Author: Satoru Hirose

 

Break hierarchy.
階級を壊そう。

 

One of the functions of a hierarchy is to disconnect between people. It is good for rulers who want to control people, but not good for those who are in the hierarchy; Disconnection kills our creativity and limit our potential.

If you are a leader and your community (or company) has a hierarchy, you might as well consider removing it. Once people get trapped by the hierarchy, they won’t act voluntarily anymore — they just pass your order and do only what they can do now. The hierarchy won’t help your people grow and become creative; it just makes your people a cog in the machine.

If you are a member of a community (or company) that has a hierarchy, observe what works and what doesn’t work in the hierarchy. Start preparing for becoming a leader. Don’t get trapped by the dark side of the hierarchy. When you reach to the top of the hierarchy (yes, it could happen to you), start breaking it. Or when you build your own community or company, make your ideal into a reality.

We are not born to obey. Or to have others obey us. We are born to create, lead, and change.

 

 

Be reborn every day.
日々生まれ変わろう。

 

We always tend to underestimate our capacity to change ourselves.

As the old Chinese tale goes, “When scholars part ways for three days, they will view each other in a different light when they meet again later.” In other words, if we don’t meet someone for three days, the person can make remarkable improvement during the period.

The insight of this quote is much more important to all of us who live in a fast-changing world. On the Internet we can learn many things, show our work, and reach to the world. We don’t need even three days to make significant improvement — one day can be enough to make notable change.

Every day, we wake up with a new life. Today is the first day of the rest of our life. Why not take initiative and start creating the life you really want?

 

 

Reject fake icons.
偽物を排除しよう。

 

Beware of fake gurus or thought leaders.

I don’t support a personality cult. I try to read as many books as possible so that I can get inspired and make myself more resourceful, but I no longer blindly follow the authors. It is because I used to do that, lost money, and almost killed myself.

On the other day, I got an email from one of my acquaintances. She invited us to a 2-hour seminar of the famous author she fanatically supports. I deleted the email immediately and put her email address on the spam filter. Because the author is one of the two-faced people who I used to blindly follow.

Fake gurus or thought leaders are never responsible for our life. They can’t be. No matter what they tell us, they will never care about the outcome we have. They may say we need to take full responsibility for our actions and results — so why do we need to pay them and listen to them in the first place? And when we fail, they may say we need to take more actions. And the word “more actions” often means that we need to pay them more. It is the same mechanism that religious cults make money and run their “business.”

Even fake gurus or thought leaders can inspire us — they are good at referring to the quotes of great predecessors. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be a believer or follower of them. It doesn’t mean that we have to pay them more either.

We want to believe that something external would help us achieve something meaningful to us. That’s an illusion. It is always something INTERNAL that helps us achieve something valuable to us. And such internal energy is often created from our own failure.

Failure itself is not a problem. The problem is the fear of failing and accepting failure. It prevents us from taking actions and learning from our actions and mistakes. And fake gurus or thought leaders always focus on producing the fear in our mind. Do whatever we can to avoid the trap, and live our own life.

 

 

Create your own luck.
運を創り出そう。

 

Anything can make us feel lucky. But it’s just the beginning.

Of course, feeling lucky is different from being lucky. You would lose tons of money if you just felt lucky in Las Vegas.

Luck is a residue of the right attitude, preparation and hard work. Feeling lucky is the first thing — that is the right attitude we need to have to create our own luck.

I’ve been having a cold since last week. Some people may see this a bad luck. But I just don’t lie down on the bed — taking this opportunity, I’m learning Adobe Illustrator so that I can create digital drawings from now on. I’m not sure if it gives me luck in the future — let’s see whether my hard work will work out or not.

Anything can be an opportunity. Our luck doesn’t make us lucky; we make ourselves lucky by creating our own luck. Because we are the master of our fate.

 

 

Practice is the real work.
練習は本番。

 

Every moment has a purpose and meaning.

I learned Japanese calligraphy when I was a kid. It was quite common for us to draw the same character repeatedly — 50, 100, or 150 times. At the end of the practice, students need to pick the best one among all writings — that means, even when students draw a character at the first time, it is actually not just a practice: all students have to work on it as if it were the last one.

We don’t practice to make us perfect; we practice to make us progress.

And every single practice can give us insight to grow further. Let us work on it as if it were the last one.