The “Next Step” System: how to make decisions without doubt and fear

AVAlexander Volchek

One of the big questions people ask throughout their lives is whether they are acting correctly now, doing the right things, and moving in the right direction. In today's video, we are looking at how a person can always know, and understand right now, whether everything they are doing is something they need. People ask, "I'm an employee now. Maybe I shouldn't be working for someone else; maybe I should start my own business?" Or, "I've just gotten married. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten married? Maybe I should have continued my career?" Or, "Should I have a child now or not? Are the things I'm doing, the decisions I'm making, right or wrong?" How can a person learn to answer that question at any moment, and make a decision right now? Usually, people try to find a personalized solution to what seems to be their particular question. Others try to look at a large body of general information: when to start a business, how to advance in a career, when to start a family, how to build relationships at home or in a partnership.

People receive an enormous amount of advice from others, and not just from friends or acquaintances. They say, "Friends and acquaintances, okay, but we'll get advice from a psychotherapist." Again, the question is: what is true and what is right? What should you do? One of the major problems with turning to anyone else for advice is that people often base their advice on their own lives, entirely on how their lives have unfolded, their principles, strategy, experience, or something they read or studied somewhere. Recently, at a meeting, we were discussing the spiritual realm, and someone started speaking in phrases from books. It is very noticeable when people use the language of literature rather than their own lived experience, as though they have memorized the terminology. Like taking a philosophy exam at university when you are twenty: you don't understand any of it; you have simply memorized it, so you pass. People very often give advice not because they truly understand the subject, but because they heard it somewhere. A medical recommendation, for example. They simply heard that taking this medicine or doing this exercise is the right thing.

They heard it. This morning, I had a call with my IT business partners. We got onto economics and politics, and I said, "Trump made a statement about tariffs." My friend said that if the tariffs were canceled, two trillion dollars would have to be refunded. His statement was that Trump had imposed new tariffs on the world. If the tariffs were canceled—and they could be canceled; the latest hearing had already taken place, and the court would rule by the end of June—two trillion dollars would have to be refunded. That news is everywhere. You can open any media outlet and read it. Refunded to whom? Presumably to other countries, right? Who else? To other countries. But if you examine what is happening carefully, first, the refund would not go to other countries, because tariffs are paid by importing companies located in the United States. Essentially, if Apple imported something from India, China, or Vietnam, Apple pays the tax; China doesn't pay the tax. That is the first point. And if it is an exchange-traded commodity, its price clearly hasn't risen just because a tariff appeared.

Someone else will simply buy it. Of course, it works differently in different cases, but it isn't a matter of the entire tariff being borne by the other side. Second, by the end of June, the tariff amount would not be two trillion dollars, but a hundred and eighty billion dollars. Yet when we hear and see information, we take it literally and treat it as real. Consequently, the advice we receive and many decisions we make are based on distorted, false information. Very often, it is profoundly illusory information: your own illusion, or that of the people telling you about it, regardless of how strong their expertise is. Someone can be a very capable businessperson yet give you advice that is utterly false, not real, not what you need. When major businesspeople with billions or hundreds of billions of dollars tell young people how to start a business, I often say, "Ask that businessperson to start a business themselves now, from scratch, completely changing their appearance and so on." There have been many cases like that, demonstrations. There were plenty in the Russian market: people running training programs would dress differently or stage something to show how to earn money.

There are enormous numbers of examples of people saying it can be done: a blogger with ten million subscribers sits there explaining how easy it is to launch a YouTube channel. Or a famous person explains how easy it is to reach a hundred thousand on Instagram. "What's hard about it? Start filming videos, post them, and that's it." I personally know enormous numbers of bloggers who tried to grow other channels in parallel and got nowhere. The same people who gave that advice started channels and got nowhere. It is a distorted deception from someone who, notice, apparently has experience. Apparently has experience. And yes, one person may give birth at home and that advice may be right for them, while another starts giving birth at home and the baby dies, or the person herself, the woman, dies because she didn't go to a doctor in her particular situation. The question is: do the people giving advice, or you when making a decision, actually base it on any experience and real knowledge? Have you worked it out? Do you understand it, truly understand it? The person giving the advice was astonished. He was advising from his own selfishness. Very often, people can also give advice intended to harm you.

Sometimes they may not consciously want that, yet they give very particular kinds of advice. Parents to children, for example. An enormous number of parents give very particular advice about what education to get or what job to take. You're smiling; it happens all the time—well, very often. The advice people give. For one person, something is a problem; for another, it isn't. A year ago, I decided to get a dog. More precisely, at the beginning of this year. About a year ago, yes, I decided to get a dog. About two months had passed, and we had already found a dog, a borzoi. For many people who know what a borzoi is, it probably seems like a challenging dog to get. My mother said on the phone, "What? You're getting a dog? That's such a responsibility, especially a dog like that. It's just impossible." She has her own reasons, her own perception of it. What exactly does she mean by responsibility? What exactly does she mean by impossible? For one person, buying insurance for a dog is a problem.

