The Best Advice You Never Learned in School: Running a Business is Like Sailing a Boat. Yes, Really.

We’ve all heard “life is like a box of chocolates,” “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” and probably some other sayings about life made up by your family that nobody else has heard of.

Well I’ve got an adage for you that actually comes from experience and makes common sense: being on a business team is like racing a sailboat.

Hear me out. And don’t worry if you have zero experience with sailboats; this applies to everyone.

One of my favorite hobbies is one-design sailboat racing where all the boats are identical, and the winning factors are totally determined by the skills of the crew on deck. Everyone is up against the same external, uncontrollable elements like changes in the wind and the current, as well as moves that your competitors make that all cause you to constantly make adjustments to your plan. So it is with running a business.

It doesn’t matter how much or how little experience you have; there are always unexpected obstacles that arise that you can’t quickly influence. Whether that’s a national disaster, a sudden shift in the economy that negatively impacts your customers, the entry of a new competitor, or the development of a new technology that renders your old way of doing things completely worthless, things are bound to happen.

Just as in sailing, how we respond to these external changes is what separates the winners from the rest of the pack. If we waste time lamenting these changes in circumstances, we are wasting our opportunity to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. 

Although we can’t control the external factors we encounter in business (or in sailing,) we can accrue experiences that will prepare us for future storms by learning from seasoned sailors, getting onto different boats and moving into uncharted waters. After all, if you’re only an expert at sailing your ship on your regular route, that means you’ll be a panicky novice when you have to captain an unfamiliar vessel going to a different destination, and encountering a thunderstorm along the way.

And in my experience, with the right attitude, those uncontrollable variables can make the race more fun as your limits are tested and you are forced to think creatively of new solutions that can differentiate you from everyone else.

From both professional and personal experience, I can attest that some of the greatest challenges you’ll ever face can turn out to be some of the best opportunities for learning, growth, and differentiation, if you allow them to be.

Go into your workplace in the morning expecting that there will be curveballs. When the challenge hits, ask yourself what you do know how to do, not what you don’t. Consider how this is similar to past situations you’ve dealt with rather than wringing your hands because you’ve never encountered that specific problem.

You are a leader, so you know better!

Like a good sailor, leaders are innovative, tactfully reactive and calculated in their executions. In sailboat racing, unexpected things are always going to happen on the race course, and tactical and execution mistakes are going to occur. The team that wins is usually the team that works together to quickly adjust to the change and recovers quickly from prior mistakes. And then begins discussion and preparation for the next potential obstacle/opportunity rather than dwelling on the past mistake or making a teammate feel worse about their previous mistake.

If every day were a sunny one, we’d eventually get bored of the sunshine. We need occasional rain, sleet and snow to show us how we can thrive when it isn’t sunny, making us that much more grateful when it is, and preparing us for the next opportunity to differentiate ourselves.

Whether you’re an actual sailor, businessman, student or aspiring entrepreneur, welcome challenges as opportunities that will prepare you to be captain of any ship, and you’ll sail far away from the competition.