Understanding who you are is the first step to success. Know your weak points, and think about how you can continue to grow.

11 Push yourself like a professional (athlete) does

Be passionately professional about your job, no matter what it is.

People who enjoy their job more than anything else are the ones who can be called true professionals. They love it so much that they think about their job all the time, all year round, no matter what they're doing. There's no need to teach people like that the secrets of success—they're already successful. Consider an athlete like Jack Nicklaus and you can see what a lifetime of professional level effort can do, both on and off the golf course. This kind of athlete is a passionate professional.

There's nothing better than a life given meaning by the joy of work. I'd go so far as to say that we are born into this world to work. The problem is what to do when you just can't think of your work in those terms. In fact, to a certain degree, this mental challenge applies to all of us.

Perhaps you're not passionate about your current job. Or maybe you'd really prefer to be doing something else. There are lots of different reasons why this happens, but before you spend time considering all those different reasons to leave, first try putting your all into the work you are doing right now. After having put all your energies into the job you have today, if you still think it's not what you want to do, then—and only then—you should consider changing careers or starting your own business.

If you bail out before giving your whole‐hearted all to that job you have now, then you'll likely find yourself in the same situation in your next job, too. There's an old saying that if someone does something once, they will do it again and again. The truth is, those who can succeed in one job may be able to achieve success in any job, while those who can't succeed in one job may never succeed.

So the first step is to become obsessed with the job at hand. It's not as hard as it sounds. Just think of work as a game. At the risk of inviting misunderstanding, I must admit that I feel like my work is the greatest game ever. Nothing is more fascinating to me. I'm so obsessed with it, I'll sometimes forget to eat or sleep.

And what is the essence of a game? It's about creating targets and achieving them.

Creating targets is the first secret to enjoying your job. To achieve your goals, you need to bring your wisdom and ingenuity to bear. I believe all people want to see their ideas and their creative efforts at work in the real world. The more you're able to do this, the more enjoyable your job will become.

It's the people whose passion for their work wins them the respect of their peers who, whether they realize it or not, are continuously setting targets and working out ingenious ways to achieve them. Enjoying your work may actually hinge on whether or not you are consistently working to hit targets.

A person who feels no passion for his work is like an archer with a bow and arrow but no target. No matter how many times the archer draws his bow and shoots his arrows, with nothing to aim at, he'll never enjoy the sport of archery. He will never hit a bull's‐eye because there isn't one in his sights.

How to motivate yourself is a challenge we all face. If you think your job is boring, set yourself targets. Aim at those targets and fire off your arrows. If you hit your target, you'll feel good. If you don't, you'll feel frustrated. You'll start wanting to hit those bull's‐eyes all the time. You'll think up creative ways to do it, and you'll work hard to make it happen. All of us can experience this chain reaction. This is the essence of finding meaning in your work.

12 Play catch between your left and right brain

When forming an opinion or hatching a new idea, engage your left brain and right brain in a mental game of catch.

They say the right side of the brain controls intuition, the left side language and logic. Thinking objectively about how I come up with ideas and my process of turning them into specific plans or business models, this seems pretty accurate.

Ideas that arise in the right side of the brain are vague in terms of details, even if the outline is clear. In this sense, they can be extremely simple. Even if intuitively you know the idea is correct, you cannot communicate it effectively because it's not yet been put into words. It's the role of the left side of the brain to turn these vague concepts into words. And turning them into words means placing them within a framework. As a result of this, ideas that arise in the right side of your brain always shrink to some extent. On the other hand, when those ideas are weighed against existing business frameworks and the vague details are clarified by words, ideas that were simple can become quite complex. This repeated exchange between the left and right sides of your brain is like a game of catch. You toss ideas that were put into words and made more complex in the left side of the brain back to the right side brain for an intuitive judgment. And you repeat this process again and again.

I'll give you a specific example. You're drinking a particular wine and you think it tastes wonderful. You start to wonder why it tastes so good. You think perhaps it's because the grapes were harvested in a particular year from a particular vineyard and the tannins have mellowed just the right amount, giving the wine a full‐bodied flavor. Having analyzed the wine, you take another sip and try to determine whether the flavor is really due to the tannins having mellowed. At this point, you might realize that it's not just the tannins. The bouquet is excellent as well. You realize you haven't put some characteristics of the wine into words. Then you start to think about why the bouquet is so good.

This process, in which you intentionally use the opposing functions of the two sides of the brain (i.e., intuition and analysis) is what brainstorming is all about. As you play more catch, the inner exchange becomes sharpened. The ball hits the mitt with a crisp popping sound. Speed and focus are improved since the tosses travel at high speed once you are deep in thought.

Taking a simple idea and complicating it, then simplifying it, and complicating it again makes it possible to identify the core of the idea. It allows you to clearly see the “roots” of the idea, as well as the “leaves and branches.”

