Mehr Einsatz Wagen Folge 80:The Human Side of Health: Why Hope Matters More Than Numbers, with Lars Münter

What steers health systems?

Should we add rewards for being healthy?

Why are imperfections worth more than results?

Today’s episode dives deeper than just the answers. Together with our guest, we explore:

Communication as a catalyst for health: Why motivation and understanding are as vital as data and technology in driving sustainable health behavior.

Deferred compensation and healthcare culture: How to inspire people to invest today for a healthier, happier self-decades from now.

The Wellbeing Economy: How the Nordic Wellbeing Academy translates wellbeing principles into measurable, actionable strategies for organizations and policy.

Innovation through humility: Why accepting failure and funding eccentric, high-risk ideas are essential to solving the healthcare challenges of tomorrow.

Our guest Lars Münter shares how his journey from aspiring astronomer to health communicator shaped his mission: helping individuals, organizations, and societies move from healthcare to wellbeing care.

“We create hope, so that people dare to dream that it could be different.” – Lars Münter

This episode is both philosophical and practical — touching on economics, psychology, and social innovation, yet always anchored in the human experience. It’s about shifting from curing illness to cultivating wellbeing, and from managing systems to inspiring people.

Listen and discuss with us in episode 80, on why the “motivational infrastructure of health” relies on communication above all.

Schreibt uns Eure Kommentare gerne an MehrEinsatzWagen@healthcarefuturists.com und vernetzt euch mit uns auf unseren Social Media Kanälen.

Transcript

Yeah, we're sitting in Gasstein in the city center in our Health Care Maker Mobile and have the pleasure to have an interview with Lars Münter and it says Nordic Wellbeing Academy. Lars, a  jack-of-all-trades in healthcare or the Swiss Army Knife

the Nordic Swiss Army Knife, if I may call you so, or a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Lars, tell us something about yourself, who are you? 

Well, I, uhm, I have a background in, in health communication. Uhm, I got that because I originally wanted to be a head of communication for the European Space Agency. Lars, I studied Astronomy and I thought, well, I, I mean, I, I wanna go to the stars, I'm not really cut out to be an astronaut, but maybe I can do something about that, uh, still. Alright, so, uh, uh, so, I, uh, so, I, uh, so, I guess, uh, so, I decided to go a different route, uh, still being passionate about, uh, uh, the element of, uh, dissemination, dissemination of science, dissemination of, of complex issues, I moved into communication. 

And, and at one point, I was then naive enough to think, uh, I can really make a change when it comes to dissemination regarding infectious diseases. 

Um, and when you work with infectious diseases, um, um, and when you work with infectious diseases, one of the elements that you should also think about is the, the power that the individual really has to make changes, uh, we saw that clearly, clearly, of course, in the pandemic. 

Um, while there's a lot of technical solutions, data-driven, um, uh, initiatives that needs to happen, too, uh, unless you get the individual to be part of the solution, it doesn't actually work. 

The entire sort of system falls apart, um, and that is where, again, communication comes into place. You have to motivate these people, you have to explain why they need to do something in a particular way, why they keep, have to keep doing it for, for, uh, months on end. Um, and you can also see, uh, the effects of when that fails, uh, either mistrust or, uh, wrongful use of substances or methods, um, uh, very, very sort of conflicting strategies sometimes because people have different ideas. Um, so there's a clear need, um, and then sort of then for, for, for all of those different topics, again, the element is how can we better explain what people should care about, could care about, and how can we motivate them to also care about that, uh, especially when we're talking about things that do not exist yet. Um, every, every, every healthcare improvement that we would like to make, every healthcare initiative that we would like to take often leads people to dare to go a step towards something that do not exist yet. Um, my mother was a dentist. Uh, if you want uh, if you want the outcome of good health, health, health, uh, oral health, you need to start, if you will, early and, and keep on doing it. And if you're good at it, uh, the, the reward will get, will be given to you in about 60 or 70 years, uh, IE your teeth. Um, if you don't do it, you'll experience sort of a different route, but it depends upon your willingness to, uh, go to what you're Uh, go towards that prize, uh, and continue to go towards that prize. Uh, you will not build the pyramids by not laying the first stone. You will not go to the moon by not, uh, sort of doing the basic research. Uh, so motivating people to go towards that future is, is one of them. 

So it's about deferred compensation. There is, uh, the, the story that when they started founding or building the dome of Cologne, the, the first builder said, look, I will not live to see the church being finished. And, uh, right, he was because it took a couple of hundred years, probably longer than he anticipated in the first place. However, um, how do we deal with deferred compensation? How, especially in healthcare, you know, because the person I might be in 20, 30, 40 years from now is something, somebody completely strange to me. You know, even stranger than the guy that just crosses the road here. 

