Imagine! /  by Alexander Lyadov

To have a vivid imagination is a great gift. Its possessor enjoys boundless degrees of freedom. For example, he can imagine absolutely any future, solve in his mind an intricate problem or write a fascinating novel. But like any superpower, imagination is a double-edged sword that can injure or even kill someone who doesn’t know how to use it. Having a superpower within oneself does not mean commanding it. It takes a certain amount of work to become the one who pulls King Arthur’s sword from the stone. Until then, the gift does not sit and wait - it unpredictably manifests itself, turning the master into his slave. Craving or fear takes hold of a person’s will, directing him toward it or away from it.

As a result, one’s actions are based not on reality, but on a distorted version of it in one’s head. Without feedback, the farther one goes, the less the map reflects the terrain. When one runs confidently through the woods blindfolded, a violent collision is unavoidable. What is characteristic of this is an overreaction to the stimulus. What is characteristic of this is an overreaction to the stimulus. It is reminiscent of how, at the sight of a rope in the grass, a person with a fear of snakes steps from the sidewalk onto the roadway at the risk of being run over by a truck. By avoiding an imaginary danger, he exposes himself to a real danger. Playing games with the mind, you can lose.

That is why it is so important to carefully examine yourself, or rather, in what direction and under what conditions deviation usually occurs. You could say that all people limp (I certainly do), but everyone's limp is unique.. When your “factory failure” is studied in detail from all angles, it becomes difficult for it to catch you off guard. What’s more, you can even benefit tremendously. For example, during business therapy sessions, I help founders visualize in detail the negative scenarios they least want to happen. It’s a paradox, but their business strategy becomes orders of magnitude more sustainable and stronger as a result.

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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An individual in a crowd /  by Alexander Lyadov

To tell you the truth, I’m less afraid of a fire in a confined space like a movie theater than I am of a spontaneous crowd reaction to a screaming match. A fire might end up being dangerous, but not catastrophic. But a crush in the doors of fear-stricken people guarantees casualties, especially among those who are vulnerable and weak. If you at least once in your life have been squeezed in the steel vice of the crowd and whispered to yourself in despair, “Just don’t fall!” you will never be able to relax completely at a train station or a parade. Of course, you can remember the opposite - the unique unity with complete strangers, when you feel like a part of the whole, a drop in the ocean.

Any group always has the potential to be powerful, the only question is its amplitude and sign. But it is difficult to predict when and how the mood pendulum will swing from one sign to another. Often such a change takes us by surprise - bang, and everyone is running, stepping on each other. Even in a small group, an individual begins to feel and behave differently, as if under the action of some mighty force.

Therefore, when in a crowd, it makes sense to behave as on the water - carefully, cautiously and focused. The pool, the river and the sea can give a lot of joy and benefit, but only if carelessness is not about you. The aquatic environment is as familiar and commonplace to us as air. After all, we were all born in it. But unlike air, water can take a life at any moment. A little paranoia wouldn’t hurt here. The recent Halloween crush in Seoul is proof of that.

But people turn into crowds not only in a movie theater or a stadium, but globally, and now online as well. Just remember the hysterical reaction of some governments to COVID or the large-scale witch hunt on social media. And then people are no longer their own, “for they do not know what they are doing”. I must confess that I, too, sometimes get caught up in general psychosis, which is not easy to shake off. It would be nice to be immune to the impulse of the crowd - another 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?"
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Pointless bargaining /  by Alexander Lyadov

Haggling hard makes sense when you’re buying a product you know inside and out. Long-established quality criteria allow you to distinguish the original from the fake, and to make the supplier deliver to you not 80, but all 100 percent. The easiest case is commodities like gold, rubber, or coffee. Things are more complicated with services, but even here you can put key parameters in the SLA (service level agreement) - troubleshooting time, response rate, etc. In essence, in the cases discussed, you want a fixed value in the spirit of “no less than”. All of this means that you can either buy a similar service or product in many places, or even make it in-house yourself.

But what if you extremely need a service that’s hard to describe. For example, you have an ambitious task that few people before you have tackled. Or your business suffers from a series of chronic problems that show a mysterious stubbornness despite any attempts you make to deal with them. Or your entire industry has been hit by a tsunami of tremendous change, and no one - not you or your competitors - knows what to do, and it’s urgent. Of course, there are a lot of suppliers of this and that on the market. But when you first conquer Annapurna 1 (8,091m), what you need is not a recommendation for a sleeping bag and a burner, but personalized advice on how you personally, given your vulnerabilities and resources, can get to the top most safely and quickly. Or, when after several false starts, you need to re-launch a fading brand and you turn to a creative agency whose ingenious solutions are legendary in the marketplace.

Is it wise in such a case to squeeze out the provider of an indispensable service in the tradition of the Wild West? You don’t fully understand the situation you’re in, or who can help you. The poisonous grin of the unknown awaits you in the darkness. Therefore, you don’t need a demotivated contractor by your side, but a concentrated guide who will give you a hand, a map, or a lifeline in time. The question that should really occupy you is, “How can I bring our interests as close together as possible?”

