This is a story of Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda motors. He was in high school when Japan faced worst depression in 1930s. While in school he started a small workshop to develop piston ring with a dream to sell it to Toyota. He also had pawned his wife's jewelry. After lot of efforts he completed his design & submitted to Toyota, only to be told that it did not meet their standards. Honda was rather ridiculed & laughed at. He didn't give up & continued to work.
After two years & several redesigning efforts he won
contract with Toyota. By
this time Japan was gearing up for the war. With contract in hand, Honda needed
to build a factory but building material was in a short supply. He invented a
new concrete making process to build his factory. The factory was built &
was ready for the production, but then it was bombed twice & got completely
demolished.
Honda still carried on, he collected surplus gasoline cans
discarded by the US fighters and used them to build his manufacturing unit. By
the time the factory was ready, Japan was hit with massive earthquake, and
factory was destroyed again.
After war gasoline shortage made people use bicycles. Honda
built a tiny engine and attached it to a bicycle. This engine was also
initially bulky and failed but he continued to develop & adapt, until finally,
the small engine famously known as 'The Super Cub' became reality & was a
success. He exported this engine to Europe & USA.
In 1970s there was another gas shortage, people turned to
small & fuel efficient cars. Honda picked up the trend & rode on
another wave of success. Honda
today is one of the most successful automobile companies in the world. Soichiro Honda failed, failed again but failed better every
time.
Success is about reducing your failure rate. Now think again, do you
have too many problems in life? There is another interesting case from
USA.
At 63, a retired colonel couldn't live life without a goal.
He was neither a Harvard graduate nor a rich man. He only knew how to fry
chicken that was juicy inside & crispy outside. He took his recipe to many
restaurants. Many did not even looking at his recipe! But he did not lose heart.
He approached more than 1000 restaurants in 2 years. Finally, he found one
hotelier who showed interest in his recipe. The rest is history. Today, the
world over, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is successful food chain. He was
Colonel Sanders who laid foundation of successful business enterprise.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with
no loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill.
"Perseverance, Patience, Purity (3 Ps) in efforts are essentials to success." - Swami Vivekananda
Dr. Sushant T. Joshi
