Posts Tagged ‘emc quest’

When you think of the word Optimization, does it call up images of pushing yourself to make efforts to achieve, or of imagining a better situation and pulling yourself toward it? How you think about it determines how you go about it. You can plant your feet in the past and push uphill, or you can picture yourself in the future and pull yourself where you want to be.

The Principle of Optimization is really the Principle of Optimism, the belief in positive outcomes. One reason why successful people make it look easy is because they feel easy. They stay focussed on the goal, and do not get mired down trying to push the rock uphill.

Say farewell to Mr. Murphy

The Principle of Optimization could shed light on the Principle of Pessimism, Murphy’s Law, the peculiar assumption that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Perhaps this should be amended to read, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, if you expect it to.

People joke about having a Plan B, because Plan A never seems to work. Ironically, it often turns out that Plan B is no better than Plan A, and as a battle veteran once said, the only thing left to do is run like hell.

All too many people, frustrated by unfulfilled dreams and difficult circumstances, become exhausted in trying to push the rock uphill, only to find it roll back down again, a story as old as ancient Greece in the Myth of Sisyphus. Pessimists are very good at proving their point, which in the end is pointless.

You may find you have two inner voices, one encouraging your to move on to higher heights, and one telling you to get on with the grunt work. The quality of your life depends on which voice you listen to, and which way you turn.

The real meaning of the Principle of Optimization is that once you have understood where you are, and know where you want to be, you can place a mental hook at your goal and pull yourself toward it with an Optimistic attitude. In this sense, you are on a constant quest to make things better.

Positive Psychology starts with a calm mind

And so does negative psychology. Each one is an application of the same principle, that actions tend to follow intentions, the body follows the mind. Spending hours playing violent video games is not likely to lead to random acts of kindness.

Positive Psychology works because it points you in the right direction. The problem is that the negative inner voice also wants to be heard, and is not easily silenced. The key is to calm your mind through meditation first, and then realize that you have a choice. Even 15 minutes of meditation can change your day for the better. Click here for an excellent introduction to Zazen Meditation, with video and an iPhone App called Undo 雲堂 (literally cloud hall, a place where monks meditate).

Engaging in this simple practice will help clarify for you the meaning in messages and events, and make you more aware that your own attitude and thoughts are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. It will also make you less subject to distraction, and more master of your thoughts.

Optimism gets results

Dr. Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism, and one of the leading lights in the field of Positive Psychology, conducted a study for Metropolitan Life to follow the performance of new hires after measuring their levels of optimism. Among the new hires were those who actually failed the insurance company’s screening test, but scored as super-optimists on Dr. Seligman’s test. They were hired anyway, and the super-optimists outsold the pessimists in the regular group by 21% in the first year and 57% in the second year. According to HR Magazine, after Met Life began screening job applicants for optimism, in less than two years the company expanded its sales force by 12,000 agents, and increased its share of the personal insurance market by 50%. You can download here a PDF of the MetLife Case Study.

The Optimists achieved Optimal results, because they remained focused on a positive outcome, and did not look for excuses to explain why things weren’t going well. Moreover, optimists appear young even when they are old in years, and pessimists appear old even when they are young in years.

Samuel Ullman (1840~1924) was an American businessman, poet, and humanitarian, best known for his poem on Youth, which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur as well as Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic, and still considered to be one of Japan’s greatest philosophers of management. Years before the MetLife Case study, Konosuke Matsushita was hiring people on the basis of one fundamental question, “Do you consider yourself to be an optimist?”

How can you get started?

There are four fundamental things you can do to turn yourself into an optimist, or to become a super-optimist if you already are one.

