Could it be possible to unlock untapped potential and achieve your personal development goals through the Japanese principle of Kaizen?
Let's find out!
I delve into the heart of this powerful approach, unraveling its three pillars - Housekeeping, Elimination of Waste, and Quality, and how they could dramatically reshape your life. This episode is all about concentrating on a single task, eliminating activities that aren't serving you, and ensuring you perform your tasks effectively and efficiently.
I share my experiences, my achievements, and the wisdom I have gathered from integrating Kaizen into my daily routines. From standardizing my life to fostering ironclad self-discipline, I give a glimpse of the transformative power of Kaizen.
Together, we will explore and embrace the endless possibilities of personal growth and optimization that Kaizen brings. Be ready to redefine efficiency and effectiveness in your everyday life.
Could it be possible to unlock untapped potential and achieve your personal development goals through the Japanese principle of Kaizen?
Let's find out!
I delve into the heart of this powerful approach, unraveling its three pillars - Housekeeping, Elimination of Waste, and Quality, and how they could dramatically reshape your life. This episode is all about concentrating on a single task, eliminating activities that aren't serving you, and ensuring you perform your tasks effectively and efficiently.
I share my experiences, my achievements, and the wisdom I have gathered from integrating Kaizen into my daily routines. From standardizing my life to fostering ironclad self-discipline, I give a glimpse of the transformative power of Kaizen.
Together, we will explore and embrace the endless possibilities of personal growth and optimization that Kaizen brings. Be ready to redefine efficiency and effectiveness in your everyday life.
Welcome to the Mind Body Project Podcast. After over a decade in the health and wellness industry, erin realized that our bodies change only short-term unless our mindset changes. For long-term success, both our mind and body are forever linked. We are continually building up new ideas and tearing down old ones in our construction zone we call our mind. After this podcast is over, make sure you give it a like and a share and please subscribe and review this podcast. I would now like to introduce you to your host, the man connecting your mind and body to create a limitless life, erin Zegler.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Mind Body Project. Thanks for taking the time to join me today. I want to share a little something called kaizen. Have you ever heard of kaizen? Sounds kind of crazy like hyah.
Speaker 2:What's kaizen? Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning change for the better or continuous improvement. A lot of times this Japanese term kaizen is regarding the process of continuous improvement or operations involving all employees. I saw this process of change for the better, continuous improvement. I thought kaizen, how can that be applied to us? How can that be applied? Not necessarily manufacturing in a manufacturing plant or employees, but how can we take kaizen and apply it to ourselves? There's three pillars to kaizen and we're going to talk about each pillar and how that applies to us as people. We're going to take it from outside of the manufacturing plant and processes and employees and we're going to apply that to ourselves.
Speaker 2:There's three pillars of kaizen. The first one is housekeeping. Housekeeping is the first pillar In the process of the Japanese manufacturing. It's the method of managing the workplace to continually improve. It's called jamba, but it's managing the workplace. What is housekeeping? We don't have a workplace, but what is the workplace? If we're talking about us, the workplace is me, it's you, it's who we are. That's the workplace In this.
Speaker 2:The main concept of this pillar is that, and when we're talking about housekeeping is that one service or product is made valuable before we move on to the next stage. This is how we manage the workplace, how we manage ourselves. What is the service or product? If we're talking about us, what is that service or product? We're talking about quit taking all those tasks that we do, that we multitask, and we do all these things and not being good at any of them. How many times do we do all these different things and we're okay at them, but we're not great at them? We don't hone in on one thing. I'm guilty of that. I want to do all these tasks, so I spread myself thin and do all of them not necessarily great at all of them, but I do them. I'm fair at them. But but what if we quit taking on all these tasks and we focus on just one? We get really good at that. We move on to the next. This is the pillar of Kaizen.
Speaker 2:When it talks about housekeeping, the workplace, talking about Kaizen in the manufacturing needs to be clean, it needs to be neat, it needs to be efficient. So when we're talking about ourselves, how do we do that? We first have to be clean, neat and efficient. That means we get rid of some of those, all those bunches of tasks that that we have. You know any waste that we need to get rid of. You know there's all. We have all kinds of waste and you know housekeeping.
Speaker 2:When you clean your house, aren't you getting rid of things that are dirty, that don't really serve you anymore? Have you know in the refrigerator when your housekeeping expired? Maybe there's things in the pantry that products that have expired you get rid of? You're keeping it neat, neat and clean and efficient. So when you go in the refrigerator or anything you look in there it's all in date so you can grab anything. It's good to go. Go to the pantry. Anything in there is has a great expiration date. It's within date. You can grab, you can go. It's neat, it's clean and it's efficient. You don't have to waste time and look at every oh, that's expired. Oh, this is not. You don't have to waste that time, so it's efficient.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about eliminating that waste as part of housekeeping that's the next pillar of Kaizen is elimination of waste. It's called Muda, which is the Japanese term for waste Hopefully I'm saying it right and it refers to any resource that's currently being used but it's not actually adding value. Ooh, kind of waste we have in our life. What kind of things, resources are we using? That's not really adding value.
