639 Rúna Magnusdottir:

These days it seems we’re all so focused on our differences, our distinct identities, our identity politics… that it’s easy to lose what we all have in common, easy for any of us to be put into a pre-defined box that can trap us in lives that deny our full and true potential. Fact is, we’re more than the box (or set of boxes) we put ourselves into … or others put us into, …or we put others into. So, who are you, really? How do other people perceive who you are? What boxes are you in, by choice or otherwise? And how does that influence what you think of yourself, your abilities, and your value? My guest today – Rúna Magnusdottir – is all about breaking down the boxes we put others in, and boxes that trap ourselves too.

MELINDA

Hi, welcome to Wings of Inspired Business. I’m Melinda Wittstock, 5-time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and here on Wings we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is breaking down boxes everywhere as the creator of the No More Boxes Movement, the antidote to division and black and white thinking.

Rúna Magnúsdóttir a.k.a. Rúna Magnús is the Icelandic leadership coach, branding expert and mentor who helps thought-leaders and change-makers to become better, bolder, and brighter as the leading light in their industry.

Today we talk about all things branding, identity politics, and how entrepreneurship can be used as a force for positive change in the world.

This is a fascinating conversation you won’t want to miss so I can’t wait to introduce you to Rúna! First…

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Rúna Magnusdottir is a passionate forward thinking entrepreneur and branding expert. Rúna is known for helping leaders, change-makers and the new era politicians explore, challenge and break free from their socially conditioned boxes. She helps brand

their ‘X-Factor’ – the assets which make them unique, enabling them to become better, bolder and brighter as the leading light in their industries – without being constrained by self-imposed or society-imposed boxes.

She’s also the Author of Branding Your X-Factor and co-author of the book, The Story of Boxes, the Good, the Bad & the Ugly.

A passionate leader for social change, Rúna played a leading role in Iceland’s National Assembly where the nation’s leaders collectively worked together to reinvigorate the country following the 2008 economic meltdown. The group tapped into the values and future vision of the island nation and transformed Iceland’s economy by branding their uniqueness, or their X-factor, as Rúna calls it.

Today she also shares what it was like seeing first-hand the immediate benefit and long-term results of a whole nation working collectively to discover who they authentically are, the outcome of this single assembly became one of the cornerstones of her successful personal branding process. She co-created the No More Boxes Movement with her business partner & co-author Nicholas Haines following a speaking engagement at the Impact Leadership Global Summit 2018 at the United Nations HQ in New York.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Runa Magnusdottir.

Melinda Wittstock:

Runa, welcome to Wings.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Thank you, Melinda. I’m so excited to spend this time with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Me too. I love that you’re breaking down all these boxes, all these preconceived stories that we tell each other about each other, because we have more than one box, or maybe no boxes at all. So tell me how you came to create the No More Boxes Movement?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well I can tell you, this was my big matrix moment. You see, I was invited to speak at a conference held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, back in March 2017, along with my change-makers. And we were on this conference talking about the UN Sustainable Development Goals on sustainability, peace, and gender equality. And one of my change-makers, he is on this panel, and he gets this question around, “Why haven’t we reached these goals?” And his answer just blew my mind. His answer was very simple. He said, “Well, it is because we keep putting people into boxes.” And although it’s a way to really save our brain a few calories to understand the world, the consequences of that is that we expect people to live and behave as these boxes.