In my case, after playing this game of catch for a while, I reach a point where suddenly everything becomes crystal clear. It feels like you suddenly know exactly where all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle need to go to complete the puzzle. The left and right brain perform a triple play with laser timing and precision. It's like in this moment, all at once, I can see exactly where and when every moving part should be, with that crystal clarity.

It was like this when I developed the idea for Rakuten Ichiba. I understood what the core, or the trunk, of the business would be, what the roots were that would support that trunk, and how the branches and leaves should look. I could even see how that vision would change in the future and how we'd have to change and adapt to that. It was as if I was standing high up on a mountain looking down on Rakuten Ichiba now and in the future. I could see it so clearly, I could almost touch it. That was more than 20 years ago now.

Many people will readily take an idea and create a business model around it. But I doubt there are as many people who will then reassess their model from an intuitive perspective to see if it will really work. But not doing this makes it much harder to bring that idea to life.

Don't allow your idea to flow in just one direction, from the right side to the left side of your brain. Toss it back and forth between the two sides. This is the secret to successfully landing your business idea.

13 Plan forward from birth or backward from death

Write your bio. Now, use your imagination and write your obituary. Think about how your life looks from both those perspectives.

Right now, you're alive. But one day you'll die. And although nothing is more certain than that, it's only human nature to avoid thinking about our own mortality too many times a day. We rationalize that there's no point in thinking about death because we don't know when it will come. As Steve Jobs famously said, “No one wants to die.”

We don't know when the end will come, but come it will. What do any of us want to achieve in the time we are given? To think about our plans for life, we should first think deeply about how the end should look because this is the reality that awaits us. Addressing this first will make it much easier to see exactly what any one of us should be doing now.

Regardless of what you're planning, you can't really call it a plan unless it has a timeline. It's lonely and terrifying to think about one's end, but you can't truly plan your life without starting there. It's also true that those who are unable to make a genuine plan for their own life will also be unable to achieve anything that is genuinely great.

My own personal reflections on death emerged from the 1995 Hanshin‐Awaji Earthquake. My parents' home in the city of Akashi was badly damaged, and I lost my aunt and uncle, who were both very dear to me. It's hard to put into words how I felt as I wandered through the mountains of rubble in my hometown searching for signs of them, and then when I finally found both my aunt and uncle laid out in a school gymnasium. They were placed alongside the bodies of so many people who had been healthy and happy until the day before, when the quake struck, and had all lost their lives in an instant.

That image is etched in my memory. I can't get away from it. I came to know just how fleeting life is, not through words but through a sadness so crushing that I thought it would tear at my heart forever. I also understood, deep down within my body and soul, that my life too is ephemeral and all that much more precious as a consequence.

Of course, some people would say that they have no interest in achieving great things. I'm comfortable with their decision—and I genuinely mean that. Happiness is not just a matter of great achievements, and not everyone should feel compelled to believe it's the only reason to live.

But, in my case, I want to achieve something great as proof that I existed. It's a way of showing my appreciation for all of the opportunities I have received over the years. My dream is to create a system through which every person in the world can achieve happiness. If I'm going to achieve this goal, I must never forget that my time is limited.

They say the sixteenth‐century warlord Oda Nobunaga was fond of a line from the play Atsumori: “Human life lasts only 50 years.” He was acutely aware that our time to have impact in this life is limited. He saw his own window of opportunity as finite, and I think he too must have must have thought about life working backward from death. It is a mindset that reminds you to waste no time.

14 Create an objective personality when you're in the hot seat

The next time you find yourself in a drama, consider how it may look from the perspective of the audience.

“Objective personality” is an expression I coined to simply mean taking an objective, third‐party perspective of yourself.

People tend to make odd decisions during times of crisis, as they do when retreating from a difficult situation. Those bad decisions often then compound the damage even further. We've all seen business and political leaders during times of crisis. We may be sitting home, glued to our televisions, wondering why they behave the way they do—often making their own situations worse. But the fact is that in situations like that you can lose sight of the things that seem obvious to everyone else on this side of the television cameras, or a more objective viewpoint. When you are backed into a corner, it's not an exaggeration to say that the damage caused by poor judgment in such crises often causes more damage than the initial crisis itself.

That's why we must face each challenge objectively, from the perspective of the person at home, watching it on TV. When we examine something from the point of view of a bystander, we may make different choices. Think of it this way: We may make a big deal out of a splinter when it's in our own little finger. But if you think of it as someone else's finger, you may realize how ridiculous it is to make a fuss.

This outsider perspective may help you keep your emotions under control. A situation you see as a crisis may actually be much less alarming if you think about the problem as if it were someone else's. It's the same when you're worrying over something. If you take a bystander perspective, you may soon realize that many of those worries are not worth worrying about at all.

