From oil brokerage burnout to EOS implementer and Atlantic rowing

Executive overview

Tim Harris spent 24 years as an oil broker, surviving two burnouts before finally exiting as global head of his department. Repeated stress, alcohol reliance, and absence from family forced the decision. He retrained as a coach, found EOS through a fellow implementer, and later rowed unsupported across the Atlantic in 52 days.

Burnout is a recurring signal, not a one-time warning — ignoring it costs more than leaving.

Career trajectory and the exit

• Began studying land management, pivoted to trading Italian government bond options after his eldest brother's success
• Left trading after persistent stress and his mother's death from lupus; moved to Singapore as an oil broker
• Stayed in oil brokerage 24 years, becoming global head — despite two full burnout episodes
• Exited when a third burnout approached: "the juice no longer became worth the squeeze"
• Left as an absent father, absent husband, and functioning alcoholic
• Retrained as a business and personal coach with an ICF accreditation

Finding EOS

• Returned to coaching city leaders under similar pressure, but felt one-to-one work lacked scale
• Met Brandon Harris at a Living With Purpose workshop; Brandon was an EOS implementer and introduced him to the model
• The scarcity of implementers in the UK (16 at the time) was a decisive factor: "I'm in"
• Later discovered his Atlantic rowing coach had been using EOS principles in training without naming them — vision, values, right person right seat

Rowing the Atlantic

• Race: unassisted crossing from La Gomera (Canaries) to Antigua, ~3,000 miles
• Decision crystallised in December 2019 after throwing up on the train to work from stress; approaching 50
• Found a partner (Simon) via a casual pub conversation after 12 friends declined
• 52 days, approximately 1.5 million rowing strokes, 30 x two-hour shifts back-to-back
• Self-sufficient: carried 65 days of food; support vessels could be three to four days away
• Sleep deprivation caused hallucinations — Tim saw plates of fresh fruit; Simon saw floating hotels
• Christmas Day, day 13: both broke down in tears, had not spoken meaningfully for two weeks — "that was the day we became a team"
• Introduced a daily shared breakfast as a structured check-in (parallel to an L10 meeting)

Three lessons from the row

1. You always have more in the tank than you think. They found a way to get up 300 times when convinced they had nothing left. Perspective helped: seeing a migrant dinghy floating empty 500 miles off Mauritania made complaints feel hollow.
2. Teamwork requires honesty. Despite planning to be open, both withheld how much they were struggling to avoid letting the other down. The same pattern was confirmed by polar explorer Ben Saunders. The fix was forced by hitting a breaking point together on Christmas Day.
3. Perspective is a resilience tool. A team of four veterans — each missing a limb, three tours of Afghanistan — completed the same race. Seeing that removed any lingering self-congratulation and reframed difficulty.

Parallels to EOS and entrepreneurship

• Entrepreneurial growth mirrors ocean rowing: occasional waves to surf, mostly waves hitting you
• When business development fatigue sets in, the row serves as a reference point: "I rowed the Atlantic — I can have one more conversation"
• Goal setting under genuine uncertainty: they accepted the possibility of failure and were at peace with it
• Daily shared breakfast on the boat mirrors the rhythm of regular structured team meetings
• "Fall down seven times, get up eight" — incremental progress compounds into reaching the goal