For me, it isn't. For one person, spending, say, five hundred to seven hundred dollars a month feeding a dog raw meat is a problem. For me, it isn't. For one person, giving a dog space is a problem. For me, it isn't. For one person, keeping a dog entertained is a problem. For me, it isn't. I have four children. They'll torment that dog from every direction. Sometimes she doesn't know where to hide from them. All day long, she knows exactly whom she can play with. For one person, a dog running away isn't a problem. For me, it is, because if someone opens the door, she can go out. There is a huge area, an enormous number of wild animals, and she runs around my roughly five acres in two seconds. Two days ago, she ran onto the road, and people in eight cars were trying to catch her until one of my neighbors called: "Alexander, we see your dog on the road and we're trying to catch her." I looked at the tracker: the dog had run all the way around and returned home. Everyone has their own perception. My mother's perception of having a dog was very complicated, but the problems she projected onto it aren't the problems I have.

What's more, she would like a dog herself, but she can't take on that responsibility. Yet here I am with four children, a job, a business, and a whole pile of projects—

A business, a whole pile of projects, all sorts of things. And I'm getting a dog too. People don't understand what is happening. People turn to me for enormous amounts of advice of all kinds, and I always try to give advice specifically for that person, that particular person. Someone recently wrote, "Alexander, should I close my business or open it?" I sense that the person simply wants my support in closing the business. I probably see what decision the person needs to make. But that is my own understanding and vision of a solution; the person has to take responsibility themselves. I have shown this person many times how to make the decision, and they still don't want to make it. When things finally reach an extreme, I say, "All right. You simply want my support. If you want support, I'll give you support. I won't take responsibility, but I'll support you in the fact that closing the business is right for you. Stop tormenting yourself." The person is suffering; enough suffering. There are people I insist should close their businesses, and they don't. I tell them categorically, "You need to close the business. Over the next three or four years, you will lose an enormous amount of resources, your own resources.

You need to do other things." The question is whether a person hears, or only hears what they want to hear. Some don't hear and say, "Thank you very much for the recommendation, Alexander, but we'll manage somehow ourselves." Two years later, they close the business. People very rarely say, "Thank you so much for your advice, for spending your time and energy back then. As usual, I was in a state of absolute stupidity and not listening." People don't even say that. They don't say it, even though I gave them my time. I gave a recommendation, and they didn't use it. What is that? Someone says there is free advice and paid advice. Someone says, "I paid money." But are you sure you paid money to act on the advice? If you don't act, then pay ten times more. In principle, if a person doesn't act on the advice, doesn't take it, why was I in a state of perception, trying to give you real, truthful information? I could have simply told you something. You ask me a question, and I give you any answer at all if you don't need it.

If you don't need the answer, why ask for it? Often, when people seek advice, they want to hear what they want to hear. Now we arrive at something fundamental, a fundamental point. One of the central problems in the question "Am I moving in the right direction in life? Am I doing the right things?" is whether the person is capable of hearing the right decision at all, hearing it for themselves. I recently told a story about someone advising me to contact a hundred people in one kind of business. He said that would be the right decision. I could see it would be wrong, but decided to do what he said and only made things worse for myself. I got no result. With every step, with every contact, the result got worse. Worse. What's more, I even brought something negative into myself. First, I spent an enormous amount of time and resources, my own and other people's. Second, when communicating with those people, I was telling them something untrue.

Because I don't do that. I simply don't do that. It isn't my pattern of behavior in life, not my principles—or rather, not my principles. Here is a very interesting point: how do you tell whether the advice you received was right or wrong? How do you tell whether it was right or wrong? This brings us to what I call the Next Step system. It isn't some exclusive invention of mine or anything like that; the name is simply for clarity. It means that, as a person, you can make a decision, get an answer to any question at any moment: make the right decision about your next step. I'll explain how that differs from the abstract idea of "Am I on the right path?" For a person, "Am I on the right path?" means identifying certain parameters of particular projects. As I said, should I close or open a business, leave a job or take one, ask for a higher salary or not? Should I have a child now or not? Just individual points. The Next Step system—I talk about it absolutely everywhere. Whether it is V100, for business, professional, and personal development, or Life, the spiritual development program, or any of my meetings, anywhere.

I always say that what matters is having the strength to make the right decision at every moment. At every moment, do you have the strength to make the right decision? For that, at a minimum, you must learn to perceive what is happening around you and the causes and effects surrounding it. When listening to someone, remember that they may be misleading you, not because they chose to, but because someone dictated that information to them. They read it in books somewhere, or acquired it through their own experience. When listening to others or drawing your own conclusions, remember that every person is profoundly individual, profoundly individual. It isn't like saying there is an average price for coffee, driving around looking for coffee, and finding roughly the same price or a certain range. Each person's results will be very different. Listen to many people in the world now: some say money is earned when you have a firm foundation in principle, when you bring people value. Others say money is earned when you work tirelessly for enormous amounts of time.

Is that true or not? Maybe money is earned because you have a great partner. Maybe money comes in because you married a wealthy woman. Maybe it is because your husband earns a lot of money, or your wife doesn't let you earn much money yourself. Maybe you earn money because you are in the right country and the right location. So why is money earned? Some say money is earned according to the people around you. Really? Are you sure? That the people around you are guaranteed to influence how much money you earn? Someone will say, "No, it isn't necessarily that these people enable you to earn money. They give you a mindset, a perception and understanding of the world, how it is structured, principles, and goals in life." But wait: does that mean I should live like this person who had sixteen wives? Or this person who thinks children are unnecessary? Or this person who thinks another war should be started? Are you sure? Or someone whose business drives people into debt through loans? Or someone selling a product that damages people's health?

