Alexander Lyadov

Ego and Self Change Together by Alexander Lyadov

Psychology is hard to call a science. Its subject—human—is too complex. It’s easier to implant a brain chip, split an atom, or tweak a virus, especially if you ignore the long-term consequences.

Still, psychology helps us grasp the big question: what’s it all for?

Carl Jung figured it out, and Edward Edinger explained it clearly. The personality has two centers—Ego and Self, linked by an axis.

The Ego is the part reading this, feeling the chair against your back, and thinking, “Is it too late for coffee?”

Unlike the subjective Ego, the Self is objective. It’s like rich soil, packed with 200 million years of reptile, mammal, and human experience. This collective unconscious holds everything needed for growth.

In childhood, Ego and Self are fused into one amorphous mass. Then the Ego grows, like a tree from the earth. A strong Ego pulls away to claim its uniqueness. But a mature Ego returns to the source of energy, ideas, dreams—in short, Life.

The wildest part? During self-discovery, not only the Ego changes, but the Self—this collective unconscious—changes as well. In other words, one affects all.

The takeaway: To better society and the world, no need for another revolution or social experiment. Just strive to be your true self.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


The Rise of Authenticity by Alexander Lyadov

I don’t know about you, but I’ve stopped trusting those so-called Alan Watts lectures on YouTube or alleged Kafka quotes on Twitter-X. “Content creators” figured out that readers will like and repost a flashy idea without checking its truth. And now, Pandora’s box has opened—the AI.

A wave of lies or half-truths swells, threatening to become a tsunami. In nature, parasites have their niche, but the ecosystem dies if parasites outnumber the organisms whose blood they drain.

Something similar happened with food. Chasing profit, corporations stuffed shelves with ultra-processed junk, then convinced us nothing’s healthier.

What did wise folks do? They went back to the source.

A candy bar’s ingredients are a puzzle, but a nut is just a nut. There’s a difference between quenching thirst with a glass of Coca-Cola or water. One smuggles 105 calories into your body; the other, zero.

A small thing? Burning 105 calories takes 30-40 minutes of walking.

Fake information pollutes the mind the same way. A man gets mentally sick, forced to heal and detox. Hygiene matters:

  1. Be picky, choosing authors over marketers.

  2. Doubt “tasty” promises and headlines.

  3. Cook meals from ingredients instead of buying fast food.

History seems to spiral in a circle. The number of trustworthy sources dwindles. Authenticity, sincerity, and consistency are rapidly increasing in value.

In an era of excess noise, the rule holds truer than ever: Less is more.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Ecstasy Without Words by Alexander Lyadov

Listen to this ​composition​. If it’s not beautiful, you’re my worst enemy forever! Kidding, of course. There are as many preferences as there are people.

But here’s the question—how do you judge beauty in music? Especially if it’s original. Even more, if it’s a new genre.

Hearing it, many—especially experts—feel shock, anger, disgust. The novelty shatters the status quo in their minds.

Even a simple melody’s hard to rate. Plenty of three-chord songs skyrocket to number one.

If music holds magic, musicians are modern shamans. By bypassing the neocortex, their rhythms directly implant into our reptilian brain. Our bodies begin to move as if under hypnosis.

Our hidden self recognizes and embraces the offered form. Tears flow, a shout escapes, a grin stretches wide. Our soul howls, purrs, or sings.

The impact of music on people is immense, yet unexplained. It’s funny that despite the mystery of music, people use its power for their benefit every day. Funny thing: despite its mystery, we use its power daily. For at least 40,000 years.

By the way, babies come with musical hearing built in. A “chip” inside us lets us catch, create, and send musical cipher.

A man can feel joy, find meaning, even break past his ego—all from a “tra-la-la.” No words, theories, or mental constructs. A strum—and ecstasy!

If something works wonders, the mind doesn’t need to know how or why. This is just as true for the things in life you feel “No!” or “Yes!” about.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Beyond the Ego by Alexander Lyadov

Look at the diagram from Canadian psychologist ​Paul T. P. Wong​. The horizontal axis shows life’s outcome, from failure to success. Here, it’s about hitting Ego goals: comfort, wealth, fame, and so on.

The vertical axis runs from Emptiness below to Meaningful Fulfillment above—a transcendent Mission, serving not “I” but a Greater Purpose.

Four paths emerge.

