The value of a coin toss is not seeing whether it lands on heads or tails. It’s noticing whether you are disappointed in the result or what you’re wishing for when it’s flipping

But the thing I think that thrust me possibly into the public consciousness, I had just been elected Bishop of Lesotho. I had gone there to become bishop and I went for a retreat. I don’t know — I mean, I don’t know what happened but it just seemed like God was saying to me, “You’ve got to write a letter to the Prime Minister.” And the letter wrote itself.

As an entrepreneur, I am the sort of person who prefers to understand things in an intuitive way and make top-down decisions. I have previously referred to the process by which I make decisions as a game of catch between my left and right brain.

I never listened to any noise around me. I listened only to my gut feeling and did what I should have

Driving 24 hours with rivals at Nürburgring, the world's toughest circuit, presented many more challenges than driving a test course for three years. Naruse always said that ‘Roads make cars.’ The race is punishing, but it forges better machines. Nürburgring is where I learned that ‘the road makes the car.’

The three phrases I regard as being taboo would have to be: (1) I’ll think on it and try to do better, (2) We’re doing that, too, and (3) We need more man-hours and money first. These are the three phrases we mustn’t use at Toyota.

Even I can't predict what kind of car we will be driving 20 years from now, but my time at Babson taught me to embrace change rather than run from it, and I urge all of you to do the same.

A supervisor once told me that an amateur is someone eager for knowledge. Start by looking to learn the things you don’t know.

Above all, the transformation into a product-centered company. I believe that laid the foundations for future growth and allowed me to hand over to the next leadership.

In a word, love. It’s all based on love. Even at the public hearings, there was love for Toyota, and I managed to pull through because there were people who felt it and supported me.