Compass for fulfillment, the Formula: Results of Life and Work = Mindset x Enthusiasm x Ability.”

This time, Mr. Inamori talks about the secret of success under the title of “Formula: Results of Life and Work = Mindset x Enthusiasm x Ability.” The words in brackets are what Inamori said.

“The results of life and work are determined by the multiplication of three factors: mindset, enthusiasm and ability. Of these, ability and enthusiasm are each scored from 0 to 100 points, and since these are multiplied, those who believe that they have only ordinary abilities and work harder than anyone else bring better results than do those who make little efforts simply due to their talents and gifts. Those who work harder can get much better results than do those with less efforts. Now we must think about the first factor, mindset. The mindset is our attitude towards lives, and it ranges from minus 100 points to plus 100 points. Depending on how you think and how you see the world, the results of your life and work will change 180 degrees. Therefore, it is more important than anything to have the right mindset as a human being, along with the ability and enthusiasm. I came up with this formula for life not long after I founded Kyocera, and started sharing this idea with staff.

As Mr. Inamori said, I think this life-formula is very important.

I paraphrased the ability, enthusiasm, and mindset as follows, by referring to the other parts of the philosophy.

1 Ability = smartness, cleverness, and the arrogance under negative context
2 Enthusiasm = utmost effort, harmonizing with the will of the universe
3. Mindset = sincerity, compassion, brightness, positive thinking, honesty, and open mind

Let me elaborate a bit more for each of above point.

1 Ability = smartness, cleverness, and the arrogance under negative context

Inamori uses the episode of his uncle.
“ My uncle ended up living a sort of boring life as he never worked hard even though he was smart in his childhood. On the other hand, those who, my uncle looked down upon, worked harder and have successfully become great guys. This is due to the difference in mindset and enthusiasm.”

Inamori also referred to the proverb: “Sometimes I use the word ‘talent’ instead of ‘ability’. Because it is our mind that drives and control our talents. Those who show off their business success and become arrogant will inevitably fail, just as it is said that ‘Those talented get trapped in the maneuvers.’”

→ Mr. Inamori has repeatedly said that we must always be humble. He says that if you pretend to be smart, your life will go downhill. “I have seen many times talented guys’s up and down. God gave him a fortune to make his business successful and he could have grown his business maximum. But as he had been snob and arrogant, he eventually failed so quickly and started making losses. ” Inamori mentioned a leader as an example.

2 Enthusiasm = utmost effort, harmonizing with the will of the universe

Mr. Inamori also emphasizes the importance of striving much harder than anyone else. “In the universe, there must be an eternal energy stream which leads everything to evolution and development.”

→Therefore, enthusiasm is a key driver to make harder efforts than anyone else, to aim higher and to lead all living creatures in the direction of progress and development. Thus, we, human beings, must follow such a will of universe and get along with it.

3. Mindset = sincerity, compassion, brightness, positive thinking, honesty, and open mind

Mr. Inamori says the following as examples of a good mindset.

“Positive, constructive, cooperative, bright, proactive, good-natured, caring, kind, earnest, honest, humble, hard-working, with a contented mind.”
On the other hand, Mr. Inamori points out the following as examples of bad mindset.
“negative, desperate, uncooperative, gloomy, malicious, spiteful, misleading, overbearing, lying, arrogant, lazy, selfish, greedy, complaining, resentful, envious.”

Mr. Inamori continues to explain why this mindset is so important.
“The reason why I am preaching this philosophy is because I want everyone to have the good mindset. We must act and behave based on such good mindsets. Guys, pay attention. However, quite a few people understand well this mindset and have brought their business administration. As you guys have been learning in my workshop, please understand its importance and bring them to your business practice. ”

→Most people pay little attention to Inamori’s thoughts because they look like ethical codes for elementary school kinds. But it is the mindset that motivates and drives people. This mindset is also greatly influenced by the subconscious. Those who were occupied with negative mindset under their subconscious level, behave arrogantly, selfishly and viciously. Skepticism, self-protection, and distrust have driven those people. Therefore, I think that looking at subconscious mind of each one of us and taking care of it are so important to change our mindset, behavior, and eventually our lives.

Also, I think it’s important to have the mindset of giving, not the mindset of taking. When people think that they don’t have item A, they try to take item A away from others. We unconsciously behave like that. We must be aware that takers’ mindset sometimes led us to the negative spiral in which people got trapped with bad consequences. We must learn how the subconscious mind drives our behaviors and pay attention to caring those subconscious minds.

Our company’s main business is real estate. Unfortunately, there are some players who have been obsessed with such a bad mindset. We have been aware that how such mindsets are reflected into the investment results. Under the booming economy those guys are prosperous basically, but once the economic trend changes, the game changes: they suddenly go bankrupt due to excess debt or suffering from the bad performance of the assets. We are confident that those phenomena reflect the human’s mindset. We would like to take good care of our mindsets to be the best trusted company from our clients.