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Sunday, June 30, 2013

How Can You Be Active and Stay Active?

Did not you have an experience that the information, you were looking for, happened to come to you, instead of you found it, when you are positively and actively looking for such information? Or have not you experienced that you came across an advice when you needed it and actively looked for it.

It seems to me the key words here is active". There are people who said they are waiting for they feel like "active" to do something. But, the conclusion is that you will be never active if you wait for the moment you feel active. Instead, I think if you are active and start taking an action, you start to feel active.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (The Gospel According to Matthew, 7:7-8) The Bible recommends you to be active, not to wait for something happens.

We all are lazy somehow. We are not active to take actions, if we do not have specific need to take actions. We all have thousands of excuses not to do certain things, even if we know it is better to do. So, we all need to create our own "need" to be active. For example, it is my rule to say to myself when I feel lazy, "Incapable men always have good excuses." This is my slogan to encourage standing up and taking actions.

There are another thing that you can try when you are feeling lazy. It is meeting with people. You can meet with the people who you have never met before. You can pick up a phone and schedule to meet a new (mostly business) person for the first time and schedule to have lunch or dinner with that person, whenever you feel dull and inactive. You do not want the new person think of you inactive or lazy, you need to get up, be prepared, and go out meet that person.

It is important to meet a quality person and avoiding negative and only-critic style of person. Somebody told me to avoid being or meeting NATO people. According to him, NATO means No Action Talk Only. You do not want to be influenced by such a person. It is easy to be influenced by this kind of people.

Instead, you can plan to meet a person who are active, positive, outgoing. You will be glad if you could be influenced that way. You can keep active by being active. If not feeling active, take an action to be active. Please do not forget you cannot be active if you wait to feel active.

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Mental Strength Based on Vision and Passion

Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan, tells us the importance of vision and passion. It is not just a slogan. It is not just beautiful and fancy words. His personal history gives us clearly about bitter actuality walking the course to be successful.

Yataro Iwasaki was born in Lower Class Samurai family, who normally could not get education provided by local government that time in Japan. That did not discourage him at all when he was young. He educated himself while he was selling birdcages to support his family in his teens.

Later, he nominated himself to study in Edo (Tokyo) and could learn there. His academic achievement drew higher-class management, and he was selected to be an Edo business staff of the local government. His father was arrested when he was in Edo for street fight with higher-class Samurai. He came home to save his father and appealed his father's innocence to his government. He was fired. He was fired several times in his life. This was his first time.

He and his father were put in a jail for a while, after he was released, he reclaimed his innocence and expertise and hired back. Higher-class Samurai colleagues did not like Iwasaki sat in a higher position than them. Iwasaki was again accused of no reason and fired again.

Ryoma Sakamoto, who later became the central figure in Meiji restoration, picked up Iwasaki and Sakamoto and Iwasaki became independent partners, giving birth to "Kaien-tai", the first modern trading company in Japan. "Kaien-tai" later became "Mitsubishi Corporation". His humbleness made him say that he was just fortunate. He would not be able to keep going without passion and vision.

It may not be just Mr. Yataro Iwasaki who talks about "Vision and Passion". Successful leaders emphasize the importance of emotional strength, putting aside smartness. Iwasaki was later calling himself a stubborn, inflexible, bungler. He lost his positions given from his master several times. That made him an independent entrepreneur. Once he believed in himself, he did not change, no matter who tried to persuaded him. One example is that a son of Samurai family became a merchant. His family and friends stopped him because it is downgrading himself. He believed that Samurai would one day give ways to merchants. Society changed as he predicted.

In the era of rapid change such as Meiji restoration, modernization of Japan from Samurai, Shogunate days, there appear miraculously prominent people like Mr. Iwasaki. He might call himself stubborn, inflexible bungler. People today calls him venture business entrepreneur in Meiji Era. He tried everything he saw the future. He failed some, but he was successful in changing the society. Being called a person with "Iron Mental Strength", the foundation supported his mental strength was Vision and Passion.

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Sunday, June 16, 2013

5 Basic Points to Think Before Getting Angry

There is nothing more annoying than dealing with our own anger. One sometimes argue against his own family members, such as spouse, children, and so on. We all know that being angry does not help the situation. Instead, we all are aware that being angry will worsen the situation, because it can make the other person wild, as well. We all still get angry some times. We tend to be angry when the other person pointed something, which we wanted to hide, or did not intend to show. In some other time, we do not like the way the other person told you. Have we had even single event that we were glad that we were angry? Maybe we do not.

