Motivational Stories Vol. 6

                                        ACCEPTING CHALLENGES - SOICHIRO HONDA

One irrefutable tool of greatness is accepting challenges. Yes! You are bound to be facing and at the same time accepting some challenges as you journey to your greatness. Friends! If you are not where you belong, then God is preparing you to get there. You are either in the place of preparation or in the place of destination. This is because; your dream reminds you that anything you are going through is preparing you to keep the greatness God is bringing you into.

Oh! There is a great motivational story about the founder and president of Honda Corporation. Soichiro Honda was born in Yamahigashi on November 17 1906. His father, Gihei Honda, was a local blacksmith. His mother, Mika, was a weaver. The family was not wealthy, but Gihei Honda instilled into his children the ethic of hard work, and a love of mechanical things. Honda spent his early childhood helping his father, a blacksmith, with his bicycle repair business. Soichiro soon learned how to whet the blades of farm machinery, and how to make his own toys. At school he got the nickname 'black nose weasel', which is less derogatory in Japanese than it sounds in English, because his face was always dirty from helping his father in the forge. Therefore, Honda's subsequent spirit of adventure and determination to explore the development of new technology had its roots in his childhood.

SOLD ALL FOR HIS IDEA

In 1938, while still in school, Soichiro Honda took everything he owned and invested it in a little workshop where he started to develop his idea of a piston ring. He wanted to sell his idea to Toyota Corporation, but was turned down by Toyota. He had to go back to school for two years as a result of his failure. With sheer persistence, after the two years Toyota gave him the contract. As the Japanese government was preparing for war, he was not given the concrete needed to build his factory. Because of this he created his own form of concrete and managed to construct his factory. Unfortunately, his factory was burned down twice and a major portion of it was destroyed. Then, a major earthquake destroyed his factory and he finally decided to sell off his piston ring factory to Toyota. After this, he tried a few other business ventures but did not have any success.

In 1947, after the war, there was a gasoline shortage in Japan. He could not use his car, so he thought of an idea to attach a small motor to his bicycle. His neighbours were impressed with his motorized bicycle, and asked him to make one for them. He finally ran out of motors, and decided to start a factory to build his own motors. In order to raise funds for his factory, he wrote to 18,000 bicycle owners and received 5,000 replies to provide him with the necessary capital. When the motorized bicycles were manufactured, the sales were not as expected because the motorized bicycles were too big and bulky. Later, he came up with the idea to improve the motorized bicycle, and finally introduced to the world the “Honda Cub”. Today, Honda Corporation employs over 100,000 people in the USA and Japan, and is one of the world's largest automobile companies. Honda succeeded because one man made a truly committed decision, acted upon it, and made adjustments on a continuous basis. Failure was simply not considered a possibility.

Oh, Honda was a man who had a burning desire to succeed. He took action and hang on to his purpose although he met with many obstacles. His main goal of becoming successful in the piston ring business was not fully realized since he had to sell it to Toyota. But after the setback and challenges, he stumbled upon something better - the Motorized bicycle. There is one great truth you most capture from this month's motivational stories, every great achievement began with an IDEA! Yes! Honda was made by his idea.

Yes! It is practically up to you! Do not forget! Your future is not a function of your current circumstances! See you at the pick of your destiny. Your case will not be different and your story is next in line in my BOOK - THEY HAVE GRACED THE PAGES OF HISTORY.

Thank you for taking out time to read through this month's Motivational Stories. Your life is just about to begin. So see you next month.



                  Nick Imoru
                  Director
                  Esteem Motivation, Inc.