I used to use the brush before that time before 2015, but then I gave it up for a while. Now I’m back on the brush, so that’s the truth.

I am so obdurate I do not change my mind.

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is like in high school I was reading a bunch of Ayn Rand, like objectivist, all super black and white, basically like f the poor, people should work harder, they should try harder. And now as a 30-year-old I’m basically like all about trying to help the poor or trying to help the planet in different ways. Trying to make the world a better place. It’s like a full 180 from the black and white that I was into in high school.

I woke up this morning thinking maybe I don’t want to be an actor any more, then I had breakfast and I thought: actually, no, I really like being an actor.

My “act first” process is not foolproof. It can result in mistakes. In other areas of my business, we’ve changed policies that drew criticism from our customers, launched services too early, and pursued acquisitions that failed to close. But I consider these necessary risks, taken in the pursuit of innovation. In business, there will always be ideas that fail and projects that disappoint. But we learn these things by acting.

Many times when I found myself at a personal crossroads – when I graduated from Hitotsubashi University and was unsure about whether I wanted to go into research or become a businessman, when I quit my job at the Industrial Bank of Japan (currently Mizuho Bank), when I founded Rakuten, when I tried to buy Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) – I always visited my dad in Kobe to ask his advice. Like my wife, my dad was a behind-the-scenes counselor to me.

My job hunting days were at the height of the bubble economy. At the time, I was focused on joining big corporations and had no intention of myself becoming an entrepreneur. I started working at a major bank with a vague idea that I wanted "a job that would take me around the world."

In Rakuten's case, adjustment certainly took time. At first, meetings often felt awkward. The first board meeting after the Englishization decision took four hours to complete – double the normal duration. But whenever executives asked if they could say certain things in Japanese, I told them no. I knew that the challenge would pay off – and it has.

When I asked for advice on how to start such a business, many senior executives told me, "You can't possibly succeed doing what big companies have failed to do."

We didn’t research the product. We didn’t launch a focus group or field a study. We had an idea, and we acted. The results informed our thinking.