There Is Another Way

The alternative is a state of mind and body known as heiki. It's a calmness under duress that you can practice deliberately—when you're triggered by an unexpected call or e-mail, facing a tough decision, or in the middle of some kind of crisis. I start each aikido martial arts class that I teach with a moment of meditation. This moment of quiet contemplation puts us in the right frame of mind to fight. Meditation and breathing exercises lead us toward that state of equanimity, or heiki (pronounced “hey-key”).

The word heiki is made up of two characters: hei, meaning “calm, flat, or peaceful,” and ki, which means “energy.” Ki is also the center of the word aikido. Ultimately aikido is all about energy—balancing it, channeling it, harmonizing yours with your opponent's. In order to accomplish this, we start from a place of heiki—calm energy.

Aikido is a unique grappling art known as meditation in motion. The discipline requires you to remain calm in the face of adversity. Some martial arts ask you to go a bit out of control and release a lot of violent energy—yelling, kicking, and punching. In aikido, we must retain control. It's not about being passive or gentle—it's about letting go of fear, passion, and other artifacts of the ego.

This process of letting go of what we think and feel helps us open our minds to what the situation truly is. If you begin a bout with a desire to prove yourself or humiliate the other person, you're limiting what you'll be able to see. You'll see a threat, or you'll see an opening for a really cool move, instead of clearly seeing how your opponent is moving and what opportunities you have in the spaces created by their movements.

The same is true in our personal and professional lives. If you begin an argument or a negotiation mired in passionate emotion, you won't see the situation clearly. You won't see the other person as they truly are, and you will miss the multitude of true opportunities that are right in front of you. If, instead, you can remain calm, you'll be able to see many paths that wouldn't be available to you if you were angry, sad, upset, or out of control. Calm energy, heiki, provides access to opportunities you might not otherwise see.

An Opportunity to Prevent Violence

In May of 2013, Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was on her way home on the number 53 bus through London when she saw what she thought was a traffic accident.¹ Without stopping to think much about it, she got off the bus to see if she could help provide first aid to the victim.² But the situation she was walking into was no mere accident—it was a knife attack on a British soldier by terrorists who believed they were exacting vengeance for Britain's involvement in wars in the Middle East.³

Loyau-Kennett went straight to the victim and felt for his pulse. Almost the second she realized he was dead, she was confronted by one of the attackers. He was holding a gun and a meat cleaver in his bloody hands.

What would you do in that situation? Would you panic? Run away? Try to hit or kick the attacker, take away his weapons?

There were dozens of people standing in the street that day. Almost none of them made a move to help or interfere in any way. Some of them took pictures or shot video with their phones.

Loyau-Kennett stood up and faced the killer. “I didn't have any adrenalin at this moment,” she has said. “Instinctively, and through my scout training, I like to keep calm and be respectful.”

So she spoke calmly to him. She asked him questions—why had he done this? What did he want? Her goal was to keep this man talking, keep him from attacking anyone else. She could see there were children among the crowd watching the scene, and she thought, if he's going to attack anyone else, better me than one of these kids.

A True Hero

Loyau-Kennett may well have saved lives that day. But she doesn't believe that she did anything special. She thinks anybody could have done what she did.

I agree—anyone could have done that. But of course, most people wouldn't. Most people would be too afraid, too shocked, too angry, too something, to confront someone so obviously dangerous. Most people wouldn't have seen the path that Loyau-Kennett saw. Most people wouldn't have been able to imagine that asking a few simple questions could keep a situation like that from spiraling further out of control. But Loyau-Kennett was able to call on an inner reservoir of calm, and that calm energy allowed her to see a path nobody else could see.

In interviews, Loyau-Kennett has attributed her extraordinary heiki on that day to her Catholic faith.⁴ That faith helped her see beyond herself, beyond the physical danger she was in, and focus on engaging with the attacker. Her faith helped her to let go of her fear and allowed her to perform an act of great courage—without even thinking of it as something out of the ordinary.

