The Ikigai Journey. Francesc Miralles

Shinkansen effect

      The engineers came back a few months later with a new proposal that implied a comprehensive change in all aspects of the future train. To achieve such an outrageous speed, they would need to:

      • Change the shape, height and width of the railway tracks that had been used up until then in Japan.

      • Spend a large part of the budget on making tunnels to cross the mountainous area around Mount Fuji.

      • Completely redesign the concept of “a train” that people had at that time in order to come up with a lighter and more aerodynamic one and thus overcome air resistance.

      Essentially, it would have been enough to carry out one or two improvements to gain 10 km/h, but to double the speed you had to change everything and approach this mode of transport with an entirely new way of thinking.

      This radical change, this Shinkansen effect, is widely used in engineering and business, but we can also apply to all the “divisions” of our life.

      To come back to the engineers’ “almost impossible mission,” in 1964—just six years after the government had thrown down the challenge—the first bullet train in history was inaugurated for the Tokyo Olympics.

      Achieving a milestone that caused astonishment around the world, the Shinkansen connected Tokyo to Osaka at more than 200 km/h, cutting down the journey time between the two cities from six hours forty minutes to three hours ten minutes.

      The innovations that came about through the development of the first bullet train in history would revolutionize train transportation on the entire planet for decades.

      The first step towards that great breakthrough, the benefits of which are still visible today, came about when an entirely new way of thinking was adopted.

       Shinkansen: The Bullet Train

      The term shinkansen (新幹線) literally means “new trunk line.” The Japanese word is made up of the characters 新, “new,” 幹, “trunk” and 線, “line.” At the time of its inauguration, in 1964, the train called Hikari (The Light) covered the new trunk line route between Tokyo and Osaka, becoming the first high-speed train in history, reaching a speed in excess of 200 km/h. Both the Hikari train and the Shinkansen line came to be widely known abroad as “the Japanese bullet train.”

       Shinkansen thinking

      Eiji Mikawa was fond of talking about how “bullet train thinking” was applied to everything in his company. For example, if the directors in one of his divisions told him they were planning to reduce costs by five percent, he would ask them to think of ways to reduce them by fifty percent.

      Jack Welch was so impressed by Eiji Mikawa’s approach that he imported the philosophy and applied it to General Electric, where he asked all his employees and divisions to add “bullet train objectives” to their quarterly reviews.

      This is one of the main reasons why General Electric has remained competitive and continues to innovate, even though the company was founded more than a hundred years ago and has hundreds of thousands of employees.

      “If you have an objective you think you are going to reach in ten years, the best strategy to make it happen is to think about how you can manage to reach the same objective in one year.”

       Peter Thiel (Silicon Valley investor)

      The companies or people that set “bullet train objectives” tend to end up standing out in our society.

      For example, Elon Musk resolved to undertake what was in many people’s view the “crazy idea” of building rockets capable of taking off and landing; with his private company Space X he duly accomplished in less than ten years something that NASA had not managed to do in over fifty years of research and development.

      Elon Musk has also designed the hyperloop, a land transport system that could reach speeds of 1200 km/h and, as a personal bullet train objective, he aims to send the first human to Mars. Will he accomplish it?

      And what about you? In which area of your life do you want to apply the Shinkansen effect?

       Set Your First Shinkansen Objective

      For a dream or aspiration to deserve this label, it has to be seemingly impossible to achieve. If you feel you can achieve it relatively easily, it cannot be classed as a “bullet train objective.”

      Visualizing seemingly impossible goals helps you to think laterally and to get rid of old ideas or processes.

      Don’t be scared to write down your Shinkansen objectives.

      Do you want to fly your own helicopter? Write it down.

      Do you want to travel to Alaska and see the aurora borealis? Write it down.

      Do you want your family business sales to triple? Write it down.

      Do you want to direct a film? Write it down.

      We insist on the writing it down part because the first step to achieving a personal milestone is as simple as writing it down.

      Get started now:

       My number 1 Shinkansen objective is:

      Of course, just writing something down is not going to make it happen. Next, write down ten initiatives you will undertake to make it easier for you to accomplish your first bullet train objective. State the action, how you will do it and when you will start:

       What you will do How you will do it When you will do it

      1. —————————————————————————––––––

      2. —————————————————————————––––––

      3. —————————————————————————––––––

      4. —————————————————————————––––––

      5. —————————————————————————––––––

      6. —————————————————————————––––––

      7. —————————————————————————––––––

      8. —————————————————————————––––––

      9. —————————————————————————––––––

      10.—————————————————————————––––––

      For example, if my number 1 shinkansen objective is to give a speech in front of a thousand people, my action list could be as follows: buy books on how to speak in public, meet speakers who can give me advice, watch YouTube videos of speakers I admire, record myself practicing on camera and watch myself on the computer screen, prepare a simple talk for some local event with a small audience as practice, join a public speaking course, enroll in theater classes to overcome stage fright…

      The Uruguayan coach Mario Reyes recommends specifying what we will do in each one of these actions, how we will do it and when we will start. For example: