Clara Soh on Learning by Reflecting as a Peace Corps Volunteer

In Chapter 4 of 20 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, health economist Clara Soh answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Your Personal Growth?" Soh shares what she learned about herself as a Peace Corps volunteer working in West Africa. Living in a Muslim country learning the language and slowly breaking into the community, Soh learns to embrace time alone and use the downtime for reflection on her life. Clara Soh is a health economist and Senior Director of Policy and Research at a pharmaceutical trade organization in Washington, DC. Previously, Soh held senior roles at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research (KPCHR) and Health Policy Research Northwest (HPRN). Soh earned her Masters of Public Administration (MPA) in Policy Analysis and Healthcare Public Finance from the NYU Wagner School and a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.

Matt Curtis on What to Pack When Traveling to Big European Cities

In Chapter 3 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, HomeAway government relations director Matt Curtis answers "What Did Taking Your First International Trip Do To Inform How You Planned Your Second?" After taking his first trip to Ireland to visit distant family and hike the countryside, Curtis takes a second trip to visit London, Madrid and Paris. He learns from experience to pack fewer clothes and bring nicer clothes for evenings out after a long day touring the town. Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Matt Curtis on Traveling Europe to Find City Planning Best Practices

In Chapter 4 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, HomeAway government relations director Matt Curtis answers "What Did Your Travels to London, Madrid and Paris Teach You About How Cities Can Better Plan for the Future?" Curtis discusses how his European travels have informed him about the importance of city planning around population growth. He finds European cultural centers such as London, Madrid and Paris understood the importance of transportation infrastructure and integrated it into the city fabric. This is a valuable takeaway that Curtis takes back to the United States and his city planning conversations. Matt Curtis is the director of government relations at HomeAway Inc. Previously he was communications director for Austin mayors Lee Leffingwell and Will Wynn. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Jason Anello on Experiencing Joy Traveling Somewhere New

In Chapter 6 of 20 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, creative director and Manifold ad agency co-founder Jason Anello answers "What Have You Found Most Rewarding About Traveling to New Places?" Traveling somewhere new fuels Anello's creativity, as does finding new places to explore in places such as Barcelona and Madrid he has already been. He shares how big trips need not always be planned and shares an example of a long weekend trip to Amsterdam he and his wife took in the past year.

Jason Anello is a founding partner and creative director at Manifold Partners, an award-winning creative advertising agency.  Previously, Anello worked in creative leadership roles at Yahoo!, Ogilvy & Mather, and Digitas.  A passionate foodie and traveler, he runs the Forking Tasty food blog and supper club series.  He earned a BFA from University at Albany.

Mike Germano on Performing Under Pressure in a CEO Job

In Chapter 16 of 20 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Carrot Creative social media agency CEO Mike Germano answers "What Does It Mean to Perform Under Pressure in the Work That You Do?"  Germano shares the pressure-filled moments that come with busy travel schedules and high stakes client pitch meetings.  He notes the greatest pressure and stress come from managing 60+ employees and being responsible for their livelihood.  He The more he can see his employees making a difference by the work they create, the more he feels capable of shouldering greater levels of pressure and stress. 

Mike Germano is co-founder and CEO of DUMBO Brooklyn-based social media agency Carrot Creative.  Previously, Germano ran for and was elected to public office in Connecticut.  He is a graduate of Quinnipiac University. 

Managing Multicultural Diversity for a Virtual Workforce

In Chapter 14 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Phil McKenzie answers "How Are You Learning to Work More Effectively With Different Personality Types?"  For McKenzie, managing diversity is more about managing cultural diversity than it is personality diversity.  He finds understanding cultural differences, for example how a Sao Paolo team differs from a Detroit or Mumbai team, helps him better lead and manage teams. 

Philip L. McKenzie is the Founder and Global Curator of Influencer Conference, a global content platform that brings together tastemakers in the arts, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and technology to discuss the current and future state of influencer culture. Prior to that, he was Managing Partner of influencer marketing agency FREE DMC and an equities trader at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He earned an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from Howard University.

Cathy Erway on Improving Cooking Skills by Teaching Classes

In Chapter 16 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, writer and healthy food advocate Cathy Erway answers "How Has Teaching Cooking Classes Helped You Become a Better Cook?"  Erway shares how feedback she receives teaching cooking classes helps her learn different perspectives from her students.  She shares an example from learning from students about using different forms of a spice in your cooking. 