Of course, I have named negative aspects. There are many positive ones. But even if we look at different parameters in general: what about someone in business who constantly says they are busy and haven't had a single free minute for the past twenty years? Are you sure I should listen to them? People often listen to someone else and say, "Look at him." Sometimes people watch one of my videos and say, "It's easy for you. You're in California, with a big house and a family. But I'm here. What am I supposed to do?" That is strange reasoning, isn't it? If you listen to me, I often speak and give examples not from the position of living in California, but from the position of where the other person lives and what their circumstances are. That is how I teach people, so they can determine the right next step individually for themselves. Measuring other people and their state—

Measuring other people and their state by external signs is a strange abstraction. Someone says, "You've got it great in California." But I have a channel called ToTheMoon about artificial intelligence, and someone wrote there, "I've watched twenty episodes, and Alexander is always on drugs." For one person, I'm on drugs; for another, I'm a happy, calm person. Make up your minds, if you are so capable of analysis. To some, I'm in a bad mood; to others, I'm tired. To some, I'm a selfish man; to others, the best husband. Seen from the outside. You know, Olya, people sometimes comment on reels, "You can tell right away that this man is a harsh tyrant at home." Is that actually true? Am I a tyrant at home? Of course not. Definitely not. A tyrant is one thing you certainly can't call me. Anything else, but not a tyrant toward women. The question is what each person hears and sees for themselves. For someone, I really will be a tyrant. For someone, I will be speaking heresy. For others, I will be speaking absolute truth from God, and they will write, "You speak truth from God, as in ancient spiritual and religious treatises and books."

For some, I will be the best dad there is. Others will write that I'm some kind of monster who humiliates his wife in his reels. There is always a paradox here: what can people really advise, and how can they sense things from the outside? I use other people as examples so a person can understand what advice they themselves can give themselves. A person is imprisoned in their own personality, in their ego-computer, in their ego. It is extremely hard to tell yourself the truth and get beyond those barriers. Extremely hard to draw truly genuine conclusions about yourself, to look at the situation from the outside, and to be able to look impartially from different angles and in different situations, and understand how to establish balance. You see, Olya, a person needs to build balance in their life, not just find one answer. Within that one answer is the idea of sacrifice. Everyone says it: a good business requires sacrifice, a family requires sacrifice. This mother sacrificed her career for her children; this woman sacrificed her family for her career.

This person sacrificed their health to earn money. That person sacrificed money to preserve someone else's health. People constantly discuss enormous numbers of achievements in terms of sacrifice, although many things were actually done not through sacrifice, but to feed the personality and the ego, to prove to everyone that this is how it should be. No one asked the person to do it. It wasn't an instruction, a rule, or a law. The person simply wanted to prove to everyone that they could do it. So, look at yourself from the outside and find balance, balance in everything, balance in your family. People talk a lot about balancing family, profession, and business. They say, "Work six to eight hours, don't work weekends," and allocate three hours to the family. What balance? If your child becomes ill right now and you are taking them to the emergency room, will you say, "No, I have my balance, and now it's time for business. I've already given too much to the family"? If a family member develops an illness that will progress over the next ten years, you will have to be with them and give them time.

What balance? What about someone who becomes ill? What balance will they be discussing then? What kind of balance will they be in? A person wants to find balance: personal relationships, work, balance. Yet experience shows that if someone plunges into an intense romance, work very often stops interesting them. When we talk about finding balance and making decisions, we have to enter the more complex nature of cause and effect. People want one single answer to how to choose the right next step. But again, Olya, you don't want to learn how to make the next-step decision. You want an answer, and you also want to like that answer. Imagine going to an all-seeing astrologer who sees your entire future and past, or a spiritually sighted person who can see and enter those depths. They tell you something about your future. Now you know your next step. Will you take it? Of course, that is not guaranteed. You will do what you want to do. Many people with sight have told you things ahead of time. You have met different people in life who gave you correct, real, truthful information.

Did you act on it? What difference does it make which guru it is? What difference do their titles make? We can give them any titles at all, but the person will act if they want to, or won't if they don't. Someone tells them, "It is important to do certain things every evening throughout your life." They go home and say, "Maybe that isn't true? Prove it." But there is no proof. How can anyone prove it to you? Even if your entire future life were fast-forwarded before your eyes, you would say, "Not necessarily. Maybe I imagined it." Then the person says, "It wasn't really my wish; it was the circumstances. I'm not to blame." Why? Because they need to save their personality. Save it by saying Olya isn't to blame, Sasha isn't to blame, Masha isn't to blame, Pasha isn't to blame. They need to save the personality. Save the personality. The ego-computer needs to save the personality, so it shifts responsibility elsewhere. First, I suggest observing that different processes have different causes: the advice people give you and the actions you need to take. Second, begin responding calmly, at least acknowledging what happened. Olya, if you don't acknowledge it, nothing will work.

