Alive at Deadline /  by Alexander Lyadov

You probably know procrastination too. What’s its point?

Usually, procrastination gets tied to laziness, dodging an uncomfortable task, or fear of failing in someone's eyes.

But what if it's the exact opposite?

Recall how it feels when you dive into work at the very last moment:

  • Inside you swell: fear and thrill, anxiety and excitement,

  • All your focus locks on one single point,

  • Other duties and problems fade into the background,

  • Your "self," and its ethernal critic, vanish—you just are,

  • You risk it all, balancing wildly on the edge of triumph or disaster,

  • It's brutally hard, but intuition whispers: "There's a chance!",

  • The past lets go, the future stops mattering,

  • No doubts about the steps to take right now,

  • Sometimes you can't tell where you end and Flow begins,

  • Your vessel fills to the brim with personal meaning.

The key? In that moment, you feel truly alive.

If that's how it goes, it's really scary. Because it means, at best, all other time drags in hellish routine. At worst, it's unconscious existence, like an ant.

Procrastination is defibrillation. Your body deliberately creates an acute crisis so that an electric shock can bring you back to life.

Then procrastination isn't the problem—it's a desperate fix. More precisely, it points to the root question:

"Why vegetate when your true Life calls?"

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Triad Instead Of Dyad /  by Alexander Lyadov

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) reached nirvana, but he did not stay there. Instead of enjoying the ideal forever, he returned to the human world. Which, as everyone knows, is far from perfect.

But the Buddha did not just join society. Rather, he became a different kind of environment.

To understand this, the idea of catalysis in chemistry is useful. A catalyst does several things:

  • lowers the activation energy so a reaction can begin,

  • reduces side effects,

  • guides the reaction along a more optimal path,

  • increases the yield of the desired final product.

What matters is that the catalyst itself is not consumed or changed during the reaction. It is there, yet almost not there. Its presence alters the environment, so the reactants act different.

This isn't the usual help you can't tell from violence.

Why does this odd approach work in such varied fields?

When two sides lock in conflict, no exit shows from inside. The pair needs a third. Not as a leader or a judge over them, but as a living example that tension can be endured, and that a fight with something alien can be transformed into harmony through a creative outcome.

"Ha, so it is possible to see, think, act otherwise?!" gazing at the Model that judges not, competes not, asks not, gives not.

For some, the example of the Buddha may feel too esoteric, and the example of a catalyst too down to earth. Find your fit, but catch the core idea:

By holding contradictions within yourself, you quietly change the world.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Who Planted the Grapes? /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

It’s commonly believed that science is all about wow-discoveries.

Science historian Thomas Kuhn dispelled that myth. He showed clearly that most scientists are engaged in what he called “normal science.” Their work is to refine, develop, and justify existing ideas, not to discover something radically new.

90+% of scientists are busy with undoubtedly important, but still routine tasks.

And only a small bunch pushes "revolutionary science", which can replace the dominant paradigm today and find a better explanation for the growing wave of anomalous problems.

Noteworthy is the community's despair on the eve of the paradigmatic shift. Wolfgang Pauli wrote to his friend: "At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult for me, and I wish I had been a movie comedian or something of the sort and had never heard of physics."

You see the same dynamic in business. A group of seasoned top managers wrestles with a key problem. They commission deep studies, bring in expensive McKinsey consultants…

Efforts were made, resources spent, time up, but no breakthrough.

Finally, the crisis-awakened founder steps in. At the meeting, he stuns all participants with a "crazy" idea. In response to their horror, he shrugs with a smile: "Why not?"

The founder just sparked a revolution... in their heads.

When the top managers eventually accept the new paradigm, "golden veins" will open, and passion to mine 24/7/365 will seize everyone.

This is an extremely pleasant time, like ​treading grapes​ with your feet.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Be The Tool /  by Alexander Lyadov

After calming the irritation, I stare at an empty screen and write the article from scratch. Voilà. It comes quickly. And best, the topic reveals a new edge.

With dreams, it's the same. It hurts when a dream slips away. But then I tell myself: "Listen, you get a bunch every night. If the message matters, your subconscious packs it into the next one."

It would be strange to grieve the irreversible loss of a single breath, a heartbeat, or a footprint in the sand. Sure, those treasures are unique, but they are produced nonstop.

Your product may be expensive on the market—a logo, an engineering solution, a song, a piece of business advice. But feeling a shortage of ideas is as silly as a bee worrying, “Will there be honey?”

