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

Mark Smith: 0:37
Welcome to the MVP show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out already, I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that, let's get on with the show. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 1:33
Thank you. Thank you, mark, nice to hear from you.

Mark Smith: 1:37
Good to have you on the show. Toronto, that's a pretty nice place to live.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 1:43
I'd say so especially in the summer. For sure, I mean you can still come here in the winter if you're up for skiing and some cold weather, but I think best time to see it would be in the summer.

Mark Smith: 1:53
I love the city. You can basically transverse underground everywhere during winter, right?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 1:58
Yeah, yeah, the extensive path network, for sure that connects multiple skyscrapers in downtown area.

Mark Smith: 2:06
Nice. I've been there a couple of times, been up the. What do they call it? Is it the needle? Do they call it a needle Sky? What do you call it?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 2:13
Oh, yeah, cn Tower. I think. Is it the needle? Do they call it a needle sky? What do you call it? Oh yeah, cn tower. I think it used to be. My kids were just talking to me about it and they said oh pop, it used to be a tallest structure in the world for 30 plus years. 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.

Mark Smith: 2:32
I've done, I've had, I've had a dinner up there. I was an invited guest of an ISV. I was there for a Microsoft conference years ago, 2016,. They used to run, I think, microsoft Partner Conference was run there in 2016. And the other time was in 2012. And those are the two times I've been to Toronto to the Microsoft conferences.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 2:50
Yeah, it's a great city. I don't know. I think every big city probably has something to offer, you know, compared to other ones, you probably live in a bunch of them, but I like it. I mean, that's what I call home for the last 20 plus years.

Mark Smith: 3:04
Wow, Long time. So tell me a bit about food, family and fun. What do they mean to you?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 3:10
Food.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 3:10
Okay. So let's start with family. I have a wife. I was born and raised in Ukraine. My wife is Ukrainian as well. We have three sons together 12, 10, and 7 years old. Right, my wife is very happy that we turned out to have just three boys, right? I think she was really enjoying that Food family.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 3:34
And the third one, fun, fun, fun. 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.

Mark Smith: 4:34
You can work up a good sweat right playing squash.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 4:38
Oh damn, I mean those rallies. I mean they're said that somewhere that the amount of calories that the squash player burns is in the top three, maybe just next to those guys that row in these long boats. High impact, yeah. And for the food, I mean I, I changed my relationship with food quite recently, maybe three, four years ago to me. 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.

Mark Smith: 5:31
So intermittent fasting. Do you have a strict regimen? Do you have a a strict regimen, as you know?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 5:38
do you do a 16-8 or or what's your model? Yeah, I'm like I. I do not. I eat only from 1 to 7 pm. I don't even know what it is right, probably six hours. I'm not into it much. I just heard it on one podcast, one to seven, stuck in my head and I just stuck with it. 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.

Mark Smith: 6:34
It's almost like you turn on the switch, but not many people do follow them, but some of them just kind of. It's almost like you turn on the switch. It's interesting I noticed from about 2017, the whole intermittent fasting movement really took off globally. I was in London at the time. I had and I got an app called heck. 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.

Mark Smith: 7:12
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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 8:20
Yeah, definitely, something with that transformation in your body does trigger certain things to happen. I don't know what the secret is, but you can definitely see that, yeah, for me it was useful, beneficial overall. I don't know. Again, the weight loss was not the main focus, but it just turned out to be there and I just stuck with it.

Mark Smith: 8:39
Yeah, nice. How did you get into IT?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 8:44
I mean, I always was interested in computers overall, I'd say right, even when I was living back in Ukraine. But how particularly I was doing CNC programming. But how particularly I was doing CNC programming. So I was working for an aerospace company and I was programming these CNC mills, like making those large aluminum parts for Boeing. Right, I did not. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 9:16
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.

Mark Smith: 10:06
Yes, 2008 was the recession GFC.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 10:09
Not many jobs were available. So one company that was interested in my services and they gave me a chance, basically right, and I'm still grateful to this day was a small partner, uh, based out of ottawa, that they had the in-house consultancy branch. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 11:09
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.

Mark Smith: 12:01
So, from 2010 through to now, what would you consider be what would be your key career highlights?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 12:10
Okay. So I mean, I got the MBA recently, right, but that was, you know, one story. But I think I started, I was okay. So there are two things. I did one thing. I did one blog post that was not that popular but that I did a lot of thinking, to be honest, about the used to be a translation of some accounting principles. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 13:23
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.

Mark Smith: 14:29
So are you contracting now?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 14:32
Yeah, yeah, I have my independent company. Next, on consulting right, and that's what I've been, and I've been working with a variety of different partners throughout this last what are we saying? 13, 14 years since 2011. I did a brief stint at Microsoft Consulting Services, but that was back in 2013. And it just was not the right time. 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.

Mark Smith: 15:21
Absolutely I did.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 15:23
You were looking down from the CN Tower right at the end there.

Mark Smith: 15:26
Yeah, yeah, but definitely been in the stadium, definitely watched a game there. Tell me, you know I'll have a lot of people that listen to the podcast and they work for partners. 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?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 16:08
Great question, right? So I get that question a lot recently, right, so I get that question a lot recently, right, with the people that I work with from client side, from the partner side, people are reaching out to me over LinkedIn and just saying, hey, alexi, can you just tell me more? They have these burning questions about switching and going freelance. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 17:26
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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 17:59
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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 18:38
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.

Mark Smith: 19:09
Final question how did you become an MVP? What was that process for you?

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 19:16
So I had my channel since 2016. And again, as I said, sharing the knowledge. That was the thing that I was doing. Right, always kept, just always make sure that I keep myself up to date. That was beneficial to me personally as well. 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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 20:12

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.

Oleksiy Khoroshylov: 20:49
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.

Mark Smith: 21:51
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm your host business application MVP Mark Smith, otherwise known as the NZ365 guy. If you like the show and want to be a supporter, check out buymeacoffeecom forward slash NZ365 guy. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.