Friday Reflections

How to choreograph your life and career: Kitaro

August 5th is the fifth anniversary of Friday Reflections on the Internet, and the 24th year since its inception.

"This music is not from my mind. It is from heaven, going through my body and out my fingers through composing. Sometimes I wonder. I never practice. I don't read or write music, but my fingers move. I wonder, 'Whose song is this?' I write my songs, but they are not my songs." - Kitaro in an interview.

“He came out of stage.  It was black.  Then the spotlight came up slowly.  He just stood there.  And everything stopped.  The man has presence.” - Karen and Rich (Arizona Couple) describing their experience in a Kitaro concert.

Story Line: Takahashi Masanori’s (now known as Kitaro) first encounter with music was in early teenage years when he heard the songs of American singer Otis Redding.

1. Deciding what he loves to do, assuming responsibility and learning new skills: He learned guitar, formed a small band with his friends, and started performing at various events. Later he changed to keyboard. Once, before an event, the drummer was injured. Kitaro took a crash course on drumming and the event went on for the customer. On another occasion, the Bassist got ill and he learnt how to play Bass.
2. Willing to pay the price for what he wanted to achieve: after graduating from his home town, he moved to Tokyo and supported himself by taking on several part time jobs such as cooking or civil service work, meanwhile composing songs at night. There he joined a commercial band and toured around the world. In 1977 he went solo and his music in Japanese TV series Silk Road (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ulc51ZOGQk) gave him international recognition.
3. Go out with passion for your dream never look back and produce incredible performance: His music in the Oliver Stone movie Heaven and Earth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO82u7CKj1k&feature=fvw) won a Golden Globe award. A quarter of a century later, with 67 albums, two Grammy awards, various international recognitions and sales exceeding over 100 million records, he is still going strong - touring around the world sending a profound message of peace and spiritual development through his music.

Here are two additional samples of Kitaro’s music:

• Dance of Saraswati: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=244lUx0HaPY&feature=related
• Kokoro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgO81dKsL4Y&feature=related

Reflection:

Friday Reflections started in August 1985 when I was working an intense, long hours, demanding job in a start up called Altera. To balance whatever time was left in a day for family (8-10PM); every evening we would go out for an hour long car ride to catch up on day’s events.

Monday to Thursday were music days, and every Friday I would tell a story to the children - about either work life or other life. 24 years later, FR stories are read in over 120 countries. Those two children are long gone from home, but evening rides have continued with music. Kitaro is one of those great musicians we take along for a ride with us.

Is there a pony in the current global dung heap (crisis)?

Points to Ponder:

“In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.” - Lee Iacocca (who was fired from Ford Motors in the 1980s, joined Chrysler in bankruptcy, and turned it around to be a very profitable company)

"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi quotes (Hungarian Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1893-1986)

Story Line:

Worried that their boys had developed extreme personalities - one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist - their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked, baffled. “Don’t you want to play with any of the toys?” “Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist.

The optimist clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. “What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

Reflection:

It seems that in current global situation everything that could go wrong seems to be going wrong. But then looking back at previous crisis whether: economic, wars, terrorism, corrupt politicians, natural disasters; the new world order has emerged with new opportunities. Even during the greatest depression era (1929-37); many ideas, new companies and new leadership emerged.

So where are the Ponies in current dung heap? Any Points to Ponder?

Are you an Eagle living the life of a Chicken?

Thanks to Sophia Zhou from Dalian China for sending this thought-provoking story, based upon "The Chicken and The Eagle Story" by Dr. Eldon Taylor

A baby eagle was once rescued by a farmer, who nurtured it to health and brought it up with his flock of chickens.  Years later, a visitor came to the farm and was incredulous to see this eagle amongst the chickens, wandering around scratching on the ground for seeds ... even making noises like a chicken -- "bwack bwack bwack!"

He was very sad to see such a magnificent creature acting this way, when he knew it was supposed to soar freely in the sky. Hoping that the eagle would discover its true nature, he convinced the farmer to take the eagle to the top of a large hill overlooking the valley below, and throw it towards the sky.

