Fredrik Pål Persson
Fredrik runs PAAL Motorcycles, a custom garage based in Malmö that’s known worldwide for building beautiful, high spec bikes for clients around the world. But motorcycles are only one of his three ‘M’s.
Where do you live/are you from?
I live real close to where I’m actually from. I’m in the south of Sweden, in a city called Malmö. It’s just across the bridge from Copenhagen, so just a 20 minute ride from Denmark. I build motorcycles under the brand PAAL Motorcycles and live here with my beautiful wife. She’s from Los Angeles, born and raised and her family is there so we try to spend as much time as possible over there too. But right now we’ve been stuck for a while, like everyone else.
What were you doing before PAAL Motorcycles? And what made you take the leap?
Before I left school, I started working nights and weekends in one of the best restaurants in the country doing dishes. I come from a family that’s always cooked things from the ground up, we were always very gathered around food as a family. And when I stepped into a commercial kitchen, at the age of 14 or 15, I completely fell in love with it. It’s an amazing place, especially as a young person. There’s super clear direction and feedback around right and wrong. If you have a love for food and you’re in a really good kitchen, it’s such an incredible place to just absorb everything.
The only thing though, is that there’s usually not much positive reinforcement in a kitchen. You’ll only really hear if you did something wrong, so you basically perform on fear instead of passion. Although, I think that comes down to the fact that a lot of guys like myself, we start around 16 or 17 and have no previous work experience. So you have no reference for good leadership or management whatsoever. You just show up for 12 to 16 hours a day, five to seven days a week, month after month, year after year. In that environment, doing that many hours, that consistently, you get good and you get good quick. Before you know it, you’re 25 and you’re a head chef. But all you’ve experienced is getting shouted at so you don’t know how to communicate, delegate, lead or manage. All you’ve learnt is to shout louder.
I remember I was working at a super high-end restaurant in Stockholm and I did 102 hours in one week. I took the bus home, I changed my clothes, brushed my teeth and then fell asleep on top of the bed with fresh, new clothes on. That way, I could just stand up and walk out of the door when the alarm clock went off again 4 hours later.
It was still three years after that until I walked out of a kitchen for the last time. I’d started to look around and see people who’d been in the industry for years, people in their 40s and 50s and they just weren’t healthy. I imagined myself in their place and realised I didn’t want to end up like that.
Why motorcycles? What drew you to them in particular?
So motorcycles are one of my three ‘M’s’. In Swedish, the word for ‘food’ is ‘mat’ and before everything, I wrote music. So my three ‘M’s’ are Mat, Music and Motorcycles and I’ve taken each one to an extreme. I was just about to start at a Michelin starred restaurant when I walked away from that career, I just signed a record deal when I turned away from music and I’m just in the process of shifting my focus from building motorcycles to teaching others how to build them.
Recently though, I realised that they’re not actually my three things. I realised that they’re the three things that I could talk to my dad about and have like a good conversation. When that light bulb went off in my head, it was super clear that I’d been pursuing each of them to get his approval. And, once I figured that out, it was clear that I’d always been looking for other people’s approval.
I started to work on bikes as a way of working on myself. At the super high-end restaurants, people are paying top dollar for the experience. So it’s kind of like you’re in a professional soccer team. Except it’s game night every night, you never get to practice and you can’t lose. Coming out of that environment, I really needed to change that approach within myself. With the bikes, I started to try things out, to experiment, to fail and to start again.
Has the transition from one career to another been easy? Any major direction changes or bumps in the road? Did it go how you expected?
As soon I officially set up Paal and made a business out of building bikes, I just reverted and applied the same “don’t fail” mentality to the whole thing. It’s not surprising really, I’d just switched the kitchen for the garage. My clients were paying me to create the bike of their dreams, so again, I couldn’t possibly mess it up. So, I completely butchered that passion.
I read a book recently about modern education and how, from a really young age, we get lectured on all the things we do poorly, or that we get bad grades in. We’re programmed to fix the things that we aren’t good at instead of focusing on the things that we’re are. What if we were taught to build on the things that we’re naturally good at instead. How much further would we get? How much happier would we be?
Sharing what I’ve learnt is super important to me. Instead of building bikes for clients, I want to help other people build their own. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by the idea of a new project but if you know you have a framework to follow and someone in your corner, you have the confidence and motivation to get started. Bike projects can be so rewarding. They combine so many different things — creativity, craftsmanship, education, communication. I don’t want people to be afraid, I want them to enjoy the journey.
“It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by the idea of a new project but if you know you have a framework to follow and someone in your corner, you have the confidence and motivation to get started.”
