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Life! 🌿
A family funeral in Japan, two days of stories, and the questions that came on the train home.
Dear Diamond Polisher,
There was no letter from me last Monday. Toshi, an elderly member of my family, passed away, and I travelled to be with the family for his funeral, a Japanese Buddhist ceremony.
There was sadness, of course. And at the same time, those two days made me think about life in a very positive way. They also left me with a question I still carry: how much of my life goes to what really matters, and how much goes to little worries?
I want to share with you what happened.
🌿 TWO DAYS OF STORIES
It was the simplest of ceremonies, only close family, ten of us. On the first day, we stayed beside Toshi, in his coffin, and the family started to talk. One memory brought another, then another, and the room filled with stories about him.
On the second day of the ceremony, the conversations continued, all about Toshi: who he was, what he did, how he was with us.
🚄 THE QUESTIONS ON THE TRAIN HOME
On the way back, in the Shinkansen, the questions came one after the other, and I let them come.
When my day comes, what do I want people to say about me?
What impact do I want to have had? What legacy?
Was I the person I wanted to be, with others?
Were the things I wanted to achieve meaningful, or was I busy worrying about little things?
Did I live my values?
And somewhere between Toshi's stories and those questions, something became clear to me. A life continues after us, in the people around us. It lives in what we passed to them, in how they speak about us, in what they carry forward. So that's what I saw in that room for two days: Toshi was still there, in every story.
💎 Which means each ordinary day is already preparing the conversation that will happen beside us one day.
On that train, I recalled the death meditation of Lojong, the Tibetan mind training, which I have practised twice. It teaches you to rise above yourself and look down: at yourself, at the situation, at the people around you and what you bring them. And I recognised in me the same change of state that meditation once gave me, as if I were looking at my own life from high above, whole.
🧠 THE REGRET THAT STAYS
The Ideal Road Not Taken, Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich, Cornell University and The New School, Emotion, 2018
At Cornell University, Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich asked hundreds of people about the regrets of their life. First they described two kinds of self. One is the person we feel we ought to be, made of duties and obligations. The other is the person we hope to be, made of dreams and aspirations, the self we would love to become. Then people listed their regrets and sorted them. When asked for their single biggest regret, about three out of four people named the second kind: they had not become the person they hoped to be. The researchers' explanation is simple. We act quickly on our duties, so those regrets fade. The ideal self always feels like something for later, so we wait, and that regret stays.
Life is short, and at the same time, it is long enough to become the person you hope to be, if you start moving toward that person now. That is what the questions on the train are for. They let you see the end from here, while you can still choose the path.
💎 THE WHOLE DIAMOND, SEEN FROM THE TRAIN
These are leadership questions. Before we lead a team or a company, we lead our own life, and personal leadership is exactly that: how we lead our life. When I looked at my questions again, I saw that each one touches a facet of the Diamond Leadership Model. The whole diamond was there, on that train.
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Fly Around |
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Field of Influence |
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Leading Spirit |
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Inner Diamond |
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Emotional Balance |
💎 The Diamond Insight:
Your legacy is being written now, on ordinary days, in the people around you. Fly above your life once in a while, and you will see which facet to polish next.
✍️ OVER TO YOU
You don't need a funeral to ask these questions. And you don't need to answer them all tonight. One train ride is enough to begin.
🏹 This Week's Challenge: your own Shinkansen questions
Take ten minutes this week, on a train, on a walk, anywhere you can think.
1. Close your eyes and rise above your life, high enough to see it whole. From there, imagine the people who matter to you talking about you one day. What would you love them to say? Write three sentences.
2. Look at your last week. Which moments belong in those three sentences, and which went to little worries?
3. Choose one of your values, and one small action this week that lives it, with someone around you.
When you read your three sentences back, notice what happens in your body, and where. That is often where the best part of yourself is speaking.
Try This with PhilBot
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PhilBot AI Coach |
Use this prompt with PhilBot, or with any AI:
"I want to reflect on the legacy I'm creating. Ask me these questions one at a time and wait for my answer: what I would love the people closest to me to say about me one day; which of my values I lived fully this past week; where I spent my energy on little worries; and one small step I can take this week toward the person I hope to become."
Or turn it inward: "What is one little thing I keep worrying about that, seen from the end of my life, would hardly matter? And what would I do with that energy instead?"
Thank you, Toshi, for the stories, and for the questions.
What would you love them to say about you one day, and what could you do this week so they will be able to say it?
With warmth,
Philippe & PhilBot 🌿
Keep shining. 💎
Équilibre k.k. | Tokyo · 20 years of inspiring leaders to shine ✨
P.S. You’ll notice I sign every letter “Philippe & PhilBot.” PhilBot is my AI coaching companion, and these letters are genuinely written together: the heart and stories are mine, the craft is ours. I sign both names because I believe leaders are learning to create alongside AI, and I’d rather be open about that. 🌿
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📖 Book One The Diamond Quest: Finding Your Diamond The story behind everything in these letters. The first two chapters are open to read online now, and the full book arrives by the end of the year.
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