What is your pace? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Moderation is a word that has been stubbornly coming to my mind lately. What are the first associations with it? Laziness? Slowness? Boredom? After all, in today’s culture, super-effort and quick success are the most extolled. People are too desperate, too tired, and in too much of a hurry to dig deep, prepare carefully, and implement methodically. Moderation is an inadmissible luxury; everything is already needed for yesterday. In response to such an intolerable itch, the market willingly offers snake oil. In fitness — it’s magical challenges, in nutrition — a miracle diet, in business — another managerial fad, guaranteeing a quick 10-fold growth.

Reality demonstrates a paradox. Fast acceleration is the way not to the finish line, but to the ditch, not to the gold medal, but to the surgical table. On the contrary, progressive movement toward a clearly defined goal only seems like an annoying waste of time, but in the end gives high predictability of the result and control in the process. For example, the coaches of elite athletes unanimously assert that progress in jiu-jitsu is determined not by knowledge of secret techniques, but by the amount of work done on the tatami, the main condition of which is zero absences due to injuries. Victory is ensured not so much by physical attributes, as by technology. The latter creates the effect of a Lever, not limited in length. And for technology to grow into the body, it is not enough to understand it with the mind - you need to work it out with the body in sparring and drills.

Instead of chaotic attempts to become a king in checkers in one fell swoop, it is more reasonable to focus on systematic advancement, carefully fixing each micro-victory. You have to “just” come to the gym every day, write a new article, do another iteration of the product, and do it without any strain, stimulants, or motivational yelling. Interestingly, over time, you realize that the process itself from “E2-E4” to “Сheck and mate” turns out to be just as rewarding as the result. A moderate pace, without jumps, jerks and somersaults, drop by drop fills the glass of your life with the nectar of autonomy, confidence, and most importantly, meaning.

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 importance of perception /  by Alexander Lyadov

“People who do not believe in human goodness rarely encounter its manifestations,” said psychologist Carl Rogers. They have ample evidence to prove conclusively that people are deceitful, wicked, and vicious. In fact, each of us can attest to this from personal experience. Over the course of 20, 30, much less 50 years, our social body has become littered with the scars of bites, burns and cuts. Somewhere I heard the idea that man is capable of enduring any tragic twist of fate or natural cataclysm. But what really knocks you down and sucks the life out of you is the evil of people-strangers, acquaintances, and especially loved ones, directed against you personally.

It’s easy to become a cynic. Only it makes little sense. I recall a business owner convinced that literally every employee is trying to cheat him - to steal something, to get away with responsibility, or to take a free ride. Needless to say, he did not have a strong management team. At the first opportunity, the most talented ones preferred to leave. Which, according to the founder, only confirmed their black ingratitude. I remember another owner complaining either about the “betrayal” of another partner, or about the difficulty of scaling the business alone. But for some reason he could not see the connection between one symptom and another.

There’s anything in the world around us. What the eye concentrates on, the hand reaches for. The fingers would touch one phenomenon out of a billion. Why this one? The sieve of perception delays G, passing by A, B, C, etc. If the mind is the processor, perception is the software. And like software, perception needs regular upgrades to synchronize with reality and clean up the bugs. The latter are assumptions that once helped us a lot, and therefore are dear to us, but then have lost relevance, that is, have become false.

Evil lurks within each of us, as does good. At any moment they are ready to reveal themselves. Which one will? Let it not always and not everywhere, but often enough it depends on our initial perception of the other - the employee, investor or business partner.

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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Demiurge /  by Alexander Lyadov

The alchemist who has achieved illumination

Unknown artist

 

A coffee aficionado appreciates the process of brewing coffee as much as the result.

The Chinese name for the tea ceremony “茶艺” translates as “the art of tea”.

Obviously, the taste and tonic effect is not the only goal.

What is?

“An adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday life” [1].

It is a superpower to extract beauty and meaning from banality.

Whoever possesses it will be invincible under any circumstances.

After all, for him the squalor of life is the supplier of building materials.

Give him lead, he will turn it into gold.

When he is passionate about the process, the result arises by itself.

In antiquity he was called the Demiurge.

In the Middle Ages he was known as the Alchemist.

Today, his name is Entrepreneur.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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

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The Hateful Claw /  by Alexander Lyadov

Today I received a succinct metaphor as a gift. Imagine a crab that, for some reason, hated its claw. Like, one creature has a fast fin, another has flexible tentacles, and the third is quite lucky - he has a multifunctional arm. But here, you see, a trivial claw, that’s the trouble. If someone had offered to trade, I would have traded with him without looking. And now I have to live with this ugliness, to suffer and endure.

