How to Row Oceans — Finding True Meaning for Yourself
How do you find true meaning for yourself? And once found, how do you find the courage to make your wildest dream become a reality? Simple questions, right? Just recently we had the privilege to welcome Roz Savage to our Podcast Ein Pod Kaffee. After being a (mostly unhappy) management consultant for 11 years, Roz turned her life upside-down and became the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. She spent more than 500 days alone at sea in a 23-foot (7 meters) rowboat on her mission to raise awareness for the climate crisis. Now while we don’t necessarily want to encourage you to do the same, we think that there are things to learn from her story and approach. And as much as Roz seems to be a spiritual being, she often uses frameworks to solve all kinds of different situations.
„I am a connoisseur of mental models“ — Roz Savage
So we are using this post to introduce and explain three of the “tools” Roz mentioned in our two-part series with her, namely:
(1) writing your own obituary
(2) a simple yet powerful to-do list
(3) the Karpman Drama Triangle
// shameless ad — if you want to enjoy her story in more depth, you can skip to the bottom of this post to find links to our conversation with her on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Writing your own obituary/funeral speech
What sounds quite drastic at first, was most probably the most important and life-changing exercise Roz ever did. She took the idea from the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and modified it a little to fit her own situation. It led her to quit her job, her marriage, take on the biggest adventure of her life, and become a multiple world-record holder. All you need is a couple hours time, pen and paper, and the willingness to write two funeral speeches for yourself. In short: you start with your fantasy version, where everything seems possible, let your soul or inner voice take over and think about how you want to be remembered. After finishing that dream version, write a second speech that simply extrapolates your current path and serves as a comparison. Roz wrote a beautiful Medium article about the exercise and what it did for her, so we don’t want to take any credit from her but rather recommend reading it, if you want to know more about it. It’s a personal, entertaining and enriching 10 minute read .
The To-Do list
We agree. A To-Do list doesn’t sound like breakthrough innovation at first. Maybe you even thought about skipping this part because you are a regular practitioner of “ticking boxes” and are doubting to get anything new out of this tool. And whilst a to-do list can be something incredibly mundane, it was the tool that helped Roz to transform her “crazy and audacious” dream into reality step-by-step.
We realized throughout our podcast with her that there are two kinds of to-do lists — the everyday one (buy new toilet paper, call mum, do my tax declaration) and the ocean-crossing one (patent pending). In our podcast, Roz describes the moment of realizing her dream of rowing across oceans to create a platform for her ideas as an epiphany. After sleeping on it for a couple of nights, she eventually had to ask herself if she was willing to take on such a big adventure. Instead of giving in to many thousand of reasons that instantly popped into her head why she couldn’t do it, she decided to create a to-do list. An excel spreadsheet to be precise. A spreadsheet that would list every single thing she had to do to make this plan become a reality. A to-do list that, in the end, was so detailed and comprehensive that suddenly this huge adventure seemed somehow very manageable.
So ask yourself: what is it you always wanted to do but never dared to further consider because you had this voice in your head instantly telling you why you can’t do it? Whether it is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, opening your own café, rowing across oceans or starting your own business — the next time you think about it, maybe try creating a to-do list to make this “crazy idea” a bit more tangible. Who knows, maybe it will seem somehow manageable afterwards. Maybe it won’t. Either way, it won’t be this crazy idea anymore but something you made a conscious decision about.
The Karpman Drama triangle
The Karpman Drama triangle completes our set of tools and focuses on interpersonal dynamics. It was introduced by Stephen Karpman over 40 years ago and is a timeless and powerful method to analyze and rethink situations of conflict. Roz is a frequent user of the tool and also goes into detail on the framework in her new book The Gifts of Solitude.
The Drama triangle consists of three roles — the victim, the persecutor and the rescuer. To help you visualize the framework, we will humanize and stereotype the roles:
Victor the Victim is the type of guy to get drunk, cheat on his girlfriend and blame the alcohol for it — helpless, hopeless and a constant victim of circumstances.
Paula the Persecutor loves to shout “it’s all your fault!” right in your face — blaming, dominating and with a rigid stance.
Rocky the Rescuer enjoys the feeling of being needed just a little too much. Putting the focus on others helps him to avoid dealing with his own issues.
Each corner of the drama triangle supports and moderates the other two. Victims depend on a savior, Rescuers yearn for a basket case and Persecutors need a scapegoat. And while it is totally normal and human that we occasionally assume these roles, it is when we permanently identify ourselves with one of the roles that it becomes problematic. If all that happens to Victor the victim is a “series of unfortunate accidents,” if Paula the persecutor is just “keeping it real” and Rocky frames all of his actions as “noble self-sacrifice.” Already sounds unhealthy, right?
So how do we (you, us, Victor, Paula and Rocky) escape this drama? Next time you observe that dynamic in some kind of situation, think back to the framework and instead give the empowerment dynamic a try.
In this triangle the victim becomes the creator, who takes ownership of the situation, focuses on the outcome and empowers himself to respond rather than react. To stay with Victor, he could come clean and blame himself instead of the alcohol, ask for forgiveness and get a grip on the amount of Vodka he is drinking (his name is Victor, of course he is drinking too much Vodka). Rocky the rescuer becomes the coach, who tries to give power to the victim for him to grow out of his dependency. He is so inspired by his new role that he even tattoos “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever” on his enormous biceps. Finally, the persecutor becomes the challenger who evokes learning and growth. Paula remains a rather critical person but now constantly reminds herself of her good intentions when challenging her peers.
In short, writing your obituary can help you to envision your true calling, the ocean-crossing to-do list can help make this calling tangible, and the Karpman Drama triangle visualizes how personal relationships can hinder but also empower you to fulfill this calling.
Some final remarks — while Roz uses those frameworks and tools for her everyday life, she also acknowledges that they are not the silver bullet to all of her and most probably also your considerations. As Roz puts it, “these models can act as useful reminders, because it is one thing to have an insight or a learning but it is another thing to actually make it part of who we are, to really embody it in the way that we show up every day. It is often that embodiment part that is a bit more challenging.”
If you want to know more about Roz’ inspiring story and the thought process behind her decisions, have a listen to our recent Podcast with her!
“Stop Drifting, Start Rowing” with Roz Savage on Ein Pod Kaffee
Spotify: Part 1 (55min) & Part 2 (37min)
iTunes: Part 1 & Part 2
“These models can act as a useful reminders, because it is one thing to have an insight or a learning but it is another thing to actually make it part of who we are, to really embody it in the way that we show up every day. It is often that embodiment part that is a bit more challenging”.
