Lessons From Rowing the Atlantic

Last December, my teammates and I set out from the Canary Islands on an ocean rowing boat with a simple goal: to reach Antigua. 

Since stepping foot back on dry land, a lot of people have asked me what I've learned from the experience. I’ve often responded instinctively, or fallen into a ‘stock reply’ without really thinking it through. It’s taken some time for me to give a more reflective answer.

So maybe my first takeaway is that learning from big events isn’t immediate. It takes a bit of time to percolate – to settle in our minds.

Six months later, my experience has had time to infuse. Here are my ‘big lessons’.

Lesson #1: Face hard times head on.

The run-up to the row hadn’t been an easy few years. My mother had passed away unexpectedly and my marriage had broken down. I coped by throwing myself into work and my kids, sidelining the sadness I was avoiding.

At midnight, when 50-foot waves were chucking our boat around in the middle of the Atlantic, there was no ‘going around’ the challenge – the only option was to persevere and go through. The first learning was persistence: a realisation that we find the lesson that we need to find, and work through it.

Lesson #2: Purpose matters.

From the outset, our team needed to be crystal clear on what we were trying to achieve. Our goal was to row across the Atlantic. We agreed this ‘primary task' before anything else and it drove our actions throughout the planning, training, and rowing. The second lesson: clarity in purpose – the primary task – allowed us to focus our work.  

Lesson #3: Sometimes there is no solution.

There’s nothing quite like being on a tiny boat in a vast ocean to drive home your insignificance. And with four blokes in close quarters for over four weeks, there were plenty of challenges to be solved. But there were also situations where there was no solution – just tensions to accept and sit in. Lesson three: sometimes we learn the hard way that we can’t control our circumstances, and that radical acceptance is the only option.

Lesson #4: Focus on the next step.

Every big challenge can be broken down into a series of much smaller challenges. Who thinks they can row an ocean? Probably very few people, and definitely not me in 2019. But what about rowing for two hours, then stopping to eat and sleep? Setting shorter timeframes and focusing on the here-and-now (instead of the bigger picture) protects us from overwhelm. Rowing for two-hour shifts for 40 days was an exercise in being in the moment.

Lesson #5: Small disciplines = big results.

In the same way that big challenges can be broken down into smaller chunks to make them more manageable, we can make big strides forward in performance by focusing on being disciplined in the little things.

Training for a 40-day ocean row wasn’t something that I could have done overnight. I needed to enforce weekly goals to build the endurance to tackle the bigger challenge, which meant being disciplined about my decisions every day, over a long period of time.

And on the boat, we kept things (relatively) harmonious by sticking to the micro-routines and habits that kept the team running smoothly. It was about respect for our teammates, investment in the bigger goal, and an acknowledgement that those small actions were the key to performing well.

Lesson #6: Always invest in the team.

Forty days on a rowing boat with three other guys (all of whom have big personalities) had its challenges. Just like in business, when you have a tough timeline and a difficult project, the health of the team has to be everyone’s priority.

This meant turning up two minutes early to my rowing shift, ready to take over the oars so the person before me could clock-off on time. Swapping a mediocre breakfast for a nice one when we were going through a tough patch. Prepping a protein shake for someone if they were going through a low point. All small things – but aggregated, they had a massive impact on the team mindset, and our ability to pull together and trust each other. 

Lesson #7: Change is good for us.

It’s easy to get comfortable in our day-to-day. Sometimes ‘stepping off the world’ and doing something different is the push we need to grow. A change of perspective, different scenery, an altered focus – all these things are nourishing for us. Time away from normal life is as productive (if not more so) than keeping our noses to the grindstone, year-in, year-out.

Lesson #8: Make space for nature and exercise.

I’ve always made time for exercise, but in the nine-to-five grind, it can be a transactional experience (especially in a gym with no natural light). Sitting in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing but water to every horizon, rhythmically pulling at the oars, I could feel the positive effects on my brain. We all know that both spending time in nature and exercising are good for us; but I found that really making space to do the two at the same time had a massive impact on my mental health. I felt less stressed, more clear-headed, and calmer – attributes that transferred to my everyday when I returned to the UK.

Lesson #9: Let your wine mature.

In the 21st century, we all want our outcomes served up, ticked off, and fully documented the day after we finish the project. We want to be able to quantify ‘success’ and understand the return on our investment so we can judge how effectively we’ve spent our resource.

But with a challenge as monumental as crossing an ocean in a small boat, this isn’t possible. The experience was doing things to me as I worked through it – and it’s still giving me learnings today, six months later.

Sometimes it’s OK to do something without knowing exactly what the pay-off will be (or the timeline for that reward), and to continue to capture the learning over time.