you know, go for beers after

that. you still have enough time for your hobbies that you do twice a week or so.

But let’s add into equation two kids that you need to take into

um into their hobbies, daycare, all that stuff. Uh you have your own house that

you need to take care of the lawn and in Finland for half of the year take care of the snow. uh you have a dog that you

need to take out and then also a spouse on top of those kids uh that you need to

still keep your relationship um meaningful because you know we we talked

about this once I remember I don’t remember what uh what occasion what uh conference it was but in Finland the uh

the divorce rate is over 50%. So you know many of those are not caused by

work but the work life balance probably has had a lot of effect along the way.

So in in that sense like when you then starting to be let’s say in the 30s you’re going to get your kids and then

you go into 40s and when the rush years becomes when you need to spend a lot of time with the kids uh as well. Um like

I’m talking like with no experience because I have no kids of my own. Uh but

um it’s it’s like if you’re going to do 996 with that it’s like wow when are

those kids going to see you when you wake up croggy and angry and you know tell them to shut up and you

I mean physically they can’t see you unless it’s a Sunday like literally physically I’m just thinking you’d probably go to bed around

11 or 12. Yeah. So literally logistically no one’s seen you.

Exactly. And of course like I my expectation of any kind of um like

bigger cities in US 996 doesn’t mean that you leave home at 9 and be home at

9. I’ve seen those uh problems on commuting or driving to work in in the

US. So I’m not expecting that to be in anywhere. I think it’s an hour each way average or

something crazy. I actually watched a video recently. It was a bit jarring. It was someone recording their commute in

it was Korea or Japan. I’m so sorry. But they could recorded their commute and no one was speaking. I think it was Japan.

And it was literally he wrote in the in the hook of the kind of video was a

1-hour commute. It was 1 hour both ways and literally goes there and then literally works from like 9 till 6. So

he’s his whole life he didn’t initially he didn’t even account for the fact that getting to the train took some time. So

he actually left the building at 7:30. So it was actually like a 3-hour total commute and he was home and they

literally had an hour he ate and then slept and it was like weird like the life of a salary man in Japan. It was

something like that. And I saw that and I was like holy [ __ ] Like scary. It felt so robotic. It was a very weird

experience to like see someone like vlog it. Yeah. And I think uh there was some dimension why uh everything in Japanese

TV be anime movies or anything happens uh while you’re a student because

there’s not a lot to tell afterwards because all you do after that is you

just uh spend your clock in clock out I I can I can recommend everyone to uh

watch the uh show called uh uh Zom Zom 100 where the guy just uh cures a salary

and cures depression by a form of uh zombie apocalypse because he no longer

need to go to work. I mean that’s funny cuz I I started watching a show which I think is based

on that. I forgot what it’s called but it’s one where everyone disappears and then it’s like a game or something.

It was weird like people were getting really happy that everyone disappeared cuz like I don’t have to go to work or I

don’t have my parents shouting at me like what do you mean everyone’s dead like what’s happening? Yeah, I think that’s a Alice in

Borderlands sounds. That’s the one. Yeah, I started watching that and it was jarring because I know some people would react like that person

reacted like ah no responsibility is amazing. I’m like what do you mean? That’s the thing. Yeah. No, but uh I

think all in all the I don’t think that

uh in a long term and when I’m talking long term I’m talking your entire career. Yeah.

You cannot go uh with something like 996. You can do it for a short while. I

I had a very controlled crunch like uh I did uh put that cape one time in 2023

when uh colleague got uh sick for a longer period of time and I planned my

days like you know I planned that I will do 10-hour days here in order to like

make this happen because uh didn’t have an opportunity to hire uh

train and get someone else to take the ball. Can we talk about that? Like how did you do that? Cuz let’s say

I wanted to do that. Yonyi, how do you do that? I don’t know how I managed to ask you this question, but like how do you

crunch correctly? Uh if you need if you know that you need

to do it, you have to figure out how long you’re going to do it, you got to put a put an end date to it because otherwise you will just continue doing

it, right? Uh I had it so that I had three weeks that I was planning to do it. I planned for example my eating

accordingly to that. So uh it meal prep just like people going to the gym with

like really uh specific gains in mind. It with with crunch you need to do the

same thing. You need to have your sustenance in a very uh specific uh way.

