A reserve of harmony /  by Alexander Lyadov

Many of us live in a concrete jungle. Providing infrastructural stability, buildings, sidewalks, and roads steal something important from us. As I walk my dog between houses in the morning, I’ve noticed that I linger for a few seconds when we pass one group of bushes and trees.

The variety of their species, under the influence of fall, creates a stunningly beautiful bouquet. The production of green chlorophyll in the leaves decreases, giving other pigments — carotenoids and anthocyanins — a chance to fully express themselves. The former give yellow and orange color, while the latter are responsible for red. Taken together in a complex pattern, the multitude of these tones and shades powerfully draw the eye.

Somewhere I heard the idea that through beauty — in music, nature, mathematics, dance, sports, relationships, or creativity — God speaks to us. After all, even a hardened atheist cannot deny that at such moments it is as if he has access to a secret spring from which he greedily drinks aesthetic pleasure, harmony and peace.

Whoever is behind this phenomenon, his experience is authentic, it cannot be confused with anything else, and afterwards he wants to repeat it again. By the way, the aforementioned oasis is located in front of garbage cans. But this ugliness does not spoil, but rather emphasizes the magnificent chaos of nature, ordering my inner state every time I pass by. So simple and so accessible.

I can’t help but wonder how different the quality of life might have been if, against all odds, it had been dominated by beauty. Of course, the malevolent actions of people, the tragic twists of fate, and one’s own mistakes would not go anywhere. But perhaps, woven from many threads, the stock of harmony will be so great that neither ugliness, nor betrayal, nor entropy will penetrate it.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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Day and Night /  by Alexander Lyadov

The scientific article “Is Melatonin the ‘Next Vitamin D’?” mentions the growing concern about vitamin D deficiency resulting from “sunlight deficiency” and decreased melatonin secretion resulting from “darkness deficiency”. Several thousand years ago, man tamed fire, which was a breakthrough in his evolution, and today he suffers from an excess of “fire,” that is, excessive exposure to artificial blue light amidst a lack of sunlight. So what does a person do when he discovers a deficiency of the chronobiotic melatonin, which happens to act as an immunoactive agent and a powerful antioxidant? That’s right, he buys a pack of concentrated pills.

Nassim Taleb called such action naive interventionism, here, in the vital functions of the body. Technically, the problem is solved, because the deficit is overridden by the surplus. But the human body is more complex than the oil tank of a car - adding a substance does not close the issue, but easily messes with nature’s subtle initial settings. Trying to hack the system faster, one gets side effects: amnesia or a “melatonin hangover” the next day, finding it harder to fall asleep, or sleeping well for three to four hours and then waking up and not being able to go back to sleep.

The authors of the study provide a chart (see illustration) from which it is clear that in the case of sleep disorders, pills should never be a priority. You need to start with the foundation - restoring the balance of light and darkness in your life. Stanford professor Andrew Huberman explains exactly how in his podcast.

Is it any different in business? How many founders are looking for a magic pill that promises to rid their companies of a bouquet of chronic organizational problems. But after introducing the next “panacea”, the business is not properly cured, but the introduction of an additional variable generates new difficulties, which now also need to be solved. The basic things that determine the health of a business are ignored. And they have always been, are and will always be around, like night and day.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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Learning at superspeed /  by Alexander Lyadov

To become a professional, let alone a Master in any field, one must learn extremely quickly from year to year.

Learning is a function not so much of the incoming flow of knowledge as of the portion of it that is permanently retained inside.

It is clear how to increase the input flow - this task is solved by discipline, teaching methods and sufficient monetary resources.

But the coefficient of knowledge retention is a tricky riddle, it cannot be solved by an effort of will, punishment or reward.

The answer lies in the phenomenon of coupling itself, because in order to firmly retain knowledge, there must be a hook for its loop inside.

Ideally, the hook should be out of a person’s control, otherwise, depending on mood swings, it would cling and not cling.

What is this force that manifests itself freely and unpredictably in everyone, leaving us only one choice - to follow it or not?

