Headwinds and Tailwinds

One of the things we learned a lot about this past winter while living on the sailboat was the impact of headwinds and tailwinds. On a boat if you head into wind, say at 20 knots (mph), it's really difficult to get anywhere. You have 20 knots of wind pushing back against you, you pound into the waves - it's really hard work for very little progress.

We experienced the same 'headwind effect' while on the tandem this past week. Pedaling uphill with a strong wind pushing against us left us gasping, having to stop because we were too tired to go any further and pushing the bike on foot. We made progress, but it was slow and painful.

Compare this to the tailwind experience, sailing with 25 knots of wind pushing you along - easy, comfortable with the elements aligned to move you along or bicycling with the wind at your back, at times you don't even have to pedal!

How often do we take advantage of or ignore the impact of headwinds and tailwinds in the rest of our lives? There are economic headwinds (recessions) and tailwinds (business booms), financial and career headwinds / tailwinds. Have you ever experienced a financial tailwind? Where everything is on a roll and the money is just rolling in? How about a career tailwind where you're the 'chosen one', in with the boss, making great progress, can do no wrong?

Recognising and taking advantage of those tailwinds is a key to maximising your progress and the speed at which goals are attained. Recognising that the winds change is also essential! As many have found, economic 'winds' change - just because the money is rolling in today doesn't mean that the wind will be blowing in the same direction tomorrow. As humans, I think we believe that just because things are one way, they will stay one way - and they don't! One of our key learnings from sailing (which we're applying in the rest of our life) is that when the wind is blowing in the direction we want to go, a tailwind, we sail - because tomorrow it might not be.

The other thing we've learned is that if we're battling a headwind, perhaps we should change direction and go someplace else! If it's going to be a battle with little to no progress, why not change direction and do something entirely different? Tough economic market, nobody's buying? Rather than bashing one's head against the wall, use the time to develop new skills, business or personal. Design a website, a new line of business, become an expert (only takes about a year to develop deep expertise in an area).

If business or the economy are absolutely rubbish, why not do some of those personal things that we always put off because we're too busy? Rent out the house and go backpacking through America, Europe or New Zealand. Those things we put off also don't have to cost a lot of money. How long have we been putting off getting fit (exploring our world by foot or bike costs nothing) or not made the time for our important relationships because we're too busy? How about that novel you've always wanted to write or starting a blog if you've got something to share? Why not take some of that time (that we ordinarily don't have) and share it with those we don't typically have a lot of time for - our children, our siblings, our aging or more distant relatives?

Rather than battling into a business headwind, why not turn it into a personal tailwind?

Who to Impress

"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." - Will Smith

This quote really makes me think about the reasons for buying stuff, do we do it because that's what we want to do or is it for some other (unconscious perhaps?) reason? If we buy stuff we don't need that we then have to use up a significant number of those precious 750,000 Hours working to pay for, is that really what we want to be doing? Then why do we do it?

Who are we impressing?

If I Were in My 20's and Knew What I Know Now...

I'd still go sailing, but I wouldn't wait until I was 46 to do it! My misconception about going sailing (and actually for most of my dreams) was that it was going to be really expensive. I thought I needed thousands and thousands to acquire my dream (the sailboat) and that I would need thousands each month so I could go sailing. I don't know specifically where those messages came from, but they stuck and I held off pursuing my dream for years.

Actually you can get set up on a boat and go sailing for about $10,000, possibly less. (And again, I use sailing as an example, but the following holds true when applied to many other dreams)

There are literally thousands of unused and unloved sailboats sitting in marinas all over the world. Every marina we've ever been to has a row of forlorn less than 30 footers sitting there which obviously haven't been touched by their owners in months, if not years. I spoke about this in an earlier post, but how many of those owners (particularly in this economy) would jump at a few thousand for a boat which they no longer have a use for and no longer wish to pay marina fees on? If the boat is structurally sound with good sails, you can get it going for very little.

Much of the expense in going sailing (and a whole lot of other things) is complexity. Our boat is more expensive because it has systems on it which increase the complexity and the cost. Engines and electronics are expensive. But you know what? You don't have to have an engine or electronics on a boat. Poof, there goes all that cost!