You plan it out in a day. you prep uh prepare it and then also making sure

that you uh like keep your hydration like steady throughout the day. Don’t do

it don’t do it all uh too much at one go because then you just flush out the minerals and uh keep it very very

focusingly and very systematically throughout and never compromise your

sleep when you’re when you’re crunching like what does that mean for you seven hours eight hours?

Uh I I prefer eight. Uh, I can do seven, but um I I prefer eight because I know

that uh then even if I had a little bit of a hard time falling asleep or I wake

up during the night, I still get enough sleep. Yeah. Still get your seven. Yeah. And of course like at any point

have that um internal story with you and that’s another whole topic like I am a a firm

believer that everything between human human beings is just stories that we pass to one another and then we agree or

disagree on that stories laws are the same. So, uh, have that internal story

for yourself that this is not something that you should stress or feel bad

about. If you at any point have a moment of like you’re feeling overwhelmed, go walk in a forest, you know, leave

yourself uh time, even if you do long days, leave yourself a little bit of a time to go and just walk.

No headphones, no no phone, just go and walk. We have a great park next to our office. It’s always great to go and just

do a walk if I have for example a call with uh Los Angeles time because then it

starts to be like six or seven in the evening when I need to take that around five is great to go for a half an hour

walk and then you you budget that in. You mentioned to allow some time. So like I have

the unfortunate trait where I am very optimistic about what I can do in a day. So like I’m like look at all this stuff

I wish I could do today and then you know life happens and I’m getting better at it better at it like do you actually

physically block in Slack I guess like not Slack as in the platform but like

buffer like do you put that in the calendar? Oh, of course. Like if if it’s not in your calendar, you’re easily, you

know, leaving it out. At least that’s for me. Like I have everything in my calendar. Even when I stream during uh

weekends on Twitch, when I watch my anime uh anime with my my friends from like uh Germany, all of that is in my

calendar when I have my uh basketball practice, everything. because when it’s in my calendar, I see that if I’m trying

to put something there, I already had planned some sort of recreational activities there. So, and another thing

beside putting your recreational and relaxation activities in your calendar is also to have a notto-do list.

That’s new to me. What do you mean? How do you what’s that? Well, as the same thing is uh when you’re putting

something on your to-do list or you’re starting to work on to do something and you remember something, there’s always a

uh always a benefit to ask yourself, is this going to be more better to build in

to-do list, dedicate my time over all of the other things that I need to do, or

shall I put it to not to-do list and communicate that to whoever needs to

know that I’m not doing is and then just literally not, you know, taking the hand

off of writing that I’m not going to do this. Uh, inform whoever needs to know that you’re not doing it and then move

on to do the stuff on your to-do list. So, I think my version of that is backlog. But if I’m getting really

inspired to do my backlog, again, I keep saying it and for people

listening, like I’m not a mess. I’m obviously not perfect, but I do find myself falling into that trap, right?

like I’m doing something which is a much more 2026 exciting project when I know I

have something due tomorrow and I should probably be doing that, right? But maybe it’s worth framing it as to myself like

you know this is a not to-do list like do this after we quotequote run out of to-do list.

Yeah. And also when it when it’s something that is long time in the future, just mark it long time in the

future, like you know, if it’s something for 26, mark it for December to or like

now I could say November. We’re in November, so I’m not going to say November. Uh but put it put it to the uh

further down the line already in the calendar because at least for me, if I know that I have put it in the calendar,

I don’t need Yeah. I can mentally check out, right? Yeah. I don’t need to think about it. One of the one of the things that I

found so amazing being in the elementary school back in day, way back in day, is

to know exactly what you’re supposed to think just by looking at your calendar.

