tj-shin

[tj-shin]

Commencement Speech at Waseda

I was invited to make a commencement speech at Waseda Business School. It was the first time for the school to invite a speaker from outside. I didn’t know whether I’m the appropriate choice, but I did my best. Here is what I talked. 

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I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in Japan.

To me, this university is the place of memory. When I was a penniless teenager, I used to stroll along the streets of this university to buy secondhand classics of philosophy, literature and social science. I graduated from the business school almost 10 years ago. I owe a lot to the faculties of this university, and I'm very happy to see some of the faces that I am quite familiar with.

I used to work for Morgan Stanley and Unison Capital, but I left the high-paying job in the private equity sector and now am working to create the private sector world bank providing quality financial access for everyone in the world.

While I extensively travel abroad, I am technically stateless and thus do not have a passport. When I visit developing countries, sometimes I am taken to a separate room and surrounded by policemen asking why I am coming there. I don’t have an embassy on which I can rely when I face troubles abroad. As long as I work in Japan, all the comfortable life as an investment professional was there. So many people ask me why I am doing this. Actually, the story started from this school 12 years ago, and I believe this is a great opportunity for me to share it with you today.

I was born in a poor Korean family living in Japan. The life as a minority was not easy. I wanted to alter my situation and thus studied hard to enter MBA programs abroad. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well. So I changed my mind and applied for a graduate school which offered the best finance program in Japan. That was this university, which thankfully admitted me.

The problem came after the admission notice. I had to pay the enrollment fee within a few weeks, but I and my family could not afford it. All I needed was just 10,000 USD. I asked many friends, but almost no one helped me.

I was in complete despair, so my mother decided to ask my father to get money from somewhere. I think here I need to tell you the background. My father never begs for anything for his family, though he does for the others. He believed that his social network and social capital should be spent for public benefit, not for benefit of himself or his family members. He does not care about money and living conditions. Although we lived in a small house which hardly fits 6 people, he used to say it is enough.

Many people respect my father, who passionately devoted 40 years to Korean education in Japan. My mother used to say: “If your father asks his friends for help, he would get millions in a night, but he would never do it.”

Just a few days after my mother talked with my father, he came home with a thick envelope in his suit pocket. Inside the envelope was that 10,000 USD, meaning that he broke his life-long rule for the sake of his son. I will never forget that day when my father gave me that envelope in that small room in my house, the house that I always wanted to escape someday. This is how I entered this school.

6 months after entering Waseda, I started working for Morgan Stanley, and my school-work juggling life began. It was not easy, but I worked and studied very hard, because I wanted to use even a single minute meaningfully to compensate my father's sacrifice.

I didn’t want to waste my time even after the graduation. So I founded an NPO called Living in Peace. While I continued my life as an investment professional, I used midnight, weekend and vacation to support microfinance institutions in developing countries and help children living without parents in Japan. 10 years after, Living in Peace became one of the most successful NPOs in Japan, and it became the role model for the business people engaging in social activities. Thanks to the activity, I was invited to join the Summer Davos Conference held by the World Economic Forum, and there I got this inspiration to create the private sector world bank, because I observed that in the 21st century an individual can privately make an international organization as Professor Klaus Schwab did with the Forum. It’s been 3 years since I founded my company called Gojo, and now we are providing financial services in developing countries.

So, this is my story. My life seems to have been full of unfairness, and I often wonder why I have to face all the troubles. However, I am happy, because I know that I’m in the process of overcoming all the obstacles to lead a life as I wished.

Despite the challenging background, I had access to finance, access to education and, above all, access to parent’s love, which are the key components of equality of opportunities. I want to create the world in which everyone has an opportunity to overcome his or her destiny regardless of where one was born and who one’s parents were.

