Unveiling the Path to Self: Personal Transformation through Neutrality and the Observation Zone

AVAlexander Volchek

How truly and sincerely do you understand what's actually happening right now? Perhaps in business, in your family, or in your management team. I've had a huge number of encounters, dozens of encounters with different businesses and very different amounts of money. Firmness, confidence, emotional calm. It doesn't really matter to me whether that person was fired or kept. There's a great deal of life ahead, with millions of dollars and with single dollars. How ready are you to view it neutrally, regardless of what's in your bank account? Do I really have to enter a crisis or a difficult situation to begin transforming as a person? Do I need to hit rock bottom, experience loss, lose balance or stability, face difficulties in my family, work, finances, or business, or hit some ceiling? Does transformation happen through difficulty, or can it follow another course? Our lives are actually a process of development. A person develops from birth until the end of life. That can be positive development, what we usually call development, or negative development, what people often call deterioration.

It's a change in a person's life and state. If someone reaches a point of trouble or conflict, they've entered a difficult, often greatly deteriorated state. At that point, transformation happens completely naturally, just as naturally as their arrival there. Alongside them, someone else follows their own path of development, with changes happening throughout their life. We see, for example, that their changes are positive. On one side, there's a person—

on one side, someone struggling and stuck may have earned a million dollars and then lost two million. Another earned a million and then another three million on top. Both may experience an inner transformation. What is transformation? The transformation we're looking for involves an insight or conclusion and a series of events leading to positive development. In reality, transformation is a set of events that again leads to that same ongoing development and life, either toward deterioration or toward positive things. Someone may have been developing wonderfully and moving forward, then undergone a transformation and begun deteriorating. They were doing incredibly well in business and suddenly started losing everything. Clearly, a transformation happened. And vice versa. So it's hardly reasonable—and you absolutely shouldn't assume—that change necessarily rests on a problem arising. I see it in my own experience: thousands of changes and events have happened in my life.

I've had a huge number of encounters, dozens of encounters with different businesses and very different amounts of money, from millions of dollars to single dollars; enormous partnerships and shrinking down to something small. Telling yourself, “I'll keep suffering, and then perhaps I'll find a point of transformation,” is inner selfishness that justifies or, conversely, whips your own state of arriving at a particular point. There's actually nothing bad in a bad or conflict-filled event happening in our lives. What's bad is acting untruthfully in response. We begin—

acting untruthfully in response. We begin treating other people badly: deceiving, stealing, lying, contradicting ourselves, building illusions, and going in completely the wrong direction. That's bad. If life takes us along a difficult path, I don't think that itself is bad. The question is how we view it and act from there. Being able, at any moment and regardless of events, to understand that this is life, with many different motives, moods, and states, first allows me to be human, spiritual, and truthful, to live by the laws of the universe, become myself, and see my true next step. If I'm as fully myself as possible and see my next step as clearly as possible, that will definitely be the right action for positive development—in this case, definitely positive. If I act truthfully according to the laws of the universe, the world, space, society, and relationships, and correctly see and choose my next step in that state—if it's naturally the right step here and now, and those steps differ for different people—then the development is positive.

The development that's meant for you, for you as this particular person. So you absolutely shouldn't compare yourself with others or compare other people, saying, “Look, this person succeeded and that one didn't,” “They failed, so I'll fail,” or “They succeeded, so I'll succeed.” All these comparisons are completely meaningless, like reading coffee grounds. For the most part, there's no real, truthful, honest pattern behind them. That supposed logical pattern isn't about truth or what will give you inner strength, firmness, and confidence—

new strength, firmness, confidence, emotional calm, stability, honesty, and good forward movement. One important aspect of examining what's happening is our inner state, our capacity and feeling for understanding truth, or a certain belief. Some words I use, for instance, may cause discomfort, aversion, rejection, or a sense that this isn't about you or isn't something you need. If that state arises, it makes sense to pay attention to it. Not by admitting “I'm wrong,” but certainly not by asserting “I'm right” either. If someone is speaking and I'm listening, why not take that information and place it in an observation zone? What does that mean? Hearing something and trying to regard it neutrally, neither fully agreeing nor fully rejecting it. Any transformation, growth in scale, or change in a person or business always involves entering a state of neutrality. For a person, neutrality in feelings, agreement, or decision-making.

