Episode 28 with Yumi Tomita

Narrator:

Welcome to Cyber 909, your source for wit and wisdom and cybersecurity and beyond. On this podcast, your host, veteran chief security officer and Cyber Aficionado Den Jones taps his vast network to bring you guests, stories, opinions, predictions, and analysis you won't get anywhere else. Join us first, cyber 909, soon to become 909 exec. New name, same podcast.

Den:

Well, hello again everybody and welcome to Cyber 909, your podcast for technology, leadership, wellness, surviving the burnout and ideally not burning out. So surviving that and all things in between. And every episode I've got some fantastic or fascinating, is that the new word? Fascinating guests I bring in that I meet in my network. So this week we have got a great guest. Let's introduce you, Yumi, come on. Welcome to the show. Why don't you explain a little bit about who you are and what we're going to talk about today.

Yumi:

Good morning or hello everyone. I am Yumi, the chief director and senior trainer with Imagination Improvement Institute. As you can tell from the company name, what we do is it's like meditation and mindfulness, but we focus on imagination and we share imagination, exercises, philosophy, mindset, tips to help you use your imagination, to take care of your mental wellbeing, visualize your goal, help you understand more about yourself, and also creativity.

Den:

Excellent. And I was curious because in researching for the show, did you stumble upon this really, I think there was work with your father, there was work along your journey. So what got you to start this and why do you feel like it's needed in the world?

Yumi:

Oh, thank you Dan. So actually I do like to start from how I came to the States. So my father was transferred from Japan to a branch here in the United States, and that's how I got, we all moved to the United States about 25 years ago. And then over 10 years ago was when my father introduced me to this message. It kind of came along of how when he was working as the leader of the company, he said this message really helped him figure out what's really important in decision making. And not just that, but to take care of his mental wellbeing. Because as a top or leader of the company, you face so many challenges and struggles and sometimes it's confidential and you can't share it with anybody else or sometimes you don't want to be seen as stressed or overwhelmed as a leader of the company. So this method, imagination improvement really he said helped him kind of figure out how to sort it out in him without telling anybody. So it was a safe and comfortable way for him to take care of his mind. So he told me, this is a really great methodology, you should learn it. And that's how I got to know this.

But also when I got to know this methodology, I was going through social anxiety and really stressed and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. But this method really helped me clarify that I didn't know how imagination can help me really understand more about myself. So it became my passion and that's how I got into this methodology.

Den:

Excellent. So let's talk a little bit about the methodology. Do you want to explain for everybody what it is and lemme maybe take us through a little bit of it.

Yumi:

Okay, yeah, sure. So it's music guided visualization exercises, but I'd like to start sharing some of my slides and just give me a few seconds.

Den:

Excellent, excellent.

Yumi:

Okay.

Den:

And I think, so we met during a PROVISORS meeting and you took the group through this visualization technique, and I look at this as we get to see what you're sharing here. So I think of it like there's a huge importance for your mental wellbeing that something like this exists, which is why I wanted to have you on the show so you can share with people. So let's talk about this.

Yumi:

Okay, yes, wonderful. Well, I'd always like to start with this quote. This is a famous quote left by George Bernard Shall over a hundred years ago, he was a winner of Nobel Prize of Literature in 1925. He said, imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and Atlas you create what you will. So as he said, and as we all know how we imagine our future, how we imagine ourselves to really have a big impact on the directions of our life and how we feel, but we don't really focus much on how we're using it. We use it unconsciously almost. And since it's really important in order to create something that we want to have, how we're using imagination is really important. So that's why we focus on this. And I also would like to share how this is related to creativity and that kind of relates to our visualization methodology. So let me actually,

Den:

Yeah, this reminds me. We had Mel Ray, one of my friends on the show a while ago, we talked about the power of visualization. And this quote actually speaks exactly to that, which is you have to imagine, you have to visualize and then you have to think about how you can take strides towards that thing becoming real. So yeah, so there's a lot of, some people call it the woowoo side of life, which is the visualization and the universe and the law of attraction and all those things. But ultimately for me, I've always focused on the vision that I want to see realized. And then it's not as if you're just sitting in your room and nothing doing nothing about it. You have to take actions that get you towards it, right?

