Naffigator. Calm down and live consciously

About my little girl

The day before yesterday Victoria apologized for a whim that had made me sad and held out her little finger – an intention to make up. At that moment, I felt so ashamed of my emotional reaction and so proud of my daughter that I even shed a tear. After we made peace, she hugged me with her little arms and suggested going to the store to buy TWO chocolate eggs (kinder) - for me and herself - just to cheer us up.

It’s been a while since I was planning to share the results of the "achieving-the-result-through-the-state" experiment from my previous post, but everything has faded away against my sweetheart’s behaviour.

It wasn’t at all common among my parents’ generation (and among older generations) to consider it necessary to perceive a baby as a COMPLETE personality and to expect CONSCIOUS actions and reactions from a child. But one shouldn't blame them. Nobody taught Anna and me these simple truths either, and we didn’t have any behavior patterns in store. Being parents we were partially "fixed" by knowledge from psychology and memories of our own childhood. Basically, this is a difficult but a gratifying study of personal problems in the long term. 

I'm glad that we managed to understand this in time Victoria has started claiming recently that she would like to be a unicorn, and she asked me to buy her a toy pistol as a birthday present (in pink colour of course). I suppose she has a plan re how to make our world a better place  One way or another, I will help her

By the way, my honey is three years old on September 11

In plain words, you’ll get what you want in case you initially start thinking and behaving like a person worthy of the level and environment you are dreaming about. NOT VICE VERSA. So, for now I'm testing this hypothesis on myself. So far it’s been working so effectively that I’m leaning towards the following idea: it’s the only way how it always happens in fact (this process just takes a bit longer unconsciously). It seems to be the shortest way to the top of the Maslow pyramid. Lectures given by top multimillionaire speakers, the right books, working on yourself with a psychologist, healthy introspection: the core of this idea has begun to come up everywhere. Either I’ve just got this far or the correct environment has been finally formed. But it doesn’t matter, it’s important for me that this is finally going on. ⠀ To break through (and not raise) the "glass ceiling" you need to " get back to basics": try to sort yourself out, your psyche, problems, dreams and desires. Therefore, I’ve frozen all energetically demanding activities, given up searching for new ones and come back to the very beginning – I’ve begun to figure myself out.

Subtotal: Growth and development in matters that used to be vitally important are happening in the background, problems are being resolved just without any influence from my side. Total monthly income has risen a little without any significant efforts unexpectedly.

Based on this logic, our move to St. Petersburg and a new level of quality of life has resulted in MINUS on a BUDGET, though it probably turns out to be the BEST long-term investment as well. ⠀ To sum up, if there is a mess in business it makes no sense to try to restore order without internal changes. For 10 problems solved by enormous efforts, 100 new ones will appear, for 100 solved there will be 1000 more, any optimizations are useless. The situation can be changed if you stop and figure it out: what is wrong with me? And the more thoroughly you figure it out, the higher this event stream will take you to.

After 10 f*cking days, the shock from information flow has passed and I’ve developed the immunity to such volumes of data. Though it still remains to figure out what I need to learn myself and what should be properly delegated. Feel free to share your secret techniques of information detoxification and digital diet! Damn, this topic is so relevant, especially for us - millennials (the AutoCorrect suggests replacing it with «millionaires», but it’s not the time yet, just not the time yet)

At the university they say “Forget everything you learned at school”, when it comes to work - “Forget everything that you learned at the university”, when you go into business you’d hear - “Forget everything”. Everyone thinks exclusively subjectively. If you claim to be objective, I have bad news for you. Firstly, no, secondly, if you think so then you are also inert in this regard.

Novice entrepreneurs often make one and the same mistake at the beginning: they judge for themselves. It can be connected with the need for this or that product or service, these can be the concerns about the blog/site and how it should look like, how you show your expertise or even how you look. It’s the attitude to political events, the awareness of the "masses" in some sphere, the evidence of the facts you know and so on and so forth. This list is endless.

If you believe you know something about the world you are mistaken. To survive and succeed in business you need to learn "testing." Learn to try, to test hypotheses, to collect feedback, to analyze and to try again. Nothing will work at random. And if you suddenly manage to take a wild guess – ohh, what a DISASTER – this enchanting success won’t last long until enough key changes are accumulated in the environment around. Then, at best, you will find yourself simply depressed, without debt and time. This is especially true now, when the pace of change is growing exponentially. In such conditions, it is vital to develop flexibility and “adequacy”. You can train it, but first you have to put up with it and accept the scarcity of your perception.

