Sing Anyway /  by Alexander Lyadov

When two masters of improvisation meet, you don’t just enjoy it—you take notes. Comedian Morgan Jay ​shares an insight​ with musician AriAtHome about engaging an audience:

"And you know what's funny? If you don't ask them, if you just put the mic in front of their face — most of them will sing. But if you give them a choice, they will not do it. If you don't give them a choice, they'll do it."

Morgan is right. To bring out what’s hidden, you need a trap. But better without force—so later you’re glad you fell into it.

Paradoxically, that kind of setup makes you freer.

I’ve always admired improvisation on stage. Rehearsing and delivering something well is hard. But there’s a kind of magic in weaving a pattern on the spot, right in front of people.

The strength of my admiration showed how much I wanted that spontaneity myself—and how much I was afraid to allow it. As long as I could live the old way, the pull stayed projected onto others.

Then one day, something in me killed that option. It created conditions where not taking the mic was no longer possible. Worse, it blocked my usual escape—no chance to prepare, polish, or rehearse.

Under stress, the mind began to melt. Control slipped.

I took a step on faith and "sang" as I could. A strange song—but it was mine.

Later, when I watched the recording of the course, I was surprised. The improvisation wasn’t perfect. But it was real. And that was enough—for me, and for those who listened to my “rap.”

That’s the kind of imperfection that makes life interesting.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

P.S. With a heavy schedule, I’ll be posting much less in May.

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Call Now /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

You exchanged emails. Or got a message from someone.

And it suddenly feels… wrong. Heavy. Off.

Don’t analyze it. Drop the thinking. Don’t read between the lines.

Call him. Or call her. Right now.

Writing has its place. But not here. Not in this moment. There’s too much room for dark, clever misinterpretations.

A voice is different. Even silence on the line is different. Things clear up fast.

Misunderstanding melts like hail that falls out of place in May.

Your lungs quietly exhale: “Alright… I imagined it. We’re good.”

You just saved the relationship with one spontaneous call.

But there’s more.

If, after a few texts, everything feels wonderful…

…yes, the same move.

Call him. Or call her.

Otherwise, the moment will pass. And it won’t come back.

But if you call, you can share it. Enjoy it together.

And in that moment, life finds its harmony. And its meaning.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

False Limits /  by Alexander Lyadov

Oh, these damn circumstances! Like a river or a canyon, they stand between what we passionately want and what we have. If not for these limits, we would…

“Yeah, right,” I say, remembering an insight from symboldrama.Even with total freedom inside an imaginary scene, I still trapped myself. I desperately tried to dig under the wall — and got nowhere.

Seeing this, others tried to point me to an exit. I only got surprised, then irritated. Why were they being so “slow”? Like an elephant tied by a trainer, I could not break the “sacred” thread.

Do you see it? In perfect conditions, free to imagine anything I wished, I still chose to limit myself. And in everyday life, every little circumstance claims the right to become a wall.

“What nonsense! What the hell!” That anger finally pushed me to act differently next time — to answer someone’s invitation, to allow the thought that the concrete barrier had never really been there.

What holds you back? What barrier feels impossible? What do you want most, but won’t admit—even to yourself? What keeps your business from becoming what it already wants to be?

My business therapy aims to help you drop false limits. That takes a change of mind—what the Greeks called metanoia. You take apart how you see, then put it back together—differently. In this process, no one can give — you can only take.

What stops you from starting ​now?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

What Renews You? /  by Alexander Lyadov

There are seasons of grace in life. They are sweet to remember. Everything lines up: inside, you have more than enough strength; outside, everything blooms.

Yet sooner or later, Chaos barges in without knocking. Old partners fight. Force majeure hits. Business slides off a cliff. A million reasons appear why you must leave the garden.

At times, it feels as if every pillar holding up your world is cracking. To live, let alone create, is hard then. You can only survive.

Luckily, no matter how mad things get, the body remembers Eden. Like a frog in drought, it senses the first drop of rain.

But know this: the “rain” is different for each of us. One person comes alive in the forest. Another sings in a choir. A third lifts heavy iron. A fourth simply sleeps.

