Insightful Tech Landscapes and Life's Balancing Acts with Oleksiy Khoroshylov

Today's guest is from Canada . He works at Nextone Consulting as a Dynamics 365 AX consultant . He was first awarded as MVP in 2024 . He has extensive experience with Dynamics 365 Finance and SCM , as well as the Power Platform . He leads the Toronto Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management user groups and speaks at industry conferences .

You can find links to his bio , social media etc . In the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show , alinsky .

I don't know what beat it , I don't know , but it is still pretty tall and there is a nice restaurant on the top . If you , if you really made it , I think you can dine there every weekend .

Oh , fun For fun . Okay , I mean I like sports , right Overall , mark , I think I like sports . I mean I play team sports , I play individual sports . So I play soccer , which is football , right here , like once a week , indoor , outdoor leagues , different types of fields , et cetera . I enjoy the competitiveness of it and I enjoy that .

I'm running right , because I don't enjoy running without a purpose , just like jogging and things like that . But running while you play the game , trying to get a ball and score , it is a different story to me .

And for the sports , like , I started playing squash a couple of years ago , very demanding on your body , but at the same time it's kind of challenging as well , right , so I don't know how popular the sport is . I have a club near my house . It takes me like 15 minutes to drive there . I do play .

I play with my brother , I play with my kids and it's a fun sport . It's very demanding but fun .

I mean , I still indulge into things like you know , don't get me wrong , I like food . I like pistachios and figs . I can eat them like non-stop , I think . But I mean I just looked at it and said , well , maybe to play squash a bit longer and play soccer , I would need to keep my weight under control .

So I started intermittent fasting and I'm looking at the food as the source of energy . Right , I still enjoy it . I mean , don't get me wrong , I would definitely not say no to a nice dinner , but I just try to not overindulge , I guess .

Like to be honest , it always fascinates me and I was talking to my wife about that recently it's just how certain things that you know about but delivered in that one particular way at one particular point in time , can make a life lasting difference , right . So we all know , for example , that you need to brush your teeth twice a day , right ?

Was I doing that ? Not really , not regularly , right ? But then one dentist or technician actually said something and I started doing it and I'm still doing that , right .

So just surprising to me what that delivery is , how you can get that message across , because you know about those common knowledge stuff but not many people do follow them , right , but some of them just kind of .

I can't even remember what the app was called . It's designed to track your fasting activities . It was called Zero and it was free to start with . I'm one of the listed . I've got the badge for one of the OGs you know on the app . But yeah , I've done some big fasts in my life . I've done two 21-day fasts water only . That was intense . That was intense .

That was intense and very high impact . In fact , I did the two 21-day fast in a single year . So , yeah , I became skin and bones . People thought I had something wrong with me . I was selling at the time for a bank and , yeah , it was definitely quite different .

But then I suppose , on intermittent fasting , the longest streak I've done is about 50 days in a row of doing from 12 to 7 . Yeah , 12 to 7 , I think is my typical is the only time of the day . I'd eat from 12 to 7 and then fast the rest of the time . But , um , I find , uh , I've only broken that recently .

I went to MVP summit and I haven't what was that three weeks ago or so , and I haven't got back into you know bang , you know straight back into the habit of doing it . But I find I just , yeah , I find I even get a clearer mind by doing it , so it's very effective .

I left the company a while back , so don't blame me on anything that is happening there now . Right , and I enjoyed this work . Right , I enjoyed this work . It was interesting . You saw you program something . You go to the floor , you load that program to the machine and you see that part emerge from the piece of aluminum .

But at the same time it's like what's next ? What is next for me there as a programmer ? Can I do anything above and beyond that ? It wasn't really anything that interested me , like options that are going to management , et cetera . So I said , okay , let me just try to go to a business school , for example .

Right , so I decided and I was living in Ottawa back then , capital of Canada , and I went to university there for one year to get my postgrad in business administration . I did that postgrad in business administration . I did that , and then that was right during that 2009 , 2010, . Which was this whatever the recession I forgot not recession .

They used exapta on their own and they gave me basically a bunch of um work notebooks , right , bunch of textbooks about the dynamics ax 2012 . It was then and I just started learning . To me it was just my first introduction to the IT , combined together with some business knowledge , business lingo . Not many things did make sense at the beginning .

That's when I just kind of started working and then they kind of asked me had an interview a month later after the holidays ? They just asked me , like , had an interview a month later after the holidays ? They just asked me how I was talking , like , did I understand anything at all ? Maybe 20% of the things that I've read there ?

They were like I think they were quite happy overall and that's what I start . That's how my consultancy , my business analyst career , has started right .

I was working as a trade logistics consultant for that company and it'd be solutions , by the way and I was working as a logistics consultant for that company NMB Solutions , by the way , and I was lucky enough , I was fortunate enough to start working and communicating with people from different departments , from stakeholders , from different departments finance , production ,

etc . And that's how you start being introduced to different modules of the software and it's really up to you then what do you do with that ? Can you just keep up and just kind of try to learn the functionality there and here and be useful on the project ? Or would you say it's just too much , too many new things , et cetera ?

But for me , I was always looking at this job as it's a constant learning . I mean , you have to be prepared to learn nonstop if you want to be successful in in this job so .

I even forgot what they were like , maybe three , four years ago , mark , maybe you remember there used to be IFRS type of structure or some sort of rules introduced to gap accounting in the US . So we have to be following different rules about revenue recognition .

