One of the big questions a person asks in life is: “Am I acting correctly right now? Am I doing the right things? Am I moving along the right path?”
Today in this article we’ll look at how a person can always know—and, in the present moment, understand—whether everything they’re doing is what they need or not. People ask questions like: “I’m working a regular job now—maybe I should open my own business?”, “I got married—maybe I shouldn’t have and should’ve kept building my career?”, “Do I have a child now or not?”, “Am I making the right or wrong decisions?”
How can a person learn to answer themselves at any moment on such a question? Even make this decision right now. People usually try to find a personalized solution for a specific question; someone tries to learn a huge amount of information. When to open a business, how to grow in a career, when to start a family, how to build the right relationships at home or in partnership—people receive a huge number of tips from the outside. Not just advice from friends or acquaintances. Everyone says: “Friends, acquaintances—okay, we’ll get advice from a psychotherapist.” And here again the question: what is truly correct? How to act?
💡The problem with outside advice is that people often give it based on their own life, principles, strategy, experience—or on something they read somewhere.
At one of the recent meetings we discussed the spiritual space, and one person began to speak in bookish phrases. You can really hear when people use vocabulary from literature rather than from their own lived experience—it’s like memorized terms when, at 20, you pass a university exam in philosophy: you understand nothing, you just memorized it.
So, people very often give advice not because they truly understand it, but because they heard it somewhere—for example, a medical recommendation that “this is the right medicine to take” or “do this exercise.”
In the morning I had a call with my business partners in IT; we touched on the economy and politics. I say: “Here, Trump announced something about tariffs.” My friend says: “Yes, if they cancel the tariffs, they’ll have to return 2 trillion dollars in tariffs.” And the statement was as follows: he introduced new tariffs on goods from a number of countries, which might be canceled—there was already the last court hearing, and the court will decide by the end of June. This news is everywhere. But to whom would money be returned? Probably to other countries—who else? Yet if you study what’s happening carefully, then first, money would not be returned to other countries: tariffs are paid by importing companies located in the United States of America.
For example, Apple, if it imported something from India, or China, or Vietnam—pays the tax, not other countries. And if the product is a commodity, then clearly its price didn’t rise “because a tariff appeared,” someone else will just buy it. It works differently in different cases, but there isn’t this idea that all the tariff is on the other side. And second, by the end of June it won’t be 2 trillion dollars of tariffs to pay but 180 billion dollars. But when we see information, we take it literally.
Accordingly, the advice we get from outside—and many decisions we make—are based on distorted, false information, very often illusory—regardless of how competent people are in it.
A person can be a very strong businessperson, but they’ll give you an extremely wrong piece of advice—not the one you need. When big businesspeople with billions (or hundreds of billions) of dollars tell young people how to start a business, I often say: “Ask them to start a business now, from scratch, completely changing their appearance and so on.” There have been many such cases. For example, in the Russian market this happened, when people who run various training programs “reincarnated” and showed how to make money. There are plenty of examples where people say it can be done—and meanwhile there’s a blogger with 10 million subscribers telling how easy it is to launch a YouTube channel; or a famous person tells you how easy it is to get 100 thousand followers on Instagram: “What’s hard? Start recording videos, post—and that’s it!” I personally know a huge number of bloggers who, in parallel, tried to grow other channels, and nothing worked for them. They themselves said it, they themselves tried—and it didn’t work.
This is a distorted deceit from a person who seems to have experience. And indeed, someone can give birth at home—and it will be the right advice; but someone else will start giving birth at home—and lose the child, or the woman herself will die because she didn’t go to the doctor in her situation.
Those who give advice—or you, when making decisions—are you really basing it at least on some experience and real knowledge? Have you truly figured it out? People often can give advice that harms you: they may not openly wish it, but they’ll give advice of a very specific character. For example, a huge number of parents will give specific advice to children regarding what education to get or what job to take. This is common. What advice do they give? For one person it’s a problem; for another it is not.
Earlier this year I decided to buy a dog—a Russian borzoi, with character. My mom says on the phone: “What, you’ll get a dog? Well—wow! That’s such responsibility, it’s just unreal.” She has her own perception. What exactly does she mean by responsibility? What exactly does she mean by “unreal”? For some person, for example, buying insurance for a dog is a problem; for me—it isn’t. For some person, spending $500–700 a month on raw-meat nutrition is a problem; for me—it isn’t. For some person, providing the dog space is a problem; for me—it isn’t. For some person, providing entertainment for the dog is a problem; for me—it isn’t. I have four children: the dog sometimes doesn’t know where to hide from them, and she knows exactly with whom she can play.