You don’t think about English while you’re on math class or you don’t think about religion while you’re on biology

class. I mean, religion and biology might have some conflicts if you’re you’re talking about the same subject,

but uh in general, in general, it was always clear that I

know what I need to be thinking about now because my calendar tells me,

you know, I want to be a better leader. I realize that my business will only

grow as much as my skill in leadership will grow, right? because I could hit my

theoretical peak, but then that will literally be the peak of the business. So, the only next step is growing as a

leader. And as someone who’s, you know, been doing this for effectively 10 years, and you’re in the unique

situation cuz you work with other projects which have their own leaders and it’s obviously in the games industry, which is one of the most

challenging things. So, so I’m just curious when you speak to young people or you see other leaders like what have

you learned around leadership that you’d like to kind of maybe dispel that people

believe something that is maybe not not true? What I’d love from you here is uh maybe a misconception that we can break

here around leadership something tactical. Well, first and foremost, one of the one

of the there’s many ways of leadership, but the one that I find the most efficient and honestly just my personal

favorite is the service leadership. I often quote that the the leader in the

group is the waitress. is the waiter uh who comes there and

asks the team what they need, listens to the team, takes the complaints, takes

the suggestion on the menu, uh they uh takes into their allergies and their

preferences and then gets it done. then goes and talk with the other team, which is the

kitchen staff, and tells, um, yeah, if we’re going to be putting, uh, 20 more

hours of work for this guy, uh, I think they’re going to choke, and if, uh, if

we don’t, uh, allow this guy to, you know, um, this guy’s order is that he

would like to take a Friday off next week. uh if we don’t do that, I think he will be very disappointed because uh the

his uh his spouse will be very angry at him and so forth. So I think that’s my

favorite type of a leader is the uh to be the waiting staff uh for for the

team, not to be the boss, not to be the commander that uh shouts down commands.

It’s it’s the one who listens the team and then you know removes roadblocks

uh in front of them. How do we do this? Is this a can we take the remote example? So let’s

say there’s no office here for example sake. Is this on a weekly onetoone you recommend? Is this on a slack message?

Because if I can ask you a business question for me, like if I have someone on the team who’s remote, we have our weekly

onetoone and we have a daily call which happens to be effectively like reviewing

content and office hours. I find it where sometimes it goes to the onetoone

where I still need to pull out this stuff like you say where let’s say I’m the waiter. I’m wondering like is there

kind of like a checklist or a process to kind of be able to do this with enough feedback loops so it’s not like a formal

process if you understanding where I’m coming from here like I I feel like it would help here if I understand like

kind of how do you do this in practice the best thing is just to ask them

and encourage them to answer as long as they start to do it

themselves like the best situation is when they think of something they immediately text

you about it. That’s that’s when you know that you have been able to establish that uh as a as a leader. We

have many many folks in in the history of uh dream loop that the moment that

they’ve been uh facing something in the project they immediately message me.

Sometimes I’ve even said like, “Oh, thanks for letting me know, but actually in this project I’m not your producer.

So, could you could you let no Rory know, for example?” And that’s that’s when I know that yeah

we have been able to get that like leadership there that they will immediately voice their concerns voice

out their thoughts uh because it has been going on long enough and they feel

like you know there is a benefit for saying yeah I like that you immediately said

thank you for messaging me but it’s this so it sounds like it’s very inbuilt in the culture to kind of celebrate this

behavior and reward it. Yeah, because im any time that someone brings criticism

to you, uh when you’re being the lead for them, when they bring criticism to you, you should thank them for doing so

cuz don’t even if it makes you like frustrated especially then you should

thank them for it. Because if you start with the frustration or if you tell that if you start your sentence with a no

in the subconscious mind of that person that is like that no means I should not

come up with other uh topics of similar thing. If I’ve been thanked it means I was

appreciated for voicing this thing out. There’s so much importance on the first

words that you uh say after someone has provided any kind of a feedback or their

thoughts or anything like that. Usually the the more uh emotional thing that is

to them, the more I feel like you should take the moments to acknowledge that. Mhm. after they got it out of their

system, tell them like, “Hey, thank you really that you uh you said this to me because I see that this is this is like