Well, uh, we human beings, uh, seem to have a capacity to actually deal with that. I mean, we're willing to work at quite a long time. Uh, when we get children, we have no idea about how they might turn out, but we have the hope and dream that it will be maybe not paradise, but at least it'll be good. Um, but we, we live by certain myths. Often we live by, uh, certain concepts and ideas about that future that we're working towards either as a, as an individual, as part of a tribe, your family, as part of an organization. Your workplace as part of a community, your country. I mean, there's a, there's some myths that, that sort of drives and motivates you to, to do that. Um, some would refer to the same as a social contract. There's sort of, I can do so and so, and I can expect reasonably that distance, this and that will happen. Um, but these, these myths are also some that we should be mindful. I mean, they're not, um, uh, God given. They're not sort of dug up from the earth or somewhere, they are constructed by ourselves. Um, uh, some of them are really pervasive and are wrong. Uh, uh, trickle down economy, a myth that you probably heard about and has a lot of power in, uh, especially in the U. S. for, uh, constructing their economy. And it's false. It's false. So, give us an, give us a clue. What, what, what, what do you think about it? The trickle down economy? Yes. The trickle down, well, the trickle down economy, uh, is a, is, is a fallacy in the sense that it assumes that as long as you have, um, some, uh, a lot of accumulated wealth at the top, it will trickle down like gravity. So that, uh, every poor individual will benefit somehow from the, the high accumulation of wealth at the top. Um, if you look at the U. S. Uh, present day, clearly the system doesn't work. Um, you have the highest accumulation of wealth in history and the average American, uh, sort of have a, either a, a flatlining, uh, income. Uh, I think it's flatlined from something like mid seventies. Uh, so de facto, they, uh, have to, many of them to have, uh, additional jobs just to sort of, uh, pay the Um, my point there though is not a necessary talk about economy, but the, the strong sort of power that you have in the myths. Um, currently for instance, we're also slightly in a, in a myth about the power of the medical model. Um, is one where we often lead to conversations about, oh, we need to invest in more hospitals or we need to invest in more We need to, and so on, um, um, it, because we have been used to talking about, uh, the enormous importance of healthcare. Uh, which is sort of true. Um, but, um, it's slightly misleading also because the high importance or the reason why we started by investing in healthcare in the first place was not to construct more hospitals. Uh, it was because we wanted more health and we've been sort of forgetting that a lot of the different elements, uh, like primary care, community health or, uh, preventive, uh, initiatives do not necessarily or often not at all happen in hospitals. Which hat do you currently have on? 

Is it the Danish, Nordish, um, hat or is this the European hat? Because from a German perspective, uh, we tend to look to Denmark like, oh my God, they've got, they've got it all figured out. And, uh, they've got these innovation departments and then, uh, they, they know what they need and they build what they need. Whereas in Germany, uh, it's, uh, so much particular interest coming in. Um, so which hat do you have on right now? 

Saying that, uh, mostly a European hat, I suppose, but, uh, but of course, um, uh, I, I travel, uh, the, the Swiss army knife get to travel quite a lot. So there's different perspectives here. And of course, um, I, I, uh, I have heard about the, the German perspective of Denmark and, and I can tell you that, uh, there's a little bit of stuff that we need to figure out too. Uh, and, and while we might be, uh, flying first class towards, uh, the, the, uh, sort of the precipice, it doesn't mean that we also do not have a very, there's, there's, there's, there's fire in our platform too. Uh, as well, um, the recent, uh, re, uh, redefining strategy for Danish healthcare, uh, has for instance, as it's core that they, it wants, uh, to have 5,000 more doctors by 2035. 

That would be cool. Um, problem number one, uh, how do you find 5,000 qualified individuals that would study these elements and be willing by the way, uh, to work in a, in an industry that's, um, well, um, infamous for its low work, uh, life balance. That's point number two. Um, and we're talking about, I don't know, Gen Z, um, it's not really what they, they are passionate about. 