When one is angry, he tends to blame someone else. In driving, one would be angry because some other drivers drive too slow, too fast, or too close. It could be any reason. One could be angry to his family for any reason. He is angry with his partner because she did not greet to him in the morning. He is angry with his son, because he uses too much batter in the breakfast. He is angry with his employer because his boss is too demanding. He is angry with his subordinates because they are lazy. The list goes on and does not stop. When one is angry, he does not think about himself. Somebody else is always responsible and causing his anger.

Even we try to analyze why, how, and when we get angry, it does not help us not to be angry next time. It appears that we need to be armored not to be angry or equipped with a tool to avoid being angry. Is not there any tool, which, at least helps us, not to express our outrage to others?

It is clear that anger has all negative impact on our daily lives. One will lose the peace of his mind. He may have to spend a day or so being mad. One will cause others to lose their peace of mind. The person one was angry with might lose his peace of mind and might be mad for the rest of his day. In this way, it will hamper human relationship. It would take one's time more than the one angry could imagine. When you are angry, one needs to spend hours to yell at others. After argument has finished, it takes days, weeks, months, or some times years, for one to reconcile with others, who he was angry with.

There is a study showing the structure of anger. According to the analysis, the anger is the front side of one's fear. One may be angrier if he hears that he is fearful to be angry. One method could be accepting being fearful and try to find what caused him to be fearful.

1. Take a deep breath, count 5 seconds (slowly), and think it may be you who is wrong.

2. Take a deep breath again, count 10 seconds (slowly), and try to find what could benefit you by being angry.

3. Accept that there is a fear behind the anger.

4. Think about fear behind the anger.

5. Try to eliminate the cause of the fear, which caused the anger.

Please remember the cause of your anger may be negligible and insignificant. You might think why you were so angry after a while. Do you remember when the last time was you were angry? Do you remember whom you were angry? Do you remember why you were angry? Are you still angry for the same reason? Remember anger does not help anything. It will get one's situation worse.

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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Do You Think Outside of the Box?

We have been hearing it for a while since dot-com-company boosting time. "Think outside of the box." We do not know the origin of this phrase clearly. It makes sense not to think with usual framework of business concept to be successful.

If you are working for a company, the reality is totally opposite. A company trains people to think "inside of the box" even in a new business development office. When engaging in producing executive summaries, proposals, or examining new proposals from other organizations, even in a company brain position, such as a strategic business development, a company disciplines its staff to think inside of the box, not outside.

Are you surprised? In periodic executive meetings, or when you need to produce executive summaries, your boss was constantly watching and asking what could be different from the previous time. They had their own file of all of previous summaries. The first step, for staff making new proposal, was to open the past example from Hard Disk Drive. If this way, there is no way they can "think outside of the box".

One day, Mr. Jack Welch, GE, was visiting my former employer. He was not as tall as I thought. He was calm, smiling, and gentleman looking person. I met him before. He remembered me from the previous meeting and asked my name, and politely accepted my business card. He was speaking for directors in that afternoon. I could listen to his speech. As he spoke, his gentleman like approach did not change, but his reasoning was, sharp, keen, and acute. He spoke in the way he got right to the point.

His point in his speech on that day was that he appreciated people who proposed "something different" from what they did in the past. He said, when one was proposing a copy of what he already did, Mr. Welch would have never accepted it. He was joking that his company has 200 years history of bureaucracy; therefore, it is not easy to find something, which they have not done before.

The contents of speech by Mr. Welch on that day reminded me of one scene in the movie "The Matrix". The hero Neo was trying to save their leader Morpheus. He decides to attack military building. It looked impossible and suicidal. His partner Trinity told him that nobody had ever done like that. Neo answers, "I know. That is why it works."

People tend to think that it did not work when they came across something belongs to outside of their box. People are judgmental and hypocritical to those who think differently. They will discourage those who try things outside of the box. They may laugh at you, criticize you, and tell you it does not work.

They were excellent signs, if you meet people who laugh at, criticize, oppose to, and reject your idea. Do not worry. There will be a person who views the value of our thinking outside of the box, and settle with it, like Mr. Welch. Time will prove that you are right.

