Author: Satoru Hirose

 

Choose to be smarter.
より賢くなることを選ぼう。

 

Ask yourself: am I becoming cleverer or dumber now?

In a nutshell, we have only two outcomes from what we do every moment: we become smart or foolish. It doesn’t matter what we do — why we do it and how we see it do matter.

For example, reading a book itself does not bring anything to us. We need purpose — it isn’t until you actually apply something written in the book to your life or business that reading the book has its real meaning. We also should not read a book just because someone told us to read the book. If we see it as an opportunity (“get to”) instead of an obligation (“have-to”), reading the book gives us a completely different experience.

Doing nothing can make us smarter if we are fully engaged. Our brain and body definitely need to take a rest, which will lead to better output in the future.

Always assess what the thing you do now will lead you to. Choose consciously what you do every moment. Anything can make you smarter if you choose to.

 

 

Build your own road.
自分だけの道程を築こう。

 

People would say, “Life is a long and winding road.” But who knows?

We just don’t know how our life is going to be. There is no GPS for our life; if there were, it was made by someone else trying to navigate you to where they want you to go. Banking, insurance, recruitment, books and information products — we can see many examples of such manipulation on TV commercials or web advertisements.

Our life is all about building a road for our own sake. Other people might think of the road as their ideal, but we better not force them to follow — it’s their choice, and they are also on the way to build their own road. They can (and most of the time, will) take a different path at some point along the way.

Don’t blindly follow the road someone built, or the ones that any social norms told you to follow. You are the only person who know where you want to go.

 

 

Improvise.
即興でやろう。

 

I believe the power of practicing. The more you do, the better you get. But something unexpected almost always happens on a real stage — as well as our real life.

Embrace and enjoy the unexpected. Have fun being in the situation. Focus on what you can do at this exact moment. Believe what you did during your hard practice.

What you do in the unexpected situation is also the outcome of your continuous practice. If you are fully immersed in your work, it can become your best work.

 

 

Keep your own score.
自分だけの得点をつけよう。

 

What kind of numbers do you have in your mind?

Number of projects you are working on. Leads from potential customers. Contacts of your email list. Your weight. You name it.

Whatever it is, what is it for? What does it mean to you? What would you get, or accomplish, after pursuing the number? Is it worthwhile?

Let us focus only on the numbers that matters most to each of us. The rest is just a distraction.