Courage doesn't require religious faith. There are many ways to reach that state of calm energy. But I believe that Loyau-Kennett's faith was invaluable to her in that moment because it took her outside of herself. It gave her a perspective and a purpose that was greater than she was. And that is the nature of heiki—calm energy derives from letting go of attachment, letting go of fear, letting go of all feelings about the self. Exactly how you find your way to that state of detachment and calm doesn't matter—what matters is that you find that calm place and operate from within it. When you do, like Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, you will see a new way out of a difficult or even dangerous situation.

Calm Courage in the Everyday

Thankfully, most of us don't face down murderers every day. Most of us face more pedestrian challenges: a fight with a spouse, a negative review from a boss, a looming deadline at work. Summoning heiki can be just as useful in our daily lives as it is in a life-changing moment like the one Loyau-Kennett faced when she got off that number 53 bus. In fact, in some ways, finding equanimity can be even more difficult in a small moment than in a huge one. After all, when are you more likely to take a moment to clear your head before speaking—when you're facing a crisis, or when a colleague walks into your office to ask for an update on a project?

It's all too easy to get caught up in the wash of events in daily life. Most of us, most of the time, have “monkey mind”—we're constantly jumping from thought to thought, worry to worry. In today's world of constant interruptions, it's understandable—but it makes us likely to miss out on opportunities to change things or make real progress. When you approach a situation mired in your all-too-human emotions—stress, pain, fear, envy, excitement—you will only see that situation from your own perspective. You'll be thinking about how you need to defend your turf, justify your actions, get credit for your hard work, and so on.

When you approach a situation in a spirit of heiki, on the other hand, you'll see that situation from a kind of dispassionate bird's-eye view. You'll see more opportunities because you'll be thinking about everyone's needs and desires, not just your own.

I have a daily meditation practice that I will share with you very soon. And yet I still struggle to find equanimity in my daily life and work. Finding heiki in the midst of the bustle and business of everyday life is practice we must work at. And it's an incredibly powerful and beneficial practice. Heiki can become a knife that will cut through the toughest knots you're trying to untie in your personal or professional life.

A Moment When I Needed Heiki

A few years ago, I made a big change in my life, both personal and professional. I moved from the East Coast to the West, and I started to focus more of my energy on expanding my executive coaching, consulting, and speaking business. That meant that I had to start handing over the daily operation of my successful aikido academy to other people.

This was a huge challenge for me. I am a take-charge, type A kind of person. I was a Marine, after all. I'm not used to stepping back and letting someone else do the work. So instead of simply appointing a successor and handing over the reins to that person, I found a second-in-command to take over most of the day-to-day running of the business—and I also brought in a friend of mine to teach one key class.

This friend, Greg, is a very nice guy, and he's very good at what he does. He had more expertise than my second-in-command, Jason, in this specific aspect of aikido. In fact, because he studied it exclusively, he had more experience than even I did in this particular area. I have a broader expertise in aikido overall, but Greg is really steeped in this one area of aikido.

So what could go wrong? Well, over time, the wrongness of this choice became more and more clear. Greg is an excellent practitioner in the area of his expertise, and he delivered clear and useful lessons in this technique for my students. But while the content of his lessons was great, he wasn't delivering those lessons in the right context.

The broader philosophy that underpins aikido—the idea that this is the martial art of meditation in motion, that your attitude and your intentions matter as much as your technique—is, to me, incredibly important. I want my students to walk away from my classes knowing not just how to move but how to think. My aikido academy appeals to high-achieving, driven people like me precisely because I don't just teach physical exercises. At my school, aikido is a way of life.

Greg wasn't delivering this philosophy in his lessons. At any other school, that would be fine. But at my academy, his lessons were confusing the message I wanted to deliver. Plus, assigning this key class to Greg was undermining my second-in-command, Jason. It sent a message to the staff and students that I didn't quite trust Jason to take over my role. Keeping my friend Greg on to teach that class was stunting Jason's growth as a young black belt. It was keeping him from growing fully into the new role I claimed I wanted for him.

