Who Are You Spending Your Time With?

I've been relaxing in Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania the past week. Zanzibar was on a very long list of places I have always wanted to travel. Known as the Isle of Spice, the history and beauty of this place deserves a closer look. I highly recommend you google it and read about what makes this small island nation so unique. From its Islamic roots as a trading post to its unique architecture, Zanzibar has far exceeded any expectations I had when I packed my bags and set off for the 20-hour trip.

Do The Right Thing

I was traveling through Nicaragua last month for a week and was blown away by everything that country has to offer. The city of Granada is the oldest town in all of Central and South America. Beautiful colonial architecture, very safe and bustling with tourist friendly activity. The Mombacho volcano shadows the town that sits on Lake Nicaragua, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. Great food and friendly people, lots of nice hotels and restaurants make for a great long weekend getaway (4-5 day stay is perfect).

A Walk On The Nomad Side

Earlier this month I got on a flight to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. The trip was a mix of business and pleasure. Business comprised of visiting the operations of the biggest tobacco grower in the world, and pleasure was every other minute I spent in the country. This small Central American country is a land of beauty beyond my expectations.

20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around the World for Three Years: Guest Post

I read a post this morning that I just had to share. Gary Arndt is the man behind the blog Everything Everywhere, one of the most popular travel blogs in the world. Gary is a true Nomad. Since 2007 he has been traveling around the world, having visited more than 70 countries and territories, and gaining worldly wisdom in the process. Gary posted this on Tim Ferriss' blog and it really captures the most important lessons you need to learn about traveling around the world.

Friday Afternoon Musings From Boston

What I love about travel is that it not only gives you time to reflect on your life, but also it enhances your sense of observation. You really see things that normally you wouldn't. Things that perhaps are better unseen. And you appreciate the complexities, challenges and obstacles that life sometimes throws at you. If there is one thing I love about being a nomad its the opportunity to reflect and observe things that you normally wouldn't in your day to day life.

Somewhere Over The Skies of Colorado

I'm sitting on a plane heading to the East Coast and my neighbor decides to vent her frustrations that her management "doesn't get" her role as a Senior Manager of the company. We got into a heated debate about how important the role of the manager is versus her view that the business world revolves around the needs of each and every employee. 

5 Travel Lessons You Can Use at Home

If there is one thing I hope the Nomad Influencer achieves its this: to encourage you, the reader, take the experiences a nomad lifestyle can give you and apply it in your everyday life. It doesn’t matter what kind of a life you lead today, whether you have a family and the responsibilities that go with that, how old you are or how limited (or not) you may be economically. Life is about what you do with your time and that means choices. And that is the message Rolf Potts, the author of Vagabonding, gives in his post on Tim Ferriss’ blog this week.  It’s a wonderful read based on the experiences of a true nomad who has 5 amazing lessons about the art of travel well worth adopting in your everyday life. I hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts.

What the Heck Happened to British Airways?

I just completed 3 days of straight travel, originating in Brussels, flying through Munich, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, London and back to Edinburgh. It has been several years since I was flying British Airways regularly to and from the US. It was the highlight of my travels, experiencing BA’s wonderful customer service both on the plane and in the terminal lounges. As a Gold card member of their much coveted frequent flyer program, you got extra special service everywhere you went with British Airways. Everything about the experience set them apart from the competition, especially the poorly managed US airlines that have absolutely no customer service. Quality food, drinks, amenities, and most of all first rate customer service where staff actually took the time to look at your boarding card and address you by your name. And for this differentiated experience, we the road-warriors of travel were happy to pay a slight premium (2-5% on average) to fly British Airways.

In 2010 Go Seek And Venture

Harvard Business Review’s August issue focused on managing in the ‘New World’, a title for the post-recession world where Government Regulation, Risk, the ‘New’ Economy and Leadership will differ. 

Nomadic Experiences Today

A big part of being a Nomad is experiencing things you normally wouldn’t if you stay in one place. And to really appreciate this you need to have a mindset of living in the ‘Present’, otherwise you just don’t “catch” the wonderful things happening around you every day. Now that may sound ‘obvious’, but the reality is most people – no strike that – the majority of people don’t live in the present. In fact most people spend the majority of their time living in the future, or God forbid, the past. Now there is nothing wrong with focusing your efforts on attaining goals and objectives that are ahead of you, and there is certainly something healthy about remembering and appreciating your past. But if you fail to be aware of your present then you will miss out on the many simple pleasures life gifts you everyday. And as a Nomad, I am even more blessed to experience some amazing things on my travels.

A British Prime Minister, NFL and a Nomad

Sunday morning and I’m at Edinburgh Airport waiting for a flight to London Heathrow. I have business meetings early Monday morning so decided to spend my Sunday doing a bit of shopping and catching up with some old friends. The BMI flight is over an hour late from London so we are delayed. My Star Alliance Gold status gets me access to their lounge and I am enjoying Scottish short bread with Starbucks quality coffee for breakfast. Finally they call boarding and as I make my way to the gate I am met by a flood of Scottish NFL fans wearing jerseys from all around the League. Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and of course Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots.