Meet your Curiosity.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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Why is limitlessness evil? /  by Alexander Lyadov

After recently acquiring a gas burner, I, a city dweller far removed from tourism, enjoy a “campfire” in the kitchen. But in addition to the freedom to boil a mug of tea when the power goes out in Kyiv, I also got a reminder of the connection between finitude and value. Of course, we pay for electricity every month, but its constant availability in the socket kind of devalues this resource. Like the constant availability of 20.95% oxygen in the air, we simply take electricity as a given, ceasing to count it.

Cylinder gas is another matter. Its finiteness — whether it is 100, 240 or 400 grams, as well as the visibility when it burns or leaks, instantly intensifies the desire to save it in every possible way. It’s not a question of money or even the hassle of ordering a new cylinder. It is, on the one hand, a kind of primal terror that an important resource may run out, and on the other, a fascinating game of how to get more with less.

The limited nature of the resource makes us appreciate it, and hence count it carefully. Knowing this insight distinguishes professionals from novices in any area of life. An experienced athlete, having obtained a favorable position in a struggle, will never give it back to his opponent. A mature farmer will try to use even a by-product in the farm. A seasoned founder will never start a business, hire an employee, or approve an initiative without first making it clear what value he expects in exchange for the investment. It hurts him physically if any resource is idle, rusty, or wasted. And knowing that limitlessness relaxes and corrupts anyone, he makes a conscious effort to artificially limit any resource. This disciplining function is served by the practice of evaluating the company’s proposed solutions from an ROI perspective: “For what?” and by having someone close to the founder who can ask that question even to him.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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Outward or inward? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Sunday morning was unusually sunny, quiet and beautiful in an autumnal way. The usually lively Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard pleased me with the absence of cars. A black Land Cruiser sharply took off from the restaurant, crossed three traffic lanes at an acute angle and stood in the furthest lane at the traffic light. At the green light, it suddenly made a prohibited left turn and entered the lane with the opposite direction. How the driver of the speeding car didn’t collide with him is a mystery. Surely he was as shocked as I was. Too great was the contrast between the calm morning and the tragedy that miraculously had not happened.

The man puts on three masks, being highly disturbed by the world’s statistics of the spread of Covid. He stays up nights waiting for a tactical nuclear strike. He spends a lot of energy and time trying to understand what really happened at the 20th meeting of the Chinese Communist Party. But then, not waiting for the universal apocalypse, he chokes on a fishbone, gets seriously ill from stress, gets into a fight with strangers, or swerves into the oncoming lane at a stroke. It turns out that the greatest danger to him is not something or someone, but himself.

If man were a rational being, as economists believe, he would realize the absurdity of his anxieties about events over which he not only has no control, but cannot even influence them. However, the redundancy of such experiences suggests that emotion plays a key role here. Event X symbolizes something so intolerable to this person that he literally can neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, nor live. Careful introspection in psychotherapy, for example, may reveal that behind the disturbing symbol is an entirely different object Y, whose roots stretch back decades. It turns out that whatever environment this person is placed in, he will find a representation of Y everywhere, to then fear, crave, hate or save it.

It seems to me that this insight is hopeful. For unlike global events, in knowing yourself, you have absolute power in your hands. True, the flip side of it is the responsibility for the gap between what you have and what you want. Which probably explains why so few people are willing to look inward rather than outward.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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Who are your teachers? /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

“My teachers used to be mostly dead people,” this phrase seemed to shock the psychotherapy group. Seeing their reaction, I corrected myself: “I meant writers, philosophers, and scientists who are long gone. In my youth, I did not meet anyone among those around me who could be an authority for me. Maybe I wasn’t lucky then, or maybe it’s easier to trust the motivations of people who have gone into oblivion. After all, they certainly don’t want anything from you anymore. Their thoughts, like birdsong, are freely available - take it or leave it. Besides, time is the best at filtering out all sorts of rubbish. If a book hasn’t decayed over dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of years, and it continues to be valuable, it means the author managed to express the meta-meaning.

I think differently now. No, I still appreciate the catch that the chrono-nets have pulled out of the ocean of history. But I have also learned to take knowledge from people living today. Of course, I have to make allowances for their interest, which is not always obvious, and sometimes not even to themselves. I was also surprised to discover that treasures of knowledge do not need to be searched deep underground and extracted with risk. It turns out that they are scattered literally everywhere, just looking like vulgar stones.

