Alexei Orlov has seen so many success stories that are wrapped in barbed wire. People who seem to have conquered all, where the score card is power, money, position and yet there they stand utterly naked for they harbor hate, malice and dismissal of others. Nothing is uglier than self-entitlement especially when it dismisses the right of others to be respected, to have a voice.

1. FRIENDSHIP
WITHOUT
BORDERS
ALEXEI ORLOV

2. I write this on
behalf of all the
children and all
the youth of
today.
I am neither young nor am I old. Every year of
my life is a chapter. The years may be gone and
yet– the memories are not lost, like an age ring
etched in the wood – my life continues.
Some days I return to that boy of 8, bullied in
the playground until I learnt that to fall was
harder than to withstand.
I can still feel the first blush of love at
fifteen and how it flowed through me like a
warm and uncertain stream and at seventeen
the frozen lake of despair when I was rejected
for another.

3. I LIVE IN THE PRESENT AND YET
I AM OFTEN A VISITOR TO MY
PAST. WE CALL IT MEMORIES;
WE ARE MADE BY THEM.

4. Some of the moments give us
strength and hope for the future, yet
others hold us hostage, filling us
with despair and endless fear.

5. There is that saying;
'from hardship comes strength’ – but I am
somewhat uncomfortable with this. It suggests that
success should always be the measure, when I think
the true watermark of any life should be the value
we have given to others. And no more so than what
we do for our children.

6. I have seen so
many success
stories
that are wrapped in barbed wire. People who
seem to have conquered all, where the score
card is power, money, position and yet there
they stand utterly naked for they harbor hate,
malice and dismissal of others. Nothing is
uglier than self-entitlement especially when it
dismisses the right of others to be respected, to
have a voice.

7. WITH POWER INDEED COMES GREAT
RESPONSIBILITY. AND WE AS PARENTS
COMMAND GREAT POWER OVER OUR
CHILDREN IN THE BEGINNING, YET
SOONER THAN WE IMAGINE POSSIBLE,
WE LOSE THAT HOLD.

8. This is more so today than ever
before. The digital age has freed –
and it has enslaved us like no other
moment before.

9. Information is
easy to find and
to share.
The speed of it however has allowed too many
to use it for all the wrong reasons. Today
everyone can share an opinion – and all too
often it is self serving, without thought and
dangerous. Today to say something is a truth, is
also at the same time committing it to be a lie,
because people see things through their own
prism. Words have become very cheap.
Laws and rules by their very nature invite
people to break them.
Power held by just a few is now shared by
many thanks to social media and the greatest
users of this power – are the children and youth
of today.

10. The bottle is
open, the genie
is out.
We are discovering new things and inventing
like no other time. And yet, we are losing
ourselves too.
We live in the best of times. And the worst. Has
it all gone too far that now there is no hope?
Is tomorrow and the promise that it brings lost
by the fragile and whimsical nature of the way
we act, react and strive, regardless of others?
I hope not. Hope after all is the drug that keeps
us sane. To lose hope is to have no purpose. To
have no purpose is to stand still.
We have to believe. We have to hope.

11. The only way the world can heal itself
is for us to believe that a world where
there is friendship without borders is the
only way to live a better life and to truly
give all our tomorrows a better chance.

12. There should be
no quotas:
How many men or women should make up a
leadership team, how many older people we
should hire, how many people of different color
to our own should be ‘accommodated’…and so
forth.
Quotas are polite forms of woeful
discrimination.
And all this garbage is what we as ‘adults’ are
allowing to happen. We are allowing our own
fears, our own pre–conceived notions of who is
‘in ‘ and who is ‘out’ to rule us. Tribalism is on
the rise. Self righteousness and condescension
is everywhere – often assumed to be disguised
and yet is so naked.

13. A few months
ago,
one of my son’s best friends came to visit us
from China. Max is half Australian and half
Chinese and 100% a child of the world. He
really is a lovely young man.
Walking slightly ahead of us he saw a group of
boys and girls, rich kids from Westport – and as
he passed them by, one idiot could not help
himself ‘hey Chink what the fuck are you doing
walking here on our beach?’.
The rest of the children laughed in unison. I
was shocked, dismayed, deeply agitated.
Max on the other hand simply smiled and…
apologized.

14. By then I had
caught up and
the pack of
hyenas’ quickly
sloped away
cackling.
Max said nothing more of it and yet behind
his ‘ I don’t care about it smile’ was the
slightest mist – he was hurt. My son put his arm
around his shoulders, he shrugged the
embrace away and walked away from us. A
sunny day suddenly had become grey and all
too quiet.
Then later that same day Max said something I
shall never forget:

15. ‘SOMETIMES THE HARDEST THING TO DO IS TO
DESTROY A NEARLY FINISHED PAINTING. BUT IN
STARTING FROM SCRATCH, IN LETTING GO, IN
KEEPING ONLY WHAT FEELS RIGHT, LIES
INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL. WE HAVE TO BE BRAVE
ENOUGH TO START AGAIN. JUST BRUSHING OVER
MISTAKES NEVER GETS YOU TO A GOOD PLACE. I
WISH JUST ONE KID IN THAT GROUP COULD HAVE
BEEN BRAVE.’

16. To believe that everyone has the right
and the possibility of being good should
be our universal creed.

17. And it does not start with
the young ones,
but with us, we who have many life rings and lived
through many chapters. We who can still feel like a
lost child or a useless youth, despite the years.
If only adults would stop standing in the way by
teaching all this hate.

18. WE SHOULD DO BETTER. STEP BY STEP. ONE
SNOW FLAKE CANNOT STOP THE TRAFFIC BUT A
BLIZZARD CAN. FRIENDSHIP COMES FROM BELIEF.
A BELIEF THAT EVERY ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO BE
UNDERSTOOD. HARD AS THAT MAY SEEM, IT IS
THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE TOMORROW FOR OUR
CHILDREN AND ALL THOSE WHO WAIT TO BE
BORN.

19. FOUNDER AND CEO OF MTM CHOICE
Alexei Orlov
ALEXEI IS FOUNDER AND CEO OF MTM CHOICE WORLDWIDE, A
SPECIALIST NETWORK OF SKILLED PRACTITIONERS DELIVERING HIGH-
PRECISION BRAND ACTIVATION AND MEDIA OPTIMISATION. MTM CHOICE
IS IN NEGOTIATIONS TO COMPLETE A SECOND ROUND OF FUNDING TO
SUPPORT ADDITIONAL TOP TIER ACQUISITIONS. THEIR FOURTH
ACQUISITION IS SLATED TO CLOSE FEBRUARY 2019. FURTHER SPECIALIST
BRANDS ARE IN NEGOTIATIONS TO JOIN THE GROUP DURING 2019.