You see, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the rest of the New England Patriots are in London this weekend to play the Tampa Bay Bucs in week 6 of the NFL regular season. The annual NFL game at Wembley Stadium is the highlight of the British American Football calendar, with Wembley selling out to a capacity crowd of 85,000. London has made a bid to host a Super Bowl in the next 10 years and the NFL are taking a serious look at the proposal. Most Americans may cringe at the thought of their national event going to London, but it makes a lot of sense from a marketing and revenue perspective. In fact, there is even a proposal to expand the league with a full team in London. No doubt the logistics of having one or even two teams in different time zones is a nightmare. Think about the physical toll it would take on teams having to travel to the UK to play, and what about the London team itself having to travel to places like San Francisco, Seattle or San Diego to play a regular season or playoff game? Still, expanding its market to include the UK population would be greeted with approval (and cash) from the likes of Pepsi, Reebok and Gatorade.

And so as I watch these die hard American Football fans standing in line at a remote airport in the North of the UK, with their jerseys and baseball caps, spending their hard earned money to fly down to London and no doubt take Monday off work (productivity hit?), I think I have seen it all…until I board the plane. As I made my way through the first class cabin I come face to face with Prime Minister Gordon Brown as he takes his seat in the first row. Dressed in suit and tie, Gordon looks very tired as he settles into his seat and immediately goes head down to read through a 3-inch stack of paper. He looks like a management consultant, over worked, ruffled hair, and aging by the minute. I was a bit taken aback to be honest, by his shriveled look. He was also unshaven which was very unusual for a Prime Minister, but then it is Sunday morning and Gordon was no doubt up in Edinburgh for an engagement with family and friends the night before given the British Prime Minister is in fact Scottish. We can forgive him his appearance this fine fall morning, he is after all human like the rest of us, and deserves a weekend ‘off’ with his family who likely don’t get to have a Saturday night with him all that often.

After my surprise of bumping into ‘the man’ (at least in these parts), my business mind took over and I quickly started to assess the Prime Minister’s entourage. He sat in seat 1A and his security man sat next to him in seat 1C, wearing a suit and tie, looking fresh and rested, with an ear piece and armed no doubt although you couldn’t see anything. Behind him were two more men in suit and tie, but their facial expression and body language suggested they are aides to the Prime Minister, not security. As I waited for the NFL fans to stow away their bags and take their seats (this lot don’t travel much I deduct), I turned my attention back to Gordon and there he was, head down, scribbling ferociously on his stack of papers like a teacher correcting term papers. And then it hit me! I looked up in the overhead compartment and saw two briefcases staring back at me. Could it be? Was I looking at the British Prime Minister’s equivalent to what we Americans call ‘The Nuclear Football’? Way cool…

As I took my seat (9D, exit row in economy, best seats in the house), I couldn’t help to marvel at British society. The Prime Minister is on a commercial flight and everyone around me is so relaxed that I realize the only guy who is excited is me. I talk to my neighbor in 9F and turns out he is a St. Louis Ram’s fan (really??) who masquerades as a banker during the week. My new friend tells me the Prime Minister is often on this flight to and from London and always travels commercial. What? He never takes his own plane? Turns out he doesn’t have one. The Royal Air Force only give him a plane for big international flights when he has a huge entourage, otherwise he takes whatever commercial flight is available. “Tax payers won’t pay for private jets,” my neighbor tells me. “They are in government to work for us, not the other way round,” before turning the conversation back to more important things, such as will the Rams fire QB Marc Bulger any time soon?

Now can you imagine politicians and leaders in the United States flying commercial? Would the President take a commercial flight from his hometown of Chicago back to DC? Better yet, can you see the Speaker of the House fly commercial from San Francisco each week? What about Senator John McCain? And if they did, how would people react? Would they be as civil as the British are by politely leaving them alone? My flight was full but not a single person interrupted Gordon as they boarded the plane. That would never happen in the US.

You see, politicians in America have become celebrities. Somewhere along the line the tables have turned on we, the people. It used to be it was an honor to serve us by running for office. You went to Washington to get things done for your constituents. And you had to be qualified to represent the people who were sending you, so that meant you actually had to have accomplished something in your life in order for people to have confidence in your ability to serve. The British are fighting hard to keep that tradition. Career politicians are being targeted by the Press to prevent them from winning elections, or in cases where they snuck into office, from being re-elected. If you have paid any attention to the British news the past several weeks, auditors have been reviewing politician’s expense reports and making them payback illegitimate expenses. Gordon had to payback over £12,000 ($19,500). People are just not putting up with politicians who don’t know their place. They don’t care who you are.

And so as we prepare to land at London’s Heathrow Airport and I sign off, it is the nomad in me that is satisfied today. For without venturing out in the world you can’t be at places like this…places where Prime Ministers, foreign NFL fans and a nomad come together for a short plane ride.

If a Homeless Man has a Dog, is the Dog Homeless?

