Even if we try hard to develop the altruistic spirit of caring for others, it is often difficult to achieve it. However, as long as self-interest is restrained, altruism will naturally emerge.

01

Suppress self-interest, and altruism will emerge

Once self-interest prevails, it will cause flaws

Recently, We can often see in newspapers that political development is deviating from the concerns of the people and is only pursuing its own development. Political development only relies on political theory rather than the demands of the people.

In addition, economic development only relies on economic theory, and the entire society has fallen into this state.

I believe that society as a whole has fallen into a state of corruption and suppuration. If this continues, all systems may collapse.

I have a strong sense of crisis about this.

Despite the economic downturn, struggles and quarrels among parties for dominance continue, ignoring the expectations of the people. The hearts of people at the top and leadership levels of society are rotting and festering.

They only care about themselves and are self-centered in dealing with others, which leads to various problems.

That is to say, they can no longer judge based on the standard of good and evil: "What is right? What is wrong?" All judgments have become self-centered and self-interested judgments. .

The same is true for companies and industries. Those naked self-based judgments have led to various problems. The recent financial and personnel scandals are proof of this.

As mentioned earlier, people can be roughly divided into self-centered and self-interested people, and the opposite, altruistic people. Unfortunately, altruism, that is, caring for others and thinking about others, is not easy to develop. It is our human nature to consider things centered on "whether we make money and whether it is beneficial to ourselves." , this is a sad fact.

If the leader of a business is motivated by the desire to make money and gourmet food, he may experience rapid growth for a while, but problems will arise sooner or later.

Because operating with the mindset that as long as you are good, it will definitely lead to anti-social behavior, thus causing friction with society, and the result will inevitably lead to decline.

In other words, when self-expansion and self-interest prevail, our behavior will reveal flaws. At this point, there are no exceptions.

If the mind is a hollow ball

However, the human heart is by no means the only self-existence.

Although this self, that is, self-interest is very strong, at the same time, everyone has the altruistic nature of "benefiting others, thinking about others, being kind to others, and caring for others."

Here, I would like to emphasize to everyone again, "If entrepreneurs do not have altruism in their hearts, that is, the desire to care for others and think about others, business operations will not be successful."

I want to tell everyone: "As long as you are good, you will be fine. You cannot run a business well with this mentality alone."

Of course, there are few people who are born with altruistic intentions. Very few. Ordinary people, if they do not practice consciously, will almost always act with entirely self-interested motives. We ordinary people have a self-interest in our hearts, that is, the mentality that as long as we are good, it will be fine.

So, I would like to emphasize again that this kind of self-interest must be suppressed. How much self-interest we can suppress will correspond to how much altruism appears.

Even if we try hard to develop the altruistic spirit of caring for others, it is often difficult to achieve it. However, as long as self-interest is restrained, altruism will naturally emerge.

02

Management is altruism

1. Why I founded Kyocera

Everyone can feel how much altruism they have. Heart?

We are all presidents and management cadres of small and medium-sized enterprises and medium-sized enterprises. In fact, everyone already has a considerable amount of altruism in their hearts.

When I first founded Kyocera, I thought this way: "It's great that we can establish a company with only 3 million yen in capital. I'm really grateful. *** and I started our business together 7 comrades, from now on I have a place for my technology to flourish. This is Kyocera.”

After only two years, I realized that this idea was a huge mistake.

We hired twenty employees who graduated from junior high school in the first year, and a dozen employees who graduated from high school in the second year. But these employees who graduated from high school made demands after working for a year:

"How much bonus will be paid this winter, how much will be the salary increase tomorrow spring, how much salary increase will be needed in the next five years, if If our conditions cannot be met, we will resign collectively!”

They made strong representations to me with a joint letter stamped with bloody fingerprints.

I was shocked when these high school graduates who joined the company at the same time asked for "everyone to resign together." After that, I had a long talk with them, which lasted for three days and three nights. They asked for: how much salary increase and bonus should be guaranteed every year.

