AI? Not Between Us /  by Alexander Lyadov

Another app cheerfully informed me that I can now enable an AI bot to take notes during a session. It listed all the benefits, promising that productivity would soar.

There is just one problem. Quantum physics, anthropology, and sociology suggest otherwise. It is well known that the very act of observation interacts with an object and changes its state and behavior.

The same phenomenon appears when an AI is present and recording a session. Without realizing it, both the client and the therapist will behave differently. Self-censorship will kick in and prevent the conversation from diving deep.

In my experience, breakthrough solutions emerge at the point of authenticity, when a person describes a situation as it truly is. The more sincere and open a person is, the better he is able to help himself.

That means the AI must be trusted just as much as I am. The potential of AI is fascinating, but we still do not fully understand what kind of phenomenon it is. On top of that, AI is governed by people whose moral values are unclear.

What is the point of increasing a meeting’s productivity through automatic notes, summaries, and follow-up emails if it undermines the very reason the two of us came together in the first place?

Of course, this is specific to business therapy. For technical calls, AI is probably a gold mine.

My client once said, you work at the intersection of business and personality.

Here, the only welcome third party is the Cosmos. The Absolute. God.

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​.

Waste First /  by Alexander Lyadov

How do you know a problem is genuinely new to you?

None of your usual methods work. It's a lock with a hidden trick — a simple key won't open it.

That does not mean nobody in the world has faced such a problem before. But you have no idea where the answer is hidden. And you need a solution fast.

So what do you do?

You have no choice but to explore options. When the stakes are high, you will have to grab onto anything that offers hope. Try one thing, then another, then a tenth, until something inside the lock finally clicks.

The process is hard, but straightforward. So what can get in your way?

“Mistakes,” “inefficiency,” and the “waste” of time, money, and effort.

The false belief that you can avoid pointless expenses.

The expectation of leaping straight to the finish line.

This is the surest way to tie your own activity up in shibari rope. Right now, you need the opposite. You need to spend resources knowing that almost all of them will be wasted.

Almost is the key word. A sculpture requires wasted clay. A sharp pencil is bought with shavings. Nonsense gives birth to sense.

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​.

Again and Again /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

 

What is a common mistake in business partnerships?

To assume the relationship will last forever simply because:

  • we complemented each other perfectly,

  • we have already been through so much together,

  • the business is so valuable today that we have too much to lose,

  • the business still has plenty of room to grow,

  • I have invested all my energy into it so far,

  • there is a rock-solid shareholder agreement.

Unfortunately, all of that disappears the moment one of you becomes convinced that the other is no longer creating value for the business.

The reasons are endless:

  • one partner is tired while the other believes, “We're just getting started,”

  • a partner becomes absorbed by something else, a personal project,

  • someone has hit his professional ceiling,

  • fundamentally different visions for the company's future emerge,

  • one partner refuses to evolve as the context changes,

  • a long-nursed resentment over perceived unfairness surfaces,

  • prioritizing personal interests over the interests of the business, and so on.

The moment one partner decides he has a passenger instead of a partner, it is over. No past achievements, promises, or agreements will help.

The best thing either of you can do is recognize the trend early and part ways gracefully, preserving both the business and the relationship.

Every partner must prove his value again each day.

People rarely say this out loud. They rarely even think it. Yet that is how it works in practice.

After all, the purpose of the partnership isn't the partnership itself. The potential of the business is constantly calling out to you. But it can't realize itself. It needs both of you.

If you remember this regularly, the partnership is far more likely to remain alive.

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​.

Break! /  by Alexander Lyadov

What makes a street fight dangerous?

There is no referee.

More precisely, there will be one, but too late and only in a legal sense.

You need a third party who can stop the fight in time. Someone not tied to either side. Someone rational amid the chaos of emotions.

A person in a fight is unlikely to be self-aware, unless he is a professional. Archetypal aggression floods the Ego. He becomes almost possessed.

That is why the internet is full of videos where, even after one person loses consciousness, the other keeps jumping on him or kicking him in the head. A wild beast has awakened within, and there's no trainer around to call it off.