For some person there’s no problem that the dog could escape; for me—there is. If the door is open, she can go out: large area, a huge number of wild animals. My 200 sotkas she can run around in 2 seconds. And just two days ago she ran onto the road; eight cars tried to catch her, until my neighbor called me: “Alexander, we see your dog on the road and we’re trying to catch her.” I look at the tracker—the dog ran all around and returned home.
Each person has their own perception. My mom had a hard perception of the dog, but the problems she layered on are not the ones I actually have. Moreover, she herself would like a dog, but she can’t afford it because of “such responsibility.” And here I am, with four children, with a business, with a bunch of projects (what don’t I have!)—and on top of that I get a dog.
People come to me with a huge number of different kinds of advice, and I always try to give advice to a specific person. One person wrote: “Alexander, so should I close the business or open one?” And I feel he just wants my support in closing the business. I see what decision the person needs to make themselves. But the point is, that’s my understanding and vision, and the responsibility must be taken by the person themselves. I’ve shown this person many times how to make such a decision, and he still doesn’t want to do it. In the end I told him: “Do you simply want my support? I’ll provide it—but I won’t take responsibility. Enough suffering.”
There are people to whom I insistently recommend closing their business—and they don’t do it. I tell them: “You need to close the business; otherwise, over the next 3–4 years you’ll lose a huge amount of your own resource—you need to do other things.”
There are people who don’t hear it: “Thank you very much, Alexander, for the recommendation, but we’ll manage on our own”—and then two years later the person closes the business. In reality, a person rarely says: “Thank you so much for the advice, for spending time and sharing your energy. As always, I was in a state of complete foolishness and non-listening.” People don’t say this, although I did spend the time: I gave a recommendation, and the person didn’t use it.
There is free and paid advice. Someone says: “I paid money”—are you sure you paid to actually follow the advice? And if you don’t follow it, then pay 10 times more. That’s how it should be. Why then was I in a state of perception, trying to give you real information? I could have just told you anything: you ask me a question, and I can give any answer—if you don’t need the real one.
If you don’t need an answer, why do you ask about it? Often, when receiving advice, a person wants to hear what they want to hear.
We’re coming to a fundamental point. One of the central problems in this question—“Am I going in the right direction in life right now, am I doing certain things right?”—is whether a person is capable of hearing the right decision for themselves.
I recently told the story that someone advised me to meet a hundred people in one type of business. He said it would be the right decision: I saw that it was wrong, but decided to do as he said. And I only made things worse—I got no result. With each step, the result only got worse in the interaction. Moreover, I brought in a negative construct: first, I spent a huge amount of time and resources—my own and other people’s; second, I told people a certain untruth simply because I don’t work that way. Those aren’t my principles.
How to understand whether the advice given was right or wrong?
We come to a system I call “The Next Step System.” It’s not some exclusive of mine or anything else, but a normal way to understand.
The essence is that a person has the ability to make a decision, to get an answer to a question at any moment—in other words, to make the correct decision regarding the next step. I’ll explain the difference from the abstract understanding of “Am I going the right way?” For a person, that means determining the parameters of projects. As I said, questions like: should I close the business, should I quit my job, should I ask for a higher salary, should I have a child now, etc.—specific points.
💡The “Next Step” system says you must have the strength at any moment to make the right decision.
And for this you must, at a minimum, learn to perceive what is happening and to perceive the causes and effects around it. When listening to someone, you must remember they might be deceiving you—not because they wanted to, but because someone dictated that information to them, or they read it in books. When listening to other people or making your own conclusions, you must remember: every person is individual. It’s not as simple as saying there’s an average price for coffee, and driving around to find it—and the price will be within a certain range.
Each person’s result will differ greatly. Now in the world there are people who say money is earned if you have a solid foundation in terms of principles, if you bring value to people. There are people who say money is earned if you work tirelessly. Is that true or not? Maybe money is earned because your partner is great? Maybe money is earned because you married a rich guy or a rich girl? Maybe you have money because your husband earns well? Maybe you’re making money because you’re in the right country?
So why is money earned? Someone says money is earned depending on the environment you’re in. Are you sure environment guarantees the amount of money? A person here will say: “No, not necessarily do those people give you the opportunity to earn money, but they give you a way of thinking in terms of perception and understanding of the world, worldview, principles, and life goals.” Wait—that means I should live like this person who had 16 wives? Or like the person who thinks children are unnecessary? Or like the person who thinks we should start a new war? Or like the person who runs a business and drives people into debt through credit? Or like the person who sells a product that harms people’s health? Are you sure about that?