Relying on my friend to teach this one class was a crutch—an easy way out. It allowed me to avoid doing the hard work of mentoring Jason to help him develop in his new role. And the longer I kept Greg around, the more he came to rely on this class as a crutch in his own life. He needed to push himself to develop his own business, but instead, he was coasting along, letting the money he was earning at my school tide him over, holding back on taking the next step.

I let this situation go on much too long. It wasn't good for any of us—but it was good enough, and I was busy enough, that I kept putting off doing something about it. But all the while, I was doing something else useful—I was creating structures of support around myself that helped me to come to clarity and take relevant action. I was surrounding myself with people who had my back, whom I could talk to and lean on. I was organizing my life in a way that would minimize distractions as much as possible and help me focus on my real priorities. And finally, I was ready to take action.

Greg and I sat down face-to-face and had a direct and open conversation. I explained why I felt it was time for him to leave the school—and he understood. He was disappointed, and I felt sorry about that, but ultimately the conversation was successful. He had been settling for part-time work when he should have been building a real business, and he knew that. In the end, having this tough conversation allowed us both to be more true to ourselves.

None of that would have been possible if I hadn't been coming from a foundation of heiki. If I had been coming from a place of fear or ego, I would have ended up avoiding the tough conversation, or yelling at Greg and having a huge falling out to cover my own failings.

Calm Energy Leads to Action

Calm energy may sound passive, but it's not. In fact, heiki is a necessary foundation for relevant action. Without it, you'll end up like me—putting off that tough conversation—or like my friend Phillip, who takes putting off tough conversations to the absolute extreme. Phillip never breaks up with his girlfriends. He just coasts along, putting in little effort, until the relationship dies a slow, painful death. He lets his fear of that tough conversation make him passive. He's so afraid of how the women in his life might react to the truth that he can't see that he's making things worse for both parties. He can't find heiki because he's consumed by his fear—and so he's stuck in awkward inaction.

Heiki is not passive. Calm energy can be active energy—but it's an energy that's centered and dispassionate. Finding heiki was the first step toward resolving this situation. Once I found heiki, I was able to have a conversation with my friend Greg in which I genuinely sought a win-win-win solution—a win for me, a win for my business, and a win for Greg. Instead of acting out of my fear of hurting him, my irritation at the way my academy's message was being diluted, or my disappointment with myself for letting the situation go on for so long, I acted out of a state of equanimity.

Calm energy is incredibly powerful in everyday life. It helps you focus on what's important and screen out everything that isn't. That's why I start my aikido classes with a breathing exercise or a moment of meditation. I often recite a portion of what's called the Heart Sutra,⁵ one of the foundational texts in Zen Buddhism. Here's a taste:

This Body itself is Emptiness and Emptiness itself is this Body. This Body is not other than Emptiness and Emptiness is not other than this Body.

What does the idea of emptiness trigger in you? Do these words make you feel ready for action? Or do they make you feel something else?

The language of the chant is simple, but the ideas it describes can take a while to truly understand. This sutra gets at the heart of Zen Buddhism—the paradoxical idea that joy and pain are both traps for the mind, that we achieve enlightenment only by letting go of attachment. These are complex, contradictory ideas that monks spend lifetimes studying—but calm energy is also an actionable idea that you can start working toward today.

Whether on the feudal battlefield of Japan or the corporate “battlefield” of boardrooms around the world, detachment may not sound like the kind of focus you need to succeed. However, heiki establishes the foundation for clarity and relevant action. Heiki puts you in a frame of mind that opens your eyes to possibilities. Operating out of emotion closes our eyes and keeps us locked into unhealthy or unproductive patterns of behavior.

