Athlete Brains: Dai Tamesue's "Fluid Pacing" vol.16

A serial interview column where Mr. Dai Tamesue freely discusses "things on his mind right now." The only set theme is "What is autonomy? What is tolerance?" Mr. Tamesue shares his thoughts on various "things on his mind" in response to the mysterious "interviewer's" unexpected prompts. Well now. What kind of stories will emerge this time...? Stay tuned.

──Following #15, I'd like to ask you about the theme "What is beauty?" This time, I'll start with a difficult question: the beauty that politics and corporate activities should embody. After all, you yourself are a corporate executive, aren't you?

Tamesue: I think the difficulty in politics and corporate management boils down to one thing: ultimately, it's all decided by the "customers." The realization of policies, the pursuit of profits, the ethics required for that. All of it is decided by the "customers," the citizens. Things like "beauty," our theme this time, come second. It's about, "What are you going to provide for me?" But at the same time, "beauty" is also demanded. That's where it gets tricky. I myself experience this conflict in running a business.

──Like accepting both the good and the bad.

Tamura: Exactly. It's what you'd call the mature approach. But for "beauty" to truly reside there, I believe several conditions must be met.

──What are they?

Tamura: One is consistency. It's expressed in various terms like purpose, vision, or engagement, but I believe people perceive "beauty" in consistent principles and actions.

──Like resolve or integrity, right?

Tametsu: Exactly. If that wavers, it loses its beauty. Ultimately, it just looks ugly—like you're only acting for yourself or to make money. I think "consistency + a spirit of self-sacrifice" is necessary for beauty.

──Ah, defining it that way makes it much clearer.

Tametsu: Transparency, I think, is about how clearly your words and actions are connected. This applies to an athlete's performance too—people feel beauty in that performance the moment what they say and what they do connect. It's not just about scoring points or getting a good time; it's that sense of achievement when everything clicks. I think athletes feel this themselves too.

──I'm a big sauna enthusiast, so this might be a weird example, but is it like that feeling sauna lovers often describe as "I'm all set"?

Tametsu: Ha ha ha. That might be it. Last time, I talked about how "correct movement is beautiful." Perhaps the process of properly organizing things and connecting them to results is necessary for "beauty." I think even something like sweeping the entrance with a broom every morning is like that. Having dead leaves at the entrance doesn't really interfere with daily life. But every morning, you properly organize it. That's where beauty is born. Yesterday and today are properly connected.

──I see.

Tamura: I think politics and corporate management are essentially a continuous process of adjustment. You can't get by on pretty words alone. Beautiful but weak? That won't cut it. But when people see consistency in why the adjustments are being made, that's when they recognize it as "beautiful," isn't it?
Setting aside how athletes-turned-politicians actually perform, I think they tend to get elected because people expect sincerity from them. Because sincerity and consistency seep out from their very backbone. Saying this might get me scolded by friends, but of course, they also serve as advertising towers based on their achievements and fame. But athletes are fundamentally simple at heart, so that sincerity just seeps out (laughs).

──I get it, I get it. The media often criticizes politicians and corporate executives for "not explaining enough!" But what really matters is whether that sincerity—that sense of "they're really putting in the effort"—comes through.

Tametsu: That connects to a sense of beauty.

──Going back to Sen no Rikyū, whom we discussed last time, what makes him remarkable is that he was an artist, a businessman, and a politician all at once. Such a person is quite rare in history. And I think the foundation of all that was his pursuit of "beauty."

Tametsu: What makes him remarkable isn't just that he said, "I am a man of the tea world." It's that he made the "philosophy of the tea world" known to the world. He systematized what constitutes beauty in this world. Political significance or the value of ceramics came later. Here too, we see the brilliance of sincerity and consistency. He possessed the ability to captivate people not with logic, but with that simple feeling of "Ah, that's beautiful."

──I see.

Tamura: Sincerity, I think, is another way of saying spontaneity. The moment people sense artifice or calculation, they find it ugly. It connects to an athlete's single-minded dedication—people are drawn to the spontaneous. They feel beauty. We're moved by cherry blossoms for the same reason, right? There's no artifice there. That's why we find them beautiful.

──You feel so many things—bravery, fragility, all sorts of things. Thinking about it that way, beauty is profound, isn't it? (Continued in #17)

(Interviewer: Web Dentsu Inc. News Editorial Department)

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From Hibi, Athlete Brains Production Team

Part 2 on beauty. We discussed that beauty is consistency and the concept of self-sacrifice. The same principle applies to brand building, doesn't it? You must carefully design the brand's purpose—its reason for existence—and consistently uphold that purpose. This requires staying the course without straying, embracing self-sacrifice. Here, self-sacrifice might mean not being solely fixated on sales figures. I believe this idea is about applying the concept of "beauty" cultivated by athletes to corporate product branding. And just as Sen no Rikyū expanded the "philosophy of the tea world" into society, we want to expand the practical wisdom of athletes into society.

Athlete Brains Production Team Dentsu Inc. / Akimichi Hibi (3CRP) · Kohei Shiraishi (Business Co-creation Bureau)

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Athlete Brains, led by Dai Tamesue.
For details on this team that connects the knowledge cultivated by athletes to solving challenges in the world (for companies and society), see here.