How do some people manage to be so stubborn?

By 1933, a 22-year-old entrepreneur born in Taiwan had created a successful clothing business, importing socks from Japan. Six years later, he moved to the Land of the Rising Sun, and his company gained fame. During World War II, he was arrested and put in a military prison, where he was starved and tortured , but he did not despair and created a new profitable business. Then the occupying US military arrested him for tax evasion of $ 50 a month. But this did not break Momofuku Ando . At the age of 48, this entrepreneur stumbled upon the idea, which turned into a company, the value of which is estimated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange at $ 700 billion . What is his secret?

By 1933, a 22-year-old entrepreneur born in Taiwan had created a successful clothing business, importing socks from Japan. Six years later, he moved to the Land of the Rising Sun, and his company gained fame. During World War II, he expanded his business empire to include the sale of slide projectors to the Japanese government, which were used to conduct all types of military training. He also continued to develop in other industries, for example, in the extraction of charcoal and the creation of bomb shelters.
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The war for some time brought him financial gain. But suddenly in one of his companies he was faced with an accounting problem. The government gave him raw materials for the production of engine parts, but the stocks were melting - probably they were sold to the black market by one of the employees.

He went to the Japanese military police to ask for help in the investigation. But there he was arrested and put in a military prison, where he was starved and tortured. After 45 days, he was released, but hunger and torture did their job. By the time he fully recovered, Japan had lost the war. The economy lay in ruins. His factories and enterprises were destroyed. He has almost nothing left.

But he started all over again, despite the difficult times . At this time - buying real estate from people who sold it with huge discounts. It took only a few years to be at the head of a real estate empire that cost a million dollars. Impressions of hunger and lack of food, received by him in prison, inspired him to open a grocery business. He began to pay the young guys for collecting the sea water, which he evaporated, and then sold the remaining salt.

But soon the occupying American armed forces arrested him for tax evasion of $ 50 a month, which he gave to the boys. According to him, this amount was intended to them as a scholarship to study in college, and therefore, was a waste, not taxable. He filed a counterclaim, but the litigation dragged on, and this time he had to stay in prison for several years.

In the end, he was released, dropping all charges. But the government has already managed to confiscate and sell off all its property: real estate, a salt company, a coal mine, a house. He was left penniless.

So, he started from scratch. He helped create a new bank that started off well. But the company issued a huge number of unprofitable loans. And the bank had to declare bankruptcy. Investors claimed even the little that he had time to save.
Therefore, he again started anew. He was still eager to create a grocery company. Having transformed his own tool shed into an improvised laboratory, he worked on inventing a new food product for a year.

Experiments failed one by one.

But in 1958, at the age of 48, this entrepreneur stumbled upon the idea, which turned into a company as a result, the value of which is estimated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange at $ 700 billion.

Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles. His story is an inspiring tale of perseverance. And yet I know, many people, after reading this brief retelling, will say: Ando possessed such a force of will that many of us never dreamed of. Yes, he is able to inspire us a little, but we cannot even imitate his perseverance.

But the story of Ando is much deeper.

Why do guys drop out of college? For many reasons. Academic, material and even legal. And yet, it turns out, there is something much more fundamental to this.

Vincent Tinto is a professor at Syracuse University. He is widely known for his own theories about the perseverance shown by students during their higher education. His research created something known as the “Model of Institutional Departure”. He found out why young people do not succeed and leave college.

The Tinto model tells us that college is primarily a transition from one community to another. Our success in this school depends on how well we join this new team.

What happens if we go home every weekend to visit high-school pals and sweethearts, and we don’t make friends in a new environment? We are not engaged in integration. We do not get help from new friends experiencing the same thing, or advice regarding studies, from mentors. On the contrary, we seek to leave.

The Tinto model has proven its incredible value for improving our way of learning , and not only at the undergraduate level, but also at distance learning programs and even at courses for adults continuing their education. It extends much further, explaining how people show perseverance.

However, this model was not unique. Much she borrowed from the theory of suicide, created by Emile Durkheim in 1897. He found that suicide indicators depended on the group and society in which people found themselves: if they succeeded in joining their teams and communities, the level of suicide decreased.

