My grandfather came to the United States from Japan in the 1970s to retire.
He planted a business instead.
That business is now three generations old. It is the company I run today (Westlake Realty Group).
Growing up in a culturally Japanese household, musk melons were never just fruit. They were an event. Last year, I went back to Japan and fell in love with them all over again. I came home and decided to grow them myself.
This is how travel ruins you in the best possible way. You can't unsee a new standard once you've seen it.
Most people don't grow musk melons. Too finicky. Too slow. Too much that can go wrong.
That's exactly why I love it.
Here is what growing them has taught me about running a company:
1. You cannot catch up on neglect. If I miss a few days of watering in May heat, the vine doesn't forgive me. Neither does a relationship I stopped tending, a deal I stopped tracking, or a tenant I stopped checking in on. Daily care is not optional. It's the whole job.
2. Growth is invisible until it isn't. A musk melon looks the same for weeks. Then one morning it's three times the size. Our business works the same way. The systems we're building, the deals we're grinding on, the investor relationships we're deepening — the progress is quiet for a long time. Then it shows up all at once.
3. Most of the work is boring. Do it anyway. Water. Check the soil. Look for pests. Repeat. It's not glamorous. Neither is running model sensitivities at 11pm or following up on a deal for the fourth time. But the harvest doesn't come without the boring days.
4. The soil matters just as much as the seeds. A great seed in bad soil fails. A great deal with the wrong capital structure, the wrong partners, or in the wrong market fails too. We spend as much time on the foundation as on the asset itself.
5. You plant for a harvest you can't see yet. Every musk melon I put in the ground at the beginning of March, I won't eat until June. Every deal we tie up, I'm underwriting for a return 5 to 7 years out. Patience is not passive. It's the most active thing you can do.
The lesson I keep coming back to: it's not one heroic day in the garden that produces a great melon. It's a hundred ordinary days of showing up, doing a little, and not skipping.
That's kaizen. That's also the business.
What's the daily habit that's quietly driving the most growth in your work?
