Bruce and Saint-Exupery

 

 My brother Bruce recently read a great biography about Saint-Exupery (the author of The Little Prince). Among other things, he was also a flying legend from the days of the golden age of flying, and in the 1920's flew air mail routes over the Sahara for Aeropostale at night in planes with open cockpits, without instruments.He was a French literary treasure that, despite his age and importance to French culture, flew a P-38 at the end of the Second World War and disappeared during a flight in 1944 near the French coast.

Bruce tells me there is an entry in the book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (the wife of Charles Lindbergh and an accomplished author herself), were she is so perplexed by Saint–Exupery and his way of looking at things -  She writes of his habit of writing while flying up and down the African coast in 1927, when he was flying the most primitive plane he would ever fly. “How is it possible,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh wondered of him several years later, “that he kept his mind on the gas consumption while pondering the mysteries of the universe? How can he navigate by stars when they are to him ‘the frozen glitter of diamonds?”

Bruce loves this quote. He wrote me, " It made me think of some of the posts you have written and the importance of realizing that work and life is not all about what is directly in front of you but looking beyond and that looking at things in a different perspective is so necessary.  Who would have thought that you can navigate a primitive airplane at night in the Sahara based on stars and think that the stars look like diamonds? In Saint-Exupery's world it is entirely possible, and he probably thought it was the true and only way to see the stars, and that people who do not see the diamonds are not opening their mind to all possibilities."

Bruce went on to write me "I guess the point is that simply because you see something from a different perspective no matter how far apart that interpretation may be, does not mean it is not possible to incorporate that perception into the practical, and enjoy the experience and outcome in a happy or more enlightened way."

Totally! In fact, it is this ability to look differently at the daily challenges and tasks that we have, that get us to the breakthroughs.

Great leaders surround themselves with unique perspectives. They rely on mentors.  They read voraciously. They invite people into their network that will help them look at issues and opportunities in new, unique and more expansive  ways. And they are not afraid to test the boundaries, to break away from the conventional.

I love bringing my clients together with people from various industries and backgrounds to help break into creativity. It is amazing what happens when you have a  corporate CEO brainstorm with a diverse group of unrelated entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs, for example

Recently I read a blog on huffingtonpost.com (15 lessons every entrepreneur must learn) that talks to leaders "approaching traditional spaces from unique angles...employing a multidisciplinary approach to everything as you explore  markets in new and unique ways..."

This is such an important element of leadership.

Its no coincidence, nor is it a surprise to me,  that Saint-Exupery navigated by stars while at the same time writing of them as  the frozen glitter of diamonds.