“Wasted Life” sits bottom left, where nothing worked out, big or small. Bottom right, we see “Shallow Life.” It seems that a person has reached the desired heights, but for some reason, he feels unbearably nauseous.

The paradox: man feeds his Ego, yet stays hungry.

Even a “Sacrificial Life,” top left, satisfies more. The Greater Purpose may not be reached, but he gave all he had. Others will carry on his work.

The ideal? When personal goals merge with the Mission. Then a person is not an airplane stuck in Earth’s atmosphere but a spaceship piercing through it, heading toward another planet.

Question: Which path feels like your life? Answering sparks change.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Finding the Father by Alexander Lyadov

Today is a holiday—International Father’s Day. I never knew my dad. My biological father left for another family when I was five years old.

In my youth, I tried to shrug it off, like it didn’t matter. But the deeper I dig into myself, the clearer it becomes: that moment shaped my fate.

A father’s role is to bless everyone, especially his child.

If he refuses, he casts a curse. A hole lingers in the child’s head or heart. No matter how strong the rest of the body grows, a jab in that spot can kill.

Life becomes a hunt for patches, umbrellas, helmets, weapons—anything to hide or shield the wound. Instinct quietly does most of the work, stitching defenses.

But these fixes fall short, flawed. Sooner or later, you face the truth: the only way out is to sculpt and fire the figure of a Father within yourself.

This is far from a trivial task. Without divine help, it would be doomed. But as psychologist Edward Edinger explains, a curse can turn into a priceless gift:

"When the personal father is missing and, more particularly, when he is completely unknown, as may happen with an illegitimate child, there is no layer of personal experience to mediate between the ego and the numinous image of the archetypal father. A kind of hole is left in the psyche through which emerge the powerful archetypal contents of the collective unconscious. Such a condition is a serious danger. It threatens inundation of the ego by the dynamic forces of the unconscious, causing disorientation and loss of relation to external reality. If, however, the ego can survive this danger, the “hole in the psyche” becomes a window providing insights into the depths of being."

Without a father outside, the child turns inward—to the Self. That’s what Carl Jung called the core of the personality, a deep force pushing for wholeness and potential.

The transcendent Father steps in where the earthly one fled. As an archetype, this Father is endlessly wise, strong, generous, kind. He’s always been there, is there now, will always be. Ready to support you—just call.

It’s like planting unknown seeds, unsure how fast the tree will grow or when it will bear fruit. But from the pulse of my dreams, one day, God willing, a garden will bloom inside me.

I love you, my Father. May every day be yours!

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Poison to Gold by Alexander Lyadov

“Everything is poison, everything is medicine; the dose decides which.” Paracelsus knew how to spark hope. If something brings us pain, its true nature hides from us. We are at the beginning of the journey.

Someday we’ll master what torments and poisons us now. But the real master turns harm into good. Look around—evil is raw material, waiting!

Yet the experiment happens alone, in a tiny lab. Giant factories, clever logistics, thousands of workers, billions in funds—all that comes later.

Turning lead into gold begins inside, not out there.

In practice, this means looking deep into your soul. Where it’s pitch-black, where danger reeks like damp rot, where cold pierces to the bone.

The goal is to find, understand, and embrace every rejected piece of yourself. A mature soul is whole, with a place for everything and everyone.

By the way, why do we prize gold?

  • It’s rare, stirs awe.

  • It reflects the sun without dulling.

  • It resists corrosion and rust.

  • It conducts heat and current superbly.

  • It kills bacteria, viruses, and infections.

  • It’s soft, perfect for a jeweler’s craft.

  • It’s a symbol of nearing divine perfection.

Once you forge gold within yourself, you’ll want to do it again.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Life’s Spine by Alexander Lyadov

The vertical position symbolizes life. Psychologist E. Edinger offered an idea, simple yet deep.

If one body lies flat on the ground and another stands upright, you’d bet on the second for its vital spark.

Of course, the horizontal can mean rest or sleep. It’s a kind of potentiality. But not all energy moves from potential to kinetic. Sometimes it’s death. Or paralysis.

To slither along the ground, you only need “cold” blood, like snakes or frogs. Calling that life feels wrong. It’s more like existing. Standing up demands energy, a fire inside. Dozing on your feet is risky.