Everyone,

We live only once, and we all can choose how to lead our life. I believe the only way to be truly satisfied when you face the end of it is to find the passion to which you can devote your life. The best way to find it is to live hard and live fully every day. Take action, rather than being an observer ridiculing someone. Follow your heart and intuition, even if all the others oppose you. Think about alternatives, if you have time to criticize the others. Don’t leave anything at the end of the day, as you may die tonight. Always try to end the conversation with tender words, as it may be the last one you have with your friends or family members.

Leading your life like that, someday you will notice what matters to you the most, and that is your own passion. Your passion never comes from the other’s experience. It comes from your own life of hardworking. Only you know the answer.

That said, I know living hard is not easy, because human beings are not so strong. That is why sometimes we need a good moment to determine something, and where is the better moment than one’s commencement! You can determine something and change your life from today, not from tomorrow. I wish that today becomes the decisive moment for you to live fully, find your passion and lead a great life.

Thank you.

[tj-shin]

The Story of My Life

I bought the book while I was in Gandhi Ahram, but I found that the book is available in pdf format for free. “The Story of My Experiments with Truth” is a great book, but it takes time to read through the entire book, so this “The Story of my Life” works as a good introduction for those who didn’t read the autobiography and a good reminder for those who did. The editor did a great job to make this abridged version.  

His life has always been an inspiration to me, and this time what I found the most was that he never punishes anyone. If anything bad is conducted by his people, he punishes himself rather than punishing the ones. This may seem contradictive, but it is consistent with the idea I used to hold for a while - through action and life we lead, not through order or punishment. If the boss is a great person, there always will be great people around him or her, as we saw in the legendary dynasties of China.  

[tj-shin]

Eyes of professionals

The common feature of great professionals is that they have great eyes, i.e, they can process and analyze huge amount of information when they face situations. Maybe I should say it’s not eyes but brain: their brains’ information processing power cannot be compared with that of amateurs’.

The excellent eyes allow professionals to find mistakes, distinguish something from the others or perceive intention of people. I wonder how the world would look like if I got eyes of greatest painters, photographers, investors, etc.

[tj-shin]

Starting sentences with “but”

"But" is a conjunction not an adverb, and I used to learn it's grammatically incorrect if you use "but" at the beginning of sentences. However, nowadays I see this "but at the beginning" everywhere: in not only daily conversation but also articles in quality papers (only exception is academic papers).

I thought this is a living example of how a language evolves. BUT after googling this topic, I found that many say that this “usage restriction of but” is not a grammatical imperative but a rule created by school teachers in 19th centuries (the rule is applied to all coordinating conjunctions such as and, or, for, so etc.). In other words, this rule has no grammatical foundation. On the other hands, I remember some books (especially traditional style books) still advise us not to use the conjunctions at the beginning.

While knowing that it’s basically fine to use “but” in that way, somehow I feel awkward when I start sentences with these coordinating conjunctions. I guess it’s now like part of my lifestyle or preference like “I feel uneasy if my shoes are not perfectly shiny when I wear suits”.

[tj-shin]

Power of old songs

Whenever I feel I’m exhausted, I often listen to the songs which I used to do when I was a teenager. Actually some of the songs are not good in light of quality as music (it is the case for many J-pop songs), but I still play them like having junk foods.

I recently realized the reason of it: when I listen to these old songs, I don’t listen to them just for the sake of the songs themselves, but for the memory which is associated with them. When I listen to these Japanese songs (when I was a teenager, except for the Beatles, they’re only what exited in my play list), they remind me of my teenager days, full of good memories.

So this is the power of old songs. They may be great as music, but most importantly, they are the catalyst of our old memories, and that’s where the very power comes from. So I think I should appreciate my life so far, because when I look back it, I can think of only beautiful memories. Granted, there are unpleasant memories, but my brain functions to edit the memory to be somewhat colorful and beautiful.

