Note: This page has several concepts on how Comfort Zone Navigation is related to our goal in life. If we have no goal, none of these topics will have a personal impact.

Comfort Zone Navigation

Polynesian Navigation

Based on Bob Webb’s experiences with Liki Tiki Too

How did the Polynesians populate the Pacific Ocean 2,000 years ago without charts or navigation interments? By comfort zone navigation.

People can navigate across oceans and arrive at their destination by using their comfort zone. (Gut feelings, intuitive forces) Where there is a lack of knowledge and the need to know, we base final decisions on intuitive forces. This is how we achieve any goal in life, whether it is sailing across oceans, building a business, or any achievement. Success depends on making right decisions where facts are missing.

Comfort zone navigation is how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Ocean. Facts were extremely limited. They did not know if they were making the right decisions until they arrived. This form of navigation is explained in Polynesians folk chants and folk stories. They tell how they were guided by various forms of sea life. This was the best explanation they could give of comfort zone navigation.

My Experience in Comfort Zone Navigation

My first trip on Liki Tiki Too, I was so seasick I lay in the bottom of the boat and wished it would dive straight to the bottom. My second goal was to head south, away from land and shipping lanes. When I get my sea legs, I could then sail the boat properly and navigate. After three days, I was 300 miles south of Panama City, feeling better, and up ahead was an island, Malpelo. I did not know there were any islands out here. As I sailed closer, I noticed it was a mile long rock poking out of the ocean with high cliffs all around and no place to land. Getting too close would mean being bashed against the cliffs by the waves. The odds of sailing 300 miles to an isolated island by accident are tremendous. If my planned course was off three degrees (if I had one) or I missed the island by fifteen miles, I would have never seen it. I felt it was no accident that I sailed to the island, but had no explanation.

The second trip on Liki Tiki Too, I was in the doldrums where the sky is always overcast and lots of rain. Without seeing the sun, there is no way to navigate. At the time, my only interest was to sail west. Hawaii is 4,000 miles away and my position at that time was not important. 700 miles west of Panama is Cocos Island. Without navigating and not considering a landfall, I sailed within five miles of the island. The odds of seeing an island 700 miles out without navigating are staggering. Again, I felt it was no accident that I sailed to Cocos Island, but again, I had no explanation.

Trying to understand what happened, I reviewed stories of yachtsmen sailing from California to Hawaii without navigation ability. Researching deeper... Throughout history, man had no way to fix his position at sea, but he still arrived. What is going on here? My conclusion goes back to the beginning of this section. Man can navigate across oceans by using his comfort zone.

Mutiny on the Bounty

The comfort zone navigation concept was well documented 200 years ago by Captain William Bligh after the mutiny. Before the mutiny, Captain Bligh micro managed the crew and wanted everyone to know he was the boss. As a result, everything went wrong. The crew finally had enough, mutinied, and cast Captain Bligh and eighteen of his loyal crewmembers adrift in a lifeboat. Without navigation tools, they sailed the open boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony Timor, near Java. This outstanding achievement is only possible with comfort zone navigation.

Goals and Comfort Zones (Intuitive Forces)

A goal is a plan of action by an individual or a team, to achieve a result. In time, the goal becomes our comfort zone. If we are not at our goal, the comfort zone becomes uncomfortable. We may not always know what to do, but when we make decisions to move in the right direction, the uncomfortable feeling will be eased somewhat, comforting the comfort zone. If we make decisions to move in the wrong direction, the comfort zone uneasiness will increase. We do not like being uncomfortable, so we will work towards a comfortable comfort zone.

Intuitive forces know when we are making the right or wrong decision and the comfort zone is our communication link. In addition, man has a natural desire to survive and intuitive forces will communicate instructions through our comfort zone when it senses danger. Intuitive forces supplies information where facts are not available.

When sailing a vessel across an ocean, goals and comfort zones work together. If there were no navigation tools aboard our vessel, we would arrive at our destination by using the comfort zone technique. There are conditions we must consider; winds must be favorable, the boat must be seaworthy, and the crew must have basic skills. In other words, basics must be in place.

At sea, comfort zone techniques work better than on land; reasoning:

Using Comfort Zones as a Decision Making Tool

Comfort zone decision making as a tool, works' best where there are lots of opinions and everyone involved has a voice. There will always be wrong opinions and decisions, but with time and high volume input, more right opinions will be offered than wrong. Time and experience puts comfort zones on the right track, at which time most decisions will be right.

Command-and-control leader can get jobs done efficiently if their comfort zone stays on the right track. The problem is, it is almost impossible for a leader and his ideas, to stay focused very long. To prevent ego from taking control, leaders need reminders to keep them on course. As a rule, command-and-control leaders desire is for power and control, when achieved, getting the job done becomes almost impossible, because that is not the goal. "Power and control" and "getting the job done" are not compatible. One goal is based on control and the other is based on achievement. They are opposite attitudes, which cannot occupy the same space at the same time. The comfort zone will support what is import to the leader, not both.

