درسنامه اصلی

Big – Coaching Lesson

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to this month’s coaching lesson. Several months ago I was strolling with my wife in Kyoto, Japan. To stroll means to walk very slowly. We were strolling along the riverside, along the Kamo River that runs through the center of Kyoto. There’s a nice little path next to the river. Very often we go for walks on that path. It was evening time, around twilight, so just as the sun was going down. We were holding hands and just walking along slowly.

I can remember we stopped several times and we looked at the river to watch the ducks. Kamo River actually means Duck River in English so there are always lots of ducks in the river. So we just stopped and we watched the ducks playing in the river, flapping around, swimming. Enjoying their little noises. I can remember a big heron slowly flying, floating down from the sky into the river. Now heron, herons are those birds with very long legs, big wings, long beaks. And then we turned and we continued strolling along the path.

As we walked, up ahead I could see the mountains in the distance and they were kind of a bluish, purplish color because of the time of the day, because of the sunset. And the sky had a little bit of orange and red in it, again because of the sunset. Kyoto in general, I feel, especially the older parts of Kyoto, has a kind of magical feeling in the evenings where you almost feel like you’re walking back in time a little bit. My wife and I just chatted and strolled, probably for over an hour. And I remember it as this magical evening, right, this magical, beautiful, small moment in my life.

Now, the truth is, nothing about that evening was particularly different or special. The sunset was not particularly beautiful. It was nothing special. It was a normal sunset in Kyoto. The ducks that day were the same as they are every day. The heron floating in and flying in happens all the time on the Kamo River. The conversation with my wife, I don’t know…I don’t even remember what we were talking about, not particularly special or dramatic or interesting. And yet, that moment sticks in my memory and mind as something very beautiful, that little small moment, as a special moment.

So why? The truth is, we have these little moments all the time in our life. I don’t think they’re so special in a way, meaning they’re not…they’re not rare. I think they’re actually quite common, these small little magical moments. It’s just that we don’t notice them usually. For whatever reason that evening, I noticed. I was aware of the beauty of that moment with my wife. Many times we don’t notice. Maybe the same exact things are happening but we don’t notice. Why?

Many different reasons, but I think one of the reasons related to our topic this month is that we’re always so focused on the big things, the big, dramatic, loud things…things that demand our attention. And we’re trained in this way by the media, my modern life, I think. When you think about it, y’know, in the news

media and movies and television, what gets attention usually? It’s the big things. Like which businesses get talked about? Which businesses have articles written about them? It’s the really big businesses, the huge ones, right?

Huge, big businesses get all the attention. They also get all of the support and funding and subsidizing from governments. Their leaders are held up as, y’know, big, important people. Big business is what’s important. It’s not just business though. It’s all parts of our life. Think about when you want to make a change in your life. Oh, something…there’s a problem or you have a goal. What do we usually focus on? Making a big change, something big, I will change everything, right?

That’s what’s celebrated. That’s what’s noticed. When someone, for example, when a celebrity, a movie star, loses a lot of weight. Then they get a lot of stories about them, right? It’s a big change so it gets attention. Or even the opposite, maybe there’s a celebrity who used to be thin and look really good and then they gain a lot of weight and they also get a lot of attention, usually negative. But still, it’s the big change that gets the attention, that we focus on.

It’s the same like with where we live, with our houses. Think about it. Y’know, when someone becomes very, very rich, again maybe a celebrity or maybe they win the lottery, they win a lot of money. What’s the first thing most of them do or one of the first things? Buy a huge house, right? It’s just almost automatic. We think if someone’s very rich, they have lots and lots of money, then we automatically imagine that they are living in a huge, huge house. Even if they have no children. Even if they’re single and have no children, or maybe there’s just them and their husband or wife.

Yet, for some reason they always go out and buy a huge, huge house and we all think that’s normal, but it’s kind of weird. Like why does one person or why do two people need a house with 10 bedrooms? They don’t. It’s kind of weird actually because probably that house is mostly empty. And yet, big…it’s a big house so, y’know, they write stories about it and oh, everybody thinks it’s so cool.

Also, big, big events, right? If there’s a concert, a musician, if there’s a great musician who plays to a very small audience, just 10 people, they don’t get noticed. Oh, but if they play to an audience of hundreds of thousands or 50,000, ah, then we all notice and we celebrate it and think it’s great. Even though the musician playing to the small audience might actually be better.

So we have this habit trained into us, I think, and maybe it’s part of our psychology, too, to notice the big things and to forget and sometimes ignore the small things. Yet, the truth is in life, it’s the small things

that bring us the most happiness. Those are really the things that contribute the most to our long-term happiness, the small, little things.

Y’know, like that walk with my wife. We do that all the time. I go for walks. My walks with my wife, it’s one of the happiest, most pleasurable things I do in my life. I don’t usually talk about it. I usually don’t even think about it. It’s just kind of automatic. We just do it all the time. And yet, when I really think about it and notice, I realize, wow, that’s one of the happiest things I do in my life. That brings me a lot of happiness, that little, small, simple thing.

It’s the same with a home, y’know, really, usually, I think it’s actually smaller, more cozy, more comfortable homes that give us the most happiness, where we don’t have to worry about cleaning all this huge area that we don’t use. Y’know, it’s just big enough for us, not too big. Those are usually the most comfortable, warm homes, the smaller ones. And on and on really. The small things, the small things, the small things that make a difference.

And it’s also true with change. I once heard Tony Robbins tell this story. Tony Robbins is a motivational speaker and he told a story about golf. I can appreciate this story because I have recently been playing golf, not very good but I enjoy it. And he told this story. So Tony’s out there and he’s taking a lesson, a golf lesson. And he goes out there and, y’know, Tony Robbins, he always does everything really big and dramatic, right?