It's clear which of the two perspectives will be most useful when you're trying to address an urgent problem. When you're upset or in trouble, try taking yourself out of the picture and thinking about how to deal with it from an outsider's point of view. This is the best way to deal with a crisis.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Especially when you're in a really tight spot, it's almost impossible to take that perspective straight away. So I recommend that you practice this even when you're not stuck in a difficult spot. Try to imagine how others perceive you. In fact, dry runs of this sort can also be useful for improving your attitude and people skills.

One more important point about taking this alternative perspective: When others are faced with a difficult situation, try imagining how you would feel if it were happening to you. If you can imagine someone else's pain, the ability to empathize will lead you to the right decisions. If you feel the pain when someone else has cut their little finger as if you were feeling it yourself, you'll know what you should do. What might look to someone else like a small pain can be pure agony for the person experiencing it directly.

With that perspective in mind, reach out to help others in trouble as much as you can. Doing this will mean better relationships with your team, at home, and also positively contribute to business relationships with clients and customers.

15 Never stop learning. Ever

“Study all the time. Study everything.”

This was the advice of one of my favorite professors at college. It's a lesson I really took to heart. I'm impatient by nature so I never had much time for the hard grind of study. I hate long, tedious tasks so I knew I was always going to cram for tests by staying up the whole night before.

When I was a student, I studied because I had to, cramming overnight or just before final exams. But when you enter the workforce, many people think that studying was something they did in college. In truth, learning is a never‐ending project. In fact, it's much more important than when you were a student. People quit studying because there's no pressing need, like a test exam hanging over their head. This is a big problem.

You'd never come across a professional athlete who's quit practicing because they've turned pro. Their personal efforts are magnified the moment it is their path to make a living. The moment they stop training is the moment they cease to excel professionally. Some may think what they learned at school hasn't helped them at all in their working lives. But the reason it hasn't helped them is because they stopped studying the instant they entered the workforce. The most important reason we study at school is to learn how to study. If you don't study, then obviously you won't be able to use that skill. Forgetting how to study after you went to all the trouble of learning that skill is an enormous waste of time and effort.

What you choose to study will differ according to the individual, but you should continue to study your entire life. If you don't continually absorb new ways of doing things and improve yourself, your own development will come to a dead end. Those who put their all into critical analytical thinking in school will understand the power of studying something systematically. After all, with just eight years of study, a high school senior will suddenly become a qualified lawyer or a doctor, even if they're just starting out.

In the middle of our Englishnization efforts at Rakuten to make English the corporate language, I felt comfortable in English so I decided to take up Chinese. It's a challenging language and very different from Japanese, but when I stood on the stage for the launch of our Kobo eBooks service in Taiwan and made some simple remarks in Chinese, I felt an immediate warm and positive response from the guests assembled that made my efforts worthwhile.

If you seriously dedicate yourself to lifelong learning, you can change who you are. If you do that, your work will become more enjoyable, and because of that, you'll want to study more. Those who've internalized that cycle will achieve significant growth as talented members of the workforce. They'll have the capacity to achieve extraordinary things at work. Make time for study to improve yourself, be it only 30 minutes to an hour in your day. The accumulation of this time will determine who you are three to five years from now.

Of course, studying isn't only something you do at a desk. It's important to be aware that absolutely everything you experience is a form of study. You can learn things from your day‐to‐day work. Accumulating such institutional knowledge and adding to your mastery of various skills can only make you invaluable to others.

You'll be incredibly bored for your entire life if you've decided your main goal at work is simply to get through the daily routine. But if you strive to learn something from work, that will fuel your personal growth. No matter what the job, the joy of personal growth will enable you to give it your all.

We are born into this world to learn. Personal growth is the greatest joy of life. So, never stop learning. Ever.

16 Build self‐confidence through small successes

Make a habit of achieving the goals you have set yourself.

Even the best mountain climbers didn't start with the world's tallest peaks. They started with small mountains, then moved on to larger ones. While it's important to set big goals, if the goals you set are too ambitious, you'll lose heart along the way.

The better path is a series of successes, however small they may be. This will help you achieve your dreams and look fondly back at the small incremental steps that made them happen. And nothing fuels more successes than a series of victories that you can draw upon to push you forward

The feeling of elation when things go well and the feeling of accomplishment when you achieve a success are both joys that are hard to beat. These joys will give you the strength of mind to devote the effort, and bear the suffering, that their achievement requires. It's the source of the energy one needs to persevere even when the going gets tough.

When you get tired of your job or can't put everything into it, it's because you have not yet experienced the joy of success that awaits you on the other side of all your hard work.

Initially, climbing even a 1,000‐meter mountain won't be easy. And you'll probably be overjoyed the first time you reach the summit. However, the next time you reach that same summit, the emotion won't be as intense. You'll probably want to climb a taller mountain to once again feel that intense sense of accomplishment as you reach a new peak. You'll climb 2,000 meters, then 3,000 meters, then even higher.

