Groundhog Day /  by Alexander Lyadov

Life has become strange for all of us. Because my wife and children are abroad, mine, for example, now resembles "Groundhog Day". Days repeat like a broken record: walking the dog, exercising, writing articles, helping entrepreneurs, housekeeping, sleeping. At times this cyclical nature pisses me off, but then I get over it. The surrounding context can't be quickly changed.

In the movie, Phil Connors, a cynical weatherman at a TV station, gets stuck in a time loop. No matter what he does, his life is reset. Except for him, those around him don't remember anything from the day they lived yesterday. At first, Phil is surprised and then enjoys the situation — gluttony, fornication, robbery, coterie, etc. Eventually, he becomes desperate and tries to commit suicide. But in vain — there is no way out of the impasse.

Out of desperation, Phil begins to work on himself. He learns French. Takes music lessons. Learns to make ice sculptures. He does good deeds. Once at a ball, Phil becomes a well-deserved star: everyone thanks him for his kindness, he jazzes up the stage, so that even his colleague Rita is forced to admit that Phil has changed. The evening ends, they fall asleep, and in the morning they wake up to a new day.

The insight here is that nothing around will change as long as we are the same. One cannot escape from oneself to another family, industry or country. The repetition of events makes us accept reality as it is. Despair awakens vitality. A timid openness to novelty emerges. New experiences transform us. The world changes in our wake.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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Why turn off your phone? /  by Alexander Lyadov

During transformational sessions with clients, I usually suggest not only putting cell phones in airplane mode but also removing them from the table. This is not an attempt to impose authoritarian control, as a freedom-loving tech founder might think. Since the first decade of my career was spent in advertising, a penchant for minimizing restrictions is in my own blood. A long time ago, I read a study that the mere presence of a phone on a desk impairs the quality of a conversation by about 30%. An unwillingness to separate from the world prevents one from being in the here and now. This finding is consistent with my experience in various fields.

For example, I’ve noticed that when my dinner is nothing special, I listen to my favorite podcast at the same time. That way, along with the nutrients, I get a set of new ideas. But if something particularly delicious is prepared, then distracting myself from eating is a mistake. As long as the experience is unparalleled, you want to enjoy it to the fullest. Otherwise, the investment in peculiarity loses its meaning. Why interrupt a moment of illumination, ecstasy, or peace? This is masochism.

If a potential business partner assures you of the importance of the joint venture, but is late for a meeting, does not respond to emails for a long time and is distracted during the discussion of the deal, the partnership is not a priority for him. If the founder dreams of radically increasing the profits of his company, engaging in strategy rather than routine, and make an “exit” on a premium valuation, but is not ready to forget about the phone during the session until the next coffee break, then what does that tell you? When it comes to something of value to you, it’s time to make a choice — either it’s worth your hundred percent attention, or it isn’t in fact.

The best way to understand the significance of something is to assess the size of the sacrifice made. What are you willing to do for your desired goal?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Why is there no envy? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Shevchenko University, Chemical faculty, Kyiv, 1995

An attentive reader of yesterday’s article might ask, “But why aren’t you jealous of your clients’ accomplishments?” First, because their success is also mine. I often say that the bearer of the problem within has also the solution. Like a catalyst, I help to speed up the “chemical reaction,” to guide it along the optimal path, without the need for high pressure and heat. Thus, the search for insight, which otherwise could take months or even years, with my participation happens by an order of magnitude faster. Although the founder builds his business himself, there is also my contribution to the growth of his value.

Secondly, I have already been there and done it. I’ve had the experience of founding, scaling, investing, and selling various companies. There were many sleepless nights, worries, disappointing losses and victories as well. After trying myself in probably all the major roles, I realized what was rather alien to me and what was organic.

Still, the main reason is that I have a business I love. Client businesses are very different — FinTech, Education, eSport or Blockchain — and each one is interesting to me in its own way. My pleasure zone, however, is the hunt for insights. I can only get the most of them as a business therapist. I admire the founders because they are able to just do it. And my only desire is to understand. Apparently, there’s a reason I got into the analytical chemistry department 30 years ago. My main function is to try to see the point in everything. I just can’t not do it. Or rather, when I do something else, the gift turns against me, becoming a curse. But when I perform the function properly, my life becomes meaningful. There can be no envy of others when you do what you are called to do.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Who do I trust with my success? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Who do I trust with my success?
I love it when a client tells me about his (or her) achievements. After all, we both know the trajectory of his business, from the initial state A when we met to the coveted state B where the founder wants to take the business in a few years. This shared vision brings us closer together, making us follow the hot trail like two hound dogs.