Flexibility is important not only when it comes to business: business just requires it in a greater degree. You can play a waiting game for quite a long time in a quiet province where “nothing happens”, but sooner or later a turning point in external circumstances will touch you. In case you aren’t prepared for this in advance, it will break you in half. I adhere to the theory that success (not only financial) is an indicator of adequacy to the current state of the outside world. If I am not successful, I am inadequate. What do you think?

It’s already 3rd week that I’ve been studying the techniques of a healthy Win-Win business (it’s the case when both the client and the company are the winners and are satisfied. Yes, the rarest phenomenon for our country, but it’s possible). At the same time Anna is testing break-through-glass-ceiling techniques on herself (quite successfully) and even succeeds in sharing insiders with me. Let me describe one of the mental fruits of this infernal porridge of premature enlightenment.

Truly successful entrepreneurs who own multimillion-dollar companies that bring real VALUE to people and solve their TROUBLES can create them just from the ground up. Indeed, their basic skills contradict with the truth and the demand that schools and universities are massively drilling into our brains. ⠀ Roughly speaking, those D-pupils sitting in the back of the classroom are people who initially have more solid and correct attitudes in goal setting and achievement. From nature, they just do it on a level of intuition. On the other hand, the excellent students in this coordinate system happen to be into a total crap on average. If they want to get out of it, they need a lot to UNSEE. The perfectionism I’ve mentioned previously is just one of such points.

Being a father, I came to the following conclusion: if a child doesn’t want to go to school, then the child is RIGHT. This laziness indicates that what is happening in the classroom is just not for this child. If you prefer to close your eyes at such moments and make your children learn by force, their brain will be trained to ignore their own intuition and will be afraid to search for different ways round. The children will be learning to keep silent every time they don’t agree year after year, and as a consequence, their unreleased negative energy and emotional blockage will slowly squeeze and destroy their body. As a result, you’ll get an unmotivated weak-willed person, incapable of any initiative. This person would wait for the permission to speak and when finally allowed, he or she will just keep silent, increasing the number of their own nerve clamps.

That’s how the education system turns into a creepy conveyor belt, the outer product of which is hunched shy people who are unable to listen to themselves, think creatively and grow up adequate to the world around them. Those who managed to get out of this conveyor, the so-called "talent", constitute a small percentage of lucky people whose hobbies coincided accidentally with one or more school subjects. We all do know that there are no bad or wrong children. You’ve learned now where they disappear. ⠀ PS: I fell in love with math at primary school

The previous post re subduing emotions gave rise to a vivid discussion with ambiguous interpretations. @ Ekaterina Spiridonova deeply felt what the topic was about and precisely described all this:"...there are two extremes: one can simply endure and accumulate negative feelings, or vice versa try to defend oneself in a quite aggressive way, bursting out with negativity. But there is something in between: one can calmly and firmly defend oneself, not offending others and at the same time not resorting to negativity. But you’ve got to go to extremes in order to achieve this state: when you’ve got used to endure for the whole life you learn to defend yourself through aggression. Only when you get through this experience, you’ll be able to find a middle ground, that is a calm solid protection. As soon as it happens, you’ll start respecting yourself and the others around you". Constructively, consciously and practically said.

For sure, this is the topic of setting up personal boundaries and arousing self-esteem. If you got used to endure silently and put up with everything from the very beginning (in childhood, at school, at the university, etc) you’ll have to get out of this self-confidence-absence hole through aggression when you’re finally allowed to speak out. If you try to make everyone happy and pleased -- you will be dragged back. Don’t restrain yourself! Better apologize later if it turns out you were wrong. In case you haven’t given way to all the negativity, do cry over the spilt milk, it’s some use. Popular proverbs weren’t based on psychosomatics!