Fear comes only from pride—as if you produced all this wealth alone. The fact I'm typing this article now doesn't mean I invented it. The text arose through me.

In the creative process, I am an instrument—or a junior partner. The ego doesn’t like hearing that. But the fear of ideas running dry vanishes. I don’t control this Source. It was, it is, and it will be.

A creator is productive only as long as he does not claim the Power as his own.

Sincerely yours,

-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 Life Slaps /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Why does a midwife slap a newborn on the butt?

Ah, forgive me—not “slap the butt,” but “lightly tap the back.” And not all babies, only the 9–11% who don’t cry on their own in the first moment.

If this happened to me in the maternity ward, I'm not against it at all. In fact, I’m grateful to the doctor who awakened Life in me.

Right after birth, action must be quick. Either the baby “switches on” within one minute, or resuscitation is needed in the next ten.

Maybe try convincing the newborn, explaining the danger, outlining prospects? Or sing a fun song, entertain, play? You're already laughing: "What nonsense!"

Right, in this first dead end, only Impulse can help. Simple, like in physics class, when a rolling ball transfers its kinetic energy through collision to a stationary ball.

Not through words and gestures, but directly through the body. Sharp tactile irritation -> Surge of nervous activity -> Reflexive breath -> Cry -> Hooray, the baby will live!

The seeming heartlessness and severity were, in fact, love and meaning.

The birth of something new is a rarity in our daily grind. So we don't know what to do or how to be when such a moment finally arrives.

Out of habit, we try to scare ourselves with risks, tempt with benefits, captivate with theories, or inspire with others' examples.

But in the end, we have to admit: "This isn't it." So what is "it"?

Direct bodily contact with This is needed—without any expectations, guarantees, ideas, words, or hypotheses. Let what looks like a Problem break its silence and cry something back to us.

By the way, now we can look differently at all those slaps, kicks, and bites with which Life stubbornly tries to wake us up.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Lack Or Plenty? /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

“To spread joy you have to have it,” said philosopher Alan Watts. You could extend his thought: you need to have something in order to share it.

This applies to everything—fun, meaning, confidence, love. But also to irritation, gloom, hatred, and anger.

The abyss inside some people can swallow everything. No matter what you give them, or how much, it falls into darkness—without even an echo.

Better not come within a cannon shot of them. Unless, of course, a cornucopia has opened inside you and a spring of living water is flowing.

To fill someone's lack, you need surplus in yourself.

There is, however, a popular alternative: imitate fullness. If you work hard enough to convince others, you may even convince yourself.

“I’m amazing… to the extent that others think I’m amazing.”

That’s what the phenomenon of “influencing” is often about. The trouble is, deep down the person knows the truth: there isn’t even a bagel—only a hole.

But the real problem isn’t lack. Everyone has it. It's in refusing to own it and in scared tries to plug it with whatever comes to hand.

There is another option: change your attitude. “Yes, this is me. Here I have a crack, a crater, a chasm.”

Maybe that hollow is meant to be filled with something special. What if you’re not a void—but a well?

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Stop (For Now) /  by Alexander Lyadov

“Why am I stuck in place, with no real change?” a person torments himself.

Stomping in place is activity pushed to the limit. There’s no strength left for it. And no meaning either.

Stopping is frightening. Why? Because there is only emptiness there. Uncertainty. Darkness.

As long as I’m flailing, I feel alive. If I freeze, it feels like forever.

This is an irrational fear planted by our culture, where you must be energetic, always running somewhere, chasing, grabbing, consuming. If you’re not dancing the “mating dance,” you’re weak, sick, or dead.

It’s ridiculous. If not for the power of nature, people would have abolished sleep. This small death takes us every night without asking. We’ve learned to live with sleep. But stopping in other areas? Absolutely not.

A man searches for a way out one way, then another, then a hundred more. In despair, he racks his brain: “What else can I do?!”

Buddha would say: "Your suffering is caused by your resistance to what is."

New ideas would love to enter you, but there’s no room. For a guest to arrive, the host must stay home, clear time, and be open to meeting. No goal. Just so.

There will be plenty more movement later. But for now, tell yourself: “Stop.”

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Strange Harmony /  by Alexander Lyadov

A harmonious personality feels like this painting.

The mind keeps order, solves problems, holds the Law.

Imagination flies bold and free where no one's dared before.

Each does his own work, fulfilling nature's call.

The polizia don’t see the skier’s antics as hooliganism.

