An extraordinary life: management consultant, world-record-breaking ocean rower, environmental campaigner, author, thinker – and now Member of Parliament, UK.
Dr Roz Savage MBE MP is the first and still the only woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
But this conversation is not really about rowing. It is about what those experiences revealed: courage, solitude, failure, intuition, consciousness, purpose — and what leadership looks like when a life is placed in service of something larger than oneself.
At Meta-Conscious Leaders we seek out remarkable people whose lived experience challenges conventional assumptions about who we are, how reality works, and what leadership is now being asked to become.
Roz is an extraordinary exemplar: blending philosophical and spiritual inquiry with practical action and service. Greg Suart explores with Roz, being alone versus being lonely; the inner critic; fear and courage; trusting head, heart and gut; positive tipping points; and whether today’s crises are symptoms of a deeper crisis of worldview and disconnection.
Roz also describes a profound unitive experience in the Pacific – feeling both utterly insignificant and completely connected – and reflects on the writings of Aldous Huxley, Bernardo Kastrup and Donald Hoffman.
A defining moment comes when she recalls the obituary exercise that changed her life. Looking back, she describes it as though she had asked her soul:
“What did you come here for?” The answer gave her a different North Star – away from material success alone and towards learning, evolution, contribution and higher purpose.
IN THIS CONVERSATION
• Courage without fearlessness
• Executive loneliness and resourceful solitude
• Failure as learning
• Head, heart and gut in decision-making
• Purpose as a North Star
• Worldview, consciousness and interconnectedness
• Leadership as service to a higher good
QUOTE RE COMMITMENT
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too.
“All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
‘Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it, Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
W. H, Murray, Scottish Himalaya expedition
FURTHER INFORMATION
Roz Savage and ocean rowing & books: https://www.rozsavage.com/
Roz Savage as MP for South Cotswolds, UK: https://rozsavagemp.uk/
Tough Girl Podcast: https://toughgirlchallenges.libsyn.com/tough-girl-roz-savage-mbe-first-woman-ever-to-row-solo-across-3-oceans-the-atlantic-pacific-indian
Ocean River Institute: https://www.oceanriver.org/podcast/11-roz-savage-paddling-the-pacific-ocean-rowing-towards-a-greener-world/
CHAPTERS
00:00 What did you come here for?
03:01 From business to a different way of navigating
06:57 The calling to row the oceans
12:03 A unitive experience in the Pacific
17:10 Alone vs lonely
24:31 The polycrisis
37:01 Worldview and materialism
45:02 Ocean experience into leadership
51:29 Executive loneliness and solitude
57:49 Courage, fear and decisions
1:01:27 Purpose as the North Star
1:04:44 “I asked my soul what it came here for”
1:10:20 A message to emerging leaders
#MetaConsciousLeaders #RozSavage #Leadership #ConsciousLeadership #Purpose #Consciousness #OceanRowing #HigherPurpose
SPONSORED BY: This Meta-Conscious Leaders podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Goal Ltd: Partners in Personal, Leadership & Business Growth, Developing Personal Mastery, Emotional Intelligence and Transcendent Leadership https://www.ultimategoal.co.uk