The harsher the world, the truer this is. Criminals pick victims with hunched backs, sluggish steps, eyes glued to the dirt. A grappler, lost in panic, hears one command: straighten your spine, look up.

Standing straight is more than body posture. You can soar to a meta-level, where contradictions dissolve. The ideal is to find your inner axis of meaning. The world pillar (Axis Mundi). The cosmic tree (Arbor Mundi). The Ego-Self axes.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Treasures in the Mud by Alexander Lyadov

Drop you back 300, 3,000, or even 300,000 years, and you’d stun anyone who cared to listen.

You’d look around, horrified, and say, “Why all this suffering? Let’s fix your life fast. Everything you need lies at your feet or in the mud.”

Picture your listener—a hunter, healer, or born builder. He’d grasp your advice and make it real. His comfort, safety, crops, health—everything would soar.

Every thing is a pattern turned solid. For example, hammer-ness becomes a hammer. Knowing the pattern matters more—you can craft a tool from nothing.

What once seemed trash or trouble turns out to be raw material. We walk knee-deep in mud every moment, stumbling over gold nuggets and whining about scarce resources.

Interestingly, the same happens inside a man. He aches for something—safety, understanding, energy, respect, purpose, health, abundance, connection, or love.

It’s all there inside him, but cloaked in forms his ego calls weird, ugly, scary, or just wrong.

The task is to hunt gold in your own mud. Then you not only fill your voids but help others find their riches.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


When Life Stumbles by Alexander Lyadov

In Evernote, you type a word, and it crawls out, sluggish, a second or two late. Or in a bank’s support chat, you ask a question, and no answer comes, none at all.

Seems trivial. So why the irritation, the anger inside?

It’s simple—your life stumbles. A micro-abyss opens between action and response. Tiny, sure, but it’s uncertainty. The familiar world cracks. Anxiety seeps in.

A heavy dose of uncertainty sparks not irritation but shock. Say an investor stalls on signing the agreed term sheet. Is he just busy, or did he pick your rival at the last second?

An entrepreneur handles delays differently. He refuses to endure them. He attacks uncertainty head-on. “Action is information,” said Brian Armstrong, founder of Coinbase.

Doing something, anything, forces reality to respond sooner. That cuts your anxiety. That’s why founders worry less and stay calmer than employees, though their risks tower higher.

How to keep life simple?

  1. Avoid anything or anyone that muddies clear, quick feedback.

  2. Choose activities where most depends on you.

  3. If no response comes, don’t wait. Act.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Why Beast Is Calm? by Alexander Lyadov

​Hypnotic video​ of a bear wandering into the Arctic nowhere.

No solid ground beneath him—just ice floes sinking under water. Each holds his weight as he steps. If the floes stayed still, fine, but no—waves churn wildly. Yet the bear keeps walking.

Why doesn’t he panic? Chew his claws? Pop Zoloft?

Some say a wild beast lacks consciousness. So he can’t suffer like we do. But I think it’s something else.

Even this predator turns into a drooping teddy bear if you drop him in a world alien to him.

But this world? It’s his home. More than that, the Arctic wouldn’t be itself without the polar bear. And, of course, the other way around. The bear is bound to the ocean, the ice, the seals, and so on.

Ursus maritimus—sea bear in Latin—stays calm. This is his iceberg, his water, his land. Let the stranger swept here fret.

Mankind, as a whole, has a stunning knack for mastering any habitat or moment in history. No matter what chaos life throws at us, we ultimately turn it into a safe, cozy home.

Inside you, too, lives a beast, drawing strength from its bond with the world.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


In-between Extremes by Alexander Lyadov

Every polarized phenomenon, once it reaches its peak, shifts into its opposite. This is how nature maintains the balance of things. Heraclitus wrote: "Warm things cool down, cold things warm up, wet things dry out, and dried things get moist again."

Carl Jung introduced the term "enantiodromia" into psychology, which literally means "running backwards."

Example: A passionate desire for universal equality and love for the planet leads to intolerance and terror toward those who don’t share the "noble" goal. And the workaholic CEO, who has prayed to GTD and ROI for years, suddenly drops everything for surfing in Bali.

One should avoid extremes like the plague. Otherwise, the subconscious will play a cruel trick on you. When Yin is forced into hiding, he will commit sabotage by derailing your train, which is loaded only with Yang.

