At the start of this week people were celebrating Christopher Columbus Day, and I would like to go on record by declaring him the world's most successful failure! I’ve told everyone from the people I work with to my friends, parents and even people I’ve coached (especially the people I’ve coached); and they all look at me like, what on earth are you talking about?!
Now this subject does not spring out of thin air. It normally follows a conversation with people talking about how they are struggling with the direction their life is going in, or don’t know where they are heading at work.
At this point I bring Chris into the conversation (I talk about him so much I’m on first name with the relic) with something like “do you think that Columbus was a failure?” and get that strange look back and a response which is normally like “no Eamon, what are you talking about!”
This is where I normally ask my second question “do you know why the West Indies is called the West Indies?”. Now they really do think I’m off my rocker, but nine times out of ten people don’t have a clue.
Cue: “My Christopher Columbus failure story”
Old Chris first set off in 1492 to find a western passage to India. Everyone at the time was travelling via the silk road and he thought “hang-on if I sail west I should get to India, who wants to go by horse when I can sail!” Little did he know that America was in the way. Little too did he know that it had already been discovered by the Vikings or even the Welsh depending on who you talk to… but that is another story.
He therefore he said “ciao” to Spain (he was Italian by the way) and set sail for India; not the “new world” but INDIA.
By 1504, four expeditions under his belt he had failed his mission, getting nowhere near India and failed to find this magical trade route.
But wow has he left is mark on the world. How many other people have had days and universities named after them, or have discovered new countries and trade routes? The country Colombia was even named after him although he never made it there! His name will be remembered forever!
Chris is my man. He had a plan, he went for something and failed at it. But in failing he achieved something entirely different.
The moral of the story is that he had a destination. And this is what I say to people I talk to who don’t know where they are heading in life. “Don’t think about failing, choose a destination and go for it”. Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, if you're moving in a direction you will get closer to where you want to be, and may discover something on the way which is even better.