The Determination to Succeed

 
Nothing succeeds like determination.
So goes the old cliche.

It's true. The determination to succeed
is often the determining factor in your
success.

I recall reading a book by Akio Morita,
a co-founder of Sony Corporation and
later, Sony's chairman.

He was writing about Sony as it was in the
late 1940s. World War II was over and he
and his partners were building their company
on top of the rubble of war.

They wanted to get into the business of selling
recording equipment. In particular, they were
interested in tape recorders and audio tape.

They had no equipment to manufacture audio tape.

Rather than let this stop them, they hand-painted
the magnetic material on to the tape backing.

I couldn't believe it when I read this!

Imagine sitting there hunched over strips of tape
using little paint brushes to paint the magnetic
surface on to the tape. It would take days and
days!

Most people would have said, "Impossible! I give
up!"

They were determined to succeed.

As I recall, he wrote that he could not believe
it either! He could not believe that they had
actually done that.

He sat there writing about things that he could
just barely believe had actually happened.

Not everything Sony did in the early days was a
success.

I remember the book had a picture of a rice cooker
the company had developed around that time. The
caption to the picture said the rice cooker never
worked quite right.

One more story.

While in college, I had a teacher who served in the
U.S. Military immediately after World War II. He
was stationed in Japan.

At that time, the local Japanese were collecting
beer cans from the G.I.s and cutting them up and
turning them into cigarette lighters that were then
sold back to the G.I.s.

Even though the cigarette lighters, fashioned from
beer can parts, were very clever, the G.I.s viewed
these home-made gadgets as a joke.

They were a joke that worked. The lighters lit
cigarettes.

My teacher, speaking from the perspective of the
1980's, said they never thought back then that those
cigarette lighters would one day turn into television
sets and automobiles.

See what happens when you are determined? You start
with whatever circumstances you find yourself in and
you build and build and build.

Life starts where you are.

The determination to succeed pretty much guarantees
that where you start out will not be where you end
up.

Ed Abbott