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The paradoxes behind the Dreamdome creation.

Most people don’t really understand the Paradox Mindset until they see real examples. So I’ll tell you a story about building the biggest eco-friendly dome house in Thailand - Dreamdome - which we built with minimal resources, using a technology nobody in Thailand had used before.

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The first big challenge was design and planning.

Not many people know that dome spaces work very differently from square ones. And there was a high risk of making major mistakes, since everything I had built before that was just a geodesic bungalow - cute, but far from efficient.

The local Thai team, on the other hand, had built many properties around the island, but had zero experience with dome construction. The budget was very tight, which limited us even more.

So I applied paradoxical thinking and framed the task like this: We design the dome by ourselves, but we do it perfectly. How was that possible?

After some imagining and thinking, I found two solutions:

Model the dome in VR first, so we could be sure there were no stupid planning mistakes. It cost me just $700, but saved the whole project. Seeing the space in full 3D revealed many nuances and potential issues. In fact, it led us to redesign the dome with three floors instead of two.

Consult the most experienced dome builder in Russia - Alexey Mitsko. This was pure gold. With just two Skype calls, I gained more practical knowledge about dome technologies than I have gathered from a year of online research. He compared eight different dome-building technologies and helped us choose the one that fit our situation best.

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2. The second challenge was technology.

Since we decided to build using prefab panels, we first needed a way to produce them. We could have rented a space, equipment, or worked with local factories — but that looked overly complex and far too much effort for just one house.

Again, I formed a contradiction: We don’t produce the wall panels ourselves, but we get them perfect.

That led us to another obvious solution — find an existing producer and buy from them. It turned out there was only one American company in the world doing this at the time. And surprisingly, due to material efficiency and time savings, it was economically reasonable to ship the entire dome kit from the USA to Thailand. So that’s exactly what we did.

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3. The third challenge was construction.

Even after we received the kit and detailed instructions, when we started assembling the panels, something felt off. We weren’t fully confident about certain details and were afraid small mistakes could lead to bigger mismatches later.

Paradox mindset again: Our understanding, even with instructions, is not enough — but we build it exactly the way it’s supposed to be built.

The solution was simple: bring in someone who had already worked with this technology. That’s how we found Kevin, a former employee who had built over ten domes himself. We flew him to the site for on-site consulting and everything immediately fell into place. The work went smoothly, with no delays or failures, and the Dreamdome turned out great.

Of course, there were many more challenges along the way, but I don’t want to overload you. I just wanted to give a few clear examples of how dramatically a Paradoxical Mindset can increase problem-solving ability.

You can apply this approach to your business or life challenges right now, especially when you work with real examples.

Let me know if you need guidance.

Also, Dreamdome is up for sale or lease.

DM if you're interested.

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