Serial Essay · Chairman of a Nasdaq-listed Company
What do youwork for?
What do you work for?
A serial essay by Tomoki Nagano, Chairman of INSTINCT BIO TECHNICAL COMPANY (Nasdaq: BIOT), written in his own unvarnished words.
- Essays
- 174
- Author
- Tomoki NaganoChairman & CEO, NASDAQ: BIOT
- Updated
- November 1, 2026
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Archive
174 essaysSeason 1100 essays
What do you work for?
Essays 1–100. The main series, in which Chairman Tomoki Nagano writes his life and his management in unvarnished words.
- 100Read →October 7, 20262 min read
And You: What Do You Work For? (100th Installment)
This series began with the question our sixty-four-year-old CFO posed to himself at the end of his essay: What do you work for?
- 99Read →October 6, 20262 min read
Memory of That First Bus Step – First Courage
Nearing this series' close, let me speak of first courage. I once wrote of an executive's oldest memory: a young boy's first solo bus ride — the timetable peeled away, no certainty the bus would come or was the right one, no courage to ask, sweat on his nose. He stepped aboard anyway.
- 98Read →October 6, 20262 min read
Who Did You Make Smile Today?
Our company's day can ultimately be measured by one question: whom did you make smile today? Those polishing products work for the smiles of customers not yet met; those running tournaments, for children on the pitch; those closing the books, for shareholders who trust us and colleagues beside us.
- 97Read →October 5, 20262 min read
From Which Future Does Your Blueprint Come?
Let me hand you, one last time, the philosophy of time this series has repeated — as a tool of your own. The future's time flows toward the present: we decide the future first and live today by back-calculation; the listing and what lies beyond were all drawn on the blueprint in advance.
- 96Read →October 4, 20262 min read
Setback May Be Preparation for Next Encounter
A line one executive placed at the end of his essay, which I reread often: "Failure may have been preparation for the next encounter." He lost his business to COVID — his life's greatest setback — but it taught him to return to his true calling, and on that path he met me. So he could rename failure "preparation."
- 95Read →October 4, 20262 min read
Who Were the Friends Who Saved You?
Mine has been a life continually saved by friends. Barry and Brian in Saskatoon saved an eighteen-year-old with zero English; a trading-company friend introduced me to my lifelong partner; that partner climbed with me out of the bottom. The man named "to bring joy to friends" has, it turns out, lived a life of receiving joy from them.
- 94Read →October 3, 20262 min read
When Were You Last Excited?
Past ninety installments, today I ask you a question instead: when were you last excited? If you answered instantly, you are in good condition — keep that fire. If it took a while, hear this.
- 93Read →October 2, 20262 min read
What Wish is in Your Name?
As this series has often told, my name Tomoki carries my parents' wish: "to bring joy to friends." Forty-five years later, my management philosophy is "cherish the companions who rejoice together" and my company's purpose is "make everyone smile." The name's wish and the life's content have converged.
- 92Read →October 2, 20262 min read
A Team That Enjoys Overcoming Walls
Our Senior Managing Director wrote these words for future companions: "Honestly, our strength may not yet fully merit the pride of a listed company. But turned over, that means our room to grow — our blank canvas — is enormous. The walls will keep multiplying. But it's all right: we are a team that enjoys climbing over walls."
- 91Read →October 1, 20262 min read
Life Without Excitement is Harder
One line from an executive's essay stays with me: "Life holds more hardship than not. But a life without excitement is harder still — and no fun." What makes it good is that it begins by admitting the hardship.
- 90Read →October 1, 20262 min read
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."
- 89Read →September 30, 20262 min read
What I Want 100-Year-Old Children to Say
Let me speak of management's time horizon. Corporate life expectancy is said to be around thirty years; most companies measure in quarters, plan in single years, and call three-to-five-year plans "long-term." As a listed company we fully honor our duties on that clock. But we carry another clock besides — one that ticks in centuries.
- 88Read →September 29, 20262 min read
Ready to Challenge the World
I once counted calmly: our leadership team is unexpectedly well- equipped for the world. Myself — four years and eight months in Canada, then global business at a perfume maker. A CFO with thirteen years stationed in Singapore, seasoned against international investors.
- 87Read →September 29, 20262 min read
Japanese Manufacturing, to the World
Abroad, one feels it keenly: trust in Japanese manufacturing runs deeper than we at home imagine. Carefully made; rigorously quality-controlled; honest. This trust, built by generations before us, may be Japan's greatest intangible asset.
- 86Read →September 28, 20262 min read
What Comes After AI?
We already live in the age of the AI wars — companies worldwide racing to develop and deploy, believing the master of AI masters the next era. We use AI aggressively ourselves. But a leader must always think about what comes next. After AI, I believe, comes quantum technology.
- 85Read →September 27, 20262 min read
Someday, Build a Town
Let me speak of our farthest dream: someday, we want to build a town. People gather from around the world; employment is born; people are paid, work together, and enjoy the town-building itself; the world's cultures arrive, mingle, and new culture is born. Why would a company build a town?
- 84Read →September 27, 20262 min read
Famous School, Famous Company: Is That Enough?
A question about education has long nagged at me: graduate from a famous school, join a famous company — is that enough? Do not misunderstand: I have no wish to deny academic effort; earning entry into a good school is admirable.
- 83Read →September 26, 20262 min read
Our Dream for Food and Agriculture
Among our dreams is the field of food and agriculture. Why does a cosmetics company speak of farmland? Trace how our daily meals, foods, and drinks come to be, and you always arrive at the same place: soil. Its condition, its nutrients, its cultivation — the roots of food quality all return to the earth.
- 82Read →September 26, 20262 min read
Deciding by Faces, Not Just Numbers
Let me record my final check when a management decision hangs in the balance. I examine the numbers, of course — market size, margins, risk; management without numbers is gambling. But when the numbers are all in and I still waver, the last thing I look at is faces. If we do this business, whose face will smile?
- 81Read →September 25, 20262 min read
One Trillion Yen is Not the Purpose
We hold a long-term vision of a one-trillion-yen market capitalization. Reactions split in two: those who laugh, "How grandiose," and those who ask, "Why one trillion?" To the latter I answer: one trillion is not the purpose — it is a declaration of scale. Our purpose is to bring joy, smiles, and gratitude to every person in the world.
- 80Read →September 24, 20262 min read
Management by Executive Essays
A company that has its executives write life essays is rare, apparently. I am convinced it is a serious management method, for three reasons. First, writing is an inventory: executives buried in daily operations will never articulate where they came from and where they are going unless the time is deliberately made.
- 79Read →September 24, 20262 min read
Everyone on the Same Ship, A Shared Aspiration
Let me reveal the true purpose of having every executive write a life essay. Aboard the same ship, unless all hold the same aspiration and face the same direction, I alone can do nothing — I wanted to share our hearts as companions and comrades. "The same ship" is a common phrase.
