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Extracted from ’The World is My Classroom, The Universe is My Teacher
Kaizen - It All Adds Up
I accompanied a group of musicians and dancers to New Zealand a few years back. Beautiful country. We were there for around ten days. The artistes had a few shows and we had a lot of free time in between.
There was a professional tabla player in the group. He has accompanied some of the best musicians in the world, has performed in the most prestigious of venues and has won numerous international awards. He is a much sought after tabla teacher as well.
Every day, without fail, whether we were travelling or just hanging around the house, he practised on his tabla. He will do it first thing in the morning after breakfast; before we got started on the day. Every single day.
I asked him, “Prakash, how come? It’s not as if you need the practice.”
He could probably play the instrument whilst doing a head stand and juggle three balls with his feet, blindfolded, without missing a beat. He can make his tabla sing “Happy Birthday To You”, I kid you not.
“Muru, small things matter. I have made it a point to practise every single day, no matter what. It all adds up” he said.
I once attended a talk at a local university about the environment and what we can do to save our planet. The speaker was an activist from Germany. He has been in Malaysia for some time and has picked up a few words in Malay. According to him, the phrase he found most meaningful in that language was the simple “sikit-sikit lama lama jadi bukit.” Literally translated it means “little by little makes a hill”. He was using that phrase as his motto in his crusade to save our planet. Sometimes, we don’t value what is staring us in the face until someone else points it out to us. Have to hear that from a German!
The Industrialised Japan is built on the hard work of its’ people; and a concept known as ‘Kaizen’.
‘Kaizen’ refers to continuous improvement. Small positive changes accumulated over a period of time. They focus on improving both the product and the process, one small step at a time. They just keep adding on minor improvements to the one before; brick upon brick, layer upon layer. Toyota transformed itself from a tin can car company to Lexus on the strength of this concept.
We tend to dismiss small changes. Too insignificant to make a difference, we say. We wait for those “Aha!” moments for inspiration and revelation. We want to make that dramatic decision and alter the course of our life. We wait for the moment of truth, not realising that the truth is in the moment.
This concept of incremental improvement is counter intuitive to what most motivational gurus preach. They talk about paradigm shifts and try to convince us that we have been looking at life, or whatever that they want us to look at, all wrong. It works if you need a knock on your head, but not otherwise. Minor improvement just isn’t sexy enough to sell, too insignificant to be noticed.
It is precisely because they are too insignificant to be noticed that they are effective.
The mind fights change. The bigger the change, the bigger the struggle. Anyone who has been on a crash course diet knows this. How the lost weight is quickly regained, with a vengeance. It’s a never ending battle.
Small changes are indiscernible and because of that, there is less resistance by the mind; less push back. Small changes are do-able and hardly takes effort. Strength in simplicity.
Want to cut down on caffeine addiction? Don’t cut down cup by cup. The mind will revolt. Cut it down sip by sip. Yes, just one sip less, a day. Take one less sip today. The body won’t feel it. The mind doesn’t mind. Another less sip tomorrow. And the day after. Bye bye caffeine.
Want to start a reading habit? Start with one page. No, one paragraph. Just one paragraph a day. Before you know it, you would have finished “War and Peace”.
Want to start saving? Start emptying coins from your wallet into a jar at the end of each day. Start with spare change, the money you won’t miss. Just keep adding it up.
Little things do add up. Just ask the German activist, Prakash Kandasamy or Warren Buffet. They will say “Sikit-sikit lama lama jadi bukit!”
Muru
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