I love the innovation and persistence illustrated in the story of Soichiro Honda. As a young mechanic he had a dream of developing piston rings for Toyota. He worked long hours, sometimes sleeping in his workshop. But his designs were repeatedly turned down by Toyota and ridiculed by other engineers. He pawned his wife’s jewellery for collateral to go back to school. Finally after two years he won a contract with Toyota. With materials in short supply he developed his own concrete making process and built a factory to construct pistons. The factory was bombed. Twice! Each time Honda picked up and continued. When steel became unavailable he collected the fuel tanks jettisoned by US fighter planes. The factory was finally destroyed in an earthquake.
He was always thinking of innovations. During the fuel shortages in World War II, Honda attached a small engine to his bicycle. Friends and neighbours also wanted one but he was not able to get the materials. He contacted 18 000 bicycle shop owners in Japan to collect enough capital to engineer his first motorcycle, the Honda Cub.
And he got help. With the management support of his friend Takeo Fujisawa, Honda grew the company, coming close to bankruptcy several times through taking the necessary business risks, to the multibillion dollar company that it is now.
Setbacks sometimes come as a surprise. But they shouldn’t. Anything worth doing will raise challenges. In his ‘Last Lecture’ Randy Pausch said that obstacles are not there to keep you out, they are there to test how badly you want something. How will we deal with those disheartening obstacles, pitfalls and setbacks? How can we keep going? Well, we need resilience. A dogged inclination to persist under adversity. Every time, in that moment between a stimulus and response, the resilient person says “one more time…”, gets up and tries again. Resilience includes flexibility, strength, confidence and our capacity to create. Resilience is the key differentiator between those who flounder and give up, and those who flourish under adversity. Here are four approaches you can consciously use to develop your resilience:
Control your response
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill. If you are creating anything new, you can be sure you are going to fail, perhaps often. It is your response to your failure that will determine your success. Those who succeed get up and try again, no matter how many times it takes them. Those who fail stay down and find reasons not to try again.
Manage the scope and reach of the adversity
Allow yourself to correctly gauge the extent of the problem. If the meeting did not go well, do not minimise (“OK, it was fine!”) or exaggerate (“woe is me, my whole life is a disaster”). If there is a trend, acknowledge this too. Avoid irrational and catastrophising generalisations. Failing does not reduce your chance of success if you describe what caused the failure. This is the brutal truth required to guide the choice you will make about how you will avoid the same mistake in the future. If you fail and then decide you are a failure; that limits your chance for success.
Own your situation
Make some choices. You don’t gain experience through what happens to you. You gain experience by deciding on what you will do about what has happened to you, carrying out your chosen action and reflecting on how effective it was. Decide to take ownership of where you find yourself now. Don’t blame the situation, or others. And don’t blame yourself. Just acknowledge where you are. Then decide or reconfirm where you want to get to, decide what you need to do to get there and take action.
Endure
In the darkest night, look for the dawn. When things are going badly it is quite possible to suppose that they will continue that way for ever. It is also easy to assume that your resources are at an end. These disheartening messages will lead you to give up. Those who succeed in adversity look for the change of fortune and drum up just that little bit more to continue.
“Success is 99% failure” – Soichiro Honda
[…] Resilience […]
Hi Stephen, thanks so much for this inspirational Newsletter! Just imagine if Honda went to sit on a heap, feeling sorry for himself when he had “down” times… He kept on creating and got help – good lesson!
Best wishes for a purposeful, productive and splendidly rewarding 2012!
Hi Esme – it seems that Honda grew up in a very supportive and encouraging environment. I remember feeling quite breathless the first time I read about all the setbacks he suffered. I also found it interesting that he was able to follow the ‘detour’ down the ‘motorised bicycle’ path, opening up a whole industry and a way of life, which took him to an offer way way higher than piston rings for Toyota
Thank you for your best wishes – may 2012 be a great year for you too.
Thanks again for the Perspective Stephen, always SO good to read these articles. My favorite part is the following “It is your response to your failure that will determine your success. Those who succeed get up and try again, no matter how many times it takes them. Those who fail stay down and find reasons not to try again.” Sounds logical and what we are programmed to do but sometimes our wiring is a bit faulty and needs to be re-wired 🙂
Yeah this is so true. And the wiring is sometimes deep in our unconscious. This then is the journey. There is a future, there is a past and here we are on the path. What a wild adventure it all is. Though of course adventures can drain our intent and our courage. Thank you so much for leaving your thoughts here. There is a part of resilience where we have to pick ourselves up. There is another part where, when we are ready, we can take heart from a fellow traveler of wisdom and good cheer.
By the way. I have just written the first of what I intend to be more articles on our unconscious world. All the best on your adventure. Stephen