Acknowledge that I made a decision here, and it was mistaken. Recently, I was giving an interview in English about spiritual development, and the cameras failed at the beginning. Someone said, "Then that's how it's meant to be." I said, "No, it isn't. The people doing the work are simply unprofessional. It isn't meant to be like this. We don't need the cameras to stop working now. Why? What would be the point?" I was sitting very calmly, not nervous at all. He was nervous. It was difficult for him to sit there. He was probably worried because he had organized the filming and perhaps it wasn't going particularly well. When you invite guests like that, you can worry about it. We began filming a little later, but it wasn't something that needed to happen. What's more, there is such a thing as interference that is unnecessary. Remember that sometimes things fail or happen not because they are needed in life, but because there are forces working to prevent you from succeeding. The ego has comprehensively rearranged everything around us, and various dark sides have rearranged it too. They say, "No, you absolutely need to live through this experience."

You don't need to live through every experience. There are experiences you don't need: a swamp, an endless, meaningless stew that isn't necessary. You could have lived without it. There are things in life that aren't needed, that you don't have to experience. People have learned to deceive themselves with this, saying in many situations, "That experience was necessary." No, it wasn't. You made a mistake; calmly acknowledge it. Or you didn't make a mistake—you lacked the strength to make the right decision. You made that decision because there were reasons. "I simply didn't have enough strength." It is like meeting a bear, having it tear your arm off, and then walking around saying how guilty you are. You aren't to blame; you simply didn't have the strength. It's meaningless. You won't have enough strength to fight a bear. You aren't to blame for anything.

I mean, you certainly aren't to blame for losing your arm because you couldn't overcome the bear. You couldn't overcome it. You couldn't say no to meeting that person, a man or a woman. You couldn't refuse a particular job, although you probably shouldn't have taken it. Or you couldn't refuse to start a business with that partner, or say no to counterparties, contractors, anyone, because you simply didn't have the strength. You didn't have the strength. As a child, you couldn't say no to your parents about a decision that went on to shape an entire system and sequence of events. You simply lacked the strength, didn't understand, and acted automatically. I made an enormous number of decisions in my life on autopilot, definitely without awareness. To speak of awareness there would be absurd. They were absolutely unconscious decisions, absolutely unconscious. Automatic. Then acknowledge that you acted automatically, like a robot, and that's all. "I acted automatically, like a robot." Don't deceive yourself. The more you deceive yourself with this untruth, these constant false accounts of cause and effect, the more mistakes you will make and the less accurately you will take your next step.

That is one aspect of moving toward the next step. It is an enormous, complex process that lasts your entire life, your whole life. It isn't a one-minute process. You are remembering this information now not just for right now, are you? It is needed so you can continue improving this throughout your life and remember it. You will remember, and viewers will remember, that there is such a thing as the next step, and live with that idea. There are enormous numbers of next steps, very many. Should you shout at your child at this moment or not? There is no such thing as never shouting. There are situations where you need to yell. If your child is running into the road and is four meters away from running under a car, you need to yell. "We aren't talking about those situations." Then which ones are we talking about? Where are the limits, where is the boundary? "Look, he's shouting at the child." He is shouting to save the child's life. He won't traumatize them. The child will wake up clearly in that moment and see what is happening. Many people don't like that. They like saying, "Look, he has never raised his voice at his children."

Was that definitely right or not? Was it definitely genuine or not? Was it definitely what was needed at that moment or not? I am by no means advocating raising your voice. Of course not. I am speaking objectively, normally, sensibly, so we can examine any situation as it really is.

OSOlga Stolyarova

Then what needs to be inside a person? What must they be like, or become, to have even a chance of approaching an understanding of their next step?

AVAlexander Volchek

Actually, if you constantly remember that this exists, that you constantly have to make decisions, if you remember at that specific moment, then you are behaving consciously, you are in a state of awareness. If someone constantly tells you a camera is filming you, constantly reminds you, "You're being filmed, there's a camera," you will react in a certain way, won't you? At some point, you will get used to it and begin behaving naturally, with some variations. There will still be some differences in your behavior, but overall you will behave naturally. It is no accident that people mention cameras being installed at workplaces, banks, and many other places. At first, people are very proper; six months later, they begin doing very particular things under those cameras, even the most indecent things, because they stop paying attention to them. They forget about them. Imagine: if a person forgets a camera, what can we say about awareness? It is very simple to ask yourself how aware you are throughout the day, how consistently you remain able to change your pattern of behavior at any given moment. Easily. Easily switch anger on and off, tears on and off, joy on and off.

Easily. If you aren't in a state of awareness, you say, "I was supposed to be angry then. I was angry. I realized I was angry." But if you continue being angry and cannot control or switch it, you aren't in awareness. Simply tell yourself you aren't. If you can easily switch it on and off... It is like food. I say everyone is dependent. Someone asks, "Why am I dependent?" Suppose a cake is placed in front of you. "Do you like it?" "I like this one." Can you switch between wanting the cake and not wanting it? That is a very interesting aspect: switching the state. The person asks, "How?" Like that. There are things you don't want to eat and things you do. Can you move that between different foods? Then it is awareness, real awareness. I am speaking now about awareness together with action. But at the first level of awareness, at least admit to yourself, "At this moment, I don't control my reaction. I simply want it." From time to time, I enter states where I want to make a particular decision and see that it lies outside my principles in life. There is something questionable about it.

