How is it possible to live a life with so much travel?
People sometimes ask, and I suppose an explanation is owed. There’s quite a lot I could say, but to keep this short I’ll highlight two observations people have given me:
I was once rejected out of hand from a job in a bank in the City of London (indeed I’ve had a lot of job rejections). The feedback was simply: “He’s too pleasant.” Despite the best efforts of the recruitment consultant, no further explanation was offered.
A (very successful) family member once told me: “Everyone’s afraid of you because you use your brain as a weapon.”
You might think the second comment suggests that I’m aggressive or offensive. But the first contradicts that, and I don’t think people would say such things about me. I can, however, see a way in which the two comments are compatible.
The point is that while everyone agrees one should be respectful, polite and agreeable, if you actually embody those traits, you can become like a mirror - quietly showing up the faults of others. That can make people feel exposed. They won’t welcome your agreeableness, especially not professionally. So they find something - anything - to say. Even something as seemingly absurd as “he’s too pleasant.”
In a commercial world where, let’s face it, we see impropriety and dishonesty exposed in the press all the time - at both corporate and individual levels - the pleasant person with integrity becomes marginalised. Maybe not at first, but eventually. And marginalisation breeds further marginalisation. It becomes embedded.
I’ve found myself on the outside. But I’ve also found it surprisingly affordable to live a life of frequent travel, given the immense freedom I have. In between trips I pursue technological and academic interests. Maybe one of them will come to something one day. But doing your own thing is always hard, and I wonder if the pay-off from travel might not be more reliable.
Someone once said to me: “You have to become a hypocrite, like the rest of us.” And I suspect many people do, reluctantly, over the course of their professional lives - through lack of an alternative. But I find that hard. I have a certain pride in myself, and would find it very painful to let that go. And I do have alternatives.
In the meantime, I normally have a trip to go on. Maybe I’ll become a hypocrite after that. But the moment never comes. Life carries on as it has in the past.
Hopefully this explains how it’s possible - I think quite naturally - to live the life that I do. Extremely rare though it may be.
