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Last night, Lake Kawaguchi.
Ogawa-kun's overnight retreat with 1,000 people.
Thank you so much!
Please do send me your photos〜〜〜
The power to dream is the power to release the brakes
"How amazing would it be if I could actually pull this off?"
When your life starts to move, the first thing you need may not be extraordinary talent or a perfect plan.
When something shows up in front of you,
"No way — that's impossible."
Is that the reflexive thought?
Or —
"Wouldn't it be fun if I could?"
Can you think that instead?
That slight difference changes every choice that follows.
I'm not always brimming with confidence myself when something new comes along.
It's scary.
I don't know if I can do it.
Maybe I'm not cut out for it.
That happens all the time.
Which is exactly why I tell myself:
"Amazing things might happen surprisingly easily."
When a chance arrives, I want to be the kind of person who can think,
"Whoa, here it comes!"
That's who I want to be.
The power to dream isn't the power to predict the future accurately.
I think it's the power to release, little by little, the brakes inside yourself.
Why we stop being able to see our dreams
When we were children, there were so many things we wanted to do.
If you wanted something, you said so.
If there was somewhere you wanted to go, you said so.
Watching TV, you could think,
"I want to do that!"
without a shred of hesitation.
But as adults, we start thinking:
"I probably can't."
"It's too late now."
"I don't have the money."
"I don't have the talent."
"It'd be embarrassing to fail."
We start listing the reasons we can't before we even get to what we want.
It's less that the accelerator got weaker, and more that we added more brakes.
So what you need in order to dream isn't to force new dreams into existence.
"Maybe I could do that too."
It's about widening the range of what you can believe that about.
When you see someone else succeed,
"They pulled it off because they're them."
instead of ending there,
"If this person could do it, maybe I have a shot too."
there are moments when you can think that.
In that moment, one brake comes off.
The scenery you see changes.
Things you would have walked right past before now look like
"a place I'd like to visit,"
"work I'd like to try,"
"a person I'd like to meet,"
"a world I'd like to experience."
That's how they start to appear.
Curiosity is the power to step outside yourself
People can only choose from among the things they already know about.
That's a surprisingly big problem.
Open your smartphone today and it serves you one thing you already like after another.
Watch sports, and you get sports.
Watch cooking, and you get cooking.
Watch music, and you get music.
It's convenient.
It's fun.
But left alone, your whole life gets built out of "the world you already like."
That's why it matters to step outside yourself on purpose.
Read a magazine you never read.
Read a history article you had no interest in.
Listen to someone from a field you know nothing about.
Go to a museum.
Go somewhere you've never been.
Open a book you'd never normally pick up.
At first, you might think,
"Not really my thing."
That's a fair first reaction.
But read a little further, and suddenly:
"Oh — this is actually interesting."
That happens.
That's the doorway to curiosity.
People with curiosity aren't people with wide interests.
They're "people who touch the things they aren't interested in yet."
If you want more options in life, you have to touch worlds you don't know.
Communication isn't the ability to say the right thing
The hardest part of any relationship is when opinions differ.
You think it's A.
They say it's X.
At this point, most people reflexively say,
"No, it's A, surely."
and start explaining the correct answer.
But the relationship stops right there.
What matters is asking,
"What made you think it's X?"
Just that.
Listen to them.
And then:
"So because you went through that, you see it as X."
"Because that's what you value, you chose X."
First, understand their world.
Only then do you say,
"I see. That makes complete sense. Can I tell you why I think it's A?"
That's how you say it.
The order is everything.
Try to persuade before you understand, and communication becomes a fight.
Share your thinking after you understand, and it becomes a dialogue.
People receive the "air" more than the words
There's a part of communication that never becomes words.
Say someone asks you,
"Want to come along next time?"
Let's say that's what you hear.
The same words can land in completely different ways.
"If I say no, this person is going to be in trouble."
Sometimes it feels like that.
"Even if I decline, this person will go and have a great time."
And sometimes it feels like that.
The words are identical.
But what comes across is different.
We unconsciously read the other person's expression, voice, breathing, posture, their impatience or ease, their hope or fear.
So just as much as what you say,
"what state you're in when you say it"
matters.
If you talk while watching their face, thinking,
"What will they think of me?"
"Will they dislike me?"
"What if they turn me down?"
your voice loses its bounce.
Conversely, when you talk about something you genuinely find interesting, at your own rhythm, that air carries.
Before you polish your delivery, tune your own state.
This matters enormously.
Trying to understand the pain
There's an idea about communication that I hold close.
Love is trying to understand the other person's pain.
They're angry.
They push back.
They keep their distance.
They use harsh words.
If you look only at the visible behavior, you land on
"What an unpleasant person,"
and that's the end of it.
But try asking:
"What's underneath this reaction?"
Just try considering it.
Maybe they were hurt before.
Maybe they were betrayed.
Maybe there's a fear they haven't found words for yet.
Of course, you can't decide someone's past for them.
But you can think:
"Even if no one else in the world understands this person, at least I will try."
You can choose that.
And when you do, your expression and your voice change.
The air shifts from trying to change them to trying to understand them.
