Ilya's Introduction
 

My name is Ilya and I'm a 26 year old personal efficiency enthusiast from Moscow, Russia.

I was selected to be a moderator for the Personal Effectiveness forum. At the time of writing, I'm still not promoted to moderator status, but just couldn't wait to join you people.

I think, I'd introduce myself with the random bits about who I am, why am I here, what do I care about.

I've been born and brought up in Jewish family, in Russian Orthodox country during the last years of Communist rule. I have a very high level of tolerance to different opinions, but a small tolerance to rudeness, disrespect and insults.

My passion is accelerated learning, personal growth and personal development. I'm a generalist and I have a huge amount of interests under this general umbrella. Since I was 14 years old, I've grabbed and devoured any book, audio and video course or seminar on personal development. You'd be amazed how numerous they are here in Russia. I was always interested in applying what I've learned in real life, in getting the results and in approving my life and the life of others.

For example, my main achievements, that I'm especially proud of are:
- Financial independence, I've acheved through carefull management and investing of relatively scarce funds I've been earning in my early twenties.
- Becoming bilingual. I love to read and always work on improving my language skills (so feedback from native speakers on my mistakes is most wellcome).
- Learning to draw and learning how to teach people to draw realistically real fast (the record is 30 minutes instruction and 3 practice drawings from complete newbee to recognizable human portrait).
- Learning to voluntary fall asleep and to wake up easily.
- Pain, Hunger, Addiction control - (I do not smoke, drink alcohol or caffeine drinks (even tea), I have a perfect body weight and general health. Last summer, I've walked the 21 day mountain hike eating just 300 grams of food per day.
- Using systemic thinking for self-healing - I've had two chronic deseases when I was 23. I've analysed the cause and effect relationships in my lifestyle that created them and healed both.

As of personal matters, I've had a stable relationship with my girlfriend for the past 5 years and we've married recently.

Professionally, I work as a game developer at a leading Russian game development company. This was and still is my dream passtime, which I got, through my own version of Intention-Manifestation process (although at the time I didn't even know the term). I believe that games are the best tool for learning and my job perfectly combines my passions. That's why I'm still working and not self-employed or retired.
So, as you may imagine, my relationship with url]www.StevePavlina.com[/url]
predates the site itself and started with wonderful articles at now closed dexterity.com
As soon as I've learned that Steve has launched www.StevePavlina.com (guess I've discovered it in February 2005), I visit it regularly since then. I read it as soon as a new entry appears in RSS feed.

I've been a consultant, workshop moderator and trainer for the past few years (it was my hobby).

For two years I've lived and studied in an international college in Britan, where I daily had to communicate and discuss things with my peers who came from 70 different countries. (Mediating a conversation between an Israeli and a Palestinian, or a Jugoslavian and an Albanian during the Kosovo coflict is a life changing experience).
Ad I decided to be a moderator, because, I think, Steve's site is the best place in the internet, for personal growth. And I believe, that with forums it will become even better. My life purpose is to aid in the creation of good things. And since my values match Steve's to an unbelievable extent, i see moderating the forums on this site, as the best way for me to contribute to the personal growth community.

I'd also love to meet online with the people who visit the site, to have conversations with them and also to have the ability to make their experience as comfortable as possible.

So, again, hi, everyone! If anyone has questions about me, feel free to ask, I'd be happy to answer.

You should be proud of your accomplishments! Your list of accomplishments is an inspiration to me, as it shows that financial independence can be found without using dirty business tactics, as some less value driven members of my family might say. (They think fire insurance is what hedges the risk of any investment. I can't believe someone would consciously cheat another person for that much money.)

I can't wait to see what you have to say. Keep up the good work!

Hi Ilya,

Damn, I'M proud of your achievements :P

And I look forward to learning from your experiences.

I also find your drawing skills intriguing. I used to draw caricatures, and didn't progress towards anything more advanced than that, but would really like to learn how to draw realistic paintings. Do you have any work online?

Also, you might wanna check out the Iman Maleki site. I think his paintings are excellent, especially the woman sitting down writing a letter.

Take care, and all the best!

Learning to voluntary fall asleep
 

Hi Ilya,

Thanks for sharing this information about you.

One of the skills you've described in your post was about voluntary falling asleep. Could you please share some more details about it? I'm interested to develop that skill too, and I'm curious about how you actually did that.

Thank you.