Vikings emerged from a small place called “Scandinavia” and made an impact on the whole world big enough that we are talking about them even after a thousand years.
Though they are long gone to dust, most of their core values still apply to our lives today.
There is no denying that they inflicted a lot of pain on other people. They did a lot of horrible things but if we can learn to look past that for a moment, there is a lot we can learn from the way they lived their lives.
Win-win mentality#
One of the biggest reasons they left a mark on our history wasn’t just their strength and their ability to fight. It was their mindset. They had developed a culture that learned to tame the most dominating fear of human life.
The fear of death.
When they sailed away, they had a win-win mentality. I’m not saying they were not afraid to die or never wondered if they will return home. However, they were mostly thinking about what they were about to gain.
In our modern world, we are so concerned with impressions, clicks, statistics, and profits that everything else seems like a loss.
How often do we get an idea, run it around in our head, create imaginary problems for this potential seed, and then kill it before ever giving it a try? Or even before ever sharing it with someone?
How often do we give up doing what we love over a profession that just puts more paper in our pockets?
Our viewpoint of this world will be drastically different if we start pursuing experiences with a win-win mentality.
Have an idea? Go for it. It may fail but you’ll get a lot of experience in the end.
Do you love a profession but it pays very little? Great! Do it anyway and you will be happier with less money.
Develop this habit to always look at the brighter side even if you fail in terms of everybody else.
Vikings were explorers more than anything else.
They loved exploring the unknown and could not sit down and live comfortable normal lives. They wanted to know what was beyond the known. They wanted to know what their lives could be. They wanted to explore the “what ifs?”
They were excellent learners and did not care much about the teacher. Everywhere they went they used to kill a lot of people and bring back a lot of slaves as well. They used those slaves to understand their enemies better, find more about their cultures, figure out their weaknesses and ways of fighting, and then plan the next attacks accordingly.
They had this childlike curiosity about everything that they touched and they wanted to know more about it. And that’s one of the core values of humans.
We are all born curious, but we lose it at some point in our lives. At some point, we are molded by society to start chasing what elevates our status without caring about what makes us happier.
Happiness is the most important currency in this world. We don’t talk about it enough. We don’t take enough action to pursue it.
What we can learn from their exploration desires is that learning must never stop. We always have to keep that curious side of ourselves alive. It doesn’t matter how society influences us and how the circumstances change. We must never stop learning.
Discomfort#
Vikings chased discomfort and never shied away from it. It was built into their DNA. It was built into their culture.
It was built into their lifestyle and environment.
They lived in the harsh cold. Their means of earning a living meant killing people. Their rituals included sacrificing real human beings. The religion said that if you want to reach heaven or “Valhalla” in their language, you must fight and kill as much as you can.
Heck, even their “Heaven “ was a place where fighting would take place every morning and everybody will kill each other and then they have supper together.
In short, Their life was not free of discomfort and they didn’t run away from it. They embraced it.
How comfortable are our lives today? How predictable are our days?
We live pretty lavish and comfortable lives even if we are living in poverty by the standards of modern society.
We are not afraid of being dead by the night. We leave for work in the morning and are pretty sure we will return to a warm and delicious dinner. We keep pushing for a better life because in most of our minds better life means more comfort.
But once we get to the point where we wanted to be our whole lives, we become miserable. That’s one of the key reasons why we see so many celebrities and people who are at the top of their game commit suicide. Humans are built for discomfort. Our ancestors used to hunt and be on their guard all the time for gathering food and surviving to the next day and it all changed as we evolved.
We now have dozens of searches and experienced people advocating a simple formula for a fulfilling life.
If you want to be happy learn to embrace discomfort.
It doesn’t mean going crazy like and throwing yourself into ice-cold water and sitting there for 2 hours straight.
It simply means facing things that you know are right for you, but you shy away from them for one reason or the other. It means working on that idea that you have been ignoring forever. It means starting the business that you know can change your life, but you keep giving yourself excuses.
It means finally capturing that video and thoughts of yours and putting them out there. It means finally writing that novel and letting that story shine through your words. It means embracing your fears because there is a better life on the other hand.
Thank you for reading and happy hustling.