Working Paper ／ Research note No.001
The World’s Toughest Training
— How to raise corporate value by the shortest, fastest route —
At a glance
- The criteria for judgment are fixed on three questions.“Maximize corporate value,” “Make money,” and “How can this be done by the shortest, fastest route?” However many issues arise, everything comes back here.
- Training is divided into 90-day units and weeks, with 88% of learning time spent on review.At each break, the judgment “fire yourself” is made, testing whether there is any rationale for continuing the current way of doing things.
- The executive’s role lies not in operations but in designing people and structures.“Don’t do it yourself,” “Become a professional at the 1-on-1,” “Build a tower of contracts and shares,” and “Separate philosophy from the cash machine.”
- What is being built is not a quantity of knowledge but a pattern of decision-making.Even for the same subject, when the question changes, the world you see changes.
Abstract
I am currently training at a global strategy business school regarded as one of the most demanding in the world, getting up at 5 a.m. every morning, without missing a single day, and holding on with everything I have.
What I have learned most here is the feeling that
“If you let your guard down for even five minutes, you will be left behind.”
The training runs in 90-day units, which are further divided into weeks.
And at each point, I make a judgment about myself:
“Fire yourself.”
In a 30-minute session, 5 minutes are rest, 22 minutes are review, and 3 minutes are something new.
In other words, of the 25 minutes actually spent learning, 88% is review.
This is not training merely to add knowledge.
Looking at companies.
Looking at people.
Looking at research.
Looking at stores.
Looking at the news.
“Does this maximize value by the shortest route?”
That becomes the criterion for judgment.
88%Of the 25 minutes actually spent learning, 22 are review (22 ÷ 25 = 0.88).
Source: This paper, Abstract
1.Never change the objective midway
In the daily training, the criteria placed first are clear.
“Maximize corporate value.”
“Make money.”
And,
“How can this be done by the shortest, fastest route?”
When you think about a business, all kinds of elements come in along the way.
Products.
People.
Organization.
Marketing.
Capital.
Technology.
Contracts.
Each of them matters.
But while discussing them, the original objective must not change.
What are we doing this for?
To raise corporate value.
To make money.
And to achieve it by the shortest, fastest route.
No matter how complicated the discussion becomes, in the end it comes back here.
I train repeatedly in this discipline of “never changing the objective midway.”
- Products
- People
- Organization
- Marketing
- Capital
- Technology
- Contracts
- Maximize corporate value
- Make money
- How can this be done by the shortest, fastest route?
Source: This paper, §1
2.What to decide first: “Don’t do it yourself”
There is a phrase that comes up again and again.
“Don’t do it yourself.”
Japan has far too many busy executives.
An executive being busy means the executive is inside the operations.
Doing the selling yourself.
Visiting the front line yourself.
Making the materials yourself.
Handling the problems yourself.
The work in front of you seems to be moving forward.
But if executives keep working inside the operations, no one is left to see the whole.
3.The “Hayek-style runaway train”
Set something strong at making money running ahead, and gold rains down on those who follow.
4.Look at a small shop and think of 10 billion yen
Walking through town every day, even when I see a small shop, I run
“a simulation of turning it into a 10-billion-yen company.”
Small sales, so a small company.
One store, so a small business.
That is not how I look at it.
I look at the company in front of me on the premise of
how it could be restructured to reach a corporate value of 10 billion yen.
So even when I see a single shop, it does not end with
“This shop is doing well.”
I think it through to
“What if we made this 10 billion yen?”
Not how many stores it has now.
Not how much it sells now.
What to add to this company.
What to cut.
Whom to bring in.
Which market to connect it to.
What to give it.
What kind of structure would give it an entirely different corporate value from today.
The town itself becomes the teaching material for a daily corporate value simulation.
5.“Become a professional at the 1-on-1”
The role of the executive is
“to get the top of the top in each field to join.”
You do not need to be the top in every field yourself.
In research, the top of research.
In finance, the top of finance.
In law, the top of law.
In management, the top of management.
Create a structure that the top of the top in each field wants to join, and a place where their abilities are maximized.
What matters there is the ability to see people.
When you squeeze that person to the very end,
what is the last drop?
Where should they be placed for value to rise the most?
That is why the 1-on-1 itself becomes management.
6.Build a company that corporate raiders would target
In the training, there was a striking phrase.