Only from there does a real conversation begin.
Look for the "blue" inside the words that sting
Say a long message arrives from someone.
"Thank you for today. But please don't invite me again — that kind of place isn't for me. Still, I'd like us to stay friends."
When we read something like that, our heart snags on
"don't invite me again"
and "isn't for me."
Those are the parts that grab us.
And we want to argue back.
But try dividing the message into two colors.
Red for the parts that hurt.
Blue for the parts you're grateful for.
Do that, and you'll see there's blue here too:
"Thank you for today."
"I'd like us to stay friends."
That blue is there as well.
Don't react to the red. Reply to the blue.
"Thank you for coming today."
"Thank you for telling me honestly."
"Let's stay friends."
Reply like that, and the relationship doesn't break.
This doesn't mean swallowing your feelings to accommodate them.
It means finding the part between you that can still connect.
People with this habit end up with a much bigger "overlap" in their relationships.
If you want good connections, give them first
I want to meet good people.
I want a lucky life.
I want someone to help me.
Everyone thinks this.
But the people who receive good connections are also the ones who give them.
When a disaster strikes someone's hometown, you write:
"Is your family okay?"
You reach out.
When you notice someone taking on a challenge,
"I'm rooting for you."
you tell them so.
If you know someone worth introducing, you connect them.
If someone's struggling, you lend a hand.
Around people who hand over these small good things first, relationships quietly accumulate.
Luck isn't only something that drops out of the sky.
What builds up between people can come back one day in a different form.
Don't try to get it across in one go
People don't understand everything from hearing it once.
That's true at work and in relationships alike.
Something that doesn't land from one person clicks when another says it.
Some people understand through numbers.
Some understand through stories.
Some don't get it until they've lived it.
So don't try to win someone over in a single strike.
If anything, hold it lightly:
"It's normal for it not to land the first time."
That's enough.
Leave room for them to understand at their own speed.
If it helps, let them hear it from someone else.
Let them look at it from another angle.
Give it time.
Communication isn't about winning or losing.
Being able to wait while understanding grows inside another person is a strength of its own.
Goals change "now" more than they change the future
I think there's one big misunderstanding about goals.
Goals aren't only there to change the future.
They're there to change who you are right now.
For example, you decide:
"This month, I'll get this far."
Just that.
And what you do today changes.
Who you spend your time on changes.
What you decline changes.
How long you cling to any one thing changes too.
Without a goal,
"being someone who's working hard"
can become the purpose in itself.
You do the same thing over and over.
No results, and yet you tell yourself,
"Well, I worked this hard,"
and call it good.
With a goal, you can judge,
"This approach won't get me there,"
and move on to the next one.
That isn't cold — it's refreshing.
You stop clinging, to others and to yourself.
And a plan isn't there to increase your grit.
It's there to get you to your goal with the least possible effort.
It's like grocery shopping.
Go to the supermarket without deciding what you're making, and you'll walk the same aisles over and over.
Decide you're making sukiyaki tonight, and you buy what you need and go home.
The goal is the destination.
The plan is the route.
What you're bad at isn't necessarily a flaw
I have plenty of things I'm bad at.
I'm not good at managing paperwork.
I'm bad at detailed work.
I'm certainly not a good driver.
On the other hand, I'm good at pointing and saying,
"Let's go there,"
or "Let's do this."
That, I can do.
And there are people who are exactly the opposite.
People who aren't good at choosing a direction, but are extraordinarily good at building the systems that carry you in the direction that's been chosen.
People who are strong with numbers.
People who are good at organizing.
People who are good at supporting others.
So being bad at something doesn't only mean
"I have no ability."
It's not only that.
It's also "room for someone else's gift to enter."
That's what it is.
You don't need to become someone who can do everything alone.
What am I here to handle?
And from where onward should I borrow someone else's strength?
Once you know that, a team is born.
Being in a good state is a skill
The harder someone tries, the more they corner themselves with
"I have to try harder,"
"I absolutely have to do this."
That's the pressure they put on themselves.
And then the body stiffens.
Your field of vision narrows.
Your breathing gets shallow.
Things you could normally do become impossible.
Sports are the same.
"I have to make this shot."
The moment you think that, you tense up.
"I can't afford a mistake."
Think that, and your body stops moving.
So what you need isn't just fighting spirit.
It's the skill of returning yourself to a settled state.
Breathe deeply.
Close your eyes for a moment.
Let your shoulders drop.
Straighten your posture.
Instead of trying to hear the sound, try feeling that "the sound is reaching me."
Instead of trying to see the scenery, try feeling that "the scenery is coming in."
Even that alone can shift the tension in your body a little.
If you want to change the result, change the action.
If you want to change the action, change the choice.
If you want to change the choice, look at the thinking.
And thinking is heavily shaped by your emotions and your physical and mental state in that moment.
So the more important the decision, the more you tune your own state first.
This is the opposite of sheer willpower.
Live with intention
We live a large part of each day in "reaction."
A notification arrives, so you look.
Someone says something, so you get angry.
You're invited, so you go.
You get anxious, so you quit.
You're praised, so you push harder.
