Words of Freedom /  by Alexander Lyadov

To be honest, I didn’t believe her at first. I kept opening up, more and more, watching her closely: “What if This tips too far?” I was afraid that what I had carried inside for so long would be too heavy for anyone to bear.

But I saw this clear just lately. All along, I'd pegged myself an introvert.

Turned out, I held back from folks because I sensed their psychological fragility. They could accept me only “up to a point.” Truly unbreakable people—I hadn’t met any before.

Maturity doesn’t come with age; it takes enormous work. Otherwise, even the slightest Otherness in someone will upset or scare you, stirring the urge to reject.—or better yet, destroy—what feels foreign.

A healing therapist has faced, grasped, and embraced every part of herself. Of course, she’s imperfect too—and gladly admits it. The key is that she must be far less breakable than her client.

Only then does a space emerge where you’re free to say Everything.

Oh, what a release! Like that first gulp after holding breath. A wild cascade of truths. And look — your “black hole” is not evil or ugly, but a source of beauty, creativity, and love.

So through words, we help each other turn darkness into light.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

The Body of Your Business /  by Alexander Lyadov

They call business a corporate body for a reason.

If the body runs right, it keeps growing—bigger, tougher, stronger. Folks say a tight team moves like one living organism.

But here’s the nuance most skip: the big body of a business is fractally similar to its smallest part—the body of the founder. At least it is, as long as control hasn’t passed to private or public investors, but remains with the one who created it.

If the company starts stumbling, slowing down, or bleeding losses, don’t rush to blame the team, fix the processes, or chase funds. Eye the top dog close.

A pale face? Puffy eyes? A scattered voice? Bet the whole company feels it too. Teams start clashing. Contractors fail. Clients make mountains out of molehills.

Want to heal the business? The founder must recover first.

Every renewal of a company’s body repeats its birth—when the Creator once burned with a Wow-idea that simply had to be brought to life.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Break the Spell /  by Alexander Lyadov

When you join a new group, it’s almost inevitable — someone will attract you, while someone else will unsettle, annoy, or even scare you.

If you’re curious why, read about the phenomenon of transference. Simply put, it’s when we unconsciously “recognize” in another person someone from our past — someone who once loved us deeply or hurt us badly.

In truth, we’re not seeing a person but a phantom. That’s why any interaction with him, even in our thoughts, leads to misunderstanding, disappointment, and conflict.

I used to fall into that trap often, but the sheer dumbness wore me down. Now, whenever I feel dislike for a stranger, I look for any excuse to start a conversation… about nothing in particular.

My goal is simple: to break the spell by touching real life. And you know what? The "spell" breaks instantly. Every time, I’m surprised to discover I actually like the person who first made me tense.

Huh. How many world woes arise from ghost encounters, not human souls?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Free Fall /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown artist

 

Your foe outsmarts you and launches a big throw. Your body senses the drop to the mat—or worse, the pavement. So you resist the pull with every ounce of strength.

Too late. There’s a point of no return. Your feet leave the ground, and your body is flying. “Chief, we’re doomed!”

Stop. Don’t panic. Some things are still in your hands—just not what you think.

Yes, you will fall. But the how stays wide open.

You’ve got options:

  1. Slam down hard, black out, and lose the bout.

  2. Tuck tight, soak the shock, and roll to guard.

  3. Touch down, then strike while your rival foretastes the win.

The first one takes zero effort. It just happens. The second—and especially the third—demand a mindset shift and the skill to make space for new ideas.

When everyone around thinks it’s over, you remember the old English saying: “There’s many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.” In that moment, doom turns into creative freedom. Freedom to do… what?

Anything! Anything’s better than being a falling object headed straight to point B. Especially if you’ve been here before—and maybe even prepared a counter.

Now, instead of one move, you’ve got three. Or four. Maybe ten.

At first, you resist the throw 100%. But the moment X comes, and you must switch. Stop fighting. Surrender fully to the fall.

Then pour all your energy and focus into adapting.

Uncertainty becomes your pal. Your quiet backer. Wild twist, huh?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Awaken the Beast /  by Alexander Lyadov

We can learn plenty from animals.

For one, how to endure—calmly and with dignity—what, alas, cannot be changed. Beyond luck, every creature on Earth meets its share of misfortune—plain bad luck.

Search the web for a crocodile without a lower jaw, a hawk pierced by an arrow, or a fox left with only its hind legs and tail. Each was doomed by fate, yet somehow managed to survive.

What’s striking is how little their behavior differs from the others. They still live to the fullest potential of their kind. No despair. No tears. No blame, anger, or whining.