It is difficult for a founder to discuss problems in his business with a stranger only in the beginning, before any real familiarity has occurred. Later, as trust grows and the first results are achieved, the founder is ready to share almost everything. From my experience with my therapist, I know how grounding and liberating it is to have a regular opportunity to openly discuss with another person those dilemmas that are bothering me. It’s like after motorcycle rides in the fields, one person goes into the bathhouse and leaves there reborn.

Surprisingly, it’s much harder to tell the other person about your accomplishments. Experienced people know that nothing generates as much envy and hatred in people as your objective success. No one will admit it. At best, they’ll put on a polite smile or click “Like”. At worst, you will be subtly devalued or vilified behind your back. In fact, there are very few people who are genuinely happy about our success. Parents? Not everyone. Friends? It depends. Spouses? If you’re lucky. Partners? At a certain stage. When success is still fragile, say, in a new endeavor important to you, the role of the Other is hard to overestimate. As two alchemists, you participate in the mystery of the transmutation of matter and spirit. Or, as gardeners, you create a lovely Japanese garden out of a wasteland.

No, it's not about me — you don't necessarily need me. Let it be a board member, mentor, therapist or coach, but it's important to have someone you want to share with when you're doing really well!

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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How to accelerate insight? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Where exactly the insight comes from is unclear, but when it happens, you are changed forever. For days, months, or even years, the problem seemed impregnable, tormenting you, and undermining you. And then suddenly it evaporated, like a nightmare. Awakening is an apt metaphor, for some dreams feel more realistic than ordinary life. We are perplexed and even angry as to why such an obvious solution was overlooked, even though it was always flickering in the periphery, crawling under our feet, or sitting quietly on our foreheads like forgotten glasses.

Usually at that moment, so much energy is released that you want to jump. However, it makes sense to pause and meditate on the difference between the states before and after, and try to notice how you managed to make this creative flip. Even if the nature of the insight (for now) remains a mystery, you can remember the conditions that facilitated and, conversely, hindered it. Analyzing the most shattering insights for my way of thinking, such conditions are, at a minimum, suffering, humility, and external push.

I don’t recall the reward coming for nothing, without hard work beforehand. After the fact, though, it is clear that not a single drop has been shed in vain. But no matter how much work I did, the entrance to novelty was always blocked by pride. According to Thomas Aquinas, it is “an immoderate desire for superiority”. For example, the conviction, “I can do this on my own”. Since insight, by definition, gives what we do not have, why would it arise within Perfection? The mind finds itself trapped in a golden cage that it has created itself.

From my days as a chemistry student at the university, I remember an experiment with a saturated solution of some salt. It was enough to lightly tap the flask with a glass rod, and the process of crystallization began rapidly and spectacularly before our eyes. A sudden change of context, an emergency, or an accurate question asked in time, can be the catalyst for a person’s insight.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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How many assets do you need? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Does a person need a lot of wealth, assets, or things? It depends on who is going to manage them. You can’t just “have” a car and leave it in the parking lot under the house. Eventually, the alarm will discharge the battery, the wheels will inflate and the oil will leak out, and the super-car will turn into a motionless metal. So you have to pay someone to inspect and walk your horse regularly. Otherwise, you won’t be able to spontaneously decide to saddle up and ride it Even with houseplants, it’s not all that simple. The watering routine is a given. But I know stories of people who couldn’t evacuate in time during the war and put themselves in danger because they couldn’t abandon their beloved flowers.

A business partner of mine used to say, “Assets are not a privilege, but a burden,” and he was right. Entropy works relentlessly against us. Weeds, rust, malice, or people’s laziness destroy everything we have. Even a fast-growing and profitable company, left unsupervised, soon begins to stall, falter, and wobble. As a result, it inevitably weakens and lags behind its competitors. In the marketplace, as in the savannah, he who has strayed from the herd becomes easy prey for predators of all stripes.