Your eyebrow should automatically rise at any dogma:

  • "Work hard, and success will come"

  • "Technology will save humanity"

  • "Money solves everything"

  • "Love rules the world"

  • "No pain, no gain"

  • "Life is a struggle"

  • "Follow your dreams"

  • "People are the cancer of the planet"

  • "All people are inherently good," and so on.

Feeling "righteous anger"? Look for mental lameness.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


The King of Questions by Alexander Lyadov

One of the scariest questions is “What for?” Until a man asks it, he can do plenty on autopilot. Especially when life’s energy surges with nowhere to go, and a clever charmer appears, ready to sway someone eager to be swayed.

In essence, it’s a betrayal of man's own interests. But first, he must shape those interests into clear words. And before that, he has to trust the uneasy twist in his gut: “Hmm, something’s off here. I’m out.”

Otherwise, he’ll waste colossal effort on someone else’s goals. One day, the sacrifice will loom so large that shock and clarity spark a reckoning of what matters.

His body, mind, and soul unite in a single cry: “Go #@*! yourselves!”

Despite its raw edge, this is a hopeful sign. Sometimes, truth shines clearest through negation. For a mighty oak tree to grow, you must dig a hole for the seedling “Yes!” with a shovel “No!”.

From a life spent in vain—or worse, in harm—remains a scar. It’s a reminder of the price of maturity, like a knocked-out tooth, a severed finger joint, or a tattoo from an ancient rite of passage.

So the question “What for?” rises to the peak of meaning’s pyramid.

Asking it doesn’t make life easier—quite the opposite. But inside, a core strengthens. He stumbles and falls? No problem! Grab that core and stand up fast.

In the horizontal plane of existence, “For what?” is the vertical of meaning.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Create, Don’t Search by Alexander Lyadov

Alexander Lyadov

There’s a big difference between finding something and creating it.

Take this: it’s easier for me to write an article on a topic from scratch than to dig through archives or search the internet. There are thousands of articles published over there. Skimming them would waste hours.

Instead, I wrestle with the void for fifteen minutes—and boom!—“You’ve got mail.” Sure, the tone, the phrases, the words shift. But the text captures “me-in-the-moment” better, because both of us—me and the context—have inevitably changed.

Here’s a theory: this is how entrepreneurs, composers, designers, engineers, and all creators think and act. They don’t hunt for perfection. They reshape reality to bring it closer to the ideal.

A man experiences ecstasy when he encounters the embodied ideal. The harmony of nature, the beauty of art, or the purity of a soul’s impulse—they’re flawless. Nothing to add, nothing to take away. He can only stand in awe.

But those moments are fleeting and unpredictable. Chasing them risks wasting energy. Waiting for them squanders time. No thanks—creators are too restless for that.

So, he looks around and grabs what’s at hand. Then he starts shaping, forging, blending—giving raw material the form he wants. In a master’s hands, that form nears the ideal.

Even a novice creator wins. Neuroscientists say dopamine, the hormone of satisfaction and joy, flows from steady progress toward a goal, not from reaching it.

Want more joy in life? Stop searching and waiting. Take what’s there and make it better with your own hands.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

P.S. I drew the illustration for this article myself using PowerPoint.


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Mission Worth Mud by Alexander Lyadov

I admire entrepreneurs, warriors, athletes, stand-up comics, musicians, artists, and others who push beyond themselves. Whether they say it or not, they have a mission worth great sacrifice.

A mission doesn’t have to be lofty. Take business, for example. Nothing seems more grounded than money. Many want to build a business but can’t because they’re too focused on themselves.

A founder sees his company like a mother sees her child. Sometimes, this even stops him from selling the company at the right time. But as the business grows, the founder serves the business, not the other way around.

Serving means putting the business’s needs above his own. In practice, that means diving face-first into the mud, again and again. Each of us has our own version of what stains our purity.

What sparks fear, shame, irritation, or disgust in you?

  • Adjusting your life and family’s rhythm to the business’s needs,

  • trusting a faint gut feeling when the world stands against you,

  • containing the anxiety of employees, investors, and clients,

  • becoming the face of the business, risking your reputation,

  • shamelessly praising yourself or downplaying your role,

  • finding a bold solution when everyone’s written you off,

  • acknowledging your vulnerability and asking for help.

