[I found the text to a Toastmaster’s talk I gave at the end of the last century which won the local contest and sent me to the regionals. It still has relevance.]
Your Creative Adventure: Sailing into the New Wind
with John G. Young, M.D.
Invitation
Sail with me
Into the new wind.
Approach its source and
Put your now board down
Resisting that push
That would send you leeward,
Letting time carry
You into the past.
Hold fast;
Trim in your sheets,
And give shape to your sail,
And from those unseen forces
That prevail against you.
Gather strength,
And beat upwínd.
Come sail with me.
INTRODUCTION
How many of you sail or have sailed?
I grew up in Squantum, Massachusetts, a small peninsula on Quincy Bay. My father’s favorite sport was sailing. We would spend weekends going sailing.
l remember walking the marshes with oars, oar locks, rudder, tiller, and the large sail bag which we carried to the inlet where our small sailboat was moored. We would row out to the sailboat, rig it and spend hours on the water, till we had to return to shore before the tide went completely out and became mudflats, and we could not get back in.
WHAT I LEARNED
I learned from my father that in sailing there are three general orientations of the boat to the wind.
When you go “downwind” or “before the wind,” the wind is behind you, coming in over your stern. You probably have seen those beautiful multicolored spinnakers out in front of the sailboat. They increase the exposure to the wind and help you go downwind, but they get in the way when you try to go back upwind.
The fastest course is the “broad reach.” The wind blows perpendicular to the side of the boat. . Often part of the boat tips out of the water and the other side goes under the water, because of the pressure of the wind on the sail. You have to hike out or lean outward to balance the boat.
However, the most important orientation is sailing “close hauled.” We call it “beating into the wind.” You cannot go directly into the wind, because that would cause the sail to luff, that is, flap uselessly like a flag, with the wind blowing on both sides. So you must sail at a 45 degree angle to the wind, and then come about and sail a 45 degree angle on the other side to get to your goal. This zigzag path, also called “tacking” is one you often have to take to go into any new territory.
RACING KNOWLEDGE
When I was eight years old, I first learned to race a little eight foot sabot sailboat at the Mason’s Point YMCA Day Camp not 300 yards from my home. I soon learned more about the three points of sailing and about life.
When you want to go downwind, you need to expose the largest sail area to the wind by putting the sail far out perpendicular to the wind. Lift up the center board to decrease the resistance from the water. Make sure no one is directly behind you to take your wind away and eventually pass you.
What did I learn about sailing before the wind in life? Be aware of who is directly behind you. Are they stealing your wind? ln life obtaining clear air suggests that you define what is unique about you. What do you have to offer that no one else can offer? Once you define that, open your sails to get the most push the wind can offer.
On the broad reaches it is important to hold the boat down by hiking out because if you let it tip too much, the sail would not get as much wind. Moreover, because of the fluid dynamics of the water against the hull, the tipped boat moves through the water more slowly.
On a broad reach the boat is always going into new wind, thus the boat can paradoxically go faster than the speed of the wind itself. Sometime the sailboat goes so fast, it rises out of the water, and the boat planes across the surface of the water.
What did I learn about sailing on a broad reach in life? Keep your balance in your life. When you do, you may rise to a new plane of effectiveness.
But most importantly I learned the value of recognizing the changing wind conditions and sailing into the new wind. It is said that no one likes a change except a wet baby, but sailboat racers love wind changes if they know how to exploit them.
When you can identify the new wind, you can sail the shortest route to your goal. Moreover, in sailboat racing, the stronger wind blows you there fastest, So too when we can respond creatively to change, especially great change, we move successfully into the future. Mastering great adversary is often the key to victory. Adversity, like heavy exercise, strengthens us. When we meet it with courage, we become winners in the course of life.
If the wind change is favorable you get lifted towards the mark. If you get headed, that is, blown away from the mark, you come about and sail a more favorable course to your goal.