We tend to see shining examples of radical increases in business valye, but we discount the considerable but imperceptible effort it takes to simply keep assets as they are. Founders who are obsessed with novelty suffer from this in particular. They get too many promising ideas or projects in their basket, and then they don’t have time to walk around and water them. They achieve a lot but then lose just as much. However, sooner or later a revelation comes — in order to multiply something, you must first save it.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The phenomenon of closed doors /  by Alexander Lyadov

Photographer unknown

 

Recent sessions with founders, where we discovered new opportunities for growth in their businesses, brought to mind the phenomenon of closed doors. The bottom line is that any change, both tiny and tectonic, is ambivalent in nature. That is, with one hand it denies access to something familiar and dear. And with the other hand, it invites us somewhere else. But we, by inertia, look at the closed door and wait for something. And even if we can hear the sea breeze and the cries of seagulls coming from the door, which is open nearby, and, in short, we feel prosperity and freedom there, we keep pulling the old handle, tearing off the bell and banging our heads against the oak planks.

One reason for this clinging to the past is that the change happened not at our will, but against it, staggering us like a snake stung from an ambush. Perhaps the current status quo did not suit us, and we even dreamed of beginning to change things somehow. But not so radically, not so rapidly, and certainly not at such a high cost.

I remember how about 20 years ago in Odessa I decided to do a bungee jump. Standing on the edge of a construction crane site, I could see the wobbly crowns of the pine trees and my friends below, looking like ants. Taking the decisive step was insanely difficult. Suddenly the bungee workers yelled, “Three! Two! One! Go!” And I jumped, but formally, for I understood nothing. So the next day I went and jumped again. This time on my own. And I got the full range of impressions, which I will remember forever. Mechanically, there is no difference between the jumps. Even the individual is the same. But in the first case, my experience was confusion, regret, and emptiness. And in the second, a sense of flight, gratitude and elation.

Voluntarily accepting the inevitable is a paradoxical move to transform any minus into a plus. Because change happens all the time, rest assured that new doors are waiting for you.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Beneficial Boredom /  by Alexander Lyadov

What happens when a child is left alone with boredom? It seems to parents as if he will never get off the couch again. “No” — says an experienced therapist, “what the child will start doing in the void is his vocation. One will draw, another will look at illustrations in books, a third will build a constructor, and a fourth will watch birds in the sky.

The crucial point is that it should be boredom to the fullest, from which there is no escape. That is, there should not be cheating — a phone with Tik Tok, as is now ubiquitous, or a movie in the theater, as in my childhood. When a child is completely exhausted, he’s bound to do something. I vividly remember summer vacations in my grandparents’ Kyiv apartment, when I spent my days alone reading Mayne Reid, leafing through a selection of the satirical magazine Crocodile, and surreptitiously studying my grandfather’s secretaire. As a military diplomat, from his trips to the Middle East my grandfather had brought back many amazing things that took my breath away. Literature, humor, paradoxes, and the hunt for novelty — even then it was clear what interested me in life. It is a pity that there was no one who noticed this vector and prompted me at that time.

There is nothing accidental in this process. Life hacks out each of us in a very peculiar way, like Pinocchio from a log. And, like him, it is not enough to be curious, energetic and extraordinary tomboy. It is important to know yourself, both the dark and the bright side, and then learn to live harmoniously with this “stranger. The trouble is that today both children and adults are afraid of boredom like fire. And that is why they rush to distract themselves by doing something. In this endless slide through the waves of insignificant meetings, chores, Facebook and YouTube unnoticed passes a lifetime. But sometimes there are sobering moments when one flinches at the question, “Who am I? And what am I here for?”

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Pseudo-aging /  by Alexander Lyadov

People complain that the body loses mobility, stamina and strength over the years. Of course, the natural aging processes cannot be reversed. But let’s be honest — it’s not that a person loses abilities because the body weakens. As a rule, it’s the other way around — the body decays because a person has no desire or habit to move.

In youth, the body sort of holds the potential of possibilities at the ready: “If you want, try this or that.” But then gradually, out of necessity, it starts to turn off the extensive functionality. After all, instead of using what’s available and exploring what else is possible, the person slips into a narrow “wake-up-eat-work-drink-sleep” rut. Oh yes, the brain of a mental worker is very valuable. But what about the body? “Well, it’s just a brain shipping container, and an incomprehensible, unreliable, and maintenance-intensive machine.”

