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What I learned about fish in Japan

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 I came across a moment where I became very interested in cooking fish. I came back to Japan, bought myself a kitchen knife in Kappabashi, then I've been studying the craft. I had the opportunity to work in Tsukiji, and now I even moved to a fish city Karatsu, spending time cooking local fish. The experience has been amazing and I understand fish a lot better than when I started. I wanted to organize what I learned so far, so that it helps me to navigate what I should study next. So, here is what I learned about fish in Japan. 1. Ideal environment for the best seafood Japan attracts fish as it is a natural, nutritious buffet. Japan is known to be industrial but it's actually very green. We have very green mountains close to the ocean, and the rivers push nutrients to the sea. Planktons and small food develops in the sea surrounding the islands of Japan. Fish take in these nutrients and become fatty. One interesting experience in Tsukiji was the fish shop I worked for loved sell...
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How my view towards failing changed

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  My first business didn't work out well. It did take me a while for me to recover mentally and financially. But 3 years in and I look back that it's not a big deal to make mistakes. It actually helps you to reflect on it, and gives you hints on how you could improve. Without failing it's difficult to improve and become better. It's about how you view and act towards failure that is crucial.  The more mistakes you make earlier in life the better Before starting the business, I always seemed to have the pressure that I had to succeed. Or to be right and correct all the time. But actually it's the opposite. I need to make a lot of mistakes, and learn to get back up as fast as possible for the next challenge. I realized this when my mother kept repeating that "I failed my business" every time we talked on the phone. My mom sounded like it was the end of the world while I was beginning to think it might be the start of something new. Well, when you lose a lot ...
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Why I will continue to invest in gold

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   My favorite investment is gold. But my best reason might be different from the answer you get from Google. During the pandemic, my financial situation wasn’t very good and I needed money to pay my workers. I was selling my belongings, which were sold for a fraction of the money I bought them.  It helped very little. Looking back it was a good experience learning that my belongings I thought were a lot less valuable than I thought it was. But the only one that were priced more than when I bought it, was gold. Gold on an emergency In Japan we have a saying, "有事の金" which can be translated to “gold during an emergency.” I remember gold coming down like every other investments during the pandemic, but then there was a timing when gold surged.  So like I said earlier, many things I thought were valuable lost its value during an economic slowdown.  But one good reason you need to sell your valuables is in a financial emergency. Gold was the only thing that increased...
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The one habit you need to get out of debt

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Deciding I need to cut my losses and close my company was the worst day of my life. I lost a lot of things I thought were valuable, and in return I had debt to pay off.  But after 3 years, it's no joke that it was one of the best experiences of my life. The reason is that I was able to gain a good habit to stay out of debt for the rest of my life. And if it weren't for the failure of my first business, I probably won't have the habit of keeping a surplus every month. Today I want to share my story about how I picked up the habit of staying on surplus every month. What I learned in the live-in construction job I needed to figure out how to get cash to pay off the debt, but at the time was during the pandemic so jobs had limitations. When I was searching online, I found a job opening for a live-in construction job. Pay is daily　which was what I needed so I picked up the phone and applied. Despite what I imagined the president of the company had a generous voice and told me th...
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The best thing I learned from meditation

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What helped me the most from meditation is that I'm a lot better handling things. Especially to the bad things that happen. When bad things happen, we tend to be upset, angry, worried... The mind usually travels towards the negative. But when you practice meditation, it helps you not to let your mind travel to the negative. It tries to go in that direction, but goes back to neutral. Because things happen, but how you view that situation is up to you. When I started to realize this, it made a huge impact on my outcomes. Off to a temple in Bangkok Awhile ago, I flew to Bangkok to go to this  Vipassana Meditation Center.  I had just went through the worst day of my life from a business failure.  I'm originally not really a meditation guy. I didn't really want to fully commit to meditation yet, so I found a free session of the Vipassana meditation and I just needed to make a donation after the 2 hour session. When I experienced meditating at the temple, my mind would wonder a...
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How I learned you can always start over.

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The worst thing that could happen to you can really be the best thing that has ever happened to you. For me it was failing my tourism business during the pandemic, and I had to start over. I lost my money, my girlfriend. Even lost faith. Japan was the last to open its ports from the pandemic so when Southeast Asia started to open its ports, I closed my business, and went on a food trip around Southeast Asia. It was like going through a dark tunnel My trip around Southeast Asia was interesting, but to be honest I wasn't able to enjoy myself to the fullest. I had to cut my expenses, so I stayed in basic Airbnb accomodation, went for street food, walked and read books a lot. It's nice, to see different things to where I was born in Japan, or where I grew up in San Francisco, or where I worked in Singapore and some parts of Europe. But at the back of my mind I knew I'm lost without much meaning in life. The color I see is gray and dark at the time. But three years have passed a...
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How one good habit led to another

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  Back during the middle of the pandemic, I was lost.  I was so mentally broke I remember sleeping 20 hours, eating something, then going back to sleep for another 20. I could really tell my health had gone broke. I could barely move but knew I needed to start something, even the smallest habit that could get me up. 3 years have passed and I could never imagine how far I could come from that small habit I started. Sticking to just 1 good habit leads to more good habits At the time, I read that one small habit and sticking to it is what I needed to do, but I doubted that just one habit could change anything. But there really wasn't anything I could do. We were all locked down as well. So I played a HIIT exercise video on Youtube and told myself I could sleep 20 more hours if I finish just one exercise a day. No need to go outside. I can do it beside my bed. For a few days, it was really one exercise, eat, then go back to sleep. But sticking to that somehow led to another small ...
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