An excerpt from the book by renowned entrepreneur and innovator Dr. Olga Azarova, The Full Potential of the Human Being: The Eight Intelligences, offers a clear conceptual foundation for understanding what it means to be “alive.” As an introduction to the methodology of MINIBOSS & BIGBOSS BUSINESS SCHOOLS, this text presents a broader vision of life itself — and of the kind of education humanity needs in order to understand, develop, and consciously manage life for the benefit of the individual and the Planet.
A little science is useful for all of us, isn’t it?
Yes, life is a remarkable journey — one that human beings instinctively wish to extend for as long as possible. Yet within this journey, some processes may be prolonged, while others may be shortened. In other words, the quality and duration of life can be consciously influenced if we understand three fundamental questions:
Who are we, and where do we come from?
In other words, to which larger macro-system do we belong?
How do we function?
What biological, psychological, and social mechanisms sustain our survival and development?
How can we manage our organism and, consequently, our life?
Where are we going, and for what purpose?
From 20 to 70 Years
Of course, human life cannot yet be extended indefinitely. However, we are already capable of influencing many biological and behavioural processes — and, to a significant extent, their outcomes.
While scientists around the world continue to investigate how to extend human life, slow ageing, and perhaps one day approach biological immortality, it is worth remembering how far humanity has already progressed. The average life expectancy of Neanderthals is believed to have been approximately 20 years. Early Homo sapiens often lived around 30–35 years. In the Middle Ages, average life expectancy remained roughly within the same range. Only with scientific, medical, hygienic, and technological progress — especially from the 17th and 18th centuries onward — did human life expectancy gradually increase to 50–60 years. Today, in many parts of the world, the average lifespan has reached approximately 70 years or more.
At the same time, many factors continue to shorten human life: wars, epidemics, disease, hunger, environmental degradation, chronic stress, and destructive lifestyles. Yet when a person is equipped with knowledge — when one understands how to operate and protect one’s own “biological machine,” the human organism — life no longer appears merely as suffering or as a chain of random fatal events. Instead, it becomes a conscious voyage: a ship of happiness, meaning, and self-directed development.
Yes, the ocean of life contains storms, whirlpools, and even “pirates.” There will be crises, losses, obstacles, and uncertainty. But a person can withstand the pressure of these forces and process defeat, deprivation, and pain more effectively when they understand what they already possess, what may await them beyond the horizon, and what price is paid for victories and failures in every battle of life.
Question No. 1
Are you alive?
Surprisingly, not every reader will answer this simple question with an immediate “yes.” Some may pause, reflect on their current or past experience, and answer: “I do not know,” “only partly,” or even “is this really life?”
Such uncertainty often arises when a person lives unconsciously — without studying the world, without understanding the self, and without recognising the true aspirations of the body, mind, and spirit. Many people pass through life without activating a significant part of their potential. They may fulfil only a fraction of their biological, intellectual, emotional, creative, social, and spiritual capacities. And at the end of life, some still ask: “Was that really life?”
Question No. 2
Do you want to discover the nature of your personal potential?
If your answer is yes, then you are fortunate: you are not only ready to study yourself and the world, but also to act. In this case, this book may become your personal Book of Life — a source to which you return again and again, finding new answers, insights, and motives for the flourishing of your life.
This life may be relatively short in biological terms, yet it can be extraordinary, meaningful, creative, and deeply fulfilled.
For this purpose, the eight-book cycle The Full Potential of the Human Being, based on Olga Azarova’s methodology, explores each element of human potential separately: each intelligence, each dimension of development, and each major theme of human life in a holistic and systematic way.
In this first book, the task is to understand life itself: its relationship to macro-systems and micro-systems, its universal biological and evolutionary laws, and the meaning of your individual life through the lens of your own potential. This understanding becomes the first and greatest wealth of human perception: the ability to recognise oneself within the world.
So, what is life?