Is Christopher Columbus Famous for getting lost?
He hoped to find a shorter way to Asia but found the Americas instead. He drastically miscalculated the size of the oceans and thus the distance around the earth to Asia. He got famous for discovering the America’s in his pursuit of his original goal which was to find anther route to a known place.
He was so convinced that he could find another shorter route to Asia that he kept trying to sell his idea for nearly 10 years. He needed to sell his idea to get funding for the voyage. The experts who turned him down thought his calculations were wrong, which they were. His persistence lead to someone in Spain believing in him or his goal.
I think this is a great example of someone taking action that lead to success but not the success they had been planning, hoping, or predicting. All his actions in pursuit of one goal led to a discovery which made him famous.
Same has happened countless times with companies such as Twitter and more recently Discord. Those businesses were working toward one goal and along the way developed some helpful applications to help them accomplish their goal and then realized those applications where a better option to pursue than the original idea. Twitter was developing a Podcasting App. That ended up not being a great goal since Apple ended up offering a Podcasting App for free.
I say Christopher Columbus is famous because he believed in his idea of a shorter route to Asia so much so that he kept taking the actions necessary to attain the funding necessary to head west.
Moral of the story for you: The pursuit of one goal will likely lead you to you discover other things along the way.
What have you felt inspired to do?
What journey are you going to start?
What action will you take?
Did you know Christopher Columbus never set foot on North America?
Leif Eriksson is believed to be the leader of the first European Expedition to North America. Yet few North American’s know or celebrate Leif Erikson Day (October 9th).