not a not an easy topic and I understand your point of view and like let them

first uh understand that yeah, you’re you’re there and you’re not just going to get

into an argument. You might disagree and that’s you know that is that is normal. Of course, in

such different situations, people don’t like agree with one another, but it

still should not come as a I don’t want to say things because we just get into an argument. It should the feeling

should be I should be telling these things out because it’s helpful for us all and we might disagree on it, but I

will still like make sure that I speak my mind and not hold it in. Yeah, that’s

also important to note that this only takes one time to not reward it where

they will then stop doing it for the rest of their time, right? Which is very interesting cuz you could be doing the

right thing over and over again, but let’s say you slip up and then for like a couple weeks you don’t reward it or

you get frustrated because you’re having a bad moment. that person might for now until something is really done

differently not speak up as much as they used to which is like it’s important to get right from the start and like keep

up the habit. Yeah. No, it’s u this a little bit of an extreme example. You might be you know

friends with someone for years or decades and you really done a lot for

each other. You helped them at a hard time and they helped you with your big projects and stuff like that. Then one

day they just punch you in the face. Will you from there on out? Like how do

you how do you value of decade of good times and one punch in the face?

But I’m not necessarily going to kill him or her. That one one punch lasted a second.

There’s a lot of seconds in 10 like 10 years. But still our brain overweights that one

punch at least almost to an equal level if not higher than the 10 years of uh

when you put it that way it’s pretty crazy and that’s why it is important to like

do better every day when it comes to uh communications especially if you’re in

the lead position like make sure that you do every day a little bit better

your your best don’t need to look, of course, the same every day, but you’re just making sure that you are uh you’re

planning to do better, a little bit better every day because when you when

your mindset is in in doing better, you’re not throwing punches because your brain is saying, “Hey, how is throwing a

punch here better?” Yeah, exactly. For sure. Love it.

Allow me a tactical question here. How would you run a onetoone

what I do run then and um honestly my first question always starts when I

would do onetoone is like so how you been like how how’s u how’s your uh

child growing up uh what have you been what you’ve been doing with your spouse lately how’s it been going with that uh

with that hobby of yours and not because I just want them to get into a mood or

anything but because I want to know things about them because

talking to a associate or a acquaintance is a

completely different thing than talk to a pal, talk to a friend. Yeah. So you get different answer, right? You

get different responses. Yeah. And in the end, anyone can say whatever they want about this, but you

always shoot the messenger. That’s what we humans do is it depends

who tells us what is if we spare them or not.

It’s is literally um anyone can tell you a news but depending

on who it is who tells it you react differently.

And that’s why always uh anyone that you have one-on- ones,

you should be uh establishing. You don’t need to overshare everything to them. You don’t need to invite them into your

life and your home and stuff like that, but uh invite them into close enough

that they feel like that they can talk to you because otherwise what if they

don’t get along with their coworker and they don’t feel like talking to you, they will hold it in and they will lose

sleep and you wonder what’s wrong and you ask and they don’t talk. So, you

need to be able to establish like enough closeness. And I honestly think that people should connect more. We live in a

world where like the world is trying to push us into um disagreeing over or

arguing over disagreements instead of uh talking and understanding. Uh so it can

be for a lot of uh people for example more junior people very meaningful that

their lead is actually remembering the name of their spouse or about their

hobbies and and stuff like that cuz a lot of uh people don’t like they just

don’t care in individuals place in this world has becoming more and more smaller

and more and more uh controversial for everything that they your do.