They are dissolved in the flow of being—without labeling it “good” or “bad.”

Of course, animals lack what man has—the gift of consciousness—and so, they’re spared its curse. But unlike them, man has a choice in how to relate to his circumstances.

Sadly, we often turn that great power of consciousness against ourselves. We imagine in detail how perfect life could have been, if only A, B, or C hadn’t happened. These bitter thoughts drive us into despair.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself,” wrote D.H. Lawrence—and he was right.

After all, much of the beast still lives in us. Our split from the common ancestor with the chimpanzee happened around six to seven million years ago, while modern human consciousness appeared only fifty to a hundred thousand years back. A wild love of life still pulses in every cell of our body.

Awaken the Beast within—and nothing will ever stop you.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

The Other Within You /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

There are two ways for divided parts to feel whole again.

The first is to agree on who’s to blame for all misfortune. Once the “stranger” is purged, relief floods, calm holds.

But unity never lasts long. The victim must be offered again. To duck the blame for blood, they forge an imperative — sacred rite, law, duty, or cruel god.

This method has always been the most popular. Aztec sacrifices, the Spanish Inquisition, China’s Cultural Revolution, and today’s cancel culture—all one kin.

Worse yet, the individual acts the same way toward himself.

The second way is rare because it demands a shift in worldview. Instead of exile, it calls for the creative integration of the “stranger.” You must see not a threat in otherness, but a hidden good—for everyone.

That becomes possible only when, on one hand, a man is weary of inner violence, and on the other, inspired by the idea: In Sterquilinis Invenitur—“In filth it will be found.”

Something in you annoys, disgusts, or frightens you. Stop and ask: “What if this ugly form hides a precious meaning?”

Violence is easy. Try showing love toward the Other within you.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

When I’m Tired, I Sleep /  by Alexander Lyadov

My Blue Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog)

Have you ever suddenly felt an urge to sleep in the middle of the day?

Your first instinct is to fight it:

  • Push yourself with a looming deadline.

  • Splash cold water on your face.

  • Brew a cup of coffee.

  • Blast upbeat music.

  • Do a few stretches.

Sometimes the fog lifts. Other times, it fights back. Like a saboteur, it cuts off your energy supply, poisons you with apathy, and derails your train of thought.

You're a zombie now: eyes wide, but output's zero.

One day, I tried something different. When the wave of sleepiness hit, I thought, “Maybe I’m missing something. What if this is care, not sabotage? Let's test”. I sat in my favorite chair, closed my eyes, and drifted into a nap.

Twenty minutes later, lids rose on their own. The difference was stunning. My head felt crystal clear, my body energized, and ideas started flowing again.

Turns out, my body hadn’t asked for half a day off—just a short pit stop.

To a student's query on Zen, the master said: "When hungry, I eat. When tired, I sleep." He doesn’t waste strength fighting himself. Funny enough, in the end, the sage rediscovers the way of a child, a cat, or a dog.

Well, let's learn from them, shall we?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Between Zero and One /  by Alexander Lyadov

What else blocks the flood of plenty in every corner of life?

Yesterday, we ​discussed​ the inability to tolerate uncertainty.

The flip side's the same beast: rejection of the flawed, aka perfectionism. Hit the ideal, and hit it now. Anything less? Worthless. It’s either a zero or a one.

But in such binary thinking, there’s no room for the state “in-between.” So "what I have" and "what I want" end up as rims of a chasm. No bridge spans it.

Building something new means enduring long stages of “ugliness”:

  1. Idea

  2. Research

  3. Sketch

  4. Prototype

  5. Production Plan

  6. Pilot Model

  7. Finished Product

  8. Idea for Version 2.0

At every stage, the product both exists and doesn’t. For the all-or-nothing man, that in-between limbo's pure hell. Shielding himself, he stamps the edge: "I’m burning to start—but I won’t."

The irony is that abundance in his life also both exists and doesn’t. The pedant could change everything at any moment. Nothing wild: just microdose imperfection.

That's how you taste the strange kaif (كايف) of self-realizing in motion.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Hold the Unknown /  by Alexander Lyadov

What determines growth, prosperity, and abundance?

How about this factor—uncertainty? More precisely, one’s ability to tolerate it for a long time.

Let’s look from the opposite angle. When a person is too tired, weak, scared, or greedy, he looks for quick and guaranteed fixes. Every moment of waiting turns his discomfort into torture.

Imagine a choice. On one side—immeasurable treasures, but not right away, only after years, and fate might interfere. On the other—a VIP all-inclusive vacation on a tropical island, with a private jet and chilled prosecco waiting.

