Lost Job Overnight: Unexpected is Normal

In 2007, one of history's largest acquisitions — roughly twenty trillion yen — swallowed his bank within months, and he lost his job overnight. His own results were excellent; the Japan unit was thriving. Yet everything he had built vanished by a logic of capital on the other side of the planet.

He engraved a phrase into himself: "The unexpected is the norm." Its power lies in not being pessimism: define the unexpected as normal, and when it strikes, you skip the lamenting and move to the next play.

From the brink of retirement he was invited to a Singaporean bank and rebuilt from zero — and each later shock was met with the same phrase. The ultimate risk management is not sharper forecasting, but a default setting of the heart that nothing can shake. Our CFO's calm at sixty-four comes from that setting.

What do you work for?