For a business, neutrality in discussing matters and making decisions, and the ability to hear something that seems foreign to that business. Or hearing something familiar five hundred times and placing even that familiar thing under neutral observation. A neutral flag. Don't score or prioritize it: what's primary or secondary, what will definitely work and what won't. “This has a probability of a hundred, that a probability of three.” Don't prioritize like that. Try to place every thought and idea in a state of neutral—

neutral observation, understanding that every action involved in your transformation—as an owner, businessperson, entrepreneur, strong manager, partner, visionary, or person with a great deal of life ahead—depends on your inner core and state. How do you feel about a particular idea? About everything going very badly in five years? Or going incredibly well? About earning $100 a month in five years, or $10 million a month? What's your state and reaction? Is it the same or different? A great state is reacting the same way to $100 a month and $10 million a month, regardless of what's in your bank account, how many children you have, where you live, or whether you face difficulties.

The most appropriate, natural state in life is to feel neutral about this possible event. First, it's five years away. We always want everything tomorrow, even transformation and growth. Second, you've simply been asked to imagine this state. It hasn't happened. Can I imagine both possibilities the same way? Can I refrain from saying, “No, that won't happen,” “That will happen,” “It's possible,” or “It's impossible”? Can I remain neutral, feeling calm? Yes, in ten years I may have a serious health problem and die. Or I may have wonderful health and feel like a young lion cub. Not to—

not to discuss “inviting trouble” or what nonsense you're talking about, but to explore how neutrally you can feel it. To step away from operations, you need to be ready for anything to happen in the company. For example, a team member who's been with you for ten years may be fired. Do you say, “I'm ready,” or, “Why fire them? How will that happen? What will that involve? Are you sure it's right?” It creates a strange state. I'm discussing it neutrally and abstractly right now. It doesn't really matter to me whether this person is fired or kept. If I turn to my own actual business and imagine firing someone there, how will I feel? Will I feel neutral and try to listen, or find it very hard to take? In that neutral, balanced state, you can hear the right next step for yourself—and, in fact, keep hearing the next step and taking the right steps and actions.

That creates an incredibly sound foundation. Write in the comments what provoked intense rejection or confusion, anger, aggression, or resistance in you: terminology, feelings, the speaker, a thought, idea, space, or neighbors. Perhaps you recalled something about your partnership, daily life, family, past or future life, plans, current events, power, relations between countries, animals, nature, a store, money, or earnings. After writing it in any manner, even aggressively, honestly tell yourself and me in the comments how ready you are to view it neutrally, how clear your perspective and feelings are, how much you—

how clear your feelings are, how well you understand what you're saying, and how truly and sincerely you understand what's actually happening now. Then, importantly, press Enter. Writing something negative privately is easy. Reflecting on it is already very difficult, and sending it afterward is very hard. But we all need to send it, share it, and live through it. I'll certainly try to offer personal direction to everyone who's interested and asks for it, who personally wants an answer and wants to understand this for themselves. If you heard something true for you, something about observation, neutrality, or the next step, write exactly what you heard and what it connected with nearby: in business, family, your management team, financial accounting system, sales and marketing, your strategy for improving security, your neighbor's garden, your children's school, a book—anywhere you felt that truth while watching this video.

Notice what question you have here and now that we could discuss together, explore in future videos, or that I could help you with. Record that comment too. It will be incredibly important. Subscribe to our videos and channel, and watch the other videos. See you soon in videos exploring thinking, scale, the personal growth of business owners, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and businesses overall. We discuss systems and people, and, most importantly, how to fully reach your point of true development and purpose, then shoot forward like a bullet into the next step.