A vulnerable state leaves no room for choice—he needs relief now. Even if it’s a fake solution, even if it harms later, it stops the pain for a moment. That’s all that matters.

Such a person always chooses certainty. And in doing so, he gets stuck in the past. The future has no way to slip into his life. Novelty flirts with him desperately, but he doesn’t respond.

Fortunately, the reverse is also true. Say you drill it small: learn to hold the fog. You carve and widen that "between" space, so the water of life can flow in.

Over time, in the in-between, torment quits. You start anticipating… what?

The Unknown Everything.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Opening the Closed System /  by Alexander Lyadov

Each of us is a patchwork of selves. Some parts we secretly love—or even show off in public. But others we despise so deeply, we almost forget they exist.

And yet, those rejected parts are still there. We’re not indifferent to them. Just watch your emotional reaction when someone or something suddenly drags them up from the depths.

This status quo keeps the personality from feeling whole. You live with a faint sense of lack—and an inner war. You can outlaw a part of yourself, but you can’t destroy it. So the guerrilla fight drags on for decades in the dark forest within.

Such a person becomes like a closed system. And according to the laws of thermodynamics, entropy keeps rising. The mind tangles, the body breaks, the soul suffers. Time runs out. Talent goes to waste.

Can a closed system fix itself? Can a person truly self-heal? Given that you’d need to reverse long-established relationships inside yourself by 180 degrees, the odds aren’t great.

Even when it seems someone has changed on his own, it usually comes from an astonishing encounter with Another.

That person gives you living proof that your rejected part isn’t cursed or evil. He sees not your flaw, but wow-fullness. That new way of relating begins the healing within.

Why can he do what feels impossible to you? Simple—he once lived through something just like it.

Once healed, you too will help others—with your word, your presence, your gaze.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Co-Creation Only /  by Alexander Lyadov

Recall how we speak of forging something new:
The Creator makes Something out of Nothing.
It sounds as if he performs this sacred act solo.
That’s a lie—though it’s the way our culture likes to imagine it.

To bring new life into being, it takes two.
Nature decided that, not us.
In this sense, the value of one is zero, not one.
No matter how rich her promise or how strong he is.

In truth, there is no such thing as creation—it is always co-creation.
The new blooms from link, bond, dance between X and not-X.

So what is a creative block?
It’s when one ignores the Other, trapped in self-spin: “I... Mine... Me...”
That act can ease or heat—but won't conceive the new.

Stuck?
Forget yourself to spot the Other—who calls you to the Game.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Your Company Transforms When... /  by Alexander Lyadov

Turning a company from crisis demands pinning two points firm.

First, an honest map of where she stands now. The work bites hard, scares deep, so most rush it formal, fast as they can. Illusions keep the wheel.

Why? Because of a culture that punishes mistakes and hunts for culprits. Fear, resentment, and frustration make people deaf to others and afraid to speak up. How to be honest and open when a year all hold tight?

Second, you need to offer a meaning worthy of all participants. Not just profit, but something bold and magnetic—something too big for one person to achieve alone.

Turns out, discussing the future is also hard. Folks dash to nod at worn *.ppt lines. In business where "nothing's personal," they dodge: “What do I actually want?” Easier swallow another's desire, then grumble about it later.

No wonder so few transformations succeed, and “strategic sessions” degenerate into empty rituals that breed apathy and cynicism. You can’t keep going, but you can’t quit either. Sounds like a dead end.

So what can be done?

Show another road to self and kin. Everyone must experience firsthand that: – I’ve forgotten what I truly want. – Someone hungers to know me deeper than I do. – I can speak my truth—and miraculously, no one dies. – Mistakes are welcome, because they contain gifts. – Naming the “horror” brings relief, not drama. – A colleague’s stance I hate hid something I also share. – We can dare to do what no one before us has done.

Who becomes the crystal center in this saturated company solution?

The one who can't—and won't—mutter: "Yeah, I don't give a damn."

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Behold Beauty /  by Alexander Lyadov

The ability to see beauty in unexpected places is a gift. A person with this gift can never be truly poor or deprived.

In essence, it’s the act of discovering a speck of gold—or even a nugget—hidden in the mud. For most, there’s nothing there. But for the prospector, it’s El Dorado.

Talk of creation, and it seems the gifted pulls worth from thin air. But that’s not true. He frees beauty from the prison of formless matter that once bound it.

The maker dives to the bone of things. He discerns one from another.

In this sense, everything—order, abundance, harmony, fullness—already exists. Always was, always will. In us, out there.

What blinds us is our inability to appreciate what's hidden from all eyes.

