No Success Without Dreams – Yoshida Shoin

I and one of our executives were born in Yamaguchi — home, in the final days of the shogunate, to Yoshida Shoin. The executive closed his essay with Shoin's words: "Without dreams, no ideals. Without ideals, no plans. Without plans, no execution. Without execution, no success. Therefore: without dreams, no success."

Its power is that what looks like spiritual exhortation is in fact a perfect blueprint: dream → ideal → plan → execution → success, each step logically joined. Most people start from the plan; Shoin insists the ideal precedes it, and the dream precedes the ideal — for a plan without a dream is mere number-fitting.

Our management follows this order: the dream of making everyone smile; the ideal of a company that increases the world's smiles; the plan of our trillion-yen vision; and daily execution. Shoin reputedly added that sustaining "I will absolutely do this" borders on madness — and those who carry such madness are happy.

Words from 160 years ago still push at our backs.

What do you work for?