Unity, Function, and Strength / November 2, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Here's what my home gym looks like. Besides weights, there’s a bench, resistance bands, and some DIY equipment for neck and forearm.

I keep all this gear around so I never have an excuse to get bored.

Five days a week, when there’s no jiu-jitsu, my “place of power” waits for me. The rule is strict and simple: “Do whatever you want, but work until you sweat.”

Almost every time, I don’t feel like starting. Mornings usually come with a bad mood, some pain, a dirty dog after the walk, and so on. But there hasn’t been a single time I regretted working out.

A cold shower finishes the transformation. I walk out a different person.

It’s strange. My body feels tired and chilled, but my mind is clear, and my spirit feels alive. Breakfast feels well-earned. A handful of vitamins and minerals. Fresh coffee. That’s it.

Like a factory machine, my system starts up, smooth and steady.

My mind is rearing to go, almost begging, “You’ve given the body what it needed. Now, it’s my turn!” Why is it this way?

Everything has a purpose. It only truly exists when it’s in action. A beaver builds a dam. A predator hunts its prey. A bumblebee pollinates a flower.

Dividing a person into body, mind, and soul is as flawed as any model. The state of one affects the others. When each is fully engaged, their roles weave together into a unique pattern of self.

If you’ve hit a wall in your intellectual or creative pursuits, maybe it’s time to strengthen your muscles again.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

How can I help you?
If you've long been trying to understand what is limiting you and/or your business and how to finally give important changes a push, then The Catalyst Session is designed specifically for you. Book it here.

Other View / November 1, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

To find a way out of a tough situation, you have to step outside yourself.

There are many ways to do this:

Take your situation to the edge of absurdity.
Roll back to the starting point.
Imagine you’re someone else.
Picture yourself in the future.
Dive into the here and now.
Turn yourself inside out.
Merge with the question.
Embody the ideal.
Step aside.

The problem is like an optical illusion. You stare at the picture, but all you see is an old woman. And then—bam! A beautiful lady appears, and once you see her, you can’t unsee her.

The picture hasn’t changed. What changed? Just your perspective.

Now, you can even switch between “modes” at will.

Notice there’s been growth. You haven’t lost anything, and you can still remember the struggle of being stuck. This helps you empathize with others still in that “before” state.

So don’t be afraid to let go of a familiar worldview. Wade confidently into the refreshing waters of new ideas. Chances are, there won’t be a breakdown or replacement, but synthesis and integration.

You’ll enrich yourself, adding a new facet to your inner diamond.

Inside, you’re a little freer.

Instead of a captive’s, you now have a creator’s eyes.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Purging for Change / October 31, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Many want change. For the better, of course — and fast.

Sadly, the biggest obstacle to change is often the person himself.

He’s too attached to his old ways, habits, and thinking. Like a hoarder, he clutters up his mind, filling every corner with things he thinks he might "need someday." In this trash can, there’s no room for a creator or anything new.

According to one study, only 42% of people with hoarding tendencies recognize their behavior as problematic. And so, the person who wants change creates a dilemma in his mind: “I want to improve my life, but I don’t want anything to change right now.”

Sometimes fate steps in and sets fire to all that old clutter.

Suddenly, man realizes he’s helpless, vulnerable, and exposed. Soon after, he thinks, "Hmm, I’ve lost everything, but I’m alive!" In time, he has an epiphany: "I haven’t felt this free in ages."

Wow! Turns out, after the exhale comes a pause, then a fresh inhale.

Wise is the one who regularly burns away the junk, without waiting for fate to strike.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Shall You Save Your Pencil or Not? / October 30, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

My favorite pencil wore down. There’s no irritation, no bitterness. Just a feeling of gratitude and quiet sadness. This tool fulfilled the purpose for which someone created it.

Lines, sketches, notes—everything had meaning, nudging life forward.

Wine is meant to be enjoyed, not left to sit endlessly in a bottle. One day it will simply sour. Attempts to save the nectar too long will eventually turn it into poison.

Wasting a resource pointlessly corrodes the soul like acid.

The above applies to a person just as much as it does to a thing. The same feelings arise depending on whether a person used his gift or “saved” it in a chest underground.