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Sunday, June 2, 2013

3 Suggestions for Effective Communication

In an office, one morning, Mr. Smith talks with 2 of his coworkers. Mr. Smith, the general manager, asked them why sales of a new product is not growing as expected. One of his coworkers, Bill, answered back "Mr. Smith, the growth can not be expected in a short period. It was just a month since we launched the product. The growth expectation was too big from the beginning." Mr. Smith asked Bill if he has some idea to increase sales. Bill answered that sales would not grow without spending more money for promotion than they did. Mr. Smith did not say anything.

Instead, he turned to the other coworker, Tom to check his opinion. Tom answered "I agree that the sales growth was not as expected." He continued, "We all may need to accept that sales expectation might not be realistic." He concluded that additional promotion would help to improve the situation. Mr. Smith liked Tom's opinion and asked Tom to give him planning for the promotion. One month later, Mr. Smith transferred Bill to another division.

Were not Bill and Tom saying essentially same thing? What was the difference between 2 coworkers talking with their boss? The difference of two is their response style. The style Bill used can be called "disagreement style". He disagreed several points of Mr. Smith. He disagreed that sales are not good. He disagreed that the growth cannot be judged in a short period. He disagreed that growth expectation was not right. At least, Mr. Smith heard his statement as the manner above described.

Let us examine the response from Tom, next. His style can be "agreement style". He agreed that sales are beyond expectation. He agreed that they both made a mistake planning the sales expectation. He agreed that sales promotion would increase the sales. Tom did not have to deny any of Mr. Smith point suggesting his own opinion.

There was a discussion about effective talking in a SNS. One of the participants, who is business consultation presenter, raised his problem that his statements build a wall to the listeners. He uses disagreement style, because he hopes to be constructive to the listeners. He thinks being denial to his listeners can give them new impact and constructive suggestions. The question here is if one needs to be denial or disagreeable to give listeners constructive suggestion. It is more effective to agree and admire some points and open the mind of listeners and give them suggestions. If they were denied, rejected, and disagreed, they feel offended and close their mind. As a result, all one could get from his listeners would be rejections to presenter's points.

3 Suggestions for Effective Communication:

1. Agreement tends to open minds of listeners. Presenter should be prepared for agreeable points of listeners and start from pointing them out.

2. Remember rejection will invite rejection. Presenter should not start from rejections. They should not repeat rejections. They should not stick to rejections.

3. If you need to point negative issue, you may hope to get yourself to be a part of it. Remember Tom said, "We all need to agree that sales expectation was not right."

Remember that even saying the same thing, if one's way of presenting is not right, he will develop opposite reaction from the people.

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

How Do You Handle Life's Unexpected Actuality

"Knowing the Path is Different from Walking the Path." This is from my favorite movie "the Matrix". Oracle gave Neo these words when he visited her for the first time. I believe this is unquestionably true. You can Google Map the road and print and remember it so that you do not get lost. Google Map is so powerful that it can give you traffic conditions or updated situation of the route. Still, one minute before you get to a certain point, there may be an accident and need to detour. Have not you had an event that you thought you knew the way, but what happened was quite different from what you expected, and you still got lost.

Around Christmas of the Year 2000, when my employer told me that they were sending me back to Japan, I had prepared to change my visa status from E-2 (Investor Status) to H visa. My lawyer was confident that it could be changed and could be changed in relatively short time. I waited, waited, waited, and received rejection notice. My former employer's Human Resource tried to fix me to be re-hired by one of the group companies in, but they could not get me a position. Economy was starting to experience so called "dot com company recession". Nobody hired me without proper authorization of working in the US.

My wife, girl friend at that time, offered me to marry so that she can sponsor me for Green Card. She hoped that I continued to stay with her so that we could be together instead of 3 months in US and another month in Japan. If you continue to do this for a long time, so many times, US Immigration starts to notice you and give you a warning. Several times in re-entry, the officer of immigration sent me to separate office and could not re-enter to US for 2-3 hours.

So we married. We hired a lawyer and applied for my Green Card. It took us almost another whole year to get to the point of interview. We were so happy and ready to go to interview. We went to USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Service) and took interview. We thought it should have been no problem. Our marriage is real. We did not see any flaw. Still they sent my case to a higher level for re-examination. We needed to wait to take next interview.

We took another interview 8 months later. Here, the point is that if you apply for Green Card, you need to obtain temporary work permit and emigration (traveling out from US) and re-entry permit for working and even traveling to outside US. Since they expire in every 12 months and needed to re-apply for them, it was troublesome process. USCIS was not friendly. Even my lawyer advised me not to be angry no matter what they say or do. One day, in USCIS office, waiting for my turn, I found curved cursing words on a seat of a chair. I would not have done that, but I could easily imagine the feeling.

