In my last post, I wrote that perhaps my talent lies in never ignoring the voice within me.
But after reflecting on it for a while, I realized that continuing to listen to that voice and actually turning it into action are two very different things.

For eight years, I focused solely on my existing businesses.
Importing overseas SaaS solutions and selling them in Japan.
Sourcing and delivering Japanese traditional crafts.
Both were businesses built around delivering what others had created.

The former allowed me to bring powerful overseas technology into the Japanese market, offering “a compelling alternative” in the increasingly consolidated world of digital marketing and e-commerce.
It was genuinely fulfilling work.
The latter was driven by a conviction I developed during my time studying in the United States
— that Japan’s exceptional traditional craftsmanship wasn’t reaching the world.
Being able to deliver pieces that a three-Michelin-star restaurant in the US continued to use is something I remain proud of to this day.

Yet with both, there was always something that gnawed at me.
A frustration I couldn’t shake: the inability to deliver something I truly believed in,
to the people who truly needed it. Creating something from scratch and delivering it on my own terms
— I always knew that was the territory I wanted to enter, but the risk felt too great, and I kept holding back.

What changed everything was the mountains.

Over 250 summits, the time I spent quietly turning inward grew deeper.
In the forest, along the ridgelines, at the summits.
With everything stripped away, I spent the better part of three years facing my own truth in those moments of stillness.

And there, for the first time, I realized something.

What I truly wanted was always within me.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t hear it. I simply hadn’t made the space or time to listen.
My focus was entirely consumed by keeping the existing business alive and growing
— and what I should truly be dedicating the rest of my life to had never come into view.

From that realization, things began to move. And they all share one thing in common
: creating something I can control myself.
Not sourcing and delivering — building and delivering.
It takes more effort.
But I believe that moving your own hands reveals things nothing else can.

When I entered the workforce at 28, I was a mathematician with zero business knowledge or skills,
starting out as a part-time data analyst. Every day for a month, I manually entered e-commerce conversion data, line by line. A colleague who had graduated from a UK university sat beside me, entering data with the focused efficiency of a machine. But somewhere in that seemingly inefficient process, I stopped seeing numbers — and started seeing customers.
Which personas, from which regions, buying which products, on which days and at which hours.
It became embedded in me at a visceral level.
And I didn’t just report to my manager how many entries I’d completed each day
— I reported what I had learned about our customers that day.

Moving your hands reveals things you cannot see any other way.

That understanding became embodied knowledge from the very start of my career.
It’s why, even now, I insist on moving my own hands as much as possible across everything I’m building.
Because I know it will always show me something that can only be seen that way.

In my last post, I wrote about protecting the trust relationship with my future self.
Looking back, what the mountains gave me was perhaps something simpler: a way of making time to honor that trust.

The inner voice only speaks when things go quiet.
While making smart use of AI, I intend to keep moving my head and hands,
accumulating embodied insight one step at a time
— and bringing each new venture to life before the year is out.

Masaki “Mark” Iino
Founder & CEO,
SOPHOLA, Inc.

P.S. Watching my children climb mountains gives me a lot to think about.
By building small steps of growth one at a time, they grumble along the way
— and yet, before you know it, they’re standing at the top of a mountain t
hey absolutely could not have climbed not long ago.
That gets me, every time.