The Journey

From an early age, I learned discipline and resilience through contrasts: a father forged from determination; strong, strict, relentlessly intelligent, and a mother whose strength carried a different frequency: warm, wise, steady, and unwavering in her love. Together they formed the poles I grew between. And around us, the rugged Norwegian landscape added its own lessons, demanding respect, endurance, and humility.

My family was adventurous and curious, encouraging me to explore beyond the narrow walls of dogma. Despite the community’s closed beliefs, those childhood years planted the first seeds of self-reliance and wonder. I sensed there was a wider world beyond our church and that truth might be larger than what I was being told.

Immersed in an international environment, I encountered new cultures, ideas, and ways of living. I also dove into philosophy, seeking answers to questions like “How can I know what’s true?” and “What does it mean to exist?” The more I learned, the more I realized how many of the “truths” I’d inherited were not truly my own. This dawning insight ignited a lifelong commitment to epistemic humility – a recognition that understanding is never final and that I will always stay curious and open to change.

In 2014 I traveled to San Diego, expanding my perspective even further. Each step beyond my old world made me more determined to question everything and to discover my own answers through both intellect and experience.

During this time, I also began exploring Eastern philosophy and meditation. I found wisdom in Buddhism, Taoism, and other traditions that approached truth not just through logic but through silence, intuition, and direct experience. I started to see how intimately the inner universe mirrors the outer. The stillness I touched in meditation made me more aware of the natural world’s rhythm, and I developed a deeper ecological awareness. I realized that understanding reality wasn’t enough – I had to learn to live in alignment with it. I felt a growing responsibility toward people, nature, and the global ecosystem I am part of. This widened consciousness led me toward entrepreneurship as the next step of my journey.

This period taught me the gritty reality of execution: late nights refining business plans, endless iterations of prototypes, pitches to investors, and the resilience needed to ride out uncertainty. Bringing an idea from concept to reality was exhilarating and humbling. I learned how to lead and collaborate, how to fail forward, and how to ground big dreams in practical action. Most importantly, entrepreneurship reinforced a lesson life had been teaching me all along: the only constant is change, and to build something real, one must adapt and grow continuously. My ventures were more than just companies – they were expressions of my evolving purpose to contribute to the larger whole.

The military training was intense and unforgiving: parachuting out of military planes into the Arctic cold, long marches with heavy packs in the black night, and scenarios where everything was on the line. Discipline and endurance were not just ideals but daily practices – often the price of survival.

In those high-pressure years, I discovered the depths of willpower and the power of true camaraderie. My fellow soldiers and I forged bonds in the crucible of adversity, learning to trust each other with our lives. I crossed my physical and mental limits again and again, realizing that they were often more psychological than real. The Special Forces honed in me a resilience that only comes from pushing through fear, pain, and exhaustion. It was a trial by fire, and it forged a sharper, stronger version of me.

The Wilderness Years: Surrendered Control
I plunged into a spiritual and relational wilderness. I explored the spectrum of human experience through intensive therapy(ISTDP), deep medicine work in ceremony, and rigorous study of Tai Chi and Yoga. This period was one of ecstatic discovery and intense discipline, conducted both in the world and within myself:

• I learned to sense and integrate deep somatic and emotional energy, trading military force for inner flow.
• I traveled from the meditative solitude of a one-month solo Arctic expedition (pulling a 100kg sled, skiing alone) to the collective, expressive freedom of Burn festivals, where I once spent six hours in deep meditation in front of a winter bonfire, seeing parts of my future.
• The high-speed pursuit of truth led me to found Pinecone Leadership, an early expression of synthesizing consciousness and commitment into professional action.

These years of accelerated growth, marked by a fractured back that forced stillness and moments of transcendent clarity, were the calibration for what was to come. I was learning the art of growing through both pleasure and pain.

Breaking down: The End of Knowing
In June 2022, I met Samina, and our powerful magnetic connection launched a new life defined by love, light, and immediate tragedy. Just six months later, we lost our son, Shams. This singular event shattered the life I had known. It was as if an external force pushed me down, down, down, to break me, truly break me.

My body, mind, and spirit broke down into millions of shattering pieces. This was my true crucible. I felt like a blind man walking in a volcanic field of holes and traps everywhere. My concepts and beliefs of what is and what isn't collapsed. Every time I thought I had endured the worst, it got worse. I felt I did not have any control of my own fate; free will was suspended.

It was from the rock bottom of this chaos, the darkest valley of my life, that the true Awakening began. I learned that I truly do not know anything. I was humbled by life. The only path forward was to stop trying to control the world and to start knitting myself together, piece by piece, slowly, through pure, stubborn presence.

Today, I stand as an integrated self: the rigorous Operator who learned vulnerability, the Nanotechnologist who found the profound poetry in human connection, and the Humbled Father who understands that life's greatest power is its capacity for rebirth.

The Current Focus
Every project, relationship, and endeavor is now rooted in the hard-won lessons of the past five years. My work is dedicated to building foundations for planetary change, which I approach through three main conduits:

• The power of presence and authentic connection: Using my unique journey and the gifts I have earned, to expand consciousness, foster collective healing, and induce individual sovereignty.
• Family and community as foundation: Committing to the long-term work of integreating the lessons of my life in order to create security and wealth for my family and my community.
• Use my knowledge and insights about people, culture and technology to build foundational solutions for a new human civilisation