Sometimes I’m struck by the thought that my life has been too fragmented. I’ve been involved in psychology, diplomacy (I even served as ambassador in six places, as well as deputy and first deputy minister of foreign affairs, and state counselor to the president on international relations), negotiations, and writing – as a scholar, a writer, and a publicist, in three languages.
My books have been published in the Netherlands, the United States, Russia, and Uzbekistan; my academic articles have reached an even wider range of countries; and my short stories have been translated into several languages and published around the world.
I earned my Ph.D. in psychology and my D.Sc. in political science. I was awarded the title of associate professor in human resource management, and later that of professor in the history of international relations and international politics. I’ve been a visiting professor and researcher at several universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. I founded several new university departments, served as Director of the Institute of Management, and was the First Vice-Rector of a leading university in Uzbekistan. I’ve taught, conducted business trainings, and offered consultations. I’ve been active on social media and even created two YouTube channels. Oh, and I almost forgot – at one point, I founded two private enterprises: an institute and a training company.
As a researcher, I’ve moved across disciplines – from personality and motivation to organizational and political psychology, from negotiation and international negotiation to international relations, Central Asian politics, and diplomatic studies. The last article I submitted to an academic journal was devoted to artificial intelligence.
My teaching has also covered a broad spectrum: from leadership and management to international negotiation and public diplomacy. My current passion is strategy – strategic thinking and interaction. I’ve developed an original course on this subject and have already begun teaching it.
My sporting life has been just as diverse: I am a Master of Sports in fencing (former member of Uzbekistan’s junior national team), held sports rankings in boxing and volleyball, became tennis champion among ambassadors accredited in London, and have practiced taiji and tuishou intensively for many years.
Searching, searching, searching… Of course, this isn’t only about my personality – it’s also shaped by the nature of our rapidly changing era.
In short, there have been many directions – and even more spheres of interest. Yet in each of these areas, I’ve gone deep enough to realize that true mastery lies not in narrow specialization alone, but in the ability to see connections where others may not. Still, I’ve often caught myself wondering: am I spreading myself too thin? At times, it felt that way.
Many years ago, two Altai shamans came to Tashkent. We spoke for a long time, and I told them about this feeling of being scattered. One of them looked at me and said:
– You know, Alisher, your life will be like many small rivers that flow on their own. But a moment will come when they will merge and form a wide, powerful stream.
There’s another episode I sometimes recall. It was in California, in the early nineties. I was talking about the same feeling with a well-known psychologist. He suggested I take a stick and draw dots on the ground — symbols of my diverse and multidirectional interests.
I drew them. Then he said:
– Now try to connect them with one line.
I connected all the scattered dots – and it formed a circle, though a somewhat uneven one. The psychologist smiled:
– You see? There’s no scatteredness at all. Everything is connected. You have a holistic life.
Alisher Faizullaev 