Bjorn Karlman
Episode 16

Narrator:

Welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story and Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira, with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families, and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, welcome to another episode of The Story and Experience Podcast. As always, I'm excited to have a brand-new guest, and for those of you who are brand-new to this experience, this is how it works. We have 100 questions. I'm going to ask the first 10 questions, and then after that, we're going to hand it over to the guest. By then, you'll know who the guest is, and the guest gets to pick between 11 and 100. And if you think of food being really hot, 100 is the hottest, and 11 is the mildest version.

Bjorn Karlman:

Nice, nice.

Japhet De Oliveira:

He's laughing already. It's going to be good. It's going to be really good. I would recommend to avoid 100, because it's soul-searching, and it could be a little bit too revealing inside your heart. But we are excited to be here at this moment, so we should just dive straight in. For all of our regular listeners, you know exactly where we're going with this, and the first thing I'm going to ask is what's your name, and is there anything we should be aware of? Have people slaughtered your name? Have they mispronounced it, or do they just find it easy?

Bjorn Karlman:

Oh, man. That is a great question, because I actually have a Starbucks name just for that reason alone. So my name is Bjorn Karlman, which is a typical Swedish name. It's actually Bjorn Eric Alf Karlman, and I kept quiet about the Alf in high school. You remember that show in the '80s with that weird alien guy?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, I do. I never knew that about you, Bjorn.

Bjorn Karlman:

I shut up about that. I think I told one person maybe in my entire high school time.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, no, a lot more.

Bjorn Karlman:

It was that bad. With everything '80s becoming cool again, maybe I can bring that out. So it's Bjorn Karlman, but my Starbucks name is Eric, one of my middle names, because it's easier, because people say, "Buh-jorn," I've heard "B-horn." In the Philippines where I spent a lot of time, I've heard "Bah-horn." So you don't know the Pandora's Box you just open with that name question. That should be the 99 right there.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fantastic, man. That's fantastic. That should be the 99 for you. That'd be great. I may have the same problem as you, but I appreciate that. Bjorn, what do you do for work at the moment?

Bjorn Karlman:

That's another weirdly hard question. Basically, I'm in digital publishing, and I do a lot of Adventist stuff from an anonymous site that kind of launched my new career in Adventist publishing about eight years ago. I do content from everybody from Adventist Today to different colleges and done some all over the denomination. I really care about innovative newer content with a progressive spin to it in the Adventist ecosystem. Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira:

And you've been doing this for how long now?

Bjorn Karlman:

More formally, probably eight years, but I always dabbled in it. I went to Andrews University in Michigan. You spent some time there, Japhet. I was a writer. That's kind of what I did as my student job. I worked for Adventist World Radio before that. I've always been into it, but more formally in the last eight years.

Japhet De Oliveira:

For everybody who's listening, what you should know about Bjorn, he's been kind of coy about this, but he's very covert. If there's ever a new website or a new app that just appears, you should just ask yourself, "Is Bjorn behind this?"

Bjorn Karlman:

Nice. Nice.

Japhet De Oliveira:

"Did he start this? Did he think of it?" And he probably is. So hey, if you want to...

Bjorn Karlman:

Thank you, Japhet. I appreciate that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I'm glad I blabbed. That was great. Hey, in the morning, do you begin, your drink of choice, do you begin with water, one of those green liquid smoothies, coffee, tea? What's your first drink of choice?

Bjorn Karlman:

I'll be really honest. It's a combination of like, I'll have this water with, I'll actually put a tea bag in it, because I'm in the UK right now, and I don't like the tap water taste. So I do put a tea bag in it, but then alongside that I have a mocha. So I'm doubling up. I really believe in hydrating like crazy, so it's kind of a two-drink situation. Not just one.

Japhet De Oliveira:

A two-drink ... I like it. One just because you need to, and the other one just to kind of compensate.

Bjorn Karlman:

There we go. Yeah, exactly, exactly. That cancels it out.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Now you said you're Swedish, but where were you born?

Bjorn Karlman:

I really am Swedish in terms of where I was born. I was born in Stockholm, and my passport is Swedish, but I left when I was a baby.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Can we see it?

