Who am I? A Person

Once upon a time, there lived a young person named Seeker in a village deep in the forest. From a young age, Seeker lived with the question, "Who am I?" in their heart.
The villagers all knew their roles clearly. The farmer grew crops, the carpenter built houses, and the doctor healed the sick—each had their own place and mission. However, Seeker, while feeling various talents and interests within, did not know which one was the true self.
One day, Seeker decided to set out on a journey in search of an answer. "I will see for myself who I am," they said, leaving the village behind.
The first person Seeker visited was an old sage living on a mountain peak. When Seeker asked, "Who am I?", the old sage handed them a vessel filled with water.
"Look at the water. Water changes its shape to fit the vessel. But its essence does not change. You are the same."
Pondering the meaning of those words, Seeker next visited a painter by the sea. When asked, "Who am I?", the painter handed them a sheet of white paper and a brush.
"You must hold the brush yourself and paint your own image. It is not something to be painted by someone else."
Furthermore, Seeker visited a philosopher in a bustling city. When asked, "Who am I?", the philosopher handed them a mirror.
"If you look in the mirror, your image is reflected. But the mirror only shows the surface. To know the true you, you must look inside."
Having met many people and traveled to various places, Seeker eventually returned to their village. The villagers asked, "Did you find any answers?"
Seeker smiled and replied, "I still don't fully know who I am. But I have learned something. I am a farmer, a carpenter, and sometimes a poet. I am a being that is constantly changing and growing."
"Then you didn't find the answer?" the villagers asked, and Seeker replied:
"No, the answer was in 'continuing to ask.' The question 'Who am I?' itself is who I am. I realized that not fearing change and continuing to seek is what my existence is."
Later, Seeker told the young people of the village, "What is necessary to know who you are is not to find a fixed answer. It is to continue to dialogue with yourself, accept change, and cherish who you are in this very moment."
And so, the proverb "To know yourself is to know that you are on a journey" spread from this village.
And they lived happily ever after.
That is the preface to the 1040th 'Nameless Interview' written on April 22, 2025, at 6:18 PM, or so I think!!!!!

[Preface: qbc / Yasuhiro Kuribayashi (Writer / Organizer of Nameless Interview)]

Joining us this time is Yusuke Nanbu!

Age: Late 20s
Gender: Male
Occupation: Entrepreneur

Current state: If I had to say, it feels like solving a math problem, or more specifically, like solving a puzzle. It's about wanting to clean up things that are messy.

qbc:
What do you do for a living right now?

Yusuke Nanbu:
People ask me what I do every day, and I'm a bit worried about how to design my business card. To put it simply, I embed myself into several companies and help solve their problems; it's a business model where I'm essentially selling my time at an hourly rate.. I'm a one-person corporation, a so-called micro-corporation, so I operate entirely on my own, but if someone asks what kind of business I'm in, I end up saying I'm a consultant. I personally dislike calling myself a freelance consultant because it sounds sketchy. It feels like an inexplicable profession, like saying, "My name is Shinichi Kudo, a high school detective." So, I'm thinking every day about whether there's a word other than "freelance consultant" to describe my profession in one phrase.

qbc:
What kind of things are you doing specifically, as far as you can talk about?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Mainly organizational development for companies. I'm currently involved with a company that primarily does contract system development. They have a sales department, a development department, and of course, general affairs and HR, so there's a basic foundation, but everything is scattered—like who is responsible for generating leads in the sales section, who does the nurturing, and is it the sales department's job to bring it to requirements definition or is it development's? People who are called "jacks-of-all-trades," those who are nonchalant, get promoted halfway and hold onto authority but don't want to take responsibility, so they don't make decisions. That's the state they're in. So, I'm not from a technical development background, so I only understand about 10 or 20 percent of programming, but that said, as a business flow, it's not appropriate, right? So, in a position like someone who isn't an employee but comes to the office a few times a week, I often do the work of arranging roles so that the flow between the client and the provider runs smoothly.. Right now, there are three companies I'm embedded in: the main one is a system contract company. The next is a temporary staffing agency, and the last is a housing manufacturer. I'm doing similar things at each of them.

qbc:
Yes.