That happened recently, for example. I was in Paris and said to myself, "It's strange that I want to make this decision so much." I watched: I wanted to make it, kept wanting to. I tried to work it out and couldn't, although I see the past, the future, different aspects, events, truth, and so on fairly well. I told myself, "I need to move from Paris back home. Move." I needed to enter a different space. In that different space, at home, I would decide whether to do it or not. I got home, and the obsession with that decision disappeared.

UPUnidentified participant

Mm-hmm.

AVAlexander Volchek

It simply dissolved. It wasn't there. It wasn't there. I didn't need to make the decision because it wasn't there. Well, it remained by a couple of percent, perhaps half a percent or one percent stronger than before, because in some form it had always existed in my life. Interesting, isn't it, how the situation changes? Is a person capable of recognizing and understanding, "Right now, my perception isn't adequate, so I'll put this on hold. Give me time"? That is why I advise many people, when they are having discussions at work with their boss or people they find very difficult—it doesn't matter whether it is an interview, a partnership, or contract negotiations—to go to the bathroom. If it becomes difficult and you see the situation is heated, go to the bathroom and just stand there for five minutes. Look at yourself in the mirror for five minutes. Often, you will return and see that there wasn't any conflict at all. You come back, everyone is talking about other things, everything is completely different. "Where is the conflict?" There wasn't one. It dissolved as soon as you left. It didn't exist. It is very important to remember situations like that.

See them. See where I behaved inappropriately, where I made a decision from an inadequate state. Why did I decide today not to work, or postpone a task, or not meet a particular person? Why? Look at the causes, try to see them more broadly. Why do I have this kind of relationship with this person? I always say: you are a young woman walking down the street with a guy, and you like him. The next day, you walk down exactly the same street with exactly the same person and don't like him. "Strange. Why did I like him then and not now?" Tomorrow, you walk together and like him again. "What is this nonsense?" It is your emotion, your inner state, your state, not his. Another aspect: can he influence it? Of course. What's more, the surrounding space and other people can influence it: people who wrote to you earlier, said something, or planted something in you. Yesterday, I woke up at five in the morning. I had an important meeting scheduled, and it took place later. Certain documents were sent to me for that meeting, and I happened to open one of the twenty documents.

I simply opened one, clicked on it, and it was full of nonsense. I stood in the shower washing and started processing that nonsense. Then I thought, "Why am I processing it at all?" With some difficulty, I managed to stop. It wasn't an enormous effort for me, but it felt difficult: I spent two or three minutes turning it over. Usually, any stress or negative situation takes me seconds. Then, just like that, it disconnected from me. I came to the meeting, and the subject never even came up. I was already prepared to tear everything apart over it, everything around me. It never even came up. At some point, I understood that it wasn't needed at all. I didn't nee—

It wasn't needed at all. I didn't even need to open that document. There was no need to discuss it now, no need to look at it. No need. The subject simply wasn't needed. It wouldn't change or resolve anything, except create negativity for a lot of people, anger and resentment. Some people would once again start showing hatred toward what I said, for example, although I would be a hundred percent right from a business standpoint. It wouldn't change anything. Even though it matters to me and the business affects me, I understand it wouldn't change the business's result. If the result I want from my business is profit, I need to think about profit, not tear everything around me apart because someone is talking nonsense.

OSOlga Stolyarova

Then what should a person do? When we discuss our path and understanding the next step in this broader context, that is one thing. But a person, at their current level of perception, may need to make a decision here and now. Take me, for example. I ask myself questions, observe, look—but how? What should I rely on? At the moment when I need to decide here and now, what can I rely on inside so the decision is right? Perhaps there are inner impulses or some recognizable signs that can help me understand that, when weighing yes or no, I should say yes?

AVAlexander Volchek

Number one is to begin examining why a particular event arose and why you are making the decision. This is a very interesting point: the very act of paying attention—though you have to learn to do it and have the strength for it—increases the probability of a correct result, or of reducing the error. Simply paying attention. Give the situation a little more attention, a little more attention and time each time. Attention and time. Every time. Don't rush; look each time. Why do you want to resolve this situation this way? What goal is inside it? What principles? Are you doing it manipulatively, or genuinely and truthfully? Why are you doing it? Just try to see it calmly. People don't like that. I come and say, "You are doing this purely as manipulation for your ego." The person says, "You're the one doing it from ego." "Wait, we aren't talking about me. We're talking about you, a specific situation. In this specific situation, you are acting from ego." "You acted from ego yesterday." That is a childish conversation. Yesterday, I was driving my middle daughter somewhere; she is eleven. She was angry with me the entire way because I had left late, angry with me.