At that day camp I would work my way up the wind to the mark and usually get into the lead by noticing the changes in the color of the water. The new, brisker wind would make dark patches on top of the normal swell of the water. Moreover, if you got to the new wind first you would gain the lead. It would be very difficult for the other boats to pass on the downwind marks to the finish.
At the end of the season, I won a large trophy for winning the most races. Soon l was asked to teach other children and got my first job there as a sailing instructor at the age of 13.
So remember, first, find your uniqueness to get clear course to your goal, second, keep your balance and rise to a new plane of effectiveness and finally, identify changing conditions and exploit them so you move into the new wind to your goal.
In life, it is important to identify the winds of change, to face up to the challenges they present you and respond to them quickly and sail into the new wind. So trim in your sheets, give shape to your sail, and from those unseen forces that prevail against you, gather strength and beat upwind.
SAILING INTO THE NEW WIND
PART TWO
What is your most memorable summer? One of mine was the summer of ’59 between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I want to tell you about that time, and make a few points that I think will apply to your life too.
I had been on the swimming and tennis teams, which helped me get a job at Mason’s Island Yacht Club in Mystic CN. teaching swimming and tennis. The job was conditioned upon my obtaining the Water Safety Instructors Certificate before the summer season started. l completed the course in June and went to work the next week.
On the Fourth of July, there was a big party at the yacht club. We had many new guests who were picnicking on the lawn, while others swam off the beach. I noticed this very attractive girl in her late teens. Her hair was as black as her one-piece bathing suit. She had a knock-out figure. I wondered how I would get to know her.
At this club, parents were responsible for their children, as they hired no lifeguard. I had left the lawn to get some lunch when this same young woman in the black swimsuit came to my door very agitated, asking me to come quickly. I soon saw a group of people crowded around a motionless little girl of two and a half years. Someone was trying to perform back pressure–arm lift resuscitation when l arrived. It was not working. Her face was blue. I took over and started the new mouth to mouth resuscitation that l had just learned at Water Safety Instructor’s School.
When I blew in her mouth, salty foam from her nose went into my ear. I then got concerned that maybe her tongue was blocking the air passage, so I put my thumb in her mouth to bring her tongue forward. I blew into her for several minutes. I did not do closed chest heart message–because it had not been invented then.
Suddenly I felt this awful pain in my thumb. Her jaw had closed as she came to. What a relief, a sign of life! She gradually started to breathe on her own, and her normal color returned. About this time the local family doctor came, checked her over, and gave her an injection. He said to me, “When l came, I thought she would have been dead by now,”
Well, I was a hero. And heroes get the girl–at least for a week or two. The woman in the black swimsuit came up to me, and we started talking. Her name was Janice. I did not realize she was right beside me through the whole experience.
She eventually said she had a sailboat and suggested we go sailing later that week after I got off work. Shortly thereafter, we went out in her Jet 14 sailboat onto Fisher‘s Island Sound, a body of water off the yacht club between Connecticut and Fisher`s Island, N. YA, she in her swimsuit and I in mine.
A Jet 14 is a small sloop a tiny cockpit. You sit on the deck as you sail. We sailed several hours, talked and got to know each other better. We sailed across the sound as the sun set and the stars came out. It was beautiful and romantic.
We had gone out on an in-coming tide from Mason’s Island on a broad reach. l knew if I turned around, I could sail back to where we had come from on a broad reach. We went several miles out into the sound.
In the meantime the wind freshened, so we had to hike out together to keep the boat from turning over. As we sat together on the deck, I put my arm around her. Then I decided to hold her with both arms and steer the boat with my foot on the tiller. I had the sheet, that rope tied to the sail, fastened in a jam cleat. So there I was, on a broad reach, in both senses of the word, kissing her, as we sailed along. I closed my eyes as we kissed, and listened for the sound of luffng, which happens when the wind flaps on both sides of the sails, to know if l had sailed off course. We went that way for quite a while. It was heaven.