Cathy Erway is a Brooklyn-based author, part-time cook, freelance writer, radio host and teacher focused on healthy food advocacy.  Her first book, "The Art of Eating In" developed from her blog "Not Eating Out in New York".  She earned a BA in creative writing from Emerson College.

Kyung B. Yoon on How to Make Your Work More Lasting

In Chapter 13 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung B. Yoon answers "How Are You Learning to Make Your Work More Lasting?"  When she started the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) 10 years ago, she saw the potential of bringing together the next generation of Korean Americans - both the Korean born American "1.5 generation" and children of immigrants - by providing them a foundation in which to participate and contribute. 

Kyung B. Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Adam Carter on What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder

In Chapter 7 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?"  Carter finds it progressively easier learning to live in different locations and cultures.  After traveling to 80 different countries, he finds it progressively difficult to be financially secure after walking away from a seasonal job and moving to Brazil full time. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What is getting easier and what is getting harder in your life?

Adam Carter: Well, what is getting easier is learning how to be comfortable living in other places and in other cultures.  I have so much experience traveling the world now over the last 16 years of living all over the place that I found that it’s easier for me to immerse myself in a culture, find—carve out my little niche, make myself feel at home. You know, communication has made that so much easier now. It’s so much easier for me to stay in touch with my family and my friends. So it’s been easier for me to feel at home in so many parts of the world, and what’s become more difficult… Well, it’s become more difficult to keep this—to continue to finance this lifestyle. You know, all the charity work that I do is—all the travel I pay for, which is fine. I can still handle it, but I think when I had a summer—when I had my summer job in Chicago where it was easy for me to just go back for the summer and make good money and then travel, it was easier to keep this lifestyle. You know, I’ve had to adjust now because I decided to walk away from that job, and so now I have to obviously seek out other means of income in order to support my passion. So that’s been a bit of a challenge of kind of trying to figure out what my place is and in a professional light and not just in a humanitarian light.

Stacie Bloom on What Makes a World Class Science Institution

In Chapter 13 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Is Your Experience Teaching You About What It Takes to Build a World Class Scientific Organization?"  Bloom notes it requires being 1) Global; 2) Excellent; and 3) Multi-Sectoral.  Bloom notes "world class" requires working across global cultural boundaries, across scientific disciplines, and doing so  while consistently performing at the top quartile or better of a peer group. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What is your experience teaching you about what it takes to build a world-class scientific organization? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think in order to be really a world-class institution, you know it’s very easy to tout yourself as, oh, we’re world-class, to be truly world-class, you have to really be global, and you have to be excellent, and you have to be multi-sectoral. I think that you can’t really have a world-class institution or you can’t call yourself a world-class institution if you’re very isolated or insular or siloed you have to work across boundaries, scientific boundaries, cultural boundaries, you have to be metric oriented, you have to prove yourself to be in the top quartile of performers, internationally. And I think only then can you say that you’re really world-class. 

Stacie Bloom on Managing Across Work Disciplines

In Chapter 16 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "How Are You Learning to Work More Effectively Across Different Disciplines?"  For Bloom it starts with respecting the different cultures within each discipline.  This allows her to then find better ways to encourage and support collaboration across disciplines.  She shares her experience doing so encouraging translational research between basic scientists and clinical scientists. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How are you learning to work more effectively across different disciplines?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think I’m learning to work more effectively across different disciplines simply by virtue of having a better understanding of the perspectives of those different disciplines. Understanding that different disciplines have different cultures, and learning as a supervisor or a manager how to serve role with that, how to adapt my expectations to that, how to encourage collaborations between people who have different perspectives.

You know, one specific example is, and it’s funny, it’s just very timely, so we had this meeting last week, it was called the translational interface committee, and this is a group of department chairs, from the basic science side and from the clinical side, so the chairman of Neurology and a Neuroscience researcher, a big meeting, and we talked a lot about how do we encourage translational research, how can we get clinicians into the labs, to understand the basic science so that they can go back and treat the patient with schizophrenia or Parkinson’s disease. 

Those cultures are really different, the culture of a clinical scientist is very different from the culture of a basic scientist, and it’s very interesting to put those populations of people together. It’s usually very successful, it’s very collaborative, it’s—ends up being very collegial but there might be a little bit hesitance on the clinician’s part to go into the lab because the science can be a little bit intimidating. These are very smart people but it’s a different training, it’s a little bit of a different background and from the basic scientist part, the clinician may be a little bit intimidating, you know, that’s the person who’s going head-to-head with the patient and solving the problems in the clinic. 

