Do Not Prepare Excuses First

When I was working in a Japanese electronics company, I saw many people who were reluctant to participate in a new trial. In a competitive situation involving salary raises and position promotions, the best method for ensuring one's salary and position is to not make any mistakes. The best approach for not making any mistakes is to do nothing. However, there is a problem. If one does nothing, he may not make a mistake, but neither will he make himself stand out from the crowd. What can he do? He can create excuses in order to prepare for his failure. Then, a person would be armed with thousands of reasons for his failure. In this way, he would be able to justify any failure.

This is a little different from taking a constructive approach to being prepared for the worst scenario, because building logical excuses is not constructive. In the process of preparing excuses, a person will have to imagine how things can go wrong. Therefore, he is subconsciously imprinting the failure pattern in his brain. If one is serious about being successful in his trial, this is the worst approach. Although a person can avoid losing face or losing his position, he will also diminish his chances of success in the attempt. He would hope to be successful if he tried something new, right? I would.

Taro was an assistant manager in a software company.

He was good at blaming others for his project failures. He made his colleagues responsible for the results and accused their venders. He also made his subordinates scapegoats. Therefore, he avoided direct responsibility for his failures. A big project caught his attention because with it he might obtain a promotion. He could expect a significant raise if he succeeded. However, by that time, he had become infamous for his excuses. Therefore, Taro's boss did not recommend him to the company's management, and he could not get the job he wanted because of his excuses.

Obviously, there is doubt about how to effectively prepare an excuse. Repeating excuses could backfire as in Taro's case. I have seen my colleague's boss call him "Cry-Wolf Peter" because of his many excuses. Management tends to favor subordinates who try their best. When they fail, they should accept responsibility and apologize. Using too many excuses is like digging your own grave. In addition, in the cases of self-employed people or entrepreneurs, there is no reason for preparing excuses. We try and either succeed or fail. If we fail, we analyze the reasons and try again.






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Historical Figures Who Stabilized Buddhism in China and Japan

There are some people we learn about in history lessons during high school. It is clear what years they lived and what they did. These facts may be seen as the X-axis of history. They form a chronological horizontal line using time as variables. But usually we do not pay much attention to the people who lived in the same era but in different places. Those people may have interactive roles in history. They form the vertical axis. The Y-axis of history uses places as variables. We may be able to find interesting facts about history if we pay attention to both the X- and Y-axes of history.

Today, I was thinking about Buddhism. I know several famous historical figures. I picked four key people from the history of Buddhism, without paying much attention to which age they lived in, and discovered an interesting fact. Buddhism, an Indian-born religion, propagated to China between the first and the second century. It became popular in China and was introduced to Korea in the fourth century and Japan in the sixth century. The following are the four key features that stabilized Buddhism in China and Japan.

Bodhidharma; He was an Indian monk and the founder of Zen. He was active in the 5th and 6th centuries in China.

Xuanzang; He was a Chinese Monk. He traveled to India to obtain and deliver original Buddhist documents to China. (602 - 664 AD.)

Prince Shotoku; He was a Japanese imperial crown prince. He was the key person who brought Buddhism to Japan. He built the foundation for the stabilization of Buddhism in Japan. (574 - 622 AD.)

Jian Zhen (Ganjin in Japanese) was a Chinese Monk. He propagated and stabilized Buddhism in Japan. (688 - 763 AD.)

While thinking about early days of Buddhism in China and Japan, I selected these people without knowing their chronology. It is evident from this list that the propagation of Buddhism from India to China and Japan happened in a relatively short period between the sixth and seventh centuries.

Buddhism today would not exist without all the efforts of the foregoing four people, especially Jian Zhen (Ganjin in Japanese), who was invited to teach and guide Japanese Buddhist monks and to stabilize Japanese Buddhism in the early stages. He tried to travel to Japan six times. However, his first five attempts failed due to political reasons and storms. He lost his eyesight during the storm that occurred on his fifth attempt. At the time of his final attempt to travel to Japan, he was sixty-six years old. He did not give up going to Japan to propagate Buddhism. He finally made it in 753 AD. His contribution to Japanese Buddhism is priceless.



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Respect Your Enemy

Bowing before a fighting match is a Japanese Martial Arts tradition. China is the origin started this practice. This practice can be seen in any fighting art, in Asia, not just in Japan. Western chivalry carries same spirits and overlaps the principles. Basic principle in bowing to one's enemy before fighting is to show respect to his enemy.

There were some Samurai Leaders who did not respect their enemies in Japanese history. One Local Lord who almost unified Japan in 16th Century was one of them. He destroyed and changed Japanese Ancient Regime. In this sense, he is noteworthy figure in Japanese history. His approach, however, to his enemy, was with hatred and destruction. He attacked a temple, killed all priest, and burned down the temple. He did the same to Ninja village. According to the history, he drunk Japanese Sake with a cup made by his enemy leader's skull. He was like Earl Dracula, the Japanese Version.

