V : Hello Steve.
S: Hi Val, How are you?
V: I am great! It's beautiful day here, well rainy day here. It looks like it's a beautiful day there in Vancouver. S: Well it is you know, It's 8:00 in the evening and you know at this time of the year here it's light until quite late. Which I know they don't do in Japan. No matter how long I lived in Japan, it was dark at 6:00.
V: Yes, yes, it annoys me too.
S: Anyway V: Anyway, anyway today, as I mentioned to you before. I want to talk about success. Because, um, I've read your book many times, I've been reading your blog. I think you are very successful in language learning of course. And you've shown success in businesses. You now have 2 businesses. And perhaps success in your relationships, your family, in life. So, I'm just curious Steve, what is the secret of success? What do you think?
S: Well, first of all, in terms of my successful relationships with other people, you'd have to ask them. V: That's true! S: But as far as I'm concerned, I'm successful, I'm happy, but I um... no... umm I think one thing is luck. I feel I've always been lucky. But to some extent you make your own luck. Because, there's many opportunities. By the way, my wife is playing the piano in the background. I hope that doesn't disturb anything. We have a little bit of musical accompaniment here in the background. All right.
I think it is very important to have a positive attitude. I must say, that 'm always positive in the morning. Now sometimes, If I have major problems. If I take them to bed, they seem like big problems and I can feel a bit discouraged occasionally at night. If you are struggling with issues and stuff. But once I get myself to sleep, which I normally do quite quickly unless I'm really struggling with something. The next morning I'm up and at it you know. It doesn't matter what the problem is. You just got to go at it. With energy, with enthusiasm, with a positive outlook.
I think I have a positive outlook with people. And I think that when we are young, when I think back you know. I think we go through stages when we are shy, we feel uncertain, or we lack confidence. When I think back on it now, boy, you know we really deprive ourselves of a lot of opportunity for success when we are younger, when we don't yet have enough confidence. I think people, generally speaking, get more confident as they get older. Things are less complicated, they realize that there are things that they can do! You know, when your young, your 16 your 17, what am I going to do in life? And what Job and this and that and everything is very complicated and .. So my advice is as early as possible, give yourself credit. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, and go for it!
V: Go for it! I like that attitude.
S:Yeah V: Just go for it S: Say, thats it yeah. Assume you can do it. Certainly with languages that's been my approach. And with people, assume that you are going to be able to get along with people. If you're straight forward, if you're out-front and friendly and helpful and considerate and generous and stuff, you'll get it back. Not from everyone, but from the people you want to have as friends.
V: Exactly, exactly... Yeah,umm, the reason why I am talking about success is that on Monday I got a phone call on my cell phone from the president of a company which I've been wanting to work for ... for quite some time now. And he called me on monday, and I was like YEAH! It was the first time in my life I've felt very successful from a job position and I have my first real design job. S: Wow V: I've been training to become a graphic designer... so I got the company president to call me! S: Wow, congratulations.
V: Yeah, so I was very very excited. Well, the way I did is was... I felt that that I made it because... well, the same thing that you said, I decided I'm just going to make him a concept web page for his company. An English version. He has a Japanese webpage, because it is a Japanese company. Because there's a lot of fans, i guess.. and potential clients for him in American and England... which if he had a successful english version of the webpage, it could bring his company a lot of money. I wanted the experience, so I just made him a concept. I said, just go for it. I sent it to him in the mail. And... he got it on Friday and he called me back on Monday.
S: Wow, tremendous.
V: He said, lets meet next monday!
S: I mean, that's tremendous, you know you can't be the kind of person, like, you pay me first then I'll do something. V: Yeah S: Time and time again in my business dealings and so forth, you've got to do it first, give first. Give again, then you'll get it back. You will get it back!
V: Yeah S: So, yeah, good for you, that's absolutely the right way to go V: Un-huh, that's what I am learning, you've got to take the action first in any sort of successful situation S: And you have to give value to others. V: Yes S: And they'll give it back to you. V: Yes, I was reading a ... I don't remember the person's name... He was talking about how to become rich. He said becoming rich is not so difficult, you just have to produce something of value to others. Where they value your product more than their money.
