When I became a company president, I thought only of making money to put food on the table. I worked as hard as I could.

I was the top salesperson in my previous job, so for a time I produced solid results. But since I had never experienced spiritual training I arrogantly believed that I was all-powerful. Pride comes before the fall because you get careless.

People disliked me. My performance deteriorated. I realized that this was a serious situation and thought that I would do better if I tried harder. But then I did poorly because I was careless. This pattern of failure went on and on.

All this was around 1991, when Japan's economic bubble burst and the social climate worsened. I ended up with just 3% of the work I had before. I thought that my performance would never improve and that the social climate would continue. This went on for five frustrating years.

I'm actually thankful for such failures, as I learned from them and became the positive person I am today. Back then, I was desperate to avoid going through the same problems. I worried about what I should do, about what I was lacking. And around that time I decided to participate in study meetings and groups at 13 locations.

This was how I met Kazuo Inamori, who heads the Seiwa Jyuku schools. His philosophy was that managements should safeguard employees. Hearing this was a turning point in my life. I later learned that most companies protect their employees in various ways in the normal course of their business. But I had never worked for such a company, so the notion of making employees happy was a complete surprise. I completely changed the way I looked at employees and became able to treasure and build sincere relationships with them.

Motivation for Starting a Company

Creating Our Management Philosophy