“Sure you don’t need anything?” - the body interjects. The person annoyedly waves it off, grabs the joystick in his hands, orders home delivery of groceries, and gets on the scooter. The body shrugs perplexedly, “Well, you’re the boss,” and starts the process of atrophy of muscles, joints, nerve cells, etc. Then the downward spiral accelerates: less movement - less function - less movement… The man complains more and more and resents the body, which allegedly let him down. No, honey, it’s the opposite - you betrayed it by carelessly refusing the generous gifts of the gods. Fortunately, you can always become your body’s friend again. Like a dog, the body willingly forgives us for everything and is ready to open its treasury again. You shouldn’t expect miracles, but you can be pleasantly surprised. After all, you are capable of much more than you ever imagined.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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What does your face say? /  by Alexander Lyadov

The children are very similar to each other. How? Their faces show unlimited potential. Every kid can become almost anything. Even with the influence of genes, environment and upbringing, the range of scenarios is unimaginably wide. That’s why a child’s eyes are as fresh as a high mountain spring. And the forehead is as clean as a new canvas.

Looking at an adult, we read the story of his or her life. In addition to the effects of the outside world in the form of bumps, scuffs and scars, over the years, the face more and more accurately reflects the inner world. Dissatisfaction with everyone and everything, that is, with oneself, pulls the corners of the lips downward, as if one had eaten bird droppings. The habit of frequent and intense thinking plows two vertical furrows on the bridge of his nose. You can tell a man who laughs good-naturedly by the ray of wrinkles around his eyes. Constant anxiety throws the triangles of the eyebrows up, “Ah, what happened this time?”

As we know, function determines form, not the other way around. No matter how hard one tries to hide one’s nature, it still comes out through facial expressions. Over several decades, the face reflects a specific emotion a million times — envy and sadness, anger and compassion, etc. A child has a chance to come to harmony with himself, no matter what kind of birth curse he has. At 80 years of age, a person will usually only cement something that has not been fixed in a lifetime.

Knowing all this, I think it makes sense to take a closer look at yourself in the mirror. Do you like where this person is going? If so, hallelujah! If not, well, you know what to do.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The problem of self-education /  by Alexander Lyadov

When I was a kid, we had a bookcase at home. In it was a complete Library of Adventures collection, published in the USSR in 1955. One of my fondest memories is picking up a book at random and making myself comfortable in an immense armchair. As I gazed at the amazing illustrations and read the captions, I was imperceptibly engrossed in the content before and after the illustrations, so that the books were quickly swallowed one by one.

It is the property of talented works to dissolve the reader into themselves, transporting them to another reality. The characters of the novels and short stories took on flesh and blood, and their way of thinking and behavior affected the malleable child’s mind, as if we were communicating in person. Thus I discovered an infinite number of teachers, inspirers, comforters, and role models. Whether the author was a contemporary or lived centuries ago, he was always there for me. Regardless of my emotional state or degree of ignorance, the titans of thought generously shared their treasures with me. Investor and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant observed, “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”

In fact, there is no secret knowledge guarded by anyone from the uninitiated. The bottleneck is our ability to gather insights scattered everywhere. It’s like picking strawberries or mushrooms — the forest rewards the one who is willing to bow down, digging through the grass, moss, and leaves. It is usually pride and laziness that get in the way of getting down on all fours. One wants to learn everything, all at once, without effort and without admitting to being a “fool.” But it doesn’t work that way.

Hunger is needed to truly appreciate the taste of viands. One must have a “hunger” to learn anything new. Ultimately, the problem with education is not about the availability of knowledge, but about answering the very personal question, “What is my sacrifice for?”

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Build what's missing /  by Alexander Lyadov

How do you build something that doesn’t exist? Y Combinator startup accelerator founder Paul Graham wrote, “Live in the future and build what’s missing.” One phrase captures the present, the future, and action to turn one into the other.

Working with company founders, I see a variety of challenges. One finds it difficult to accept the bitter reality of the present because it would destroy the coveted image of self. Another gets sucked into the swamp of routine and has no time, or rather mental energy, to clearly describe the future the company is supposedly heading toward. But if there is no target, you can hit the bull’s-eye only by accident. The third one understands everything correctly, but the key decisions which can quickly increase the value of the business are for some reason not taken in any way. False assumptions invisibly entangle the mind and make it only unproductively twitch from side to side, like a bumblebee in a web.