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Evolution didn’t punish the crab with a claw, but created the most valuable tool especially for it. Some species even have claws of different sizes. The smaller one is for cutting food and the bigger one is for smashing and breaking. Considering that the earliest fossils of this group date to the Jurassic period, that is 200-145 million years ago, it is unlikely that claws are a boon or a mistake of nature. On the contrary, the grasping organ was designed this way and no other. And if the particular crab in our fictional example does not yet understand this meaning, then the question should be put to its thinking, not to the claw at all.

Now look around you to see how many people deny, struggle, try in vain to change, and become depressed over aspects of their personality, mind, or body that they think are harmful and therefore unnecessary. But often the problem is simply a mismatch between reality and the desired image of oneself. For some reason, I, a descendant of a crab, imagined myself to be Dumbo the octopus, the gray heron, or the sea devil, and thus doomed myself to suffer in the trap of my own mind.

Now we understand why the net of the imagination is so difficult to untangle–the one who has woven it must unravel it. But at the same time it’s clear why the things that have been stealing energy, hindering creativity, and dragging us down for decades can disappear instantly. All solutions are not outside, but inside us.

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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Old shoes /  by Alexander Lyadov

Fans of long wilderness trips have a rule — never wear new shoes on a hike. Let’s say you made a long choice, paid a lot of money and finally got mountain boots with more NASA technology inside them than the rocket sent to the moon in 1969. When you put on such a technological marvel for the first time, you feel as if you were born wearing them. The shoes are so comfortable that the aforementioned rule may seem like a prejudice and the temptation to ignore it is great. The next two weeks of hiking are likely to turn into torture for you. Instead of admiring the scenery, you’ll be focused on pain points and dreaming of the next resting place to put another Band-Aid on.

Microscopic discomfort, multiplied by 20-30,000 steps a day, can easily wipe away the epidermis of your skin into blood. There is no time for wounds to regenerate while hiking, and the risk of infection is much higher. A person begins to slow everyone else down. Food, water, and fuel can be scarce. In short: “Houston, we have a problem.”

Our mind adequately assesses danger when the potential damage is great and the effect of the stimulus is immediate. But when there are many repetitions to come, and over a long period of time, it is very difficult to imagine disaster as a result. And it is impossible to predict at what exact step it will occur. If you throw pins into a glass filled to the brim with water, thanks to the forces of surface tension, nothing happens for quite a long time. And then, from the next pin, the mass of water suddenly spills over the edge. Such is the nature of nonlinear processes.

It is useful for the founder to keep this phenomenon in mind, because there are many such processes in business. Small pointless expenses, trifling disagreements between partners, and tiny frictions in the team methodically undermine the foundation of the company like termites. And if it were only one symptom, but, as a rule, they are growing like piles of redshirts. After all, ignoring such “trifles” can mean something more - the indifference of the owners, non-systemic processes, lack of resources, etc.

However, the phenomenon can also work to the advantage. When tiny improvements in different places, through repetition and flocking together, create a nutrient solution in which everyone wants to live and create.

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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Creative U-turn /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

One is deeply depressed by “lack of opportunity”, staring blankly at the screen of a high-powered MacBook and unable to taste a latte in a trendy Boston coffee shop. The other, despite a crisis, pandemic or war, is doing more and more good for his clients and, as a result, the value of his business is growing. One beats her head against the glass ceiling of the corporation and the further she goes, the more she hates her boss, her colleagues, her fate, and most importantly, herself. And the other one curiously examines the situation in the company and finds the point of unbearable pain, the responsibility for which everyone avoids, because they do not even know from which side to approach it.

Fortunately or not, this world is completely imperfect. There is always something in it that must be urgently corrected, cured and reinvented, or else… But if there is no obvious way out, people adjust and get used to every situation. Some problems become chronic, and lubricants and crutches are used to alleviate their symptoms. Sometimes the greatest difficulties in the company are not discussed at all, until, of course, disaster strikes. To a newcomer, this attitude may seem like the theater of the absurd: “Am I the only one watching this nonsense?” But instead of dejection and indignation, it is better to accept the situation as it is. For example, as a silent plea from those suffering to be freed from the tyranny of the problem. What if you are here for a reason and this situation is an invitation especially for you?

If you are uninspired by the idea of helping people — team, management and shareholders, perhaps your intellect will be captivated by a challenging task that no one else has been able to do. Or you will be ignited by the prospect of earning an order of magnitude more respect, fame and money. After all, the scale of the problem to be solved determines the size of the reward, especially if there are no other contenders to take that risk.

If this is the case, why do two people perceive the same situation in opposite ways? One is discouraged by hopelessness, while the other is elated by lurking opportunities. Moreover, what happens when the same person perceives the Before and After situation so differently? In my business therapy practice, I regularly observe this creative reversal, when the founder’s vision of the problematic situation turns one hundred and eighty degrees. For me this is one of the most valuable moments. It is as if I am witnessing the mystery of transformation, birth and metamorphosis. When the client discovers a new meaning for himself, it turns out that my personal meaning reaches its maximum, too.