[tj-shin]

2015 Review and 2016 Resolution (and 3 best photos this year)

(Our clients with U Mying Swe, Managing Director of Microfinance Delta International Company Limited in Myanmar)

I. Work in 2015

It’s been 18 months since Gojo & Company was established. Now we operate in Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, serving for 12,000 clients with 200 employees. In the last 16 months, Maxima in Cambodia transformed dramatically both qualitatively and quantitatively, thanks to the management team of the company. One very memorable event this year was that I got gifts from colleagues in my birthday week, perhaps more than I had received for the last 33 years. The trust-based relationship with colleagues in the world is the most valuable asset and gift for my job and me.

（Night at riverside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia）

II．Living in Peace in 2015

Although my work at Gojo is the first priority, I determined to continue to work for this NPO and has been involved in the major decision makings and work. This year LIP newly supported one children’s home to build the new home for the children who needs intensive mental support. LIP also provided scholarship program for two students who cannot live with their parents due to various reasons. We also started to establish a foundation which makes social investments and allocate the return to financially support children in advesity. I also participated into “G1 Children Initiative” and made many actions to support the children.

   III. Self improvement in 2015

Reading: As stated in the last new year’s resolution, I read more than 50 books. The No.1 book was “Bhagavad Gita” with commentary by Radhakrishnan, an Indian philosopher and politician. The book changed my perception about God. The No.2 were books of Plato (I read more than 10 of the philosopher’s masterpieces). The philosopher king mentioned in “Republic” and “Gorgias” gave me a vivid vision about how the leader should be. The third best book was “a notebook to be a manager” by Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of the Fast Retailing.

Writing: Although I couldn’t write 200 English blogs as promised in the last year, my English writing improved considerably out of the needs to write better English at work. I published my 8th book “Run and Think” and co-authored a policy recommendation report for Internet Governance. Being a good writer is critical for a job like finance, and I’ll keep improving this ability.

Exercise: I started kickboxing. Although I don’t book my fight, I’m now prepared enough to have a sparring match with Muay Thai boxers in Cambodia. I had an ultra-marathon in August.

Health management: I found that I had 157 flights this year. Since the life with weekly changing environment should be harmful for my health, I take enough time to sleep and care what I eat. On average I slept 7.5 hours. Thanks to these efforts, I’ve been overall fine this year.

Photo: Took many photos as promised. I noticed that taking good photos requires the ability to capture things as a scene and to develop human relationship, the skill that is essential for my work. Three best photos are in this letter.

    IV．2016 Resolution

Take enough time for self-review and preparation to improve myself. Take 20 minutes to review myself with the short checklist and confirm tomorrow’s tasks every night. In every Sunday night, take 60 minutes to review myself and my work using the long checklist and confirm schedules for the next week and month. Take 10 minutes in the morning to prepare for todays’ tasks and sleep only after all tasks are completed.

Do whatever needed to improve credibility and performance, e.g., keep time and promise, don’t drink too much, don’t destroy rhythm of life, keep quality sleep, etc.

Learn more about finance, programming and world economy and politics to have better sense about my future business. Read books about industrial organization, insurance, ALM, international finance, credit risk modeling, financial system, programming and technology. Meet professionals to learn more about the field.  Keep reading the Economist. Make application for financial modeling. Read the Koran, Gita, Bible and Buddhism books.

Strengthen the organization. Establish the advisory board for Gojo and hire full time member(s) who is(are) greater than me.

Publish more than one book and have a photo exhibition.

 As hardship is the best teacher, I appreciate the situation and continue to improve myself and organization to achieve the long-term vision.

Taejun

(Elephants in Sri Lanka)

[tj-shin]

Mysticism

Some of my female friends like mysticism. They visit “power spots” quite often, perhaps more frequently than they visit their ancestor’s tomb.

Although I accept the notion that there are things that are beyond our scientific understanding, I cannot be so into it. All of the thinkers I respect the most somehow have the same opinions on mysticism: granted, there are many things that are true but not proved by science, but there are so many other things that are visible and understandable but difficult to practice. My life and time is limited, so I will not devote much of my time for thinking about it and just accept the mysticism as it is, and spend most of my time for what is visible and practicable if I really work hard.