What’s more, the role of a wise teacher can be played not by a human, but by an animal, such as my dog. My guess is that an inanimate object can potentially convey insight as well. In fact, any phenomenon is capable of being a source of insight. The only thing it requires is my willingness and ability to take what the environment generously generates without stopping.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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

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Taming the Fire /  by Alexander Lyadov

Recently I told you that I was concerned about increasing my autonomy, taking into account the prospect of a sudden power outage and the coming cold weather. Although the topic of choosing a gas burner is not related to the business, and the question of household, I still decided to share with you the results of my intensive research. Maybe this information will be useful to you, your relatives or friends.

Even if you live not in Ukraine, but in Europe, no one today is secure from a failure of infrastructure, which served reliably up to now. For in the global world, events are no longer 100% local. All countries, like communicating vessels, affect each other in one way or another, for good or for ill. Order quickly turns into chaos, supply chains break, laws are ignored, and civilized people degenerate into barbarians, once basic things that no one has noticed for a couple of weeks - electricity, heat, water, etc. - disappear. So, in some aspects of life, Plan B comes in handy.

Below is a list of stoves in three categories based on budget. The links given are not affiliate links. Please note that I am a white belt in the subject of tourism. I’m sure experienced travelers will correct my choices. The prices are given on the Amazon USA site, but in Ukraine they are 10-40% more expensive. Function - boiling water and primitive cooking/heating for 1-2 people. For myself, I chose a moderate in-between kit.

1. Gas stove:
a) Affordability - BRS Outdoor BRS-3000T Ultra-Light Titanium Alloy Miniature Portable Picnic Camping Gas Cooking Stove (China), $16.95
b) Moderation - MSR PocketRocket 2 Ultralight Camping and Backpacking Stove (USA/Korea), $39.96
c) Luxury - SOTO WindMaster w/ Micro Regulator and 4Flex (Japan), $64.95

2. Mug Kettle
a) Affordability - Stanley Adventure Camp Cook Set (USA/China) - 24oz Kettle with 2 Ceramic Cups - 0.7L, $14.12
b) Moderation - GSI Outdoors - Halulite Boiler (USA/China), The Perfect Packable Pot - 1.1L, $39.95
c) Luxury - EVERNEW Titanium Mug Pot (Japan) - 0.9L, $79.99

3. Canister
Of course for the burner you will also need a gas Canister with a threaded connection with a capacity of 100, 230 or 450g. You can buy them online anywhere (at least until there’s a rush).

4. Plan C
In case I even ran out of gas, I ordered a reliable spirit burner and a minimalistic stand:
- Trangia Spirit burner for storm cookers (Sweden), $19.99
- EVERNEW Titanium Alcohol Stove Cross Stand 2 (Japan), $17.29

400,000 years ago fire was invented by ancient humans, marking a turning point in human socio-cultural evolution by providing a variety of ways to cook food, be active at night, keep your home warm, and frighten predators away. Today, everyone can repeat history in miniature, increasing their degrees of freedom with a personally tamed fire. To survive on one’s own terms against all odds–that was and still is the motive of Homo sapiens.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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Who is a touron? /  by Alexander Lyadov

The term “touron” is a combination of the words “tourist” and “moron. It refers to a person committing an act of pure stupidity while on vacation in the wilderness or in a zoo. There’s even an Instagram feed of Tourons of Yellowstone, where a stream of cautionary videos makes it impossible to look away. One tries to scare a mother bear as she walks by with her cubs. A second jumps over the Bryce Canyon fence, stumbles, and miraculously doesn’t fall from a great height. A third gets her baby’s feet wet by having a picnic on a wet rock, at a steep angle going into a mountain stream. A fourth strolls carelessly among the geysers of the sea, as if they were city fountains and not jets shooting down everything in their path. The fifth decides to take selfies with an African elephant, for which he and his 2-year-old child climb a double fence. What drives them all? Idiocy bordering on suicide. I wonder who they vote for in elections.

Although, perhaps, the cause is not so much a craving for self-destruction or a low IQ, but a disconnection from reality. Life in the city is like walking along smooth paths in a well-kept garden, from which dangerous animals have been banished and weeds uprooted. Wild dogs don’t attack passersby, and the claws of cats don’t scratch children. Garbage is removed, hot water flows from the faucet, the streets are lit at night, and all this happens automatically, unnoticed, by itself. A person has the illusion that safety and comfort are the norm, a given, the original state of things. It does not even occur to him that a colossal amount of resources has been invested to clear and ennoble this “Garden of Eden.