Even a short dive into that activity changes you. Clarity, energy, and boldness return: “Come on, try me!”

Watch yourself closely.
Note what charges you.
Weave those threads into the fabric of your life.
Protect them fiercely.

You will be surprised. These thin threads work like strong cables.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Map of Self /  by Alexander Lyadov

It’s hard to prove that the human psyche has a clear structure. Scientists still haven’t extracted your “I” into a test tube (thank God). The unconscious is like a magnetic field: the eye cannot see it, yet it is there.

What’s more, the different parts of the psyche are highly active. Sometimes even aggressive. Later the person is shocked: “I don’t understand what came over me!” He thought he was the master, and suddenly he became the slave.

Psychologists do not agree on the structure of the psyche. Historian Thomas Kuhn would call this an immature paradigm—one that breeds pointless arguments and slows the progress of science.

For some, this is reason enough to say psychology is not a real science at all. You can’t touch anything with your hands, yet everything can be disputed. It’s tempting to sneer: “It’s all nonsense!”

This attitude holds while you are strong, your family is healthy, your business is growing, the country is at peace, and the market is stable. But one day an iceberg slams into the hull of your brigantine. The psyche floods and starts dragging you down.

Anyone who has felt his familiar world collapse does not laugh at psychology. The idea of “psychic structure” stops being abstract. He prays: “Call it whatever you want, but let This exist!”

Ego. Self. Archetype. Unconscious. All these “funny” words suddenly fill with deep personal meaning. They point to forces that can literally kill you or bring you back to life.

Like a lost traveler in the taiga, you grab any map with desperate hands—even crude pencil scratches. “This is already something!” It emerged from Nothing. There is now a place to stand. Details can be added later.

Studying anything alive is difficult. Life refuses to fit neat templates. And man is as mysterious as he is ordinary. Every time you think you have someone figured out, reality humbles you.

“Know thyself” — they have repeated the phrase for 2,500 years. Know — but how, exactly? Psychology offers imperfect answers. Yet if they reliably lead from darkness to light, I want them with me.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

The Witch Helps /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Uncertainty unsettles, scares us, and freezes us. Why? We don’t know how to approach it. What is it, really?

We need a good metaphor—something that makes you go, “Ah, that’s it.” Think of a myth or a fairy tale where a hero meets a wicked witch.

Both are made up. Pure fiction. But you identify with the hero. Now a relationship can form.

Uncertainty is no longer a vague thing. It becomes a subject.

You speak to her. You act in a certain way. And something strange happens. The witch who devoured everyone else starts to favor you.

She feeds you. She gives you shelter. She offers useful advice on how to reach your goal. Why? Because behind the frightening look there was a personality. A living contact appears. No one had ever treated her the way you did.

Back to business. What just happened?

You saw the essence where others saw only a terrifying form. That’s why you become a beneficiary of chaos. Novelty starts working for you.

In business therapy, and in my online ​course​, I use many metaphors. They give you a chance to see your situation from a “crazy” angle. But weren’t “smart” solutions what got you stuck in the first place?

The way out is in the Other.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Stuck, Down, or Up? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Jacob's Dream by William Blake (c. 1805)

A person has three ways to develop a business—and a life.

First, picture a horizontal ring. It has many marks—these are the patterns typical for this person. He walks the same circle again and again, each time asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

He is stuck in a Groundhog Day loop—busy all the time, but no real growth.

The second option looks like a stretched spring that sinks down. The same circle drops, and the person slides down with it, in a spiral. The patterns repeat, but each year things get worse.

What runs out first—the founder’s health, or the business?

There is a better path. The spiral can move upward. The same patterns still appear, but their quality improves—more stability, more clarity, more balance.

In fact, the spiral can rise slowly—or fast.

So what decides whether you move in circles, spiral down, or spiral up? The film hints at the answer:

It’s not enough to “hack the system.” The person has to change.

To do that, you must see your situation as it is—and accept it.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Freedom Ltd. /  by Alexander Lyadov

I felt both my limits and my freedom most clearly in symboldrama.

The therapist gives you, or the group, a simple scene: you land on a deserted island, step into a circus, or walk onto a playground. The opening is set. From there, you move the story.

