One of the richest people in the world is someone you’ve never heard of.
He grew up in a small Japanese village in 1904. He graduated university in 1928. He became a professor at a Kyoto university 4 years later. He became Dean of the faculty at another nearby university after that.
He believed knowledge was power. He led a simple life.
While working his university job he started a small building company. In 1959 at age 55, he did what most people did and retired from his university job. It was now time to relax. To spend time with family.
But with all the extra free time he got bored.
So he focused on his building company. Instead of working on it in an office he just worked from home (fashionable now, but not back then).
Japan’s economy began to skyrocket. He had a vision for Japan’s property market that no one else understood. In his 60s, he started to become well-known in real estate.
He believed skyscrapers were the future. Everyone else was too scared to build them.
Things got a little more outrageous. He started dreaming up projects that were multi-use – residential, commercial, public spaces, movie theatre, etc. This was uncommon. Critics threw sh*t at him.
In 1986 his dream project was completed. People were wowed. He set a new standard for construction, and he pushed the boundaries of what Japan could be.
The older he got the more daring he became. He became Mr Impossible. His Roppongi Hills project transformed an entire neighborhood that was thought to be unrecoverable.
By this point, he had become famous all around the world. Investors threw money at him.
He became extremely wealthy. But when the media interviewed him he always preached being frugal and hard working. He was humble, a simple man. Despite his wealth he had a cheap lifestyle and lived in a tiny apartment.
Taikichiro Mori passed away in 1993 at 88. He was the richest man in the world at the time. If you visit Japan you will see his legacy everywhere.
His humble story proves you’re never too old to do anything.
Mori isn’t the only example of a late bloomer.
Fashion designer Vera Wang made her first dress at 40. Before that she was a figure skater and magazine editor.
Samuel L Jackson didn’t get his breakout acting role until he was 46. Ray Kroc didn’t buy McDonald’s until he was 52. Gladys Burrill finished her first marathon at 86. She went on to become the oldest marathon runner ever at age 92.
Some naive people make the mistake of thinking you can only do big things while you’re young. But “late bloomers” showed me this is untrue.
The farm boy banker that changed how I think
One of my good friends is a late bloomer.
He started out his career working as a journalist. He went to every dangerous war zone you could imagine. He saw landmines blow up right in front of him.
He went to the border of South Korea and made the crossing into North Korea. At the border he showed his journalist pass and had young men point rifles in his face.
He survived. He documented parts of North Korea that no one else has.
Later in life he bizarrely became a banker. He traveled the world talking to big tech companies. He also started a small farm in his spare time. His career as a banker went nowhere for years. Then he got his breakout job.
He quickly rose to the top of the corporate ladder with a multi-7-figure annual income. Then he got into startup investing and became a kind of secret venture capitalist. When the Ukraine war broke out he flew there in an aircraft paid for by his employer to rescue innocent people.
In his 60s, it feels like he’s just getting started.
Some people call me a late bloomer. I’m 38 with a 2 year old. My friends think that’s old. If I have another kid I’ll basically be 40. But I don’t give a f*ck.
Age doesn’t define us. We’re only as old as we feel.
If you focus on your age, you start to become older and make excuses for why you can’t do things. We can do anything we want in life.
The best late bloomer opportunity to chase forever
I recently read a Substack post about late bloomers.
There were hundreds of comments. 90% of the comments talked about the joy of publishing a book late in life. As an experiment, I googled each of the authors who wrote this comment. Most of them had close to zero book sales.
The biggest misconception late bloomers have is that if they publish a book they’ll change the world or reach success. Wrong. Publishing a book is playing the lottery.
And the game has changed.
Book publishers don’t choose your book and give you access to an audience anymore. That dream died and someone needs to tell aspiring late bloomers. Even if you have built an audience of your own, selling a $20 book is one of the worst ways to monetize the value you have to offer the world.
The best late bloomer opportunity isn’t publishing books no one will read…lol. It’s starting a business centred around everything you’ve learned in life. It’s monetizing those years of working a job into something that has value.
History’s greats, who changed the world late in life, all did it by starting a business.
If you feel like you’re getting old or are a has-been, the opportunity to chase and make a comeback with is to start a business. If you read history this obvious conclusion will smack you in the face like it did for me.
Do these things to become a late bloomer in your 40s, 50s, 60s (or later)
(Learned from 11 years of studying late bloomers.)
1. Get around crazy young people
I have a secret obsession.
I always try to get around young people. In banking, I used to hang out with teenagers who’d do school tours of our bank. I wanted to know how they thought, what games they played, and how they used technology.
Recently, I paid a 21 year old woman $8000 to coach me on a specific business problem. Like all young people, she sees the world differently. She opened my eyes to so many new trends I was unaware of. I’ll likely make at least 6-figures from her help.
Young people don’t see boundaries.
And their dreams haven’t been ruined (yet) by a society that desperately wants them to fit in so they can slap a label on them. Get the hell around young people and study their minds for ideas and inspiration.
2. Have a goal and vision. Execute on it daily.
Late bloomers need a goal.
A way to show the world what they’re capable of. A way to make a comeback or show all their critics how wrong they were. A goal is nothing, though, without daily action.
The best late bloomers have daily habits that slowly take them toward their goal, so their progress becomes predictable and they get 2% better each day.
3. Dare to f*cking dream
The older you get, the closer to death you get.
I have no idea why this isn’t a massive motivation for every human on earth. Too many people think they have time when they’re just one cancer diagnosis away from the morgue. Our dreams get the sh*t kicked out of them by universities and corporate employers that want to use us for their benefit to build their dream.
Once most people get past 40 they stop dreaming.
I was heading that way too. Then my daughter arrived on the scene. She dreams bigger than anyone I know. There’s no such thing as bedtime or finishing up with play. She wants to play 24/7. She has big dreams.
We look at a tree. I see a boring part of nature. She sees a machine that is the portal to another world that can produce the magic of leaves.
We only grow old when we stop dreaming.
It’s possible to be Peter Pan and stay young for ever if you’re willing to keep dreaming, keep seeing potential, keep seeing the world getting better.
The fastest way to destroy your dreams is to tune into the mainstream narrative. They want you to hate certain public figures and wage wars with countries that think differently from ours. Do not freaking comply.
Hold onto your dreams. Hold onto optimism. Turn off the distractions. Throw your phone in a lake and win back your calendar.
Late bloomers are fearless because they know life is short. They have courage even when they have no evidence of their potential or zero plan.
Some have faith in a god. Late bloomers have faith in themselves. They’re willing to risk what they have left because time is moving at the speed of light.
Late bloomers take risks and enjoy whatever happens because that’s truly living.
Final Thought
History shows us late bloomers like Taikichiro Mori are incredible. All of us have the power to defy the past and rewrite our stories. The big question is, will you?!
Share a story of a late bloomer in the comments section below. Inspire us all.
