The Best Things in Life are Surprises: Overturning Mental Paradigms
2013 was a magical year, it was the second year of my sabbatical post Yahoo! & i was spending the time angel investing, mentoring at various startups and speaking at a bunch of conferences around the world. As travel is a big part of my life, I did spend a large portion of the time on the road. And this was the year I ended up visiting Tehran, Iran; Tbilisi, Georgia and Minsk, Belarus for the first time in my life. These places blew my mind and overturned everything I thought they were.
It’s so easy to have misconceptions about a place and people in your mind. You have personal bias but also a lot of media-driven biases on what a place is like. This is thanks to the overall big media and Hollywood using stereotypes that get seared into our brains. How many people remember that the bad guys at least through the 90s and 2000s were Arabs or Iranians. Or all the stereotypes propagated about the ex-Soviet Union countries, that the cities were bland, the people were boring and or oppressed. Or worse, that they are all criminals, terrorists or scam artists who hate the West. It takes travel to these places & meeting people there to quickly overturn these outdated and frankly jingoistic views.
I found myself in a similar situation in 2022. I went to Saudi Arabia twice after a lot of cajoling by my friend and business partner Fares and it was amazing. You have those views that the place is austere, colorless, oppressive and strict. It was so far away from this. Saudi Arabia has a very young and well educated population, women wearing regular clothes ie. no abaya. Plus there is a forward thinking government that banned the religious police and the austere book of Wahhabi. Such an amazing & rich culture, as well as friendly and welcoming hospitality that reminds me much of Asian culture. The business culture was changing fast and the opportunity there was massive. I was so impressed and eager to get back. This was far from the place and outdated view that most of America or the world pictures hold in their mind.
I also had the chance to visit Tirana, Albania after a 9 year hiatus. I was first there in 2013 and I will have to admit it was pretty drab and blah, to the point I felt no need to return. But fast forward to 2022, I had a chance to return to Tirana after being invited to speak at the Tirana Digital Nomad Festival (thank u Grant!). And WOW.
The Tirana of today is literally like day and night compared to the city of yesteryears. It is a thriving youth-driven city, full of modern art, cool architecture, great weather, lots of great restaurants and cafes full of young beautiful people eager and optimistic about the future. What a change and one driven by a young technocratic government and many returnee Albanians from abroad. This is going to be a major thriving place for the future. And I have definitely fallen in love with this city.
The point of all this is not to brag about my world travels, as much fun as they are. But about the importance of getting out of your bubble and trying to challenge your beliefs. The best deals I’ve done and business opportunities were ones that were unexpected. The best relationships I’ve had came out of nowhere. All my favorite places in the world came about as surprises. But they all changed my life in wonderful ways.
The reason for these wonderful surprises may be because my expectations were so low or that I had no expectations at all. Life is better when you are surprised. And it’s easier to be surprised when you have zero to no expectations. Seems to be a life lesson here somewhere.
Net net: Get out of your bubble and travel. Learn to think for yourself and be wary of media and stereotypes. Stay present and have no expectations. In fact, just be very open to the unexpected and life will take care of the rest!