Or rather, the story moves itself in a way that is uniquely yours. Out of endless options, you somehow choose this, not that.

The same happens with thoughts, emotions, and sensations. One man sinks into gloom. Another, in the same scene, feels a rush of joy. There is no time to analyze. The chain of events unfolds on its own.

And this is where the surprises begin.

Most likely, you run straight into your usual limit. It does not matter who you are in the scene—a child, a sea creature, or an acrobat. The form is fantasy. The substance is your real life, and your real pain.

Others will be surprised. They will try to convince you there is no limit and show you the “obvious” way out. It will sound strange. Their lack of understanding of your dead end may even make you angry.

Later, this absurdity will stay with you. It will pull at you. You need to see it, digest it, and take it in, so that new meaning can grow out of this soil of “madness.”

There is another kind of revelation. You may suddenly notice that you have in abundance exactly what someone else desperately lacks. It is imagination. That means you can have anything at hand.

You offer your gift, and the other person lights up with joy. Again, absurd—but now with a plus sign. The spell lifts, like in a fairy tale.

Of course, it takes effort to accept a new experience. But both the one who gave and the one who received will not forget this shift.

The main lessons?

Your limits are real as long as you need them for something.

And you are free to the extent that you choose to be.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Build or Maintain /  by Alexander Lyadov

We often crave radical change in life and in business. But it gets stuck, spins its wheels, goes nowhere. After the nth attempt, your hands drop.

That’s why it hits when one day there is a breakthrough.

Have you ever looked at the best turning points in your life? Under what conditions did they happen? What did they all have in common?

In my case, one thing is clear: I could not predict any of them. The most powerful opportunities first looked like nothing. So the temptation to brush them off was strong.

But something held me. And pulled me forward. And somehow, I went.

Trust in what does not yet exist. Strange. Meaningless. Almost insane. You can’t explain it to anyone. Not even to yourself.

There isn’t enough trust to launch into bold action. But there’s just enough to take a few steps, half-smiling, a bit unsure. To observe. To post a question. To suggest a conversation.

The actions are tiny, but the effect feels like fireworks over a Chinese festival. Intuition floods with signals. Clarity begins to grow: “cold, warmer, hot.”

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Remember Your Gift /  by Alexander Lyadov

Lucky is the one who knew his gift early. Happier still is the one who accepted it.

More often, a man is sure he was shortchanged when gifts were handed out.

And when life points him to his treasure, he shrugs again:

  • “Just luck.”

  • “Nothing special.”

  • “I didn’t even sweat.”

  • “Well, compared to my friend…”

He feels awkward when others shake his hand: “You have real talent.”

Want to make him laugh out loud? Describe his future like this: “People gladly pay you for what you would happily do for free.”

What dark genius convinced us that suffering is the main path? As if what is real must be paid for in sweat, blood, and tears.

It’s hard to invent a more dangerous lie.

Imagine a dog taught that barking is foolish, and honor means singing like a nightingale. What kind of world is that—where every creature is thrown off like this? In the human world, sadly, it’s normal.

Why?

A child is cursed if he was not blessed to be himself. From this come emptiness, doubt, and the urge to idolize others.

What can heal him is the constituting gaze of another—under it, a person remembers the truth: “I exist. I am wanted. I am needed. I am as I am.”

Only one who was once seen this way can offer that gaze to others.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Cold, Warmer, Hot /  by Alexander Lyadov

We often crave radical change in life and in business. But it gets stuck, spins its wheels, goes nowhere. After the nth attempt, your hands drop.

That’s why it hits when one day there is a breakthrough.

Have you ever looked at the best turning points in your life? Under what conditions did they happen? What did they all have in common?

In my case, one thing is clear: I could not predict any of them. The most powerful opportunities first looked like nothing. So the temptation to brush them off was strong.

But something held me. And pulled me forward. And somehow, I went.

Trust in what does not yet exist. Strange. Meaningless. Almost insane. You can’t explain it to anyone. Not even to yourself.

There isn’t enough trust to launch into bold action. But there’s just enough to take a few steps, half-smiling, a bit unsure. To observe. To post a question. To suggest a conversation.

