Henry Ford: An American Pioneer
Henry Ford (1863-1947) was the founder of the company Ford Motor Company. He invented the so-called "Fordism" a system that, thanks to chain production, allowed the fabrication of a large number of automobiles at a low price. The launch of the Ford Model T in the car market revolutionized the transport industry in the United States. Ford was a prolific inventor who registered nearly 200 patents. As the only owner of the Ford company, he became one of the world's richest people in his time.
Now, let's talk about some of his famous quotes here. I remind you it is important that you read very carefully the following lines and you give yourself time to think about them.
1. Those who give up are much more numerous than those who fail.
Most people, after not seeing immediate results, they give up. It's not that they fail, but they stop trying to achieve their goals. If they continued, they would get the desired result, but by giving up they just put a stop to their dreams. 90% of success consists of keeping up trying to achieve your dreams. By seeking trails, knocking doors and asking yourself questions, you end up finding the way to reach your original goals. Success is always a matter of perseverance.
2. I look for people who have the infinite capacity of not knowing what cannot be done.
Our brain's mission is not to discover the truth, but to create coherence in its beliefs. When your brain believes something is possible, it searches for alternatives to do it; when it believes something is just impossible, it looks for pretexts to reaffirm it. It's not a coincidence that Henry Ford once claimed: "You will be right if, either you think you can do it or you think you cannot do it". The brain is an excellent organ for searching for solutions when it is given a specific command or a goal to achieve. For the brain, transparency is power. This is because, in the brain, there's a system called RAS, Reticular Activation System. The brain focuses all its attention to grab the necessary information to achieve the pre-established goals. However, when you indicate to your unconsciousness that something is not possible, the brain "feels" that the issues are settled. It disconnects its search function and stops registering new information. The RAS does not attempt to solve anything else because it doesn't make sense for it. It already has the answer: there is no solution. This is the command (goal) sent to the brain.
3. Impossible means, simply, that you have not found the answer yet.
The only limits are in creativity, which actually doesn't have limits. It's a matter of investigating, testing and perseverating. Trial and error. A path brings you to another, and this one to the following one. Little by little, you progress until the entire picture clears out and you finally get the code to open the safe. The history of civilization has been a continuous pursuit of solutions to problems. In every historic phase when progress has been made, it's always thanks to human creativity. The man dominated the fire, created the wheel, invented the writing, established the mathematics, discovered the electricity, the telephone, the plane, the car and all the technological advances which make our lives easier and more satisfying. Substitute the word "impossible" for "I'm possible". When the solution to a problem hasn't been found, it means that you haven't worked enough in its resolution.
4. The superficial people believe in luck and circumstances. The strong people believe in the causes and their effects.
There are people who are waiting for a stroke of luck throughout their entire lives; a stroke of luck that would allow them to do and to be what they want. It's really strange that this would happen and, if it does happen, normally it goes away at the same speed as it came. It is something circumstantial, short-lived. Other people, on the contrary, create their luck by making things happen. There was an author called Victor Hugo who called luck as "petty" because, according to him, "its false similarity with true merit tricks people". To do (or not to do) certain things produce some results, and to do (or not to do) other things produce other results. It's the action-reaction principle, the cause-effect relationship.
5. You cannot create a reputation based on what you plan to do.
Your reputation only depends on one thing: results which you have achieved till that specific moment, from your past and from your career. The rest are just words and it's not sustainable in the long-term. No matter the titles you have hanging on your room's wall, the important thing is what you have proven with your experience. There's no better guarantee that your personal achievements to create a good personal branding and sell more.
6. Failure is just the opportunity of starting again, this way more clever.
Ed Lond, founder of polaroid claimed: "A mistake is an event whose benefits haven't been converted into an advantage yet". It's not possible to express it in a better way. You have to fail 100 hits into the horseshoe to hit once the screw. Things hardly go well at the beginning, sometimes the same happens the second and third time you try. A lot of time passes so be patient. Every experience is another piece for the puzzle of success, which you have to be able to digest and fit properly, without giving up. The art of winning is learned always from losses.
