The Curse of the Beginner by Alexander Lyadov

Let's say you decided to run, swim or jujitsu.

Should you buy fancy equipment? Definitely not!

Rest assured, you'll only wear chic sneakers a couple of times.

Either way, you will soon give up on the sport. How come?

The very fact of such a purchase means that your energy is directed in the wrong place.

You forgot that function determines form, not the other way around.

A fancy kimono is something a white belt still has to earn.

The Olympic gods expect sacrifices from you — X number of fights or Y kilometers.

Better to take old sneakers or borrow your friend's kimono.

After a few months, you will know what is essential and what can be neglected.

You may find that last year's swimwear is still functional, but your daughter's goggles need to be replaced ASAP.

Experienced entrepreneurs operate in the same way in their business.

They upgrade their tools based on necessity, not just wishes.

Only when the stone picked from the ground drives in nails with a profit, is a very high-quality hammer bought.

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 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.


Oxygen: The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Hack by Alexander Lyadov

Assuming you are into running, swimming, or wrestling.

What would you say is the most important aspect of these sports?

When you first start practicing any of them, the answer is not obvious.

A beginner is bombarded with nuances of technique, strategy, tactics, strength, endurance, equipment, and so on.

Only after years of practice, you realize that the most crucial thing was right in front of you, even under your nose.

I'm talking about breathing - the cornerstone of any activity.

The O2:CO2 ratio can either stimulate or end life.

The pace and duration of fights are determined by whether the grappler knows how to breathe correctly to replenish energy and reduce stress.

Stress deteriorates the quality of decisions and initiates a spiral of mistakes leading to a bottom littered with wrecks of sunken ships.

Eventually, any Master returns to where it all started - exhale-inhale.

Business is also a sport, one of the highest achievements where "athletes" constantly try to create an advantage that no one else has.

Founders spend colossal resources on an arms race.

And yet, they may already own what they need most.

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 important business decision to make. Can you help me?
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The potential of the position take by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

What business idea is unbearable for many people?

To be successful, we need to focus our efforts on the long term.

And what does everyone crave? To win the prize, all at once.

Even the most productive businessmen feel that itch.

But unlike others, it does not overpower them.

Why? They're motivated by the process of getting closer to their goal.

They are sure that sooner or later they will reach their destination.

They only wonder, "Have I advanced today or not?"

Then yesterday's achievement as such has no value.

More important is whether it serves as a springboard to leap to a new height.

This attitude almost removes the weight of current victories and failures.

All of this is just a blueprint for what the future may hold.

The entrepreneur, like a flying squirrel, jumps from one branch to another without trying to pick the ideal out of them.

John Danaher, one of the best Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainers in the world, put it this way: "Sometimes the true value of the position is not the position itself, but the potential it has to function as a gateway for a future reward."

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 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.


Why Success Today is a Myth? by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown artist

 

Why is it so difficult to judge your or someone else's success today?

Tomorrow, things may either crash down or soar up.

In both scenarios chance plays a big role.

In this sense, there is no today but only preparation for tomorrow.

It's the struggle to build future resilience in the face of fate's impending blows.

It's also about the skill of catching a massive wave when it comes.

Today tells us more about what we managed to accomplish yesterday.

So, what should we focus on if everything is so shaky and random?

We should direct our energy to where we have complete control.

In other words, we should build reserves and multiply our options.

Here, an option is the right to make a vertical takeoff one day.

The English writer William A. Ward expressed this well:

"Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant."

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 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 Unstoppable Force: What Drives True Creators by Alexander Lyadov

What question is often asked of writer Stephen King?

"Why do you write such terrifying stories?"

He replies, "Why do you assume I have a choice?"

This is the essence of any true creator's attitude.

Sculptors, scientists, poets, and of course, technology company founders.

All of them are instruments, albeit with wills of their own.

A certain force writes with them, like a hand with a pencil on paper.

Fighting against this force is akin to trying to stifle Homeric laughter.

Worse, ignoring its call is fraught with depression and disease.

But by surrendering to it, the founder drinks from a source of possibilities, energy, and ideas.