The actions are tiny, but the effect feels like fireworks over a Chinese festival. Intuition floods with signals. Clarity begins to grow: “cold, warmer, hot.”

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Strange Step Forward /  by Alexander Lyadov

Watch ​this video​ of a man meeting a male polar bear. Not just a predator, but a near-perfect killer—up to 3 meters long, up to 1,000 kg.

What do you do—even if you’re a 100-kg athlete?

Run? In the animal’s eyes, you become prey. Attack? You trigger defensive aggression. Freeze? He walks up and eats you.

But before the bear decides what to do with you—he is hesitating.

The instructor says, “We do two steps toward him. If we back up, he will just come faster.” Honestly, my mind would push back against that kind of madness.

“You kinda want to keep the pressure a little bit on him. You wanna be dominant. Any kind of movement toward a bear is a dominance behaviour,” the instructor explains as he moves.

The animal and the man enter a space of uncertainty. Each is unsure what stands before him—harm or good. Different outcomes are possible, depending on how each behaves.

The man’s actions say, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m steady in myself.” The bear answers, “Strange one. Not worth it. I’ll find easier food.”

This is how any form of Chaos behaves. More precisely, it responds to the moves you make in its presence.

It’s as if the threat is wary of your unpredictability—your creative chaos.

And that makes sense. Think of those dead-end moments when you suddenly did something unexpected and surprised yourself and everyone else.

You can’t know the unknown within you. But you can build trust with it.

There is a strength that can help you—even if you don’t know where it comes from.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Sacred Mess /  by Alexander Lyadov

RZH

 

The birth of anything new—a child, an animal, a venture—is sacred.

Science can explain the details, but you still feel it: this is a mystery. Some force helps life begin and pushes it forward.

Yet the process itself makes you want to look away. Groans. Strange colors. Unfamiliar forms. Blood and other fluids. Literally and symbolically, a portal opens to another world.

The sacred is splashing around in the dirt.

What a contrast with what we admire later:

rosy children in photo albums, well-groomed kittens and puppies on social media, a fresh-smelling bestseller, a market-leading company that just went public, a perfectly presented wow product on the shelf.

Everyone tries to forget the “dirty phase.” It was overwhelming, confusing, wild.

Forgetting is easy. From any angle, it was a short episode. Since then, so much effort, so many wins. Progress is obvious—and, most important, it seems free of mystery.

So you can proudly say: “I did all of this myself.”

That feeling of grandeur lasts—until the force that quietly pushed the process forward begins to fade. Then people rush, sound the alarm, look for someone to blame.

A wiser person starts to remember how it all began. But the mind won’t help here—it is afraid to get dirty.

Birth and renewal are always a paradox. You don’t understand it. You live it.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

We-Space /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown phtotographer

“Working in a group was a pleasant surprise for me. I’m very grateful for this experience—to you and to everyone involved. This format adds about 60% more value to the process. Sometimes it’s even more interesting than one-on-one mentoring. Everyone was more or less on the same wavelength, trying to make sense of what was going on. Through other participants, I saw myself. Their stories were just as relevant as my own case.”

— Roman Slipchenko, founder of ​Areal.design​

This is feedback from a participant in the February course, “The Ritual of Transformation.”

I’ll admit, before launching it, I had doubts about the group format. Would people trust each other? Would they share their experience? Would they speak honestly about their problems?

It turned out those fears were groundless—when:

  1. The group is small,

  2. The people are mature,

  3. Each person has already suffered his way to his question,

  4. And the environment supports both trust and growth.

A group can offer something different—and more—than a one-on-one format. A kind of “we-space” appears. Like a group of hunters, five million years ago, attacking a mammoth from different sides.

The businesses are different. The Work is one.

It doesn’t matter if the business is big or small—the founder is always alone. It’s hard to find not advice, but understanding: what it feels like to keep going and keep building against all odds. In a group, you finally exhale:

“I’m okay.”

Everyone around expects the founder to be an endless source of energy, persistence, and wow ideas. As if he were not a person, but a god. But a founder has to protect—and restore—his own capacity to found.

