How to Run the World

… and why it’s made me better at my job.

I like watching the world wake up –

It’s not something I was born doing – routinely rejecting the beckoning blasts of each morning’s alarm. Rather, it started on a particular bend of the Harlem River in New York City. Each morning as we navigated boats and oars down to the dock, Bronx residents would pack themselves into subway cars at the Spuyten Duyvil station, a familiar character would stand on an opposite riverside rock and blast his bagpipes, and the faint smell of baking chocolate chips would emanate from the nearby cookie factory, filling the crisp, gritty air. These quotidian morning moments became a familiar fixture of my four years in New York and set off a quest to watch the world wake up in every city I landed thereafter.

What began from the vantage point of a rowing shell, evolved into observing as I whizzed by on two wheels or swerved through street vendors on two feet – always in motion, with eyes wide open. I’ve seen sunrises over oceans and mountains, and have watched the day’s first light bounce off skyscrapers or sneak through tree branches. I've logged miles racing ferries in Sydney Harbour and Tuk Tuks along Bombay’s Bandstand, and always on the way, exchanging friendly grins with strangers also embarking on a new day.

The smells today are more often a mix of gasoline and pan-fried noodles; the sounds a cacophony of honking horns, squawking birds, calls to prayer, church bells, and humming chants beneath golden pagodas. Each morning plays like a unique movie as I witness a culture come to life: Schoolchildren in uniform boarding packed-to-the-brim-buses or clinging onto the back of puttering motos, old men stopping to snag a drag with the morning’s news, shopkeepers opening their shuttered storefronts, friends meeting for a routine of arm circles and leg swings in the park, and the daily sacrament of rice and chilies washed down with piping hot tea on a tiny plastic stool.

There’s something about a morning routine – it says a lot about a person, their culture, and even the most adventurous of us rarely deviates from that familiar tune. That’s why I believe bearing witness to a city in its post-dawn hours offers the best insight into the DNA of a place. Running simply proves an efficient way of soaking in as much as possible.

That’s why I believe bearing witness to a city in its post-dawn hours offers the best insight into the DNA of a place.

Why is this at all worth thinking about in the context of business? If I take my own company, Visa as an example, we offer solutions to something that is embedded in the fabric of daily life: commerce. People will have to spend or receive money throughout the day, so it’s incumbent on us to study and understand their behaviours, their pain points, and their routines. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a career that sends me to new places and each time, before I head into the office, I pound the pavement. While it’s certainly no substitute for fully embedding yourself in a city or society, I feel more connected to the markets in which we operate for having immersed myself in them – even if just for a 10k.

 Though I’m not one to adopt and therefore to promote the practice of New Year’s Resolutions, I will offer this as one suggestion: next year, find your own way to run the world … I have a hunch it might help you and your business too :)

Follow my adventures by foot or by bike with the Hashtag #KateRunsTheWorld or #KatieRidesTheWorld on Instagram