Default Personal Time: Why Only One of 20 Top Executives Made It to Valaam

Lyudmila Lykova explains why hyper-control has become the main trap for CEOs, and how a panoramic ocean view changes the scale of business decisions.

The trap of indispensability and the burnout epidemic

As an architect of thinking and a former financial analyst, I work every day with people from big business. They have status, capital, and teams. But when it comes to pulling themselves out of day-to-day operations for even four days — the system throws an error.

Recently, I decided to run an experiment: to organize an intimate premium retreat to Karelia with an overnight stay on Valaam Island. The idea worked like a trigger: I instantly received about twenty applications. Tired female executives wrote: “Lyudmila, this is a dream, I desperately need this silence.”

And then the crash test of their personal boundaries began. When it was time to book tickets, 19 out of 20 wrote back with refusals. The reasons sounded like they’d been copied and pasted: “my boss didn’t approve the leave,” “we have quarter close,” “the team will collapse without me.” Out of twenty successful women managing complex processes, only one managed to break out of the system. The rest stayed behind to save the world in their glass offices.

And I made a decision that was illogical from the standpoint of classic business, but the only right one for me: we’re going. Even for one person. Because this route had its own, special capitalization.

Scale of thinking is shaped by geography

This trip to Karelia actually began on the other end of the country — in Kamchatka. Back then I lived in a room where floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows looked straight out onto the Pacific Ocean. There were only 150 meters to the water’s edge. I stared for hours at that endless, breathing mass and physically absorbed the sense of scale.

In business we often think in terms of scarcity. There, looking at the ocean, I felt absolute abundance. An infinite number of drops in the water, leaves on the trees, possible solutions. It was at the edge of the earth that I realized: I want to bring my clients to Valaam. I want to pull them out of conference rooms and place them into a space of the same ringing silence where truly big strategies are born.

But organizing such a pause within the realities of premium domestic tourism turned out to be a real quest.

A test of resilience

An overnight stay on Valaam is exclusive. When the last tourist boat leaves the island, absolute calm sets in. Hotels are sold out months in advance. I called, got refusals, called again. And suddenly the system gave in — one single room appeared. My only client, upon learning about the date shift, said: “I’ll take one more day at my own expense. I need this.”

But hyper-control wouldn’t let go. At night, all 38 tickets for our train disappeared from the Russian Railways (RZD) system. Just zero. There was a moment of despair, a waiting list, inner pleas to Sergius and Herman of Valaam... And the tickets miraculously returned.

Dividends for courage

In business there’s a rule: high risks and courage are always rewarded with a premium. The space began to repay us for our persistence.

At a шикарном eco-hotel on Lake Ladoga, there were no standard rooms available. In the end, we got a huge Deluxe of more than 50 square meters. When I saw the booking, my breath caught. It was a real house on the water. With its own sauna, with a terrace from which you can fish without leaving the room. 

But the main thing — it had the exact same huge floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows looking out onto open water as it did back then in Kamchatka.

The East and West came together.

The Pacific Ocean passed the baton to the Ladoga skerries. The circle closed.

The true luxury of 2026

My client worked herself to the bone all summer. She earned every minute of this rest, and I’m happy to give her this bonus — a house on the water and one hundred percent of my attention as a methodologist.

We’ll walk the trekking trails of the Ladoga skerries. Pick ripe blueberries in the forest. Eat the freshest fish from local fishermen and listen to the silence of Valaam at night.

I’m going on a scouting trip. Going to gather meanings, aesthetics, and test routes for our new Roadmap 2026.

Working with top executives, I, Lyudmila Lykova, see the same trend again and again. The real luxury today is not an expensive watch and not a place on the Forbes ranking. True premium is when you have a panoramic window with nothing but water beyond it, your phone in airplane mode, and the courage to legally choose yourself, leaving the whole world to wait.

How long has it been since you allowed yourself such luxury?