Rome Monuments

Learn Life Skills from Travel!

Those who know me know that I travel as my job. I am lucky enough to be a professional blogger and as such I get to run around the world, play with fun people, make mistakes and then tell you how to avoid them.

I also get to write to you about the coolest places on the planet and try to convince you to go see them.

For those who are not used to travelling, it can be daunting. There are so many unknowns. And these unknowns have to be dealt with in unfamiliar surroundings, sometimes when you are tired and many times with people who do not speak your language.

This makes travelling an ideal way to learn some basic life and career skills that will see you through difficult times.

By way of example, I grew up as a very shy little girl. At 17, my mom and dad packed up my entire family and moved us to Brussels, Belgium for a year so that Pop could finish his education.

There were seven of us kids, so paying for each of  us to go to the American or English schools there was way too expensive. Even if it wasn’t, my mom thought attending an all girl, Catholic school taught in French would be a great experience.

Going from California to Brussels was a huge shock.

First off, California is sunny most of the time and Brussels gets so much rain that it can make you want to throw yourself off the top of the Maison Du Roi (House of the King) in the Grand Place.

Secondly, we went from living in the suburbs with all of our friends around the corner to living in the city in a tall, skinny, crumbling mansion that was forever freezing. We knew no one.

We all went to school and were tossed in with the French speaking Belgian kids (Belgium has a mix of German, French and Flemish speaking people.). We tried desperately to absorb the language, the culture and the curriculum.

Somehow I made it work for me and when I returned home, I wasn’t shy any more. I realized that if I could pull that off, I was pretty smart so I had no reason to worry about what I said or how I appeared to others.

It has been many years since that trip and I have had many others. Each one has resulted in a learning experience. There is no end to things that can be learned so I have picked the ones I think are most important to you.

1. You learn to handle discomfort

This sounds stupid, but there are many people I have seen in my travels who feel that if they become uncomfortable or try something new, the world will somehow end.

Going abroad and expecting the food to be what you are used to or the hotel or B and B staff to have the same priorities as you will doom you to disappointment.

Additionally, travelling to a new country, culture and language is a social mine field. If you become mortified at the thought of making a social faux pas, travel will likely cure you because, try as you might, you will make mistakes. What better way to find out that mistakes are not generally fatal and are easily forgiven.

2. You learn to understand new rules

No two countries have laws and unspoken social rules that are exactly the same as the laws and rules you have grown up with. The laws you know might not be appropriate in your present time situation.

My experience with this is driving in Italy. The Italians have been billed as some of the looniest drivers in the world but nothing could be further from the truth. Italian driving makes sense if you stop and observe. It is, however, very different from American driving.

In America, driving is very strictly regimented. No one dares step a  toe out of line or a cop is there with his ticket book. The laws are many and various.

In Italy, there are laws but there are also accepted rules. When you know them, driving is easy.

The first is that the left lane on the freeway is for passing only.

The other is that if you want to pass on a two lane highway, of which there are many in Italy, you pass on the left while the other driver squeezes over on the shoulder. The passing driver then goes into the middle of the road and passes no matter what the oncoming traffic is doing.

In the US we are forbidden to drive on the shoulder so if you are an American driver driving in Italy and staring into the headlights of an oncoming car, you can follow your drilled in training and involve yourself and others in a head on collision or you can think on your feet and squeeze over on the shoulder, thereby avoiding catastrophe. You have to make that choice really fast. There is nothing like finding yourself in that position to make you realize how mechanical driving has become in the US and how accustomed we are to following the rules even in situations where they don’t apply.

This skill will see you through international business deals where the culture and social rules are different.

3. You learn to have fun doing whatever you are doing.

One of the main secrets of being successful in today’s business climate is passion! The person who is passionate about his work stands head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd and draws business and friends to him.

Passion can be created in yourself but you have to learn how to create it.

Visiting another country is a great place to start.

I spent 13 hours on the world’s slowest train from Cremona to Scalea, Italy. I thought it would be the sheerest drudgery but I shared a cabin with a bunch of people from Naples. We had a great time!

Talk to people, make a game out of finding how to make anything fun, even unpleasant tasks.

4. You find out that learning another language is not that hard.

In other countries, it is expected that you learn a second language and in some countries, you have to learn several in order to do business in society. I don’t know where the idea comes from that learning another language is so difficult.

When we went to Brussels, I was plunged into a school and a society that was all in French. The first few weeks were tough but soon words started to make sense and before long I was speaking it pretty well.

Nowadays we have great language learning sites like Duolingo.com that make it easy.