Paradoxically, grapplers suffer more injuries in their home gym than in competition. While the coach is distracted for a moment, an ordinary sparring match suddenly turns into an apocalyptic showdown.

Remember the classic film Highlander? “There can be only one.”

The same logic applies to inner conflict. A human personality contains different aspects whose interests often do not align. Someone higher is needed to shout:

“Enough! Break!”

Only then is there a chance that peace, even temporary, can settle inside.

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​.

Keep Going /  by Alexander Lyadov

My partner and I at Sekcija

Today was promotion day at the Jiu-Jitsu academy.

Online, you occasionally come across criticism claiming that belts are a relic, a sham, some pointless formality nobody needs.

Hmm. They should have seen the reaction of those receiving new belts and stripes: joy, shyness, pride, and gratitude. Some people's hands were even shaking, and tears were shining in their eyes.

If you devote yourself to something for a long time, doubts sometimes creep in. Is there any progress at all? Especially when your training partners are growing alongside you. Dark thoughts arise: “What if this is all for nothing? What's the point?”

That is when even a single new stripe becomes feedback from the Universe, delivered through your coach: “You are doing well. I see everything. Keep going.” Even more so when it is the next belt. Especially when you were not expecting it.

Over ten years of training, I've seen it all. I've been promoted when I was convinced it was too early and I wasn't ready. And I've seen everyone get promoted except me, even though I was expecting it. Both situations taught me something.

However you look at it, if you are investing your time and energy in something, feedback matters. The belt hierarchy is a useful tool — same as competing, self-reflection, and the rest.

This time, what struck me most was the reaction of everyone present. People were genuinely happy for another person, as if the achievement were their own. The loudest celebrations were reserved for those whom everyone agreed had earned their promotion long ago.

This is how a community reinforces order rather than chaos. People notice whether persistent effort is rewarded fairly or not. Investor Charlie Munger used to say: “Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.”

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​.

Time Is on Your Side /  by Alexander Lyadov

The longer your planning horizon, the less anxiety you feel now.

It sounds strange. After all, so many things can happen and get in the way!

To illustrate, let’s take two extremes:

You feel like you'll die if you don't satisfy an urgent need right now. Versus a desired goal you're willing to reach in five or even ten years.

In the first case, your anxiety will be through the roof. You will suffer. You will abandon your principles. You will lie. You will justify violence.

In the case of a long-term goal, you will calmly study any obstacle that appears in your path. What is there to worry about? Even in its most negative form, you will have time to discover valuable meaning within it. Or it might reveal itself on its own.

But wait, what about economic crises, pandemics, revolutions, wars, AI, and all the other tectonic shifts? It seems Chaos has made it its mission to astonish people with its ability to create the unexpected.

And what is that to you?

You have the most powerful ally imaginable on your side: Time. It relentlessly grinds down, dissolves, and transforms absolutely everything.

The takeaway? Look far, far ahead into your desired future.

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​.

Don't Look. Touch. /  by Alexander Lyadov

Krav Maga, Kyiv, 2015

The house dance class I attended was on the third floor. In the basement of the same building, a friend trained in Krav Maga.

One day, a vague sense of curiosity led me downstairs. When the instructor asked why I was there, I explained: “I just wanted to watch.” He replied: “What's there to watch? Change your clothes and give it a try.”

After that I spent a couple of terrific years training Krav Maga.

The same curiosity led me to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy, where I arrived, well, you guessed it, “just to watch.” This time, my future coach smiled and said: “Nothing to watch. Try it.”

Ten and a half years have passed, and I am still stepping onto the mat. Of course, there have been plenty of disappointments and injuries. But I am still curious.

What is the lesson here?

Curiosity is worth trusting, but not because its meaning is immediately clear. Quite the opposite. It is how something new asks to enter your life, something you truly need and something that will change you profoundly.

By the way, my first year of Jiu-Jitsu was brutal. Yet I kept training despite everything, guided by that same mysterious impulse. Much later, I understood what I had been “suffering” for. The mat did what psychoanalysis merely explained.

There is another important lesson. Novelty cannot be understood intellectually. It is tempting to believe that if you sit next to a phenomenon long enough, you will eventually understand it. Unfortunately, that is an illusion. A subtle form of intellectual arrogance.