And the low life work balance is also true in Denmark just to, to probably get rid of a couple of myths that linger around in 

Well, it might, my, my, um, again, though, work-life balance is one where, I mean, if you, if you see that your neighbor, uh, will, are able to, uh, play with his or her kids. And you are not, um, it doesn't mean, it doesn't actually then follow that just because you have better work, uh, conditions than your German, uh, counterpart, that you feel that you are satisfied. Um, you compare yourself with the community that you're in, uh, often, uh, and you might get a better salary than your neighbor. Who's a, I don't know, uh, a baker, uh, but still, uh, the, the true commodity for our generation or the next generation anyway, I'm getting older by the day, um, is time. Uh, they have seen into the ghost of materialism and seen that it doesn't actually deliver what they truly want. They want, uh, quality time, uh, and they have, uh, and it's different to the generation before them. Um, they're calling the, out the, if you will, the BS on quality time thinking that it can be done in five minutes at the end of the day and saying, no, this actually has to be called to what I do, uh, for it to work profoundly though. Uh, and that is one of the ways that I'm working with a normal wellbeing academy is of course that, um, when you go from a focus on health, maybe to the focus on wellbeing, it's also one where you, for instance, go from a, a very, um, outcome focused to one that's more process focused, or maybe to be in a simpler term from hunter gatherer to farmer, uh, hunter gatherers, of course, really good at, at making a killing. And, uh, and, uh, succeeding in, uh, and, uh, succeeding in, in the short term, but for someone who sort of have a reasonable, um, expectation of maybe go getting to, uh, to be a hundred years old, 110 years old. Um, it, it, it's not really that, um, appealing to work in a work environment when, where you have an idea that maybe you can do this for about 15 or 20 years before you are burned out. So there's an element there. No, it is not paradise, but to, to go to the story about the 5,000 doctors, uh, there's a recruitment issue. 

Then you need to train them, even if you've recruited them, but at this point, there's only a plan for, for, um, an, an extra 200, um, open spaces at university per year. So, uh, we can both do the math. 200 times 10, uh, to, we'll get to 20, 35. That's not 5,000. That's not 5,000. And, and even counting that each of the 200 will actually complete the training. Um, and, and stay in healthcare and we'll stay in healthcare too. And also, um, if we start now, that's good. That's good. But, uh, uh, a, uh, specialized doctor takes about 12 years. So, the, the math of the strategy is off. Uh, and, and that is one where, when we are talking about, um, that type of investment and that type of solution, the true, um, element that we should also consider, what could we also have done? Um, we could invest a similar more amount of money in different types of social initiatives, um, to focus on loneliness, for instance, as a very social determinant of health. We could focus on different types of, uh, creative uses. I, I, I suggested at one point, um, to invest heavily in, uh, public, uh, open, uh, dance halls, uh, because it, it merges, uh, creativity, culture, uh, and also might be a solution to our fertility issue. Uh, so that you have, uh, people actually meeting in a, in a fun and engaging way. Um, and I can share a different example of, of options. We had, at one point, um, an observation in Denmark that our, one of our cancer rehabilitation offers for, especially for prostate cancer. Wasn't that appealing to the men? So, instead, uh, what has been done in Denmark is to build a national, uh, league of, uh, FC prostate football teams. Where the men do not go to physical rehabilitation in a, in a, in a, some kind of, um, a physiotherapy center. But instead, they go to a football team, a specialized football team. All the other players are prostate cancer patients too. Um, so they get a community of peers that they can actually talk to. It's like a self-help sporting group. Um, but it's also one where instead of, and I, I, there's a very few people that really would like to have a cancer diagnosis. But, but it doesn't necessarily follow that because you have that diagnosis that, uh, the message, uh, is that, uh, congratulations. Now your life is over for these men with the prostate cancer. Um, the, they actually say that, okay, I hate the cancer, but the other guys, one of the best things ever that ever, um, that has happened to me. It really motivates me to be active. It motivates me to talk about some of the issues, uh, at hand. And it's also one, um, I mean, um, you may have noticed that sometimes some men can be quite slow in opening up to talk about tough issues. Um, and this is certainly also true for some of these Danish men. Um, so instead of, for instance, having a, uh, uh, dedicated traditional rehabilitation course where you might have some kind of psychotherapy at month 10, or sorry, week 10, um, you, you, you do not say you have the peers there, but they're there for when you are ready to open up. Um, and it, they are not qualified psychotherapists, but their peers, and we respect the value of the lived experience as being one of the most profound and more and most powerful that you can actually access. Um, and besides for these men to talk about the, uh, the house problems, the sexual problems with a, um, with a, uh, female nurse, however qualified she might be sort of, uh, professionally. That's very daunting. So instead they can look across a football pitch and talk about a friend. They know that have a problem, uh, and be sort of, uh, embraced in that experience. So that's, there's a very different way of using civil society, uh, strengths to solve a medical problem, if you will, of rehabilitation, but seeing the power of a different format. And I can share a story of a similar sort of cases across Europe, song therapists in Portugal, really, really powerful mechanism for, uh, treating, um, groups of women that had, uh, been traumatized by, uh, by the loss of the sun, uh, but creative formats that, that works again and again. Now you don't fix, uh, a broken knee by a song therapist, uh, or at least I have, haven't heard about that song therapist yet. But, but there's a lot of what we do that are about, um, uh, human ailments either for rehabilitation or for trauma, trauma that they've had that, uh, uh, powerful forces for how they work with the ailment, the, the sort of the, um, the physical ailment that they have. Can we motivate them to, to go to physiotherapy. Then I mean, to be able to motivate them, the offer needs to be appealing somehow. It has to have some sense of community. Probably it has to be within hours that fit their schedule. It has to be and so on. And, and, and, um, so redesigning by using creative formats, uh, in other ways, are really one of the key values. It doesn't actually, and that's a fascinating element. It doesn't take much in terms of money, but it takes quite a lot in terms of designing and also trusting that some of these, uh, civil society, uh, actors that are not nurses, they're not doctors, they're not physiotherapists, but they might actually have part of the solution. Um, 