• Practice daily Meditation. A calm mind is a clear mind. Self-awareness gives you more freedom to make a choice, and a better vision of where you want to go.
• Sketch your ideas and experiences. Many of our best ideas fade with the morning dew because we fail to write them down or illustrate them. Make a habit of capturing your thoughts in a notebook, and continue to shape them in a positive direction.
• Use positive encouraging language. This applies to what you say to others, as well as what you say to yourself. Words have power, so choose positive words to create a positive outcome.
• Repeat how Lucky you are. A simple mantra recommended by my Aikido teacher Koretoshi Maruyama, is to repeat aloud and often, “I’m Lucky, I’m Lucky, I’m Lucky.” Try it and you will see it works in small and important ways. And you will help others to become Lucky too.

For a summary of the ideas in this article click here to download the OPTIMISM MANDALA

Tagged as: active garage, emc quest, Flexible Focus, Leadership, mandala charts, Optimism, results, Strategy, success, william reed

When thinking about financing your future, most people think of savings, investing, insurance, or financial planning. These are the disciplines that make up most what we think of as the world of finances. How we manage our money is the core of financial planning, but sometimes it helps to step back and reflect on how our money manages us. The ways that we think about money affects our behavior towards it, and the Mandala Chart can again provide multiple windows for reflecting on our thought and behavior regarding money. You can download the FINANCES MANDALA and follow it through the topics below.

Melodious Beans

In Japanese the character for abundance is written 豊 (yutaka), which curiously is made up of the radicals for melody 曲 and beans 豆, a happy image that might even please the bean counters in the accounting department. Soy beans are the source of many food products in Japan, one of the most popular being soy bean curd, known as tōfu. What many people do not know is that there are serious tōfu turf wars going on behind the scenes, which I wrote about previously in an article called Tofu Wars: Battle of the Bean Curd. It is a not so melodious story about how supermarkets in Japan sometimes sell tōfu below their cost as a loss leader to attract people into their stores. For the tōfu specialty stores (yes, they exist) this is a disaster, because they cannot possibly compete if they sell their core product below cost. My friend and co-author wrote a poem about this, which you can download as an excerpt from our book, Budo, Blogs, and Poetry.

What to the supermarket might only be a corner display, to the tōfu specialty shop is a move aimed at the heart. Supermarkets could rotate their loss leaders among different products to still attract customers without decimating the specialty shops. The tōfu shops on their part could offer varieties of tōfu not found in the supermarkets, and educate customers about the value that justifies the price difference, as well as how to prepare delicious tōfu dishes. And consumers can think twice about what happens to other businesses when they buy loss leader products. One secret of abundance is to take the Hippocratic Oath in business and do no harm.

The Straw Trader

There are also lessons in abundance from a Japanese folk tale called Lord Straw Stalk, in which a wandering poor and penniless boy was struggling from hand to mouth, doing day labor in exchange for his food. He often stayed at Buddhist temples, and praying to Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, he received a promise that he would be blessed with a happy life and great rewards. It all started with a  stalk of straw, the end of which he tied a buzz fly to for entertainment. Seeing this toy, another boy offered him three oranges for it. These in turn he gave to a woman suffering from thirst, who gave him a roll of woven silk cloth in appreciation. He met a Samurai who offered to give him his tired old horse in exchange for the woven silk cloth. The boy nursed the horse back to health, and offered to sell it to a wealthy landowner, who instead gave him a patch of land to work. This he did very well, and thereby impressed the landowner to offer the boy his daughter in marriage, and the large house in which to raise their family. He became know as Warashibe Chōja, Lord Straw Stalk. The blessings of the Goddess did in fact come true, because he traded his way up to greater wealth, offering value to everyone he met.

A similar story can be found in the West, well known as Master Cat, or Puss ‘n Boots. The lesson is that quite humble things can be of great value when offered to others in the right spirit, and at the right time. It is possible to trade you way into abundance.