So I think breaking down that wall and showing people that what you, sort of what you perceive to be intimidating or what you perceive to be a cultural difference, you know, in reality when you get two people in a room they’re usually okay.

Why Travel to Distant and Unfamiliar Places - Richard Moross

In Chapter 14 of 17 in his 2012 interview, London entrepreneur and Moo.com CEO Richard Moross answers "What Have You Found Most Rewarding About Traveling to New Places?"  Moross notes that as a heavy business traveler, he finds Western culture between the United States and Europe is no longer mysterious and new.  He finds this mystery and excitement traveling Asia. It reminds him the world is a big world full of differences to be explored and appreciated.  Moross is founder and CEO of Moo.com and a leader in the London startup scene.  Before starting Moo.com, an award-winning online print business, Moross was a strategist at Imagination, the world's largest independent design company.  He graduated from the University of Sussex, where he majored in philosophy and politics.

Joe Stump on How to Break Out of a Comfort Zone

In Chapter 5 of 14 in his 2012 interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump answers "What Is Your Comfort Zone and What Do You Do to Break Free of Living in It?"  To break free of his comfort zone - beer, women, and large scale web infrastructure - Stump finds ways that give him a window into new parts of the world he has yet to experience.  This starts at a young age when Joe reads encyclopedias for fun.  It continues into his adult years as Stump adventures into different cultures, foods, and places and incrementally takes steps to get him out of his comfort zone.  Joe Stump is a serial entrepreneur based in Portland, OR. He is CEO and co-founder of Sprint.ly, a product management software company.  Previously he founded SimpleGeo, which was sold to Urban Airship in October 2011.  He advises several startups - including attachments.me and ngmoco:) - as well as VC firm Freestyle Capital.  He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Eastern Michigan University. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What is your comfort zone and what do you do to break free of living in it?

Joe Stump: I'm a very simple man. I like three things: beer, women, and large-scale web infrastructure. So that’s my comfort zone. And to get out of that, I do a lot of things. I like to -- I do a lot of random reading. I’ve always -- even as a kid, I read encyclopedias for fun just because I liked learning about new weird things. So, I do a lot of that. I take in a lot of information that has nothing to do with what I do.

But I do that because it gives me a window into areas of the world that I may not ever be able to experience. And may not even really have any interest in experiencing. I also like to travel a lot. I think that that definitely gets people out of their comfort zone because you're usually experiencing new cultures, new language, new environments, new weather, new locales. So I'm a big fan of traveling. So, those are the main things.

I have a general rule that I’ll try anything once as long as it doesn’t represent severe possible danger to my body. But yeah, I think the world would be a lot better place if people had – if they were open-minded enough to just try it. Just try it. Trying that new cuisine that you’ve never tried, like, you know, Indian cuisine is a common example.

We're from the Midwest, right? You tell people that you went out and had – or sushi. Sushi in the Midwest, you might as well tell people that you're like eating babies for breakfast. Right? They're like, “Ugh! Oh God!” Like just try it. Millions of people eat sushi every day and they all live to tell about it. You're not going to die if you have one piece of sashimi. So, I think that’s a really good rule, too. Take incremental steps outside of your comfort zone and next thing you know, you’ve taken big strides outside of your comfort zone.

Joe Stump on Bringing Entrepreneurial Optimism to Cynical Cultures

In Chapter 10 of 14 in his 2012 interview, Internet entrepreneur Joe Stump answers "What Has Working Internationally Taught You About Communicating Across Cultures?"  By advising a British company, Stump learns how a culture of optimism contrasts with a culture of cynicism and doubt.  He compares general country cultures - American, British, Indian, Chinese - and how an entrepreneurship mindset is influenced by the national mindset.  He details what he did to transform the mindset inside that British company to be more opportunistic and confident.  Joe Stump is a serial entrepreneur based in Portland, OR. He is CEO and co-founder of Sprint.ly, a product management software company.  Previously he founded SimpleGeo, which was sold to Urban Airship in October 2011.  He advises several startups - including attachments.me and ngmoco:) - as well as VC firm Freestyle Capital.  He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What has working internationally taught you about communicating across cultures?

