I often listen to audiobooks while I drive or work out. I listen to more than 5 books on average in a month. Since I use unlimited plan, I listen to a variety of books, mainly self-empowerment and business hacks.
Today, I am going to write my impression of a book.
「伝えることから始めよう」ジャパネット高田 高田明社長
Mr Takata was a CEO of a famous Japanese a mail order company, Japanet Takata. He took over his father’s camera company in Nagasaki and started his own company on the age 38 years old. He got pretty famous for his outstanding MC performance on his live programs in 2002. I know him because of his TV program, and I did not know his biography. This is his first book and shows his bio and perspectives towards business. I am going to introduce 4 principals I felt good to share.
- The goal of speech is not to express but to impress others
- Every experience leads to future possibility
- Work hard every day; Surpass oneself each day
- Find reasons not to do, but how to do
The goal of speech is not to express but to impress others
As a teacher, reflecting on myself, I teach and tell something but I cannot be so confident if I had to say whether I have others understand. This is his point. Everyone says something but the purpose of his/her speech act is to have others make sense. This idea reminded me of the role of ‘speech act’ in pragmatics.
Mr Takata addressed three major components to impress others; passion, mission and skills, and passion is the most important. Passion is enthusiasm of the speaker. It is crucial because listeners feel and are impressed with passion. Mission is to make it clear to the aim of the speech. It includes how to and what to tell, verbally. Systematic presentation is important to have others understand the features of appliance. Skills is literally speech skills, including non-verbal acts.
Every experience leads to future possibility
Mr Tanaka likes English. He mentioned that he really studied a lot when he was a student and he used to work as an interpreter for several years when he was young. As a CEO at his company, he did not often have a chance to use his English skill, but once he recited Lincoln’s speech in live program to introduce an electric dictionary, it was sold much more than usual. He also told many other examples to explain each his experience leads to his success at the mail order company.
I work as a teacher at a junior high school now and learn other languages and the classical guitar. I hope my experience will bring something in the future as well.
Work hard every day; Surpass oneself each day
In many books, to set specific goals is very common, but he did not make these goals every year, except for in 2010. He just emphasized working hard every day and think how to make others happy though his business. He just wanted to surpass himself and make his own business better every year. It sounds rough but I felt the underlying concept is quite similar with kaizen, TOYOTA’s fundamental policy.
Find reasons not to do, but how to do
It is easy to think why we cannot do certain things. We can list so many reasons, like I am busy, it is not the time for it, I do not have enough money, etc. Mr Takata teaches us we should think how to do. As long as we work hard, there must be some solutions to overcome difficulties.
This book is not only biography but also self-empowerment book if we try to learn something from his experience. He was not so young when he started his own business. Compared with him, I am younger and still have time to challenge. Today is the youngest day of my life. Just do it. 😊
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