Before Fixed Forms /  by Alexander Lyadov

“Who are you?” someone asks.

“A man, husband, father, son, brother. Human,” you might reply.

“Uh-huh. Got it. Anyone else?” he clarifies, for form's sake.

You go on: "Founder, writer, citizen, athlete, creator..."

"Okay, okay! That’s it, right?" the questioner sums up, impatient.

You flare: "Of course not! I'm not just that, but so much more!"

Somehow, the verdict "You're just X, Y, Z" stirs anxiety and anger in you.

But what’s the problem, really?

Your intuition's right, for Life is never just this or that. Clear, concrete, tangible form? Sure, it's needed. Like a channel, it focuses energy for good.

But it’s foolish and dangerous to confuse a snake with its shed skin, a beetle with its shell, or a molehill with the mole. The function that gives birth to form is invisible to the eye, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The mistake of many? Guarding a tree hollow where no one's lived for ages.

The real you is ambiguity and multiplicity, incompleteness and excess, uncertainty and potential — living tension from which everything arises.

And that's just the start...

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 Creator's Paradox /  by Alexander Lyadov

The creator can stun everyone with the asymmetry between effort and result. Crowds of smart folks waste time and cash in vain, but he just glances at the problem and voilà! "Oh, you can do it like that?!" the "experts" bleat.

And yet, you won’t find anyone more vulnerable than a creator. On his own, he can do nothing at all. Knowledge, experience, burning desire, willpower, force, pleading—none of it matters. Ideas don’t care.

What does it take? Admit he's just a chalk in the hand of the Creator above. Call that Force what you like: Dao, Cosmos, Brahman, Absolute, God.

As long as a man thinks he's the source of all ideas, he's stuck. Pride seals him shut like a genie in a lamp. Humility hurts, sure, but now wow-ideas have a shot to slip in through the crack.

First, the creator must truly accept his total helplessness, to then claim cosmic power. Paradox.

This takes courage, because there are no guarantees. This isn’t a deal. The man stands naked before the Void. Looks like he's doing nothing. Ha-ha, he's doing the hardest thing: holding the uncertainty.

Seems this skill will be our most valuable in the decades ahead.

I wish you mastery in this Work in 2026.

May the New Year be truly Yours.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

P.S. Don't miss the launch of my course: "Ritual of Transformation"—just email me at al@alyadov.com: "I'm ready." The essence is ​here​.

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​.

Protect Your Desire /  by Alexander Lyadov

Do you know how to kill life inside yourself quickly and efficiently?

When a strong but vague desire appears, immediately ask yourself: “So, how do you plan to make this happen?”

Then turn up the pressure: “No, how exactly? Give me metrics. Lay it all out by dates and steps.”

Be sure to compare yourself to others: “Has anyone ever done this? Do you even have the resources?”

And finally, deliver the headshot: “And can you give hard guarantees of success?”

If your desire wasn't some trivial thing like brewing coffee, but something real, intimate, new for you, that hail of icy questions will crush the first fragile shoots.

I call this premature optimization. When fussy care for form replaces function, meaning, life.

There’s an old saying: Omnis fastinatio ex parte diaboli est — “All haste is from the devil.” His main task is to cut you from your true desires. Why?

Inside, an existential hole opens, known by its scary emptiness, unbearable longing, dark mood. You have to plug that hole somehow.

The devil's ready to serve: "Here, take someone else's desire! Isn't it perfect?"

From there, the trap only tightens. A man stays busy, keeps running, keeps achieving. And yet, with each passing year, the feeling grows clearer: “This isn’t it.” Can't stop, can't go on.

Uncomfortable? I get it. Me too.

What breaks the vicious circle is a sacred pause. When you notice a glimmer of a fuzzy desire, put the interrogator on trial and ask: “Do you love me at all?”

If the mind loves the arguments but your soul turns sick, give the desire time. Let it root in the subconscious, grow strong, rise.

The Chinese say, "水到渠成" — "When the water arrives, the channel is ready."

