Growing up as a black man in Apartheid South Africa, Neal was not disadvantaged. Coming from a poor family, Neal was not disadvantaged. Having the physical handicap of a deformed hip socket, Neal was not disadvantaged. In fact, Neal counted these three challenges as his three major advantages in life. Through each challenge, Neal grew as a person and found more of himself: he developed the tenacity to go through, over or around the challenges to achieve his dreams. Where others saw barriers, he saw "No Barriers - Only Solutions".
He decided at a young age that he wanted to be a sailor and to own his own boat. He read everything he could on sailing. He waited out on the dock as one of his heroes from his reading sailed into town - and that captain patiently answered all of Neal's questions as Neal helped him moor the boat. To get real experience at sea, Neal pestered people at the local yacht club until he found someone to take him out sailing. Then he started to work around the ships - first diving for lost items, then cleaning ships. Early on, he bought a sailing jacket, which became a motivating symbol: it was his goal to be wearing that jacket when he captained his own boat someday. Through a succession of jobs, he remained focused on his end goal of obtaining a boat. It didn't matter whether he particularly liked the job or not, because the jobs were stepping stones to get to the destination.
Eventually, he built his own boat, a 38-footer, and entered it in a race from Plymouth, UK to Newport, Rhode Island. During the race, he was hit in the head with a boom during a storm, and split his eyebrow open. He didn't have a medical kit on board, but in a great moment of problem solving, he used a clothes pin to apply pressure to stop the bleeding and seal the wound. Later, when he wanted to enter the Around Alone yacht race circumnavigating the globe, he needed a new boat since the minimum length for participation was 40 feet. After failing at fundraising, he created his own solution by lengthening his boat by two feet. While he didn't complete the 1994-95 race, he did finally succeed in the 1998 race.
There's a lot more to his story than I could possibly summarize here... so you may want to go read his autobiography, Journey of a Hope Merchant. (I plan to!) But I'm taking a few key things away from his story:
- We are only limited by our dreams. Dare to think big, to set Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAG), and be prepared to have to work hard to achieve them.
- There are no barriers, only challenges. It might take some work to find the solution, but there are solutions that can be discovered - or made.
- Constancy of purpose. Neal did not jump from BHAG to BHAG, but stayed focused on what his true goal was. And utilized the smaller goals along the way as a means to move closer to the ultimate objective.
- Creativity. Using a clothes pin as a bandaid is not only creative, but very practical. What can we do with the simple, every-day things around us if we just look at them in a different way?
- Take the time for others. The fifteen minutes of attention that the captain gave the 14-year old boy encouraged and enabled Neal to pursue his dreams, even if the captain didn't realize it at the time.
Final thought: Neal started his talk by bringing down a old, beat-up, hard-sided trunk down to the speaker's dais. He asked a simple question to start: do you have baggage, or do you have a treasure chest? If you view life as No Barriers - Only Solutions, you'll find that there are a wealth of riches in your treasure chest...
