Monthly roundup: best book, movies, most useful video, the skill I worked on, a hypothesis I tested, and the month's key insight. August 2025.
1) Best book
Rereading Remarque’s “Flotsam” right now — one of my favorite novels.
Also reading a good book about sex, by Paul Joannides. He’s got exactly one book — you can’t go wrong with it.
2) Movies and shows
The best movie was “F1” with Brad Pitt.
For some reason I felt nostalgic, and while on vacation I watched a few seasons of “Lonely Hearts.” I used to watch that show back in school.
3) Most useful video
Sergey Doronichev’s interview on the “vDud” channel about artificial intelligence. I had no idea AI was already so actively helping develop drugs for diseases as complex as cancer.
Also kept watching new videos in August from channels like “History on the Map.” I love learning about historical events through the lens of geography.
4) The skill I worked on
Running the whole team through one person. In August I started a process where I hand 90% of all tasks to my key manager, and everything then gets distributed to the right chats from there.
This is, without question, far more convenient and simpler than personally overseeing several different departments myself.
We’ve only just started this process, so both September and October will be about getting used to handing tasks to one person and training him so he can fully replace me in operational management.
5) A hypothesis I tested
When I rest for more than 3–4 days, I can genuinely switch off. Nastya and I went to Odesa on vacation from August 11th to 24th.
Even though I still ran my courses and consultations, that change of context and scenery for two weeks left a really positive effect. On top of that, I loved Odesa incredibly.
The sea. Great food. Beautiful architecture. Russian-language music from our Ukrainian artists playing on the streets. A book market where you can buy books in both Ukrainian and Russian. No “language patrols.” Freedom.
6) The habit I was building
I was on vacation in August, so I didn’t work on new habits.
7) Key insight of the month
It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.
About a year ago, a friend of mine had his barbershop flooded — he ended up dealing with repairs, damaged equipment, downtime, and a lot of stress.
He told me all about the hassle that flooding caused, and I remember thinking at the time that my office was on the same kind of basement level as his. But I never bought water sensors. And I paid for that.
When I got back from Odesa and walked into my office, it turned out there had been ankle-deep water there for almost a week. The equipment and cables on the floor were damaged, along with some of the furniture.
The building owner told me this wasn’t the first time it had flooded there. I decided to switch offices, because I don’t really enjoy stepping on the same rake twice.
Now I’m going to buy sensors ahead of time and protect myself even against things that haven’t happened to me yet. I’d already proactively set up video surveillance in the office, but never got around to water or smoke sensors…
That logic of “working ahead of the problem” is worth applying to a lot of areas of life, not just protecting physical property.