🎙️ Episode Title: Leaving Corporate Life for the Japanese Mountains

Welcome to the transcript of Episode 5 of The Executive Edge Podcast. In this episode, Alex Mearns interviews Peter Douglas, a former director at Aberdeen Asset Management, who shares his journey from the corporate world to a quiet village in the mountains of Japan.

• Peter’s bold move from Singapore to rural Japan

• The unexpected challenges of starting his own business

• Insights into Japanese longevity and wellness practices

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For more episodes, visit The Executive Edge Podcast.

Alex Mearns:

Hello, it's Alex Mearns here with the Executive Edge Podcast. And I'm delighted to introduce Peter Douglas today, who's a very good friend of mine who I've known for 25 years. Peter and I both worked in the asset management industry.

Peter worked for a large asset management company back in the 90s in Singapore, and then he set up his own business, his own financial consulting firm. And then so I'm interested about that change in how he went from a big business to set up his own business. And then 10 years ago, he did something rather amazing.

He completely left the finance industry and went to live on top of a mountain in a small village in Japan. So it's a massive, massive change. And he's running a bunch of ski resorts, ski hotels up there.

So I'm really interested to know about that as well and how that sort of affected his life. And yeah, it's going to be a great interview. So thank you very much, Peter. Thanks for joining us today. 

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. Looking forward to it.

Alex Mearns:

So we'll kick off, jump straight into it. So, so many people work for large corporate institutions, and you were a director at Aberdeen Asset Management, which was famous for value investing and Asian equities experience.

But I'm less interested in that and more interested about why did you leave to set up your own business? What prompted that?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, so on the on the resume and the spiel, you know, it was all a very considered strategic decision. That was not the case. I, yeah, I thought my boss was a bit of a scoundrel, and he thought I was disloyal. And I think we were both right, but he was the boss. So I left. And so, you know, the change was kind of forced.

I guess I had a couple of options and I could have sort of tried to carry on in the same industry, but for some time, I was, I was very much on the business development side. I started Aberdeen's revenue lines in Asia, but I kind of wanted to be doing something more creative. So not selling somebody else's product, but actually creating something.

First of all, secondly, this was pretty much during the Asian financial crisis, for those of us who are old enough to remember that. So there was nobody was really adding headcount. Conversely, there was a lot of interesting stuff to be done.

Executives of financial companies wanted to do stuff. All they could do was really hire outsiders on contracts because that meant they could get stuff done without any headcount. So I was a kind of a laptop and cell phone consultant for a bit.

And I was also aware that the hedge fund industry, which was already big, Europe and U.S. seemed to me to be a slam dunk. It was going to happen in Asia. Nobody was looking at it.

So from day one, I kind of started a bit of a skunk work, researching Asian hedge funds, and that eventually became my main business. Long answer. Short answer was it was a mixture of kind of circumstance and serendipity, as with a lot of things in life.

Alex Mearns:

That's -- OK. So that's interesting. So, yeah, you were sort of forced into it a little bit, but you also smelt the ideas anyway.

Do you think without being forced into it, you may have stayed in corporate?

Peter Douglas:

My kind of, my view of my life at that point was that I was going to be, yeah, in Asian asset management for the rest of my career, always flying at the pointy end of the plane, collecting a big salary, collecting a few directorships and [indiscernible]. And, you know, that might have been my life, but my life would have been a lot poorer for that. Yeah, being forced to start my own business was absolutely the best thing that ever happened to me as a, as a person.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, that's brilliant. So the universe throw you a huge, huge bone there. Insofar as it helped you by sort of…

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

Forcing this.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, well, the universe has a habit of doing that, doesn't it?

Alex Mearns:

Well, that's I often think about this, that we get these, like with health, for example, we get these symptoms and we ignore them and we ignore them and we ignore them and your body keeps hitting you over the head until you get this massive, massive problem. It's like, oh, crap.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

Now I'm really forced into it.

Peter Douglas:

I couldn't see that coming.

Alex Mearns:

I wonder if that's in other areas of our life. At work, maybe and things like that.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I don't want to get too philosophical…

Alex Mearns:

I know. It’s interesting.

Peter Douglas:

But I'm a great believer in, sort of, karma but within one's lifetime. You know…

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

The universe does have a habit of A, throwing you curve balls. But those curve balls are always a great way to become stronger and learn and sometimes throwing you a huge gift as long as you recognize it at the time.