including some other fascinating elements, like, um, we really want someone to be, to help, um, identify skin cancer. Uh, skin cancer in your scalp, for instance. They're one of the only people that would ever look in your scalp. Maybe it might be a very dedicated wife, but otherwise it's the hairdresser. But the hairdresser needs to know what to look for. And I think it's in London, for instance, a specialized course for hairdressers so that they know the early symptoms. And also, of course, where to, to, um, to, uh, guide people towards when you see those early signs. Um, that doesn't make the, the hairdresser or a healthcare professional, but it does mean that they become part of a more holistic system. of using our, uh, our different elements in society. Um, yeah. 

And, and it increases health awareness. So, if we, for instance, uh, imagine a community health center. Uh, something that's in the middle of where people lived. And, um, we, we, we've done that model with the pharmacy and the supermarket and, um, a nursery that, uh, you can approach, uh, where you only see nurses. Uh, and with step up opportunities into doctor's offices, um, barbershops, uh, hairdressers, um, yoga studios, whatever. Because there's all, you know, and even cooking studios, because there's all contributes to, to the overall wellbeing. Maybe, maybe now that we're at that point, could you talk a little bit more about the work you do at the Nordic wellbeing Academy? Academy sounds like you are teaching. Uh, indeed. 

I mean, it has a dual meaning in the sense that, uh, yes, we, uh, we teach, uh, or, uh, create material that can Um, but we also have a gathering of experts. There are the, if you will, the Academy, um, another league of extraordinary, uh, not just gentlemen. There's gentle women there too, but, but also have that dual role, because obviously, uh, the founders of the Nordic wellbeing academy, academy, cannot know everything. Uh, I cannot have every lived experience. There's a limit of a limit to how many diseases I can have. Uh, so obviously there are things that I don't know, but, um, I'll do my best to sort of, uh, to transform the collective knowledge into something that's actionable. Uh, but what we do specifically, uh, at a, uh, at a very hyper local level is also to work with, uh, traumatized women. Um, and so often, uh, that suffers with PTSD, uh, from emotional abuse. Uh, and we use that knowledge and the insights and how that works with an individual. Um, and to also think about how can then, then be transformed into policies at an organizational level or national level. Um, at a national level, we work quite a lot with, for instance, wellbeing economy, uh, and the wellbeing economy principles that can also, um, or need to now be turned into actionable tools at organizational level. Um, so that you can use the wellbeing economy principles to set up, um, new capabilities that can happen. Um, new KPIs for relational, uh, capacity that would lead an organization to a better workplace environment where you actually had wellbeing. It's a, it's a profound move from, uh, an outcome focus that would be more traditional what we've seen with, uh, um, workplace psychology into one way you can talk about workplace psychotherapy, where it's the relation between Um, so that the relation between them becomes the engine for wellbeing. Um, but you can measure that relational capacity and those relational, uh, instances and use the measurements as a guiding tool for continuous operating of your strategy and initiatives. And that's, uh, when, where, I mean, the profound difference between, uh, yesterday and tomorrow for wellbeing is the one where we really embrace our ability now to have data-driven approaches, respecting the data, using the data, uh, so that we actually care about, uh, who, who has which wellbeing, uh, how can we do something about that? Uh, using a lot of relational strategies that either target loneliness, their interaction between each other, their feelings of emotional safety and so on. Um, 

so some of our, what we do are then hyper, uh, hyper sort of individual. Some of it is, uh, organizational and relates often to what we also call organizational health literacy, for instance. And some of it is at a national or more, um, sort of a helicopter level where we are talking about wellbeing economy principles. 

