English / 12.06.2019 / 6087

Rule of Thumb

Nikolay Mokhov, author from the Dark Side of Business

For many years, we on the Dark Side have been repeating the same advice to our female readers: if you want to woo a man, just give him the scarcest commodity of the modern world – a compliment. The ladies nod in response. They tense their facial muscles and hiss something approving through their teeth, but they can never keep it up. Invariably they end up flinging mud and criticism at their beloved, and with passion at that. And then these fair ladies stroll through their respective cities and see a striking picture:

love can exist in personal relationships, it can exist in business, and it can exist at any point of contact between you and the world

A beautiful, handsome fellow. And by his side, a fat, ugly, short…

“But what about me?” the reader bawls, sniffling. “I tried so hard! I worked out my butt at the gym, I went on a diet, I posted pretty pictures on Instagram. I shared suuuuuch smart thoughts on there…”

What was that Russian song?

“Under the pine tree, chewing a blade of grass. Why was it his path that I chose to cross? He's on a date now, with another girl…”

One beautiful evening on Cyprus, a self-proclaimed “psychologist” (for lack of a better word) friend of mine declared to me:

“I can’t give the gift of love. I don’t know what that means. And I don’t want to know.”

As my sexist friends and I like to joke:

“Chicks aren’t dumb because they’re dumb, they’re dumb because they’re chicks.”

But we say that out of love. And you know, there are men who are dumber than that “psychologist”… Really, I’m the most consistent feminist there is. I firmly believe all my girlfriends are geniuses, each in their own right, and each unique. Like that line from a Russian poem:

“...God doesn’t repeat his mistakes…”

This knowledge gives me confidence that my next girlfriend, too, will be genius and unique. Maybe even in love. But that is, alas, a rarity…

Because I know why there’s such trouble with compliments, both for men and for women. I even got the idea to organize an evening of compliments. The people in that company had just recently met. They’d spent a couple days together in the same villa. They demanded I give them a lecture, about love, naturally.

“What good will a lecture do for you, especially a lecture from me… I don’t know anything about love… Let’s do something else… We’ll play a game. Here are the rules: everyone get into pairs, one guy and one girl, and you each have to give a complement to the other person. ”

It was a sorry sight...

From the heading

Heavenly place

Far away from the yacht, closer to the shore, tourists were surfing the sea on water skis and jet skis. Children were wading in shallow water, and you could watch them from the little white house on the slope. From this house, you could hear the laughter of the vacationists, the squeals of the children and the roars of the engines. The housing in this area was blatantly called the “Heavenly place”. And in this heavenly place, an older couple was discussing their plans for the day:

Whetstone for attention

— So the secret to success is to be in the right place at the right time?" - Someone asked in the Dark Side chat. How can I comment on this? Let me tell you about a multi-million dollar deal I once made. I'm not telling the story to show off as the money was already spent for parties in the city a long time ago — there is nothing to brag about. I'm telling the story to illustrate one principle.

So, here is the story. At a restaurant in Moscow, there was this construction businessman, his PR guy, and me. I had already handed over a report on my work. I was having some coffee, meanwhile listening to them discussing the promotion of business operations abroad.

The story of the clubber-programmer, kinesiologist-cyberneticist, and writer-investment banker

— I need to self-determine myself! — our interlocutor started with a banality. Ilya and I experienced a toothache. From the depths of memory rose the shadows of businessmen who had lost their lives in attempts to determine themselves, or rather to put a label on themselves. In the meantime, our vis-a-vis was throwing the names of the great ones on the table:

— Nassim Taleb — this is the second writer after Nikolai Mokhov (Nikolai Mokhov's ego is growing like the bitcoin exchange rate during a hype), John (well, of course, Grinder, co-founder of NLP), Castaneda (no wonder our interlocutor practiced tensegrity)...

And then he told his story. And his story refuted the theories of many respected authors, including those mentioned. I would write this story down with a pen, roll up the paper, and put it in a bottle, go out to sea on a yacht, and throw it into deep waters. But I don't have a yacht, and I don't have a pen, so read the letters electronically...