Many people contributed to the creation of this book and, in line with the lessons in the book, I would like to thank as many of them as I can here. My apologies for not being able to name everyone here in the text but the teams at Rakuten in the CEO Office and Corporate Communications moved mountains, large and small, to make sure this book reached completion.

Leah Spiro of Riverside Creative Management both championed the book and kept a keen eye out for relevance for the non-Japanese reader. Bill Falloon at Wiley guided the project with his characteristic passion for management principles from different cultural perspectives. Ellen Neuborne has been a great supporter on editing, bringing a fresh and thorough eye to the text that we translated, largely internally, from the Japanese original. On translation, the internal team made a terrific effort, as well as making the most of the wise insights of Adam Fulford and his team.

Of course, without the publication of the original Japanese book, “Golden Rules of Success”, with the warm support and understanding of the team at Gentosha, this project would not have been possible.

And without the inspiration of all the people I have worked with over the years, at Rakuten and at companies and organizations both inside and outside Japan, as well as the discipline of organizing my thoughts every week for all the employees at our internal all‐hands Asakai meetings, and the intelligent and honest feedback of my life partner, Haruko, I would not have been ready to write this book. I thank each one of you for what has been an amazing journey and I am looking forward to continuing to learn from you.