But the playful one doesn’t curl her lip in contempt either, owning the ground rule:

Safety first, only then growth.

Here, the value is the Otherness of the Other.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Not That World, Not That Speed /  by Alexander Lyadov

There's a cruel irony in how a man blocks himself.

Seems great he's got the intent to change. He wants it, can do it, should do it. Just point where to apply the force!

He devours books. He goes through training after training. Impatience burns him inside: “So when already? When will I finally change?”

But no. Reality will disappoint him. Transformation doesn’t work that way.

The brake is his own excessive desire to change all at once.

How? Why? What the hell?

Simple — he mixed up the worlds. Let me explain.

In everyday life, things are more or less predictable. That’s why focus, willpower, and discipline work there. You push harder and get what you want.

The trouble is, without noticing, he crossed into Other territory. Different laws rule here. And he himself is different, too. His old patterns, approaches, and skills are useless here, or worse, they ruin everything.

Acceleration is now the most dangerous and pointless move. Wisdom lies in stopping and looking around. Calming down. Checking resources. Letting your eyes adjust to the dark.

You need at least a hypothesis for how to survive in this new environment. Ideally, you learn the nature of this Other world and its rules of behavior. Only then can you hope, over time, to turn from a snail into a cheetah.

Most important of all, you need an inner fulcrum. Old you crumbled—needs rebuild. New you wakes, but not from impatience, force, violence. Give him time.

By the way, better you do it conscious. Or subconscious steps in, halts you with injury or illness.

Takeaway: Sometimes, to speed the changes you crave, slow them down.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Before Fixed Forms /  by Alexander Lyadov

“Who are you?” someone asks.

“A man, husband, father, son, brother. Human,” you might reply.

“Uh-huh. Got it. Anyone else?” he clarifies, for form's sake.

You go on: "Founder, writer, citizen, athlete, creator..."

"Okay, okay! That’s it, right?" the questioner sums up, impatient.

You flare: "Of course not! I'm not just that, but so much more!"

Somehow, the verdict "You're just X, Y, Z" stirs anxiety and anger in you.

But what’s the problem, really?

Your intuition's right, for Life is never just this or that. Clear, concrete, tangible form? Sure, it's needed. Like a channel, it focuses energy for good.

But it’s foolish and dangerous to confuse a snake with its shed skin, a beetle with its shell, or a molehill with the mole. The function that gives birth to form is invisible to the eye, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The mistake of many? Guarding a tree hollow where no one's lived for ages.

The real you is ambiguity and multiplicity, incompleteness and excess, uncertainty and potential — living tension from which everything arises.

And that's just the start...

Sincerely yours,

-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 Creator's Paradox /  by Alexander Lyadov

The creator can stun everyone with the asymmetry between effort and result. Crowds of smart folks waste time and cash in vain, but he just glances at the problem and voilà! "Oh, you can do it like that?!" the "experts" bleat.

And yet, you won’t find anyone more vulnerable than a creator. On his own, he can do nothing at all. Knowledge, experience, burning desire, willpower, force, pleading—none of it matters. Ideas don’t care.

What does it take? Admit he's just a chalk in the hand of the Creator above. Call that Force what you like: Dao, Cosmos, Brahman, Absolute, God.

As long as a man thinks he's the source of all ideas, he's stuck. Pride seals him shut like a genie in a lamp. Humility hurts, sure, but now wow-ideas have a shot to slip in through the crack.

First, the creator must truly accept his total helplessness, to then claim cosmic power. Paradox.

This takes courage, because there are no guarantees. This isn’t a deal. The man stands naked before the Void. Looks like he's doing nothing. Ha-ha, he's doing the hardest thing: holding the uncertainty.

Seems this skill will be our most valuable in the decades ahead.

I wish you mastery in this Work in 2026.

May the New Year be truly Yours.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

P.S. Don't miss the launch of my course: "Ritual of Transformation"—just email me at al@alyadov.com: "I'm ready." The essence is ​here​.

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​.

Protect Your Desire /  by Alexander Lyadov

Do you know how to kill life inside yourself quickly and efficiently?

When a strong but vague desire appears, immediately ask yourself: “So, how do you plan to make this happen?”

Then turn up the pressure: “No, how exactly? Give me metrics. Lay it all out by dates and steps.”

Be sure to compare yourself to others: “Has anyone ever done this? Do you even have the resources?”

And finally, deliver the headshot: “And can you give hard guarantees of success?”