I called my wife, Polina. My younger son answered and said, "What do you want?" I told him, "That's none of your business. Put Mom on." My daughter was sitting in the back. I asked, "Why are you angry? We arrived on time." She said, "What about how you speak? You shouldn't have spoken so sharply to my brother just now." I said, "What does he have to do with it? That doesn't change the fact that you are angry with me for no reason. I got you here on time, and you made an enormous problem out of it. Your brother has nothing to do with it. My conversation with him is a separate situation." People don't want to address situations separately. They keep wanting to weigh things, but what weight are you measuring? Remember our conversation: suppose you did something bad to someone, then apologized and said, "If the person isn't angry anymore, that means I'm forgiven." I said, "The point isn't whether you're forgiven. If you did something bad to someone and caused harm worth a thousand, then came and apologized, and an apology is worth five, you still have a debt of nine hundred and ninety-five.

You simply don't know how to measure it. People keep trying to measure everything like this, move from one thing to another, and reconsider everything this way." So, Olya, the first solution is to remain in a state of awareness at every moment. Every moment. You ask, "What action?" I keep saying, "Awareness." You ask, "But what action?" I say, "Be in awareness." "What action gets me into aware—?" "Be in awareness." "What action gets me into awareness?" You are repeating the same question in a circle, and I will keep repeating the same answer in a circle. To be in awareness, you need the strength for it. You have to work, move toward it, study it. It is a complex, large, enormous process. It isn't an answer where—poof!—you become Aladdin's genie. Do you want to become the genie from Aladdin? When you ask, "How do I learn to make the right next decision?" you would have to be a genie, a wish-granting goldfish. A wish-granting goldfish. "What is the right decision for me to make?" I do rely on my vision for an enormous number of decisions, but that is my responsibility. I know that, in this instance, I made the decision based on my vision.

For example, I buy stocks. There is one stock in the market now whose price is falling. Two weeks ago, I looked at it again through my vision and saw that I needed to buy it. I bought it at a higher price, probably, than the level it fell to today. Two months ago, I looked at it: buy. Six months ago: buy, not sell, buy. Did I make a mistake? Of course not, because I will need to draw that conclusion when I sell the shares. Look, Olya, I need to draw the conclusion when I sell them. What difference does their current price make? What will matter is when I sell them. Then I can look and see whether my decision was mistaken. If the shares now fall to a quarter of their price, I will sell them. A trigger will probably activate. I definitely have an open position set to sell them if they reach a certain level, even though the position is in profit and so on. There is still a trigger. If the trigger on those shares activates—I have just remembered it as I'm sitting here—

It is actually interesting to check while filming. Ah, I can see the trigger. If it activates—I have just checked the price at which it activates. I was looking at this today, and it is always useful information as a real example. How does life actually unfold? If the trigger activates, those shares will automatically be put up for sale. Then I will say, "Oh, I made the wrong decision." Even that isn't certain, because perhaps the trigger will activate, they will fall further, I will buy them more cheaply, reenter the position, and earn even more money on them. The goal isn't to earn the maximum; the goal is to earn over the long term. These shares were bought for the long term, to sell in about ten years, perhaps three, but no earlier. Some are for ten years; some, okay, three. There are shares you buy for a month, but that is a different objective, isn't it? A different purpose, a different way of thinking. Different events altogether, different events.

OSOlga Stolyarova

I understand all that, I do. Honestly, I understand that I need to bring in awareness, give this attention in general, and try to live from awareness. Still, I realize I may be repeating the question, but take a specific example: a person faces a choice. You said to give it time and observe. What if there is no opportunity to give it time? For example, in business, a potential partner is waiting for an answer about whether to enter a partnership. There is a limited time frame.

AVAlexander Volchek

Time is always limited. Look, time is always limited. For one thing, your life is finite. When I say time, we don't know whether that means ten minutes or thirty. When I said to go to the bathroom, you can still always go to the bathroom. As for making a decision when a partner is waiting, then you need to take the business separately and examine it using a specific method, such as the one I discuss so often, and make the decision through that method. Know clearly that you will do business according to the goal you need: I want profit, I simply want to launch a business, I want a partnership—

To launch it. I want a partnership. At least try to understand the risks, how decisions will be made, what the principles and strategy are, what will happen, what happens if everyone earns money, what happens if everyone loses everything, how much needs to be invested, and so on. Discuss a whole range of aspects with proper thought. You don't need to buy an expensive course for that now. I have an enormous amount of material on the subject that is even free. Or in V100, for example, you can get and watch a great deal. It is inexpensive: a monthly subscription costs only a hundred and fifty dollars. Often, a single video can help, a single video can help you avoid a mistake. Can you imagine how important a decision this is? You say, "The partner is waiting. I need to decide quickly." You want to make a decision that will reshape your life. Starting a business if you have never had one, or choosing your main occupation, becomes the main part of your life. You say, "I need to decide quickly." How do you want to treat it? Like choosing a restaurant? Don't treat it that way. But people want to. Yes, I understand. I'm saying people want to treat it like choosing a restaurant.

They don't want to take it seriously, run the numbers, and look. How many businesses are opened without calculations, without details? Calculations aren't needed because they help you earn money. They don't help you earn money in every business. They are needed at least to bring in awareness, to make you answer difficult, contentious questions. In business, people often don't want to, and aren't ready to, discuss questions like: what will we do if someone decides to close the business? What if someone stops working? How will we behave? Why don't people want to discuss these things? Because they fear the question might lead the other person to refuse, for example. Then you need to understand that you are entering a situation where an enormous number of problems may arise later. That's all. You are entering that situation and taking a risk. Acknowledge the risk and then choose. Sometimes the risk may cost you your life; sometimes it may not. There are businesses where the risk can cost you your life. You can be imprisoned for improper transactions in the business. Calmly tell yourself, "Yes, I am entering a business that could cost me my life." That's all.

