Hey there. It's Michael from amazing FBA welcome to mindset moments, a little bite-sized chunks of thoughts and hopefully wisdom about business and life from my wanderings around London, and other parts of Europe.

Hey there folks, you find me today in green and sunny Broxbourne, which is in Hertfordshire, in England, just northeast of London. And this tranquil surroundings made me think of something I wanted to share with you, which is a Zen story, a koan, as it's called, K O A N. I'm not a practitioner of Zen or something, but I'm, I'm a big, big fan of the thinking.

and philosophy and a whole way of life really that's put forth by a lot of Zen practitioners. So anyway, here's the story. There was a Zen master once called Anshin, probably I'm guessing from the name in Japan, doesn't matter really. Anshin had a student he wanted to teach a lesson to in this female student was sitting there in hut one day and Anshin said to her, okay, I'm going to put a box in my hand.

And he put a box in his hand. And I was like, just on his palm. Nothing special. And he said to the student, Okay, now I want you to try to take the box out of my hand. And bear in mind, he wasn't gripping the box, he was just holding it. The student looked a bit puzzled, reached out, and took the box out of the master's hand.

Anshin smiled a bit, and he said, No, no, I want you to try to take the box out of my hand. The student frowned a bit, reached out, and took the box out of her hand again. It was just resting on the master's hand.

And then, Anshin smiled a bit more, and he said, No, no, I want you to try to take the box out of my hand and then the student hesitated this time and looked at the master, looked at the box and thought a bit and then reached out and took the box out of the master's hand .

And Anshin smiled at her and said you see there is no such thing as try. There is only do or not do.

Now ,this was made very famous as a quote by Yoda in Star Wars and I looked it up because I don't want to be quoting star wars like that's a source of great wisdom i enjoyed the movie by the way, but people always quoting some American movie is if it's a great source of wisdom, newsflash Americans, people in East Asia have been coming up with wisdom for 2000 years before the Europeans even encountered America. So they've had a bit of time to work out what really, really makes sense in life and what doesn't, in my opinion.

So what does that mean in practice? Well, I want to think about this from a point of view of a small business owner, which I suppose I am, or a freelance musician, which I still do.

Or, indeed a husband or anything else a couple of implications. The first one is, trying hard doesn't work very well. Now that, that's sort of got a bit of a bad press because of their mindset, I suppose.

But, I know that when I was a piano teacher or before that, anything else, really, conducting a choir I'd say something like Hello, pupil I would like you to practise because you're not getting any better otherwise, and I would like you to practise, five times a week for 20 minutes, 20 minutes a day, which is for me very minimal.

But you know, these are busy people. Normally, the sons and daughters of middle class parents and they're at prep school. So they are doing way, way, way too many things. to do any of them properly.

There's a hint there, isn't there? That's not what Zen and the art of archery is. Not Zen and the art of archery and ballet lessons and piano, all of which you do badly because New Flash as well. That isn't Zen. That's not going to improve your kid's concentration or self esteem.

Anyway, so you know what? These guys normally say something like, well, I'll try. And I look at them. If I'm feeling playful, I say, there's no such thing as try. As Yoda said, there's only do or not do. I think that's true. However, it does get very hard if you are overly busy for that to be the case.

By the way,