I just listed negative aspects—there are many positive ones. I sometimes get comments from people who watched my video: “Easy for you, you’re in California, you have a big house, a family; and here I am—what should I do?” This is a strange argument. I often talk and give examples not from my position of being in California but from the fact that I teach people; from where a person lives, what circumstances they have—so that they can determine the right next step for themselves. And evaluating other people and their state by external signs is a strange abstraction.
I have a channel, “ToTheMoon”, about artificial intelligence, and one person wrote: “I’ve watched 20 episodes, and Alexander is always on drugs.” For someone—I’m on drugs; for someone—I’m a happy person in a state of calm; for someone—I’m in a bad mood; for someone—tired; for someone—an egoist; and for someone—the best husband—judging from the outside. You know how it is—people write in comments under Reels: “It’s obvious this man is a ruthless tyrant at home.” Am I really a tyrant at home? Of course not.
The question is what each person hears and sees. For one person I will indeed be a tyrant; for another—I’ll be speaking nonsense; and for others—I’ll be speaking truth from God. For someone I’ll be the best dad who exists, and someone else will write that I’m a jerk who mocks my wife in reels.
There’s always a paradoxical story here that people can truly give advice only as they feel from the outside. I cite other people as an example so that a person understands: they can also give advice to themselves. The person is in the prison of their personality, their ego-computer—and it’s extremely difficult for a person to tell themselves the truth and climb out of these barriers, to make true conclusions about themselves, to look at the situation genuinely from the outside: in different aspects, without bias, and understand how to build balance.
You see what the situation is? The person needs to build balance in their life, not just find one answer. Because in one answer there’s the notion of “sacrifice.” Everyone says: “For a good business, you have to sacrifice,” “For a family, you have to sacrifice,” “A mother sacrificed her career for her children,” “This woman sacrificed her family for her career,” “A person sacrificed their health to earn money,” “This one sacrificed money to preserve someone else’s health.”
People constantly discuss a huge number of merits through sacrifice. Although in reality it was done not through sacrifice, but to nourish one’s personality, ego—to prove to everyone that it must be so. No one asked the person to do this; it wasn’t an instruction, rule, or law. This is a situation in which the person simply wanted to prove to everyone that they can do it. Therefore, it’s important to look at yourself from the outside, to find balance in everything.
People talk a lot about the balance of family, profession, business; they say you need to work 6–8 hours, rest on weekends, devote 3 hours to the family. What “balance”?! And if your child got sick and you’re taking them to the hospital? Will you say: “No, I keep balance and must work now, I allotted too much to family”? And if a family member has an illness that will progress over the next 10 years, you will have to be with them and devote time? And what about the sick person? In what balance will they live at that moment? In what balance will they be?
A person wants to find balance: personal relationships, work, family. But as practice shows, if a person falls into deep romantic adventures, then at that moment work often becomes uninteresting.
When we talk about finding balance and making decisions, it turns out we must go into a more complex nature of causes and effects. People want to find a single answer for how to make the correct next step. But you don’t want to know how to make the next step—you want an answer that you’ll also like.
Imagine you go to an astrologer or a spiritual person who sees your future and past. They tell you some information about your future—and now you know your next step. Will you do it? Of course, not necessarily. You will do what you want to do. Many people told you about the future; different people met you in life who voiced correct, real information. Did you do it? What does it matter which guru it is? What does it matter what titles they have? We can write any titles! But a person will do it only if they want to.
For example, a person is told it’s important throughout life to do a certain action every evening. They come home and think: “Maybe not necessarily? Prove it.” And there are no proofs. How can anyone prove it— even if before your eyes they rewound your entire future life? You’ll say: “Not a fact, maybe I imagined it.” And then the person says: “It’s not my desire, it’s circumstances. I’m not to blame.” Why? He needs to save the personality, to say the person isn’t guilty. So he shifts the responsibility further.
What do I propose?
- Observe that there are different reasons for processes: both from the side of those who recommend something to you, and from the side of the actions you’re offered to take.
- Start treating it calmly; record what decisions you make. If you don’t record, nothing will work. Record: I made this decision here—and it was a mistake.
Recently I gave an interview on spiritual development. At the very beginning the cameras broke, and the person says: “So it was meant to be.” I say: “No, it wasn’t! You just have unprofessional people working.” What’s the point? I sat very calmly, didn’t get nervous, but this person had a hard time: he probably worried about organizing a low-quality shoot. In fact, when you invite guests—of course there can be worries because of this. We started recording a little later. “Meant to be” doesn’t fit here; moreover, there is the notion of unnecessary interference.