If your desire wasn't some trivial thing like brewing coffee, but something real, intimate, new for you, that hail of icy questions will crush the first fragile shoots.

I call this premature optimization. When fussy care for form replaces function, meaning, life.

There’s an old saying: Omnis fastinatio ex parte diaboli est — “All haste is from the devil.” His main task is to cut you from your true desires. Why?

Inside, an existential hole opens, known by its scary emptiness, unbearable longing, dark mood. You have to plug that hole somehow.

The devil's ready to serve: "Here, take someone else's desire! Isn't it perfect?"

From there, the trap only tightens. A man stays busy, keeps running, keeps achieving. And yet, with each passing year, the feeling grows clearer: “This isn’t it.” Can't stop, can't go on.

Uncomfortable? I get it. Me too.

What breaks the vicious circle is a sacred pause. When you notice a glimmer of a fuzzy desire, put the interrogator on trial and ask: “Do you love me at all?”

If the mind loves the arguments but your soul turns sick, give the desire time. Let it root in the subconscious, grow strong, rise.

The Chinese say, "水到渠成" — "When the water arrives, the channel is ready."

Sincerely yours,

-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 Sleeping Source /  by Alexander Lyadov

If people could choose whether to sleep or not, many would give up sleep in favor of staying awake. From a rational point of view, it’s hard to justify spending 7–10 hours a day asleep.

Neuroscientists may try their best, but the human mind—especially a sharp one with high IQ—keeps rejecting sleep as a pointless waste of time.

The mind dreams bitterly of what it could do instead—read, foresee, plan, guess, think deep.

Only the habit of sleep softens the terror of slipping into nothingness. Every night, a palace coup takes place. Until dawn, the mind loses its power and control in favor of… whom? It doesn’t even know.

And where’s the guarantee the mind will return to the throne afterward? Yes, it always has so far—but what if this time is different? Anyone who has gone under general anesthesia remembers that eerie slide into darkness against one’s will, with a small but real risk of not waking up.

Fortunately, wise nature gives the mind no choice. It simply shuts it down through the exhaustion of the body on which the mind depends. And that’s how a gift appears—one the mind would never ask for.

By “we,” I mean the one who doesn’t identify solely with mind or body. Choose the word that fits you best: consciousness, personality, spirit, soul. While mind and body are paralyzed by sleep, your connection to the transcendent, the otherworldly, the sacred comes alive.

And here, if we are ready, revelation awaits. What the mind took for meaningless oblivion, a black void, a small death, turns out to be something else entirely—a horn of plenty, fertile black soil, a source of new ideas, health, and strength.

Of course, it takes a shift in worldview and some practice to unpack, understand, and apply these gifts. But even without recording insights or interpreting dreams, after a truly deep sleep you feel as if you’ve bathed in the Water of Life.

So, regardless of our will—whether we believe in transcendence or not—every night we touch the Source of Life to gather energy for returning to the mundane world.

All this happens unconsciously, as it does for animals. But unlike them, we have consciousness and mind. If consciousness opens itself to the unknown, even out of simple curiosity, and then directs the sharp mind to study these gifts, paradise on Earth may await us.

Everything best is born from the creative synthesis of what once feared, judged, and denied each other. You can unleash that energy in yourself—call it nothing but your Big Bang.

I’m deeply curious to learn how to do this. Are you?

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Shameless Ease /  by Alexander Lyadov

If there are no tears, blood, or sweat, your effort is worth nothing. That’s the idea everyone keeps trying to hammer into our heads.

If a result comes easily, on its own, it raises suspicion. What, you didn’t even suffer? Aha, got it. Lazy. A trickster. A fraud.

As if each of us now must compete in the Olympics, living by its motto: Citius, altius, fortius (Faster. Higher. Stronger).

It's a lie. Twisted logic. Swapped meanings.

The Olympics are training raised to the absolute. The most prepared athletes are placed inside artificial limits so their skill can be tested and sharpened.

In real life, things work differently. Sometimes completely differently. A firefighter or a water rescuer trains strength, endurance, and speed not for records or medals. Training serves another purpose.

Ask a professional what he prefers: an epic struggle with obstacles, or getting the job done without breaking a sweat? In the spirit of TRIZ, his answer would sound like this: “The ideal effort is when there is no effort, yet the function is fulfilled.”

Caesar's way fits him better:

Veni, vidi, vici. (Came, saw, conquered). Prep's for that.

