THE FORTITUDE EXPERIENCE

I want to take you back to the ocean for a moment. For 54 days, I was alone in the Atlantic, rowing 3,000 miles from Gran Canaria to Barbados, towards a destination I couldn’t see. Every day was different. There were incredible highs, but there were also moments of exhaustion, frustration, doubt and uncertainty. There were days when the ocean felt enormous, and there were moments when I felt incredibly strong — when I connected with a belief in myself that I didn’t always know was there.

Throughout those 54 days, I listened to one piece of music every day: Time by Hans Zimmer. It became part of my ritual. When I listened to it, I could feel the whole journey. The anticipation of what was ahead, the enormity of the challenge, the small moments of progress, the difficult moments, the setbacks, the uncertainty, the highs, the lows, and ultimately that feeling of strength that came from knowing I was still moving forward.

At the time, I didn’t realise quite what was happening. But looking back, I can see that this experience was helping me understand how I navigate uncertainty and change. It helped me find perspective, create space, manage the moments when everything felt too big, and reconnect with the strength within me. Over time, those experiences became the foundations of what I now call The Fortitude Toolkit.

So before I explain the toolkit, I want you to experience the music first.

Put your headphones on. Find somewhere quiet. Give yourself five or ten minutes where you don’t need to be anywhere else.

And for now, don’t do anything else. Don’t read ahead. Don’t try to analyse the music. Just listen.

You might feel something. You might remember something. You might picture a person, a place, a decision or a moment in your own life. You might feel anticipation, excitement, uncertainty, discomfort, hope or strength. Or perhaps you don’t feel much at all. That’s okay. There is no right way to experience it. Just notice.

As you listen, bring to mind something you are currently navigating. Perhaps it’s a change in your career, a team you’re leading, a relationship, a decision, a challenge, something you’re building, something you’re leaving behind, or simply something you don’t know how to move through yet.

Don’t try to fix it. Don’t try to find the answer. Just hold it in your mind, listen to the music and notice what comes up.

When you’re ready, let’s begin.

Press Play.

ORIENTATE – WHERE ARE YOU?

When I’m navigating uncertainty, the first thing I need to understand is where I am. Change rarely happens in a neat, straight line. I see it as three phases: Separation, the Messy Middle and Reintegration.

SEPARATION

Separation is the point where something is changing and something is being left behind. Sometimes the change is something you’ve chosen, and sometimes it isn’t. Either way, something familiar is shifting. It might be a role, a relationship, an identity, a way of working, a place or simply a version of yourself that no longer feels quite right.

The important thing here is to acknowledge what is changing rather than immediately trying to move past it.

Ask yourself: What am I leaving behind?

THE MESSY MIDDLE

The Messy Middle is the space between where you were and where you’re going. You’re no longer where you started, but you haven’t yet arrived somewhere new. This is often where uncertainty lives.

Things can feel unclear and uncomfortable. You may question yourself, change your mind or feel as though you should have everything figured out by now. But being uncertain doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lost.

Sometimes you’re simply in the middle of becoming something different.

You don’t always need to rush through this phase. There can be value in allowing yourself to sit with the uncertainty long enough to understand what it is trying to tell you.

Ask yourself: What am I learning right now?

REINTEGRATION

Reintegration is where you begin to understand what the experience has given you. You start to make sense of what has happened, recognise what you’ve learned and decide what you want to carry forward.

You may not return to exactly who you were before. Change can alter your perspective, your priorities and your understanding of yourself. Reintegration is about taking what is useful from the experience and allowing it to become part of what comes next.

Ask yourself: What do I want to take forward?

There isn’t a right phase or a wrong phase. The first step is simply to notice where you are.

Where are you?

STRUCTURE IT – WHAT DO YOU NEED?

Once I understand where I am, I need some structure. For me, that structure comes through three simple pillars: Magnitude, Solitude and Attitude.

They each give me a different way of approaching a difficult moment. Sometimes I need to change my perspective. Sometimes I need to step away from the noise. Sometimes I need to think about how I want to meet the situation in front of me.

MAGNITUDE

Get the scale right.
When you’re facing something enormous, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed by the whole thing. The mountain, the distance, the uncertainty, the amount of work still to do. Sometimes we need to zoom out and understand the bigger picture, and sometimes we need to zoom right back in.

When I was rowing the Atlantic, I couldn’t think about 3,000 miles every time I picked up the oars. I had to make it smaller. More manageable. More immediate.

One stroke. Then another. And another.

The ocean didn’t get smaller. My perspective changed.

There are moments in our own lives when we do the same thing. We look at everything that needs to happen, everything that could go wrong, everything that is still ahead of us, and we allow the size of the challenge to become bigger than the action required in this moment.

Magnitude is about getting the scale right. It is knowing when you need to zoom out and see the bigger picture, but also knowing when you need to bring your focus back to what is immediately in front of you.

Ask yourself: Am I looking at the whole mountain? What does this look like when I bring it back to the next step? What is the next meaningful thing I can do?

SOLITUDE

Step away from the noise.

Once you’ve found some perspective, create some space.

Sometimes the answer isn’t another conversation, another email, another strategy or another piece of information.

Sometimes you need to hear yourself.

Solitude doesn’t necessarily mean being completely alone. It can simply mean creating enough space to stop reacting to everything around you and start listening to what’s happening within you.

Put your phone down. Go for a walk. Sit somewhere quiet. Give yourself permission to pause. When we’re constantly surrounded by information, opinions and expectations, it can be surprisingly difficult to know what we actually think or need.

Creating space gives you the opportunity to reconnect with yourself.

Ask yourself: What do I need to hear from myself?

ATTITUDE

Choose how you meet the moment.

There were many things I couldn’t control on the Atlantic. The weather, the waves, the conditions, how long the journey would take and what each day would bring.

But I could influence how I met those moments.

This isn’t about pretending everything is positive. It’s not about forcing yourself to feel strong when you don’t, or convincing yourself that a difficult situation isn’t difficult. It’s about recognising that while you can’t always control the conditions around you, you can influence your response to them.

Your attitude affects the story you tell yourself about what is happening. And the story you tell yourself can affect how you behave, how you make decisions and how you move forward.

Sometimes the most useful question isn’t, How do I make this situation different? It’s simply, How do I want to show up in it?

Ask yourself: How do I want to show up? What story am I telling myself? Is that story helping me?

FEEL THE WHOLE JOURNEY

One of the things the ocean taught me is that we can become very focused on the destination. Barbados. The finish line. The goal. The success.

But the destination is only one moment. The journey is everything that happens along the way.

The uncertainty. The setbacks. The small wins. The moments when you question yourself. The moments when you surprise yourself. The highs. The lows. The days when you feel strong. And the days when you simply keep going.

That is part of the journey too.

For me, Time became a way of feeling all of that. It reminds me that I have been through difficult moments before. That I have found ways through them. That I can change my perspective, create space and choose how I meet the moment. And that there is often more strength within me than I realise.

JOURNAL PROMPTS – YOUR FORTITUDE MOMENT

Before you finish, take one final moment to reflect.
What are you leaving behind?
What are you learning?
What are you taking forward?
What do you need right now?
And what is your next meaningful step?
You don’t have to have everything figured out.
You just need to know where you are, what you need and what comes next.

Adventurer · Speaker · Accredited Resilient Leaders Consultant

The Fortitude Experience is an invitation to pause, reflect and reconnect with the strength you already have within you.