- 78Read →September 23, 20262 min read
Set Fire to Talent
Within our group is a somewhat unusual marketing and branding company whose motto is: "Set fire to talent." I love this phrase — not "create" talent, not "find" it, but ignite it, resting on the premise that the talent is already there. I have witnessed this premise all my life. Canadian friends lit the fire in a boy who couldn't study.
- 77Read →September 22, 20262 min read
Make the Invisible Visible With Data
Within our group is a company for sourcing and analysis, whose motto is: "Make the invisible visible through data." Cosmetics and wellness have long been worlds of feeling — "it seems moisturizing," "it seems to work," "the ingredient sounds good." Much of the industry stands atop accumulated "seems."
- 76Read →September 22, 20262 min read
From 100 Units to Mass Production
Among our factory's mottos, my favorite: "From 100 units to mass production." In cosmetics manufacturing, small lots are unwelcome — factories profit from volume, and "minimum tens of thousands" towers as industry common sense. But behind that common sense, how many challenges die?
- 75Read →September 21, 20262 min read
From Materials to Smiles – The Chain Story
Asked to explain our business in one phrase, I say: "From materials to smiles." Source trusted raw materials from around the world; research them; formulate; manufacture in our own factory; deliver as brands; and at the end stands the smile of the person who uses them.
- 74Read →September 21, 20262 min read
Never Give Up. Never Be Defeated. Never Lose Conviction.
Our principles, addressed to the world, are three lines in English: Never Give Up. Never Be Defeated. Never Lose Our Conviction. They may look alike; they fight different enemies. "Never give up" fights your own heart — the voice at the wall whispering "enough."
- 73Read →September 20, 20262 min read
Cherish Companions Who Rejoice Together
One of our executives wrote that he decided to join after being struck by words I spoke when we met through work: "Cherish the companions who rejoice together." Truthfully, I never invented this as a management philosophy — I have simply lived my name, Tomoki, "to bring joy to friends."
- 72Read →September 19, 20262 min read
Leaving Behind Culture, Not Buildings
The final article of our manifesto describes our furthest dream: "What we leave behind is not buildings, but culture. We dream of building a town. But a town is not its buildings — it is culture, and culture is how people live.
- 71Read →September 19, 20262 min read
Profit is the Strength to Challenge
On profit we offer neither platitudes nor contrarianism. Our manifesto's fourth article is explicit: "Profit is the strength to challenge. We do not deny profit — it is fuel for challenging the future. But we never make profit the sole purpose. Profit is what results from raising people's value and creating joy and smiles."
- 70Read →September 18, 20262 min read
A Brand is a Promise
The third article of our manifesto states our position on brand: "A brand is a promise. We do not build brands to sell products. A brand is when people see our name and feel: here, I am safe; here, I can trust. That is our brand." The world often treats "brand" as logos, packaging, advertising.
- 69Read →September 17, 20262 min read
Health is the Starting Point of Life
The second article of our manifesto binds our whole business into one idea: "Health is the starting point of life. Health is not the absence of illness. It is the strength to hold dreams, take on challenges, and live each day smiling.
- 68Read →September 17, 20262 min read
It Begins With One Smile
Let me share the first article of our internal manifesto: "It begins with one smile. We do not exist to change the world. We exist to make one person's life a little better. One smile changes a family; a family changes a community; communities change society; and when society changes, the world changes.
- 67Read →September 16, 20262 min read
We Are Not a Cosmetics Company
A sentence from our Senior Managing Director's essay deserves to stand as our company's definition: "Cosmetics may be our foundation today, but neither the chairman nor I have ever thought of this as a cosmetics company. Cosmetics are a means.
- 66Read →September 15, 20262 min read
Six Essays, All Landed on 'Smiles'
I asked every executive to write a life essay — birth to present to future — with no format, no theme, no required conclusion, each written separately, unseen by the others. When the essays returned, I was astonished.
- 65Read →September 15, 20262 min read
What Do You Work For? – A 64-Year-Old's Question
The title of this series is not mine. I borrowed it from the question our sixty-four-year-old CFO placed at the end of his essay: "I ask my sixty-four-year- old self anew: What do you work for?"
- 64Read →September 14, 20262 min read
Human Stem Cells Struck Me Instantly
Why did a veteran of global finance choose us for his final act? His essay records the moment. Working furiously in Singapore, he received a call from an old audit-firm acquaintance: a Japanese company aiming to list was seeking a CFO. A conversation he would normally decline — but something nagged, so he listened.
- 63Read →September 14, 20262 min read
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.
- 62Read →September 13, 20262 min read
How I Turned Around a Red-Ink Company at 43
A vivid chapter in our CFO's career: when a foreign asset manager's Japan unit was sinking, he took the president's seat at forty-three on a promise to turn it around. His first move, in one line from his essay: "Secure profitability through selection and concentration — pour our limited people only into businesses that earn."
- 61Read →September 12, 20262 min read
64 Years After Accident, Lost Memories
Our CFO is sixty-four, and his essay opens with a striking confession: at age five, thrown from the back of his mother's motorbike, he struck his head and lost most of his memories — and grew up with a weak memory ever since. Ordinarily told as a handicap.
- 60Read →September 12, 20262 min read
Children's Smiles Became My Conviction
Ask him why he continues this work, and his answer is fixed: "The smiles of the children, their teams, and their parents — and repaying the companies that sponsor us." A designer from Hiroshima who lost his business to COVID arrived at "children's smiles" — a landing I find beautiful.
- 59Read →September 11, 20262 min read
Growing an 8-Team Tournament to 32 Nations
One of the businesses he now leads is a youth soccer tournament. It began as a small one-day event with just 8 teams. Today, with corporate sponsors, it has grown into a national-scale tournament — up to 32 teams over two days. In three years.
- 58Read →September 10, 20262 min read
Never Stray From Your True Calling
From the pain of losing his business, he extracted a single line: "Having drifted from my true calling — design and creative work — was itself the greatest failure." Why do people drift from their calling? Because lucrative-sounding offers always arrive from outside it; one's own field looks plain, and the neighbor's grass looks green.
- 57Read →September 10, 20262 min read
Three Lessons From Losing Business to COVID
Alongside design work, he had built an import business from Europe — until COVID stopped the world. Lockdowns severed the trade at its root; the business he had built was finished. His life's greatest setback. But he converted it into three lessons, written plainly in his essay.
- 56Read →September 9, 20262 min read
Couldn't Ignore 'I Love Art'
His first turning point was a do-over. He studied computers at a vocational school, felt it wasn't him, even took a job once — but could not ignore the voice that had always been there: "I love art." He let go of stability and re-enrolled, this time at a commercial art school in Osaka.
