“There is nothing that can’t be done. If you can’t make something, it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough.” – Sakichi Toyoda.
You have seen the meaning of excellence, and it is now time to focus your mind on working towards it. It is a negative attitude when students who are not performing well in a particular subject console themselves by pointing to other failing students. They fail to look at those ahead who are doing excellently well. There’s a quick real-life story to explain further.
Sakichi Toyoda was a Japanese inventor, industrialist, and the founder of Toyota Industries Company Ltd. His father was a carpenter and farmer, and Sakichi was an apprentice of his father. From the age of 14 or 15, Sakichi began to think about ways in which he could be helpful to the people around him and serve his country. When Sakichi was twenty years old, he decided to leave his village and travel to Tokyo. There he saw modern factories that made use of the latest machinery. He became so fascinated with new technology that he developed a passion for machinery and engines.
After he had returned to his village, he started studying familiar objects in his immediate environment. He devoted himself to improving the hand loom, which looked cumbersome and was not easy to use. Many years later, he encountered challenges in his development of the textile looming machine design. Kiichiro Toyoda, the son of Sakichi Toyoda, said they could steal their machine designs but not their excellent attitude of continuous improvement.
Sakichi’s attitude towards excellence was seen in his moving from the village. It appeared the rural people were not improving themselves as much as the people of Tokyo, which was the centre of constant improvement as seen in their latest machines. You can learn something from this action of Sakichi. From time to time, you will need to expose your mind to an environment or friends where you can find tireless continuous improvement to getting better.
After exposing his mind to the latest machines of his time, Sakichi went back to his village and started spending his time on improving the textile looming machines one step at a time. So also exposing your mind to excellence is to the end that you are always spending time on things that help you improve your academics and life in general.
From when Sakichi started constantly improving on the textile looming machine to our present-day Toyota cars everywhere, we can conveniently say working towards excellence is worth it.
I look forward to hearing from you in the comments section to know what you learned from this article. You can also be free to ask any question for clarity on working towards excellence in your academics, career and life in general.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Adimah is an entrepreneur and the Project Manager of B2SL INITIATIVE, where he manages the vision. He is a great believer that a prosperous Nigeria is a product of successful Nigerians. You can reach him via email at charles@b2sl.org.
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Before you can be excellent you have to dream big and work towards your dream
Sakichi’s action taught me that one needs to move from ones environment to improve oneself in other to attain excellence
And also, moving with goals-like is very essential in working towards excellence
Sakichi applied this saying that goes thus; “you never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone, change begins at the end of your comfort zone”
Waw what a touching article, don’t give up in everything you are doing, in other to succeed in life, working toward excellence is an improvement and achievement.
In this blog I learnt that,Before someone can be excellent he or she must have to dream big and work towards her dreams to archive goals
Working towards success brings about development in one’s life. If one doesn’t observe a developmental change, the person isn’t working towards success.
Excellence is a thing every one knows
But working towards it is the intriguing part
I learnt that before a person can become excellent he or she must move around with people that have attained academic excellence. With such exposure with individuals that have attained excellence, you will then start working overtime just like they did to achieve excellence.
Before you can be excellent you have to dream high and work toward your dream
Point of worthy note is that one needs to be exposed to the environment and friends where one will find tireless continuous improvement to getting better. The secret to Sakichi’s success was that he was able to identify the need for a change in the developmental status of his family and of the society at large, Sakichi’s Excellent attitude to working tirelessly earned him the credits… It all boils down to the fact that he exposed his mind to the environment where he was wowed and full of passion to working tirelessly in the continuous development of his ability, and that he had the belief and confidence that it will surely pay off.
Our environment shouldn’t be an excuse for failure, Sakichi’s immediate environment was not develop at that time but he still strives and work harder to achieve the best and truly it pays to work hard, as every other companies can get their machine designs but not their excellent attitude.