And I’m telling you, Melinda, I’m [inaudible 00:01:36], and at first I’m thinking, “Wow.” For as long as I can remember, I’ve been an advocate for gender equality. I am a past vice president for the largest association of women business leaders in Iceland, I serve on a number of international boards for gender equality, for women in business. This has been my thing. And as I’m sitting there at the UN, a thing in my tummy that has been really bugging me for some time… I mean coming from Iceland… And I don’t know if you know this, but Iceland has been number one in the world for gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum, for I think the past 11 or 12 years. So we’ve accomplished things, okay? But even though we have accomplished things, what was always troubling me, was the more accomplishments, as we see it, the more gap I saw between genders, the more division I was seeing. And that was not the thing that I was personally striving for. Doing my work has not been about division, it’s about getting the best out of people.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well we’ve seen more, and more, and more division. Say social media, which was supposed to bring us together, has actually divided us. It’s put all that on steroids.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Oh, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you see people really adopting sort of, I guess an identity politics, or thinking about their identity, looking for differences between each other, as to empower themselves, rather than looking for what’s in common.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well, yeah. And it’s like we’re so hard-wired for this, so hard-wired, that we do this within the first seven seconds we meet another person. We judge them. Do you know how many judgements we’ll make by… We make an 11 different judgment, the first time we meet another person, in the first seven seconds. Basically we have boxed them into 11 different boxes.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so interesting, because you come at this as a branding expert and branding world. I mean the one thing that your told, is exactly what you’ve just said, your first impression is everything. But also, you need to be differentiated to stand out, right? How does breaking down these boxes square with what you do in branding?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well here’s the thing, when we start to break down the boxes, basically what we’re doing, is we’re starting to set free who you were born to be, less of who that person that you have been conditioned to be. Because, we’re all so conditioned. I mean, we’re even conditioned in what we’re expected to be before we’re born. I mean most people now, they know the gender, even before a child is born. And the minute you know the gender, consciously or unconsciously, there’s the color pink or blue. It just basically starts to develop, and then you’re born, and you’re expected to behave this way, because you were a boy, and you were a girl, or you’re born as a Jewish, or you’re born into the Christian religion, or you’re born with this race, or whatever it is. So we’re conditioned by it.

And at the same time, it’s all these layers that we put in front of us, and then at the same time, we talk about, “You need to be authentic, and you need to stand out and see what [inaudible 00:05:40] you.” How on earth are you going to do that, when everything in your system is saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no. I have to look this way. I have to do this, because I’m conditioned to be that?” So I found this as a branding person, when I switched my thinking, [inaudible 00:05:59] I will admit that it took me a little while. But when I saw that, I thought, “Yeah.” I mean, some people don’t want really to look at it as to jump out of their boxes, but at least you expand them, so that you get some breathing space. Can you just see how many of us are just locked in? And we can hardly get oxygen, because it just has to be this way. And we’re not feeling very good about it are we?

Melinda Wittstock:

One of the things that’s interesting though too, is to embrace diversity, embrace difference. And I mean, it’s what makes life much more interesting. So there are these contradictory pressures here on one hand to fit in, and be the expected, because we have this, probably an existential fear of being cast from the tribe in some way, right? We want to fit in, so we, sometimes as people, select our own boxes, and trap ourselves there, as opposed to trying to transcend them. So when we look at the impact of this, say on business leaders. You’re an executive coach, you’re a branding expert, and this podcast being about entrepreneurship, how do these boxes trap the entrepreneur?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Oh. Just one thing. What’s the first thing that you think about when you think about being an entrepreneur?

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, the thing that does come to mind I think, for a lot of people, particularly investors who invest on [inaudible 00:07:40], is a guy in a hoodie in his [inaudible 00:07:43], inventing something, right? So eating ramen noodles or whatever, right?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly. That pops up in your head.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Or when you think of someone in tech, you think of a guy in a dark room lit by blue light, with a whole bunch of empty Red Bull cans, and empty pizza boxes around. I mean, there are all these kinds of images that we have that get repeated, and women often get left out of that picture, because our story is a little bit different. And I come at this as a tech entrepreneur as well. And I certainly don’t fit those patterns, right? So on one hand, I’ve seen women over generations try and fit themselves into an existing pattern, which doesn’t really work, because it’s not authentic.

And then on the other hand, you can easily kind of victimize, that you’re left out of the box that you want to be in, right? Or you create a whole new box. So there’s you trying to succeed in an ecosystem, and that ecosystem you can move the needle a little bit, or change that ecosystem somehow, but you’ve also got to swim… and I started mixing my metaphors here… but you [inaudible 00:08:59] swim in the ocean that you’re in, right? So, what’s the best way for women entrepreneurs to navigate all that?

Runa Magnusdottir:

I think it goes back to this journey that we’re all on, of discovering, “Who am I really?” And just enjoying that journey. I say journey, because I don’t think we graduate from this.

Melinda Wittstock:

No. That would be true, certainly in my own life.

Runa Magnusdottir:

And here I am, I’m 60 years old, and I’m discovering things that… I had told myself that I had an upbringing that was very liberal. I could do this and that. And that’s how I see the world. That’s my window. And I still see I’m conditioned, and I still see how I am doing it myself. It’s the very, very simple thing. You know how we say things like, “Oh, I’m not this.” “I’m not a morning person.” Or, “I’m not good with money.” We kind of put those labels on us.