Joe Stump: I'm an adviser for a company in the UK. I go over there and I spend about a week every quarter over there. And I think Americans and Brits kind of like to think that it's big brother, little brother, we're in the same family. Our cultures are drastically different in a lot of ways and I think working with them -- it was really disheartening to come from the startup world where everything’s “can do” attitude and go to an environment that -- I mean this was named, the company I work for is named one of the top 50 companies in the UK to work for.

They're a great company. I love working with these guys. But there are little things that really kind of trick you up that were kind of like a bummer. Like, in the United States, a grilled cheese company got $50 million in funding from one of the best venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. That is the very definition of like all ideas go. It's wide-open space. There are more eternal optimists bred everyday in the United States than anywhere else, right? The American dream is basically if you want to do it, it's yours for the taking, whereas in I talk with -- Alex Hunter is a buddy of mine. His wife is from California. He spent considerable time here. Actually he doesn’t even have a British accent anymore, he spent so much time here.

But he’s from Britain and he’s put it best to me, in Britain, I mean, everybody knows that they have a very cynical sense of humor right? And I think that pervades the entire society. Where he says, “You come up with a new idea,” and like British society will go, “Oh, you have a new idea? Let's see if it flies.” It is like poopoo it before it's even had a chance to even get out on the launch pad. And working with that company in the UK has taught me that when I come in and I’ll say, “Hey, guys, we need to do X, Y, and Z so that we can move on to this next phase.” They will be, “Well, we really can't do X because of A, B, and C.” And I'm like, “You can do X. What you're telling me is that you don’t want to do X because of A, B, and C. You can fix A, B, and C.”

There is no unsolvable problem, right? And I think that’s something that really comes up a lot across Europe. They're a lot more conservative I would say. Exact opposite when you go to India and Asia. Man, those guys are like, it's wide open territory. I mean, like, dude, China is growing. That is a massive economy, a billion people and it's growing at 10 to 12% a year. It's really interesting. You go to all these different places and the emphasis because of culture, like emphasis in South Africa, for instance, is on revenue, early revenue. A lot of the investment deals are all tied to revenue goals and stuff.

Europe is a little bit similar. The United States they’re like nobody thought Facebook was ever going to make money and now it's making $4 billion a year. Right? And because of our culture, we're a lot more open to risk and we’ll go ahead and take that. And I think that now that other major economies are starting to sputter to life and they're starting to get their own version of the American dream, India and China, I think are two very good examples

There are a lot programmers in India that are just like starting to realize that they don’t have to work at call center. They can go and they can raise a small amount of cash and they have a billion people there that are all ready to pay a little bit of money. If you can get a billion people to pay you 10 cents, that’s real coin, right? So, they're embracing it. And also because travel is becoming cheaper, obviously they're making more money and their economies are coming up so they're able to come here. It's been really interesting to see that the America dream is alive and well and it just happens to be in a communist country and India, which is a socialist country. It's been interesting.

I like interfacing and talking with people like that. I like spreading the dream. Like and I've been telling -- we actually had a little luncheon at the company in the UK and they were like, “What's the most frustrating thing about working with us?” I was like, “You guys are so much better than you give yourselves credit for. Quit being so cynical.” You can do it. You just got to like go do it. This isn’t like rocket science stuff here. Every time I’m like, I come up with something like, “We need to fix this,” and they're like, “Well, maybe we should probably do this other thing instead.” It’s just like…Just do that, get it over with, move on to the next thing.

It was kind of funny. There was actually some nodding in the room and then afterwards one of the guys came up to me, he's like, “I'm really glad you said that because I didn’t even realize that I was doing that. And now I realize that I'm poopooing stuff that I know I can do and I don’t even know why I'm doing it. I don’t know why I'm poopooing this. I can do it.” It was really cool that they were like, “Yeah, we can do that.” They’ve really grown as a company. I’ve seen them -- It's a 1,200 person company and I've seen them move more, and more quickly, they're getting a lot more confident that they can take on those bigger challenges. I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that other than basically saying you know, telling them that, “Look, guys, you can do this. You just got to do it.”

The Personal Rewards of Traveling for Work - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 6 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "What Have You Found Most Rewarding About Traveling to New Places?"  Stallings specifically discusses work travel and how it has given him the ability to quickly and repeatedly immerse himself into and appreciate different cultures.  This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia. 

