Have you ever been hit by reality so hard your body hurt?

I remember this moment so clearly… It was December of 2015, I just returned from an 2 month trip in Europe and Asia. My apartment was still half furnished, my fridge was completely empty, and the air I was breathing in was as stale as the rice cakes I left in the pantry.

I dropped my luggage on the ground, sat on my couch and stared at a dried up ring of water on my coffee table telling myself “jet lag is just a mindset”.

What I was feeling was beyond physical fatigue… I was experiencing Post Traumatic Travel Disorder.

Yes, I just self-diagnosed myself with a fictitious disorder. But the symptoms are very real.

We all know that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a dramatic shift in the mind caused by a severe negative perception of an event like war, car accidents, abuse, etc.

Well Post Traumatic Travel Disorder is its reciprocal. It’s a dramatic shift of positive perception in the mind resulting from extensive travel.

In the past 2 years, I’ve been blessed to do extensive amounts of travel for long periods of time and it has completely changed my perspective on life.

So often we mistaken our perspective of the world as the world’s perspective of us. Just imagine that everything you’ve ever known in your life and multiply it by 7.3 billion. That’s how many other perspectives are simultaneously existing parallel to yours. A lamination of those perspectives is still far from the truth.

I’d like to share with you 7 of the biggest shifts in my perspective that directly resulted from traveling. If one of these spark enough curiosity for you to go discover your own anhventure, then I have served.

1. Loss of cultural stereotypes

We all have stereotypes of countries we’ve imported into our minds from education, media, hearsay, and our own biased judgements.

Stereotypes like…

• Mexico is run by cartels that kidnap for ransom
• Afghanistan is full of terrorists
• Africa has AIDS and Ebola

Are these stereotypes true? YES. Are these stereotypes false? YES.

When you travel to a country with a pre-existing bias, your mind will either confirm what you assumed OR be “surprised” that it’s not what you thought.

Imagine you meet someone for the first time… They reach out to shake your hand and you say…

“WAIT! Let me guess, your name is Mark!”

Only 2 outcomes can occur: “I knew it! I was right” OR “Oh damn, I was close though”

No you weren’t… YOU’VE NEVER MET HIM BEFORE!

So why meet new experiences the same way?

You’ll only rob yourself of the unlimited outcomes by having a binary first impression.

Travel to enough countries with your cognitive bias and you’ll eventually realize

• There are good and bad people in every country
• There are rich and poor people in every country
• There are smart and dumb people in every country
• There is health and disease in every country

The more people I meet, the more I realize humans are built with the same DNA no matter their origins. We love culture because it’s different. We hate each other because our cultures are different.

It’s not our differences that create hate. It’s our lack of love for our differences is the reason why hate exists.

One World. One Love.

2. You discover global friendships

No I don’t mean pen pals where you email each other and learn a different language. I mean friendships that breakthrough the realms of time and space.

When I moved out of Houston, I became distant from friends I’ve known for 5+ years. When I say “distant” I mean when they hit me up it looks like this…

“Hey Anh! It’s blah from blah blah blah. I wanted to say blah blah blah. I hope you’re doing well!”

At first glance, that looks pretty normal right?

Well when I lost touch with my local friends, I gained global friends. Global friends are people you’ve developed a deep relationship without knowing much about their history. You share only 1-3+ priceless memories that are best kept between each other like a good inside joke because it loses it’s value when you try to explain it.

You know you have a global friend when it’s been 6 months since you last spoke and when they hit you up, it looks like this…

Your friendship is comprised of tagging each other on social media on knee slapping humor or telling them you miss them by saying “yo”.

Whether it’s 1 month or 1 year until the next time you see them, time and space isn’t a variable when it comes to the quality of your friendship.

3. You graduate from local problems to global problems

I used to think Asian drivers were the worst drivers in the world. After seeing Vietnam, I actually think they’re the BEST drivers in the world.
It was insane. It was like watching a colony of ants march in all directions seamlessly in unison.

I used to think the water pollution in Flint, Michigan as a huge deal. It is a problem.
But a bigger problem is in Libya where they don’t even have water to have a pollution problem.

I used to think obesity in America was a problem. It is a problem.
But a bigger problem is people in Venezuela abandoning their children because there’s not enough food to feed themselves.

I used to think rising taxes in America was a problem. It is a problem.
But a bigger problem is people in North Korea who are taxed their freedom.

I’m not discounting problems at all. I’m just putting them into perspective.

One of my favorite quotes is “there are no big problems, only small visions”.

I believe as you travel more, your awareness expands, your vision expands, your problems expand, and your life expands.

4. You are infected with innovative ideas

As I was traveling, there was a recurring thought that popped up everywhere I went.

“Oh wow, that would make soooo much money in this other country”

A few things I personally saw blow up in the states were Escape Rooms (Budapest) and Stir-fry Rolled Ice Cream (East Asia). As you travel you see things that are working for a country and would do well if applied elsewhere.

You also see opportunities for inventions that can solve problems that you didn’t even know existed!

I remember in Singapore when I went on the MRT (subway), they had a rule for escalators and stairs where right side is for static people and left side is for passing people. They had a wall built on their subway stations to prevent suicides. They had designated pathways for boarding and exiting passengers.

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MINDBLOWN!

