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In Japanese culture, the blossoming of the Cherry Tree represents an ancient code of honor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We began this literary podcast episode by welcoming listeners into April with a playful nod to April Fool's Day. This theme paved the way for our new monthly focus: tricksters and fools in literature. Meaghan and Arthur introduced this concept by discussing how these characters appear in stories across the globe and throughout history.We explored how tricksters often challenge societal norms through cleverness, mischief, and rule-bending behavior. From mythical gods to fairytale creatures, these figures have captivated readers and listeners for centuries.The hosts announced that April's episodes would focus on examining tricksters through various cultural lenses, exploring their evolution from oral storytelling traditions to their presence in modern literature. We emphasized that tricksters are not a recent invention but rather a long-standing narrative archetype found in myths, legends, and folk tales around the world.These characters use their intelligence and cunning to manipulate situations, often with humorous or chaotic outcomes. We framed this theme as both fascinating and fun, promising a deeper dive into specific examples as the month progresses.Origins of the Trickster ArchetypeOnce we launched into the heart of the discussion, we clarified what defines a trickster. Tricksters are beings - sometimes gods, spirits, or animals - that defy expectations and operate outside the usual rules. They often disrupt the established order, using their intellect and creativity to challenge norms. These characters aren't always malicious; sometimes, they are simply playful or seek to illuminate hidden truths.We explored how tricksters are morally ambiguous and boundary-pushing, which can make them simultaneously entertaining and unsettling.We then turned to cultural interpretations of tricksters, beginning with First Nations folklore. Figures like Coyote and Raven are often humorous pranksters, but their stories also carry deeper spiritual or philosophical lessons. We discussed how laughter and humor are considered important in many Indigenous cultures, as they can cleanse the soul and precede prayer.The tales passed down orally were sometimes used to explain natural phenomena or convey moral teachings.From there, we moved into how these oral traditions transitioned into written stories. We noted that many of the myths and folktales that feature tricksters were eventually documented, preserving them for future generations. This shift allowed trickster characters to become part of broader literary traditions. Meaghan and Arthur reflected on how grateful we are that so many cultures made the effort to record these tales, preventing them from fading into obscurity.Tricksters Across Cultures and BooksThe next section of the conversation focused on specific trickster figures across various mythologies and how they've persisted or evolved.Loki from Norse mythology was our launching point. We highlighted his popularity - particularly due to Marvel's portrayal - and his complicated personality. Sometimes, Loki is a playful trickster; other times, he's more malicious. His ability to shapeshift and deceive is core to his character, and Arthur brought up The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris as a unique retelling from Loki's sarcastic perspective.Next, we examined Anansi, the spider trickster from African folklore. Anansi's confidence in his wit often becomes his downfall, demonstrating the moral lessons embedded in many of his tales. On the European front, we touched on the fair folk from Celtic mythology - small, mischievous beings who have evolved in modern media into something quite different, like the fae in fantasy novels.In Japanese mythology, we discussed the kitsune, fox spirits known for shapeshifting and disregarding societal rules. We also talked about trickster characters in North American folklore, including Brer Rabbit - a clever figure from African American traditions used to critique power structures through wit. Dionysus from Greek mythology and Hermes (or Mercury in Roman tales) were also identified as possessing trickster qualities through shapeshifting and manipulation.One particularly fun character mentioned was Stingy Jack from old All Hallows' Eve stories, said to have inspired the modern jack-o'-lantern. We highlighted how many of these characters, even those with niche or local origins, have had a lasting impact due to the universality of their themes and appeal.Why Tricksters Still Resonate In LiteratureIn the final section of our conversation, we considered why tricksters continue to appear in contemporary literature and media. Meaghan and Arthur pointed out that these characters allow writers to critique institutions, traditions, and authority figures without being overly direct. Historically, jesters were the only ones allowed to mock kings without consequence, and tricksters have inherited that role in fiction.We explored how trickster characters often serve as unreliable narrators, adding complexity and unpredictability to narratives. This perspective allows authors to disrupt traditional storytelling, injecting surprise and challenging the reader's assumptions. Characters like Loki, the Joker, and the Cheshire Cat exemplify this method, each adding an element of chaos or philosophical questioning to their stories.We agreed that people enjoy reading about characters who operate outside the norm - especially those who use cunning to succeed rather than brute strength. The enduring popularity of myths and fairy tales demonstrates our ongoing fascination with the fantastical and the morally gray.Meaghan made a point about how supernatural elements like magic provide narrative freedom, allowing authors to use tricksters in unexpected ways. Arthur added that even when tricksters aren't explicitly supernatural, their rebellious nature makes them compelling. In some cases, these characters start as tricksters and evolve into villains, depending on their motivations and how far they take their rule-breaking.Book Recommendations and Closing ThoughtsTo wrap up, we offered several book recommendations that feature trickster figures. These included:Rumpelstiltskin, the classic Grimm fairy tale with a dark deal and clever escape.Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, who mischievously meddles with human affairs to comedic effect.Greengrass Running Water by Thomas King, which features the coyote trickster in a narrative that breaks the fourth wall.Trickster: Native American Tales, a graphic anthology that includes various trickster figures from multiple tribes.The Joker as a modern trickster-turned-villain archetype in comic books.Fool by Christopher Moore, a humorous retelling of King Lear from the fool's perspective.We wrapped up the episode by emphasizing that tricksters are present in stories from every culture. They challenge conventions, blur the line between right and wrong, and often act as mirrors to societal values. While we only scratched the surface in this introductory episode, we plan to dive deeper into unreliable narrators and modern-day tricksters in upcoming installments.

In Japanese, “ダイエット” (diet) usually means losing weight, while in English, “diet” refers to one's eating habits. In this episode, I share my own experiences with dieting, including food choices and exercise, while discussing this language difference. Plus, I talk about the importance of consistency—whether you're on a diet or learning Japanese. Let's keep working toward our goals together!Check out our transcripts, video podcasts, and Japanese learning resources at⁠⁠: https://sayurisaying.com/diet-word-meaning-japanese/Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering!　⁠⁠⁠https://sayurisaying.com/#/portal/support⁠

Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School and INSEAD Business School are all awesome institutions.  My previous employer shelled our serious cash to send me there for Executive education courses.  Classes of one hundred people from all around the world engaging in debate, idea and experience exchange.  One of my Indian classmates even wrote and performed a song at the final team dinner at Stanford, which was amazing and amazingly funny, as it captured many of the experiences of the two weeks we all shared together there.  When you get off the plane and head back to work, you realise that the plane wasn't the only thing flying at 30,000 feet.  The content of the course was just like that.  We were permanently at a very macro level.  The day to day didn't really get covered and the tactical pieces didn't really feature much.  This isn't a criticism because you need that big picture, but the things on your desk waiting for you are a million miles from where you have just been. Fortunately, there are some leadership principles which can cover off the day to day needs.  Principle #22 is “begin with praise and honest appreciation”.  Such an obvious thing, how could this even be mentioned as a principle?  It may be obvious, but are you a master of this principle?  We talk about providing psychological safety for our teams.  Well that is great and just how do you do that, when you have pressure to produce results from above and are feeling the stress of the current business disruption?  It is too easy to begin with an interrogation about the current state of play, the numbers, the revenues, the cash flows. How about if you started every interaction off with finding something real to praise about the team members.  Not fakery but something real, that shows you are paying close attention to what they are doing well. Mistakes happen.  Except in Japan.  In Japan mistakes are not allowed and the penalties to career advancement are large.  “Fail faster” might make you a legend in Silicon Valley but would see you cast out in Japan.  That is why the entire population here are all ninjas at concealing any errors, so that the boss never finds out.  How do we get innovation going if we can't tolerate mistakes?  That is one big reason why there is so little white collar work innovation in Japan.  Principle #23 says “call attention to people's mistakes indirectly”.  Rubbing in it some one's face that they screwed up is a pretty dumb, but universally adopted, idea by bosses. Principle #26, “let the other person save face” isn't an “oriental idea”.  It is a human idea and no one likes losing face in front of others and it doesn't increase people's engagement levels.  In fact, is has them thinking about leaving for greener pastures.  Principle #24 also helps, “talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person”.  We want our team members to feel empowered to take responsibility, to step up and try stuff.  That is how we create an innovation hub inside the organisation.  If you have a hotbed of ideas from your team and the competition is still canning people who make mistakes, then you will win. Principle #25 is so powerful.  “Ask questions instead of giving direct orders”.  Bosses are staff super-visors, because we have super-vision.  Probably true once upon a time in the olde days, but no longer the case.  Business is too complex today, so we need to grow our people and to be able to rely on their ideas.  If I spend all my time telling you what I think, I haven't learnt anything.  Bosses need to think of questions which will push the team's thinking muscle hard and get people really engaged.  Instead of laying our your thoughts, chapter and verse and falling in love with the sound of your own voice, try asking questions instead. After asking the question, shut up and let your people answer without interruption. It may be killing you, but do it. Being asked for your opinion and ideas is empowering.  Maybe the boss has all the answers, great, but what if the staff have questions the boss hasn't even thought about.  In Japanese business, asking the right question is more valued, that having the right answer. All of these principles have things in common.  They are common sense, but not common practice.  They are super easy to understand, but devilish to execute consistently.  They are game changers in our relationship with our staff.  Having some leadership principles to live by just takes the action of thinking out of the equation.  These become the reflex actions we take because they have become a habit.  These are the types of habits we need to cultivate.        

In Japanese culture, there are many subtle practices that help cultivate humility, kindness, love, and softness, even in the midst of a turbulent world. Japan, having endured natural disasters and war, serves as a living work of art. The philosophy of Kintsugi teaches us that the cracks—whether from atomic bombs, earthquakes, or tsunamis—represent both pain and resilience. The Japanese people embody gaman, the ability to endure and persevere. We learn to rise, rebuild, and heal. In this episode, I'm excited to share insights from my documentary Kintsugi, and some valuable lessons we've learned along the way to help you mend, heal, and restore your own life. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider leaving a five-star review and sharing it with a friend. With love, Candice

みなさんこんにちは、かなこです！今日のシャドーイングは「～というNoun」です。今回のPodcastは、マイケルさんの提供でお送りします。Hi everyone, it's Kanako. Today's shadowing is “～というNoun” It is used to describe the content of the noun. “～という” follows the short form and the Noun can be such as “ニュース・話・ルール”.For instance, if you see the news that the Prime Minister is quitting, you can say…「首相が辞めるというニュースを見ました。」 Before we get started, I want to thank Michael for supporting my show. ありがとうございます! それでは はじめていきましょう！ Let's get started！*****************************************************▼Subscribe to my YouTube channel⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/KANAKOYOUTUBE⁠⁠⁠⁠▼Buy me a coffee ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/KANAKO-Coffee⁠⁠⁠⁠*****************************************************In Japan, there is a culture of eating rice cakes during the New Year. 日本ではお正月にお餅を食べるという文化があります。In Japan, there is a custom to do major cleaning in December. 日本では12月に大掃除をするという習慣があります。I heard that Hokkaido has the best seafood in Japan. 北海道の海鮮は日本一という話を聞きました。Is it true that Professor Yamashita is going to retire? 山下先生が退職するという話は本当ですか。I saw the news that a typhoon will hit Okinawa tomorrow. 明日沖縄に台風がくるというニュースを見ました。I saw on the news that there was a big earthquake in Japan. 日本で大きな地震があったというニュースを見ました。In Japanese language schools, there is a rule that students are not allowed to speak English. 日本語学校では、英語を話してはいけないというルールがあります。My company has a rule that everyone does cleaning in themorning. 私の会社では朝みんなで掃除するというルールがあります。The manager informed me that he'd be late for a meeting. 部長から会議に遅れるという連絡がありました。Getting cold often means that the immune system is weak. よく風邪をひくのは免疫が弱いということです。Quitting a job means losing income. 仕事を辞めるということは、収入がなくなるということです。 *****************************************************では もう 一度、最初から 全部 いってみましょう。Let's try shadowing the whole thing again from the beginning. 