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Let's see the passport. My parents left Sweden when I was a baby, and I basically spent the first part of my life in Asia, over a decade, mostly in Asia. Then my teenage years is when I met you, Japhet, was more in the UK, Europe. And then university and the first part of my professional career was in the US, so kind of spread out there. And then after that, it's gone nuts. I've been all over the world as a digital nomad, they call it. I don't know how well people know that term, but it's basically people that often work online, and they just kind of want to get to know the worlds we've traveled all over. Obviously before COVID. It got much harder after COVID.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. I remember when you started writing about that breakthrough moment in your life where you decided to do that, I was like, "Oh, wow. Yeah. Of course, Bjorn covert. Yeah. That's what he's doing." It's fantastic. I'm really proud of you, man. I think it's fantastic.

Bjorn Karlman:

Thanks, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, it's really great. If people were to describe you, would they describe you as an extrovert or introvert, and would you agree?

Bjorn Karlman:

I think I probably would disagree. I think people think I'm an extrovert, but really I'm a real blend of introvert and extrovert. I love people, I love hanging out, I love going to parties, socializing or whatever, but here's the thing. I love coming to your dinner party, but I would hate to host you. That's straight up how it works.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good. I like that.

Bjorn Karlman:

It's a weird introvert thing that I don't like hosting. I love my me time, as well. I like going for walks, just me. So yeah, I'm a blend. It's not either/or.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful. When you were a kid, what did you imagine you'd be?

Bjorn Karlman:

Oh, man. That's a good question. I didn't think about it too much as a kid. Actually as a teenager, I did start thinking about creative stuff in media and specifically Christian media. I was interested in that. Even back then, I thought it was ripe for a reinvention, innovation, a totally different style. I was actually bored by a lot of content, specifically Christian content, that came out, so I always felt some kind of responsibility to shake it up a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's really good. Habits, habits, Bjorn. Are you an early riser or a night owl?

Bjorn Karlman:

I'm both right now, because I have to get stuff done around my five-year-old that's now going to school, so I have to wake up to get her to school, sadly, or I'd be waking up at 9:00 or 10:00. But I do a lot of my work actually after my family goes to bed. I'll do my writing and other content stuff up to maybe midnight. So it's not late, like 4:00 a.m. late, but I do kind of stay up late, and then wake up to get her to school. I might take a nap in between there. That's also kind of a hybrid situation.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, yeah. No, we do what we do. Absolutely. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. All right. So here's a leadership question for you. Are you a backseat driver?

Bjorn Karlman:

My wife would probably say that I am if she's driving. My wife's from LA, for example, and so I often let her do the driving in LA, because if you've ever driven in LA, it's a nightmare. The worst drivers.

Japhet De Oliveira:

You let her do the driving?

Bjorn Karlman:

Oh, that's going to get me in trouble. She demands to do the driving. Let's put it that way. She's the better driver, let's get that out right now, and certainly the better LA driver. But it's harrowing out there, so you'll hear a few things. But getting back to the meta-question, the leadership question, I try not to be, but I'm also someone that likes to kind of get stuck in and involved, so I'm probably learning to be more of a kind of a delegator and let it go. But that's hard for me.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, okay. That's great. That's great. No, it's honest. It's fantastic. This morning when you woke up, what was the very first thought that went through your mind?

Bjorn Karlman:

That's a good question. Actually, I've been doing this kind of mindset thing experiment with myself lately. I tend to wake up in a groggy, slightly negative state. I don't know if it has to do with COVID or some anxiety I have about the ... We're trying to get immigration status here in the UK right now because of COVID. I don't know what it is, but I have to basically mentally tell myself I'm going from this weird groggy kind of somewhat negative state to one that's on-purpose, positive, "This is going to happen today. This is going to be a good day." So I have to kind of make that switch manually, and I do it. It's part of my morning routine to switch-on to something much more productive and positive. So I wake up not feeling that great, but I can easily make the switch.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Love it, love it. All right. Well, Bjorn, we have covered the intro. We're now heading over to 11 to 100. The choice is yours. Where do you want to begin?