On the other hand, there were some others who gave full respect to their enemies. A Local Lord in the backside of Japan repeated fierce fights against his enemy over a mountain area territory in early 16th Century. He respected his enemy so much that he had sent salt and saved his enemy and his country, when his enemy suffered from lack of salt because of stopped supply.

Why did a Samurai need to respect his Enemy? Why they had bowed, before they fought for their lives? By bowing and showing respect to his opponent, they were sending wordless message to his enemy. Their messages were like the followings:

I respect you as a Samurai. I promise you that I will fight you under rules of Samurai fighting. I promise that I do not do anything disgraceful to win. If I win and you lose your life, I will not disgrace your body, soul, and family. I will respect them as I respect you.

In other words, the one fighting under Samurai spirit must be philosophical, spiritual, ideological, and strong in giving this message. They must be fighting for the reason they believe to be right, to the extent that he can kill or die. This concept defines the base for Samurai fighting spirit. They fought just for righteousness. They did not fight for any disgraceful reason.

An interesting fact is that Samurai, who respected their enemies, and fought under righteousness and justice in their history, had rewarded with somehow happy ending. On the other hand, ones, who did not respect their enemies, who fought for their own aims and greed, had tragic results. Betrayal of his own subject killed this Japanese version of Earl Dracula before he unified Japan. The family of Samurai, who sent salt to his enemy, survived long and chaotic period.





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Origin of Samurai

There are a lot of Japanese words that become known worldwide. Judo might have been the first one as the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 introduced it to be an official sport in the Olympic games. Other examples are Karate, Shogun, Keiretsu, Bushido, and Samurai. As one types these words, word processor software does not give the typist the warning of a typo or a misspelling. How do non-Japanese people in the world picture "Samurai"? They may think they are warriors who are skillful on using the world deadliest swords.

This vision is right. For those who are not familiar with the word, Samurai, Samurai is a Japanese term referring to Japanese soldiers. Even Japanese people assume Edo, Shogun era Samurai when they refer to Samurai. A Samurai started to appear in Japanese history around early 8th Century. The Great Generals became official positions when then government was fighting against local tribes in Japan for unifying all Japan. There were 4 Great Generals depending their defense responsibilities. They were Great Generals for the East, for the West, for the North, and for the South. Before the Great Generals, the difference between Emperor's noblemen and generals were not clear. Noblemen were politicians, but they were warriors at the same time, upon the order from Emperor.

The Great Generals were professional warriors, and they formed their own professional soldiers forces. In 796, Tamuramaro Sakanoue became Grand General on top of Great Generals and became head of warriors. People called his position of Grand General Shogun. He is the first Shogun in Japanese history. Then the difference between lawmakers and warriors became clear. Aristocrats did not go to war any more. Fighting became the profession for soldiers.

Even Grand General being a position of Emperor's government, those soldiers were Emperor's army. Emperor and people called soldiers Samurai. The meaning of Samurai in Japanese is men of service for Emperor, government, and the people. The word Samurai became usual word in Japanese referring to soldiers.

As Aristocrats' government got corrupted in 10th century, Yoritomo Minaamoto, a Great General's son became Shogun in 1192. He opened independent administration in East Area of Japan. He is the first Shogun of Samurai government. After the Dark Age of wars and fighting in 15th and 16th century, as Emperor's power became weak, Samurai had been the center of Japanese politics and military system for almost 700 years.

Samurai government period ended in 1868, as then Shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa declared to return the political power to Emperor. Samurai was no longer governing group of Japan. Later part of 18th Century, after China-Japan war and Russian-Japan war, the doctrine of Samurai, Bushido became the center of attention. Bushi and Samurai have the same meaning, soldiers in Japanese. Bushido is the base principle of Bushi or Samurai. It was because Japanese education system needed to re-establish Japanese spirit and patriotism competing against foreign countries.

It was interesting historical fact that the first modern textbook of "Bushido" was written in English and published in the US in 1900. The title of the book was "Bushido: The Soul of Japan". The author was a young diplomat, Inazo Niitobe. It is also fascinating that the author was a Christian, since the last Shogun government, Tokugawa regime was persecuting Christianity so hard. In 1938, the first Japanese version of this English book is published in Japan. The military government before World War II, to drive Japanese to the war, abused Bushido. Bushido does not recommend dying when defeated.

Spirits of Bushido, however, survived this abuse. Based on never give up spirit for fighting to the end, deeply under the influence of Confucius, Sun-Zu, and Zen, Bushido is alive today, as the strongest principles of Japanese people believes.