What is unthinkable for others becomes routine for him.

All assets can be taken away from the founder, and hell rebuild everything, until...

...until the fire burns inside him: "I just can't not do 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 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 the Gym to the Boardroom: Why Bodybuilders and Wrestlers Train Differently by Alexander Lyadov

Jean de Boulogne Hercules and the Centaur Ness (1598)

 

Is the weight training of a wrestler different from that of a bodybuilder?

It seems like they both lift, push and pull the same barbell or dumbbell.

There is a difference, but not in What they do, but in How they do it.

A bodybuilder usually tries to isolate one muscle group.

A wrestler, on the other hand, puts all his resources into action.

The goal of the first is hypertrophy, which means an increase in muscle mass.

And the goal of the second is explosive strength, to lift weight one way or another.

Their functions differ radically from each other.

Making an impression on stage or on the beach is the purpose of function #1.

The meaning of function #2 is to make the opponent surrender, who is inventively and unpredictably resisting with all his might.

So, their different "How?" arises from different "What for?".

Remember this when you are being sold business tools.

It's not about how trendy they are or who recommends them.

It's important to understand the purpose for which the tool was originally created.

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 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.


Breaking Through the Invisible Barrier by Alexander Lyadov

Have you ever hit a glass ceiling?

It's when something's holding you back, but you're not sure what.

Worse yet, over time the ceiling starts to weigh you down.

Eventually, you can't move a finger or toe, and the cause is unclear.

Attempts to break through the ceiling by force are naive and useless.

After all, you rebel against yourself, or rather your unknown part.

At first, you can blame fate or people by hitting your head against it.

But you can no longer argue if the scenery changes and the ending is the same.

Once you turn your gaze inward, what's the use? The glass is transparent.

Quartz granules were melted in the oven long ago, starting from childhood.

All additives (assumptions, convictions, beliefs) now form a single mass.

No wonder you are stunned - the problem exists, yet it doesn't.

An analytical view is needed to name and describe the phenomenon.

Then you can understand which assumptions are true and which are false.

Interestingly, in the case of success, the glass ceiling is also not visible.

But the reason is different - the limitation vanished as if it had never existed.

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 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.


Synthesis or Doom: the Importance of Leverage in Business by Alexander Lyadov

No matter how well designed a house is, it's not worth much if it's in a bad place.

Therefore, the mantra of the real estate industry is "Location. Location. Location."

There are many parameters for an object, but one stands out above the rest.

Context (geography, history, culture) gives meaning to everything.

Something may be unacceptable here, but over there is a perfect fit.

So, when solving a problem, it's important to understand its unique context.

Otherwise, the best tool will be useless or even harmful.

Also if the opponent is too strong, it's unwise to attack head-on.

It's better to study him, find a weakness, and suddenly strike in one spot.

In other words, task number one is to find the multiplier of your strength.

In most situations, experience tells you which shelf to take the lever from.

In non-standard situations, a synthesis of multiple approaches is needed.

Bottom line: the more desperate the impasse, the greater the need for creativity.

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 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.


What is the main bottleneck and the source of all change in business? by Alexander Lyadov

How long have you been practicing your craft?

For me, I formally became a business therapist about 5 years ago.

Looking back into the past, it's clear that I was already doing this 25 years ago.

Over the years, the scope of responsibility, experience, and tools has grown.

But the essence - the unlocking of business potential through personality - is the same.

Because business can always be bigger and better than it is now.

What limits it? Not what, but who - the individual (and then the group).

At the beginning of my career, no one explained this, but I intuitively understood.

The main problem in business is always and everywhere created by people.

But they are also the source of beneficial change.

Usually all that is needed is a catalyst, either external or internal

Either life will push for change, or the involvement of another person.

Knowing this, you can create value for the business in any position.

The rest of the career is a pursuit of an unattainable ideal. What ideal?

One touch from you triggers exponential growth in the business.

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 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.


What holds you back? by Alexander Lyadov

"I'd like to expand my business, but can't seem to find anyone to invest."

"The service business provides decent income, but alas, it cannot be sold."