Fortunately, a little more faith in the unseen—and a bit more attention to yourself, to others, and to the world—and wild sparks start to paint the dull days bright.

By the way, the photo shows the inner world of a Hopf violin from 1880.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Through Another’s Eyes /  by Alexander Lyadov

How precious the gaze of the Other to each of us.

We can never see ourselves fully, even with a perfect reflection before us. When a therapy group reveals your “blind spot,” everyone laughs—except you. You feel terrified, almost insane: “Have they all conspired? How can they insist on something so clearly false?!”

What saves you is trust in the therapist, who finds words sharp enough for truth to slip inside you. Suddenly, like in an optical illusion, you see an old woman where a lady in furs used to be.

What did the Other do? He completed your description. The hole shrank.

New knowledge about yourself is always a gift. You don’t think so when someone points out a trait that hurts others. An insight about a hidden talent feels nicer, but will you believe it? Not necessarily. Because it’s about a quality you admired in others—but never in yourself.

It takes time for a gift like that to take root in your soul.

Odd that someone else values you more than you do. That’s the power of a loving gaze. It sees through to your essence. No words or deeds can fool it. Love reveals your potential naked..

And if you follow that thought to the end, it’s hard to remain an atheist.

The one who loved you was a living human, wasn’t he? Meaning imperfect—despite all his or her wisdom, purity, and kindness.

Then what of Him who forged that Love itself? How does He love you?

This question fills me with awe.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Want Über-Growth? /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

Looking back, what marked the times of your über-growth?

For me, it always came down to two things: absence of ego and wild curiosity.

I’d dive into a field where I was a complete zero. If someone had told me, “Here, you’re nothing,” I would’ve agreed easily, even cheerfully. Ego found no hook for doubts, jitters, dread.

Free from all that, I could do what felt right—what fit the moment. I could knock on any door, write to their “demigod,” or directly ask the dumbest question.

I say “their” because that’s how it felt—I was a guest, an alien, an outsider. That freed not only me but everyone around me. Maybe I annoyed some people, but no one saw me as a rival. Nor was I one.

As I explored a new field, I always aimed for its core. Like a traveler fascinated by new lands but destined to move on and, eventually, return home.

People were drawn to my genuine curiosity—it wasn’t about profit, fame, or replacing anyone. I was simply in love with their domain, just as deeply as they were.

Where did this powerful drive come from? I couldn’t explain it, even to myself. Once it appeared, it grew on its own, pulling me upward. All I could do was admit, “Solo, I’d never have climbed that high.”

It’s easy to guess when the flight ended. When my ego kicked in, afraid it finally had something to lose. Or when comfort, reward, recognition tempted me—and I aimed my arrows not at curiosity's bull's-eye, but into the milk.

The lesson: find something so compelling that it makes you forget yourself.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

The Sacred Pause /  by Alexander Lyadov

Try paying attention to the pause before you launch into something. Say you’re about to write an article or come up with a new project.

The pause feels empty—dead, even. No ideas. No spark.

Panic rushes in: "How now? I have to!" Deeper, despair ices the gut: "What if the source has finally run dry?"

The more often you’ve stood at this edge, the faster these fears come and go. You simply nod to them: “Ah yes, you again.”

No promises wait, no hints flicker, yet calm settles in you. The hush and waste of Death's Valley can't trick you now. It bared its truth once —everything is the opposite of what it seems.

The fewer old structures remain, the more your former ideas have turned into fertile compost. In the pause, you’ve caught a sacred moment: the soil is about to give birth. To what?

That's the prize—you can't guess what. The Self startles the Ego. The person surprises himself. The old line cracks open: “For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

What does it take? Faith—and the attention of a drawn bowstring.

As philosopher Eugen Herrigel wrote in Zen in the Art of Archery (1948): “The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.”

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Annoying Illness? /  by Alexander Lyadov

We tend to think of illness as an annoying interruption. “I had such a great plan—so many things to do—and suddenly, bam! A cold, an injury, or something worse. Now I’m stuck in bed.”

As if the world got offended and tripped us on purpose.

But what if you arranged it? What if a hidden wish came true?

Examples:

  • Rage builds inside, but outward vent stays barred—taboo.

  • From boyhood learned: "Only sick do I snag a taste of love."

  • Year on year, you lied: "Scale this peak, then done!"

  • Collapsing is your only way to cry out, “Enough!”

Maybe illness is a legitimate rest—a pause to turn around, or a payment for guilt.

The thought seems absurd: “You're nuts! Why rig my own wreck? Am I my foe?”