And for as long as I can remember… I know this is maybe a little bit outside of the conversation, but still, yet I’m just in this. I’ve been saying to myself for probably decades, I’ve been saying, “I don’t know how to bake. I am not a baker. I’m a terrible baker.” I put this on me. And then I thought, “Runa, why are you saying that? What are you expecting to get in return? And what if you would turn this around and just become a brilliant baker?” And that has been literally what I’ve been doing this summer. Thanks to COVID and everything, you have time for things.

Melinda Wittstock:

For [crosstalk 00:11:01].

Runa Magnusdottir:

And then I’m thinking, “I think I am going to be a freaking amazing baker. I am going to prove that to myself, that I don’t have to be labeled. I’m labeling myself as something.”

Melinda Wittstock:

I think we often give up on things before we even start. [inaudible 00:11:16] impact on young girls, where they somehow convince themselves they’re not good at math, or they convince themselves that they’re not really good at ball sports-

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

… or they’re not really this or that, and it becomes so… I don’t know. It’s a trap of our own making.

Runa Magnusdottir:

It is. What we’ve noticed in these four years since we’ve started the movement, we wrote the book nine months after this, my aha matrix moment was, we published the book called The Story of Boxes, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Like the film, only better. Because when we started to look into boxes, we saw, “Oh yeah, boxes can be really, really good.” I mean, we can feel really good about that. We have our little group, we have our friends, we have our schoolmates, we have our team at work, and we feel safe. We feel we can be ourselves to this level. It’s this thing that we do. So boxes can be good. But the same box can turn into be bad, and even ugly, and for anyone that has gone through a relationship that didn’t go well, knows how one relationship box can move from being really good, fantastic, to being an ugly one.

So it is really about this awareness. It’s about this self-awareness of, “Who am I? What am I doing? The thing that I’m doing, why is it important? Am I on autopilot thing, and I’m just doing things because I’ve always done it, or am I stopping and saying, ‘Hey, hey, hey. What’s the point to it?'” Just like with me, with my little baking experiment. “What’s the point of saying this?” And it could be with entrepreneurship, “What’s the point of saying I will never have an idea for any business?” You’re just saying that.

Melinda Wittstock:

So we’re always telling ourselves these stories based on the boxes we architect for ourselves, but then with the constant pressure of people always categorizing us. As someone who’s lived my life trying to break down boxes, or I always had an awareness pretty early in life that I had many. I didn’t really want to be categorized. I was the type of kid in high school who was able to be friends with the jocks, or the goths, or the this, or the that, and I never wanted to be in any particular group. You know what I mean?

And I realize that, that is something that even in a business context, where people try and put your business into a box, or into a category, and sort as a person, …I feel personally, and I’m always trying to defy these boxes that other people are putting on me. And by extension any of my businesses as well, because they want to neatly categorize you, and file you away somewhere, where it’s easier for them. So in that context though, assuming that you have this consciousness, how do you help or guide others to sort of see you beyond the constraints, I guess, of their own thinking, or their own box thinking, or their own filing system for you?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well, here’s the thing that… I love what you’re saying, Melinda, around you didn’t want it to be defined by the groups at high school. I think there is some layers to this. I want to just give you one example, that I think is a really, really good example, and a blind spot that many people recognize. So a client of mine came to me some time ago, and she had a business. She was a funeral taker actually, an undertaker. And loved her job. Absolutely loved it. And she said, “Runa, I love what I’m doing, but I have a problem, and I don’t know how to get around it.” So I asked, “Okay, so what’s the problem?” She said, “Okay. I am a funeral taker, a undertakers, and for some reason I also love motivational speaking, and I am actually quite good at it. And if I’m speaking to a group, I am normally booked for two or three other places immediately.”

So she’s obviously a very good motivational speaker. And she said, “I’m thinking, do I need one website for my funeral business, and another one as me as a motivational speakers?” I think this would be probably something that I think most people would be concerned with, right? But I said, “Okay, tell me about your business, and what do you really want from your business?” And so she talks about it. I can hear her passion about everything that she’s doing, and how she’s taking care of people that are coming close to leaving this life. And I can literally feel it in my bones. This woman has something special. And see, in her own mind, she’s dividing it into two things.