- 55Read →September 9, 20262 min read
An Ordinary Life in Rural Hiroshima
One of our executives grew up in rural Hiroshima — mountains, rivers, an utterly ordinary family. The future he pictured: "Grow up in Hiroshima, work in Hiroshima, become a grandfather there — a peaceful, ordinary life I took for granted." Today he leads a nationwide business as an executive officer of a Nasdaq- listed company in Tokyo.
- 54Read →September 8, 20262 min read
I Want to Raise Many 'Next Me's'
The strongest line about the future in our youngest executive's essay: "I want to raise the next me — not one, but many." Raising a single successor is common talk; "many" is what sets him apart. One successor is chair-thinking — who inherits my seat.
- 53Read →September 7, 20262 min read
Repaying Kindness with Results
Now an executive officer at thirty-one, he states his engine plainly: "I want to repay the debt of being raised here — not with words, but with results." Everyone speaks of repaying kindness; he restricted it to "with results," and that restriction contains his whole growth.
- 52Read →September 7, 20262 min read
Learning Is Fun — A Restart at 25
It is never too late to learn — our youngest executive is the proof. A teenager who never studied joined us at twenty-five and discovered, for the first time, that "learning is fun." A man who knew nothing of cosmetics absorbed formulation, raw materials, law, cost, and how to raise people. What changed him?
- 51Read →September 6, 20262 min read
Falling for the Man Called Chairman
The youngest executive's essay contains a line that makes me bashful: "Honestly, the biggest reason I joined this company was not the business — I fell for the chairman as a man." Embarrassing, but I write about it, because it holds the essence of hiring and organization. People ultimately follow not conditions but a person.
- 50Read →September 5, 20262 min read
The First Time He Saw Adults Enjoy Their Work
Of the day he first walked into our company at twenty-five, he wrote: "I was stunned. I had never in my life seen adults working with such joy." Every adult around him until then had been a complainer; work was suffering to be endured — that was normal.
- 49Read →September 5, 20262 min read
The Boy Who Lost His Father at Five
The youngest of our executives began his essay with one line: "I lost my father when I was five." He grew up never knowing what a father was. His teens, by his own account, were nothing to praise — no studying, endless play, and every setback blamed on parents, environment, others.
- 48Read →September 4, 20262 min read
No Geniuses Required — How Ordinary People Beat Talent
His high school basketball team was no collection of prodigies — which is precisely why they discovered something. Unable to win on individual skill, they radically clarified roles: the runners, the coordinated defenders, the set-play executors. Design versus talent — and on a tour of Nagasaki they swept teams they had never beaten.
- 47Read →September 4, 20262 min read
The Night He Missed Olympic Selection and Turned Off the TV
As a national-team trainer, he had one clear dream: the Olympics. Appointed just after one Games ended, he gave three full years — Beijing was within reach. Then the verdict: not him, but his master would go. "I lost all drive," he wrote. "It only meant something — only thrilled me — if I was the one going."
- 46Read →September 3, 20262 min read
The Road to Trainer for the National Team
As a young working adult, he spent two years walking the rails — excited only by nights out. Then a magazine article: a judo-therapist serving as an Olympic trainer. His thought: "I hold the same license. I could do that — no, I absolutely will."
- 45Read →September 2, 20262 min read
What Practicing Until You Hyperventilate Teaches You
His high school basketball chapter is brutal. The seniors were among the prefecture's best; only two first-years, himself included, were allowed into their practices. Outmatched in physique, stamina, and skill, he clung on daily — hyperventilating repeatedly. In his words: "Nothing in my life, before or since, has been that hard."
- 44Read →September 2, 20262 min read
Festivals, Bamboo, and the Effort to Stand Out
The same executive's essay describes his town's unusual festival of carrying great bamboo poles — a month of preparation, working late with the town's adults, then four performances a day before crowds, walking tall and thinking "look how strong I am!"
- 43Read →September 1, 20262 min read
The Thrill of the First Bus Ride Alone
One of our executives wrote in his essay about his oldest memory: riding a bus alone for the first time as a young boy. The timetable had peeled off; he didn't know if the bus would come, or if the one that came was right; he lacked the courage to ask. Sweating, he stepped aboard anyway.
- 42Read →August 31, 20262 min read
0 to 1 on Instinct, 1 to 10 on Logic
Our Senior Managing Director works by an explicit formula, in his own words: "Starting something new — going 0 to 1 — lead with instinct and just try. After the challenge, going 1 to 10 — systemization — use logic, feeding the failures into the system."
- 41Read →August 31, 20262 min read
"There Is Nothing We Have to Change"
After our listing was set, our Senior Managing Director thought hard and said: "I've been asking myself what must change now that we're a public company's officers — and my answer is: nothing. The real risk is becoming satisfied, stiff, conservative — ceasing to challenge. Changing in the bad sense is our greatest risk." Exactly.
- 40Read →August 30, 20262 min read
From the Day After Our First Dinner, Always Together
My partnership with our Senior Managing Director began with a single dinner. Introduced by a friend, we ate together — and started working together the next day. No résumé, no interview, no trial period. For over ten years since, we have worked side by side morning to night, apart only during the pandemic. Reckless?
- 39Read →August 30, 20262 min read
Navigating Uncertain Times
Asked about the hardest stretch of our listing preparation, our Senior Managing Director wrote that he struggles to answer: "It was an endless series of firsts, so it was always hard — but once done, it's done, and I barely remember the hardship. The thrill of moving forward outweighed it."
- 38Read →August 29, 20262 min read
Senior Director's Theme: Enjoy Life
Our Senior Managing Director's essay opens: "Fifty years of life — my theme is 'enjoy life.'" His crushing loss at Koshien, business ups and downs, the grueling road to listing — all line up under that single phrase. "It must have been constant hardship, but inside my head it was fun.
- 37Read →August 28, 20262 min read
At 19, He Filled an Event with 500 People
Another favorite chapter from our Senior Managing Director's story: age nineteen. Having left university, he and his friends launched a fashion event. In his words: "We thought about nothing difficult. We ran purely on 'love it' and 'fun.'" Five hundred people showed up — it even turned a profit.
- 36Read →August 28, 20262 min read
Koshien, First Round, 12-0 — Dream Big Anyway
Our Senior Managing Director once played at Koshien, Japan's legendary national baseball stadium. His high school team's motto: "The dream is national champions; the purpose is building character." Facing that outrageous dream in earnest carried them to their first national tournament — where they lost the opening game 12–0.
- 35Read →August 27, 20262 min read
What You Do After You Leap on Instinct
I have written repeatedly: trust your instinct and leap. Today, what comes after the leap. Move on instinct, and a moment of "this isn't what I imagined" always arrives. People split in two: those who turn back declaring their instinct wrong, and those who correct course while moving.
- 34Read →August 26, 20262 min read
You Grow as Strong as the Number of Your Failures
Our Senior Managing Director has a line that thrills me: "My strength is experience no one in this company can match — in other words, an absurdly large number of failures." Declaring your failure count as a strength: that is our culture. My own judgment today was built almost entirely from failures, not successes.