Comfort zone, as a tool for making quality decisions, only works where there is a free flow of ideas and opinions.

We have a strong desire to know that we are making the right decision every step of the way. We want to know where we are and what we need to do to arrive. Comfort zone navigation does not work that way, life's decisions do not work that way. We will not know until we arrive.

Comfort Zones and Wildlife Migration

If people can navigate by comfort zones, what about migrating birds, animals and fish? With comfort zone navigation, it makes no difference if it is daylight, night, overcast sky, or time of day. Migrating wildlife move because it is more comfortable to be on the move than to stay in one place and it is more comfortable to travel in the right direction than the wrong. They have an inter desire to be at a different location during a season change. In addition, there is no one to influence their desire or tell them not to go. Moving in a certain direction with the group is more comfortable than going it alone. A group (team) will make more right decisions than wrong,. Because the group makes right decisions, they will arrive at their desired destination.

During the last 200 years, man has invented efficient navigation tools that allow him to know where he is now, so that he knows that he is making quality decisions. This skill became possible with the invention of the chronometer. Before the chronometer, navigators did not know if they were making quality decision until they arrived.

Now scientific circles are saying that migrating wild life have built in navigation charts, navigation tables, star charts, a compass, a sextant, and a clock — they know where they are now and base decisions on it. This is accepted because small circles of influential people feel they need an explanation, right or wrong. Most people do not know the difference and accept their theories. These scientists ignore the fact that man has been navigating for thousands of years without these tools. Their methods may not have been efficient and they did not know where they were at the moment, but they succeeded at traveling from point "A" to "B" and back.

Scientist have many theories to compensate for migration theories that do not work in less than ideal conditions. When the sky is overcast, they say birds then switch their navigation system to magnetic fields. Man has yet to invent a location system by magnetic fields. Scientist navigation theories are extremely complicated and in many cases — Wild!

Migrating birds have been put in cages in a planetarium. An artificial sky is created and it is observed in what direction the birds try to fly. Being in a cage, they try all directions, but they are more persistent at a single direction based on overhead stars. They are trying to steer a course, they are not navigating. Navigation is knowing your current position and adjusting the course for the desire destination. Navigation of wildlife cannot be duplicated, because they do not know if they are making the right decision until they arrive.

In a few years, scientific circles will claim that migrating wild life use a form of GPS navigation and auto pilots. When using a GPS auto pilot, knowing your current position is not important. This is getting closer to the comfort zone navigation theory.

You can find more information on universal intelligence in my document on How We Learn. I have written a paper that explains the connection between universal intelligence and intelligent design. More information below.

Changing Our Comfort Zone

Man is the only creature that can change its comfort zone. Normally, our comfort zone is the same as our parents; we will live and work like them. Some people reject their parents' life style and create their own. This is how millionaires are made from poor families. Rather than accepting a poor person's lifestyle as a comfort zone, achievers make poor an uncomfortable zone. They learn skills that will provide a needed service. This service will change the comfort zone dream to reality. People are poor because this is their comfort zone, they privately enjoy their problems. They will fight anyone who will try to take away problems by offering opportunity. People are rich because this is their comfort zone, they enjoy the work that makes riches possible and will fight anyone who will try to take away opportunity.

It is possible to change our comfort zone, but it is extremely difficult. First, there needs to be a burning desire, vision or dream. While trying to make that dream grow into reality, well meaning friends and relatives will try to destroy it. Unfamiliar ideas are outside of their comfort zone. Yet, taking charge of our comfort zone is how we achieve our wildest dreams. Sailing across an ocean in an ocean liner or by dugout canoe depends on our comfort zone and we have control over it.

Comfort Zone and Youth Rebellion

All of us have a natural comfort zone that is built around our learning personality. Most of us are in tune with society's standards and adjust with the flow. Then there are those whose comfort zone is different, they think differently, they have different ambitions. These teenagers then come under social pressure to be like everyone else, to accept the status quo. They are in conflict with their natural comfort zone and societies comfort zone. This conflict causes them to reject all common sense. Teenagers would have fewer problems if they had opportunity that was in harmony with their learning personality. Society has one-system-for-all education system that requires everyone to adapt, no matter how dysfunctional the system is.

Back in Christopher Columbus time, small groups of influential intellectuals declared the world was flat. This is what they wanted to believe and reprimanded anyone who challenged their authority. The fishermen knew boats don't fall off the edge of the world, but they liked the theory because it limited competition. It was good for business to keep the theory alive. How is the public to know what the truth is if people promote bad theories for personal reasons.

Today's educators cannot promote programs that they feel are in the best interest of their students, because they must meet the interest of politicians and businesses, that are controlled by a small circle of influential people. Decisions are related to money and power, not what works. What is the student to do? How can a student find opportunity that is in harmony with his learning personality when the system has to comply with political interest? The result is rebellion.

Universal Intelligence

ALL INFORMATION STARTS WITH UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE, IS
DISCOVERED BY VISIONARIES, CREATIVE THINKERS AND PASSED ON
TO SOCIETY AS RECORDED INFORMATION.