The Fighter’s Mindset: Training for Resilience Across Life and Business

As society faces the challenges of an aging population, the need for resilience and lifelong learning has never been more pressing. In this keynote, Mr Harry A. Hill, entrepreneur, former CEO, and author of Fighter!: A Guide to Life and Business (2025), presents how we can cultivate resilience through education, physical training, and mental adaptability.
Drawing from his extensive experience in business leadership and fitness, Mr Hill introduces the Chief Kickboxing Officer (CKO) Program, a unique pedagogical approach that applies Total Physical Response (TPR) – an immersive learning method traditionally used in language acquisition – to train resilience in both professional and personal settings. The CKO method incorporates multi-disciplinary training and stress inoculation techniques, strengthening both body and mind and proving that resilience is trainable, not inherent.
This presentation will address three key aspects of this method: aging and physical resilience, cognitive resilience and lifelong learning, and education and adaptive learning.
Through personal stories, scientific evidence, and real-world applications including insights from his work with UFC Gym Japan and aging athletes, Mr Hill will illustrate how developing resilience is the key to thriving at any age. This session invites attendees to rethink their approach to aging, education, and resilience, encouraging them to embrace lifelong learning, physical training, and the fighter’s mindset in their personal and professional lives.

Speaker Biography

Harry A. Hill

Mr Harry A. Hill is a passionate and dynamic business and civic leader. As President and CEO of Oak Lawn Marketing, Inc. (OLM) in Japan from 2006 to 2017, the company grew from 15 billion JPY to 68 billion JPY in sales. Mr Hill and his management team successfully created a robust corporate culture based on their vision of ‘enriching lifestyles worldwide’. In 2009, he orchestrated one of Japan’s most significant M&A transactions when NTT Docomo took a majority share in OLM. In September 2017, Mr Hill stepped down as CEO, but remains an outside director. He went on to found Better-U, a fitness company operating UFC Gyms in Japan, in 2019.

About the Presenter(s)
-Mr Harry A. Hill is a passionate and dynamic business and civic leader.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

Presentation Schedule