You are a narration that remembers and records your DNA’s reactions to external stimuli. The interaction of these stimuli creates constant change within you, and you within others. This leads to the natural observation that change is inevitable. So plan for it.
These external stimuli combine to create your environment–the world in which you interact with. And it affects you.
Try creating beautiful art in a stale office cubicle.
Try pushing the boundaries of physical performance while in space.
Try falling asleep after a horror movie or in an apartment in NYC with construction and ambulances going off night and day.
Try having civil discourse with your friend who’s voting opposite you after watching a John Oliver special (you may not even need the special to get you riled up).
Try being productive in your room while laying down on your bed.
Do you fall asleep better at home or at a nightclub?
We can touch, smell, taste, see and hear to interact with our environment.
For example, the way we see the world is literally the reflection of light energy bouncing off objects and returning to our eyes.
Tourism and the desire to travel is highly contingent upon satisfying the craving to feed new experiences to the senses.
Does that not motivate you to want to go exploring?
How about now? Ready to jump on over to kayak.com and book something?
But there’s far more beauty to traveling than to just provide your senses with new experiences.
As individuals, we all have different ways of interacting with the world, for we are all exposed to different environments, and undoubtedly these experiences shape who we are. From dedicating a life to dark fashion due to growing up in Japan post-WWII
to committing one’s self to a life of rock climbing in Europe
The impact of one’s environment is so monumental that consciously deciding where to live should be seriously considered as the biggest life decision one makes. Aspiring actors and actresses move to Hollywood, bankers to Manhattan, entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley, politicians to D.C., etc. etc.
In order to understand where to live and in conjunction with the advent and ease of global travel, one should understand what the world’s environments are and what each has to offer. Don’t just accept the environment you have been placed in.
Experiencing what the world has to offer enables you to appreciate and understand the environment you live in and enables you to pick the one that you feel most fulfills your life.
So my challenge is that I dare you to travel.
And not just because it sounds fun or because that’s what people are doing. I hope that you find an internally motivated reason to do so. To search what the world is and has to offer so that you understand and develop an intimate relationship with it.
As an entrepreneur, for me that means identifying the needs of the world. I believe, one of the biggest misallocations of resources and talent in the entrepreneurial space stems from this lack of travel. This lack of awareness of the pressing needs of the world.
I recently advised a young co-founding team who decided to make another dating app and recently launched at their party-school college. They were struggling to find a way to enter the saturated market and struggling to monetize.
Meanwhile, I participated in a Shark Tank Pitch Competition in which one of the entrepreneurs had created a fully integrated solution for over a million sustainable farmers in India and needed help on a mobile app to match farmers with distributors.
I couldn’t help but think….
And with that, I leave you with thinking about your own environment. It’s that which shapes what you are aware of, what you think about, how you interact with others and who you are.
It might just be time for you to go on another trip to open up your eyes to the needs of the world.
And that is what I’m doing right now. I’m currently exploring the world according to Vietnam and Cambodia and hope to satisfy my senses, expand my awareness, improve my thinking and identify potential business ideas.
So, when’s your next trip and how will it impact your environment–your self?