Real Key To Success.....Which One?

Nowadays, success principles are available everywhere; through books, seminar, videos, audios...etc.
Often times, We've heard many different principles or keys to success.
And sometimes, it was antogonistic to each other.
Sometimes I heard....

• "The Key to Success is to be Persistent." vs. "The Key to Success is to be Flexible."
• "The Key to Success is to be Focus." vs. "The Key to Success is to Diversify."
• "The Key to Success is Relationship." vs. "The Key to Success is Result."
• "The Key to Success is System." vs. "The Key to Success is People."
• "The Key to Success is To Do What You Like." vs. "The Key to Success is To Do What Is Right."

At the end of the day, we've collected more keys than the locksmith but we still can't unlock our potential & dreams! Because subconsciously, we are confused! How come there are more key combinations to unlock success than the key combinations to unlock DaVinci Code?
Up to a point in life, we will say, "Enough is Enough. I'm going to create my own key. I'm going to use my own talents. I'm going to use my own personalities. I'm going to chart my own dreams. I'm going to associate with the right crowd. I'm going to navigate through....on my OWN!"

That is where ..... another key to success is being created in the world!

In summary, there are no right set of keys to success.
Only our own keys to success.....that is based on our own creation, our own background, our own stories & our own journey of success.

Let me give you the "The Key of the Keys To Success then......"
"The main key to success is not to loan keys of success from others but to create our own keys to success. That's the key!"

Let's go make em...

An Old Man with a Young Heart

This morning, I had a light breakfast in KL with an elderly man in his early 70s. We were in a typical kopitiam, not those fancy-franchising ambience but those with plastic chairs and dirty, oily table where it was hot and noisy! Once a while, I do miss those kind of kopitiam.

It was drizzling and later on, raining cats & dog for around 20 minutes.
While sitting there & having a sip of the original "kopi" without any caramel, I enjoy listening to the story of how this 70 year old ride on his roller-coaster of life.

He had a hard time in the 80s and went through bankcruptcy. Adding to his pain, his elder brother doesn't want to share the responsibility of taking care of their parents during his hardest time. And he has 6 children! Rather than dwelling on the problem, he sucked it up and explore other business venture while his existing business has rotten with many bad debts. Without much analysis, just based on some common sense, he just did it.
Eventually he managed to moved on and create a "little wealth" for himself and the business grew until he managed to earn around few hundred Ringgit a day. Remember, that was in the 80s. Earning few hundred a day was really an achievement.

Did I mentioned his elder brother was doing great financially? The greed of money can sometimes blindfold a person's consciousness and destroy a person's sense of goodness.

Long story short; a simple man with a strong commitment and perseverance, always win the race of life eventually.

I do hope this man is blessed with happiness and abundance of life (which I think he has) after going through such a tough time. Until today, he is still productively working and keeping his "old" employees who were loyal to him for years and I truly think that he deserve a great life ahead.

Not to mention being a millionaire or a tycoon, but I think his life is pretty enriching and it serve as a great lesson and example for Gen Y & Gen Z to follow.

Sometimes, we don't have to look far for heroes, just those around us might be an unknown hero or hero-in-the-making. Not only the Trump, the Buffett, the Branson are great, but this 70 year old man is a great example too.

Mr. Honda

Most of us drove or sit in a Honda car before, but do you know that Mr. Honda is one of the most persistent man ever.

In 1938, Mr. Honda had a little workshop and he developed a special piston ring concept and thought of selling it to Toyota Corporation. He is so passionate and dedicated in his work until he slept in his own workshop and pawned his wife's jewelleries to continue in his business research!

Finally, he completed the piston ring technology and presented it to Toyota. You know what.....he got rejected! It was due to the reason that certain standards were not met.

Then Mr. Honda continued to study for another 2 years to deepen his knowledge. After another 2 years, he eventually got a contract with Toyota.

We would thought Mr. Honda lived happily ever after.......

But at that time, Japanese government was gearing up for war and it was really hard to get concrete to build factory. Did Mr. Honda quit? No, he created his own concrete, then built his factory & get the job done!
What a true winner!

But....another bad episode happened!
During the war, the factory was bombed twice, destroying major portion of the factory.
Mr. Honda didn't dwell on it. Together with his team, he picked up gas cans that the US fighter had discarded and positively said, "This is a gift from President Truman!" Now he used that as the raw materials for the manufacturing process.
Talking about innovation, creativity & persistency, we can't beat Mr. Honda....!

What we didn't know was after the war, it followed by an earthquake!!
Most of us would have quit but not Mr. Honda.
Challenges after challenges, he persisted until he secured a long deal with Toyota.

But after the war, there was petrol shortage. Therefore, Mr. Honda couldn't drive his car to even buy food as he used to. Instead of putting himself in the corner facing dilemma, he thought of ways to go above it or under it or around it.....and finally he had a breakthrough!
He attached a motor to his bicycle to get around......
The neighbours saw it, like it and of course asked Mr. Honda to install it to their bicycles as well and they called it "MOTOR RIDE". The so-called "business" was so good until it ran out of motors!

Guess what? Mr. Honda set up a small factory producing motors. But, he has no capital....
Therefore, he appealed to almost 18,000 bicycle shops for his great invention and finally got 5000 of them to pay an upfront capital to fund his factory. Then he found out another problem.....the motor was too big & bulky!
He re-designed and created a scaled-down version of it and called it the Super Cub, exported it to baby boomers in US and ....... THE REST IS .....HISTORY....!!!

Anyone felt tired reading it? Not to mention the person experiencing it and solving endless problems & challenges that got in the way.

Now, when you see a Honda on the road......what do you really see? A CAR or a DREAM?