Yusuke Nanbu:
It's not that I have zero knowledge of Web marketing. I don't intend to say I'm top-tier in the industry, but I don't have zero knowledge, so depending on the situation, I also support them by suggesting, "Wouldn't it be good to implement these measures to maximize conversions via the Web on an organizational basis?"

qbc:
By the way, regarding the background, I think what you're doing is very broad, but how did you end up in your current job?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Originally, I was a division manager for several years at a telecommunications company, what they call an MVNO, so naturally, as a division manager, I've done everything from generating sales via the Web to generating sales through call centers and cold calling, and devising measures to prevent existing customers from canceling.. MVNO stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator, and the V stands for virtual. In other words, it's reselling communication products purchased from NTT or UQ Mobile; essentially, it's a huge reseller. And one day, I realized something. If you're just doing small-scale sales on Mercari, you're mocked as just another reseller, but if you organize it, you get a cool name like "Virtual Operator." It's just reselling, sales agency, or whatever name you want to call it, but it becomes a business model recognized by the world. The things they were selling at that company, like water servers, new power, or pocket Wi-Fi, were garbage to me. In the end, they were forcing ads onto things that weren't essentially needed, making it look like they were necessary to sell them. I can understand the need for a water server if tap water in the city doesn't taste good, but they were selling water servers even in rural areas where you could turn the tap and get water just as delicious as what comes out of a water server. So why? Because they were pumping in ads as if it were necessary. I realized that, and thought, couldn't I just do this myself?From there, I started a company that gathers products that can be made to look like our own, such as pulling in so-called SaaS products, outsourcing SNS operation agency products to advertising agencies, and supplying them via OEM, and just selling those..

qbc:
How old were you then?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That was about two or three years ago, so I was 25.

qbc:
I see. So you have an incredibly wide range of knowledge, which means you're an agency.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Yes, yes, that's right, an agency. So I have absolutely no manufacturing capability. Even when my company does contract system development, I understand the general idea, so I just listen to the requirements and throw them to the engineers, passing them from right to left. What I'm doing is really just reselling.

qbc:
Trading companies are like that too.

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right. To put it to the extreme, whether you call it a trading company, an agency, or an intermediary, I think what they're doing is basically reselling. They're just forcing a sense of added value that doesn't really exist, like customer after-support.

qbc:
Thank you. Regarding your feelings, what kind of feelings and emotions do you have while working, and how do you go about your days?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's a difficult one.From my perspective, it's not that I like money itself. I don't really have a desire to be rich.If I really wanted to be rich, I would start by flipping real estate, or selling information products, or even selling electromagnetic wave protection goods. If I were just looking to move something from right to left, I could just as well handle more profitable products. On the other hand, I don't really have a philosophy of wanting to be useful to the world either. So, I'm not developing products for people I haven't met yet.If anything, it feels like solving a math problem, or more specifically, solving a puzzle. It's about wanting to clean up a messy space. I find a beautiful solution in my own way, and while I could just grind through it with brute force, I realize that if I apply this theorem here, the proof is complete in just two lines on the answer sheet. Ah, that feeling of 'this solution is beautiful'—it's a pleasant sensation.

qbc:
In terms of the work process, which part gives you the peak of that feeling? For example, is it when the payment comes in, or when the order is placed? Is it when the creative work is finished—the result of solving the puzzle—or is it when the idea for the solution flashes into your mind? In terms of that process, where is the peak of your excitement?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Probably when I come up with an idea and have executed about 20% of it.

qbc:
What does 20% execution look like in terms of the work?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's tough. It's about the point where I tell the client's proper employees, 'If you proceed according to this, it will theoretically work, so please go ahead.' It's the moment I get their understanding.

qbc:
Right, right, right, right. I see.

Yusuke Nanbu:
The reason I said 20% execution is that, for example, the moment I gather all the relevant parties, hold a kickoff meeting, and say, 'Let's all move forward with the project like this; this will definitely work, please go ahead,' I consider that to be about 20%. The remaining 80% is just a process of honestly executing what has already been decided. I have absolutely no interest in that area. Because after that, time will just solve it..

qbc:
I asked about the work side, but how do you feel about life in general? What kind of mindset do you spend your days with?

Yusuke Nanbu:
To continue from earlier, I started a resale company and had about five employees, and it almost went bankrupt once..

qbc:
Yes.

Yusuke Nanbu:
There was one reason: I spent too much on advertising and almost ran out of cash. As I mentioned before, the moment I said, 'It should work if you follow this theory, so please go ahead,' I lost interest. That's why I had hired a separate finance staff member and entrusted them with all the company's accounting and cash flow. In my mind, sales were being made, so collecting cash or processing invoices were trivial tasks, so I just said, 'You handle it, it'll work out, thanks.' Then, it seems the cash flow didn't go well, and there were only unpaid receivables. Since the advertising costs I was using were naturally being deducted, the cash flow didn't work out. It was a profitable bankruptcy—well, it wasn't profitable, but contrary to my expectations, the funds ran out early, and I couldn't afford to keep the employees anymore. That person left as if running away, and since I had to pay the salaries of the remaining employees, I kept paying them while taking on personal debt.So, since I settled into my current model of selling my own time by the hour, I've only been thinking about paying off immediate debts every day, so I've turned a blind eye to the philosophy of life's scale. Therefore, to summarize the answer to your question, if I try to look at my feelings objectively, it's painful, so I try not to do that now.

qbc:
At this point, is the company's situation stable or unstable?