When we talk deeper about this topic, she says to me, “Oh my God, Runa. I am seeing things so clearly right now.” And I could just see her… I mean, she [inaudible 00:17:03]. I could see she’s tearing up, and she says, “I don’t know if I dare to say this out loud, but could I be the motivational undertaker?” And I said, “Yeah, why not? Is anyone in the business doing that? Do you want to stand out? Do you want to give that service? And as an addition, you’re going to be talking about life, and how it is to live life, and live life to the fullest until you die.” And that is her business today. She’s actually-

Melinda Wittstock:

I think it’s just a common conversation among entrepreneurs, just to find the business that is actually aligned with your purpose, and not only what you love to do, and what you’re good at, but what is that curriculum? What is that mission that you have as a person? What are the problems that perhaps you’ve experienced yourself, that you’re destined to go and solve for other people? So at the end of the day, and we were talking a little bit about awareness, entrepreneurship to me, it’s a consciousness journey ultimately. It’s just a tool that helps you along your way, and it’s constantly being refined, but helping people to really find the thing that they love to do. If they’ve been trapped in some sort of box that prevents them from seeing it, that’s pretty tricky. So what are the first steps that you lead people through in your coaching practice, for instance, to help people find that correct path that is ideal for them?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Boxes are all made up, okay? We make them all up. So it’s really about finding what you feel is holding you back. “What is holding me back,” and whatever that is, if we go a little bit deeper underneath that, we can find the box that you have told yourself, “You have to be this in order to achieve.” We always put something together. So instead of looking in that way, we can actually go, “Okay…” If you let go of what you need to do, and you go into the minds of a, “What do I want? What do I really, really want in life?” and you put your focus on what you want, and who you want to be, more than what you need to do, you’re actually helping the universe to help you on the way to get where you want to be.

And there’s a big difference in that. On your way, you start to see the boxes that I hope… You have been allowing the boxes to hold you back, you just probably were not aware of it most likely. I mean, 95% of us, we are unaware of. But you start to be able to be kind to yourself, and you go more in your flow, rather than being very rigid of, “This is how it has to be done.” No one saying that it easy, but who on earth told us that life was supposed to be easy?

Melinda Wittstock:

So when we play it out in the context of the, say gender conversation with women in business, I see a lot of women kind of holding back. Launching, let’s say for instance, a small business, instead of launching a big business, right? Where it’s basically the same thing you got to do pretty much. A lot of the same things. But hold themselves back, or have a really hard time creating business models that are scalable, right? That will inherently scale. They get tied up often in thinking that they have to do it all, rather than really understanding leverage, or get stuck in this task treadmill, endless to-do lists, and have nothing left for themselves. So these patterns here. And they are based on the boxes, the sort of socialization of that. So I really think women have the opportunity to completely remake and transform business, but have to break out of those boxes kind of internally.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Our intention for many women, let’s say for the past 40, 50 years even, has been around education. And I’m talking about the Western world, we can’t generalize all over the world [inaudible 00:22:04].

Melinda Wittstock:

Education, [inaudible 00:22:04] credentials, proving your worth.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly. And we’re so used to being told. So we’ve been told, “You can’t really go into that. First you need an education. I’m sorry, baby. First you need an education.” So women go out, and they just go to universities, and before we know it there are more women than men that are graduating from universities all over the place. And then you go, “Ah, sorry. It wasn’t really the education. You actually need the education, and you need experience, darling, before you do anything.” And so the focus always becomes on what I’ve been told to do, you’re never guided in, “Who are you, and what’s your strengths, and where do you want to blossom?”

Melinda Wittstock:

This is one of the reasons why I think a lot of women go into entrepreneurship much later in life, after they’ve been seriously credentialed. Ultimately they’ve tried to innovate within larger institutions, that have been frustrated. And they’ve maybe had their kids or whatever. So many women do go into entrepreneurship later in life. It takes a little bit longer to get the confidence together, I think, to just go do it. Or somehow we’re waiting for someone to give us permission, or the queen to anoint us, or I don’t know.

Runa Magnusdottir:

I think it could be everything that you talked about, and it’s different from anyone of us. And some women feel that they are safe to do it at a certain point, or they just wake up, and they say, “Why have I been acting like the good girl for so long? And no one has actually rewarded me.” And so many have forgotten to reward themselves, because whatever you put your attention on will grow, and if your attention is on, “I have to do this to be recognized, to be valued, to be seen.” And then many have been told that, “You should not stand out.” I don’t know. I know it’s a little bit different often here in Iceland than in other places, but I hear many women say that they get all afraid thinking about being ambitious. What is that? What’s wrong with being ambitious?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Well, I think women are afraid to show their strength perhaps, because to be strong, you can get that label-

Runa Magnusdottir:

You get that label. Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

… if you stand up for yourself, if you articulate things, if you go for it like that. So it’s an interesting debate in terms of how women also are most effective in navigating it. So it’s partly being yourself, and it’s partly being able to change the rules, or stand up, or articulate your strengths in an effective way. And you’re swimming in a pond, right? It’s really complicated [inaudible 00:25:23].