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 Sleeping Source /  by Alexander Lyadov

If people could choose whether to sleep or not, many would give up sleep in favor of staying awake. From a rational point of view, it’s hard to justify spending 7–10 hours a day asleep.

Neuroscientists may try their best, but the human mind—especially a sharp one with high IQ—keeps rejecting sleep as a pointless waste of time.

The mind dreams bitterly of what it could do instead—read, foresee, plan, guess, think deep.

Only the habit of sleep softens the terror of slipping into nothingness. Every night, a palace coup takes place. Until dawn, the mind loses its power and control in favor of… whom? It doesn’t even know.

And where’s the guarantee the mind will return to the throne afterward? Yes, it always has so far—but what if this time is different? Anyone who has gone under general anesthesia remembers that eerie slide into darkness against one’s will, with a small but real risk of not waking up.

Fortunately, wise nature gives the mind no choice. It simply shuts it down through the exhaustion of the body on which the mind depends. And that’s how a gift appears—one the mind would never ask for.

By “we,” I mean the one who doesn’t identify solely with mind or body. Choose the word that fits you best: consciousness, personality, spirit, soul. While mind and body are paralyzed by sleep, your connection to the transcendent, the otherworldly, the sacred comes alive.

And here, if we are ready, revelation awaits. What the mind took for meaningless oblivion, a black void, a small death, turns out to be something else entirely—a horn of plenty, fertile black soil, a source of new ideas, health, and strength.

Of course, it takes a shift in worldview and some practice to unpack, understand, and apply these gifts. But even without recording insights or interpreting dreams, after a truly deep sleep you feel as if you’ve bathed in the Water of Life.

So, regardless of our will—whether we believe in transcendence or not—every night we touch the Source of Life to gather energy for returning to the mundane world.

All this happens unconsciously, as it does for animals. But unlike them, we have consciousness and mind. If consciousness opens itself to the unknown, even out of simple curiosity, and then directs the sharp mind to study these gifts, paradise on Earth may await us.

Everything best is born from the creative synthesis of what once feared, judged, and denied each other. You can unleash that energy in yourself—call it nothing but your Big Bang.

I’m deeply curious to learn how to do this. Are you?

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​.

Shameless Ease /  by Alexander Lyadov

If there are no tears, blood, or sweat, your effort is worth nothing. That’s the idea everyone keeps trying to hammer into our heads.

If a result comes easily, on its own, it raises suspicion. What, you didn’t even suffer? Aha, got it. Lazy. A trickster. A fraud.

As if each of us now must compete in the Olympics, living by its motto: Citius, altius, fortius (Faster. Higher. Stronger).

It's a lie. Twisted logic. Swapped meanings.

The Olympics are training raised to the absolute. The most prepared athletes are placed inside artificial limits so their skill can be tested and sharpened.

In real life, things work differently. Sometimes completely differently. A firefighter or a water rescuer trains strength, endurance, and speed not for records or medals. Training serves another purpose.

Ask a professional what he prefers: an epic struggle with obstacles, or getting the job done without breaking a sweat? In the spirit of TRIZ, his answer would sound like this: “The ideal effort is when there is no effort, yet the function is fulfilled.”

Caesar's way fits him better:

Veni, vidi, vici. (Came, saw, conquered). Prep's for that.

Artificial limits that fuel competition are a curse for any creator. Both the artist and the entrepreneur are glad when a creative result is born without excess effort. The ROI is higher.

The takeaway: let the desired result arrive shamelessly, on its own. It’s worth years of hard work for that kind of ease.

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​.

Befriending Uncertainty /  by Alexander Lyadov

Few can bear the unknown and uncertainty. You feel the ground give way. The world close to your heart crumbles.

To regain balance, a man will pay any price. The oldest, surest fix? Wipe out the source of the trouble.

Who exactly it is matters little. The hunt and exile of the "guilty" hands control back to the judge. Plus, that rising anxiety and rage gets "justified" dump into a target.

