Gustav Fridolin argues that those a

Gustav Fridolin argues that those areas that are most important to him are family, travelling and to go to cinemas. He means that these are areas that help him to relax. Other issues that he is committed to are environmental questions and peoples equal rights (G. Fridolin, personal communication 2005-12-16).

To find out your deepest values and beliefs can be hard. It must be something that you can stand for and it should be something that will last for a long time. During the interviews we noticed that it was hard to observe a persons deepest values. We argue that all our interview participants are well aware of their values and beliefs and what they think is important to them. All of our interview participants mentioned their family and friends as important values for them. Work is another value that three out of five participants think is important in their lives right now. These values seem to be basic values. This is a very important step in our model since if you do not know what you stand for, it will be impossible to communicate and show it to others.

• Mission: The second step ‘mission’ refers to a person’s passionate interests; what you care for even though you do not always get paid when you do it. Maria Wetterstrand says that her mission varies from time to time. As said earlier, she has strong interests in people’s equal values and that everyone should be respected according to who they are. (M. Wetterstrand, personal communication 2005-11-23).

The mission of Shan Atci is that he cares about youths that have different difficulties in their lives and he does a lot of free shows for schools and different youth unions. Recently he has worked with a union consisting of girls that have different difficulties in life – for example problems with their family or to get into the society. He believes that this is important because he can stand for those values and he believes that he can inspire and motivate those youths (S. Atci, personal communication 2005-11-22).

Dan Lexö’s mission, on the other hand, is that he wants to continue to develop the restaurant industry. He does a lot of non-profit activities; he holds lectures in schools and he is a member of Gothenburg’s Restaurant Associations. Further on, he has created a competition among chef students in western part of south Sweden, in order to motivate and inspire them in their education (D. Lexö, personal communication 2005-12-01).

David Lega works a lot with athletic kids and he tries to make them realise how fun it is with sport and that the most important thing is not to win. He wants them to compete with themselves instead of compare themselves with others, since there will always be someone that is better than you (D. Lega, personal communication
2005-12-04). Further on he cares a lot about disabled kids – he is for example a leader at a camp for disabled kids. He is also concerned about the disabled in Tirana and he has started a centre for disabled there (Karlsson & Lega, 2003).

Gustav Fridolin’s mission are his interests in questions concerning Palestine and that homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals should have the same rights as everyone else (Fridolin, retrieved 2005-11-03).

We noticed that all our interview participants’ missions are well connected to themselves and they were easy to grasp. Dan Lexö’s mission supports the picture that we have of him
– a happy hard-working chef that wants to develop his industry. David Lega’s and Shan Atci’s mission seems to be based on their own experiences and childhood. They believe that their experiences can inspire and motivate kids in the same situation that they have been in. Maria Wetterstrand’s and Gustav Fridolin’s missions are to fight for human rights, which is very important today and this is also connected to their values and beliefs and to their jobs.

• Motto: A person’s motto should summarise your values and beliefs in a short sentence and be a basis for your decisions and how you act. Maria Wetterstrand claims that she does not have a motto, and that it is not something that she thinks about. She does however claim that she has the attitude that ‘you can find solutions to everything’ (M. Wetterstrand, personal communication 2005-11-23). We believe that this statement could be referred to as a motto and it has the potential to guide and motivate her when making different decisions in her life.

According to Shan Atci (personal communication, 2005-11-22) his personal motto is “There is no shame in failing, everyone does it. Shame is to lie there, not getting up’ (own translation). His motto and his two key words ‘love’ and ‘respect’ are something that he always has in mind; both at work, when he is on stage and in his private life. He further claims that his motto represents himself and his beliefs and it represents him as a person. We argue that this is also a very good motto and that it definitely has the potential to guide him through difficult times in his life. His two key words stand for very good and relevant things and they reflect upon his view on different relationships in his life.

Dan Lexö has two mottos that he tries to think and live after. The first one is “All ideas are able to become viable” and he claims that ‘A no is just a strong yes’. He always tries to find solutions to problems so that they can be workable, if one solution does not work he will try other solutions until the problem is solved and he can reach his goals. Dan Lexö’s other motto says “I’m happy when the customer is happy” and he tries to combine the food with experiences (D. Lexö, personal communication 2005-12-01). We believe that Dan Lexö has a very positive and optimistic first motto. We argue that if he truly believes in this all the time, which we think that he does, this can help him (and have helped him) to accomplish things that others cannot even dream of. One example of this is when he created a event with 400 000 eating people at the same time (D. Lexö, personal communication 2005-12-01). We further believe that the second motto once again reflects how important his job is for him.

David Lega’s motto is that ‘Everyone can be good at something – the only problem is to find out on what’ (own translation). David Lega says that this is not something that he thinks about, instead it is a base for him and everything that he does (D. Lega, personal communication 2005-12-04). We argue that this might not be a good motto in the sense that it cannot be helpful when making tough decisions or when everything feels bad. Instead this can be a good motto for other people to hear – that someone truly believes that you can be good at something. However, this attitude has probably helped him to develop as a person and to be able to do many of those things that he can do today.

Gustav Fridolin claim that his motto is ‘Will this decision be the best one in ten years as well?’ (G. Fridolin, personal communication 2005-12-16). We believe that this motto can be hard to use to get inspiration and motivation from, since ten years is a very long time. However, as a politician that makes different decisions, this is a good motto to think about and to have in mind.

• Qualities: The last step to keep in mind when you figure out who you are is to know your qualities. Maria Wetterstrand claims that she is creative, has a strong self-esteem and that she thinks fast. She further argues that she has an ability to unite people and that she is good at propose suggestions to problems. She does not agree upon that people have unique strengths; instead she argues that the combination of all her strengths will create a unique person. She claims that her biggest weakness is that she can be very impatient. She further argues that her weakness impatience is something common among politicians since there are a lot of different meetings and everything takes a lot of time to implement (M. Wetterstrand, personal communication 2005-11-23). We argue Maria Wetterstrand’s qualities are very important for a politician to have. To be creative, to think fast and to have a strong self-esteem is important if you want to be heard and make a career within the political scene.

The qualities of Shan Atci are that he has humour, tenderness and he is goal- oriented. He also possesses the unique strength to make people laugh. He further argues that he is good at collaborate with others, but that he does not want to step on anyone’s toes. Shan Atci claims that he is very bad at being in time at different occasions (S. Atci, personal communication 2005-11-22). We argue that Shan Atci’s qualities have helped him to distinguish himself from other comedians by his way of making jokes about immigrants and the suburb.

According to Dan Lexö (personal communication, 2005-12-01) his qualities are that he has the ability to know what the customer wants and that his own personality is a strength. We believe that other characteristics that Dan Lexö possesses are that he is social, happy and stubborn. He also has a big sense of humour and likes to tease with his colleagues and friends. We think that his unique strengths are to see the entirely experience within a restaurant visit and to be able to do things that no one else believes is possible. Dan Lexö argues that he has a different weaknesses; he claims that he is too happy and that he needs to be more serious sometimes. He believes that people might not always take him seriously because of this (D. Lexö, personal communication 2005-12-01). We think that Dan Lexö’s qualities stubborn, happy and social have helped him to reach many of his goals and to make many of his suggestions and ideas to come true.