  • standing firm in conflict to protect your boundaries,

  • chasing one “useless” possibility after another,

  • sharing an imperfect product for all to judge,

  • sitting in the void of “I have no ideas!”,

  • acting when nothing is clear, and so on.

The takeaway: find a mission worth getting dirty for.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Hunter’s Gaze by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown artist

 

A curious video from the zoo. A child studies the life of lions. And the other way around. A young lioness is eager to get closer. Luckily for carefree people, they are protected from violence by thick glass.

The moment the child looks away, the lioness creeps a few steps nearer. The predator stays still only while eyes are on her. In the jungle, it’d be a tragedy. Here, it’s a scare and a laugh.

This illustrates the power of the gaze — that is, focused attention.

Symbolically, the predator is a messenger of Chaos. Its nature craves to shatter human order, to steal what’s most precious—young life. It pursues its mission relentlessly, like fate.

A man can protect the world of Order. That’s how he unleashes his creative spark. But even the smallest act of shaping order demands a chosen aim.

A four-legged or two-legged predator avoids wary prey. The risk of injury or wasted energy is too high. Why bother? Plenty of fools wander straight into its jaws.

This insight applies to all messengers of Chaos, within or without. Something troubles you, unsettles you, scares you? Here’s the plan:

  1. Pick a moment when you’re strong and alert.

  2. Lock your focus on the object of fear.

  3. Explore its behavior through micro-steps.

This is transformation: now you are the hunter, and the object of fear is the prey.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Crossroads of Wisdom by Alexander Lyadov

Sanity is a social phenomenon. A man alone, sooner or later, loses his mind.

Isolation isn’t always an island. You can be isolated in a city, in a crowd, or even in the company you built. An entrepreneur is surrounded by people, but the truly important questions? There’s no one to discuss them with.

For a while, he believes he can handle any problem alone. Especially when the market is booming, and everywhere he looks, golden coins sprout like weeds.

But one day, the context changes, and the founder realizes he is not God. Jack London vividly described the shift from omnipotence to powerlessness in his 1904 novel The Sea-Wolf.

Here’s a curious fact: if an eye starts seeing itself, it’s sick. The lens protein denatures, clouds form, and suddenly there are glares, halos, streaks, and spots.

If a healthy eye “wants” to see itself, it needs another person. Ideally, a synthesis of different viewpoints, because everyone is flawed in some way.

No wonder ancient navigators used the compass rose. To know the world, you need not one, not two, not three, but all four cardinal directions.

Navigating the outer world and the inner world is much the same. Feedback from the basic directions—left, right, forward, backward—makes your decisions and actions steadier, stronger, wiser.

Where do you want to be? At the center of the cross, where the axes meet.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Opportunity’s Calling by Alexander Lyadov

An unrealized opportunity gnaws at an entrepreneur like a physical ache. It’s like an inventor hiding a breakthrough or a poisoned man fighting the urge to vomit.

The founder feels an urgent need, almost desperately, to do something about it.

This matters, because others might see the problem too. The sharpest even spot its hidden promise. But that’s not enough. The challenge must match the skill.

Think of psychologist Csikszentmihalyi—a man only feels Flow when life’s test aligns with his mastery.

I saw this again, talking with a European serial entrepreneur. He described a stunning business chance, then asked, “Am I crazy? Does no one else see it?”

I reassured him—his gut’s right. A new trend’s taking shape before our eyes. But few have the know-how to leap onto this young dragon, avoid its jaws, and not fall off.

This entrepreneur’s trained for it, building businesses on shaky, turbulent markets for over twenty years, investing boldly, embracing the new. He’s like an athlete who’s spent a lifetime prepping for this fight.

Others shrink from the chance. He doesn’t.

Still, he’s painfully alone. Finding a co-founder, investor, or even a kindred spirit won’t be easy. But his solitude marks the moment’s rarity.

History’s whispering to him: “The time’s now. You can do this.”

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


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

How can I help you?
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Synthesis of Polarities by Alexander Lyadov

For a decade, I toiled in advertising, and our team crafted projects for all sorts: global giants and local startups, corporate suits and roughneck entrepreneurs, hired managers and visionary founders. Some campaigns sparked a “Wow!” Others? Just a shrug, “Meh”.

Why the difference? Think of that animated flick, Hotel Transylvania. The magic happened when a “click!” sparked between the client and our team.

