Hey everyone, the name is Erik Thor and I feel like I’ve lived a long life despite just being 32 at the time of writing this. I’m an outgoing, confident, and positive person with high openness to all that life has to offer. I spend most of my days expressing myself through various medias, like YouTube or here on Personalitopia. I work a part time job as a programmer. I attend philosophy clubs and meetups, and read at least one book a week. I also enjoy podcasts and documentaries and long walks and hikes together with my girlfriend. In this article, I wanted to share a little about me, my key ideas, and my history.
My childhood
Growing up, I was considered a gifted kid. I spoke with a mature, adult voice. I got to start school a year earlier than other kids. I was often bored. I had a loud laugh and a big smile. I was always happy around others, and highly sensitive to others moods and feelings. I took an interest in books, especially fantasy and philosophy, at an early age, and spent most of my time calmly browsing books in my own room. I wanted to know everything about everything, and early on, got fascinated with astrology. While occult, it was my first introduction to introspection, and a way to help me reflect on who I was and what my purpose was. Perhaps I was inspired by the dark, quiet, and lonely winters in desolate Northern Sweden. Or maybe I was just naturally inclined to existential reflection.
At age 13, I sat down and wrote my life philosophy. I formulated what I called the Balance Theory. It was a taoist take on happiness, by balancing and aligning opposites. As a part of this, I wrote down what my goal and purpose in life was. To discover ideas and theories that I can share with others, so that they can live a happier, and more harmonious life. Perhaps shaped by my parents divorce, and fighting at home, I hoped for a world where people would understand each others, rather than fight with each other.
As a part of my upbringing, I wanted to give my parents and easy time raising me. So I did anything I was told, without question, and even cleaned and cooked at home, so that my parents wouldn’t be stressed. I became a highly malleable person, who adapted himself to meet others expectations and needs. I saw myself as a mirror for other people, someone who would reflect back onto others, who they really were, helping people see themselves and check in with their own feelings.
My Ideas
Individuation psychology
- Personality is a spectrum – not a box
Don’t try to type yourself using binary scales or 1s or 0s. See the nuances in your behavior and recognize the situation you are in and notice your development and changes over time. My approach to personality psychology is to understand you and your unique choices and where you are at, not to force you to fit inside one scale. - Individuation is the path of coming to your own and becoming your own person
Don’t look for experts to tell you what personality type you should seek to model or how you should live your life. Learn to trust your own gut and make your own decisions and learn who you are through experience. - You will consistently overcome your boundaries and limitations
It’s easy to say that “This is just who I am.” but time has proven over and over that you’re capable of change and that you’ve been able to overcome your own expectations many times in life. My goal is to help people achieve self-transcendence and to help people write their own rules.
Teenage life
As I got older and matured more, I started getting politically active. I had a tumultuous start, and became quickly overextended with all the potential in life. I wanted to be a theoretical physicist, I wanted to be a politician, I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a programmer. Over time, and after dabbling in a bit of everything, I settled on political sciences and international relations.
I joined first the Social Democratic Youth at age 12, but wasn’t formally allowed to be a member until I turned 15. I found it hard to be in a political organization where everyone around me seemed very tribalistic. Everyone agreed with the main party line, regardless of what it was, and people avoided any form of alternative ideas. I was equally fascinated by liberal and social ideas for how to build society, and over time, I started to feel intellectually stifled. So I joined the Green Youth, where I was almost instantly elected to the role of chairman of the northern region. I then went on to get elected into the local municipality at age 18. I would spend most of my time from then on, managing press releases, writing opinion pieces to major newspapers, and attending events, festivals and school debates, representing the Greens.
I moved to Uppsala to pursue higher education and studies, but burnt out quickly as I tried to manage both higher education, and full time, unpaid activism in the Greens. Being burnt out, I had to realize that I had limits, and boundaries, and I realized I had to better learn to listen to my body, and my emotions, and take more care of myself. This got me interested in personality psychology, and that’s when my studies into personality types and flow begun.
My life philosophy
- Don’t aspire to success. Aspire to be the best version of yourself.
Instead of trying to fit an ideal or measure up to other people, stop comparing yourself to other people and start focusing on what you want for yourself. - Don’t look for happiness behind screens – look for them in the trees
Reduce screen time, and time spent at home staring at the walls. Get out into the world. There’s so much to see and experience in life. People often think of the real world, the outside world, as boring, and mundane, but there’s a hidden magic there if you know where to look. My videos and content have the goal to inspire you to get out and connect. - Embrace minimalism and the smaller things in life
Notice the finer details and the texture of things. Find gratitude and happiness in the smaller things. Don’t aspire to big goals, aspire to happiness and joy in everything that you do. You don’t move a mountain by trying to push it all at once. You move it by finding the small shiny rocks and pebbles and carrying them over where you want them.
Adult life
After completing a bachelor in Rhetoric, I went on to study rhetoric and communication theory, up until a masters level. After meeting a dutch girl in Stockholm, I decided to move to the Netherlands.
I also tried to start my own business, as an online coach and youtuber, but found it hard to make ends meet. Managing my own business, I found it hard to set my own boundaries, and constantly worried about money. I realized the best way forward then, was a part time job and part time focus on my personal hobbies.
That’s when I got my first job, first in customer service, and later as a programmer, utilizing my teenage experience developing websites and blogs. I first started with wordpress, but gradually, learnt React, Javascript, and Java. In the beginning, it was hard work, and lots of studies, but now, I’m quite comfortable, working up to 20 hours a week on code.
After a seven year relationship, my ex and I decided to split up. I first stayed in the Netherlands for a few years, and then I moved to Barcelona for a year, and now, I’m moving back to Uppsala, Sweden, to be closer to family again.
Skills and achievements
Languages: Swedish, English, Dutch, German, Spanish
Programming: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Java, Apex
Education: Rhetoric, philosophy, and sociology.
Politics: 7 years of experience as a politician, spokesperson, managing media.
Psychology: Read all the major works of Carl Jung, expert on Adlers individuation psychology, Mihaly Czikszenmihalyi, Brene Brown, neurolinguistic programming.
Personality Psychology: Expert on the Big Five, MBTI, Enneagram, and DiSC inventories. Developed my own integrated tool – Polymathematics, using insights from working practices.
Psychometrics: Experience building and maintaining psychometrics and personality tests with a high accuracy.
Philosophy: Taoist and alchemist.
Customer service: 3 years of experience
Entrepreneurship: Running a side business as a coach, author, online course creator and content creator.
YouTube: More than 1,000 videos published across five channels, with a daily upload schedule.
Blogging and writing: Several e-books published, thousands of blog posts published since 2007.
YouTube
I run multiple YouTube channels, currently getting 100,000 views a month on average, reaching about 50,000 subscribers. What are my different YouTube channels?
My goals
- To develop a personality psychology inventory that promotes the idea of personality as a spectrum, identifies areas for personal growth and self-development, and supports individual development.
- To explore neuroscience around personality and differences in people’s cognition, to gain a better understanding of what makes a person intelligent, and what unique forms of intelligence or aptitude that exist.
- To promote more collective harmony and understanding of each other and our differences. To help people connect and learn from one another.
- To encourage self-ownership and individual empowerment. To help people find out who they are and to teach people to live for themselves and to follow their own path in life.