This episode we are taking a trip down the Silk Road--or perhaps even the Spice Road--as we investigate references in this reign to individuals from "Tukara" who seem to have arrived in Yamato and stayed for a while. For photos and more, see our podcast webpage:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-119 Rough Transcript   Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  This is episode 119: The Question of “Tukara”   Traveling upon the ocean was never exactly safe.  Squalls and storms could arise at any time, and there was always a chance that high winds and high waves could capsize a vessel.  Most people who found themselves at the mercy of the ocean could do little but hold on and hope that they could ride out whatever adverse conditions they met with.  Many ships were lost without any explanation or understanding of what happened to them.  They simply left the port and never came back home. And so when the people saw the boat pulling up on the shores of Himuka, on the island of Tsukushi, they no doubt empathized with the voyagers' plight.  The crew looked bedraggled, and their clothing was unfamiliar.  There were both men and women, and this didn't look like your average fishing party.  If anything was clear it was this:  These folk weren't from around here. The locals brought out water and food.  Meanwhile, runners were sent with a message:  foreigners had arrived from a distant place.  They then waited to see what the government was going to do.     We are still in the second reign of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tenno.  Last episode we talked about the palaces constructed in Asuka, as well as some of the stone works that have been found from the period, and which appear to be referenced in the Nihon Shoki—at least tangentially.   The episodes before that, we looked at the expeditions the court sent to the far north of Honshu and even past Honshu to Hokkaido. This episode we'll again be looking past the main islands of the archipelago to lands beyond.  Specifically, we are going to focus on particularly intriguing references to people from a place called “Tukara”.  We'll talk about some of the ideas about where that might be, even if they're a bit  far-fetched. That's because Tukara touches on the state of the larger world that Yamato was a part of, given its situation on the far eastern edge of what we know today as the Silk Road.  And is this just an excuse for me to take a detour into some of the more interesting things going on outside the archipelago?  No comment. The first mention of a man from Tukara actually comes at the end of the reign of Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou.  We are told that in the fourth month of 654 two men and two women of “Tukara” and one woman of “Sha'e” were driven by a storm to Hiuga.  Then, three years later, the story apparently picks up again, though possibly referring to a different group of people.  On the 3rd day of the 7th month of 657, so during the second reign of Takara Hime, we now hear about two men and four women of the Land of Tukara—no mention of Sha'e—who drifted to Tsukushi, aka Kyushu.  The Chronicles mention that these wayfarers first drifted to the island of Amami, and we'll talk about that in a bit, but let's get these puzzle pieces on the table, first.  After those six people show up, the court sent for them by post-horse.  They must have arrived by the 15th of that same month, because we are told that a model of Mt. Sumi was erected and they—the people from Tukara—were entertained, although there is another account that says they were from “Tora”. The next mention is the 10th day of the 3rd month of 659, when a Man of Tukara and his wife, again woman of Sha'e, arrived.  Then, on the 16th day of the 7th month of 660, we are told that the man of Tukara, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna, desired to return home and asked for an escort.  He planned to pay his respects at the Great Country, i.e. the Tang court, and so he left his wife behind, taking tens of men with him. All of these entries might refer to people regularly reaching Yamato from the south, from a place called “Tukara”.  Alternately, this is a single event whose story has gotten distributed over several years, as we've seen happen before with the Chronicles.  .  One of the oddities of these entries is that the terms used are not consistent.  “Tukara” is spelled at least two different ways, suggesting that it wasn't a common placename like Silla or Baekje, or even the Mishihase.  That does seem to suggest that the Chronicles were phonetically trying to find kanji, or the Sinitic characters, to match with the name they were hearing.   I would also note that “Tukara” is given the status of a “kuni”—a land, country, or state—while “sha'e”, where some of the women are said to come from, is just that, “Sha'e”. As for the name of at least one person from Tokara, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna, that certainly sounds like someone trying to fit a non-Japanese name into the orthography of the time.  “Tatsuna” seems plausibly Japanese, but “Kenzuhashi” doesn't fit quite as well into the naming structures we've seen to this point. The location of “Tukara” and “Sha'e” are not clear in any way, and as such there has been a lot of speculation about them.  While today there are placenames that fit those characters, whether or not these were the places being referenced at the time is hard to say. I'll actually start with “Sha'e”, which Aston translates as Shravasti, the capital of the ancient Indian kingdom of Kosala, in modern Uttar Pradesh.  It is also where the Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, is said to have lived most of his life after his enlightenment.  In Japanese this is “Sha'e-jou”, and like many Buddhist terms it likely comes through Sanskrit to Middle Chinese to Japanese.  One—or possibly two—women from Shravasti making the journey to Yamato in the company of a man (or men) from Tukara seems quite the feat.  But then, where is “Tukara”? Well, we have at least three possible locations that I've seen bandied about.  I'll address them from the most distant to the closest option.  These three options were Tokharistan, Dvaravati, and the Tokara islands. We'll start with Tokharistan on the far end of the Silk Road.  And to start, let's define what that “Silk Road” means.  We've talked in past episodes about the “Western Regions”, past the Han-controlled territories of the Yellow River.   The ancient Tang capital of Chang'an was built near to the home of the Qin dynasty, and even today you can go and see both the Tang tombs and the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi and his terracotta warriors, all within a short distance of Xi'an, the modern city built on the site of Chang'an.  That city sits on a tributary of the Yellow River, but the main branch turns north around the border of modern Henan and the similarly sounding provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi.  Following it upstream, the river heads north into modern Mongolia, turns west, and then heads south again, creating what is known as the Ordos loop.  Inside is the Ordos plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin.  Continuing to follow the Yellow river south, on the western edge of the Ordos, you travel through Ningxia and Gansu—home of the Hexi, or Gansu, Corridor.  That route eventually takes to Yumenguan, the Jade Gate, and Dunhuang.  From there roads head north or south along the edge of the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim basin.  The southern route travels along the edge of the Tibetan plateau, while the northern route traversed various oasis cities through Turpan, Kucha, to the city of Kashgar.  Both routes made their way across the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush into South Asia. We've brought up the Tarim Basin and the Silk Road a few times.  This is the path that Buddhism appears to have taken to get to the Yellow River Basin and eventually to the Korean Peninsula and eastward to the Japanese archipelago.  But I want to go a bit more into detail on things here, as there is an interesting side note about “Tukara” that I personally find rather fascinating, and thought this would be a fun time to share. Back in Episode 79 we talked about how the Tarim basin used to be the home to a vast inland sea, which was fed by the meltwater from the Tianshan and Kunlun mountains.  This sea eventually dwindled, though it was still large enough to be known to the Tang as the Puchang Sea.  Today it has largely dried up, and it is mostly just the salt marshes of Lop Nur that remain.  Evidence for this larger sea, however, can be observed in some of the burials found around the Tarim basin.  These burials include the use of boat-shaped structures—a rather curious feature to be found out in the middle of the desert. And it is the desert that was left behind as the waters receded that is key to much of what we know about life in the Tarim basin, as it has proven to be quite excellent at preserving organic material.  This includes bodies, which dried out and naturally turned into mummies, including not only the wool clothing they were wearing, but also features such as hair and even decoration. These “Tarim mummies”, as they have been collectively called, date from as early as 2100 BCE all the way up through the period of time we're currently talking about, and have been found in several desert sites: Xiaohe, the earliest yet discovered; Loulan, near Lop Nur on the east of the Tarim Basin, dating from around 1800 BCE; Cherchen, on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, dating from roughly 1000 BCE; and too many others to go into in huge detail. The intriguing thing about these burials is that  many of them don't have features typically associated with people of ethnic Han—which is to say traditional Chinese—ancestry, nor do they necessarily have the features associated with the Xiongnu and other steppe nomads.  In addition they have colorful clothing  made from wool and leather, with vivid designs.  Some bodies near Hami, just east of the basin, were reported to have blonde to light brown hair, and their cloth showed radically different patterns from that found at Cherchen and Loulan, with patterns that could reasonably be compared with the plaids now common in places like Scotland and Ireland, and previously found in the Hallstadt salt mine in Central Europe from around 3500 BCE, from which it is thought the Celtic people may have originated. At the same time that people—largely Westerners— were studying these mummies, another discovery in the Tarim basin was also making waves.  This was the discovery of a brand new language.  Actually, it was two languages—or possibly two dialects of a language—in many manuscripts, preserved in Kucha and Turpan.  Once again, the dry desert conditions proved invaluable to maintain these manuscripts, which date from between the late 4th or early 5th century to the 8th century.  They are written with a Brahmic script, similar to that used for Sanskrit, which appears in the Tarim Basin l by about the 2nd century, and we were able to translate them because many of the texts were copies of Buddhist scripture, which greatly helped scholars in deciphering the languages.  These two languages were fascinating because they represented an as-yet undiscovered branch of the Indo-European language family.  Furthermore, when compared to other Indo-European languages, they did not show nearly as much similarity with their neighbors as with languages on the far western end of the Indo-European language family.  That is to say they were thought to be closer to Celtic and Italic languages than something like Indo-Iranian.  And now for a quick diversion within the diversion:  “Centum” and “Satem” are general divisions of the Indo-European language families that was once thought to indicate a geographic divide in the languages.  At its most basic, as Indo-European words changed over time, a labiovelar sound, something like “kw”,  tended to evolve in one of two ways.  In the Celtic and Italic languages, the “kw” went to a hard “k” sound, as represented in the classical pronunciation of the Latin word for 100:  Centum.  That same word, in the Avestan language—of the Indo-Iranian tree—is pronounced as “Satem”, with an “S” sound.  So, you can look at Indo-European languages and divide them generally into “centum” languages, which preserve the hard “k”, or “Satem” languages that preserve the S. With me so far? Getting back to these two newly-found languages in the Tarim Basin, the weird thing is that they were “Centum” languages. Most Centum languages are from pretty far away, though: they are generally found in western Europe or around the Mediterranean, as opposed to the Satem languages, such as Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armernian, or even Baltic Slavic languages, which are much closer to the Tarim Basin.  So if the theory were true that the “Centum” family of Indo-European languages developed in the West and “Satem” languages developed in the East, then that would seem to indicate that a group of a “Centum” speaking people must have migrated eastward, through the various Satem speaking people, and settled in the Tarim Basin many thousands of years ago. And what evidence do we have of people who look very different from the modern population, living in the Tarim Basin area long before, and wearing clothing similar to what we associated with the progenitors of the Celts?  For many, it seemed to be somewhat obvious, if still incredible, that the speakers of this language were likely the descendants of the mummies who, in the terminology of the time, had been identified as being of Caucasoid ancestry.  A theory developed that these people were an offshoot of a group called the Yamnaya culture, which may have arisen around modern Ukraine as an admixture between the European Hunter Gatherers and the Caucasian Hunter Gatherers, around 3300-2600 BCE.  This was challenged in 2021 when a genetic study was performed on some of the mummies in the Tarim basin, as well as several from the Dzungarian basin, to the northeast.  That study suggested that the people of the Dzungarian basin had genetic ties to the people of the Afanasievo people, from Southern Siberia.  The Afanasievo people are connected to the Yamnayan culture. It should be noted that there has long been a fascination in Western anthropology and related sciences with racial identification—and often not in a healthy way.  As you may recall, the Ainu were identified as “Caucasoid” by some people largely because of things like the men's beards and lighter colored hair, which differ greatly from a large part of the Japanese population.  However, that claim has been repeatedly refuted and debunked. And similarly, the truth is, none of these Tarim mummy burials were in a period of written anything, so we can't conclusively associated them with these fascinating Indo-European languages.  There are thousands of years between the various burials and the manuscripts. These people  left no notes stashed in pockets that give us their life story.   And Language is not Genetics is not Culture.  Any group may adopt a given language for a variety of reasons.  .  Still, given what we know, it is possible that the ancient people of the Tarim basin spoke some form of “Proto-Kuchean”, but it is just as likely that this language was brought in by people from Dzungaria at some point. So why does all this matter to us?  Well, remember how we were talking about someone from Tukara?  The Kuchean language, at least, is referred to in an ancient Turkic source as belonging to “Twgry”, which led several scholars to draw a link between this and the kingdom and people called Tukara and the Tokharoi.  This leads us on another bit of a chase through history. Now if you recall, back in Episode 79, we talked about Zhang Qian.  In 128 BCE, he attempted to cross the Silk Road through the territory of the Xiongnu on a mission for the Han court.  Some fifty years earlier, the Xiongnu had defeated the Yuezhi.  They held territory in the oasis towns along the north of the Taklamakan dessert, from about the Turpan basin west to the Pamirs. The Xiongnu were causing problems for the Han, who thought that if they could contact the remaining Yuezhi they could make common cause with them and harass the Xiongnu from both sides.  Zhang Qian's story is quite remarkable: he started out with an escort of some 99 men and a translator.  Unfortunately, he was captured and enslaved by the Xiongnu during his journey, and he is even said to have had a wife and fathered a child.  He remained a captive for thirteen years, but nonetheless, he was able to escape with his family and he made it to the Great Yuezhi on the far side of the Pamirs, but apparently the Yuezhi weren't interested in a treaty against the Xiongnu.  The Pamirs were apparently enough of a barrier and they were thriving in their new land.  And so Zhang Qian crossed back again through Xiongnu territory, this time taking the southern route around the Tarim basin.  He was still captured by the Xiongnu, who spared his life.  He escaped, again, two years later, returning to the Han court.  Of the original 100 explorers, only two returned: Zhang Qian and his translator.  While he hadn't obtained an alliance, he was able to detail the cultures of the area of the Yuezhi. Many feel that the Kushan Empire, which is generally said to have existed from about 30 to 375 CE,was formed from the Kushana people who were part of the Yuezhi who fled the Xiongnu. In other words, they were originally from further north, around the Tarim Basin, and had been chased out and settled down in regions that included Bactria (as in the Bactrian camel).  Zhang Qian describes reaching the Dayuan Kingdom in the Ferghana valley, then traveling south to an area that was the home of the Great Yuezhi or Da Yuezhi.  And after the Kushan empire fell, we know there was a state in the upper regions of the Oxus river, centered on the city of Balkh, in the former territory of the Kushan empire. known as “Tokara”.  Geographically, this matches up how Zhang Qian described the home of the Da Yuezhi.  Furthermore, some scholars reconstruct the reading of the Sinic characters used for “Yuezhi” as originally having an optional reading of something like “Togwar”, but that is certainly not the most common reconstructed reading of those characters.  Greek sources describe this area as the home of the Tokharoi, or the Tokaran People.  The term “Tukhara” is also found in Sanskrit, and this kingdom  was also said to have sent ambassadors to the Southern Liang and Tang dynasties. We aren't exactly certain of where these Tokharan people came from, but as we've just described, there's a prevailing theory that they were the remnants of the Yuezhi and Kushana people originally from the Tarim Basin.  We know that in the 6th century they came under the rule of the Gokturk Khaganate, which once spanned from the Liao river basin to the Black Sea.  In the 7th and 8th centuries they came under the rule of the Tang Empire, where they were known by very similar characters as those used to write “Tukara” in the Nihon Shoki.  On top of this, we see Tokharans traveling the Silk Road, all the way to the Tang court.  Furthermore, Tokharans that settled in Chang'an took the surname “Zhi” from the ethnonym “Yuezhi”, seemingly laying claim to and giving validation to the identity used back in the Han dynasty.   So, we have a Turkic record describing the Kuchean people (as in, from Kucha in the Tarim Basin) as “Twgry”, and we have a kingdom in Bactria called Tokara and populated (according to the Greeks) by people called Tokharoi.  You can see how this one term has been a fascinating rabbit hole in the study of the Silk Roads and their history.  And some scholars understandably suggested that perhaps the Indo-European languags found in Kucha and Turpan  were actually related to this “Tokhara” – and therefore  should be called “Tocharian”, specifically Tocharian A (Kuchean) or Tocharian B (Turfanian). The problem is that if the Tokharans were speaking “Tocharian” then you wouldn't expect to just see it at Kucha and Turpan, which are about the middle of the road between Tokhara and the Tang dynasty, and which had long been under Gokturk rule.  You would also expect to see it in the areas of Bactria associated with Tokhara.  However, that isn't what we see.  Instead, we see that Bactria was the home of local Bactrian language—an Eastern Iranian language, which, though it is part of the Indo European language family, it is not closely related to Tocharian as far as we can tell. It is possible that the people of Kucha referred to themselves as something similar to “Twgry”, or “Tochari”, but we should also remember that comes from a Turkic source, and it could have been an exonym not related to what they called themselves.  I should also note that language is not people.  It is also possible that a particular ethnonym was maintained separately by two groups that may have been connected politically but which came to speak different languages for whatever reason.   There could be a connection between the names, or it could even be that the same or similar exonym was used for different groups. So, that was a lot and a bit of a ramble, but a lot of things that I find interesting—even if they aren't as connected as they may appear.  We have the Tarim mummies, which are, today, held at a museum in modern Urumqi.  Whether they had any connection with Europe or not, they remain a fascinating study for the wealth of material items found in and around the Tarim basin and similar locations.  And then there is the saga of the Tocharian languages—or perhaps more appropriately the Kuchean-Turfanian languages: Indo-European languages that seem to be well outside of where we would expect to find them. Finally, just past the Pamirs, we get to the land of Tokhara or Tokharistan.  Even without anything else, we know that they had contact with the court.  Perhaps our castaways were from this land?  The name is certainly similar to what we see in the Nihon Shoki, using some of the same characters. All in all, art and other information suggest that the area of the Tarim basin and the Silk Road in general were quite cosmopolitan, with many different people from different regions of the world.  Bactria retained Hellenic influences ever since the conquests of Alexander of Macedonia, aka Alexander the Great, and Sogdian and Persian traders regularly brought their caravans through the region to trade.  And once the Tang dynasty controlled all of the routes, that just made travel that much easier, and many people traveled back and forth. So from that perspective, it is possible that one or more people from Tukhara may have made the crossing from their home all the way to the Tang court, but if they did so, the question still remains: why would they be in a boat? Utilizing overland routes, they would have hit Chang'an or Louyang, the dual capitals of the Tang empire, well before they hit the ocean.  However, the Nihon Shoki says that these voyagers first came ashore at Amami and then later says that they were trying to get to the Tang court. Now there was another “Silk Road” that isn't as often mentioned: the sea route, following the coast of south Asia, around through the Malacca strait and north along the Asian coast.  This route is sometimes viewed more in terms of the “spice” road If these voyagers set out to get to the Tang court by boat, they would have to have traveled south to the Indian Ocean—possibly traveling through Shravasti or Sha'e, depending on the route they chose to take—and then around the Malacca strait—unless they made it on foot all the way to Southeast Asia.  And then they would have taken a boat up the coast. Why do that instead of taking the overland route?  They could likely have traveled directly to the Tang court over the overland silk road.  Even the from Southeast Asia could have traveled up through Yunnan and made their way to the Tang court that way.  In fact, Zhang Qian had wondered something similar when he made it to the site of the new home of the Yuezhi, in Bactria.  Even then, in the 2nd century, he saw products in the marketplace that he identified as coming from around Szechuan.  That would mean south of the Han dynasty, and he couldn't figure out how those trade routes might exist and they weren't already known to the court.  Merchants would have had to traverse the dangerous mountains if they wanted to avoid being caught by the Xiongnu, who controlled the entire region. After returning to the Han court, Zhang Qian actually went out on another expedition to the south, trying to find the southern trade routes, but apparently was not able to do so.  That said, we do see, in later centuries, the trade routes open up between the area of the Sichuan basin and South Asia.  We also see the migrations of people further south, and there may have even been some Roman merchants who traveled up this route to find their way to the Han court, though those accounts are not without their own controversy. In either case, whether by land or sea, these trade routes were not always open.  In some cases, seasonal weather, such as monsoons, might dictate movement back and forth, while political realities were also a factor.  Still, it is worth remembering that even though most people were largely concerned with affairs in their own backyard, the world was still more connected than people give it credit for.  Tang dynasty pottery made its way to the east coast of Africa, and ostriches were brought all the way to Chang'an. As for the travelers from Tukhara and why they would take this long and very round-about method of travel, it is possible that they were just explorers, seeking new routes, or even on some kind of pilgrimage.  Either way, they would have been way off course. But if they did pass through Southeast Asia, that would match up with another theory about what “Tukara” meant: that it actually refers to the Dvaravati kingdom in what is now modern Thailand.  The Dvaravati Kingdom was a Mon political entity that rose up around the 6th century.  It even sent embassies to the Sui and Tang courts.  This is even before the temple complexes in Siem Reap, such as Preah Ko and the more famous Angkor Wat.  And it was during this time that the ethnic Tai people are thought to have started migrating south from Yunnan, possibly due to pressures from the expanding Sui and Tang empires.  Today, most of what remains of the Dvaravati kingdom are the ruins of ancient stone temples, showing a heavy Indic influence, and even early Buddhist practices as well.  “Dvaravati” may not actually be the name of the kingdom but it comes from an inscription on a coin found from about that time.  The Chinese refer to it as  “To-lo-po-ti” in contemporary records.  It may not even have been a kingdom, but  more of a confederation of city-states—it is hard to piece everything together.  That it was well connected, though, is clear from the archaeological record.  In Dvaravati sites, we see coins from as far as Rome, and we even have a lamp found in modern Pong Tuk that appears to match similar examples from the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century.  Note that this doesn't mean it arrived in the 6th century—similarly with the coins—but the Dvaravati state lasted until the 12th century. If that was the case, perhaps there were some women from a place called “Shravasti” or similar, especially given the Indic influence in the region. Now, given the location of the Dvaravati, it wouldn't be so farfetched to think that someone might sail up from the Gulf of Thailand and end up off-course, though it does mean sailing up the entire Ryukyuan chain or really running off course and finding yourself adrift on the East China sea.  And if they were headed to the Tang court, perhaps they did have translators or knew Chinese, since Yamato was unlikely to know the Mon language of Dvaravati and people from Dvaravati probably wouldn't know the Japonic language.  Unless, perhaps, they were communicating through Buddhist priests via Sanskrit. We've now heard two possibilities for Tukara, both pretty far afield: the region of Tokara in Bactria, and the Dvaravati kingdom in Southeast Asia.  That said, the third and simplest explanation—and the one favored by Aston in his translation of the Nihon Shoki—is that Tukara is actually referring to a place in the Ryukyu island chain.  Specifically, there is a “Tokara” archipelago, which spans between Yakushima and Amami-Oshima.  This is part of the Nansei islands, and the closest part of the Ryukyuan island chain to the main Japanese archipelago.  This is the most likely theory, and could account for the entry talking about Amami.  It is easy to see how sailors could end up adrift, too far north, and come to shore in Hyuga, aka Himuka, on the east side of Kyushu.  It certainly would make more sense for them to be from this area of the Ryukyuan archipelago than from anywhere else.  From Yakushima to Amami-Oshima is the closest part of the island chain to Kyushu, and as we see in the entry from the Shoku Nihongi, those three places seem to have been connected as being near to Japan.  So what was going on down there, anyway? Well, first off, let's remember that the Ryukyuan archipelago is not just the island of Okinawa, but a series of islands that go from Kyushu all the way to the island of Taiwan.  Geographically speaking, they are all part of the same volcanic ridge extending southward.  The size of the islands and their distance from each other does vary, however, creating some natural barriers in the form of large stretches of open water, which have shaped how various groups developed on the islands. Humans came to the islands around the same time they were reaching the Japanese mainland.  In fact, some of our only early skeletal remains for early humans in Japan actually come from either the Ryukyuan peninsula in the south or around Hokkaido to the north, and that has to do with the acidity of the soil in much of mainland Japan. Based on genetic studies, we know that at least two groups appear to have inhabited the islands from early times.  One group appears to be related to the Jomon people of Japan, while the other appears to be more related to the indigenous people of Taiwan, who, themselves, appear to have been the ancestors of many Austronesian people.  Just as some groups followed islands to the south of Taiwan, some appear to have headed north.  However, they only made it so far.  As far as I know there is no evidence they made it past Miyakoshima, the northernmost island in the Sakishima islands.  Miyako island is separated from the next large island, Okinawa, by a large strait, known as the Miyako Strait, though sometimes called the Kerama gap in English.  It is a 250km wide stretch of open ocean, which is quite the distance for anyone to travel, even for Austronesian people of Taiwan, who had likely not developed the extraordinary navigational technologies that the people who would become the Pacific Islanders would discover. People on the Ryukyu island chain appear to have been in contact with the people of the Japanese archipelago since at least the Jomon period, and some of the material artifacts demonstrate a cultural connection.  That was likely impacted by the Akahoya eruption, about 3500 years ago, and then re-established at a later date.  We certainly see sea shells and corals trade to the people of the Japanese islands from fairly early on. Unlike the people on the Japanese archipelago, the people of the Ryukyuan archipelago did not really adopt the Yayoi and later Kofun culture.  They weren't building large, mounded tombs, and they retained the character of a hunter-gatherer society, rather than transitioning to a largely agricultural way of life.  The pottery does change in parts of Okinawa, which makes sense given the connections between the regions.  Unfortunately, there is a lot we don't know about life in the islands around this time.  We don't exactly have written records, other than things like the entries in the Nihon Shoki, and those are hardly the most detailed of accounts.  In the reign of Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou, we see people from Yakushima, which is, along with Tanegashima, one of the largest islands at the northern end of the Ryukyu chain, just before you hit Kagoshima and the Osumi peninsula on the southern tip of Kyushu.  The islands past that would be the Tokara islands, until you hit the large island of Amami. So you can see how it would make sense that the people from “Tokara” would make sense to be from the area between Yakushima and Amami, and in many ways this explanation seems too good to be true.  There are a only a few things that make this a bit peculiar. First, this doesn't really explain the woman from “Sha'e” in any compelling way that I can see.  Second, the name, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna doesn't seem to fit with what we generally know about early Japonic names, and the modern Ryukyuan language certainly is a Japonic language, but there are still plenty of possible explanations.  There is also the connection of Tokara with “Tokan”, which is mentioned in an entry in 699 in the Shoku Nihongi, the Chronicle that follows on, quite literally to the Nihon Shoki.  Why would they call it “Tokan” instead of “Tokara” so soon after?  Also, why would these voyagers go back to their country by way of the Tang court?  Unless, of course, that is where they were headed in the first place.  In which case, did the Man from Tukara intentionally leave his wife in Yamato, or was she something of a hostage while they continued on their mission?   And so those are the theories.  The man from “Tukara” could be from Tokhara, or Tokharistan, at the far end of the Silk Road.  Or it could have been referring to the Dvaravati Kingdom, in modern Thailand.  Still, in the end, Occam's razor suggests that the simplest answer is that these were actually individuals from the Tokara islands in the Ryukyuan archipelago.  It is possible that they were from Amami, not that they drifted there.  More likely, a group from Amami drifted ashore in Kyushu as they were trying to find a route to the Tang court, as they claimed.  Instead they found themselves taking a detour to the court of Yamato, instead. And we could have stuck with that story, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, this would be a good time to reflect once again on how connected everything was.  Because even if they weren't from Dvaravati, that Kingdom was still trading with Rome and with the Tang.  And the Tang controlled the majority of the overland silk road through the Tarim basin.  We even know that someone from Tukhara made it to Chang'an, because they were mentioned on a stele that talked about an Asian sect of Christianity, the “Shining Religion”, that was praised and allowed to set up shop in the Tang capital, along with Persian Manicheans and Zoroastrians.  Regardless of where these specific people may have been from, the world was clearly growing only more connected, and prospering, as well. Next episode we'll continue to look at how things were faring between the archipelago and the continent. Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