The 2nd Interview was not so terrible as 1st one. Interviewer was helpful and cooperative. Since it took me so long time, I could get Green Card valid for 10 years immediately. Usually, they issue 3 year valid Green Card. Applicants need to re-apply for next 10 years, after 3 years.

The lesson was, "We need to be prepared, study all the possibility, and make sure that we are comfortable and confident. Still, we need to be flexible enough to cope with unexpected happenings." So the words, I came across in a movie, undoubtedly helped. It was "Knowing the Path is Different from Walking the Path."

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

5 Steps to Deal With Fear

Among people's emotions, fear is the one which people has a problem dealing with most. Fear is deep emotion, which cannot be so easily avoided, addressed, or conquered. Instead of anger, being a simple burst of emotional force, which could be ceased after such burst, fear could be quiet cancer, which eats inside of your mind. There is an analysis that fear is the real cause of anger. One would show his anger because he did not like to express his fear. This theory explains why people tends to be angry if others pointed out their true weakness. People are angry when others point their true weakness based on their fear that others would find their weakness. In this sense, fear and anger could be called face and tail of a coin. People need to address their fear to manage their anger.

According to my cousin, who is a psychologist, 87% of fear of people is one, which is groundless, unreasonable, and meaningless. People do not have to deal with this kind of fear. He suggested that one might not attempt to address fears immediately. He recommends to his clients to set one day in a week to deal with their fears. For example, one could decide to consider and address his fear on Thursday, every week. Even he felt fear and started to think about it on Sunday, he would wait until Thursday to address it. My cousin told me that more than 80% of people did not feel fear any longer, or they forgot about it by Thursday. The fear people did not forget or could not stop feeling were the real ones which one need to address. In this way, one can distinguish real fear and meaningless fear.

Based on the above, one could establish the way or process to cope with his fear. They are simple, though they may not be easy.

1. Accept that you have fear instead of hiding it with anger.

2. Stop thinking about the fear on that moment. Take some time to address it.

3. Think if the cause of fear is manageable by human power.

4. If found not manageable by human capacity, accept again it is unmanageable.

5. Since it is beyond human capability, leave it to time and Higher Power. Trust them that they can take care of them.

When one becomes fearful, it is not so easy to follow the above processes with calm and serene status of mind and brain. Remember, at least, one thing. If your fear is unmanageable within human capacity, you can deal with it. If you cannot solve it with your power, it is meaningless and wasting time if you continue to think and worry about it.

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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Be Friendly When Offended

A new friend of mine in community volunteer group shared this message in its regular meeting. This gentleman and his family live in a large apartment complex. The apartment management designated the residences their parking spots. They also prohibited their parking in other spots and visitor parking in the complex. He explained that some parking allocated were not favorable, and there is a group of people who park in the places they want. The apartment management did not impose their position to these people. These unreasonable people some times took John's parking spot. They believe his parking spot is theirs. He just ignored them and parked his car whenever it is available. One day, he drove back from his work and found his parking space was available. He parked his car there. It was after 2 weeks since the last time when he could park his car in his own place, unbelievably.

When he returned back to his car the next morning, there were 3 men standing. They all were strong built. They also looked angry and ready for even fight. He frowned from a distance, but he kept smiling and approached his car. Before these people said something, he had greeted to them. "Good morning, gentlemen! My name is John. How are you doing today?" Because my friend greeted them with his name, they needed to greet back to him with their names. My friend John did not ask them what they wanted, but he explained that he had been living in the apartment for almost 5 years. He continued to tell them that the parking spots provided by the apartment management is totally not convenient. They needed to agree with him.

He did not forget to keep smiling during he was communicating with them. He told to the people attended the meeting that he tried not to be offending. John talked with them about how lousy the apartment management had been. He told them he had needed to endure. He did not forget to ask them to agree with him on the issues he raised. Since my friend was talking about the issues these people wanted to tell him, they lost the motivation to talk with him. In addition, John was friendly and smiling all the time, they also lost reason to be offending against him.

Finally, he turned to his wristwatch and told them he needed to go since he was almost late for his work. Nobody could stop him to go. After that day, Everybody respected his parking spot and nobody took his space any more.

What he did was same as what martial art masters would do. They say they can win without fighting. He won the fight without fighting. The people who wanted to fight could not win his amicable manner. Furthermore, he could accomplish his intention to secure his own parking space. The lesson is: "Do not be offended. Be friendly to your offenders." Does it make sense?