[tj-shin]

CEO’s responsibility for company’s survival

Until very recently, I was thinking that company’s survival largely depends on market factors, i.e., macroeconomic environment, political situations, disasters, etc. Even by making best efforts, sometimes the organization may not survive under certain circumstances.

However, recently I changed this mind slightly. Now I think that if CEO were great and making 100% efforts for the job, at least the company would survive even in the extreme situations (except for the cases in which the one’s existence is banned by government, etc.). Just to be clear – i still believe that level of success would vary according to the market factors, but when it comes to very survival of organizations, it would depend on whether the leader does his/her job.

The enlightenment came from books written by Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of First Retailing Corporation, who transformed a small apparel company into one of worlds’ largest SAP companies like ZARA, H&M and Forever21. His honest nature allowed his books disclose what happened to the companies and how he reacted to the situations, and the books made me believe that First Retailing was successful not by lucky but by the leadership of CEO.  

This change in idea is of great value for me, because if I think in that way, I always think about whether I’m doing the right thing or not.

[tj-shin]

Going concern

I met a gentleman and talked about long term consequences of my company’s business. For those who just spent 1 year since the company establishment, it is tough to imagine issues to be raised in 20 to 40 years, but it was a good exercise to think about going concern of a company.

He said current business model of my company will face difficulty at certain economic stage in the future and may disappear at that moment (by the way even at this moment I’m determined not to continue current business model, because I don’t want to make profit by taking interest from economically challenged people) . 

Without deeply thinking about it, what came to me was that if my company disappears despite all of my and our best efforts, that just simply means it is no longer necessary for the society. Then the death of the company should be welcome, like leaves falling down to ground to make it easier for the new plants to grow up. Trying to make zombie corporations survive is social evil, though the judgment is not that easy.

My friend then asked me “then what about your employees?”. That was the tougher question, but not like in Japan, many developing countries have more liquid labor markets, and as long as we can give them best training, they’ll face no difficulties even after the collapse of my company. Granted, in the future, I may work in countries where labor market liquidity is low, but even in that case I may feel that my role is to let our employees be able to survive even after the death of companies.

Maybe I need some more time to think about it.

[tj-shin]

Measuring and Improving Social Impacts

Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies, and Impact Investors

If one is to prepare SPM (Social Performance Management) policy of his/her organization, this is a nice book to start with. Citing a number of examples and texts, the book covers most of the key issues which we should take into account when we create SPM policy. It gives us some basic insights and foundation of knowledge to answer to the following questions that many organizations face in making social impact: - What kind of problems do you tackle- How do you solve the problems - How do you measure and manage your impacts- How can you scale the impactOne setback of the book is its writing style – unfortunately I felt it’s a bit boring given how the contents could make us excited. It may be due to lack of humors and a number of technical terms. All that said, I would highly recommend the book to all those who manage social organizations.

[tj-shin]

Beautiful Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a strikingly beautiful country. Although I’ve just visited a few places for sightseeing (despite spending much time for working there), that doesn’t matter much, since beauty of the country should be determined not by specific places but by the sights that people can see in their daily life. Beauty is something that we assess from many aspects seen in mundane situations.

I love walking around my residence in Sri Lanka in Maharagama, a suburban city nearby Colombo. Many buildings are beautifully designed thanks to heritage of British culture, everywhere is full of green perfectly harmonized with the buildings thanks to the perfect weather for plants to grow, and even the suburban area provides good nests for animals – beautiful birds, monkeys, weasels, squirrels, not to mention household animals like cats, dogs, cows, chickens, horses, etc.  Insects are also abundant. At night in my residence, cockroaches from forests fly around, spiders chases the cockroaches to prey on them, aunts gather around dead bodies of insects and move them to their nest, and so on.

All these things make me wonder how well nature’s ecosystem is designed and make me believe that the God created this world.