You're criticized, so you sink.
Live like this, and today comes out looking a lot like yesterday.
To change your life, put a little "intention" into those reactions.
"Who do I want to be today?"
"Right now, am I trying to understand this person?"
"Is this really something I'm choosing?"
"Am I looking at the reasons I can't, or at the possibility that I can?"
"Where am I headed?"
Living every moment of the day intentionally is probably impossible.
But you can come back to yourself once an hour.
Going beyond your own measuring stick
When I made a big decision in my youth, my father wept.
I don't think even he knew whether what I was holding was truly an opportunity.
Even so, in the end he said,
"I won't stop you. Go."
Those were his words.
Hearing that, I actually became frightened.
Being opposed would have given me an escape route.
If it hadn't worked out, I could have said,
"Well, they did tell me not to."
That escape was available.
But the moment he pushed me forward, the escape route was gone.
From that day, one measuring stick formed inside me:
"I want to live a life worthy of the tears my father shed that day."
That's the measure.
Everyone carries a different measuring stick.
A parent's words.
A promise made to someone.
A moment that stung.
A time you were saved.
A kindness you received from someone.
When you can't see your dreams anymore, it helps to look at what measuring stick you're carrying.
And then a time comes when you go beyond even that measure.
The bee doesn't know it's growing a forest
A bee flies from flower to flower to gather nectar.
As far as the bee is concerned, it's just collecting nectar.
But the pollen on its legs gets carried to the next flower, helping the plants pollinate.
And as a result, the forest spreads.
I think people are the same.
You're just doing the work in front of you.
Just chasing your own dream.
Just writing a book.
Just talking to someone.
Just taking on a challenge.
But someone who sees you doing it may have a brake come off.
"If this person is doing it, maybe I'll try too."
Someone thinks that.
And years later, someone may tell you,
"Back then, your words changed my life."
It happens.
Often about something so small you don't even remember it.
So don't underestimate your own attempts.
By moving forward, you may be growing a forest somewhere you'll never see.
The power to dream.
The curiosity to step into worlds you don't know.
Communication that seeks to understand before it seeks to change.
The ability to tune your own state.
The ability to set a goal and make a plan.
And knowing that your life is connected to someone else's.
What changes a life may not be some special answer hidden somewhere.
Next time a chance comes, just once, try thinking —
not "That's impossible, isn't it?"
but
"How amazing would it be if I could actually pull this off?"
Just once.
That's where the scenery starts to change.
How to become "unforgettable" to your customers!
The basics of nurturing you can start today
B-san, who runs a small custom furniture shop in town, used to have this worry: "Plenty of people peek into the shop or take a brochure home, but only a handful ever go as far as asking for a quote…"
So B-san started asking customers for their email address when handing over a brochure, and sending out one genuinely useful email a month — things like "seasonal wood maintenance tips" or "layout tricks to make a room feel larger."
With no hard selling at all, only information useful for daily life, six months later a message arrived from one customer: "I saw the email you sent, and I've decided I really do want that dining table I've always wanted!"
Nurturing is exactly B-san's approach. Rather than chasing after customers who won't buy right away, you stay in step with their pace, deliver useful information, and grow them into "fans." This is a major key to getting results in business from here on.
〜〜〜
Don't lose the "maybe next time"!
What is "nurturing," the art of growing fans?
"I'd like to buy it someday." "It looks nice, but I don't need it right now." Have you ever felt drawn to a shop or service but not bought on the spot?
In business, the process of staying carefully connected with these "prospects who won't buy immediately but could become future customers"and gradually raising their desire to buy is called "nurturing."It sounds like jargon, but at its core it's very simple: building a relationship with your customer.
Why does nurturing matter now?
-
Buyer behavior has changed: When we buy something, we don't go straight to a salesperson. We check reviews on our phones, look at comparison sites, and gather information thoroughly on our own before ever visiting the shop.
-
"People who want to buy right now" are a tiny fraction: The "buy-now customers" who see a flyer or an ad and purchase immediately are actually only a few percent of the whole. The vast majority are "someday customers" (the information-gathering layer) — and if you leave them alone, they'll forget you exist.
-
Trust is what decides it: By continuing to deliver useful information regularly even to the people who don't buy right away, you become the one they remember first when the moment to buy finally arrives.
Yume no Tane — what a rich, full session that was!
Thank you so much!
Nao-kun
Dai-chan
At Yume no Tane,
you can have your own radio show〜〜〜
Everyone in the coaching group,
I'm looking forward to it!
The fifth cohort has
a whole new air about it.
I spoke on Ken Honda's program〜〜
There might be an archive!
Scenes from the seminar in Shibuya
Thank you so much!
The after-party looks like fun!
All around the country —
thank you so much!
Shinkai-san, and Nabe from Takamatsu!!!
A haircut first thing in the morning —
thank you!
It was a wonderful time!
Link to Takumi Yamazaki’s ENGLISH Book “SHIFT”
https://amzn.to/2DYcFkG
Translated from the original Japanese post by Takumi Yamazaki: https://ameblo.jp/takumi-yamazaki/entry-12978570700.html
