For three years, I optimized complex ship systems worth millions. Then I realized: I couldn’t optimize my own life.
That contradiction led me to what I now call Human Optimization Architecture – applying engineering precision, systems thinking, and holistic optimization to building a life worth living. Not through motivation or quick fixes, but through systematic design.
The moment that changed everything came in 2022.
I was offered a promotion on the ship – more money, more responsibility. The ‘logical next step’ everyone expected me to take. From the outside, it looked like success.
But I saw it clearly: a cage with better bars. The same system, just a slightly more comfortable trap. If I said yes, I’d be locked into a trajectory someone else designed.
I said no.
Mid-2022, I moved to Odesa and started from zero. No corporate structure, no guaranteed income, no blueprint. Just a hypothesis: that systematic thinking could build something more meaningful than climbing someone else’s ladder.
That uncertainty became my laboratory.
The first year was experimental – treating myself as both engineer and prototype.
I started with the basics: sleep optimization, nutrition restructuring, training six days a week. Not following someone’s program, but building my own based on research and iteration.
Then deeper: mental patterns. Years of engineering trained me to suppress emotions as ‘noise.’ I had to learn they were signals, not errors in the system. Therapy, journaling, meditation – tools I would have dismissed before.
Relationships became the hardest test. Turns out, you can’t optimize people like ship systems. Some connections survived my transformation. Others didn’t. That was painful but necessary data.
Through all of it, I documented everything. Every experiment, every failure, every breakthrough. Not for content – for understanding. The systematic approach I used on ships now applied to the most complex system I’d ever encountered: myself.
The Method: Interdisciplinary Architecture
Traditional self-help fails because it treats life as a collection of isolated problems. My approach is different – informed by research across multiple fields:
Systems thinking (Meadows, Taleb, Goldratt) taught me that everything connects. You can’t fix sleep without addressing stress. You can’t build discipline without emotional regulation. Change one element, the whole system responds.
Performance science (Ericsson, Csikszentmihalyi, Waitzkin) showed me how mastery actually develops – not through motivation, but through deliberate structure and feedback loops.
Mind-body integration (Walker, Nestor, van der Kolk) revealed what engineering school never taught: your body stores what your mind can’t process. You can’t think your way out of problems trapped in your nervous system.
Business architecture (Thiel, Jarvis, Housel) provided frameworks for building sustainable systems, not temporary sprints.
Existential philosophy (Frankl, Becker, Carse) gave me the ‘why’ beneath the ‘how’ – because optimization without meaning is just sophisticated distraction.
My engineering background (maritime systems, programming in C/C++, building manufacturing equipment) means I don’t just theorize – I prototype, test, and iterate. Currently, I apply this same hands-on approach to human systems.
Why This Matters
The self-help industry is broken. It sells motivation when people need systems. Quick fixes when transformation requires architecture. It treats humans like simple machines – push the right buttons, get predictable results.
You’ve read the books. Tried the morning routines. Followed the frameworks. Some worked temporarily. Nothing stuck permanently. Not because you lack discipline. But because you’ve been optimizing a system you never designed.
Real transformation requires both engineering precision AND philosophical depth. Structure without meaning is empty productivity. Meaning without structure is just inspirational quotes.
I work with people who feel the gap between external success and internal fulfillment – who’ve tried the conventional approaches but still sense something’s missing.
This isn’t about optimizing your life. It’s about redesigning it.
What I Do Now
I help people redesign their lives with the same precision they’d use to build a business or master a skill. Through my newsletter and content, I share research-based frameworks, personal experiments, and systematic approaches to transformation.
I’m not a guru. I’m an engineer who’s a few steps ahead on the same path you’re walking – testing what works, documenting failures, sharing what survives iteration.
Think of it as open-source life architecture. I build in public. You adapt what fits your system.
The Work Continues
Everything I learn goes into my newsletter.
You get frameworks that work because they survived real-world testing. Research synthesis without academic bloat. Systems thinking applied to actual life redesign.
No guru promises. No motivational content. Just engineering precision applied to human optimization.
The door is open… Come in.
One email. Every week. That’s it.
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