In addition, thousands of people-military, firefighters, police, janitors, doctors, elevators, electricians, etc. — make significant, often heroic efforts every day to keep entropy from destroying this status quo. Moreover, this infrastructure saves people from their foolishness like a safety net. No matter what happens, a professional will be there to warn, protect, heal or bring back to life in time. So, just like on the children’s trampoline, you can bounce around and have great fun, without regard to the solid ground and sharp corners. But once in the wild, the citizen naively continues to believe that he still has the safety rope with him. And so he exposes himself to exorbitant risks - he feeds a bear cub, takes pictures over a boiling spring or turns his back on a moose.

It’s funny that the same phenomenon can be observed in business. For example, when a “terry” top manager tries to launch a startup. Or a large corporation decides to rejuvenate itself radically by pompously launching a venture capital fund or R&D department. They forget that their skills are only good for “civilization”, where 1 scales to 100. But in “Wild West” territory, where 1 is born from 0, not everyone can survive, much less thrive, but only the entrepreneur.

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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Strategy and personality /  by Alexander Lyadov

John Danaher, Gordon Ryan and Garry Tonon

When there are discussions of strategy, it is often presented as having some ideal plan of action, without regard to who will carry it out. Like, do this and you’re guaranteed a reward. Maybe in primitive games like Jenga or Tic-tac-toe, there really is only one right way. But in complex games like business, politics, or sports, the strategy must take into account the participant’s personality and, broadly speaking, his resource. This is often forgotten after reading some clever books or taking an MBA course.

Legendary trainer John Danaher explained it this way: “There are two broad ways you can go in jiujitsu — you can either focus on promoting your own movement to create opportunity or by restricting the other person’s movement. If you are a slower, less athletic opponent, then you should definitely focus on the ideas of restricting the other fellow’s movement. That’s how slow unathletic people win in jiujitsu. If you are quick with the ability to change the direction and stand up quickly, go down quickly and move like a leopard, then you are almost always better off generate movement in order to create opportunity. So one is based more on movement as a source of opportunity, one is based more on pressure as a source of opportunity.” John’s two students, Garry Tonon and Gordon Ryan, who dominate the grappling Olympus, illustrate the difference of such different strategies as best they can.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor or CEO, I suggest you try John’s insight on yourself. If speed is your middle name, you’re bursting with excess vitality, and you feel like a pike in a river in the chaos, then yanking the competition, or even shaking up a market segment, is the winningest strategy. While others are snapping their beaks in the confusion, you’ll have time to rip and cash out the super prize. But if your tag cloud is systematic, judicious and controlling, then your strategic priority is to deprive your opponent of mobility, nullifying his degrees of freedom. In combat, this is accomplished by creating an asymmetrical advantage through knowledge of human anatomy, angles of attack, leverage mechanics, etc., to which the adversary is forced to respond reactively by falling into the traps-dilemmas you set. Similarly, in business, you create a systemic premise in which any choice your opponent makes only strengthens your position, one way or another.

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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Warming expertise /  by Alexander Lyadov

Because of the regular power outages in Kyiv and the fact that Winter Is Coming, I decided to buy a gas stove just in case. Mind said: “Pick an easier, cheaper, and quicker option.” But, judging by my behavior, my body labeled the task as super important. For a few days now, I've been scrupulously studying reviews that compare the pros and cons of different systems to the exact seconds and grams. There are gas, liquid, solid and multi-fuel stoves. Separate or integrated into a single mechanism. There are good quality things from China or inventive wonders from Japan. And that's just the stove, but there are also mugs, flashlights and other tools that greatly facilitate the life of a citizen who found himself without light, water or heat. In short, another rabbit hole opened up, the bottom of which is not visible.

And so it is everywhere. Whether it's choosing a CRM-system for business, sneakers for jogging or carbine for self-defense, every time you expect to see a couple of options, but it turns out that they have no end in sight. You wouldn't know it, but there's a community of passionate people who have been collecting knowledge about this subject for years, bit by bit. A naive person would cringe, "All these nuances are superfluous." Not at all, it's just that their significance is truly realized through personal negative experiences.