Suddenly things changed. My foot had slipped off the tiller and the boat immediately headed into the wind and then came about. We scrambled to get to the other side. The boat went around again quite rapidly before I got control of what was going on.
After I got control, I realized we needed to head home. It had gotten quite dark by then. Land was several miles off, and it was difficult to tell whether the lights were coming from the Connecticut shoreline or Fisher’s Island. We had spun around so much it was difficult to get your bearings. Since both of us were new to the area, the pattern of the lights was quite unfamiliar. But I knew that we had sailed out on a port tack, we would have to sail back on the starboard one.
Yet, as we got closer to land, I still could not recognize any familiar landmarks. My vision had been going and soon I would start wearing glasses. I had to rely on Janice’s sight to make out the landmarks as we proceeded to shore.
I soon realized we were lost. So, we decided to try to land the boat and call back to the yacht club. But the passageway in was filled with a minefield of large boulders much like Purgatory Cove in the movie “On Golden Pond” where Henry Fonda, as Norman Thayre and his future grandson went looking for the big fish, Walter. Like Norman with his grandson, I asked Janice to go on the deck and look for rocks as I steered, tacking into the wind, dodging the masses as they appeared out of the darkness. I had to keep the speed of the boat slow and under control by spilling wind off the edge of the sails, but keep the moment to retain steerage. It was a tense time.
We eventually made it to land. Those on shore told us the current had taken us to the other side of Mason’s Island to a cove I had never seen before. Knowing we were on the west side of the island, we sailed back out through the rocks and around the island to the yacht club.
Those two experiences that week had a profound impact on me. Saving the little girl’s life and shortly thereafter nearly losing mine, all in less than a week.
l learned several things that week. One was “learn the new technology or you are dead.” This applies in business as well as on the beach. How many of you know mouth to mouth resuscitation? How many of you know closed chest message? How many of you have used it?
When I was at medical school, when the heart stopped, physicians opened the chest and squeezed the heart directly. Now school children save lives pressing on the sternum. What is the new technology that will save your business? Learn it. You can’t live in the past, letting time carry you leeward.
I also learned you need to keep your eyes open. You need keep your hand on the tiller. And you need to be aware of undercurrents. Then you, and your business, won’t end up in Purgatory Cove.
SAILING INTO THE NEW WIND, PART 3
NATALIE
As part of my job at the yacht club, I had been asked to teach a junior and senior life saving class. Although many students signed up for the junior life saving class, no one had signed up for the senior one. Since rescuing the little girl, I felt this strong compulsion to teach mouth to mouth resuscitation and to get the senior class going. I had this feeling I had to teach this course.
So after making quite an effort to recruit students, and meeting after my scheduled work hours, I got my senior life saving class going. In the meantime, a talent show was scheduled at the club and the whole island attended. I interrupted the middle of the show to give a brief demonstration about the new mouth to mouth resuscitation technique. I felt this compulsion to teach the new method.
The rest of the summer went rather smoothly. The students successfully completed their respective lifesaving classes. Janice went back to Hartford CN after her two-week vacation, and we drifted apart.
One day, one of my students, a pretty young woman in a red swimsuit with brunette hair came to my yacht club door. Her name was Natalie. She was soaking wet. She had recently graduated from my senior life saving class. She excitedly told me the story of how she got wet.
Natalie had been sunbathing in her backyard, when a neighbor came over and called for help. Her four-year-old son was motionless at the bottom of the pool. Natalie dove to the bottom and brought the child to the surface as I had taught her. She then proceeded to do mouth to mouth resuscitation, and the boy came around.
Then l realized what the compulsion to teach was all about. It seemed as though it was ordained, and I had to respond. I believe there is a spirit in life in which we are all connected.
I feel the same compulsion to teach now. It is the reason I created the award-winning video, “The Creative Adventure” in which I share my thoughts about creative living, learning, and loving. As the new millenium approaches we need to change the paradigm we have been using.
