18-minute #DramaFree Talk | Bloody Magic with Svetlana Shapovaliants

This episode is in Russian. Below is a short English summary; the full English text is on Substack.

THE STONE AGE BODY

Fear of change is completely normal. Our bodies are still wired for the Stone Age, even while our minds are racing into the future. Kira breaks down what’s coming next: "AI won’t take your job. Someone using AI will."

A SCHOOL WITHOUT A TIMETABLE

Svetlana shares the story of Dubravushka—a self-directed school inspired by the Sudbury and Summerhill models. When six-year-old Misha joined, he spent his first year mostly sleeping on the sofa. Eventually, he carved out his own role: opening doors, shoveling snow, and cooking lunch for the whole school. Back home, his parents debated endlessly before landing on the two skills that actually matter for the future: emotional intelligence and knowing how to create real value. Years down the line, Misha ended up passing school exams in Serbian for subjects he had never even formally studied.

FROM CONTEMPT TO CURIOSITY

"Fear is often just contempt in disguise—contempt for what's new, or even for yourself: I'm not smart enough, I'll never get the hang of this." The antidote? Curiosity. "Fear freezes you. Curiosity sets you free." Svetlana put this to the test herself by feeding an interview transcript into an AI tool, which instantly spat out a solid program draft. What used to take her a full day’s work took 15 minutes.

THE SKILL OF ALL SKILLS

Learn to ask for help. Find allies who can help you set up the tools and show you the basics. Just as importantly, learn to sit with the discomfort when you’re stuck and can’t change things right away—because sometimes, "the tide goes out and leaves you standing in the mud with nothing but old tin cans."

NOT YOUR FAULT, STILL YOUR MOVE

When Svetlana went to therapy, she didn't get pity. Instead, her therapist gave it to her straight: "Real healing starts the moment you take responsibility for your life." If your skills suddenly become obsolete, that’s not on you. But what you do next is entirely up to you—you can either give up, or go learn how to prune trees. Taking a job at an auto repair shop isn't something to be ashamed of.

Svetlana’s daily go-to practice? Allow yourself a brief moment to feel sorry for yourself, then immediately ask: What’s one small thing I can actually do right now?

Part 3 of 3.

Guest: Kira Kuzmenko — 20 years in IT recruiting, founder of an international recruiting agency, author of the job search course "Hello, New Job."

🎧 Follow the show so you don't miss the next episode.

📖 Full longread on Substack

📸 Instagram: @svetlana_shapovaliants

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Project team:

Ustina Yeskova — Podcast Producer

Asya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree Marketing

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing⁠⁠

Our guest in this episode is Maria Sazhina, who has spent over 25 years in the pet industry. She began as a dog handler and groomer, worked at Novartis Animal Health, and today is Professional Channels Director at a global company focused on pet health through nutrition. She is also a zoo-psychologist, a breeder and a coach.
Together they unpack what it really takes to be a good owner. Also on set: Zakhar and Bonita Svetlanovna.
Inside:
- Why cute puppies hijack our judgement
- What a breed was created to do still lives in your living room
- Beagles: lovely faces, zero training for being home alone
- Three stages that shape a puppy's character: before birth, with the mother, in your home
- The teenage phase: one to two years of testing every boundary
- How a dog puts the whole family on a schedule
- Why an animal can be harder than a child
Choosing a breed? Maria consults on matching a dog to your lifestyle and character.
🎧 Follow the show so you don't miss the next episode.
📖 Full longread on Substack: https://substack.com/@svetlanashapovaliants
📸 Instagram: @svetlana_shapovaliants
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Project team:⁠

Ustina Yeskova ⁠— Podcast Producer

⁠Asya Razumikhina ⁠ — RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree Marketing

⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing⁠

This episode was recorded in Russian. Below is a short English summary; the full text version is on Substack (link at the end).Guest: Kira Kuzmenko — 20 years in IT recruiting, founder of an international recruiting agency, author of the job search course "Hello, New Job."THREE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF ONE CEO

A client came to Svetlana with a funnel full of leads and almost no conversion. Her team interviewed the owner and his two deputies — and found three competencies behind every deal: ownership, inspiring the client, and turning wishes into a concrete offer on the spot. The sales team's solution: "One of us can't replace the CEO. Three of us can." One inspires, one analyzes and pushes back, one builds the proposal before the meeting ends.

Kira adds: sometimes you need a bit of aggression. Svetlana calls it healthy confrontation.30 / 30 / 40Kira's interviews with leaders show a pattern: 25–30% of a team run toward AI, about as many say "go to hell with your AI, I'm out," and 40% sit in the middle — passive and hard to move. People try, then roll back: new tools mean extra cognitive load.