How to Prepare for an International Work Project - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 7 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "What Has Working Internationally Taught You About Communicating Across Cultures?"  Stallings shares notes from his work projects in Ukraine, Germany, and Australia and how he has made it a point to arrive early and normalize himself in the culture before work begins.  He references Margaret Mead and the necessity to sit in a culture until no big surprises remain.  Stallings also learns to embrace the human bonds that connect all cultures.  This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia. 

Idan Cohen on 3 Reasons to Travel Somewhere New

In Chapter 7 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "What Have You Found Most Rewarding About Traveling to New Places?"  Cohen first notes the importance of overcoming fear and acclimating to and learning to appreciate a new place.  Secondly, he notes the reward that exploring a new place or city presents and finding the expected as well as the unexpected, in particular local secrets.  Thirdly, he finds fulfillment meeting new people along the journey. 

This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 Capture Your Flag interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What have you found most rewarding about traveling to new places?

Idan Cohen: I think that it’s composed of 3 things. 

So first of all, overcoming fears, a lot of times when I get to new places, I don’t like investing in research before I go there. I kind of really like discovering by myself. But it always brings some kind of an uncertainty when you get there. Like I remember when I visited New York for the first time, I was terrified. I came back—actually I was there for 2 weeks for the first time I was there, when I was 18. And I came back and I said, I don’t like that city. I just—It’s too big. It’s too noisy. It’s too busy. I was afraid. Like I got there, it was the mid-‘90s. People told me, put your wallet in front pocket, you don’t—you don’t wanna be careful from this area, you wanna be careful from that area. And then, you know, few years later, I was there again, and again, and again, and again, and I just fell in love. And I’ve seen that happen in a lot of other places. I just get there and I have this fear, because I don’t know enough. But then as you get comfortable, that fear goes away. 

A second part is actually the part of exploring. So not researching before, just being able to walk in the streets and find it by yourself. And every time I find that I actually probably once I’ve been to a new place, and then I talk to other people maybe then I see that I’ve found—probably half of the things that I’ve found are the most common probably, you know, run of like exactly what you were supposed to find as someone, a tourist or someone visiting a new place. But then the other half is just things that I stumbled upon. Which are these little secrets of the locals, which I think that a lot of times when you do research before you won’t find. 

And then the third part is obviously socially just meeting new people wherever you are, just interacting with the waiter in the restaurant, you know, with the barman, bartender, with the guy on the street that helps you find something. That’s the most interesting part.

How to Manage Travel Stress When Vacationing With Your Spouse

In Chapter 3 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "What Did Traveling Abroad This Past Year Teach You About Yourself?"  She travels abroad with her new husband and discovers quirks about each other, including experiencing stress when things happen outside your control.  She learns to be more accepting of both unexpected situations and behaviors that happen in those moments. 

Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married.  She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm.  In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies.  In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners.  She graduated from Wake Forest University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What did travelling abroad this past year teach you about yourself?

Audrey Parker French: Well, that I get really grumpy when I haven’t have a good night sleep, and I’m hungry, and I don’t speak the language, and we might miss the train. My husband and I both learned our – some little quirks about each other. We learned about where we get tense and how we get tense, things about, you know, having something be out of our control, where a train stops, the announcement is happening and we don’t understand the language to know why the train just stopped or if we’re gonna make our connecting train and we got to really experience, you know, how each other are under those really stressful circumstances, and we could be both really hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up, ‘Oh I really – that was terrible of me to get so angry and frustrated’ and then later we could be like, “Well, I guess we can just keep in mind that if I ever am over tired, hungry, about to miss a train, and can’t speak the language, that I’ll probably be a little grumpy.” You know?

Just having more of an understanding that you know sometimes you throw in a lot of different variables and a person is gonna react a certain way, so just learning our limits and learning how to be more flexible. We definitely noticed at the end of our 6-week European kind of tour and experience, we found ourselves being a lot more relaxed in circumstances that initially had us feel very uncomfortable, by the end, we realized that we might be offending people unintentionally because we don’t know the culture and we don’t know what we – the taboos and we finally just started letting that be okay and just being like, “Well, that happened again.”

As opposed to early on, we felt very, you know, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” We just offended someone and, “Oh, we have to make sure we don’t do that again.” But the rules change everywhere, so finally we just really relaxed, so it helped us become more comfortable with the unknown and with difficult circumstances.