Honda your dreams

Tom Sangala January 1, 2018

457 3 minutes read

IT is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.—Anthony Robbins
This may probably be that time in life when you feel depressed, you feel that you are a failure and you see nothing but obstacles standing in your path to success. Do not get worried. It is normal. In life, we all have to encounter problems, disappointments and frustrations. But that is not what will make you fail to achieve your dreams. It is how we deal with the setbacks that will shape our lives more than anything else.
Powerful motivation speaker Anthony Robbins gives us words of wisdom.
Robbins writes: “The power of decision is the power of change…it is true that we cannot always control the events of our lives but we can control what we decide to think, believe, feel and do about those things.”
Possibly you know or have ever ridden Honda motorcycle. There is a powerful story behind the Honda that you must emulate. To be successful, you need the Honda factor in your life. You need the Honda DNA. Consider the story below and possibly that will mark the turning point in your life. No one else narrates the story better than Robbins.
Mr Honda’s biography is clear that in 1938, he was a poor student who had a dream of designing a piston ring that he would sell to Toyota Corporation. He spent any little money he had on the project. After years of persistence and effort, he finally designed the ring and was sure Toyota would buy it. When he took it to them, they rejected it. He was sent back to school to suffer humiliation of his teachers and friends tel l ing him what an idiot he was for designing such a ridiculous gadget.
R o b b i n s writes: “Was he frustrated? You bet. Was he broke? Yes. Did he give up? No way.”
He kept on refining his rejected piston and, two years later, Toyota bought it. But the next huddle came in: Honda needed concrete slab, yet the Japanese government was gearing up for World War II, so no cement was available on the market. Honda could not give up. He really needed to build a factory for manufacturing pistons. He got together a group of friends and, for weeks, they worked around the clock trying different approaches until they found a new way to manufacture concrete slabs. He built his factory and was finally able to produce his piston rings.
But wait a moment; there are more tears to come in. During the war, the United States bombed his factory, destroying most of it. The story has it that, instead of feeling defeated, he rallied all his employees and told them to quickly run outside and watch the bomber planes. When they dropped their fuel cans from the sky, they had to be collecting those cans because they contain the raw materials they needed for the manufacturing process. These were the materials they could not find anywhere in Japan.
But just as it seemed that all was to be rosy again, an earthquake levelled down his factory and that forced him to sell the piston operation to Toyota.
Honda was a man who would always look at opportunities. When the war ended, Japan was facing resource constraints. Fuel was rationed and, in most cases, difficult to find. Instead of resigning to that fate, Honda did the unthinkable. He noticed a little motor he had, one that was the size and type to drive a traditional lawnmower, and he got the idea of hooking it up to his bicycle. In that moment, the first motorised bicycle was created. Soon, many people asked him to make motorised bicycles for them. He made many, such that, with increasing demand, he ran out of motors. He could not give up. He thought of building his own factory but there was no money. Japan had been torn apart by war.
The Honda part in him was an animal that could be unleashed on a dream. He wrote letters to every single bicycle shop owner in Japan, telling them that he had the solution to Japan’s mobility problems and that his motorcycle would be cheap and get people wherever they needed to go.
History has it that out of the 18,000 bicycle shop owners who received the letter, 3,000 gave Honda money and he manufactured his first shipment. Tragedy again, the motorcycle was too big and bulky and very few Japanese bought it. He never gave up. He stripped it down to make it lighter and smaller and that became an overnight success, winning Honda the Emperor’s Award. Honda Corporation now employs over 100,000 people and outsells all but Toyota cars in the United States.
The bottom line is very simple and this article will quote what Robbins said of Honda: “He never let problems or circumstances get in his way. He decided that there is always a way to succeed if you are really committed!”
You have all the elements to be successful. You only have to decide to be successful and you will be. Follow the Honda factor – don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up and never give up.