The best candidate is the one who embodies uncertainty itself. Someone who differs from the majority in any way. Strange means suspicious. Suspicious means dangerous. Yeah, he's the problem root.

After the trial and execution comes release. Celebration. Calm.

But soon uncertainty starts gnawing at the foundations of life again. Damn it. Why does this snake keep sneaking into our garden of paradise?

One day, we grow so tired of the absurdity that we pause and think: “What if this snake’s persistence means something else, besides trying to annoy me?”

The question itself is so wild that at first we judge and exile it too. Yet it has the nerve to return, just like the snake did. Over time, we grow used to the question, though we still don’t rush to answer it.

That alone is progress worth noticing.

We can now coexist with the Other, who quietly catches our every glance. Silent, yes. But this is already a relationship, not another attempt to condemn and expel.

Sooner or later, the first dialogue happens. Since otherness no longer frightens us much, it can do only one thing. Pleasantly surprise us. Uncertainty has shown us its favorable side.

Finding a place for the Other inside you, you gain new footing and superpower.

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​.

Gift Inversion /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Your strengths feed your weaknesses. And vice versa.

This is hard to grasp for anyone who craves simplicity and can’t tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. Especially inside himself.

An example.

20-25 years back, when I was a company CEO, contracts were brought to me for signature. Time was short, papers were many, so I skimmed fast. Then suddenly I’d say, “Stop. What’s this?”

“How did you catch that?!” my manager would mutter in shock. Neither he nor the lawyers had noticed a serious mistake that slipped in from earlier versions into a thirty-page client contract. Me? One glance, and I nailed it.

Today I call this ability anomaly detection. Back then, I just shrugged: luck, it jumped out.

Valuable? From a management view, yes. Boosts safety. Alas, outside work, the gift turns curse.

Drop me in paradise garden, and I'd sniff: "Hm, here's a flaw. And there." My mind flags glitches on its own—I don't even try.

It’s obvious that in "hunt for flaws” mode, joy, peace, and calm are impossible. Part of consciousness stays anxious, scanning the horizon like a sheepdog.

So I had to deliberately learn where the “Off” switch is for this mode. Not just to stop seeing, but to start loving dust, dirt, and mistakes.

There’s progress. But, haha, I’m still far from perfection.

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​.

Touching the Mystery /  by Alexander Lyadov

Some remember childhood details like it happened yesterday. Others hold so few memories, you wonder if they skipped straight to grown-up. I belong to the latter group.

Luckily, memory spared a few impressions. Like watching diafilms when I was three or five.

A diafilm was a roll of film with fairy tale frames. In a dark room, the projector splashed colorful pictures across the wall. An adult read the text under each one.

Maybe kids back then had fresh eyes, or my imagination ran wild, but every diafilm cracked open a portal to another world. I vanished from here and popped up there—with them.

Later, a faint echo of it hit during rare movie nights or gripping books. Dreams come close, but they lack the diafilms' richness and color.

As an adult, I found those kid sensations again when I met... The Mystery. One that words can't describe.

First time, out of nowhere—no effort on my part—I felt what Christians call grace. I’ll tell that story one day. The experience was too intimate and too incomprehensible for the mind.

The next time it happened during a psychedelic ceremony in the jungles of Peru. Suddenly, I found myself on the other side of the portal. There was Another world — perhaps even more real than this one.

The cynic in the room snorts: all delusion, hallucinations then and now. I won't argue. I'm convinced enough to keep chasing this Mystery—and finding it in everything, everyone. Like in you.

Merry Christmas!

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​.

Course Announcement: The Ritual of Transformation /  by Alexander Lyadov

Time to get to work—in January (or February), I'll run my signature course: “The Ritual of Transformation: How to (Re)Breathe Life into Your Company.”

This course is primarily for founders and CEOs who can feel, with bitterness, that their company’s potential is asleep. Their attempts to change things have brought only cosmetic results.