And the other thing, too, is, you know, hard work always, always comes back to benefit you, which is very often comes back in ways you didn't expect. So as long as you know, you know, you keep at it, you stay positive, you do what you're good at, you just keep creating energy. It'll come back to benefit you somehow.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, I agree with that. And I've seen that in with Levitise as well, where I've done, you know, certain hard work in certain areas on the marketing side of things to achieve a certain result and it hasn't, directly correlated, but something else happened.

That's so weird. I'm getting…

Peter Douglas:

There you go. 

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. OK, so when you set up your new business, what challenges did you have that you didn't expect? For example, and something -- this is something my ex boss always said to me, he says, when these ex bankers leave, Alex, and set up their own business, they never realize they have to change the light bulbs themselves and buy their own toilet paper, you know, because everything is done for you. 

Peter Douglas:

Yup.

Alex Mearns:

But, but did you anticipate that or all that?

Peter Douglas:

Uh, I was going to say crap stuff, but all the stuff you have to get done takes huge amounts of your time. If you're a consultant, basically you're paid by the hour. And if you're lucky, you get paid quite a lot by the hour but at the end of the day you're selling your time. So to your point, with the challenge there is dealing with the other stuff. That was a relatively easy fix.

Within three or four months of starting, I hired a part time administrator to work with me to do things like buy the coffee, fix the photocopier, deal with the utilities bills, but all that kind of stuff. Absolutely the best money I've ever spent. The best business investment I've ever made.

Hiring a four hours a day auntie to do all that stuff for you. And any small business, you're playing whack-a-mole.

Alex Mearns:

Mm hmm.

Peter Douglas:

You know, you know, you think about the unexpected challenges. It's just, oh, here's another one.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

And then you deal with it and then you move on.

Alex Mearns:

Do you relish those?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I don't relish them.

But it's what you do, isn't it? I mean, you're running a business. It's all very trendy to be, you know, an entrepreneur and all that.

But you're running a business. You're basically playing whack-a-mole. And, and then one day you wake up and realize you've got somewhere.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. And in a large institution, everyone has very specific jobs, roles to do. And it's a giant cogwheel. And...

Peter Douglas:

It's a job.

Alex Mearns:

You unplug a couple of people, it still kind of churns on.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. And it's a very -- I mean, I have a huge respect for people that can build a career long term in a big organization because, you know, it requires an extraordinary set of political skills. And in some ways, I find, in many ways, I mean, my business was a lot easier because, yeah, you have endless challenges and, you know, you've got much less resource and no brand and blah, blah, blah.

But at the end of the day, you know, you are in control of what you create, whereas your being in a big corporation is a far riskier venture because an awful lot of your success or failure, your career, your life path is determined by people who may never even have met you.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. And my friend's just been -- he's 53 and he's just been canned from a big bank, you know, international investment bank after 19 years. No PR.

And it's just like there's no control.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, exactly.

Alex Mearns:

No control. I mean, with my business, I can control it.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

By how hard I work. And the more harder I work, the more the revenue comes in. And so it's like at least I have control. And that's very freeing.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

In a big organization...

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, you're right. Your paycheck is based on someone else's.

Peter Douglas:

I mean, moving from, you know, being employed where, you know, definitely success is whether somebody else was going to pay you more next year than this year, to an environment where everything you do, from what time you wake up in the morning to whether you stop, whether you have the extra cup of coffee, to whether you're, whether you get on well with the supplier, everything. Every little part of your life, it contributes to your success or failure.

It's utterly empowering.

Alex Mearns:

I agree. I agree. And generally, the the more unhappy you are, or the less in control you feel at a large corporate institution means that the more you need to be at the pointy end of the plane and have more luxurious holidays in order to compensate for those 10 hours a day, which you don't really enjoy much.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, exactly right.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

OK, so we agree on that.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. So it's really a sort of materialism, idealism, kind of yin yang.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. And look, I mean, you learn a great deal in a big corporation. You learn how kind of systems work, that they're not all evil.

But I think the other thing, which is much more of a philosophical point, I mean, ultimately, a corporation will corrupt you. And that sounds a bit dramatic, but it's kind of a --it's kind of a fact of life. Yeah.