They say that the instructions for skydiving are written in blood. But you could say that about anything. In yesterday's video review, a Finnish blogger seriously warned: "And please don't try to put alcohol in a working stove." That wouldn’t have occurred to you. But apparently, there are enough people in the world who don't mind throwing wood on the fire, so to speak. One stove you can’t break, another folds up into a thimble, the third holds a flame in any wind. There is an optimum solution for every type of force majeure.

When you do something long and thoroughly, you're bound to notice patterns that aren't obvious to everyone else. This knowledge protects against hidden risks and increases the return on investment of time, effort or money. The one who assembles valuable patterns into a coherent system is an expert. One tip from an expert can propel you along the learning curve into turbo mode.

And in what area are you an expert? Or perhaps even a Master?

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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The Perfect Partnership /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

The most productive alliance in business is when one of the partners is obsessed with learning new things as quickly as possible, and the other is inclined to master what is already there in a measured way. This kind of thrust is not something a person can choose on his own. On the contrary, the urge possesses him since childhood. On the surface, the two businessmen are as similar as two value systems, but with different philosophies, like Bitcoin and the U.S. dollar. In terms of BigFive's personality typology, one has a pronounced openness to experience - curiosity, adventurism, creativity, and challenging authority. The other is dominated by conscientiousness - caution, thoroughness, deliberation, and discipline. When openness to new ideas is coupled with reliability in implementing them, such a tandem leaves competitors behind coughing up dust.

Despite the obvious benefits, examples of long-term partnerships of this kind are not as common as one might expect. The fact is that the difference in the firmware of the worldview is so great that it is difficult, not only to accept, but even to assume that such dissimilarity is normal. Rather, there is confusion, irritation and aversion to the partner’s “perpendicular” position on any issue. Therefore, friction often arises, easily turning into disputes, and then, lo and behold, a shareholder conflict breaks out. The dissimilarity of personalities forms a fuel mixture, the energy of combustion of which can either be transformed into fruitful mechanical work, or blow up the engine to hell.

Such an alliance is not so much a science as an art. One cannot read a manual and immediately mold a partnership, symbolically, of light and darkness. To realize the value of someone principled Other, a person must grow and mature. It is possible and even necessary to make mistakes in this process. But only on the condition that an analysis of past false starts is made in order to learn an invaluable lesson from them.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of your partnership?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexande

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Life as error /  by Alexander Lyadov

The French philosopher, mathematician, and naturalist René Descartes (1596-1650) is often quoted: “I think, therefore I exist.” Less frequently recalled are the words a thousand years older: “I err therefore I am.” They were said by the philosopher, theologian and bishop in Roman North Africa, Aurelius Augustine (354-430). Seemingly similar phrases in form, but what a difference in meaning.

The first habitually reflects the rationalistic approach, the purpose of which is to increase knowledge about the material world. At its best, it is the scientific method of cognition that gave us technology, in particular the Internet and the computer on which I am writing these lines. At its worst, it is a distortion, where the developed intellect is so fanatically fascinated by the process of knowledge that it scornfully rejects everything that cannot be held in its hands, put in a chromatograph or treated with acid. Only that which can be comprehended makes sense, they say. The rest is lyricism, fantasy, nonsense. But since the world around us is much more complex, dynamic and unpredictable than any of its most sophisticated representations, man, limited only by his intellect, is doomed to regularly fall face down, suffering from his own imperfection. Sooner or later reality will emasculate a mind that claims omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

Augustine’s words make an important correction that can bring harmony within. To truly be alive, it is of course important to think critically. But it is even more important to recognize the existence of something that the mind can never fully comprehend. Which, however, does not deny, but rather encourages relentless exploration of unknown territories. And it is this factory defect, this fundamental vulnerability, this inexorable imperfection of the human being that creates the difference of potentialities between what is and what can be. It is as if reality invites us to make a leap from point A to point B. That is, life is the endless correction of past mistakes and the generation of future mistakes. For without imperfection there is no being.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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Protect yourself from yourself /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

In business, and in life in general, the main thing is to protect yourself from yourself. You heard right — not from some villains or natural disasters, but from those forces that rage within each of us. “I am in complete control of my life,” as either an enlightened Buddha or a hopelessly naïve person might claim. Obeying an inner impulse, one makes fateful decisions, hunts for a particular deal, clings to a relationship, or gets caught up in another mess. And then, if he has the desire and strength, he rationalizes after the fact how and why it happened. This is evidenced by the negative pattern that has stubbornly emerged over the years. The pattern is one, but its forms are different, which makes it not so easy to catch its tail.