Between what is and what could be, there yawns a chasm. At this point, it becomes clear: a fundamentally different approach is needed.

You no longer believe that somewhere out there is a COO, guru, consultant, or coach who will one day perform a miracle for you. This is your life, your challenge, your business. Your hands itch to act. You just don’t know how.

In this course (or its follow-up), we will explore questions such as:

Why are 9 out of 10 transformations doomed before they even begin? Why do strategies often mimic someone else's future, not yours? What single dilemma accounts for most business problems? Why are sources of new growth invisible to the eye—or even repulsive?How can inevitable resistance and conflict be turned into a source of sustained movement? What makes it worth enduring the horror of the pause between the old and the new? How to craft a ritual so your business renews itself in time?

My goal is to help the leader become the catalyst of real company transformation—by going through this ritual first.

The course draws on 30 years of experience running transformation, strategy, and creative sessions for founders and teams at VC startups, SMEs, and firms up to $500 million cap.

Format: online lectures plus live Q&A. For those already deep in change and needing stronger support, I may also offer small-group formats and 1–2 one-on-one slots.

This course will also be useful for:

  • Top execs eyeing CEO or owner roles

  • Independent board directors

  • Partners in private equity or venture capital funds

  • Corporate entrepreneurs (intrapreneurs)

  • Change agents inside or outside organizations

  • Anyone set to transform self and surroundings.

To make sure you don’t miss the course announcement, reply with: “I’m ready.”

Sincerely, -Alexander

P.S. If someone forwarded this letter and my course grabs you—just email me at al@alyadov.com: “I’m ready too.”

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​.

Very Personal Business /  by Alexander Lyadov

“It’s business—nothing personal.”

People repeat this ​line from The Godfather​ when they call for cold calculation over emotion. Sure, tantrums discharge the psyche, but they build no systems.

The line is also loved by those who hide a private desire behind a mask of objectivity. "The situation demands it—the market, the investor, the team. Not me."

What’s more, one way to resolve a dilemma or conflict is to put the interests of the business above yourself—even if you’re a shareholder.

Yet even with all that said, business was, is, and always will be deeply personal. Especially for the founder. Why?

An entrepreneur, unlike most people, holds a wild freedom: what to pour his life into. Opportunities woo him, each one hotter and brighter than the last.

A founder chooses X simply because it turns him on. Entrepreneurs literally say it that way. Crude, but honest.

Calculation and willpower are powerless here. Libido is either there or it isn’t.

And once a founder catches fire with the desire to bring something into being, he won’t hold back. He gives himself to the process completely.

By answering the call of an opportunity as a free person, he then turns into pure action, forgetting himself entirely.

Contrary to popular belief, the founder does not sacrifice himself. He embodies himself in his company, product, or service. Just as an acorn realizes its potential by becoming an oak—and then a grove.

Do you see now why I focus on the intersection of business and personality?

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 Founder's Spine /  by Alexander Lyadov

Best buy this year? A plain chair. Well, it looks plain until your back starts hurting.

Then even one hour at a desk turns into torture. And usually there are eight to ten of them. Not just work was at risk, but my entire way of life.

I strengthened my back. Got a height-adjustable desk. Raised the monitor. But beyond workouts, the real game-changer was the ​Vluv Stove capsule​.

The capsule has only one thing in common with a chair: you sit on it. Everything else is different. It looks like a ball squeezed from the sides. Climb on, and it starts to float and wobble.

Back in school, I would have given anything for a chair like this. Wiggling and rocking, you could survive even the most boring teachers.

Now, instead of a static base, you sit on something dynamic. At first, it feels risky, but your muscles adapt fast. Your body keeps shifting on its own—back and forward, left and right.

Bottom line: the new $150 capsule beats my old $1500 ergonomic chair.

Only one hitch—after 3 months, the rubber bladder wore against the hard seam in the cover. Lucky, the maker swapped it fast. Second time, I taped all the seams inside with duct tape.