Claiming a gift as your own is as unethical as a fund manager claiming clients' assets. He also betrays their trust if he doesn’t invest, leaving the funds idle in bank accounts.

Not losing funds—that’s basic hygiene. The main goal is to make them grow.

The skill lies in eliminating foolish risks and in choosing investment targets wisely. The investor and the gardener water what grows on its own and yields bountiful fruit.

Uncovering one’s potential is harder. There are no clear 'yield' and 'ROI' indicators, and other people's success patterns will hurt rather than save.

But when you find your way, each stroke on a cotton pad or napkin sharpens your pencil, but in return creates something that has personal meaning for you.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

The Flow Wins / October 29, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Former wrestler and two-time PBR champion Jess Lockwood once said:

“In wrestling to win a match, you gotta have hip control. You gotta dominate your opponents. It's not a fight in a sense with your opponent. You gotta flow and move off of what they are doing. Same thing with bull riding. It comes from your hips. You don't fight the bull. You're not gonna to win a battle with a 2,000-pound bull. So you gotta flow with them and react to their moves and not fight it. You gotta move with.”

A head-on collision is naïve and dangerous, especially when your opponent is much larger and stronger. The only way out is to offset limited resources with an excess of wit.

To find the right solution, the mind needs absolutely nothing.

The bigger your opponent, the greater his inertia. That means you can more easily guess the direction of his movement. While the massive force slowly shifts, you have time to make your move.

The only one who can stand in your way is yourself.

For instance, if fear takes over and you lose faith in yourself. Fear locks you up, not just physically but, more importantly, mentally. The range of possibilities shrinks from infinity to zero.

That’s why, in the most hopeless situations, the real fight is within.

In this sense, believers have it easier. Facing an overwhelming threat doesn’t paralyze them because they carry within themselves an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God.

Faith calms fear and gives the Creator's insight a chance to enter the mind.

A confident person watches his opponent with curiosity. In a way, he’s even grateful, like a scientist facing a problem, for the chance to show his inventive mind.

Only thanks to a raging ocean does a surfer’s mastery grow.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Whole Body Strength / October 28, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

A remarkable feature of intelligence is differentiation (from the Latin differentia — “distinction”). It means the ability to break down a process or phenomenon into its components. This is how we uncover how things work.

Now we can fix something, create something new, or improve the highlighted element. For example, in sports, specific exercises can develop a targeted group of muscles.

But there’s a temptation to get carried away with the process of differentiation, forgetting about the original whole from which the research began.

Yet everyday tasks often demand an integrated approach. Pulling a 20-inch tire out of a car trunk is not the same as lifting weights at the gym. The awkward trajectory and shape of the object multiply the complexity—and the risk—many times over.

Life challenges the organism as a whole, not just its individual parts.

That’s why it’s important to do exercises that engage as many muscles as possible at once. Take, for example, the “farmer's walk,” which activates:

Forearms
Shoulders
Back
Trapezius muscle
Rectus, transverse, and oblique abdominal muscles
Hamstrings
Quadriceps
Glutes
Calves

These exercises require integrated efforts, not just in terms of muscles, but also over time. In other words, you need to train not for a week but for many years to achieve significant results.

Want to gauge your overall body strength? Here’s a test from Dr. Peter Attia:

“Doing what's called farmer's carry is such an important form of activity. Say a woman in her 40s should be able to carry 75% of her body weight in her hands for a minute. And if she can do that it means we are very confident that by the time she is in her last decade she will have the strength to open a jar for example. And for a man? It's your body weight for a minute.”

This is a literal illustration that our health is in our hands.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Chaos Grip / October 27, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

“Suicide wrap” is a special way of wrapping a rope around a rider’s hand during rodeo.

The benefit is that it helps the rider stay on the bucking beast. The downside? It’s tough to free your hand. Even after falling off and blacking out, the rider remains glued to the bull that’s trampling him. Without a support team, the rider is doomed.

This is the eternal dilemma of dealing with chaos:

If your grip is too loose, you’ll soon hit the ground, left with nothing or shattered.
If the hold is too tight, chaos will drag you endlessly, breaking and exhausting you.

The interaction should be paradoxical - to be and not to be.

Riding an enduro motorcycle off-road teaches you a lot. You learn to grip the tank with your legs, not the handlebars with your hands, and to stand on the pegs, spring-like, instead of sitting in the saddle.