One entrepreneur has been fatally unlucky with partners. Each time, after the initial intensive growth of the company, disagreements arise between the partners and the joint business goes into a tailspin. Everyone — employees, investors and customers — is convinced of the genius of the other founder. But the constantly introduced advanced approaches and scrupulously described processes create a pseudo-order in the company, as the key decisions are delayed, the blurred zones of responsibility lead to conflicts, and the best employees burn out trying to improve anything. The third owner turns almost any project he touches into gold. But then he just as easily loses one valuable opportunity after another. The fourth, the fifteenth, the hundredth — each founder has his own signature move, and he regularly puts himself put on the blades.

When a systemic failure occurs for the first time, a person blames it on bad luck or the malicious intent of people. On the third or fifth time, a hunch comes in that it may be his own fault. And only by analyzing many of his decisions and their consequences, and then acting differently, is there a chance to neutralize the next impending failure. All founders go through this transformation. The only difference is the speed: for one of them each cycle takes six months, and for others it lasts ten or even twenty years.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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

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A meaningless group /  by Alexander Lyadov

Most group training, brainstorming and strategy sessions are a waste of money. Why? Too often they are ersatz, that is, a desperate attempt to compensate for what the company really lacks.

For example, a tangible budget is allocated annually for team building, but everyone turns a blind eye to the confusing organizational structure, favoritism and hidden shareholder conflict. Or the gathered brains are already boiling at the eleventh hour of searching for a breakthrough idea, but only because the company has again agreed to a vague and urgent client assignment in the spirit of “Guess It Yourself”. Or, say, once again all the top managers are gathered for a strategy session to identify new opportunities for business growth. But the shareholders never bother to describe their vision of what the business should be in 5-10 years.

When the wrong problem is attempted to be solved by over-zealous effort, then, while it looks epic in the moment, it always ends up worsening P&L. In other words, it’s always the shareholders who pay for this “entertainment”. And okay they would do it consciously — after all, the owner has the right to ruin his business. But no, the shareholders suffer sincerely, seeing that the desired increase in capitalization is absent. Everyone else — employees, customers, contractors, and investors — is also exhausted. Regular company fires also scorch them, forcing them to either become firefighters or go to the first-aid post.

If you’re a founder or CEO, before you succumb to the impulse to gather people into a group, ask yourself: “What problem am I really trying to solve?”.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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”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.

Different /  by Alexander Lyadov

Jeff Dabe is a famous arm wrestler from Minnesota, who has won many awards during his long sports career. For his giant hands he was nicknamed Popeye, like the character of the cartoon “Popeye the Sailor”. It’s no wonder, because at 1 meter 75 cm in height, his forearm circumference is 49 centimeters. For comparison, Arnold Schwarzeneger’s bicep size in his prime years was 54-57 centimeters. Envious people even suspected Jeff of gigantism or elephantiasis, but experts at the University of Minnesota ruled it out. That’s the kind of Atlantean the American soil gave birth to. Judging by the photos, Jeff’s classmates didn’t bully him as a child.

If Jeff ended up being a violinist, that would be unusual. And he probably would have had to overcome a lot of obstacles along the way. But a successful career as an arm wrestler — that’s just natural and normal. The unique anatomy of his body practically challenges the whole world: “Who’s the most daring one? Come out and fight!”. To ignore such an asset would be as sinful as to leave uncut the Cullinan, the world’s largest diamond.

But life would have turned out differently if Jeff had rejected his gift. It’s easy to imagine an alternate scenario where a boy grows up deeply depressed over the belief that he’s a monster, a beast, a freak. This, by the way, is what happens when a child’s peculiarity causes horror, shame, or disgust in some of his parents. Then Jeff would dream passionately of changing himself, trying to become like everyone else. But, of course, it would be in vain.