Kokorogamae is one of those Japanese concepts which are a bit tricky to translate.  Kokoro by itself as a word has a wide variety of meanings – mind, spirit, mentality, idea, thought, heart, feeling, sincerity, intention, will, true meaning, etc.  It is a radical in the Japanese kanji ideographic script and so appears in a large number of compound words.  Kamae comes from the verb kamaeru meaning take a posture, assume an attitude, be ready for, etc.  In Japanese, when the two words are combined, there is a phonetic shift of the “k” in kamae to a “g” sound. I first heard these two Japanese words in my karate dojo back in 1971, but never as a compound word.  Every class we were given the command “kamae”, meaning to take our fighting stance. For anyone doing Japanese martial arts, this is a very familiar word. The Kokorogamae concept is closely linked to Japanese ideas around perfectionism and mindset.  You cannot produce a perfect output, if your mind is not properly aligned with the action.  A great calligraphy master will establish their Kokorogame before they wield the brush, the ikebana master will do the same before they place the flowers, as will the master of tea ceremony before they begin to whisk the tea.  They perfect their mindset, to produce the perfect output. In my first book Japan Sales Mastery, I wrote about Kokorogamae in the context of sales.  What was your true intention as a salesperson.  Was it to secure a big commission, bonus or promotion for yourself or was it to help the client to succeed in their business?  The mindset is totally different and the output can be a single sale or a lifetime partnership with the client.  If you are a salesperson, which is your intention? Leaders also have their Kokorogame.  Hanging on many walls, protected behind glass, tastefully framed, clearly written is the Kokorogame of the organisation.  In English, we call it the Vision, Mission, Values of the firm.  Someone or a group of people, thought about where do we want to take the organisation in a perfect world, in other words what is the Vision going forward?  What we do that is the Mission?  Why we do that are the Values.  This is the Kokorogamae at the macro level. The culture of the organisation is there to police the individual adherence to the corporate Kokorogamae.  The leader's key role is to bring clarity to the Why of what we are all doing.  But where does that concept of the Why spring from?  Simon Sinik has more or less, become the owner of the Why since his YouTube video went viral.  The Kokorogamae concept starts up one step before what Simon is talking about.  He concentrates on concentrating on the importance of establishing the Why, but how do you determine the Why of the Why? Where does that come from? This is where Kokorogamae is useful.  It makes us reflect on what we believe and why we believe it.  As the leader, is my true intention to build up the people in my team and help them become the absolute best that they can be?  Or, are they there to serve me, to propel my rise through the corporate ranks, with them arrayed like worker bee slaves to me, the Queen bee.  Just as in sales, these goals are not mutually exclusive.  A famous sales trainer Zig Ziglar said, “you can have everything you want, if you just help other people get what they want”.  Your Kokorogamae can create your own success wrapped up inside the success of your client.  As a leader, you can rise through the ranks on the back of the results created by a highly engaged team, who feel you have their back and are focused on their success. The key point is where is the focus of your thoughts about the people in the business?  How do you really see them, when we strip away all the psychobabble?  To get better clarity on that, we can use the handy Japanese concept of tatemae and honne, meaning the superficial reality and the actual reality.  Are you leading based on a tatemae version of what you are supposed to say and do or is the real you, the honne, the one your people see everyday?  What is your true intention?  What is your Kokorogamae as a leader regarding your team members and the organisation?   

In Japanese folklore, there are a lot of unexplained events and occurrences that happen all around us.

Japan has a culture that's always fascinated the rest of the world. We've all heard about this country's unique mix of tradition and futurism. But you'll be surprised to find out that sumo is NOT the most popular sport there, and it takes mad skill to prepare a “river pig”. Oh yeah, and bathing is done a little differently than you might be used to. In Japanese culture, the main cleaning routine is done at night, in several steps. Follow closely please to learn everything about this evening ritual and some other traditions and just curious facts about the Land of the Rising Sun. Other videos you might like: What If You Stopped Showering for a Year? • What If You Stopped Showering for a Y... 10 Morning Habits That Can Ruin Your Day • 10 Morning Habits That Can Ruin Your Day 29 Things That Exist Only in Japan • 29 Things That Exist Only in Japan TIMESTAMPS: The evening cleaning routine takes several steps 0:27 Public bathing tradition 2:04 Private bathrooms 2:45 Traditions and facts about Japan: Traditional dinner in Japan 3:33 Chopsticks rules 3:52 Slurping 4:04 Gardens “on a cat's forehead.” 4:16 Driving age 4:28 Coffee fans 4:51 The most popular sports 5:20 Pikachu on a plane 5:47 Karaoke 6:02 Fugu fish 6:25 Always wear an umbrella 6:54 The golden age 7:13 16 national holidays 7:31 School is super important 7:55 #japanfacts #eveningbath #brightside Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Subscribe to Bright Side : https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: / brightside Instagram: / brightgram 5-Minute Crafts Youtube: https://www.goo.gl/8JVmuC Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In some cultures, being well at home is all about making sure that others feel well when visiting, by welcoming them in the right way. In Japan, for example, hospitality is like an art form, and even has a name: omotenashi. You can't really translate the concept into English; the meaning of the term goes a lot deeper than “hospitality”. It also has connotations of mindfulness. In Japanese culture, knowing how to welcome others and being totally focused on your guest go hand in hand. So you could say omotenashi is the ability to anticipate a guest's needs before they can even think of them themselves. Hence the idea of being fully available for your guest, right from the moment they arrive. The most obvious example in Japanese culture is serving tea. Where does omotenashi come from? So you're saying it's not limited to the home environment, are you? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: How can I beat my smartphone addiction? How much money makes you happy? Are we heading for another stock market crash? A Bababam Originals podcast, written and produced by Joseph Chance. First Broadcast : 25/03/2023 In partnership with upday UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do mermaids really exist? How do these half-human half-fish mythical sea creatures look? Does Aquaman live among mermaids? Anyway, one of the interesting things about legends is that entirely different parts of the world describe seeing the exact same thing for centuries! Believe it or not, scientists and historians have been interested in the mermaid's existence for years. TIMESTAMPS: The first mermaid 2:14 Mermaids in Japanese folklore 3:28 Mermaids in African folklore 3:46 Mermaids in Russian folklore 4:15 Unconfirmed sightings in the past years 5:30 Christopher Columbus's mermaid sighting 6:32 Why manatees could be mistaken for mermaids 6:55 Could mermaid body function? 8:31 Music: https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/... SUMMARY: - The first mermaid, according to legends, is Atargatis, the ancient Syrian goddess of the sea. She didn't start out as a mermaid, though. - Like most legends, that of the mermaid spans across cultures. In Japanese folklore, there's the Ningyo, which is a giant fish with a human face and a monkey's mouth. - In Russia, they have the Rusalka, a water nymph in Slavic mythology that's been portrayed as both good and evil. - In Norway and parts of Scotland, they have the Finfolk, who were shape-shifters of the sea. They have an affinity for silver and tend to make humans their slaves. - The hype continues even today. Unconfirmed (and probably false) sightings have been reported all over the world in the past years. - One thing's for sure, no one has actually seen, met, or caught a real mermaid, alive or not. Even Christopher Columbus's mermaid sighting in 1493 was debunked by experts. - From afar, manatees are about the size of a human, their front flippers could resemble an arm from a distance, and their neck vertebrae allow them to turn their heads around like we do. - The human part of the mermaid wouldn't be able to withstand a life in cold oceanic waters. That is, not unless mermaids have a thick layer of hair like sea otters or blubber like other marine mammals. #mermaids #marinemammals #syrian Subscribe to Bright Side : https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook:   / brightside   Instagram:   / brightgram   5-Minute Crafts Youtube: https://www.goo.gl/8JVmuC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

fWotD Episode 2657: Flag of Japan Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Tuesday, 13 August 2024 is Flag of Japan.The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner bearing a crimson-red circle at its center. This flag is officially called the Nisshōki (日章旗, 'flag of the sun'), but is more commonly known in Japan as the Hinomaru (日の丸, 'Ball of the sun'). It embodies the country's sobriquet: the Land of the Rising Sun.The Nisshoki flag is designated as the national flag in the Act on National Flag and Anthem, which was promulgated and became effective on 13 August 1999. Although no earlier legislation had specified a national flag, the sun-disc flag had already become the de facto national flag of Japan. Two proclamations issued in 1870 by the Daijō-kan, the governmental body of the early Meiji period, each had a provision for a design of the national flag. A sun-disc flag was adopted as the national flag for merchant ships under Proclamation No. 57 of Meiji 3 (issued on 27 February 1870), and as the national flag used by the Navy under Proclamation No. 651 of Meiji 3 (issued on 27 October 1870). Use of the Hinomaru was severely restricted during the early years of the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II; these restrictions were later relaxed.The sun plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion, as the Emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, and the legitimacy of the ruling house rested on this divine appointment. The name of the country as well as the design of the flag reflect this central importance of the sun. The ancient history Shoku Nihongi says that Emperor Monmu used a flag representing the sun in his court in 701, the first recorded use of a sun-motif flag in Japan. The oldest existing flag is preserved in Unpō-ji temple, Kōshū, Yamanashi, which is older than the 16th century, and an ancient legend says that the flag was given to the temple by Emperor Go-Reizei in the 11th century. During the Meiji Restoration, the sun disc and the Rising Sun Ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army became major symbols in the emerging Japanese Empire. Propaganda posters, textbooks, and films depicted the flag as a source of pride and patriotism. In Japanese homes, citizens were required to display the flag during national holidays, celebrations and other occasions as decreed by the government. Different tokens of devotion to Japan and its Emperor featuring the Hinomaru motif became popular among the public during the Second Sino-Japanese War and other conflicts. These tokens ranged from slogans written on the flag to clothing items and dishes that resembled the flag.Public perception of the national flag varies. Historically, both Western and Japanese sources claimed the flag was a powerful and enduring symbol to the Japanese. Since the end of World War II (the Pacific War), the use of the flag and the national anthem Kimigayo has been a contentious issue for Japan's public schools, and disputes about their use have led to protests and lawsuits. Several military banners of Japan are based on the Hinomaru, including the sunrayed naval ensign. The Hinomaru also serves as a template for other Japanese flags in public and private use.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Tuesday, 13 August 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Flag of Japan on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Geraint.

In 2009 - two years after her diagnosis - Tami started working with a coach and making positive changes in her life. At the same time that she saw her fibromyalgia begin to improve, she started noticing beautiful cherry blossom trees everywhere. They weren't new, but her awareness of them was. Knowing that they frequently appear in Japanese and Chinese art, she looked up their symbolism, and what she found resonated deeply with her and her fibromyalgia experience. In Japanese and Chinese art, cherry blossoms symbolize feminine beauty. They represent delicateness, strength, and power. With their fleeting beauty, cherry blossoms highlight the transience of life and the fact that no matter where you are and what you're going through, this too shall pass. In today's episode, Tami shares why she chose cherry blossoms in her logo, book covers, and more and uses them to represent the journey with fibromyalgia. She discusses how working with a health coach helped her fibromyalgia to start to improve, the moment cherry blossoms began to enter Tami's awareness, the meaning and significance of cherry blossoms in different cultures, her decision to embrace their symbolism, why Tami believes cherry blossoms make such a great symbol of our experiences within the fibro community, embracing the transience of life, learning to find the beauty and strength in disability, thinking of your body as a being who is on your side, believing in the incredible beauty of your body, connecting with the promise of hope, creating realistic goals and continuously improving, the feminine strength symbolized by the cherry blossoms, making empowered choices for your wellbeing, the power of hope, and more.       Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers. To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes. For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram. Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free. Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.