- 33Read →August 26, 20262 min read
The Math Behind Delighting Ten Billion People
We chase one number — not revenue, not profit, but the number of people we have delighted. Ten thousand, a million, a hundred million — and ten billion. Yes, more than the world's population. Count person × occasion — delighted by our cosmetics, by their health, ten and twenty years on — and ten billion is almost modest.
- 32Read →August 25, 20262 min read
I Have Decided Never to Run Away
Asked to state my management philosophy in one word: never run. It sounds gallant; the reality is muddier. In business, moments that tempt you to flee arrive regularly — unpleasant reports, heavy negotiations, cleaning up your own failures — and escape routes are always provided.
- 31Read →August 24, 20262 min read
On Always Being Affirmative and Positive
Asked what I can do now, my first answer is fixed: remain positive and affirmative — always. It sounds ordinary, but anyone who runs a company knows how hard "always" is. On days of betrayal and unexpected walls, saying "it's over" is easy. We have decided to say instead: "Now — how do we make this interesting?"
- 30Read →August 24, 20262 min read
My Thinking Is Probably Nothing Like My Seniors'
The world has many magnificent chairmen leading companies worth hundreds of billions — people whose track records dwarf mine. But my way of thinking is probably completely different from those great seniors'.
- 29Read →August 23, 20262 min read
What Neuroscience Taught Me at 45
I turn forty-five this year, and I have come to appreciate the power of brain science — not as an academic field, but as a simple truth: human drive is determined less by willpower than by the state of the brain. When I am excited, I work dawn to dusk without fatigue; ideas flow, decisions come fast.
- 28Read →August 23, 20262 min read
Don't Chase Money — Chase Dreams
Chase dreams, not money — and for those who chase dreams, money and numbers always follow. My life has proven it. This may sound idealistic, so let me explain the mechanism. Money-chasers act on the profit of each transaction; their judgment turns short-term, and people accurately detect it — and never entrust them with great work.
- 27Read →August 22, 20262 min read
On the Frightening Face I Wear When I Concentrate
A confession: I, too, have hours when my face turns fierce — when I am concentrating, striving in earnest. After writing so much about smiles, this may seem contradictory. It is not. My foundation is to be fundamentally smiling, always wanting to deliver smiles; upon that foundation, my brow furrows at decisive moments.
- 26Read →August 21, 20262 min read
Do I Believe in the Law of Attraction?
"Do you believe in the law of attraction?" My answer is slightly crooked: it's not exactly the law of attraction — but without that kind of mindset, you absolutely cannot succeed. I don't believe wishing makes things come true.
- 25Read →August 21, 20262 min read
If I Don't Smile, No One Around Me Will
My most important self-discipline as a chairman is not health or time management — it is my own smile. If I am not smiling, the people around me will never smile. A leader's expression becomes the organization's weather: if I cloud over, meetings cloud over, then the workplace, and eventually even customers feel it.
- 24Read →August 20, 20262 min read
Never Spend the Night at a Waypoint
When people reach a goal, they want to stay the night there — banquets, souvenirs, basking in the afterglow. We decided never to do this. On our listing day, I had an ordinary dinner at home and was moving toward the next blueprint that same day. Why? Because afterglow has weight.
- 23Read →August 19, 20262 min read
Abandoning "I'll Do X Because Y Happened"
"Sales rose, so we invest." "Results came, so we praise." "We listed, so we celebrate." The world mostly runs on this grammar of because-then. We never had it. Its true nature is hindsight: moving after seeing results is safe, but decisively slow — and those who move on hindsight walk forever behind the world.
- 22Read →August 19, 20262 min read
Yoshuku — Those Who Celebrate First Pull the Future In
Japan has an old tradition called yoshuku — "pre-celebration." Hanami, cherry-blossom viewing, was originally a ritual to celebrate autumn's harvest in advance: feast under the blossoms for rice not yet grown, and pull that future toward you. Our company practices this in earnest.
- 21Read →August 18, 20262 min read
Time Flows from the Future Toward Us
Most people believe time flows from past to future. We believe the opposite: the future flows toward the present. This is not wordplay — it redesigns how you live. If time flows from the past, you set today's targets from last year's results, and growth becomes addition.
- 20Read →August 18, 20262 min read
The Day We Built Our Factory in Kakegawa
In 2019 we built our own factory in Kakegawa, Shizuoka. Outsourcing keeps you light — no capital investment, no maintenance, no hiring. We built anyway, because I refused to entrust the heart of our manufacturing to others.
- 19Read →August 17, 20262 min read
2017: We Started from Materials Science
Our current path began in 2017, with materials science. Countless cosmetics companies are, in essence, planning-and-marketing companies — factories and trading houses supply the rest. We entered from the opposite end: the deepest layer, raw materials, because that is where quality originates.
- 18Read →August 16, 20262 min read
The Meaning Behind the Name INSTINCT
Our company name, INSTINCT, means exactly that — instinct. I leapt to Canada on a "Why not!"; I began working with my partner the day after our first dinner; our CFO, hearing about human stem cells for the first time, said "it clicked instantly" and bet the final chapter of his global finance career on us. Instinct is not guesswork.
- 17Read →August 16, 20262 min read
Designing a Company on the Five Elements
Our group is designed on the five elements of Eastern philosophy — wood, fire, water, metal, earth.
- 16Read →August 15, 20262 min read
A Company Is a Work of Art — Why I Build Our Websites Myself
A confession: every website in our group — the holding company's, each subsidiary's, and this very series page — I built with my own hands. "Is that a chairman's job?" I've been asked. My answer is firm: this is precisely the chairman's job. Because to me, the company is a work of art.
- 15Read →August 14, 20262 min read
The Day Two Men at Rock Bottom Started with Part-Time Work
When I met our Senior Managing Director, I was in the hardest stretch of my own life — and he was at rock bottom too. Two people at the bottom usually just lick each other's wounds. Not us. "Let's climb up together!" — we worked part-time jobs side by side while stacking up challenge after challenge.
- 14Read →August 14, 20262 min read
"There's Someone I'd Like You to Meet"
Around the time I decided to go independent, a friend from my trading company days said casually: "There's someone I'd like you to meet." That one remark decided my business life. From the day after our first dinner, that man and I began working together — and for more than ten years since, we have worked side by side, morning to night.
- 13Read →August 13, 20262 min read
What I Learned at a Tokyo Stock Exchange Company
My product development experience earned me a place at a company listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. There I saw a world that runs not on individual hustle but on systems — for quality, approval, responsibility. Young me found it stifling at times.
- 12Read →August 13, 20262 min read
Six Job Offers in One Month — Turning Gratitude into Action
My parents paid dearly for my four years and eight months in Canada. So the moment I returned, I started job-hunting — no break, no "finding myself." In one month, I had six offers. I had no academic credentials to boast of.
- 11Read →August 12, 20262 min read
From a Perfume-Loving Teenager to a Cosmetics Chairman
I loved perfume as a high schooler — just a simple "like," with no career calculation. Yet when I job-hunted after Canada, I chose a perfume maker from six offers, because I wanted to work near what I loved.
- 10Read →August 11, 20262 min read
The TV Drama That Became My Ignition Switch
As a junior high schooler, I encountered a TV drama called "Okane ga nai!" (No Money!). Watching it, I realized: even someone poor can succeed, and build a life without hardship. "I will absolutely work hard" — that was my life's first resolution, made in front of a television.
- 09Read →August 11, 20262 min read
Why We Won Small Tournaments and Lost the Big Ones
My boyhood soccer team won almost every local tournament — yet at the big tournaments, we always lost. Winning small but losing big: I've carried that frustration for forty years. As an adult, I understood why. Small stages can be won on individual talent; big stages are decided by total preparation and team design.
- 08Read →August 10, 20262 min read
No Soccer Team? Then Reach the Top in Basketball
In elementary school I lived for soccer — but my junior high school had no soccer club. A moment where sulking would be understandable. Instead, I started basketball and practiced relentlessly: mornings, evenings, holidays. By ninth grade I made the prefectural select team and played at nationals. That became the template for my life.
- 07Read →August 9, 20262 min read
To the Boy Who Never Knew How to Study
As a boy, I simply could not study. I read without understanding; I failed at arithmetic. Looking back, I wasn't unintelligent — I had never been taught how to learn. So I poured myself into sports, where effort visibly converted into results. As an adult I realized: there are almost no "children who can't."
- 06Read →August 9, 20262 min read
"Why Not?" — The Single Remark That Changed My Life
Every turning point in my life began with someone else's casual remark. "Why not study English abroad?" sent me to Canada. "There's someone I'd like you to meet" introduced me to my lifelong business partner. What matters is how you receive such words. I always receive them with "Why not!" — no doubting first, no listing reasons why not.
- 05Read →August 8, 20262 min read
Barry and Brian — My Teachers Were Friends, Not Classrooms
What saved me in Canada was not a classroom. It was Barry and Brian, two local friends in Saskatoon. Honestly, I barely attended school — I just spent every day with them. And through that, they taught me real English, until one day learning became fun. As a boy I couldn't study at all; inside the classroom system, I was unteachable.
- 04Read →August 8, 20262 min read
I Cried for a Month in Saskatoon — The Uses of Homesickness
My Canadian destination was Saskatoon — freezing winters, only a few dozen Japanese residents in town. An eighteen-year-old who knew only sports, with zero English, I spent my first month homesick and in tears. Looking back, that month was necessary. People only get serious when there is nowhere to run.
- 03Read →August 7, 20262 min read
Zero English, and a Plane to Canada 15 Days After Graduation
Fifteen days after graduating from high school, I was on a plane to Canada. I could not speak a single word of English.
- 02Read →August 2, 20262 min read
To Bring Joy to Friends — How My Name Became My Life
My name is Tomoki. My parents chose characters that mean "to bring joy to friends."
- 01Read →August 1, 20262 min read
On My IPO Day, I Ate Dinner at Home as Usual
"How did you celebrate your IPO day?"
Season 1.524 essays
The Brain Science of Smiles
Season 1.5 is a special series of 24 essays reading our own practices — pre-celebration, gratitude, writing, companionship — through the language of neuroscience and psychology. The final ten are original pieces drawn from what I have verified in my own life and management.
Download all 24 essays (PDF)- 174Read →August 14, 20262 min read
The Brain Can Change at Any Age — Plasticity as Hope
Season 1.5 closes with the one line I most want to leave: the brain can change at any age. It was once believed that adult brains were fixed. Neuroscience has repeatedly shown otherwise — neuroplasticity, the continual remaking of neural connections through experience and learning. Circuits used grow stronger; circuits unused grow thin.
- 173Read →August 13, 20262 min read
Meaning Over Reward — The Research on Intrinsic Motivation
Does raising pay make people motivated? Every manager asks it once. My answer: raise it, yes — but pay alone is not enough.
- 172Read →August 13, 20262 min read
Name the Fear and It Shrinks — On the Amygdala
Becoming the chairman of a listed company does not remove anxiety. Because it does not, I learned how to handle it. Neuroscience reports that attaching verbal labels to emotion is accompanied by reduced activity in the amygdala, the region tied to fear and anxiety — a phenomenon called affect labeling.
- 171Read →August 13, 20262 min read
We Grow Strong Because We Laugh — Laughter and Stress
When I say we exist to increase the world's total volume of smiles, it is not a sentimental slogan; laughter does measurable work in the body. Studies report lower indicators of stress-related hormones in states of laughter and positive emotion, along with changes in pain perception and immune markers.
- 170Read →August 12, 20262 min read
Why the Brain Says "Tomorrow" — The Anatomy of Procrastination
Procrastination is not weak will; it is the natural consequence of how the brain values time. Behavioral economics repeatedly confirms that people steeply discount the future: the same reward feels smaller when distant, while a small pleasure at hand looms large. "Success in three years" loses to "one more drink tonight."
- 169Read →August 12, 20262 min read
We Become Whom We Watch — Mirror Neurons and Leading by Back
That showing beats telling is not mere folk wisdom; it is partly a matter of how the brain is built. Neuroscience has reported neurons that respond while watching another's action much as they do when performing it — the mirror neuron system.
- 168Read →August 12, 20262 min read
One Breath Switches the Body — The Physiology of Tension
Before any big moment I do exactly one thing: exhale slowly and long. Research on the autonomic nervous system shows that inhaling and exhaling shift heart rate and bodily state; a slow, extended exhale is reported to support the calming side of the system.
- 167Read →August 12, 20262 min read
Words Reset the Brain — The Science of Self-Talk
We talk to ourselves all day long, and the quality of those words decides our state. Psychology studies self-talk: addressing oneself by name or as "you" rather than "I" is reported to create distance from emotion, improving composure and performance under pressure. Distance alone changes how the brain handles the moment.
- 166Read →August 11, 20262 min read
Ideas Arrive When You Walk — Movement and the Brain
Good ideas do not arrive at the desk; they arrive while walking — and that is not merely a feeling.
- 165Read →August 11, 20262 min read
The Brain Writes While You Sleep — Sleep and Memory
The next ten essays are original pieces in which I retell what brain science has shown in my own language as a manager and a man. The first theme is sleep.
- 164Read →August 11, 20262 min read
Connection Is Health — The Science of Companions Who Rejoice Together
This half of Season 1.5 closes by grounding our philosophy — "cherish the companions who rejoice together" — in the science of health.
- 163Read →August 11, 20262 min read
When the Face in the Mirror Changes, the Heart Changes — The Psychology of Beauty
We are a beauty company, so we owe an answer to this question: what do cosmetics actually change? The skin's condition, of course — but psychology suggests something beyond.
- 162Read →August 10, 20262 min read
What "Thank You" Does to the Body — The Physiology of Connection
I have written of gratitude as a habit of mind; here, what it does between people. Research identifies hormones involved in human bonding — rising in moments of trusted touch and cooperation, supporting security and connection — and saying or receiving "thank you" may be one of daily life's easiest switches for that circuitry.
- 161Read →August 10, 20262 min read
The Mechanics of Attraction — Expectation, Attention, Action, Result
Asked whether I believe in the law of attraction, I answered: not as magic — but as a mechanism, with conviction. Let me disassemble it scientifically. First gear: self-fulfilling prophecy.
- 160Read →August 10, 20262 min read
Motivation Can Be Managed — My Daily Routine at Forty-Five
To close the first half of Season 1.5, let me publish my own daily brain-maintenance routine — nothing special, everything with a reason. Morning: look at the blueprint of the future and confirm today's work is part of it, igniting the approach state. Order tasks by closeness to the blueprint, not by mood.
- 159Read →August 10, 20262 min read
Habit Beats Will — The Science of Stacking Small
How long until a new behavior automates into habit? Habit-formation research reports an average of around two months — sometimes half a year or more depending on the person and behavior. Quitting after three days is not weak will; it is passing judgment before automation could occur.
- 158Read →August 9, 20262 min read
Environment Builds the Brain — On Standing Somewhere Slightly Higher
Do not over-trust willpower. Behavioral science repeatedly shows that human behavior is shaped less by individual resolve than by surrounding environments and relationships.
- 157Read →August 9, 20262 min read
Does Believing You Can Change Actually Change You? — On Mindset
Does believing "I can change" actually help? Educational psychology holds a famous lineage of research: children with a growth mindset — believing ability can be developed — were reported to persist at hard tasks, learn from failure, and improve over time.
- 156Read →August 9, 20262 min read
Writing Orders the Mind — The Science Behind Management by Essay
When our executives wrote their life essays, one said: "I finally organized what my life has been." That sense of writing-as-organizing has a research pedigree.
- 155Read →August 9, 20262 min read
The Brain Cannot Leave a Question Alone — Why This Series Ends the Same Way
Let me reveal why every installment ends with the same question. Psychology reports that the unfinished stays in memory: completed tasks are forgotten, while interrupted tasks and unanswered questions linger — the classic observation known as the Zeigarnik effect.
- 154Read →August 8, 20262 min read
What Changes When You Write "Thank You" — The Research on Gratitude
On gratitude, psychology has a famous family of experiments: some participants list things they are grateful for each week, others record hassles or mere events, and weeks later the groups are compared — with the gratitude writers reporting greater well-being and optimism. From writing alone, while circumstances changed not at all.
- 153Read →August 8, 20262 min read
Smiles Are Contagious — A Leader's Face Is a Corporate Asset
"If I am not smiling, no one around me will smile" — my conviction apparently has scientific backing. Psychology has long studied emotional contagion: people unconsciously mirror the expressions and vocal tones before them, and the mirrored expression moves their own emotions in turn.
- 152Read →August 8, 20262 min read
Dopamine Fires on Approach, Not Arrival — The True Nature of Excitement
What is that thrill of excitement? Neuroscience lends an outline. Research on dopamine, the brain chemical deeply tied to drive, reports a crucial property: it works more strongly while approaching an anticipated reward than at the moment of receiving it.
- 151Read →August 8, 20262 min read
Why Celebrating in Advance Starts the Brain's Engine — The Science of Yoshuku
Let me examine our practice of yoshuku — celebrating in advance — from the brain's side. Honestly: "dream it and it comes true" is not supported by science; research reports that merely fantasizing about achievement can trick the brain into feeling it already has the prize, draining energy for action. Dreaming alone is a narcotic.
Season 250 essays
Lessons from the Challengers
Essays 101–150. Reading "what we work for" through the lives of forty-nine challengers across eras and nations.
- 149Read →November 1, 20262 min read
Hayao Miyazaki — The Man Who Un-retires Every Time
Director Hayao Miyazaki is lovingly teased for retracting his retirement declarations again and again. After announcing his retirement from features with The Wind Rises, he returned to the studio — and at eighty-two completed The Boy and the Heron, which won the Academy Award for animated feature. Why does he keep coming back?
- 148Read →October 31, 20262 min read
Leonardo da Vinci — 13,000 Pages of "Why"
Painter of the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper; anatomist who dissected the human body; engineer who sketched a proto-helicopter — Leonardo da Vinci's titles cannot be listed in full.
- 147Read →October 31, 20262 min read
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan — One Talent, One Companion
Unable to see, hear, or speak, Helen Keller went on to graduate from university and travel the world as author and activist — "the miracle worker's" miracle. But this story has two protagonists. Anne Sullivan, herself burdened by a harsh childhood and impaired sight, faced the raging seven-year-old Helen.
- 146Read →October 30, 20262 min read
Marie Curie — Eight Tons of Ore and a Patent Let Go
Marie Curie's life stacked every condition of "impossible": a woman born in Poland, barred from university at home; in Paris, the doors of science shut against her sex; denied a proper laboratory, she and Pierre worked in a leaky shed. In that shed she made the century's discovery — the unknown radioactive elements polonium and radium.
- 145Read →October 30, 20262 min read
Van Gogh — One Painting Sold in His Lifetime
Vincent van Gogh lived as a painter for only ten years — committing at twenty-seven, dying at thirty-seven — leaving roughly two thousand oils and drawings. And in his lifetime, only one painting is reliably said to have sold.
- 144Read →October 29, 20262 min read
Beethoven — He Wrote Joy With Ears That Could Not Hear
For a musician, hearing is life — and Ludwig van Beethoven began losing his in his late twenties. At thirty-one he wrote what is known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, a will engraved with the despair of a composer going deaf.
- 143Read →October 29, 20262 min read
Abraham Lincoln — A Resume Full of Defeats
The early life of Abraham Lincoln, America's most beloved president, is told as a catalog of defeat: born in a log cabin with almost no formal schooling, failed in business, lost his love, suffered breakdown, lost legislative and congressional and senate races — the traditional list is partly exaggerated, historians note, but that his road was paved with losses is beyond dispute.
- 142Read →October 28, 20262 min read
Winston Churchill — The Failing Student Called in the Darkest Hour
Winston Churchill's boyhood grades reportedly shamed his distinguished family; he passed into military academy only on his third attempt. His political life brimmed with failure — driven from office after a disastrous naval campaign, and through the 1930s exiled from center stage, regarded as finished.
