Jim Perkins was to be the keynote speaker at the Dallas Auto Show on January 20, but he cancelled saying he had the flu. Instead, later that day we all learned Jim was returning to GM to be the assistant manager of the Chevrolet division and the heir apparent...
While the drama in the U.S. continued around the Lexus name and the auto show unveiling of the LS400 and ES250, the Tahara plant in Japan had its share of drama as it prepared to start production by June of 1989. The Tahara plant was Toyota’s crown jewel of...
To be rich is to be content where you are and with what you have. (Jesse Deloe, writer, editor) The older and wiser we grow, the more we realize that having lots of “stuff” is not what it really means to be rich. Property and possessions can be lost in an instant....
Life is like a mirror—we get the best results when we smile at it. (Inspirational line) It’s very likely that most people start the day with a look in the mirror. It isn’t always a pleasant view, of course—sleep wrinkles, tangled up hair, bleary eyes. Like so many...
Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. (Bill Nye, science educator known as “the Science Guy”) Thinking of people as Nye suggests would open up unlimited opportunities to learn. First, it requires a certain sense of humility to realize that we don’t...
The Detroit Auto Show was opened to the press on January 11, 1989. Detroit wanted to compete with the world-class auto shows in Frankfurt, Paris, and Tokyo. In an attempt to draw European and Japanese manufacturers and global press to the show, it was renamed the...
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion. (Paulo Coehlo, Brazilian lyricist and novelist) It’s probably not true of every society, but we’ve been hearing a lot lately from some highly opinionated people. (Example: election campaign rhetoric, which,...
The moment humans value things, however intelligent, over people, they embark on the road to ruin. (Jonathan Sacks, British rabbi) What are the “things” we might value more than people? Surely not the passing, temporal stuff we play with, collect, or store away for...
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. (Dale Carnegie, 20th century American writer and lecturer) Do you remember yesterday? Perhaps it was a really difficult day, and you worried a lot about what its concerns would look like the next day. Well, today is...
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. (Thomas Carlyle, 19th century Scottish philosopher) Confession is really difficult for some people. They have a hard time admitting their mistakes. In their minds, they are never wrong. They’re like the...
While Lexus was in the beginning stages of our start-up, the rest of the world was experiencing new beginnings of a different nature. The Soviet Union was pulling out of Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden was forming Al Qaeda. The first major virus...
Change your thoughts and you change your world. (Seen on an office bulletin board) Most of us are such active people—always busy doing something or rushing here and there—that we often don’t give much time to exercising our brains like we do our bodies. Yet, physical...