From Tokyo Office Worker to Digital Nomad — and Everything In Between

I grew up in the countryside of Japan. I was a pretty ordinary kid — decent at school, loved sports, but never particularly stood out.

When I turned 18, I moved to Tokyo to study at Sophia University, one of Japan's more internationally-oriented universities. I later completed a master's degree in mechanical engineering. Looking back, I was on the "right track" by every standard measure — and I didn't yet realize how little that mattered to me.

After graduating, I joined NTT Data — Japan's largest IT company, and one of its most prestigious employers. Getting in felt like an achievement. For a while, it was.

But the reality of life inside a large Japanese corporation set in quickly. Overtime almost every day. Sometimes staying until midnight, sometimes until the next morning. Weekends at the office weren't unusual. I became exactly the kind of person I had never planned to become: a workaholic who had almost no time for himself.

The salary was decent. My colleagues were, for the most part, talented and good people. But I also had to navigate difficult managers and office politics — which is draining in any language, but especially so in Japanese corporate culture, where hierarchy is everything.

I loved technology. I just couldn't do the kind of work that genuinely excited me. More than anything, I wanted freedom — to choose what I worked on, when I worked, and how I lived.

I stayed for eight years. And then I left.

Some of my friends had gone freelance in digital marketing. They seemed relaxed in a way I hadn't felt in years. Little by little, they got me thinking.

When I finally quit, I started with affiliate marketing — it seemed like a manageable place to begin. I started a blog and used Twitter to promote products I actually used and liked.

Within three months, I was making around $3,000 a month. That was already more "free" income than I expected this early. A year and a half after leaving NTT Data, I was at $10,000 a month — working less than four hours a day.

The stress I had carried for eight years just... disappeared.

With a laptop, an internet connection, and no boss telling me where to be, I started traveling. Not just vacations — actually living and working in other countries.

Over the following years, I spent time in:

I lived this way until early 2020, when the pandemic brought travel to a halt and I returned to Japan.

But even during those traveling years, something was missing. I had freedom. I had income. I had new experiences every few months. And yet, I often felt lonely. I wanted friends who understood this kind of life — people who could pick up and go, who weren't tied to a fixed desk in a fixed city.

That feeling eventually pushed me toward something I hadn't expected: wanting to share what I'd learned, and connect with people around the world who were looking for the same things I had once been looking for.

In 2016, I founded my own digital marketing consulting company and started working with clients — mostly individuals, sometimes companies.

I enjoyed it. But I wanted to go further. I wanted to build something that reached people outside Japan.

So in 2018, I moved to New York for six months. My English at the time was functional but limited. I wasn't fluent. I wasn't smooth. I made plenty of embarrassing mistakes. But I kept going — because I believe you learn a language by using it, not by waiting until you're "ready."

While I was living in New York, I wanted to do something new — something that felt exciting and a little outside my comfort zone. So I started walking up to strangers on the street and interviewing them on camera.

No big plan. No audience. Just a camera, some broken English, and a lot of curiosity about the people around me.

Those street interviews became the foundation of what eventually turned into my YouTube channel. When I returned to Japan in 2020 during the pandemic, I kept going — filming, editing, posting, improving.

The channel grew faster than I expected.

Today, YASU Business Channel has over 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. My TikTok has grown to 516,000 followers, and Instagram to 294,000. I'm genuinely still a little surprised by all of this — especially because my English is, as you can probably tell, not that of a native speaker.

That's actually become one of the things I hear most often from people: "If you can do this in your second language, maybe I can too." I hope so. That's a big part of why I keep going.

My mission now is to share what I've learned — about building an online business, creating income that isn't tied to a single employer, and building a life that actually feels like yours.

I'm not here to sell you a dream. I know what burned-out feels like. I also know what it feels like to wake up and have genuine control over your day. The gap between those two things is real, and it's crossable — but it takes real work, real strategy, and some patience.

If any of this resonates with you, I'd love to connect. Whether that's through YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or by email — I'm easy to reach, and I actually read what people send me.