Yumi:

It's like it serves as almost a blueprint for what you're trying to pursue. But according to, so let me actually also share a study done by nasa. This is also what I shared with in the provider presentation. Let's see. But how much are we imagination are we exactly using? So this is a study done by NASA on 1600 children. And you can also see more in details on this talk by George Land. He was one of the leading scientists who did this study on imagination thinking. And he first tested on 45-year-old kids and he found out 98% of them were really imaginative and they've tested again five years later, dropped to 30% and then it kept dropping. And by the time we became adults, 2%. So what that means is only 2% of us are fully using imagination, which doesn't help when we want much more of a imagination to create the future. We want to live or to be innovative, to be creative. But think of this as a muscle. When we don't use muscles, it gets, it shrinks. But when we start using muscles, it grows bigger just like that imagination. Also to us, it is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more benefits we would start feeling.

And what we focus on is the creativity. So there is an interesting, there's been more studies done on creativity and how it works in our brain and you know how to be creative. We were taught, oh, there were left brain and right brain. And to be creative, use your right brain more according to recent neuroscience studies, this is actually not true. And when you're doing a creative work or when they do on brain scans on people who are really creative, it's a full brain process. And there are neuro networks that we use when we're trying to be creative. And I'd like to share that with you and how that's related to methodology.

So when we're creative or the creative brain uses three networks and one of them is Imagination Network, which is activated when you're mind wandering, daydreaming, self-reflecting as you can guess. And there's also another network that's called Executive Attention Network, which is activated when you're making decisions, planning for future. And to be creative, we want to use both networks. And what's controlling that is known as Sence Network. And this is responsible both for motivations watching between these two networks. So it acts as a switch and creative people use. They're really good at turning on and off these two networks really fast. So they're using all networks at the same time. And our methodology really focus on, because when we're visualizing something randomly, it wouldn't activate the whole network. So what would be important is to visualize something that's related to us. And there are more research is done on this. So we're scientists are discovering more and more on these. But when you're visualizing without losing on the theme of a thought or theme of your interest, then that's when you can utilize more of your creative brain. So our methodology focuses on utilizing this and also helps you focus by using music. And music also helps you do an intro spec work in yourself. And our music has been sound edited to help focus in yourself. So it helps you clear your mind and helps you focus on the theme of your interest without being overwhelmed.

Den:

Excellent. And I was thinking as you were talking there, the amount of studies on neuroscience is just increasing all the time now. And like you say, they began to realize that the left and right brain concept isn't what they thought it was. And we do context switch a lot within every second, and you're using different parts and different neurons are firing when you speak to. So actually let's talk about your typical clients that you go you work with. What do they look like? Who are the kind of people that are calling you up and why are they calling

Yumi:

Most of the time? So we have two different or three different client groups. One is school. So we've done some workshops for Minerva University who is up in San Francisco, and we've done some workshops for the university students. We've also done for the Stanford University collaborating with the mindfulness professor there. But we also have companies. And the companies, it's interesting because it's a wide variety of businesses, but what they have in common are mainly two things. One, they're either looking for new or unique ways to take care of their stress for the team. And they are also looking for something that's not too serious, but something that can be really interactive and helpful for team building as well. So that's the kind of clientele. And also some companies are looking for ways to enhance their creativity, especially when they're working on innovative. They have to come up with really fresh ideas, innovative ideas, creative ideas for businesses, how can they do that? And they're looking for new ways constantly. So that's where

Den:

Certainly because having sat through a little slice of this, our visor meeting, I could imagine for team building, this would be excellent, especially for leaders who lead creative teams that require creative thinking and out of the box thinking. So I could imagine that would be a really good client for you guys. When you think of future skills and the evolution of technology, what you think, how do you think this can play into helping create a better well-rounded leader and enable this to be a tool in their toolkit?

Yumi:

So I think I will also like to share some of the slides. So let me see, pick the slides again and let me actually,

Den:

And yeah, you're the first person we've had on the show that's actually shared slides. And so this is new for me using Streamy Yard as we do some slides sharing.

Yumi:

Oh, wonderful. I'd like to share something, one of the recent report done by word economic forum on the top skills that businesses prioritize in the business. So you know how AI is emerging and AI has been incorporated a lot in our daily lives and in work as well. But there is one skill that's known to be unreplaceable by ai, which is imagination. Well, yes, AI can come up with images or creative ideas based on the past data that they've accumulated, but something that where we have to come up from zero or scratch, that's something only humans can do. So I think this is reflect that's reflected on these top skills that businesses would like to prioritize. And creative thinking is ranked in top two, which is what's surprising to me because I would assume something like AI or programming skills, I thought that will be listed as higher than creative thinking, but this is the trend that we're seeing. So I think something that cannot be replaced by ai, soft skills, curiosity or creative thinking, those can be important skills that companies would like to prioritize.

Den:

And I am assuming that this study was done with executives as opposed to middle to low level management or individual contributors because all of these 10 things here I look at is if you're an executive in a company and you're building large organizations, these are the types of things you'd want your executives to have in their toolkit and in their personality, in their skills. And I totally believe the softer skills. So you've got things like AI and then big data and technical literacy. I think it's assumed these days, especially in Silicon Valley, right? People are assumed to be technical geniuses I guess. And then ai, it's also assumed that everybody here in the valley, because we're forward thinking, we're progressive, that they therefore assume we're going to all suddenly become AI geniuses as well. But in my experience of leadership where most of the leaders get promoted in these tech companies in the valley, they're promoted because technically they're brilliant.

They're not promoted because their softer leadership skills or their empathy or their EQ is necessarily brilliant. They're promoted because they're technically good people and technologists don't always make great leaders. And that's why I think if you're the technologist in a leadership role, then you've got to understand your blind spots and then figuring out tools like this that can actually help you bring the team together, that you can then help the team be more creative as you're looking for solutions. Because problem solving, which is really what we do, it takes some creative thinking in order to solve problems sometimes quicker, but in more creative ways,

Yumi:

And how can we think outside the box and how can we know and be aware that we're not thinking outside the box? That's something can be really difficult, but it's really possible to be aware of those as you train your visualizing.

Den:

And this is great data. I think this is brilliant. So when you think of a successful client, so you've been in there, you've worked your magic and you leave. When you hear from the clients later, what benefits do they share with you that they have seen because they've went through this?

Yumi:

Oh, yes, that's a great question. So one of the benefits of doing these workshops is that they gain tools, not just skills, but tools that they can use anytime they feel like, ah, I'm stuck. What do I do? Or I'm so overwhelmed, what do I do? Besides breathing exercises, we don't really share breathing exercises, but I feel like that's something that everyone, a lot of people know that something that they can do when they feel stressed or they want to relax, but in this workshop they gain music that they can use anytime they feel stressed. They also gain other tools and imagination exercises that after workshops, I hear from the companies that, oh, my teammates are telling me that they actually use the tools. They're really useful when they feel like they're stuck or they are so stressed, but they need to focus on their meeting or a presentation that tools, I hear it's useful, so thank you so much. That's the kind of comments that I receive and that makes me happy because that's exactly what one of the goals of doing these workshops is. During the workshops you might feel better, you might feel relaxed, but that's not the whole point. The whole point is having the tools and feeling safe and secure that, oh, I've got tools when I feel stressed, so I'll be fine.

Den:

And so there was a study done about employees who are happy at work and the happier your employees are, that ties back to profitability of a business. And that was a study that was shared within Adobe. It was done externally, but it was shared within Adobe and prompted the whole program of us going through surveying employees. What are the things that make you upset or stressed or you're unhappy with? You get a bunch of replies back, which everything from the canteen, food to snacks in the kitchen or logging in, logging in too many times was the one that hit me. That was what my team ran. When I think of this, I can only imagine that this can help improve the overall wellbeing within organizations and therefore their content and happiness. So I think this is excellent. One of the things, so personal growth, right? So how do you think that this helps personal growth professionally, but personally as well? I mean, when you go home and you're with your families and things of that nature, what benefits do you see from a personal growth perspective?

Yumi:

So visualization is not just imagining, I think through these, based on the past experiences, we communicate a lot with images within ourselves. It's used as a tool for inner communications, and it's much easier for us to visualize instead of verbalizing it. Verbalizing it can take some time and we might not exactly sure what's really going on. We feel the maybe overwhelmingness of frustrations in us, but we might not necessarily know how to put it in words. Why is it coming? Why do I feel that way? So this exercise can really help us do inner work in ourselves. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel that way? And based on that, it really helps you get down to the core of what's making you feel, say, stressed or sad or feel overwhelmed. And by doing that it really helps you realize why you need to work on what you want to kind of get better at so that way you can pursue your dream, your goal, or have a better relationships within the family.

Den:

Excellent, excellent. And you talked about goals quite a few times there. So when you're thinking of setting meaningful goals, what strategies or recommendation do you have for people?

Yumi:

We probably have all kinds of goals, whether it be immediate goal or ultimate goal, but I'd like to, when you're doing an ultimate goal visualization, that's what I tend to focus on is to visualize the end outcome. What do we want to have? I want to feel happy, but not just that, but what more in detail? What do I want to pursue? And the more we do that, it helps us pursue and kind of realize, well, what steps should I take in order to get there? So I recommend doing visualization exercise of just visualizing the end outcome first and then immerse yourself and imagine as if it's really happened right now at the moment, and then go backward and see what did I do to get there? Also, focusing on the inner voices when visualizing those can be helpful in understanding do I really believe that I can accomplish that or it's just an image and do I not really believe in myself that I can pursue that? That really also changes the likability of being able to accomplish the goal.

Den:

Yeah, it as you speak to that totally. I mean it just reminds me of the whole love of attraction, the love of the universe. And I've had so many people talk about visualization and the power of it. A lot of athletes use this as they visualize a successful race. And actually we had an Olympian on the show a few weeks back, and yeah, Shannon, we were talking about visualization as part of your race preparation In sports, there's a huge piece of that, but in business we don't think about that as much unless you start to study some of the top business leaders in the world and then all of a sudden you realize a lot of these people, they all subscribe to the visualization techniques, they all subscribe to manifestation, they talk about things. And it's funny because you're opening quote is exactly this, which is what you create in your mind, what you visualize, what you focus on, you can make real.

I think the thing along the journey is too many people think, oh, well that will never happen. Why would I deserve that thing? They'll think of all the negative things that might happen along the journey or they'll just think negatively about it. And I just always say to people, you attract what you think and you fixate on emotionally. And the thing you mentioned there was at the end of it, you've got to visualize the things happened and the emotion you feel when you've successfully reached that goal or that outcome. And I think that's a huge takeaway for everybody, which is visualization techniques. You've visualize the success, you can visualize the journey to success and the work you're going to put in to get there. And it is important to think about things that might go wrong, but not in a negative way. Think about it, the way I used to always explain this to my team, I will be more nervous if nobody can come up with something that might get in the way of our success.

The fact that some people will come up and sometimes they're the procrastinators and the negative ones, and they'll come up and they'll tell you 10 reasons why this thing won't work. And I just thank them and I'm like, okay, those are 10 things that we know we need to solve along the journey. They're just 10 things, that's it. They're just 10 things. And knowing those 10 things is way better than blindly going into something and not thinking about things that you're going to have to overcome. I see that as a positive, not a negative, and a lot of people see it as negative. I'm so curious. In your journey, your professional career, where do you see the future? I mean, where do you see the future of your business? When you think of your goals 10 years from now, where do you see all this?

Yumi:

So right now, meditation is well known, mindfulness is well known and therapy, they're all well known. And I think those are the things that we think of when we're mentally stressed, when we need help with our mental wellbeing, I will like imagination added in that category so that way they have more tools, they have more options available. Oh, maybe I would like to improve or work on my imaginations to help myself. And I would like to see have that category as a self-help and self caring methodology added in addition to those three.

Den:

Yeah, no, that's excellent. And I do think 10 years from now, it's funny, I think 10 years from now people are going to realize that all the power of the brain and how we manage and nurture our brain is way more important than ever before because I think so many people put into learning skills, and I look at this as being a skill that people can really embrace, which will be a great tool in their toolkit. So I think, yeah, this is a great topic, I think in our show notes. So we're going to put links to how people can get ahold of you going to have, I think it'd be good to link to the TED talk that you mentioned as we start to wrap up, what one piece of advice or guidance or one ask you'd have of our audience

Yumi:

When you're stressed or when you're overwhelmed and when you feel hopeless. It might feel the end of the world sometimes, but imagination can be the tool for you to help yourself. So you've got the tool in you already. So I hope you remember that.

Den:

Excellent, excellent. I think that is great. So you meet Tam, imagination Improvement Institute, so thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate you sharing your journey, your wisdom. And also I think everybody reach out to Yumi. I think this is a great opportunity for some team building events, for some culture improvement within your organization. Hence, I wanted to have Yumi on the show. I think this stuff can be really valuable. So everybody, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Den. It's always a pleasure

Yumi:

And everyone listening,

Den:

Thank you.

Narrator:

Cyber 909 will soon become 909 exec. New name, same podcast, and love. Look for the new name soon, wherever you get your podcasts.

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