Honesty and open-mind to be enlightened

An honest and open mind refers to having a humble attitude of admitting our own incompetence and striving to overcome such deficits.

Those who are capable, passionate and aggressive do not listen to others. Even if they listen, they end up ignoring such advice from others. However, a person who is really walking the success path, can spontaneously listen to others with an honest and open mind. Maintaining such a mindset, people who resonate with you can simply come to you, as the birds with feathers flock together. This allows you to drive your success in your life and work.

Bear in mind that harsh advice always allows you to improve your capability and sensitivity.

Those who want to learn business philosophy are probably honest and open. On the other hand, those who are biased, stubborn, and dishonest, don’t want to listen to others. I strongly believe that being honest allows you to grow to the upper stages. Without such honest attitudes, we cannot improve ourselves.

An honest mind is a humble attitude that recognizes our incompetence and pushes us to strive ourselves. For that reason, I cite “having an honest mind” as an important item in the Kyocera Philosophy.”

Above are the words of Inamori.

Let me take a psychological approach for us to have more of an open mind.

In other words, we must remove some of our mental blocks.

For us to remove our mental blocks, we would like to take the following steps.

For example, let’s assume the situation where your client said to you “why haven’t you tried another approach?” and you felt like getting blamed for your performance.

Step 1 Think about why this irritates you.

Step 2 Analyze what kind of emotion you had.

Step 3 What kind of words instead, did you want to have from your client?

Step 4 What would have happened when you communicate only your emotion to your client?

Let me explain one by one.

Step 1 Think about why this irritates you.

If I were the one who got frustrated with my client,

I would feel that he looked down upon me.

He did not pay any respect to me.

He did not value my performance.

This is simply because I used to have a strong mental block: I should not be the one whom others take advantage of.

Step 2 Analyze what kind of emotion you had.

Then I look into the deeper aspect of my emotions.

Superficially, I had anger, frustration, a sort of uncomfortableness.

Then I find the deep layers of my emotion.

Psychologically, anger holds secondary emotions. In my case, the emotions are as follows.

・I was unhappy, as he did not value my contribution. (sadness)

・I was afraid that my client would leave me. (fear)

・I was worrying that no one values my performance (anxiety)

Through the analysis of my own mental activities, I may be able to find above emotions in the deep layers of my mind.

Step 3 What kind of words instead, did you want to have from your client?

I just wanted to have some words to reduce my negative emotions described above.

For instance, I could have felt better, if my client had told me,

“I appreciate your hard work but why don’t you try…”

“I know your hard work was important and I would also like you to take the approach….”

The above expressions showed a sort of respect towards me while the client communicated his own wish.

Step 4 What would have happened when you communicate only your emotion to your client?

If I could have told my client the following,

“I was sad as if I were a useless, incompetent advisor, and also afraid that I lose your trust…”

My clients would have told me that “Don’t think like that. We have valued you very much, just we were wondering to take another approach…”

This is the process which brings a better work-flow.

However, as a matter of fact, people do the opposite as they are driven by the fears/ sadness/ anxieties embedded into our unconscious minds. Subliminal minds always “unconsciously” lead our actions.

Therefore, in light of what Inamori reiterates “Keep the honest and open mind”, we first have to look into our own minds, then figure out what kind of emotions and stories are in our minds. This is the work by which we can raise our subliminal minds to the “conscious” level. By doing this we can prevent our subliminal minds from leading us along with an unfavorable action flow.

Why do we have to do this? This approach allows us to get enlightened. We would be able to be so brilliant, intuitional, and insightful. This is the mental condition which Inamori mentioned as “ honest and open”. At the same time, we would be able to be filled with gratitude towards others, as they have accepted us, even though we have negative feelings.

Under Buddhism, this gratitude brings the positive spiral: the sequential events bring us good luck.

In conclusion, we must ask each of ourselves, what am I thinking, feeling, missing, and desiring. Then we will recognize our own emotions to raise the subliminal minds to the conscious layer, so that we can purify our minds. By taking those steps, we can improve our instinct and intuitions by which we can make our lives easier.