Very Sprite, Alert and Healthy 97 Year Old Guy Gives Tips for a Long Life

I am reposting (slightly altering) this post from March, 21 2013, because this dear man, Yasuyuki Hashimoto, passed away late last night. Thankfully, he wasn't in pain and passed quietly.

Hashimoto san lived to be 97-years-old. He was very spry and alert just up to about 12 weeks ago. Then his health rapidly began to decline. I was very surprised to see how fast it was. 

It just goes to show us all how fleeting the wonders and joys of life can be.

Please read this story of the wonderful man and remember to enjoy and cherish all the wonderful things this short life gives us. Remember to live each day to its fullest. Tomorrow comes too soon.

And now the article....

I have been written a lot about philosophical things like life & death, purpose, respect and dedication as well as choosing a partner well. Today, I'd like to introduce to you a guy who I have met in these last few days that has really blown my mind. I also want to share some of his philosophies on living a long life. I'm sure you will get a smile and a laugh as I did.

IGGY POP - LUST FOR LIFE

I am so glad to introduce you to this fascinating man. You'll be glad you met him too! His name is Yasuyuki Hashimoto and he is 97-years-old. I suppose being 97-years-old is pretty cool but, in Japan, it's not that unusual. The thing amazing about Yasuyuki Hashimoto is that he is 97 and must the one of the brightest, most energetic, alert and healthy 97-year-old folks you'll ever meet... He's totally coherent and he stays in the conversation and is not hard of hearing. 

Yasuyuki Hashimoto 95-years-old  March 2, 2011

Not only that, but Yasuyuki has never been admitted into a hospital in his entire life!!!


Get that? Of course Yasuyuki has visited doctors before, but he has never stayed overnight in a hospital in his entire life. Can you believe that!? Wow! He must be some sort of miracle of science.  


But I guess he's not a miracle of science. Yasuyuki was a guy who worked hard and played hard too! Yasuyuki told me about the old days when he was a salesman for Ishikawa Heavy Industries (IHI) and he said he smoked about 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day and drank to excess nightly.

As a salesman for IHI in the 1950's

"Mike, as you know, in Japan, salesmen must drink with their clients. I was a good salesman so I was drunk often." Yasuyuki said. His 63-year-old son added, "What!? You were drunk every night!" Looking at me the son added, "Sometimes he would pass out in the street and we'd have to carry him home. ."


Yes. Yes. I can relate to that... (Thank god, I don't do that anymore! - Mike) 

"Excuse me, bartender! I'll have what he's drinking!


Anyway, Yasuyuki says he stopped drinking 5 years ago and stopped smoking about 15 years ago.  

Yasuyuki in army uniform looking a lot like 

Erwin Rommel (circa 1942)

I have met many 70-year-olds that weren't half as spry and alert as Yasuyuki is. This guy is simply amazing! Yesterday we had lunch together and we were talking about old times and he was joking about how much he used to like to drink to excess (something that I can definitely relate to). His conversational abilities are incredible.... And I don't mean incredible for his age, I mean, he's glib and funny and tells jokes! 


Wow! I hope that I can be 1/2 as bright and bushy-tailed as Yasuyuki is when I'm 80! In fact, when Yasuyuki was 80 years old, his son told me of a time that his father met a stewardess at a bus stop and wound up with the young lady accompanying him back home. Imagine that! You have an 80-year-old dad who is very peppy, energetic, red-blooded and robust guy showing up back at home with some pretty 30-some year old airlines stewardess! Wow! You can't make this stuff up.


Yeah. When I grow up I want to be just like Yasuyuki Hashimoto!   

Yasuyuki as a junior high school

student circa 1930 (back row - upper right)

Yasuyuki Hashimoto was born in Tokyo in 1916. He went to school in Tokyo and was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army immediately after university. During the war, in 1942, he was stationed in Indonesia and say he spent his time enjoying the country and fishing.


There were no big battles in the area his unit was stationed in. He did say, though, that American planes would come snooping around everyday and some of the rascals in his unit wanted to shoot at the plane, but cooler heads prevailed. Yasuyuki and the others knew that if they shot at the plane, the Americans would just come back tomorrow with more planes, so they left them alone (kind of like not whacking a hornet's nest).


He said he and his fellows soldiers would stand around and look at the plane as it flew around. The planes were so close that they could see the pilot's face! They'd stare at the pilot and the pilot would stare back and  then fly away.


This theater of the absurd went on for everyday until the end of the war.

Out with the boys on the field in Indonesia 1942

About the war, I asked Yasuyuki if he and his fellow soldiers believed that the emperor was god? Yasuyuki looked incredulously at me and said, "No! Are you kidding? We weren't that stupid!" We both then howled with laughter.