As you build a series of successes, you will begin to eye more ambitious goals. Reaching the highest goal you set for yourself will continue to reinforce your inner self‐confidence. The tallest peaks in the world lie at the end of this personal journey.

They say the best hitters in baseball repeatedly watch video footage of themselves pounding good hits and blasting home runs. They don't watch footage of themselves striking out because that repetition doesn't reaffirm how to achieve success. Instead, this visual image of success is what they want to constantly replay in their memories, so they can draw upon both the mental and physical preparations that led to it.

Nothing is impossible if you can learn this mental discipline.

When you understand this, not just cognitively but with every inch of your being, you'll see what you're really capable of. Then, one day, you'll find a deeper purpose centered around these moments of success. Discovery of that purpose will be the tallest peak in your future.

17 Always be curious and ambitious

Occupational burnout is not simply about working too hard. It can also be about losing a sense of intellectual curiosity and personal ambition.

Many will decide on a goal—to enter a top university or to pass a notoriously difficult exam—and work single‐mindedly to achieve it. This laser‐focused drive isn't bad in itself. The challenge comes when laser focus promotes inflexibility and narrows your thinking about the world around you.

Heaven is not waiting at the top of that mountain. The only things at the top of a mountain are the view and the satisfaction of having completed the ascent.

The top of the world may offer a more spectacular view and greater satisfaction than you could ever imagine, but at the end of the day, however stunning that is, it's still just a view and sense of satisfaction, nothing more. However much they love mountains, no climber lives at the summit. The summit is usually considered the goal, and climbing is the means of achieving it. But actually it's the other way around. The peak is not the real goal, climbing is. The peak merely provides the motivation to climb.

Goals in life and business are not the same as mountain peaks, but their place in an individual's experience is similar. You need to set goals to continue to work hard every day. A marathon without a finish line would be tough. So we set goals. However, in real life and work, you can't stop running when you've reached a goal. You must set a new one.

Curiosity and the drive to improve provide the energy that keeps people running. Running becomes harder when this energy begins to fade. Ensuring that your curiosity doesn't wither away is another reason you need to learn continuously, even after you enter the workforce.

The world is full of surprises. As long as you don't give up trying to absorb and learn from these surprises, you'll stay curious. If you're curious, you will not be deterred when the surprises are roadblocks in your path.

Always know who your rivals are, and their strengths, because this will also fuel your drive to improve. It's a big world out there. No matter how much you improve, there will still always be someone out there ahead of you. When you tire, remember there's always someone working harder than you. And don't forget that the greater your effort, the greater the joy that awaits on the other side.

Nothing in life or work is ever complete. You can at some point say you've done enough and stop, but you'll never reach a point where everything is done.

How you see this—as a source of pain or inspiration—can put you on one of two completely different paths.

Will you live in a dream‐state hell, where you must run forever, or in a goal‐inspired heaven, where you can run as far as you like and count your successes? It depends entirely on your curiosity and ambition.

18 Find a partner to play intellectual “catch” with

Just as pro baseball players play catch to warm up and check their form, you can bounce ideas off a colleague to test your own judgment about how to solve a problem.

As well as playing catch with the left and right sides of your brain, it's also important to play catch with others. Playing mental catch with a colleague is a little bit different from just seeking out advice.

I do this all the time to sort out my thoughts when I'm perplexed about something and can't come up with an answer, or when I get a new idea. It is usually then that I notice the problems in the way I'm approaching the situation.

There are times, of course, when the conclusion remains the same even after a good round of intellectual catch. In fact, this is usually the case. But the interaction will make you feel differently. First, there's meaning in putting your thoughts into words and sharing them with others. Even if the person you're talking to disagrees with you, and you're not convinced by their argument, it's immensely valuable to discover what alternative opinions may exist.

There are also many times I realize my own mistakes when hearing my explanation in the context of conversation. And there are times when, although I was previously unable to come up with any ideas, good ones arise as the conversation progresses. Fuzzy thoughts crystalize into concrete concepts and form the bedrock on which to build an entirely new solution.

In contrast to someone you have to consult in a formal way, a catch partner you can talk to about your problems at any time—in the way you would play a casual game of passing a ball back and forth—is an invaluable treasure.

The best way to find that partner is by starting to play. Try tossing a verbal “ball” to someone near you by starting the conversation. People are strange creatures. If you toss them a ball, they'll usually toss it back. That's where the game starts. This is much more constructive than gossiping about your boss or coworkers. Even more importantly, finding a good partner for playing catch makes life more fun.

One advantage of startup culture is that there's always someone to play catch with. Starting a company is a process of trial and error. Before each iteration, there's a lively discussion with those close to you. In the early days of Rakuten, playing catch was something that took place naturally in the tight quarters shared by our small team. There were only a few employees in a small office, so we basically played catch 24/7. It's no exaggeration to say Rakuten was born from those spontaneous conversations that took place every day.

