So as I look at this motor scooter I always feel inadequate

 

Well here I am walking Kata Beach on the Island of Phuket - I'm just back having been in Australia  since March.

 

I've turned into the white, fat people that I laughed at back then; of course I've had a birthday since then and on that day the change happened right then and there; the fries, the chicken parmigiana, the pasta, pizza, the beers and the red wine have played no part.

 

It gets worse - now my back is a lurid pink after only 30 minutes and that would not be so bad except that I am podgy enough to have folds of skin which means the tanning - read burning - has been unequal and so I am mottled; I am like one of those dolls squeezed into a glass container; it's not an attractive sight! I am not looking like a warrior; aging yes, but a warrior, no.

 

As I rode to Kata Beach this morning my Harley snarled as I leaned into one curve after another up over the forested range that separates where I live from the beach; at least that's what my imagination was doing but in the real world my modest, and responsible Honda motor scooter did the same leaning but without the snarling; or the vibration!

 

My Honda is a constant rebuke.

 

Mr Honda was a pinup boy for the perseverance set; his first great idea for a revolutionary piston ring was rejected by Toyota; eventually several years later Toyota bought the idea and Mr Honda needed to build a factory to make the piston rings but in WWII Japan he could not buy concrete; he and friends and colleagues invented a new way to make concrete; and then he couldn't get the raw materials to make the piston rings and so he had his employees collect metal fuel cans that were dropped from bombers; and then an earthquake destroyed his factory and so he had to sell the business to Toyota. Phew!

 

But there's more. Because fuel was rationed Mr Honda could not drive his car to market to collect food for his family so he found a small motor, rather like a lawnmower engine, and he attached it to his push bike; he made so many of these bikes he ran out of the small engines and so he needed to build a factory to make more - but he had no money; so he wrote to 18,000 bicycle shop asking for money and 3,000 sent what they could and Mr Honda manufactured a first shipment - but the engine was too heavy and was a disaster; so he stripped the engines down to make the engine lighter and smaller - he named it the 'Cub' and it was described as an 'overnight' success.

 

So as I look at this motor scooter I always feel inadequate.

 

This story is told in the Anthony Robbins book Notes from a Friend; it's a great read if you think that a kick in the pants could get you doing more, and enjoying it more! I frequently need such a kick.

 

Toolkit

 

http://www.amazon.com/Notes-Friend-Simple-Taking-Charge/dp/068480056X/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1416797131&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=notes+from+a+friend+robbins