Genuine understanding comes through direct, lived experience. Motorcyclists have a saying: “You choose a motorcycle with your ass.” As a matter of fact, that is exactly how I once chose my favorite steed.

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​.

Wolf or Dog /  by Alexander Lyadov

Encountering the unknown inevitably triggers anxiety. Even in microdoses — a job interview, a article you need to write.

Especially when life is unlikely to remain the same afterward. What if the changes are tectonic, affecting your business, your country, or the world?

The unknown is perceived as a predator, a threat. By default, the response is one of three: attack, freeze, or run.

But looking back on your life, how many times have you later been grateful for something that initially caused fear or shock?

Somehow, that same uncertainty turned out to be beneficial. The dangerous wolf became a loyal dog.

The million-dollar question is: how?

Recently I ran a debrief with participants from my February course, "The Ritual of Transformation." There were plenty of insights, ideas, and results.

What did they all have in common?

Their relationship with uncertainty had changed.

Some can tolerate it much more calmly. Some realized that the seemingly impossible becomes possible if you give it time. Some were surprised by how smoothly a "-" turns into a "+".

In the years ahead, no quality will matter more. Novelty will invade our lives suddenly and everywhere. The parallel to the Flood writes itself, only in psychological form.

Let us be 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​.

Follow Curiosity /  by Alexander Lyadov

I stopped fighting my curiosity a long time ago. If it pulls me somewhere, it is worth going there, or at least taking a look.

Why?

Like fear, curiosity never arises out of nowhere and always works in my favor. The catch is that at first I cannot tell where it is leading me, or more importantly, why. The payoff comes later.

Insights emerge along the way. Curiosity has sharply redirected my career more than once. A year ago I got suddenly obsessed with the topic of sacrifice. My worldview collapsed and reassembled itself in a new way.

Right now, I am absorbed in the history of religions. Paleolithic hunters, the Sumerian-Akkadian synthesis, the orgiastic cult of Dionysus, Judaism, Islam... The rabbit hole has no bottom. Why am I interested in all this? I cannot say.

That said, the absence of a clear purpose doesn't stop me from digging deeper

An oak grove grows from an acorn — but the acorn doesn't need to know that.

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​.

Master the Storm /  by Alexander Lyadov

I love watching ​footage​ of hurricanes. Beauty, terror, and power all at once.

The most hypnotic part is often the beginning, when the hurricane is just forming. It feels as though a giant is waking up, stretching lazily, and deciding whether to unleash total chaos or just mess around a little.

You can observe the same phenomenon in a person, a group, or a society. Out of nowhere, a spiral forms — one capable of sweeping everything and everyone into it.

It can spin downward or upward. In the first case, expect disasters, victims, and destruction. In the second, there will be astonishing breakthroughs and breathtaking successes worthy of myths and ballads.

Is boiling acid dangerous? Not if it is inside a heat-resistant flask. A violent chemical reaction is beneficial when guided by an experienced hand.

Each of us carries the force of a flood, a hurricane, or a volcano. Yet for many people, that force remains inaccessible. For the sake of safety, the mind has built a dam, because it knows there is not yet a strong enough “form” to contain such “content.”

The moment a person weakens from stress, illness, or exhaustion, chaos breaks through, frightening both those around him and the person himself.

The way out? Strengthen the foundation and walls of your personality. Replace the solid barrier with a valve. Learn to regulate your primordial power.

The world needs that power.

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 Pattern Is You /  by Alexander Lyadov

Right now, there are a billion things you could do. Including choosing not to act, which is itself an act.

You will choose X, while someone else would choose Y or Z. What drove you is not all that important: curiosity, experience, upbringing, trauma, genetics, or instinct. What matters is that the choice expresses who you are.

And even more so the long chain of choices made over many years. Eventually, they begin to form a unique pattern. Someone else may not like it. You may not like it yourself. Yet there is not another one exactly like it anywhere in the world.

Inevitably, the question arises: “What for?”

Some people find it easier to convince themselves that everything in their lives, and in the cosmos, happens entirely by chance. That too is a choice.

