“Success is 99 percent failure.� Inspiring story of Soichiro Honda
Like most other countries, Japan was hit badly by the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1938, Soichiro Honda was still in school, when he started a little workshop, developing the concept of the piston ring. His plan was to sell the idea to Toyota. He labored night and day, even slept in the workshop. He was married by now, and pawned his wife's jewelry for working capital. Finally, came the day he completed his piston ring and he eagerly took a working sample to Toyota. But he was told that the rings did not meet their standards! Soichiro went back to school and suffered ridicule. Was this the end point for Honda? No!
He refused to give up. Rather than focusing on his failure, he continued working towards his goal. Then, after two more years of struggle and redesign, he won a contract with Toyota. With the contract in hand, Soichiro Honda needed to build a factory to supply Toyota, but building materials were in short supply due to war. Still he would not quit! He invented a new concrete-making process that enabled him to build the factory. With the factory now built, he was ready for production, but the factory was bombed twice and steel became unavailable, too. Was this the end of the road for Honda? No! He started collecting surplus gasoline cans discarded by US fighters. He called them "Gifts from President Truman." It became the new raw material for his rebuilt manufacturing process. Finally, an earthquake destroyed the factory. Did he felt defeated? No! After the war, an extreme gasoline shortage forced people to walk or use bicycles. A novel idea flashed in his mind. Honda attached a tiny lawn mower engine to his bicycle. He went on rides with his motorized bicycle. He found that other people were interested in his strange new idea. Sadly he didn‟t have money to produce and supply to the market need. Did he blame the situation? No! Rather than giving 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 the leading brand in two wheelers and cars. Despite suffering more failures than most of us will see in a lifetime, Honda persisted and never once allowed himself to give up on his dreams. Honda persisted and never once allowed himself to give up on his dreams. “Success is 99 percent failure” is the famous quote of Soichiro Honda. It is not considered as a preaching, but it is revered as the essence of his life story.