I read ‘Ōkina Uso no Ki no Shita de ～Boku ga OWNDAYS wo Keiei shinagara Kangaete ita 10 no Uso.～’ (Under the Big Lie Tree ～10 Lies I Was Thinking About While Managing OWNDAYS～) by Shuji Tanaka, so I’ll share the insights I gained from the book.

Background for Reading 'Under the Big Lie Tree'

I read it because it was available on Kindle Unlimited 😊

By the way, I haven’t read “Hatenkou Phoenix” yet.

The following are quotes from memorable sections and my notes.

The Curse of Unhappiness Called "Happiness"

I've been working hard to make my family "happy." I believed that not letting them live in economic hardship was the most important family "happiness." But from the recipients' perspective, that feeling was "don't impose your standards of happiness on us."

💡 I want to be careful not to impose my own standards of happiness.

If You Want to Become Rich, Become a "Master of Exchange"

It's easy to understand if you think of rich people as "people who are good at exchanging money for something." Life is like a "game" where you constantly repeat various exchanges to increase what you have.

💡 Rich people are those who are good at exchanging money for something

Since then, when talking to children about money, I've made it a point to use the word "exchange." I had to teach them that money is not something to earn or save, but something to "exchange for something."

💡 Money is a tool for exchanging with something

In Times of Crisis, What Really Helps You Isn't "Money" but "Trust"

In times of crisis, what really helps you isn't money, but your own value that you've cultivated up to that point and the trust relationships with many people who need that value.

💡 Not only monetary assets, but trust assets are important too

The Difference Between Staff Who Are "Laboring" and Staff Who Are "Working"

The boundary between labor and play actually doesn't exist anywhere. It's all about how you perceive that activity. Depending on your mindset, work can be transformed into either play or labor.

💡 Labor and play, work and games - it depends on each person’s perspective.

"It's Okay to Fail, So Give It a Try" is a Lie

I absolutely never say "it's okay to fail, so give it a try." I say "think thoroughly about how not to fail and make complete preparations."

💡 I think it’s better to think thoroughly about not failing, and if you still fail despite that, it can’t be helped.

Professional work means having complete preparation, layering assumptions and suppositions, checking multiple times, considering all possibilities and risks, and having the "determination to absolutely not fail" while working with genuine effort. To "make work succeed," you need that kind of "genuine" effort.

💡 Professional work requires preparation and determination to absolutely not fail.

I want to incorporate the points that seem applicable. That’s all from the Gemba.