Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Rakuten Group, Inc. source ↗
I did want to be an actor from an early age although I briefly dabbled with the idea of being a vet until I realised you had to stick your hand up a cow’s arse.
Golfer, priest, police officer, teacher and, after going to the movies, actor.
A lawyer. I did work experience and was sent to the public gallery at the high court. The man in the dock was a 50-year-old accused of buggering a cat on the Metropolitan line. I decided to become a musician instead.
I wanted to be in the army or a spy in the intelligence service.
Because there are so many business we do across the boundaries. So, I think this is the only way a Japanese service company can really, truly become the global organization.
As an entrepreneur, I am the sort of person who prefers to understand things in an intuitive way and make top-down decisions. I have previously referred to the process by which I make decisions as a game of catch between my left and right brain.
Many times when I found myself at a personal crossroads – when I graduated from Hitotsubashi University and was unsure about whether I wanted to go into research or become a businessman, when I quit my job at the Industrial Bank of Japan (currently Mizuho Bank), when I founded Rakuten, when I tried to buy Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) – I always visited my dad in Kobe to ask his advice. Like my wife, my dad was a behind-the-scenes counselor to me.
My answer may have surprised some in attendance at the meeting: I don’t have a role model or sensei. Or to be more precise, I don’t have a single teacher. Instead, I take it upon myself to learn from everyone around me. If we open our eyes, we may find that everyone can be our teacher.
My “act first” process is not foolproof. It can result in mistakes. In other areas of my business, we’ve changed policies that drew criticism from our customers, launched services too early, and pursued acquisitions that failed to close. But I consider these necessary risks, taken in the pursuit of innovation. In business, there will always be ideas that fail and projects that disappoint. But we learn these things by acting.
When I asked for advice on how to start such a business, many senior executives told me, "You can't possibly succeed doing what big companies have failed to do."
James Dyson, Wayne Rooney, David Hare, Anna Friel, Julian Lennon, Frank Bowling
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