💡Remember: there are moments when something doesn’t work out not because “it was meant to be,” but because there are forces that make it so that you don’t succeed.
The ego comprehensively rearranged everything around—and so did the dark sides—saying: “You must definitely live through this experience.” Not all experience needs to be lived! There is experience that you don’t need to live at all. There is experience that is simply a bog, an endless senseless broth. There are things in life that are unnecessary—that you can skip.
A person learned to deceive themselves with this—repeating in many places that “this experience was necessary.” But no—you made a mistake; calmly admit it. Or it wasn’t a mistake—you just lacked the strength to make the right decision, so it turned out this way. There is a reason for that.
It’s like a situation with a bear that tore a man’s arm off. The person asks: “Why am I to blame?” You aren’t at fault; you just don’t have the strength to handle it—it’s pointless. You couldn’t cope with it. You couldn’t refuse a particular person a meeting; you couldn’t refuse to take a certain job, even though you shouldn’t have done it; you couldn’t refuse a partner or some counterparties, contractors, because you simply didn’t have the strength to do it. You couldn’t say “no” to your parents about a certain decision in childhood, which then formed a whole system and chain of various events—you didn’t have the strength. You didn’t understand and acted automatically.
💡I made a huge number of decisions in my life automatically, definitely unconsciously. Then just admit you acted like a robot—and that’s it, don’t deceive yourself. The more you deceive yourself, the more mistakes you’ll make and the less accurate your next step will be.
This is one side of moving toward the next step. It’s a huge, complex, lifelong process. It’s not a process for one minute. This information is needed so that throughout your life you constantly improve it, remember it. You’ll now remember that there is the notion of a next step and keep it in mind; that there are many next steps.
At this moment—should you yell at a child or not? There’s no notion of “never yell.” There is a situation where you must do it: if a child runs onto the road under a car—you must shout. You can say, “We’re not talking about these situations”… Which ones then? Where are the boundaries? “Look, he yells at the child!”—he’s yelling to save the child’s life. He will not traumatize the child; the child will see the essence of what’s happening. Many people don’t like this. They’d rather comment: “Look, he never raised his voice at his children.” Was that definitely correct or not? I’m not advocating raising your voice, but I’m speaking objectively—to analyze any situation truly.
— And then what should be inside a person? What should a person be or become in order to at least be able to approach understanding their next step?
— In fact, if you constantly remember that this exists—that you must constantly make decisions—if you remember this right in the specific moment, then you are in a state of conscious behavior. You are in a state of awareness.
If you’re constantly told you’re being filmed by a camera, constantly reminded of it—you will react in a certain way. At some point you’ll get used to it and start behaving naturally, with some margin of error. The errors will still remain in terms of the behavior model, but overall you’ll behave naturally.
It’s no coincidence they say that at work, in banks, they hang cameras: people at first are very decent, and then, after half a year, they begin to engage in very specific things under those cameras—even the most indecent—because they stop paying attention to them, they forget about them. Imagine: if a person forgets about the camera, what can we say about awareness?
Here you must easily say to yourself: “How aware am I during the day, how constantly am I in a state capable at any given moment of easily changing my behavior model—easily turning on anger, turning off anger; turning on tears, turning off tears; turning on joy, turning off joy?” Easily—because if you are not in a state of awareness, you say: “I had to be angry now. I was angry; I realized I was angry.” But if you continue to be angry and cannot control and switch it, then you are—non-awareness. Just tell yourself, “I am non-awareness.”
If you can—easily turned it on, turned it off. It’s like in nutrition: I say all people are dependent. A person says: “Why am I dependent?” They put a cake in front of you: “Do you like it?” The person says: “I like this one.” And can you switch the state: I want cake—I don’t want cake? This is a very interesting aspect—switching the state. The person says: “How?” Like this. After all, there are things you don’t want to eat, and there are things you do. Can you move that switch among foods? Click—and you moved it. That’s real awareness.
I am speaking now about awareness together with action. The first level of awareness—at least agree with yourself that at this moment I don’t control my reaction, I just want it—and that’s it.
I periodically have certain states when I want to make a decision that lies outside my principles and has a controversial character. Recently, for example, I had this in Paris. I told myself: “Strange that I want to make this decision.” I look—and I want to make it. I try to figure it out—can’t figure it out. Although I see quite well in terms of past, future, various aspects, events, truth, and so on. I told myself I needed to move from Paris home—and in the other space, at home, I would make the decision whether I would do it. I got home—and this obsession disappeared; it just dissolved. There’s no need to make it—because it isn’t there. But it still exists by a couple of percent. Maybe a bit brighter—by half a percent or a percent—than before. Because in any case, it always existed in my life in some way. Interesting, right? How the situation changes: can a person determine and understand that they are not in a state of adequate perception right now, and therefore need to slow down.
