✨Stars — Indicate the difficulty level of the book content.
★☆☆ 1 Star: Easy to read and understand.
★★☆ 2 Stars: Moderate difficulty with some specialized terms.
★★★ 3 Stars: Advanced content with complex ideas and terminology.
About the Book
■Title: Principles For Success (成功のコンセプト)
■Author: Hiroshi Mikitani (三木谷 浩史)
■Publisher: Gentosha Inc. (幻冬舎)
“Principles For Success” is a business book written by Hiroshi Mikitani, the Chairman and CEO of Rakuten, Inc., a leading Japanese e-commerce company. Rakuten achieved explosive growth, reaching over 10 trillion yen in gross merchandise volume within just a decade.
This book offers practical insights into business strategy, entrepreneurship, and leadership, showing that Rakuten’s success was built not on luck, but on Mikitani’s strong management philosophy.
Highly recommended for entrepreneurs, business owners, and aspiring leaders, as well as anyone seeking guidance for achieving personal and professional success.
Summary
Since its founding, Rakuten has embraced five core concepts as the foundation of its management philosophy:
1. Always improve, always advance
2. Complete commitment to professionalism
3. Hypothesis → Execution → Verification → Structuring
4. Maximize customer satisfaction
5. Speed!! Speed!! Speed!!
In Principles For Success, each of these five principles is explored in detail. According to the author, everything is for the customer—and if these concepts are fully realized in a business, that business is guaranteed to succeed.
Notable Quotes
■何カ月か何年か分からないけれど、日々のルーティンに流されて生きるということは、何カ月も何年も自分の可能性を埋もれさせたまま生きるということなのだ。そのまま一生を過ごしたいと言うなら、それでもいい。とても冷たい言い方だけれど、そういう風に生きている人は決して少数派というわけではないだろう。
Whether it’s been a few months or several years, living passively in daily routines means burying your potential for just as long. If you choose to live your whole life that way, that’s fine too. It may sound cold, but people who live like that can hardly be considered a minority.
■だからこそ、僕たちはいつも仮説を立て、新しいことにチャレンジし続ける。チャレンジして失敗することを恐れてはいけない。失敗もひとつのデータになる。何もチャレンジしないことの方が、大失敗するよりもはるかに始末が悪い。
That’s why we constantly form hypotheses and keep challenging ourselves with new things. We shouldn’t be afraid of failing when we take on new challenges. Failure is just another form of data.
Doing nothing at all is far worse than experiencing a major failure.
■ビジネスにスピード感をつける最良の方法は、当事者意識を持つこと、つまりは自分が仕事の主人公になるということだ。
The best way to add a sense of speed to business is to have a sense of ownership—in other words, to become the main character in your work.
My Thoughts
To be honest, I’ve also spent many years in Japan, working mainly on routine tasks at a company. While routine work is certainly important, I’ve come to realize that what truly matters is whether those tasks lead to real results or outcomes. In business, one of the best ways to gain speed is by having a strong sense of ownership. No matter what kind of work you do, approaching it as your own responsibility makes all the difference.
This book resonated deeply with me—not only in terms of business management, but also in its message about personal success. It felt like a sincere piece of life advice from someone who has truly succeeded.
Like the author who says, “Because life only comes once, I feel the urge to accomplish something meaningful,” I also started this blog with the hope of sharing and leaving something behind in the world. I truly hope this blog becomes a place where many people can relate, reflect, and discover something meaningful.
Comments