I always try to eat three meals as much as I can, but being a single person, I don’t pay much attention to food. I only go to convenience stores, Matsuya, and the occasional nice restaurant. So when health fanatics often say to me, “You are made of what you eat,” I think, “Oh, I see! I would try to take care of my health, but it never lasted very long. But it never lasted for long. I would think about it and try to take care of my health, but it didn’t last very long.
However, the phrase “You are made of what you eat” was a memorable one that has stayed with me ever since. (I think it was in a commercial somewhere.) Then the other day it occurred to me. Everything we eat is some kind of “life. (This is starting to sound a bit religious, but don’t worry, it’s not.) Whether it is meat, vegetables, or beverages, if we trace it back to its origin, everything is “life” in the first place. In a sense, we have realized that we are “receiving life.
I remembered a TV program I once saw on TV, in which the tribespeople who continue to live the same way they did in ancient times in a place isolated from modern civilization said the same thing. They said, “We are given life. We are given life, we are kept alive by life,” something like that. I think they also said something like, “We have to take something’s life in order to live. Watching that program, I remember thinking, “Ah, human beings are cruel creatures who cannot live without taking a life.
Selling one’s own skills and abilities
I work in marketing. I won’t go into the definition of marketing here, but the main part of my job is to get to know our customers and help them to buy our clients’ products and services. The key is to know what problem or issue the product or service solves for the customer. What is the key to this? Unlike in the past, today’s market is customer-centric, and it is not enough to run TV ads calling out the name of your product or service. You have to understand the customer’s problems and needs and adapt your products and services accordingly. Basically, business is about providing customers with the value of a product or service and getting paid for it. Therefore, we also observe how much money our customers make and what they spend their money on. We also observe how much money they make and what they spend their money on. Why did they buy a competitor’s product or service? Why not this product or service? We think about our customers on a daily basis.
When we think about our customers on a daily basis, we sometimes feel that each of these many customers earn money through their own skills and labor! You may not be aware of it, but you may feel it. We may not be aware of it, but we may even feel a sense of respect for such an act of converting something of ourselves into money. That is why I often feel that companies should not offer strange products or services, and should never lie to us.
To receive money is to receive “life.
At the beginning of this article, I wrote that “we live by receiving life. I think it is the same in the business world. I am sure that you are working for some company, and your company’s sales are always the money earned by providing something to your customers.
In a sense, is it an exaggeration to feel that to receive money in the modern world is to receive a part of a person’s life? In ancient times, we took the lives of other living creatures simply to survive, but today, we need paper money in order to take their lives (to live). If you could grow your own crops and catch your own prey, you would not need paper money. Today, we receive other “lives” through the medium of paper money.
I believe that earning money and receiving money means receiving life.
If we look at receiving money in this way, we can see what we need to do in various ways. We should not lie, as mentioned above, and we should be responsible for providing a good product or service. I believe that we should be responsible for the money we receive because it is the money we earn by offering our lives. And what will solve what problem for whom by providing what of your company? must be seriously considered. It is difficult to feel this way when we live in the midst of our daily business, but the business we are engaged in must be of such value. We should recognize this once again.
In marketing theory, we are repeatedly told to “know your customers’ issues,” but most people do not even try to know or think they know. I believe that this is because they do not understand what it means to be paid. On the other hand, if you understand the essence of what it means to receive money, how should you do business? What is the value? Who can it be of value to?
The ancients prayed for life when they ate it, and I believe that we should receive money as we receive life.