Impossible or exciting? It's a matter of perspective
/I recently pitched a new adventure idea to a potential sponsor. Having explained what I wanted to do - to paddleboard the length of another country - we discussed the feasibility, marketing opportunities and the support that I would need.
After listening to my plan she sat back and said with a cheeky smile,
“I hope you don’t find this offensive, but - we love crazy people!”
It’s something that I’m increasingly referred to as, which I like to take as a compliment.
Everything’s crazy until it’s the norm, right, so why not be the first to have a go?
Before I set off from Land’s End last year, no one had ever attempted to paddle board the length of Britain to John O’Groats. So why not me?
I’m scared of the sea, having nearly drowned as a child.
I didn’t know anything about tides before I started planning.
I’d only paddled on the sea 3 times before I left.
I bought a support boat knowing nothing about boats (I opted for one because of its surround sound speakers — don’t ask me for boat buying advice!).
On the face of it, it was crazy. I was a complete amateur, and a terrified one at that. Yet 800 miles, 81 days, 4 pods of dolphins, 1 whirlpool and an uncountable number of paddle strokes later, I made it.
I gingerly stepped off my board and onto the slippery seaweed-covered ramp in John O’Groats harbour, a small crowd cheering me in. With a ridiculous grin, my tanned hands and feet, and a knowing that I’m still sacred of the sea. I’m still an amateur, and yet here I am. Look how far I’ve come and all it took was to put one paddle stroke after another, and to believe at the start of each day that it was possible. Crazy, but possible.
Of course, I don’t do things because they seem crazy. I do them despite the fact that they seem crazy. I do them to challenge my ability and to pit my wits against my own expectation.
And crazy doesn’t have to mean big and expensive, it doesn’t have to take months. Small crazy works to.
Throughout SUP Britain I tried hard to encourage my team to do more than they thought they were capable of too.
My 22 year old photographer ended up skippering my support boat the length of Britian, even though he’d never skippered a yacht before.
My deck hand Aileen enjoyed a raft of firsts. Having never been on a boat or even driven a car before, we naturally got her to drive the boat through Neptune’s Staircase, one of the most difficult sections of the Caledonian Canal.
As I finish my SUP Britain book ready for publication in December, my team are adding their own sections now. I hope the opportunity I gave them during the expedition to start before they were ready, changed their perspective on what they think they are capable of. That perhaps, those ideas that first seem crazy to them, now in fact look possible.
“When you look at the world, you see that old ideas saved it, current ones sustained it, and it’s the crazy ones that changed it.”
— Suli Breaks
If you’d like your team to change their view of what’s possible, I’d love to share my story with them as we transition into 2020. Do get in touch to book me for your Christmas or New Year staff event, and for SUP Britain book inquires — fiona@FionaLQuinn.com