Walking the streets of Edinburgh over the weekend, I came across a number of homeless dogs. Or at least that is how I perceived them as I strolled down George Street on a chilly Saturday afternoon, and saw a variety of breeds lying under blankets with their homeless owners asking me for my spare change. Having owned three labradors some years ago, I am one of many dog lovers who has experienced the joys (and frustrations) of raising puppies and watching them become grown best friends. My labs were incredible friends, loyal, caring and each of them having their own unique personality and character. As I recalled my three four-legged friends from days gone by, I got to thinking whether a dog would agree with my view that in fact he is homeless. What would the dog think?

per⋅spec⋅tive

–noun

the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.

Do you remember the first time you truly grasped the concept of perspective? It was like the fog clearing for me. I was in business school (that late believe it or not) and my Professor was unfortunately not very good, a fact that is supported by the sad truth that I can't remember her name. While she was not very good compared to some of her more impressive peers, for one lesson she did fascinate us with the importance of using perspective as a powerful tool in our day-to-day business dealings. She taught us the importance of understanding others' perspective in order to get across our own. She took the time to ensure we grasped the notion that understanding does not mean agreeing, but by understanding we have a better shot of connecting.

Some of you may be wondering why it took me until business school to grasp this simple concept, but think about it. When are we ever taught about perspective? They don't teach it at school, in religion or in sports and extra curricular activities. If anything, we are taught belief systems that are meant to define who we are, who we hang with, how we roll...dig deeper into society and you will see my point: gangs don't teach their members to understand the perspective of rival gangs; businesses don't teach their employees to learn from the opposing communication and positioning of competitors; political parties focus more on ridiculing the opposition during campaigning than understanding in the hope of connecting with opposing party members and, more importantly, voters; communities focus on, well, the community, and leverage things like local sports teams, the arts and festivals to bring people together. And so on. No, everywhere I look its clear the world tries to bring people together by focusing on what we have in common as opposed to share what is unique about each and every one of us.

With that perspective, I would argue I was lucky to learn about perspective so early in my life. Most people only grasp the notion when they are older, way older.

Perspective. Okay, so what?

Let us look at why it is so important to understand the power of perspective and then apply it in our world. Let me share an interesting example.

Some years ago I was involved with a client who had authored an incredible business book on managing diverse cultures. This client is a renowned consultant who earns his living by helping companies better understand other cultures in order to better manage their international business and teams. He has trained thousands of employees of Fortune 2000 companies all over the world in the art of managing cultural differences. My client told me a story about the challenges he encountered when one of his clients, a very large South Korean conglomerate, loved his training and his book so much that they translated it into Korean and distributed 30,000 copies in their organization without his permission. In short, they ripped off his book and distributed it to their staff (this is one perspective).

What happened next is truly remarkable. My client at first was enraged and got on the phone to his attorneys who, smelling deep pockets, wanted to sue international copyright infringement. The aggressive call to arms of the attorneys quickly reminded my client of his area of expertise - cultural differences. Instead of looking at this infringement of his intellectual property from his perspective, he decided to look at it from their perspective. He quickly realized that the South Koreans were in fact honoring him by paying to translate his work and then handing it out to 30,000 staff – they were so taken by his work that they went to all this effort and expense. After all, his book was not available in the South Korean language, or any Asian language for that matter. Reflecting on this further, my client came up with a proposal. He contacted his client and asked for a meeting. He flew to Seoul and sat with the clients to discuss his book. The conversation went something like this:

"Dear Korean client, you have bestowed the highest honor on me by investing your resources in translating my book and gifting it to so many of your hard working employees. I am very humbled and honored to help them and you with your business. Because my book is copyrighted internationally and I don't have a publisher in South Korea yet, would you be interested in helping me publish my book in your country?"

The South Korean conglomerate happened to own several publishing houses and jumped on the opportunity to buy the rights to his book, not only in South Korea but also China, Mongolia, Nepal and Japan. My client sold several million copies of his book over the next few years in the region and profited from his relationship with the big conglomerate. This does not make the fact that the company had infringed on his copyright and illegally translated and distributed copies without his permission okay, but by taking the time to understand their perspective and where they were coming from, he was able to think through a better outcome. Had he chosen to sue the company he would have been well within his rights, but I'm not sure anyone would have truly won from that scenario. A little understanding went a very long way in this instance.

Back to the Dag…"You like Dags?"

The opportunity to see from another perspective and then form an understanding is all around us every day. The world has changed in an irreversible way at least 3 times in the last 10 years by my count:

2001 – 9/11

2008 – Global Financial melt down

2009 – Barack Obama elected US President

Now everyone will have a perspective on whether these 3 events are irreversible changes, whether there are more than just these 3 events that truly have changed the world, whether they are positive or negative, who is to blame, who is right and who is wrong, whether they have impacted us at all etc. Regardless of how you view it, we are in need of greater understanding and connection today than ever before. Whether it is with our bankers, our public servants, our customers, our friends or other countries and faiths, we lack the perspective that is needed to ensure greater understanding and connection in our world today.

As for the homeless mutts…well, the truth is those dogs are happy animals. They get to spend all their time with their master, the person they want to be with the most. And they help these homeless people in ways no charity or pocket change can, by being loyal friends who love and respect them no matter what. It’s a heck of a relationship and I’m not sure they would give it up for anything in the world. But then that’s just my new perspective.

Maui, TJ & Asia - Aug 2005