Stats in the US: up to 80% of adults get back pain sometime in life, 28% have chronic low-back pain, 39% report back pain in the last 3 months.

Chances are high this problem will touch almost everyone. Of course, a capsule and workouts are no guarantee of health. But if you get healthier this affordable way, I’ll be genuinely happy for you.

Clear business direction and a straight founder's back? They're linked.

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​.

Crisis of Form /  by Alexander Lyadov

The hardest thing is holding uncertainty inside yourself.

Time is pressing. Tangible results are increasingly needed. At a glance, there are a few obvious options. It seems simple. Just pick one and go.

But no. Inside, something shakes its head: “This isn’t it.”

Also, the body remembers past mistakes. Those paths once looked reasonable too, yet every time they led to a dead end.

Feels like it’s a crisis of meaning. In reality, it’s a crisis of form.

With your whole being, you know exactly WHAT you need. And while the desperate search goes on, you live in a paradoxical state: the content is already there, but the right vessel for it is not yet.

This "stupid" phase—feels like an era—is well known to creative people. The birth of something new inevitably passes through the pain of trying on form after form. Quick Eurekas are rare.

Sad truth: most of us last touched real creation as kids. Since then, we've drilled hard at picking the "right" answer fast—from the shelf of ready picks, the one the Significant Other approves.

That’s why we freeze and suffer when a true inner pull hits—for something that's really ours. All the skills we’ve mastered turn out to be useless—or even harmful.

Like drunks or babies, we crave to walk but can't take the step.

Key: Tell yourself:

“Ease up. It is fine. This is how it goes. Emptiness is my ally. Splash around in the fog of not-knowing a bit longer. I won’t miss the true form when it arrives.”

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​.

Witnessing Transformation /  by Alexander Lyadov

The best result of business therapy? When the client carries it inside already. He just reaches out, and the ripe fruit drops into his palm.

What's my role? Witness to the Transformation Process. For some reason, in my presence, it flows easier, quicker.

The Process remains a mystery, even though I know quite a lot about it. Each time, not only my client but I myself am deeply surprised.

Some may see this as a lack of control, or unprofessionalism. Fortunately, hundreds of transformations have freed me from that illusion.

Newness unfolding right before our eyes is true Life itself.

For this moment alone, all systems, procedures, and rules exist. Midwife, forester, farmer — they can only create the conditions, but the Process itself unfolds according to a design unknown to any of us.

That’s the kind of co-creation I want to live in, every day.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

====

“I've followed Alexander's newsletter for years, but never found a reason to book a one-on-one.

At some point in life, I caught myself sensing a growing inner dissonance—and no vision at all, no clear picture of the future. I could explain it to myself in different ways, yet my intuition kept nudging me: something was missing.

A session with Alexander was a real breakthrough. The process feels more like alchemy. At first, not everything is clear, but in an unexpected way, more and more discoveries emerge, and with each step the picture sharpens. Some insights are genuinely startling, and the number of discoveries in a single session is striking. At a certain point, a critical mass forms: realizations lock into place like puzzle pieces, and a kind of catharsis unfolds.

But that’s not the end. What follows is a pragmatic roadmap—a reliable guide for the path ahead.

Alexander is deeply perceptive, with a genuine interest in the person, a remarkably broad outlook, and a background spanning psychology, sports, business, and existential questions. It’s this depth and sharp mind that allow him to find unique keys for each specific situation.”

— Roman Slipchenko, founder of ​Areal.design

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​.

Micro-Dose Your Future /  by Alexander Lyadov

The New Year is almost here. Want to receive your first gift?

Good. Sit comfortably. Feel the chair hug your back. Gaze far.

Picture a few years later. You’ve gained everything you wanted.

Yes, absolutely everything — at least everything that depends on you.

So now, at last, you have your long-awaited [XXXXXXXXXXXX].

Dig in with your skin — how it feels to HOLD IT NOW.

Game or experiment —spare yourself minutes for this.

Now ask yourself a “wild” question:

“How could I have a drop of this [x], but today?”

Yes, a drop, not an ocean. But it’s made in the ocean’s image and likeness.

You can’t confuse the saltiness of that drop with distilled water, can you?

If even a drop feels like too much, take a nanogram, a picoliter, a yocto-joule.

Find the right measure and use your imagination — you’ll see that [x] is available.

Next, create a ritual for meeting [x] as often as your soul wants.

Wait for the thought to appear:

“Wow. My life is changing for the better — right before my eyes.”

Yours sincerely,

-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 Blade of Transformation /  by Alexander Lyadov

Everything works smoothly until… it doesn’t.

I remember how my partner and I went to Riga in 2010 to explore real estate opportunities. Banks dumped prime assets on foreclosure auctions—trophies grabbed for bad debts.

There was just one problem. Banks had frozen lending. They had burned themselves badly not long before. A year earlier, unemployed twenty-somethings were freely buying multiple apartments on credit.

Yesterday, bank leadership was driven mad by greed. Today, by fear.

Earlier, in the advertising business, I saw the same cycle more than once. For several years, everyone enjoyed a “season of heavy rain.” Competitors argued over who had the bigger ad budget. Everyone swelled.

Then drought came to the jungle.

Advertising was the first thing cut to zero. Salaries followed. Then teams. Then all that creative glamour dried up. Only those survived who managed to change their business model in time.

Everyone entered the ritual of transformation. Not everyone came out.

The problem isn’t the rain-and-drought pattern itself. It’s that after long years of abundance, players forget how to reinvent themselves. And incentive systems reward imitation of the known, not creation of the new.

Wise is the leader who draws the katana of transformation at least once a year.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.

When the Dam Opens /  by Alexander Lyadov

Before us is a ​remarkable video​: the moment a dam finally opens. For years it locked everything tight, and now, at last...

Reluctant, and it seems with a curse, Something starts emerging from the hole. A multi-ton surge of filth, more like half-set concrete.

You expected water, right? It’s a dam after all. Surprise!

Time passes, and the mudflow only grows stronger. Now it’s thinner, so the stream shoots farther. As the mix clears, the fountain turns bluer and more transparent.

Look at it now and there’s no doubt what the dam was holding all this time.

Major changes move in the same way, especially the ones stuck for years. Even if what once flowed inside was prana, qi, or heavenly nectar, a long pause twists it into its opposite.

Not the whole substance, only the part desperate to break free. TMud's core? Still H2O molecule. Just packed with the wrong things.

British social anthropologist Mary Douglas nailed it: "Dirt is matter out of place." Not evil, not harmful, not demonic — just off-script.

If you’ve watched others go through transformations, or lived through your own, you’re not surprised. This is exactly how it works.

The alchemists left us a strict order of the Great Work:

  1. Nigredo (blackness) — the loss and breakdown of old forms.

  2. Albedo (whiteness) — cleansing and brightening of essence.

  3. Citrinitas (yellowness) — crystallization of a new design.

  4. Rubedo (redness) — the fusion of opposites and embodiment.

A master of transformation never condemns the dirt. He welcomes it with joy.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.

Beware The Crowd /  by Alexander Lyadov

If a fire breaks out in a theater, what is the real danger?

It is not the risk of ruining the set, the seats, or the decor. And even burns and injuries are not the worst part. The real threat is panic. It infects a person with the madness of the crowd.

In a moment of frenzy, the crowd always feels justified, because:

  • “Everyone around me is an idiot.”

  • “I must survive at any cost.”

  • “That jerk blocked our exit.”

  • “Every disaster has a name, a surname, and a job title.”

  • “What could I do? Anyone would act the same way.”

Compared to the crowd, the fire seems like a joke. The collective unconscious is a volcano that buries everything under burning ash. Pity the one who becomes part of the crowd, and pity the one who stands in its way.

Ancient people understood the danger of this psychic “plague.” They meticulously followed traditions, rituals, and customs passed down since the dawn of time for a reason.