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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Don't delegate to the mind /  by Alexander Lyadov

this is my Australian Cattle Dog (Blue Heeler)

My Australian Cattle Dog (Blue Heeler)

It’s fun to watch your own mind create a trap in which it then flutters around like a dragonfly in a web. For example, there’s a book on Amazon that concentrates practical experience in rehabilitating a climber/golfer’s elbow, medically speaking medial epicondylitis. But the asking price of $41.61 is abnormal for Amazon, where the book typically costs between $9.99 and $19.99. It would seem, what difference does it make - $10, $50 or $100, the main thing is to solve the excruciating problem as soon as possible? But no, the mind is indignant: “This is unheard of! Robbery! A book can’t cost that much!”. I have to literally force my will to overcome the mental barrier, understanding its absurdity. After all, it is correct to compare not in the category of “Books,” but in the category: “Any alternative ways of solving my problem.

This illustrates the peculiarity of the functioning of the mind - to understand the value of X, it needs Y for comparison. And if I don’t behave as its master, but let the whole process run its course, then, like a naughty dog, the mind finds something to occupy its teeth with on its own. From the position of the mind, the objects chosen for comparison are relevant. But as the master of the mind-dog, I am usually unhappy with his choices. Why?

The mind does not consider my interest and my context. In other words, the dog’s perspective is always local and the master’s is always global. So to avoid irritation and bitterness of loss, I need to tell the mind the criteria for making a decision in advance. Even if you are lucky enough to have a very high IQ, still the mind cannot be delegated the answer to the question, “How do I think about it?” It just isn’t capable of that. Even smart dogs like the Border Collie or the Australian Heeler don’t know the owner’s value system until the latter, through methodical training, takes the trouble to pass it on.

Conclusion — local superefficiency turns into nothing if the global sense is missed or silenced. This is worth remembering for parents who think that their son is somehow misbehaving, but in his actions and words show him contradictory values. Similarly, the founder is kidding himself if he requires his employees to act wisely, but doesn’t bother to clearly describe what kind of business they need to build in the long run.

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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Faces of the Entrepreneur /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Because of my profession, I am constantly in touch with the founders of companies, and I meet all kinds of people among them. Men and women, young and gray-haired, those who have been making magic since childhood and those who broke bad after forty. Also, the industry puts a strain on it. So the owner of a MarTech SaaS company, an energy provider, a communications holding company and an asset management company often look, act and talk differently. Add to that the many combinations of personality according to five basic dispositions-extroversion, friendliness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism-and you get a broad spectrum of people under the general name “entrepreneur.”

Do they have something in common? Of course, and I write about this a lot. But what I would like to point out today is precisely the abundance and diversity of entrepreneurial personalities. And often their total inconsistency with the image that arises in the average person’s mind. What qualities do you expect to see? Spontaneity, determination and audacity? Certainly there are some. However, I know exceptionally rational, methodical and cautious entrepreneurs. Ambitious, charismatic and visionary, perhaps? I remember such people. But I can also cite the example of humble, reserved and down-to-earth founders of fairly large companies. There is the example of the sedate person who is explosive, the emotionally impenetrable one who allows herself to cry. Sometimes when you see a specific set of traits in the owner you cannot help but wonder how he or she managed to build a business, but a healthy P&L eliminates all doubts.

So when someone utters: “Well, I’m too far removed from entrepreneurship,” I laugh, “Really?” Chances are you’re a prisoner of prejudice or don’t know yourself yet. Perhaps, like a dormant bud in an orchid, it takes many years for your entrepreneur to finally grow. Or maybe he was just waiting for the arrival of extreme circumstances that are hard for you, but exceptionally favorable for him.

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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Look for the Flow /  by Alexander Lyadov

Everyone has probably seen footage from National Geographic of bears feasting on fat salmon in the headwaters. Pacific salmon are an anadromous type of migratory fish that hatch from their eggs in freshwater ponds and migrate to the sea for 5-6 years to travel hundreds of miles upriver as adults and return to their starting point to spawn. The bear doesn’t need to invent anything - just take the right spot on the waterfall. The fish will jump into its mouth by itself, driven by the irresistible instinct of reproduction. The salmon’s migration against all odds is a process that exists by itself. Knowing that such a pattern objectively exists allows the bear to become its beneficiary, arriving in time to distribute the dividends.

A popular view in business is that consumer demand needs to be actualized or even created. But from a resource-use perspective, this is terribly inefficient. It’s like a bear going down to the sea for a long time to meet a salmon, or a crocodile chasing a Gnu antelope across the plain. It’s no accident that the “secret” of the commercial real estate industry is “Location, location, location.” Whether it’s gold mining in the Klondike or shawarma in Amsterdam Station, business success depends on picking a location where the Flow is initially there.

You don’t have to chase everyone who in any way resembles customers, trying to shake them up, seduce them or change their minds. It is much more productive to stop and carefully observe what is happening in one, two and three segments of the market. If you notice something curious, it makes sense to get in touch and ask open-ended questions. But don’t try at all costs to pull your hypothesis over reality like a tight glove. Eventually, even in total darkness, you are sure to feel the pull of the air or the flow of the river. Next, like in the children’s game “Cold and Hot,” you will make an optimization of the options. Congratulations, you’re in the right time, in the right place, to create stunning value for consumers and for yourself.

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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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

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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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.

”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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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

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

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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.

”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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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

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 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.

”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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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.

”Who are you and what do you do?"
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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?"
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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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?"
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.

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?"
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.

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

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.

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.

”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.

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.

”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.

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

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.