But I insisted: "I'm afraid this cannot be guaranteed, because we are a new company just established last year." Haven't I always told everyone? I will work hard and hope that everyone will work with me to build an excellent company. By then, everyone's salary will be greatly improved. ”

I kept telling them: “If I could promise you things next year, the year after next, or even five years later, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.” I have been fighting so hard just to ensure that everyone has food to eat today and tomorrow. It is simply impossible to make a commitment to things five years from now. "

At the same time, I deeply felt: "The decision to found Kyocera was such a failure.

“Since starting my business, I have always believed that this company was established with the help of others simply to promote my technology. These employees were strangers to me and only entered after passing the interview. The company, but now even their future lives have to be protected by me."

Facing the reality of being forced into the house by my employees, I deeply feel that I have done something that is difficult to get off.

2. Take the initiative to take care of "people you have never met"

At that time, I could neither take care of my parents, brothers and sisters, nor support them financially.

So I was very annoyed: "I can't even help my parents and brothers back home, but I have to provide lifelong financial security for these employees who have just been hired and are strangers to me.

There was no such promise when I was hired, but now I am asked to make such an unreasonable guarantee. Instead of taking care of these guys for the rest of my life, I would be better off taking care of my own parents and brothers.”

But. If you think about it carefully, you will understand that doesn’t an enterprise exist to protect its employees? It was then that I realized this for the first time.

“I will work hard all my life for these employees.” Thinking of this, I felt that the matter had come to this and there was no way back.

So, at this time, I determined "Kyocera's business philosophy." Why do I want to run Kyocera?

Before this, I always believed that the purpose of establishing a company was to promote my technology.

But at this moment, the purpose of running the company changed and became "the pursuit of both material and spiritual happiness for all employees."

Moreover, I also feel that we should "contribute to the progress and development of human society while pursuing the material and spiritual happiness of all employees."

No matter what the circumstances, the company should first pursue the material and spiritual happiness of all employees. I realized this and changed my previous policy.

3. The expansion of the company is the expansion of altruism

From the moment you become an operator, you should know: you must take good care of your employees, so that our company can Only by maintaining a harmonious atmosphere can your business run smoothly.

In fact, this has become a prerequisite for the existence of enterprises.

In countries like Japan where lifetime employment is widely adopted, employees will join the company with the idea that "once they join the company, the company will take care of me for the rest of their lives." Therefore, operators must take care of these employees who meet by chance. It takes a huge amount of money to take care of a person for a lifetime.

Everyone takes it for granted and practices it unconsciously, which is altruistic in itself. In other words, everyone already has an "altruistic heart" that is willing to help others.

If we take caring for employees throughout their lives as a matter of course, we will already have the compassion and charity mentioned by Gautama Buddha, and the love mentioned by Christ. In fact, everyone already has it.

Next, our company will gradually grow. 50 people will become 100 people, and 100 people will become 1,000 people. This means that altruism will gradually expand, and it also means that the responsibility will be heavier. Now, there are more people to help.

Altruistic thinking can also transcend the national level. For the sake of world peace, if we only consider the interests and gains of one country, it may endanger the entire world.

Here, we need to think about the "interests of the earth". Furthermore, if we only consider the earth, from a cosmic perspective, it may also bring disadvantages. At this time, we need to have a "cosmic benefit" way of thinking.

Can everyone understand?

The human mind is divided into self-interest and altruism. The lowest level is self-centered selfishness for oneself and for the individual.

The way of thinking and behavior of "as long as you are good" will put the entire society against you. In contrast, the idea of ??"at least protect your wife and children" , which is self-centeredness at the family level.

Although it is self-centered at the family level, from a personal perspective, it still has altruistic elements. Because cherishing your wife, protecting her, and protecting your children has an altruistic part.

So, self-centeredness at the family level itself already contains altruistic elements.

Even in a small business, protecting the company and cherishing the company's employees, this way of thinking, compared with personal self-centeredness, also contains an element of great altruism, that is, it contains a desire to help. Ingredients for other people, that’s a pretty amazing thing.

4. Altruism broadens horizons

So, what is the difference between judging things based on self-centered self-interest and judging things based on altruism?

The difference is that the field of vision will become wider.

