The worst advice was to start a record label when I wanted to be a musician. It was smart advice. It could have made me more money, but it did not inspire me.

In order to grasp every opportunity, you cannot — you must not — decide your "career path" in advance. Don't have a job fixed in your sights and work backwards — it can be the road to disappointment because you risk passing up opportunities that might take you "off-course."

Perfection is always a desired goal, but it cannot be a primary goal. Expression has to be the primary goal, because otherwise, there is no need for an actual person to be there.

Many people talk about a willingness to have failures. I hate failures. I don't think you should strike to make failures. I think it's OK to make mistakes – but by the time they become real failures, you probably should have discovered them much earlier.

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.

We didn’t research the product. We didn’t launch a focus group or field a study. We had an idea, and we acted. The results informed our thinking.

I REALIZED IN THOSE DAYS HOW TENUOUS OUR EXISTENCE IS,” HE WROTE IN HBR. “WE HAVE ONLY ONE LIFE, AND IT MUST BE LIVED TO THE FULLEST—NOT SOMEDAY, BUT NOW.

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.

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.

The key to success is not perfection. It’s knowing yourself.