Author: Satoru Hirose

 

Create your new horizons.
新たな展望を創り出そう。

 

There are millions of places to see in this world. And, perhaps more importantly, there is a lot to discover in our mind.

We can find our new self when we visit a new place. But it won’t happen if our mind is not ready — like I was. I was not exactly thrilled when I visited Manhattan first time — because I was too immature to embrace its myriad diversity and opportunities that could change my life completely.

This world is still full of the unknown. So is our mind. Be ready to explore them. Accept whatever you find. Never stop exploring the things that are not indicated on a map — nothing would make us more excited.

 

 

Your productivity shows the structure of your life.
あなたの生産性は、あなたの行動様式を示す。

 

Here are my random thoughts about productivity:

Live close to your workplace. While there are things we can do during commute time, it’s much better to sit tight and focus on getting things done.

Reduce meetings and business trips. It’s the same as commute. Just showing up doesn’t mean anything. You are investing the scarcest resource of yours — time. If you show up, get what you want, need, or deserve. If you won’t be able to get them or don’t know how to get them, just sit tight and focus on getting things done.

Manage your billable hours. This “billable” concept might not apply to the people outside service industry, but it is quite vital to maintain any type of businesses. Set up effective and efficient workflows to increase your leads, revenue and/or profit. Maintain them when needed. Then spend your time in creating values — working on final deliverables — as much as possible.

Focus, focus, focus. Don’t just do things in a hurry — always be laser-focused on what matters most. Hustle without focus is just a panic.

Sleep enough. This would be the most important thing to all entrepreneurs and solopreneurs like me, because our body is our business. If you want (or need) to work hard, sleep long enough to get you fully reenergized. If you feel tired — even slightly — when you wake up, you don’t sleep enough. Even if you are an employee, don’t let your employer or boss reduce the sleeping hours you need. If they tried to do so, it would be the time to consider changing your job — because what they do is literally killing you.

 

 

Build a foundation for further growth.
さらなる成長の土台を築こう。

 

Your professional skills don’t always help you in your life.

They won’t help you when you get sick. They won’t help you if you are emotionally unstable. They won’t help you recover from mental illness. They won’t give you a spiritual wealth. Unless you are a doctor, therapist, psychiatrist or monk.

While we need to develop our professional skills to deliver value to the world around us, we also need to develop ourselves. We need to improve ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually — every single day. These are the foundation for our future growth. The bigger and stronger the foundation becomes, the higher our professional skills can be.

In our life, there is a time to focus on acquiring necessary skills to meet expectations of others — as well as ours. But, especially during a tough time, there is also a time to devote ourselves to recognizing our true self and becoming a better person. This is not a step back; it is an unavoidable step to grow further and unleash our true potential.

Digging deep into ourselves is not always fun. It’s very unpleasant at times. But it’s worthwhile — let us play the long game.

 

 

Get motivated, fly higher.
やる気を出して、より高く飛ぼう。

 

Motivation is not given. It is the force we create ourselves.

We need inspiration to create motivation. Inspiration is fuel — we need to expose ourselves to the people, place, and information that are full of inspiration.

Then we need to take action. Taking action is like igniting the gas. We need to keep doing it to produce enough lifting power — that is, motivation.

If we don’t get inspired enough or our action is not enough, our motivation weakens. If you don’t feel like you are motivated enough, ask yourself two questions:

• Do I get inspired enough?
• Do I keep taking action, even a small one?

Avoid people and things that don’t inspire you. These are impurities in the fuel, and will destroy your motivation engine in the long run.

Always seek inspiration and keep refueling, even when you already fly high. Unlike a real airplane, there is no risk of midair collision.

And don’t even try to take massive action at the very beginning. Start small, and keep doing until you get enough momentum. Keep doing it even when you have enough lifting power. Fly higher. Massive action is not a single action; it’s a long sequence of small actions.

 

 

What’s your idea?
あなたのアイデアは何？

 

Does your idea solve a problem?

Quantity of ideas does matter when we practice generating ideas. But, when we apply the ideas to the real world, quality of ideas does matter.

Not a few people miss the point. Some people tend to focus on the uniqueness or originality of the idea rather than its effectiveness. Some people focus only on the effectiveness. Only the small number of people are good at generating and incubating ideas from both points of view: uniqueness and effectiveness.

Any ideas can be improved. Even the ones that are not unique or original. Even the ones that would not solve a problem at this moment. We just need to identify which one is missing — uniqueness and effectiveness — and work on that. If your ideas miss both, give yourself another try.