It’s funny you’re saying that. Um, I found a new term today which reminds

me something. Let me see if I can find it because it was is very similar to So, there’s this

doctor psychologist Dr. K. Oh, I heard of him. Yeah. Yeah. So, he’s got like this gamer

thing, Dr. K Gamer, and he called something on a podcast. I was listening to it the other day. It was um the hunky

dory. You see that? Is that the thing? He had a term for it. I think it was

hunky dory, but I might be butchering it. It was talking about especially now like young people who

aren’t connected and they are trying to escape their life by putting all their time in

games, maybe not leaving the house, maybe not working. And it was interesting. He on the podcast there

someone submitted a question and it was a lady who had basically lived as a hermit effectively not leaving the house

games all day not leaving and for 3 years she realized oh [ __ ] I need to change my life. Then she did the

opposite. So she got two jobs she’s working really hard. She’s meeting people. She has a boyfriend now. But

then the question was some days I want to self-sabotage and like ruin it all

because she’s changed the challenge which was I guess dealing with herself and now she’s like ah maybe this is too

overwhelming I need to like go back to the old habits and it got me you know cuz I was listening to that I was like I

wonder how many people feel that to a lesser extent but like for years in

a company because if you have no one to talk to at work and let’s say you have

no one to talk to at you’re just stuck in your head, right? Like, yeah, you might only logistically have your

manager who if they don’t ask that question, that might be the one chance where someone asks you truly like,

“How’s it going?” Yep. And I think it was very inspiring once um I think it was uh Seb Downey

Blackwell who uh said it once that sometimes being a leader means that

you’re helping your um the person that you’re managing that you help them to uh

optimize their LinkedIn h sorry LinkedIn their Tinder profile. Wow. Sometimes that’s what they need from

you. It should what whatever it is that they need from you in order to

like be comfortable about their life so that they can be effective in the work is

what you should be helping them with. That’s so crazy cuz I’m reflecting now my oneto ones. I don’t know if my

managers listen to this but like pretty much all of my oneto ones was not about work. It was just about what was going

on at home, right? And that was the main thing that needed fixing at the time. And it’s so weird of an experience

reflecting on that now, but because I’m on the other side, I just don’t didn’t think about how helpful it was. I’m just

thinking, okay, I guess I need to check how many posts were written this week or how is this going or yeah, it’s it’s

weird when I zoom out and I have to zoom back in. just I’m just talking here as

transparently like as a leader myself like I feel like I knew this lesson deep down but I’m like truthfully not

integrating it as much as I think I should after this podcast

and I as I mentioned earlier we live in an age where we are looking for uh new

technologies new uh innovations a way of using AI in order to like get people to

uh work better to have better life but honestly It’s like it’s the most boring answer ever is you just need people in

your life that you connect with because then a lot of a lot of the work starts

to be built from that because your brain is feeling the uh feeling the feeling of

being part of a group, being part of a friend group or part of a part of a a

relationship, part of a family. And that’s when you know uh all of those

like self-inflictive uh thoughts that comes with loneliness those start to go

away. And that’s when you get that working for a individual that individual will perform

better at work than the one who is trying to run away from those problems

by overwork. Yeah. though. Yeah. Though working work short time, but to show me a person who

does that 20 years effectively. Yeah. Who has happy wife, maybe some

kids, all of that jazz. Yeah. Who doesn’t have their own demons they’re fighting with? Like, yeah, you’ll be hardressed to find that

person. And it’s interesting you saying the AI comment cuz obviously I’m using AI in what we’re doing now. So, a big

thing that saves us time is building a list of people to contact for the events that we’re doing. NEI is very good at

qualifying people to a short list for example. But just me reflecting that’s been a big part of the business like

building list of people to contact and yeah recently just thinking about

what you said like it doesn’t really matter how good the tools are if the person who’s doing the tools is not at

first like that’s the foundation they need to be enjoying what they’re doing. They need to see that what they’re doing

is connecting to the parts of their life or their goals in life. Right? It literally does not matter unless it’s

something completely automated but usually nothing can be completely automated or people pretend it can be right.