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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Recommend or not? /  by Alexander Lyadov

I used to recommend some people to others easily and often. Now I do it much more selectively and slowly. What was it like? For example: “Hey, Adam! I remember you were looking for X? I want you to meet Eve. Eve is a brilliant X, as I’ve had the opportunity to see many times over the years we’ve worked together.” Knowing Adam’s acute problem, Eva’s talent, and the adequacy of both of them, I was sure this would be a productive alliance. But I would later learn that they never managed to come to an agreement. To myself, I wondered, “Adam, how could you miss out on such a treasure as Eve? Why didn’t you, Eve, grasp with both hands the rare chance that Adam’s business offered?”

As time passed, getting feedback from both, I came to the conclusion that not everyone can recognize an uncut diamond in a mineral. Many people will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: “Oh, it’s just plain glass. But a jeweler, gemologist, or diamond cutter just needs to take one look and freeze in admiration. In the skilful hands of a sculptor a lump of clay turns into an art object for the Venice Biennale, and the intuition of a serial entrepreneur allows at the bottom of an economic crisis to feel the pull that will create a billion-dollar business. I am sure that if the log had fallen into the hands of someone other than Master Cherry, generations of children around the world would not have read the wonderful tale of Pinocchio’s adventures, for someone would have simply fed the unusual log to their fireplace.

The possibilities hidden in people, as well as in circumstances, are not always obvious to everyone. Fate can persistently slip a chance under the nose, but a person will turn away, not being ready for it. The ability to take is more important than the ability to give. Nothing can be done about that until that skill matures. I have to admit the naivety of my assumption that an employee or contractor who has created a masterpiece for me in the past is bound to produce the same result on someone else’s brief. Today I do recommend people when there is a keen request to help and the parties fit together, but I accept in advance that their interaction will likely be different than mine.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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

Sci-fi art from the 70s

 

Microsoft Word has a Focus mode that makes all the toolbars at the top and bottom disappear, leaving only a black background with a white sheet on it. The blinking cursor seems to be beckoning, saying, “Perfect conditions have been created for you-just go ahead and burn it. But as you move your mouse to the edge of the screen you’re faced with an abundance of tools in all kinds of shapes and colors. Of course, all these commands, boxes and buttons are valuable in their own way, but it’s also obvious that there’s a special value in having nothing at all.

It is the emptiness that proves most fruitful for creativity. Something must first be born out of nothing in order for a tool to be useful in processing it later. Until the first word appears on the page, all these fonts, selections and editing are absolutely useless. They all need an object on which they can express themselves. How can one not think of the biblical “In the beginning was the word,” right? But before there was a first word, there needed to be a focused Creator.

I wouldn’t make this point if I hadn’t seen in my practice all too often how companies miss out on market opportunities and squander their limited resource. The reason? The unfocusedness of the creator, i.e., the founder of the company. Too easily his mind is seduced by various ideas, approaches and technologies from the “toolbox,” forgetting the main function that no one but him is able to perform and that cannot be delegated. Its essence is to be able, at any moment, contrary to arguments, vanity, anxiety and noise, to activate the “Focus” mode inside himself and find himself in the black void in front of a white sheet. This is the origin. This is where true value creation begins. From 0 hatches 1. Which then can be multiplied into a hundred, a million, or a billion.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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

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From extreme to extreme /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Excess always begets scarcity and vice versa. The obvious illustration is the disappearance of some product, say, gas canisters, when all the city residents suddenly became alarmed that winter is near, and the electricity is now and now not available. A couple of weeks later there will be plenty of canisters again, but in the meantime some people have half a year’s supply in their pantries, and others will have to drink cold tea for a while in anxiety: “What if there are never new supplies?” As COVID has shown, a broken supply chain can oscillate between an empty shelf and a busted one for a long time, generating pointless costs for companies and suffering for people.

Sometimes, however, the connection of one to the other is difficult to see, for the choking of scarcity occurs in one place, and the coughing up of excess in another. For example, if a parent gave preference to one of his children in everything, while devaluing the achievements of the other, even years later, when he is an adult and has his own family, such a person will probably relentlessly seek ways to compensate for the lack of parental appreciation and love. But unlike the goods in the supermarket, there seems to be nothing in the world that can take away the phantom pain of the soul. So any professional achievement, the respect of competitors, or the admiration of fans falls into the abyss, causing one to yearn for something else again.

So I have a rule - when I see a strange excess of anything, I immediately ask myself: “What is the scarcity behind it?” And this is true not only of individuals, but also of companies, social movements, and even, I would venture to guess, states. But macro processes are beyond my expertise, so I leave you the pleasure of pondering this thought.