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Be Kind to Yourself

According to a reliable psychology source, people who are kind to themselves tend to be kind to others.

If one likes relaxing in a coffee shop near his or her office during breaks from work, he or she would be happy to receive a discount coupon for the coffee shop. However, if one just concentrated on work, he or she would not appreciate the discount coupon for the coffee shop. Instead, he or she would be upset for thinking that a friend might want him or her to relax at a coffee shop during work hours. Such a workaholic would not be able to appreciate the kindness of his or her friend, although such kindness would be a wish for the workaholic's relaxation and unwinding.

Keiko is a relaxed girl who likes everything that most girls like. She likes flowers, and decorates her apartment with a lot of them. She brings flowers to her office for others to enjoy during busy work hours. One of her colleagues noticed her habit, and brought in a bouquet of flowers for her. Keiko was grateful, and used the flowers to decorate her office for everybody to see.

On the other hand, Haruko is career oriented. She works in Keiko's office, but is a business warrior. Haruko pretended not to notice Keiko's flowers because she was not interested in them. She hated flowers that took up her working space. When Haruko was given a bouquet of flowers for a Valentine's Day present, she called her flower-giving friend a hypocrite.

What made them so different? Keiko knows how to be kind to herself by relaxing and enjoying her flowers, which is why she can appreciate and enjoy her gift of flowers. She can also be kind to her friend who gave her the flower bouquet.

In contrast, Haruko does not know how to be kind to herself. She does not understand that relaxing and enjoying herself is a good way to show kindness to herself. Because she cannot be kind to herself, Haruko cannot be kind to her friend who gave her flowers on Valentine's Day.

However, we should be careful of one thing. We should be aware that there are differences between being kind to ourselves and overindulging ourselves. One should reward himself or herself, even if there is no one to applaud him or her. Yet, spoiling oneself is a self-centered and self-justifying process. For example, enjoying a bottle of wine with your spouse is rewarding yourself. However, drinking too much and complaining about your boss is spoiling yourself.




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Recommendation to Be Natural

When Taro was a university student, he took a kendo (the Japanese art of using the sword) class as an easy credit. He was a second degree black belt. There were many beginners who wanted to take the university's kendo lessons. Most of them followed the teacher's instructions; however, one student, Yasushi, disobeyed the teacher and began to violently swing the bamboo sword around. Taro needed to fight him. As Yasushi continued swinging his sword, Taro could only watch him for the first 10 to 20 seconds in order to determine when to attack. Taro discovered there was no regularity to his opponent's swings. Yasushi simply followed a rhythm that his body produced. Taro counted the rhythm and noticed that the sword was over his opponent's head every six to eight beats, which meant that Yasushi's body was unguarded at that moment.

However, Yasushi was not swinging the sword slowly; therefore, Taro knew he had to be quick to defeat the other student. Taro counted the rhythm and moved forward in a short, but sharp move. Taro thrust his sword into the front of Yasushi's throat and hit his throat guard, which caused him to fall backward. Taro might have used other tactics, but the thrust to the throat was effective. Taro's opponent could not swing his sword as before; therefore, it was easy for Taro to beat him.

After the class, someone called Taro. It was Yasushi, his opponent from class. Yasushi praised Taro's skill and said there is a difference between a black belt and an amateur.

He wanted to know how Taro had decided to use the thrusting technique and when Taro had decided to begin his attack. However, Taro did not have an answer to these questions. It was not a big secret, and Taro wished to answer Yasushi's question. Taro had allowed his mind to determine the most effective attack against his opponent. Thrusting as the most effective form of attack simply came into his mind naturally. It was not logic, intuition, or the result of thinking.

It seems that the word 'natural' is the key factor. In "The Book of Five Rings", Musashi Miyamoto, a master of ancient swordsmanship, wrote that being natural is the best way to live life. He explained that one should not overextend or underestimate oneself. In addition, one should not be either too optimistic or too pessimistic. Furthermore, Musashi wrote that one should always be totally natural: "It is like walking a main road of a city. If a swordsman came, you would meet the swordsman. If a woman came, you would meet the woman. If a thief came, you would meet the thief."





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Thank you all for "315 likes" to my FB Page, "CrossCultureSquare"

I am glad to report that my Facebook Page, "Cross Culture Square", based on my website "Cross Culture Square", acquired 315 "like"s today.  I provide links and image of the page below, but you can easily search in Facebook by keyword of "CrossCulturalSquare".

The purpose of this page was to promote and sooth the communication between different cultural background.  I hope it would help promoting not only communication, but also understanding, further the spirit of helping each other in cross-cultural community.

I am widely targeting cross-cultural relationship in individual base, company base, and society base.  My primary focus is on individual base, since all organizations including companies or societies based on individual consciousness.