If people are not alone, they demonstrate perseverance.

When Momofuku Ando was in a prison camp for the first time, his cellmate, whom he became friends with, was released. Ando asked him to meet with another friend of his - a lieutenant of the Japanese army - who, as a result, rescued Momofuku. If it were not for these two friends, Ando would most likely die in prison.

He then founded his real estate empire. But the idea did not belong to him. He was instructed by another comrade, Fusanosuke Kuhara, an entrepreneur who helped create what later became Hitachi . What was his advice when Japan’s economy was in ruins after the war? "Buy all the cheap real estate!"

And when it all fell apart, Ando was completely broken, but still able to establish a bank, because among his acquaintances there were still enough people willing to give their savings to create this institution.

And the discovery of instant noodles, he is obliged to the understanding of his wife, which allowed him to continue to work and move beyond the dream. The idea of ​​creating a lab in a tool shed belonged to her. And the study of her culinary art gave him an understanding of how to create instant noodles.

Ando's stubbornness did not come about because he endured everything himself. It originated thanks to the people with whom he surrounded himself.

The author of the article, Nathan Contny, says:

Looking back at all the things that I managed to achieve in my life, I can name the obstacles or situations that could make me give up everything or not at all. And then I remember people who gave me a little push or inspiration so that I would be in the best place!

Wanting to establish his first company Inkling in 2005, Contni turned to YCombinator , an investment program for early-stage firms. The problem was this: the person with whom he was going to work at the last minute refused to participate in the project. And YCombinator often requires a company to have several co-founders.

This could be a great excuse for rejecting the idea. But Nathan had many loose connections with other people, and he attempted to talk to them. Kontni thought of a friend he had not spoken with for a while, Adam Segele, who mentioned a year earlier at lunch that he was going to create a new enterprise. He could agree. And a day later he was already involved in the implementation of a business idea. Together they turned to YCombinator, passed the selection and went on.
A few years later, Kontney tried to come up with a concept for his next project and recalled lunch with another friend - Andrew Wicklander. They had lunch every 12 months or so. After chattering about how comrades miss Basecamp's Writeboard, Nathan got an incentive to fix something that later turned into a fairly successful software development project called Draft . And he became successful only because many other acquaintances and friends helped him to throw the cry.

While working on Draft, Nathan wrote an email to a friend with whom I occasionally keep in touch, and asked if he could give him some instructions on Draft? And he agreed. And it all turned into what he, Jason Fried, had already asked Kontni to take over the Highrise software development project he had started .

Nathan received considerable help from friends and people with whom he had been cultivating free connections for years. And I found that it does not require too active to make useful contacts, to curry favor, to attend clumsy-networking-activities. Kontni believes that he is one of the most uncommunicative people. If the conference passes, he sits in the last row to be able to leave it first. If we are talking about a party, then it is most likely not there, or was at the very beginning, but left before the moment you arrived.

But there is nothing difficult in getting along with people whom you saw somewhere, for example, in Highrise or on a laptop screen, or even on a catalog card. And keep these loose connections through rare e-mails, meetings over coffee or lunch. Just remember all those people from whom you did not hear for a month. What keeps you from sending them a short “how are you?”

And finally, do not be afraid to be honest with all these friends and directly ask for help . Too many of us, especially those who do business, suffer from isolation. Creating and developing enterprises, we try to hide “pre-success” from friends and people who can help us. Why? Just “before-success” is very similar to failure. Indeed, it is often very sad to seek and retain their first clients.

We are told that we need to simulate what we want, while working on its creation. Nonsense. It is hard to believe how many people talk about the well-being of their company, and three months later, it flies out of business. If they just shared their problems, someone from their environment would probably be able to help them.

On January 5, 2007 , Momofuku Ando passed away from heart failure at the age of 96. And this again gave us a chance to see how well he knew how to surround himself with people.

6,5 thousand people attended his funeral. They were at the ballpark. It was possible to get there only by invitation.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - 5 simple steps to increase the effectiveness of communication .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .