Traveling Can Make You a Storyteller – Operator and a Better Person
When I started gathering material and making notes for my book, The Protected, it wasn’t long before I realized that many topics and examples were primarily based on my travel experiences.
Keeping up with work while exploring Petra, Jordan.
Maybe this is why the famed Berber-Moroccan scholar and traveler, Ibn Battuta, was quoted as saying: “Traveling – First it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” Ibn left home at 21 to see the world around him and became so entranced by his experiences he didn’t return home for over 25 years.
I’ve always found the benefits of travel, both for business and leisure, to be mostly favorable and even therapeutic at times. As an international security professional and operator, a great deal of traveling is part of the job. Understandably, traveling can also be stressful, especially during times of conflict, increased threats of terrorism and the new “era” of COVID-19.
What I appreciate most about traveling is that you are required to use all of your senses from start to finish. Even if the efforts leave you somewhat exhausted, I find the reward is worth it. When I reflect on the stories I like to share with others the most, they often involve some sort of travel experience with a few valuable lessons learned.
The benefits can include:
Allowing you an escape from the day-to-day routines
Gaining new perspectives and
Challenging all of your senses (auditory, visual, smell, taste, touch).
But I think I would actually put gaining new perspectives at the top of that list. Better perspective can improve your planning skills, help you to be more organized, and certainly more mindful in ways you aren’t at home or in the office. It can definitely push you outside of your comfort zones regarding culture, conversation and history.
I understand the benefits of Zoom calls, and yes, they reduce travel costs and are much safer during certain periods (such as a global pandemic) and essential for those who do business in areas with a higher risk factor due to conflict, terrorism and crime.
But when it comes to business or professional travel, a conference call can never replace actual human interactions, which we sometimes refer to as “boots on the ground” or “ground truth.”
It’s easier to hide the truth on a conference call and perhaps not get the full picture. It’s much harder to do this when you’re there in person.
The security and intelligence industry has come a long way to help prepare a security traveler with valuable information and technology, including:
Pre-trip reports with current intelligence,
Location/s background, GPS routes,
Maps and weather
Geopolitical concerns
Criminal and terrorism concerns,
Upcoming events, known Persons of Interest (POIs) to your principal, as well as other pertinent information.
While technology has allowed security operators to more effectively prepare before even landing in a new location, all of that intel can’t replace physically being there (nor should it, in most cases).
All this information is incredibly helpful, but it can never do the personal work for you once you step out of the airport and begin your journey. Your senses are immediately heightened: the smell of the air, the sounds of languages or accents, the tempo of the human and vehicle traffic rushing by you, and the general atmosphere of the city and those you come in contact with as they either welcome your visit or are suspicious of your every move.
Some of our greatest authors, songwriters and philosophers have gained inspiration from travels in order to create their great works. Authors like Jack London, Agatha Christie, Mark Twain, John le Carre, Hemingway, J.K. Rowling and scores of others would have never been as successful without their travel adventures and abilities to weave their experiences into their works.
I am appreciative of the new perspectives I have developed while living and traveling in countries where other religions, customs and laws were vastly different from what I have known in the U.S.
I’ve had the unique privilege and opportunity to travel extensively in my career and lived abroad for nearly a quarter of my professional life. If these opportunities had not occurred, I truly believe I would not be the person I am today.
At times, however, my perspectives have been challenged. An example was when I was part of a protective team working for the CIA and we engaged in cross-border protective operations between countries like Israel and Palestine and others. As we all know, this particular region and some of its people have been in violent discord for centuries (with no real resolution in sight yet). Fortunately, I’ve enjoyed many interesting conversations and have “broken bread” with both Israelis and Palestinians. So it is important to be there in person and talk to people because you then realize probably the majority on both sides just want the same thing: recognition and peace to live their lives without fear, conflict, or condemnation for their religious beliefs.
As a security operator in a foreign land, it’s paramount that you quickly get acclimated to your new environment and conditions and understand what we refer to as our area of operation or AO. When traveling as a close protection agent or intelligence officer and after checking into my hotel, one of my first personal protocols was to get out for a walk around the area of my hotel as soon as possible. I wanted to get a good sense of what was normal, what was not, and how to best fit in. If I was on a protective mission, this was even more important if my principal would be staying at the same hotel. It was also a chance to see if I could determine if there was any type of hostile surveillance at our hotel or location. On rare occasions, the opposite would occur as I stayed out of sight and we would let a third party provide that information, based on the protective mission, the principal and the threat.
Leaving Dulles airport for 2 years in Abu Dhabi.
In 2008, my wife and I packed up our 4,000 square foot home that we had spent the previous four years meticulously decorating and placed all of our belongings in long-term storage. We selected only the items we really thought would be nice to have with us and packed it all in a 4’ x 4’ palleted “box.” We chose some books, many photos, some kitchen items, clothes and personal gear, etc. Along with eight pieces of luggage (all my wife’s clothes – that’s my story), we relocated to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates for a new challenging position.
It didn’t take long to get established and comfortable in our new apartment with a mesmerizing view of the turquoise Persian Gulf overlooking the Corniche (the street along the beach). We came to realize having less “stuff” was actually liberating and spent the next two fulfilling years working, making lifelong friends, and traveling to some of the most fascinating parts of the world for work and pleasure. We have many great memories and stories of those years.