Proactivity and positive perception are probably important topics for studying, but they can be useful later. If you are an “endurer” and can’t get out of this state, just hear it, realize, remember, write it down, make a tattoo: ⚡ while you are keeping it to yourself you aren’t just feeling sad, you’re voluntarily DESTROYING YOUR ORGANISM on a physical level. ⠀ PS: Thanks for the extraordinary pints of view @ Victoria Petrukhina @ Nina Shurykina @ Pavel Danilov @ Ekaterina Spiridonova

- What would you like? - Frankly speaking, your borsch was so terrible yesterday… it was a way too salty. The canteen saleswoman was taken aback when received such a harsh and unexpected reply, the queue granted us with the judgmental looks. However, the soup was really salty, even more salty than the barbecue I’d bought once in the center of Smolensk on a city day - and that, believe me, was the level. - May be somebody’s just fallen in love, - I replied, cooling off and converting the situation into a joke. As I could judge from the reaction, it became clear that it wasn’t the specific case at all for this place. It turned out that a young cook was working yesterday. - Well, for sure - we both laughed. To be on the safe side, that time the saleswoman tasted the soup herself, either with caution or hope – that day it was her shift.

All this happened on the morning when I was leaving Yalta. I understood that I wouldn’t probably come back to this canteen again. So, why to get involved then? I would say, it was definitely worth it! But not because of the concerns regarding the quality of Crimean catering. When I approached the till, negative feelings experienced the previous day were dwelling on me. But as soon as expressed my concerns I felt relief.

One of the skills that I’ve finally gained during that retreat contained the following truth: you should get up and leave if the movie is a total crap, you shouldn’t finish your meal if the food is disgusting or when you are already full, you should be able to stop an unpleasant conversation on the spot and indicate / correct immediately what bothers you or appears unpleasant. In general, just keep calm, listen carefully and hear yourself.

Those who have already come to it and behave like I’ve described above – please accept my deep respect. At that moment I felt how my inner energy was encouraged by this situation, maybe because I had so little of it. You may look as an inadequate drama queen to the people around, well, let it be. Now I do believe that it’s the only right way. And what about you: do you keep silent or blow up?

Every day is a small life. If yesterday was a mess try to change something today. And if it doesn’t help, try something else tomorrow. Could be wrong, but repeating one and the same monotonous action hoping to get a different result looks like one of the symptoms of schizophrenia...

“Make 15 pots of satisfactory quality or make just 1 but GOOD to pass the test” – the following task was once assigned to students. As it turned out later, it was an experiment. The results surprised even those who’d made it up: the students who chose the less energy-intensive option, the second one to be more precise (to make one best pot), couldn’t even reach the average result and catch up with other group.

The first version of the mentioned story was shared by me even before I started this blog. It’s developing smoothly for now, without serious efforts or investments from my side. The audience isn’t very extensive yet, but the fact that there are people who has found the published information useful makes me happy and inspires. ⠀ Those who’s followed me from the very beginning can confirm that the blog was launched on the principle of the mentioned 15 pots and I had to adjust everything along the way. There is still a lot of work to do, but if I wanted to do everything perfectly initially, the blog wouldn’t come to life. “Naffigator” is just a small part of my life - one of the 6-7 key areas of activity.

In fact, I apply the same approach in other spheres of my life. Questions and doubts are resolved along the way. Problems come post factum, as well as updates and refinements. Minor things are discarded in cold blood. Workflows are streamlined and optimized. The engine is slowly gaining momentum. So soon the world will see some more interesting projects. Well, It's not for sure... ©

Let me share with you, guys, that up here in St. Petersburg we are bursting out with ideas. To cut the story short, the other day, I asked two people who weren’t close at all to my family to give an HONEST review about the blog header and my posts: what is clear or not, what doesn’t appeal to them, what I am missing, what may seem annoying, etc. I’d predicted the following effect of the first review: the pain of criticism and the feeling of sadness. It’s no secret that you see your work “in your own way,” because it’s you who knows the context, the background, your plans and all the details. Behind the apparent obviousness you don’t even consider it necessary to go into explanations about your beloved creation. Every time we are convinced and sure that this time it’s definitely not about us. But the person who had been roaming around the web and all of a sudden came across your blog for the first time might look at all this creativity and grant you with the following reaction: “Emmm .... Whaaat??? 😬” And then he would leave, though the information you’d shared and the project you’d created was exactly what he was searching and longing for.

When the pain stepped back, I realized that it was only me to blame, so I reviewed the header and started adding everything that was missing there. It’s even became appealing to me now, although it is far from the ideal. Then we’ve done the same regarding the tour group. The next day, when Anna ceased crying and stopped hating me for insisting on this painful step, she digested the criticism and understood WHAT should be fixed (a lot of things in fact) so that her energy and valuable ideas would reach out more than only a close circle of friends.