[tj-shin]

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

After reading this book about the most admired living entrepreneur in US, I finally understood that why there are so many worshipers of him. Unlike many entrepreneurs in these days, he tackles big problems in big industries. Except for his first startup (Zip2), his works were to change traditional industries which require huge amount of initial capital and no one dares to enter the market: finance (at least when he founded X.com), aerospace, automobile and energy. As we can see in this book, it surely was not an easy job – he had faced and is facing a number of hardships, but slight lucky and strenuous hardwork always helped his companies to get out of the crisis. Some people say that he is the most innovative industrialist and outlandish thinker.

There are some parts that I can’t agree with him (or the author’s perspective), but the very purpose of reading this kind of books is to learn from one’s virtues. So, the following three are my takeaway:

-       Keep thinking big. Do what people usually think only governments and international organizations can do. Initially this may sound crazy and the “reality” always tries to makes you think smaller to fit into the situation, but there always is a chance that you can achieve the original goal if you’re doing the right thing and working hard and is lucky.

-       Try to build your business model as a big ecosystem. If what you do is not a simple service, it takes several years for competitors to do the same, and the several years are enough to be the “de-facto standard” setter. For instance, Uber is facing a number of its copy cats around the world, but Tesla isn’t.

-       Work hard and always study. Whenever Elon enters a new industry, he spends fair amount of time to study how it fundamentally works (he also warns the risk of learning too much though). The book reminded me of that I have a few fields that I should study more.

[tj-shin]

Snatcher in Phnom Penh

Cambodians are early birds. They start work from 7:30 until 16:30. Yesterday I got up at 5:30 – too early to have a breakfast at the hotel but was a good time to take photos of a morning sence of Phnom Penh. Thus I decided to walk around the hotel, just having my phone and Leica camera.

When I was walking along a big road near the independent monument, which is the center of the city, it happened. I was holding my phone in my hand to see messages I got from friends, and someone riding a motorbike approached me from behind, snatched my phone and ran away immediately. As it was my first encounter of robbery and was all too sudden, I just was surprised by the situation and stunned for a few seconds. When I came back to myself, the perpetrator was far enough, about to turning around the corner. It was like when I was robbed of my foods from a crow in India. The behavior-wise, both snatchers have much similarity, although what is valuable for them are different.

I knew what I had to do first of all – activate iCloud and find out my iPhone registered in the system. I went back to the hotel, opened my PC and found that the “finding your iPhone” setting was deactivated already. He surely is an experienced thief, and maybe it was fortunate for me not to chase him, as he might have had a gun or a knife – some people who tried to fight against snatchers were shot and killed in the city. Now the bigger concern became information, because my phone is full of personal information etc., more valuable than the phone itself. I had to change all passwords of social media, messenger applications, online shops, etc. After all these immediate actions, I had to spend a few more hours to order a new phone and a new SIM card for Japan and applied for insurance for the loss.

What I felt after undergoing all these measures was sadness, not due to the loss but the situation of the country symbolized an incident happened to me. I love Cambodia, as most of the people in this country have been very nice to me. The microfinance clients of rural areas let me stay at their houses many times and tried to provide me with the best thing that they can offer, the best unforgettable experience of me in the country, and the Cambodian colleagues always care my happiness and health and treat me like a brother of them. My affection toward this country will never diminish, but that was the very reason why I feel sorry on the other hand.

Robbery and theft now account for 50% of the total crimes in Cambodia, and the number is still rising steadily, suggesting that more people are materially unhappier than before. If you visit the country continuously, you can easily recognize the rapid growth of Phnom Penh City and sluggish changes in lives of the underprivileged people in both cities and rural areas. As we see in some countries, rapid economic expansion with rising inequality fuels the people greed and left people in need more desperately than before. Unless the growth is not accompanied by the expansion of human freedom (in Amartya Sen’s sence), it won’t help improve majority’s lives. One clear issue that we should tackle is rising economic imparity in the society, and I’m glad to take part in the mission.

