The manual for entrepreneur-how to develop presidential mindset-

Inamori started Kyocera at the age of 25, and the initial motivation was simply to release his ideas and technical products to the market. Since then, he developed Kyocera to a several billion USD sales company, also developed a large telecommunication company, and saved JAL from its bankruptcy.

The process is as follows.

Let me explain one by one.

1 Determination-giving up pursuing president’s dream-

At the starting up stage of Kyocera, young staff requested Inamori to get a fixed salary increase and secured employment. After having several days of discussion, Inamori realized that the ultimate reason to be in a company is to fulfill its employee not only materially but mentally.

Thus, he set the corporate mission of Kyocera to fulfill all the employees. However, he felt sad as he had to give up pursuing his dream as an engineer. Thus he added, as a compromise, “To contribute to the technological improvement for human being”, as Kyocera’s corporate mission.

“However, be honest with you guys,” Inamori continued, “it was a sort of compromise. I was fully disappointed as I had to give up living my dream. My intention was not that much -sublime or noble- as you imagine. However, regardless of my motivation, I determined that I devote myself to complete the mission given to me. ”

Psychologically, this is the great difference between an ordinary leader and a successful leader like Inamori. Ordinarily leaders have a strong desire to realize their own dream. When they were told that they should give up their own dream and work for others, they would pretend to work for employees but subconsciously they were unhappy with that. They unintentionally give pressure to their staff by implying “I sacrificed my own dream and am working for you, why don’t you follow me? “

Staff can feel this pressure and gradually stay away from such leaders.

On the other hand, Inamori is determined to deliver the best performance under any circumstance given to him. There was no pressure on others. Rather, instead of their staff, he managed his time and started learning philosophy to understand what the fulfilment, work, life, richness and abundance are.

The former attitude looks passive while the latter looks quite proactive. Thus, we could say that being proactive seems to be a key for you to succeed as an entrepreneur.

2 Nasty but honest

“When I am determined to do my best as the top leader, I become more comfortable with being a nasty guy. I had no hesitation to scold my staff as I strongly believe that this is necessary for him/ her to be fulfilled as a human. I openly and honestly asked my staff-why don’t you work seriously as this is your company-, -this company exists to your benefit, if you don’t want to be a better person with decent reward, I don’t think you should stay with us-, I had no hesitation to push our staff to drive them to achieve higher goals as Kyocera was totally their company. ”

→What happens to our daily life is exactly necessary for us. The happening comes to us without any delay, it comes at the best timing. If we believe this idea, the work in front of us is the one that we should do with all our souls and spirits. This is what Inamori wanted to share with his staff. Therefore, for them to be fulfilled, they work hard to complete their daily work. To push Kyocera staff, Inamori had to be a nasty president, but he had always been honest and desired his staff to live better lives.

3 Navigating staff

Inamori, as a young entrepreneur, had to scold so called senior guys with career and experiences.

“I had no hesitation to scold such seniors. In our morning meeting, in front of everyone, I asked him to stand up and scolded -We had a bad practice yesterday, I want to raise your attention because…- then after that meeting, I called that senior in my office and warned him again, -You should listen to my words with respect. If you look unhappy and rebellious, other guys would look down upon me, this is not good as I have to navigate our people to one direction. If you listen to my words with respect, everybody will put an importance on what I say. Please think about the consequence and reconsider what you should do-”

→ Inamori was able to warn such a senior guy as Inamori wished to fulfill that guy. His strong determination had always driven his attitudes. Inamori might have thought:

“This guy should live a better life as a human being. Unless he changes his attitude as a sectional leader, his life would have ended up with something fake. This is not good. So, I must point out why his performance was bad and change his attitude towards the work. “

4 Improving personality

“In my bedroom, all the three walls are full of books, philosophy, religion, subliminal minds, and history, all those books to pursue the fulfillment of our heart and soul. On the desks placed in my bedroom are also filled with books, and on the sideboard, there are always around ten books. No matter how tired I am, I just read only one page of one of those books. I have been studying like that. ” Inamori said.

Under psychology, we define “altered state of consciousness”. This is the condition where our conscious mind is likely to be linked with our unconscious mind.

Conscious is the status that we are aware of while the subconscious is out of our control and subliminal mind. For instance, when you drive, you can change lanes without paying attention, as this action is executed under your subliminal mind.

There are several conditions where our mind is in an “altered state of consciousness”.

Watching films, taking a bath, falling asleep, and waking up, all of them are the states where our mind is in “altered state of consciousness”. Inamori wanted to fill with a good will and thoughts in his subliminal mind. Thus. he unintentionally used the moment when his mind goes into “altered state of consciousness”

5 Fighting for staff

To describe the competition, Inamori used an example of buns falling from the sky. “They have fallen sporadically, and everybody runs to the bottom of a chunk of buns and is fighting each other to get his/ her portion. Winning our business looks like that”, said Inamori. Majority of them are occupied with egoistic minds and in my behind, there are fifty of our staff who are about to starve. I had to run to the buns and get our portion. Entrepreneurs must always have such a strong fighting spirit to feed our staff.

→ At the Kyocera starting up, Panasonic was the only one client of Kyocera, in order for them to survive, Kyocera had to work on very challenging products that other vendors declined. For our company, we have been taking the assignments which other companies have declined. As the client expectation is really high, so demanding, asks low fee, or poor cost efficiency, most clients have declined the offer. But we took them and have been delivering at most efforts to fulfill them. Winning in an area where almost no competition is one of the strategies to survive under the harsh competition.

So, the below is the manual on how to develop presidential spirit for an entrepreneur.

Among them, No. 1, determination: giving up pursuing the president’s dream seems to be the toughest one. I was not able to deal with my “desire for the recognition”. I wanted others to find me valuable. I chased some numerical rewards to prove my superiority in the competition. Releasing my mental blocks and learning subliminal mind worked for me to deal with that desire. I became more comfortable with what I am. I can always feel very much fulfilled. This also works to feel for others. This time, I learned from the legendary entrepreneur how to develop the subliminal mind and maintain our own subliminal mindset.

Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com

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