That's all. Simply say it to yourself calmly. If you get married without signing a prenuptial agreement, you risk taking on your partner's debts or losing your property at some point. That is a major situation. For example, there is a very interesting situation in the legal system in the Russian-speaking world: you can open a business alone at a notary's office, but to close it, both spouses have to come and agree. It is very funny: as a husband or wife, I can open a business, run up astronomical losses, and saddle my partner with the debts. But we have to close it together. Why is that? What is the logic? Do you see? What is the logic? A very strange arrangement. Of course, arguments can be made for and against it, and so on. But the people who designed it considered only certain aspects. Obviously, if you have to get your wife's permission every time you open a business, you need a marital agreement stating that your wife has no involvement in or influence over your businesses from the outset.

Or that the husband has no influence over or involvement in the businesses, and remove the problem. But people don't think about that when they fall in love, do they? Someone who does has a different awareness, different motives, or sees the risks differently. It doesn't depend on the amount of money. We all know enormous numbers of stories where people lose billions of dollars entirely because of situations like these. There are also people who were extremely careful and still lost billions. It doesn't depend on that. Husbands and wives can then behave very differently.

OSOlga Stolyarova

What should you do if we go one layer lower, or deeper, as I see it—I don't know how to put it—when a person sees the right decision, feels with their whole being that this is it, but is afraid of making a mistake or has some doubt and keeps postponing it? Or, when the right decision arises, is there no question of doubt at all? There simply isn't any, and you just know this is what needs to be done?

AVAlexander Volchek

Look, Olya, the most important thing here is not to try... Look, what matters to you is winning itself. You say relief comes because, for example, you made the right decision. But look reasonably at everything that is happening. You want to find an answer you like—I keep saying this—one that brings you pleasure and means you won't lose. Listen to my reasoning: I am talking about the existence of the next step, making that decision correctly, noticing that you make mistakes, being aware when you make a wrong decision, consciously drawing conclusions, and not distorting cause and effect. I am not saying your life must be wonderful or that every next step must work out. I am not saying that. Imagine you made a decision and see that it was mistaken. It was mistaken. So what? As I said about my own life, I made many decisions when I was young without awareness. At least, I don't remember any awareness. Perhaps it was there, but I don't remember it. Well, I made the decisions.

It was a mistake. Okay. I made the wrong decision about opening or closing a business, joining or separating from partners, paying someone a bonus or not, speaking to a boss one way or another, launching a project or not, meeting these people or not, getting to know them or not, telling them something this way or another way. I made many mistaken decisions. So what? At least I don't suffer over them. That is number one. First, I don't suffer over them. Second, I don't deceive others about them or try to. Third, I don't deceive myself, because this is life. Life includes mistakes, if we are speaking in social and material terms. From the perspective of the spiritual world, there are levels where there is no concept of a mistake as such. No concept of a mistake at all. There is simply life and different actions. No concept of good or bad. No concept of good or bad at all, no mistake as such. There is simply movement, the movement of everything in the world. But I am not suggesting that you reason in terms of that universal movement now. I am suggesting that you at least consider feeling calm when you have made a mistake.

Don't try to tell yourself you missed an opportunity, because you don't know what the circumstances would have been if that opportunity had unfolded. Let me remind you about balance. You don't know what that balance would have been, how other aspects would have developed, what would have happened to your health, your psyche, your state, what it would have brought, what states it would have brought. Often, it seems that if I had taken that action, I would have ended up somewhere else, when in fact I would have ended up in exactly the same place. Often, it seems I would have ten times as much money in my account. Fine, ten times as much money, but exactly the same problems, living circumstances, and topics to think about. The same topics, of the same kind. For example, my wife never has enough money, regardless of how much she has. Never enough. Never. Somehow, she always ends up with thirty-six cents or twenty-five cents left on her card. That is why you can't give her a credit card—

With no limit. If she knows how to take it down to zero, I don't understand how that is possible. I remember when we lived in Moscow for a long time. I said, "Polina, how is it possible? You might have twenty dollars left on a card, or twelve, but how do you end up with ten cents? What do you have to buy? How do you do that?" I understand that if someone earns—or spends—four hundred dollars a month, they might have ten cents left. "But not you," I tell her. "That shouldn't be what's left for you." Your inner state doesn't change with the quantity, do you understand? It doesn't change with where you live or where you are. Fine, you want more, you'll have more, but your inner state won't change. You say, "I need another ten handbags." You'll have ten handbags, and your inner state won't change. You won't want a handbag anymore; you'll want a closet. You say, "I need a different relationship with a husband." You're trying your fifteenth boyfriend, and it is the same story. It makes no difference whether he is six foot three or five foot three, dark-haired or blond, with long arms or short arms.