We still engage in this same exercise—on a larger scale—even today. The number of employees has grown and so has the company, and it's become harder to talk to employees whenever I want. But I still play catch every chance I get. For example, the best way to find out what's popular today is to play catch with younger employees. You get a much more genuine feeling this way than from looking at survey results, for example. You can read faces, take the temperature of the room, and see authentic reactions play out in front of you.

That natural communication, that doesn't rely on the internet, will become more and more important for corporations. In this sense, playing catch is also an important communication tool.

Of course, playing catch isn't limited to the workplace. My wife has long been an important catch partner for me. My late father was also one of my best catch partners. A respected economist, he was always willing to jump in and challenge my assumptions. Nothing is more useful than having a catch partner who points out things you don't realize and isn't afraid to say things you don't want to hear. Find someone you can play catch with at any time in order to objectively understand your own way of thinking and how to do your job efficiently, with lasting impact.

19 Set clear goals for your actions

Building a game plan for self‐improvement is critical to growth. So is an incremental series of improvements to any product. In increments is how we do everything at Rakuten.

That said, words like “improvement” and “growth” are abstract concepts that often need to be grounded. Simply advocating at a conceptual level is meaningless unless you translate your ideas into specific targets and concrete actions you can take.

For example, at Rakuten we implemented what we called the One‐Eighth Project. It was an initiative to eliminate time wasted in meetings.

Our solution was simple. First, we halved the number of meetings. Then we halved the number of participants taking part in meetings. Then we halved the length of meetings. Half of half of half is one‐eighth. In this way we were able to reduce the amount of time spent in meetings to a noticeably small fraction of what it was before.

If “reduce time spent in meetings” had simply been a slogan, nothing would have changed. But because we took concrete steps, the time spent in meetings was actually reduced.

Reduce waste! Save electricity! Be kind to the elderly! Save the Earth! Slogans abound. But no matter how well‐intentioned those who shout them may be, following them up with action and specific targets is what leads to sustained progress.

Training regimes for top athletes are always specific and clear. The goal of the training is always itemized and tracked. The impact of strength training is much greater if the athlete knows which muscle is being exercised.

If this is true for strength training, it's even more important to take focused action in business. It's not enough just to say you'll do your best or work hard.

You must take specific action, bearing in mind the reason you're doing the job and the results it will lead to. Abstract action will lead only to abstract results. You won't get anywhere if you don't have a clear destination.

I took this to heart when we rolled out the plan to make English our official company language. When I made the announcement that we would undertake Englishnization, it came with specific targets. We set goals, that in a certain period of time every employee should be able to achieve a certain score on TOEIC. This was not easy for many employees. Many had studied English in school, but to rise to the level of using English every day in the workplace was a huge task. Still, if I had said, “Let's all try very hard to speak English at work,” I believe we would not have been successful. Only by setting concrete targets was the transition to English made possible.

It's said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

But the bigger question is: No matter whether you are taking major strides or baby steps, are you heading toward your goal? If you set targets to measure your success, your actions will become more meaningful.

20 Remember that great information can come from surprising places

You never can tell where great information might come from. We are trained as business leaders to look at traditional sources for information—the media, academia, industry, and research. But if we understand that great information—even inspiration—can come to us anywhere, anytime, we open ourselves to ideas we might otherwise have missed.

When you are open to information in all its forms, you understand your world in a new way. For example, in his Book of Five Rings, legendary swordsman Musashi Miyamoto compares the jobs of a carpenter and a samurai, noting that many of the basic behaviors of tool maintenance, focus, and attention to detail are similar in both professions. Strategy, he concludes, is not just a war game but a way of life that must be practiced, much as an artisan would. In thinking about battle strategy, but looking to a profession many would consider far from the battlefield, the author gleaned a new way to hone his own craft, by watching the work of another.

There are many examples of information arriving to us in surprising ways. We've all heard the famous story about Isaac Newton discovering the laws of gravity after watching an apple fall from a tree. Some say that story was actually made up some time later. True or not, people love the story because it contains a mysterious truth about the creative process. Answers and ideas are often hidden in places that at first seem completely unrelated. To put it another way, nothing is ever completely irrelevant. All information is valuable.

Answers and ideas may not always be apparent, but no one is hiding them from you. It's just that you don't see them. Look for them and you'll find them.

To develop the ability to uncover hidden information, you have to engage the world with curiosity. Be interested in everything. Then, you need to look for the true nature of things.

But this alone is not enough. Because no matter how hard you look, you won't see anything unless you're actively tackling problems within yourself.

When you get really immersed in something, you'll think about it whatever you're doing. Only then will everything you see and hear around you become your teacher.

It's like when you're in love. Everyone may have experienced this: You think about the person you're in love with wherever you are and whatever you're doing. It's a similar mental state.