Artificial limits that fuel competition are a curse for any creator. Both the artist and the entrepreneur are glad when a creative result is born without excess effort. The ROI is higher.

The takeaway: let the desired result arrive shamelessly, on its own. It’s worth years of hard work for that kind of ease.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Befriending Uncertainty /  by Alexander Lyadov

Few can bear the unknown and uncertainty. You feel the ground give way. The world close to your heart crumbles.

To regain balance, a man will pay any price. The oldest, surest fix? Wipe out the source of the trouble.

Who exactly it is matters little. The hunt and exile of the "guilty" hands control back to the judge. Plus, that rising anxiety and rage gets "justified" dump into a target.

The best candidate is the one who embodies uncertainty itself. Someone who differs from the majority in any way. Strange means suspicious. Suspicious means dangerous. Yeah, he's the problem root.

After the trial and execution comes release. Celebration. Calm.

But soon uncertainty starts gnawing at the foundations of life again. Damn it. Why does this snake keep sneaking into our garden of paradise?

One day, we grow so tired of the absurdity that we pause and think: “What if this snake’s persistence means something else, besides trying to annoy me?”

The question itself is so wild that at first we judge and exile it too. Yet it has the nerve to return, just like the snake did. Over time, we grow used to the question, though we still don’t rush to answer it.

That alone is progress worth noticing.

We can now coexist with the Other, who quietly catches our every glance. Silent, yes. But this is already a relationship, not another attempt to condemn and expel.

Sooner or later, the first dialogue happens. Since otherness no longer frightens us much, it can do only one thing. Pleasantly surprise us. Uncertainty has shown us its favorable side.

Finding a place for the Other inside you, you gain new footing and superpower.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Gift Inversion /  by Alexander Lyadov

 

Your strengths feed your weaknesses. And vice versa.

This is hard to grasp for anyone who craves simplicity and can’t tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. Especially inside himself.

An example.

20-25 years back, when I was a company CEO, contracts were brought to me for signature. Time was short, papers were many, so I skimmed fast. Then suddenly I’d say, “Stop. What’s this?”

“How did you catch that?!” my manager would mutter in shock. Neither he nor the lawyers had noticed a serious mistake that slipped in from earlier versions into a thirty-page client contract. Me? One glance, and I nailed it.

Today I call this ability anomaly detection. Back then, I just shrugged: luck, it jumped out.

Valuable? From a management view, yes. Boosts safety. Alas, outside work, the gift turns curse.

Drop me in paradise garden, and I'd sniff: "Hm, here's a flaw. And there." My mind flags glitches on its own—I don't even try.

It’s obvious that in "hunt for flaws” mode, joy, peace, and calm are impossible. Part of consciousness stays anxious, scanning the horizon like a sheepdog.

So I had to deliberately learn where the “Off” switch is for this mode. Not just to stop seeing, but to start loving dust, dirt, and mistakes.

There’s progress. But, haha, I’m still far from perfection.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Touching the Mystery /  by Alexander Lyadov

Some remember childhood details like it happened yesterday. Others hold so few memories, you wonder if they skipped straight to grown-up. I belong to the latter group.

Luckily, memory spared a few impressions. Like watching diafilms when I was three or five.

A diafilm was a roll of film with fairy tale frames. In a dark room, the projector splashed colorful pictures across the wall. An adult read the text under each one.

Maybe kids back then had fresh eyes, or my imagination ran wild, but every diafilm cracked open a portal to another world. I vanished from here and popped up there—with them.

Later, a faint echo of it hit during rare movie nights or gripping books. Dreams come close, but they lack the diafilms' richness and color.

As an adult, I found those kid sensations again when I met... The Mystery. One that words can't describe.

First time, out of nowhere—no effort on my part—I felt what Christians call grace. I’ll tell that story one day. The experience was too intimate and too incomprehensible for the mind.

The next time it happened during a psychedelic ceremony in the jungles of Peru. Suddenly, I found myself on the other side of the portal. There was Another world — perhaps even more real than this one.

The cynic in the room snorts: all delusion, hallucinations then and now. I won't argue. I'm convinced enough to keep chasing this Mystery—and finding it in everything, everyone. Like in you.

Merry Christmas!

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Course Announcement: The Ritual of Transformation /  by Alexander Lyadov

Time to get to work—in January (or February), I'll run my signature course: “The Ritual of Transformation: How to (Re)Breathe Life into Your Company.”