Move Less, Attract More

This was the title of an article I wrote on the Abundance Mentality for my Art of Flexible Focus column, Move Less, Attract More. It contains a Hasidic story related by Martin Buber about the difference between Heaven and Hell. Both were rooms in which an abundance of food was laid upon a table, and all of the people in the room had long wooden spoons tied to their arms, making it impossible to feed themselves. In the room called Heaven, all of the people fed each other, whereas in the room called Hell, languished and starved trying in vain to feed themselves. Both rooms offered the same conditions of abundance. It was selfishness and greed that created the condition of Hell, generosity and cooperation that created the condition of Heaven.

This is a simple and powerful story if you think about how it applies in your own life. How do you get fed when your hands are tied? Find a way to feed others first, and soon the mentality of abundance will spread to the benefit of all.

Rules of the Game

Know the rules of the game. They are not always spelled out clearly, but the world of finances is set up with certain rules and laws that ensure that somebody gets paid and comes out ahead. Many contracts are set up specifically for that purpose. While the systems may be complex, they are designed to reward the people who set up the rules, whether in real estate or in taxation. These rules do provide stability in society, but they are designed to serve the people who made the rules.

You may not be able to avoid those rules, but you can gain strength by playing in your own court. Find ways to work in your area of strength, where you know the rules and can sometimes have a hand in setting them up. This is one way to leverage your finances to abundance.

The other is through giving. Givers gain, because they play by the rules of a higher power. The universe rewards those who help others.

Conscious Consumption

One way to finance your future is to enhance the present moment. Zen Meditation can help you regain awareness and appreciation of what you have got, as well as help you discern what you really need. The mind is easily led into a path of unconscious and unending consumption. Meditation can help you become more calm and discerning, that will certainly make you more conscious of your consumption, less likely to be wasteful, and more open to real opportunities in your life.

It will also make you more conscious if you keep track of your receipts, separating them into categories so that you are more aware of where your money is actually going. Making purchases by cash rather than credit card can also give you a greater sense for what is going out, and more attention to why. The conscious consumer gets what he or she needs, and spends more wisely.

The Midas Touch

Everyone knows the story from Greek Mythology about King Midas, who in his greed for gold developed a golden touch, so that everything that he touched turned to gold, including his food and even his own daughter. Despite his riches, he died miserable and hungry.

Greed is a sure way to jeopardize your financial future. Gold Diggers are people who marry for money, where the motive force is not Love but Greed. Instead of a Golden Touch, why not develop a healing touch, a Green Thumb which gives life and helps things and people grow? Watch the people around you and help them to thrive, and you will build trust that will finance your future in subtle but certain ways.

Pull Power

If you want to travel far, you should hitch your wagon to the right horse. Associate yourself in a positive and helpful way with people who have the power to pull you forward. When you clearly express the value you have to offer, and your willingness to share it, people will come forward who want to associate with you for mutual benefit. If the relationship is based on trust and transparency, this can be a very positive way for both sides to finance their future.

The secret is to keep it simple and create a combination that makes things easier and better for both sides, a win/win relationship.

Remember and Help Them

No matter how bad you feel your fortunes have fallen, there are masses of people who are much worse off than you, and they need help as much or more. “I felt sorry for myself having no shoes, until I met the man who had no feet.” As you go about thinking of how to finance your own future, give some time, energy, and assistance to those less fortunate.

Study the inspiring work of Muhammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, a micro-finance organization started in Bangladesh, which gives loans to poor entrepreneurs without requiring collateral, helping them to leverage their skills and finance their own futures. The organization and it’s founder were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Whereas most people search for bargains in which you buy one and get one free, there is an organization which takes the opposite approach of connecting buying to giving, Buy1Give1. This innovative approach to micro-giving enables businesses and individuals to choose projects that resonate with themselves and make a real difference in people’s lives. Your daily purchases can literally finance the futures of people around the world. Find out how it works and give it a try.

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Tagged as: active garage, emc quest, finances, Flexible Focus, japan, law of attraction, mandala charts, Time for a change, william reed, yutaka

Make no mistake about it. Goals start and end with Passion, the essential ingredient in motivation. Passion is the energy that feeds the flame, without which your project is doomed to falter.

