Soichiro Honda: A story of persistence

“Success is 99 percent failure.” - Soichiro Honda

The life of Soichiro Honda is often quoted as an inspiring story of a man who overcame unbelievable obstacles and went on to achieve great success. The story of Soichiro Honda is an inspirational tale of motivation and persistence in the face of adversity. His story serves as an important lesson for all of us and it teaches us not to give up when we suffer a setback. Despite suffering failure, ridicule and endless financial difficulties, Honda believed strongly enough in himself to make his success a reality.

Soichiro Honda was born in 1906 and he grew up helping his father repair bicycles in the small town of Komyo in Japan. While Soichiro Honda was in school he started a workshop with the intention of developing a piston ring which he planned to sell on to Toyota. He spent day and night working away in his workshop believing that he could produce the perfect design. He struggled financially during this period, even selling his wife’s jewelry for capital and occasionally slept in his workshop.

When he finally completed his finished piston ring, Soichiro took his design to Toyota who told him that his work was not up to their standards. After suffering this terrible setback, Soichiro was forced to go back to school and was taunted by those around him for failing. Other engineers laughed at his design but Soichiro refused to give up despite being ridiculed by those around him. Soichiro Honda paid little attention to school work that did not relate to his business and, when verbally attacked by his teacher, Honda responded that ‘A ticket will get you a seat in a movie theater, but a diploma won’t get you a job!’.

Soichiro believe strongly in his idea and refused to give up on his dream. He struggled on for two more years before finally gaining a contract with Toyota. By this time Japan was gearing up for war and Honda found it hard to find the building materials he needed to create a factory to produce his work. Despite this potentially disastrous set back, Honda persisted and found a new way of making concrete which allowed him to finish building the factory he needed.

Sadly this was not the end of Soichiro’s troubles as the factory he had struggled so hard to build was bombed twice during the war and steel became unavailable. Whilst most people would have given up at this point, Honda persisted and found a way to get past these obstacles. He started collecting gasoline cans which had been discarded by US fighters to help regenerate his factory, objects he described as “gifts from President Truman”.

When Honda started rebuilding his factory an earthquake finally destroyed it. This setback would have spelled the end for most people but Honda carried on chasing his dream.

After the war, Honda found a way of attaching a small engine onto his bicycle and quickly found that other people were interested in his strange new idea. Sadly the materials Honda needed were not available to supply the demand for his new creation. Rather than give up, Honda dug deep and sought out a way to get the finance he needed to continue with his project. He wrote an inspiring letter to 18,000 bicycle shop owners which asked them to help him revitalize Japan through innovation. A huge number of the shop owners he wrote to responded by giving Honda what little money they could to help him. Soichiro battled away with several redesigns before finally producing the ‘Super Cub’ which became an overnight success. By 1963, Honda was the top-selling brand of motorcycles in the United States.

Honda Corporation now employs more than 100,000 people in the USA and Japan and it is now second only to Toyota in Japan. Honda succeeded because of the passion and determination of one man who was committed to his ideas and making them a success. Despite suffering more failures and set backs than most of us will see in a lifetime, Honda persisted and never once allowed himself to give up on his dreams.

Is “Chalta Hai” your defining motto?

Most young people have similar goals. They want to be loved, healthy, happy, and successful. And rich! And here’s the problem

WANT to go somewhere but don’t know the way? Simple. Just punch in your destination on one of those websites that offer maps and – bingo – you will get directions on how to get there. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with your goals in life. Those websites don’t offer roadmaps to get to your goals!

Most young people have similar goals. They want to be loved, healthy, happy, and successful. And rich! And here’s the problem. As we set off on the journey towards our goals, two paths emerge ahead of us. One looks like a fast and easy road – full of short cuts. It’s the path of least resistance. And the other is a long hard road, often strewn with obstacles. And - no prizes for guessing – most of us take the easy way out!

And that becomes a habit. We look for short cuts all the time. We compromise. We don’t push ourselves to succeed; we merely set ourselves the objective of not failing. We don’t play to win. We just want to avoid losing.

And so we love tips like “If you study these three sections, you can get 35 marks”. Or ‘if you attend classes twice a week, you won’t be in the black list.” Unfortunately, this attitude pervades our life and becomes a habit. We stop striving for the greatness that we are all capable of. “Chalta Hai” becomes our defining motto. And as someone rightly said, ‘Good is the enemy of Great’.

There once lived a sculptor in a small town. He was working on a huge idol of a Goddess that he was making for the local temple, when a young man walked into his workshop. As the young man marveled at the idol, he suddenly noticed another idol, almost identical, lying on the ground. “Do you need two of these?” he asked. “No,” came the reply. “We only need one. But the first one got damaged in the finishing stages. Hence I am doing it again.”

The young man looked closely at the idol on the ground. It looked perfect. He could not see any signs of damage. “Where is the flaw?” he asked. “Look carefully,” said the sculptor, “and you will notice a scratch under the left eye.” “Wait a minute!” said the young man. “Where will this idol be installed?”

The sculptor explained that it would be on a platform fifteen feet high inside the temple. And the young man quickly retorted, “At that distance, who will know there is a scratch beneath the eye?” The sculptor smiled and said, “I will.”

Now that’s a good reminder of what excellence is all about. It comes from inside, not from outside. And it’s an attitude. One we would all do well to inculcate.

Commit to doing your best at all times. Don’t compromise, ever. Whatever you do, give off hundred percent. Aim to be the best at whatever you do. And do that not because someone else tells you to do it – but because YOU want to.

And make sure you always, always do the right thing. Don’t tell yourself it’s okay, no one will notice. Remember, someone is watching all the time. And that someone is you. Your character is defined not by how you behave when you know others are watching – but by what you do when no one is looking.

If you create an idol with a scratch and think no one will notice, you will soon find another scratch appearing in your work and then another. And you will spend a lot of time and effort hiding those scratches, covering up, hoping no one notices. And instead of becoming a master sculptor, you become a patch-up artist. And your life – instead of becoming a masterpiece – becomes just another flawed piece of work. And in either case, what makes the difference is not the skill. It’s always your attitude.

Get the sculptor’s attitude. Commit to excellence. And make your life a masterpiece.

Prakash Iyer is MD, Kimberly-Clark and Executive Coach.