The Mayan goddess weaving humans’ webs of life spoke about the deceptiveness of worldly things while Morpheus’s embraces granted both prophetic and fallacious dreams. Lots of water has passed under the bridge since then, and the Olympic gods and Pleiades have left us to figure out the conscious and the subconscious on our own. Today, seeing dreams and dreaming are as important in human life as birth, death, and the succession of generations. Of this, Olga Myagkikh, Ph.D. in Economics and General Producer of Synergy University Forums, is sure.
I’m one of those waking up in the morning with a good feeling. I enjoy energising and inspiring others. Doing large-scale entertainment, educational, and business programmes, I cannot do without inspiration and believing I can accomplish my undertakings. And I feel happy sharing this assuredness with my team.
Doing so is easy for me, as it’s been part of my character since childhood. I was born into a family with studying well and never letting down anyone being usual practice. Father was the Education Minister of Ukraine, while Mother, a distinguished doctor, treated people’s hearts. I always saw them speaking at forums, being successful, persuasive, and self-assured. I knew I could not lower the bar.
I defended my thesis at a record pace as Father had said, without a Ph.D., I would be nothing and advised me to obtain one before getting married and starting a job. The motivation was just superb.
It was not a usual step on my part, after completing the courses of the International Relations Department and the Faculty of Economics and Law, to start a job in the television industry. Together with Alfa-Bank, I was involved in working out the Novyi TV Channel’s strategy. This channel still exists. My next dream project was Fashion Week, whose backstage became my children’s cradle. Then came Cirque du Soleil.
No, I had never dreamt of joining a circus to run over the hills and far away. Everything of interest in my life always happens thanks to unusual but happy encounters. Cirque du Soleil was no exception. One day, George Cohon, the founder of McDonald’s in Canada and Russia, and his son Craig, who had brought Coca-Cola to Russia, came my way. These fantastic men acquainted me with the Circus’s breath-taking repertoire. I saw the show in Berlin, could not help falling in love with it, and realised Russia had to see the miracle of Cirque du Soleil. At that time, I was busy preparing Moscow Fashion Week but decided to cast my lot with that outstanding company. Later, I met a big dreamer, who had flown into space from Baikonur Spaceport, named Guy Laliberté, a destiny man, making all dreams of his come true. He is the one who taught me to dream the right way, both in business and private life.
The Cirque du Soleil’s motto is: ‘Impossible is just a word when you make it possible’. 2009, when we brought the Circus to Moscow, was a crisis year with an incredible currency rate mess. Nonetheless, we decided that The Sun – the meaning of the Circus’s name – would rise and enlighten the Russians’ night. We must dream of great things and ignore the word ‘impossible’, stopping us from making our dreams come true. That’s what all dreamers of Earth might say. For me, it’s also a nice personal story as the French word Soleil sounds like the Russian phrase meaning ‘with Olya’, i.e., with me.
It was a dream come true. Seeing those acrobats training in an 18-metre arena, I felt I could and would do my best & utmost for them. I knew I had no right to lower the bar they held on stage.
My next dream project in Moscow was building the VTB Arena - Dynamo Central Stadium, the legendary, most successful, and beautiful multifunctional complex. The unique facility, built on the VTB Arena-Park Residential Compound, consisting of ice-hockey, basketball, and concert venues, as well as a big football stadium under the same roof, ‘hangs’ 11 metres above the ground. No one had ever done such a thing before. We did it because fortune favours the brave. And dreamers. I’m an Aquarius, the most visionary zodiac sign. So, I cannot take up a project without visualising it first and willing to implement my vision. I make sure there’s no stagnation in my business while the material stuff takes care of itself. I avoid provoking God’s wrath and do not care much for money. Of more importance to me is to have my soul afire and do what appeals to my heart. In this case, I’m very active, productive, and able to energise everyone around me. Boredom is too hard for me, so I’m happy to grab a start-up when something must be brought up to the next level, or everything is in the fog, there is a construction pit on site, or fierce competition in the market. We’re living in the Age of Aquarius, i.e., in visionaries, innovators, and dreamers’ time.