For the first few tries, the eagle was not able to fly.  It simply fell down and started scratching in the dirt again.  But the farmer did not give up.  Every day he would take the eagle back to the hills and every day the eagle would try again.  Eventually, at last, the eagle soared up into the sky and disappeared.

Reflection: There are many meanings within this story. First and foremost, don’t allow yourself to be bound by the standard conventions and expectations of your surroundings.  If you accept the life of a chicken, you'll never be able to soar like an eagle.  Broaden your horizons and push your limits. 

Your reflection?

Everyone knows a piece of dust (sand) can fly, but who would have imagined that it can make an airplane fly?

"If you can think of it, you can dream of it, (and if you do something about it), you can achieve it." - Siegfried and Roy

Story Line:

Five decades ago when I started my first job at Raytheon Semiconductor in Silicon Valley, my boss Charles Fa (a co-founder of Advanced Memory Systems prior to joining Raytheon) often used to tell me: "This industry is going to change the world".

Working in a silicon fabrication area with a 56 mm diameter slice (a.k.a silicon wafer) that had a few transistors on it, I often wondered how something made out of a piece of sand (dust) is going to change the world. But the job had definitely changed my world: I had an income and green card eligibility, so I accepted my boss's imagination.

At the time, the area around Middlefield Road and Ellis Street was filled with many buildings belonging to Fairchild Semiconductor, three buildings belonging to Raytheon, and one small building occupied by Intel. There were of course many more companies in the Santa Clara area as well.

Today, most of the silicon wafers in use are of 300mm diameter and contain millions of transistors. The continuous innovations in technology have created a wide variety of applications, started many new industries around the world, and made a significant impact on the world and its economy.  Look around: cooking appliances, medical devices, cars, cash registers, computers, musical instruments, telephones, airplanes...

Look more; the silicon chips all around us....

Today's reflection is dedicated to all great people: That Dare to Imagine, Dare to Try, Dare to Fail, Dare to Persevere and Dare to Win.

Everyone knew a piece of dust can fly, but only you had imagined that it would make an airplane fly.

Reflection: Many of the companies from my early days have purged; some have merged and a few have surged (and continues to surge). I wish all the remaining ones a great future ... and a very special greetings to my tiny neighbor on Middlefield Road five decades ago, which has grown into the world's largest semiconductor company. Happy 40th Birthday Intel.

Wisdom in Failure

“Every problem that you face comes to you at the time when you need it to learn a valuable lesson that will act as a springboard to future success. But you must find that lesson and learn it.” - Dennis Waitley

Storyline:

During my recent overseas trip, I met this young gentleman. Looking at his face, it seemed to me that something was bothering him. He had graduated four years ago and joined high-tech industry. As his fate would have it, the first two projects he had been assigned were canceled after a few years. He seemed to have personally associated himself with the failure of the projects. 

When I asked for more details about what had happened, I was amazed how many different experiences this young man had been exposed to in those two projects and the amount of knowledge he had gained out of various experiments, the type of things that he could have never learned if the projects had gone without hiccups. In fact, he had not only gathered immense technical knowledge but also a lot of knowledge about business, relationships and logistics. As it turns out, the projects were canceled for business reasons, and not by any of his doing.

I told him that not many four-year employees are as lucky as he was to become one of the most valuable players for the group. He seemed surprised until we took an inventory of his learning and identified multiple places where they could be useful.

As my friend Biil Lim, the author of 'Dare to Fail' and 'Wisdom in Failure' says, "Don't worry about your failures (and disappointments). In fact, you should record and keep them. You will be surprised how much people are prepared to pay to listen to your failure stories when you succeed."

Reflection:

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series delivered her commencement address, "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination" at the annual meeting of the Harvard alumni association.

"I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale."  Here is the link for the curious and the interested...

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kh_tSiqL1U&feature=related

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default." - J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter.

Time and Tide waits for no one.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
-William Shakespeare

Story Line:

In the early 80s, while visiting “The happiest place on earth,” a.k.a. Disneyland, two fellows ended up in The Bear County.

