Dear Ines,

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to speak tonight.

I can without a doubt that your presentation was one of the most interesting and enjoyable that I have experienced since founding EA-Tokyo.

Take care Ines and good luck with work! It sounds like lots of exciting things are happening!

Regards,

Dave Mori

President Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo NPO

Ph: 81-3-5336-9236 Fx: 81-3-5336-9237

Sweet!…… It was nice to be given a chance of speaking at the Foreign Correspondants Club Japan on Tuesday. I was amazed that so many people had signed up and made time to come to listen to me! I never imagined that someone would pay to hear me talk. (I would have thought that instead that people would pay for me to remain silent!@!…)

I spoke for 40 mn about my life experience as an entrepeneur (I registered my own business at the early age of 21 years old, and had a baby that same year. Also I had no other choice than to make it happen, I had to feed and care for my child, I had to make money to survive without asking my parents….)

Instead of talking about everything I did right, I spoke about all the mistakes I made along the way of running my own business as though it would be more entertaining.

After my 40 mn speech, we went into a Q&A session with the 45 people in the room for about 1 hour.

Then when it was over, I had many people coming to talk to me privately, actually many Japanese women asking me for advice, both professionally and personally. I really enjoyed the evening. It was very tiring because I had to be so switched on mentally for 3 hours, but when I arrived home and kissed my babies in their bed while they were alseep, I thought how blessed I am to be able to do work that I love everyday, and to have such a strong base, my family, my children, my friends.

This is what gives me this incredible energy which defines me. It is like a fuel generated by hapiness and excitement which keeps my engine running high speed everyday. I wish for everyone to feel the same hapiness every time they wake up. Life is not easy for sure but I wish for all to feel this excitement about the day as it is beginning…