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Ritsuko Shirahama
Japan

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Making it Big Time in Fashion

It’s hard to believe that I’m me. I always thought of myself as someone who was somewhat resigned, somewhat mediocre. The things I touched worked okay, but they weren’t extraordinary. All of that is history. When I look at myself now, and I think back, it’s hard to imagine that I’m the same me. I have assimilated the insights and principles of Landmark into my life and applied them to areas of my relationships, my family, and my work life. I would like to have everyone I know and even people I don’t, experience what Landmark Education offers because of the extraordinary difference it made for me. Here’s my story.

I am a fashion designer – for me, this job has two parts. It has a very private part where I kind of go into myself and find a sense of value and a sense of beauty that I then express creatively in fashion. The other part of my job is very public and open – it requires collaboration and teamwork with others. Both aspects of this job – the private and the public part – present new challenges to me every day.

In each of these challenges, there are many successes and many failures. Before, where I would always find myself experiencing a sense of resignation with the failures, now those very failures spur me on to new success. That is all because of Landmark. I now am clear that how I speak about myself, how I speak about my future, how I speak about what I’m up to, the declarations I make, the world of possibility that I create all come from the power of my speaking. I’m aware of the power of saying and that power lies with me.

Early in my career as a designer, I had established a brand name. But as a result of my participation in Landmark, I made a commitment to start presenting my designs to even larger markets. It was a huge question for me whether my work would be accepted in an international market. I jumped in anyway because I had declared for myself a worldwide vision for my fashion design. My vision was, “I will exhibit my work in Paris.” Those in my immediate environment, my family, friends, co-workers, and local customers found this declaration surprising and unexpected. But since that time, my national Japanese business has expanded to a world market. I now export my designs to 10 countries – in Asia, in Europe, and in the United States.

In addition to exporting my designs overseas, I also imported the work of other designers here into Japan. These two moves have dramatically altered and expanded my business. This increased revenue, expansion, and enterprise all started from me declaring my vision and not concerning myself, at the time, with whether I would succeed or not, but just moving forward boldly. Of course, there have been many ups and downs, many defeats and failures, but I kept holding the vision of the possibility I created. I never backed off from that vision, no matter what difficulties I met. I just started from there and continued the conversation.

My relationships with people are amazing. Even when I doubt myself, my relationships carry me forward and through. I can say that the success I have achieved would never have happened all on my own. Everything moves forward with greater momentum when you involve many people. This was an exciting realization to me as I’d always thought I had to do it everything on my own. I could never have foreseen my ability to work collaboratively and share in the warmth, partnership, and friendship with others before I took Landmark’s programs.

Not only is this success present in my business life, it’s everywhere. It’s in my family and my friendships and the joy with which I approach every day. I have no words with which to express my appreciation to Landmark Education. It has given me this opportunity and I hope to pass on and deliver this joy to all the people whose lives I can touch.