Yeah. And the thing is like um if you uh heard my talk about the hero complex in

any of these conferences this year in at the at the moment that you’re exhausted at the moment that you’re you have

painted your project or your job uh negatively you’re not caring about the best

outcome. you’re not caring to pour your creativity. You’re just wanting to survive to the end of it. And at that

situation, even if you have any AI tools, you’re still in that survival mode. It’s not what your

Oh my god. Wow. Imagine if you hate your work and you introduced AI. If I’m that

person, like great, I can now do less work and just like clock off sooner. At least mentally maybe. like it would

literally not help because you already have the foundation of not enjoying what

even the outcome is going to be. Yeah. So, you’re just gonna be trying to

do the bare minimum in order to survive. And at that point, if you’re being introduced to AI tools, it’s very uh

very easy to get something out of it. But is it uh have have your prompt been

correct? Are you going to the wrong uh wrong direction with the with the answers that you’re getting it? immediately uh immediately is just

emphasizing on the problem of your situation for sure and yeah a big thing on AI is

at least for us it’s like consistency for example if it worked one day amazingly and the other day doesn’t is it going to be a rabbit hole um I don’t

want to make this podcast about AI but do you have any comments about AI maybe think of the young person here right

because I think they get conflicting advice like some people say if you want to survive master AI tools right now you

know like because everyone you know you’re going to be replaced by people who use AI. You’re not going to replace AI. Yeah. I’m just wondering what’s been

your experience with that comment. Now, the big problem is that the people saying that you need to master AI. Like

who has who has even done that? I I talked maybe I have talked maybe two people that have actually gone and do

processes around the large language models that has allowed them to do a

little do a little bit more than your typical uh run. a little bit more. What

is that? Is that Could we put a number to that? Is that like 10% more effective? Is that double? Uh no, no. I mean, uh to use it in a way

that it’s more than just a I have a problem. Can you give me a solution to that? And then you try it until it

succeeds to a Yeah. So, for example, if you’re coding, some

people say, “Hey, here’s code fix it.” That’s not mastering AI. But you’re saying there’s only two people who’ve went beyond kind of that solution.

Yeah. I I talked to uh a guy who has created a multiple LLMs that discuss

with one another uh through Trello cards and they are basically you know working

together as um you know with everyone having their clear uh parts of ownership

uh that they’re uh they know what they’re allowed and not allowed to uh do and then they those actually kind of

like a go through of uh pro designing something then one programming it then one uh testing it running the test backs

to the uh designer design adjust the design give it to the programmer programmer implemented the change it

goes to the testing now that is a good use of AI uh in a sense that you’re

actually like building something something bigger but I I asked like how

how long did it uh take to set this up in in a sense that it worked and he’s like yeah about four months

and I I agree. In 20 years, you can see the, you know, results or if you scale this up, you can see the results. Sure.

Yeah. It’s like solar panels, right? Like you Yeah. Like when are you going to get the payback? Yeah. Like 20 years sometimes

like um Yeah. Many of these things like now I’m talking uh agreeing that this this is

this is mastering. You have figured it out how to use it. It’s not mastering that you uh think that you know what are

the right prompts to write in order to get a certain kind of a picture or text feedback or such and I everyone knows

that if you write to um chatbt of like tell me why this is a good idea or tell

me why this is a bad idea it doesn’t matter what the idea is it will glaze you

this it will give you what you want to hear right sometimes it will quote things that don’t exist I’m wondering,

Yonyi, could you speak to that person who’s listened to this? Maybe they’re more junior, even senior, but like

how should they approach AI if anything? Cuz like if you can just talk to someone right now, when it comes to in the games

industry specifically here, I’ll never have AI write anything of uh

of your own reports or uh anything of your own messaging or anything like that. use AI to be, you know, your

editor in terms of telling you that, hey, your grammar sucks. But, um, the

moment that you actually let AI write something and pass it forward, there’s already some research showing that you

will not remember what was that text. Yeah. Because like a meta problem like yes,

you might have checkboxed, yes, I’ve done the task, but what does that show if you do that 50 times? You might lose

the ability to have taste for that task. Yeah. And it’s like um they even had

some tests running where they would uh invite people into uh these sessions

where they would be given questions and they they would be asked to have the a

AI write the essay and then just edit it and put it in. And people started to

forget that they were being asked uh the same like questions like every four

times that they go there. and they just happily just went ahead and put it again in JPT the same exact question

because they didn’t remember that they had puted it there already. Wow. So it it’s like if you don’t use your

brain you forget how to use it and if you do something like if you’re

answering questions that you well you just think about it back in the day when

we didn’t have computers at school. It’s like the teacher asks you to um return

the homework and you just copy from what your friend wrote and give it to the the

teacher. In this case, you would use the copy machine even and give it to the teacher. Then someone asks you like

about that homework, how the hell would you know anything about that? Because

you never put a thought on it. Yeah. If you don’t use it, you will lose it.