Come sail with me into the new wind. As we approach the twenty-first century, we need to recognize the winds will be constantly changing, We need to learn new ways of approaching our lives. We have to know which way our boat is headed, We need to keep up with new methods. But most of all we have to learn to use creative and innovative approaches. We need to live our lives as a creative adventure.
Which way are you going? The “I way” to the past, to the present or to the future? The Industrial Age of the Past relied on a stable system in which specialization and expert knowledge was important. Leaders in the past knew what others needed to do. They managed systems in which individuals served a function for the organization.
The Information Age of the Present focuses on processing various forms of data, the verbal, the visual, and the auditory. The leader acts to bring together individuals to a consensus about the problem and the possibilities for solution. They know the past is passed, and they must solve problems creatively.
The Innovation Age of the future requires each of us to become a leader of our own lives. We need to go beyond the technology of the day and invent our future. This requires us to he flexible because nothing will be the same. We need to be imaginative, even visionary. We need to improvise in an ever-changing environment. The course is unmarked, and we each must find our way. We must live the creative adventure.
“Come sail with me into the new wind and put your now board down.” When l first wrote this poem, I called it “your board of present awareness.” Only when you are presently aware can you respond adequately to the winds of change. When I was sailing with my eyes closed kissing Janice. I was not aware that the wind had shifted or the current was bringing me down the middle of the sound, Yes, you can sail through your life with your eyes closed as I did that night, but you are likely to run into danger, even if there is no other boat out on the sound.
You “put your now board down resisting that push sending you leeward letting time carry you into the past.” In sailing, your centerboard goes deep into the water resisting the push of the wind upon your sails. When you are centered in your values, you can move upwind toward your goals, and not be thrown off course by the winds of change.
Then I was more interested in Janice and not much else, including where l was going. It could have been quite dangerous. When you are centered, you can deal with the winds of change most appropriately. Those who drift through life, on the other hand, not knowing where they are going, will themselves in the back of the fleet, last in the race of life.
So “pull in your sheets, and give shape to your sail.” In sailing, the sheets are the lines attached to the sail. By pulling them in, you change the shape of your sail. It is the shape of the sail that gives lift, just like an airplane wing gives lift helping it ascend from the ground. The wind moves faster across the side with greater curvature according to Bernoulli’s principle and lightens the pressure on the wing or the sail, giving lift. So paradoxically a plane heavier than air flies into the sky and sailboats move into the wind,
How you adjust to changing conditions matters. You have to do it with sensitivity. Too tight a pull and the sails flatten and stall. Too loose and you lose power to propel you forward. Sailors look at the flow of tell-tails, little ribbons sewn on both sides of the sail. When they are both flowing backwards smoothly, parallel to each other, the wind flows the smoothest across the sail. In life flowing smoothly is important too. When you minimize turbulence, you flow fastest towards you goal. You are “in flow.”
“And from those unseen forces that prevail against you, gather strength and beat upwindl” The new wind is seen only by the effects on the objects moved by it, like the darkening of the waves across the water, or the direction of clouds floating across the sky. But winds are powerful forces indeed. And those who are unaware that the times are a changing will get blown behind.
When you can identify the new wind, you can sail the shortest route to your goal. Moreover, in sailboat racing, the stronger wind blows you there fastest. So too when we can respond creatively to change, especially great change, we move successfully into the future. Mastering great adversary is often the key to victory. Adversity, like heavy exercise, strengthens us. When we meet it with courage, we become winners in the course of life.
In summary, you have to know how to orient your boat to the wind and seek the new wind. You have to keep up to date with the technology of the day and keep your eyes open. And finally you have to identify the winds of change, to face up to the challenges they present you, and respond to them quickly and sail into the new wind. So trim in your sheets, give shape to your sail, and from those unseen forces that prevail against you, gather strength and beat upwind.
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