Therefore, I strongly advise many people at work, during discussions with management or with people with whom it’s very difficult for you—anywhere: at an interview, in a partnership—to step into the bathroom. If it becomes hard, you see the situation is heated—go to the bathroom and just stand there for five minutes. Just look at yourself in the mirror there. And often you’ll return—and see that there was no conflict. The person returns: everyone is talking about other topics, everything is completely different. You’re like, “Where’s the conflict?” And there was no conflict. It dissolved exactly when you stepped out. It didn’t exist.
And it’s very important for a person to remember such situations: to see where they acted inadequately, where they made a decision inadequately. “Why did I decide today not to work—or postpone some task—or not meet a certain person?” Look at the reasons; try to see them more broadly. “Why do I have such a relationship with this person?” I always say: “You walk down the street with a guy—he appeals to you; the next day you walk—he doesn’t. Along the exact same street, the exact same person.” And you think: “Strange, why did I like him—and now I don’t?” Tomorrow you walk—again you like him. “Nonsense.” But that’s your emotion; that’s your inner state, not his.
Another aspect: can he influence it? Of course, he can. Moreover, external space and outside people can influence—people who wrote to you or said something just before.
Yesterday I woke up at five in the morning; I was to have one serious meeting. For this meeting they sent me certain documents, and I accidentally opened one out of twenty—and there was complete nonsense written there. I’m in the shower and start processing it. And then I think: “Why am I processing it at all?” With some difficulty I managed… For me it’s not super-hard labor, but it looked difficult. That is, for two or three minutes I spun it somehow, because usually it takes me seconds—any stress or negative space, situation. And bam—this thing turned off; I come to the meeting, it goes on—and this topic didn’t even come up. I had already prepared to blow everything up on this topic. It didn’t even come up, and at some point I realized: it’s not needed at all. It wasn’t necessary to open that document. We don’t need to discuss it now. It won’t change or solve anything, except creating negativity for a large number of people: anger, resentment. And certain people will again begin to show hatred toward, for example, my statements—although I will be 100% right from the business point of view. It won’t change anything. Although it matters to me—this business affects me. But I understand it won’t change the business result. And if the result in my business is to make a profit, then I should think about profit, not about smashing everything around because someone is talking nonsense.
— And what should a person do then—if we look broader, in terms of their path and understanding the next step? If a person, at their level of perception, must make some decision here and now in life, then what should they rely on, so that it is correct? Maybe there are some impulses inside, some identifying signs that will help understand that, reasoning “yes” or “no,” one should do “yes”?
No. 1. Turn on, for yourself, a state of studying the reasons for the emergence of a given event and the reasons for making a decision.
This is a very interesting aspect: the very fact of attention increases the probability of a correct result and reduces the probability of error. Give a little more attention and time to the situation each time. Don’t rush. Each time, look: you want to solve the situation this way—why? What goal is inside, what principles are there? Are you doing it manipulatively or truly, genuinely? Why are you doing it this way? Just try to see it calmly.
People don’t like it. I come and say: “You’re doing this purely from a state of manipulation for your ego.” The person says: “You’re doing it from ego.” You say: “Wait, this isn’t about me—we’re talking about you. In this specific case. In this specific situation you act from ego.” “You acted from ego yesterday”—that’s a childish conversation.
Yesterday I was driving my middle daughter, she’s 11. She sits there, angry at me the whole way for leaving late. I call Polina, my wife, and my younger son answers: “What do you need?” I say to him: “It’s not your business—give the phone to mom.” And my daughter sits in the back; I tell her: “Why are you angry? We arrived on time.” She says to me: “And how do you speak at all? You couldn’t speak to my brother in such a harsh tone just now.” I say: “And what does he have to do with it? This doesn’t remove the situation that you’re angry at me for no reason. I brought you on time, and you made a huge problem out of it. Your brother has nothing to do with this. The conversation with your brother is a separate situation.”
People don’t want to resolve separate situations—they want to compare everything all the time. But what weight are you measuring? Remember, we talked earlier: you did a bad thing to someone, you came and asked forgiveness. And you say: “If the person is no longer angry—then I’m forgiven.” I say: “But the essence isn’t forgiveness. If you did harm of a thousand to a person, and then you came and asked forgiveness—and asking forgiveness is five. And so you’ve still got a debt of 995. You just don’t know how to measure it.” People keep trying to compare everything everywhere, to shift things around, to reweigh everything.