No difference at all. Nothing changes because of it. Whether he swears or uses refined language, whether you go to restaurants or theaters together, your inner state and the results are the same. With your parents, you say, "We live together: conflict. We move apart: the same conflict, just less of it because we don't see each other every day." Yet it seems the circumstances have changed completely, the situation, the surroundings, everything has changed. And—

Everything has changed, but the circumstances of what happens are the same. Nothing changes. When my mother visits me, it doesn't matter whether she stays two weeks, thirty days, or forty-five days. Once, she stayed sixty days. I said, "Do you realize you've spent more time living beside me than we spent seeing each other over the past five years, roughly speaking?" But it is the same. The same. What difference does it make whether we talk on the phone or in person? The same kind of interaction. It hasn't changed. That means the cause is elsewhere. The cause is something else. People often fail to notice that cause. That is why you need to keep looking at why you want a business, more money, or better relationships. What do you want? What exactly do you want? Simply pay attention to it. There are many paradoxical, complex, incomprehensible patterns. For example, over the past two weeks, I have noticed that in the evening I want to go to sleep not at eight thirty or nine, when I usually go to bed, but at seven. Does that mean my days have become difficult or exhausting, or that I am losing energy? Not at all. My inner energy has been in a very good state these two weeks.

I simply want to go to bed. Once again, this says that the influences and causes affecting the energy of sleep and its details lie on another plane, not in basic events: what I ate, whom I spoke to, what I did, how much strain there was during the day. Those aren't the actions involved now, because everything is the same: good food, a normal day, appropriate states. So there are other causes. We know other causes affect sleep and sleep quality. The spiritual world has a very strong influence. I simply don't deceive myself into thinking I know the answer. I don't deceive myself; that is very important. Again, I say there are some of these structures I don't understand and won't enter. People come to me and ask about sleep: "Tell me..." Actually, something interesting happened recently. The camera operators filming my interview in English about spiritual development—at the end, one of them, someone born in America, said, "Alexander, can you tell me what dreams mean from the perspective of the spiritual world?" I told him, "Don't interpret them.

The probability of a correct interpretation is close to zero, tends toward zero. Since it tends toward zero, don't enter that area. You can simply observe neutrally, from the outside. Some people remember their dreams and so on. You can look at things, but don't exalt them." I recently posted some paintings for meditation on my website. The very day I posted them, a participant in the Life group wrote, "Alexander, I dreamed about you last night. We walked around looking at paintings, and I asked you questions. Is this artist spiritually strong or not? Are the paintings needed or not?" I simply liked her message and moved on. Why? Because the fact that she had that dream has no significance for me. It has no significance for her either. None. It is like saying, "Olya, did you know I just saw a squirrel run along a palm tree?" Okay. If I told you that six bears ran along a palm tree here in this region, you would probably say, "Really? Send a photo." Probably. Someone might, anyway.

Or if I said there was a shark in a palm tree, you wouldn't believe me, would you? Things like that. You wouldn't pay attention to all the other basic, simple things. They are basic, simple things. She dreamed we were walking around. What difference does it make? Even if someone searches for something in it, what are they looking for? Events. What happened? What happened? She scanned ahead, intuitively sensed I would post paintings. She saw I was being creative. But I talk everywhere, a great deal, about creating paintings. I talk about it; I don't hide being involved in it. I talked a lot about paints, especially on my travels. I talked about it recently. Or she is in her own processes and had some interaction with me. Or it is simply an illusion. What difference does it make? Look, Olya, what does it influence at all? What difference does it make? The person wants to single it out as a miracle, to exalt the event. But it is simply an event, one of many. Our task is to learn not to exalt events, whether they are good or ordinary. As you said, if you did something right and then thought, "Phew, well done me, I got it right..." You simply inflated your ego. You want to exalt it, simply inflate your ego.

Do you understand? You can pass through it and say, "Oh, this happened here, that happened there. Excellent," and keep going. It doesn't mean you won't make a mistake in that same place next time. Someone who can do a somersault might still make a slight mistake one day and break their neck. Do you understand? Look at how every kind of device works—an iPhone, anything at all. Or a cup standing here, a cup that held boiling water. There is a substantial chance I could scratch my lip on it or nick a blood vessel and start bleeding. Or the iPhone could heat up, and there is a one-in-a-billion chance it might explode in my hands. That possibility exists: it could catch fire and burn a hole in my table, or burn my hand. That burn could trigger an abscess or some reaction, and I could die from it. So exalting your state because something worked or didn't work only gratifies the ego.

Exclusively. That is what blocks perception, Olya. One thing you need to do urgently, definitely, is stop pampering yourself for good things and stop punishing yourself for bad things. Now everyone will say, "How can we do without that? You have to rejoice, buy yourself a little candy, something else." It is like March 8, International Women's Day. Someone comes and says, "It's March 8 today." I say, "So what? Can we celebrate women on days other than March 8? Can people give me gifts on days other than my birthday? Can they think of me and do good things for me on days other than my birthday?" You can do it at any time, not just on a holiday. Any time. Don't live within that boundary or wait for that date. Otherwise, an enormous number of problems arise. An enormous number. You wait, and then someone doesn't give you something you yourself expected. You need to look at whether you give to other people yourself.