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Consistent with my “all things that are cool are Finnish” approach to thinking now, I found wonderful nuggets of new insights from books I have been reading about one of my ancestral homelands, Finland.

For those who may never check out books from a library, this summary is for the lay person who doesn’t want to wade through data summaries on health, education, longevity, maternal care, and income inequality, which Finland continues to excel at relative to nearly every developed country.

One area where Finland shines is the country’s national character. That character is defined by an important concept and word called “sisu.” I connect deeply to this idea too, and I could see it during my trip there in September 2023.

This is what Danny Dorling and Annika Koljonen, authors of the wonderful book published in 2020 on Finland’s successes as a nation, called Finntopia, wrote in describing what sisu means. It is, my view, one reason why Finland to stands out among all developed nations. I see their national successes tied to their cultural identity.

According to Dorling and Koljonen: “The clue is the word, ‘sisus,’ which [in Finnish] is literally the interior, or inside of a thing or a being. Then it hit me that sisu is like the somatic embodiment of mental toughness. What we attribute to the mind–our strength and ability to keep going no matter what–is also reflected in our bodies, in our physical being.”

For me, the power of sisu is very personal. It resonates with everything I do in life and the things that have meant the most to me in helping me a better person.

As I’ve long said, I connected to this part of myself, the part I had to find through hard times, which in the end, led to things that I cherish now. Maybe there is something genetic that connects me to my Finnish ancestors in how I ended up.

Yes, I believe that to be true. Ask a Finnish person what makes them Finnish, and you may hear them explain sisu.