There they saw a show where different, large, and overstuffed toy bears and animals were singing country music songs. Seeing children and adults alike enjoying the show, these fellows got to talking after the show.

“What if we made a talking toy bear in a size that children can handle?” They saw an opportunity to put a singing bear in every home.

Even though the initial impression and many subsequent signs were pointing to an incredible opportunity, those fellows kept gathering more and more data to justify their case. I guess they wanted to do a thorough risk assessment and proper risk mitigation before the start.

Now, the only trouble with ideas is that others can get them too. And in many cases, they can be the same ideas as yours.

While those fellows were busy researching and talking, a company named Worlds of Wonder introduced Teddy Ruxpin™, a talking teddy bear who could tell stories and sing similar to the ones in Bear County.

Reflection:

Teddy Ruxpin™ was introduced in 1985 and became a great success in the market. Many people get ideas. Ideas have huge potential for success. But it is only those who act in a timely manner and do something about it (sell, license or make); that get the opportunity to enjoy the rewards.

"In life there are no guarantees, only opportunities."

You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet

“Insanity is doing same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

“If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten” (or less) author unknown

Storyline: You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. (Real author unknown - quote told to me by Mike Yakos during China trip.)

Many years ago, while on an overseas trip I called my wife at home and told her about this beautiful egg that I had encountered that day. 

She asked me, “How did it taste?” I said, “I don’t know. I did not eat it.” 

She asked, “Why not? Is it because it is being hatched?” 

I said, “No, this was a hundred year old egg in a display cabinet in the museum that I visited today.”

Said my wife, “If you can’t eat it or hatch it then what good is that egg?” Obviously she was coming from her value proposition criterion.

That conversation keeps coming back to me many times since then.

Sometime ago, employees of one company were faced with a situation where there was some rule in the group that they had to follow. But it did not make sense to some new employees. 

So one curious and zealous employee inquired further and discovered from the old timers that the rule was in practice for a long time and named after the group VP who had proclaimed it in early 1990s. She was told that the group had accepted and followed the rule since then.

But she was not accustomed at accepting things at face value and took initiative to investigate further and showed that the 17 years since, the rule did not have any useful value. She suggested a new rule which was accepted. She basically broke the golden egg that was laid two VPs ago and in the previous century and millennium.

Reflection: 

Rules are made for a purpose. And they are meant to be broken when their useful value has diminished. Look around you and evaluate the usefulness of the rules, policies and procedures that have been there longer than a few years. Break an egg or two. But remember, Just breaking an egg is not enough. Once you break them you must be ready to make an omelet. (Propose useful alternatives and ensure they are carried through for implementation).

A bumblebee can not fly. But it does not know that. That is why it flies.

If you believe you can, you are right. If you believe you can not, then you are right, too.

Story Line:

On last Monday in Singapore, my colleague and I were fortunate to have met a very interesting person who is the CEO of the regional branch of a multinational company. We conversed about many topics such as globalization, leadership, quality, customers etc… This gentleman captivated us with his resourcefulness, knowledge of the region and creative ideas that he has implemented in his company.

One experience he shared us was very interesting. A few years ago he was faced with making a choice between two large customers; one with standard technology, low cost requirements and the other a very innovative company who always pushes the envelope with respect to technology as well as the external appearance of the products. He chose the later and some of his staff members were not pleased.

One of his senior staff told him, “We should have chosen the customer who has simpler requirements and a is a cash cow. The other customer requirements seem impossible from the technical as well as schedule point of view. Shouldn’t we do analysis of whether it can be done?”

We asked, “How did he convince his technical people to make this happen?”

What the CEO told us was very profound. He said that he sat down with his employees (with whom he is immensely popular) and focused only on how to get it done. Not a single talk or thought about “limitations” was brought about.”

The last sentence he said was, “You know, A bumblebee can not fly. But it does not know that. That is why it flies.”