The quintessential question is how can you light this fire in yourself brightly enough to inspire others to help you achieve your goals? You cannot do it alone, and people need more than just a reason to help you, they need to share your passion.

The quintessential challenge is finding intrinsic motivation, love of the thing itself, which is the only kind of motivation strong enough to overcome obstacles and sustain your energy to achieve your goal. Many people get trapped in the pursuit of a goal which may not even be their own, agreeing to exchange their time and life energy for money or rewards of convenience.

As Daniel Pink points out in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, motivation is an evolutionary process. It started out with what he calls Motivation 1.0, the survival instinct which drives us to escape danger and protect ourselves. It evolved into Motivation 2.0, the carrot and the stick, the elaborate system of reward and punishment by which most people live and most companies manage. However, there is a far more powerful and sustainable force which he calls Motivation 3.0, that of intrinsic motivation, the passion that drives you regardless of rewards or restrictions.

RSA Animate created a remarkable 10-minute animated video presentation of Daniel Pink’s Drive, which he calls whiteboard magic, illustrating part of a talk he did for TED.com. This is the science and persuasion behind Motivation 3.0. That is fine for those lucky enough to have figured out and committed themselves to their true passion in life.

What is needed is something to help light the fire for those who haven’t. Some suggest starting with a blank sheet of paper to write out your ideas, but when your mind is blank, then blank paper looks…blank! It is easier by far to start with a template to assist and seed your thoughts. To help you find and focus your passion you can start with a Mandala Chart that you can download here: Lighting Your Fire.

This Mandala Chart contains questions that will help you frame the East, West, South, and North of your Passion, the WHAT, WHY, WHO, and HOW that help you position where you are and where you want to be. It doesn’t matter if you are not able to answer the questions in detail. At the beginning, asking the question is more important than answering it.

You may find yourself in a job or career that doesn’t feel right for you, even though it is how you earn your living. Don’t simply quit or change jobs without deeply considering where you are and what you want. You may find in your new job that some things are better, some things are worse, but overall you are worse off than before due to acting without clarity.

Once you find your Passion, even if only in a hobby or volunteer project, then you naturally gain more energy to pursue it, more solutions to implement, and meet more like-minded people who can help you. The ring of fire is a virtuous circle of success. It is only when that flame dies that you find yourself in a vicious circle of defeat.

4 Rs to reach your goals

As important as Passion is, it requires focus to get results. You can be long on enthusiasm and short on results. There are many factors that come into play in making things happen, but if you take care of four fundamentals, then you will have a start. These are also included in the Lighting Your Fire Mandala Chart.

1. Rewards. The key thing to determine here is whether you are motivated by passion, or by promises and threats. It may take you ten years to figure out how to live by passion rather than compromise. However long it takes, it must be better than wondering at the end why you wasted the years of your life. At the same time, there is no need to be a perfectionist in your pursuit of your passion. Enjoy the journey as much as the destination, the process as much as the product.
2. Restrictions. Most people can come up with more reasons why they cannot pursue their passion than why they should. They have got it backwards, because the largest obstacles are those which you cannot see, those formed by your own assumptions and lack of knowledge. One reason why education leads to achievement is that it broadens horizons and opens up opportunities for new ways of looking at and doing things. Even if the obstacles seem obvious, write them down and take a closer look. You may find with Pogo that, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
3. Rituals. Repetition is the key to reinforcement, and ritual is the means to repetition. Your rituals are your habits, the things that you perform regularly without effort, and that you return to, to remember and reinforce your passion. Rituals may be formal or informal, but should not be an empty routine. When you train in a martial arts dojo, you are performing a ritual to take you deeper on the Path. Top athletes have rituals that they create and perform to get into their zone of top performance. All cultures create rituals for the survival and continuity of the culture. Be flexible in how you think about and perform rituals, but include them to keep your Passion burning strong.
4. Resources. Assuming that there is a gap between your present state and where you want to be, you will need resources to help you realize your Passion. It is worthwhile to take an inventory of what you may already have, and ask yourself if you are putting it to the most effective use. As you meet people with like-minded passions, you will be able to share and contribute resources. One plus one in the right combination equals far more than two. If you want to achieve something great, then you will need a great strategy and superior tools to match.