But how many times have you understood the true meaning of something not immediately, but years later? And how often has that realization surprised you to your core?

At the University of Life, one student learns while another sleeps. The difference lies in how they relate to the material: “This is valuable, even if I do not yet understand it,” versus “You must be kidding me!”

The historian of religions ​Mircea Eliade​ described an Indonesian myth:

In the beginning, when the sky hung close to the earth, God lowered his gifts on a rope to the first human couple. One day he sent them a stone — but the bewildered ancestors refused it. A few days later, God lowered the rope again, this time with a banana, which they accepted without hesitation. Then they heard the voice of the Creator: "Since you chose the banana, your life will be like the life of this fruit. Had you chosen the stone, your life would have been like the existence of stone — eternal and immortal."

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​.

Dancing With Fire /  by Alexander Lyadov

Every organization carries a fundamental conflict within it. Nowhere is this more obvious than in an advertising agency. I was fortunate enough to spend the first ten years of my career in one.

On one side are the clients, whose interests inside the agency are represented by the account department. These managers translate from business-speak into human language in the form of a brief — a creative brief.

On the other side are the copywriters, art directors, and designers, in other words, the creators. They invent and bring ideas to life according to the brief.

Well, that's the theory. In practice, however, the process is disrupted by imperfect humans. The client withholds some of the information while demanding speed. The manager is afraid to ask clarifying questions and hopes for a miracle.

Of course, the miracle is expected from the creator. The trick is getting him to accept the brief as flawed as it is. Done? Now it's his responsibility — and the manager reminds, critiques, and demands.

To be fair, some creators are no gift either. Mood swings, procrastination, and contempt for numbers, deadlines, and budgets. After all, gods do not work there either. Only living people.

When the dance between manager and creator worked, a wow-product emerged, followed by recognition, awards, and glory. When the dance turned into a struggle, however, the flames of chaos burned everyone involved.

As a leader, I had to find a way to reconcile them all. The value of each person — and their partnership — was clear to me.

In the end, years of searching everywhere led me to... myself. As the co-founder and CEO of the business, I was the origin. Explicitly or implicitly, it was I who pointed everyone else toward the desired long-term destination.

The entire business took shape according to the function that had been defined:

  • the choice of clients,

  • the selection of employees,

  • the incentive system,

  • the standard operating procedures,

  • the rules of what counts as "good" and "bad" here.

I only understood all of this later, after moving through several industries.

As for the illustration — it was drawn 25 years ago by renowned Ukrainian artist ​Liosha Say​. As art director at Bates Ukraine, Liosha captured the moment when the great traffic manager Tanya fell sick, and the account team stormed the defenseless creative department.

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​.

Trust the Unknown /  by Alexander Lyadov

Yesterday, you planted an acorn in the ground, dreaming of one day having an oak tree. Today you can't wait to find out how much it's grown.

Will you dig it up to satisfy your curiosity and quiet your anxiety?

I hope not. Otherwise the whole point is lost.

Nature doesn't do rush jobs. The process underground runs nonstop, even when nothing's happening above the surface.

Someone will roll their eyes: "What's the point? This is all so obvious."

Really? What about your own development and growth?

Do you allow your Process to remain invisible for a long time?

Or do you start digging inside yourself in search of “progress” and “results”?

This is where it gets trickier — an unknown fruit has fallen into your soil. What if it needs not a month, but a year or five to build its root system?

This is the core question of trusting the fertile uncertainty within yourself.

And if you want to worry less, you don't have to bet on a single tree — you can tend an entire garden. The land is all yours.

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 Caged Beast /  by Alexander Lyadov

A person grows up with the belief that “X is bad,” where X might be aggression, self-respect, love of the body, intelligence, or the expression of feelings.

The quality itself has not disappeared, but access to it is blocked. In fact, the more of that force a person possesses, the more likely it is to be put in chains.

But as Sigmund Freud discovered: “What is repressed will return.” Only the form will likely be wild, strange, excessive, and unexpected.

The way out?

Consciously explore the area within yourself marked: “Danger! Do Not Enter.”

For that, you need a container: a particular person, a particular place, and a particular time.