My strength is the ability to generate ideas. Meanwhile, seeing them implemented, working, making sense, attracting people, and building teams is even more driving and enjoyable for me. I’m always result-oriented, and the grandeur of the outcome fuels my inner engine. And I constantly try to look over the horizon and let my dreams reach out for the future.
For this, I must love and be loved. Everything in this world is powered by love. I remember the Cirque du Soleil’s visitors’ happy eyes. Few were believers in this grandiose project, but it did make it. I’ve got no megaproject, like that of Elon Musk’s, to launch spaceships to Mars, and, as to my mission on Earth, I see it as cultural and educational. I’ve already been involved in the Cirque du Soleil’s great art, fashions, and design. I spent 20 years in the fashion industry, helping young designers find financing and enter international markets. We prepared and held unprecedented Russian fashion shows in Milan, Paris, and London.
Infinity is the most appropriate word to describe the goal of my like-minded Synergy Holding team members. The word ‘impossible’ is not in their vocabulary either. Such speakers as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Gere, Tony Robbins, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jordan Belfort, to name just a few, have come to Russia to take part in our events, though nobody ever dared to approach them about such things before us. Neither did anybody even dream of filling 100 000-capacity stadiums to the brim. This project has already entered The Guinness Book of Records.
Today, my new inspiration is a unique agricultural project. Its infinity has to do with digitalisation, planning sowing campaigns using drone aircraft, and spacecraft data analysis. It’s also about organic foods and making food part of every individual’s medical programme in the future. It will aim to sustain one’s energy and health balance. We’ve also been preparing a brand new forum on Women in Agriculture to be realised in different spheres such as art, cinema, and culinary mastery.
My two children are also a kind of a project I lay high hopes on. I would like them to be a big success in their lives and bear our family name into the future. Like my parents expected me to. I’m learning a lot from my children. I’m sure theirs is a very able generation that can teach ours the freedom of thinking and socialising in the networks. They are very mobile, attractive, know many new venues, and educate me about them. As their mother and a fellow human, I want them to enjoy a great future. They grew up accompanying me in my projects, attending all my events and educational forums. They also live in all that and give me unusual and exciting ideas. So, they are part of my team, helping me collaborate with their generation in a new way. At the same time, I’m amazed at how quickly my parents have integrated into a new digital life. In the meantime, I often find myself asked by my surprised children, ‘How come, mom, you still don’t know it?’, and they make it clear to me. It’s just like Basta put it, ‘Do it notwithstanding, do it by hand. Upset the world and knock down the sky. In each sketch and every draft. The teacher lives on in his disciple’.
I’ve got a good intuition, so my relations with dreams are rather peculiar. I always pay close attention to my feelings, first impressions, and, of course, dreams. I take a keen interest in esoteric trends, astrology, and dream interpretations. I learnt to be attentive to dreams from Manfred Kets de Vries, a wonderful person and a Harvard, McGill, HEC Montréal, and Fontainebleau INSEAD Business School professor. He advises us to keep a notebook and pencil on our bedside cabinets to put down our dreams upon waking up. Our brains are overladen with terabytes of news and information. It is in dreams that we receive a lot of prompts and other useful stuff to be apperceived. I like meditating and thinking over my dreams while jogging in the morning. That’s how I become fully aware of how to arrange my daily activities.
People are connected both when awake and when asleep. One theory has it that special neuron networks do the job. I don’t know for sure whether it is so or not, but my friends and acquaintances often call me to say they’ve seen me in their dreams. It may be a sort of non-verbal communication, in case some things remain unspoken. So, they might as well be transmitted via dreams. Having shared a dream, we always calm down because the communication has taken place.
I think the future belongs to dreamers and intuits because the linear masculine thinking, prevailing in the world, has brought about no impressive results. We, women, are more intuitive than men. We could guide the world to a humane resource, expenditure, and ergonomics redistribution model. In my view, it is women that are innovators, initiators, and promoters of new technologies nowadays. Efficient female leaders play two roles: charismatic and architectural. The former helps them picture a better future, while the latter enables them to create structures and systems. There are more females than males in the world, and we are a priori endowed with emotional intellect that has always been in great demand. We take care of our family names’ bearers and think about what kind of world our children will inherit. That is why we will be doing our best & utmost. Earth is round, while the horizon is infinite.