Although I had prepared this page for months, it was officially launched and shared in my own Facebook wall last Wednesday, June 8th.  The third day from the launch, 25 people liked it, and could formally named it "CrossCultureSquare".  The page has  gathered 25 "likes" in 7 days.  Now I am pleased to inform you that people who "like"ed this page were counted to be 315.  I was deeply impressed with the people in the world today conscious about communication over cultural difference and gaps.

I cannot thank enough to the people who gave me "like" on the CrossCulturalExchange FB Page.  Also deep gratitude for people who have written on the wall and gave me messages.

I will continue to do my very best not to disappoint you on my operation in CrossCultureSquare.

Link:  http://www.facebook.com/CrossCultureSquare

My "zi" iFrame Link: http://www.facebook.com/CrossCultureSquare?sk=app_229239457102605






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I Told You Not To Do It

Mikio had just been promoted to Section Manager. At his company, the Section Manager's job is to explain the hands-on project to senior management for general approval. Mikio's project was an overseas alliance with an American company in the semiconductor business, and a large investment was involved. There were no operation risks, but it was obviously a matter that senior management had to approve. Mikio prepared a document and executive summary, and then called an assistant regarding the senior executive schedule. An executive meeting was set for the following week. Mikio was tense, but excited about his first experience.

The executive meeting went fairly well. The executive director was friendly and open-minded. There were several questions that Mikio was able to answer. The executive director's final comment was "Carefully proceed." The financial figures of the company's partner candidate were not so good. After the meeting, Mikio returned to his office. For the next three months, he worked non-stop on the project, his life work. Mikio needed to travel back and forth between the U.S. and Japan for face-to-face meetings. Management from the partner company also visited his company. Finally, the joint venture company was 90% complete, or at least Mikio thought so.

It was Monday afternoon when Mikio received a phone call from the main manager of his partner company, telling him that it had received a hostile takeover from its competition. He received details in an e-mail from his counterpart one hour later. The party offering the tender bid was a fierce competitor of his company. It did not make sense to proceed further in the formation of the joint venture. Mikio and his team reluctantly stopped their project.

Mikio needed to finish an unpleasant task, which was explaining the result to the executive who had approved the project. He visited the executive floor once again to report the result of the project. However, the director was neither friendly nor open-minded this time. After his explanation, the managing director made an incredible statement. He said, "That was why I told you not to do it." Mikio could not believe his ears. Was this not the same person who had said to proceed carefully? However, he did not raise this question with the director. Later, he talked to his boss about the statement. His boss told him that the statement "carefully proceed" was tricky and could be interpreted as either yes or no. The boss also told Mikio that he had learned a valuable lesson, but Mikio did not think so. Several years later, he resigned from this company and started his own.



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That Is Why It Works

It was the first story of the movie "The Matrix". Neo insisted to attack the military building to save Morpheus when all his team gave up. Neo goes back into "Matrix". Trinity follows. In the preparation stage, Trinity asked, "Nobody has tried this." Trinity meant they would not succeed. Neo answers, "That is why it works." "The Matrix" contains a lot of useful advices for life. This one gives people idea how people can take different opinions viewing the same thing. One was negative. The other was positive.

Quite recently, a good friend of mine started his business. He wanted to get into English Teaching Lessons. He had a unique idea. He explained his plan to his friend. He hoped to have his friends' opinions on his. His friends' reactions and answers were 90% negative. He should stay in his employment. His idea will not work, because nobody appreciates his way. Nobody knows his start-up company. He does not have enough money to open his school and continue running the school. Hi friends gave him many negative opinions. He became depressed. Then, he heard this Neo statement that it works because nobody has tried it, yet. He decided to go ahead for his original plan and started his own business. He does not know if he could be successful. He did he could do and launched his plan to the limited investor people. He could get a favorable response from one of investors and he could get funds.



There was another friend of mine, who started a consulting business for large enterprises. The most of his friends were pessimistic about what he was doing. He remembers that 95% of phone calls he received were negative opinion. All of his family tried to stop him. He did not change his mind. He told to himself that all these negative opinions are a good sign of his plan works. He thought if his plan was lousy people would have ignored it. An off shore electronics company sponsored him. He runs a profitable consulting firm, now.

It is necessary to listen to others' opinions. One should not ignore their opinion. The important is what he will do after listened to these opinions. Will he follow other opinions? Will he get the essence of other opinions and digest to nurture his own idea or plan? It is not so easy to keep identity of one's opinion when the one receives rejections and opposition. The most important, it seems, is that he keeps his faith to his own ideas and opinions. This is the most crucial to be successful. Do not be shaky by rejections and opposition. Keep faith on what is believable. It is not what one thinks and does. It is one believes himself.


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