Reflect and regret every day

Inamori shared his motto with Seiwajuku workshop members with the title above. What Inamori mentioned are quoted with “”.

“To be a good leader, you must always humbly and strictly reflect on whether your decisions and actions are right as a human being. In other words, you should check whether you are arrogant or not. If you keep reflecting on what you have done and warn yourself whether or not your performance looked unfair or otherwise lack of sincerity, your life would be constantly peaceful. You would end your life with great fulfillment, I am sure. “

Inamori also said as follows.

“I don’t want to be a whistleblower. I must admit that I am just a thinking weak reed and have easily been driven by desires. But some say that this is somehow the reason I was born as a human. So, of course, I sometimes make mistakes. However, I always reflect on myself and keep striving to be a better leader.”

I feel that it is not easy to always pay attention to our performance and to keep reflecting, however, by taking below points into account, we may be able to keep this “reflect and regret.”

1 Be cautious under favorable circumstances

2 Personality always changes

3 Care our inner children

Let me elaborate those three points one by one.

1 Be cautious under favorable circumstances

Inamori mentioned as follows.
“Those who always reflect and regret every day must naturally be humble people. I sometimes quote the old Chinese saying, “Humility allows you to be blessed.” Only humble people can have real fortune in their lives. Unless you are humble, you would never be the lucky one. Therefore, no matter how great things you achieve, never be arrogant. You must always reflect and regret what you have done in your daily life.”

→ I think it’s important to warn yourself to be careful when you’re doing well and when you’re under favorable circumstances. If you get extremely excited with favorable circumstances or success in your life, sooner or later you will suffer from unexpected misfortune.

2 Personality always changes

Inamori also shared his views about the personalities of leaders.

“Many people unanimously say, `We should choose a leader who has a good personality and understands humanitarian values.” But don’t forget that personality changes. Even if we choose a good and honest person as a leader, once he got the power, it is hard for him to remain humble.”

→ I think that people with power and control have self-esteem and fear of losing what they have acquired. I think it is important for leaders to get rid of obsession towards power, and to find daily small fulfilment in their lives.”

3 Care our inner child

Inamori also shared an episode on how to keep reflection and regression in his daily routine.

“My self-reflection is to say loudly, ‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry, forgive me!’ I also say ‘ Thank you, Lord. ‘, ‘Sorry Lord, I am the one who should regret what I did. Please forgive me and thank you for making me realize that I did something wrong.’ These words remind me of reflection and allow me to be honest to God.”

→ One of the native Hawaiian religions is called “Ho’oponopono”. This encourages us to repeat phrases, “I love you,” “Thank you,” and “I’m sorry” in our daily life. I think those routines allow us to follow the right way (high-road) and to care for our “inner true ourselves”. I believe that there is a truly pure and sublime soul called the “true-self”, which is fundamentally placed in our soul. We can keep reminding ourselves of that soul by repeating those phrases. Speaking of those phrases lead us to subliminally be aware that ‘I can give my endless love to that soul. I’m sorry for not being aware of these truths. Thank you for staying with me.’ I think phrases repeated in Ho’ Ho’oponopono routine empower us to maintain such attitudes.

In Japanese culture, words are also called ” spirits with sounds”, and by uttering them as sounds, those words drive our actions, leading to change in reality. I believe that words have the power to influence human consciousness and change human behaviors. I would like to constantly pay attention to the powers those words have and proactively select words to be used.

In summary, even when things are going well, keep in mind that this is not coming from your own efforts but coming from support given to you by others. We should always conduct good practice and speak to our inner-self. I thought those tips are quite important to be a good leader.