I have been surfing for years. I am still not very good.
That used to bother me. Now I think that is the whole point.
Surfing does not reward effort in the short term. You can paddle hard into a wave, do everything right, and still wipe out. Progress is invisible for months. Then one session it clicks and you are suddenly somewhere new without knowing exactly how you got there.
That is kaizen. The Japanese philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement. Not a single breakthrough. A thousand small reps that compound quietly until the result surprises you.
I grew up in a Japanese household. Kaizen was not a business concept we discussed at the dinner table. It was just how things worked.
And I have come to believe it is the only philosophy that makes sense for running a third-generation family business.
My grandfather came from Japan in the 1970s planning to retire. He started a business instead. His version of kaizen was building something from nothing in a country he did not grow up in. Every year he made it slightly more stable, slightly more durable, slightly more capable of outlasting him.
My version is something else again. Industrial Outdoor Storage was not what this company looked like ten years ago. AI in underwriting was not either. Every generation has to ask: what does this business need to become next? You do not get to inherit the answer. You have to find it.
That is kaizen at the macro level. Each generation improves the company in a different direction. The improvement compounds across decades.
But it always starts small. A better underwriting model. A faster memo. A new market we had not looked at. One rep at a time.
I think about this every time I paddle out. You cannot force a wave. You cannot negotiate with the ocean. You can only position yourself, read the conditions, and be slightly more prepared than you were last time.
Same job. Different water.
What is the one thing you are trying to get 1% better at right now?
Blast tax: surf pic from Mex