One simple way to start developing heiki is by starting a very simple and effective meditation practice. Meditation also has numerous proven health benefits. Research has shown that meditation increases brain activity in areas related to dealing with stress, focus, and remaining calm. Even trying meditation for a couple of days has lasting effects in reducing harmful inflammation.⁶

Heiki is a skill like any other. Careful practice of exercises like this can help you learn to find and hold onto the calm energy that positions us to see new possibilities and take relevant action, whether in a crisis, or in the fog of everyday life.

I encourage you to start practicing this crucial skill. Take a few minutes every day to do an exercise like the one I just described. You'll start seeing the benefits very quickly. Having a practice that puts you in touch with heiki on a regular basis will help you find that state of equanimity when you need it. In a crisis, when you're looking for your calm energy, you will now know what that calm energy feels like.

There When You Need It

Bill McNabb has terrible timing. He took the job as CEO of Vanguard Group at the end of August 2008—just two weeks before Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy,⁷ sending the stock market over a cliff and throwing the financial industry into chaos.

At a moment when many investors, including professionals, were panicking, McNabb stayed calm. His behavior was a perfect demonstration of heiki: He didn't react out of fear, but he wasn't passive, either. He joined other senior staff in getting on the phones to talk directly to investors. He also appeared in a video on Vanguard's website, talking clearly about the situation in the markets.

McNabb and other leaders at Vanguard displayed heiki during this crisis not only in the way they interacted with investors, but in the way they steered the company through the next couple of years. McNabb took the financial crisis as an opportunity to expand the company. This equanimity paid off: Investors flocked to Vanguard's funds. From 2008 to 2015, the company nearly tripled its assets under management.⁸ It's now the biggest fund company in the world,⁹ moving actively to expand overseas.

Embracing Heiki

Heiki is built into the corporate culture at Vanguard Group. Since 1987, Vanguard has had a team of volunteers from all across the company who are trained and ready to jump on the phones whenever something unusual happens in the market.¹⁰ Inside the company, they're known as the “Swiss Army.” There's even a red-and-white flag that flies when the Swiss Army is called to duty.

With this team of volunteers, and with its consistent messages to investors, Vanguard has carefully cultivated a spirit of heiki over the years. This calm attitude starts at the top and carries throughout the company. They market themselves as a company built for long-term investors, and they continually reinforce the message that investors should not panic when the market wavers. Because they routinely practice and reinforce equanimity, it's there when they need it. In a crisis, their “Swiss Army” team is ready to take action.

Steady practice is key to developing your heiki. You can't expect to keep your head in a crisis if you've never practiced finding equanimity. As it is for the folks at Vanguard, cultivating calm energy needs to be a part of your daily plan as well as your crisis management plan.

For those who embrace it, heiki can become a key differentiator—as it is for Vanguard. Steady, calm management with a long-term focus is what Vanguard is known for. Heiki is part of their brand. And that brand has made them one of the most consistently successful companies in a highly competitive and volatile industry. What could happen for you if you made heiki part of your personal brand?

When You're Known for Fighting Fires, You Get More Fires to Fight

Red Adair saw his first oil-well fire when he was just six years old.¹¹ A lot of kids would be terrified by such a sight. The flames from an oil-well fire can reach hundreds of feet in the air. Temperatures near these fires can get hot enough to melt sand.¹² An exploding oil well creates an enormous amount of noise. It shakes the ground.¹³ It's an apocalyptic scene. The six-year-old Red Adair responded to his first sight of such an overwhelming fire with a plan to put it out. He told friends he could handle it if he had a truck as big as a house.

Eventually, Adair got his chance to try his theory. After a stint in the Army, during which he worked in bomb disposal, he went to work as a firefighter. In 1959, he founded his own company. He became famous—John Wayne played him in the movie Hellfighter—for his ability to stay cool in what most people would see as literally hellish conditions. He seemed to relish the chance to attack out-of-control wells that were gushing oil and burning with intensely hot flames.