"Asia is lucrative, but without a local partner, it's a no-go."

Where can I find a COO guaranteed to take the routine out?"

"Ah, if only I had X, then I would definitely achieve the desired Y."

Since X is a fantastic requirement, there is no progress at all.

My experience with founders has convinced me that there is no real need for X.

Everything you need right now has long been lying at your feet.

But something stubbornly prevents you from noticing and picking it up. What is it?

For example, the craving to make one bet and instantly win the jackpot.

Or the fixation that success is achieved only in a certain way, and not otherwise.

Perhaps it is the fear of letting go of the boring but comfortable status quo.

Sometimes it turns out that it's not the Y you dreamed of.

Or by denying the ugly form, you miss the precious essence.

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 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 Mysterious Process Behind 1000x Returns by Alexander Lyadov

No venture investor can predict a jackpot company.

There are too many factors that can destroy a startup at an early stage.

And portfolio diversification does not guarantee target returns.

As scattered chips on a gaming table do not cancel out chance.

So why do some funds consistently make money while others lose?

The difference lies in their focus on what can be controlled.

If you manage the process, you can continuously improve it.

And therefore, increase efficiency and reduce errors.

What is this mysterious process that rewards 1000x?

Top investors create a first-class flow of incoming projects.

If it succeeds, it doesn't matter who will become the next Google.

By the way, this insight is applicable to any business, and life in general.

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 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.


Free the Entrepreneur by Alexander Lyadov

You are the main bottleneck of your business.

But at the same time, you are the origin of all change.

Acknowledging this is the first step, but not everyone is ready for it.

Because then you can't pass the responsibility onto others.

This is just the beginning because the hardest part is getting to the root problem.

You see the negative symptoms, but their source is intangible.

Why? Instead of mental shackles, you only see a precious bracelet.

In other words, lies are dressed up as truth, and evil is perceived as good.

How do you get out of this impasse? You need an external push or catalyst.

Either reality will eventually burn the lies of assumptions with the flames of despair.

Or another person will help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

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 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 Poison of Plenty: Why Abundance Can Be Dangerous for Entrepreneurs by Alexander Lyadov

People have long understood how a lack of something, like hunger, can be deadly. The consequences of excess, however, may not be immediately apparent, but they are just as dangerous. For example, excessive body fat increases the risk of mortality by 50%. It may seem that eradicating hunger should lead to a long and prosperous life, but this is not the case.

Having defeated disease, an abundance of cure now becomes poison. For instance, many empires fell not due to external attacks, but because security and abundance bred laziness, debauchery, and indolence. As a result, societies imploded from within, due to a vacuum of meaning and sharp contradictions.

Smart entrepreneurs eliminate any vulnerability in their business. Wise founders are just as concerned about excess as they are about scarcity. Therefore, they intentionally impose restrictions on themselves and their business. For instance, they create a board of directors to hold themselves accountable, or introduce a minimum rate of return for investments in any project. Some entrepreneurs consciously refrain from paying themselves dividends from their immense profits, reinvesting them in the business. They reasonably fear becoming a softened and demotivated king from a once energetic and ambitious contender.

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 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.


Croak for Cash: How to Monetize Your Unique Traits by Alexander Lyadov

It is impossible to change the structure of your personality.

It's as pointless as hitting your reflection in the water.

No matter what mask you wear, your essence will come through.

And if a part of yourself brings dislike, struggling with it will only lead to exhaustion.

There is only one way out: to see, study, and master your own chaos.

Then what has been robbing you for years will become a source of ideas, energy, and wealth.

One croaks, another absorbs CO2, a third gnaws on logs.

What's important is that they are unable to NOT do that.

But imagine if someone needs the product of your obsession.

It turns out that they can't live without oxygen or dams.

So, for them, the value of your strange product is enormous.

Conclusion: If you can't help but croak, croak for a lot of cash.

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 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.


Why You're More Valuable Than You Think? by Alexander Lyadov

Yesterday, I wrote about how the false belief in their own imperfections limits the potential of people in business. You may think, "I'm not enough (insert your own word here) compared to entrepreneur X. In my work as a business therapist, I've had sessions with very successful founders, and even I was amazed: "What, you too have doubts about yourself? I never would have thought so."