The same approach applies to unexpected, unfamiliar problems.

Imagine yourself as a primitive man encountering fire for the first time. By finding the right distance, you can turn a curse into a blessing that radically transformed the human species.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

To Founder from CEO? / October 26, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

For the uninitiated, there's no difference between a founder and a CEO. Both sit high in the corporate sky like gods, ruling over everyone’s fate with power and unpredictability.

On one hand, employees of a large company revere the shareholder, but on the other hand, they know their stability and prosperity depend solely on the CEO.

The CEO knows better than anyone how far he is from the founder.

A friend once shared how he managed assets for an oligarch. Alongside other managers, mostly ex-McKinsey, they devised a plan to save the company $50 million. Proud of themselves, they looked down on the beneficiary. That was until he sold his unremarkable bank for $2 billion.

Many can multiply one, but few can create it from zero.

Flying in the atmosphere is one thing; space is another. In the first case, you need wings and an engine to interact with the air, generating lift and thrust. In the second, you need reactive thrust: a rocket ejects fuel, and by the law of momentum, it moves in the opposite direction. In the vacuum of space, wings are useless.

That's why not every CEO can become a founder. You have to unlock those abilities and build those skills that no business school can truly teach. Thankfully, not everyone needs to. Because prolific entrepreneurs desperately need virtuoso CEOs to turn their groundbreaking business ideas into reality.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Against All Odds / October 24, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Professionalism is performing a function, no matter what.

That includes obstacles both inside and outside the person.

What do you expect from a backup parachute? That it will fully open 100 times out of 100, not just sometimes or partially.

In that sense, a professional is like a tool. A plow has to till the soil, tweezers have to grip, and a hammer has to drive nails.

As long as it retains "hammerness", it will keep hitting the mark over and over. However, every tool has its limits, defined in the manual. For instance, office glue is meant for paper and cardboard, but it's useless on metal.

But within those limits, a professional won’t let you down.

A surgeon will still perform a scheduled operation even when he's tired. And a psychotherapist will continue to help clients, even if her house is being bombed. An amateur’s mind shuts down if he’s sleep-deprived or sick. But a professional, like time, keeps moving forward: tick-tock, tick-tock...

But isn't this what God (Universe, Eternity) expects from a person?

To fill life with meaning, despite the chaos outside and inside.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Double-Edged Growth / October 24, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Let's say you have something good—X. Something you consider useful, beneficial, and valuable. Obviously, you know X inside and out.

What happens if you add another X to your X? Right, you get 2X. In other words, the value grows linearly. Predictable growth, no unpleasant surprises.

But what if that pace isn't enough? Say, there's an urgent need for a big leap forward.

We're talking about exponential growth, where a grain of sand suddenly turns into a mountain. Yesterday, there was hunger; today, food appears so fast it’s like a fairy tale where you have to say, "Pot, stop cooking."

It's clear that for this kind of magic, you need more than just the usual X, or even a variation X'. You need something entirely new—an unknown Y.

The more Y differs from X, the greater the outcome when they combine into XY.

But the unknown carries risk. An explosion is also lightning-fast growth, only usually for harm rather than good.

This brings us to the issue of governance. The highest increase in value is technically impossible without novelty, but novelty can both create and destroy.

Remember the dilemma from another fairy tale? "Execute, no pardon." The outcome depends on where you place the comma.

If you're planning a big business, keep in mind the double-edged sword of novelty. You must be open to strange people and ideas, but also aware of the inevitable risk of falling from great heights.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Reverse the Odds / October 23, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Grappling with different partners, I often share an insight that once saved me during the final of the Ukrainian championship in 2017:

"When an opponent aggressively looms over you, he’s vulnerable. Just block his arms and pull, bringing his head over yours. Then, give a quick push with your legs, and he’ll fly right over you."

This opportunity comes up often in a match, but most grapplers don’t see it. Why? They’re too focused on themselves, desperately trying to survive.

The irony is, the move works best when there’s a big gap in weight, size, or strength between the grapplers. Imagine a slim girl trying to defend herself while a big guy presses down on her.