💡Therefore decision No. 1 is to be in a state of awareness every moment.
You say: “What action?” I keep saying: awareness. You say: “What action?” I say: awareness. “So which action, what in awareness?” You repeat the same question in a circle, and I’ll repeat the same answer. To be in awareness you need strength; you need to work, to study. This is a big, complex process. It’s not the kind of answer where—poof—and you become a genie. Do you want to be the genie from the cartoon “Aladdin”? Because when you say: “How do I learn to make the right next decision?”—you want to be a genie. You want to be a goldfish.
Indeed, I, for example, rely in a huge number of decisions on my vision. But that’s my responsibility. I know that, in this place, I made a decision based on my vision. I buy stocks—right now there are stocks on the market that are falling. And two weeks ago I once again looked at these stocks through my vision and decided they should be bought. I was buying them even at a higher price than they trade at today, after the drop. And two months ago I looked at these stocks—should buy. And six months ago I looked at these stocks—should buy. Not sell, but buy. Did I make a mistake? No, because we’ll draw conclusions when I sell these stocks. What difference does today’s price make? The difference will be when I sell them. That’s when I can see whether I was wrong regarding the decision.
If these stocks fall fourfold now, I’ll sell them. Most likely I have a trigger set. On these stocks there’s 100% an open position to sell them if they reach a certain state. Though they’re up and so on—but still a trigger is set. I just remembered that. Now it’s even interesting to look—yes, I see the amount at which the trigger fires. This is always useful information from the perspective of a real example—how life actually happens.
If the trigger fires, then these stocks will automatically be placed for sale. Then I’ll tell myself: “I made the wrong decision.” And even that’s not a fact, because it may be that the trigger fires, they fall even lower, I buy them cheaper and re-enter the position—and make even more on them. The task isn’t to earn the maximum, but to earn in the long term. These stocks are bought for the long term—to sell in about ten years. Well, maybe three—but not earlier. There are some stocks—ten years. But some—okay, three. There are stocks you buy for a month—but then that’s a different task, essence, different understanding.
— I understand I need to turn on awareness and try to pay attention to it, to live from awareness. I understand I might be repeating the question, but if we take an example: a person faces a choice. You said—give it time, observe. What if there’s no possibility to give time? If, for example, it’s related to a partner waiting for an answer: to enter a partnership or not. How then? There’s a limited time.
— Time is always limited; life is finite. When I say “time,” we don’t know: it could be 10 minutes, it could be 30 minutes. When I said to step into the bathroom—you can always step into the bathroom. In terms of making decisions, when you say “the partner is waiting,” then you need to take business separately and, by the technology I talk about a lot, analyze it. And make a decision on that.
Know clearly that I’ll run the business based on the goal I need. Do I want to make a profit? Do I just want to launch a business? Do I want to get a partnership? At least somehow understand the risks that will be there; understand how decisions will be made there, what principles, what strategy, what will be happening; what will happen if everyone earns; what will happen if everyone loses completely; how much needs to be invested, and so on. That is, discuss many aspects—in a normal understanding.
You don’t need to buy some expensive course right now. I have a huge amount of free material on this topic. In V100, for example, you can get a lot—watch: it has a low price, a monthly subscription costs $150. Now, the question is: often a single video can help. One video—to avoid a mistake. Just imagine what an important decision this is. You say: “The partner is waiting; we need a quick decision.” And do you want to make a decision that will reshape your life? Because opening a business for a person who didn’t have one, or choosing a main activity—that’s your main life. You say you need a quick decision. How do you want to treat it? As a restaurant choice? Don’t. Yet people want to treat it exactly like that.
💡They don’t want to approach it seriously—calculate, look. How many businesses are opened without calculations. Calculations are needed not because they help earn money (not in all businesses), but at least so that you turn on awareness and answer disputed questions.
People often simply don’t want and aren’t ready to discuss questions in business like: “What will we do if someone decides to close the business?”, “What will we do if someone stops working?” People don’t want to discuss it because they fear the question will cause refusal. Then you must understand that you’re entering a situation in which there may be a huge number of different problems: you are taking on risk; admit it. And then choose this risk—sometimes it’s worth doing it, sometimes not. There are businesses in which the risk may cost a life, and a person can be imprisoned for illegal operations. Just calmly tell yourself: “Yes, indeed, I’m entering a business that may cost me my life”—and that’s it.