Before you get too deep into planning and implementation, make sure that you are working in the service of your Passion. Trade your time for money if you must, but reinvest your time and money in the things that will make your life worth living, and your legacy worth loving. All of the efficiency in the world will not light your fire if you are missing the quintessential flame of Passion.

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Tagged as: active garage, Communication, creativity, daniel pink, drive, emc quest, Flexible Focus, Innovation, Leadership, mandala charts, manga, motivation, passion, resources, restrictions, rewards, rituals, Time for a change, william reed

When Bob Dylan released his third studio album in 1964, The Times They Are a Changin’, the powerful message spoke to the times. But this message was hardly anything new. The ancient Greek Philosopher Heraclitus (535~475 BC) was a philosopher of change, famous for the saying that, “You never step into the same river twice.” And well before that the ancient Chinese compiled the I Ching, or Book of Changes, dating back to the 2nd and 3rd Millennium BC.

It is almost redundant to say that it is Time for a Change, except that this is a universal and timeless theme, always true, and always relevant to you. Nevertheless, the tools and means of change vary with the times. It is never too late to review who and where you are as the world changes.

Even change itself is changing, through the process of Accelerating Change. Futurologists from Buckminster Fuller (Geodesic Dome) to Alvin Tofler (Future Shock) and John Naisbitt (Megatrends) have delineated the process and the paradigm shifts in technology, social, and cultural change. Change is no longer in the domain of specialists, because we all experience it deeply in our own lives.

Ask yourself what you were doing 5 years ago, or 10 years ago, and chances are you have experienced major changes in your career or personal life, many of which you had no idea were coming. It is fair to predict that the same thing will be true 5 to 10 years hence. The purpose of this new column is to provide perspective on change, and introduce innovative ways in which we can navigate and benefit from it.

Following the structure of my previous column Flexible Focus, this weekly column will also cover topics in 8 major categories:

• Goals and Flexible Focus
• Problems in Goal Pursuit
• Creative Ideas and Focussed Action
• Presenting Goals to Others
• Secrets of Collaboration Success
• Templates for Problem Solving
• Goals in the 8 Fields of Life
• 8 Principles of Mandala Thinking

Many people think that they need to get ready for change, or even try to prevent it. Yet once you recognize that change is inevitable it makes sense to shift your thinking and find ways to be ready, to welcome and initiate change.

Think of it as a paradigm shift from being passive to staying proactive.

Our constant companion in this process is Time. We will look at ways in which to measure, manage, and manipulate time through your attitude and the use of powerful tools for Goal planning and implementation.

We do not travel alone. We will look at the importance of communication and partnership in achieving great things that you could not on your own.

Learning from experience is not always the best way to leverage your success. We will look at guiding principles, tools, and templates that can reduce the long journey of our predecessors to a shorter path for our ourselves that those who follow us.

While change can be wrenching and hard, it can also be invigorating and inspiring. So much depends on how we view and engage with it. Join us in this journey, and let us join you in yours.

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Tagged as: active garage, author, coach, creativity, emc quest, Entrepreneurship, Flexible Focus, japan, japanese culture, Leadership, life, mandala chart, meaning of life, Time for a change, william reed

EMC QUEST Corporation publishes new book, A ZOOM LENS FOR YOUR LIFE. The book is by Active Garage columnist – William Reed, speaker, columnist, and martial artist, who also serves as Chairman and Representative Director of EMC QUEST.

This is a book of practical wisdom, exploring how you can develop flexible focus using the the powerful lens of the Mandala Chart to bring your life into balance, and your goals into focus.