Yusuke Nanbu:
No, it's still in a state of insolvency. It's unstable.

qbc:
I see. So it's a state where you're not in a position to be looking at anything else.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Exactly, exactly. So I work like three salarymen, somehow manage to secure the monthly income of three people, use the equivalent of 2.5 people's income for repayments, and live my daily life on the remaining 0.5 person's worth. Because I created a debt equivalent to about three salarymen in the past. That's what the monthly balance looks like.

qbc:
What are your hobbies?

Yusuke Nanbu:
My hobby is—and I think it's good to connect it to music articles around here—I used to be a DJ. I like electronic music. So recently, I've been working hard on composing music.

qbc:
The range of electronic music is extremely wide now, so what kind of musicality is it?

Yusuke Nanbu:
It's EDM, or what you'd call club music. I don't really like songs with lyrics; vague ways of expressing things irritate me.

qbc:
Is that the case even with English vocals? Even with non-Japanese vocals?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I can even understand English when I hear it.

qbc:
I see. What about things other than music?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Outside of music, I sometimes participate in motorcycle races. There's an off-road motorcycle race called motocross where you ride in the mountains, and I have a competition vehicle that doesn't even have a license plate. I load it onto a truck, go to the mountains, and come back. I do that a few times a year.

qbc:
Regarding music, what kind of position does it hold for you, especially while you are busy with work?

Yusuke Nanbu:
It has become an outlet for me to vent the frustration that builds up daily, rather than writing bad things about people by name on Twitter. That's half of it. The other half, as I wrote in the article, is that I wanted to dabble a bit in overseas SEO. I thought that if I had content like instrumental music, I could capture some of the overseas market to a certain extent, so I'm using that as a base to write English articles and test the waters by seeing the reactions.

qbc:
Do you have any feelings when you are purely composing, or are there moments that are purely for fun? When you are spending time on music-related things,

Yusuke Nanbu:
Not really, not much.

qbc:
So it's always tied to business?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right.Conversely, business itself is a bit like a hobby for me. It feels like I'm constantly solving a puzzle..

qbc:
What were you doing before this MVNO?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Before that, I was a hotel worker.

qbc:
And before being a hotel worker?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was a university student. I was a student, but I also ran a coffee shop during my university days.

qbc:
As the owner?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Yes, the owner. I would rent a set-meal restaurant that was only open during the day for the morning and evening hours, put my own sign on a bicycle, and run it as Nanbu Cafe. When I only had university lectures during the day, I would open only for breakfast, and when it was the other way around, I would do it only in the evening.

qbc:
I see. What do people say about your personality?

Yusuke Nanbu:
What I'm told by others? Oh, they say terrible things. Things like I'm an Asperger's or a psychopath. That I can't read other people's emotions, that I'm not considerate, or that I'm mechanical. They say truly terrible things.

qbc:
Do you think that's your personality?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I don't really intend to be inconsiderate, and I certainly do it when the situation calls for it, but when it's not necessary, I don't really do it if I think it's not needed. Conversely, I think it's a violation of the rules to bring in one's own feelings in a situation where an objective evaluation must be made based on facts and evidence. I am thoroughly committed to setting aside my feelings and conducting discussions based on facts. I evaluate myself as having the ability to do that, rather than not having it at all.

qbc:
I feel like you've already started to answer this, but what do you feel is the biggest difference between yourself and others? What is the one thing where you think, 'This is where I'm completely different from people'?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right. It's exactly as you say, that ability to detach myself from my own feelings and the other person's feelings to move forward—I suppose it's that ruthlessness.

qbc:
When did you discover that about yourself?

Yusuke Nanbu:
When was it, I wonder? Maybe around middle school.

qbc:
Do you have any episodes from when you were in middle school?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was actually quite good at sensing other people's feelings to begin with. Naturally, it started to become exhausting. No matter how much I empathized and tried to worry along with them, to the other person, I was still just an outsider, and the very idea that I could do something about someone else's emotions was presumptuous to begin with.I realized it little by little, so it wasn't like there was one specific triggering episode; it felt more like a gradual realization.

qbc:
What kind of environment was that? Was it in the classroom, the club room, or what kind of human relationships were you in?

