THE HONDA STORY

What sets apart great people is persistence; they will change their approach many times when faced with failure, whereas most of us just give up.

Honda – Soichiro Honda started off his entrepreneurial career in 1938, while still in school, as a self-employed R and D engineer. He invested everything he had in a workshop with his only ambition: to become a supplier to Toyota. For three years he worked on developing a great piston ring for Toyota engines. On getting to a stage when he felt the rings were good enough, he took these rings to Toyota. Unfortunately, the samples did not meet the quality standards of Toyota. It took Soichiro 2 more years to improve to come up to quality standards of Toyota. But as soon as Toyota approved WW II broke out. In the rationing that followed, the Japanese government refused to give him the concrete to build his factory. So he invented a technology to make his own concrete – and built the factory. During the war the factory got bombed twice. He picked up the dropped petrol tanks left behind by the bombers; steel was in short supply – and used them to make piston rings. When the war got over, an earthquake happened – and the factory was flattened. That seemed to be the last straw – he sold off his piston operations to Toyota.

After the war there were huge petrol shortages in Japan. Soichiro could not use his car to get food for his family, so he ‘jugaaed’ to get an engine fitted to his bicycle to get around to shops. Neighbours requested that he make the ‘motorised bike’ for them. He ran out of engines – so he decided to build a plant to make small engines.

But where was the money? He wrote to 18,000 cycle shop owners in Japan, selling them the idea of the ‘motorised bike’ – and got 5,000 of them to pay an advance for the bikes – to raise capital.

Sales were limited only to hardcore fans – the bike was too bulky now because of the engine. So he built a scaled down version of his bike – which he named the ‘Super Cub’ – finally making Honda, in 1945, an ‘overnight’ success…

DECISIONS

Decision is the father of action. A real decision is measured by action. When you cannot commit to decisions, you substitute them with excuses. It is worthwhile to note the etymology of the word decision. The word originates in Latin from the roots de – which means from, and Kitere – which means to cut. So a true decision is one of commitment, of cutting yourself off from any other possibility. It is in the moments of decisions that your destiny is shaped

Most decisions that you put off are in order to avoid the pain associated with the decision. In fact you are programmed to react to pain more than to pleasure. You can use this information in order to work on helping decision making. Let us take an example of deciding to break an addiction. You can do this best by vividly associating pain with the addiction – and then rewarding yourself with pleasure for every baby-step that you take in this fight against your addiction.

Remember, change happens in an instant. It is your planning for this change that takes time. Unfortunately there is never a sense of urgency in your planning. You are forever in planning mode, with execution (change) always being on the backburner. One of the best ways to induce change then is to do something unexpected – drastically different. Break old patterns by doing something that you consider absolutely absurd..

Let us take an example of an everyday situation. Your boss has just yelled at you. You realize the need for change. But you are not in the best of moods. How do you interrupt this negativity to get into the positive state required for change? Re-imagine your boss in the most absurd of circumstances. Rerun the yelling situation in your mind as if it were a movie. Now turn that movie into a cartoon. Run the whole thing in reverse. Change the boss’ face colors. Fast forward the movie. Put on Pinnochio nose on the boss and Mickey Mouse ears. Create some goofy music to go along with it. It is much easier for you to decide to change now.

Sometimes change can only happen when you change your beliefs. In order to do this you need to first understand what your beliefs are. Start by writing them down. Having put them to paper, categorise your beliefs into two columns. Ones that help you to do things, others that prevent you from doing things. Let us call them empowering and disempowering beliefs.

Let us work on changing the disempowering beliefs. For your disempowering beliefs question the consequences. What pain do they cause you? Was the person from whom you got this belief worth role modeling? If you question anything long enough, you will begin to doubt it. Do this and find replacement beliefs.

GOALS

Most of the time you are caught up with ‘making a living’ rather than ‘designing a life’. When you ask people what they want in life, more often than not, they end up telling you what they don’t want. Instead, concentrate on what you want; be specific about it – the clearer it is, the more the chances that you will get it. If we want to plant seeds in our garden of life, why are we planting ‘weeds’?

Your current life does not reflect your potential; rather it is the size and quality of your current goals. Most of us are not good at execution because of the unconscious fear of disappointment. Failing to meet your past goals has led to this fear. The first step you need to take in implementation is to set goals that inspire you.

Exercise: List down all your dreams. Just scribble things down. Do not think too much while writing. Don’t censor. Don’t detail. Categorize these dreams now: What toys/gadgets would you like to own? What adventures would you like to undertake? In what ways would you like to improve yourself? What economic milestones would you like to reach? In what way would you like to contribute to society?

Goals are dreams with a deadline. So give a timeline to each of your dreams. Write X for 1 year, 2X for 2 years, 5X for 5 years, 20X for 20 years etc. Now choose the singlemost important 1X goal. Make sure that it is inspiring enough. Then you write down why this goal must be achieved this year. If you can’t find this compelling enough, hunt for new reasons or new goals.

Footnote

One thing that strikes you about Anthony is how he re-emphasizes the role of the motivational speaker in his talk. He prefaces all action points constantly with ‘You and I’. I wonder if you and I need to use this tactic in our classrooms. Will students be happy with an offer of collective responsibility for action instead of a student’s own individual one?

Excerpts from ‘Awaken the Giant Within’ audiobook by Anthony Robbins