Willpower Is a Lie: What Ashtanga Yoga Can Teach About Leadership
Evgeny Putilin, the Studio Art Director of Allcorrect Group walked into a yoga class in Serbia four years ago. He didn’t speak a word of Serbian and was, in his own words, “stiff as a board.” So he asked the teacher for a private session. Only one slot was free: Sundays at 8:45. He took it, and he has been showing up ever since.
I love this story because his experience resonates with so many of us. Evgeny didn’t practise yoga until he was 38. He spent years believing what so many of us were taught: that good leaders run on willpower, decide everything and push their view through at any cost. Then the mat quite literally turned his world upside down.
In our conversation he talks about why rituals matter more than willpower. He explains why a little “controlled discomfort” quiets an anxious mind, and how the pose that wouldn’t come for months finally arrived once he stopped trying so hard. Strength and softness, discipline and ease: in Evgeny’s practice they aren’t opposites. They hold each other in balance.
He also shares this powerful yet humble lesson: even after decades of experience, there’s still something important you don’t yet know.
It’s never too late to begin again.
Today, as Co-founder and CEO of Firebird Studio, Evgeny is still learning, both on the mat and as a leader.
Q1 Before we go deeper, what first drew you to Ashtanga, and what keeps you going with this practice, showing up on your mat even when it's hard?
I came to yoga almost by accident, when I moved to Serbia. I didn't speak Serbian yet, and I was super inflexible. In a group class everyone was doing something, and I didn't understand a word and was stiff as a board on top of that. So I asked the instructor, Sanja, if I could practice with her one-on-one. Her schedule was full except for one slot: Sundays at 8:45. I said, perfect. That was four years ago, and I've been coming to Sanja at 8:45 on Sundays ever since.
I started with Hatha and later moved to Ashtanga. Today I practice every morning on my own, and once a week Sanja corrects me and helps me refine what I do.
What keeps me going is that it has become a ritual. I enjoy it, and after practice my mind feels unloaded and the whole Sunday goes calmly and easily. At some point it simply became harder to skip a session than to show up.
Q2 Ashtanga literally means "eight limbs", the first two of these being the ethics and self-discipline (yamas and niyamas), which we practice daily both on and off the mat. Which of these values do you find the most relevant to you as a leader, and why?
Tapas, usually translated as discipline. But for me it isn't about discipline or willpower at all. Since childhood I was taught how important willpower is, and only around forty did I realize that's a big lie. I've come to see willpower as a limited resource, and we have far less of it than we think. The one who wins is the one who organizes their life to spend as little of it as possible.
That's what tapas means to me: rituals. Getting up at 8 on a Sunday used to take real effort. Now it's just what I do, and it costs me almost no willpower. Yoga is probably one of the things that taught me this.
Leadership works the same way. Through repetition, I help the team get used to the practices I want to see, so they cost people as little willpower as possible. If management is about managing behavior, then I manage behavior by managing willpower, and that makes the actions I need far more likely to actually happen.
Q3 Ashtanga asks you to repeat the same sequence day after day, for years. What has that repetition taught you about growth that feels slow or invisible, in yourself and in the people you lead?
Repetition builds a foundation. James Clear makes this point in Atomic Habits: to build a habit, don't tell yourself "I'm going to do yoga", tell yourself "I am a yoga practitioner." Every morning on the mat reinforces that story: that I practice, that I take care of my health, that it matters. Management works the same way. Any recurring meeting or routine supports a narrative and becomes an institution, a foundation on which a lot more gets built, including effective and sustainable business processes.
Repetition also taught me about growth you can't see. I spent a very long time learning to do a bridge. At first I couldn't do it at all; now I do a really good one. Part of that was simply practice, a little better each time. The other part was realizing that my body was capable of it. I see people the same way. Everyone has potential that isn't always visible to them, and a leader's job is to unlock it together with the person.
Q4 Ashtanga is often seen as a strong, demanding, even "hard-edged" practice. How do you balance that strength with softness and kindness, on the mat and with your team?
I'd actually disagree that Ashtanga is hard-edged. It's stricter than other styles, but I see that as useful. I have a concept I call controlled discomfort. Our brain is still wired to look for tigers in the bushes, constantly scanning for threats, and that leads to the anxiety so many people live with today.
If you feed the brain some hardship in advance, under control, it stops searching.
That's why I also run, preferably in the morning or in the rain: you know it's 10 kilometers, and then it's over. Same with a sequence of asanas. Not every one is pleasant, but I do them all, and afterwards I'm calmer and can really focus.
Softness is part of the practice too. An asana that won't come for months often suddenly works the moment you relax and stop trying so hard to do it right. It's the relaxed muscles that let you into the pose. As for the team, nobody likes being treated harshly. People value a more human approach that's focused on them.
Q5 Everyone hits a posture they can't get past, sometimes for months. What's been your "stuck pose," and is there a leadership equivalent?
The bridge was one, but I'd say the handstand. It literally turns your world upside down, and it's hard not only physically, since we're used to standing on our feet, but psychologically too. It taught me that developing new points of support lets you see the world from a different angle.
The leadership equivalent took me a very long time. I've been a tough, authoritarian manager, and I've been a leader who asks, involves people in decisions and relies on their intrinsic motivation. The second works better, but it's less intuitive. Our culture pictures a leader as a general who makes a billion decisions a second and sends people into battle, a "strong leader" who pushes their view through at any cost. Outside of real crises, and most of the time we're not in one, such leaders are usually less effective.
Realizing that directives, control and micromanagement destroy a team in the long run turned my thinking upside down. I had to develop a new point of support in myself: empathy. Like yoga, it's about connecting with a person's inner self.
Final Notes on Ashtanga and Leadership
It took a stiff body, a language he didn’t speak and a single free slot on a Sunday morning to change the way Evgeny leads. Sometimes our most important lessons come quietly, through a door we never planned to walk through.
Thank you, Evgeny, for your honesty, your humour and for sharing your practice so generously. It’s been a joy to learn from you.
❓ Where in your leadership are you still relying on willpower? And what small ritual could you start this week, so it no longer has to?
If this resonates with you and you’re ready to lead with more ease and less effort, let’s talk.
Book a free discovery call and together we’ll find the rituals that will hold you, on the hard days too.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week ahead.The light in me honours the light in you.
Namaste
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