And do you think that the Nordics because, uh, it's, it's your name, the Nordics wellbeing academy, that this is an approach that, uh, is, uh, appreciated and cherished in, in the Nordics, uh, more than it is, for instance, in places like Germany or Southern Europe? Um, because you, you're not doing like, you know, wellbeing, um, resonate with a number of people, like, oh yeah, this is like, you know, going to, uh, just tapping your foot into hot water, going to a sauna and then, you know, you do some yoga class and then, and then you go back to business, you know? 

Yeah. But there's, I mean, um, the word wellbeing translates, and that's of course, uh, an empower or a very important discussion. Uh, the word wellbeing translates into different things just as, uh, the word of sustainability has been translated quite differently across, uh, different countries. And I would say that in, in Germany, as far as I know, that there's sort of a little bit of wellbeing. Is that sort of the same as spa treatments? No, it's, it's actually not. It's more profound, it's a lot more spiritual, uh, than, than that without it being, uh, religious in any sense. Um, I'm a big fan for instance of forest bathing, um, uh, and, and even with that expression, it has nothing to do with water. Um, but it's just the immersion of using green spaces for your mental health. 

I, I totally agree, you know, we, we do projects with heating architecture, you know, where, where we, uh, kind of think about materials that should be used about the way, um, buildings and rooms are arranged and stuff like that. And you, you might, uh, you know, call it feng shui, you know, like the Chinese art. And, and, and I think it, it talks a lot about innate human wisdom, you know, like that has been probably handed down for, I dunno, thousands of years. However, uh, being, um, being a trained surgeon, um, um, and, and, and, um, uh, probably also suffering from deformations professionelles. I come from the field of evidence, you know, give me the evidence, you know, give me the randomized control trial, you know, and, and these kinds of things, because I'm, I, I, I feel you, you know, and not only hear you, I feel you that, uh, forest bathing and, uh, yoga and, um, mindfulness and meditation. It's not just something like, yeah, you do this when you have some time to do this. And this is just for, you know, housewives or stuff, but, but this is really needs to, and I think it's also getting there into the center of society. 

Yeah. Well, one of the, the challenges here is of course that, um, the only randomized control trial we can do would either be extremely costly and would sort of be sort of more or less impossible to do. What we do as a proxy here is that we, uh, must see something like the blue zones, uh, and their approaches that they use in the blue zones for their extra longevity and wellbeing as our proof of that, uh, sort of data. That is our randomized control trials. You may want to explain blue zones. Explains blue zones. Blue zones are special zones, not just in the Nordics, but across the globe where you have a, an above average longevity and wellbeing of the particular citizens. um, uh, the conditions there are somehow right, uh, for them to have a higher quality of life, a longer life and a longer life in good health. Um, and, and of course it's important to work evidence-based it is. Um, but there's a number of cases where we as human beings, um, uh, need to also recognize the, the, sort of the, the, the common sense approach. We do have never done any RCT on, uh, yeah, it's still, it's still working. Uh, we've never done an RCT on the value of educating children for traffic safety. If we did, we should have educated children in one school on traffic safety and then deliberately done, not done it, uh, and kept them in the dark in another school and then measured how many children would die. So that we had a good randomized control trial looking at the value of educating for traffic safety. Why haven't we done that? Well, it would, because it would be inhuman more or less, to, uh, keep good common sense from them. Uh, when, so we have a series of cases where, uh, there are elements where you see that they are, they have, have report a higher, uh, well-being. They, you can see the math that they actually, uh, do well, they live longer, and that's all the proof that you need. Um, now, the, now when we try and maybe to analyze the blue zones. And our analyze and analysis of the blue zones, then those types of analysis, um, sometimes they lead initially only to hypothesis that we can test other places. We could try. Um, we have, uh, I've been part of transferring a case of, uh, from the UK where they've targeted loneliness in an urban society to a society in Denmark. Um, again to target, uh, or initially actually not to target loneliness per se, but to target togetherness. Um, the element of thinking of the community as an integrated element that has to have social capital in order for it to work. To have social capital. If they have social capital. They will not, uh, smoke as much. They will not drink as much. They will not, they will exercise more. They will be more active. They will fare better with their mental health. You, you may want to elude a little bit on social capital. Um, A lot of our different initiatives where we've tried to focus on loneliness have sort of, uh, sort of, sort of, uh, marginalized groups that have a problem. And then try to target those problems. Um, it sort of overlooks the fact that they are the canary in the coal mine of a lack of social capital in the entire community. Um, the group might be lonely. They report loneliness. They have either very few or no social connections. It also means that the rest of the community that do not report loneliness have fewer social connections that they could have had. So what we see, for instance, uh, when we have, um, uh, often, uh, urban, uh, remodeling, redesign, where it really becomes popular. People do that because they see that there's a vibrant community with a lot of social capital that they want to be part of. Um, and that is, of course, we recognize often top consciously the value of social capital because it's the cool places that have that. Now. And social capital equals relationships and, and, um, good relationships. Um, uh, enough experiences with each other with, uh, sometimes with authorities, but also between the civil society. So between the civil society actors, that they can actually trust each other, that they know each other. Um, they actually meet not, they do not need to be per se friends, but they need to actually know what each of them are doing. In the case that I talked about before with the football teams, it, it doesn't work unless, uh, the GP and the doctor at the hospital knows that the football team exists and trusts that the football team would actually be a good option for the cancer patient before them. Uh, and vice versa, the football team, uh, and vice versa. The football team, somehow they need to trust that hospital. The football team is not, or the football club is not put into this world to be a part of the hospital, but they need to trust each other and the different skills. 