Apparently, Jeff was lucky — his parents loved and accepted him for who he was. The attitude of significant Others toward him is eventually internalized by the child, becoming one of the voices within. But Jeff’s caption to his childhood photo on Instagram reads, “Born this way 😜 Different and unashamed 👊🏼”.

What about you? Have you figured out your superpower?

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.

Values and suffering /  by Alexander Lyadov

All values are crystallized through their opposite. It takes hunger to discover the true taste of food. You have to go crazy in solitude in order to reach out with your soul to the people you love. To be a jaded slave to truly want freedom. To stay in a city without police for a month to realize how quickly the civilized world collapses. Without living in extremes, what is already there is taken for granted. And therefore either overlooked or devalued: “Yuck, it’s only X.” Thus, an infant is sure that his mother’s breast is always available, if only he cries out.

By the way, the highest pleasure arises only if one has previously felt an acute need for something, but without guarantees of getting it. Why then do people not rush to immerse themselves in a state with a minus sign? The answer is, “I don’t have the energy for this extra discomfort. Not surprisingly, it’s rare that anyone would admit that extreme contentment regularly fills their life. Rather, on the contrary, if there is any consistency, it is only with respect to troubles and setbacks. And sometimes all difficulties pour out at once, as from an overturned bucket. When, after exhaustion, one eventually manages to overcome them all, there is no jubilation. Why?

The living out of the extremes happened under duress. Fate tried to drag a man to the bottom of the river like an alligator drags a calf. But, having played enough, it allowed him to come ashore almost unharmed. What kind of holiday is this, when all the energy went to the fight. Yes, there is a new value now. How about some more? “Oh no, at that price, never!”

Fortunately, there is an alternative. You can buy a ticket for a hundred times less if you act, first, well in advance, second, willingly, and third, on the terms you choose. Yes, there will be sweat, tears, and blood, too, but their volume will be disproportionately small. In business, it’s called an investment — exchanging a small value today for a much larger value tomorrow.

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.

Threads of Order /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

When one's familiar life is scratched by the sandpaper side of Chaos, even though one is alive, nothing is the same anymore. Not immediately, but the experience of what has happened catches up, which is expressed in distracted attention, gloomy perception, and loss of strength. The last thing one wants to do is to do chores like farming, sports, or business tasks. One thinks: "Eh, maybe skip today." But that's exactly what you can't do.

When the amount of Chaos around, and therefore within, is increasing, the only defense against it is to preserve Order at all costs. I have heard that even in the most difficult circumstances it is important to take care of one’s body and appearance, and not to wave: “It doesn’t matter now. Down-to-earth rituals, besides their hygienic meaning, have a symbolic meaning. After all, what separates a man from an animal is the smallest thing-the ability to realize who he is and what kind of filth he is in. Even if he is immersed up to his ears, the very fact of being conscious of “me-in-itself” does not allow the dirt to stain his soul.

Otherwise, one can sink, get hurt, get infected, or go crazy pretty quickly. Chaos’ strike is like the fall of the first domino knuckle in a (supposedly) stable chain of being. One failure pulls another, and soon one finds oneself at the very bottom of the well. The Matthew effect is interpreted in terms of class inequality, but it also applies to the individual-environment relationship: “To those who have everything, more will be given; from those who have nothing, everything will be taken.” This effect works for good when rebalancing occurs so that the excess of chaos does not burn up the fuse and the excess of order does not suffocate.

But that’s for later. In the meantime, it is necessary to lean on something. Fortunately, there is something at hand. You just have to keep your habitual ritual from disintegrating, saving one “little thing”, another “trifle”, and a third “nonsense”.

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.

Turbo Learning /  by Alexander Lyadov

Whichever new field you take, you immediately find yourself in the Library of Alexandria. Endless stacks of multi-volume books of knowledge open up to your eyes. Perhaps you are interested in the field of psychotherapy, say, CPT, or you need to find the answer to the prosaic question: “How to choose a gas burner (because winter is coming)? At that moment, you feel like Alice falling into an Internet rabbit hole of videos, diagrams, and texts. As amazed as a child who discovers the world in a drop of water under a microscope, so are you, amazed at how many varieties of burners there are and the nuances about each. And if you’re a novelty-hungry person by nature, you risk getting stuck in this enchanted kingdom.

