The Way to myself. Андрей Алексеев
MADE MYSELF, I STOPPED LOVING – PEOPLE, BUSINESS, AND THE WORLD.
That’s when I felt that I was losing myself. Just like a hamster, which eternally spins its wheel and can never get off. If at one time I saw the business as a source of joy, inspiration and energy, now it was just making me desolate.
Why?
The huge effort put into the business, brought nothing but exhaustion. Everything I did lost its liveliness, leaving pure mechanics.
Year by year, my life looked wealthier, and I had more opportunities to enjoy it. However, I felt worse and worse emotionally. Meeting friends and experiencing some lighter emotions, which can be bought for money, helped me avoid depression.
However, the tiredness was accumulated, while joy and love gradually went away. One day I understood that I’d lost the easygoing spirit which was natural to me. The deal I had didn’t cheer me up. The weariness of life reached the peak, and I wanted nothing: no business, no money, no love, no new ideas or projects…
Nothing I possessed encouraged me to feel the passion and the taste for life. I had to always seek for – and come up with some new sources of joy, inspiration, and reasons to live.
I STARTED ASKING MYSELF: WHO AM I AT ALL? WHY DOES THE WORLD NEED ME? DOES IT ACTUALLY NEED ME, AND DO I NEED IT? WHY WAS I BORN AND WHAT SHOULD I DO? I DIDN’T HAVE ANY ANSWERS, BUT I HAD A FEELING THAT I COULDN’T LIVE THE WAY I DID ANYMORE.
So, I found a way to change everything. “I guess, I should get married! I’ll get married and everything will improve. A family will fill my life with new meaning, and change its quality. I will settle down, calm down, and I will feel better”.
By the way, I noticed that as soon as I set an inner goal for myself, everything seems to happen without much effort. For example, that’s the way important people come into my life: we meet and get to know each other by chance, I don’t go out of my way to make this happen. And the opposite is true: usually, nothing goes well with the people I look for.
And in the same way, by chance, I met my future wife Marina. We became friends, and we had a wonderful relationship which developed easily and naturally. I liked giving my attention to her, flirting, taking care of her. So, I was absolutely sure that: first, I must get married; second, it must be with Marina.
After half a year since our meeting, I made a proposal. And three months later we got married. I got a new role: I became a husband. We found some new activities to do together, some mutual rights and duties. Our leisure time became totally different.
Once I was travelling by bus, when my phone rang. Marina told me we were going to have a baby. My first child! It’s really difficult to describe my feelings at that time: joy, surprise, perplexity, responsibility, tenderness… Something new was about to come into my life.
By the way, that was the moment when I decided to quit smoking. And I’ve never smoked since then. Because I was going to have a baby. What would she think of her father? What example would I be giving her?
As soon as Marina appeared in my life, we built a family and gave birth to our baby, a new period in my life had started. A new kind of energy came into it. Many things changed in my mind as well: I started living not only concerned with myself, but others as well. I became responsible for my family. Gradually, my interests changed too.
Many things were changing. But not my habit of having a free, independent life style, or taste for bachelor parties with friends and entertainment. I couldn’t leave that behind, neither did I want to do so.
That way a year passed and another one did… I was an adult married man. I worked on my family and my business, which was growing rapidly and required a lot of my attention. I thought of my business as my child, which I fed and helped grow for many years. And everything that happened to it affected me a lot.
More frequently the same dreadful thoughts came to my mind. “I devoted myself to my business till the very end. I established lots of successful projects. And where is my joy, calmness, satisfaction for everything I’ve done? When will this rat race finish? Why don’t I control my business, instead of it controlling me?”
There were no answers so far. I still didn’t understand, who I was and what I was here for. I felt as if I was driving staring at the gauges, without seeing the road, moving almost as a blind man.
Meanwhile the number of restaurants increased. One moment, I felt bored with replicating my restaurants, and working in public catering business altogether. And the competition became too tough, because I prefer working on the underserved markets, creating my own new niches.
That way, step by step, I was coming closer to the next important twist in my life. I was done working in the business I had built up from nothing. The business I put so much effort, attention, and energy into.
Together with my partner, we reached an agreement about the conditions for me leaving the company pretty fast. I thanked him for the cooperation and, as soon as we accomplished our mutual commitments, we parted.
As an entrepreneur, I find some pleasure in imagining and creating something that has never been thought of before. After finishing one project, I started thinking about a new one immediately. I started trying to find a fresh idea, a new sphere where I can establish something original.
In those days there was nothing like a shopping mall, gathering many manufacturers and sellers of a narrow niche together in Novosibirsk, – and in Siberia at all. For example, if you decided to do some home repairs, you would have to wander around the city. You’d buy some wallpaper in one place, electrics – in another one, furniture and interior decor – in the third, and plumbing – somewhere else… That was extremely inconvenient for both: buyers and manufacturers. I understood: there it was – a wonderful brand-new field for business!
WHILE OTHERS THINK ABOUT SEPARATION, I WILL MERGE.
That occurred to be the key point to achieving the future success of “Bolshaya Medveditsa” trade and exhibition center: give your customers an opportunity to choose, compare and buy all the things they need for their construction or repair work in one and the same place.
I was also inspired by the idea of building “Bolshaya Medveditsa” center, I was creating not only a certain kind of service or products, but also the space itself. A kind of environment for other people and companies to establish and develop. Stores, cafes, restaurants, service companies created a natural synergy effect all together. A huge number of goods, services, and other offers, attracted a significant number of people – potential buyers. On the other hand, a high quantity of buyers stimulated sellers to provide more services, goods and products.
My goal was, in other words, to build a suitable space for the manufacturers and to assist them. The idea proved to be effective: “Bolshaya Medveditsa” lives, develops and prospers to this day.
For about two or three years, I worked on the new business with my natural passion and inspiration. The project pleased me with new opportunities and unexpected solutions. I was able to create and imagine. I had total freedom to design something brand-new. However, later on, the situation repeated again. I ran into the same wall again. I got that feeling of being disappointed and following it – a sense of the emptiness and meaninglessness of everything I had been doing.
Business and daily rush seized me so much that there was no escape from my depression. I exchanged my expensive cars with the ones which cost a fortune, spent more money on clothes, chose absolutely unbelievable (regarding the price as well) destinations for my trips… Nothing I could imagine made my life more cheerful or better.
More often I started feeling I was a character of a famous joke about an owner of a luxurious yacht, who felt happy twice in his life only: when he bought it first, and when he managed to finally sell it.
That was the way I used to live those days: I felt a short flash of a desire to possess something new. I got it and, almost immediately, that feeling of inner emptiness came. To feel more alive, I always had to find some new reasons to get an emotional rush. More and more, I felt that I was not living, but just riding the same carousel in a circle.
Those days, I travelled all over the world