Reflections on 7 Years of Global Travel

At the end of this month, May 2019, I’ll return from global roles to a role back in the Greater Washington, DC area, thus concluding 7 years of extensive business travel. I’m quite reflective this month as I exit the global stage; and, instead of holding my thoughts inside, I've decided to share with my friends and colleagues.  So here’s what I’ve been thinking:

1. The world is a beautiful place. After traveling to (or through) 35 or so different countries, and many multiple times over, I’m often asked for a list of my favorite places. And I always begin my reply with this: “The world is such a beautiful place." It really is. When I permit my eyes to see it, the world is aflame with a beauty so deep as to be magical. All things and all places can appear lovely. Sacred. Nothing is simply common.
2. It is wonderful to have friends all over the world. I am so very grateful to so many people for your hospitality, compassion, care, concern, love and friendship.  On the professional front, I’ve often been reminded that great things can be accomplished when passionate people act on a bold vision together.  Once, when we were brainstorming about a particularly new and ambitious project, Amy Diaz said something that stuck with several of us:  “This is a bold project because we are a bold team,” she said. I loved that. And yes, we are.  At the same time, on the personal front, I was reintroduced to true hospitality by my friends Sharon and Dermot who insisted, on my travels to South Africa, that I stay with them. I’ll never forget nights out on the patio deck, beside the fire, listening to music and singing with friends, until we would fall asleep, only to wake up at 2 am to find my way to my bedroom to finish my rest. And that’s just one example of many!  Whether it was a braai in Johannesburg, a sauna in Helsinki, karaoke in Tokyo, golf in Melbourne, tango in Buenos Aires, a river dinner in Budapest, or the Sydney Bridge Climb, the relationships forged all over the world can only be properly described by one word: Wonderful. Or, if you'll permit me, perhaps another word: Sublime.
3. Fear and insecurity dissipate with long-term global and cultural immersion. When he invited me to join the global team 7 years ago, Greg Wiebe, then our Global Head of Tax, must have smiled to think about how the American from the Deep South (i.e., me!) would fare during my initial months on the road. I had traveled a little previously, but only a little. And in that first year on the global road, I definitely had moments of insecurity and fear going into new countries, new cities, and new venues with limited language capability. It took some time even to develop an “ear” that could understand regional dialects. But over time, fear and insecurity dissipated.  I not only became comfortable as a “global citizen,” but I truly loved my new global neighbors. We are, in some very meaningful sense, one with each other.  There is great unity in our diversity.  And global immersion helped me to see just that. As Suzy Kassem has put it, “through understanding, people will be able to see their similarities before differences.” Imagine that.

During my travels, I began to write more poetry, as a way of journaling my thoughts and feelings on the road. Many of my poems were fueled by places I had recently visited. So as I close, this is one of my favorites: 

?Where to Find Joy

In the very first breath of the day

In the slice of lemon perched on ice in a tumbler

In the magnificence of the Milky Way

Viewed from Crested Butte, Mauna Kea, or a dark jungle

In the fourteen billion years of love

Expressed in the universe since inception

In the pure expression of peace symbolized by a dove

In the sunrise and sunset over the ocean

In the mystery that hides all I cannot know

In the rich fulness of the color spectrum

In the diverse ways streams and rivers flow

In the comforting warmth of the midday sun

In the gentle eyes and gaze of a woman

In the tell-tale markings on a whale’s tail

In the breathtaking vistas on top of Table Mountain

In the manner in which penguins mate

In the fin of a 14-foot great white shark

In the exquisite design of the flowering protea

In the unexpected escape to be found in Central Park

In the birth of a child and the death of a saint

Ah, joy

Elusive and yet obvious

Hidden but evident

Accessible any moment of any God-given day

In everybody, everything and everywhere

This is where to find joy