I believe /  by Alexander Lyadov

When electricity, food, water or wifi disappear in a city, I first of all believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for their unstoppable power is the starting point for what we have today and in the future. The next thing I believe in is entrepreneurs, the most proactive and creative force of capitalism.

Business founders need not be persuaded, inspired, much less forced to work. Their “plant settings” are such that, when they see a keen demand for a service or product, they simply cannot physically do nothing. It is like trying to suppress a yawn at a boring presentation or not to laugh at a good joke. So if a product suddenly disappears from the shelves that a lot of people need, I don’t make a fuss. In the few days or weeks while others are worrying, “What if the empty shelves are forever?” I know that plenty of entrepreneurs are rolling up their sleeves and doing important, but so far invisible, work. Alternative routes all the way down to the goat trail are being explored, more responsive suppliers are being found, new supply chains are being invented. Acting independently of each other and even competing at times, the drips of entrepreneurs eventually flow into a turbulent mountain stream that can crush, erode, or bypass any obstacle. Sooner or later, customer demand is sure to be met. Betting on entrepreneurship is as reliable as saying that the sun will rise again tomorrow.

In a general sense, this means that I believe in people’s creativity - in their ability to find a solution to a problem, no matter how catastrophic. As long as man lives, he will conquer anything and everything. Do you agree?

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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Barrier to start /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

I don’t remember once regretting my decision to go to training.

But every other time I have doubts about whether or not to go today.

Often in the process I start to get satisfaction.

And afterwards, 99 times out of 100 I am grateful to myself that I went.

What does this tell you?

It is difficult to invest, even when the return is assured.

After all, the conditions here are almost perfect.

A favorite sport, a comfortable gym, a reliable sparring partner - what else?

Still, every time I have to overcome a barrier.

Sleep deprivation, stress, colds, injuries, and discouragement only raise the barrier.

Now let’s imagine the situation reversed.

You are forced to train under conditions: nasty, expensive, far away.

Now the barrier is too high for the investment to ever get back.

Our wise body will not allow such a waste of resources.

Conclusion: you want to train efficiently, passionately, and for a long time?

Lower the barrier.

By the way, that’s true about business and anything else, not just sports.

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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How many prisms do you have? /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Have you ever noticed how a husband and wife can tell the same event differently?

It is worth listening to the opinion of three luminaries to clarify the diagnosis of a serious disease.

The FTX exchange turned out to be a Ponzi scheme because, among other things, it lacked a board.

What do such different examples have in common?

No matter what one’s IQ is, one’s sight is a little or a lot off.

How, then, can one bring one’s imagination and reality closer together to avoid disaster?

Any phenomenon needs to be shed light on through different prisms.

100% congruent opinions with yours are irrelevant, whether there are 10 or 100 of them.

Even a black-and-white photograph is not a reduction of a color photograph, for it allows you to see something else.

So when you have to make a meaningful decision, make sure that you are not alone.

It may be several mature people who value the truth over your feelings.

Or someone who carries a lot of prisms of different sizes in his professional valise.

In business, your goal is not so much to grab reality by the tail.

Rather, the goal is to have far fewer illusions than your competitors.

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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Side effect /  by Alexander Lyadov

Psychoanalysis has a side effect that I in no way expected. In the process of better understanding myself, of course I regularly get bursts of dopamine from “Aha!”-moments. It’s reminiscent of that important word rolling around on the tip of your tongue and the elation when you finally remember it. But even if the resulting insight takes your breath away, “How did I not see this before?” it doesn’t mean an instant change for the better in your life. This is where the agony begins.

While I was blissfully ignorant, getting into stupid situations and dangerous traps, I didn’t reflect, I just suffered, and then I tried my best to get out of them. I would say to myself, “It was an unfortunate accident,” “Bad luck this time,” or “There are idiots, crooks, and evil people around. Working with a therapist in person and in a group convinced me that if not all, then the overwhelming number of problematic situations I create myself. Now I have a better understanding of the root causes and scenarios of how this usually happens. And if they say about the dog, that he understands everything, but does not speak, then I can also say that I understand everything, but I do not prevent it. More precisely, I don’t have the time. Sometimes my life is like a dream, where an unwanted scenario unfolds and I either move like in jelly or watch like a dazed spectator. Admittedly, I was much more comfortable blaming other people and fate for my problems. Alas, insidious psychoanalysis has robbed me of such a convenient excuse.

I only record the blunders: “Here we go again! My own fault. How much there?”. Sometimes I feel so stupid, ridiculous and ashamed that, right, I want to go back to the original state, when I was supposedly innocent. However, this is only in moments of moping. The rest of the time I keep the belief that all really important changes in nature occur non-linearly. For a long time it seems that nothing happens, and then, bang, a new quality sprouts. Finally!

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

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

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Consensus? /  by Alexander Lyadov

If we see a friendly founder, for whom human relations are very important, it is very likely that he involves too many people in the decision-making process. Of course, this looks inspiring and humanistic, and there are plenty of fashionable managerial theories on this topic today. After all, the more people have a say, the more diverse the opinions, the higher the quality of decisions? Not really.

The thing is that decisions are rarely made once and for all. More often than not, it’s an iterative process of the market testing hypotheses put forward. Which more often than we would like, are far from perfect, or even turn out to be outright error. So the problem is not so much to get together, brainstorm and decide something, as it is to take responsibility for what has not worked. And this is where it turns out that groups are very rarely able to admit they are wrong. And the more people involved, the more painful the process of remorse. As history shows, some nations need the humiliation of losing a war in order to come to their senses, realize their errors, and apologize to the world for all their sins. Of course, it is also hard for an individual to accept his mistake, but alone, the chances are much higher than in a group. Especially if the person has the necessary prerequisites, external motivation, and an inner drive to work on himself.