In business, the negative effects of such supercompensation are often observed, because any company is a reflection of the personality of the owner. And as we know, there are no perfect people. Until the founder realizes what his own disadvantage he is trying to make up for with a plus, the efficiency of his company will be far from 100%. But if he manages to see his Achilles’ heel and turn it to his advantage, then the team hears: “Fasten your seat belts. We’re taking off.”

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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Evil of the best intentions /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Buying a puppy of a security breed does not mean you can sleep peacefully from now on. I’ve heard stories of a growing dog switching places with his owners, becoming a tyrant and keeping the whole family in fear. So, an attempt to protect himself from an imagined threat from the outside would translate into a real internal danger. If the owners are conscientious people and the dog is not only feared but also loved, then there is a stalemate - it is impossible to live together and impossible to part. Life becomes hell.

There is a profound thought in the novel Shantaram: “Evil comes from people’s efforts to change things for the better. When people long for change, as a rule, it is caused by the unbearability of their current situation. In doing so, they often turn a blind eye to the fact that there is no such thing as 100% beneficial change. In contrast to the abstract constructions of the mind, in the real world, everything is intertwined with everything by a decillion connections. Therefore, by shifting one element, we inevitably affect many others. And sometimes we do not realize the true scale of the consequences. A trivial example - buying a gas heater protects from blackout in cold winter, but carries a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Buying a firearm for self-defense brings psychological relief: “Phew, I’m armed,” but without long training, a carbine is more likely to strike an agitated owner than an experienced marauder.

It is nonsense both to stubbornly refuse all change and to hastily accept any change ostensibly for the sake of progress. Knowing that nothing comes free, the first question should be: “What price will we end up paying for it?” The seasoned entrepreneur differs from the novice in that he changes his business in a paradoxical fashion - greedily exploring all available alternatives but grudgingly accepting the best one.

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 gracious injustice /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

The consumer doesn’t care how much effort and money you put into the product. The customer doesn’t care if you get bombed, have Wi-Fi or hot coffee. Sure, they’ll discount force majeure once or twice, but if your deliveries become unpredictable and communication is regularly lost during a call, it’s a matter of time before the order is passed on to someone else under plausible pretext. And rightly so. The customer only cares about the value they get from using your product or service.

The first impulse is to resent the unfairness of fate and indifference of consumers, because of which the fruit of your efforts has not received proper recognition and reward. Except there’s no use at all from such an attitude, and the harm is palpable. As soon as the word “injustice” sounds in business, unnecessary problems immediately arise. Irritation, resentment and anger undermine your resources and narrow the perception of reality. And yet it has a gift for you. Look a little differently.

Since your clients don’t care that you had to invest too much effort in your creation, it also means that your microscopic investment doesn’t bother them either. In other words, if you’ve managed to come up with a stunningly useful solution for a customer in one day rather than a year, then the 364 days you’ve saved are all yours. So a true entrepreneur is more than motivated to spend a dollar instead of a million to create Something out of Nothing.

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 best book about entrepreneurship /  by Alexander Lyadov

Frontispiece of 1st edition of Robinson Cruose by Daniel Defoe from 1719

 

I recently decided to reread Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe at bedtime. Published in 1719, this novel is strikingly in tune with the sense of self in the present moment, and many phrases seem to have been written for anyone whose old life has been scorched by Covid, War or other cataclysm. Shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island, Robinson spent 28 long years in isolation. All of his former assets, ambitious plans, and even his hopes of a return to normal life turned to ashes. Sounds bleak and depressing, doesn’t it? Yet the novel is filled with vitality, resourcefulness, and rational optimism. In my opinion, this is the best novel about entrepreneurship I have ever read. Despite, or perhaps because of, its simplicity, the novel convincingly shows the transformation of one’s attitude toward dead-end circumstances, allowing one not to become feral, embittered by fate or go insane, but instead to be morally reborn. Following the change in personality, external circumstances gradually begin to improve. Below are a few quotes:

“I could not tell what part of the world this might be, otherwise than that I knew it must be part of America, and, as I concluded by all my observations, must be near the Spanish dominions, and perhaps was all inhabited by savages, where, if I had landed, I had been in a worse condition than I was now; and therefore I acquiesced in the dispositions of Providence, which I began now to own and to believe ordered everything for the best; I say I quieted my mind with this, and left off afflicting myself with fruitless wishes of being there.”

“First, I had no plough to turn up the earth—no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conquered by making me a wooden spade, as I observed before; but this did my work but in a wooden manner; and though it cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out soon, but made my work the harder, and made it be performed much worse. However, this I bore with, and was content to work it out with patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. “

“I overcame this obstacle by making myself a wooden shovel. But what a tool is, what a job is… However, I reconciled myself to it: armed with patience and not embarrassed by the quality of my work, I continued to dig.”

“I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God’s providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”

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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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?"
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.

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?"
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.

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?"
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.

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?"
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.

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?"
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 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?"
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.

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?"
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.