He was brave—that's obvious. But he denied he was a daredevil. He said to his biographer: “People call me a daredevil but they don't understand. A daredevil's reckless, and that ain't me. The devil's down in that hole and I've seen what he can do, and I'm not darin’ him at all. I'm a beware-devil, that's what I am.”

In his own colorful language, I believe that Adair was saying that his courage came not from heedlessly rushing into danger, but from caution. What he calls being a “beware-devil,” I would call heiki—equanimity in the face of danger. Adair prided himself on his firm's safety record. He was there to contain the fire and keep everyone safe, not to get some kind of thrill from risking his life.

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, Adair was called in to fight oil fires in Kuwait.¹⁴ The retreating Iraqis had left more than 600 oil wells burning. It was a massive job that would require water to be pumped in from the sea, sometimes as far as 100 miles. Undaunted, Adair told reporters at the time, “It's like other jobs, except there are more wells.” Adair spent his seventy-sixth birthday fighting those fires. Thanks to his company's work, a job that many had expected could take as long as five years was done in nine months.

When you're as good as Adair was at fighting fires, your reward is more fires to fight. It seems that having a job to do was all the reward Adair wanted. Can you say the same?

Helping Others Through Heiki

I'm no Hellfighter, but I am known for my heiki. My students and clients come to me for advice because they know that I've built my life around cultivating the kind of calm energy that creates a foundation for decisive action. And that's exactly why my client Daniel came to me for advice when he got a very interesting job offer.

Daniel was a high-powered, high-achieving type of guy. He was an academic who had done some very important research. His work influenced policymakers, and he traveled in some very influential circles in his hometown. He'd been working for a while with a major Fortune 100 company, advising them on a few issues, when they approached him with an unexpected offer.

They asked him to come and work for them, setting up a new division that would use his research to develop new products and refine existing programs. They guaranteed he would earn millions of dollars. They flattered him. They told him they needed his expertise. They painted a picture of a fabulous new life of wealth and influence.

Daniel took an interview with them. He took a couple of interviews. And then he came to me. Over beers one evening, he told me he was really struggling with this decision. He loved his work at the university and he believed he was doing real good. But the corporate offer was tempting—he didn't hate the idea of experiencing a whole new type of power. He was torn. “What's the Mushin Way in this situation?” he asked me.

I could see that Daniel was in desperate need of some heiki. I talked him through the situation, asking him questions that pushed him to look at the situation from different angles. My questions helped Daniel slow down, take a breath, and find his equanimity. Slowly, he started to zoom out from the limited perspective of his ego and his fears, and see the situation more clearly, with the wider vision that calm energy provides.

Once he was able to pause and cultivate some heiki, Daniel realized that he didn't want to take this new position. He loved his work. It was his true calling. But he had started to feel guilty about going so far in his talks with this corporation—he felt like he had been wasting their time. He was afraid of disappointing them by saying no.

Heiki helped to bring him back to his center. When he embraced heiki, Daniel was able to see things from the corporation's perspective as well as his own. He realized that taking a job he didn't really want and would be unhappy doing wasn't good for anyone—a fact that his ego and fear had kept him from seeing. He had to get past that fear-based tunnel vision in order to see a completely new possibility, one that would be a win for everyone involved. After our conversation, Daniel went back to the company and turned down the job—but offered to consult with them on some of the new initiatives they were pursuing.

Trapped in the tunnel vision created by his ego, Daniel could only see an either-or choice: Take the job he wasn't going to like, or disappoint a bunch of important people. Heiki helped him see another option, a both-and option. He ended up happier, and so did his friends at the corporation he continued to work with. And all it took was some equanimity.

Aikido is all about seeing through our opponents' eyes, and that starts with heiki. Heiki zooms us out from the narrow perspective offered by our own egos and helps us see the whole field of battle, from many different angles. It shows us new possibilities we wouldn't otherwise be able to see. Whether you're fighting a fire or simply making a tough decision, heiki will help you find your path through the fog.