In therapy, they call it an “alliance”—a bond built on trust, respect, and, most crucially, embracing the other’s difference.

Something about the client had to ignite us: a leader’s bold ambition, a product’s cutting edge, or a business’s sharp system. After that first meeting, our creatives’ enthusiasm revealed whether the client would likely become an Olympic champ.

But the client had to leave stunned too: “Whoa! These guys are wild. They flipped my perspective upside down. We might just blow up the market with them!”

Sometimes, we seemed like aliens from opposite planets. A renowned artist turned art director versus an oligarch-merchant. That moment when opposites clashed—chaos and order, yin and yang.

There were two options: either conflict or the birth of a universe.

We had the edge, wired for openness to the new. So, the ball was in the client’s court—could he forgive our weirdness because we brought what he lacked?

For the sake of growth, clients stepped past discomfort, betting these “freaks” could work miracles. Fueled by their trust, we did what seemed impossible to the entire market.

The conclusion: Want your business to soar? Seek those who think differently, then cherish their unexpected spark.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Listen to Future You by Alexander Lyadov

Arnold Schwarzenegger taking ballet classes with Marianne Claire, 1976

If you truly want to help someone, you need to understand their context. It’s not about simple transactions, like buying a massage, ibuprofen, or an ice cream.

Sometimes the stakes are high, and the problems — and therefore the solutions — aren’t universal:

  • Launching a new product with a tight ad budget.

  • Resolving a corporate conflict that could drag everyone down.

  • Exiting a business when the co-founder’s burned out and buyers are scarce.

  • Raising funds for a startup with only six months of runway.

  • Breaking a barrier that’s kept a company from the big leagues for years.

  • Growing a major business when the owner’s half in, half out.

What a person complains about matters, but it’s just the paw caught in a trap. Pain, pressure, and fear don’t explain why he’s stuck here. More importantly, they hide what he was chasing and what he refused to see.

Listen up: only a guest from the future—you —can save you now.

The future you is your hidden potential, itching to break free. Like water condensed in the mountains, it pushes downward to join the sea. This flow happens, even when you don’t notice. But when you’re blind to it, it gets stuck.

That’s why you must let the future you speak—in words or images, like in Jungian dream analysis or symbol-drama. In business therapy, my client and I first meet his or her desired future.

It’s not easy. Most people’s first urge is to doubt, dismiss, shrink, or feel shame, hiding the truth even from themselves.

Not every child grew up in a home that blessed him for being himself. Many buried their desires to scrape by on crumbs of attention.

But the future you is patient. Call it to the mic, and it speaks. It’ll show you where to turn, how to free the paw, and how to heal the wound.

Start by building trust. If you lack it inside, find someone who doesn’t rush to fix the symptom but lifts you to a meta-level. It’s not so much about the profession or method, but about the worldview. You need someone who will see in you what you’ve always felt — the divine spark.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.


Parteting with Dragon by Alexander Lyadov

Our ancestors were wiser than us in matters of the mind. They knew a secret: Dragons live inside every man. Not cartoon characters, but symbols of a wild, unknown force.

The Dragon strikes without warning, burning everything, swallowing life whole. It shows up in society, in groups, in a single soul: cold detachment from life, hunting down free thinkers, fear of losing power or place, crushing spontaneity, every kind of addiction, scapegoating, rejecting criticism, working to collapse, terrorist acts, neglecting the body, road rage, sudden riots, bursts of jealousy, cults and sects, delusions of grandeur, self-isolation, and more.

The ancients understood the Dragon’s ways. They built rituals to survive and thrive beside it. Rites of passage, shared festivals, prayer, pilgrimage, and disciplined practices tamed the chaos within.

Today, the word “ritual” makes people sneer: “Ugh, we’re modern!” Then they compulsively turn to porn, pour tequila, or pick a fight.

In success, a man proudly claims he’s the Dragon. In the depths of depression, he feels utterly alone. Both times, he lies to himself, disrespecting the hidden force. Nemesis follows—divine reckoning.

You can’t tame this wildness, but you can build a bond. Create rituals for your soul, mind, and body: daily exercise, therapy, kindred spirits, creativity, connection to the transcendent. Become the junior partner in that alliance.

Through you, the Dragon’s energy turns from raw to real. Your strength grows a hundredfold. What seemed impossible yesterday becomes simple today.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander


About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.