In general, the blogger’s/businessman’s pain at the beginning of their endeavors can be quickly, easily and appropriately explained so it would make sense: “They don’t understand me. Maybe nobody needs what I’m trying to do... Waa..waah…😥 ". But that’s not true! People need what you’re doing, though sometimes it’s not easy to get your ideas across to someone. On average it takes a person 10 seconds to decide whether to read / follow you or not. This person can bump into your blog via advertising, contest or even by chance, it doesn’t matter. So, if you make the header wrong or not appealing to the audience, then you don’t have to continue.

We can make use of this situation and offer the following deal: several people (these are already 2 for now) will look at your site. They are just plain people who aren’t familiar at all with the topic of promotion, copywriting, etc. They will constructively and sincerely describe their first impression when looking though a site / group / website. You should be ready to get the constructive criticism. Altogether with Anna, we are ready to offer 2-4 such tasks for testing. The review is carried out for a nominal fee of 300 rubles, then we evaluate the results, check your feedback and decide whether to give life to this project or not.

⠀ Who wants to get a sober unbiased look at the online reflection of their business, don’t hesitate to write to PM to me or Anna (Анюта Чехленкова). Tomorrow we’ll be able to put tasks to work. The number of “probes” is limited

It’s our 6th day after moving to St. Petersburg... At dinner time it comes to my mind that I don’t regret the money spent on food. In Smolensk we practiced and further acquired a useful habit not to restrict yourself when it comes to quality (not only in terms of food). Healthy tasty food, the best places to go out, expensive items, safety, expensive trips – it all sounds great! But somewhere very deep inside I had a slight feeling of being too cheap. Quality is a serious burden on the family budget. But it’s come that it isn’t about the money...

Imagine, you are driving an import car... but at the same time you are driving across the mess of dirt and rubbish, you are even parking there as well. You set off to bright adventures, but when they finish you return to dullness and this dump, where you want to howl because of boredom and I don’t even mention absence of any inspiration there. You have a spacious comfortable apartment with a twist and everything you need, but then you open the door and go out... In general, you don’t feel the aftertaste of positive outbreaks for long.

You may say that one can struggle and even manage to solve something. One can for sure! I’ve written about it myself. But I don’t want to struggle again - it’s time for us to LIVE and to CREATE, not to “run still”! The dissonance between the level you are trying to fit yourself in and the level that surrounds you has a negative impact on your internal state and ability to create. It has become obvious to me now.

For the moment I’m driving across the CLEAN city in a CLEAN car, which remains clean. I’m parking it in a clean well-groomed yard. I don’t bring pieces of mud on my boots into a comfortable apartment in the English style. At the weekend I grab some coffee and a bite to go, paying by phone. Then I get into a taxi that I called 40 seconds ago using the same phone and head to another business-related event (I don’t even remember the topic, as I came across it only the previous day and wrote down the address and start time). Taxi is also paid automatically, I used to be skeptical and afraid of such functions but now it doesn’t even bother me. At the same time, Anna (Анюта Чехленкова) is at another interesting meeting useful for the development of her personally composed tours. And the daughter is in the weekend kindergarten for God’s Sake! I won’t even tease you with stories about game classes in English or Spanish for kids or the opportunity to leave the baby for the whole night. In the evening I already feel the ability to conquer the whole world. I return to the beautiful historical center and don’t cease to enjoy what is happening around me.

The quality of life has become a very specific and tangible thing. As for me and my wife, we are thrilled to bits because of what is going on around! A cozy apartment we rent in the center, a private garden, trainings with a business guru -- all this costs an arm and a leg. But the question “how much is it?” doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m concerned about the other question: what should I take to make this continue and increase pace. Because for the first time it’s clear for me: what for.

Any need to delegate? ⠀ Have you ever heard about such an engineer and entrepreneur as Elon Musk? He is my number one idol. Well, he is the one who put a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit into the driver's seat of the electric car and launched it into space merely to cross the orbit of Mars on the world's most powerful rocket, accompanied by David Bowie's song "Space Oddity". What for? Well, like just to try if it’s gonna work or not. ⠀ The rocket was constructed by his private company SpaceX that even overshadowed NASA.

