Do you ever find that your level of self confidence tends to go up and down like
stock market? Or perhaps it even goes up and down along with stock market! Here is a story about a Japanese businessman that might give you a new perspective.I recently heard from a friend, about a Japanese business man that has created a highly successful business with hundreds of stores throughout country. At first I thought my friend was going to be telling me about "how to" of business success, but instead story took quite a different path than I was expecting. What follows is my version of an inspiring story.
The man in my story had actually failed at numerous businesses over years. He started out with a large and successful family business, but he ran that business into ground and eventually went bankrupt. After his bankruptcy he said, "Even though my business had failed, I did not feel like I had failed. I still had confidence in myself. I still knew that I could do something good. I didn't try to figure out all details of what I had done right or wrong, I didn't try to understand whether I was a good business man or a bad business man. I just continued to believe in myself, and vision that I had."
After his bankruptcy he searched around and managed to borrow some money for a new business. In a reasonably short amount of time he ran this business into bankruptcy as well. Afterwards he said, "Even more so now, I still had confidence in myself. I had seen some flashes of brilliance, and I knew that I could do something good. Once again, I didn't try to figure out right or wrong, good or bad, I only concentrated on how I could borrow more money and start all over again."
So, he manages to borrow some more money, and starts another business, and of course this business also goes bankrupt, or I wouldn't be telling this story! After his third bankruptcy he said "I knew I was getting closer to getting it right." What a fantastic spirit this guy has! He has huge confidence in face of big time short term failure.
Back out on streets he went, and this time he only managed to borrow a rather small sum of money. Not being able to start a "real" business with such a limited amount of cash, he rented a small Japanese pick-up truck. (The small ones are REALLY small. Sort of like a bonsai version of an American pick-up truck). With little money to spend he shopped around in various wholesale markets and wound up deciding to only buy things that he could sell cheaply with no seeming connection to various products, except that they were inexpensive and of reasonable quality. He loaded his goods into back of his tiny pick-up truck and parked illegally on a busy street where he hawked his wares to passersby, and launch of a new retail phenomena had begun. Over time he parleyed success he had with his one tiny truck, into a chain of highly successful stores.