- 141Read →October 28, 20262 min read
Nelson Mandela — What 27 Years in Prison Could Not Take
Nelson Mandela spent his prime — twenty-seven years — in prison, entering at forty-four and emerging at seventy-one, his eyesight damaged by forced labor in a lime quarry. Such years should leave only hatred.
- 140Read →October 27, 20262 min read
Gandhi — A Pinch of Salt That Shook an Empire
In March 1930, Gandhi, sixty-one, began walking with seventy- eight companions toward a coast 380 kilometers away — to make salt from seawater, nothing more. Under British monopoly, Indians were forbidden even to make salt from their own sea. Gandhi chose this most intimate of injustices. No weapons, no violence; only walking.
- 139Read →October 27, 20262 min read
Mother Teresa — Small Things With Great Love
The small nun who kept lifting the dying from Calcutta's streets was a person who would choose the side of one person in an alley over any award ceremony. Her words are told worldwide: "We can do no great things — only small things with great love."
- 138Read →October 26, 20262 min read
Florence Nightingale — Statistics in the Shadow of the Lamp
The name Nightingale evokes the lamp-bearing angel in white — but her true weapon was not kindness alone. It was numbers. Born wealthy, she defied her family to choose nursing, then a lowly occupation. At the Crimean War's field hospitals she found soldiers dying en masse not from wounds but from infections bred by hospital squalor.
- 137Read →October 26, 20262 min read
Muhammad Yunus — A Bank That Began With 27 Dollars
In 1974 famine struck Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus, teaching economics at university, reportedly agonized over the gap between elegant theory in the lecture hall and the reality outside. He walked into a village and found women weaving bamboo stools, borrowing material money from usurers, left with pennies for a day's work.
- 136Read →October 25, 20262 min read
Andrew Carnegie — "To Die Rich Is to Die Disgraced"
A thirteen-year-old Scottish immigrant began as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill for just over a dollar a week, climbed through telegraph work and railroads, then bet everything on steel to become the industrial titan of America. Andrew Carnegie's first act is the classic rags-to-riches tale.
- 135Read →October 25, 20262 min read
Sam Walton — The Learning Genius From a Country Town
The world's largest retailer, Walmart, began as a single variety store in small-town Arkansas; founder Sam Walton opened store number one at forty- four — another late-blooming giant. His weapon was no brilliant invention but an abnormal capacity to learn.
- 134Read →October 24, 20262 min read
Ray Kroc — The Future Seen by a 52-Year-Old Mixer Salesman
Until fifty-two, Ray Kroc was a traveling salesman of paper cups and milkshake mixers, diabetic and no longer young, crisscrossing America. In 1954 he noticed a strange order: a small California hamburger stand running eight mixers at once.
- 133Read →October 24, 20262 min read
Steve Jobs — The Exiled Founder and His Dots
The chapter of Steve Jobs's story I find most important is not success but exile. Founding Apple in a garage at twenty-one and changing the world, he was thrown out of his own company at thirty.
- 132Read →October 23, 20262 min read
Estee Lauder — A Beauty Empire Built Hand to Hand
One of the world's great cosmetics companies, Estée Lauder, was begun literally by hand, by a daughter of immigrants in New York. Her origin was a cream made by her chemist uncle, which she applied directly to women's skin in beauty salons and hotels — not explaining with words but touching with hands, showing the change on the spot.
- 131Read →October 23, 20262 min read
Coco Chanel — Turning Mourning Black Into the Color of Freedom
A girl raised in an orphanage came to define twentieth-century fashion. Coco Chanel learned sewing at a convent orphanage, failed as a singer, and rose from a hat shop. Women's clothing then meant corsets — ornaments never meant for movement.
- 130Read →October 22, 20262 min read
Colonel Sanders — Age 65, the 1,009th Door
Colonel Sanders in his white suit is the world's most famous symbol of late blooming. His life was turbulent: job after job, and the roadside restaurant he finally built was bled dry when the highway was rerouted. At sixty-five, he was left with a small pension and a method for frying chicken.
- 129Read →October 22, 20262 min read
Walt Disney — Bankruptcy, a Stolen Rabbit, and One Mouse
Walt Disney's early life is a catalog of failure. His first animation company went bankrupt. His comeback creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was seized through a contractual trap — distributor keeping the rights, staff poached, nearly everything lost. On the way home, reportedly aboard a train, he conceived a new character: a mouse.
- 128Read →October 21, 20262 min read
Henry Ford — Beyond "a Faster Horse"
When Henry Ford began, automobiles were toys for the rich. His revolution was not an invention but a change of "for whom." Build a car working people can afford — everything was back-calculated from that purpose. The 1908 Model T: assembly-line production slashed build time, and the price fell from $850 to under $300.
- 127Read →October 21, 20262 min read
The Wright Brothers — The Day a Bicycle Shop Beat a National Project
On December 17, 1903, on the dunes of North Carolina, humanity first achieved powered flight — by two bicycle shop brothers from Ohio. Twelve seconds, thirty-six meters; those twelve seconds changed the world.
- 126Read →October 20, 20262 min read
Thomas Edison — "I Found 10,000 Ways That Won't Work"
Thomas Edison left school after three months; the boy his teacher gave up on was educated by his mother. From a basement full of experiments came the incandescent lamp, the phonograph, motion pictures — over a thousand patents shaping modern life.
- 125Read →October 20, 20262 min read
Hideki Yukawa — Paper, Pencil, and Light for a Defeated Nation
In 1949 — four years after defeat, amid ruins and food shortages — news raced through Japan: Hideki Yukawa had won the nation's first Nobel Prize. His weapons were neither apparatus nor vast funding, but paper and pencil.
- 124Read →October 19, 20262 min read
Shibasaburo Kitasato — Winning Abroad, Sidelined at Home, Building Anyway
Shibasaburo Kitasato, the face of the new thousand-yen note, lifted Japanese medicine to world level.
- 123Read →October 19, 20262 min read
Hideyo Noguchi — A Burned Left Hand, an Ignited Will
Born to a poor farming family in Fukushima, the infant who would become Hideyo Noguchi fell into the hearth at age one, leaving his left hand fused and farm work nearly impossible. His mother Shika pushed him toward learning instead.
- 122Read →October 18, 20262 min read
Chiune Sugihara — Orders From Above, Rightness Within
Lithuania, 1940. Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution crowded the Japanese consulate, where acting consul Chiune Sugihara knew a transit visa could mean survival. He cabled Tokyo for permission; the answer was no for those not meeting requirements. The organizationally correct move was obvious: comply. He did not.
- 121Read →October 18, 20262 min read
Nobu Shirase — To Antarctica With Zero Funding
In 1912, Japanese explorers first stood on Antarctica, led by Nobu Shirase of Akita. What makes the feat extraordinary: it was no national project. While Western powers raced for the pole with state backing and cutting-edge ships, Shirase was ridiculed in parliament when he sought funds.
