The same wind blows on us all. The economic wind, the social wind, the political wind. The same wind blows on everybody. The difference in where you arrive in one year, three years, five years, the difference in arrival is not the blowing of the wind but the set of the sail. Jim Rohn.
I’m not much of sailor, well not at all, but a few years ago I had the opportunity to go sailing on the Mediterranian. We were a whole team and were allocated to several identical yachts each with a skipper that would show us the ropes. As we set out there was a slight breeze and while not ideal for sailing it did give us the chance to just sit back and relax after a long day of meetings and presentations. However, it did not take long for the different teams to start competing and soon a race had developed. I was amazed to discover how small changes to the sail would have a massive impact in speed over the other boats. I realised that while sailing looked easy in principle, it required much skill and intuition. Our skipper pointed out another boat that had moved ahead by some considerable distance and mentioned that the skipper was an Olympic champion.
The direction we headed in turned out to be an important factor as we would pick up more wind in different locations and the direction of the wind meant some boats would make better use of the wind from behind by tacking further out from the shore.
This whole experience came back to me this weekend as I read an article with Jim Rohn’s quotes and it made me realise that we all get to choose what we do with our time, who we spend it with and whether we decide to deliberately grow in our knowledge and experience. As Jim Rohn said, “It is not the blowing of the wind but the set of the sail.” It’s not what happens that determines your life future, it’s what you do about it.
Learning and growing are all about setting a better sail. We each get to set our sail and if we are deliberate in growing, the knowledge, skill and experiences we acquire will ensure we set better sails that will result in better more successful outcomes.