Bjorn Karlman:

Twenty-five.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Twenty-five. All right. Let's try 25. Share the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

Bjorn Karlman:

The most beautiful thing I've ever ... When my daughter was born. I only have one kid. She was born in Bangkok. When she was born, I was there in the room, and that's got to be the most beautiful moment, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It's all cliche that it changes you and everything, but it really does. It transforms you.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It does.

Bjorn Karlman:

It'll never go away. That was the most beautiful thing, that whole experience.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's incredible. Absolutely, absolutely. I've got 9,000 kids, and I ... No, I'm kidding. I've got two boys, and I feel the same way. Absolutely. No, I'm with you. Beautiful, brilliant. All right. Which one after 25?

Bjorn Karlman:

After 25, let's bring it up. Let's make it harder. Seventy-five.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. Do you remember?

Bjorn Karlman:

What's the worst thing you've ever done?

Japhet De Oliveira:

I think I'm going to do a study after this and just see if there's some kind of pattern of numbers that people pick.

Bjorn Karlman:

Is this what people do? They go from 25 to 75? Is that what your other people did?

Japhet De Oliveira:

No. It's intriguing as to how many people ... I'm going to find somebody who can analyze how many people pick this particular number.

Bjorn Karlman:

Does anyone just go "11, 12 ..."?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Eleven, 12...

Bjorn Karlman:

"Just give me all your softball questions."

Japhet De Oliveira:

There's only one person. "Eleven, 12 ..." Yeah, yeah.

Bjorn Karlman:

"Favorite color? Next favorite color?"

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. All right, here we go. Seventy-five. Do you remember the first item you purchased with your own money? If so, what was it, and why did you buy it, Bjorn?

Bjorn Karlman:

Wow. No, I don't really. I remember the first bad purchase I made with my own money, and that was...

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, that's good.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. It was actually in London. I was a teenager, and I was out with my friends from high school. We were feeling like big kids, because we were out in the town on our own.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Lads.

Bjorn Karlman:

I was on Oxford street, which is like Fifth Avenue. It's the main drag in London for shopping. And I went to this place called Selfridges, which you've probably heard of Harrods, Japhet, you're a London guy, but most people have heard of Harrods. Selfridges is I would say the number two of those big-time stores. So I went in there, and there was a stand, and this was the height of Tommy Hilfiger when that was actually cool, before it was in the discount stores for $10.99, right?

Bjorn Karlman:

I bought a duffel bag, I think it was, and I think even some kind of Eau de Toilette, something fancy, and I spent 75 pounds or something crazy on that. My mother really lay into me after that. She let me know that that was a stupid way to spend money. But I felt so cool getting that Tommy Hilfiger stuff. Bad idea.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, of course you would.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. I was probably...

Japhet De Oliveira:

Especially amongst your friends, as well. That would have been a magical moment.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right. After 75, are you going down or up?

Bjorn Karlman:

That was not too bad. Let's go to 80.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Which one?

Bjorn Karlman:

Eighty.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Eighty?

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. Is that good?

Japhet De Oliveira:

How would you like to change in the future?

Bjorn Karlman:

How would I like to change in the future?

Japhet De Oliveira:

How would you like to change in the future? Yeah.

Bjorn Karlman:

That is a harder one. Lately, I've been fixating a lot ... Lately, I've been fixating a lot on, you know how everyone says, "You should not worry about the whole dance," people aren't watching, saying whatever it is, those cutesy things about basically, "Don't worry about externals, what other people are thinking." And I think everyone says that, but very few people practice it and/or are able to kind of deal with the consequences of that kind of thinking and behavior. And so I'm really trying to get to gradually, maybe 1% per day, to let go of that fear of what are other people thinking. How is this going to be perceived, yada, yada, because it's like a blessing and a strength.

Bjorn Karlman:

I'm good at like, "Oh, how is an audience going to perceive something?" I'm a media guy. But it's hard to turn that off when it comes to your personal life. So I want to get more to the place where I'm just going to do it, deal with it. And I think there would be a lot of liberty in that. I've made some progress in the last 10 years, but I'm not where I want to be.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I like that, I like that. That's really good. All right. After 80, where you want to go, Bjorn?

Bjorn Karlman:

Let's bring it up to 90, and that's as far as I'm going up.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. All right. Tell us about how you overcame a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

Bjorn Karlman:

Let's see here. I've got a few options with that. Well, I told you about my daughter, Journey, being born. I don't know if I mentioned her name, but we discovered that we were pregnant when we were living in Bangkok in Thailand, and it was an extremely difficult pregnancy. Just to give you a feel for it, we thought we were going to lose Journey very, very early on in the pregnancy, and it was just agonizing. If you've ever been in Bangkok, it's just chock-a-block. The traffic is horrible. Worse than LA horrible. It's just really, really bad. And I remember we had an emergency where we're like, "Unless we get to the hospital now, we could lose the baby."

Bjorn Karlman:

It was very early on, and actually, because the traffic was so bad and the hospital was close by, we ended up walking to the hospital, rushing up to the pediatrics was, and they did scans, and the doctor was horrible to my wife, actually yelled at my wife in that state that she was. It was such a dark time. Then I remember confidentially asking him, "Hey, what chances would you give us that this baby survives?" And he was so cold and the opposite of good bedside manner. "50/50. Find another hospital." Basically, that's what he said to us. It was so upsetting. It was so like, "Uhhh!" You know what I mean? You're furious, but you're also hopeless and just feeling very, very, very desperate.

Bjorn Karlman:

And then after all that abuse, we had to go down and pay for this hospital visit. We're sitting in the payment section, and I saw people laughing and smiling and carrying on. It's weird. Your irrational mind goes to, "How can there be anyone happy right now in this world? How is that person smiling or laughing?" I felt so down. A lot of prayer, a lot of just taking the next step, finding a different hospital, finding a more compassionate physician, doing whatever needed in terms of the weekly appointments. It was way harder than most people talk about with pregnancy, and then always being afraid, bedrest, always being afraid that we're going to lose this baby. That was an extremely, extremely dark and difficult part of my life. It was taking the next step and really trusting that got us through, trusting God and trusting in the process. That was a difficult time, and that's how we got through it. Luckily, everything turned out well. Journey, my baby, turned out very healthy and was grateful for that, but yeah, very difficult process.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is difficult, and it's really difficult when there's not a lot that you can do. Right?

Bjorn Karlman:

Exactly. And that was our situation.

Japhet De Oliveira:

But you just have to watch and be patient. Yeah, yeah. I hear you, Bjorn. That's intense. Well, I'm glad five years on everything is great. That's super. We're all really pleased, really pleased.

Bjorn Karlman:

Thank you. It's a lot better. She started school, and she's a healthy young girl, and it's a huge relief there. It's nothing you can take for granted. That's for sure.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It means that when she misbehaves and she gets up pretty early in the morning, you're tired, you just feel fantastic.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah, yeah. I forgive everything. It doesn't even mildly annoy me that you're awake.

Japhet De Oliveira:

You forgive everything instantly.

Bjorn Karlman:

It may be 3:00 a.m., and you're jumping on the bed, but hey, it's okay.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's okay now.

Bjorn Karlman:

That literally happens with alarm.

Japhet De Oliveira:

If only.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah, right? No, it happens all the time. Well, it used to happen all the time with our because of our traveling. We would be in all these weird time zones, and she really would wake up at 3:00 a.m. and want to eat or something crazy like that. Yeah, it was nuts.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. All right. Hey, so off the 90 now. Where'd you want to go?

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. Okay. Let's go back to the softball. What have we done so far? Forty-five? Have we done 45?

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, we haven't done 45. Let's go to 45, half of that. When people come to you for help, Bjorn, what are they usually asking for?

Bjorn Karlman:

Okay. Let's see here. Typically with me, I'm kind of a people person, so if there's something difficult that needs to be said or communicated ... For example, where I lived recently, you know how when there are a lot of young families that live in the same area, which is kind of my situation right now, there's playground politics between the children. It gets like, "So-and-so hit me or won't share their toys or whatever." And then there's this delicate set of relationships between the parents. "Should I say something or should I ...?"

Bjorn Karlman:

I often get asked to relay a difficult message, and I try to do it in a non-offensive, friendly way, so that kind of thing on the social side of things. And then when it comes to work stuff, it's often creative, out-of-the-box stuff I get asked to do. Typically, not the really formal accounting or operations type stuff. It's more like, "Huh. How do we communicate this in a different way? How do we shake people up?" That kind of thing I get asked to do.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. That's beautiful, man. I like that, I like that. That's good. The politics of the children at their playground.

Bjorn Karlman:

It's real man.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is.

Bjorn Karlman:

I had forgotten how crazy that gets.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is. I've never heard anybody describe it as the politics of kids, but actually it's true.

Bjorn Karlman:

It's true, and it's vicious. You listen into their conversations, it's like, "Did that just come out of your mouth? How dare you?" But you can't say that, because they're a kid.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, you can't. Duct tape, duct tape. Good luck.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Japhet De Oliveira:

So what should we...

Bjorn Karlman:

So we did 45. How about 44? Let's let's make it an easy ... yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Forty-four. Transition. And what is something that you're proud to have created?

Bjorn Karlman:

What is something I'm proud to have created? Let's see here. Basically, I like creating new websites and new digital offerings, as boring a term as that is. Let's say we're starting a podcast or starting a show or a cool website that helps a certain audience that's never really been helped before, I like doing that kind of thing. I like writing for it, I like presenting, speaking for it. I love creating new creative things. The website I've mentioned before, the one I started anonymously, I'm still very, very happy I did. There's this feeling of freedom with creative projects, so every new one I do, I'm pretty happy about, even if I ultimately say, "Oh, I can't do this."

Bjorn Karlman:

For example, we keep going back to when my daughter was born, it's some kind of a theme, but I started this daddy blog for a while. That was pretty popular, and then I was like, "You know what? I am way too tired to be writing a daddy blog. I'm not going to do it." So it's still up, but I haven't updated it for five years. Anyway, creative projects, I am very proud of doing, and I'm very happy to do...

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's great. That's great. Good, good. All right. After 44 then, where do you want to go?

Bjorn Karlman:

Ah, let's see here. How about 32?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Thirty-two. Here we go. If you were featured on the local news, what would the news story likely be?

Bjorn Karlman:

Probably the whole digital nomad thing, because I think people want to travel nowadays, especially after lockdown. Oh, I could talk about what it's like to travel internationally during COVID, which, by the way, is a nightmare, and I would spell it out pretty clearly, because it is awful. Right before Christmas, I went from, with my family, from Manila in the Philippines to Stockholm, and then to London about a month later. What a crazy experience. Timing your COVID test right is a $1,000 decision right there, because if you get that wrong, "Hey, buy another ticket." Right? And then I think we got to the airport six hours ahead of time, and then you're trying to sleep on the plane with your mask and a weird face shield in front of you. Oh, it's so terrible. Don't do it guys. If you can avoid it, don't do it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is, it is. This whole thing is just going to be a nightmare. But as people start to travel again, it's going to be interesting to see.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. Have you flown a lot during COVID?

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, I have not. I've stayed. I've started to do a little bit of flying again, but local in the United States. I have an international flight coming up soon, pending what the rulings are, we'll see.

Bjorn Karlman:

Exactly.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bjorn Karlman:

I hope it's flexible. I hope you can change it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It may all cancel. We'll see where it all lands. But not looking forward to being all bundled up, but we'll see. All right. What's the next number?

Bjorn Karlman:

Let's see here. Okay, let's go for a harder question again. How about 63?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sixty-three. All right. Here we go. Tell us about a time when you felt lost?

Bjorn Karlman:

Literally, or just lost in life?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Your choice. You're like, "Well, I couldn't find Barnaby street. My GPS wasn't working," or...?