As an employee of a corporation, you need to be working for the benefit of that corporation. You need to abide by that corporation's values and rules and decisions. 

Alex Mearns:

Yes.

Peter Douglas:

That's how it works.

That's where you get paid. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there will be -- the longer you do this, there will be points where what specific project or specific day of the week or strategy, whatever is, the -- what the corporation wants and needs from you is at odds with what you think is right or comfortable or correct. And you will need to compromise. That's fine.

Life is all about compromise. But you just need to be -- well, I felt it was getting to the point where I could no longer really feel good about those compromises. And that's what I'm saying, going back to where we started. You know, a lot of that's because I really didn't feel comfortable with the kind of the ethical mindset of my boss.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

And that kind of sort of flowed through the organization. So being true to yourself and building a long term career in a corporation, I think you have to be a very specific kind of person to do that.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's helpful if your value system is aligned with the corporate's value system.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. But then but then, you know, over time, your value system probably doesn't change much. But how…

Alex Mearns:

Some people, they don't realize it until they get older. And that's what we, we found with our clients. They haven't actually sat down and worked out what is it that's really important to me.

Peter Douglas:

Well that’s – absolutely. Look, I mean, you know, "to thine own self be true." I mean, the most, the most important knowledge you can ever have is to know who you are.

Alex Mearns:

Yes. Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

Quite blindingly obvious comment. But, but maybe, you know, as you say, maybe that's…

Alex Mearns:

I think a lot of people -- we don't spend -- sit down and spend time and think about that. Maybe to some people it comes naturally but…

Peter Douglas:

But I mean, bumming around before you get settled into the world is I mean, I spent two years basically backpacking, doing odd jobs, bumming around Europe between school and university at the time. You know, I kind of felt I was just being a bit of a hippie. And it was obviously a bit of a disaster from a resume point of view.

Yeah. Now I kind of realize it's probably the most important time of my life because that's when you can work out who you are.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. Yeah. About what you said about how, obviously, your value system is not aligned with the corporate interest.

It's exactly the same as what Scott said on my first podcast. He was in Quanta, a large bank, and it -- what they wanted to do and what he thought was correct was two different things. So that's why he left.

Let's move locations. Some Singapore. So you'd spent 20 years of your life here.

Peter Douglas:

21 years full time. And then with a bit of shuttling. And if -- I was, I was resident here legally for 25 years.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. And then you decided to move from Singapore to the top of a mountain.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. I'd like to portray that as a very sort of conscious, proactive decision. It was kind of serendipity and circumstance.

So my, my financial consulting, consulting business had morphed into managing a new family office for a mate of mine who'd made a great deal of money in one of one of the many financial crises we've had. We invested in all sorts of stuff all around the world. Normal distribution of outcomes.

And we'd bought some real estate in Japan because we thought it was cheap. We thought we'd buy cheap real estate. We'll pay a manager to look after it and we'll sit back and collect the money.

Didn't work like that. The local manager was, you know, lovely, nice person, but a bit of a muppet from a business point of view.

The business wasn't working. And I was spending increasing amounts of time fixing the business. And those couple of years, two and a half years when I was commuting every month between Singapore and this village with an onsen, which is in the northern part of Japan.

And it became obvious that first of all, it's much, much easier to run the business on site. Yeah, pretty obvious with hindsight. And secondly, because I've been living in Singapore for a long time, my youngest was coming to the end of her high school.

So from a kind of personal point of view, the brakes were kind of off and it was so obviously going to be an opportunity for a massive lifestyle upgrade. Yeah, I'm sure most, most people would have been to Japan, but it's a big country. So if you want to change your scenery, you don't have to get on a plane to go somewhere. Long way north to south so you've got every kind of topography. It's got thousands of years of history as opposed to whatever, is it 50 something years of history.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, Singapore.

Peter Douglas:

It has -- food's great. You know, the, the food we have on our table every night, we pretty much know who grew it and when it was picked.

We have four very -- well multiple -- we have very, very distinct seasons. You know, so it was -- the business made a great deal of sense.

Had potential. And it just struck me as being, you know, just a lovely place to be.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, it sounds like a no, no, no brainer to me. 

Peter Douglas:

It was.

Alex Mearns:

It sounds really fun. 

Peter Douglas:

Well, again…

Alex Mearns:

I pine for the countryside a little bit because obviously I've been in -- living in cities for well, since I started University of Manchester when I was 19. So it was Manchester, London, Hong Kong, Singapore. So basically always big cities.

Peter Douglas:

So going back to what you're saying before, the universe sometimes throws you a bone. So, you know, running that family office, there's all sorts of interesting things going on. But part of it was kind of recognising that this was a bone coming my way and grabbing it.

Yeah, I could have ignored it, could have done other things. But yeah, look, just moving to that comment. One of the things which was really big differences from a lifestyle point of view is the difference between living in a big city and living in a small village. 

Alex Mearns: 

Yeah. 

Peter Douglas: 

Which sounds kind of obvious.

Alex Mearns:

OK, so irrespective of the sort of cultural differences.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, irrespective of cultural differences. And actually, the far bigger...

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. I was born in a small village so I'm interested.

Peter Douglas:

So there you go. So you probably get the joke. I mean, you know, in a big city, you, in the normal course of your day, you walk past 5,000 people on the street, on the MRT, whatever. You don't say hello to anybody.

And if you start saying hello to everybody, you know, you're going to get locked up for being a loony. In a small village, you might walk past 20 people in a day. You say hello to all of them.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

In a big city, you look at your address book. Each person, your address book is there for one reason.

That guy is my plumber. That guy's my boss. That guy's a neighbor [indiscernible]. Small village.

You know, that one person may well be your plumber and he sits on your neighborhood committee and he helps with your onsen cleaning. And his wife runs the bar that you go to. So the, the sort of element of human interaction is just off the charts. It's -- and I absolutely love that. And also from a business point of view.

Yeah, people run their businesses, obviously, because they're going to make a living and they want to get stuff done. But it's far more about, you know, your reputation and who you are and making sure that your business relationships work. You know, the idea is -- the idea that because you've got a contract, you've got a business relationship doesn't, doesn't work in a small environment.

And that I love. And perhaps that's because when I came into financial services, you know, I was in a very old firm in the city of London starting in 1985. At that point, everybody in financial services knew everybody else in financial services.

It was kind of like a village. And my word is my bond. Your, your personal value system, your reputation was what allowed you to get big deals done.

And, you know, that's for all sorts of probably very good reasons, that's much less the case now in financial services. And I feel I've kind of gone back to that environment living in a small village.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And it's interesting.

The, the first thing you mentioned is the main differences between what you're doing now versus what you're doing before. Is that you didn't really mention that it was the Japanese bit of it, right?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. Which makes it interesting.

Alex Mearns:

So would you, would you be saying the same thing if you you were a mountain in the Alps, for example?

Peter Douglas:

I'm sure. I'm sure I would.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. At least a village as opposed to...

Peter Douglas:

I mean, the difference between being in an intense city and a small, well-functioning village is a much bigger cultural difference than between, you know, being a kind of middle aged white man and a Japanese bloke.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. I think the interesting thing about living in a village is how do you meet your financial needs? Well, most people generally don't, right, until they retire back in the village.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I'm very blessed, I guess, in a way, is because I came in because there was a business turnaround that needed to be done. And, you know, it's now turned around and there's still loads more we can do. But basically, it's a functional business.

And we, you know, it we're kind of expanding it. So I have a -- yeah, I have a real job. I'm kind of busier now than I probably was 15 years ago.

So the idea that I've retired to a Japanese mountain, a few people, I get that sometimes, but it's yes, it's not the case.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

So I'm very lucky. I mean, I have a real business, which makes reasonably good money. So, yeah, that's fine.

And, and, and, and our cost of living is phenomenally lower than it used to be here. So from an economic point of view, I'm actually better off than I was in Singapore. Yeah, that's awesome.

Don't tell my boss. Sorry, Steve.

Alex Mearns:

OK, so let's talk about Japan a little bit, then, because obviously you're very familiar with Japan. You lived there before and you've lived there for 10 years, right?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, a bit.

Alex Mearns:

So so I'm interested to know is it does seem to me that of all the destinations in the world, everyone loves going to Japan, right? All tourists, no matter where they're from. You know, some people say, for example, they love Bangkok.

Some will say they hate it. Some like Bali, [indiscernible]. But everyone seems to love Japan, no matter where they're from.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

So what's the difference? And even I thought to myself, you know, I don't really have any regrets, but I have thought like, well, it might have been nice to spend a year in banking in Tokyo or something. But, but would it?

Peter Douglas:

I mean, the reason that, you know, I guess we were doing the planning 16 years ago, but the reason 15 years ago we bought hotels in Japan it was because, you know, real estate was cheap.

No point buying a cheap asset unless you've got an idea why it's going to get more expensive. And it struck us that inbound tourism was a slam dunk. Back then, there was fewer than two million inbound tourists a year in Japan.

We felt that Japan was the tourist heaven of the whole of Asia, the best tourist destination in Asia. It's kind of -- think Provence in France, think Tuscany in Italy. And it was lunatic that there was two million guests a year.

And now there's like more than two million a month. So we kind of got that bit right. So what's the difference between being a tourist and living there?

You know, you settle down and you enjoy being able to do all the tourist things you liked doing, but doing them more frequently. And then you start to kind of realize that actually there's a lot more kind of under the surface that you didn't really see as a tourist. And you start doing things that locals kind of enjoy.

And then you get to the point where locals kind of stop seeing you as a strange face and start seeing you as part of the scenery. And by the way... And then you kind of get to the stage where nobody cuts you any slack anymore because you're local.

Alex Mearns:

The romance period is over.

Peter Douglas:

Romance period is over. And we're kind of -- I mean, both my wife and I, we are now Japanese. We are Japanese citizens.

Alex Mearns:

OK.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. My year round staff are almost all Japanese.

I run my company in Japanese. So -- and that makes it a great deal more interesting, because even if it's a fairly dull day at work, you know, it's a dull day at work in a different language, in a different culture.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

The learning curve stays vertical.

Alex Mearns:

And what do you notice that's changed about you? So you've been 10 years in Japan living in a village versus sort of 20 years in a city. Yeah.

How have you developed?

Peter Douglas:

Well, look, I mean, fundamentally, I think...

Alex Mearns:

Versus if you have a parallel universe to compare, how do you think you would have been if you stayed in Singapore?

Peter Douglas:

I would have been a lot more lazy and cynical if I'd stayed in Singapore. You know, there's a lot of folks who've been in the financial services industry for 20 plus years. I end-to-end clocked about 30 in the foundation business.

Very, very hard to keep the passion and excitement going. But the longer you do it, the easier it is just to click the coupon. So, you know, you end up kind of not, not really believing in what you're doing particularly, but it just makes economic sense to carry on doing it.

So that that probably would have been me. And I would have -- probably I would have, I would have learned a lot less about lots of things.

And, you know, your -- biologically your cells are going to kind of get old and wrinkly. But the way that you keep yourself, you know, not feeling old is to keep learning stuff. And my learning curve would have been much, much flatter if I'd stayed in Singapore.

Much flatter.

Alex Mearns:

And feeling that you've been true to yourself as well.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, it gives you the... Yeah, I guess. I mean, I think I would have. I'm quite a stubborn git.

I think I would have been true to myself anyway. Yeah, but I think I probably would have. Yeah, I wouldn't have liked what I was doing so much.

And, you know. This is very, a very Singapore-specific comment. You know, we made a very conscious decision to move to Singapore in '95 from, from London, although I was covering Asia from London.

And a lot of the reasons why we as a family made a decision to move to Singapore in '95 are no longer valid reasons now. Singapore has changed.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

Which is fine.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

As it should be.

Alex Mearns:

It has changed a lot. I mean, when I came here, you know, 24 years ago, there was very, very few expatriates here. Very, very few.

And nobody really wanted to come here. I think GDP per capita was like about 40th in the world. Well, now it's like 5th.

And now everyone wants to live in Singapore. Let's move on and look at the Japanese then, because they have. Well, interesting.

I mean, Dan Boettner did a Netflix documentary where he said Singapore was the new longevity...

Peter Douglas:

That's right.

Alex Mearns:

Blue zone, which is quite interesting, because I look at the difference between -- he looks at longevity, I'm looking at health span versus lifespan. Lifespan is living a long time. Health span is living a long time and being healthy.

Peter Douglas:

Right.

Alex Mearns:

So I remember he originally added the Okinawans into his book, which I read many years ago.

