Soichiro Honda
One of the most important decisions you can make
to ensure your long-term happiness is to decide to use whatever life gives you
in the moment. The truth of the matter is that there's nothing you can't
accomplish if: 1) You clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely
committed to achieving, 2) You are willing to take massive action, 3) You
notice what's working or not, and 4) You continue to change your approach until
you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way. Anyone
who's succeeded on a large scale has taken these four steps and followed the
Ultimate Success Formula. One of my favorite "Ultimate Success
Stories" is Mr. Soichiro Honda, founder of the corporation that bears his
name. Like all companies, no matter how large, Honda Corporation began with a
decision and a passionate desire to produce a result.
In 1938,
while he was still in school, Mr. Honda took everything he owned and invested
it in a little workshop where he began to develop his concept of a piston ring.
He wanted to sell his work to Toyota Corporation, so he labored day and night,
up to his elbows in grease, sleeping in the machine shop, always believing he
could produce the result. He even pawned his wife's jewelry to stay in
business. But when he finally completed the piston rings and presented them to
Toyota, he was told they didn't meet Toyota's standards. He was sent back to
school for two years, where he heard the derisive laughter of his instructors
and fellow students as they talked about how absurd his designs were. But
rather than focusing on the pain of the experience, he decided to continue to
focus on his goal. Finally, after two more years, Toyota gave Mr. Honda the
contract he'd dreamed of. His passion and belief paid off because he had known
what he wanted, taken action, noticed what was working, and kept changing his
approach until he got what he wanted. Then a new problem arose.
The Japanese government was gearing up for war,
and they refused to give him the concrete that was necessary to build his
factory. Did he quit there? No. Did he focus on how unfair this was? Did it
mean to him that his dream had died? Absolutely not. Again, he decided to
utilize the experience, and developed another strategy. He and his team
invented a process for creating their own concrete and then built their
factory. During the war, it was bombed twice, destroying major portions of the
manufacturing facility. Honda's response? He immediately rallied his team, and
they picked up the extra gasoline cans that the U.S. fighters had discarded. He
called them "gifts from President Truman" because they provided him
with the raw materials he needed for his manufacturing process—materials that
were unavailable at the time in Japan. Finally, after surviving all of this, an
earthquake leveled his factory. Honda decided to sell his piston operation to
Toyota.
Here is a man who clearly made strong decisions
to succeed. He had a passion for and belief in what he was doing. He had a
great strategy. He took massive action. He kept changing his approach, but
still he'd not produced the results that he was committed to. Yet he decided to
persevere. After the war, a tremendous gasoline shortage hit Japan, and Mr.
Honda couldn't even drive his car to get food for his family. Finally, in
desperation, he attached a small motor to his bicycle. The next thing he knew,
his neighbors were asking if he could make one of his "motorized
bikes" for them. One after another, they jumped on the bandwagon until he
ran out of motors. He decided to build a plant that would manufacture motors
for his new invention, but unfortunately he didn't have the capital.
As before, he made the decision to find a way no
matter what! His solution was to appeal to the 18,000 bicycle shop owners in
Japan by writing them each a personal letter. He told them how they could play
a role in revitalizing Japan through the mobility that his invention could
provide, and convinced 5,000 of them to advance the capital he needed. Still,
his motorbike sold to only the most hard-core bicycle fans because it was too
big and bulky. So he made one final adjustment, and created a much lighter, scaled-down
version of his motorbike. He christened it "The Super Cub," and it
became an "overnight" success, earning him the Emperor's award.
Later, he began to export his motorbikes to the baby boomers of Europe and the
United States, following up in the seventies with the cars that have become so
popular. Today, the Honda Corporation employs over 100,000 people in both the
United States and Japan and is considered one of the biggest car-making empires
in Japan, outselling all but Toyota in the United States. It succeeds because
one man understood the power of a truly committed decision that is acted upon,
no matter what the conditions, on a continuous basis.
Source: Awaken The Giant Within, Anthony Robbins