In boxing and jiu-jitsu, for example, aggression is not merely permitted. It is actively encouraged. But like a river, it is given banks.

A beginner need not fear letting his “beast” out of its cage, because the coach knows how to handle it. Gradually, a person stops fearing his own strength and learns to regulate it, value it, and even love it.

The same thing happens with a psychotherapist, provided she (or he) earned her “black belt” rather than bought it under the table. You say the “unthinkable,” and the psychotherapist does not fall apart. She is prepared to receive absolutely anything.

You always thought your oil was dirt. Now it is black gold.

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​.

Let Me Sleep /  by Alexander Lyadov

My Dog

It sounds strange, but I’m learning to let myself nap during the day.

There are many reasons for sleepiness:

  • an oncoming cold,

  • a hard morning workout,

  • a night disrupted by missile attacks,

  • an intense session the day before,

  • or even no obvious reason at all.

In the past, sleepiness and I would enter a clash of titans. It blocked inspiration, tangled my thoughts, and drained my energy. I would respond by whipping myself with self-reproach, scaring myself with consequences, and consuming caffeine.

Hours would pass in this fruitless struggle. I wouldn’t let sleepiness defeat me, but it would reduce my productivity to zero.

One day I asked myself: “Why exactly do I consider a daytime nap such madness? Because it isn’t accepted in our culture? Because I’m ashamed not to look endlessly energetic? Because I’m afraid of disappearing into oblivion?”

Or maybe the real problem is that I don’t trust myself? My body makes its needs unmistakably clear, while my mind flies into a rage: “Shut up! Wasn’t a meaningless night enough for you? The day belongs to me!”

How difficult it is to accept that there is a part of me I do not know. It has needs of its own. I can ignore them for a while, but it will retaliate, and I will regret it. Without each other, neither of us is much of anything.

Gradually, our relationship is improving. I’m learning to notice these “strange” impulses within me, respect them, and satisfy them whenever possible. The impulses arise more predictably and more gently.

It’s a dance, not a fight.

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​.

Let It Grow /  by Alexander Lyadov

A surprising fact: you cannot force your authenticity into existence.

Any effort to do so will end in failure or nonsense. The more impatience and persistence you apply, the more artificial and false the result becomes.

Authenticity reveals itself. In its own time. And in its own way.

The mind protests: “Yes, but you can’t just sit around and wait, can you? Life will pass by, and nothing worthwhile will ever emerge.”

No one is talking about passivity. On the contrary, what’s needed is proactivity.

The task is to create favorable conditions, much like a gardener does for a tree.

He does not force the plant’s cells to divide, break through the soil, and reach upward. The tree grows on its own, while the person either helps or hinders it.

Within this metaphor, the fertilized soil is your past self, the tree is your future self, and the gardener is your present self.

The value of everything you’ve experienced up to this point becomes immediately clear. No matter how dark it may have been, the soil will digest it and turn it into something useful.

After all, there’s a reason black soil is considered the most fertile.

And if it happens to be a rare exotic tree, you have no way of knowing its life cycle. All that remains is to do the obvious things, like protecting and watering it, and wait to see how it surprises you.

There’s no way to predict what will emerge in the end: a giant baobab, an orchidarium, or a grove of cypresses. But that unpredictability is precisely what makes it beautiful, because it is a creative experiment.

If everything is done right, your future self grows before your very eyes.

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​.

Connoisseurs of Kettlebells /  by Alexander Lyadov

Movers came to take away the washing machine. On his way out, one of them turned around, nodded approvingly toward the living room, and said, “Great collection.”

Flattered, I started explaining: “Yes, these are works by the talented Ukrainian artist ​Hrysha ‘Hrusha’ Stolbchenko​. I’ve been collecting them for many years.”

He smirked. “No, I mean your kettlebells.” Judging by his shoulders and neck, the man had once been a weightlifter or a shot putter.

His praise suddenly carried a different kind of value. Collecting art requires only taste and money. People “collect” kettlebells so they can regularly lift and haul them around.

The Book of Changes contains these words: “同聲相應，同氣相求，水流濕，火就燥...”. In one translation: “Like responds to like, and like seeks like; water flows toward what is wet, and fire moves toward what is dry...”

