HOW YOU THINK IS EVERYTHING Facing The Unknown.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)

Byline: Cord Cooper

1 Maritime experts doubted him. His peers labeled him a heretic. Yet Christopher Columbus bucked entrenched conventional thought, and won. He did it with optimism, courage and a grip on a vision that no one -- whether monarch or fellow sailor -- could pry loose.

Columbus' claim that Asia could be reached by sailing west -- with a New World discovered along the way -- fell on deaf ears. To prove his theory, he needed all the leadership skills he could muster and the financial backing of a world power, Michael Gelb wrote in "Discover Your Genius: How To Think Like History's 10 Most Revolutionary Minds."

If successful, Columbus (1451-1506) would achieve great wealth and power. If proved wrong, he'd be the laughingstock of Europe.

For years, explorers had tried to sail to Asia by hugging the coasts of Africa and the Middle East. Columbus proposed a perpendicular route across the open sea, pushed by the winds of the Atlantic. Conventional logic held that sailing west would lead to an endless void, and possibly the Earth's edge. Columbus sold his theory by doing the following.

He mined the knowledge of experts. Self-taught, Columbus "studied books of every sort: geography, history, chronicles, philosophy and other arts," he later wrote in his journal. He learned by gaining insights from progressive scholars and by spotting flaws in the work of conventional thinkers.

A seagoing trader since age 14, he also drew on his experience as a skilled navigator and chart maker.