So, speaking poetically, becoming sensitive to all kinds of information means the same as to fall in love with your job. If you experience, even just once, being so caught up in your job that you can't eat or sleep, and all you do is wonder how to tackle the challenges you're facing, then you'll come to understand what I mean when I say that “everything can be a source of valuable information.”

There are some fundamental differences between work and love. Sometimes love doesn't lead anywhere, no matter how obsessed you are. But that's not the case with work. With work, if you really think hard enough about something, you'll always find an answer.

Become sensitive to all kinds of information so you don't miss anything. Musashi Miyamoto got ideas from watching carpenters because he spent all his time thinking about what it means to be a warrior. Had Isaac Newton not been obsessed with physics, he wouldn't have given any thought to the falling apple. Everything becomes a hint if you're tackling a problem that you can't solve no matter how hard you try. Answers are hidden in everything.

21 Don't rationalize your behavior as others do

Humans will go to great lengths to rationalize their behavior, even when it's to their own detriment. This is a lesson I've learned myself many times, by observing my own actions.

The need to justify yourself is the single greatest hindrance to logical thinking. Sometimes I wonder if most of our misjudgments can be traced back to this single impulse.

No matter how great or admired a person is, at some point they have made very obvious mistakes. It doesn't matter if they are admired as literary figures, empathetic political leaders or dynamic inventors creating transformational products. They are like all of us, and we have all made mistakes, some larger than others. The common denominator for all humans is the innate desire to deflect blame away from ourselves, rather than owning our mistakes.

In Japan, there is a common expression, “Every thief has his reasons.” The expression applies directly to our own actions. Even if a mistake is obvious to others, the person who made it will usually have some way to justify it and avoid accountability.

“I haven't done anything wrong. I've made the right decision. I'm just misunderstood.” It's only natural to think this way. So many of us make excuses and try to justify themselves.

But how do others perceive us when they hear these excuses? Think about how you feel when you hear others make excuses and you'll quickly understand. Excuses only make matters worse. Everyone knows this deep inside, but it's human nature to serve them up anyway.

The greater problem, in truth, may be using these excuses to lie to ourselves. That sort of poor decision‐making circle is not only pointless but dangerous. The best response to failure is to reflect upon why you failed and take steps to ensure you don't fail in the same way again. When you attempt to justify your actions, you lose sight of the real reasons for your failure. With the real reasons not allowed to surface, you won't be able to develop the right countermeasures.

The decision‐making death spiral only gets worse the longer it continues. In fact, I must admit to deceiving myself on more than a few occasions. When I'm not paying attention, even for just a moment, I catch myself trying to justify my mistakes. I can't help it. But experience has taught me to seek out a personal workaround.

That's why I find others to play catch with and make a conscious effort to expose myself to opinions I might not like. If you always have to be right, you are actually creating limits for yourself. That's why I so often recommend that you should always start by questioning yourself. And the first question should be: Am I rationalizing my behavior? The answer may be yes.

22 Interrogate your intuition with hard numbers

Intuition is just the first step of any great idea. After that, bring on the numbers.

For example, let's say you get an idea: “If I opened a bookstore in front of the train station, it would probably do well.” That's just your intuition talking.

Many have succeeded in business relying on intuition alone, but everyone forgets something more important: A lot more have failed because of intuition. If everyone succeeded on intuition, it would hardly be something to boast about.

I'm not saying intuition itself is bad or always wrong. Rather, intuition should be viewed as a rough sketch—a first draft of an idea with more details to come. Hard numbers and metrics that can serve as guideposts are essential if we are to monitor our intuition. It's the combination of intuition and numbers that generates new ideas and pivot points. In business, adding details and metrics to intuition can clearly reveal obstacles ahead. Or, conversely, sometimes they generate important milestones that will lead a project forward. Many a great idea will fail when intuition is embraced without details. Interrogate your intuition to give your rough draft the details it needs.

For example, let's say your intuition tells you a particular location near your train station would be perfect for a new bookstore. Interrogate your intuition that the bookstore would do well by looking at specific figures. Research how many potential customers walk past the station every day, the level of sales at nearby local stores, and the foot traffic at bookstores at the next station over. Consider margins, rents, personnel costs and other data, and, based on all of that, calculate your projected level of profit.

Once you've filled in the details of your plan, step back from it and look at the big picture. Having examined the detailed figures, you should expose it to your intuitive mind again. Every time you do this, you will develop an elevated sense of what is taking place each day in front of the station.

Usually, when you examine the numbers, the result is going to be lower than what you initially guessed. We all tend to be overly optimistic. Usually there's a good reason why there's not a bookstore in front of the station already. If your quick calculations revealed that a profit could be made, then some opportunist would have jumped at the chance before you.

Now, this doesn't mean you should give up. Take your detailed plan, consider the big picture you just framed out, and drill down on ways to bring the numbers that were surprisingly low closer to your initial expectations. Are there any gaps in your projections? How could you achieve even better numbers? New ideas will flow and be even more powerful than the first one. This is your second wave of intuition and it is bolstered by your now more refined metrics. It should be more specific than the rough sketch you started with since now you understand the ins and outs of operating a bookstore. In other words, your business model will be clearer.