7. The obstacles are those awful things one sees when they take their eyes off the goal.
If something is easy, probably it's not worth doing. Every rose has its own spines. But most of the time, reality has to do more with how is confronted rather than how it really is. You can see obstacles as problems or as challenges. This is why it's very important that dreams are yours and not borrowed, because if so, motivation always ends up imposing over desperation. When the contrary happens, the most usual thing to do is to give up. The obstacles are like tests from the universe to check how far are you willing to fight for your dreams, to distinguish between the ones who say that they want something and the ones that really want it. While the former ones abandon, the latter ones insist.
8. Most people spend more time and energy talking about their problems rather than trying to solve them.
"Do not look for guilties, instead look for remedies", Ford insisted to his team of workers. It's one of the characteristics that differentiate the losers from the winners. The former ones look for excuses; the latter ones look for solutions. Successful people don't let anything distract them from their objectives, that's why they don't lose time talking about regrets and direct all of their attention and energy to figuring out how to create alternatives and dodge the obstacles to continue progressing.
9. Nothing is hard if you divide it into small simple tasks.
Every goal is possible if people don't demand themselves to achieve it overnight. Precisely, a very common mistake is to skip steps and phases, choosing the life of easy and fast shortcuts, willing to arrive fast to the destination. That's the sure path for frustration. Very often, the problem is that we overdemand ourselves to achieve many things in the short term, and obviously, for not being able to respond to that excess of expectations, we fall down and finally, we abandon. The philosophy of "step by step", is a recommendation that doesn't have any "glamour", but it results to be pretty effective. A great success is no other thing than the addition of multiple tiny successes.
10. A company completely committed to offering services doesn't have to worry about profits. They will be big.
Clients don't mind the products or services that we offer, but what those products or services can do for them, in other words, the solutions that these provide them. It's all about changing the focus from "how much I earn" to "how I serve". From there, there's an opportunity to make money. Focus on how to solve people's problems and how to do it right by increasing the value which is offered every day. Always put yourself in the situation of your clients and they will reward you sooner or later.
Now, let's talk about some of his famous quotes here. I remind you it is important that you read very carefully the following lines and you give yourself time to think about them.
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| Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company |
1. Those who give up are much more numerous than those who fail.
Most people, after not seeing immediate results, they give up. It's not that they fail, but they stop trying to achieve their goals. If they continued, they would get the desired result, but by giving up they just put a stop to their dreams. 90% of success consists of keeping up trying to achieve your dreams. By seeking trails, knocking doors and asking yourself questions, you end up finding the way to reach your original goals. Success is always a matter of perseverance.
2. I look for people who have the infinite capacity of not knowing what cannot be done.
Our brain's mission is not to discover the truth, but to create coherence in its beliefs. When your brain believes something is possible, it searches for alternatives to do it; when it believes something is just impossible, it looks for pretexts to reaffirm it. It's not a coincidence that Henry Ford once claimed: "You will be right if, either you think you can do it or you think you cannot do it". The brain is an excellent organ for searching for solutions when it is given a specific command or a goal to achieve. For the brain, transparency is power. This is because, in the brain, there's a system called RAS, Reticular Activation System. The brain focuses all its attention to grab the necessary information to achieve the pre-established goals. However, when you indicate to your unconsciousness that something is not possible, the brain "feels" that the issues are settled. It disconnects its search function and stops registering new information. The RAS does not attempt to solve anything else because it doesn't make sense for it. It already has the answer: there is no solution. This is the command (goal) sent to the brain.
