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I love being a nomad because of all the foreign cultures in which I can immerse myself.

I learned so much from how other people view the world.

A single truth or good and bad don't exist.

Most things are subjective.

I spent a lot of time in Japan.

It is currently one of the countries I would associate with home.

Even though the culture is far from what I was used to in Europe.

The Japanese culture is incredibly deep and interconnected.

But to understand another culture, you must speak its language.

Language is critical in understanding because it shapes the mind.

This is why I started learning to speak Japanese.

Don't worry; you don't need to learn Japanese to benefit from the Japanese culture.

I've been on and off it for a decade and still only manage basic conversations in Japanese.

Here are a few concepts that blew my mind, and I would like to share them with you today.

You have probably heard of some concepts, like Ikigai.

Today, I want to discuss five Japanese concepts that few people have discussed.

I incorporated these Japanese concepts into my life, changing how I work and do business.

Kaizen - 1% better everyday

My colleagues and friends know me to be the most disciplined and productive person they know.

My productivity has nothing to do with discipline.

The truth is I'm very undisciplined and have no willpower to withstand temptations.

If there is chocolate in the fridge, it is gone within seconds.

The secret to my productivity is small, consistent improvements made effortless by systems.

This is what kaizen is about.

Make many small improvements to achieve a significant outcome.

More significant than making one big improvement.

I achieved this by building myself systems that make executing a plan effortlessly.

In Japan, they have a six-step process for improvement that I incorporated into my systems:

Identify a problem
Analyze the current process
Create solutions
Test the Solutions
Measure and analyze results
Standardize the solution

A big part of kaizen is the idea that you're never done improving.

This works perfectly with the next concept I took from Japan.

Shoshin - the beginner’s mindset

I'm constantly learning with everything I do, and it is fun.

I'm never done learning.

This mindset is called shoshin, the beginner’s mindset.

School and work in the West make us think we're done learning when we graduate.

The expectation is that you can perform the job you were educated for flawlessly from day one.

Of course, this is not true, so we added seniority levels to the job.

The truth is we never stop learning.

And if we think we're done learning, all joy will be gone from our lives.

This is one of the reasons why job titles are such a practice in our current world.

I keep it playful and stay curious.

This way, I'm not bound to a profession I once learned.

I can reinvent my work every day.

Oubaitori - everyone is different

I forget sometimes that everyone is different and has their path.

Especially when I scroll on social media.

The constant bombardment with social standards I should follow to fit in.

It makes me insecure and worried.

It's funny that the people we listen most to are those who break these social standards.

Oubaitori is born from observing four different fruit trees blossom and develop fruit.

Just as you can't compare a peach with a cherry, you can't compare two people.

Everyone's life is different, and everyone has their own path to follow.

Oubaitori helped me in times when I compared myself too much with:

The unrealistically generalized launch times for startup products.
The unicorn, overnight successes of a few very successful businesses.
Or the huge growth rates of veteran marketing and sales gurus.

These vanity metrics are all irrelevant.

What truly matters is my mental health, and comparing less improves it.

I focus now on what truly matters: Helping people.

You will never miss anything if you do something that genuinely helps people.

Shoganai - it can't be helped

The idea behind shoganai is that we should focus on controlling what is in our power.

And we should let go of everything that is outside of our reach.

Shoganai is still a hard one for me today.

I was faced with a lot of bureaucratic bullshit in my first business.

I felt mistreated and blocked by these institutions and their nonsensical rules.

So much stress and anger held in my belly.

Needless to say, this behaviour was unhealthy.

The solution is so simple:

I can't change anything in this situation, so I better accept it and save my energy for when it matters.

On the other hand, I'm still struggling to determine which things are within my power.

If I don't try to improve a bad situation, it will never change, right?

So, shoganai is a concept that can help you accept and let go of truly hopeless situations.

But that doesn't mean you should follow it for everything that is hard to do.

Wabi-sabi - imperfect and fleeting

I'm a perfectionist and completionist, so wabi-sabi was a big eye-opener.

In Japan, imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness are seen as beautiful.

This is what wabi-sabi describes.

Just like shoganai, wabi-sabi is about acceptance.

Accepting that:

everything will end,
things are not perfect,
and things may stay incomplete forever.

I derived three rules for my work and business from wabi-sabi:

Always define what “good enough” means when setting goals.
Remind yourself of the goals you set repeatedly to stay on track.
Celebrate your failures just like your wins.

Which concepts from another culture than the Western society are you following?

Share it with me on LinkedIn.

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5 Japanese concepts we can learn from in the West.