S: yeah... I mean it's.... we don't want to over-simplifly, it also takes an element of luck. But, if you don't get your thing out there, you won't get lucky, you know what I mean, it's like baseball, You've got to swing, swing the bat or you're not going to hit the ball. V: Right, right.
S: So you might swing and miss. You might swing and miss 3 times. Or the next 3 times. But, if you don't swing the bat, you're never going to hit anything. and the more you do it... and this gets back to languages. I also believe that the more languages you know the greater the range of opportunities that you are going to have. And the more you do things for people, you volunteer... and I know you've been involved in volunteering and doing various things in Tokyo. Here in a sense it's volunteering, sending this man a suggested webpage. The more you do stuff! It's like throwing a net out and hoping that fish swim into it.. if you don't throw the net out, or your night line, you aren't going to catch any fish. So, get the night line out there, you might just catch a fish.
V: you might just... yeah. You might catch a shark.
S: You might catch a shark, yeah.
V: yeah I think that's umm.. that's one of the biggest things. You got to take action. Also I hear that relationships with people are also very important with your success. It's not what you know it's who you know... is a common term.. what's your view on that? S: Yeah, I think this is obviously true. But I've always felt that one shouldn't go about building relationships as sort of a deliberate strategy. In other words, I'm going to get to know so-and-so, I'm going to deliberately build this network of relationships. It's more doing what you did. Do some things that are genuinely useful for other people. And those will be relationships that you can go back to.
V: Right S: So it's not a matter of collecting a bunch of name cards and phoning them the next day. I mean, people do that. I found that the relationships that have been important to me are the ones where I did something for them. Something genuine for them. Not, I had their name card I phoned them up and said "remember me? I met you yesterday." It was more that I had actually done something for someone. I had preformed I had preformed, and they said, "Ok, Steve has some value, so let's do something for steve." V: so it's all... S: It's got to be genuine. It's got to be genuine. That is all I am saying.
V: Genuine, right! And you are mentioning luck. We'll there's the old saying that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. S: True enough. But there is an element of luck. And that's one reason one should never be discouraged. Because, it may just not have happened, the stars haven't yet come into alignment. Sort of speak, you know. So if you are doing something of value. It may be of tremendous value. And circumstances haven't yet come together to where you're going to be successful the way you want to be successful. But if you believe in what you are doing, just keep doing it. Because it is a matter of luck. So it may happen just the day after you quit! So stay with it! Because if you do all the things right, and what you have is of tremendous value and you're sincere and you're good at what you do. And you still don't succeed... YET. V: Yet.. S: So stay with it. V: That's true, that's true... wow... another one of these old sayings, what was it .. uh .. it left my mind completely. My mind also tends to go blank, even in English.
S: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
V: but yeah, yeah, that's probably true.... you got to... ah! If you don't succeed at first, try try again. S: That's right, you have got to be able to risk things. Now you got to make sure that what you are risking, you are capable of loosing it. In other words, you can't risk everything. V: No, don' t risk your entire bank account! S: No, so you have to be a little reasonable. You have to be able to take risks. You have to be able to sometimes jump before you thought it through 15 different ways. Done a return on an investment and got 15 different people to advice you and stuff. Sometimes you've got to do stuff that you think is right. But you want to make sure too, that you can afford to loose. You can afford to loose. Don't you lot everything now you know.. I don't know, throw yourself off a bridge or something you know. V: Which people do.. S: which people do, yeah, be prepared to risk it, but don't risk the whole farm. V: yeah, risk just the chicken.
S: thats right!
V: If you loose the chicken, you loose the chicken. For me I didn't loose anything. S: And give before you get. Give before you get. And be fair. It will come back V: And be positive. S: and be positive, absolutely positive. And don't make decisions at night. Make decisions in the morning!
V: That's very good advice S: Because at night your more tired, things look bleaker. But, the morning is a new day, the sun has risen, the birds are chirping, and you are full of energy. So that's the time to decide what you are going to do! V: yeah, that's probably the best advice right there! S: Yup.
V: All right, I'll just go ahead and call that for now.. S: All right, well Val. I'm very happy to do this anytime. V: Yeah, well. after my meeting next week, lets have another little follow-up.
S: Sounds good.
V: All right.
S: Ok then. Bye Val.
V: Thank you very much Steve.
S: You're most welcome, Bye.