If you enter into a marriage and don’t sign a prenuptial agreement, then you risk taking on your partner’s debts or parting with your property at some point. For example, in the Russian-speaking legal system, there is a very interesting situation where a person can open a business alone with a notary, but to close it you must necessarily have the consent of the husband or wife. It’s very funny. It turns out I can open a business, get into losses, and hang debts on my partner, but to close it we must do it together. What’s the logic? It’s clear there are pros and cons, but the people who crafted this considered only a number of certain aspects. Accordingly, if you, when opening a business, each time require your wife’s permission, then you must conclude a prenuptial agreement that states that the wife initially doesn’t influence your businesses or relate to them—or the husband doesn’t influence and doesn’t relate to them—and get rid of this problem.
But when people are in love, they don’t think about it. And those who do think—have different awareness or different motives. This doesn’t depend on the amount of money. We all know a huge number of stories where people “fly into” billions of dollars because of such situations. At the same time, there are people who were extremely careful, but fall into the same situation. Then husbands and wives can behave differently.
— And what to do if we go a layer lower or deeper—when a person sees the right decision, with all their being feels that this is it, but there is fear of making a mistake or some doubt—and they drag out the moment? Or when the correct decision arises—then the question of doubt doesn’t even come up; it simply isn’t there?
— You care about the very fact of winning—you say: “Relief comes from having made the right decision.” Here you need to look reasonably at everything that’s happening. You want to find an answer that you will like, will bring pleasure, and you won’t lose—I keep talking about this.
If you listen to my reasoning, I say there is a next step and you must make it correctly, record your mistakes, and be aware when you make the wrong decision, consciously draw conclusions, and not distort causes and effects.
I’m not saying you must have a wonderful life and that all next steps must be executed. Imagine: you made a wrong decision—and you see it. Let it be wrong—and so what?
I gave examples from my life that in my youth I made many decisions without awareness—at least, I don’t remember it. Maybe it was there. It’s a mistake—okay. I made a wrong decision, for example, to open or close a business; to join or separate from partners; to pay someone a bonus or not; to speak to my boss this way or differently; to launch this project or not; to meet these people or not—I made many wrong decisions. So what?
No. 1: I don’t suffer from it.
No. 2: I don’t deceive others about it.
No. 3: I don’t deceive myself.
This is life; it includes mistakes—if we speak the language of the material world. From the spiritual world’s point of view, there are levels where the notion of mistake doesn’t exist as such: there are notions of life and various actions; there is no notion of “good” or “bad.” There is simply the world movement of everything that happens—but I’m not suggesting we discuss from this point of view now.
I suggest at least consider the aspect that you feel calm if you made a mistake, without trying to say you missed some opportunity. You don’t know what the circumstances would have been if that opportunity had appeared. I’ll remind you about balance—you don’t know what that is, how other aspects would have gone: what you would have had at that moment with your health, psyche, a certain state. What would it have brought? Often it may seem that if you had done a specific action, then you would have ended up in a different place—but in reality, you would have ended up exactly where you are. Often it may seem you would have had 10 times more money in your account—while the same problems, circumstances, and topics for reasoning would remain.
There is a theme of reasoning of the same nature. For example, my wife always lacks money—regardless of the amount. She somehow manages to have $0.36 or $0.25 left on the card, and therefore you can’t give a credit card without limits. I remember we lived in Moscow, and I said: “Polina, how is this possible? Okay, maybe 500 rubles can remain on the card, or 300—but how can 2.5 rubles remain?” What do you have to buy for that? I understand in various circumstances, if a person earns 10 thousand rubles a month and spends it—they may have 2.5 rubles left, but not my wife.
The inner state doesn’t change with the amount of money—you see the point? It doesn’t change with where you live, with location. You want more—you’ll have it, but the inner state won’t change.
You say to yourself: “I need 10 additional bags.” But you’ll have 10 bags—and the inner state won’t change. You won’t want a bag—you’ll want a closet. You say: “I need another kind of relationship in terms of a husband.” You’ve tried the 15th guy already—and it’s the same story. It makes no difference what his height is—1.90 m or 1.60; brunette or blond; long arms or short arms; if he uses profanity or speaks literary language; whether you go to restaurants or theaters—the inner state and the results are the same. Nothing changes.
With parents together—you say: “Living together—conflict.” You move apart—the same conflict, simply less of it because you don’t see each other every day. Although it seems the circumstances have changed completely: the situation changed, the space changed—everything changed. And the circumstances of what’s happening are the same—nothing changes.
