Embracing Professionalism

To employees who take their work seriously, I often say, “Create a process for your work.” If you want to become a good manager or work well with those around you, the first step is to establish a process. A process is necessary for conducting work efficiently and is different from a manual. Even the most experienced pilots always prepare based on a checklist, which enables them to fly the plane properly. This reflects their professionalism.

At a certain restaurant, when I asked the server, “What is today’s fish dish?” they apologized and went to the kitchen to find out. When I asked, “I want to have fish, but I’m not fond of this sauce. Could it be prepared differently?” they had to go back and ask again. If you work at a restaurant, it should be natural to answer such questions on the spot. It is a mistake to think this is a failure of the restaurant’s training. Simply waiting to be taught by others at the restaurant is not enough. At the same restaurant, there may be someone who is cheerful, can answer any questions properly, and can even suggest, “Would you like to try some wine today? We have an excellent selection that I highly recommend.” What makes the difference? It’s whether they have the passion to become a professional. Instead of just working for their hourly wage, they remember the menu and learn about wines because they genuinely want to make their customers happy. Such employees are invaluable assets to the restaurant. Recommending wine can boost sales, and satisfied customers are likely to return.

Business Team Play is Like a Medley Relay

The market is always in motion. Consumers have the freedom to choose from many stores, and the stores cannot control these choices. Therefore, like people, businesses must constantly grow. To achieve this, I value what can be done as a team and with colleagues over what can be done alone. Team play in a company is not like baseball or soccer; it’s like the 400m medley relay in swimming. A team of specialists in backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle. Each has their strengths, but the shared goal of the four is the gold medal. In the area I am responsible for, I’m competing with myself. That, I believe, is the ideal form of team play.

People can’t be good at everything. Therefore, it’s better to enhance what you are good at and what you love. Among my five children, there are some who struggle with math. I tell them, “Don’t worry if you’re not good at math. Use the time you would spend on math homework to practice the piano that you love.”

Japan is Wasting Water

During the Great East Japan Earthquake, fortunately, my family’s home in Fukushima didn’t suffer major damage. My uncle, who lives in Inawashiro, quickly started volunteering in Soma City. When I asked if there was anything I could do to help, he said that while Soma City had an increasing number of volunteers and supplies arriving, the neighboring city of Minamisoma had nothing. When I contacted the Japanese Red Cross Society, they said they wouldn’t go to Minamisoma because it was too dangerous, being close to the nuclear plant.

We often see footage from overseas where the military drops relief supplies from helicopters over disaster areas. Watching the news on TV, I couldn’t understand why Japan wasn’t doing the same, and I was frustrated for about a week. Then, it hit me: Just do it. I’ll go! I rented a truck, and with people from a food bank in Tokyo, I delivered 10.5 tons of food to Minamisoma on May 3rd that year. It was the first time supplies had reached Minamisoma. The local newspapers, radio, and TV stations covered the event, and by around 6 a.m., more than 2,000 people were lined up. Even with 10.5 tons, it wasn’t enough. For the last few hundred people, we had nothing to give, and all I could do was apologize and say, “I’m really sorry. I’ll come back.”

I continued bringing relief supplies for five years, but after the first and second years, it became increasingly difficult to gather supplies. When I asked people living in temporary housing what they needed most, they said safe drinking water. Did you know about Japan’s rule? When one-third of the shelf life of a product has passed, it’s taken off the store shelves. This rule causes a lot of water to be wasted. I contacted various places, saying, “If you’re going to throw away water that hasn’t reached its expiration date, please give it to me. I’ll buy it.” But everyone said no, except Suntory, who agreed.

Keeping Your Body Clean

Regardless of age, having a clean body is beneficial. By “body,” I mean the internal environment, particularly the gut. The concept of Abios is that “the body rejoices when clean things are ingested.” There is no way the body would be happy with dirty things. The cleaner the human body, the more effective everything you do will be. If the body is dirty, even the same training will yield different results. When a clean body and a dirty body eat the same nutritionally balanced salad, the amount of nutrients absorbed will differ. However, in today’s world, maintaining a diet that only includes foods without additives—whether daily meals, snacks, beer, or wine—has become impossible, not just in Japan but in any urban area globally.

Consumers purchase health foods and beauty products with the expectation of becoming “healthier” or “more beautiful.” So why do they have to buy contaminated products? When I was in my 30s and obsessed with supplements, nutritional science was not about learning which foods were nutritionally balanced or rich in nutrients, but about studying the nutritional components themselves. Since tablets allow you to adjust your daily intake, I took various supplements to get vitamins C and B. However, even with my background in science, I never considered what raw materials were used in these supplements.

Understanding the Correct Theory

The inclusion of chemical components in food and supplements likely started about 50 years ago, and I believe the human brain has not yet adapted to this. When the brain cannot determine whether the substances entering the body are beneficial or harmful, it stores them in the liver as a precaution. Take carrots grown in clean soil versus those grown next to a polluted factory. Even if they look the same and contain the same amount of beta-carotene, what about their actual content? While the environment is important for humans, it is everything for plants. Around 2001, I couldn’t find any products that met my expectations, but now there are many good products in the green food category. I believe that the balance of my own product, “Vege Power Plus,” is excellent.

May 2017, at Abios Corporation. Edited by. Naomi Kusada. Photography by Sebastian Taguchi