not competing with others; you are striving for harmony, or wa. That is the secret to true victory in any situation – but most of us think of battle, and business, as dog-eat-dog and winner-take-all. In this chapter, I will show readers how taking this countercultural approach can become a differentiating strength. I'll also explain that seeking harmony doesn't mean being passive or putting aside your own needs. In aikido, harmony is achieved when you know how to protect everyone – including yourself.
Conclusion.
Finally, I'll close the book by talking about what it looks like when you combine all of these principles into a total clarity of mind and body. Sumi-kiri (sue-me-key-rhee) is a martial arts term that means “cutting through the clutter.” It's the ability to find your calm energy, hold on to your one-point, achieve mushin, and see the essential heart of a problem with zanshin. It is the sum of everything we have talked about in the book: the almost supernatural clarity of mind and body that allowed Master Ueshiba to dodge bullets.
How to Use This Book
Achieving this kind of total clarity takes time, of course; however, it's a practice you can begin, and start reaping the benefits of, today – right now. This book will show you how. I'll be using personal stories to help you understand these concepts by showing you the journey I've taken to come to understand them. My goal is to help you see the world the way I see it and understand what I've gone through and how I approach problems so that you can gain the benefits of these wonderful principles. I urge you to read these stories and reflect on how you might apply the lessons in your own life. I'll also be asking you questions and sharing proven tools and techniques to help jump-start your thinking, progress, and success.
This book is organized so that the principles you'll learn about will build upon each other. We'll start with some of the simplest concepts – equanimity, energy, and balance – just as an aikido class would start with a simple meditation exercise to quiet the mind, and then focus on the core physical disciplines of directing your energy and holding to your center of balance. With that foundation established, we'll move on to some of the more advanced concepts. These principles will build upon one another. You can't achieve mushin without first understanding heiki, and you can't find zanshin without first finding mushin. Ultimately, we'll be working our way toward sumi-kiri: the total clarity of mind and body.
In each chapter, I'll give you practical exercises, tips, and techniques for you to implement. These are not “life-hacks.” There is no shortcut to clarity, making better decisions, and peak performance. However, the tips and techniques are designed for you to use immediately and gain many benefits that will help you on your path to productivity, balance, and success. Give them a try. I hope you'll find that each tip or exercise helps push your thinking further and improves your day-to-day life. To dig deeper into these principles and extend your practice beyond the pages of this book, you can always go to my website, michaelveltri.com/book, to find the latest tips, techniques, videos, and updates.
You must combine the right spirit with the right behavior to truly transform your life. If you don't truly love what you do in all aspects of your life, no tips, techniques, or advice can help you succeed. This book may push you to think about whether or not you are truly in the right place in your life – whether you are doing what you are meant to do in your work and whether you are spending your time with the right people in order to truly be your best. If thinking this way makes you uncomfortable – good! I urge you to push through that discomfort and find your true path. Only then can you achieve peak performance in all areas of your life.
Peak performance and total clarity is a noble and challenging goal. You'll approach it again and again, only to see it slip through your fingers, grab it again, then drop it once more. My hope is that, by the end of this book, you will have obtained a clearer vision of yourself, what “success” means to you, and be well on your way to achieving more abundance, balance, and joy. You may not be able to dodge bullets like Master Ueshiba did, but you will be able to make better decisions, focus on what truly matters, and stay true to yourself.
Let's get started.
CHAPTER 1
This chapter will explore how entering into a state of equanimity, remaining calm under duress, prepares you to take action. You'll learn how crucial remaining calm is – whether in a crisis or just managing everyday situations. You'll see how summoning this calm energy, known as heiki, can help you see new solutions to a seemingly unsolvable problem. You'll read about some examples of people who have demonstrated heiki, and you'll be given some exercises to work on developing your own calm energy.
Your boss just tapped you on the shoulder and said, “Hey – you got a minute? We need to talk for a second…”
What runs through your mind when you hear those words? Does your heart start to race? Do you start imagining disaster scenarios? Counting up all your past sins? Do you think to yourself, “Oh, no, here we go again”?
Any of these responses would be perfectly natural – but none of them are particularly helpful. You know that you don't do your best thinking when panicking. You know that you can't have a healthy, helpful conversation with your boss, colleague, or loved one when you've got your hackles up. But what's the alternative? How can you escape the trap set by your own nervous system?
There Is Another Way
The alternative is a state of mind and body known as heiki. It's a calmness under duress that you can practice deliberately – when you're triggered by an unexpected call or e-mail, facing a tough decision, or in the middle of some kind of crisis. I start each aikido martial arts class that I teach with a moment of meditation. This moment of quiet contemplation puts us in the right frame of mind to fight. Meditation and breathing exercises lead us toward that state of equanimity, or heiki (pronounced “hey-key”).
The word heiki is made up of two characters: hei, meaning “calm, flat, or peaceful,” and ki, which means “energy.” Ki is also the center of the word aikido. Ultimately aikido is all about energy – balancing it, channeling it, harmonizing yours with your opponent's. In order to accomplish this, we start from a place of heiki – calm energy.
Aikido is a unique grappling art known as meditation in motion. The discipline requires you to remain calm in the face of adversity. Some martial arts ask you to go a bit out of control and release a lot of violent energy – yelling, kicking, and punching. In aikido, we must retain control. It's not about being passive or gentle – it's about letting go of fear, passion, and other artifacts of the ego.
This process of letting go of what we think and feel helps us open our minds to what the situation truly is. If you begin a bout with a desire to prove yourself or humiliate the other person, you're limiting what you'll be able to see. You'll see a threat, or you'll see an opening for a really cool move, instead of clearly seeing how your opponent is moving and what opportunities you have in the spaces created by their movements.
The same is true in our personal and professional lives. If you begin an argument or a negotiation mired in passionate emotion, you won't see the situation clearly. You won't see the other person as they truly are, and you will miss the multitude of true opportunities that are right in front of you. If, instead, you can remain calm, you'll be able to see many paths that wouldn't be available to you if you were angry, sad, upset, or out of control. Calm energy, heiki, provides access to opportunities you might not otherwise see.
An Opportunity to Prevent Violence
In May of 2013, Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was on her way home on the number 53 bus through London when she saw what she thought was a traffic accident.3 Without stopping to think much about it, she got off the bus to see if she could help provide first aid to the victim.4 But the situation she was walking into was no mere accident – it was a knife