At the same time, my son was serving in the U.S. Army and was deployed to Iraq for 18 months. The fact that he was so close was both comforting and unnerving, knowing the risks. We were fortunate to have the unique chance to spend a few hours with him as he was passing through Dubai and heading back to Iraq during his only R&R. We actually shared a couple of celebratory drinks with him for his 21st birthday in a bar in Dubai airport.
Enjoying a break in Bavaria with Jon and Cheryl.
Several months later we visited him in Germany where he was stationed after Iraq (and also, coincidentally, where he lived for the first 6 years of his life when I was based in Germany with the U.S. Air Force). We took him on a little road trip through the famous and well-traveled romantic road, making our way down to Munich and the German Alps.
After 18 months in Iraq and living in an M1 Abrams tank, my son found driving on the autobahn and visually absorbing the green German countryside to be a life-enriching experience. We all enjoyed being together back in Germany, making new memories over a few fine German beers.
While I was a civilian at this time, Abu Dhabi was my 18th relocation since joining the military in 1984 and I’ve added six more moves since returning from Abu Dhabi. Now, as the VP of Global Security for an international land development company, I get to combine both my passion for security and travel all in one. Often when I do travel for leisure, it’s nice when I can totally disconnect and savor the experience and make meaningful memories. However, due to my profession, I have to stay connected to work much of the time, but if that’s the price I must pay for travel, I’m okay with it. My wife does like to jokingly remind me that she has a picture of me with my head down on my smartphone in every single city and country we’ve visited. Point taken.
You never know what you might find in Prague.
Traveling has opened my mind and thoughts to the world outside of the U.S. When traveling the world, you gain a new appreciation for the life and freedoms we can take for granted and understand even more why so many risk their lives to come to America.
They face so many struggles just getting here, much less assimilating into our myriad U.S. cultures. I’ve had my own challenges living in other countries, only mine were temporary.
As I mentioned before, gaining new perspectives is what I have enjoyed the most about my travels. Sometimes they manifested in a better understanding of other global citizens, their histories and stories, their struggles and their enviable successes. Sometimes I gained more empathy for a plight that was unimaginable to most humans.
A major benefit of abundant amounts of travel for my profession is that I can feel comfortable in just about any location around the world. The “culture shock” factor of working, living, and vacationing abroad has mostly worn off by now (even in places like India, where shock is usually the first emotion you experience). But I’m still awed by architecture (the simple and the complex), the unique tastes and aromas of foods everywhere, and enjoying the many distinctive sounds of music, languages and accents around the world, along with sharing professional dialog with my global colleagues.
Exploring the Athabasca Glacier in Canada near Banff.
And while I appreciate strolling the very old cobblestone streets and alleyways of the world and stepping reverently into ancient cathedrals, I can never get enough of the earth’s majestic landscapes. I am most humbled and at peace when experiencing what nature and God have fashioned, no matter what country I’m in at the moment.
While the pandemic forced us to slow down, it also forced many to turn to other forms of distraction like social media, news, and countless hours of binge-watching movies and TV series.
Having a pandemic during a presidential election with a fraught transfer of power didn’t help control our collective anxiety and now watching this horrible Russian invasion of Ukraine isn’t helping my screen time either. I’m convinced there is now and will continue to be, a negative ripple effect from too much screen time. All of society (but especially our younger citizenry) seems to be developing a certain social awkwardness from this intense focus on screens, with too few healthy conversations and human interactions.
If you gave me the choice between giving up all my “smart technology” and the talking heads on TV, or giving up my luggage and backpack and not traveling, I wouldn’t give the decision a second thought.
Like any addiction, it might be difficult in the beginning and leave me frustrated for a few days or weeks while I worked through my withdrawal from my smartphone. But as soon as I was on an airplane and arriving at a new or familiar destination and hitting the streets, footpaths and waterways, tasting the local cuisines and engaging in interesting conversation, my addiction to technology would rapidly dissipate. Hearing the native accents and colloquialisms while absorbing the impact of history and the splendor of nature around me would make me easily forget about the technology addictions and gadgets.
Maybe my true addiction is travel.
I recall living in Germany while in the military in the 1980s we didn’t have cell phones, and we had access to one television channel (the Armed Forces Network [AFN]), which is where we got our news highlights and a few TV shows and movies. We had no need for a TV remote with only one channel, and no one had home computers or smartphones.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good history show or binge-watching the Jason Bourne movie series or Yellowstone series as much as the next person. Having quick answers to any possible question my mind can think of is an incredible luxury I enjoy. And if I’m too lazy, I can simply speak to my TV remote, Siri or Alexa, who are “always listening” – just like a guy in a trench coat standing outside your window at night in the rain, smoking a cigarette under a dim streetlamp. Seriously.
My question is: Has all of this technology made any of us better people? My opinion is “no.” Travel and interpersonal connection are what will always, hands down, enrich our human existence. And we are straying far from that.
Let traveling make you a better person, operator and hopefully, a storyteller.
— Mike