One of Kira's recruiters burned a month of Perplexity's top plan in an hour. Kira praised her: "That's experience. No big deal, let's move on."WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS

– Leaders who use AI themselves. Leading a transformation without touching the tools doesn't work at all.

– Early adopters who demo new tricks to the team every two weeks — no scolding, only encouragement.

– A tech team that joined non-technical colleagues' meetings and offered shortcuts instead of orders. Marketers now build landing pages in three hours instead of a month.

– Teams with no hiring budget get access to frontier models

— and often end up leading AI adoption across the company.

– Money, not just praise: one person runs the whole project as developer, product and project manager — and earns more. "We don't hire new people. We strengthen the ones we have."DOG TRAINING AND AI

Svetlana on feedback: some people need praise for small wins, others need a calendar with circles around the days they actually posted. "Like getting hit with a frying pan — but you see it right away."

Her take on delegating to AI: train it like a dog — small steps, lots of patience, no anger. And we need a new social contract, between people and between people and agents.Part 2 of 3.🎧 Follow the show so you don't miss the next episode.📖 Full longread on Substack📸 Instagram: @svetlana_shapovaliants———Project team:Ustina Yeskova — Podcast ProducerAsya Razumikhina — RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree Marketing

⁠⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing

What happens in your head when you miss the ball?

My guests are Kika, Serbia’s No. 1 female padel player and coach, and Rafa, officially No. 3 among the men. They also have the questionable pleasure of training me, so they know exactly how bad a learner I can be.

We skip the bandejas and volleys. This conversation is about the psychological game.

Inside:

• Why “stay calm” and “keep one line” is the hardest skill on court
• Two opposite ways to handle nerves: jump and move, or breathe and remember you’ve been here before
• What makes a strong padel couple, and why there’s no single right way to support your partner
• When kindness doesn’t help, and someone needs to hear “Wake up!”
• Why going silent creates more problems than speaking up
• Patience as an active skill: one shot can take a month or two to learn
• Mentality + fitness + technique: your body is part of the game
• Being a woman in sport: proving yourself again and again, plus periods, hormones and talking about them without shame

Their advice for beginners? Have fun. Take your time. It’s a game with a ball.

#DramaFree isn’t about avoiding frustration. It’s about knowing what comes next: you breathe, you move, you communicate, you reset. And then you play the bloody game.

🎧 Follow the show so you don’t miss the next episode.
📖 Full longread on Substack: https://substack.com/@svetlanashapovaliants
📸 Instagram: @svetlana_shapovaliants

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Project team:

Ustina Yeskova — Podcast Producer

Asya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

This episode was recorded in Russian, but we've made an English text version for you. Below is a short summary. Read the full version at substack

Guest: Kira Kuzmenko — 20 years in IT recruiting, founder of an international recruiting agency, author of the job search course "Hello, New Job."

WE'RE ALL SWITCHERS NOW

Kira: "Switchers used to be people moving to a new profession or industry. Now I feel we're all switchers, even if we stay where we are. To stay in demand, everyone has to master AI — and also skills from neighboring fields."

Take a developer. AI already writes good code, so code is becoming a commodity. Now a developer has to think about the business problem and the product, ask whether the task is even set up right — and step into analytics, design and project management.

Teams that push AI adoption start to look like teal organizations: every person owns the full cycle and makes sure the job gets done.

SVETLANA'S SWITCHES

Merchandiser, sales rep, executive search, HR, project management — 23 years at GE, Hewlett Packard and other corporations. On a change management project she suddenly had to run trainings — and found herself as a coach and facilitator. In 2014 she left corporate life; meeting Dr. Caitlin Walker made her a team coach.

A year and a half ago she saw a deep crisis coming for her industry and switched again — into business development, content, AI, Substack, TikTok and analytics. "An idea came — execution, 20 minutes." Her new team sets tasks for her: "Give us your Instagram passwords, we'll post it. We see you don't have time."

THREE SKILLS EVERYONE NEEDS NOW

1. Delegation. Picture the result, break it down, set the task in detail, check the stages, accept the work. This used to be a senior-level skill. "Now juniors need it from day one — otherwise you'll be making garbage with AI."

2. Communication. Techies used to say: "Leave me alone, I write code." In 2017–2018 Kira asked CTOs whether they'd hire a brilliant but toxic developer. Back then they all said yes — "I'll put him in a corner." Not anymore. "You're no longer a small cog. You're a full operator of the entire system."