Let's, let's, let's dwell a little bit on the football club. Um, I, I don't know, but my, my fantasy about this is this is not somebody who wrote, who applied for any European call and then, uh, said, look, I'm going to found a soccer team, but this is what you see, probably somebody that has somebody in the family or that was affected himself. And then he said, look, uh, uh, the guys come together and why don't we play soccer with each other? And then, then it, it, you know, what I'm coming to is, um, it's, it's a personal organizational kind of thing. It's not like the mayor said, we need to have a soccer club for people with prostate cancer, but it came from within the community. Uh, and it wasn't driven by, Oh, I can make money with this. It was driven by, this makes sense. This is something good for the community. Where I'm going to is, uh, I think this is how democracies work. Yeah. You know, this is like, uh, yeah, I might not have an immediate advantage from that right now in terms of getting more money, spending more time with my kids. But I think overall as being part of a society and a community that makes sense for the overall community. This is why I'm doing it because I want to contribute to the community rather than, uh, I'm, I'm just like the oligarch that says, look, I don't have a bit of fun. I'm just like the oligarch that says, look, I don't care. I have everything, uh, what I would need. And this is probably also derived from the realization that you can't buy love. You can't buy, buy good relationships. You have to invest in good relationships, which is time and, and, and effort. And, um, and, um, the, the fruit it bears is that you have a better society. And so I want to go to the democratization point here. 

The democratization point. Well, uh, I, I agree. Um, and, uh, while you can't buy it to say, but you can certainly design your way, uh, against it. Um, so the, the, the, some of these, um, civil society, uh, dedicated citizens, that see that the, here's something that they could definitely do. Um, the, they do not always have the best conditions for them to thrive, to scale, uh, and, uh, to transfer, uh, into other, uh, areas. Um, Um, speaking of our, our healthcare initiatives, we tend to focus and use our investments, uh, in Europe mostly, but also in the U. S. towards a medical model. And, uh, the, the, the, the designers, the creatives, the sport fanatics, the call it what you will, the dedicated citizens, um, are struggling a little bit to, to both be recognized for that value that they do in, in scaling these, um, um, and also, uh, they, uh, are caught in a sort of Faustian, either they try to go towards a, a, a sort of a business model that would generate a profit that would allow them to sustain operations, but then they're commercial actors, um, or they choose not to do that and survive by, uh, on fumes, uh, uh, foundations, foundation donations here and there. And they, uh, they are NGOs maybe, but they're also gasping for air continuously, uh, which is not a very appealing option either. Um, and the few times where you then have, uh, for instance, with the football teams, uh, where you grow into a, it has a scale and it becomes part of the element. Um, some forget that this is actually then, uh, an evolution that happened and they would say, oh, that's always been part of our DNA. It's completely logical. We do do that. And the next time someone comes with a good idea, says, ah, well, we don't have money, but come back when you've made it succeed, made it a success. 

Well, on a different note, isn't that interesting, you know, um, it, when, when I talk to people about the future of healthcare and about innovation, um, and ask him, you think you would have discovered the Beatles, right? And the Rolling Stones, because you would have known, you know, at an instant, but I tell you, you know, there was a guy that says, no, the Beatles won't fly. And there's a guy that says this Harry Potter, whatever, nobody needs it, you know? And there's a guy that said, uh, washing your hands after you come from the morgue. Why? 

It was quite a few that said that. 

Exactly. But, but you are different, right? You would have detected all of them. And if, if another Ignaz Semmelweis, another Paul McCartney stood right, and then another JK Rowling stood right in front of you, you would immediately recognize the person and put your money on that. 

