Author: Satoru Hirose

 

Control your moods.
気分を操ろう。

 

Try this: get furious while you are absorbed in a happy feeling.

It is impossible for us to have two different emotions at the same time. Our brain is not good at emotional — and any kind of — multi-tasking. It is the matter of what we focus on.

One of my morning rituals is to listen to the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams while I do a stretching. I usually do this right after I finish running, when beta-endorphin is flowing around my brain. It is quite difficult, if not impossible, to be anxious or pessimistic during that time.

We can’t keep negative feelings from popping up in our mind. It’s a normal function of our brain. But it is up to us to choose which emotions we focus on.

 

 

Your brain makes you happy, not something else.
あなたの脳だけが、あなたを幸せにする。

 

To feel good and make you happy, you don’t need self-help gurus. Your brain does all the trick if you go for a run just for 10 to 15 minutes. I can tell you this from my own experience — I do this experiment every morning, before working on my doodle and writing.

Our brain releases beta-endorphin in response to exercise. Research shows that endorphin may produce a feeling of euphoria — well, setting academic jargon aside — in short, exercise makes you feel happy. The word ‘endorphin’ was a blend of ‘endogenous’ and ‘morphine’, meaning “morphine produced naturally in the body”. Sounds powerful, doesn’t it?

We don’t need to run fast in order for our brain to release endorphins. It has to be faster than walking, but much slower than running — say, run with 50% of our maximum intensity. It’s like you are walking really fast (or jogging) to pick up the things you left behind. We don’t need to jog longer either. If you did, you would feel more pains than gains.

Our brain is the factory of various chemical substances. While some of them may hurt us, some of them do good for us. We just need to learn how to release good ones from our brain by our own actions.

 

 

Draw & show your vision.
ビジョンを描いて示そう。

 

How exactly can you describe what you’re aiming at?

In Japan there is an old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” It means that you will miss the whole picture if you focus too much on detail.

But what is the ‘whole picture’? If we can’t explain what it is, it turns out that we actually don’t see anything — it’s worse than focusing only on detail.

No matter what we focus on — the whole picture or detail — the important thing is to show people what it is. Our life and business goals. Vision and mission of our business. Projects we’re working on or interested in. By showing them clearly, we will be able to persuade people to collaborate or find someone who helps us move toward them.

If you can’t describe well, draw a picture. Or diagram. Create something to show people. Your words will follow.

 

 

Be someone’s lighthouse.
誰かを導く存在になろう。

 

A lack of consistency in leadership knocks down everything.

A lighthouse works every night and stays at one place. Ships would be wrecked if it worked only occasionally or moved freely.

When it comes to leadership, everything leaders do — what they say, what they do, what they believe — is a lighthouse. It is the responsibility of all leaders to always keep the lighthouse working. It is not the thing that leaders can work on only when they feel like it.

But we see many ‘shipwreck’ in any organization. People don’t trust their leader. Or blindly follow them without question. Or become defensive and conservative rather than challenging the status quo. And in the end, the entire organization will be wrecked — a decline in revenue and/or profit, a high turnover of staff, a burnout or ‘karoshi’.

This is because there is no lighthouse in the organization, or even if it exists, it doesn’t work properly. If you are a leader, build one immediately and become a lighthouse keeper. Keep it working all the time.

And even if you are not a leader of an organization — you can be a lighthouse for the sake of others. Because we can save someone else — even their life — by just telling them we are here with them.