Do You Lead With Kokoro?
This is a photo of my wife with her horse, Kokoro. It is a Japanese word for “heart” and can also mean: mind and spirit. It is the “thinking and feeling heart”. It is you. The inner you.
In english, we use a single word for both our physical heart and our unseen heart. In Japanese, it is shinzou and kokoro.
The Thinking Heart
We think with our head and we feel with our heart, right? The logical and the emotional are nicely compartmentalized. One domain applies to practical things, like business, career, or daily living, and the other to matters of the heart.
Not so. The heart is a thinking place too. Contemplate this matter in your heart.
For a moment, close your eyes and see life this way: cast yourself as the hero in a grand story, an important story — the kind of story that makes you feel fully alive. What if we are indeed living in such a grand story and we have just lost sight of it? For many of us, the heartbeat of life has been beaten out by brass tacks and mere facts. Perhaps it is time to find your kokoro again.
Do you remember watching that movie or reading that book where the story woke you up to a deeper truth? It is the kind of story that reminds you, “This is what life is all about”, “This is what matters”, “This is who I am”. It speaks to our sleeping inner hero about this beautiful story happening around us. It speaks to our identity and purpose within it, within life.
That is the kind of truth that only your heart sees.
Seeing With Kokoro
To me, a big part of leadership is helping people see. This starts with yourself.
We can so easily fall asleep to the deeper, unseen truths, and end up wandering aimlessly with our head down, staring at the ground. We do this in business and in life. Is it possible that your heart can see things more clearly than your head?
First, we need to see it ourselves — that larger unseen epic, and our purpose in it. We need to keep working at it, until we are captured by the worthwhile vision that moves us to action. Then, you can invite other people to join you, and to see themselves in it, maybe even imagining their finest hour.
Morpheus can see it. He says to Neo, “Do you want to know what it is?”
Paul can see it. He says to the people in Ephesus, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know…”
Our head sees daily tasks; our heart sees deeper truths
Our head delegates duties; our heart distributes dreams
Whether you are leading your startup, your career, or your life, lead with Kokoro, the thinking and feeling heart.
