FORD WAS NO STRANGER TO FAILURE
Early in his career Ford
convinced Detroit businessman William H. Murphy to invest financially in his
idea of developing his Quadricycle. The business failed, yet a short time later Henry
somehow convinced Murphy to invest again.
History repeated itself and
that was the last time Murphy invested in Ford’s ideas. He eventually produced a
car and raised another $60,000 in share capital but soon thereafter found his
company in bankruptcy.
When Henry decided to launch
a political career it never came to fruition.
As the Ford company became
more and more successful, Henry bought a piece of land in the middle of the
Amazon the size of Connecticut to build what seemed to be a new plant, called
Fordlandia, for the production of rubber that would be used for tires. This
outlandish purchase ended up failing and became one of Ford’s biggest
failures.
Eventually Ford made this
relatively famous statement – “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin
again, this time more intelligently.”