And when I and I went to Okinawa with my family, we traveled around and had a look at the people there. And I just remember when I was up in the north on the beach there. I forget the name of the beach on the west side.

And there was a lady who was like 98 bouncing around the cafe serving coffee and things like that. And she looked really vital. Do you know what I mean?

And she was very purposeful. And you could see the way she went about her job. She put full effort into it.

And very interesting. Right. So I got me thinking, so what are the Japanese doing?

So the Japanese have a good life expectancy.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

One of the best in developed world. What are they doing?

Peter Douglas:

Well, look, I don't know.

Alex Mearns:

Based on your observation.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. It's cause and effect. But and again, this is very much about rural Japan.

So first of all, nobody retires because if, if you retire and do nothing, you're useless in that. So basically, every keeps on working. You know, you might try and do less physical labor or whatever, but everybody keeps on working because then you're contributing, then you're creating value checkbox.

Secondly, we eat very well. As I said, you know, we -- generally all the fruit and vegetables, we know whose farm they came from and roughly when they were picked. As is an onsen town.

So everybody's immersed in extraordinary hot water once or twice a day. The Japanese health system is much more tilted to prevention than cure. Pretty much everybody has an almost mandatory annual big half day physical checkup.

And you talk to Japanese doctor and they'd say, yeah, because this is not philosophy, this is economics. It's a much better use of national healthcare dollars, or yen rather, to to put money into diagnostic and preventative than it is to fix people once they're really ill, which makes a certain amount of sense. It's a copay system.

So roughly you as an individual, you pay about 30 percent of your total cost. So health care is, is affordable, but there's still an incentive not to overconsume it. What else?

I was talking to an old lady, an old lady about this. So it's not a not only Japanese have a long lifestyle, long lifespan, specifically within Japan. It's ladies in Nagano Prefecture. Our prefecture.

Alex Mearns:

Oh, really?

Peter Douglas:

Longest lifestyle. And I said to this elderly, what are you doing? Well, you know, you know, we run a little accommodation in the winter, so we only work really hard for three or four months of the year.

And then we do some farming and we have a hot bath and, you know, and we spend lots of time drinking tea trash talking our husband. That's the way. That's got to be the secret.

That's got to be the secret.

Alex Mearns:

Having a good outlet.

Peter Douglas:

Having a good outlet.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. And it's so it really is, it really is social. And everybody in the village has community work responsibilities. You've got to go and clean the onsen.

You may be able to clear the snow, cut the grass, whatever. And you don't get exempted for that until you're 75. So, you know, if some old bloke doesn't turn up for his work one day, somebody goes, knocks on the door, finds out.

So I think that I think that social element is important. So I'm going off. I'm waffling on a bit here.

Alex Mearns:

No, it's all right. We've got we got work, food, preventative healthcare, social.

Peter Douglas:

I think the big one's social engagement. So whether it's continued working, whatever. But, you know, old people don't read.

They don't sit in their room and do nothing. There's always social engagement. And a lot of -- work is a subset of that, because ultimately, once you get to like 60, 70, you're not working for money.

You're working because you want to get out there. Yeah, good food and preventative medicine.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, I like those. Those are good. And obviously, I think about all of those quite a bit.

Not so much about preventative medicine, but on the, on the works, I think in the retirement, I totally agree. I totally agree. And I thought about when I left my old company, what could I do that I could continue doing till the day I, till I, you know, until the day I die. And that was part of the reason that I said -- I was looking at various different business models, farming being one. Farming is just too much like hard work.

Peter Douglas:

I'm a farmer.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah? Okay.

Peter Douglas:

I am. So it's very specific in Japan.

You, you have to apply to your local agricultural committee to be authorized as a farmer. I'm not a very good one.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about it. So I thought about that. Right.

And I thought, well, this is a business I can do until the day I die. Maybe I just do less. Yeah, just, just, just titrate it down and someone else can take over.

You couldn't say that of all roles, particularly if you're in a corporate.

Peter Douglas:

I see old folks in the village riding their mobility scooters to their farms where they do a day's work.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And then I was thinking about just now, I was thinking about the concept, the Japanese concept of ikigai.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

And now I'm wondering if we get it wrong, because we've been thinking a lot about how do you find your ikigai? What's your purpose? But maybe it's not that maybe they can find their ikigai and their purpose in anything that they do, because they're so mindful about doing things well.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I think, I think that's a valid point.