- 120Read →October 17, 20262 min read
Naomi Uemura — Adventure Means Coming Home Alive
First to summit the highest peaks of five continents; solo to the North Pole by dog sled. Naomi Uemura was Japan's greatest adventurer — yet his brilliance, I believe, lay less in bravery than in his timidity.
- 119Read →October 17, 20262 min read
Kazu Miura — A One-Way Ticket at 15, Still on the Pitch at 50
At fifteen, Kazuyoshi Miura crossed to Brazil alone to become a footballer — in an era when Japan had no professional league. Adults reportedly laughed at the boy: no Japanese could earn a living at soccer.
- 118Read →October 16, 20262 min read
Shohei Ohtani — "No Precedent" Is Not a Reason Not To
To stand at the world's summit as both pitcher and hitter — until Shohei Ohtani made it real, modern baseball called it impossible. At his professional debut, experts openly questioned the two-way attempt: pick one, the body won't last, there is no precedent. He didn't pick.
- 117Read →October 16, 20262 min read
Ichiro — The Only Road to "Somewhere Extraordinary"
4,367 hits across Japan and the U.S. Ichiro Suzuki articulated the secret of his staggering record himself: "Accumulating small things is the only way to reach somewhere extraordinary."
- 116Read →October 15, 20262 min read
Sadaharu Oh — A World Record Born From Swings on a Tatami Mat
Sadaharu Oh's world record of 868 home runs was built not in glamorous stadiums but on tatami mats. After team practice, he would visit his mentor Hiroshi Arakawa's home late at night, swing a Japanese sword, and repeat his swing on the tatami until the mats frayed — the foundation of his famous flamingo leg- kick style.
- 115Read →October 15, 20262 min read
Akira Kurosawa — The Man Who Mixed Ink Into Rain
Legendary stories surround Akira Kurosawa's sets. For the rain- soaked final battle of Seven Samurai, seeing that rain wouldn't register on camera, he mixed ink into it. He reportedly had the unseen contents of drawers filled with period- accurate items.
- 114Read →October 14, 20262 min read
Osamu Tezuka — "Please, Just Let Me Work"
Osamu Tezuka, the god of manga, held a medical license and a doctorate. Torn between the stable path of medicine and the then-lowly path of comics, he asked his mother, who reportedly answered: "Which do you love?" He chose manga.
- 113Read →October 14, 20262 min read
Taro Okamoto — The Artist Who Kept Choosing the Dangerous Road
Taro Okamoto, famous for "Art is explosion," was also a man of words, and my favorite of his is this: "When in doubt, choose the dangerous path."
- 112Read →October 13, 20262 min read
Sen no Rikyu — Ichigo Ichie, a Universe in Two Tatami
Sen no Rikyu perfected the tea ceremony — and to my eyes he was history's greatest experience designer. His tea rooms were tiny: two tatami mats, with an entrance made deliberately smaller still. Through the nijiriguchi, even samurai had to remove their swords and bow to enter; high or low, all became simply human upon crossing it.
- 111Read →October 13, 20262 min read
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.
- 110Read →October 12, 20262 min read
Sontoku Ninomiya — Sekisho Idai: Great Things From Small
Sontoku Ninomiya — the boy reading books while hauling firewood — was a far more formidable businessman than the statue suggests. Floods destroyed his family's fields; orphaned, the family scattered.
- 109Read →October 12, 20262 min read
Hokusai — At 90: "If Heaven Gave Me Five More Years"
I know no one who kept growing until death like Katsushika Hokusai. The Great Wave — the most famous Japanese image in the world, quoted endlessly in global design to this day — was painted in his seventies.
- 108Read →October 11, 20262 min read
Tadataka Ino — He Started Walking at 55 and Mapped Japan
Tadataka Ino's life divides cleanly into two acts. Act one: a merchant, who as an adopted son-in-law rebuilt a failing sake brewery and saved villagers with his own funds during famine, retiring at forty-nine. Ordinarily the story ends there.
- 107Read →October 11, 20262 min read
Momofuku Ando — Age 48, a Garden Shed, a Lab of One
Through cascading business failures, Momofuku Ando lost nearly everything in his late forties — only his house in Ikeda, Osaka, remained. From there he changed the world.
- 106Read →October 10, 20262 min read
Eiichi Shibusawa — 500 Companies, Not One Made His Own
Eiichi Shibusawa — now the face of the ten-thousand-yen note — was born a farmer's son, became a shogunal retainer, witnessed European capitalism at the Paris Exposition, served the Meiji government, then plunged into business.
- 105Read →October 10, 20262 min read
Sakichi Toyoda — From One Loom for His Mother to Toyota
Sakichi Toyoda was a carpenter's son whose inventions began not with grand ambition but with the sight of his mother weaving late into the night on a hand loom. Wanting to ease her labor, he taught himself loom design — mocked as the village eccentric who shut himself in a barn.
- 104Read →October 9, 20262 min read
Ibuka and Morita — A "Delightful Ideal Factory" in the Ashes
Tokyo, 1946, amid the ruins: a small company was born in a corner of a department store — Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later Sony. Engineer Masaru Ibuka and sales genius Akio Morita wrote into their founding prospectus the goal of "a free, open-minded, and pleasant ideal factory" where earnest engineers could exercise their skills to the fullest.
- 103Read →October 9, 20262 min read
Soichiro Honda — "Success Is the 1% Supported by 99% Failure"
The son of a Hamamatsu blacksmith apprenticed at an auto repair shop at fifteen, went independent, and challenged piston-ring manufacturing — and failed spectacularly. Hitting the wall of his own technical limits, Soichiro Honda, past thirty and already a company president, enrolled as an auditing student to relearn metallurgy.
- 102Read →October 8, 20262 min read
Konosuke Matsushita — The Man Who Turned Three "Withouts" Into Blessings
Konosuke Matsushita, revered as the god of Japanese management, described his origins through three "withouts": born without wealth, without education, without health. Leaving school at nine for an apprenticeship, he founded what became Panasonic at twenty-three and built a global enterprise in one lifetime.
- 101Read →October 8, 20262 min read
Yoshida Shoin — A 29-Year Life Still Moving the World 160 Years On
Season 2 opens with Yoshida Shoin, the great son of my home prefecture, Yamaguchi. His private academy, Shoka Sonjuku, was a humble hut, and he taught there for barely two and a half years — yet from it emerged the men who drove the Meiji Restoration and built modern Japan.
About the Company
INSTINCT BIO TECHNICALCOMPANY HOLDINGS INC.
Catching the time that flows from the future — delivering innovation, joy, and smiles to the world. Visit the official site for business and investor information on the Nasdaq-listed company (Ticker: BIOT).
This series reflects the personal views of the author. It is not an earnings forecast, a valuation of any security, or a solicitation to invest.
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