My mother comes to me—doesn’t matter for two weeks, 30 or 45 days. She once stayed 60 days. I say: “Do you understand that you lived near me longer than we saw each other over the last 5 years?” It’s the same, the same! So what difference does it make? Whether you call on the phone or you communicate in person—the type of interaction is the same. It didn’t change. That means the reason is different. The reason lies elsewhere. And people often fail to notice that reason.
💡Therefore, you must constantly look at why you want a business. Why you want more money. Why you want better relationships. What do you want? What exactly do you want? Just pay attention to it.
There are many paradoxical, complex, incomprehensible constructs. For example, over the last two weeks I see that I want to go to bed in the evening not at 20:30–21:00, as I usually do, but at 19:00. Does this mean some day became difficult for me, I somehow lose energy? Not at all. Over these two weeks I’ve been in a very good state in terms of my inner energy. I just want to go to sleep. This once again shows that the influences and causes of energy, sleep, and details lie in another plane, not in the plane of basic events: what you ate, whom you talked to, what actions you did, what the day’s load was. There’s no such story now, because the same things are happening: good nutrition, a normal day, proper states. That means there are other reasons.
And we know that other reasons influence sleep quality. The spiritual world influences very strongly. I just don’t deceive myself by saying I know the answer. I don’t deceive myself—that’s very important. Once again I say: “In some of these constructs I don’t understand—and I won’t go into them.”
There are people who ask me about dreams. And here, by the way, it was interesting: the operators who recorded an English-language interview about spiritual development. One of them at the end says: “Alexander, can you say what dreams mean from the perspective of the spiritual world?” I say: “Don’t interpret. The probability of correct interpretation is close to zero—approaches zero. Since the probability approaches zero, you shouldn’t go into that zone.” You can observe it neutrally from the side, because there are people who remember and so on. You can look at some things, but don’t exalt them.
I recently posted certain paintings for meditation on my website. And right that same day a participant of the “Life” group writes: “Alexander, I dreamt of you last night. We were walking and looking at paintings, I asked you: is this author spiritually strong or not? Are these paintings necessary or not?” I just put a like—and that’s it, moved on. Why? It doesn’t matter to me that she had a dream. And for her it doesn’t matter that she had a dream. It’s the same as if I say I just saw a squirrel run up a palm tree. Okay. But probably if I say six bears ran up a palm tree, you’ll say: “Send a photo.” Or if I say: “A shark on a palm tree”—you won’t believe it.
Things like that. And everything else—you won’t pay attention to the basic, simple things. You had a dream—so what’s the conclusion? What difference does it make? Even if you try to find something there—what does the person want to find? So, an event… And what happened? So what happened? Did she predict that I would post the paintings? Did she see I’m engaged in creativity? But I talk a lot everywhere about making paintings. I don’t hide that I’m in this. I talked a lot about paints—especially while traveling. Or she’s simply in her processes—and had some interaction with me. Or it’s just an illusion. What difference does it make? But a person wants to highlight it as a miracle. To highlight, to exalt this event. And the event is just an event.
Our task is to learn not to exalt events—neither in a good sense nor in a simple sense. As you said: “If I did some right thing and then saw—oh, what a good job I did,” right? You just raised your ego by exalting it. You want to exalt—to raise your ego. You see what’s happening? If you passed by and said: “Oh, here it was this way, and there—great”—and move on. Because it doesn’t mean that next time, in the same place, you won’t make a mistake.
It’s exactly like a person who does a backflip—it doesn’t mean that at some point they won’t slightly miss and break their neck. You see? Even if we look at all kinds of devices, or here I had a cup with boiling water—there’s a high probability I’ll scratch my lip with this cup or hit a vessel and start bleeding. Or an iPhone heats up—and there’s a one-in-a-billion chance it’ll explode in my hands. But that probability exists!
💡Therefore, exalting your condition that you “succeeded” or “didn’t succeed” is just pampering the ego. And that blocks perception.
One of the things you need to do is stop pampering yourself for good things and stop punishing yourself for bad things. Now everyone will start saying: “No, how can it be without it? You have to rejoice, buy yourself a candy…” It’s like March 8. Someone comes and says: “Today is March 8.” I say: “So what? Can we congratulate women not only on March 8? Can I get gifts not only on my birthday? Can we say good things to me not only on my birthday? Can we do it not only on a holiday, but at any moment?” Don’t wait for that time—otherwise a huge number of problems arise. You’re waiting—then someone doesn’t give you what you yourself have been waiting for. Here you need to look: do I myself give to other people?