Now put this new model into numbers once again. The numbers you need will probably be different. Turn your intuition into numbers and go for an even deeper, more informed level of intuition. Then turn that into numbers. By repeating this process, you'll build a robust business model, rooted in reality.

This is the only way to make the correct use of intuition. You should value personal intuition, but you can't develop a business by relying on intuition alone. Bolster it with numbers and see the true value of your big idea.

23 Aim to understand the framework

Every building has an underlying structural frame that keeps it standing. And even the architect who wants to build the most beautiful building in the world must have an understanding of that frame.

The Japanese are fond of dividing the world into two camps: professionals versus amateurs. The professionals are quick to dismiss the amateurs not simply because they lack specialized knowledge. After all, skills can always be obtained through education. Professionals will argue it is more than skills; it is additionally the element of framework. Professionals embrace a mental framework of their field and they use it to engage in analytical decision making.

In marketing, there is a pattern of thought that often leads to superior results. It's not so unlike the patterns of moves that play out in shogi, or Japanese chess. These patterns are not based on common sense. They might resemble common sense in some ways, but they're actually more strategic than meets the unskilled player's eye. Even when the experts make seemingly irrational moves, a strategic pattern is likely to be driving their decision.

The reason some aspiring professionals have accumulated a lot of specialized knowledge but have not become experts straddles this fine mental line. The pro sees patterns that the amateur cannot yet analyze and interpret.

Conversely, as long as you have the framework clear in your head, even if you are missing some of the specialized knowledge, you can still understand the big picture. In business, being able to understand the big picture is mission critical. Rather than dive into all the most minute, technical aspects of a problem, first make efforts to understand the overall framework to analyze it properly. You might understand marketing but not human resources. You might understand operations, but not technology. You might be able to read a blueprint, but not be able to make heads or tails of an accounting ledger. None of us can be experts in everything. The larger the company, the more specialized each employee becomes. You often hear colleagues admit they don't understand what goes on in the department next door. When departments become siloes, this gets even worse.

The reason work is divided up is to boost overall efficiency. It's not done to discourage collaboration and innovation. In truth, highly specialized groups within an organization can only work effectively if they come together organically and work across company siloes. In practice, there's no job that can be fully completed by one specialized area. Understanding the framework of another field is extremely useful when drawing up project plans or trying to come up with new ideas, if only as a form of reference. Knowing the framework of another core skillset will help you understand the essence of why a success is achieved. You might also be able to apply that thinking to your own work.

Don't focus just on understanding the framework of your own field, but also be curious about those other fields and study those, too. This will add to the resources you have to draw on and the more of these you have, the better. The more resources you have, the more open you will become to new ways of thinking. And in turn, this will ultimately enrich your capacity to think creatively in your own specialized area.

24 Create solutions that break down barriers and reveal new challenges

There are very few problems in business that cannot be solved. I've always found that something can be done, even in the most challenging of situations.

Of course, if you're up against the forces of nature, some things simply cannot be changed for the better. For example, none of us can stop an earthquake from happening using current science and technology. But we can certainly construct buildings (even entire cities), dams and roads, and other infrastructure that can withstand major earthquakes. Skyscrapers in Tokyo, for example, can withstand earthquakes of level 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, a level that will knock over older wooden buildings. How prepared we are for earthquakes is a decision that we make as a society. Society is created by humans, so humans can also change it.

Likewise, business is a construct of society. Unlike instances in which we battle the forces of Mother Nature (and can only prepare to withstand them), most business problems can be solved through creativity and innovation. Nothing is outside the realm of the possible.

What I find fascinating is that just as soon as you have applied your best creativity and technological innovation to solve a problem, you inevitably run into a completely new problem on the horizon soon after. Solving one problem only redirects you to the next one to tackle in the future.

If you're now thinking, “In that case, why bother solving any problems at all?” then unfortunately I might add that you're probably not cut out for the world of business. Ultimately, business is simply a never‐ending series of creative problem solving.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was made to push a boulder up a hill as a punishment. Just before he reached the top, the boulder would cruelly roll away from him, down to the bottom of the hill. He then had to keep on pushing this boulder up the hill for all eternity. Although business is similar to this in so many ways, there's one fundamental difference. The problem that awaits you at the top of the hill is a completely new problem—one that you haven't seen before. And this new problem is always more complex than the one you just solved. So, unlike Sisyphus, you're not repeatedly climbing up the same hill. Rather, you're rising to new heights. And as the problems become more complex, the more you will grow by solving them. By scaling even higher mountains, you are able to come face to face with even stiffer challenges. Always continuing the climb is the absolute essence of business success.

