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Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Quantum Leaps and Kaizen Actions
Welcome back!
“It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.”
Jim Rohn
In my coaching conversation yesterday, my coach and I talked briefly about electrons and the quantum leap, and how that concept applies to the transition between being an employee and being an entrepreneur. My coach said, “It is an all or nothing decision.”
“If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.”
Niels Bohr
That brief discussion about electrons and quantum leaps reminded me of the first time I ever learned about quantum mechanics. Years ago, I earned a chemistry degree. In my two-semester physical chemistry class, we spent several weeks on the physical chemistry of light. I still remember the day that the professor first introduced the concept of the quantum leap. I was so amazed at what I heard that I put down my pen and sat in awe for the rest of the class.
The simplest way to think about the quantum leap is to imagine two water glasses. One glass is full of water. The second glass is empty. Now imagine that all of the water suddenly materializes in the second glass. And there is not even the slightest fraction of a second when the water is between the two. At one moment, every molecule is in glass one and at the next nanosecond, every molecule is in glass two.
This is what happens to energy in the phenomenon knows as “the quantum leap.” An electron in orbit around the nucleus of an atom suddenly jumps to a higher orbit without passing through the distance from one orbital level to the higher orbital level. This isn’t what happens when you pour water from one glass to another. No matter how fast you pour, you can see the water passing between the two glasses. The quantum leap of electrons has amazed, baffled, and thrilled scientists for a hundred years. How can the electron do this?
The simple answer is that the electron is not a thing. It is not a little object whizzing around the nucleus of the atom the way the moon orbits the earth. In fact the electron itself doesn’t jump, because the electron is not a thing. The electron is a charge of energy. And when it receives a burst of energy, suddenly there is another charge of energy operating at a different level. And what is even more interesting, the electron receives this burst of energy as a single unit, the quantum. It really is an “all or nothing” phenomenon.
Thinking about quantum leaps and “all or nothing” decisions also reminds me of a man I once knew who could not make decisions. We were partners in the same group at a Tony Robbins seminar. The participants were encouraged to maintain contact with their partners, and so my seminar partner and I agreed to have weekly phone calls, and continued to have our conversations for more than two years. I’ll call my phone partner Fred.
“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.”
Maimonides
When we first talked, Fred talked about his dream of creating his own sales and marketing company. He had years of sales and marketing experience and claimed that he had a unique perspective and that companies needed his services. Fred had been fired from his last job and needed income. So he talked each week about whether it would be better to get another job or to concentrate on creating his business.
This same question came up every week. He would send out resumes for jobs because he thought he should get a job before starting his business and he also made some efforts toward creating his own business. By the time our phone calls ended, he was stocking shelves in grocery stores.
After weeks and months of hearing him raise the same questions about whether he should concentrate on getting a job or concentrate on starting this business, I said to him, “It’s time to decide whether you are going to get a job or start a business. You’re like a person on one side of a creek who wants to get to the other side. The only way you are going to get there is to jump across.”
“High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true.”
Robert H. Schuller
After hearing him go over the same questions again and again, I realized how much his whole life was ruled by indecision, about just about everything in his life. For about six months, I heard him talk about how he needed a new toaster. He liked to eat toast with peanut butter for breakfast each morning, but he couldn’t because his toaster was broken. But Fred did not go out and buy a new toaster. Fred shopped for a toaster. He kept searching for exactly the right toaster, a “prestige” toaster.
Fred called himself a “high achiever” and insisted that high achievers require only the very best of everything. Six months later, Fred was still lamenting that he couldn’t eat his toast with peanut butter every morning because he had not found exactly the right toaster.
I must admit, my patience was wearing thin. I have no idea what a prestige toaster is. I was tired of talking with a man who could not make a firm decision about anything from buying a toaster to making the necessary jump to create a business.
We had already cut the calls to twice a month, at my request. I was feeling stuck between wanting to find a way out of the calls and not wanting to hurt his acutely sensitive feelings. In other words, I didn’t have the courage to say out loud what I needed to say. “This is not working for me.” And so I took the coward’s way out and suggested that we cut our calls to once a month. He agreed, but was obviously hurt. I have never heard from him again, and he never responded to any email, birthday card, or Christmas card I sent him.
What I learned from Fred was that real change means taking a quantum leap. It really is an “all or nothing” decision. For the electron, it means absorbing a quantum of energy so that it suddenly operates at a higher frequency on a different level. It has moved from one orbit to another. For you and for me, it means risking the quantum leap, moving from one reality to another.
In one of my favorite movies, the utterly silly and profound Joe Versus the Volcano, Joe frees himself from his own inertia by agreeing to jump into a volcano. This is not at all subtle. Joe creates a new life for himself by taking his own quantum leap.
But taking the quantum leap, whatever that means for you, is not the end of the story. After the decision to leap from where you are to where you choose to be, real success requires what the Japanese call “kaizen.” Kaizen refers to small, consistent actions taken over time.
“Kaizen (Japanese, improvement) is an approach to productivity originating in applications of the work of American experts such as Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Bunker Gilbreth by post WW II Japanese manufacturers. The development of Kaizen went hand-in-hand with that of quality control, but it was not limited to quality assurance — the goals of kaizen include the elimination of waste, Just In Time delivery, production load leveling of amount and types, standardized work, paced moving lines, right-sized equipment, and others. A closer definition of the Japanese meaning of Kaizen is “to take it apart and put back together in a better way.” What is taken apart is usually a process, system, product, or service…
Kaizen often takes place one small step at a time, hence the English translation: “continuous improvement,” or “continual improvement.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
Real success involves both the quantum leap and kaizen, in that order.
Unfortunately, unsuccessful people, people such as Fred, get the order wrong. They attempt to do kaizen without taking the quantum leap first. Little changes on the wrong side of the creek won’t get you where you want to go. You really do need to jump first.
The other misunderstanding is that people make the jump and then expect immediate success without taking the small and consistent steps involved in kaizen.
Since it is World Series time, I will use a baseball analogy. I watched an interview with Tony LaRussa several years ago, when he was still the manager of the Oakland As. The As had won the National League pennant and LaRussa was saying that they won the league championship through base hits rather than homeruns.
That is kaizen. The homeruns will get the TV coverage but the base hits will keep the team in the game and in position to score. That is what kaizen will do for you. It will keep you in your game and in position to score your own homerun.
“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”
Anthony Robbins
If your dreams require you to make a decision, learn from Fred, the “high achiever” who could not achieve because of indecision. Indecision can only keep you stuck where you don’t want to be, with only pipe dreams instead of success. If you have a dream, take the risk. Make the quantum jump. And then be prepared to take the consistent, small actions of kaizen to accomplish your dreams.
This article was originally published October 25, 2005.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2005-10-25.htm.
WARNING: BEFORE YOU INVEST IN REAL ESTATE… FREE “No Money Limits Consumer Guide to Real Estate Investor Training.” www.nomoneylimits.com
© 2005 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.
Debt or Alive, Inc.
2248 Meridian Blvd. Suite H Minden, NV 89423
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