Yeah. So use uh use AI more of um uh getting over the blank paper. Uh use

AI to um edit your grammar, but don’t

get your answers from AI because then your your brain is not registering those

answers. I prepped a question. It’s a very it’s a heavy question, but [ __ ] it. We’ll do it

at the end. So what’s been the hardest part? You’ve been doing this for 10 years. What’s been the hardest part of building Dream

Loop? To be honest, to know what to do,

we we uh I if I would started now a new company, it would be so easy compared to

Dream to just build a strategy and go with it. But this one was like we were

still learning so much along the way that it it was often very hard to

understand like what do what is actually yielding results when you do things

and be it going to the conferences and realizing what that’s going to be worth

or um following up on on different things and what not to follow up on and

where to put your time, how to take care of yourself. There’s so many things like everything everything comes down to like

to understand what you uh what you should be doing and

I now being on the other side I’ve been mentoring other to tell them you know what they should in my opinion do in

that situation I’ve been mentoring I’ve been advising but then I realized that at first I got

that when we founded Dremel but then I had like a five years probably like a pause of like I didn’t talk about my

situation with people with more knowledge and experience and didn’t uh engage with them. So I literally

had to guess instead of having more educated guess from someone who had been already doing.

Would you recommend that to everyone then like to have that as a default for the entire career? just always have kind

of a coach or an expert you can always like plug in when things aren’t going well because you mentioned you didn’t have it for 5 years but I’m guessing you

have it now or No, I’ve just been creating more and more of the this culture of like when I

when I see someone who’s more experienced than I am. I think of I wonder if there’s something right now

that I’m I’m thinking that they might know about and then I’m like going and be like, “Hey,

I’ve been I’ve been struggling with this one thing. do you have time now or should we get a coffee sometime because I would love to get your thoughts on it

just like you know just just your advice on on this thing and uh it’s been

working for me now way better uh I still don’t have like um go to mentor or go to

advisors that much but I’m starting to do that with the Finnish game industry

and expand it like I often just shoot a message be like hey been struggling with something if you have time Like I would

love to get your thoughts on that because I I don’t know if uh what I’m thinking

about is correct because you know I’m of course only the average of the five

people that I listen to most. Yes. So like I I got to get the sixth sixth

man in or sixth person in so that I can uh evaluate like is it is it like I

think it is or is there something that I’m turning a blind don? Mhm. No, I

can’t second that enough. Like that’s big reason to why I’m here and I’ve kind of I took it for granted for a bit cuz I

almost overinvested on kind of mentorship and coaching and I had the attitude yonyi where if I saw someone

doing something that I didn’t know I would message them either get them on a podcast haha um sometimes or like I’ve

done that with some of the business stuff. But the other one is I just just ask them like hey um can I buy your

time? Some people gave it for free. Some people, you know, I I bought their time. And there’s so many random things that

happened from that. Like, one of my two most prominent hires came from referrals

from two separate people that I coached. One of them was another ghost writing agency. And they saw the application

come through and said, “Gaming writer.” He said, “Yeah, you should probably speak with Harry.” And then I interview them. Like just weird benefits like

that. And I think it never hurts to have conversations with people who are ahead

of you. And just like you said, not generic like very specific questions cuz otherwise you might I’ve heard this from

some people don’t know how big of a problem it is. I haven’t had it personally where you have so many mentors where they give you conflicting

advice and that yeah that can be a big circle where you’re spending so much time on that. Yeah. Uh I’m wondering for

the people that you’re mentoring, they have access to you. What if someone doesn’t have access to you? Should they go find a mentor? Like do you have any

