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In our hyper-connected modern world, being flexible and adaptable is key. And a great way to grow these skills is by experiencing life in different places. For Yasumasa, this has not only brought him career success but he believes it has benefits for mind, body and spirit too.
Photography by Emily Chalk
Yasumasa was born and raised in Japan, but he always knew he wanted to see more of the world. When a job opportunity in the US came up early in his career, he decided it was time to leave home and discover new things. “I love Japan of course,” says Yasumasa, “but I wanted to change my lifestyle and my thinking, and seeing is believing,” he explains.
He noticed right away that Americans were much more open-minded when it came to business, and given their position as the number one economy, he decided it was a quality he wanted to take on too. “I didn’t want to adapt 100%” he laughs, “but thanks to my time in the US, I did learn how to act American in some ways.”
Next he went to Canada, which was a different proposition altogether. While he found Canadians to be “a little more conservative” than their neighbours, they were also “very welcoming of new people and ideas”, which he admired.
After a sojourn back in Japan, where he got married, he then set off for his next adventure, in Hong Kong. This period inspired him to branch out even further… “Many Hong Kong people have family living all over the world and I thought about that, discussed it with my wife, and decided, ‘Let’s find a country for us to live and raise our family’.”
The couple were keen to move to an English-speaking place and travelled to New Zealand to check it out. Two things immediately stood out about Aotearoa: “We noticed that the people are good and you can drink the tap water,” says Yasumasa, who knew that these simple but important attributes could not be taken for granted. Luckily his wife Mika didn’t need any further convincing either. “She loved New Zealand even more than me!” he laughs.
Not only did the couple believe that they’d found a great place to grow their family, Yasumasa recognised another big privilege that comes with being Kiwi - the passport. “For my children, I wanted them to have a choice about where they could live,” he explains. Now a father of three New Zealand-born daughters, Yasumasa says, “They are lucky because it gives them so much freedom.”
While Auckland has been home for many years now, through his job with Mitsubishi Corporation, Yasumasa is able to retain his connection with Japan while also utilising the knowledge he has built up from around the world.
“I have a lot of communication with my head office in Tokyo,” he says. “But I have my business partners here too, so I change my mentality back and forth. You just open a different folder in your brain and you can move from one to the other very quickly.”
And the ability to do this has many benefits that go beyond the world of work. “If your mind is open to new communities, new people, new culture, then it gives you more happiness,” says Yasumasa. “It keeps you young as well. Because of this I stay flexible in my brain - my body’s another story,” he laughs.
Knowing the advantages it has given him, Yasumasa is now keen to pass this knowledge on to others. “I give seminars to Japanese students about my experiences in other countries, including New Zealand, and I always tell them - please go overseas. With YouTube, you can go anywhere through the screen but you don’t get to feel it. It’s like a car - you can tell it’s good by looking at it, but when you drive it, your body actually knows it’s good.”
Better still, getting to know other people, places and mindsets, can improve and enhance society as a whole, believes Yasumasa. “When we see war and conflict in the world, it’s because people don’t understand each other,” he says. “Learning and sharing is the best way to break down barriers.”
If your mind is open to
new communities, new
people, new culture,
then it gives you more
happiness.
Yasumusa has always been a big fan of the Honda brand and appreciates that they are not just focussed on performance and driveability but on people. He is the proud owner of a Civic Type R and adds “When I see it in my garage I always smile.”
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