I am proud to announce the launch of "Taiko," a new techno mix series from myself that draws its inspiration from the powerful rhythms of the Japanese drum. In Japanese culture, the taiko drum holds a sacred place, embodying strength, unity, and tradition. Now, "Taiko" brings that same energy to the world of electronic music, fusing ancient beats with cutting-edge techno sounds to create an immersive auditory experience unlike any other. Each installment of "Taiko" promises to transport listeners on a visceral journey, blending hypnotic rhythms, pulsating basslines, and powerful hard hitting drums. From the relentless intensity of the battlefield to the serene tranquility of a Zen garden, "Taiko" explores a diverse range of moods and emotions, all anchored by the primal heartbeat of the drum. Artwork By: Otavio Santiago Tracklist: 01. Matt Altman - A Curse Is Born 02. Nørbak - Teste 03. Lakej - The Breach 04. Rene Wise - Dry Beetle 05. Tav Shvi - Slicing 06. Lindsey Herbert - Getting Lost 07. Uncertain - Exit 08. Alexander Johansson & Mattias Fridell - Trappan 09. Dustin Zahn & Marcal - Charger 10. Matt Altman - Unreleased 11. Matt Altman - Unreleased 12. Kernel Panic (AR) - HEX001 13. Matt Altman - Unreleased 14. Alberto Tolo - Hinterland 15. Phil Berg - RAID 16. Ø Phase - Edge Runner 17. Jack Fresia - Chasic Bannel 18. PS11 - Paleocontact 19. A.Morgan - Flesh 20. Jay York - Encrypt 21. Marcal - Hachidan 22. Ignez - Oceanid