Man is a value-oriented being. This means that of all the variety of the world around us, we notice only what preserves and develops our lives. In fact, this is why the same event will strike you deeply in the soul, while your neighbor will only shrug his shoulders. It’s the same with opportunities, dangers, resources, and tools — we only see them when we really need them. Thus, when falling from a tree, the hand involuntarily grasps any object whose function is to keep us from hitting the ground.

Therefore, it is important for every entrepreneur to know at all times what is good and evil, but not in an abstract sense, but specifically for his business and in general for his life.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Source of strength /  by Alexander Lyadov

When assessing someone's power, we tend to pay attention immediately to external attributes. For a person, it is height, muscle, and weight. For an army, it is the number of personnel, the volume and technological sophistication of weapons. For a company, it's market share, turnover, patents, customers, etc. Evolution has taught us that in an encounter, as a rule, the larger individual wins. In the wild, all animals have similar "OS" in the form of instinct. If there is no difference in "software," then "hardware" rules. That is why in primitive societies - in the early Paleolithic, prisons and Muscovy - only the propensity for violence is valued, and the most pathological psychopath becomes the king.

As the internal organization of both the individual and society as a whole becomes more complex, the number one value becomes creative solutions to non-standard problems, i.e. ingenuity, creativity, innovativeness. And friendly cooperation with other people is especially important, because social capital is a lever that exponentially increases the creative output. Here clash is also inevitable, but in a civilized society there is a conflict of ideas, not people. The more developed the spiritual vector of culture, the sharper the struggle for truth, not for power.

In this sense, who is the strongest? The one who has the least amount of unproductive internal friction. Any squabbles, intrigues and quarrels increase entropy in the system, increasing the probability of collapse. And no matter how big the group is, how advanced the technology is, and how bottomless the resources are, soon the system will start to wobble, stumble, and fall to pieces itself. Investor Peter Thiel writes: "Internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all." Developing his thought further, it can be argued that the most important thing is for the founder to have peace in his mind. Then any external problem is surmountable.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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Yin and Yang /  by Alexander Lyadov

If by your psychotype, you are a person who appreciates novelty, it is easy for you to make a super order once, but it is hard to maintain it. Of course, you сan force yourself to repeat the cleaning. But for the hundredth time your brain, which hates routine, will “accidentally” forget, get “strangely” sick or go on strike. Monotonous activity does not just bring boredom — it literally sucks the life out of you. It is easier for you to solve a dozen non-trivial tasks, just not to make copies of what you already know.

You’d be surprised, but there are a lot of people who have a completely different view. They are no worse than you, and you are no better than them. If novelty intrigues, inspires and invigorates you, for them it is disorienting, confusing and alarming. Therefore, in an unfamiliar situation, they fall into a stupor and genuinely suffer. But in known territory, they are invaluable. When goals and plans are clear, and resources and authority are sufficient, such people are unstoppable. They are reliable, hard-working and responsible, sometimes even too much. Most importantly, they are happy to do exactly what is torture for you.

One with all his soul yearns to exponentially develop whatever he takes on. The other can’t wait to stabilize something. It’s not hard to guess that together you are doomed to conflict. We tend not to recognize and depreciate the opposite quality, which is in short supply. But with years of experience comes the insight that a kite is meaningless without a thread. So, too, all your creative-inventive power if productive only if there is someone who will carefully take your trophies, and without losing anything, carefully clean, sort and arrange them into a structure. It is a great fortune in business when alliances are formed where partners functionally complement each other, like Yin and Yang. Are you lucky in this sense or are you still carrying the entire load?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The settling of scores /  by Alexander Lyadov

Chaos is the perfect time to settle a personal score. If someone has long annoyed, disgusted or envied you, if he or she has triggered you with every post, achievement or fact of existence, now you can destroy them. And you’ll probably get away with it. Why?

In extreme situations, whether war, riot, corporate conflict or natural disaster, the spectrum of worldview collapses, becoming black and white — life and death, good and evil, friend and foe. Shades, nuances and halftones disappear. Rows of zeros and ones run across the retina. To each event, fact or person the mind immediately assigns a label “+” or “-“. How else could it be? In chaos, time works against you, and real human lives are at stake.

Only professionals — military officers, policemen, firefighters, surgeons, psychotherapists — are able to act in a differentiated, measured and cold-blooded manner, despite adrenaline splashes. They are trained to make micro-pauses to let the wave of emotion pass by, opening up a space of options. The vast majority of people don’t have the skill or energy to go into detail. It’s enough to shout out loudly, “That’s the villain! Sic him!” and a cloud of arrows will fly off the drawn bows.