So he wham, whack, and he hits the ball and it goes really far. But the problem is, it doesn’t go straight. It goes off to the right. In golf, they call this a slice, and into the trees. Tony’s, ugh…right? So again he gets up, whack, again….he starts to get really frustrated. He’s looking at the coach. The coach is just sitting there smiling. So next Tony hits it again, whack. This time he’s trying to change what he’s doing and he goes way off to the left.

And he gets really frustrated and he’s getting kind of angry with the coach because the coach is just laughing. And he says to the coach, “Why are you just laughing? You’re supposed to be helping me. Y’know, this is terrible. I’m making these huge big mistakes. These shots are horrible, not even close to my target. It’s a big, big problem. Help me.”

And then the coach said something very interesting to Tony and Tony remembered it. He said, “Actually, Tony, it’s not a big problem. The truth is, your mistake is only about 1-mm. You only need to make a 1-mm change and then you will hit the ball correctly.” Tony’s like…didn’t quite understand so the guy explains. He says, “Look, when you’re holding your club and you’re swinging, just a 1-mm change with

how you’re hitting the ball, y’know, 1-mm too far to the right, 1-mm too far to the left, 1-mm too forward or too backwards will make the ball go off in a big, big, wrong direction.”

That tiny little change can make a huge, huge difference, especially when you’re hitting it very far. In fact, with someone like Tony who’s big and strong, the harder you hit it, the farther you go, that small change makes a bigger difference. So he says, “The good news is you only need to make a 1-mm correction, just a small little change, if you learn how to do it, will make a massive big result in the end.”

That’s a cool idea. And it’s true in life, y’know, often again we always think about, “I’ve got to make a big change now,” but the truth is, it’s the little tiny changes that can completely change your life in the long term. Again, you can imagine like a long journey, right? Like let’s say you’re flying an airplane and you’re going very far, like from New York to Tokyo.

Well, if you’re flying that airplane and you just change the direction just a little bit, a few degrees, when you finally get to Japan you will be off course, right? You will not be near Tokyo. Just the few degrees will make a huge difference in the long term because it’s such a far journey. Now for a short journey it would make less of a difference.

This is a good idea because it means that some of the big changes if you want in your life, if you’re patient, all you need to do are make little small changes and that can have a huge difference in your life. Y’know, for example, with your health. If you just start exercising a little more each day. You don’t necessarily have to lift weights and go crazy and do tons of exercise. If you just add 20 minutes a day, it’s a small change. In the beginning it feels like nothing. But after 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, that little change of 20, 30 minutes a day could make a big difference, make you much, much healthier in the future.

So these small changes can also make a difference. The small is big. This is a Taoist idea, actually. The small is big. Consider the small to be large. It means that the small things, when you really look at them, they all add up to something huge. Like with a relationship, like with my wife. It’s all those little, tiny, small moments that add up to our big happiness or our big sadness or upset, or whatever, right? That’s what makes the relationship healthy and great and loving or not. It’s not one big thing that you do. It’s all the little, tiny things that you do every single day, but they all add up to make a very happy marriage or an unhappy marriage.

It’s the same thing with your health. It’s not one thing. If you eat one big healthy meal, that doesn’t really change your health, right? Or even if you make one…if you eat one really unhealthy meal, eat pizza and

a bunch of junk. It’s not good for you but that one meal won’t make such a big difference. But it’s all the little meals that you eat every single day that all add up to make you heathy or not healthy. It’s the little, tiny, things, just the normal little breakfast, lunch and dinner that you do every day. That’s what makes the difference, the small things.

Your own happiness in life mostly comes from appreciating all the little small moments of beauty and love and kindness and friendship in your life. They’re there. It’s just that we don’t notice them because we’re so focused on the big things and oh, worrying about the big problems, that we don’t notice all the wonderful, little, tiny things that are happening all the time. The little smiles we get from our wife or our children. The little bits of happiness. The little bits of pleasure that seem like nothing but, again, they all add up and add up and add up. And if you just notice them and appreciate them, you will have a life full of happiness.

This month, very simply, I want you to focus on the small, the small things. Number one, I want you to focus on appreciating all the small wonderful positive things in your life that happen constantly all the time every day. The small moments of beauty. You can just be out walking, notice. You can be in a city and notice the architecture or the people or the fashions even of the people.

You can be out in the countryside or in the suburbs and notice nature and the animals, trees, plants, it’s all around you. The sky is always there. Notice these things, every day, try to do it every single moment of every day. Just notice what’s good and beautiful and right. The same with people. Notice the kindnesses. We often notice when someone’s rude and we kind of don’t notice or don’t think about the fact that a lot of people are very polite and nice, just, we think it’s normal. But it’s actually quite nice, really, if you think about it. It’s kind, it’s good, it’s positive. Notice that. Appreciate it each day.

And finally, in your own life, in terms of your goals, what you want to do, this is kind of that same idea of CANI, constant and never-ending improvement. But what I want you to do is just focus on making little, small changes, one or two small changes and that’s all and just be happy with that. The key thing with the small changes is you do them every day. That’s what makes the small changes add up to something very powerful.

So with English, maybe you just decide, I’m going to listen to English for five extra minutes each day. If you’re listening for one hour a day now, listen for one hour and five minutes, okay? You just add five minutes, that’s all. Super small, super easy, just relax about it. See what happens. Big – Lesson

Okay, most of all, I just want you to appreciate and love your life and don’t ignore the small beautiful moments because that is your life. That’s what makes your life great, not the big things, all those wonderful small things added up.

Alright, I will see you next time. Have a great day. Lots of love to you. Bye for now.