Yesterday I was drifting along Moskovsky Prospect: it was so wide, so looong, what a beauty! I was on my way back from some event about increasing financial IQ. I was feeling high. Not because of the event, it was actually so-so, but because of what was happening around. The car was washed, the tank was full, there was music around, civilization, and a beautiful city.  I was heading to a majestic historical center to my family. Now I’m absolutely convinced that my decision was right: if you have an opportunity, move then, otherwise you’ll regret you haven’t done it.

I haven’t got a chance to write in detail about the state I had when we arrived in St. Petersburg. It actually was disturbing and gloomy much like the sky and the weather on those days. I tried not to reveal my true feelings (as I may assume), but it was psychologically hard. But when days passed, every consciously chosen action and portions of new information about the city made me feel better and better. Now I’m feeling well and calm. Business took off, the mood returned to normal, the creativity increased. Ann seems to feel the same. I’m glad we’re here and don’t want to leave.

As for motivation and goal setting, it’ll come in my favorite format: it’ll be tough, practical and effective. I’m telling what is happening right here and right now.

On Saturday, I got rid of the burden that I’d set up for myself: 3-5 stories every day, scheduling the posts, content plan. I felt free and at ease immediately and I was thinking that l wouldn’t even publish anything for a week, I would relax. Yeah, I would. But when Sunday evening came, I felt the inevitable desire to write though this time I wished to share something else – what was happening right now. If you want something, then you can do it. And off any schedule.

I’ve added a new item into the updated heading of the blog – let me call it the next “stronghold” of a goal. It would cost a fortune (over 26 million) and this is not a joke: it’s the initial price of the desired apartment. To cut the story short, while I was gazing at the wall in the bathroom, all alone, I tried to structure the information and understand what was going on. Why so… why so much… damn, everything used to be ok!

And now let me share with you what I’ve managed to “realize.” What the goal that upgrades you to the next level should be like:

1. IT SHOULD BE INSPIRING Thinking of this goal should drive you mad and encourage. It should create the fountain of ideas describing the ways how to achieve this goal. It’s come as one of the reasons why we are living in St. Petersburg now. No such goals exist for me in Smolensk, but if they ever do, they just appear ridiculous. You know, it's weird and silly to maneuver around the typical Smolensk potholes on a brand-new Tesla-S. It’s a total blasphemy!

2. IT SHOULD BE SPECIFIC and VISUALIZED A plain house near the lake, a plain apartment in the metropolis or just one million dollars mean nothing to our brain: all mentioned doesn’t motivate us to spend any extra drop of energy. You need the whole picture and specific details. The more vividly and brighter they are, the better. So far, we’ve had enough of photos and ads of the apartments for sale, but I guess we’ll pop in one of them soon just to look.

3. IT SHOULD BE REAL …and achievable in a reasonable time. My interval is 2 years. Well, a maximum of 3. If it takes longer, it isn’t interesting. When the brain doesn’t believe that the goal is achievable, the protective mechanism of energy saving turns on and you don’t begin to act.

4. IT SHOULD BE INCOMPATIBLE …with your current lifestyle or so-called energy level. It appears obvious to me now: if, just imagine, I earn 100 thousand candy wrappers per month, and set a goal for myself to achieve within 2-3 years, that costs (3 years) * (12 months) * (100 000) * (~ 1.5) = ~ 5,400,000 candy wrappers, then this doesn’t motivate me to make any significant changes. I would count how to increase the monthly income a little, or would try to squeeze into the budget or would wait a little longer. And would even decrease the quality of life. No, under no circumstances!

Such an approach DOES WORK, I feel like my brain is being modified and it starts to get rid of rubbish, looking for the shortest way to the goal. You’ll note this even regarding my blog. The stories will become few, they will be posted only in Instagram and only when I want them (SMM God, please forgive me). The posting process will be greatly simplified. There will be fewer commas again. Frankly speaking, I did make efforts, but the result doesn’t appeal to me. I take off the responsibility of being an expert as well, another type of burden of mine. I will stop trying to make my texts look like universal recipes for anything. I’m a man of practice, and I’ll write about what I’m applying in my everyday life, especially now, so you need to filter whether this can be applied to your life and appears safe to you. You always have comments at hand for discussions and clarifications. I’ve given up content plan. Frankly speaking, I’ve never got one, but now at least it won’t be another burden for me. However, I’ll create a set of key sections that will help me to coordinate my further publications. Btw, you can offer the variants of topics in the corresponding discussion field (just added).

