He Innovated and Implemented b/c his Life Depended on It

I like inspirational stories. Here’s one…

On November 23, 1942, Poon Lim was working as a steward on the British cargo ship SS Benlomond when a German sub torpedoed it to oblivion.

The ship sank minutes after the torpedoes hit, and Lim was left floating in the south Atlantic.

A weak swimmer, Lim clung to a wooden plank to remain afloat until he spotted and climbed aboard a wooden raft.

So began his 133-day odyssey.

Lim survived, at first, on supplies in the raft — 10 gallons of water, six boxes of hardtack, two pounds of chocolate, 10 cans of dried meat, five cans of evaporated milk, and one bottle of lime juice.

But that didn’t last.

For most of his journey, he survived by catching fish and birds and collecting rainwater in a canvas lifejacket cover.

Innovation and Implementation

Lim turned a flashlight spring into a fish hook.

He unraveled hemp rope to make fishing line.

He crushed pieces of hard tack to bait the hook.

He pried a nail from the raft to make a larger, stronger hook.

When he caught small fish, he used them to bait the stronger hook and catch bigger fish.

He braided double-strand lines to land larger fish — including a shark which he caught by using a dead seagull as bait.

The shark attacked Lim when he pulled it onboard. But Lim was able to beat it to death with a water tank.

He sucked blood from the shark’s liver to quench his thirst (it hadn’t rained in days).

He created a knife from a meat can and sliced off the sharks fins, which he dried in the sun.

When he killed a bird, he soaked it in the salty ocean, sliced it with the knife, and dried it on the raft’s deck to make jerky.

By April 1943, Lim figured he was nearing land because the ocean’s color was no longer deep blue.

On this day (April 5) in 1943, three fishermen spotted and rescued Lim, nine nautical miles off the coast of Pará, Brazil.

Lim was 750 miles from where he started. 20 pounds lighter. Too weak to walk.

Fifty-two people perished when SS Benlomond went down. Poon Lim was the ship’ssole survivor.

Here’s a picture of Poon Lim on his raft, shortly after his rescue, during a U.S. Navy survival training…

When I hear stories like Poon Lim’s, I wonder…

How do we humans summon the focus, fortitude, and drive to innovate and implement — when our lives DON’T depend on it?

Poon Lim had no choice. Innovate and implement or die.

For you, business is probably not a matter of life or death.

But you want your businesses not just to survive. You want it to thrive, right?

So why the procrastination? Why do you study others’ innovations and then choose not to implement?

I say “choose” because it is a choice.

I stand accused. I’ve procrastinated. I’ve suffered from the perfection problem and failed to release my work.

I don’t always innovate and implement as if my life depended on it. But I know I should.

That’s why I embrace stories like Poon Lim’s. They inspire me to innovate and implement with greater urgency — so my business doesn’t just survive, but it thrives.