Yusuke Nanbu:
While the classroom and club room played a certain part, home—my mother—might have been a bigger factor.You know how 'Mom Hysterical Syntax' was trending last year? I learned about it on Twitter or somewhere. My mother was exactly like that, suddenly becoming hysterical based on her mood and temper for the day. I used to deal with it honestly and head-on, but I think the fact that I gradually became exhausted by it might be a big part of it.

qbc:
Is that a side of your personality that people close to you—like family, partners, or best friends—point out?

Yusuke Nanbu:
On the contrary, they tell me I take it too far. My relationships with lovers don't last very long, and it might be discriminatory to say this because they're women, but you know how there are conversations that go nowhere? Situations where you're just supposed to enjoy the conversation itself. I've become unable to do that. People close to me, even more so, tell me that I don't understand how other people feel.

qbc:
I see. Since when? Since when have you been unable to have conversations that go nowhere?

Yusuke Nanbu:
By the time I noticed it, it was already like that.

qbc:
In college?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right. I think I was made to realize it when I was dumped by the girlfriend I'd been with for about three years in college, right around the time I was graduating.

qbc:
Do you have a favorite food?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's quite sudden, isn't it? Fried oysters.

qbc:
For fried oysters, what do you put on them? Tartar sauce, salt, lemon, or sauce—what do you prefer?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Out of those options, lemon or salt.

qbc:
Is that so.

Yusuke Nanbu:
I usually don't put much on them anyway.

Past: The environmental turning point was definitely when I ran away from home. However, the psychological turning point for me was when I was forced to quit my club activities.

qbc:
What kind of child were you?

Yusuke Nanbu:
When I was a child, how far back do you want me to go?

qbc:
I'd like to hear about your earliest memories. Before you started kindergarten, or even during kindergarten, what kind of child were you?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was a child who was always concerned about how others saw me. I could tell what people were thinking just by their facial expressions, and I would always accurately grasp my position as a child and the distance and relationship I had with the adults around me, and then choose the optimal behavior to adopt at that moment. If it was a neighbor, I knew that my parents would be proud if I was praised for being smart, and if it was a relative, I knew that acting like a pet would make things go more smoothly. I was truly always watching how others saw me.

qbc:
What kind of games did you play when you were little?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I hardly have any memories of that.

qbc:
None? Like outdoor games or indoor games?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I'm going to change the subject for a moment, but when I went to university at 18 and started living alone, the first thing I struggled with was not knowing what I liked.

qbc:
You didn't know what you liked?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I didn't know what I liked.

qbc:
Yes, I see.

Yusuke Nanbu:
When I thought about why, I realized it was probably because of how suppressed I was growing up. Even when playing outside, there were boundaries I couldn't cross, just in my house. Like, you can't go to this area beyond here. Or, you have to be home by a certain time, you can't hang out with high school friends, or if you watch TV at home, you're told to stop because it makes you stupid. So, what was I supposed to do with my time? Of course, I wasn't allowed to buy video games, and when I got to high school and asked if I could get a part-time job, that was forbidden too. To top it off, club activities were forbidden. It was just forbidden, forbidden, forbidden, forbidden, so I had nothing to do but spend my time lost in thought.

qbc:
So, if I were to ask how your parents raised you, what would your answer be?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I think the easiest way to explain it to others is to say they were 'education-obsessed moms' who told me to study, but more than being told to study, I was told not to play.

qbc:
I see. Yes, yes.

Yusuke Nanbu:
It wasn't just the typical 'go study' thing.

qbc:
Looking back now, don't you think it was an unusual environment?

Yusuke Nanbu:
No, I do think so. That's why I ran away from home when I was 21.

qbc:
But didn't you already live alone when you ran away?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Right, exactly. But I was still going home regularly, and as long as my parents were paying for my tuition, I couldn't really call that independent. It's like having an investor in a company. Even if you're the CEO, you don't actually have full decision-making power over the company; you're in a relationship where you have to consult the investors, which is what having your tuition subsidized is like. I didn't think living alone was true independence until I cut that off.At the end of my third year of university, right when I was about to enter my fourth year, I actually dropped out and ran away from home. And it wasn't just running away; I cut off all contact, returned the health insurance card I was covered under as a dependent, and went to the police station to file a 'non-acceptance of search request.' I told them that this disappearance was voluntary and not a case of kidnapping or anything criminal, so I asked them to verify my identity first. I told them that even if my relatives filed a missing person report, they didn't need to accept it.

qbc:
That's a thing? Yes.