Our ancestors did not know how to split the atom, but they knew what mattered: never let the fabric of society tear apart. Otherwise, a tiny spark grows into an avalanche of violence—everyone against everyone.

The way out? Even if you find yourself inside a crowd, stay Human. Your lone stitch might just keep the weave from ripping wide.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.

How to Swim With Crocs? /  by Alexander Lyadov

In my favorite childhood cartoon Adventures of Mowgli (1967), based on Kipling’s stories, there is a lesson. The bear Baloo asks the wolf pups to recall what they must say before jumping into a river full of crocodiles.

The pups hesitate, and only Mowgli shouts the magic words: "We be of one blood, thou and I!" Hearing this, the crocs nod friendly: "Path clear."

It’s hard to imagine two creatures farther apart:

  • Wolf's a young hunter; croc's unchanged in 200 million years;

  • Croc lies in wait; wolf packs and drives the prey;

  • Wolf wears it down; croc bets on on a sudden strike;

  • Croc's a lone "introvert"; wolf's a social animal;

  • Wolf is always in motion, croc still as deadwood;

  • Croc’s blood absorbs external warmth, wolf makes his own heat.

Both have blood made of red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma, yet the mix differs like diesel and gasoline.

And still, at the core, their blood is the same — water, organic molecules, a carbon matrix. They have more in common with each other than with malachite or iron ore.

He who spots a shared drop in the stranger? He looks like a wizard to the crowd. One word is enough for him to turn a deadly contradiction into fertile novelty.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.

Opening The Portal /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Have you noticed that rescue often arrives at the very last moment?

For example, back in the agency days, we ran endless brainstorms to present the client with a “Big Idea” that was due “yesterday,” as was the style then. One problem — the harder we pushed, the more trapped we felt.

We saw ourselves as a creative agency and truly wanted to help the client, so offering something mediocre felt unthinkable. Yet hours into the brainstorm, there was still no trace of a Wow-idea.

I will never forget the moment of transformation. One minute, a room full of talented people sat at the bottom of irritation, anxiety, and despair — and then suddenly, bam! Light appeared in their eyes and kept growing.

What happened? And how? Nothing pointed to a breakthrough.

But what if the truth is the opposite? What if the pitch-black despair is the best sign we’re on the right path? Only now has everything unnecessary fallen off us — above all, our grandiosity, which is simply pride.

A bitter clarity arrived: neither we nor anyone else could save us. The helplessness of our own egos became undeniable. The boastful mind went quiet, humility entered the heart...

…and a Portal into another dimension swung open. Ideas, each brighter than the last, poured out of a horn of plenty. The saving solution rose from within, yet not from us — from somewhere above. A miracle happened.

The takeaway? You don’t need to corner yourself until the very last second. Just remember: none of us is the world’s bellybutton. Then the sacred can reveal its boundless power through us.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.

Who Is Holding You Back? /  by Alexander Lyadov

A recent guided-imagery session gave me a terrifying insight. The therapist offered a theme, I stepped into the image, and let it unfold in any direction. Suddenly, I hit a dead end.

Part of the exercise is to walk into places that are closed to you in ordinary life. I was given the greatest freedom possible, yet I still stumbled. It turned out someone was holding me back even in this perfect environment. Who?

The beauty of the image is that you cannot shift responsibility. In real life, we instantly find a swarm of bad circumstances or hostile people to point at: “There. That’s my obstacle. They are the problem.”

Inside the image, the only one who could restrain me was myself. An unpleasant discovery. You want to protest, argue. But now there is no one to argue with.

Then the insight flips: “Wait… if the only one on earth who blocks me is myself, then a single change could open any door for me?”

Of course, transformation is never instant. Like a wild animal long kept in a circus cage, the spirit needs time. Release it into the forest too suddenly, and the native landscape feels strange, even hostile.

Great changes take time. Stay patient.

Yours sincerely,

-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​.