This is one of the draft which was not on my Forbes serialization, I am very happy to leave it and bring it here on Blog!
Is it difficult to get money for what you want to do?
I don’t think it’s difficult.
Before starting my own business, I was a fund manager (institutional investor/economist) at a financial institution in Japan for 10 years.
A fund manager invests a huge amount of money in stocks and bonds. When I was doing that, I analyzed international economy and corporate earning/financial on a daily basis, and check the change of stock market.
With such a career, most of the people start their own investment fund or investment platform as a next career step when they get independent.
But I started a fashion brand that it had nothing to do with the fund manager.
I loved clothes, but I graduated from a four-year college in economics, not a fashion school.
All of my career and experience had nothing to do with clothes.
But when I started, I was able to manage it. I mean, I had to make it. And I managed to do that.
If you feel it’s hard to get money for what you want to do, I think that’s more than anything that makes reality that way just in your mind.
It’s rare for someone to go along with what they want to do from the beginning.
How many people have found what they really want to do since they were students?
I think there are few.
In some cases, some people who already have decided what they want to do when they were child but sometimes also it may be the influence of their parents’ words.
And even if you find something you want to do, when you get older, you might think, “That’s enough.” or “Maybe it wasn’t this.” and might change your way as well.
The message here is that you don’t have to blame yourself for not finding a “what I want to do” and that even if you do find one now, you don’t have to be tied to it for life.
Even if you’ve never done it before, it is always linked to your past experience
When I started a clothing brand, I was worried although it was my dream for a long time.
The financial way of thinking talked to me in my mind such as “Considering profitability and inventory risk, a wholesale business would be better”…
But put aside that, I directly tried to launch my own brand that I really wanted to do.
However, when I started up, whenever I was worried about something, I blamed myself by saying things like “I wish if I had graduated from clothing school!”.
However, I had a lot of unexpected experiences there, and when I calmed down and looked back at that time later, what I finally realized was that
“All things are always linked to my past experience at high-level, exclusvely”.
Of course I can’t understand detailed knowledge of clothing what we can learn on clothing school.
But as I turned all necessary actions into high-level viewpoints, I finally realized that most of the things happened to me were “I would have experienced no matter what life I had”.
I was able to expand my potential by just noticing this, and I also realized that working with the mentality of “I can do that for sure.” and it helps me to work everything better.
“I cannot do that!”
When I think like that, I usually want to escape from something by throwing everything into the description on “I don’t know, so I cannot do that!”.
The older you become, the better you can manage risk, and before you do anything, you can see “There could be a risk like this.” and instantly come up with a number of risk factors.
However, what I reconfirmed after launching the clothing brand this time was that “Almost all risk factors are not too much serious ones”.
Rather, there must be a lot more gains than anticipated risks.
Through this experience, I was able to learn that the words “I’m not young anymore.” that are often used is not true.
If this word is very common in society, it does not mean it can apply to all people.
It would be great if you could reconsider what you might have given up before you started a business or many other things which is worth doing.
It’s not difficult or impossible, but in the end, it is all up to your mind is making a decision whether “I can.” or not by your own.