It’s fascinating how a shared interest builds a relationship. A second ago we were strangers. Now we weren’t. A kettlebell tells you a lot about its owner, just as a smoker’s pipe or a wrestler’s ears do.

A love of iron changes not only the body, but also the mind. When I lift a kettlebell in the morning, I feel the weight of all the tasks waiting for me. More precisely, it is the weight of my existence. Unpleasant, but I do it anyway. And in the end, I’m glad I did.

These are two different people: me before training and me after. The first is gloomy, dark, and irritated. The second is full of confidence, warmth, and enthusiasm. That transformation is worth every drop of sweat, isn’t it?

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​.

Sing Anyway /  by Alexander Lyadov

When two masters of improvisation meet, you don’t just enjoy it—you take notes. Comedian Morgan Jay ​shares an insight​ with musician AriAtHome about engaging an audience:

"And you know what's funny? If you don't ask them, if you just put the mic in front of their face — most of them will sing. But if you give them a choice, they will not do it. If you don't give them a choice, they'll do it."

Morgan is right. To bring out what’s hidden, you need a trap. But better without force—so later you’re glad you fell into it.

Paradoxically, that kind of setup makes you freer.

I’ve always admired improvisation on stage. Rehearsing and delivering something well is hard. But there’s a kind of magic in weaving a pattern on the spot, right in front of people.

The strength of my admiration showed how much I wanted that spontaneity myself—and how much I was afraid to allow it. As long as I could live the old way, the pull stayed projected onto others.

Then one day, something in me killed that option. It created conditions where not taking the mic was no longer possible. Worse, it blocked my usual escape—no chance to prepare, polish, or rehearse.

Under stress, the mind began to melt. Control slipped.

I took a step on faith and "sang" as I could. A strange song—but it was mine.

Later, when I watched the recording of the course, I was surprised. The improvisation wasn’t perfect. But it was real. And that was enough—for me, and for those who listened to my “rap.”

That’s the kind of imperfection that makes life interesting.

Sincerely yours,

-Alexander

P.S. With a heavy schedule, I’ll be posting much less in May.

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​.

Call Now /  by Alexander Lyadov

Unknown photographer

You exchanged emails. Or got a message from someone.

And it suddenly feels… wrong. Heavy. Off.

Don’t analyze it. Drop the thinking. Don’t read between the lines.

Call him. Or call her. Right now.

Writing has its place. But not here. Not in this moment. There’s too much room for dark, clever misinterpretations.

A voice is different. Even silence on the line is different. Things clear up fast.

Misunderstanding melts like hail that falls out of place in May.

Your lungs quietly exhale: “Alright… I imagined it. We’re good.”

You just saved the relationship with one spontaneous call.

But there’s more.

If, after a few texts, everything feels wonderful…

…yes, the same move.

Call him. Or call her.

Otherwise, the moment will pass. And it won’t come back.

But if you call, you can share it. Enjoy it together.

And in that moment, life finds its harmony. And its meaning.

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​.

False Limits /  by Alexander Lyadov

Oh, these damn circumstances! Like a river or a canyon, they stand between what we passionately want and what we have. If not for these limits, we would…

“Yeah, right,” I say, remembering an insight from symboldrama.Even with total freedom inside an imaginary scene, I still trapped myself. I desperately tried to dig under the wall — and got nowhere.

Seeing this, others tried to point me to an exit. I only got surprised, then irritated. Why were they being so “slow”? Like an elephant tied by a trainer, I could not break the “sacred” thread.

Do you see it? In perfect conditions, free to imagine anything I wished, I still chose to limit myself. And in everyday life, every little circumstance claims the right to become a wall.

“What nonsense! What the hell!” That anger finally pushed me to act differently next time — to answer someone’s invitation, to allow the thought that the concrete barrier had never really been there.

What holds you back? What barrier feels impossible? What do you want most, but won’t admit—even to yourself? What keeps your business from becoming what it already wants to be?

My business therapy aims to help you drop false limits. That takes a change of mind—what the Greeks called metanoia. You take apart how you see, then put it back together—differently. In this process, no one can give — you can only take.

What stops you from starting ​now?

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​.