Yusuke Nanbu:
It is a thing. The logic is simple: if the police receive a search request, they have to investigate because it might be a kidnapping or a crime, but if the person themselves says, 'No, there's absolutely no criminal element here,' then there's no need for them to waste resources on it.

qbc:
So, a complete break.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Exactly. A thorough break.

qbc:
I see. Let's shift gears a bit—what was your school life like in elementary and junior high?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was always doing weird things, like starting a bank inside the school.

qbc:
Did you handle actual cash?

Yusuke Nanbu:
No, it was cryptocurrency. I issued my own currency, and it was more like a central bank than a commercial bank. I would stir things up, like making handmade wooden swords or offering a homework-doing service—my own business was just the homework service, but there were other kids who were good with their hands and could make wooden swords. We also traded mechanical pencil leads and Pokémon stickers, and I issued my own currency for all of that.

qbc:
How far did that reach?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Just within my own class, though.

qbc:
Your own class. Did you have a nickname or anything back then?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Not really.

qbc:
So you weren't called 'Governor' or 'President' or anything like that?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Because I wasn't standing out. To everyone else, I was just the guy who made money-like toys. Nobody realized I was circulating my own currency; they just thought of me as the guy who made wooden swords or the guy who wrote money-like things on strips of copy paper.

qbc:
What grade were you in?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Third or fourth grade, I think.

qbc:
Do you remember how you felt back then? What was your mindset?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I didn't really feel like I had 'pulled it off,' and it didn't satisfy any need for power; it was just that having things run smoothly felt comfortable. I had absolutely no desire for self-aggrandizement like 'I did this.' It was just, 'The system is working, this feels good.'

qbc:
What was junior high like?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was a brat in middle school. I went to a combined middle and high school, so when I was in middle school, I would have girlfriends a year or two older than me, which meant they were high school girls. I had several high school girl girlfriends, one after another.

qbc:
What was high school like?

Yusuke Nanbu:
In high school, I was forced to quit my club activities and told to study, so I just lived like I was dead.

qbc:
Did you do anything like when you started a bank in elementary school during your middle or high school years?

Yusuke Nanbu:
In my second year of high school, we were going to have a stall at the school festival. As for what to sell, it was right around the time that book about a high school girl reading Drucker's Management came out.

qbc:
The one where the baseball team manager reads it?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Yeah, exactly. That became popular, and that was when I first learned those katakana words like 'management' and 'innovation.' Usually, people would make friendship bracelets or something like that, which is fun like playing house, but I said that friendship bracelets have high production costs but low profitability. I said the profit margin is low, so why not buy tattoo stickers online and sell those instead, as the profit margin would be much higher? I also called several supermarkets in the city, and since I only ever said I was from such-and-such high school and spoke in a mature way, the people on the other end would automatically assume I was a teacher. I only said I was from such-and-such high school, so I wasn't lying. I asked if they could support us because we were holding a school festival, and I created a supply chain to get things at a low cost. Since it was around September, I got lists of which ice cream brands sell well in the lingering summer heat, and things like that.

qbc:
Where did you get that wisdom from? Was it from that book?

Yusuke Nanbu:
No, I actually haven't really read that book. I'm bad at reading books. Because, if you just think about what will sell the best, don't you reach a conclusion little by little?

qbc:
Some people reach conclusions and some don't. There are two types of people in the world: those who pull out a text or role model and memorize it, and those who think for themselves and find a solution. So, you found it yourself, then.

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right.

qbc:
How did you feel at that time?

It felt good just to see things moving along. At the time, I didn't know the evaluation criteria for the school festival. But since we were doing it, there was this idea that we should win, but I didn't know what constituted winning. It wasn't necessarily that the one who made the most profit would win. There was grading by the teachers, but I didn't know the specifications for that grading, so I made a tentative decision. Since it's for the purpose of school education, a certain level of artistry and creativity would probably be required. So, I allocated this much resource to the creative side, but not for something trivial like making friendship bracelets, but rather committing to things like the interior of the actual stall. On the other hand, since it was a stall and we were dealing with money, I figured there would probably be an expectation of economic impact for the purpose of school education. So, I figured it wouldn't hurt to aim for profit, and the plan I tentatively decided on worked out well, and as expected, we won. I was happier that my hypothesis was proven correct than about winning itself.

