REAL JAPAN Co., Ltd. Representative Director Keigo Takasaki

2024.08.01

Become aware of your own characteristics and values and carve out your own path in life

Representative Director of REAL JAPAN Co., Ltd.　Keigo Takasaki　(Takasaki Keigo)

■ Profile
Born in Gunma Prefecture in 1985.
Representative Director of REAL JAPAN Co., Ltd. and Representative Director of the NPO Regional Revitalization Organization.
Training instructor, YouTuber, and Israel Tourism Goodwill Ambassador.
- Training programs: Held over 800 times in total, with a total of over 8 participants.
・Total number of views on YouTube: 250 million ・Total number of views on Instagram: 1800 million
-Speaking at CPAC JAPAN, the world's largest conservative conference.

REAL JAPAN Co., Ltd. proposes a way of life that suits you through its unique training programs. In addition to developing training and lecture businesses based on his own experiences, CEO Keigo Takasaki is also active in many fields, including serving as a panelist at CPAC JAPAN 2023, one of Japan's largest international political conferences, and as a Goodwill Ambassador for Israel. We spoke to Takasaki about his past experiences, the nature of his business, and the message he would like to convey to people living in the future.

■ I had a complex about money

While attending Shinshu University, I focused on snowboarding, a sport I had taken up in junior high. I was so passionate about it that I continued to snowboard even with a broken bone and even won competitions in Nagano Prefecture. At one point, I considered going professional, but my senior snowboarders warned me about the rigors and lack of future of a professional life, so I gave up on the idea. At the time, my family wasn't particularly wealthy, but I managed to go to university. I didn't want to have financial problems and had a complex about being poor, so I focused my job search on large companies with high salaries. After graduating from university, I was able to join Fujitsu Nagano System Engineering, where I had also participated in an internship, as a system engineer.

■ He earned money but was not satisfied, so he threw it all away

After joining the company, I put all my energy into my work, filing six software patent applications in my first year, and gathering senior colleagues from the sales and development departments to launch a project and apply for 21 patents. I hate to say it myself, but thanks to that, I was on the fast track to success, to the point where people said, "You can become the youngest section manager!"
However, to become the youngest section manager, I was told, "The earliest I can do this is after I'm 30, and a section manager position needs to open up." Since I couldn't achieve either of these goals on my own, I began to feel a lack of motivation, thinking, "What's the point of continuing to work hard?" Meanwhile, someone I met on a business trip to Tokyo invited me to join a so-called network marketing business. At the time, I found the world of meritocracy appealing, so I left Fujitsu and joined.
In that business, I was able to earn over 250 million yen a month and nearly 3000 million yen a year, and I was able to achieve great financial results. I felt that I had overcome the complex I had about being poor since I was a child. However, at the same time, I felt a sense of emptiness and was unable to find satisfaction in my work.
As with any business, but especially in network marketing, while some people achieve results, many others fail to achieve results and end up in debt. Seeing them made me think, "I'm causing people to feel sad and unhappy because of me. Is this really what I want?" So I decided to retire and give up the income I had been earning up until then.

■Pursue a "mission" rather than a results-oriented approach such as money or grades.

Just when I was struggling with whether what I was doing was wrong, I met a Christian pastor. Through that encounter, I repented of what I had done up until then, stopped striving for money, and began to think about pursuing the mission that people were born to fulfill.
In society at large, it seems like a meritocracy is rampant, where you can't be recognized unless you produce "results" or numbers, such as money or grades (and more recently, number of followers or views). As someone who's been immersed in the heart of it all, I understand all too well the discomfort and problems it poses. And this is something I want to convey to students: this meritocracy is an ideology that's deeply ingrained in schools. Those who can't produce numerical results are labeled as failures. However, I believe that humans are creatures whose worth cannot be measured by a single indicator. Each of us has our own innate characteristics and a divinely appointed mission. Each of the 80 billion people has different characteristics, and we cannot truly be measured in terms of superiority or inferiority.
I had the opportunity to learn a training method developed by a pastor based on the premise that each and every human being is a masterpiece created by God. The approach classifies the unique characteristics of each human brain into four major types, and by understanding our innate characteristics and utilizing those strengths, we can restore our identity and help people. This approach also led to the training in our current Revival series.

■ "Revival Union" is a training program that brings people together. It focuses on the strengths of individuals by understanding the characteristics of the human brain through four attributes.

"Revival Union" classifies people into four types based on how they use their brains: "courage," "sincerity," "righteousness," and "courage." "Courage" refers to people who act without fear of failure, "sincerity" refers to people who logically make and achieve plans, "righteousness" refers to people who seek consistency in living with a purpose or vision, and "courage" refers to people who value relationships and emotions. These four types have strengths and weaknesses, and each type complements the other's weaknesses. In Japan, I think there is a strong tendency to seek out perfect people, forcing people to overcome their weaknesses and areas of weakness. As a result, if there is one thing that a person cannot do, their existence is denied, and their identity tends to be weakened.
In this training, participants first understand their own type and strengths and weaknesses, and reaffirm their "uniqueness," while also understanding the types of others, or in other words, their "differences." By recognizing "differences," participants clarify what each person can and cannot do, fostering a spirit of mutual support. People fight and argue because they attempt to homogenize without acknowledging "differences." This is why this training, which teaches participants to understand the "differences" of others, is so effective in building relationships.
Furthermore, living life to the fullest extent of one's strengths directly leads to working with joy, which in turn leads to living one's own mission, so I feel this training is very useful.

■To students: Times are changing rapidly. Don't worry about the evaluation of the old system.

This is especially true among the younger generation, but unlike in the past, there is less of a desire to "own" things like houses and cars, and less of a desire to "compete" with others. It seems that more and more people are naturally escaping the "curse of performance-based management" that I mentioned earlier. Above all, new technologies such as generative AI and drones are being created one after another, rapidly disrupting existing industries and ways of thinking. Changes will only accelerate from now on.
It's futile to try to resist these trends of social change brought about by the times and technology; they're like a huge wave that's sure to come. Companies and organizations with old ideas and concepts will disappear in the blink of an eye, so I strongly encourage students to develop life strategies that look beyond technological innovation, rather than focusing on what society needs today. To give a specific example, I think everyone can imagine that both current white-collar and blue-collar jobs will be replaced by AI across the board, but starting to study the skills for these disappearing jobs now would be a fatal strategic mistake. Instead, I recommend broadening your perspective and developing metacognitive abilities, such as "mastering AI" and "considering what AI can do."
I also want you to cherish your own individuality. From now on, people who can only say things like ChatGPT will have zero social value. In other words, the value of people who don't seem like AI, or who are edgy and unique, will increase, while people who can only express inoffensive opinions will become worthless. So instead of getting excited or depressed about whether you have qualifications or skills or test scores, I want you to live with a strong sense of identity, knowing that your own existence has value, and that the more you express that, the more your social value will increase.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on May 27, 2024 by Ryusei Nishiyama, a fourth-year student at Musashino University