This does not mean that the founder should ignore the opinions of others. This is another dangerous problem characteristic of proud people with high intelligence. The decision-making process in the company must be properly structured so that it is divided into functionally different stages. Accordingly, at a certain stage it is wise to collect opinions, but again, not from all in a row, but from the specialists competent to solve this type of problems. You can ask everyone: “Who is willing and able to be personally responsible for mistakes? (i.e., the process of educating the company about novelty).” If the question is not about rights, but about responsibility, then you would be surprised how few are suddenly willing to share this burden with the founder.

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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Power and responsibility /  by Alexander Lyadov

In business, the founder bears ultimate responsibility for anything. No matter what happens, only he will be guilty of not having foreseen, not reacting immediately or, on the contrary, not restraining the emotional outburst. The only thing that balances the weight of this burden is the complete freedom to do anything. And if authority is a limited right, the founder’s authority in a private company is maximal. In this way power and responsibility are maximized but matched, making entrepreneurship one of the most fascinating social games. Wealth, recognition, and fame are certainly important, too, but they seem to be by-products of activities that reward some people in the process.

The founder does not think about the balance of power and responsibility, just as he does not think about the ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide in the air–he simply breathes it. However, I have often seen entrepreneurs violate this parity when it comes to their employees. For example, with the help of an executive search agency, a promising CEO is brought into the company with ambitious goals: “Come on, we’re waiting for a miracle!”, and if successful, he is promised the proverbial million. The new CEO rolls up his sleeves and enthusiastically plunges into the work, but quickly notices that his hands and feet are tied. It turns out that, in his words, the founder has delegated authority to the CEO, but in reality he does not let him make a single step on his own. Despite the fatigue of the operating routine, the long thinking and the high costs of hiring a professional, the fear of losing control over “his baby” takes over. Employees instantly read this dissonance and rush with all questions to the one who has the real power. From this point on, the hired CEO is doomed.

If he is naive, he will try to fight the resistance, which will only make his inevitable outcome more painful and humiliating. If the CEO is smart, he will leave the company at the first sign of actual sabotage of his authority, even if the shareholder warmly assures him otherwise. A wise CEO will never agree to any generous salary and bonus unless the owner explicitly confirms the transfer of specific powers. Or if the CEO suspects that the owner is cheating himself.

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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Take care of your interest /  by Alexander Lyadov

There is nothing more dangerous for a founder than to lose interest in his business. It’s like closing your eyes and letting go of the steering wheel on a busy highway. Thanks to inertia, a business can even keep moving fast, but only until an obstacle comes along or the road makes a sharp turn. It is naive to assume that the context will remain the same. Change is the only constant of our time.

The worst thing is the company’s staff. The owner does not announce loudly: “I’m fed up with everything!”, but every employee feels in his back: “There’s something wrong in our kingdom.” The cornerstone of the company’s foundation has disappeared. It was the drive that pushed the business relentlessly, upward and forward. When an airplane’s engine has stalled, the striking silence and smoothness of the flight may be admirable, but only for the first second. Soon a chilling realization will dawn upon you: “We’re only a few minutes away from hitting the ground.” The smart man will jump off early, the greedy will seize power, the naïve will deny reality to the end. And it doesn’t matter how many days, months or years the business has left to exist. Without the fertilization of the spawn of market opportunities by the creativity of the founder, the business is doomed.

What’s the solution? Always have a fallback parachute, that is, a real chance to sell your business. I emphasize — you don’t have to rush to sell it, but it’s essential to have the freedom to do so when you decide. Someone will ask: “When is the best time to start getting ready?” Ideally, when you’re just thinking about starting your own business. Or at the first signals that you are losing interest in the business. Try to plan for 3 years to prepare for the sale. This is short enough to keep your motivation high, but also long enough to implement all the necessary changes in the company. By the way, there’s a bonus — through methodical progress, you’ll grow calm, determined, and optimistic inside.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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

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

If you’ve ever learned to swim the crawl, you probably remember that in order to maximize streamlining, you should keep your head facing down, not looking forward. But another problem arises - how to avoid colliding with other people who are swimming ahead of you at a different pace. At first glance, the dilemma seems unsolvable, and the beginner is paranoid about turning his head up and down. But at some point you notice that a second before contact with another swimmer, your body picks up a faint but unmistakable signal. Although the water in the pool is always bubbling from someone else’s paddles in your lane or neighboring lanes, the feet of the swimmer in front of you create specific swirls that your radar instantly reads.

Whether your mind pays attention to this signal and trusts the readings is another matter. In any case, the body has warned you in time. I suspect that professional water polo players, who have spent their entire childhood and youth in a crowded pool, develop the ability to differentiate between water vibrations, though not to the same extent as the sharks, but enough not to bump into someone in a scramble. You might say that an acute need activates your latent ability, which has always been potentially at hand.

A similar phenomenon is observed when you are confronted with novelty. It takes time and a number of iterations for your peripheral vision to pick up the movement of some shadows. These are subtle patterns, like underwater currents, obvious to the expert, but inaccessible to the beginner. If you have reached Mastery in a specific field, then you do not even need to look, listen or touch anything - you just feel the invisible movement of tectonic plates with your gut. Such knowledge is expensive because it allows you to draw the threads of meaning out of the chaos of uncertainty one by one in order to weave them into strong and understandable fabric of structures. By the way, it is a criterion for finding out if you are a neophyte or a Sensei.

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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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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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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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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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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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.

”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 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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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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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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"I have an extremely important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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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?"
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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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

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”Who are you and what do you do?"
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.

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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.

”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.

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?"
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.

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?"
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 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?"
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 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?"
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.