3. Ownership. "'AI told me, so I did it' is not what you expect from a living person. We don't need a human proxy. In the age of agents, we need people with agency."

A team lead at a large American enterprise told Kira: "Every developer is responsible for every line of code they push to production — with AI or without it."

Part 1 of 3. Next up: how leaders bring their teams on board with AI. Follow the show so you don't miss it.

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Project team:Ustina Yeskova — Podcast Producer

Asya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

⁠⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing [Electro Swing] by Tri-Tachyon | Listen online for free on SoundCloud⁠

What happens when a marketer stops persuading and starts asking?
Maria Veretennikova moved to a new country and wanted to understand the people living there. She tried a few basic Clean Questions and was surprised how honest those conversations became. Caitlin Walker picks it up from there. She talks about a stale marketing team that got its creativity back by exploring why its own members buy things. She describes a brand relaunch that found its identity in a single metaphor. And she explains why focus groups go wrong the moment a facilitator says "so what you're saying is…"
Inside:
– why a brand's core should come from inside the company, not from an agency
– how to avoid groupthink and leave room for different answers
– one small habit for researchers: three questions before any interpretation
Clean Language in market research is still a young field, with plenty left to discover.
Maria Veretennikova is a commercial and marketing leader who previously worked at Colgate-Palmolive. Caitlin Walker is a Clean Language pioneer, creator of Systemic Modelling and author of "From Contempt to Curiosity".

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Project team:Ustina Yeskova — Podcast ProducerAsya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing [Electro Swing] by Tri-Tachyon | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

How do you go from playing tennis to dominating world padel in record time? For Ksenia Sharifova, it came down to a great first coach, raw athletic talent, and years of grueling 7-hour training days. But as she puts it: talent is nothing without discipline.
In this episode, we cover:
– Her top 5 fitness exercises (you don't even need a gym—a water bottle at home is enough)
– How to stay consistent when all motivation disappears
– Hitting a learning plateau: should you dig deeper, get curious, or just let it go?
– How a biomechanics expert fixed Aryna Sabalenka's serve
– Why Ksenia’s favorite shot isn't the flashy smash
Simple, practical sports lessons that apply just as well to business, family, and everyday life.

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Project team:Ustina Yeskova — Podcast ProducerAsya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing [Electro Swing] by Tri-Tachyon | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

In this episode, Ksenia Sharifova, one of the world's top padel players, explores how athletes deal with fear, frustration and conflict on the court.

Ksenia explains why fear before an important moment is normal and how it can become fuel instead of a block. She shares why finding the right partner is the hardest part of padel, how to understand what your partner needs during a match, and why conflicts are best resolved once emotions have settled.

Listen to the episode and discover what padel can teach us about communication — on the court and beyond.

Project team:
Ustina Yeskova — Podcast Producer
Asya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing [Electro Swing] by Tri-Tachyon | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

In this episode, we speak with Agnes Asodi — an organisational development consultant, systems thinker and facilitator based in Novi Sad, Serbia.
We explore what facilitation looks like in practice, discuss real sessions and Agnes’s experience working with a professional community of facilitators.
Why can’t facilitators always facilitate themselves? Why do even experienced professionals sometimes need an external person to hold the process, reveal hidden connections and help create a strong working alliance?
A warm and insightful conversation between two colleagues about group dynamics, professional challenges and the remarkable power of well-facilitated dialogue.

This episode focuses on one of the key events taking place in Stockholm on 16 September: Nyfikenhet som ledarverktyg — Curiosity as a Leadership Tool, an exclusive workshop for leaders with Dr Caitlin Walker.

Søren Holm explains why curiosity is not simply a personal quality, but a practical leadership tool. It can help leaders handle conflicts, understand what motivates people, communicate with greater clarity and build teams that continue to function under pressure.

We also talk about From Contempt to Curiosity, translated into Swedish by Søren Holm and Lena Sobel as Från dömande till nyfikenhet, and why experiencing these tools in practice is so different from simply reading about them.

The workshop takes place on 16 September, 08:30–12:00, at Peter Myndes backe 16, Slussen, Stockholm.

Listen to the episode and discover how curiosity can become one of the most powerful tools in your leadership.

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Project team:

Ustina Yeskova — Podcast Producer

Asya Razumikhina, RepTech Stockholm — #DramaFree marketing

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Stream Kleptotonic Swing [Electro Swing] by Tri-Tachyon | Listen online for free on SoundCloud⁠