This course is primarily for founders and CEOs who can feel, with bitterness, that their company’s potential is asleep. Their attempts to change things have brought only cosmetic results.

Between what is and what could be, there yawns a chasm. At this point, it becomes clear: a fundamentally different approach is needed.

You no longer believe that somewhere out there is a COO, guru, consultant, or coach who will one day perform a miracle for you. This is your life, your challenge, your business. Your hands itch to act. You just don’t know how.

In this course (or its follow-up), we will explore questions such as:

Why are 9 out of 10 transformations doomed before they even begin? Why do strategies often mimic someone else's future, not yours? What single dilemma accounts for most business problems? Why are sources of new growth invisible to the eye—or even repulsive?How can inevitable resistance and conflict be turned into a source of sustained movement? What makes it worth enduring the horror of the pause between the old and the new? How to craft a ritual so your business renews itself in time?

My goal is to help the leader become the catalyst of real company transformation—by going through this ritual first.

The course draws on 30 years of experience running transformation, strategy, and creative sessions for founders and teams at VC startups, SMEs, and firms up to $500 million cap.

Format: online lectures plus live Q&A. For those already deep in change and needing stronger support, I may also offer small-group formats and 1–2 one-on-one slots.

This course will also be useful for:

  • Top execs eyeing CEO or owner roles

  • Independent board directors

  • Partners in private equity or venture capital funds

  • Corporate entrepreneurs (intrapreneurs)

  • Change agents inside or outside organizations

  • Anyone set to transform self and surroundings.

To make sure you don’t miss the course announcement, reply with: “I’m ready.”

Sincerely, -Alexander

P.S. If someone forwarded this letter and my course grabs you—just email me at al@alyadov.com: “I’m ready too.”

Sincerely yours,

-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​.

Very Personal Business /  by Alexander Lyadov

“It’s business—nothing personal.”

People repeat this ​line from The Godfather​ when they call for cold calculation over emotion. Sure, tantrums discharge the psyche, but they build no systems.

The line is also loved by those who hide a private desire behind a mask of objectivity. "The situation demands it—the market, the investor, the team. Not me."

What’s more, one way to resolve a dilemma or conflict is to put the interests of the business above yourself—even if you’re a shareholder.

Yet even with all that said, business was, is, and always will be deeply personal. Especially for the founder. Why?

An entrepreneur, unlike most people, holds a wild freedom: what to pour his life into. Opportunities woo him, each one hotter and brighter than the last.

A founder chooses X simply because it turns him on. Entrepreneurs literally say it that way. Crude, but honest.

Calculation and willpower are powerless here. Libido is either there or it isn’t.

And once a founder catches fire with the desire to bring something into being, he won’t hold back. He gives himself to the process completely.

By answering the call of an opportunity as a free person, he then turns into pure action, forgetting himself entirely.

Contrary to popular belief, the founder does not sacrifice himself. He embodies himself in his company, product, or service. Just as an acorn realizes its potential by becoming an oak—and then a grove.

Do you see now why I focus on the intersection of business and personality?

Sincerely yours,

-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 Founder's Spine /  by Alexander Lyadov

Best buy this year? A plain chair. Well, it looks plain until your back starts hurting.

Then even one hour at a desk turns into torture. And usually there are eight to ten of them. Not just work was at risk, but my entire way of life.

I strengthened my back. Got a height-adjustable desk. Raised the monitor. But beyond workouts, the real game-changer was the ​Vluv Stove capsule​.

The capsule has only one thing in common with a chair: you sit on it. Everything else is different. It looks like a ball squeezed from the sides. Climb on, and it starts to float and wobble.

Back in school, I would have given anything for a chair like this. Wiggling and rocking, you could survive even the most boring teachers.

Now, instead of a static base, you sit on something dynamic. At first, it feels risky, but your muscles adapt fast. Your body keeps shifting on its own—back and forward, left and right.

Bottom line: the new $150 capsule beats my old $1500 ergonomic chair.

Only one hitch—after 3 months, the rubber bladder wore against the hard seam in the cover. Lucky, the maker swapped it fast. Second time, I taped all the seams inside with duct tape.

Stats in the US: up to 80% of adults get back pain sometime in life, 28% have chronic low-back pain, 39% report back pain in the last 3 months.

Chances are high this problem will touch almost everyone. Of course, a capsule and workouts are no guarantee of health. But if you get healthier this affordable way, I’ll be genuinely happy for you.

Clear business direction and a straight founder's back? They're linked.

Sincerely yours,

-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​.