qbc:
I see. What was it like going to university?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I didn't study much in high school. There were two reasons for that. The first was that my grades were too good when I was in my first year of high school. I felt that as long as it wasn't an old Imperial University, I could get in anywhere without much trouble. So, the moment my deviation score dropped a little on a national mock exam, people would start making a fuss. I realized this was strange, so I started planning to lower my grades gradually. I raised them just a little at the end, and by the summer of my third year of high school, I was in a state where I couldn't get into any private university. I was in a situation where I had no choice but to get into some strange private university through a recommendation, so I studied for about three months and got into a local national university. Then, I was treated like someone who had worked incredibly hard. That was all part of the plan, and I did it on purpose for that reason. That's one thing. The other thing is, I mentioned earlier that I'm bad at reading books, and the reason is that I don't like to go out of my way to decipher things that I can understand just by looking at them or reading through them roughly. It goes back to the 80/20 rule I mentioned at the beginning; the moment I said, 'I'll do about 20% and the rest is just moving forward with the remaining 80%, so please take care of it,' I lost interest. After all, high school level academics are just about practicing how to solve problems without mistakes within a time limit once you have a rough understanding of them, and you have your own time, right? I really wasn't interested in that. I could get a rough idea of how to solve them, but I'd be in a state where I'd think, 'Oh, I haven't memorized the formula,' or 'What was this again?' and my grades were always bad. I had a calculation that I could manage if I just quickly went over theorems, formulas, and techniques for solving within the time limit in the short term, so I didn't study much.

qbc:
What was university life itself like?

Yusuke Nanbu:
University is the same. When I entered university, I only heard that I would be able to immerse myself in research, but that was nothing. It was a complete lie, and the same classroom lectures as in high school were waiting for me. I was in despair over that. I thought, why do I have to go out of my way to memorize things that I can find out immediately if I look them up? That's when I started the coffee shop and other things.

qbc:
By the way, what was your major?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering.

qbc:
I see. So, you ran a coffee shop, but why did you become a hotelier?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Because I had dropped out of university, run away from home, and was penniless. It was a job that provided housing and meals.

qbc:
So you didn't graduate from university?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I didn't.

qbc:
I see. After being a hotel worker, what about the MVNO?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That wasn't because I wanted to be that specifically. I had been a hotel worker for about a year and didn't intend to do it for life, so I quit at the end of my third year. I had been a hotel worker for a year since then, so my classmates were in their fourth year of university. They were job hunting.I only heard stories about what their job hunting was like, and from my perspective, what I was doing was changing jobs. But the activity itself was no different, so I thought I'd try it for a while as practice and applied to a nearby place that was like an advertising agency and call center combined. Then I failed the call center interview. The reason I failed was that they said I was too smart, that a mere call center couldn't handle me and would be wasting my talent. They called me back saying they had another position open at the headquarters on the back-end side and asked if I would take that instead, so for me, it was exactly what I had hoped for.Furthermore, my annual income doubled, so since I had been working for an annual income of less than 3 million yen, I figured it would double. From there, I kept getting promoted to positions like assistant section manager or assistant department manager.

qbc:
You didn't have to go independent there, did you? Why did you choose the scenario of going independent?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I hit a ceiling.

qbc:
To what extent? Division manager?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Yes.

qbc:
I see. But you had the option of staying, right?

Yusuke Nanbu:
For me, at that moment, the salaryman game fell into the remaining 80 percent category. It had devolved into a game where if you just honestly performed the daily tasks, occasionally went to drinking parties, and occasionally went golfing, time would solve everything, so I lost all interest in it.

qbc:
Yes, yes. I see.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Exactly. While being considerate to the woman in the HR department, occasionally golfing, occasionally drinking, and hitting certain performance targets in daily tasks—is that really what I have to spend my life doing? That's why I felt that way.

qbc:
So you went independent and that led to your current job?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right.

qbc:
What was the landscape like where you were born and raised?

Yusuke Nanbu:
If you took one wrong step, half the class would be Filipino, second-generation Korean residents, semi-gangsters, or the real deal, that kind of place.

qbc:
That's a normal area, right?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Well, it was quite rural, but even though it was rural, it was a port town with many nuclear power plants, so while there were suddenly some incredible intellectuals, there were also many civil engineering workers and demolition workers who were subcontractors for the nuclear plants.

qbc:
So that's how it turns out.

Yusuke Nanbu:
It was the only place in Fukui Prefecture without a dialect. I was born in Fukui Prefecture, and the northern half of the prefecture has a traditional Fukui dialect, while the southern half was historically part of Shiga Prefecture, so it's geographically close to Kyoto and has a slight Kansai accent. The area right in the middle between the north and south has no dialect, and the reason for that is because of the nuclear power bubble, which brought in a lot of incredible intellectuals, incredible ruffians, and foreigners from outside the prefecture.

qbc:
If you were to identify turning points in your life, where would they be? You can list as many as you like. What do you think?