Even if the truth about the smear comes out later, everyone will try to hush up the incident, out of shame for participating willy-nilly. In the dissident literature of Soviet times, this kind of settling of personal scores was called “putting a person on an ideological plane (translating into ideological terms)”. Of course, there are no such inquisitors among the readers of this article. But here’s a key for you — if someone in chaos tries to bite you from a moral high ground, know this — he or she has secretly hated you for a long time.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The paradox of imperfection /  by Alexander Lyadov

Perfectionism is popular among middle managers, and many CEOs too. Just as teenagers compete to see who can walk over the edge of a cliff, so managers measure up: “You’re only 95% of perfect, and I’m 99.5%.” No wonder some people get burned out at these “Olympics”. After all, every extra percentage of perfection comes at an exponentially increasing cost. I used to be like that myself, and later observed this phenomenon in my subordinates and colleagues.

Entrepreneurs intuitively know all this, and so instead of perfectionism they profess the principle: “Good enough is good enough”. The manager inhabits an artificial greenhouse environment, where the connection with reality is indirect, and therefore responsibility for mistakes can be avoided. The habitat of the entrepreneur is a wild market, where there is no connivance or mercy. Business has to fight every day for survival, with no guarantee of reward for efforts. Like the cheetah, the entrepreneur values his limited resource, which may not be enough for the next hunt. Therefore, his goal is not the form, but the pure functionality of the product, the process, and the team. If the mechanism roars, rattles and smokes, but it moves, it is already good.

Besides perfectionism is bad for people’s health and unacceptably expensive for business, there is another argument against it. Ido Portal, the world’s #1 human movement expert, suggested in an interview, “I believe in power of non-complete process, like making this table, but leaving something undone, not perfecting the product. Why? Because it offers some kind of dynamic nature of evolution that naturally unravels from it. Almost like sometimes I do it, I count reps and I’ll only count to 9, because it tends to leave people in the count and it keeps going instead of giving them the 10”.

What if imperfection is fundamental to the existence and development of not just business, but Life in general?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The Infinite Way /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

More than once I heard from experienced entrepreneurs how important it is to know in advance what to do after the successful sale of the business has taken place. It usually seems that the main thing is to build something meaningful, to reach the cherished peak, and harmony and grace are sure to await there. But many founders are shocked that after many years of focused extra effort, there comes a brief moment of triumph, followed by despondency, depression, and emptiness. It feels as if someone has knocked the stool out from under you. The meaning that had guided, sustained, and inspired you up to that point suddenly evaporated. And the new meaning did not emerge by itself. Expensive toys, hedonism and entertainment cannot become substitutes for meaning. On the contrary, existential longing is only exacerbated by the thought: “How dare you be dissatisfied? You have absolutely everything.

Knowing this, experienced founders, like in a telescopic fishing rod, begin to pull in a new segment of meaning long before D-Day. Thus, the current goal is not the final destination, but a prerequisite for achieving something even more desirable later. If we develop this thought to the limit, we will see a multilevel hierarchy, where one meaning is subordinate to the second one, the second to the third one, etc. With such a vertical of meaning, a person will become almost unstoppable.

Life will create obstacles, breaking the current plan of action and questioning the current goal. But instead of discouragement and frustration, a person simply turns to the meta-meaning one or two levels higher and from that height redraws the route differently. After all, the feeling of deadlock is a consequence of a lack of perspective, when it seems there is only one, but absolutely unacceptable option. As one gains altitude, the number of options grows rapidly.

When multiple personal meanings are embedded one within another, life resembles a conscious path toward infinity. Perhaps this is what Lao Tzu meant when he said: “A good traveler has no precise plans or intentions of getting anywhere.”

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
Reserve a time on my calendar that is convenient for you to meet with me. We'll clarify your request and discuss options for how you can help.

Thiel's Law /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

“A startup that is corrupt at its core cannot be repaired.” PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel repeated this insight so often that friends called it “Thiel’s Law”. You can give an SUV a brutal shape by wrapping it with expensive equipment on all sides, but if it was born a “city boy”, it will never become the “king of the off-road”. The quality of the foundation defines, what you can build — a skyscraper or a mud hut. Some mistakes, like incest or jumping without a reserve parachute, cannot be compensated for later.

