Kaizen is the Japanese word for “good change” (Kai = change, Zen = good).

Typically used in Business philosophy, it describes the continuous improvement of all functions, at all levels of the hierarchy. As such, Kaizen is both a powerful and competitive strategy. Using it, you will find that each aspect of your life can work seamlessly together. From your relationships with others to your finances, the goal is to shift your lifestyle toward success.

At its core, Kaizen means that you can always take meaningful actions.

As the main character in your story, you are empowered to create, build, and improve. To do better than the last time and to take new bolder chances no matter the outcome. As you plan and execute, all actions should account for the unforeseen (cause and effect). When faced with challenges and problems, they should be seen as opportunities.

It’s OK to do hard things.

The best companies in the world strive to improve themselves, you should too. Coca-Cola $KO is among the most recognizable brands, their marketing expenses are four billion dollars (USD) annually. Amazon $AMZN spent over $13 billion. While you might not have the billions for marketing, you must strive to improve daily.

Consider this, would you hire a low performer? Could you even invest or spend hard-earned dollars on a low-quality service or product? Would you be ok paying $150 for a lackluster meal? If your response is NO, why would you accept less from yourself? 

We will explore how each Kaizen principle, can radically improve your life.

The Kaizen principles are centered on Constant Improvement and Unbeatable Ethos

Following these Kaizen foundations will ensure that you constantly improve yourself (and the people around you), and grow faster while creating a winning ethos.

Although aligning your health, mindset, spirituality and wealth might seem opposed; you will find that they work hand in hand.

So, here are the Kaizen principles:

1. Don’t Just Go with the Flow, Start Questioning everything from the Bottom Up

“This is how we’ve always done things,” is the precursor to being obsolete.

Those who don’t adapt, change, and evolve, are doomed to go extinct. No matter how big or small your circle is, never hold on to things that don’t work. It’s ok to have traditions but remember those are just frameworks. Additionally, every new tradition started as an idea. Times have changed and so should you. Instead of getting stuck in the complaint cycle, jump right out of the frame and rethink everything.

As a first-generation Caribbean American, plantains are equivalent to my soul.

Plot twist; plantains are not even indigenous to the Caribbean. I’ve been lied to my whole life. Consider how older traditions can be modernized with the times. My grandmother never had a banking system so she used Sols or Sou-Sou. That practice doesn’t build any degree of wealth in 2024. With the market yielding north of ten percent, exchanging savings is a drag on your long-term wealth.

There isn’t anything particularly wrong with customs, as long as they aren’t toxic, racist, sexist and/or stopping progress. Everything that currently exists can be improved.

2. Always Keep your Mind Open to Change

Society has a way of romanticizing the past. Often, incorrectly remembering “how things used to be.” Not sure if it’s the chemicals or the MSG in our food, the past wasn’t that great. “Make America Great Again” implies a return to the 1980s, a time with no cellphones and home computers. God forbid a time without Amazon or Google Maps. Not sure how the parents did it. We used to send kids into the world and hope they returned. Alas longing for old times, limits the possibility of innovations.  

Fixed ideas about how to do things and what to value, simply because we’ve always done it that way is a bad habit. At this rate, you will not be able to compete globally.

Always keep your mind open to change. 

Perform daily mental exercises of extending your ears to different ideas and perceptions. Also, strive to lean toward positive intent from others. Ask yourself why they believe something different than you. This will open you up to new relationships and fresh perspectives. God forbid you learn more than one language in a world with 195 recognized countries and around 7,151.

Do something new.

3. See Waste as a Cancer and Problems as an Opportunity

How would you like to be placed in front of a big opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime chance?

Would you feel good and lucky to be in the right place at the right time and win big? Well, opportunities like that are right in front of you, you just have to see them. All the big problems your household is facing are nothing but big opportunities. Not feeling great about your appearance, ever considered working out regularly? Want to have more money in the bank, ever considered creating a budget?

Nothing is worse than a person who constantly complains. Don’t, it solves nothing.

Problems are opportunities to bring out solutions, contribute value, grow, improve yourself, contribute ideas, develop your talents, and consequently become better, more valuable, earn more, be more attractive, become stronger, and so on. If you want to be valuable to your company, society, family, and so on, you have to solve problems, fix things, and create value. 

It’s that simple.

“The world needs more dreamers and doers, not just talkers.”

This is how Nvidia became one of the best companies in the world. The CEO and founder, Jensen Huang sought to solve issues. Problems are your biggest opportunity. Solutions are valuable. The more problems you see, the more ideas you should have. As such, you can turn a moment into financial longevity.

