What is my true dream profession? - I don’t even have time to wonder about how many hats I will have to wear!

There is an idiom ‘wearing two hats’, but I sometimes wonder how many hats I am wearing. When I lived in the States, my profession was a real estate developer. I was engaged in the construction and renovation of shopping centers and hospital complexes while trading in commercial real estate under a broker’s license. However, I was wearing two hats; I was also the pastor of a regular church back in the 80’s.

As I look back now at that time, I can recall that my real estate company was in the States and my church was in Japan, which meant I was traveling back and forth between the States and Japan almost every two weeks. I feel horrible when I think back to how hard that time was and I’m amazed at how hard I worked to endure the intolerable. The struggle to overcome the time difference between the two countries was real, yet, I not only preached on Sundays at church, but I was also leading the congregation when we sang hymns and gospel songs by playing the guitar on weekend nights. It was truly the ultimate ‘two hats’ wearing man.

However, this reckless lifestyle could not last long. The sleep deprivation, the hard work, and the lack of exercise caused a huge breakdown of my health. One day, I tried to get up in the morning but I couldn’t stand up due to rotatory vertigo so I had to be hospitalized for a week. Fortunately, it wasn’t a stroke, but I was diagnosed with Meniere’s syndrome. However, it caused a tremendous amount of pain and it took me a year to completely recover from the symptoms. I suffered from a dull headache that persisted for a long time. Since then, I have started to take ‘a little more’ care of myself.

Now, let’s get back to the main topic. I got fed up with the real estate business in the States, which was full of disputes and court cases, so then I finally decided to come back to Japan which meant that I faced unemployment. “Yay! Finally, I’m free from wearing two hats and I can now live my own life!” Then, I opened a live music club called Petra Club when I was starting out a new chapter. I always had an affinity for live performance from an early age perhaps because I had played guitar in a band and also I got those genes from my parents who were both involved in multiple entertainment businesses. I found a space with excellent soundproofing in the basement along Waseda Street and built a small live music venue there.

To put it more simply, Petra Club was a live music club that served set menus to students during the day and mainly booked live performances at night. As the owner of the club, I even cooked rice and bought ingredients to try to fill the customers’ stomachs. This time I started wearing a completely different type of hat, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable in it. I cleaned the place and washed dishes day after day. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy cooking meals, but I had to work extremely long hours because it was a business where alcohol was also served. I knew that I couldn’t do this for a long time. Then one day, I made a big decision: I handed over the management of the Petra Club to my acquaintance who was then the manager and then I took off that hat to go back to the States to spend half a year on a sacred mountain.

Shortly after returning to Japan again, a mysterious vision came to me that brought me to an unknown place, Narita. There, I started to wear a new hat and Sound House was born. I can say that this was the culmination of all my experiences; managing a live music venue, performing in a band, trading real estate, and being involved in activities through church. The reason why I believe that the church is also related is because my fellow Christian friends that I met in Narita encouraged me to found Sound House. Without this encounter, Sound House would have never come to be. At the center of this Christian family was the Yamada family, which at the time ran the Yamada Taylor Shop where Sound House was born. The history of Sound House began out of that former tailor shop that was run in an old tiny shack.

Well, let’s get back to the main topic. So, what is my main job again? It could be working for Sound House but I can’t always say so. It’s true that I spend a great deal of time working for Sound House, but to be honest, I believe that my real job is something else. The solid proof of this is my historyjp.com website. For more than a decade, not only have I been putting in a lot of time, but I have also been traveling all over Japan to find the proof that supports the authenticity of my writing. This means I have visited the countryside around Japan and also researched the terrain while working for Sound House. As a result, I have had the opportunity to see the entire country, from the top of Mt. Fuji to the underwater ruins of the Ryukyu Islands. Consequently, I want to write everything I can about the experience I gained through my research expeditions and relay this to the Japanese people and write messages from the bottom depths of my heart. historyjp.com is the place where I can share my findings with everyone.

Then, how about the conclusion of this article? As of now, I believe I’m wearing two, or rather three hats. One is my profession as founder and chairman of Sound House. This one is a duty I must fulfill out of responsibility and I put a lot of energy into this because I’m so patient and I have no other choice but to do it. The second hat is being a writer for historyjp.com. I now have a lot of fans all over Japan, and I have so many things I want to write about, but I just don’t have enough time. If I had more time, I would write more and more, so I think my website feels more like my main job to me. I dare not mention it here, but I’m also wearing a third hat, although, I’m keeping it a secret because I would like to leave things to your imagination.

I still have so many things that I want to do. I am busy doing them one by one every single day. This is why I sleep well every night, but I’m a light sleeper, so I wake up extremely early in the morning! My dream is to continue living like this for another 35 years.