Yusuke Nanbu:
The environmental turning point was definitely when I ran away from home. But that's just an objective environment; the psychological turning point for me was when I was forced to quit my club activity.

qbc:
When did that happen?

Yusuke Nanbu:
The winter of my first year of high school.

qbc:
I see. What were you forced to quit for, and what was the reason?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I was just being picked on. They said it was because my grades were dropping because I was too immersed in the club. Up until then, I was told I couldn't do this or that, so I had no play, and since club activities were mandatory in middle school, the club was the only place I could freely immerse myself. I was in the brass band, but I didn't actually like brass band music itself. For me, it was the only place where I could immerse myself in something I liked without being forbidden by my parents. Having that forcibly taken away by someone using their patron authority, their shareholder authority, was the moment I realized that as long as you depend on something, you can't avoid the power of coercion.

qbc:
Thank you. How did you feel at that time?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I decided to live as if I were dead.

qbc:
How do you feel now?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I think of it as killing time until I die.

Future: I guess I want to find what I want to do. I still often struggle with what actually makes me feel the best.

qbc:
I'm going to ask about the future, but if you look ahead to 5, 10, or 30 years from now, all the way to the point where you eventually pass away, what kind of future can you imagine?

Yusuke Nanbu:
For 5 years, I feel like I'll still be in the middle of paying off my debts or not, but for 10 years, I want to return to being a child.

qbc:
How?

Yusuke Nanbu:
By playing tag or something.

qbc:
You'll need friends for that, won't you?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Oh, I see, that's true.

qbc:
Well, I understand what you're saying. I've heard of people going to Southeast Asia and playing tag for the first time in a long while after they've reached middle age.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Whose story is this?

qbc:
There is this thing called 'expat husbands.' When expats move abroad as a couple, often only one of them gets a work visa. So, it happens that the man ends up not working. There are communities of such people in places like Thailand, and they told me that the expat husbands go fishing or play tag every single day. They said it's like summer vacation every day, going fishing. So they were reverting to being children. They are raising children, too, though. That kind of lifestyle would be considered pretty crazy in Japan—adults in their 20s and 30s playing tag. It's not that rare in other countries, though it depends on the country.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Since shows like 'Run for Money' are popular, essentially everyone likes playing tag.

qbc:
Yeah, exactly, so it's interesting. But in terms of Japanese life, culture, and customs, you really become a crazy person.

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's true.

qbc:
But it's becoming much more accepted, though. Still, yeah, it's like, you need friends, right?

Yusuke Nanbu:
That's right, friends.

qbc:
If you were to make the idea of 'wanting to return to being a child' more concrete, what would that look like in terms of things like work?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I think it would be fine to work occasionally, but right now I have to earn money, I have to earn daily bread, so I'm doing things I don't want to do. But I'd like to work like Sherlock Holmes. Only taking on the cases that come to me that I actually like.

qbc:
Is there anything else you want to do? Besides cases or solving difficult problems?

I guess I want to find that. I still often worry about what actually makes me feel the best. So, when you ask what I want to do, the only abstract answer that comes to mind is 'I want to return to being a child' because I can't make it concrete. But I forced myself to try everything once. I wanted to try camping, so I went camping. I tried playing games all night long, or watching anime with friends in the middle of the night. I try doing things I wanted to do after becoming an adult, but in the end, I just think, 'Is this it?' Like, playing games until the middle of the night just makes the next morning tough, or camping is just cold. Because it was repressed and forbidden, the expectations just ballooned, so when I actually do it, the pleasure doesn't match the expectations.

qbc:
There are various ways to find out who you are, like going on a solo trip to find what you want to do, or writing a lot in a diary. In that sense, haven't you traveled much? Or met a lot of people?

Yusuke Nanbu:
It's not that I don't. My work often takes me out of the prefecture, and just recently, last month, I was in the Philippines for about two weeks.

qbc:
Right, right, right. So you've already been doing that.

I've been asking a 'what if' future question: if you had been raised by parents who weren't repressive, what kind of person would you have become?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I think I would have settled for something small.Maybe I would have taken a small job like a local civil servant, married someone who was the second-cutest girl in class, and taken out a mortgage. Because if I had settled for something small, my desire to challenge myself wouldn't have grown this much.

qbc:
That's a difficult value judgment, but which do you think is better?

