Thursday, May 13, 2010

Honda, The Extraordinare.

Watching this ad kind of rekindled the passionate belief that when we dream big, they come true even when we pass on. They happen because of others who got rubbed off from the same effect. Like from Soichiro Honda to European communications director, Ian Armstrong. Obviously dreams know no colours, nationalities and genes.

In case if you're stereotyping me, that I'm a sucker for W+K ads, I'm not. Okay, maybe a little. But this is something I can personally vouch for because nothing in the ad has been over expressed to gain votes that it does not deserve. It speaks about Honda's journey from rags to riches and obviously, the closer you are in reaching your dream, the more tumultuous you'd expect your expedition to become and the lonelier it may sometime seem. But if you would just hang on and survive the gorge, you'd find yourself soaring through eventually :) While it may sound like any plain old fairy tale journey with a happy ending that is already so familiar to many of us, the Honda story takes a twisted turn.

There is never a 'happy ending' in a Honda story. Its legendary immortality makes Honda a philosophy and a cult and it is this very belief system that simply will not allow itself to run on a conventional profit-making business model. It isn't interested in becoming the world's biggest car manufacturer, instead it yearns to be the most admired in terms of thinking and humility. 'How can a never-ending story achieves any dream?', you ask? That's because Honda's dreams are milestones to a bigger picture, which no one, not even Soichiro himself can put a finger to. No matter how much of a genius he is, he respects the unknown and a greater being and from there stems the kind of humility that's truly becoming an urban legend in corporations these days. That's the differentiating quality between Honda and other marques. Honda was, is and always will be a non-discriminating power plant for everyone.

I'd recommend you to grab this book 'The Honda Myth: The Genius and His Wake' and take on a challenging journey of two exceptional spirits when the world was at its best, worst and ugliest. Some dreams survive. But some evaporate as quickly as it came.

One of my personal favourite quotes is by Thomas Edward Lawrence or sometimes more famously known as Lawrence of Arabia. He said 'all men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act upon it with open eyes, to make it possible'.

Yea, what good is dreaming it, if you don't actually do it?



Note: In case if you are wondering, this isn't a paid post. My employer is not Honda.

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