Runa Magnusdottir:

It is. And the thing is, and if I can throw it in there, this is not only women.

Melinda Wittstock:

Of course.

Runa Magnusdottir:

This is being a human being. And I think that it changes a lot when we take this woman bit out of it. So if we start to talk about human beings on this journey, those who want to become entrepreneur, and how different we are, or whatever it is that we want to be, there is a different conversation that takes place. And the more that I have gone into this, the more I think we need to put our focus into that perspective, because it takes so many labels off and it takes those stereotypes off. And if I can give you one example. I was speaking at a online conference the other day, and one of the speaker was talking about that men don’t know how to show emotions statement, that I don’t agree with.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think men show emotion all the time. They might show it a little bit differently than women [crosstalk 00:26:41].

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

[inaudible 00:26:42] or they’ve been trained in some cases, partly a generational thing [crosstalk 00:26:47].

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well, she was talking about emotion as to be invulnerable, to show if they’re feeling vulnerable, feeling weak in any way, and that they can’t. They can’t show it, they can’t talk about it. That’s just how men [inaudible 00:27:10]. And I think if we believe that’s how men are, then we treat people accordingly. We treat men accordingly. We treat that man as human being with no emotions.

Melinda Wittstock:

Which is terrible for the man, because it denies his reality, which is, everyone has an emotional life.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, it’s not good for anybody. I mean, I think these things are changing. I think, as men feel more free to be able to express their emotion, it’s healthier for them, it’s also healthier for women, it just leads to more of what we have in common. It just makes so much sense. One of the things I want to make sure we have time to talk about, Runa, though as well, is what you did in Iceland. So after 2008, Iceland was one of the countries that was completely economically destroyed. You were part of the team that kind of brought it back by finding what was Iceland’s X-factor. Talk to me a little bit about that, and how all the No More Boxes kind of influenced your thinking, or everything that you had done before as an entrepreneur, to turn the country around? I’m fascinated by that.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Well you see… I know I’m generalizing, I’m aware of that, but let’s just go for that. Prior to the economic crash, Icelanders as a nation had put ourselves into a box that we were some sort of financial wizards, that we were such fabulous people when it came to finances. And that was where we saw our value and our worth. And then, “Hey, here comes an economic crash.” That actually starts in the US, in the Lehman Bank. We [inaudible 00:29:12] have to go through that, and all of that crisis, because we are a universal world. And here we are as an island, all of a sudden we think… Before that, we thought we had an ally. We thought US was our ally. We thought Britain was our ally. We thought the Nordic countries where our allies. But no. We were not anyone’s friends. And this was a big shock for a little nation of a little over 300,000 people.

And of course, our government was trying to do what they could do. So it was a group of people from across the island, that had different backgrounds, came together… it was a grassroot thing… and the idea of pulling a whole day, as a General National Assembly together. We trained facilitators for days, to be able to coach these people. We basically set up a whole day, where 1,500 people from across the island, were picked out, just like they’re picking out when you take a survey.

So we had the farmer, we had the cleaning lady, we had the minister, we had the MP, we had the CEOs. We had basically anyone that represents this country coming together for a whole day. And through conversations, we looked through, “Who are we really as a nation? Who do we want to be? How do we want to go from here?” So we figured out our 12 values as a nation. We figured out, “What do we want to do?” Our future vision for all the different things, for schooling system, for health system, for tourism, you name it. And every single idea that anyone on that day put down on a piece of paper, was kept and filed. And this I believe, was one of the things that turned our economy around.