Bio Luke Hohmann is Chief Innovation Officer of Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks helps companies create more profitable software-enabled solutions. A serial entrepreneur, Luke founded, bootstrapped, and sold the SaaS B2B collaboration software company Conteneo to Scaled Agile, Inc. Conteneo's Weave platform is now part of SAFe Studio. A SAFe® Fellow, prolific author, and trailblazing innovator, Luke's contributions to the global agile community include contributing to SAFe, five books, Profit Streams™, Innovation Games®, Participatory Budgeting at enterprise scale, and a pattern language for market-driven roadmapping. Luke is also co-founder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation, where he partnered with The Kettering Foundation to create Common Ground for Action, the world's first scalable platform for deliberative decision-making. Luke is a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion and has an M.S.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. Luke loves his wife and four kids, his wife's cooking, and long runs in the California sunshine and Santa Cruz mountains.    Interview Highlights 01:30 Organisational Behaviour & Cognitive Psychology 06:10 Serendipity 09:30 Entrepreneurship 16:15 Applied Frameworks 20:00 Sustainability 20:45 Software Profit Streams 23:00 Business Model Canvas 24:00 Value Proposition Canvas 24:45 Setting the Price 28:45 Customer Benefit Analysis 34:00 Participatory Budgeting 36:00 Value Stream Funding 37:30 The Color of Money 42:00 Private v Public Sector 49:00 ROI Analysis 51:00 Innovation Accounting    Connecting   LinkedIn: Luke Hohmann on LinkedIn Company Website: Applied Frameworks    Books & Resources   ·         Software Profit Streams(TM): A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business: Jason Tanner, Luke Hohmann, Federico González ·         Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur ·         Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos ·         Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play: Luke Hohmann ·         The ‘Color of Money' Problem: Additional Guidance on Participatory Budgeting - Scaled Agile Framework ·         The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries ·         Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2, Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres ·         The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering: Brooks, Frederick Phillips ·         Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud ·         Ponyboy: A Novel, Eliot Duncan ·         Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel, Bonnie Garmus, Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes ·         What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry ·         Training | Applied Frameworks   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku   So I have with me Luke Hohmann, who is a four time author, three time founder, serial entrepreneur if I say, a SAFe fellow, so that's a Skilled Agile Framework fellow, keynote speaker and an internationally recognised expert in Agile software development. He is also a proud husband and a father of four. So, Luke, I am very honoured to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Thank you for making the time. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me, I'm very happy to be here, and hi everyone who's listening. Ula Ojiaku Yes, I'm sure they're waving back at you as well. I always start my conversations with my guests to find out about them as individuals, you know, so who is Luke? You have a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Computer Science and Engineering, but you also studied Cognitive Psychology and Organisational Behaviour in addition to Data Structures and Artificial Intelligence. AI is now making waves and is kind of at the forefront, which is interesting, you had the foresight to also look into these. So my question is, what took you down this path? Luke Hohmann Sure. I had a humble beginning in the world of technology. I worked for a large company, Electronic Data Systems, and it was founded in the mid 60s by a gentleman named Ross Perot, and it became a very, very large company. So my first job at Electronic Data Systems was working in a data centre, and we know what data centres are, but back then, data centres were different because they were predominantly mainframe-based data centres, and I would crawl underneath the floor, cabling the computers and cabling networking equipment. Now, when we think networking, we're really thinking one of two kinds of networking. We think of wireless networking or we think of some form of internet networking, but back in those days, there were varieties of network protocols, literally the standards that we use now weren't invented yet. So it was mainframe networking protocols and dial ups and other forms of networking protocols. From there, I worked my way from beneath the ground up. I had some great managers who saw someone who was worthy of opportunity and they gave me opportunity and it was great. And then eventually I started working in electronic data systems and there was, the first wave of AI came in the mid 80s and that's when we were doing things like building expert systems, and I managed to create with a colleague of mine, who's emerged as my best friend, a very successful implementation of an expert system, an AI-based expert system at EDS, and that motivated me to finish off my college degree, I didn't have my college degree at the time. So EDS supported me in going to the University of Michigan, where as you said, I picked up my Bachelor's and Master's degree, and my advisor at the time was Elliot Soloway, and he was doing research in how programmers program, what are the knowledge structures, what are the ways in which we think when we're programming, and I picked up that research and built programming environments, along with educational material, trying to understand how programmers program and trying to build educational material to teach programming more effectively. That's important because it ignited a lifelong passion for developing education materials, etc. Now the cognitive psychology part was handled through that vein of work, the organisational behaviour work came as I was a student at Michigan. As many of us are when we're in college, we don't make a lot of money, or at university we're not wealthy and I needed a job and so the School of Organisational Behaviour had published some job postings and they needed programmers to program software for their organisational behaviour research, and I answered those ads and I became friends and did the research for many ground-breaking aspects of organisational behaviour and I programmed, and in the process of programming for the professors who were in the School of Organisational Behaviour they would teach me about organisational behaviour and I learned many things that at the time were not entirely clear to me, but then when I graduated from university and I became a manager and I also became more involved in the Agile movement, I had a very deep foundation that has served me very well in terms of what do we mean when we say culture, or what do we mean when we talk about organisational structures, both in the small and in the large, how do we organise effectively, when should we scale, when should we not scale, etc. So that's a bit about my history that I think in terms of the early days helped inform who I am today. Ula Ojiaku Wow, who would have thought, it just reminds me of the word serendipity, you know, I guess a happy coincidence, quote unquote, and would there be examples of where the cognitive psychology part of it also helped you work-wise? Luke Hohmann Yeah, a way to think about cognitive psychology and the branch that, I mean there's, psychology is a huge branch of study, right? So cognitive psychology tends to relate to how do we solve problems, and it tends to focus on problem solving where n = 1 and what I mean by n is the number of participants, and where n is just me as an individual, how do I solve the problems that I'm facing? How do I engage in de-compositional activities or refinement or sense making? Organisational behaviour deals with n > 1. So it can deal with a team of, a para-bond, two people solving problems. It can deal with a small team, and we know through many, many, many decades of research that optimal team structures are eight people or less. I mean, we've known this for, when I say decades I mean millennia. When you look at military structure and military strategy, we know that people need to be organised into much smaller groups to be effective in problem solving and to move quickly. And then in any organisational structure, there's some notion of a team of teams or team engagement. So cognitive psychology, I think, helps leaders understand individuals and their place within the team. And now we talk about, you know, in the Agile community, we talk about things like, I want T-shaped people, I want people with common skills and their area of expertise and by organising enough of the T's, I can create a whole and complete team. I often say I don't want my database designer designing my user interface and I don't want my user interface designer optimising my back end database queries, they're different skills. They're very educated people, they're very sophisticated, but there's also the natural feeling that you and I have about how do I gain a sense of self, how do I gain a sense of accomplishment, a sense of mastery? Part of gaining a sense of mastery is understanding who you are as a person, what you're good at. In Japanese, they would call that Ikigai, right, what are the intersections of, you know, what do I love, what am I good at, what can I make a living at and what do people need, right? All of these intersections occur on an individual level, and then by understanding that we can create more effective teams. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. I've really learned something key here, the relationship between cognitive psychology and organisational behaviour, so thanks for breaking it down. Now, can we go quickly to your entrepreneurship? So there must be three times you started three times a company and you've been successful in that area. What exactly drives you when it comes to establishing businesses and then knowing when to move on? Luke Hohmann Sure. I think it's a combination of reflecting on my childhood and then looking at how that informs someone when they're older, and then opportunities, like you said, serendipity, I think that's a really powerful word that you introduced and it's a really powerful concept because sometimes the serendipity is associated with just allowing yourself to pursue something that presents itself. But when I was young, my father died and my mum had to raise six kids on her own, so my dad died when I was four, my mum raised six kids on her own. We were not a wealthy family, and she was a school teacher and one of the things that happened was, even though she was a very skilled school teacher, there were budget cuts and it was a unionised structure, and even though she was ranked very highly, she lost her job because she was low on the hiring totem pole in terms of how the union worked. It was very hard and of course, it's always hard to make budget cuts and firing but I remember when I was very young making one of those choices saying, I want to work in a field where we are more oriented towards someone's performance and not oriented on when they were hired, or the colour of their skin, or their gender or other things that to me didn't make sense that people were making decisions against. And while it's not a perfect field for sure, and we've got lots of improvement, engineering in general, and of course software engineering and software development spoke to me because I could meet people who were diverse or more diverse than in other fields and I thought that was really good. In terms of being an entrepreneur, that happened serendipitously. I was at the time, before I became an entrepreneur in my last job, was working for an Israeli security firm, and years and years ago, I used to do software anti-piracy and software security through physical dongles. This was made by a company called Aladdin Knowledge Systems in Israel, and I was the head of Engineering and Product Management for the dongle group and then I moved into a role of Business Development for the company. I had a couple of great bosses, but I also learned how to do international management because I had development teams in Israel, I had development teams in Munich, I had development teams in Portland, Oregon, and in the Bay Area, and this was in the 2000s. This is kind of pre-Agile, pre-Salt Lake City, pre-Agile Manifesto, but we were figuring things out and blending and working together. I thought things were going pretty well and I enjoyed working for the Israelis and what we were doing, but then we had the first Gulf War and my wife and I felt that maybe traveling as I was, we weren't sure what was going to happen in the war, I should choose something different. Unfortunately, by that time, we had been through the dot-bomb crisis in Silicon Valley. So it's about 2002 at the time that this was going on, and there really weren't jobs, it was a very weird time in Silicon Valley. So in late 2002, I sent an email to a bunch of friends and I said, hey, I'm going to be a consultant, who wants to hire me, that was my marketing plan, not very clever, and someone called me and said, hey, I've got a problem and this is the kind of thing that you can fix, come consult with us. And I said, great. So I did that, and that started the cleverly named Luke Hohmann Consulting, but then one thing led to another and consulting led to opportunities and growth and I've never looked back. So I think that there is a myth about people who start companies where sometimes you have a plan and you go execute your plan. Sometimes you find the problem and you're solving a problem. Sometimes the problem is your own problem, as in my case I had two small kids and a mortgage and I needed to provide for my family, and so the best way to do that at the time was to become a consultant. Since then I have engaged in building companies, sometimes some with more planning, some with more business tools and of course as you grow as an entrepreneur you learn skills that they didn't teach you in school, like marketing and pricing and business planning etc. And so that's kind of how I got started, and now I have kind of come full circle. The last company, the second last company I started was Conteneo and we ended up selling that to Scaled Agile, and that's how I joined the Scaled Agile team and that was lovely, moving from a position of being a CEO and being responsible for certain things, to being able to be part of a team again, joining the framework team, working with Dean Leffingwell and other members of the framework team to evolve the SAFe framework, that was really lovely. And then of course you get this entrepreneurial itch and you want to do something else, and so I think it comes and goes and you kind of allow yourself those opportunities. Ula Ojiaku Wow, yours is an inspiring story. And so what are you now, so you've talked about your first two Startups which you sold, what are you doing now? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so where I'm at right now is I am the Chief Innovation Officer for a company, Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks is a boutique consulting firm that's in a transition to a product company. So if this arm represents our product revenue and this arm represents our services revenue, we're expanding our product and eventually we'll become a product company. And so then the question is, well, what is the product that we're working on? Well, if you look at the Agile community, we've spent a lot of time creating and delivering value, and that's really great. We have had, if you look at the Agile community, we've had amazing support from our business counterparts. They've shovelled literally millions and millions of dollars into Agile training and Agile tooling and Agile transformations, and we've seen a lot of benefit from the Agile community. And when I say Agile, I don't mean SAFe or Scrum or some particular flavour of Agile, I just mean Agile in general. There's been hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars shoved into Agile and we've created a lot of value for that investment. We've got fewer bugs in our software because we've got so many teams doing XP driven practices like Test Driven Development, we've got faster response times because we've learned that we can create smaller releases and we've created infrastructure that lets us do deployments automatically, even if you're doing embedded systems, we figured out how to do over the air updates, we've figured out how to create infrastructure where the cars we're driving are now getting software updates. So we've created for our business leaders lots of value, but there's a problem in that value. Our business leaders now need us to create a profit, and creating value and creating a profit are two different things. And so in the pursuit of value, we have allowed our Agile community to avoid and or atrophy on skills that are vital to product management, and I'm a classically trained Product Manager, so I've done market segmentation and market valuation and market sizing, I've done pricing, I've done licensing, I've done acquisitions, I've done compliance. But when you look at the traditional definition of a Product Owner, it's a very small subset of that, especially in certain Agile methods where Product Owners are team centric, they're internal centric. That's okay, I'm not criticising that structure, but what's happened is we've got people who no longer know how to price, how to package, how to license products, and we're seeing companies fail, investor money wasted, too much time trying to figure things out when if we had simply approached the problem with an analysis of not just what am I providing to you in terms of value, but what is that value worth, and how do I structure an exchange where I give you value and you give me money? And that's how businesses survive, and I think what's really interesting about this in terms of Agile is Agile is very intimately tied to sustainability. One of the drivers of the Agile Movement was way back in the 2000s, we were having very unsustainable practices. People would be working 60, 80, death march weeks of grinding out programmers and grinding out people, and part of the Agile Movement was saying, wait a minute, this isn't sustainable, and even the notion of what is a sustainable pace is really vital, but a company cannot sustain itself without a profit, and if we don't actually evolve the Agile community from value streams into profit streams, we can't help our businesses survive. I sometimes ask developers, I say, raise your hand if you're really embracing the idea that your job is to make more money for your company than they pay you, that's called a profit, and if that's not happening, your company's going to fail. Ula Ojiaku They'll be out of a job. Luke Hohmann You'll be out of a job. So if you want to be self-interested about your future, help your company be successful, help them make a profit, and so where I'm at right now is Applied Frameworks has, with my co-author, Jason Tanner, we have published a bold and breakthrough new book called Software Profit Streams, and it's a book that describes how to do pricing and packaging for software enabled solutions. When we say software enabled solution, we mean a solution that has software in it somehow, could be embedded software in your microwave oven, it could be a hosted solution, it could be an API for a payment processor, it could be the software in your car that I talked about earlier. So software enabled solutions are the foundation, the fabric of our modern lives. As Mark Andreessen says software is eating the world, software is going to be in everything, and we need to know how to take the value that we are creating as engineers, as developers, and convert that into pricing and licensing choices that create sustainable profits. Ula Ojiaku Wow. It's as if you read my mind because I was going to ask you about your book, Software Profit Streams, A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business. I also noticed that, you know, there is the Profit Stream Canvas that you and your co-author created. So let's assume I am a Product Manager and I've used this, let's assume I went down the path of using the Business Model Canvas and there is the Customer Value Proposition. So how do they complement? Luke Hohmann How do they all work together? I'm glad you asked that, I think that's a very insightful question and the reason it's so helpful is because, well partly because I'm also friends with Alex Osterwalder, I think he's a dear, he's a wonderful human, he's a dear friend. So let's look at the different elements of the different canvases, if you will, and why we think that this is needed. The Business Model Canvas is kind of how am I structuring my business itself, like what are my partners, my suppliers, my relationships, my channel strategy, my brand strategy with respect to my customer segments, and it includes elements of cost, which we're pretty good at. We're pretty good at knowing our costs and elements of revenue, but the key assumption of revenue, of course, is the selling price and the number of units sold. So, but if you look at the book, Business Model Generation, where the Business Model Canvas comes from, it doesn't actually talk about how to set the price. Is the video game going to be $49? Is it going to be $59, or £49 or £59? Well, there's a lot of thought that goes into that. Then we have the Value Proposition Canvas, which highlights what are the pains the customer is facing? What are the gains that the customer is facing? What are the jobs to be done of the customer? How does my solution relate to the jobs? How does it help solve the pain the customer is feeling? How does it create gain for the customer? But if you read those books, and both of those books are on my shelf because they're fantastic books, it doesn't talk about pricing. So let's say I create a gain for you. Well, how much can I charge you for the gain that I've created? How do I structure that relationship? And how do I know, going back to my Business Model Canvas, that I've got the right market segment, I've got the right investment strategy, I might need to make an investment in the first one or two releases of my software or my product before I start to make a per unit profit because I'm evolving, it's called the J curve and the J curve is how much money am I investing before I well, I have to be able to forecast that, I have to be able to model that, but the key input to that is what is the price, what is the mechanism of packaging that you're using, is it, for example, is it per user in a SAS environment or is it per company in a SAS environment? Is it a meter? Is it like an API transaction using Stripe or a payment processor, Adyen or Stripe or Paypal or any of the others that are out there? Or is it an API call where I'm charging a fraction of a penny for any API call? All of those elements have to be put into an economic model and a forecast has to be created. Now, what's missing about this is that the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas don't give you the insight on how to set the price, they just say there is a price and we're going to use it in our equations. So what we've done is we've said, look, setting the price is itself a complex system, and what I mean by a complex system is that, let's say that I wanted to do an annual license for a new SAS offering, but I offer that in Europe and now my solution is influenced or governed by GDPR compliance, where I have data retention and data privacy laws. So my technical architecture that has to enforce the license, also has to comply with something in terms of the market in which I'm selling. This complex system needs to be organised, and so what canvases do is in all of these cases, they let us take a complex system and put some structure behind the choices that we're making in that complex system so that we can make better choices in terms of system design. I know how I want this to work, I know how I want this to be structured, and therefore I can make system choices so the system is working in a way that benefits the stakeholders. Not just me, right, I'm not the only stakeholder, my customers are in this system, my suppliers are in this system, society itself might be in the system, depending on the system I'm building or the solution I'm building. So the canvases enable us to make system level choices that are hopefully more effective in achieving our goals. And like I said, the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas are fantastic, highly recommended, but they don't cover pricing. So we needed something to cover the actual pricing and packaging and licensing. Ula Ojiaku Well, that's awesome. So it's really more about going, taking a deeper dive into thoughtfully and structurally, if I may use that word, assessing the pricing. Luke Hohmann Yeah, absolutely. Ula Ojiaku Would you say that in doing this there would be some elements of, you know, testing and getting feedback from actual customers to know what price point makes sense? Luke Hohmann Absolutely. There's a number of ways in which customer engagement or customer testing is involved. The very first step that we advocate is a Customer Benefit Analysis, which is what are the actual benefits you're creating and how are your customers experiencing those benefits. Those experiences are both tangible and intangible and that's another one of the challenges that we face in the Agile community. In general, the Agile community spends a little bit more time on tangible or functional value than intangible value. So we, in terms of if I were to look at it in terms of a computer, we used to say speeds and feeds. How fast is the processor? How fast is the network? How much storage is on my disk space? Those are all functional elements. Over time as our computers have become plenty fast or plenty storage wise for most of our personal computing needs, we see elements of design come into play, elements of usability, elements of brand, and we see this in other areas. Cars have improved in quality so much that many of us, the durability of the car is no longer a significant attribute because all cars are pretty durable, they're pretty good, they're pretty well made. So now we look at brand, we look at style, we look at aesthetics, we look at even paying more for a car that aligns with our values in terms of the environment. I want to get an EV, why, because I want to be more environmentally conscious. That's a value driven, that's an intangible factor. And so our first step starts with Customer Benefit Analysis looking at both functional or tangible value and intangible value, and you can't do that, as you can imagine, you can't do that without having customer interaction and awareness with your stakeholders and your customers, and that also feeds throughout the whole pricing process. Eventually, you're going to put your product in a market, and that's a form itself of market research. Did customers buy, and if they didn't buy, why did they not buy? Is it poorly packaged or is it poorly priced? These are all elements that involve customers throughout the process. Ula Ojiaku If I may, I know we've been on the topic of your latest book Software Profit Streams. I'm just wondering, because I can't help but try to connect the dots and I'm wondering if there might be a connection to one of your books, Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play, something like buy a feature in your book, that kind of came to mind, could there be a way of using that as part of the engagement with customers in setting a pricing strategy? I may be wrong, I'm just asking a question. Luke Hohmann I think you're making a great connection. There's two forms of relationship that Innovation Games and the Innovation Games book have with Software Profit Streams. One is, as you correctly noted, just the basics of market research, where do key people have pains or gains and what it might be worth. That work is also included in Alex Osterwalder's books, Value Proposition Design for example, when I've been doing Value Proposition Design and I'm trying to figure out the customer pains, you can use the Innovation Games Speed Boat. And when I want to figure out the gains, I can use the Innovation Game Product Box. Similarly, when I'm figuring out pricing and licensing, a way, and it's a very astute idea, a way to understand price points of individual features is to do certain kinds of market research. One form of market research you can do is Buy-a-Feature, which gives a gauge of what people are willing or might be willing to pay for a feature. It can be a little tricky because the normal construction of Buy-a-Feature is based on cost. However, your insight is correct, you can extend Buy-a-Feature such that you're testing value as opposed to cost, and seeing what, if you take a feature that costs X, but inflate that cost by Y and a Buy-a-Feature game, if people still buy it, it's a strong signal strength that first they want it, and second it may be a feature that you can, when delivered, would motivate you to raise the price of your offering and create a better profit for your company. Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, thank you. I wasn't sure if I was on the right lines. Luke Hohmann It's a great connection. Ula Ojiaku Thanks again. I mean, it's not original. I'm just piggybacking on your ideas. So with respect to, if we, if you don't mind, let's shift gears a bit because I know that, or I'm aware that whilst you were with Scaled Agile Incorporated, you know, you played a key part in developing some of their courses, like the Product POPM, and I think the Portfolio Management, and there was the concept about Participatory Budgeting. Can we talk about that, please? Luke Hohmann I'd love to talk about that, I mean it's a huge passion of mine, absolutely. So in February of 2018, I started working with the framework team and in December of 2018, we talked about the possibility of what an acquisition might look like and the benefits it would create, which would be many. That closed in May of 2019, and in that timeframe, we were working on SAFe 5.0 and so there were a couple of areas in which I was able to make some contributions. One was in Agile product delivery competency, the other was in lean portfolio management. I had a significant hand in restructuring or adding the POPM, APM, and LPM courses, adding things like solutions by horizons to SAFe, taking the existing content on guardrails, expanding it a little bit, and of course, adding Participatory Budgeting, which is just a huge passion of mine. I've done Participatory Budgeting now for 20 years, I've helped organisations make more than five billions of dollars of investment spending choices at all levels of companies, myself and my colleagues at Applied Frameworks, and it just is a better way to make a shared decision. If you think about one of the examples they use about Participatory Budgeting, is my preferred form of fitness is I'm a runner and so, and my wife is also a fit person. So if she goes and buys a new pair of shoes or trainers and I go and buy a new pair of trainers, we don't care, because it's a small purchase. It's frequently made and it's within the pattern of our normal behaviour. However, if I were to go out and buy a new car without involving her, that feels different, right, it's a significant purchase, it requires budgeting and care, and is this car going to meet our needs? Our kids are older than your kids, so we have different needs and different requirements, and so I would be losing trust in my pair bond with my wife if I made a substantial purchase without her involvement. Well, corporations work the same way, because we're still people. So if I'm funding a value stream, I'm funding the consistent and reliable flow of valuable items, that's what value stream funding is supposed to do. However, if there is a significant investment to be made, even if the value stream can afford it, it should be introduced to the portfolio for no other reason than the social structure of healthy organisations says that we do better when we're talking about these things, that we don't go off on our own and make significant decisions without the input of others. That lowers transparency, that lowers trust. So I am a huge advocate of Participatory Budgeting, I'm very happy that it's included in SAFe as a recommended practice, both for market research and Buy-a-Feature in APM, but also more significantly, if you will, at the portfolio level for making investment decisions. And I'm really excited to share that we've just published an article a few weeks ago about Participatory Budgeting and what's called The Color of Money, and The Color of Money is sometimes when you have constraints on how you can spend money, and an example of a constraint is let's say that a government raised taxes to improve transportation infrastructure. Well, the money that they took in is constrained in a certain way. You can't spend it, for example, on education, and so we have to show how Participatory Budgeting can be adapted to have relationships between items like this item requires this item as a precedent or The Color of Money, constraints of funding items, but I'm a big believer, we just published that article and you can get that at the Scaled Agile website, I'm a big believer in the social power of making these financial decisions and the benefits that accrue to people and organisations when they collaborate in this manner. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for going into that, Luke. So, would there be, in your experience, any type of organisation that's participatory? It's not a leading question, it's just genuine, there are typically outliers and I'm wondering in your experience, and in your opinion, if there would be organisations that it might not work for? Luke Hohmann Surprisingly, no, but I want to add a few qualifications to the effective design of a Participatory Budgeting session. When people hear Participatory Budgeting, there's different ways that you would apply Participatory Budgeting in the public and private sector. So I've done citywide Participatory Budgeting in cities and if you're a citizen of a city and you meet the qualifications for voting within that jurisdiction, in the United States, it's typically that you're 18 years old, in some places you have to be a little older, in some places you might have other qualifications, but if you're qualified to participate as a citizen in democratic processes, then you should be able to participate in Participatory Budgeting sessions that are associated with things like how do we spend taxes or how do we make certain investments. In corporations it's not quite the same way. Just because you work at a company doesn't mean you should be included in portfolio management decisions that affect the entire company. You may not have the background, you may not have the training, you may be what my friends sometimes call a fresher. So I do a lot of work overseas, so freshers, they just may not have the experience to participate. So one thing that we look at in Participatory Budgeting and SAFe is who should be involved in the sessions, and that doesn't mean that every single employee should always be included, because their background, I mean, they may be a technical topic and maybe they don't have the right technical background. So we work a little bit harder in corporations to make sure the right people are there. Now, of course, if we're going to make a mistake, we tend to make the mistake of including more people than excluding, partly because in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, it's a group of people who are making a decision, not a one person, one vote, and that's really profoundly important because in a corporation, just like in a para-bond, your opinion matters to me, I want to know what you're thinking. If I'm looking in, I'll use SAFe terminology, if I'm looking at three epics that could advance our portfolio, and I'm a little unsure about two of those epics, like one of those epics, I'm like, yeah, this is a really good thing, I know a little bit about it, this matters, I'm going to fund this, but the other two I'm not so sure about, well, there's no way I can learn through reading alone what the opinions of other people are, because, again, there's these intangible factors. There's these elements that may not be included in an ROI analysis, it's kind of hard to talk about brand and an ROI analysis - we can, but it's hard, so I want to listen to how other people are talking about things, and through that, I can go, yeah, I can see the value, I didn't see it before, I'm going to join you in funding this. So that's among the ways in which Participatory Budgeting is a little different within the private sector and the public sector and within a company. The only other element that I would add is that Participatory Budgeting gives people the permission to stop funding items that are no longer likely to meet the investment or objectives of the company, or to change minds, and so one of the, again, this is a bit of an overhang in the Agile community, Agile teams are optimised for doing things that are small, things that can fit within a two or three week Sprint. That's great, no criticism there, but our customers and our stakeholders want big things that move the market needle, and the big things that move the market needle don't get done in two or three weeks, in general, and they rarely, like they require multiple teams working multiple weeks to create a really profoundly new important thing. And so what happens though, is that we need to make in a sense funding commitments for these big things, but we also have to have a way to change our mind, and so traditional funding processes, they let us make this big commitment, but they're not good at letting us change our mind, meaning they're not Agile. Participatory Budgeting gives us the best of both worlds. I can sit at the table with you and with our colleagues, we can commit to funding something that's big, but six months later, which is the recommended cadence from SAFe, I can come back to that table and reassess and we can all look at each other, because you know those moments, right, you've had that experience in visiting, because you're like looking around the table and you're like, yeah, this isn't working. And then in traditional funding, we keep funding what's not working because there's no built-in mechanism to easily change it, but in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, you and I can sit at the table and we can look at each other with our colleagues and say, yeah, you know, that initiative just, it's not working, well, let's change our mind, okay, what is the new thing that we can fund? What is the new epic? And that permission is so powerful within a corporation. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, and whilst you were speaking, because again, me trying to connect the dots and thinking, for an organisation that has adopted SAFe or it's trying to scale Agility, because like you mentioned, Agile teams are optimised to iteratively develop or deliver, you know, small chunks over time, usually two to three weeks, but, like you said, there is a longer time horizon spanning months, even years into the future, sometimes for those worthwhile, meaty things to be delivered that moves the strategic needle if I may use that buzzword. So, let's say we at that lean portfolio level, we're looking at epics, right, and Participatory Budgeting, we are looking at initiatives on an epic to epic basis per se, where would the Lean Startup Cycle come in here? So is it that Participatory Budgeting could be a mechanism that is used for assessing, okay, this is the MVP features that have been developed and all that, the leading indicators we've gotten, that's presented to the group, and on that basis, we make that pivot or persevere or stop decision, would that fit in? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so let's, I mean, you're close, but let me make a few turns and then it'll click better. First, let's acknowledge that the SAFe approach to the Lean Startup Cycle is not the Eric Ries approach, there are some differences, but let's separate how I fund something from how I evaluate something. So if I'm going to engage in the SAFe Lean Startup Cycle, part of that engagement is to fund an MVP, which is going to prove or disprove a given hypothesis. So that's an expenditure of money. Now there's, if you think about the expenditure of money, there's minimally two steps in this process - there's spending enough money to conduct the experiments, and if those experiments are true, making another commitment to spend money again, that I want to spend it. The reason this is important is, let's say I had three experiments running in parallel and I'm going to use easy round numbers for a large corporation. Let's say I want to run three experiments in parallel, and each experiment costs me a million pounds. Okay. So now let's say that the commercialisation of each of those is an additional amount of money. So the portfolio team sits around the table and says, we have the money, we're going to fund all three. Okay, great. Well, it's an unlikely circumstance, but let's say all three are successful. Well, this is like a venture capitalist, and I have a talk that I give that relates the funding cycle of a venture capitalist to the funding cycle of an LPM team. While it's unlikely, you could have all three become successful, and this is what I call an oversubscribed portfolio. I've got three great initiatives, but I can still only fund one or two of them, I still have to make the choice. Now, of course, I'm going to look at my economics and let's say out of the three initiatives that were successfully proven through their hypothesis, let's say one of them is just clearly not as economically attractive, for whatever reason. Okay, we get rid of that one, now, I've got two, and if I can only fund one of them, and the ROI, the hard ROI is roughly the same, that's when Participatory Budgeting really shines, because we can have those leaders come back into the room, and they can say, which choice do we want to make now? So the evaluative aspect of the MVP is the leading indicators and the results of the proving or disproving of the hypotheses. We separate that from the funding choices, which is where Participatory Budgeting and LPM kick in. Ula Ojiaku Okay. So you've separated the proving or disproving the hypothesis of the feature, some of the features that will probably make up an epic. And you're saying the funding, the decision to fund the epic in the first place is a different conversation. And you've likened it to Venture Capital funding rounds. Where do they connect? Because if they're separate, what's the connecting thread between the two? Luke Hohmann The connected thread is the portfolio process, right? The actual process is the mechanism where we're connecting these things. Ula Ojiaku OK, no, thanks for the portfolio process. But there is something you mentioned, ROI - Return On Investment. And sometimes when you're developing new products, you don't know, you have assumptions. And any ROI, sorry to put it this way, but you're really plucking figures from the air, you know, you're modelling, but there is no certainty because you could hit the mark or you could go way off the mark. So where does that innovation accounting coming into place, especially if it's a product that's yet to make contact with, you know, real life users, the customers. Luke Hohmann Well, let's go back to something you said earlier, and what you talked earlier about was the relationship that you have in market researching customer interaction. In making a forecast, let's go ahead and look at the notion of building a new product within a company, and this is again where the Agile community sometimes doesn't want to look at numbers or quote, unquote get dirty, but we have to, because if I'm going to look at building a new idea, or taking a new idea into a product, I have to have a forecast of its viability. Is it economically viable? Is it a good choice? So innovation accounting is a way to look at certain data, but before, I'm going to steal a page, a quote, from one of my friends, Jeff Patton. The most expensive way to figure this out is to actually build the product. So what can I do that's less expensive than building the product itself? I can still do market research, but maybe I wouldn't do an innovation game, maybe I'd do a formal survey and I use a price point testing mechanism like Van Westendorp Price Point Analysis, which is a series of questions that you ask to triangulate on acceptable price ranges. I can do competitive benchmarking for similar products and services. What are people offering right now in the market? Now that again, if the product is completely novel, doing competitive benchmarking can be really hard. Right now, there's so many people doing streaming that we look at the competitive market, but when Netflix first offered streaming and it was the first one, their best approach was what we call reference pricing, which is, I have a reference price for how much I pay for my DVDs that I'm getting in the mail, I'm going to base my streaming service kind of on the reference pricing of entertainment, although that's not entirely clear that that was the best way to go, because you could also base the reference price on what you're paying for a movie ticket and how many, but then you look at consumption, right, because movie tickets are expensive, so I only go to a movie maybe once every other month, whereas streaming is cheap and so I can change my demand curve by lowering my price. But this is why it's such a hard science is because we have this notion of these swirling factors. Getting specifically back to your question about the price point, I do have to do some market research before I go into the market to get some forecasting and some confidence, and research gives me more confidence, and of course, once I'm in the market, I'll know how effective my research matched the market reality. Maybe my research was misleading, and of course, there's some skill in designing research, as you know, to get answers that have high quality signal strength. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for clarifying. That makes perfect sense to me. Luke Hohmann It's kind of like a forecast saying, like there's a group of Agile people who will say, like, you shouldn't make forecasts. Well, I don't understand that because that's like saying, and people will say, well, I can't predict the future. Well, okay, I can't predict when I'm going to retire, but I'm planning to retire. I don't know the date of my exact retirement, but my wife and I are planning our retirement, and we're saving, we're making certain investment choices for our future, because we expect to have a future together. Now our kids are older than yours. My kids are now in university, and so we're closer to retirement. So what I dislike about the Agile community is people will sometimes say, well, I don't know the certainty of the event, therefore, I can't plan for it. But that's really daft, because there are many places in like, you may not for the listeners, her daughter is a little younger than my kids, but they will be going to university one day, and depending on where they go, that's a financial choice. So you could say, well, I don't know when she's going to university, and I can't predict what university she's going to go to, therefore I'm not going to save any money. Really? That doesn't make no sense. So I really get very upset when you have people in the agile community will say things like road mapping or forecasting is not Agile. It's entirely Agile. How you treat it is Agile or not Agile. Like when my child comes up to me and says, hey, you know about that going to university thing, I was thinking of taking a gap year. Okay, wait a minute, that's a change. That doesn't mean no, it means you're laughing, right? But that's a change. And so we respond to change, but we still have a plan. Ula Ojiaku It makes sense. So the reason, and I completely resonate with everything you said, the reason I raised that ROI and it not being known is that in some situations, people might be tempted to use it to game the budget allocation decision making process. That's why I said you would pluck the ROI. Luke Hohmann Okay, let's talk about that. We actually address this in our recent paper, but I'll give you my personal experience. You are vastly more likely to get bad behaviour on ROI analysis when you do not do Participatory Budgeting, because there's no social construct to prevent bad behaviour. If I'm sitting down at a table and that's virtual or physical, it doesn't matter, but let's take a perfect optimum size for a Participatory Budgeting group. Six people, let's say I'm a Director or a Senior Director in a company, and I'm sitting at a table and there's another Senior Director who's a peer, maybe there's a VP, maybe there's a person from engineering, maybe there's a person from sales and we've got this mix of people and I'm sitting at that table. I am not incented to come in with an inflated ROI because those people are really intelligent and given enough time, they're not going to support my initiative because I'm fibbing, I'm lying. And I have a phrase for this, it's when ROI becomes RO-lie that it's dangerous. And so when I'm sitting at that table, what we find consistently, and one of the clients that we did a fair amount of Participatory Budgeting for years ago with Cisco, what we found was the leaders at Cisco were creating tighter, more believable, and more defensible economic projections, precisely because they knew that they were going to be sitting with their peers, and it didn't matter. It can go both ways. Sometimes people will overestimate the ROI or they underestimate the cost. Same outcome, right? I'm going to overestimate the benefit, and people would be like, yeah, I don't think you can build that product with three teams. You're going to need five or six teams and people go, oh, I can get it done with, you know, 20 people. Yeah, I don't think so, because two years ago, we built this product. It's very similar, and, you know, we thought we could get it done with 20 people and we couldn't. We really needed, you know, a bigger group. So you see the social construct creating a more believable set of results because people come to the Participatory Budgeting session knowing that their peers are in the room. And of course, we think we're smart, so our peers are as smart as we are, we're all smart people, and therefore, the social construct of Participatory Budgeting quite literally creates a better input, which creates a better output. Ula Ojiaku That makes sense, definitely. Thanks for sharing that. I've found that very, very insightful and something I can easily apply. The reasoning behind it, the social pressure, quote unquote, knowing that you're not just going to put the paper forward but you'd have to defend it in a credible, believable way make sense. So just to wrap up now, what books have you found yourself recommending to people the most, and why? Luke Hohmann It's so funny, I get yelled at by my wife for how many books I buy. She'll go like “It's Amazon again. Another book. You know, there's this thing called the library.” Ula Ojiaku You should do Participatory Budgeting for your books then sounds like, sorry. Luke Hohmann No, no, I don't, I'd lose. Gosh, I love so many books. So there's a few books that I consider to be my go-to references and my go-to classics, but I also recommend that people re-read books and sometimes I recommend re-reading books is because you're a different person, and as you age and as you grow and you see things differently and in fact, I'm right now re-reading and of course it goes faster, but I'm re-reading the original Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck, a fantastic book. I just finished reading a few new books, but let me let me give you a couple of classics that I think everyone in our field should read and why they should read them. I think everyone should read The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks because he really covers some very profound truths that haven't changed, things like Brooks Law, which is adding programmers to a late project, makes it later. He talks about the structure of teams and how to scale before scaling was big and important and cool. He talks about communication and conceptual integrity and the role of the architect. The other book that I'm going to give, which I hope is different than any book that anyone has ever given you, because it's one of my absolute favourite books and I give them away, is a book called Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Comics or graphic novels are an important medium for communication, and when we talk about storytelling and we talk about how to frame information and how to present information, understanding comics is profoundly insightful in terms of how to present, share, show information. A lot of times I think we make things harder than they should be. So when I'm working with executives and some of the clients that I work with personally, when we talk about our epics, we actually will tell stories about the hero's journey and we actually hire comic book artists to help the executives tell their story in a comic form or in a graphic novel form. So I absolutely love understanding comics. I think that that's really a profound book. Of course you mentioned Alex Osterwalder's books, Business Model Generation, Business Model Canvas. Those are fantastic books for Product Managers. I also, just looking at my own bookshelves, of course, Innovation Games for PMs, of course Software Profit Streams because we have to figure out how to create sustainability, but in reality there's so many books that we love and that we share and that we grow together when we're sharing books and I'll add one thing. Please don't only limit your books to technical books. We're humans too. I recently, this week and what I mean recent I mean literally this weekend I was visiting one of my kids in Vermont all the way across the country, and so on the plane ride I finished two books, one was a very profound and deeply written book called Ponyboy. And then another one was a very famous book on a woman protagonist who's successful in the 60s, Lessons in Chemistry, which is a new book that's out, and it was a super fun light read, some interesting lessons of course, because there's always lessons in books, and now if it's okay if I'm not overstepping my boundaries, what would be a book that you'd like me to read? I love to add books to my list. Ula Ojiaku Oh my gosh, I didn't know. You are the first guest ever who's twisted this on me, but I tend to read multiple books at a time. Luke Hohmann Only two. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, so, and I kind of switch, maybe put some on my bedside and you know there's some on my Kindle and in the car, just depending. So I'm reading multiple books at a time, but based on what you've said the one that comes to mind is the new book by Oprah Winfrey and it's titled What Happened to You? Understanding Trauma, because like you said, it's not just about reading technical books and we're human beings and we find out that people behave probably sometimes in ways that are different to us, and it's not about saying what's wrong with you, because there is a story that we might not have been privy to, you know, in terms of their childhood, how they grew up, which affected their worldview and how they are acting, so things don't just suddenly happen. And the question that we have been asked and we sometimes ask of people, and for me, I'm reading it from a parent's perspective because I understand that even more so that my actions, my choices, they play a huge, you know, part in shaping my children. So it's not saying what's wrong with you? You say, you know, what happened to you? And it traces back to, based on research, because she wrote it with a renowned psychologist, I don't know his field but a renowned psychologist, so neuroscience-based psychological research on human beings, attachment theory and all that, just showing how early childhood experiences, even as early as maybe a few months old, tend to affect people well into adulthood. So that would be my recommendation. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much. That's a gift. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. You're the first person to ask me. So, my pleasure. So, before we go to the final words, where can the audience find you, because you have a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience, and I am sure that people would want to get in touch with you, so how can they do this please? Luke Hohmann Yeah, well, they can get me on LinkedIn and they can find me at Applied Frameworks. I tell you, I teach classes that are known to be very profound because we always reserve, myself and the instructors at Applied Frameworks, we have very strong commitments to reserving class time for what we call the parking lot or the ask me anything question, which are many times after I've covered the core material in the class, having the opportunity to really frame how to apply something is really important. So I would definitely encourage people to take one of my classes because you'll not get the material, you'll get the reasons behind the material, which means you can apply it, but you'll also be able to ask us questions and our commitment as a company is you can ask us anything and if we don't know the answer, we'll help you find it. We'll help you find the expert or the person that you need talk to, to help you out and be successful. And then, and I think in terms of final words, I will simply ask people to remember that we get to work in the most amazing field building things for other people and it's joyful work, and we, one of my phrases is you're not doing Agile, if you're not having fun at work, there's something really wrong, there's something missing, yeah we need to retrospect and we need to improve and we need to reflect and all those important things, absolutely, but we should allow ourselves to experience the joy of serving others and being of service and building things that matter. Ula Ojiaku I love the concept of joyful Agile and getting joy in building things that matter, serving people and may I add also working together with amazing people, and for me it's been a joyful conversation with you, Luke, I really appreciate you making the time, I am definitely richer and more enlightened as a result of this conversation, so thank you so much once more. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me here, thank you everyone for listening with us. Ula Ojiaku  My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Hey there,   I have a vulnerable share. I've struggled with perfectionism these past few years, and it's been so paralyzing that it's silenced my voice and my gifts as a teacher and coach.   In the online coaching world, the pressure to be flawless, to have all the answers and to be the expert has been overwhelming. Perfectionism has caused to show up inauthentically (hello imposter syndrome!) …or show up as a flat version of my personality… or worse - not show up at all!... only to be met with shame for not doing and being more.   Perfectionism is like a sneaky thief, robbing us of our joy and confidence.   But over these years of doing the self-love work on myself, I can tell you this: imperfection is where the magic happens. It's the portal to our True Self.   In Japanese culture, there's a concept called "wabi-sabi" – it's all about embracing imperfection as the essence of beauty in life. Think of it like the cracks in a piece of pottery making it even more beautiful and unique.   For me, my sensitivity has always been a flaw and weakness, but not I can see that my sensitivity IS my gift – it's literally how I connect with my community and how I heal others.   So when that Itty-Bitty-Shitty-Committee starts to rear its head, remember this: Notice, Pause, Choose: Notice: Recognize that criticizing voice. Pause: Take a deep breath and come back to the present moment. Choose: opt for a thought that lifts you up and reminds you of your worth.   And remember, your imperfections are your superpowers. Also, I've been using this mantra for myself and I've felt it's power. I hope it helps you return to yours too!    "I embrace all of me and I am needed in this world."   I hope today's soul note helps you break free from trying to please others or feel like an imposter and remember your gifts that only you have and gives you the courage to step into them and share them with the world!   Much love, Audrey   p.s. if you need personalize coaching, I'm here to help you deepen your self-love and connect to your intuition to create the life you love.