Be sure to find your group. In the meantime, ​join the waitlist.​

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Invisible Support /  by Alexander Lyadov

Let’s say you’re making your first parachute jump. The decision is already made, so there’s no question of whether to do it.

Naturally, a wave of negative emotions rises inside you. Anxiety, tension, fear—maybe even terror. This is not just a step out of a plane. Your life will not stay the same. You will become someone else—radically or slightly.

Why?

The act itself—and even the intention—already shows your trust in what may be. “But it may not be!” the mind panics, because it has nothing to hold on to.

It’s easy to trust what you can touch, put in a box, and measure down to the last decimal. Your back relaxes on its own when it feels the solid support of a chair.

How different must your way of seeing yourself and the world be to place your bet on what you cannot explain or even put into words? Not to others—and not even to yourself.

An invisible point of support.

Objectively, it does not exist. It cannot exist. And yet your being says otherwise—because you act in spite of fear and anxiety.

Are you wrong or right? No one can tell. This is the inner dynamic of a person. Still, the experience of others helps—jump manuals, religion, psychotherapy.

With each step like this, your trust in the unknown within you grows a little. The paradox of life begins to delight and amaze you more—and scare you less.

The main thing is this:

No one and nothing can take away your invisible point of support.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Am I Really a Creator? /  by Alexander Lyadov

I never saw myself as a creative person. Maybe because I was always surrounded by people with striking talent.

From a psychoanalytic view, the opposite is more true. By denying my own creativity, I projected it onto others.

No surprise I valued talented people so highly and felt I understood them. Their struggles hurt me. Their wins lifted me.

For decades I believed my gift was helping others realize their talent. Their job was to create. Mine was to remove the barriers that blocked their mysterious process.

Only recently did I begin—blushing, a bit embarrassed—to admit there is a creator in me. It’s funny. Others see it clearly. I don’t.

While building my ​course​, I shared ideas with founders. “What’s better—this or that?” I asked one of them. One of them looked surprised: “It’s your product. We’ll go with your call. You’re the creator.”

“Who? Me?”, I thought, stunned. He was right. No one knows what the course should be. Not even me. As it turned out, I was shaping it in real time—like clay made from lived experience—right in front of everyone.

Even now I’m surprised by this text… it wrote itself. So what did I do?

The same as always—removing the barriers that get in the way of the mysterious Process. Only now, in myself, not in others.

Helping yourself is harder. But just as interesting.

And you? Do you see yourself as a creative person?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Is The Time Now? /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

It feels like you’ve hit a wall. Nothing is moving. You’ve tried a lot, but there’s no real result.

How long will this suspended state last? A year? Three? Five?

And then, suddenly, the impossible becomes possible. Maybe only for a short time, followed by a slide back. But the new experience is already in the body—human or corporate. And that is forever.

After a while, the unthinkable happens again. And again. The setbacks get shorter, while the new trend grows stronger.

In the end, the old way becomes the exception. “I can’t believe I once couldn’t even imagine doing THIS,” you say. Congrats. Your transformation has happened.

But why does this process sometimes take years? Why does it feel stuck? As if you don’t have the strength to clear a high fence?

Fear of the unknown freezes you. Transformation has its own rules, stages—even its own language. You have to learn how to think about it.

You need a container—a safe, change-friendly environment: structure, process, people. Without it, it’s hard to let go of control and allow the new to surprise you.

But for the reaction to start, you have to cross an energy barrier. It’s lower when there’s a catalyst—a community of like-minded people and an experienced guide.

You need to diagnose the root problem that created the gap between “what I have” and “what I desire.” You have to see your uniqueness through the experience of others.

Finally, your test action is critical. Otherwise, you can feed your mind with knowledge forever. Real change is lived experience—holding uncertainty while knowing when, how, and why.

That’s why in May I’m running a course:

“The Ritual of Transformation: How to (Re)Breathe Life into Your Company.”

This is the course I wish I had when I was a CEO and co-founder. I had to pass through many industries, schools, methods, and disciplines to offer you a complete product.

It’s a synthesis of hundreds of transformations my entrepreneur clients went through in business therapy. The design also includes feedback from participants of the February cohort.