“Build a company that corporate raiders would target.”
Build a company so valuable that raiders would come after it — valuable in anyone’s eyes.
Anyone would want it.
Anyone can see its value.
Make it a company with value that clear.
And to protect that value,
“Build a tower of contracts and shares.”
What is owned.
Who owns it.
Which company owns it.
Who has which rights.
Where the profit goes.
Where decision-making authority lies.
Structure all of this through contracts and shares.
| Item | Question |
|---|---|
| Assets | What is owned? |
| Owner | Who owns it? |
| Holding entity | Which company owns it? |
| Rights | Who has which rights? |
| Profit | Where does the profit go? |
| Decisions | Where does decision-making authority lie? |
Source: This paper, §6
7.Separate philosophy from the cash machine
On organizational design, too, there were memorable words.
“Philosophy is done in the research institute.”
And,
“What the research institute has researched thoroughly is carried out in the store tower; the store tower is the cash machine.”
The store tower is the place that makes money.
The research institute is the place that researches.
Do not put them all in a single box.
| Organization | Role |
|---|---|
| Research institute | The place for philosophy and research |
| Store tower | The place that carries out what the institute has researched and makes money (the cash machine) |
Source: This paper, §7
8.Never throw failures away
The training includes the idea of the
“Failure Box.”
Do not pretend failures never happened.
Store them carefully so that they become the fuel and knowledge for what comes next.
Successes are not the only assets.
Failures, too, become assets if they can be used in the next decision.
To that end,
repeat small, strategic failures.
Test small before a failure becomes a big one.
Look at the result.
If it is wrong, change it.
And test again.
The training is the same.
It is divided into 90 days.
Then further into weeks.
And then,
“Fire yourself.”
I look at whether there is any rationale for continuing to employ the way I am doing things now.
And I keep making that cycle faster.
- Test small
- Look at the result
- If wrong, change it
- Test again
Source: This paper, §8
Discussion
This is not training in “financial knowledge”
90 days.
Weekly units.
Fire yourself.
88% is review.
Maximize corporate value.
Make money.
Do it by the shortest, fastest route.
Don’t do it yourself.
Sign the contract.
A company that starts from research is a fund.
Run the simulation of a 10-billion-yen company.
Become a professional at the 1-on-1.
Get the top of the top to join.
Build a company that corporate raiders would target.
Build a tower of contracts and shares.
Separate philosophy from the cash machine.
Store failures in the Failure Box.
Taken one by one, they look like separate stories.
But repeated every day, they begin to connect into one.
What that means is
changing not “what you look at” but “how you look at it.”
Looking at the same store.
Looking at the same company.
Looking at the same research.
Looking at the same person.
Looking at the same news.
Even when looking at the same thing, if the pattern of judgment inside a person differs, what they see is completely different.
Do you look at sales?
Or at corporate value?
Do you look at the person?
Or at their placement?
Do you look at the research results?
Or at the capital structure built around that research?
Do you look at the product?
Or at the cash that product generates?
Even for the same subject, when the question changes, the world you see changes.
What these 90 days are meant to build is not a quantity of knowledge.
It is the pattern of decision-making itself.
| Subject | Looking at the subject itself | Looking at the value and structure it creates |
|---|---|---|
| Store / company | Sales | Corporate value |
| Person | The person | Placement |
| Research | Research results | The capital structure built around that research |
| Product | The product | The cash that product generates |
Source: This paper, Discussion
Conclusion
I am still in the middle of the training.
So this text is not a finished theory.
It is a research note.
Words I understood today may look different tomorrow.
And 90 days from now, I may understand the same words more deeply than I do now.
That is why I leave this record.
What I was taught at the time.
How I understood those words.
How I used them in actual decisions.
What happened as a result.
I will keep recording these.
88% is review.
The same things, repeated again and again.
Through that, until the questions
“Maximize corporate value.”
“Make money.”
“How can this be done by the shortest, fastest route?”
become not words I must consciously recall in order to use,
but my own criteria for judgment.
And there is one problem with this training.
No matter how many results I deliver, they will not let me graduate.
It seems that as long as I keep raising corporate value, this training has no end.
The training continues.
Citation: Asanuma, C. (2026). “The World’s Toughest Training.” Fuwally Global Holdings Insights, Working Paper No.001.