In Japanese "wa" means harmony and is a huge part of Japan and Japanese culture.  After living in Japan for 4 years and recently visiting again I still soak in the "wa" and wish we could bring it more to the USA where I live now.  In today's life episode we'll discuss "wa" and dive into culture in general.  Having an openness to other cultures and taking the best from many of them has enriched my life and it can yours too.  Come...let's experience "wa" together. Support the showJoin my mailing list! Just sent a quick email to dawnpedersonruns@gmail.com with the title "Email List" and I'll add you to my list. Emails feature upcoming episodes, running tips, upcoming coaching services and products, and more... Find me on Facebook: Dawn Running Also, check out my blog, Running By DawnMusic written and recorded by Jeremy Hancock

It is very common to hear from expat leaders here about their frustrations with leading teams in Japan.  They get all of their direct reports together in a meeting room to work through some issues and reach some decisions.  All goes according to plan, just like at home.  Weeks roll by and then the penny drops that things that were agreed to in the meeting are not happening.  “Why is it so hard to get people who are being paid good money to do their job?”, they ask me. One reason is that some of the people in the meeting room looked like they were in agreement because they don't want to single themselves out as disagreeing with the boss in a public forum.  They keep a low profile and choose not to execute on a piece of work they think is a bad idea.  The Japanese methodology is the exact opposite.  Before the meeting, the boss checks in with the key people about this idea they have and gets input and feedback.  Once these consultations have taken place and any necessary adjustments have been made, then the meeting is called.  The attendees rubber stamp the decision and then get busy making it a reality, with great haste and no resistance.  Which is better?  Well, in Japan, the nemawashi or groundwork method works very well because this is how things have been done around here for thousands of years. For leaders, the preferred follower is both independent and highly engaged.  They know what to do and think about what they are doing, adding in extras without waiting around for the boss to tell them how to do things.  Another variety of follower, which by the way, is very common in Japan, is the dependent variety who are engaged, but need a lot of guidance.  Part of the reason here is that everyone is highly risk averse. The safest course of action is to do extremely well what the boss asks for, but don't take any initiative. In this way, the buck stops with the boss and if things go pear-shaped, then there is no blow back on the staff member. The more problematic types are the dependent staff who are disengaged.  In Japan, in big companies, the staff advancement method is based on age and stage, rather than outputs.  This breeds a uniformity which is easy to control but which does not generate great results.  They do their job at the minimum and that is it.  They do what they are told, but no more. The much, much more worrying variety is the independent staff who is disengaged.  They are unhappy working for you, are capable, but are not aligned with your direction.  Maybe they think you are a dill and not adding any value here in Japan and the sooner you get on a plane and buzz off to your next posting, the better. They can be internal bomb throwers sabotaging you.  As the leader we have many power plays we can utilize to get the team to follow us.  The obvious one is the three strips on the sleeve which says “I am the Boss, got it!”.  This authority power is backed up by the machine and gives us access to money and decision making.    Most staff get it and will respect the position even when they have doubts about the incumbent. Expert power is a strong one because we show we bring firepower to the team and the operation.  People realise we have a lot of expertise they don't possess and we are adding value to everyone's efforts.  This type of authority is hard to push back on. Reward power makes a lot of sense because we can facilitate pay rises, promotions, bonuses, study trips to cool brand name universities, choice projects, etc.  In Japanese we have the ame (飴) and the muchi (鞭) – the sweeties and the whip – this would be the sweets part. Role model power is also effective.  We are the very model of a modern leader; we tick all the boxes.  We are skilled professionally and also with working with all different types of people and are excellent in communication.  We are a star who no one can deny. The other power play is coercive power.  Those independent, disengaged saboteur staff may need a dose of this one.  If they don't want to be part of the team, then go and we will help them out the door.  Very few staff need to experience our coercive power, so we are talking about the exceptions here.  The point is there are many ways we can engage our staff and have them want to follow us willingly.  A good place to start is to determine which of these categories each of the followers fits into it.  Then we can arrange the power structure which is the best fit for that person.  Leading everyone in the same way is how amateurs approach it.  The professionals lead people one by one, with total customisation.  

The Spring equinox, March 20th 2024 is a national holiday in Japan! There is sakura and a Shog-A.I. Shimbun episode! Today's episode mentions an NPO in Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture that has begun an initiative to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the agricultural field. Michey Peckitt in A.I. mode also talks a bit about the derogatory language that is sometimes used in both LGBT+ and disability journalism. Episode Notes: (In Japanese): ‘Expanding employment of people with disabilities in agriculture: NPO in Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture provides fields and know-how for new businesses': https://www.kyoto-np.co.jp/articles/-/1218844 The ‘Transgenderism' vs ‘being transgender' article (In Japanese): https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/2342ae1cbcf591265766966635c8be2a9dc5d952

Animal folklore and symbolism can be found across the world… from culture to culture. I find the similarities to be amazing. In early times prior to social media, the synchronicities abound. In almost all cultures, rabbits are associated with positive symbols of luck, good fortune, abundance, gentleness, sensitivity, and intuition. White rabbits are believed to symbolize purity, longevity, and abundance. Many cultures believe the rabbit brought life to early Earth. We see this with today's customs of rabbits, delivering easter eggs. Due to this association with Easter, the Christians see rabbits as symbols of good luck, kindness and fertility. Rabbits are part of the Chinese zodiac and considered to be the luckiest of all animals. The moon goddess is believed to have had a rabbit by her side, who spends time mixing and grinding herbs to make medicine. Therefore, the Chinese also see the rabbit as a symbol of good health and longevity. In Japanese culture, rabbits are believed to symbolize progress, ambition, and self-devotion. In some areas, their folklore portrays them as tricksters. Overall rabbits symbolize fertility, abundance, stillness, shapeshifting, psychic senses, survival instincts and wit… so call in the rabbit to bring these characteristics into your life. Call in rabbit medicine! “Call IT in With Dar!”Support the show

Buddhism Reference Volume 2 – Avatamsaka. Siddhartha Gautama's first sermon as Shakyamunibuddha. In Japanese this sutra is known by the name Kegon Sutra, and in China often named the Flower Garland Sutra foundational to the sect of the same name. E-books - “Buddhism Reference Volume 1 and 2” – Available now   Threefoldlotus.com/home/Ebooks.htm

In Japanese culture there is an ancient artform known at Kintsugi, which translates into something along the lines of “join with gold”. The philosophy behind this artform is that broken things can still be used and be beautiful, and is often demonstrated in Japanese pottery where broken shards of clay will be joined back together with Gold; resulting in beautiful creations. Like Kintsugi, in scripture we see God weaving the brokenness of this world into the grand tapestry of redemptive history. As we continue our walk this year through the story of the bible, we will see this truth played out over and over again. This week we will see that the descendants of Abraham are a mess worthy of reality TV. But, God will rescue a young man named Joseph from this brokenness so that His promise to Abraham will continue to be fulfilled.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 14, 2024 is: cosplay • KAHZ-play • verb To cosplay is to engage in the activity or practice of dressing up as a character from a work of fiction (such as a comic book, video game, or television show). // Liz's favorite part of attending Comic-Con is choosing a character to cosplay that few others will think of, then recreating their look as accurately as possible. See the entry > Examples: “An educator for more than 20 years, [Heather] Trupia brought her love for the Star Wars franchise to the Hays CISD school in Niederwald, Texas, about 25 miles south of Austin. She wanted to excite kids about taking the state's standardized STAAR test. This included cosplaying as Star Wars characters and performing shows for students.” — Kiko Martinez, MySanAntonio.com, 9 Nov. 2023 Did you know? If you enjoy cosplaying as your favorite anime character (say, Nezuko Kamada from Demon Slayer or Luffy from One Piece), you've got yourself a special, lexicographical twofer of words that were borrowed from English into Japanese and then back into English. In Japanese, anime is short for animēshiyon, which comes from the English word animation, referring to an animated cartoon. Japanese users similarly took the English words costume and play (as in role-play) and combined them into the word kosuchūmupurē, or kosupure for short, which was reborrowed into English as cosplay, first as a noun, and later as a verb. It's not required that one choose an anime character to cosplay, however—any fictional character will do, and probably has done! People are even starting to use cosplay figuratively to mean “to pretend to be,” as in “her chiweenie likes to cosplay as a much bigger dog whenever they visit the dog park.”

In Japanese, Onomatopoeia can be divided into a few categories; they are called giseigo (擬声語), giongo (擬音語), gitaigo (擬態語), giyougo (擬容語) and gijougo (擬情語). As we learned in the previous episode, they are used to describe sounds made by animals, humans…

Kinbank is a new database that illustrates the global diversity of family terms. English, for example, specifies sibling relationships with just one of two terms: sister or brother. But most other languages have even more specific terms. In Japanese, for instance, there's a single word for “older brother” and another for “younger sister.” Plus, confused by all the names in Russian novels? Characters often go by more than one name, but there are strategies for keeping them all straight. And: why someone who's pepper-nosed isn't going to welcome that new pickleball court next door. Also, slide out on one's ear, a game about life in alternate universes, Konglish, uce, how one's accent develops, Du gehst mir auf den Keks, why someone who is heavily drugged is said to be snowed, and kangaroo words. Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Daily Quiz - General Knowledge Today's Questions: Question 1: What is the Capital of: Turkey Question 2: How did John Belushi die? Question 3: Translate "January river" into Portuguese Question 4: How big is the city of London Question 5: In WW2 what was the British equivalent of the German E-Boat Question 6: Francis Octavia Smith rode Buttercup in 1950s TV who was she Question 7: What is the name of the rabbit in the film, "Bambi" Question 8: In Japanese cooking what name is given to small pieces of raw fish served with cold rice Question 9: What fruit did Elvis most often layer on his peanut butter sandwiches Question 10: Which author published 59 new books in 1955 This podcast is produced by Klassic Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Excerpt: At the heart of the teaching of impermanence is conditioned existence but what is conditioned existence? Conditioned existence is the reality that all phenomena, all things that exist  arise in dependence upon other phenomena: "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist"  This is the heart of impermanence of all - because all things all phenomena arise out of conditions and when the condition causes it to arise, cease then, that which arose, vanishes or transforms into something different.   That is way the Buddha says, “All conditioned things have the nature of vanishing,” Let that sink in  Everything by its nature vanishes. In Japanese the heartbreak, the melancholy of the impermanence of all things is summed up in the phrase Mono no Aware.  Mono-no-aware can't truly be translated. Any one who speaks another language understands this but it can be literally translated to “the ahhness of things” The isness of things or “the bittersweet poignancy of things.”   I remember some years ago reading the introduction to one of my favorite poets Eugenio de Andrade.   The poet writes from his love of the world and the grief and praise that come from its transience.  Something that I am learning as of late is that Grief and Praise are intertwined, as Martin Prechtel teaches us in his book, The Smell of Rain on Dust.  So too are impermanence and gratitude.  Now the concept of mono-no-aware is born from the teachings of shinto and Buddhism, and was first used to explain Japanese aesthetics to explain uch traditions as cherry-blossom viewing and haiku.  But this insight is much more than simply aesthetics.  Mono No Aware is at the heart of a meaningful everyday Buddhism.