If you feel, “The time has come,” that’s Kairos—the right moment. The Greeks knew: from behind, he is bald — you must grab him by the forelock.

The English version is on the way. ​Join the

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Pain In The Back /  by Alexander Lyadov

Back pain had been tormenting me for a long time.

It started to threaten both my work and my creativity. How do you read, write, learn, run sessions—if you can’t sit at a desk?

I looked for answers everywhere:

  • I brought MRI scans to an orthopedist,

  • used pills and ointments for pain,

  • did a full set of lower-back exercises,

  • tried electromagnetic therapy,

  • put a special device on my chair,

  • took long walks around the city,

  • bought a height-adjustable desk.

Each option looked promising. Each one disappointed. If there was any effect, it was small and didn’t last.

At some point I got so tired that I began to try anything—with even the slightest chance. And then, one day, the pain started to ease.

When I could no longer deny the trend, I looked closer. The biggest impact likely came from a “​Vluv​” capsule I bought on a whim: “Fine, whatever.” But it was that unstable support that helped.

Desperation forced me to bet not on my own intelligence (“I know how!”) or someone else’s authority (“This helps everyone”), but on uncertainty itself. More precisely — on its beneficial side.

My task was to water one possibility after another with attention, without trying to figure out which one hides the jackpot. This calls not for reason, but for a faint intuition: “Hmm… there might be something here.”

In a way, this is my co-creation with Uncertainty.

Each of us brings something unique, and neither works without the other. This is how entrepreneurs and artists create. Venture investors and poets, too.

What does it take?

Oh, nothing much—to admit that alone, you are nothing.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Too Late? Good /  by Alexander Lyadov

On one hand, it’s too late. There’s no time. It’s all lost. And on the other, everything can still change at the very last moment.

I remember the feeling of a dead end during ad agency brainstorms. A “no way out” conflict with a business partner. The hell of a psychedelic ceremony. A fight that seemed lost in the final seconds.

Say the negative outcome looks inevitable. You’re already at the bottom. You feel sick. Your vision dims. You can’t breathe. And yet…

…this is often the moment when things flip inside out, like a sock. Uncertainty is forced to show its beneficial side.

The Ironborn in A Song of Ice and Fire had a prayer in their drowning ritual: “What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger.”

It feels a lot like paradoxical intention—a method used to treat phobias. If, even for a moment, you fully want the very thing that scares you most, fear starts to lose its grip.

It’s curious how often one rule works: the worse it gets, the better. As if fate chooses the clearest way to make its point.

What point?

Nothing is decided—as long as you stay in the Game.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Curiosity Over Fear /  by Alexander Lyadov

Is there any point in forcing yourself to eat disgusting food? Wear shoes that rub your feet raw? Have sex with someone who doesn’t excite you? Try to fall asleep at night with the lights still on?

You might say, “That’s absurd. It’s pointless violence.”

And yet this is exactly what people do when they are not doing their own work, living someone else’s life, ashamed to show their “unacceptable” self.

I know this feeling well. I’ve been there more than once. The reasons don’t matter. Achievements, money, knowledge, recognition—none of it made up for one simple truth: I am betraying myself.

All those signs of success only made the angst worse. As if to say, “How dare you not be happy when you have everything—A, B, C, and D?”

The opposite is also true. The moment I turned — even slightly — toward the vague pull of curiosity, something inside me came alive. Faith returned that life could still hold beauty, harmony, and meaning.

If that’s the case, why not just keep following your interest?

Because it’s scary.

This is the territory of the unknown. There is always a lack of information, skills, and guarantees. One careless step—and reality bites.

That’s why new possibilities excite us—and scare us. They are like a rope stretched over Niagara Falls: cross it and you’re a hero; make the smallest mistake and you fall screaming into the hungry water.

You can’t be half yourself. Not even 95 percent. Life asks questions that are answered not by the mind or will, but by your whole being.

It is much easier to watch real life through a crack in the wall.

But one day, even that will grow old.

Curiosity will teach you to move through fear.

What becomes valuable is what opens up when you begin...

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.