It’s perhaps a little presumptive of me to offer Barack Obama some advice, but I think it’s advice her can use, so here goes. The challenges that face him as soon as he takes office next January are daunting. I was thinking of running for president myself but thought better of it when I noticed what a mess the world was in. I have two perspectives on this. First, the world is a small place. Very small. When you can sail around it, all alone, in a small boat, in just a few months you soon realise what a tiny, fragile place it is we call home. By the time the sailors participating in the Portimão Global Ocean Race get back to Portugal next summer they will have circled just about every country, culture and religion on earth. They will have their own unique view of this big blue marble.
My second point. When you start an around-the-world race it can be daunting. You look at the course that stretches out ahead of you and it seems endless. I am thinking of the Vendée Globe skippers who take off from France this Sunday. The voyage ahead of them is massive and there is only one way for them to deal with it. The same way Barack Obama needs to deal with the global problems that face all of us. Bite-size pieces. You cannot do it all at once. It’s overwhelming. Break it down into smaller pieces, just like a circumnavigator does.
A person sailing around the world does not think of the entire 30,000 mile course. No, they think of the race as five legs. Each leg is made up of various stages. Portugal to the Equator, for example. Even smaller than that. Portimão to the Canary Islands the the Canary Islands to the doldrums. My friend Skip Novak wrote a great book a few years ago about his time as skipper of Drum in the Whitbread Round the World Race. The book was entitled One Watch at a Time. That precisely is how you get around the world. One stage at a time, one day at a time, one watch at a time, one hour at a time. Before you know it you have done it. That same principal can be applied to just about anything in life, even the world’s biggest problems. Break them down into bite-size chunks and get started on the first one.