Speaker 2:My hope is each week that when you tune in to the Mind Body Project, that it's not a waste of your time, that you can take the things that I share and apply them to your life. They're there to add value. Anything I share, whether it's on social media, whether it's a podcast, it is to add value to your life. I don't want to waste your time. You know my podcast used to be a little bit longer when it was just me sharing different lessons and then I realized you know what People don't hurry. I need to shorten those down, say what I need to say, get in, get out. And so that has been my goal over the last number of months. Number of shows is to get it shorter so I can eliminate that waste, eliminate maybe that extra stuff that isn't really needed and really hone in on what is needed. How can I, how can I give you the most value in the shortest amount of time? I've kind of chiseled my podcast so I want to eliminate that waste so I can add more value. It's really filler.
Speaker 2:So what maybe currently is going on in your life, what things are you doing that isn't really adding any value? What about social media? Are you just mindlessly scrolling, maybe to avoid doing some other things? It's not hurting you. It's not hurting you, but it's just not adding any value. What about some friends or acquaintances that you hang around with? They're not necessarily hurting you, but they're not really adding any value. They're not really adding any joy. They're not really adding any connection. They're not really adding any thought-provoking conversation. They're not really adding any value to your life. Maybe they're just taking up your time. Maybe they just want to sit and drink a beer and watch TV and you're not really enjoying that and you keep thinking the whole time man, I really need to be doing this, I need to be doing that. We don't have time hanging out. It's not really adding any value.
Speaker 2:So the elimination of waste is getting rid of those things that don't add value. Maybe it's limiting your time on social media. I've had clients that are working on eliminating, reducing their amount of time on social media and increasing their reading, because they've realized that the social media they're just mindlessly scrolling, not really learning anything, and they're realizing that, hey, if I read, it's going to get my mind going, it's going to give my mind some exercise I get off of. Maybe it's the comparisons on social media. Maybe it's like oh, let me see what's going on, it's not really serving me any purpose. Maybe it's getting in different situations around, different people that are going to bring different things to your life, different things to your group, that are going to start adding value. And again, remember, this pillar is all about eliminating waste. So it's not. If it's not serving you, it should be eliminating, it should be removed from the process. So that way, only valuable services or product are being offered. That's what Kazan is in the manufacturing process, and only valuable service and products are being offered to you. What do you want to offer yourself? So those things that aren't adding value to you should be gone.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's exercise, maybe, oh, I'm not saying don't exercise, I'm saying maybe it's walking. Man, I just I don't like walking. Every time I go for a walk I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this, it takes a long. But man, I like running. They say walking sometimes better blah, blah, blah. So you cut out walking and you just start running because that to you is adding value to you. You feel that is adding value.
Speaker 2:With walking, you feel like, oh, it's taking so much time. I don't really enjoy it. My mind goes not in nothing. I don't get my heart up enough. Then you go to running. You eliminate that thing that you don't feel like adding value. But somebody else might go. Man, walking is my thing. I've tried running. My knees hurt, my side hurts, I get side stits. I got to put my hands over my head. I start hyperventilating. All these things. It's not adding value.
Speaker 2:So you eliminate that waste doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Walking's not bad, running's not bad, cycling's not bad. But if it's not adding value to you to get towards your goals, then you eliminate it. It's gone. You do something else that will get you closer to your goals.
Speaker 2:You know you want to streamline things to provide the maximum value and benefit for you and those around you. That's what it's doing. When we eliminate that waste, we're streamlining, just like in a manufacturing process. When things are gotten rid of, that assembly line is streamlined to get the most value out of it and benefit the company. It's possible. The same thing is true with us.
Speaker 2:If we eliminate the waste, we streamline our life, we can get the maximum benefit out of it. I think it's easier to do that in a manufacturing process than it is in our life. I don't think we ever get a life that is fully streamlined. We can always get better and we're going to have probably times in our life where we're really streamlined and then other times we're like I'm not so streamlined at all. I got all kinds of waste I knew to eliminate. So we have to look at what can be, what waste can be eliminated. First we have to do some housekeeping, see what's going on. What can we do to be neat, clean and efficient. Then we go into the elimination of waste pillar. We start getting rid of that waste.
Speaker 2:Then the last one, the third pillar, is standardization. It's just the process of developing standards to which production is performed. I used to have this when I worked at McDonald's. I was a manager and I had this thing called SOC, standard Operation Something. But it was the standardization of how do you make, how do you flip a patty, how do you make a cheeseburger, how do you make a quarter pounder, how do you make a Big Mac. You follow these steps. This is the standard process. We had to be checked off and we had to check off the employees. Could they follow the standard process to do the task. So the same thing is true with us. That's the third pillar, standardization, if I can get the word out right, and really it just involves producing products and services to preset specifications. So how does that look like for us?