It combines age-old questions with actionable ideas and tools, and helps you turn your dreams into real achievements. It is the first book ever to introduce the Mandala Chart in English, and contains many nuggets of wisdom which help you make the most of each day at work, at home, at play.

Each chapter explores the Mandala from a new perspective, with compact and insightful ideas for business and personal performance.

When read on an ebook reader such as Kindle, readers can also access the concepts through the online dictionary and web access, use the notes and highlight feature, and share passages on Facebook. This is particularly useful for readers for whom English may be a second language, making it possible to improve your English while you read the ZOOM LENS content. It is also a powerful companion for the EMC QUEST Personal Coaching Program.

A ZOOM LENS FOR YOUR LIFE is divided into 4 parts and 16 chapters:

Table of Contents

PART ONE: NAVIGATION

• Chapter One: Are Goals Traps or Opportunities?
• Chapter Two: Oceans of Opportunity
• Chapter Three: The Principle of Interdependence
• Chapter Four: The Principle of Initiative

PART TWO: MASTERY

• Chapter Five: The Eight Frames of Life—Health
• Chapter Six: The Eight Frames of Life—Business
• Chapter Seven: The Mandala Business Diary
• Chapter Eight: Finding Focus in the Frames

PART THREE: RESONANCE

• Chapter Nine: The Magic Eye of Metaphor
• Chapter Ten: The Art of Making Sense
• Chapter Eleven: Inside the Lines
• Chapter Twelve: The Wonderful World of Flow

PART FOUR: FREEDOM

• Chapter Thirteen: The Decision Trap
• Chapter Fourteen: The One Year Plan
• Chapter Fifteen: Determine Your Destiny
• Chapter Sixteen: Move Less, Attract More

From the introduction

“Imagine if your view of the world was restricted to what you can see in front of your face. This was the case for much of human history. It is hard to fathom to what extent technology has changed our view of the world, giving us zoom access to the outer reaches of space, the microscopic world, cameras transcending time and space, and the web connecting our world.

What if there was a tool that acted as a zoom lens for your life? What if you could step away from the fray to see the big picture, zero in for analysis or action, without losing track of how everything is connected? The Mandala Chart is just such a tool, acting as a viewfinder with flexible focus. In all periods of history, the people with flexible focus have been able to dance circles around the rest.

The Biggest Room in the World…

My personal belief is that the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. This is a proactive philosophy of always experimenting and implementing to improve.”

Words of Praise for ZOOM LENS FOR YOUR LIFE…

“A Zoom Lens for Your Life is an excellent introduction to the Mandala Chart, providing multiple windows on the method, and inviting readers to explore more.” ~Matsumura Yasuo, Founder of the Mandala Chart Method.

“What William Reed brings to us in A Zoom Lens for Your Life is a checklist, of sorts, on how to make the most of each day at work, at home, at play. And he accomplishes this through the use of the age-old Mandala.” ~Mark Gresham, Director of Cambridge University Press, Japan

“A Zoom Lens for Your Life is a practical book for business people, and it contains many nuggets of wisdom from Japanese culture.” ~Higuchi Takeo, Director of Idea-Marathon Institute

“A Zoom Lens For Your Life will help you prepare for an uncertain tomorrow, the only kind of tomorrow most of us will face.” ~ Bruce Rosenstein, Author, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life

“The concept of the Mandala approach offers a powerful and realistic way to realize the important personal goals we set for ourselves.” ~Dermot Killoran, President of Calderwood Productions, Tokyo

“William Reed in A Zoom Lens for Your Life outlines how and why this ancient chart can be used to great effect in realizing our goals.” ~Philip T Gibb, President,British Chamber of Commerce in Japan

A ZOOM LENS FOR YOUR LIFE is available in digital form on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and can also be purchased in hard copy from Lulu.com and CreateSpace.

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Tagged as: active garage, e-books, emc quest, Flexible Focus, japan, mandala, mandala charts, william reed, zoom lens for your life