Granted, it is always not justifiable to commit a theft, but in many cases there are reasons why they do it. Besides, when I was a teenager, I committed shoplifting a few times (and I was once caught by policemen), I’m not in a position to throw them stones. Human beings are prone to the environment, although I believe in the humanity which sometimes is free from all external conditions.

In the evening, all the sadness was completely blown away by a big surprise birthday celebration for me by employees of my MFI in Cambodia. Yes, I love this country and the people and will continue to work for and learn from them.

[tj-shin]

Why aspiration matters

Schiller said that “mankind is made to be great or little by its own will”. Although the quote is popular, I couldn’t really fathom what the greatest poet of the time meant to tell us. Now I think I got some clue and would like to write something about it.

 I believe best leaders of the society should not only have high intellectual (in broadest sense) capability but also think so big that sometimes they may seem to be Don Quixote. The person would be like Plato’s “philosopher king”, and those people did exist in the human history – from religious leaders in the ancient time to M.K. Gandhi in 20th century.

 However, as people get smarter, they tend to think small, because, in my opinion, they can foresee the future to the greater extent and become risk-averse due to the visible consequences. If you look at herding behaviors of top school students, MBA graduates or those working for high-paying jobs, I believe you’ll agree with me.

 Some people may oppose me by showing “evidence” that many best & brightest students go for start-ups, but I think starting their own business does not necessarily mean that they’re risk taker, because (1) many of them can come back to the high-paying jobs if they want (especially if they’re from a wealthy family, the risk is lower) and/or (2) in some societies there’s a peer pressure to start companies by their own if they’re in good schools. To be clear, I am not criticizing anything – This is just an observation.

 On the other hand, there’re some people who seem to think big. However, many of the “visionaries” in fact just think shallow, having huge potential risk of making big mistakes. Some people are successful thanks to sheer luck, and the fortune of those people may be misleading the other people.

 I think that when Schiller made the quote, he might have thought about how we can overcome the seeming incompatibility between smartness and being visionary: it is aspiration that makes two contradictive qualities compatible. Thanks to the ambition, they don’t become to think small even if they can foresee future risks of their endeavors and also will never be satisfied with the status quo, trying to advance the world by leaving a comfortable zone that they’re entitled to and diving into the sea of uncertainty. The people with high aspiration also will always try hard to improve their capability to achieve the goal.

[tj-shin]

Initial observation on Mynamar/Burma

Despite obvious limitations, the first impression and observation about a country have a point, and I’d like to keep some notes about what I felt about Mynmar/Burma.

People

Overall, Burmese people are nice, honest and simple, the characteristics shared by many Buddhist countries in my opinion. Men wear skirt-like ethnic cloths “Longyi”, and women and small children do make up with “Tanaka”,a traditional facial pack. The traditional clothes and makeup have their own rationale given the extremely hot and humid (in some places dry ) weather conditions in the area. Many countries have abandoned beautiful customs which are based on traditional wisdom but are not “suitable” for the modern (mainly Western) cultures. This existence of traditional fashion may suggest that people in Myanmar don’t care how they look like but how they do (yes, this is what Buddhism teaches), the traits that would be important to make microfinance successful. Perhaps it is just because of the delay in influx of outside culture.

Fairly mixed ethnic group. Buddhists, Christians, Muslim and the others live together without any seemingly obvious troubles. I know in some part of the country, 1 million Rohingya people (a Muslim ethnic group) have no nationality and are left , but overall the society seems to be harmonious. Also, when I look at people’s faces, I can easily sense that the country is sitting where South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia intersect. Some people look very like South Asians, some Southeast Asians, and some East Asians like me.

 Rangoon/Yangon 

Yangon is one of the most beautiful cities in Asia, filled by green trees and well preserved British buildings. A weakness is poor Internet and relatively scant cultural facilities. Even the National Museums exhibit disappointingly small number of arts and historical items. That said, Shwe Dagon Pagoda, one of the greatest Buddhist  architectures, exudes majestic aura representing level of the country’s Buddhist culture.