I’ve quickly come to the following insight: when you occupy all the free time with important stuff to the detriment of your family, be ready to come to a dead end. So, I’ve intuitively set this goal for myself: it’s unattainable even if I work all my free time all day long from dawn till dusk doing the same kind of work. This is important for me not only because it’s so difficult and dangerous, I just don’t want to lose that close communication with my daughter I established during our Nice vacation in December and on New Year holidays. I don’t hear her “PFffeeeee!!” any longer as a reaction to my comments or prohibition. This is my personal conscious achievement. The child shouldn’t see that parents prefer some ephemeral “work”, no matter how important it appears for them to make such a cruel choice.

I don’t want to share yet how I’m planning to achieve my goal. Try to guess in the comments - maybe we’ll scrape together enough material for another useful article. If suddenly the fuse runs out, I will use a powerful tool of self-motivation that I keep in store. I will share it the moment I apply it and have inspiration.

PS:  I could have missed something that seemed obvious to me – please, don’t hesitate to ask or add it. Hereinafter I won’t be so meticulous regarding new posts. What is happening in life is more important and interesting than minor discrepancies in the narrative.

Are you fed up to death with ultramodern #catchthemoment or #mindfullife techniques? Haven’t succeeded with this stuff either, have you? Let me share with you a fresh and ready-made recipe:

1. You handle more than you are able to withstand: work, everyday routine, relationships, hobbies - all that counts, just mix to taste 👨‍🍳

2. You’re persistently simmering in all this until you are sick and tired (I can see you are gonna blow up) 😤

3. You note at least 8-9 out of 10 signs of a nervous breakdown (you can easily google the full list)

Everything is simple for the moment. If you suddenly feel sick of the thought that you need to think about anything in the morning, then you’re on the right way

4. Great! Now it’s high time to book the tickets and set off to a calm warm place or even better: buy just a one-way ticket. And go alone! The southeast of Crimea and Georgia will do at the end of October, after that - Cyprus, Tai, Nice 🏖

5. As soon as you reach the place, screw everything except the minimum necessary for survival (social networks are not included 😉)

6. Let yourself lie in the sun a couple of days until you feel a slight touch of a sense of security and serenity 😌

7. Now you’re ready to roam around the place whenever your feet take you without even seeking anything. Leave your phone, camera, book, notebook – all vital things you can’t imagine your life without - in the room. Personally, I took the keys and a bit of cash that I wasn’t afraid to lose. Your clothes should be the most comfortable one

8. While walking, just stop, well, i.e. REALLY STOP looking for any ways to solve your problems or carry out duties. Stop even thinking about them or thinking about that you don’t need to recollect any of that stuff 🙊

9. Then you start listening… Listening to yourself. Do it sensitively, delicately. Do respond to every inner impulse. If it’s positive, then carry it out. If it’s negative, just take away the cause. Suddenly you feel you’d like to turn into this weird street or turn around and go back? Please do it then. You feel you’d like to taste this beautiful candy? Well, take it! You didn’t like seller? Then call another one or go to a store nearby (why store for God’s sake!? it was in the Crimea, not in Nice ... well, doesn’t matter). You’d like to switch off the phone, hide from the radar and get lost? (it’s been already mentioned -- leave the cellphone in the room!!! 🤬). Go for it, it’ll be fun! And so on and so forth. You’ve made a wrong wish or choice, then listen attentively and correct as you like: when you’re on edge every mistake is perceived more acutely

10. Catch this state like a wave and surf it🏄‍♂️

11. I won’t write anything after that. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to know yourself, and nobody will come as an adviser. Most likely, it’ll go well... or not, but then well again. And vice versa ... And then again ... I can only say that it’s worth it in the finale. Good luck! 😁

PS: Huh, it’s been already 2 months since I posted this recipe in my personal account. A lot has happened and changed during this rather eventful period of time (Zanzibar, resolving real estate issues, Moscow, launching a blog, Nice, planning and moving to St. Petersburg ... uhhh), but when posting here (into this blog), I didn’t have to change or add anything, I only brought some beauty in it

PPS: If someone has already tried it out or has gone through anything like that earlier, feel free to share, it's interesting to hear feedback and impressions

A text about laziness was supposed to appear here, but I felt a bit lazy to finish it. If to be more precise: I felt bored 🙄 While the blog isn’t so big, I allow myself periods of petty tyranny and will procrastinate over this task. But what is really interesting to share with you now is the following.