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In the singapore airport, they have a line about 3 feet from the baggage claim conveyor belt to prevent people from blocking the belt from waiting people.

So genius!

Every time I’m at an airport and I see someone stand so close to the conveyer belt that their knees are touching the damn belt, I think… BUT Y THO?

If you’re a serial entrepreneur and looking for shark tank ideas, just travel to different countries. Guaranteed you’ll have too many ideas to work with.

5. You catch curiosity cancer

What is Curiosity Cancer? It’s uncontainable curiosity.

When you develop a new level of perspective, your mind starts wandering about infinite possibilities.

You want to travel to countries you didn’t even know existed, eat food you’ve never seen before, learn a language you’ve never heard before, and do things you never thought was possible.

The thought that spreads this curiosity cancer is “Wow, I had no idea this existed. What else don’t I know?”

On a daily basis we don’t question what we don’t know because you don’t know what you don’t know!

I challenge you right now to look into one area of your life that is important to you. It can be relationships, career, random facts, food, etc.

Ask yourself “what don’t I know?” about that area of your life

Take your answer and ask “what question can I ask to know that?”

Take your question and ask “who can I ask to know that?”

Go ask that person (or google) and get your answer.

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Let curiosity cancer take over your mind and see what happens. 🙂

6. Overdose of Gratitude

When my entire life was put into perspective, I gained a tremendous amount of gratitude for every little thing.

I’m grateful for my pedestrian rights in the states. That’s non-existent in Vietnam when you become Frogger when crossing the street.

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I’m grateful for LTE internet. That’s non-existent in the islands of the Philippines where they have edge internet and still on that T9 keyboard.

I’m grateful for google translator and maps. I’ve gotten out of so many binds because of them.

I’m grateful for all US dollars being the same size. You euros know what I’m talking about…

I’m grateful for FB messenger and WhatsApp that allows me to communicate to people without buying phone cards!

The list goes on and on but my point is the more aware you are, the less you complain and ungrateful you are. So go travel, raise your awareness, raise your gratitude, and raise your quality of life.

It’s no coincidence that when you describe a person as “well traveled”, it’s 100% the time a positive trait.

7. Unconditional Self-Resilience

Not all travel can help you experience this one. But I urge you to travel UNTIL you get this one.

There is no greater peace of mind and power than to have unconditional self-resilience.

To know that now matter what happens to you, you’ll survive.

That belief doesn’t come through faith that a higher power has your back. No, I mean that belief comes from absolute certainty that you have the capability to physically do anything you put your mind to.

You can only develop this by going through enough scary AF situations to have a large enough sample size to confidently conclude… you got this.

In addition to the confidence you get from having conquered bigger challenges in the past, you also gain confidence in your ABILITY to conquer bigger challenges in the future.

I realize that every time I face a challenge, my process looks like this:

• I get scared out of mind and doubt, fear, and insecurities creep in
• I muster up enough logic to outnumber the emotions and do it
• I do it poorly but eventually finish
• I make mental notes on what went well what didn’t
• I have gratitude for it
• If I did it again, I’d do it more efficiently and effectively
• Then I find a bigger problem, and repeat.

When you trust your own process, the problem itself becomes irrelevant.

The biggest wish people have when on their deathbed is to have done things they were fearful of and to have traveled more.

I don’t need to convince you to travel more because we all want to. But what I want to do is eliminate all the excuses on why you haven’t.

1. It’s expensive

“Expensive” is just a perspective. $200 for a pair of shoes is expensive to most people. $200 for a pair of Yeezys made by SUPREME is a hella cheap. Expensive is 100% based on value and not by the dollar amount.

You can eliminate this excuse in 2 ways:

• Make more money – Let’s be real…It’s not expensive, you just can’t afford it. Go create more value and collect more money.
• Optimize the costs – It’s not expensive, you just don’t know how to shop.

For flights, I pay $40 for a year subscription to https://scottscheapflights.com/. I can’t express how stupid the deals are.

I get alerts DAILY on flights like this ROUNDTRIP flight from Houston to Paris for $403!

2. I don’t have time

We all have 24 hours in a day, stop lying to yourself.

Truth is: you don’t own your time. You can get this back by either working for yourself, working remote, or get more time off.

Each of these points is an entire post within itself, but to sum it up, go get your time back. You deserve it.

3. I’m scared

Being scared isn’t a reason to not do something. It’s feedback that you’re outside your comfort zone.

Different levels of fear are just mileposts to let you know how far out you are.

Use it to guide you, don’t let it run you.

Don’t wait for the right time to live the life of your dreams. Also, don’t drop everything and spend your life savings on a soul searching journey. Start today to strategically plan and act on building your dream life.

If you don’t, everyday will seem like a nightmare.

If you experienced any of these shifts in your perspective in your travel, comment below and let me know!

While I was traveling, one of my favorite things to do was capturing panoramas. I felt like that was the best way to capture a full view of my experience.

Here’s a collection of my favorite panoramas of all time….so far. Enjoy! 🙂

 

BERLIN

LONDON

SINGAPORE

NEW YORK

BERLIN

SAN DIEGO

SINGAPORE

BUDAPEST

VIETNAM

PHILIPPINES

HAWAII

TORONTO

BELIZE

THAILAND