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

3 Remarkable Messages From Ancient Chinese Strategist

First, let us take a look at the messages:

1. Fighting against other countries is an important decision making for live or die of a nation, people, and the government. The fighting should be the final option for governing people. They should not use military power so easily to others.

2. Those, who win, will win easy win. Those, who analyze themselves, their enemy, and the surrounding situation have a better chance of winning.

3. Those, who won 100 fights and never lost, are not the best of bests. The best of bests are those who win without fighting.

These are words of wisdom, which appear in the first strategy book, in human history. The name of this book is "Sun-Zu". The book was written and published 2500 years ago, if not older. Historians say that ancient generals, "Sun-Mu" is the author of this strategy book. Truth is unknown. We, living in the modern world, can read his book thanks to an ancient king "Cao-Cao", who re-edited this book in 200BC, still 2250 years ago.

Before "Sun-Zu", win and lose a war was the subject of destiny. People regarded it as a result of God's will. It was why old time generals and kings prayed for God before going to wars. Future tellers accompanied in the war because of this reason. There was no strategic know-how textbook, telling kings and generals how to win a battle before "Sun-Zu".

"Sun-Zu", being a war strategy book, teach people how to win a war. Generals or kings in even 17th - 18th century used this book as their textbook in fighting. Some historians believe that Napoleon Bonaparte was also the one loved and used this book.

This book is not just war textbook as one can see on the above messages. It is remarkable to point out that going into the war is a monumental decision for a king or governing people. Hence they should never easily choose to exercise their power. It is fascinating to learn this message was on the top of his list.

Business people in the world today loves 2nd message. The one who analyze yourself, study your opponent, and know on the competition will win any game. "Sun-Zu" is the favorite topic of Japanese business books and magazines as a good reference to play a game called marketing.

3rd point has continued to attract people for 2500 years in human history. It is noteworthy that this strategist taught people that winning without fighting was more valuable than winning 100 wars.

There is no wonder this book keeps attention of people for a long time. The world leaders today should revisit these ancient wisdom before they decide to send young people to battlefield.

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

What Is "Easy Win?"

It has become a while since I started to try writing Japanese or Chinese history, philosophy, and religion in English. It has been always a big challenge to select the best expression and words in English to describe cross-cultural issues. There was a movie called "Lost in Translation". It is a fiction and film, all right. Realty is more interesting than stories or movies. It would be not just "Lost in Translation", but also "Not Exactly in Translation", "Meaning Changed in Translation", or even "Caused Misunderstanding in Translation".

Taking a look at this words of wisdom, "Those, Who Win, Win Easy Win", by Sun-Zu, ancient strategist, it is not easy to reveal the full meaning of the message. This message, however, drives me to try because the meaning is so profound that one should understand no matter what ethnic group he belongs.

For those who are not familiar with this strategist, "Sun-Zu", he was a strategist who wrote first strategy book in the history of mankind, 2500 years ago. His wisdom includes "War is the final and last method for settling the dispute." "If no more good strategy, do not die there, run away." Now let us examine these words of wisdom: Those, who win, win easy win.

According to Sun-Zu, to win or lose does not depend on luck, fate, or act of God. Those, who won, had reasons for winning. Those, who lost, had lost for reasons. He continued that those, who analyze themselves, their enemy, and the surrounding situation have a better chance of winning. They know themselves. They understand their enemy from A to Z. They are destined to win. Sun-Zu called this as easy win. After 2500 years has passed, his real meaning behind to define this as easy win is no longer clear. Historians later days interpreted that winning was easy because they prepared to fight and studied the detail how to win.

Sun-Zu is a popular figure appearing in business magazines, in Japan. This message might appear in Japanese business magazines more than 100 times a year. This idea is highly effective philosophy for Japanese business people. They can utilize this wisdom to fight fierce competition in the marketplace. Business persons must know what are their products (services) strength and weaknesses. They also need to know strength and weaknesses of their company. They must analyze and understand their competitions. What are their strength and weaknesses? They must understand the situation in the marketplace. How many competitions in the marketplace? What products they have? What is the demand of the product? What is the future of the product?

These are questions a businessperson can ask to himself. If one can answer all the questions, he could win. If not, the one should investigate and analyze more. Here is a question a businessperson can ask. He can ask if his business style depends on luck and God's will. He can check if he learned, studied, and analyzed so deeply that he can believe his victory. If ones business style depends on their fate, they are destined to lose.

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