Power of Inspiration and Enthusiasm

Soichiro Honda

Don’t count your life in the number of breaths that you breed. Count it in the number of moments that took your breath away. How does such spectacular and rich moments come to our life? They happen by this ingredient called ‘inspiration’. Inspiration is the fuel that burns within us, that powers us to bring our best talents and abilities to bear upon the work at hand.

One schoolboy during his summer break applied to the nearby mall for a job. He was invited for the interview. But on reaching there, he discovered that he was the 21^st kid in the line, However, he was motivated to get the job. So, he scribbled a note and placed it before the receptionist. He said, “Ma’am, can you please give it to your manager sitting inside?” The manager read what the child had written and decided he is the one who deserves this job. The child had written, “Sir, I am the 21^st kid in the line. Decide nothing until you see me.” In those words, the child had expressed his enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm or inspiration is that inner ingredient that brings out the best in us. When we are equipped with this virtue of motivation, we become practically unstoppable as was Mr. Soichiro Honda, the founder of the worldwide Honda automobile empire. Mr. Honda was not born with the proverbial golden spoon in his mouth. Rather, he came from a lower middle class family. When Mr. Honda was in the engineering school, he created a new design for piston rings and suggested it to the Toyota Corporation. They placed an order with him and extended the capital for him to set up his plant. However, when his factory was constructed, an earthquake in Japan levelled it to the ground. Mr. Honda was not discouraged. He decided to remake it. But by then Japan had entered the world war-II and cement was diverted for the war endeavour. Mr. Honda’s enthusiasm made him come up with a new technique for making cement. With the help of which he remade his factory. However, by then America had also entered the world war and their bombers bombed his factory. Mr. Honda was still not discouraged. He utilised the gasoline tanks thrown by the bumble planes to reconstruct the factory once again. When the production was ready to begin, Japan lost the world war and along with it all its colonies. Fuel was now in short supply. People didn’t have the fuel to drive their cars. There was the question of Toyota purchasing his piston rings.

Mr. Honda was driving his bicycle when he had a brainwave. He added a motor to it. When he drove it around the neighbourhood and his neighbours were fascinated and requested him to do the same for them. When he did it for 16 or 20 people, he realised that he had a marketable idea there. But he didn’t have the money. So, he procured a list of 8,000 bicycle stockists of Japan and personally hand wrote notes to 5,000 of them. 1,800 extended the captain. With the help of which he made his first motorcycle called ‘The Super Cup’. With the help of which he started manufacturing his motorcycles. In his lifetime, the Honda Corporation employed a hundred thousand people worldwide and today it has gone way beyond that quality of inspiration was so vital to Mr. Soichiro Honda’s success in his work.

That is why the philosopher Henry David Thoreau said, “You may lose everything in your life but your enthusiasm and you will gain it all back again. But that person who has lost his inspiration now he is truly bankrupt.”

So, today let us think of how we can inspire ourselves and how this added fuel of enthusiasm will help us improve the quality of our work and assist us in our endeavour to be better people.