Yusuke Nanbu:
I try not to put things on a scale of good or bad.

qbc:
But you have thought about it, right?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Of course.

qbc:
I see. Does that energy ever run out?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Do you mean my current real-world energy?

qbc:
I recall you saying that you gained the strength to fight because of the oppression you faced when you wanted to take on challenges. My question is, does that energy ever run out?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Oh, it runs out quite often in daily life. While I do take on challenges, I don't think there are that many people who are truly challenging. Of course, there are a certain number of them, but in reality, there aren't that many. Because of the gap in enthusiasm for challenges, I feel like I'm the only one doing it. Especially with my current business model, where my mission is to be asked by clients to correct their companies, the employees on the side being corrected don't want to be corrected. They are just thinking about how to sit in their chairs until 5:00 PM every day without making waves. So, there are moments when I wonder why I'm the only one who has to seriously confront reality.But on the other hand, if someone asked me if I would go as far as to leave Fukui, move to the city, or even go abroad—since I'm not opposed to English—I don't actually have the drive to go that far. The moment I have to admit the reality that, despite saying such high-and-mighty things, this is all I am, is when I feel most discouraged.

qbc:
When did you start feeling that way? That slight disappointment in yourself, like, 'Is this as far as I go?'

Yusuke Nanbu:
Always.

qbc:
What do you mean by 'always'?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Since I started working. When I was a hotelier, I didn't have any other options, so it couldn't be helped. But with things like MVNO, I had a decent income. When I became independent, I could have gone to the city to do it instead of staying in Fukui. I had a Tokyo branch, so I could have requested a transfer there, built a foundation, and then gone independent. I could have done something more challenging, but in the end, I didn't do that and settled for becoming independent in Fukui, where I already had a foundation.

qbc:
If you were offered an opportunity now, what would you do?

Yusuke Nanbu:
Now?

qbc:
Yes, now.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Even if I were offered an opportunity now, I would decline.

qbc:
Why?

Yusuke Nanbu:
As long as there are several clients in Fukui who call me 'Mr. Nanbu,' I cannot act in bad faith toward them..

qbc:
Thank you. Lastly, is there anything you'd like to leave behind? It could be a will, a message to the readers, or just a monologue. I'm asking if you have any final words.

Yusuke Nanbu:
Who am I?
Those who have read this far probably have some idea of what kind of person I am. That is precisely why I want you to objectively tell me who I am, what I should do in the future, and how I can enjoy my life more.

qbc:
Thank you.

Afterword

Brilliant, yet strangely approachable.
The first thing I feel when talking to Mr. Nanbu is, 'This person is truly smart.' Even during the interview, he quickly grasps the essence of the questions and provides answers that hit the core. However, he doesn't have that 'slightly troubled' vibe often found in intellectual people.
Usually, smart people get tired because they think too much. But Mr. Nanbu doesn't have that darkness. At the same time, he has the judgment to cut out waste, saying things like, 'This is something you can find out immediately if you look it up, so there's no need to spend a long time on it.'
This is actually quite difficult! Humility toward knowledge and wisdom in how to use time. I call this the 'Nanbu-style thinking method' (sorry for naming it on my own 🙈).

A dual-wielder of 'systems' and 'sales'
When I saw Mr. Nanbu's website, I was surprised, thinking, 'Wow, is he expanding into so many areas?' But when I asked him, he said, 'No, no, I just focused on where I could win.' This humility!
But you know, Mr. Nanbu's true greatness lies in his ability to create systems and then sell them. People who possess both of these talents are actually very rare. Most people only have one or the other. But because Mr. Nanbu has both the ideas and the courage, he can put up new signs and expand. This is a talent I truly envy ✨

"Bright independence" and "guilt about resting"
What I feel when talking to Nambu-san is that bright independence. The confidence of having carved out his own path shines through.
However, one thing that concerned me was the guilt about "resting." Nambu-san, you seem to feel a bit guilty about taking a break. When I was 28 or 29, I had a whole year where I did nothing. For the first three months, I fell into self-loathing, wondering if it was okay to be like this, but after that, it became an incredibly fulfilling time.
That's why I want to tell Nambu-san this: resting is just time to fold your wings for the next leap. There is absolutely no need to feel guilty. 💭

Experience level that doesn't seem like someone in their late 20s
When I heard Nambu-san was 28, I honestly let out an "Eh!?" Based on the content of our conversation, I had assumed he was in his early 40s. His career, which includes experience in business support and even running a company, stands out even compared to his peers.
Becoming independent in your mid-20s and then, after various things, considering employment—this career pattern is actually quite common. But I believe the wisdom and perspective gained from experiencing that are irreplaceable.

[Interview, Editing, Afterword: qbc]

[Editing: komima]

#UnknownPersonInterview #Interview #Entrepreneur #Agency

You can also read past interviews in the magazine!

Recruiting interview participants!