Almost everyone has a certain type of person that invokes stupor, piety, and awe. For a SaaS company founder, it could be a well-known venture capitalist, and for a consultant, a client from the Fortune 500 list. As if they were Japanese peasants standing knee-deep in mud, with Emperor Naruhito looking down on them. Fortunately, there is a simple way to get out of this illusion without psychoanalysis.

In fact, the opposite is true - they desperately need you, not the other way around. Your service or product can quickly solve the acute problem of certain clients. However, despite your best efforts, you can't help everyone. If you're a service company, your maximum is 10-15 long-term clients per year. And if we're talking about investors in a product business, that number is even smaller within an investment round. Perhaps you're used to thinking that they choose you from a multitude of alternatives, but in reality, you're the one selecting clients and partners. After all, the capacity of your "battery" is quite small, so it makes sense to be very selective about those with whom you can't help but share your energy. Here we come back to the question again — do you know your ideal client?

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 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.


Which Belief to Break Free from to Unlock Your Potential? by Alexander Lyadov

Free from handcuffs poster

Unknown artist

 

Too many people self-limit their potential. How? Deep down, they devalue what they objectively possess. If you don't value yourself, why should others treat you any better? It's no wonder that a founder is hesitant to make a super offer to an enterprise client, a top manager is afraid to bring up compensation with the owner, or a coach gets too few leads. Imagine a patient's reaction if their surgeon hesitantly mumbles something and wipes sweat from their forehead with trembling fingers before administering general anesthesia. Right, he'd want to run far away.

In my observation, in 99% of cases, the belief in one's own inferiority is a lie. Yes, there are plenty of people in the world who are significantly better than us in certain attributes. But they are somewhere out there, while you are here. Hypothetically, your investor, client, or boss could find and collaborate with an ideal version of you, but practically it's impossible, as the search for perfection would consume a lot of their resources even in the age of the internet. If you're drowning, does it matter if the hand offering a lifeline has a manicure? The most important thing is that this kind person happens to be nearby.

In business, timing is everything, just like in boxing or stand-up. What matters is not the perfect form of delivery, but functional utility. Profit, knockout, or laughter, here and now, are the metrics of success, not speculative comparisons with someone in a parallel universe. So the question is not whether you are perfect, but whether you can provide enough value for your client, boss, or investor when they need it the most.

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 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.


How Uncertainty Wears A Company Down: Insights From Jiu-jitsu by Alexander Lyadov

It doesn't matter how strong or flexible you are, or how good your cardio is. If you haven't been training for a few months, you're toasted after a couple of rounds of jiu-jitsu. Shortness of breath, foggy mind, numb hands, and the feeling of "Get away from me!" take over. The efficiency of power distribution is gone, specifically in jiu-jitsu. You "forgot" how to maintain the pace during several rounds, when to explode and when to rest. How so?

This increased uncertainty has erases your memory. The familiar environment turns into chaos that can harm you. Fear makes you unnecessarily tense, wasting energy. Weakness causes you to make mistakes, get scared, explode, and so on. The solution? Fight more often to learn to conquer unknown territory again.

That's why it's so important not to let uncertainty enter your business from the outside. Nothing wastes resources like it. You also need a reserve in case, figuratively speaking, hordes of barbarians besiege your city for a long time. But even sadder is when the owner creates confusion, chaos, and inconsistency in his (or her) own company. This often happens subconsciously because the founder's own dilemmas, remaining unresolved, push him to excessive actions in one direction or another. And here "fight more" is not the solution, as sometimes it takes years for the natural process of trial and error to provide a liberating insight. To accelerate progress in sports, an athlete invites an experienced coach. For a founder, this function is performed by an independent board of directors, coach, or psychotherapist.

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 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.


