Episode 11 – 5 Travel Skills that helped me in my career – John Gentry
Today discussed some simple travel skills or ideas that helped me to be able to adapt to different situations. Life is about change and traveling is like an inoculation for change.
#travelskills #mindset #johngentry #exploretraveler
0:00 chapter 1
7:00 chapter 2
15:00 chapter 3
So I’ve come up with just five basic skills that are the kind of sound generalistic in nature but they have allowed me to broaden my mindset.
1. One of those is when I have traveled it allows me to learn from my surroundings and so what do I mean by that so let’s say I’m in a foreign country I’m learning culture I’m learning language I love to ask questions of people I try to learn their language and ask those questions in their language if possible but sometimes I do speak English to foreigners and they speak English back and I get a lot of interesting comments and I just learn more about people internationally I’ll learn about the surroundings of where I’m at even if it’s just a national park um I pay attention to nature and by learning from my surroundings I get a sense of peace and understanding that I might not have had if I just was just focusing on my little area where I live where I’m from and I never kind of got out and gone anywhere and so that’s what I mean from learning from my surroundings.
2. Another item that I have written down here is outdoor skills right so every time I learn an outdoor skill I build upon it and I learn a new skill, for example, uh people I think to take for granted the ability to just make fire it sounds so simple right I want to make fire maybe you’re going to use a match maybe you’re going to use a lighter well what if you don’t have those two things right are you going to be able to use a flint and steel are you going to be able to do experiments for you you know rub sticks together until you get enough heat or coal in order to make fire it’s it sounds so simple but you know making fire without modern-day appliances is obviously more difficult than one may think. Learn an outdoor skill and build upon that outdoor skill into learning new skills right so every time you do something you’re learning every time you learn something new it leads to something else and that’s what I mean by outdoor skills and build upon each new skill.
3. So one of the things you get from travel I think is you do get more exercise so it’s a certain amount of physical health that you get from that and physical health can be it could be muscle tone or weight loss or those kinds of things but it also gives you a general I call it, uh that’s what I’m looking for maybe virus protection health so when I travel a lot I’m around a lot more people and as the times go on I’m exposed to many different variations of colds and flu and different viruses and so now that I’m older and I’ve had all this exposure I honestly don’t get sick very often and usually if I do it’s like food poisoning right that’s another story for another day, but sometimes uh food poisoning can be very uncomfortable if you’ve had it you’d know what I’m talking about.
4. I think more important than even physical health is mental health that’s something we cannot take for granted, and sometimes mental health can be as simple as looking out over a distance and looking at the clouds moving across a beautiful mountain. Enjoying that moment and relaxing allowing your mind to just kind of recharge. Especially these days there’s just so much propaganda that’s happening in every facet of our lives it’s kind of hit an all-time high so I think mental health is way more important. Now and that includes anyone I don’t care if you’re in China or India or the United States or the Philippines you need your own mental health your own sense of well-being and so travel can help you with that and so just maybe travel out to a park or travel out to a national park in your own country or you know just think of someplace different that you want to go to or you can just get a little bit of quiet a little bit of peace of mind and so make sure to not just think about always doing something sometimes just taking a deep breath breathing in some fresh air and enjoying the quiet that’s what I mean by mental health
5. I think the fifth thing today I want to just talk about real quick is the ability to adapt to new surroundings and situations if you’re traveling hiking camping going somewhere internationally driving somewhere domestically you’re being exposed to different people different places different environments that are keeping your mind mentally sharp. That is allowing you to be able to handle new situations and every time you’re exposed to something new you’re that much stronger right you have it’s a form of information. So just kind of think of it like you’re picking up on data right if you think of it just from a data mindset everything you see everything you touch everything you hear is a form of sensory perception your mind is learning from.