No motorbike can be found in Yangon, because it’s prohibited. According to some sources, the ban came from an incidence that a son of a general had a motorbike accident and was dead. Some people denied the story, however. May need some more time to find the truth.

  Microfinance

The country has a huge potential for microfinance. Until very recently, there is only one UNDP microfinance project due to strict regulation. PACT, the MFI taking care of the UNDP project, is now the single largest MFI holding $50 million loan portfolio and more than 80% market shares. Roughly there are 7 million potential microfinance users (60million total population x 70% / 6 (average number of household members), and the total number is just 0.5 million or so.

Now more than 230 private companies, finance companies, international NGOs and international MFIs rushed into the market and applied for the license, but many are struggling to even start the business due to lack of expertise and good personnel. Only several local players and international NGOs-based MFIs (e.g. World Vision) are doing well so far.

The average loan size for most MFIs ranges from $50 to $100 or so. Many of them do traditional Grameen style group loan, mainly because this was the methodology of the UNDP project. Though the group liability loan has some limitations as pointed out by many scholars, it’s a good start for clients education.

[tj-shin]

Writing and personality

I was writing 5 heavy reports during this weekend (2 policy recommendations (one is co-authoring), one long article for an economic magazine, one about child welfare for an academic research, and a business plan). Whenever I lost concentration, I did exercise (swimming or inner muscle training) or wrote drum scores for the coming music event. Alternating what you heavily use is a smart way to keep concentration. 

I like how Praachi (member of Gojo) writes English, so sometimes I ask her to proofread my writing. Although she makes corrections for grammatical errors and suggestions for paraphrasing, the way I express things is basically intact. She says she wants to respect the way I think and if she touches the expression, the passage will no longer belong to me. I found it sensible, as one's expression in writing is essentially connected to his or her persona and background. When it comes to Japanese for example, I can almost always find me in the way I describe things.

I want to cherish how I feel. Furthermore, sometimes one's unique way of seeing the world contributes to the evolution of a language. I don't think I'm the one of the contributors, but I can see many historical evidences that "outsiders (either culturally or regionally)" pushed the local language forward. 

Surely self-righteousness is a way to be a fool, so balance always matters. As with our bodies, one's personality slightly but steadily metamorphoses every day. 

[tj-shin]

Some thoughts on what funders should pay the greatest attention to

I sometimes recall what my former boss said in an investment committee meeting. He said “You should assume that all the discussion here is heard by Gods (i.e. clients)”. His intention was to let a younger and immature investment professional reflect on this remark when he despised clients of the firm.

That young investment professional happened to be me, and this became one of the greatest lessons. Now when I have discussions on investment decisions in Gojo, I always think whether I can say to our clients what I truly feel or what I discuss in the meetings. Granted, there should be confidentiality that should be kept, but my focus here is not on that but about the respect we ought to pay for all of our clients (not only direct clients but also indirect ones, including beneficiaries of microfinance services).

I believe this is of the greatest importance, because in the long run you cannot hide what you think and say. Human beings are sensitive enough to realize one’s hidden intention and feeling, i.e. if you secretly despised someone and even if you did not show it, sooner or later, he or she would be able to realize it. In the end, organizations without respect for the clients cannot make the trust-based relationship with their clients and will perish someday.

The risk is the biggest at foundations and investment funds, as usually people do not blame donors and investors for their wrongdoings, thus making it difficult for them to reflect on and change their deeds. Given this structural possibility of being stupid kings or queens, funders should be guided by principle, i.e. they should establish their guiding principle and have the process in which the member’s behavior is a reflection of the principle. I don’t think having independent directors, etc. would be the answer to governance of professional firms and funders.

Apart from my professional job, I have my Non-profit Organization, raising funds from donors and allocating it for children who for various reasons cannot live with their parents (the fund size being not too large: just exceeded JPY30 million). Now we’re in discussion to engage in a support for a foster home / orphanage, and I wish all the discussion is fair and respectful so much so that even all the minutes can be disclosed to our partners.