The heavyweight feels sure of his advantage. In his mind, he’s already won, and defense isn’t even on his radar. The fairy uses this carelessness to slip beneath the giant’s center of gravity. That’s the secret.

Lift your opponent off the ground, and he’ll lose all his strength.

In Greek mythology, Hercules was the first to defeat the giant Antaeus. This son of Poseidon drew his strength from his mother, Gaia, the goddess of the earth. During their fight, Hercules figured out Antaeus’s secret—he lifted him high into the air to drain his power, then finished him off.

Paradoxically, the worse your situation, the better your chances of winning.

But first, you need to turn your perspective around 180 degrees.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

The Flip Side / October 22, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

What happens if you take a deep breath, then try to fill your lungs with even more air? And then more, and more? With each passing second, it gets worse.

Every cell in your body craves just one thing — to exhale.

Opposites imply each other:

In and out.
Rise and fall.
Truth and lies.
Heat and cold.
Lack and excess.
Man and woman.
Silence and noise.
Light and shadow.
Beginning and end.
Progress and decline.
Hardness and softness.
Strength and weakness.
Stillness and movement.
Simplicity and complexity.
Dead-end and breakthrough.

If this is obvious, why do people act like it’s not?

Take the founder who grinds in “24/7/365” mode, brushing off any suggestion of a break with, “I’ll rest when I retire!” Meanwhile, his body keeps shocking him, going on strike.

The businessman's posts show off his success, a harmonious home, and perfect kids. Yet, when you happen to meet him on the street, his eyes tell a different story — unbearable longing, exhaustion, and pain.

The CEO passionately talks about the company’s dedication to its employees, its long-term charity work, and the many progressive ideas it has implemented. But when you ask him about revenues and expenses over the last three years, he struggles to give a quick answer.

“Opposites arise from each other, and this transition is mutual,” wrote Plato in his dialogues "On the Soul."

Trying to focus only on one desired part of life pushes a person into its opposite. Success at any cost turns into failure. The thirst for recognition — loneliness. The chase for happiness — depression. Eagerness — burnout.

The takeaway: remember to exhale after a deep breath.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Why Partnerships Thrive or Fail / October 21, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Once upon a time, there were business partners. They started a successful business together. Then they had a falling out. They spent years fighting over assets, sabotaging each other, and airing dirty laundry in public. They lost money and nerves in the courts.

Ten years went by. The resentment is still smoldering, but it’s clear now—they all lost.

Some try to forget the whole thing like a bad dream. Others can’t stop asking, “Why did the conflict happen?” And a few are still trying to find a winning strategy after the fact, thinking, “If only I had done this back then…”

But almost no one asks, “Why did I choose this partner?”

Think back to how it all began. You were talking with different people, passionately brainstorming ideas. At some point, it became clear that you couldn’t wait any longer. Opportunities weren’t going to stick around forever. And for some reason, this person caught your attention. Why?

Let me help—he was your perfect match. Whatever you desperately lacked, he had in abundance. And the same went the other way around.

Even when people say, “I had the ideas, and he had the resources,” that’s only half the truth. Most likely, it’s just your natural design—somehow, muses are drawn to you, while money seems to find its way to him easily.

The point is: Your partner was fundamentally different from you.

In your partnership, this was both super glue and dynamite. At best, your progress was unstoppable. At worst—things blew up.

Why? The qualities you lack are the ones you deeply dislike. Your lack isn’t an accident; you see those traits as nonsense, weakness, dirt, or even immorality. But your gut tells you this is your “bottleneck.”

Your partner embodies what you crave to be but can’t.

When a cathode “finds” an anode, a current flows between them. This system works perfectly as long as neither part believes success is solely its own doing.

If this temptation comes to you, push it away fast. The system's synergy is safeguarded by the humility of all its parts.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Hidden Treasures? / October 20, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Walking my dog in the evening, I look up and freeze.

The flames of the setting sun, the blue sky, and the shifting clouds together create hypnotic patterns. I want to watch them forever.

What strikes me most is the sudden shift.

Just a moment ago, my attention was consumed by the flow of the street: the movements of passersby, the growl of engines, and the cries of ads on poles. The sky above was just a backdrop, too familiar and still.

Suddenly, the ground and the sky switched places. What seemed important faded into the background, and the mundane revealed its hidden treasure.

