Vilbert
Gústafsson.

I have had to rethink how I want to live and work more than once. I fully expect to do it again. In fact, I am counting on it.

I have built businesses, worked with people and companies through growth and difficult circumstances, experienced both success and setbacks, and had to start over more than once.

My background is varied. I have worked at sea, in construction, business management, finance, negotiations, corporate restructuring and entrepreneurship.

Some things I learned at school. Others life taught me rather more directly.

Fatherhood and what matters

My children have always been at the centre of my life, and their well-being means everything to me.

Fatherhood has taught me more about responsibility, love, fear, hope and human nature than any textbook. It has also sparked a deep interest in attachment, values, boundaries and how our experiences shape us.

Losing my son is an experience that has shaped me profoundly. It changed not only how I think about grief and loss, but also how I think about time, family, responsibility and what it means to live well.

Perhaps it has also deepened my need to understand. To ask more, learn more and be less certain that I already have the answer.

I do not know!

I have long said that if I ever write a book, it should probably be called “I do not know!”

Over the years, it has become increasingly clear to me that not knowing is no weakness. Quite the opposite. “I do not know” opens the door to curiosity, learning and better questions.

I have often embarked on projects without knowing exactly what the answer would be. Experience has taught me that the search for truth rarely begins with having the right answer.

It begins with daring to ask the right questions.

Perhaps that is one reason I have never stopped learning.

A lifelong learner

I have pursued education in different fields, from marine engineering and transport studies to business administration and an MBA.

Since then, I have continued learning wherever curiosity has led me. Among other things, I completed a programme in artificial intelligence and business strategy at MIT Sloan Executive Education.

My interest in children, attachment and family patterns also led me to study with Child Attachment and Family Trauma Training.

In recent years, I have also put considerable work into my own growth, including focused coaching within the Tony Robbins community. That work has been less about adding something to my CV and more about examining my own attitudes, decisions, relationships, money and how I actually want to live.

I do not see learning as something you finish. For me, it is a way of seeing the world from a new perspective.

What I write about

I write about what I have learned, what I am thinking about and what I am creating.

• Life, values and the decisions that shape us.
• Business, operations and creating value.
• Money, building assets and financial freedom.
• Technology, artificial intelligence and the changes they bring.
• Human behaviour, relationships and personal growth.
• Ideas I am testing, sometimes before I know where they will lead.

Why I write

I do not write because I think I have found all the answers.

Quite the opposite.

Writing helps me think. To take an experience, an idea or a question and try to see it a little more clearly.

Sometimes it is about business. Sometimes money or technology. Sometimes family, values, freedom or simply how we want to spend the time we have.

So this site is not about a single profession.

It is a collection of what I have learned, what I am thinking about and what I am creating.

Perhaps the common thread is simply curiosity about how to build better things. Businesses, ideas and lives.

Let’s keep talking

You can reach me at vilbert@vilbert.is.