Out of Office: When You Travel, The First Thing to Take Care of is Yourself
This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers and members share their business travel advice and stories from life on the road. Read all the posts here.
When you’ve been with a multinational corporation for as long as I’ve been at Halliburton, you’re going to travel a lot. I’ve had the good fortune to spend a lot of time going to interesting places to meet interesting people and do interesting things. I've been to the North Sea, Africa, Indonesia, South America, Russia, China and Australia just to name a few. The sun never sets on the oil and gas business.
Sometimes it’s true that getting there is half the fun. Sometimes not so much. Travel headaches are a fact and when things go wrong you’re often isolated from anyone who can help you. Getting from here to there is a complicated business with a lot of moving parts. I’m amazed sometimes that it goes as well as it does.
With travel as in any other aspect of business or life, luck favors the prepared. Travel is a process and process management is all about planning and execution. Good travel planning requires meticulous attention to detail and exceptional persistence. Making sure that airplane itineraries and hotel arrangements hang together with what sometimes seems to be an impossibly tight series of business meetings is an art form. The best advice that I have is to find and do your best to keep an assistant who knows how to navigate the maze of a travel booking system, understands the nuances of travel logistics (i.e., which New York airport is most convenient to which destination or which airlines are most reliable in and out of various airports) and is tuned into your travel habits and preferences.
I’ll say it one more time. Pay attention to the details. Nothing can ruin a perfectly good business trip like showing up at the wrong airport in a city that has two of them or showing up in a country with a visa that has the wrong dates on it.
One of life’s most immutable rules is that you should expect the unexpected. Stuff happens. Travel is no exception to that rule. When a trip goes wrong, the only thing that you can do is relax. Almost everything that goes wrong in a travel situation is out of the control of you or anyone that you’re going to get a chance to talk to. The weather is the weather. Airplanes break. If there is a problem that can be solved, letting your mind get out of control isn’t going to help. On the contrary, getting excited or being rude to a desk clerk or a gate agent stands a good chance of making things worse.
The most important piece of travel advice that I have is to take care of you. Eating, sleeping and general self-maintenance are essential to staying happy and productive while you’re away from home. Eating right when you’re on the road is tough. There’s a big temptation to eat “opportunistically.” Sometimes you’re so busy and food is so scarce that when you get a chance, you eat whatever you can find and as much as you can get your hands on. Trust me, that ends badly.
One thing that I do wherever I go is to get on the local clock. I wake up at 5 a.m. local time wherever I am. It’s a discipline and sometimes it hurts, but over the course of an extended trip, it keeps you synched up with the locals better than any other strategy that I’ve been able to think of.
I also get plenty of exercise. Wherever I go, I run. It’s good for your body and it’s good for your soul and your mind. In my travels, I’ve run through the streets of every major city of the world. London, Paris, Beijing, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, New York. I’ve also had the chance to run through deserts in places like Saudi Arabia. Again, the oil and gas business is everywhere. Running through the streets of a foreign city while you’re travelling on business is not only good for you in the moment, but it’s a great way to see a city up close and personal and in a way that most business people and tourists will never see it.
I’ve always considered myself lucky to have the chance to travel as a part of my work. I’ve seen and done things that most people can only imagine. The inconveniences can be managed. Get out there.
Photo:sevenke/Shutterstock
#OpenToWork Event Producer, Beauty Social Media & Creative Marketing. Ex Kryolan, Carmex, Coty, Mac
9 年Great article, you might like this :) https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/600-million-private-jumbo-jet-leah-stageman
Asistentes Santa Maria, Caracas.Venezuela
9 年Great information.
Vice President Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance and EHS
10 年I agree. Running shoes are always in my bag.
HSE Manager at ADNOC Group
10 年Traveling around can get to you ..... need to know where you are going, what to expect too, not only business objects, some countries require a culture awareness session. Thank you for good writeup.
Waste Management Consultant at Separation Systems, LLC
10 年As a long time employee, i too have traveled extensively and find this advice is very valid. Almost always, the person(s) or situation responsible for the delay is not available to communicate with. Venting your anger or frustration does nothing more than spread the bad feelings; it doesn't solve the problem or make you feel better and now you have upset another person(s) involved in the situation.