The fact that we stayed in France several days ago and that I touched upon the topic of communication with foreigners in my recent “story from Venice” prompted me and tempted to tell you how I’d integrated basic colloquial English in my life. It was tough, uncompromising and intense. So much intense that I was overstocked by this skill to the bone 😐 In one of the bars of Nice, without much effort and to my own surprise, I managed to find out a recipe for a beer we liked, just with the help of several phrases in English. By the way, I can even admit that the beer was the best among those I'd tried before, and we’ve travelled to Czech Republic several times 😉

Let's get back to the point. I belong to those "lucky ones" who studied German as a foreign language at school. Yeap, in other words, we are those who don’t know either English or German as a result. I was so “lucky” because there were no other options in my first provincial school 🤷🏻‍♂️ Further it went on the same scheme: I couldn’t switch to English either in high school after moving to the district center and at the university as well. By the way, would anyone consciously choose this language for study? In general, I had to take up English classes from the very beginning right after high school.

Semi-annual courses weren’t at all productive, but at least I realized that it wouldn’t be as easy as pie 🤔 I’ve come to this key recipe spontaneously when I was discussing the details of my training with a remote tutor. So here it is: all the lessons are organized via Skype, in this case the non-verbal communication is rigidly diminished so the speaking constitutes the core concentration. The entire 60-minute lesson (from very first one) is held FULLY in English environment. Language rules, homework and language peculiarities are discussed only in English. Switching to Russian is minimal and allowed only in those cases when several attempts to receive or transmit information in different ways bear no fruit. At the end of the lesson we can set aside time for a brief reflection.

So, the result is the following: during our first two or three lessons my brain was blowing up and was burning all the energy out. I often felt terribly embarrassed: before the lesson, after it and even in the process 😨 Probably, when the 3rd session passed I’ve begun to understand what is going on and have managed to react more or less adequately. Then I’ve gained confidence that we are on the same page with my interlocutor, talking about one and the same thing, not about the different ones 👍 Then, there has come practice and enriching of the vocabulary. I had only two such training sessions, that took about a month and a half (2 times a week). During my 7 and 8 lesson (and even a lot of time later), phrases like "I don't catch it", "Could you repeat it slowly?", "Hmm...do you speak English now?😐” were common and appeared to me as easy as pie. By the way, they are very useful and every traveler should have them in store. Well, you just need some practice and experience and then can start talking without any hesitation, as for non-verbal contact, sometimes you can even understand French 😁

How are we doing on your end if take foreign languages? I believe that it’ll be a good idea to start a column about funny stories of subscribers on this topic 🤔

The following news will come as a surprise for the majority of my friends: it seems as unexpected as snow in December 2019, though such a joke is probably not so funny this year. However, I'm not joking...

Now let me state officially: we leave for St. Petersburg in early January. Not to travel this time, not even to walk, but to live. We’ll probably settle in and put down some roots there. Or organize a permanent residence for storing artifacts brought from trips which we are unlikely to finish.👻

It’s noteworthy that I’m leaving Smolensk with no negative attitude to this city this time, but with gratitude instead. I’m grateful for the new people we met here during a forced long break between the adventures. I’m grateful that we enhanced relationship with those whom we had known before 🌞I’m grateful for the fact that we learned something here. I hope that social networks will help to keep these values ​​and synchronize communications in future.🌍

Generally speaking, the knowledge and skills we’ve gained (especially during the last retreat) make it possible to find and retain energy and inspiration even in the provincial “hole”. To my surprise, it happens that #youcanliveinsmolensk. 🤫 So why leave then? During that long break mentioned above, I clearly understood three things: firstly, I don’t want to grow old in Smolensk. Secondly, the lack of an airport, high-quality medicine and education becomes a serious disadvantage. I won’t go into details, especially before the upcoming holiday🎄. Finally, this city doesn’t have enough resources to unleash the potential that I see in every member of our family.

We plan to celebrate the New Year and the first days of 2020 in Smolensk and its environs. We’ll try to visit relatives and arrange a farewell party for friends in our - as it turned out - infinite apartment: everyone whom we’d managed to invite to my birthday agreed to come and it turned out that 15 adults + 4 children had fun, chilled out and enjoyed cozy atmosphere even though there was little space. After that we’ll pack our suitcases and set off for something new, yet unknown 🙀