![]() Honda had never sat behind the wheel of a car prior to that earthquake. During the earthquake of 1923, while everyone was running for their lives, Honda drove out three cars from a burning garage, becoming a hero in the process. He viewed that experience positively and worked harder. But as he was the youngest there, his work involved only cleaning and preparing meals for others. He obtained an apprenticeship at the Art Shokai garage. At 15, without any formal education, Honda left home smiling, and headed to Tokyo to look for work. When he dropped out of school at the age of 15, he justified it by saying that “any diploma from school was worth less than a movie ticket.” This was the start of his belief system which justified every event, good or bad, as positive. His father forced him to sit in a corner for a day with no food as punishment not because he “cheated”, but because he was stupid enough to get caught by his teacher. It didn’t stop him from smiling as his teacher yelled at him. In fact, he started to make fake stamps for other classmates. Not wanting to disappoint his parents, he cut his family hieroglyphs on an old tire and “signed” his report card himself. Honda was born on to Mika, a weaver, and Gihei, a blacksmith, who also ran a bicycle repair business. Sir Winston Churchill once defined these two types: “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity whilst an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” One person that best epitomised this in business was Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motors. Same smile, yet two contrasting reactions. One treated the work as joy whilst the other as a chore, still upset at me for my smile. A week later, as I was reviewing both their work from the meeting, you could see a marked difference. He saw the smile as a sarcastic smile indicating my annoyance and anger at his lack of punctuality. The other person interpreted the same smile completely differently. ![]() ![]() She interpreted my smile meaning “the boss is so relieved to see me here” and “I am such a critical part of the team.” She believed my smile implied that I truly needed her to get the job done. I smiled at both of them as they waltzed into the meeting room. Last week, during an intense planning meeting, two of my employees walked in late. ![]()
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