Bjorn Karlman:

Okay. When I felt lost. Let's see here. Well, okay. Here's one that maybe some people can relate to. It was soon after college. I did pretty good as a student. I was a fairly strong student. The weird thing about strong students is often that they're less strong when it comes to the workplace, to real life. It's a bit of a shock. "What? I have to start at the bottom again? What's going on here?" I think I went through that at first, and then for the first several years, really struggled with deciding, "What am I here for? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? What am I good at?"

Bjorn Karlman:

At one point, I remember I studied for the LSAT. I was like, "Huh, maybe I should be a lawyer." That was a very humbling experience, Japhet, because I had been really good at school, but I realized that just because I was a good student, it didn't mean that ... I had this thing where I thought, "Oh, anything I try, I will be good at if I put the work in." And Japhet, did I put the work in for this LSAT? I did a lot of study, and I was still getting fairly, it was above average, but not like where I wanted it to be scores. And so it was very humbling to realize that, "Huh, I am not cut out to be a lawyer. What am I cut out to be?"

Bjorn Karlman:

And that's when I started experimenting with things that I'd been thinking about and privately interested in for years. And then I started writing different things and creative things, again, to do with my faith community. Funny things, satirical things, things that were a little bit different from what normally comes out, and that took off, those projects took off where the more conventional go-to ones that most parents would suggest didn't. So I felt very lost as a young young man out of university, and it felt really gratifying to gradually get out of that and find purpose, really. It's night and day. I think back to 10 years ago, kind of being in the midst of feeling so lost, it was a multi-year period, to now feeling that, "Okay, I haven't arrived, but I'm heading in the direction I want to head." It's a beautiful feeling. Honestly, I could go on about that for ages, and it would get me emotional, honestly, but that feeling of emerging from that fog and saying, "This is it."

Bjorn Karlman:

Talking about traveling, I remember my wife and I both decided to quit our jobs about the same time, within a month of each other, and I told you about this before, we quit our jobs, decent paying jobs, and said, "We're going to travel the world for a year on our own dime, doing what we called service projects." So we volunteered for an orphanage, we worked at a soup kitchen in Buenos Aires. We lived in four different countries around the world. It was Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Berlin. We were in England. Anyway, it was all over the world. We basically volunteered and just rethought our entire lives, launched basically the digital publishing career, launched things that would take us on to where we are now, basically.

Bjorn Karlman:

So we went from being lost to really finding our voice. It was a fantastic feeling. I feel so much better, and I recommend that kind of wilderness experience to others. I don't know if I would recommend it, but if you're in it right now, and you're feeling lost here and you're feeling like, "What am I supposed to do with all this? Why am I even here?" Sit with it and really think about what you really like and are good at it, what you feel called to, if that's not too deep. What you feel, "What can only I do, or what can I do that not a lot of other people can do?" Really interesting things can come out of that, as long as you don't feel like you have to do something that's going to look good in a dinner conversation. You know what I mean? Play to your weirder side maybe. You know what I mean? Nowadays, it's easier.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Motivation has to be right.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. The motivation has to be right. Don't do something just because the optics might be a more palatable. Do something that you feel called to do, basically.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful, Bjorn. All right. I appreciate that. All right. So last question, last number, where would you like to land?

Bjorn Karlman:

Yes. All right.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, that was great, that was great.

Bjorn Karlman:

Let's see. I got super intense there, so let's bring it down. Okay. How about this? I'm about to turn 40 next month. Let's go for 40.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay.

Bjorn Karlman:

Have we done 40 yet? If we've done 40, let's do 39.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, you haven't.

Bjorn Karlman:

Okay. Let's do 40. Let's do 40, because that's on my mind.

Japhet De Oliveira:

40, all right. All right. So here's number 40. Tell us about a time that you failed.

Bjorn Karlman:

Tell you about a time ... Okay, and it's not going to be the LSAT. It's got to be something else. Let's see here. I don't want it to be like a casual one. I want it to be one that really stands out. That's a tough one, because I told you about that really...

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is. We put it inside there, because 40 is a significant number.