Compared with the egocentrism of thinking that as long as you are good, a way of thinking that goes beyond the individual, cherishes the family and strives to make the family better can help people get rid of the narrow personal vision and stand in the broader world of the family. view things from a perspective.

Furthermore, if you not only consider your family, but also value your company's employees and want them to be better, your horizons will also expand.

That is to say, as the scope of altruism continues to expand, our eyes and horizons of looking at things will also expand. If you hold the idea that as long as you make money, your vision will become very narrow.

As a result, you will lose sight of the road ahead and fall down. When I see those greedy people who only care about making money for their own companies, I feel that it is too dangerous to stand.

Because I can foresee the scene where "that person may fall down there." However, he himself is invisible because he does it because he thinks it is right.

On the contrary, if you can open your altruistic eyes, your horizons can continue to expand. I feel at ease when I see some operators who have great love and run their businesses in order to save more people.

When your mentality changes, your outlook on life will change, your destiny will also change, and your perspective on things will also change.

In this case, you will have foresight, be able to see the future, and have the ability to predict "I'm afraid something will go wrong there."

I would like to say it again, the so-called altruism is a mind that can regard the happiness of others as its own happiness. Seeing others succeed makes you feel "so good" from the bottom of your heart.

Generally speaking, no one can regard other people’s happiness as their own happiness. Seeing other people very happy and happy often makes them jealous. This is ordinary people.

Some people may even want to destroy it, because they feel unhappy when they see the other person being happy. Ordinary people are just so wretched.

Correspondingly, a caring heart that regards the happiness of others as one's own happiness and the pain of others as one's own pain is a beautiful heart, which is altruism.

However, it is very difficult to be altruistic because people are naturally self-interested. I am the same, I also have a selfish part that is driven by greed.

So, I would like to repeat again that as long as such self-interest is suppressed to some extent, altruism will arise.

To suppress self-interest, you need to constantly reflect in life, stay humble, and be "content" and not allow your desires to expand indefinitely.

"Contentment" can help us suppress self-interest. For example, in the political world, many members of Congress originally aspired to become politicians with "altruistic hearts." They participated in the House of Representatives elections and gained the trust of the people. After being elected, they entered the Congress and determined to do their best for the people.

But once some people are elected, they immediately throw aside their modesty, introspection, contentment and other ways of thinking, become arrogant and arrogant, and completely forget about altruism.

The country and its people, Japan, are no longer in their field of vision, and they only focus on the interests of themselves and their party, which has become very narrow.

Today's world is a gathering of self-interested people, driven only by calculations of interests among themselves, so the world is in decline and people's hearts are in chaos. This situation must change and it is urgent.

We must continue to sound the alarm, so that real leaders can grow up who can reflect on themselves repeatedly, think about problems from a social perspective, and work hard to suppress even a little bit of self-interest, so that they can carry forward the spirit of altruism. Heart.

At the same time, all members must unanimously change direction and use their own strength to help nurture leaders who can truly do their best for the people. Only in this way can our society change.

Here, I implore everyone, even if it is just for this country, to try to treat others with altruism.

5. Human nature is altruism

We rarely have the opportunity to experience this "altruistic heart", but occasionally we still have it.

For example, in a crowded subway, you sit tiredly in your seat. But there was an old lady standing in front of me. At this time, although I was very tired and wanted to pretend not to see it, I still felt it was inappropriate, so I stood up and gave her my seat and said, "Please sit down."

"You are too humble!" The wife was very grateful and said politely, "It's okay, you can sit down." You would still say: "You'd better sit down! Please, please." So the old lady sat down.

Although my legs and feet were sore and I was standing with the rings on, I felt relieved when I heard the old lady’s thanks. Someone should have had such an experience.

This mood is different from the joy of satisfying desires while enjoying delicious food and wearing fine clothes. It is a more indifferent and quiet joy. Altruism can make people feel this joy.

In other words, the joy of altruism is very different from the joy of satisfying self-interest. This is something that makes people feel very comfortable.

However, people are not born so kind-hearted, and it is often difficult to develop their "altruistic heart".

But in essence, everyone is altruistic, but this altruism will gradually be covered by self-interest as we age, and self-interest will gradually prevail, but human nature is altruistic. of.