*Eventually, the last day of the lecture, which was the presentation day,
in this picture became my first and last opportunity to meet other participants.
About this time in the last year, I was taking up an inexpensive self-branding course in Fukuoka ranged for about 1.5 months, which was run by a professional writer cum photographer and now a charismatic mentor for freelancers, named Kasako-san (Mr. Takahiro Kasahara.) Thus the course was named "Kasako Juku (Academy; かさこ塾)."
Related Articles:
Kasako-Juku (かさこ塾), an Ultimate Self-branding Effort! - 13th May, 2016
Bitters Do Good!? Ensuring the Frank and Open Feedbacks from Others - Kasako-juku (かさこ塾) - 12th June, 2016
He lives in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture but travels all over Japan and sometimes to overseas to give his lectures. He also administers occasional exhibition called Kasako Juku Festa (かさこ塾フェスタ) together with some of his course participants (I name them "the disciples") a few times in a year to provide opportunities for them to get exposed to the wider audience and to present their services and branding.
According to his recent post, the number of his disciples grew to 1,000 earlier this month - which is almost twice as big as the number of employees in the software company in Pune I was working till 2012, which took the time to grow to 500 for more than ten years in the billion population India. On the other hand, Kasako-san achieved the number merely in three years even though his target is 130 million Japanese.
After Siddharth, Kasako-san is the second person in my life who continuously tells me to follow my heart and savor every moment. Because he is a complete stranger and nowhere related to me, it is but natural that his messages sometimes have a stronger impact.
Although I am not very enthusiastic "disciple" of him nor actively socializing with other course participants, I take his messages as occasional reminders to live my life to the fullest. Just I feel a little sorry as he runs his Kasako Juku only for those who understand the Japanese language.
