Remember to Explore

There's a big world out there waiting for you to drop everything and explore.  It's time for you to let go of all your preconceived notions and remember what it is like to be open to new smells, sights, tastes, and ways of thinking.  We've been doing business in our own corner of the world for years without acknowledging that some of the most awe inspiring places exist outside of our borders.  When is the last time you sat in a restaurant and you were the minority, where you hung on every foreign word spoken trying to piece together the conversation? 

A field of yellow daffodils offers the perfect inspiration for a new color scheme for your Spring Line, a spicy serving of fresh fish from Mexico offers a new line of sauces, and the view from Mt. Everest provides you with the courage to launch a new business.  If we forget to leave the place that we feel most comfortable and most at home we risk loosing one of the greatest opportunities for self growth and awareness. If we as individuals become stagnant and closed in our way of thinking and being, then we risk missing out on the possibilities that life has to offer us up each and every day.  Remember to step outside of your comfort zone and purchase a ticket to the place you've always longed to visit.  When you arrive at your new destination try letting yourself go where the wind may take you and not mapping out your entire adventure.   Hop on a bike and fill your back with a baguette and fresh brie.  Drink from the spicket of an old farm that you pass by and stop to ask a stranger for his favorite place to spread a picnic blanket. 

Before you know it you will be engaged in a conversation that will change your perspective on one of your deepest core beliefs, before you know it you will have a new favorite song, and before you know it you will no longer be longing for your favorite brand of ketchup.  You will have opened yourself up to a new way of thinking and that my friend will open you up to new possibilities and a new sense of adventure.  And when you are done exploring and ready to return home, I promise you will be refreshed and renewed.  Your comfortable life and familiar neighborhood will suddenly feel much bigger and more interesting than it did when you left.  You will be looking at all it encompasses with a new set of glasses, one's that are less tinted with your past experience and belief system. Your new set of glasses will be able to see people and places for what they may represent not what they have represented in the past.

Just back from Mexico, I am already trying to plan a trip to Belize for next summer.  Other than that I will wait and see where the wind takes me.