Yozan Uesugi — "If You Act, It Is Done" — Begun at 17

"If you act, it can be done; if you do not, it cannot — in all things, failure is the fruit of not doing." Every Japanese knows these words of Yozan Uesugi, lord of the Yonezawa domain. When he succeeded, the domain was so deep in debt that returning it to the shogunate was discussed. He was seventeen.

An ordinary young lord would have hidden behind retainers; Yozan did not. He began with himself — slashing his own household budget, wearing cotton, eating one soup and one dish — and only then asked samurai and farmers for austerity and new industry: land reclamation, sericulture, weaving.

The reforms nearly failed more than once; he persisted for a lifetime, and Yonezawa was rebuilt — so admired that President Kennedy reportedly named him a Japanese he respected. What thrills me is the order: before demanding of others, remove a dish from your own table.

"If you act" is no slogan of grit — it belongs only to those who took up the acting first.

What do you work for?