Maintaining Business Functionality: The Lessons From Strength Training by Alexander Lyadov

Roman Greek Herculaneum atlas sculpture

Roman Greek Herculaneum atlas sculpture

 

You can often hear discouraging statistics that after the age of 40, a person loses about 1% of muscle mass per year, about 2-4% of strength per year, and power decreases by 8-10% per year. It sounds like a sentence. Maybe, but not for us. Listen to an interview with Dr. Andy Galpin, a professor of kinesiology at California State University and a leading global expert on methods of increasing strength, hypertrophy, and endurance: "In general human movement is a function of some sort of neuromuscular activation. So nerves have to turn on. The second part is muscles have to contract, and the third part is those muscles have to move a bone. If you want to be alive and you want to live by yourself, you have to be able to engage in human movement. You don't lose these functionalities because of aging, you lose this because of loss of training... I was reading a paper this morning. So these are folks 90 plus, and they saw improvements like 30 to 170% in things like muscle size and hypertrophy over a very short period of time (12 weeks). Resistance exercises and strength training is the number one tool to combat neuromuscular aging... This reduction in muscle strength and hypertrophy is basically ameliorated with a preservation of activity."

It turns out that the problem of loss of body functionality is not so much in objective age as in the subjective refusal of a person to regularly lift kettlebells, bands, or mace. First, the mind gives up, and only then the body. In this sense, the above-mentioned statistics resemble panicked people during a fire who rush to narrow theater doors. Yes, that's the reaction of most people, but you can act differently. And most likely, you will be pleasantly surprised at how much your potential (mind, body, spirit) is greater than you and others thought.

Similarly, companies lose functionality. Most of them are convinced with age that innovativeness, i.e., the ability to reinvent themselves, is no longer available to them. As a result of this (false) belief, there is a steady atrophy of "innovative nerves, ligaments, and muscles." Essentially, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fortunately, there are founders, albeit a minority, who disagree with the general statistics. It is they who manage to achieve an optimal state when they do not lose anything they have built before, but at the same time continue to open up other markets, launch new products, in short, maintain the full functionality of the business.

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 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 Implicit to Explicit: The Path to Achieving Your Goals by Alexander Lyadov

If you don't have a home, does that mean you're homeless?

Perhaps yes, and perhaps no.

Yes, if your life is stuck, like in the movie "Groundhog Day".

No, if every step, even if slow, brings you closer to your desired goal.

From the outside, neither appears to have anything other than a void.

But that's a misconception, because everything tangible was once implicit.

It's not about having the form, but about the process that creates it.

Those around you cannot see your process because it happens secretly within you.

That's why society tends to devalue what cannot be grasped (yet).

It's even worse when someone ignores or belittles their own process.

Therefore, the task is not to show others the scaffolding and floors.

The key is to have a clear vision of the future home in your mind and to recognize the value of each step you take today.

Will your home be built in 3, 5, or 7 years? That's secondary.

So, while you may not have a sturdy and comfortable home yet, it already exists, constantly warming, grounding, and recharging you.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander


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


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

"I have an 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.


Why Starting Point and Achievements Don't Matter? by Alexander Lyadov

Achieving an ambitious goal doesn't guarantee happiness.

In fact, some founders sink into a gloomy depression after successfully selling their business.

Ironically, the attributes of success only exacerbate their problems.

Satisfaction should be a given... but it's not. How come?

The meaning that had been driving the founders for years has disappeared, leaving them in an empty void they didn't bother to fill.

The same feeling arises when fate, without asking, takes away the things that gave people the energy to work, learn, and create.

At the same time, there are plenty of examples of people starting from a hopelessly losing position and managing to live a tremendously interesting, fulfilling, and productive life.

It turns out that it doesn't matter where you start and where you end up.

What matters is making progress from one point to another.

Even a tiny step in the desired direction is enough to create a surge of mood, optimism, and strength.

As neurobiologist Andrew Huberman explains, when you're confident that you're on the right track, your body produces the "anticipation hormone" dopamine.

If it's so effective and simple, what's the catch?

It's difficult, firstly, to humbly accept the current undesirable state as the starting point, and, second, it's challenging to honestly articulate where it makes sense for you to end up.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander


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

"I have an 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.