The worst day of my life, I was lying in a psychiatric hospital bed.
17 Years. Two Facilities. A ¥400 Million Exit.
For 17 years, I operated two residential care homes in the Kansai region of Japan — one with 21 beds, one with 30. It was a family business. My mother was the president. My father managed administration. My brother held an executive role. I ran the operations.
As my parents aged, we made a decision together: sell the business through an M&A share transfer. The total transaction value was ¥400 million.
The proceeds were distributed among my mother, my brother, and me — my father excluded at his own request. My share came to approximately ¥40 million.
On paper, that sounds like a success. And in many ways, it was. But what followed nearly destroyed me.
The Pressure That Started Everything
I was 45 years old. My share of the exit wasn’t enough to sustain the life I’d built. I borrowed money from my mother to cover living expenses. And with that debt came pressure — the kind that doesn’t let you sleep.
I needed to pay her back. I needed to do it fast. And so I made the first in a series of terrible decisions.
I started trading FX.
When the War Started, My Account Collapsed
I had open positions when Russia invaded Ukraine. Within hours, I had lost an enormous amount of money.
I didn’t stop. I kept trading. I started drinking again — beer, which I had quit years earlier. I was trading while drinking, losing while denying, and spiraling in a way I couldn’t see clearly at the time.
By the time I stopped, I had lost tens of millions of yen. My remaining assets had fallen to ¥2 million.
The drinking had caused alcoholic liver cirrhosis. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
What I Realized in That Hospital Bed
I stopped drinking. But I kept trading for a while longer — until there was almost nothing left.
What I eventually understood — too slowly, too painfully — is that I had no loss aversion framework. I didn’t have a system for protecting what I had. I only had a system for chasing what I wanted.
FX is a zero-sum game. Institutional traders with massive capital win. Retail traders with emotional positions lose. I am not saying investing is wrong. People who invest patiently and systematically do build wealth. But I was not doing that. I was speculating. And speculation destroyed me.
The Rebuild: Starting Over at the Foundation
I sold the land and home I was living in. With that capital, I built a single-story home for my parents. And simultaneously, I opened a small residential care home.
It wasn’t glamorous. It was 4 to 6 residents. Four staff including myself. But it was real. It was mine. And it was built on 17 years of knowledge that no market crash could take from me.
Today, that facility generates ¥20 million in annual revenue and ¥10 million in gross profit. Because of the reputation I built over 17 years, the beds are always full. There is a waiting list.
Initial investment recovery takes approximately two years. After that, the profit is yours.
What This Experience Taught Me About Business
Perfect conditions don’t exist. They never did. The entrepreneurs who succeed are not the ones who waited for certainty. They are the ones who moved forward at 70 to 80 percent readiness and adjusted as they went.
Care facility management is not passive income. It is not speculation. It is a business built on trust, built over time, built through daily decisions that compound into reputation.
Trust is the asset that cannot be taken from you. Profit follows trust. That sequence does not reverse.
I am now sharing everything I know about building profitable care facilities in the USA and ASEAN markets. Not because I am pretending the failures didn’t happen. But because of them.
If You’re Considering a Care Facility Business
I have documented 17 years of operational knowledge in a series of PDF guides covering the USA and ASEAN markets: state selection, financial modeling, staffing systems, regulatory frameworks, and implementation roadmaps.
If you are not acting, you are losing time. That is the only opportunity cost that cannot be recovered.
▶ Free PDF Guide (no email required): https://smallcarefacility.gumroad.com/l/wxgrfp
▶ Complete Bundle: https://smallcarefacility.gumroad.com/l/raygkh
Koujirou Nagata
17 Years Healthcare Operations | ¥400M M&A Exit | Current Operator | smallcarefacility.com