4. You develop wisdom when faced with hardship

A study by David H. Jonassen (2000) in “Toward a Design Theory of Problem Solving” focuses on the importance of thoroughly understanding a problem before attempting to solve it. He stumbled on a simple truth. Complex problem-solving requires a deep analysis of the problem’s context, structure, and causes. Only then can effective and innovative solutions be developed.

If you want to constantly improve yourself, you need to develop more and more wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Diving into a deeper understanding of things, incorporating tolerance for the uncertainties of life as well as its ups and downs, will help you succeed in life. 

Unfortunately (or not), the fastest way (if not the only way) we develop wisdom through hardship and tough situations. Most avoid the very hardship that would add value to their lives. Don’t! Lean in, instead.

You can make good decisions in difficult times. All of which can lead you to become ‘Antifragile.’

“Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil.” 

5. Maintain a positive attitude

Maintaining a positive attitude is one of the most important rules of Kaizen. 

Only by keeping a positive mind can you analyze a situation critically and find new opportunities. There are cooks and there are GOOD cooks. Those who can adapt and evolve in real-time. The final episode of season 2 of The Bear, showcased a team fraught with challenges but adapted.

Only by keeping a positive outlook can you also foster the motivation to implement change in yourself, your relationships, and your life.

Where there’s a will, there is always a way. 

A positive attitude and strong hope is what fuels a strong will. There is overwhelming evidence from research in positive psychology that happy people are more successful. Positivity leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, performance, supervisory evaluations, and perceived customer service. Positive people perform better because they are more motivated.

Without a positive attitude, you stop fighting. You find more reasons to quit. In the end, you stop innovating, and you start to waste your life. There’s always a move you can make towards improvement, no matter how hard the situation is. Never forget that.

That’s how kaizen masters think.

6. Do not make excuses and eliminate can’t

Strive to think of how to do everything, not why it cannot be done. While the average American household struggles with financial security, move differently for a radically different outcome. Even with a positive attitude, you can end up accepting the status quo. Ironically, not even effort guarantees an outcome.

No matter how credible an excuse exists. There’s always an improvement that can be made if you keep innovating hard enough. Don’t use your mental power to look for excuses as to why things cannot be done. 

Eliminate can’t once and for all. Start thinking about how to do it, if you want it done.

If your mind feels trapped, and you have no idea what your next step might be, and all you can see are excuses, then you must first start by un-sticking your mind. Marines excelled at forcing you to unF*ck your mind. To let go of the self-imposed limitations. Can you run a marathon? How did you know if you never tried? What would it take to make you a runner?

Remember, your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open.

7. Creativity before Capital – Do Not Spend Money

There are, more or less, two ways of finding ideas for positive change. You can use the money to hire people and invest in new technologies etc. or you can use your creativity. Most people reach for their wallets to solve problems or even Amazon, instead reach for your creativity.

Instead of speculating how things are done, why not try them? Even considered growing your herbs? I have a friend who bought a farm. Another friend is raising chickens in Boston. They are getting creative.

At some point, it makes sense to pay for new ideas, knowledge, and technologies, but you have to start with your creativity. So why is this? There’s no way a change will be implemented permanently if there isn’t enough motivation on the table. If enough motivation is present, there will be many creative ideas for positive change. 

If there are no internal ideas, there’s probably no motivation, and if there is no motivation, change won’t last for long.

No matter how good the experts or the technology you pay for are, things will start to collapse and everything will go back to its old ways if there isn’t enough motivation, together with all the possible persistence, resilience, consistency, and discipline. 

The change must always start from within.

8. Seek the Wisdom of Ten People Rather than the Knowledge of One

In the information age, there’s a rule that you have to go for the best knowledge right away. We produce and duplicate so much information that you can easily get lost in bad advice and useless info. Most think they need to sign up for the next guru’s conference, instead of just reading a book or multiple books.

So, you have to be extremely picky about what information you consume. Some information is toxic to the brain. It can change your very chemistry. You should never seek the knowledge of only one person. Everyone has their interpretation of the world (subjective reality) and everyone sees the situation from a different angle. 

The more angles you understand, the closer you can get to the objective reality (the truth).

Consequently, you better understand the problem and what needs to be done. In addition, the more ideas you receive, the easier you can integrate them and innovate further. Ironically, you might not want to get all your information from the latest TikTok trend.

