Eric Siu: It's 4:30 AM, and we're heading to Tsuchiki Fish Market.
At 4:30, you can't get in. But the guy that I know is connected with guys there that have restaurants, so we're going to go there.
So the deal is, you buy a fish for 5,000. I can sell it for 20,000 after you make it into sushi, obviously.
[inaudible 00:00:29] was saying that you can buy a giant one for like, 20,000 bucks, and then basically sell it for 80,000. Seems like a good deal to me.
It's about 8:20 in the morning here, and I'm heading to the ... I think it's the Inari Shrine.
So I got this at the station yesterday. This is a matcha Kit-Kat. This is my pocket Wi-Fi, and then I'm breaking these in today. Probably not a good idea to be breaking in shoes, but it is a hike.
I should probably bring some money too, and chap-stick. Then I'm going to bring my backpack, because I might want to get up to the mountain and maybe write and read for a little bit.
It's a good day to be strategizing, before the New Year. I really like using December to prepare ahead for the New Year, so we'll go over and see what the shrine looks like.
It's pretty amazing. So we'll get to the top and then give you some wisdom after. Basically, when you look at the bottom, where it first started, tons of people, right? I just went through a gauntlet of stairs, and we're almost there, but it just ... Again, consistency, right? And hard work, too. It sounds really general, but you see Japanese people, like today, it's Saturday. Going to school?
I remember when I was younger, I went to school, Saturday for Chinese school, right? And just keep going. Even here, I mean now, it's like, the people that make it to the top, it's the same thing as business. They end up sticking with it longer, which is the same thing with the other EO guys that I met.
Stuck with this businesses for 24 years, other one about 20 years, right? It's not like you have to be special or anything to succeed, you've just got to stick with it longer. It's like a relationship too. So yeah, almost there.
See? What'd I tell you earlier? A shit-load of people at the bottom, but when you get to the top, not that many people. Same thing as when you join an entrepreneur's group.
When you're an entrepreneur, there's not many people that will like you, because it's not a normal thing to do. The interesting thing is, when I was watching a video on YouTube about professional athletes, when they go through pain, they push even harder. I think there's a metric [inaudible 00:02:56] talking about it, and that's what it is. It's the same deal here. When you go through some pain, you push even harder.
You can translate it over into business or into ... Even if it's hiking. So yeah. That's a lesson.

Speaker 2: [foreign language 00:03:15]

Eric Siu: Here's the Nishiki Market in Kyoto. There's snacks and a bunch of souvenirs.
Do you want to see some monkeys? I'm going to talk about end of year planning, because that's what's going on right now.
It's December 2017. It's early morning here. We'll talk about hiking when ... Before the New Year hits, and how it's important to just disconnect before the New Year.
Anyway, when it comes to end of year planning, I think first and foremost, it's important to go on a break and then decide what you want to do, the agenda.
What I like doing is writing down a list of everything that went well during the year, so it can be a top 25 or whatever, even just a top three. Then from there, you can write a list of things that just didn't go that well. But I like going through the things that just went amazing. Using the word "amazing", because then it just filters out the good stuff, and then you have all of the amazing stuff.
Then you realize that the year's actually been pretty good. Then the things that you want to improve on. Let's say you have 25 bad things or things you want to improve on. You can take those top three and say, "Okay. Maybe these are goals to work on in the next year." And this is an exercise you can work on with maybe your team members as well.
The other thing is, making note of my long term vision. So let's say your vision is, you want to build a billion dollar company or something like that. Just working backwards and figuring out what actions you need to take, what you've taken already, and then going from there.
So, for example, one big issue is: How do we get more sales for the new SAS product that we're building right now? What needs to happen in 2018 to hit goals?
You know, places to speak, got dinners to throw. Who do you have? I think about doing more live events, things like that. So there's all this planning that needs to happen.
That's important to look at too, because this is a time where I have free time to really work on the business instead of having to be out there putting fires out every day. It's important to take this time out, just to block it out.
When I'm here, I get so much perspective on how people do things here. You can see my video on how I talk about efficiency with the Japanese.
The big things, the things that are not important, not urgent, those are the things that you need to tackle during this time, in terms of end of year planning. Just relax too, because relaxing, coming to a place like this. Again, you're going to gain so much perspective.
You know, my dad always talks about how other people are lucky. I think it's good to talk about how you can get lucky. It's really simple. I think about the mentors that I've had, the opportunities that I've had, things like that.
It all takes a lot of luck, right? But in order to get lucky, you have to be put into positions, you just have to work really hard. So I find when you work hard, many opportunities pop up, and then you capitalize on them. That's how you get lucky, right?
So, hopefully that helps, and you enjoy videos like this. Just hit subscribe.
See you in the next one.