Business Building: It's a Journey, not a Destination
/“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
A while ago, I watched a documentary recommended to me by my oldest daughter Bella, who loves inspiring stories as much as I do. It's called "Losing Sight of the Shore," and it's a powerful real-life story about a team of female rowers (the Coxless Crew) who set out to cross the Pacific Ocean in April 2015 by rowing entirely by hand, and without outside support.
As I listened to the ladies tell their personal version of the entire team's incredible story, I teared up more than once. Not just during the triumphant moments of the documentary, but also in the most difficult, challenging ones. Maybe especially in those moments, even.
I could relate so much of what they were saying about their incredible, faith-filled journey across the vast Pacific Ocean to my own faith-filled "row" across a decade-plus of building my coaching business. The journey of establishing this “faith-based healthy living movement” that this business represents has often felt a lot like that difficult journey those amazing ladies took.
As they spoke of shifting their focus on this long, arduous row across the open Pacific from “reaching the destination” to “enjoying the journey” - their entire experience changed for the better!
How accurately this describes our business journey. If we look only at “arriving” we’ll grow discouraged and weary, but if we shift our focus to learning from, finding joy in, and being fueled by the journey itself, we’ll be in this for the long term!
After reading this post (and hopefully seeing the documentary, I highly recommend it) I’d love to know how YOU can relate to them!
Here’s what I gathered for business building from their story:
1. You have to create a plan for your big vision ... and it may take a long, long time to develop it into reality
PREPARATION
Before they ever headed out on the Pacific from San Francisco, California in their tiny but mighty boat, "Doris," the team spent 3.5 full years planning this expedition, experiencing setback after setback. One of the rowers even invested her life savings into this record-setting row, gambling “all-in” on their success. The planning and preparation was for a time period of up to 6 months of rowing, they initially believed.
PLANNING
They knew they had to break this BIG record-breaking goal down into smaller ones, "legs" as they called them, both for their mental health and physical abilities. The row was going to be done in teams of 2 rowers at a time, for 2 hours at a time. The 2 other rowers would be in the tiny cabin, eating or sleeping or washing up or journaling. 2 hours on. 2 hours off. 2 hours on. 2 hours off. Around the clock, from the time of leaving the shore until they arrived in Cairns, Australia, however long they took.
The journey was going to be months spent vulnerable to the elements, out on the open water, and they were going to have to continue rowing through bad weather, violent storms, and possibly other difficulties that could (and did) arise. Even on good days, with beautiful weather, the going could be incredibly rough due to the way they were going to be living in 2 hour rowing shifts around the clock for weeks!
GATHERING RESOURCES
They knew they would need months of a food supply that could withstand the elements, provide them each with the thousands of nutritious calories needed to fuel their bodies for the 12 hours daily of fierce physical activity, and be easy and quick to prepare. They also needed to figure out power sources: battery-ran operations like the radio, computer for the GPS, and water purification. They used solar panels strategically placed on Doris to fuel the batteries. (Brilliant ideas, but not without difficulties!)
BUILDING THE TEAM
Gathering support for the vision was not easy, but Laura Penhaul (the original vision-caster and eventual leader) rallied her peers and family for support. The purpose of this trip was multiple: to raise awareness and funds for cancers affecting women (and honor her beloved friend who was battling hard to win over cancer) and to break a rowing record, proving that women could overcome in such a ground-breaking venture.
Many people around them questioned how they could do it, doubting their ability as women out on the Pacific alone, and even questioned if it was even a "safe" idea. This only caused greater determination in Laura and her team, and the women slowly came on board the vision, jointly creating the 6-women “Coxless Crew” - though only 4 women rowed at a time on each leg. Due to schedule availability, 3 of the 6 women who did the row split the entire trip up, so 3 women rowed the entire 8000 miles of open water, and the other 3 rowed anywhere from 2500 to 3000 miles each.