9. Understand the data and working principles, be data-driven

Every change must be data-driven. You somehow have to measure whether you have found a new way to do things better. Never assume, because incorrect assumptions are the mother of all disasters. 

In the end, you don’t have to be obsessed with data, dashboards, metrics, and measuring when making improvements. It’s best to be mindful and intentional. You can improve only the things that you measure.

You must always know what exactly you’re trying to improve and on which metrics that improvement is based. When implementing a new positive change, it should always be in connection with the one metric that matters most at a certain time in a certain situation. 

The fact is, you always have to put data before rhetoric when implementing changes.

10. Learn by taking action, it’s called validated learning

You learn the most by doing things. It’s called “Genchi Gembutsu” in Japanese or “Leaving the building” in English. You can read 100 books on how to swim, but it can never compare to actually doing it. 

Additionally, you can’t implement change based only on theoretical knowledge. You must become a master of validated learning and superior insights into how things work.

11. Choose a simple solution, not the perfect one

Simplicity is always better than complexity. Implementing change is hard, and implementing complex change is even harder, if not close to impossible. 

Therefore, choose a simple solution you can start implementing immediately. A successfully implemented small change will motivate you to implement new and bigger changes.

By doing so, you will increase your capacity and stamina for more complex change. 

Small progress can always lead to bigger progress, but in the beginning, forget about the big steps and start small. 

Choose simple solutions to start with. Never be afraid to progress slowly in the beginning, only be afraid of stopping.

12. Do it right away, even if you only aim at the 50 % target

When new ways of doing things come to mind, you should immediately try them and measure the results. If you aim at a 50 % target and it works, the final 100% is within reach, the important thing is that you take the first step. 

In addition, when you make the first step with the implementation, you start observing, learning, and getting feedback from the environment. You gain the ability to adjust your strategy according to the forces in the environment. 

It’s more probable that you will get to 100 % if you first aim at 50 % and then adjust based on feedback, than if you aim at 100 % with broad and overly complex solutions.

13. If you make a mistake, correct it right away

When innovating and improving things, you constantly make mistakes. You constantly fail and discover options that don’t work. You probably know how many attempts were necessary before the light bulb was invented. 

When improving yourself, you will make mistakes. You will find ways that don’t work, and you will find ways that are less efficient than your current ones. You will be frustrated, and your willpower will be tested.

But mistakes and failure are not to be feared. Failure is an integral part of every success. That being said, there is one important rule to consider, and that is to correct your mistakes right away.

Don’t let mistakes grow and turn into something uncontrollable and unmanageable. Have the courage to admit you’ve made a mistake and correct it immediately. Always do damage control.

14. Kaizen is endless

The best thing about Kaizen is that it is endless. No matter how many changes you’ve already implemented there is always a way to do it better. There is always a way to improve something. 

There’s no such thing as practice, and there’s no such thing as being on the top. You should strive for nothing else but constant improvement to your last breath. 

Imagine how life will be in 50, 100, and 500 years – full of evolutions and revolutions – in other words, improvements. And there’s another important factor is that environments are constantly changing for the better with new technologies, new processes, etc.

If you stop improving, you start lagging. 

Your aim should be to improve faster than the environment. Think about what would happen if Apple $APPL stopped improving and stopped releasing new products, just because they’re the most valuable company on the planet. They would go out of business in a few years. 

So, never stop improving.

15. Have fun while implementing improvements

Last but not least, you must have fun implementing positive change. It must become part of your character, a part of the organizational culture. You have to stay lean, agile, adaptive, and always look for improvements, all the while not forgetting to have fun.

If you don’t find fun in changing yourself and improving your home, Kaizen is nothing but struggle and hard work, which nobody wants. 

With a positive approach, pride in the improvements you’ve made, and the ability to see everything as a challenge, Kaizen can be fun. 

When something is fun, we want to do it more.

Even a 1% improvement is fine

Implementing any kind of positive change starts with the right mindset – among individuals, teams, and the organization. But most don’t like change, even if they say they do. That shouldn’t stop you from innovating and finding better ways to do things. 

You must become the light of positive change, a person with a Kaizen mindset. You must inspire yourself, your friends, coworkers, and family to achieve the same. 

And if your mind gets stuck, and it will, you should immediately revise these Kaizen rules, un-stick yourself, and restart your self-improvement, the improvement of the people around you, and the improvement of your home. 

No matter how hard the situation is, be known as a Zenkai a master of Kaizen. In the end, even a 1 % improvement is fine, as long as you keep going.

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