Some might ask where the excitement lies in this process, and I can only reply that grappling with problems is the most exciting part of what we do in business. After resolving one problem with all your creative resources, an even more complex challenge comes into view. Your fighting spirit must rise up again to the new challenge before you. Some might see this as punishment, but the personal satisfaction of success far outweighs any short‐term pain, based on my own personal experiences.

25 Identify your weaknesses. Fix them or find workarounds

Business strategy and sport have a lot in common, but one key point of difference is that in business it can make sense to admit your weaknesses.

When exceptional tennis players don't feel 100 percent physically, they will probably try to keep it quiet. Disclosure of an injury might allow an opponent to attack a weakness. For this reason, they often won't discuss injuries before a big competition. They simply alter their training methods to both heal and prepare at the same time.

But business is different. In business, you can have as many personal weak point or faults as you like, because you can overcome them. Making up for them involves recognizing them first and taking countermeasures. Only a failure to acknowledge your weak points leads to disaster.

This is why it is essential to listen to things we don't want to hear.

If this was a one‐on‐one competition, our faults and weaknesses would be painfully obvious. In business, however, our personal shortcomings are not always visible. So many different factors determine whether you win or lose. Capital resources and the unique talents and abilities of colleagues all play a part. The playing field is never level. That's why it is such a challenge to identify solutions when you run into a rough patch. And every business, large or small, has a few along the way.

But there's one bit of solace you can take during a rough patch: No one is good at everything. Everyone has weak points. Everyone has flaws. And, if you eliminate your flaws, your performance will improve. That's why it's crucial to understand precisely where your own flaws lie. Don't let your ego interfere with personal introspection. Be humble and make sure you understand your own flaws first.

Once you have, decide if you can overcome the deficit by learning a new skill or if your weakness can be quickly overcome by reaching out to a mentor, colleague, or outside resource. There are many ways to go about it: Develop a network of personal advisors to address the gap, or invite others to come and work with you directly.

An empowering first step, if you have time, is to learn something yourself. For example, if you feel communicating in another language is indispensable to your company's success, obviously the best path is to master the language yourself. That said, you need to be flexible as well, because in the end, you need to balance learning with on‐the‐job results. Of course, sometimes it will be more efficient to hire an interpreter with perfect language skills than to invest time to learn a new language. You should carefully weigh the time required against the potential results.

Making this personal assessment is surprisingly difficult. Many of us will skirt the issue, without making that judgment, and without taking that hard, objective look at ourselves. Once you understand your shortcomings, the decision to overcome any personal deficiency is much easier. If you can wedge a personal time slot into your day for learning, then the self‐study option makes the most sense. But if time and opportunity cost make that impossible, then the best alternative is to reach out to your network as soon as you can and develop a game plan that leverages the talents of others.

The key is not to let rivals put any additional ground between you and them. Always work to close the gap and eliminate any weakness that is holding you back.

26 Never let your mental energy levels drop

Whenever you engage in work, challenge yourself to maintain a high level of mental energy at all times. This isn't always easy, but actively reinvigorating mental energy and motivation is an essential part of peak work performance. Sometimes we don't even realize it, especially when stress and overload trick us into believing we are being productive when in actuality we are not. You must constantly find ways to recharge and boost your own internal batteries.

There are all kinds of methods to boost motivation. For instance, I've heard that before he begins filming, Steven Spielberg always watches Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. This is his way of boosting his motivation. They say the first time he saw the film, he felt that it represented the purest form of cinema he'd ever seen. Watching it probably brings back his memories of how moved he was by that first viewing. Being inspired by others often boosts your mental energy levels. At such times, your brain can achieve greater levels of creativity and engagement to problem‐solve and execute an idea.

For me, it's exercise. I regularly go to the gym. I work up a sweat over 90 minutes, two to three times a week. First I use the sauna and get my heart rate up. Then I do a half‐hour of cardio followed by various kinds of strength training. My exercise routine gets my entire body working at peak levels, removes stress, and both relaxes and stimulates my mind by the time I hit the showers.

Exercise in itself is a good energizer but, more than that, it reminds me of how I felt when I was a young boy crazy about tennis, dreaming about becoming a professional player.

When you're a child, the smallest things are exciting because you are dreaming about them without conscious effort. But somehow when you become an adult, you find yourself less easily moved, and it becomes harder to drum up that same level of excitement. You must approach each working day with this level of enthusiasm and engagement. If mental fatigue is dragging you down, then a day off to recharge may be worth it.

You don't want your own depleted energy levels to rub off on your team. It affects the morale of the whole team, and can lead to failures and mistakes. More than anything, when this happens, work stops being fun. When you stop enjoying your work, it becomes just a routine. At that point, you will lose your ability to make well‐thought‐out decisions or creatively think outside the box.

Keep your energy levels high, and try to always maintain a positive attitude toward your work.

Know that continuing to work without sufficient mental energy will only lead to failure.