To make sure life is not wasted, you need to master the skill of turbo-learning anything. My approach is based on three pillars — clarifying your goals, singling out the main thing, and finding the expert. Clarifying one’s goals is necessary because the value of anything is a purely personal choice. Every hammer is meant to strike, but agree that a neurologist’s hammer and a blacksmith’s sledgehammer are different tools. Often we are looking for the perfect or best thing, but we end up with the Japanese proverb: “Ten men are ten shades of color.” Knowing yourself saves a lot of time.

Next, every object has a backbone or engine, as my jiu-jitsu coach used to say. Once you know this part, of course, you won't become a professional, but the necessary 80% of knowledge will be gained through 20% effort. Although I tend to observe rather than talk to people, I must admit that the fastest way to gain knowledge in an unfamiliar area is to ask questions of an expert. Well, if you are dealing with a Master, he will not only give you a comprehensive answer, but he will clarify your true goals beforehand in order to impart the essence of knowledge. That way you can get 99% of the results you personally want, investing just 1% of your precious resource.

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.

Creating a gap /  by Alexander Lyadov

I will not speak for others, but analyzing many cases from my life, I have to admit that the greatest harm to me was not so much caused by sudden negative events as by my reaction to them. Whenever a force majeure occurred, I was plunged into chaos, albeit briefly. Panic, stupor or, on the contrary, haste, the desire to run somewhere and do something. I had to pay for my impulsiveness with a waste of time, money, nerves, or energy. Moreover, it was not only me who suffered, but those around me as well.

For example, a novice biker, when he sees a truck suddenly pulling out across the highway, in horror, puts the bike on its side. As a result of inertia, he slides on the asphalt and at high speed hits a hard obstacle, which he was so eager to avoid. The experienced biker continues toward the truck, but presses hard on the rear and then the front brake, as well as firmly squeezing the tank with his knees. The bike is likely to stop within inches of the truck. But even if the impact does happen, there will be no health consequences because of the low speed. When practicing extreme braking on a motorcycle track, the mind doesn’t immediately believe this counterintuitive insight. The problem doesn’t turn into a tragedy if you don’t let your brain panic.

“Well, how can you not freak out when X is happening!” - one inner voice asks irritably. To which another voice replies with a sobering quote from the movie Bridge of Spies: “Would it help?” For any dangerous situation, there is a path, if not a complete and quick release, then at least a path of minimal loss, after which recovery and counterattack are possible. And for a salvific solution to seep from space into the mind, one must create a gap between the negative event and one’s reaction to it. Amazingly, sometimes a pause of a second is enough. Unfortunately, I don’t always manage to do such a trick. But so far, I haven’t found a better way to react to novelty with a minus sign. Have you? Please share.

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.

Protection from disaster /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" can be read in the Book of Proverbs (16:18). You don't have to be a religious person to appreciate the validity of this thought with respect to all people, including ourselves.

It is human nature to go to extremes. When the mind finds itself in impasse, it usually blames not itself for earlier decisions, but some higher power that has unjustly turned against it. On the contrary, if circumstances are strikingly lucky and with one touch he turns banal metals into gold, the mind is inclined to attribute all laurels exclusively to itself in a narcissistic impulse. To get away with any responsibility, preserving all the privileges - this is the ideal of the arrogant mind. Curiously, the higher the IQ, the more likely this behavior is.

And that would be all right, but in both extremes, the mind becomes more and more withdrawn into its fantasy world, distancing itself from reality as it is. No matter how brilliant the mind may be, it cannot foresee all the scenarios of a changing environment. Moreover, as established in physics, the very act of observing a system inevitably changes it. And anything that violates the desired picture of the world, the mind ignores, rejects or even tries to eradicate. The skyscraper of the intellect grows taller and more complex, but there is no cornerstone in the foundation. So the more often the statement, "I know it all myself," comes closer to disaster in every sphere — business, sports, family, and life in general.

The wise Solomon indicates the direction of the solution in the following verse: "It is better to humble oneself in spirit with the meek, than to divide the spoils with the proud." So, to survive and thrive, it is important not only to tame your pride, but to seek out partners to keep a strong connection to reality.

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.