30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s according to Confucius

Confucius once said, “At fifteen my heart was set on learning, at thirty I stood firm, at forty I had no more doubts, at fifty I knew the will of heaven, at sixty my ear was obedient, at seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the boundaries of what was right.”

In Chinese it’s written like this:

子曰：吾十有五而志于学，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳顺，七十而从心所欲，不逾矩。

And in Japanese, it’s 而立の三十代、不惑の四十代、知命の五十代、and so on.

Today I turned 50, and I happen to be back at my birthplace, my original family home in Japan, literally made of wood and paper. Naturally, I was feeling reflective on life, so I thought I would record this video and share my learnings from Confucius through my own experience.

When I turned 40, I quit banking and started my second life as a start-up entrepreneur. After, failing one startup, and then the next, I was like, so much of Confucius saying no doubts. But then I discovered agile in my third startup, and in my fourth iteration in this second life, I am a learning professional, with conviction.

To be honest, I never was really expecting to be a learning professional. I mean, I’m still an entrepreneur — I do learning as a…