Alex Mearns:

It's just the attitude is like, well, this is my job. I'm going to do a bloody good job at it.

Peter Douglas:

Yes. And also it's a very collectivist society. And people, there's a lot of comment about this, about how Japanese individualism versus collectivism.

And part of it is, yeah, if society or my family or my environment has said this is what I'm going to do. Maybe that is my ikigai. And people are much more accepting of this is the position that I'm in.

So I'm going to do it well.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

Rather than kind of this thing, I have a quest to find what I have to do. Yeah. Because sometimes that that role is externally defined and that's fine.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. And probably the, the older you get making a switch from what I am in corporate to finding my ikigai and diving into it gets a little bit harder, right?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I don't know. Does it? Maybe. Maybe you've spent most of your corporate life thinking about it. Mind you.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, I don't know. Actually, it's a good point.

Peter Douglas:

I remember when Quentin Crisp has his great line. Quentin Crisp, for those of you don't know, is a kind of like two generations ago, British kind of raconteur. He said, but -- and he was talking about this.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah.

Peter Douglas:

But at the end of the day, there's no point spending 30, 30 years of your life as a pig farmer every day saying I should have been a ballet dancer. You might as well just do it.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Should have, would have, could have. Right?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. No, those are not good words.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. No, I was thinking this concept of sort of purpose and mindfulness and ikigai, because I like these.

I like to make my own coffee and I grind my own coffee every morning with a Porlex Mini. So this is a small stainless steel Japanese coffee bean grinder with a ceramic burr inside it. Fantastic.

Just a fantastically well-made piece of equipment for like 80 bucks. Every five years you can change the ceramic burr. So, so the people that run -- the barista I spoke to went over to visit the factory somewhere in Japan and he's like, well, you know, everyone's going titanium now and that's the way to make money is to start using titanium burrs rather than ceramic burrs.

No, no, no. We just do ceramic here. Like it's zero interest in anything, irrespective of whether it would have bought in more money or not.

Just this is how we do it. This is how we like doing it. You know, we're going to do it well.

He's obviously got enough money to, you know, achieve whatever he wants. And he doesn't need to change it. And I love that.

That's -- people would say that's commercial sort of stubbornness or something. But I have a lot of respect for it.

Peter Douglas:

Well, I think it's, it's the business serving the individual and the group and the people. So, yeah, you know, you could go in and you could step on the gas and multiply your revenue by going titanium or whatever. But how would that support you as the business owner?

How would support how would that support your people?

Alex Mearns:

Because they're not unambitious. The Japanese, obviously, a very successful economy. It has had ups and downs, but it wasn't one of the biggest economies in the world, right?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. Depends on how you measure it. It's third, is it? Or fourth? I lose track.

Alex Mearns:

[indiscernible] is certainly in the top.

Peter Douglas:

But a lot of -- even, even in really big companies. So as the boss of a Japanese company, my responsibility is to balance the needs of all my stakeholders. It's very clear.

And my shareholder is a very important stakeholder, but it's not the only one. Almost as important are my staff. And you talk to almost any Japanese boss and they will, whatever they say on the earnings call, they will tell you privately that what -- where they feel a real responsibility is because they have 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000 people and their families, depending on the boss running the company properly.

It's very much about supporting the -- all the stakeholders, not just making as much money as possible.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, no. And that's that's really important. And I think that's something we, we, we've lost sight of in the developed world.

I mean, for me, the most important thing is staff, not your clients.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, absolutely right.

Alex Mearns:

You don't have any staff, you don't have any clients. You've got to take care of your staff and take care of your staff. They will take care of your...

Peter Douglas:

You have to remember -- so not just Japan, but certainly in Japan and I'm guessing Singapore, too, it's very hard to find good staff. So we always say, look, I mean, luckily, we're in a part of Japan where lots of people want to come visit. So easy to find guests, very hard to find staff.

Much more important for me to make my staff happy.

Alex Mearns:

Yes. Yeah, I 100% agree.

Peter Douglas:

Sorry, guests.

Alex Mearns:

Yes, that's probably not the thinking in a large organisation, maybe because it's so attractive for people to work in large organisations. They can easily get them in.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, you can get them in and easily get them out again.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. So, yeah, so it's great. So how about we finish up?

