27 February, 2024

Taking the Path Less Travelled

Picture taken in front of "The Motherland Calls" on Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd, previously known as Stalingrad, June 2016.

Throughout my life and career, I have taken the path less travelled. From a young university undergraduate to an Air Force officer, these journeys were daunting but ultimately worth it. 

While at university, I was writing on a topic on which few others were researching.  As there was little information on the subject, I decided to go to Vienna, Austria, to acquire the most accurate information on the subject.  Organizing such a visit was not easy: letters of invitation, arranging flights, ground transportation, and a hotel room in a city which I had never visited was indeed somewhat daunting.  

Nonetheless, I went through with the study trip in the middle of winter. This journey turned out to be the most worthwhile travel I had carried out to date, not only in acquiring information that was not available in the UK, but for personal development.  I saw a beautiful city, interacted with its inhabitants, and trying to understand a dialect of German with which I was unfamiliar.  

Despite the trepidation, I came out of the experience a more rounded and more knowledgeable person.  I grew.  Ever since, I have striven to go out of my comfort zone.  

It is with this mindset I approach commercial real estate: going off the beaten path to the less obvious places to reap the results and the benefits which others do not have.