Taking on extra tasks creates your future

"Work is not fun, it is painful, and that's why you are paid." This was my first boss's way of thinking back in 1986 when I started to work. I didn't fully agree with his concept, and I believed there was a positive side of work. So I did not hesitate to grab whatever work came in front of me, if I felt it interesting and necessary. We know from our gut feeling, what the right actions we should take are. They varied from work assignments to my personal interests.

After accomplishing my assignments, I was still keen to take on tasks that interested me. Not only curiosity but also the sense of responsibility was a major drive for doing that. When you take on these kinds of tasks, you tend to be more proactive, thus performing better and more efficiently in the long run.

As a Technical Representative, I often visited customers to propose joint development programs, find uses for the product, and get the product integrated into their businesses. My customers were scattered all across Japan, my technical counterparts were in laboratories in Okazaki, Japan and Wilmington, Delaware and Geneva Switzerland, and the production people were in Richmond, Virginia. I needed an effective tool to communicate with them, overcoming the time difference and remoteness.

On top of that, our documents were mostly in English, and I needed to translate them into Japanese to properly communicate with my customers. On the way to customers' locations, I frequently worked on my laptop to prepare documents and reports both in English and Japanese. When visiting customers with our technical counterparts from abroad, I volunteered to be the interpreter.

I think that because of the need for remote communication, I came to like computers/devices and communication very much. Because of the need for English, I came to understand the strength of global communication. So I can conclude that without me taking on extra work in the past, I wouldn't have created this kind of venture business, which first started from a whole new remote accessing solution, and is now evolving into a multinational solution.