What's my last one? Oh, yeah. Three health and wellness tips.

Peter Douglas:

Three health and well... well, for me, I mean, I'm not really a tip. I've either run or done something to work up a sweat pretty much every day of my every morning of my life since I was a teenager. And that was initially because I was a complete gourmand.

I used to eat and drink far too much. And the only way I could control that was to burn it off. And I kind of think that that helps.

And it gets to the point where if I don't go out for a couple of mornings in a row, I get very grumpy. So it's a completely ingrained habit. So making your whatever it is you want to do, making it a habit is good.

The older I get, the more... Bashō, who was a very famous late medieval Japanese poet, he's a hermit poet, said the only two -- when you -- when it all boils down, the only two real joys in life watching the changing seasons and a good night's sleep.

So the older you get, the more kind of managing your life so you get a really great night's sleep. Don't know what the third one will be really. Yeah, don't stress, be happy.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah, I like it. So, yeah, exercise, sleep, stress.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I don't do I don't do stress. Never have done really.

Alex Mearns:

But yeah, I totally agree with you on the exercise side of things as well. If I don't do it in a while, I know it's my mental health comes down.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah.

Alex Mearns:

So it's, it's highly correlated. I'm not sure that's the same for everyone, but it definitely is for me.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, but I think it is partly because I think you should get addicted to it and whatever it is, those…

Alex Mearns:

Dopamine…

Peter Douglas:

You know, like substances that flow through you. But I just find it having, you know, an hour in the morning, it's just me thinking about what I need to do during the day.

If I'm angry about something, I can kind of work that off. Thinking about something I just. Yeah.

And I generally either run or I cross country ski, which are both very kind of rhythmic exercises. So it's almost like a kind of meditative activity.

Alex Mearns:

Yeah. So that helps with the stress management, doing the exercise, boosting the dopamine, reducing the stress and being mindful about what you're doing out.

Peter Douglas:

Yeah, I'm not sure I do it quite as consciously as that. But that's probably what's going on. Yeah.

I just like getting out in the morning with the occasional exception.

Alex Mearns:

Let's finish up. Tell me about this. Now, either you're doing your your J.K. from Jamiroquai impression or there's something else going on. Tell me about the trendy hat.

Peter Douglas:

So the trendy hat is because my head is a little bit of a mess. I was out running five, six, four or five weeks ago, and I was attacked by a bear. I almost tripped over a mama bear and her cub.

And, you know, bears have pointy bits. So mom came to kind of make her point. And then it was very, it was over very briefly.

Then she went to look after a cub. But I have a few holes in me that I didn't have before.

Alex Mearns:

In your head?

Peter Douglas:

Yeah. She kind of bit off a chunk of my scalp, which, which is healing back nicely. But it's a slightly interesting hairstyle for the time being.

And then I have a kind of perfect set of claw marks that mainly what's left is a good story to tell.

Alex Mearns:

Wow. That is pretty crazy. That must have been very traumatic.

Peter Douglas:

In the moment, it was totally in the moment. It was just like, OK, this is happening. You know, once the doctor had stitched me up and I got to kind of lie down in a calm place, I kind of fell to pieces a bit.

But in the moment, it was in the moment.

Alex Mearns:

What an exciting story to finish up on, because we never did discuss the cons of living on a mountain, getting mauled by a bear.

Peter Douglas:

That would be a con.

Alex Mearns:

That's your only con, I think, that you've mentioned.

Peter Douglas:

Well, yeah, I mean, it's…

Alex Mearns:

Now I'm thinking of my village in Little Village in Gloucestershire. It might be a safer option.

Peter Douglas:

Very, very few cons, very few cons. I mean, you know, you can't just run out to the 7-Eleven and buy a pint of milk. You have to plan your shopping a bit more. But that's about it, really.

It's amazing. And we're very, very privileged.

Alex Mearns:

Well, I hope you heal quickly.

Peter Douglas:

Thank you.

Alex Mearns:

Thank you for coming on, injured warrior.

Peter Douglas:

No longer.

Alex Mearns:

Good. And it's been a pleasure. 

Peter Douglas:

Good.

Alex Mearns:

Thank you very much.

Peter Douglas:

Alex, thanks for that. Enjoy.