3. Impossible means, simply, that you have not found the answer yet.
The only limits are in creativity, which actually doesn't have limits. It's a matter of investigating, testing and perseverating. Trial and error. A path brings you to another, and this one to the following one. Little by little, you progress until the entire picture clears out and you finally get the code to open the safe. The history of civilization has been a continuous pursuit of solutions to problems. In every historic phase when progress has been made, it's always thanks to human creativity. The man dominated the fire, created the wheel, invented the writing, established the mathematics, discovered the electricity, the telephone, the plane, the car and all the technological advances which make our lives easier and more satisfying. Substitute the word "impossible" for "I'm possible". When the solution to a problem hasn't been found, it means that you haven't worked enough in its resolution.
4. The superficial people believe in luck and circumstances. The strong people believe in the causes and their effects.
There are people who are waiting for a stroke of luck throughout their entire lives; a stroke of luck that would allow them to do and to be what they want. It's really strange that this would happen and, if it does happen, normally it goes away at the same speed as it came. It is something circumstantial, short-lived. Other people, on the contrary, create their luck by making things happen. There was an author called Victor Hugo who called luck as "petty" because, according to him, "its false similarity with true merit tricks people". To do (or not to do) certain things produce some results, and to do (or not to do) other things produce other results. It's the action-reaction principle, the cause-effect relationship.
5. You cannot create a reputation based on what you plan to do.
Your reputation only depends on one thing: results which you have achieved till that specific moment, from your past and from your career. The rest are just words and it's not sustainable in the long-term. No matter the titles you have hanging on your room's wall, the important thing is what you have proven with your experience. There's no better guarantee that your personal achievements to create a good personal branding and sell more.
6. Failure is just the opportunity of starting again, this way more clever.
Ed Lond, founder of polaroid claimed: "A mistake is an event whose benefits haven't been converted into an advantage yet". It's not possible to express it in a better way. You have to fail 100 hits into the horseshoe to hit once the screw. Things hardly go well at the beginning, sometimes the same happens the second and third time you try. A lot of time passes so be patient. Every experience is another piece for the puzzle of success, which you have to be able to digest and fit properly, without giving up. The art of winning is learned always from losses.
7. The obstacles are those awful things one sees when they take their eyes off the goal.
If something is easy, probably it's not worth doing. Every rose has its own spines. But most of the time, reality has to do more with how is confronted rather than how it really is. You can see obstacles as problems or as challenges. This is why it's very important that dreams are yours and not borrowed, because if so, motivation always ends up imposing over desperation. When the contrary happens, the most usual thing to do is to give up. The obstacles are like tests from the universe to check how far are you willing to fight for your dreams, to distinguish between the ones who say that they want something and the ones that really want it. While the former ones abandon, the latter ones insist.
8. Most people spend more time and energy talking about their problems rather than trying to solve them.
"Do not look for guilties, instead look for remedies", Ford insisted to his team of workers. It's one of the characteristics that differentiate the losers from the winners. The former ones look for excuses; the latter ones look for solutions. Successful people don't let anything distract them from their objectives, that's why they don't lose time talking about regrets and direct all of their attention and energy to figuring out how to create alternatives and dodge the obstacles to continue progressing.
9. Nothing is hard if you divide it into small simple tasks.
Every goal is possible if people don't demand themselves to achieve it overnight. Precisely, a very common mistake is to skip steps and phases, choosing the life of easy and fast shortcuts, willing to arrive fast to the destination. That's the sure path for frustration. Very often, the problem is that we overdemand ourselves to achieve many things in the short term, and obviously, for not being able to respond to that excess of expectations, we fall down and finally, we abandon. The philosophy of "step by step", is a recommendation that doesn't have any "glamour", but it results to be pretty effective. A great success is no other thing than the addition of multiple tiny successes.
10. A company completely committed to offering services doesn't have to worry about profits. They will be big.
Clients don't mind the products or services that we offer, but what those products or services can do for them, in other words, the solutions that these provide them. It's all about changing the focus from "how much I earn" to "how I serve". From there, there's an opportunity to make money. Focus on how to solve people's problems and how to do it right by increasing the value which is offered every day. Always put yourself in the situation of your clients and they will reward you sooner or later.