2. It takes a team to get there!
When one team member is strong, they can cover for another in weaker moments. This is the beauty of being a team! Each of the legs of the trip were all with a different 4th rower (in addition to the steady 3 members who rowed the whole way) so of course, the team did go through shifting and changes, but all the team members had the same goal in mind.
Though there were many differences in each team member's personality, the team made a point to frame their differences as strengths! A powerful way to embrace differences that I’m sure felt even more noticeable when stuck living close together for months on a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean.
3. You can't quit on a hard day or you won’t make it!
On only Day 11, the team experienced a major equipment malfunction and had to row all the way back to land to fix it, then start over. It was such a deflating time for them! They took 5 days to rest and fix the boat… and then started out again.
They started back out with winds AND current against them. With 2000+ miles to row AGAIN to get to Hawaii. Sigh. I cannot imagine the levity of that disappointment.
But they reminded each other of their WHY for doing this… they were raising money and awareness for their friend's battle with cancer. Setting a record. Showing other women what can be done. Growing in their personal character and strength. And then they kept rowing.
Then, later in their journey, they took DAYS longer than they had ever expected to get to the equator, and their bodies were wearing out due to the delay. Winds were severely pushing them off course, there were physical setbacks with raw hands, back pain, and exhaustion, and even suffering from serious mental struggle.
Again, they encouraged each other. Made space for those of them who were struggling. Picked up extra where they could to relieve each other. Tried to stop and soak in the sunset. The stillness. Enjoy the beautiful sea life. And just kept rowing.
It was just a beautiful example of NOT QUITTING, and of the power of a team. They were intentional about raising each other’s energy and good vibes. And it worked! They all made it.
As one of the rowers, Natalia, said, “This challenge is 90% mental… I'm further outside my comfort zone than I've ever been before. I always believe you do your best developing and growing when you're outside your comfort zone. When you put your mind to something, anything is truly possible, and I'm learning that. I'm testing the strength of my own human spirit, and trying to find where that place is deep inside myself, where you have to dig deep, when things get tough.”
4. Distance you can go on a good day often will make up for distance lost on a hard day
After so much delay and disappointment, in the 3rd leg, the winds and currents aligned, and they suddenly started doing a record distance in a short time (once going A FULL 7 miles in the right direction in only 2 hours with minimal effort!)
It was a powerful example of exponential growth, and how effort doesn’t always equal distance, but how God and nature can take our limited abilities and “blow on us” with His wind! Blowing us MUCH farther in shorter bursts of effort/time than we can alone!
Continuing to “row” on the hard days is still better than giving up, and then, giving our best row on the good days, can be a catalyst to tremendous progress! Powerful lesson from these real-life champions.
JUST KEEP ROWING! Watch God take your “rowing” and turn it into miles and miles of progress.
5. Embrace the environment (even if it’s trying to kill you! It’s always gonna be there anyway)
When the storms would blow, the rowers realized they had to just let the currents and winds take them, and course-correct once the storms subsided. They just had to "ride it out." Fighting it would do more damage than just strategically riding it out. And there were tricky moments where it was downright frightful!
When they first set out on this trip, they thought it would take just up to 6 months, but time stretched on and on and because of numerous obstacles, they ended up taking 9 months to actually complete the journey!
Many circumstances had come against them… the weather, technical problems, low morale, sea sickness, to name just a few of the many hardships that arose….but they were intentional in their search to find small joys in the journey! They looked for beautiful sunrises and sunsets, sea life interactions, and thoughtful moments where they could “dig deep” as Natalia expressed, and really embrace what life-lessons the journey was teaching them.
As Laura said, “Not a day went by, out here on the boat, that I didn't think about finishing this row. But then I realized it was actually about the journey.”
These champions for women and healing taught me so much as I watched their story, celebrated their achievements and high moments, and cried with them in their struggles. They truly modeled a “journey mentality” that, for us business-builders, could be a game-changer.
Like Emma said, “I believe everyone has their own Pacific to cross.”
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