So I was reading through that material and said , like , how can I translate existing dynamics , functionality into this to meet those requirements ? And I wrote a fairly long and sophisticated blog post about that .

So that , to be honest , that was the achievement in one regard , because it took a while for me to be to understand what the concepts are and try to translate them creatively into what was available in standard solution . After that , they introduced the revenue recognition modules and things like that .

It's much easier to do it now , but when it was actually , the switch actually happened , like three , four , five years ago . That was a different story . And what is my biggest achievement ? I think that I mean just trying to . I think I stayed overall doing the contracting for the most parts .

I stayed quite busy , right , and I think that's the contracting for the most parts . I stayed quite busy right , and I think that's what I enjoy the most . Right , and some people say it's just fairly challenging to do so .

But being part of different projects , different challenging projects , and some of them are really kind of in different shapes , but that was probably the most interesting part . And always trying to make sure that you're there not just to spend your time but actually try to help anyone that is involved .

Right , consultants , that you work with client , of course , making sure they feel comfortable and they're not overwhelmed with the things that are coming their way . And the negative , you know , maybe some sort of baggage that was accumulated over the implementation period , right , I think that's what I think is . I mean , I don't know if it's an achievement mark .

To be honest , I think that's everyone that is in that line of business actually do that .

Uh , the the travel demands were were quite high , and that was the time where I had my second son on the way and I just needed to spend a bit more time there at home , and that's why I was able to . Again , I did my part .

I finished whatever needed to be finished , but then I had to leave and resume my contracting career by actually doing a project for Toronto Blue Jays MLB team here in Toronto . Probably you visited the game there while you were in Toronto .

They either work for partners , microsoft , or at an end customer and and a lot of them ask about going contracting or going freelance , right rather than but so they can pick their projects , so they can pick their work , but their fear is taking that plunge , you know , like the backstop of a company , if you like , or paying their salary .

What's your advice to them ? What's your recommendation to them ? What's worked for you ?

And I mean , again , I share my share , my knowledge , right ? I found that sharing my knowledge was always good to me , right , so it always felt right to me , right , that's how I always looked at it , right ?

I started my channel back 2016 and I tried to share the videos there and again , share the content in any , uh , shape and form that I can always felt right to me , you know .

You know that that was thing , and , to be honest , when I share , like , especially , some sort of content , it does become I do learn from it as well , right , so it benefits me , right it ?

It benefits me because , as you talk about the different concepts , it kind of you just trigger certain thoughts , there's certain ideas that would not pop up to you , and I've heard it . It's the best way . One of the ways to learn is actually to teach , right , and I find it very , very , very true , right .

And plus , you know , keeping up with all the functionality , new functionality does keep me ready for the next or the current project , right . But let me come back to your question , mark . Right , so they are reaching out and I can't really push you towards this way .

You have an interest , for sure , so I will make sure to answer any questions , but in my opinion , that's a lot based on your character . So , how risk-averse are you ?

Are you ready to have that uncertainty , or are you a bit more on the safer side and you want to have a predictability , stability of full-time , permanent employment , and you know there are a lot of consideration there .

So , but for me , I was always kind of person that couldn't really wait much , right , and that came back to burn me , and I know it's my kind of personal trade that I always felt okay , that's let's , let's do it right , like , like I did not really , um , I mean , probably I could have been a bit more patient in the past .

I would say right , but overall I am where I am just because of how I looked at things and if opportunity presented itself , I always try to make it work right . So I always try to find a way to get something done . But , coming back , I think it's based on your personality , right . So for some people , permanent employment is definitely the way to go right .

I don't think they are ready and they will be exposed and may just be negative on them , right , and maybe they will just not find it as kind of beneficial to them , of course . But I try to share pros and cons about different situations , different scenarios , and let them decide . Some of them did make that switch . They did not regret it .

Some of them decided to be permanent , which is totally fine .

Right , you always try to look out for new features , try to share the scenarios and some ideas and some solutions that you came up with . And then Frederick Statry I don't know if I will pronounce his last name correctly . Do you know who I'm talking about ? Okay , so he's . I think he's working for Microsoft right now in Norway .

He saw my videos and I think I did a series on some specific topic and he asked me if I would be interested in being nominated and I said yes , and that was back in 2020 , and then there was some . Again , the process was not as smooth .

I guess there was some transition to a new website , so I had to kind of work with the support team to submit my application . But , yeah , I think I just I mean my biggest contributions , I think probably are the YouTube videos .

I also , as you mentioned in the introduction , I'm also a chapter leader for Toronto user group , dynamics 365 , finance and Supply Chain . I try to again understand what the group would find interesting and share it with them , right ? So it does take some time to prepare for those sessions and I'm trying a new format .

If I can just plug in one thing here , I'm going to be running a transportation Q&A session at the end of April . I just did a poll on my channel and transportation , I think , is one of those topics that is kind of undercover .

I guess there is not a lot of material on this topic , let's just say , and some consultants are interested in functionality that is available there and I was fortunate enough to be exposed to it very early on , so I kind of learned it a while back and I'm going to run a Q&A session one hour .

It's a different format , just that I want to take like three hours or four hours of people's time on a specific topic . I said let's just try it out . So it's going to be one hour Q&A session . You can submit questions beforehand or you can ask them during the session . It will be , I think , april , or I forgot April 26th .

I think it's Friday , april 26th .