After three major career changes, I’m not afraid of starting something new. But I am afraid of repeating my mistakes, of falling into the same traps. Where I’d worked with my hands creating food, writing music and crafting motorcycles, this time it’s much more about communicating. Now I need to be vulnerable and open myself up. I can’t put a plate of food or a motorcycle in between you and me. That makes me really excited, but also really nervous.
What lesson(s) have you learnt that you would tell other people who aren’t fulfilled doing what they’re doing?
I realised that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it. At the end of the day, you can learn any skill you want, there’s so much information out there but you need to figure out what really makes you happy. What is your version of wealth? Of health? Of success? Is it the amount of hours you actually want work every day? Is it free time? Is it money? Is it love it? Or is it that you want to work with your hands? Don’t think about what you’ve been told about any of these things but what you truly feel inside. Write that down and get after it.
Once you’ve identified what it is you’re trying to achieve, hold yourself accountable. If something doesn’t go to plan, don’t look to blame anyone, this is your dream. That’s not to say you shouldn’t delegate, not at all, but it does mean that you should take responsibility. This is something that I’ve learnt by repeating my own mistakes over and over. I had to look at myself and break down situations that frustrated me before I realised that I was the common thread. It was up to me change that, no one else could do it for me.
Do you think people are born to be entrepreneurs?
I didn’t have success around me but I was always sure that I was going to make something of my life. I always knew that I was going to go far and that I was going to make it big somehow. I’m not there today by any means but I still have that same feeling today and it’s something that I never question. I believe that I was born with that, because it definitely doesn’t come from my parents.
Do you think people are born to create?
I grew up out in the countryside. In a small, beautiful but shitty town. It was full of tourists in the summer and an absolute nightmare in the winter. Seriously, there was nothing to do out there. You had to be creative to survive that and unfortunately, I had a lot of friends that didn’t. But I guess I was lucky, I was always creative, I was always doing something. And that’s something that came from inside. It definitely wasn’t something that I grew up with or that was encouraged.
“It doesn’t matter where you start. The only thing that matters is that you don’t stop.”
I think that being out in that little town, being bored out of my mind, being surrounded by silence and nothing to do created an ultimatum for me. Pursue the stuff that interests you, whether you have the money or the means to do it or not. Or end up going nowhere. I think that all people have excellence within them. And I think it’s very sad that so few people actually get the chance to flex their excellence. That they aren’t told that they can, that they can be anything they want. It doesn’t matter where you start. The only thing that matters is that you don’t stop.
We all have our minds and creativity can be so many things. You can be creative about how to make your bed, creativity goes through everything. It’s something within us as human beings. Unfortunately, we taught to ignore it from a very early age. Very few of us are actively encouraged to be creative.
I think there’s a big difference between school and education. I really believe in educating yourself and that life is a journey of learning. But school is something that I think that we’re going to see changing a lot in the coming generations. Schooling today feels incredibly outdated and it didn’t serve me at all. Some of the most successful people on the planet, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, they were all dropouts. That’s not to say they aren’t highly educated. But they’re technically “dropouts”, because they listened to their creativity more than their schooling or what others told them to do. A lot of people are invested into this false sense of security in school and in employment.
Tell us about a project you’ve worked on. Why does it stand out to you and what did you learn during the process?
I look at myself as a project. I’ve realised that it doesn’t matter what you do, or where you go if you’re not willing to change yourself and your mindset you’ll end up with the same results. That’s exactly what has happened to me and it’s left me feeling empty, burned out.
You have to put the time and the effort in before you dive in to something new. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take action. I’m just saying it more effective to reflect over what it is that you’re looking to find when you do decide to dive. Set GPS for that, exercise and flex your mind. Feel those emotions, feel those sensations, and then take action towards them.
I’m doing exactly that right now. I have to learn from the food, the music and the motorcycles, where I’ve been super rigid in the way I’ve approached them. I always thought I had to do everything myself, rather than reaching out to others for help. But, by doing that, I feel like I was saying, “I got this all figured it out” instead of saying, “I don’t know anything, but I’m willing to learn”. I’m going to be transparent, vulnerable, and honest. I’m going to ask questions instead of making statements.
Any other words of wisdom or anything else you’d like to share?
I used to try to surround myself with people who I felt weren’t as good as me. I thought I was able to control things better that way. I look back now and I know that’s crazy. Surround yourself with excellence. Find people that are amazing at what they do and reach out to them. Nine times out of ten if you get in touch with someone you admire and say, “I know nothing about what you do but I’m willing to listen and I’m willing to learn. Please can you teach me?” you’ll get a positive response.
It’s when you’re open and vulnerable that the unexpected happens. When you let go, when you stop trying to control things, that’s when the magic happens, because you’ve left room for it to happen.
Originally published at https://www.barnfieldcustoms.com on October 26, 2021.