Reflection: It was an excellent thought/gift as we ended our meeting. But his last sentence brought back memories of the talk I had heard from John Foppe, the guy who was born without arms. When his mother saw a son born without arms, she decided that she is not going to pity him and making him believe he was handicapped so he could not do certain things. She made him believe that he was gifted. He was sent to this world to demonstrate how much a person can accomplish with two legs.

Such is the story of great leaders like the one we met in Singapore or the innovative company that he mentioned. They inspire you to accomplish things that you never thought you could.

How a culture is created - Lessons in Management from Monkeys.

Before I get into this story about our brothers and sisters one step below in the hierarchy of evolution, I would like to emphasize that we humans claim to be superior on the basis of one key thing; our brainpower.  One would naturally assume that we humans, with our superior brainpower, would behave much better than these siblings under a given reward system?

Storyline:

A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage, and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on the top. Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the scientists soaked the rest of the monkeys with cold water.

After a while, every time a monkey went up the ladder, the others would beat him up. After some time, no monkey dared to go up the ladder regardless of the temptation.

Scientists then decided to substitute one of the monkeys. The first thing this new monkey did was to go up the ladder. Immediately the other monkeys beat him up. After several beatings, the new member learned not to climb the ladder - even though he never knew why!

After some time, a second monkey was substituted and the same thing happened. The first monkey participated in beating up the second monkey. A third monkey was changed and the same beating was repeated. The fourth was substituted and the beating was repeated again. Finally the fifth monkey was replaced.

What was left was a group of 5 monkeys that, even though they had never received a cold shower, continued to beat up any monkey who attempted to climb the ladder. If it was possible to ask the monkeys why they would beat up all those who attempted to go up the ladder, I bet you the answer would be "I don’t know - that’s how things are done around here."

Reflection:

Look around you, does it sounds familiar?  Don’t miss the opportunity to share this story with others, as they might be asking themselves why we continue to do what we are doing if there is a different way out there!

“Only two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity. And I am not so sure about the former.” -Albert Einstein

The original source of the article is unknown. All due credit will be to him/her/it if identity is disclosed.

You never know unless you try!

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to leave the shore.

Storyline: You never know unless you try - three real life stories.

1. During my college days in the 1970s, I met this fellow who was studying for a degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering. After graduating, I left for the USA and he stayed home and started a business. The first product he introduced was an insect repellent cream. Irony of fate or what, but the formula he used created an opposite effect: i.e. instead of repelling insects it was attracting them. This young entrepreneur became the laughing stock of the town.

Later that year, when I was visiting back home, I asked him how he is handling such an embarrassment. He told me, "Well, at least I tried, and now I know what ingredients don't work! I'll try something different next time." I lost touch with him since then - until two weeks ago. I was talking to a childhood friend, and found out that fellow is now the owner of a large pharmaceutical company, employing thousands of people, with branches in Germany, England and China, and the Middle East.

2. Last week, I ran into this Chinese couple that I knew years ago. In the mid 1990s, they founded a company to develop a unique Integrated Circuit product. Every time I met them during those early days, the wife used to tell me, "We are going to make it. We are going to be very big." One day I asked the husband, the designer of the product, "Your idea is good, but it seems that your circuit is very complicated to make. How do you know it will work?" He replied, "Well, the only way to find out is to make it."  Today, their company employs over 4000 people worldwide. During the recession of early the 2000s, theirs was the fastest growing company in the industry.

3. At the age of 28, Vince Paplae was working as a bartender in a small town in Pennsylvania. From childhood, He had passion for sports and decided to try out for professional football, something unimaginable for a person of that age, and more so because he had not even played college football. At the age of 30 he became the oldest rookie to have played in National Football league. He played as a wide receiver for Philadelphia Eagles from 1976 to 1978. In 2006, Disney released a movie "Invincible" based on Papale's life.

Reflection:

We often hear people complaining why something won't work: Too much bureaucracy, It won't fly by this person, too difficult, he is too high level for me to approach, that is how it is always done in this company etc.

Just give it a try instead of speculating or imagining. Even if it does not work, what's the downside?  Status Quo for a while until you try again!