Uh, I, I mean, thinking that I'm sort of, uh, uh, uh, uh, a prophet that are able to know, um, but I need to be humble enough to be, to be willing to explore more of them. And, and either when we talk a bit, and that's of course on a structural level, when we talk about either, um, uh, traditional R and D or we talk about horizon Europe health research or the foundational research that's been done. A lot of it, uh, uses the, the principle of only, uh, putting in place evidence-based interventions as a, uh, as a weapon against true innovation. Um, because when we are trying to explore something that we've never, never done before, uh, we, we have to test out things for which we don't get me wrong, do not have much in terms of the... 

And this is the astrophysicist, right? To boldly go when no one has gone before. Exactly. Yeah. True. Yes. 

I have that one too. Uh, but, but being able to be, um, humble enough to think, okay, we don't know how to do this. Um, we, we see maybe from a different profession, maybe also that, uh, there has been some good examples about doing so-and-so. Um, maybe if we test this in this area, um, it has a chance of success. Uh, we need to probably do that, uh, over the course of five years to be able to do that. Um, and we have to be, um, willing to accept that the data will not necessarily take the shape and form of, uh, quantitative results, but qualitative instead. Uh, and that doesn't make them any more true. Um, the London School of Economics has recently sort of done a new type of, um, uh, of analysis of the, uh, key factors that lead to re-election of a government. It's not the economy, it's the well-being. If people experience that they have an increase in well-being, they're willing to vote for the politician again. It's a subjective feeling, but it leads to objective choices. 

And, and I couldn't agree more, uh, when we talk about our, um, no doctor's offices for instance in rural areas. Uh, and I've been to a number of rural areas, also those parts of Germany that have now voted for the right-wing parties. And then they feel, they feel left out, left behind. Nobody's paying attention to them. Uh, and, and, uh, mayors always say, look, I've got three problems. It's, it's the economy. So I need work. I need education, schools and I need healthcare. And I have, uh, if I have, uh, if I lack one of them, it's bad. It's like, nothing's going to happen. But let me ask you a question here. Um, how do you create room for these, even though? Where do you create room for these crazy ideas? You know, and, and, and I think the word crazy doesn't really coin it. And we've got the German word for, which means move from the center, you know, eccentric, I guess for it would translate into eccentric. So it's not in the center in the mainstream, but somewhere out there, it might eventually be mainstream in a couple of years, but now it is not there. How do you create room for, for these eccentric ideas to also thrive, you know, without them going to the hardship of not seeing their children. And having a crappy life, you know, these innovators, um, these, these futurists, because in, in, in this sense, you're also a futurist, aren't you? Mm-hmm. 

Well, one of the key principles that's been done, for instance, uh, both in, in commercial innovation, like 3M or in the U S for their, uh, skunk works has been the principle of using a minimum amount of the overall sum on something where it's a high risk of failure, being willing to accept failure. Um, now, and the funny thing is of course, that a lot of the different research where we are unwilling, don't get me wrong to accept failure, they still fail. Um, obviously. Um, and, and, and, and if they didn't fail, we would all apparently be gods that are willing to sort of pick the right research topic every time. Um, but if there were a principle, both in Horizon, uh, in, uh, the foundations in business research to have a higher risk and say, okay, we accept the 10% of our funds needs to go to speed towards something where we have no idea whether it will work or not. But it will give us insights about, uh, a, uh, things that might work and be things that definitely don't work, uh, and shouldn't be explored any further. Uh, Thomas Edison, I think famously is quoted to saying, uh, I finally invented the light bulb and here are 99 different solutions on how not to do it. Uh, so, I mean, it's a slow process sometimes to find the right solutions and we need to be willing to find the 99 other elements and that might fail. Uh, but in that failure becomes also learnings that are extremely important. I, I've been very, um, happy to read recently, the great book by John Edmonston on action learning, action learning between I mean, uh, you can only get change when you have, uh, a sufficient, uh, confidence in your learning that, that, uh, you have sort of a, a, a collective idea in your team of action learners that this might be a good idea. Only when that acceptance is, is greater sort of than the, uh, old model will that change happen. Um, but when you don't know what to do, when you don't know what kind of solutions are there, what kind of solutions might work. Um, you do not have an acceptance yet. The change doesn't, does not happen. Either people are reluctant to really do it. They will, um, and so on. So, being mindful of that either in our, um, research teams, in our, uh, societal development, that we are more like, uh, dabbling at trying to come up with new solutions and be humble enough to know that a lot of our different action learning, needs to fail more or less, in order to us to find that real solution that might work. Um, the amount of funds that we're currently using on high quality, uh, evidence-based research with RTTs that still do not lead to implementation. 