Since that time, I have had to learn Spanish and now, Italian. Here is a tip: Get a good foreign language dictionary and look up everything! You learn really quickly that way. Also don’t be afraid of trying out your new skills on the locals. They really appreciate your efforts to assimilate and communicate in their language even if they can’t always understand you.

In order to have an edge in today’s global marketplace, you need to learn another language or two. Once you learn one, the others are easy. And being in a foreign country is still the best way to learn.

Chris and friend in Prague

5. You learn to see another’s point of view

When you visit other cultures, it is easy to dive in with preconceived ideas about a people and their culture. What is more difficult is to drop all that you have learned, good, bad or indifferent, and observe what you see in front of you. People are all individuals and there is not one personality type that encompasses all of a race.

This skill stands you in great stead when you are dealing with anyone. No one likes to look in your eyes and see a generality reflected back at them. They want to see themselves as they are.

See that person, look from his or her eyes. You will come away with a greater understanding and much more affinity for the human race. People can feel it when you care about them. They respond to you when you do.

6. You learn to try things that freak you out

I have one rule in life and that is “I never eat anything that I would not willingly step on in my bare feet”. This leaves out snails and other squidgy items that are better left shoved under the shrubbery.

That said, I was under a strong social obligation recently to chomp down on a tiny octopus that had been deep fried and put on my plate. Those who know me, know that I will pretty much eat my shoe if it is rolled in bread crumbs and fried in hot oil but little octopi? Hmmmmm, Well, I did it and I am still here to tell you about it. In fact, they were quite delicious!

If you deal with international business, chances are that you will find yourself in a situation where you are expected to eat something different and failing to do so will cause offense. Rest assured that the alcohol in wine and other beverages does kill germs and even the strange stuff is well washed before it is served. So……Bottoms up!

7. You learn to pray without being seen

There is one word that strikes fear into the heart of even the most stalwart traveler. TAXI DRIVERS.

I don’t care where I am, piling into a taxi and observing the Virgin Mary on the dashboard never fills me with anything like calm. As long as The Virgin is there, these drivers seem to think that the laws of the physical universe simply don’t apply to them. They speed through crowded streets with their elbows on the horn, jerking the wheel into a new lane that exists in their own personal universe and trying to point out interesting monuments all at the same time.

It is stupifyingly scary.

Therefore I have perfected the ability to pray without being observed by the driver and thereby causing offense and an international incident.

A good sized poncho or handbag under which you can hide your praying hands is adequate, one can also feign fatigue and pretend to sleep which has the added benefit of discouraging conversation so your driver will keep his mind on his driving.

This skill will aid you in your business dealings as you sneak out to the bathroom to pray while your client considers your proposal.

8. You learn to think on your feet.

Wherever you go this is a skill you need. There is no one-patterned response that will see you through every situation in life. However in our everyday environment, we come to rely on these patterned responses.

Shoving yourself out of your every day environment forces you to come up with new solutions for basic problems based on present time data. This is always best. People can tell when you are on automatic and it bugs them.

In new surroundings you trash these canned responses and start to interact with your environment and the people in it.

9. You learn to value things that you might have missed

As we travel through various countries and cultures we can see that the things that have survived through thick and thin up through the centuries are aesthetic.

Articles of slavery, submission, pain, these survive for awhile but soon turn to dust and are replaced in public consciousness by the things that remind us of who and what we are.

Aesthetics are what differentiate us from animalistic cultures and brutal societies. We are not brutal by nature despite anything anyone tells you. We are basically good and strive for survival for all. Anything that heads in the direction of death is simply not us but some weird baggage.

Somehow, miraculously, great art and architecture have survived. The pyramids, the sphinx, the temples and chapels containing the world’s most beautiful and spiritual art have survived brutal wars that wiped out millions and bombed cities.

In life, we get caught up in our day to day jobs and sometimes lose ourselves within them. Getting back in touch with Michelangelo’s Pieta or his Sistine ceiling lets us stop and consider who and what we really are.

In business, losing sight of doing the greatest good is fatal. Business people who only do what benefits them do not last long in business or in life.

10. You get confidence

Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we have somehow come away from all our hideous and painful parts of life and survived.

We have all been in scrapes we thought we would never get out of and yet, here we are!

Getting on the wrong train somewhere and finding your way back is scary but liberating. Learning to negotiate a menu that is not only not in your own language but doesn’t even use the same alphabet can give you a spiritual leg up as well. Don’t be afraid. As far as I know, no one has ever actually died of embarrassment although we all claim that we have.

Okay! you are now armed with great reasons to go travelling. Go forth and make mistakes. Learn new things and experience the awesome world we live in!

The post 10 Vital Life Skills You Learn from Traveling appeared first on Chasing La Bella Vita.