Anthony Raymond > Quotes

“In our quest for self-actualization”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Kaizen teaches us how to atomize big obstacles; how to break them down into their more manageable component parts so that we might build up the psychological momentum to overcome each hurdle via consistent daily action.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Productivity is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less... [It’s] about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at [your] highest point of contribution.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Nothing lasts,
nothing is finished,
and nothing is perfect.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“It once came into my head that if [someone] desired to reduce a man to nothing, to punish him atrociously … [then one could do so by putting him to work at a task that was completely useless]. Hard labor … presents no interest to the convict; but it has its utility. The convict makes bricks, digs the earth, builds… [And sometimes] even the prisoner takes an interest in what he is doing. He then wishes to work more skillfully, more advantageously. [However, if the prisoner is forced to] pour water from one vessel into another, or to transport [dirt] from one [hole] to another, [only to dig it up and move it back again], then I am persuaded that, at the end of a few days, the prisoner would strangle himself … rather than endure such torments.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Productivity is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: “pati.” It does not mean “to flow with exuberance.” It means “to suffer.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Your brain exists to help you survive, not to thrive.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“You must set and accomplish new goals (of one form or another) each and every day, until the day you die.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“el sabio chino Lao Tzu: Un viaje de mil millas comienza con un solo paso.”
― Anthony Raymond, Cómo Ser un Buen Jefe y un Líder: Formación de Equipos, Gestión del Tiempo y Habilidades de Comunicación para un Liderazgo Eficaz en el Lugar de Trabajo Moderno

“It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself (rather than for ulterior motives), that we learn to become more than what we were.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“I remember once imagining what my life would be like; what I’d be like. I pictured having all these qualities—strong positive qualities, that people could pick up on from across a room. But, as time passed, few [of those qualities became any of the] qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities… all the sorts of people I could be… all of them got reduced every year, to fewer and fewer. Until finally they got reduced to one—to who I am. And that’s who I am.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“In the years following World War II, the Kaizen methodology continued to evolve thanks to the work of both Japanese and American managers—three of which are listed here: The Iowa-born statistician Dr. William Edwards Deming made many consulting trips to Japan during reconstruction efforts and was so influential in turning around Japanese industry that he was awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure by Emperor Hirohito in 1960. (We’ll be referring to Deming’s work many times throughout this book.) The business consultant Masaaki Imai published a management guidebook entitled “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.” He also founded the Kaizen Institute Consulting Group (KICG) with the aim of introducing Kaizen techniques to Western companies. Dr. Jeffrey Liker (Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan) would bring Kaizen into the mainstream when he published his book of “manufacturing ideals” called “The Toyota Way.” The book showcased many Kaizen-related principles and described the philosophy and values that dictate the modus operandi of the Toyota Motor Corporation.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“This is how you will awake each morning, caught in this human dilemma.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“is”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Como reconoció el fabulador griego Esopo en el año 500 a.C.: Si tratas de complacer a todos, no complaces a ninguno.”
― Anthony Raymond, Cómo Ser un Buen Jefe y un Líder: Formación de Equipos, Gestión del Tiempo y Habilidades de Comunicación para un Liderazgo Eficaz en el Lugar de Trabajo Moderno

“And finally, the solution to many of our goal-setting problems can be found in the fourth concept, “Kaizen,” — often translated as “continuous improvement.” With Kaizen, we understand that the answers to life’s biggest quandaries do not come in the form of a magic pill. Instead, our most momentous accomplishments are typically the result of years of concentrated effort and dedication. Kaizen teaches us how to atomize big obstacles; how to break them down into their more manageable component parts so that we might build up the psychological momentum to overcome each hurdle via consistent daily action.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“It’s easy to stand awestruck at the difficult trial that lies before you. But it’s even easier to forget the many defeated obstacles that lie toppled behind you”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Lifehacker.com”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Once you come to accept the transient nature of your health, wealth, family, and finances, then the inevitable changes to these constructs need not be so surprising when they finally occur. While we must always strive to avoid undesirable outcomes, we do so with the acceptance that entropy will forever be our contender. Just as the force of gravity is an immutable property of the cosmos that we must learn to coexist with, so too must be our relationship with change.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Nicolás Maquiavelo: No es fácil conspirar contra el que es muy estimado.”
― Anthony Raymond, Cómo Ser un Buen Jefe y un Líder: Formación de Equipos, Gestión del Tiempo y Habilidades de Comunicación para un Liderazgo Eficaz en el Lugar de Trabajo Moderno

“This translation is perhaps my favorite because an Ikigai is often one’s primary source of intrinsic motivation.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Como escribió Nicolás Maquiavelo: No hay otra forma de protegerse contra la adulación que haciéndoles entender a los hombres que decirte la verdad no te ofenderá.”
― Anthony Raymond, Cómo Ser un Buen Jefe y un Líder: Formación de Equipos, Gestión del Tiempo y Habilidades de Comunicación para un Liderazgo Eficaz en el Lugar de Trabajo Moderno

“with”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success

“Because a rudderless boat only has the freedom to sail in circles.”
― Anthony Raymond, Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success