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard the saying excellence is a habit? What does that mean? Are you just excellent? If you see, well, we'll say sports figures, that great athletes, great quarterbacks, great basketball players, great baseball players are they just excellent by, by happenstance? No, it's their habits, their habits, doing those habits create excellence. Habits are achieved by a standard, preset specification. It says I'm going to do this, this, this and this and those are my checklist. If I want to be excellent, I have to do this, this, this and this. And chances are, if I wasn't excellent then I didn't, my habits weren't in the right place, I wasn't doing something in my habits. So when we, everybody has the opportunity to be excellent, everybody does, but we have to get it in our preset specifications, our habits. We get those dialed in and they'll move us to that excellent, excellent level.
Speaker 2:Standardization is intended to eliminate waste. That checklist that I had from McDonald's, the standard operating procedure for making a Big Mac or flipping a patty. It was meant to eliminate waste, eliminate time, eliminate things that didn't need to be done, to focus in on what need to be done. So it was a streamlined standardization to eliminate waste. So how does that look like for us? Maybe that's a maybe are standardization is our morning routine.
Speaker 2:By dialing in on morning routine again, it's a habit we eliminate time wasted. I know if I get up at 6 o'clock I have to be in the bathroom getting my teeth brushed by 6.05. I have to be dressed by 6.10. I'd be at the door by 6.15 to get at the gym by 6.25. I have 35 minutes to work out. I've got to be leaving the gym by 7 to get home and shower at the blah, blah, blah, blah. If we have that morning routine that helps eliminate the time wasted, I can't scroll on my phone for 10 minutes and still expect to get the gym at 6.25. I'm going to be late. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:So by standardizing your life, you can eliminate those times of waste. That waste we can plan our day. How many times do we not plan our day and go? I don't know when my day got away from me? So we plan our day, don't let your day plan you when we get to the end of the day. I don't know where my day went. Chances are pretty high that our day planned us and standardization helps eliminate those. It eliminates because my standard is that I have a morning routine and part of maybe that standardization of that morning routine is planning out my day and then at the end of the day, part of my standardization is I reflect on my day what went good, what went bad, what can I do better tomorrow, what are some things I didn't get done today that need to be on my to-do list first thing the next day. That's part of our standard and that helps, again, eliminate waste. Because what happens? I wake up the next morning? Boom, I already know what needs to. I already know my checklist that has to get done first thing after I get done my morning routine. Because of standardization, I know that from the day before because I've been following that and that becomes my habit and those habits produce excellent. Those habits produce change. Those habits produce a streamlined life.
Speaker 2:And this pillar of standardization always has to be reviewed regularly after it's implemented Because we have to verify is it working correctly. You might get somebody else's is a standard operation for McDonald's on how to make those different hamburgers, or is it going to work at Wendy's? Is it going to work at Chick-fil-A? No, it's not. Parts of it maybe might, but I doubt it, so we would have to look. Ok, I'm using this for McDonald's and I'm at Chick-fil-A, but it's not really working right. So I need to implement something a little different because it's not working. So we have to do that same thing with ourselves. We have to constantly review it and say I implemented it. Now I need to verify if it's working correctly.
Speaker 2:If it's not, then I need to change my standard, I need to change my standardization and, ultimately, a good standard should create the safest, easiest and most efficient way to perform a job. And isn't that what we want? Don't we want to create the safest, easiest, most efficient way to streamline our life, to make ourselves better, to get what we want out of life, whether it's more enjoyment, more happiness, more fulfillment. If we want better relationships, we want a better job, we want better self-esteem, better self-confidence, better self-control. We have to look at our standards and say are they creating the safest, easiest and most efficient way to perform our life? And maybe, if it's not, we need to go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 2:So Kazan can be taken from the manufacturing plant the Japanese term, from manufacturing plants into our life. We can first look at housekeeping, pillar one. Then we look at, after we do that, pillar two how do we eliminate waste. And then, number three, we start standardizing, standardization. We start making those standards, those habits, put those habits into place that are going to help us Kazan our life.
Speaker 2:So I hope, hope these pillars, you can find ways to implement them in your life and you can have a kaizen life. I'd love to connect with you and help you in that area. You go to my website erendeglercom has all my info there how to get connected, how to get hooked up on social media, on a daily text, on my blog, on my emails, in one of my groups. Just get connected and I can help you kaizen your life and make it the best life that you can, because that's the whole idea behind kaizen how can I be the most effective, efficient person there is, how can I have the most effective, efficient life that I want? So I'd like to help you do that. So I hope you take some of these principles from kaizen and apply them to your life. Thank you for taking a little time to stop by and join me today. That's the time my wife came. Every night before I go to bed it's Bob and the Night Double A out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If you would like to connect with Aaron, you can do so by going to erendeglercom or find him on social media as Aaron Degler on Instagram, facebook and YouTube. Once again, we greatly appreciate you tuning in. If you've enjoyed the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. We greatly appreciate that effort and we'll catch you in the next episode of the Mind Body Project podcast.