Price is there not to make profit, but to help create a sustainable market. A few years back, a friend and I were running an experimental cafe. Our offerings were simple; a meal for about 800yen, a coffee for about 400yen, or both for about 1000yen. We were running the cafe for a bit of […]

I've realised one way in which writing a blog every day has affected me is that I keep thinking up metaphors. I keep looking for ideas in the oddest of places. Which I think is great. The greatest communicators are those who are able to keep the narrative going, and metaphors are an excellent way […]

Japanese people in general are amazingly passive. From what I've seen, they are taught from a young age to just accept things that are given to them in life. They are used to things being prescribed to them, being told how to think, how to act, I actually think the small camera showing how the […]

I listen to a lot of podcasts, I've listened to every episode of Freakanomics, the majority of Tim Ferriss', basically all of disrupting Japan, the How I Built That podcast, and I'm currently going through 99% Invisible's backlog but one in particular truly stands out for me. The Akimbo podcast by Seth Godin. I'm not […]

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter where you go, there will always be someone who is offended by your presence. Most often it's simple ignorance or petty jealousy, but someone is always going to dislike something about you. The worst is when it's someone whom you trust or has […]

Nike is right. Just do it. Today there were two times when I fought the resistance and won. It may not seem like much, but 'carpe diem', I count it as a victory. First, I was in a meeting with Sakata City delegates including the mayor. At one point I was asked to describe my […]

In Japan, or at least where I live, I was surprised by the number of solely-run small businesses in the area. Well, that's not exactly surprising judging by the track records of Japanese companies (so-called 'Black Companies run rampant here), but what was surprising was that basically all of these places have one day off […]