Is sort of suggest at least that our current model is not, uh, perfect. And I'm suggesting that, uh, having a mechanism where you both are willing to accept 10% that are simply explorative, uh, in nature. It doesn't provide evidence, but it provides insights that could lead to something. That would be one. And the other one may be also one where you, um, instead of the current process, where often you have, uh, more and more advanced research proposals, where you, um, are very conscious of a funnel mechanism where you choose the best one, the best one to invest Uh, is not necessarily a model that is really good, but it, it, it sort of assumes that the evaluators are God. And are able to pick the right one. So let's instead be humble enough to know that we are not God. And instead maybe think, uh, anything that is above a certain threshold and quality should be awarded, uh, funding by lottery. 

And it assumes that, uh, those who are able to apply and to go through the process of dedicating one person for a month or two or three or a year to go through the application process are the only ones to actually provide solutions that could lead to a better future. I guess there's a number of companies out there that can't do this, that just can't take part because they can't afford to take, to take part. I always, uh, you know, I, I tease academic institution by telling them, look, you've got your, your, your PhD farm, you know, like you've got 20 PhDs. And before they actually go to work, they have to dedicate a year of their life in order to try to get some proposals written. And, and that is a perpetual mobile. I don't have PhDs in my group that would do that for me. You probably neither. So the question is, how do we get innovation out there other than, you know, in 50 years from now, uh, at some Congress, they say, look, uh, those guys are great. And they started from humble beginning in a garage and nobody would give it a dime, but then they made it big through all the hardship. Um, and, and, and, um, I think it was you who said the other day that, uh, the commission has understood that, uh, throwing money at academic institution will probably not drive fruition and, and, and, uh, come to, um, to more innovation. 

I mean, yes. That would less, at least, uh, from, from my perception that the commission recognizes that, uh, the, that the number of actual implementations of that huge investment is, is simply a little bit too low. Uh, it leads, uh, a, which is sort of good into, um, a wider recognition that, uh, social science and humanity needs to be included in a lot of the research project. It, uh, has led, uh, before that to the recognition that, uh, gender imbalance in the research would probably not a good idea. Um, it leads to a recognition that there needs to be a more diversified types of research. Uh, it has to have more patient engagement, has to use more living labs, uh, to be more actionable in the approaches and so on. So there's a series of different initiatives that recognizes that root problem. Um, but I wouldn't say that necessarily that we are there yet. Including the fact that this is not even a, a very useful model for the huge academic institutions. Uh, the PhD suffers from burnout as much as the rest of us, if you will. Um, they, uh, stuck in a, in a really tricky environment where they're struggling for funding continuously and they may become better and better at proposal writing. Um, and, uh, and, uh, as the last time I read, that was not what we actually educated them for. Um, and in that sense, it's, it's a horrible way of using, uh, a very precious resource. Um, and it doesn't need to, uh, societal wellbeing to the best of its capacity and it doesn't lead to institutional wellbeing either. well-being either. So yes, that's the one. And I'm really glad that at least there's a growing recognition that there might be something wrong with our model. The next step would then be one where it had to be a slightly more risk-willing capacity. And of course, there's risks 

when you do funding in large pools of money. But the way that we have the number of challenges before us, we need to take some bold steps and some risk-willing in order to find some of these solutions. We don't have the extra 5 or 10 years or 20. Patience is not on our side. 

Those are good final words. I think we could go on and on forever and ever. But looking at the time, I think we call it a day right here, because we've covered quite a wider range of things. You were talking about the Nordic Well-Being Academy. We were talking about what is well-being overall. We were talking about new forms of research needing to be implemented. We were talking about evidence-based medicine and randomized controlled trials and also about the future of the health model and the European health model and your suggestion for that. Lars, thank you very much for being with us in the Healthcare Maker Mobil. I think we are both in the same boat. We are like these eccentric, you know, like the German where we are not in the center, not yet in the center and we are trying hard to foster innovation coming from different points and contributing to the overall well-being society. I guess this is our goal. 

Yeah. And to add maybe that you use the analogy from Star Trek to boldly go where no one's gone before. When we are talking about either the future or our changes that we need to make, one of the first steps ever that we need to do is to be able to also work that we create hope so that people dare to dream that it could be different. 

That's right. And that also ties back to what you said to we as human beings, you know, brushing our teeth every morning we get up also is a token of hope that we be living to 70, 80 and then we bear, we carry the fruits of our everyday work, keeping our teeth in shape. But I think, yeah, this is also what what keeps us alive. You know, this is why we have children. If we wouldn't have any hope, we probably wouldn't have had any children. 

No, no, it is a horrible investment. 

An investment in the future. 

Yeah, yes. 

Thank you so much for being here. 

Yeah, thank you. 

Thank you