Not saying that this was the thing, on the contrary, because that doesn’t happen like this. But for me, it was an experience of just witnessing and seeing when our minds collectively come together, and we search collectively for the solution. There is something magical about that, and [inaudible 00:32:10] it’s magical about it, when our minds are all into that same direction. And we then start to work with the universal law, you can even call it. Because after this, we got so lucky that there was, okay, no eruption in Iceland of a volcano that very few people can say its name, maybe you remember that, because [crosstalk 00:32:38]-

Melinda Wittstock:

I do remember that. I remember it disrupted all the flights all over the place.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Exactly. And here’s the thing. So we’ve been in the news for catastrophic… We lost everything because of the economic downturn. But then this volcano comes in, and again Iceland is in the news, and we’re like, “Oh no, again.” But this time, somehow it was to our benefits, because our tourism started to bloom. And here’s the thing, when we let go of the thought that we were such brilliant financial wizards, and we started to look at, “Who are we at the core?” we saw that the things that made us special as a nation, was in fact the thing that we speak a language that only, oh well, close to 400,000 people speak, was the thing that we believe in elves and trolls. That makes us special. But we were so sure that we would not be accepted if we admitted that, and therefore we wanted to show the world that we were the financial wizards. Do you see that the same thing happens to us as individual, when we think that we have to be perceived as something or someone, which we’re not in the core?

Melinda Wittstock:

So this is an interesting thing, because this is talking about branding in a way, or differentiation, coming kind of from within, whether it’s from within a person, or within a society, and so that differentiation. But then, when someone can’t categorize someone easily, they feel uncomfortable. It gets them a little bit out of their comfort zone. And that’s probably a good thing in a lot of ways, it leads to growth, but like I say, it’s uncomfortable. So for people who are daring just to be different, or be themselves, what are the implications of that, because there’s a lot of fear around it, of just literally not being accepted, not fitting in?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Absolutely. Being alone. I think for many it’s this fear of abandoned, being alone, and not being accepted. Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

So how do you walk that? So say you say, “Okay. I as a person defy all categories, defy all boxes,” and you see that it does have implications for how people treat you, or see you, or whatever, how do you manage that change in yourself and in other?

Runa Magnusdottir:

It doesn’t happen overnight, number one. You’ll never go deeper than you want to go. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we talk about, normal boxes lifestyle, one of the things apart from self-awareness, is to have humor for yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s vital.

Runa Magnusdottir:

And it is vital.

Melinda Wittstock:

[inaudible 00:35:34]. I’m just saying, I actually have a reputation for laughing at a lot of things [inaudible 00:35:40].

Runa Magnusdottir:

So do I. And here’s the thing, we’ve told ourselves… So, it’s a lot of bullshit, excuse my language, that we told ourselves. That we have to be able to lighten up and say, “What? Where did that come from? It’s a made up thing. I just made something up.” And if you can do that with that level of energy, and that [inaudible 00:36:09], rather than, “Oh my God. I always do this,” it’s going to work differently for you. So I at least choose to go that way, and I help my clients to do it more in that way, to kind of take that layer off, and just to get to know that beautiful person that you are in the core, and take care of that thing. Often that’s just the little girl, or the little boy, that we once were, and we’re still trying to be accepted for whatever reason it was when we were whatever age it was. And just realizing we can actually change our life by changing our story.

Melinda Wittstock:

So true. So as we start to wrap up, Runa, I want to make sure people know very specifically what you do, the type of clients you work with, and what kind of transformation that you’re really helping with, whether they’re on the branding side, or kind of executive leadership sort of side of things?

Runa Magnusdottir:

Thank you for giving me that opportunity. So I work with leaders. I call them the new paradigm leaders, entrepreneur, and politicians, who really want to become [inaudible 00:37:37], and brighter as the leading light in their industry. And I do that with my leadership coaching and mentoring, and my training. One of the things that we do for groups… because what I just said, is a lot with one-on-one work… but for groups, we do what is called The Game of Boxes, which is literally a game that you play on the internet for 21 days. And this game is designed to help us to explore, challenge, and break free from our social conditioning, and really, really, really is a fun game. [crosstalk 00:38:22]-

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s great. Where do you go to play that game? Is it under [crosstalk 00:38:26]?

Runa Magnusdottir:

If you go to the website thegameofboxes.world, you can see everything there. We’re going to be playing the next game in November, and we’re playing as well with individual groups privately in the meantime, [crosstalk 00:38:42].

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s fantastic. And so how can people best find you and work with you? Do you take clients from all over the world, or is it limited to Iceland?

Runa Magnusdottir:

No, no. My clients are mixed in every way. Best thing is to go to my website, runamagnus, R-U-N-A-M-A-G-N-U-S, .com.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, Runa, thank you so much for putting your wings on with me today and having a great conversation.

Runa Magnusdottir:

Thank you, Melinda.