In Japanese week, yet another movie with Japanese Themes without a leading Japanese actor. Snipes and Connery were the dynamic duo in this buddy cop mystery movie. It was great when it came out, but did it stand the test of time? Hear my thoughts today. www.enigmakidd.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kevin-casey8/support

Welcome to Season 4 of the Wise Not Withered Podcast! We are back with interviewing interesting women who are doing some really cool things! Today's guest is Ann Chikahisa, creator of Chikahisa Studio. In our interview, Ann talks about how she got started making jewelry, the ways that jewelry can move through generations in a family, "Creative Zen", challenges, successes, and future plans. Check out chikahisastudio.com to purchase Ann's beautiful handmade jewelry, and follow her on Instagram, @chikahisastudio!   ~   Wise Not Withered - Interview With Ann Chikahisa   Your name—is it Ann or Ann [pronunciation]? Ann. Ann, okay. And is it Chikahisa? Yes, that's perfect! Okay, excellent, cool! Yay, I said it right! Okay, just to start off, how old are you? I am 59! 59, awesome. Can you describe the work that you do? I am a jeweler. I hand make jewelry for women who like to stand out in the crowd. And how did you get into that? It just began as a passion. I was taking classes at an art studio, making jewelry. When you talk to any metalsmith, pretty much everybody gets bitten by the bug, and they become obsessed, like I did. There's something very alchemic about it—just working with a piece of metal, and then turning it into a piece of jewelry. So that's how I started. I was taking classes at a local jewelry studio, and then I started making jewelry for all my friends, giving it to them for birthday presents or whatever, and then a friend of mine said, “Oh, you should sell your jewelry!” One thing led to another—she threw a trunk show for me, and that's how the business began! Nice! And did you say a trade show? Trunk show. So my friend invited a bunch of friends over to her house, and I put my jewelry out, and I was very, very fortunate a lot of people loved it and bought it that night. And that's how the business began. Okay, yeah. Nice! And how has it changed over time? Well when I first started making jewelry, I did beading. So I bought gem stones and bindings—things that were already pre-made—and put them together. So that's how I first began. And then I had so much fun mixing metals and mixing materials that I decided that I wanted to learn how to actually make those pieces instead of buying them pre-made. And that's when I took the art classes. And so as I've taken more classes, and made my own style and voice, my jewelry has progressed over the years, and has become much more defined in terms of my own personal style and signature look. You kind of find your rhythm and find out who you really are when you're an artist. And sticking with that point of view and that voice has been really fun. So it's like a road of self-discovery to figure out who you are, and how you wanna tell the world who you are through your art. Yeah. Oh, that's great. You mentioned on your website learning from your mother, who learned from her mother. Can you talk more about that generational teaching and learning? Yeah, in Japanese culture—I'm third generation Japanese American. In Japanese culture, the arts are very, very prominent. In our culture, we really look for beauty in everything that we do. We surround ourselves with beauty. So it's been handing down through the generations in my family. When I say that quote about I learned from my mother, who learned from her mother… My grand-mother on both sides, they did Japanese flower arranging, which is called ikebana. They also were sewers, made their own clothing, and did all kinds of things with their hands. My grandmother also did some beadwork, made little handbags. So she did all those kinds of things, and taught my mother. My mother was very big on sewing, and knitting, and those kinds of things. As a child, I learned all of those skills from my mother. So it's just been ingrained in our family history and our culture. Yeah, nice, okay. Let's see… So you talked about— Can you hold on one second? What's going on, if you don't mind my asking? We're working in the studio—my assistant was pounding and stuff, so I didn't know if you could hear it. Oh! Oh, cool yeah, I couldn't. It must be the Air Pods. Okay, good. All right! Yeah, so you make a lot of it yourself, but you also have assistants that help you out too? Yep. I have one assistant. She works like three-quarter time with me. She helps me put together things for the store—helps me supply the pieces for our online shop. Okay, nice! So you mentioned learning from your grandmother and your mother. Are there any other really influential mentors that you've had? Yeah, I do have people that have influenced my work, and influenced my style. It's been friends and other jewelers that I've worked with. I have favorite artists that have influenced my style and my aesthetic. Georgia O'Keefe is somebody I've always admired. I love her work. Calder is another person. I am just amazed by what he does with wire work, how he creates these beautiful sculptures and pieces of jewelry. Noguchi was a Japanese artist who did a lot sculptural work, and I love his work as well. It's both famous people and just people in my life that have influenced my work. Yeah, okay. And can you talk more about “Creative Zen”? I thought that was really interesting. (Laughs) Thank you. So for me, when I am working, there's a zone, that creative zone where you get into this space where time doesn't exist. And it's almost like mediating. You just get in this space of not thinking and not worrying, or anything. And you're just working. And it's the coolest experience, because you're really letting your inner voice and your inner spirit guide you on your design and what you're creating. And so it becomes part of you that comes out, because you're not thinking, you're not judging. That little inner critic voice, that comes out and says “Don't do this. Don't do that.” It's really getting into this flow and letting it happen. And it is so fun. When I get into that zone, and I start working, it could be eight hours, and it feels like ten minutes. It's such a fun place. And that's what I call my creative genius, because it's really you're just flowing and working and things come out that you never dreamed would come out, because you're not thinking about the outcome. You're just letting it happen. Right, yeah. Oh, I love that. How about on the flip side? What do you do when you don't feel as inspired? Which is a lot! (Laughs) You know, I will say, it is really hard to get into that zen zone. So when I'm not in that zone, and I'm trying to create, it's really, really hard, because it's like forcing something to happen. So to get back into that zone, or to try to feel into that again, I'll do a lot of walking. Just going out and walking, and letting my mind go. And I also do a lot of meditation, and that helps as well, because you're getting into that non-thinking, letting things go, kind of state. And yoga also is another powerful tool for me when I'm stuck creatively. Just moving that energy in my body to get back into that creative space, is basically what I'm trying to do. Whether with the walking, the yoga, or the meditation. Yeah, yeah. Getting out of your head and back into your body. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. How about your talisman pieces? Can you talk about those? Those were really cool, on your website. Thank you! That has become my most personal part of my collections. And it really was kind of a thing that just happened. I was going through a lot of major life changes, like most of us in our forties and fifties—life just changes. And so I needed something to help me through a big change, and I didn't know how else to do it. I was kind of at a loss. I just knew I needed something that I could hold close to me, that I could hang on to, to help me manifest my stability and my life, moving forward. So I decided to just make a piece. I wanted it to be artistic, and sculptural, and something that had a lot of meaning to me. And I didn't want it to be literal. So the first one I created was “Hope”. Because to me, if you don't have hope, you… There's nothing left in your world, right? You need hope to get you through the bad times. So I created the Hope talisman, it's got a little spinel in it—spinel represents hope. And I created it and I just started wearing it, and women responded to it. They liked it, commented on it. So I started designing more pieces, not only for them but also for me. Each one has a different meaning: strength, healing, reflection, compassion, wisdom… Each one has a different meaning, and it's like a little piece of art. And you can collect them, and put them together to help you manifest what you're working on at that particular moment, or that particular month, or time in your life. And the feedback has been great. I've gotten amazing messages back from my customers on how they were able to mark their journey and their life at that particular time with the talisman, or how it's helped them stay focused on meeting a goal that they were trying to bring into their life. So it's been really fun. I create maybe four of them a year, and each one is different. So it's an evolving process. It's fun for me, as well as for the customers, to collect them, and come up with new inspirations for their life. Yeah. Do you often do custom things for customers? In terms of the talismans, or just in general? I guess both! Maybe start with the talismans, and then in general. Okay. I haven't done a custom talisman, only because it takes a lot of time and energy to create one concept. So to do a one-off would not probably be too cost-effective. But I have done a lot of custom work in terms of personal jewelry. And how that usually works is I will take someone's old heirloom gems, and rework them into something new. And that's really rewarding for both of us—me and the customer. Jewelry is such… It travels through families, it becomes an heirloom. And it holds so much energy and meaning, to the person it's coming from, and who it's given to. But sometimes, the style isn't your style any longer, but you still want to hold that piece in your life, in your jewelry box. So I work with my clients in taking those old pieces and reworking them and fitting it into the look of what they will wear. Then they can pass it on to their children, or somebody that has meaning in their life that they want to share it with. So the gem will continue through the generations, and carry on. When we rework it, the iteration of it changes to fit that person's life at that current time. That's what's so cool about jewelry. It's an heirloom. I have a couple pieces from my grandmothers that are from the 1920's. They've gone through my mother's lifetime, and now my lifetime, and it will probably go to my son as well, and his children. So it's really cool to have your jewelry go on and live on beyond your lifetime. Yeah! I wanted to ask more specifically, if you wanted to talk about, which specific pieces are in your family? Yeah, I have three pieces that I really cherish. One is the engagement ring from my grandmother. It's a platinum vintage set ring, and I just love it. It's got this really delicate setting on it. It's not something that I would ever particularly wear, but I love it so much because it's from her, and she gave it to me before she passed away. And then my other grandmother gave me this really cool fresh water pearl vintage piece, also kind of in the same era… Probably early 40's, and it has that vintage look as well. And it's so beautiful, and I love wearing it. But I only wear it around the house, because I would be devastated if I wore it and I lost it. So I always wear that around the house. The third piece I love is this enamel pin that has a road runner on it that my father gave me. He never really ever bought me jewelry except for this piece, and one other. So I've had these since I was maybe thirteen or fourteen. I've just kept them in my jewelry box. It's so special that my father bought them for me, and I just cherish them. And he's no longer with us, so it's something that I hold and when I look at them, it brings back very fond memories. That's the power of jewelry! The energy of someone giving it to you, you remember when they gave it to you, and the meaning that it has in your life. Yeah. Maybe along the lines of losing your dad… What are some of the greatest challenges you've had in your life—whether in your business or just in general? Well… Obviously losing my dad was very hard, I was very young. Well not super young. I was twenty-eight. At the time, maybe you don't feel that young. But looking back I was very young. And the hardest thing is that he didn't get to see me grow up as an adult. He only knew me as a kid, really. He didn't get to see me progress in my career, and have a family, and all those kinds of things. More recently, I got divorced. That was really challenging. Trying to start my life again, and make sense of who I am and what I wanna do in the rest of the second half of my life, has been a big challenge. And then of course, having a business—owning and running a business is very challenging, yet very rewarding. I've learned so much about myself, about who I am, what I'm good at, what I'm not good at. And how to make decisions, learn from my mistakes. I've made lots of mistakes… I think one of the best things I've learned about having a business is surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me, that help me, teach me how to do things better. Because you can't do everything by yourself—you really need to have a team. And choosing that team has been really fun. I've met some amazing people, made some incredible relationships that have transformed not only me personally but also my business. So that's been really fun. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. How about some of your greatest successes? Some of my greatest successes… I think one of the biggest things I'm really proud of is taking my business from having no online sales a few years ago, to now generating almost all of my revenue through online sales. So that's been a long journey, a hard journey. But it's been so rewarding to know that if you just put your head down, and take baby steps, and figure out what works and what doesn't work… Just keep tweaking and staying with it, and having that resolve to do something. You can make it happen. So that's probably my biggest accomplishment, I would say. Okay, and how do you define success? Oh gosh… I think success is multifaceted. Of course, from a business standpoint, success is, you know, financial. Do I reach my goals? Have I made a profit? Those kinds of metrics. But I think for me also, what is most important is, how do I feel at the end of the day about what I'm doing? And am I living up to my values? Am I living up to my vision? And those are two really big metrics for me in terms of success and how I run my business. So they go kind of hand-in-hand, right? I couldn't be successful if I didn't make money–because then it would be a hobby. And then how do I run the business financially to make money but also still hold those values? Right. And if you're willing to share, what are some of those values? So for me, one of the biggest things that I strive to do with my business is to be a company that values their customers, and to be easy to work with. We work very hard at customer service. And to make sure that our customers feel heard and seen by us, and that we treat them with the utmost respect. Because when I go and shop at a company or business, I always want to feel like they care about me. And that's what we really try to do—care for our customers, and hear what they have to say, and make sure that our brand exceeds their expectations. That's one of the most important things for our values as a company. Yeah, that makes sense! Can you talk about the trade show you went to recently? Yeah, I went to a trade show in New York, and that was super fun! I had been doing wholesale about four or five years ago, and then just took a break from it. And I decided to re-look at this, and try it again. The energy was so great—I had such a good time going there. I think now that it's… Sort of post-pandemic? I don't know if you can say it's post-pandemic. But now that the world is opening up again, it was really fun to see old wholesale customers who I hadn't seen in four years. And also meet a whole bunch of new people. And the energy of the show was so fabulous. People were excited, they were interested. Lots of really good questions. And just being in a collective energy was really wonderful. And this was a gift show, so there were people with all different kinds of products, it wasn't just jewelry. It was a lot of home goods, personal care—makeup, skin care—and then there was also clothing there. It was really fun to be around so many creative energies, as well as buyers from all different kinds of stores. So I had a great time! All right, we're wrapping it up. Do you have any plans for the future? Anything exciting in store? Yeah! I am working on some new things and I can't wait to reveal. And so we're gonna be launching some stuff in… Summer. So we're not gonna spill the beans yet, so you'll have to follow me on social media or check me out on the website. We're also doing a little… We've already created some lifestyle products—bowls and trays, for the home. We're gonna be expanding that portion of the collection as well. That's been really fun, and we've gotten a lot of good feedback from our customers. Nice! Sounds pretty exciting! Yeah! Thank you. Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up? I am just so thankful that you reached out. It's been great to come and chat with you and share my story, so I really appreciate it. And yeah, thank you for your time! Yeah, this has been really great. Thank you so much!

In some cultures, being well at home is all about making sure that others feel well when visiting, by welcoming them in the right way. In Japan, for example, hospitality is like an art form, and even has a name: omotenashi. You can't really translate the concept into English; the meaning of the term goes a lot deeper than “hospitality”. It also has connotations of mindfulness. In Japanese culture, knowing how to welcome others and being totally focused on your guest go hand in hand. So you could say omotenashi is the ability to anticipate a guest's needs before they can even think of them themselves. Hence the idea of being fully available for your guest, right from the moment they arrive. The most obvious example in Japanese culture is serving tea. Where does omotenashi come from? So you're saying it's not limited to the home environment, are you? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: How can I beat my smartphone addiction? How much money makes you happy? Are we heading for another stock market crash? A Bababam Originals podcast, written and produced by Joseph Chance. In partnership with upday UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Birthday Tessa, time to enjoy Zoids more authentically than ever before: In Japanese on PURPOSE. We watch Zoids: Genesis! In our First episode, Dana and Brendan introduce Patrick to the wonderful world of Death Note! Have an anime series you want us to watch? email your recommendations to us at areweebthereyet@gmail.com! Find Are Weeb There Yet on Social Media: Twitter Instagram Facebook Thank you: Camille Ruley for our Artwork Louie Zong for our Themesong "stories" https://louiezong.bandcamp.com Find out more at http://areweebthereyet.com

Welcome to the Japanese mythology series on our podcast. In this episode, we will be exploring the Moon God Tsukoyomi.Tsukoyomi, also known as Tsukiyomi, is a major figure in Japanese mythology and is revered as the deity of the moon.He is often depicted as a handsome, mysterious figure who is associated with the cycles of the moon, as well as with the powers of illusion and transformation.In Japanese folklore, Tsukoyomi is said to be the son of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the god of agriculture, Inari. He is also said to be the brother of the god of the sea, Ryuujin, and the god of war, Hachiman.Tsukoyomi is often depicted as a solitary figure, but he is also known to be a powerful and influential deity who is able to shape the course of events on Earth.He is said to be able to control the tides and the weather, as well as to have the power to grant wishes and blessings to those who ask for his help.In this episode, we will delve into the history and mythology of Tsukoyomi, exploring his role in Japanese culture and the various myths and legends that surround him. We will also discuss the significance of the moon in Japanese mythology and how it has influenced the country's art, literature, and religion.Join us as we explore the mysterious and powerful Moon God Tsukoyomi on this episode of our Japanese mythology series.Read the full article at https://mythlok.com/tsukuyomi/

In Japanese culture there is a beautiful practice called Kintsugi, which translates roughly to “golden repair”. This is how it works: when a piece of ceramic breaks, like a teacup or plate, instead of gluing the broken pieces back together so that the cracks are hidden, a special gold or silver adhesive is used so that the fractures are emphasized and even celebrated. In this episode, Zach Davis spoke with Makoto Fujimura, an artist and writer who has reflected deeply on the meaning of kintsugi and more broadly about the relationship of art and faith. In their conversation, they explore how beauty can help us draw near to God, the role of creativity in bridging our differences, and how we can live with hope even in times of despair.Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist whose art has been described by David Brooks of New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time”. Fujimura is also an arts advocate, writer, and speaker and was recently awarded the Kuyper prize for his religious engagement in matters of social, political, and cultural significance. He is the author of several books, including Art+Faith: A Theology of Making.