Of course, if you see the psyche as one solid, unified being, that sounds like nonsense. Man shoves his wants over neighbors' so fierce, he seems self-smitten.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—that’s not true. A person indeed loves and values himself… except for parts A, B, and C. Those he treats as strangers, exiling them from the city into the wild wood.

There, the outcasts make war against the tyrant. While your conscious mind is busy—or asleep—they run sabotage missions in corners of the body, mind, and soul.

This senseless duel can end only through the arrival of a third figure—one who sees the hidden value in what seems most repulsive. It’s the voice of a whole self, calling from the future to its present, still suffering form.

If you’ve read this far, you know who that third figure is—it’s you. May every sickness become a meeting with yourself.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Trust the Process /  by Alexander Lyadov

What's the toughest slice in mining a man's or a crew's potential —as CEO inside or consultant out?

I'm dead sure it's trust in the Process, in him and them. Meaning he can crack his own live knots. Resources, insights, path? All packed in tight, just asleep.

That hit me square after N-score brainstorms and strategy sessions—thirty years' worth—with art directors, copywriters, analysts, founders, investors, the rest.

Funny how every soul craves a quick, ready-made solution. It’s easier to cling to the illusion of certainty than to tolerate uncertainty for a while.

Luckily, it only takes one person who believes in the wisdom of the Process. All you see on the surface is fatigue, frustration, or despair. Yet, deep below, breakthrough ideas are already forming, ready to rise.

Again and again, I’ve been surprised, even humbled, by how fast things can turn—from hopeless to inspiring. Just when my own faith began to waver, the Process lifted us all.

Not a “process” in the management sense — a controlled, segmented flow of matter from point A to point Z. I mean the Process of Life itself—the one that heals a sick organism, turns lack into wholeness, and transforms an acorn into an oak.

That unseen current rules all. A paradox, isn’t it?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Truth as Armor /  by Alexander Lyadov

In George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister is one of the most fascinating characters. The reason flashes early in the first book, when he meets Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of Lord Eddard Stark of the North. Tyrion hits him with the truth, straight between the eyes:

“Let me give you some advice, bastard,” said Lannister. “Never forget what you are. The world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

Tyrion knows what he’s talking about. He looks nothing like his tall, beautiful, golden-haired brother and sister. His mother died giving birth to him, something his father never forgave.

To survive, Tyrion chose truth over illusion. He accepted his unlucky hand as a fact of life—and after many dangerous adventures, he ends up on top (at least in the show, which overtook the books).

There is no such thing as a perfect birth, childhood, or coming of age. A broken family, cruel relatives, health problems—the list of possible wounds is long. Everyone feels defective in some way.

Tyrion’s advice speaks to all of us: what we once called weakness, shame, or flaw can become our strength. But first, we must face it, study it, and name it.

Not the crowd or the world first—we must crown our own bastard.

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.

Into The Woods /  by Alexander Lyadov

Just a 20-minute walk from my home lies the Hryshko Botanical Garden in Kyiv. Seems near, yet somehow hard to reach. Home is a little universe with everything in it—coffee, food, kettlebells, a place to meditate, a laptop, books.

But apparently not everything, if my body keeps yearning for nature. The mind hurries to dismiss it: “What’s there you haven’t seen? Trees are trees, grass is grass. Boredom and ticks.” Sounds convincing…

…right up until I enter the forest. Suddenly, a wave of smells, colors, textures, silence, and sounds crashes over me. My God, how could I forget this beauty?!

Ashamed and humbled, my mind goes silent for the rest of the walk.

I wander through the vast realms of Eurasia like a giant: “Forests of Ukraine’s plains,” “Ukrainian steppes,” “Carpathians,” “Crimea,” “Central Asia,” “Caucasus,” “Far East.” No joke—130 hectares!

And 1,178 species of living plants—that’s not a microcosm, it’s an entire universe.

Once I’m there, I can’t understand why I resisted the pull. My body fills with energy, my mind clears, my soul starts to sing. As if one person reluctantly walked into the garden, and someone entirely different walks out—alive and awake.

The same kick strikes when I've got to scratch out an article, sketch a raw tale, scrap in the ring, face the mic, or spark a fresh grind. While I chew it over—I stall. When I dive to the edge—lands solid.

Something similar happens every time I’m about to write an article, paint an experience, grapple, give an interview, or start something new. As long as I’m thinking about it—I stall. But once I step into the unknown—it all turns out fine.

Have you felt this shift too, or is it just me?

Yours sincerely,

-Alexander

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.

Stuck? Your business grows when you do. I’m your business therapist to guide your shift. See testimonials ​here​. Ready? ​Book your Catalyst session​.