Well, “hidden” might not be the right word—diamonds and pearls are scattered everywhere, always. Instead of a price tag, there’s an invitation: “Take as much as you can carry. It’s all free.”

Something inside me must be blocking me from noticing this brilliance.

But despite everything, beauty bursts into my tiny world when:

The changing seasons paint the roadside bush in intense colors.
A client’s problem transforms before my eyes, revealing a solution.
In a dream, I experience peak vitality, harmony, and freedom.
Precise words naturally build a pyramid of meaning.
Love is read in a conversation, even in silence.
a certainty crystallizes that it’s all for the best.

The trick is to learn to stop getting in your own way.

Everything we need most has always been, is, and will be here.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

What’s Your Role? / October 19, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

In business and life, you have four roles to choose from:

1. The Destroyer. His every effort and thought is aimed at turning 1 into 0. Whatever he touches crumbles to dust.

2. The Guardian. His job is to protect a unit of value, ensuring that the 1 exists in the past, present, and future, no matter what.

3. The Manager. He wants, knows how, and must turn 1 into 10 or even 1M. Someone entrusts him with value, expecting him to manage and multiply it.

4. The Creator. Without asking for anything or having anything, he makes 1 out of 0. In his presence, a dead-end problem reveals a Wow-solution on its own.

Each of these roles is essential in the business process. There is a time for each: to guard and to stimulate, to plant and to crash.

However, the complexity of these functions varies greatly. Anyone can break, trample, or cancel anything. After all, the first thing any new organism learns is to take, not to give. Entropy helps, too, relentlessly turning everything to chaos.

Keeping things safe is harder. Lose focus for even a second, and everything can be lost without a chance to recover.

Not everyone can multiply what exists because it requires hard, honest work—day in, day out. A rich harvest is the result of methodical effort over many years or even decades.

The most difficult role is creating Something out of Nothing. You can’t be taught this—it’s about unlocking a dormant ability within yourself. But this path is unpredictable and thorny.

Creators are always in short supply. Treasure them in others and in yourself.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Hunt for Breakthroughs / October 18, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Let's say you need to create something new. You can't just do it the same way you would in a familiar field.

You know the "Why?" but there’s no clarity on the "What?" or the "How?"

At this stage, you feel anxiety and discomfort. Especially when time is short, resources are running low, and the pressure is high. And even more so if you rarely use Creator mode.

I’ll share a secret with you on how to calm down and speed up your R&D process.

First, inside you, there's a sensitive indicator. It will definitely signal when you catch a Wow-idea in your net. Along the way, it also hints, "Hey, that’s interesting," or "Probably not."

Second, you need to trust your curiosity. Like a hunter releasing his eagle, letting it soar into the sky and scout the surroundings. The predator itself finds, pursues, and captures the desired prey.

Third, you need to curb your inner manager. His zeal is out of place here. Scaling a one is efficient; birthing a one from zero is not. Its goal is a breakthrough.

The hunter succeeds when the eagle becomes an extension of his hand.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Know the Unknown / October 17, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Everyone knows that cats hate water. Even if they can swim, they'll do everything they can to avoid getting wet.

But the big cat in the photo missed that memo.

Jaguars rarely encounter ungulates in their habitat. So they've expanded their diet to include 87 species, from turtles to anacondas and caimans. They leap from ambush, landing on their prey’s back, and often crush the skull or neck vertebrae.

A puss in boots hunting a dragon in the river sounds both bold and funny.

Surviving in a hostile, alien environment is tough. What gives you strength on land or in trees is useless underwater. You can’t breathe, your movements are slow, and visibility is near zero.

Yet the jaguar mastered this "terra incognita" so well that it went from being a potential prey to a threat for the reptiles there. If caimans could talk, they’d be yelling, “WTF?! The world’s gone crazy!”

The human ability to explore strange worlds is a divine gift.

We can settle not just new lands but also the conceptual worlds of others, even if they’re wildly different from ours. There’s risk in that, but the rewards are prosperity and growth.

And the more someone's ideas confuse, repel, or frighten us, the more they have the potential to protect and enrich us. Especially when it’s your subconscious, eager to reveal its secrets to you.