Do you know who Maku Donaruto is? That name sure sounds familiar, doesn't it? If you have never seen a Maku Donaruto match get ready to have your mind blown, he is a true one of a kind. In this week's episode Maku joins the episode to give his own hilarious review of the match (In Japanese). In addition to that, Jim and Tariq talk about their childhood memories of McDonald's and what ever kid born in the 1970's dreamed of. We also focus on some of the differences between McDonald's as you know it and McDonald's Japan. Jim was salivating for most of that segment. The match this week left both of us speechless, shocking, funny, entertaining, no words did this match any justice. To find out more about Maku Donaruto you can go to his homepage at https://maku-donaruto.com to see his blog, dates and much more. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sixmantagpodcast/support

In the Shinto religion of Japan, Ame-no-Uzume is regarded as the goddess of dawn, meditation, revelry, and the arts. She is the wife of fellow-god Sarutahiko Okami. In Japanese mythology, she relates to the story of Amaterasu Omi Amenouzume, who went missing. The celestial goddess who performed this dance enticed Amaterasu out of the cave where she had been hiding.According to some stories, Ame-no-Uzume is often seen wearing revealing clothes, but other kami find her to be more joyful and open-hearted. Unlike Amaterasu, who is reserved and strict, Ame-no-Uzume is not afraid to bring joy to others.Read more at https://mythlok.com/ame-no-uzume/

PopaHALLics #88 "The Game is Afoot!"It's elementary, my dear listener. Steve and Kate have fun discussing "Enola Holmes 2," about Sherlock's younger sister on the trail of a missing match girl. We also talk murder—both real (at Harvard, no less) and fictional (a coworker coverup in Japan)—and explore the curious case of a schlocky zombie movie that isn't what it seems. This  mystery is worthy of Baker Street! Streaming:"Enola Holmes 2," Netflix. Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven on "Stranger Things") returns as an aspiring detective hoping to break out of the shadow of her famous brother. She talks directly to the camera as she gets into one hair-raising scrape after another. Big fun. With Helena Bonham Carter and Henry Cavill. "One Cut of the Dead," Shudder and rental. This clever, hilarious Japanese zombie comedy written and directed by Shin'ichirō Ueda features a play within a play. We first see what appears to be a short, cheap zombie movie shot in one continuous take about a filmmaking crew attacked by real zombies. But then the camera pulls back to show us what's going on behind the scenes of the movie about the movie. In Japanese with English subtitles."The School for Good and Evil," Netflix. In a movie based on a bestselling book series, best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves on opposing sides when they join an enchanted school for aspiring heroes and villains.Books:"Out," by Natsuo Kirino. This 1997 Japanese crime novel won Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of Japan. When a female factory worker murders her husband, her three coworkers try to help her get away with it. That sets off a deadly cat and mouse game with the police and a local gangster, as well as simmering tensions within the group."We Keep the Dead Close: a Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence," by Becky Cooper. In this critically acclaimed true crime narrative, a reporter sets out to find out the truth about the 1969 bludgeoning death of 23-year-old graduate student Jane Britton. The rumors were that  she had an affair with her professor, who murdered her when she threatened to go public ..."I'm Glad My Mom Died," by Jennette McCurdy.  in this fast read of a memoir, the former "iCarly" actress explores her complicated relationship with her show business-oriented mother."The Final Girl Support Group," by Grady Hendrix. This sly horror novel asks the question: In slasher movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?Two Heartland Movies Coming to Theaters:Previous episodes talked about two new movies at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis: "The Whale,"  with Brendan Fraser's comeback as a 600-lb. college professor seeking to reconcile with his daughter (Sadie Sink), and "Corsage," a lush reimagining of one year in the life of the tragic Austrian Empress Elisabeth (Vicky Kreps).  The New York Times, says "The Whale" will debut in theaters on Dec. 9 and "Corsage" on Dec. 23. Click through the links above to watch, read, and listen to what we're talking about.

Usually, we meet our contact in the company through a cold call, a referral or networking and we sit down and have a talk about the needs of the organisation.  If we are doing a professional job, we will have explained what we do, mentioned a client we have done work for and the success they achieved as a result. We will then suggest that “maybe” we could do the same for this company too, but in order to know if that is possible or not, we ask if we can ask a few questions.  Once we have received their permission to ask questions, we can go deep on the issues facing the company and they will tell us.   In the next stage, we will start suggesting solutions which are matched to their needs or we will say we are not a match and go and find a client who is.  At this point it sometimes comes out that our contact in the company is all in favour of fixing the issue, but they are being hamstrung by others in the organisation.  These could be line managers or senior executives further up the chain.    In Japanese organisations there will be multiple decision-makers. Each division which will be impacted by the buying decision will conduct their own due diligence to see what it will mean for them.  As each Section Head clears the decision, they will put their seal on the proposal document and it will move up to the next level, to the Division Head.  The Executive committee will review the Division Heads approval of the decision and then it becomes official and things can start happening.   That is a tremendous number of people involved in the decision and the person we are sitting across from is just one individual in the chain of command, who may or may not even have the ability to put their seal on the piece of paper.  As salespeople, we may never meet anyone else inside the decision-making system and we rely on this person to help us steer agreement through the machine.   The trust build with our contact that we are sincere about helping them is critical.  We have to make sure they are confident we are credible and reliable to do what we say we are going to do.  If things go badly, it makes them look bad and may negatively impact their movement upwards within the organisation.   I was selling mobile telephone antennas steel towers in Japan, being sourced from Australia.  We were able to install them for 30% of what the local suppliers were able to offer.  It was a first for imported steel towers, so there was a lot of complication.  The company I was selling to was a joint venture and the people came from various shareholding companies into the organisation.  Some of them brought their preferred local suppliers with them, so it was a battle to get the Australia towers through the decision making process.    My champions fought hard and managed to get the deal done.  This was even in the face of the local supplier dango or cartel group banding together to try to undercut the import pricing to destroy the deal.  Their idea was to drive the Australian suppliers out of the market, so they could put the prices back up to what they were before.  Fortunately, the buyer saw through this strategy and wanted to permanently change the supply chain to substantially reduce the cost.   The first few deliveries went well, until the Australian side thought they would switch production to Malaysia to save money.  Then the quality problems started and in the end the business stopped completely and the Australian were out of the market forever.   It had a negative impact on my champions inside the company who had fought so hard for the deal.  I saw that promising business end and my relationship with my champions was in tatters.  It taught me a valuable lesson about mutual responsibilities and reputation.  On our side, we had let everyone down and the trust was destroyed.  My name was mud.   When we are dealing with the contact inside the company, who we are hoping to make our champion to help us navigate this deal through the buyer organisation to get an agreement, we have to keep in mind the risk we are bringing to them. My champion inside the buyer organisation got burnt when supply failed to meet expectations and the contract was torn up.  I don't know how they finally fared, because they wouldn't talk to me anymore, which I took for a very, very bad sign.   It wasn't my decision to use Malaysia for production but that is not how the champion looks at it.  I am their guy and I failed them, so in their eyes, I bear all the responsibility for this deal and how it eventuates.  I still feel bad about what happened, because we are talking about people's careers here.   The point is we need to find our champion, protect them, take care of them and make this deal a winner for them within their own organisation.  If we start with this in mind, we will make the right decisions and our personal brand will also be protected in the marketplace.

Back in March, Netflix picked up a long running Japanese TV program based on a children's book from the 1970s. The show is called Old Enough, but the name of the original Japanese program translates to My First Errand. Because in each episode, a child runs an errand for the very first time. Episodes are only 10 to 20 minutes long, but in that short time a toddler treats the audience to a bite-sized hero's journey. My First Errand is a gimmicky show with hokey music and a laugh track, but it's also rooted in a truth about Japanese society: most children are remarkably independent from a very young age -- way more independent than children in the US. In Japanese cities, fifth-graders make 85 percent of their weekday trips without a parent. And this remarkable child mobility is made possible by everything from the neighbors next door to the width of the streets.First Errand

Excerpt:   At the heart of the teaching of impermanence is conditioned existence but what is conditioned existence? Conditioned existence is the reality that all phenomena, all things that exist  arise in dependence upon other phenomena: "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist"  This is the heart of impermanence of all - because all things all phenomena arise out of conditions and when the condition causes it to arise, cease then, that which arose, vanishes or transforms into something different.   That is way the Buddha says, “All conditioned things have the nature of vanishing,” Let that sink in  Everything by its nature vanishes. In Japanese the heartbreak, the melancholy of the impermanence of all things is summed up in the phrase Mono no Aware.  Mono-no-aware can't truly be translated. Any one who speaks another language understands this but it can be literally translated to “the ahhness of things” The isness of things or “the bittersweet poignancy of things.”   I remember some years ago reading the introduction to one of my favorite poets Eugenio de Andrade.   The poet writes from his love of the world and the grief and praise that come from its transience.  Something that I am learning as of late is that Grief and Praise are intertwined, as Martin Prechtel teaches us in his book, The Smell of Rain on Dust.  So too are impermanence and gratitude.  Now the concept of mono-no-aware is born from the teachings of shinto and Buddhism, and was first used to explain Japanese aesthetics to explain uch traditions as cherry-blossom viewing and haiku.  But this insight is much more than simply aesthetics.  Mono No Aware is at the heart of a meaningful everyday Buddhism.  

The pandemic gave rise to people from all walks of life trying their hand at gardening for the first time. And longtime gardeners began trying new things like “immunity gardens.” And: Jinny Turman tells us about the 70s back-to-the-land movement, and how the fallout of COVID-19 could lead to another movement. Later in the show: In Japanese folklore, when a brightly colored fish resembling a dragon washes up on shore, its arrival is a harbinger of earthquakes and tsunamis. Jennifer Martin is an oceanographer and has studied both the natural and cultural history of this species called the oarfish. Plus: The beautiful, colorful silk we wear is made out of silk that comes from worms. What if we could make similar fabric from spider silk? Hannes Schniepp studies poisonous brown recluse spiders to learn how their incredibly strong silk is made and how humans might try to replicate it.

In Japanese mythology, Daikokuten is regarded as the god of wealth and protection for farmers. In Japan, Daikokuten is regarded as one of the Seven Gods of Luck. He is a symbol of wealth, fertility, and abundance, and his image is commonly seen in shops all across the country. However, unlike the other gods of the Lucky Gods, Daikokuten was not originally from Japan. Instead, he was inspired by an Indian deity. At a glance, the relationship between the two is quite different. Daikoku is often associated with the Hindu god Mahkla, who went to Japan during the time when Buddhism and Hinduism were in their infancy.Although Daikokuten is not related to a Buddhist deity, his origins are rooted in Japanese folk religion's mix of foreign and native beliefs. By combining the concepts of Mahakala and Daikokuten, the Japanese were able to create a new deity. In addition, the pilgrims who go to the Mount Ontake in Japan wear a white scarf with the seed syllable of Mahakala. Stories often feature Daikokuten's bold and rich appearance, but they also often feature his ability to provide other people with blessings and fortune. He role is often seen as interchangeable with the other Seven Gods.Read more at https://mythlok.com/daikokuten/

In Japanese aesthetics, there is a concept known as yūgen, which has no real translation even though we have all felt it. In the Chinese philosophical texts from which the term was taken, yūgen meant "deep" or "mysterious." But really it points to a sensation of sadness. Not grief per se, but, rather, a delightful kind of wistfulness akin to the feeling that arises when listening to Satie or Debussy. It is strongly related to the acceptance of transience that is associated with wabi-sabi. Today's musing attempts to poke at this feeling. Commusings is our format where we take a moment to think deeply on the topics of spirituality, philosophy, and culture. For more musings and quotes, connect with us on Instagram at @onecommune or @jeffkrasno or sign up for the Commusings newsletter at onecommune.com.

In Japanese aesthetics, there is a concept known as yūgen, which has no real translation even though we have all felt it. In the Chinese philosophical texts from which the term was taken, yūgen meant "deep" or "mysterious." But really it points to a sensation of sadness. Not grief per se, but, rather, a delightful kind of wistfulness akin to the feeling that arises when listening to Satie or Debussy. It is strongly related to the acceptance of transience that is associated with wabi-sabi. Today's musing attempts to poke at this feeling. Commusings is our format where we take a moment to think deeply on the topics of spirituality, philosophy, and culture. For more musings and quotes, connect with us on Instagram at @onecommune or @jeffkrasno or sign up for the Commusings newsletter at onecommune.com.

What is the Kintsugi philosophy? In Japanese, the word Kintsugi means golden repair. It's a technique of repairing broken pottery using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The art of Kintsugi dates back to the 16th century and it's a true ode to imperfection and fragility. It encourages us to handle objects with care, but also to accept breakage and repair as part of their history. How was Kintsugi created? And why does the repair take so long? But what does philosophy have to do with the craft? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: [WOMEN'S DAY] What is Cinderella complex? [WOMEN'S DAY] What is emotional labour? [WOMEN'S DAY] What is a false pregnancy? A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance. In partnership with upday UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Japan has a culture that's always fascinated the rest of the world. We've all heard about this country's unique mix of tradition and futurism. But you'll be surprised to find out that sumo is NOT the most popular sport there, and it takes mad skill to prepare a “river pig”. Oh yeah, and bathing is done a little differently than you might be used to. In Japanese culture, the main cleaning routine is done at night, in several steps. Follow closely please to learn everything about this evening ritual and some other traditions and just curious facts about the Land of the Rising Sun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever heard of the term "boys love"? In Japanese, BL is also known as Yaoi. In this week's episode, BL fan Colline and I discussed manga, Manhwa, and anime that depict male relationships. We talked about the tropes that appear, interesting characters, and positive representation of LGBTQ+ people. I also discovered that there is a subgenre known as Yuri (women's love). We talked about our own introductions to anime and why it's critical to support manga artists and the animation industry.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/spillinthesyrup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Japanese legend there exists a kind of mysterious atmospheric spirit known as Onibi. Ancient texts describe them as “resentful people who have become fire”. But are they friend or foe? And what do they have in common with pumpkins? Time for Kit and Rory to investigate.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL MerchFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Kami TomanResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com

In this episode of the podcast, we focus on learning how to handle very basic directions in Japanese and you'll learn the phrases for "here," "there," and "where." Wondering how to ask where something is? You'll learn how with these Japanese phrases in this week's snack-sized lesson. Want to keep learning with us? Join Language Conqueror. In This Lesson, You Learned: "Here" in Japanese - ここ (koko) "There" in Japanese - そこ (soko) "Where" in Japanese - どこ (doko) In Japanese, there's another word you use to say "over there", it's あそこ (asoko). Featured Trade Secret: When you're working on directions, it can be overwhelming at first. It's a lot of information to process at a single time. Talking about where things are, how to get there, and where things are located in relationship to other things. A great way to start understanding directions is by starting simple. Learn left, right, straight. Then expand to go straight, turn left, turn right, on the left, on the right. By slowly building, you'll get comfortable with directions so that when the time comes, you'll confidently understand directions given to you in Japanese! Mentioned in this Episode: Language Conqueror We hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast! Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. We appreciate your reviews because they let us know what you enjoy most about the podcast so we can keep doing more of it and it helps other learners like yourself find the podcast. You can share your thoughts on the podcast at eurolinguiste.com/review --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/snacksizedlanguage/support

In an ideal world we'd bring you listeners a brand-new episode each and every week. While we can't see that happening in the immediate future, in the process of creating or preparing for many of our episodes we end up with a lot of fun and insightful conversations that sadly just don't make it into a final episode.Whether it be interviews conducted in attempt to broaden our perspective and gain further insight into a specific topic before attempting to tackle it, or an unanticipated tangent during a regular recording that we just can't bring ourselves to carve up, but also can't force into the overall show structure, we've continued to amass quite a bit of material that we would love to share with our listeners at some point and in some capacity.That's what we're testing the waters with this week, in our first (but hopefully not last) episode of “Okawari”.In Japanese, the term okawari refers to ordering “another round”. Essentially, if you're asking for okawari, you want to keep the party going. That's what we hope this week's show (and future okawari installments) can bring to the table.As part of the process of examining the world of Nigori Sake for episode 60, we thought it would be interesting to get a bit of insight into the U.S. market's unique attachment to this special style. In order to do that, we called up sake expert, certified Sake Samurai, and self-declared Sake Ninja, Chris Johnson, to share with us the evolution and status of the style in the U.S.One thing for sure is that we'll be coaxing the Sake Ninja to reappear in future episodes, as there are dozens of topics that we'd love to pick his brain on, and he deserves a feature all his own. That's one of the reasons we're giving this week's conversation okawari status. Our chat with Chris is both great supportive material for our previous episode, while providing more than enough substance to be fully satisfying as a stand-alone episode in its own right. We've got lots more material in the vault that we could use to pour you all “another round” of your favorite past topics, guests, and even entirely new snippets and insights. Let us know what you think of the concept and we'll see what we can do to develop the format in the future.You can send those thoughts to questions@sakeonair.staba.jp or message us via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Note that you'll also help out the show by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on whichever service you rely upon for your podcast needs.Thanks for supporting us here at Sake On Air. We'll be back with more sake and shochu-infused goodness in just a couple of weeks.Kampai!Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in Tokyo. The show is a co-production between Export Japan and Potts.K Productions, with audio production by Frank Walter.Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.