tips on how people can get this into their life? Is cuz I know someone’s thinking right now it’s like oh yeah

it’s easy for you to say yonyi you know you’re big person in the industry people are saying yes to your coffee invites

but I can’t do that you know and I need help. What would you say to that person? There’s always uh always people willing

to mentor you. I think there’s even that one game industry mentorship list uh a

Google uh Excel or something that uh has that listed out. Um also just in just in

general like people that you do meet in the industry, it never hurts to start

building that kind of a asking their advice uh relationship. They might

what’s the word thing worst thing? They say no to you that they they’re busy and they don’t have time. Sure. Then you ask

third time and they might have time or on the fifth time and u or sometimes I’ve done this ask for a

voice note. Some people are very generous if they maybe not willing to do the onetoone stuff they could just

respond on a walk and I’ve gotten some great insights and I tend to do that right now a lot and I’ve had very good

feedback on my side like someone asked me a question. I just voice note the entire answer and if they want to have a

quick voice note conversation back I find that’s very useful and sometimes that might be the start of you know

getting that onetoone conversation. Yeah. Love it. Awesome. Lovely. We’ve gone

through a lot. Really enjoyed this. Is there something you feel like we haven’t covered that you’d like to cover for the

people listening here? No. I just want to emphasize that in

these trying times and this very fast uh

evolving world both sociology um socially from the social side and society side as

well as uh for technology. Let’s remember that as human beings we have

not evolved in the past 2,000 years. Our brain is still uh working the same as

when we were at the early ages of civilization. We have not uh really uh improved as

there’s not been that many patches uh and the improvements have been very

little. So we have to remember that um a lot of the philosophies, a lot of the

solutions lie still very long time ago. Many of those things, especially for

example in philosophy, have not uh they’re not outdated. They’re not obsolete.

A lot of the time we can still fix our

problems with some of the oldest uh solutions in the world.

Beautiful. Any philosophy books you recommend? I might have to pick one up after that speech. Oh, I I always uh

always uh recommend um the meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

If someone Did you read the original or the recap? I’ve listened to the recap one. I haven’t read the original.

Yeah. I haven’t uh gotten into the original either. I have uh read the

recaped version of it. Yeah. And uh eventually eventually when I have a good moment, I really want to

dive into uh it more because if if anyone was a CEO of their time, it was

Marcus Aurelius, you know, leading the Roman Empire while uh still being able

to improve himself instead of um you know, other of his uh you know um I

wouldn’t say co-workers, but the people in his position back then, you know, might have

gone mad or like uh very wartorrn or something like that.

So, but uh Marcus Marcus was the CEO of his time. 100%. And for people who don’t know,

meditations was never meant to be a book. It’s actually just his personal notes to himself that he hoped no one

would read. Then someone uncovered them and then they became a book. And they read really weird. Like if you remove

all the Roman terms and you say this was written on a blog post and it was quite

popular today, you’d feel like okay cool. It’s so relatable. It’s it’s very crazy. So I haven’t read meditations but

I just found the book I did read it was the obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday which is from 2014 and he basically

I think yeah summarizes some of the stories. Yeah, I think it’s the exact book that I read as well. It’s it’s been almost 10

years now. It’s been I might need to read it again. I think that’s a nice reminder. Beautiful. Yonyi, thank you so much for your time.

If someone’s listening to this, which they’ve gone through the whole way and they’re like, “Wow, what a interesting

conversation.” How can people reach out? It’s the best way. I mean, it’s the easiest way is just to Google my name. I’m

I guess I’m the most known Yoni Lapalin now uh by Google. They used to be a ice

hockey player, but I guess the career didn’t go that well. So now I have reclaimed the number one uh uh search

results with the with the name and of course like I’m I’m in LinkedIn and other socials.

Amazing. Lovely. Yonyi, thank you so much. And if everyone’s listening has had a good time, maybe subscribe, go

follow Yoni. He is one of the few active creators as well on LinkedIn. And yeah,

thank you so much everyone. All righty. Paste.