Influencing others with your ability to concentrate…Yoritomo is not talking about others sitting around watching you think and saying, “Wow, he’s amazing; let’s follow him!” Rather, the old shogun knows that to manifest results people will pay attention to, it takes concentration.
He goes on talking about a project being a series of small acts put together, and that nothing is unimportant.
“What is one link more in a chain several meters long? So trifling a thing that its absence would not be noticed. Nevertheless, if this link were badly riveted, this insignificant detail will suffice to break.”
“Every work is made up of a chain of acts more or less infinitesimal; the perfection of each of them contributes to the whole, and it sometimes suffices for a slight slackness in the performance of one of those acts to jeopardize the success of the undertaking…troubles arise from the want of concentration which allowed us to lose sight of the one thing that should have been for us of the first importance.”
He says that each day brings with it a round of duties of unequal importance; we must know how to distinguish that which should take precedence. In my School of Entrepreneurship class last week I impressed on the students that prioritization was a master skill of high achievers and effective leaders.
The shogun says to do the most important things, even tasks that are part of the most important things, and let less important stuff go undone. Keep oneself from every distraction and concentrate on the most worthy tasks or projects. “Rally your psychic powers and untie them on the same point…”
We can cast and divide our mental powers onto a wide variety of things in a day, accomplishing little, or we can focus them, especially on a worthy project, to accomplish something of value.
More tomorrow…