Just remember, you are the river, the caiman, and the jaguar.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Maps Lie / October 16, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

The map is not the territory, which means it lies. The moment it’s printed, it’s already outdated. Sure, a nature reserve changes slower than a city, but the idea is the same: time moves, and the context shifts.

In this way, mental maps and topographical maps are similar. They offer a glimpse of a world that existed yesterday but is gone today.

“All models are wrong, but some are useful,” said Professor George P. Box, known as one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century. The real question is knowing when the value of your most cherished model starts to fade.

Take, for example, a founder who spent years executing an ambitious plan. As long as the terrain mostly matched the map, he moved confidently. But one morning, he woke up not in a pine forest but in salty sea.

What do you do when the gap between imagination and reality grows too wide? It feels like everything he carried—supplies, weapons, tools—was useless. Not only did the desired goal vanish, but now he couldn’t even tell where he was. The founder is stressed and disoriented.

Things will only get worse if he doesn't update his mental maps.

The bad news is this action is uncomfortable. Especially if the founder is desperately clinging to “yesterday.” The good news? You don't need to invest millions in new tech, hire a star CEO, or rebuild the company for the latest management fad.

So what’s needed? Just one thing—reality persuaded the founder he can't help but to change. And he started the change from himself.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

Chaos Hunter / October 15, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

Some are terrified by chaos, while others draw strength from it.

Take the black kite, for instance. This bird of prey, part of the hawk family, glides effortlessly on warm air currents, shifting direction with ease and diving like a stone to snatch its prey.

It eats just about anything: mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, live fish, insects, mollusks, crustaceans, and worms. It even goes for household trash and carrion, which is why British soldiers nicknamed it the “shite-hawk.”

But it has another name—“fire hawk,” earned because of its attraction to wildfires. The bird circles near the flames, picking off creatures dazed by the smoke. It even spreads fires further, grabbing burning twigs and carrying them to new spots.

The black kite adapts to any environment, and that’s why it’s free.

Notice the ambivalence in how people perceive it. On one hand, there’s disgust (“shite-hawk”), and on the other, admiration (“fire hawk”).

When we meet a free person, the same mixture of feelings arises.

He will do, with ease, what would never cross our minds. And even if it did, our inner tyrant wouldn’t allow it. That’s why we feel like a knight on a chessboard, under the gaze of a grandmaster.

What do we feel when we meet someone who is absolutely free?

That's right, awe. That overwhelming sense of reverence, admiration, fear, respect, humility, and submission to something greater, something we cannot comprehend.

No wonder so many want freedom, yet so few are ready for it. Philosopher and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm once said: “Tyranny scares us less than freedom.”

Freedom is a risk, which means responsibility, which means discipline.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.

The Creator's Choice / October 14, 2024 by Alexander Lyadov

This photograph captures the essence of all life on Earth.

A caiman wrestles with an anaconda, while horseflies drink their blood.

Who is the victim, and who is the aggressor? It’s impossible to tell. One link in the food chain swallows another, only to be digested in turn, fueling the endless cycle.

Unlike other creatures, man has a choice.

He can blindly participate in this cycle. Instincts alone are enough to find food, reproduce, and build his shell—improving its size, comfort, location, and brand. Moreover, satisfying basic needs promises pleasure.

But apart from instincts, man has the gift of being aware of everything that happens around him and to him. Whether it’s a star's birth or a dung beetle's labor, consciousness illuminates whatever it touches.

Here Something emerges from Nothing, as in the light of a lantern on the sea floor.

The world around us is as infinitely rich as the world within. Exploring your subconscious can be as thrilling as digging up the ruins of the Maya civilization. Like fire, consciousness transforms what it finds into new shapes.

Carl Jung wrote beautifully on this:

“There the cosmic meaning of consciousness became overwhelmingly clear to me. "What nature leaves imperfect, the art perfects," say the alchemists... Now I knew what it was, and knew even more: that man is indispensable for the completion of creation; that, in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world, who alone has given to the world its objective existence without which, unheard, unseen, silently eating, giving birth, dying, heads nodding through hundreds of millions of years, it would have gone on in the profoundest night of non-being down to its unknown end. Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and man found his indispensable place in the great process of being."

So, to be or not to be a Creator—that’s a choice each one must make.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

About me:
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.