In a startup, of course, the main decision is who to build it with. I have had different experiences — from a successful business with the wrong partners to, on the contrary, an unsuccessful business with the right partners. Outside of the ideal, the latter is more to my liking. After all, the company is just one episode of many. Yes, we lost time and money together, but we gained good relationships for life. And with people with whom there is no value match, there is still no way to share or celebrate, much less repeat success. The only benefit here is a lesson in who you should (not) choose as a partner. And most importantly, why.

To think that I was just unlucky to meet a bad partner is naivety, victim psychology and infantilism. Of all the possible alternatives I, oops, for some reason chose specifically them and not others. So, some part of me was eager to realize this negative scenario. Even if the decision was made subconsciously, and I was surprised later. Taking responsibility for my own choices does not amnesty the malevolent actions of others, but it allows me to take control of my life to have a chance to ever change it.

It turns out that the most important startup is yourself. It is the cornerstone without which all business projects will falter or crumble into dust. Fortunately, you can always start fixing it. How about now?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
Reserve a time on my calendar that is convenient for you to meet with me. We'll clarify your request and discuss options for how you can help.

Recalibration /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

It is known that a lost traveler makes a multi-kilometer meaningless circle back to the starting point. To verify this, in 2007, German researchers Jan Sowman and Mark Ernst set up an experiment on volunteers in the woods and deserts. It turned out that travelers do walk in circles if they cannot see the sun and the moon, or if they are blindfolded.

However, it turned out that the same person sometimes deviates to the left, sometimes to the right. Thus, walking in circles is not caused by differences in leg length or strength, but is most likely the result of a growing uncertainty about where the forward direction is [1]. So without landmarks to guide them, the walkers were relying on feedback from their bodies (proprioception) and their sense of balance. These cues can help over short distances, but Souman says that they soon build up “sensory noise” that renders them inaccurate and causes the person’s trajectory to drift both increasingly and randomly. Small errors lead to random walks, while larger errors cause circling. Small errors lead to random wandering, while large errors cause circling [2].

In business, one often has to act in smoke, fog, and darkness. In the short term, a founder’s intuition and extra effort can help a business survive uncertainty. But in the long run, as in the woods, you have to be wary of the accumulation of “sensory noise.” Knowing all this, savvy entrepreneurs establish a ritual once a quarter (six months, a year) to double-check their mental maps and key decisions made. By being proactive, they protect their business from themselves, or rather from the natural tendency to accumulate entropy in any closed system. As National Geographic continues, “A visual cue, however, can do wonders for resetting our navigation. If Souman allowed his blindfolded bumblers to lift their blindfolds for a minute out of every five or ten, they managed to recalibrate their sense of “straight ahead” and started each block of time in a straight line again”.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
Reserve a time on my calendar that is convenient for you to meet with me. We'll clarify your request and discuss options for how you can help.

Curse or grace? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Most people are constantly tormented by something inside, but unfortunately they have no idea what to do about it. So for a long time they just pretend that all is well in their lives, communicating their enthusiasm, success, health and wealth. But one day they go off the rails, which shocks everyone around them.

What happens is like diarrhea and a gag reflex that cannot be restrained. The person makes some excessive, inadequate or even violent move against himself, a stranger, a colleague, family or society as a whole. The scale of the tragedy can be anything, affecting only a close circle or entire nations: a mental breakdown on social media, a corporate conflict, a school shooting, and, of course, the invasion of Ukraine by wild Russian hordes.

Common to all cases is the inability of a particular individual (or group) to recognize, curb, and redirect into a constructive channel the energy that explodes him (or her, them) from within. Sometimes, however, it is too late for reflection. In neglected cases, the only way out is a straitjacket or a bullet to the head.

In this sense, I have always been struck by the ability of creative people to transform their suffering into works of art. Even if for a while, their lives become, if not harmonious, at least bearable. The creators were lucky to intuitively find the channel through which their inner dissonance is released to the outside. Moreover, this happens in a form that society accepts, appreciates, and sometimes generously rewards. The latter is true mercy of the gods, for the power that destroyed man now grants him salvation, prosperity, and, most importantly, meaning. What would happen if everyone, to the extent of his humble strength, became a Creator?

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

You can help Ukraine defend itself and the World from Russian aggression here.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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.

"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
Reserve a time on my calendar that is convenient for you to meet with me. We'll clarify your request and discuss options for how you can help.