Bjorn Karlman:

Yeah. No, exactly. Forty is a very significant number. Okay, I've got it. Actually, when I first got to know you, I think I was about 13, 14. A few years later, I think I was about 16, I went off on a volunteer year. It was kind of after high school as far as ... It was after what's called the GCSEs in England, which is kind of the equivalent of high school, I was a real idealist, I still am, but at the time, I was obviously just really, really starting out. And I did this volunteer year that started in the Philippines, and I had planned to be the savior of the world, doing all this good out there bringing hope and encouragement to people. I'd thought a lot about it, and I thought, "Oh, this is going to be my time to shine basically." So there was ego and excitement and all of the stuff wrapped up in the anticipation of that year.

Bjorn Karlman:

And I'm telling you, Japhet, within six weeks, maybe seven weeks into that year, I was crashing and burning so hard emotionally. I was stuck in this little fishing village. I had to get on public transport for half-an-hour to even talk to my mother, I was that isolated, to get to a phone that could actually call the UK. I was feeling like such a wreck. The people that I was there to encourage and bring hope to, they had to encourage me. "What's going on, young man? Why do you look so depressed all the time?" It was the greatest feeling of failure and disappointment and, "What the word? What is going on here that I'd experienced so far?" I was in such a state of despair.

Bjorn Karlman:

That was probably my first taste of real failure in life. And as painful as it was, I don't think I would wish it on me again, I'm not going to say that, but I think I learned some really important lessons from that. You know what I mean? Partly because it's kind of anchored, I've tasted what hell tastes like on Earth kind of thing. I've had that like just awful, awful time. I'm talking I was like near-suicidal. It was that bad, and that's a lot to share in a podcast, but if anyone kind of feels in that really, really dark spot. It was awful, and it felt terrible to fail, especially when I had such high expectations for myself, and I felt like my family and my friends did, too.

Bjorn Karlman:

That was a major taste of failure, and I'm going to tell you what brought me out of it. It wasn't some weird epiphany, some aha moment. It was a family in Sweden that took me in every weekend. They had kids around my age. They realized that, I was kind of the kid's coordinator at the time at our church, I was trying to be a leader at that time at like 16, but they realized that what I needed was to hang out, eat good food, feel part of family, feel taken care of. I'll never forget what they did for me, and that brought me out of that really negative headspace to a place where I could relax, kind of enjoy life, enjoy relationships, and real love again. It was massive. It was massive, going from failure to kind of feeling accepted and feeling some hope again. So I hope I can pay that forward. I try to do that with people that are in that place

Japhet De Oliveira:

Bjorn, thank you for sharing that. I think that it's true for anybody who's listening right now and actually feels that they are in that space, that they need to know that people do love them, that there are people who can help them, and that belonging is possible again, and that they should not give up. So they should reach out. There will be somebody who will listen, and they will come out of this. So Bjorn, I agree with you. I don't think we wish that for ourselves or for anyone to go through, but it's real. It's real.

Bjorn Karlman:

No.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's real.

Bjorn Karlman:

It's real, and it creeps up on you in a weird situation. It's often something you can't predict, and you're just in that situation. You're like, "Why? How?" It's not something like, people think, "Oh, growing experiences are a good thing and whatever," but man, I wouldn't want anyone to go through that. But if you are in that situation, like Japhet said, reach out to some kind of community. You need that and go seek that. It's not too late. You can do it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, Bjorn, I want to thank you for your time, my good brother, good friend. I think the only thing that we're missing in this podcast is that I wish we were face-to-face and we actually did have a cup of tea with each other, and we all sit down and do this. Someday, we will.

Bjorn Karlman:

You know it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

For sure.

Bjorn Karlman:

There we go. You can join me some morning for my two-drink combo. You know what I mean? Virtually.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Totally, totally. Hey, thank you so much for your time.

Bjorn Karlman:

Thank you, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira:

To everybody who's listening, listen, your stories, your experiences, they matter, they're important. Please share them with your friends or your community. They shape you, they shape them, and you are important. I want to encourage you to continue to do so. God bless you, and God look after you.

Narrator:

Thank you for joining us for The Story and Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org/story. The Story & Experience Podcast was brought to you by Adventist Health with the Office of Culture