A sailboat has sails, that's what you are supposed to use to move the boat around. For thousands of years, sailors have moved their boats all around the world without engines and electronics. You can sail a boat onto and off of an anchor and if you have a fairly small boat, you can use a sculling oar to maneuver.

Without engines and electronics, your ongoing costs are fuel for your stove and food. Many people can quite easily earn enough for that along the way.

Larry and Lin Pardy have spent the past 20 years cruising the world on their sailboat and they have focused on making it unstoppable. For them, unstoppable is never having a system which can break down and stop the trip. They've eliminated the majority of systems that most boaters would consider essential (engines, electronics) or replaced them with non-technical solutions. They work along the way, usually by taking odd jobs and writing books / articles. They've developed skills in sailing, weather forecasting, boat repairs, navigation so that they don't need technical solutions to supplement missing skills. A book that we really enjoyed was Self-Sufficient Sailor
which discusses how to build the necessary skills and make your boat unstoppable.

My misconception kept me from even exploring my dreams for many years, I could have gone when I was in my 20's, I just didn't know it...

The Myth of the $5 Bottle of Wine

This is probably heretical or wine sacrilege, but I'd like to tackle the myth surrounding the $5 bottle of wine - the one that says you cannot get a decent bottle of wine for $5. Wine drinkers tend to spend a great deal more than $5 for a bottle of wine and if you like a bottle or half a bottle with your dinner, it adds up. It can add up to the extent that it slows down your progress towards your dream lifestyle.

Now I am NOT going to advocate that you should give up your wine, heaven forbid! Steve and I are big wine drinkers and have no interest in giving up steak and red wine, pizza and red wine, chicken in cream sauce with white wine - you get the picture.

I do want to share a discovery we made when provisioning our boat for this trip. Since we were stocking up for being away from supermarkets (and wine stores) for months at a time, I had to lay in a full stock of wine for the period, half a bottle of wine a day for 3 months or 45 bottles. When you're looking at 45 bottles of wine at $8, $12, $15 a bottle, the cost adds up. Given what we had just spent readying the boat and on the rest of the provisions, my spending threshold was nearing and I didn't want to spend a fortune on wine.

So I went to a wine superstore in Tampa and bought every interesting looking bottle of wine in the $5 range, 45 bottles at $5 each, and crossed my fingers hoping that they would be drinkable. It was a high risk strategy for someone who is a California, Italy, and Chilean wine snob and who has decided preferences about boldness, sweetness and thinness of wines. We drink a lot of wine and have a pretty clear understanding of what's good and what's not.

This strategy was somewhat influenced by a dinner we had in Orlando last year where the head of one of the software companies took us out to dinner. This guy really enjoyed his wine and ordered close to $1000 worth over the course of the meal. Now we had never had a $200 bottle of wine before and the wine was lovely.

In talking it over after we got home though, we assessed whether (to us) there was $190 difference in taste between the $200 bottle and the $10 bottle we were typically getting at the time. Did it taste $190 better? It was better, but not $190 better. So (for us) the increase in price for the bottle of wine did not deliver the comparable increase in taste.

If you compared a $200 bottle of wine side by side with a $5 or $10 bottle of wine, the chances are very good that the $200 bottle of wine would taste better - but who does that?! We typically have wine with a nice meal, we don't have a wine tasting. If the wine goes well with the food, it's usually very nice.

(Btw, if you get a bottle of wine which is a little sharp, a little sour for your taste - serve it with pickles or something with vinegar in it. Sweetens it right up and a so-so wine turns into something really nice!)

My sister told me of a recent 'Blind Wine Tasting Party' where everyone brought a bottle of wine under $10 and over $20. One of the cheapest wines came in second place. We're going to have our own to test this and see what the results are.

Anyway, back to the $5 wine adventure. 45 bottles of wine at $5 each. Guess how many bad ones we've had? Not a one. (To be fair, there was one that was a bit thin, but that is a taste preference of ours rather than something wrong with the wine.)