How Roz Savage turned the ocean into her greatest teacher

Roz Savage is one of the world’s most extraordinary female inspirational speakers - a former management consultant who left behind convention to become the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. 

With 15,000 miles under her oars and countless mental battles conquered alone at sea, Roz has become a leading voice on courage, purpose, and environmental advocacy. 

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, she reflects on what drove her to take on the world’s toughest waters, the mindset it took to survive, and the lessons she hopes will empower others to pursue bold, meaningful change.

Q: You’ve had a remarkable journey from law graduate and management consultant to solo ocean rower. What was the turning point that inspired you to row across not just one, but three oceans?

Roz Savage: “I have to admit, rowing across three oceans is not an obvious career move for a law graduate and former management consultant who, to be honest, doesn’t really like exercise and is quite scared of oceans. So, it was not at all obvious.

“But shortly before I made this fairly momentous decision, I’d had an environmental awakening. I’d spent several months travelling around Peru, and I’d seen firsthand the consequences of habitat destruction and climate change. 

“To me, at the time, it just seemed like literally the most important issue on the face of the planet - to say to people, we have an ecological crisis, and we have to treat the Earth with more respect.

“So, I was desperately trying to find something a little bit out of the ordinary so that I could get people’s attention for this environmental message. 

“I suppose the fact that I’d rowed before and was dimly aware of this obscure and masochistic sport of rowing across oceans just gave me the delusion that this was something I was vaguely qualified to do.

“As it turned out, it was a hell of a lot harder than I ever expected. Certainly didn’t get a free pass from Mother Nature just ’cause I was out there trying to champion her cause. 

“But yeah, that was really the plan, that through my blogs, my books, and my talks, I would use my adventures to raise environmental awareness.”

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Q: Endurance challenges push the limits of both physical and mental strength. When you were alone at sea, how did you stay resilient and keep going through the most difficult moments?

Roz Savage: “Well, as it turned out, my adventures were at least as much a personal journey of discovery as they were about the environmental mission. 

“I certainly learned a heck of a lot about resilience, courage, fortitude, and mental strength.

“How did I keep going? Well, luckily for me, it’s very difficult to quit in the middle of an ocean; it’s not like you can catch the bus home. 

“So, even though there wasn’t a single day that went past when I didn’t wonder why the heck this had ever seemed like a good idea, I really just had to hang on in there and try and find ways to manage my thoughts and my emotions so that they didn’t overwhelm me.

“I think the most important thing that I learned was to break down this massive challenge. I ended up rowing a total of 15,000 miles, and I really just had to break it down into one day, one rowing shift, one mile at a time, or else it was just too much to cope with. 

“I really think we can do absolutely anything when we break it down into small enough pieces and just keep on consistently and persistently showing up.”

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Q: From navigating vast oceans to confronting personal doubts, your expeditions have been as much internal as external. What life lessons have stayed with you the most from those adventures?

Roz Savage: “The ocean taught me so many life lessons that I think are really relevant on dry land and applicable to almost any kind of challenge. 

“But if I had to narrow it down to just a small number, something that served me really well was what I now call my “bifocal approach” - which, you know, like bifocal glasses: through the top half of the lens, you look at long distance.

“So I had to stay connected to my vision of: why was I doing this? What was I trying to achieve, both personally and in service to a bigger purpose? Then, through the bottom half of the lens - which is for near sight - just focus on: what do I need to do right now to get a little bit closer to that goal? 

“But deliberately not worry too much about all the bits in between the right here, right now, and the long-distance goal. Or else, going back to what I said before, it just becomes overwhelming.

“Another one that I found really, really helpful was what I call the “retrospective perspective”. 

“There were definitely times that I got very depressed, stressed, frustrated, bored, I was in pain, a lot of things were going wrong, I had a lot of equipment failures - and there were times when my emotions really threatened to overwhelm me.

“What I had to do was kind of project myself into the future and think: when I look back on this adventure, how do I want to feel about how I showed up? Do I want to know that I showed up and gave it my best, or that I just went and curled up in my bunk and sulked for a day?

“And I decided I really wanted to be proud rather than ashamed of how I’d shown up. That really helped me to disengage a bit from those very intense emotions and see the bigger picture in the overall scheme of my life, and stay connected to that.”

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Q: Your story has inspired people worldwide, particularly women questioning their own limits. What message do you most hope women take from your journey and the choices you’ve made?

Roz Savage: “I was really amazed at what I was capable of. I suppose, like a lot of people, I’d had a fairly easy life. 

“A lot of us in the developed Western world don’t face that many challenges; we don’t face life-or-death decisions.

“There were so many times when I was out on the ocean - having volunteered for this challenge, I really only had myself to blame - but there were so many times when I thought I’d reached my absolute limit: of boredom, of pain, whatever.

“I would just think, I can’t stand this for a moment longer, I’m just going to explode with it all, and yet ten minutes later, I’d still be there, and I hadn’t exploded yet.

“I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about me. I’ve certainly learned a lot through putting myself through these big challenges. 

“When I set out, I wasn’t any braver or more tenacious than the next person, but I just somehow found a way to keep showing up.

“I think that we often keep ourselves small. We don’t like to believe that we’re as powerful as we actually are, because then we sort of destroy our own excuses for not living our biggest, bravest, boldest life. 

“So, we don’t find out what we’re capable of until we actually put ourselves in a really challenging situation.

“Like, if I wanted to be more courageous, I could have sat on my sofa for a month of Sundays and not got any braver. But to put myself out onto the ocean, I found that I did actually have these inner strengths and inner resources that, otherwise, I would never have discovered.

“I honestly, honestly believe that we all have those. I truly believe any of us could row across an ocean  -  if we were crazy enough to want to. So, I hope that’s what people really take away from this.

“Too often, we have these big dreams and we talk ourselves out of them, and I went through all of that when this crazy idea came to me to row across these oceans.

“I think I knew, here, that I really wanted to do it - but my mind came up with a thousand and one reasons why it was a terrible idea. That I would fail, I’d make an idiot of myself, I would die, people would think I’d gone completely insane.

“But it’s possible - it really is possible. And, like I say, so many more things are possible than we dare to believe. That’s the message I hope people will take away.”

This exclusive interview with Roz Savage was conducted by Sophia Hayes of The Motivational Speakers Agency.

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