Yasuyuki has many funny and interesting stories. I wish I could share them all with you.

Student conscripts in front of Mt. Fuji (circa 1940)

I did, though, ask Yasuyuki two important questions. The first was, "What is the secret to long life?"


Yasuyuki answered, "Live a boring, peaceful life." 


That makes sense. It reminds me, once again, of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Yasuyuki's advice fits in well; peace and serenity and quiet and calm; those are the secrets to a long life. 


I think it is good advice. I hope that I can live a boring life someday spending quiet time with my family and fishing and living among nature.

Yasuyuki Hashimoto (back row, third from right)

(circa 1942)

The second question I asked Yasuyuki was, "Do you have any advice for readers as to how to live a happy, peaceful and long life?" 

To this Yasuyuki thought for a moment and said, "No. The best advice I can give anyone is no advice. I don't like it when people are always giving out advice. I have no advice to give."


Think about that, dear readers, isn't that just like Zen Buddhism? In a word, Yasuyuki's advice can be summed up as, "The best advice is no advice!"


Wow! I am taking that to heart. Think about it, folks. It's true!


The best advice is no advice! 


Yasuyuki Hashimoto san! Thank you for everything. May god rest your soul...

And for you reading this, take a moment to be thankful for all you have; give your spouse and kids a hug.

Be happy.

Why You Can Never Give Up! Why You Have to Keep Trying!

Since 2006, I've started up several projects. Some have made a lot of money, some lost a lot of money. Actually, all in all, it's been a string of failures and near misses for six years in a row.

There have been some, though, that were just on the verge of huge success but something out of the blue happened and ruined the plans. 

It doesn't matter how old you are! Keep your dreams!

One time, I helped a new China based airlines increase its Japan traffic by well over 300% in less than a year. I had them all over the TV and in many major publications. They were hot. Then, one day, I wake up and see the news that the Chinese government revoked the airlines' license because this up-start was seriously eating into the profits of the state-run airline. I was the first time in aviation history that an airlines had their license revoked. More than 4,000 Japanese were stranded. It was a major news story here and I had to spend the rest of the next six months running around and apologizing the upper management at all the big networks....

Another time I helped a company that had lost $140 million dollars over the last decade turn a profit in less than 2 years. I thought for sure there would be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me that time. Not so, the president had to retire and a new president came in and he wanted to run that company like his own little fiefdom and give jobs to his crony friends. I resigned and that company started losing a million dollars (more) a year again. 

Another time I helped a company raise $4.5 million dollars from Intel only to have our company president steal more than half that money and run away to Hong Kong. That was another big story and scandal in Japan.

The names have changed and the people are different but I've basically had this sort of story repeated over and over in these last seven years.

That can get quite depressing. But it's OK. Did you know that Colonel Sanders failed 99 times before he finally hit it right and became rich at 63-years-old? I just turned 55 and can count (what I consider) to be six failures in a row... If I use the colonel as a yard-stick, I've got 93 more to go before I become a millionaire? Yikes!

I have gotten lucky (again) and it was because I kept trying.  Just this year I propped up another brand new company with great goals and dreams only to be stopped by Japan's archaic system. Before I ran into a brick wall, I was out selling and looking for investors. I met a guy who is very famous and has a golden reputation for starting new companies and making them hugely successful. While I tried to talk him into investing, he declined. Nevertheless, six months later, I was contacted by him. It seems he was impressed with my salesmanship and aggressiveness; he had heard that my new project had run into a car crash so he asked me to come work for his new company. 

It's a wonderful new company too with a fantastic idea and product. I accepted the job eagerly.

There is a moral to this story too. You can never give up; you must keep trying. 

I had made up my mind seven years ago that I was going to keep at it. I was going to make a million dollars. Of course I haven't done it yet but I have to keep trying and stick to it. You too. You can never give up. 

And that's the lesson here: If I had sat at home waiting for the phone to ring or something to happen, it wouldn't. I had to go out and make something happen.

For this holiday season I want you all to have a very safe and healthy end of 2012. Things might look rough for some of us, but remember, we must always keep on trying. We can never give up.

Keep at it and keep knocking on the door and someday it will open and a bright new day will come shining in for you and your family.

Stay positive and good luck!

For More Related Subjects, please read:

Winning at Raffles, Bingo and Life are Exactly the Same! Here's 5 Simple Tips on How to Win at All of Them! (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/02/winning-at-bingo-and-winning-at-life.html)

Pocket Notebooks: The Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen? (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/06/pocket-notebooks-secret-of-millionaires.html)

Make Your Own Success (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/07/make-your-own-success.html)