the unknown

"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before."

Albert Einstein

The life of an entrepreneur is by nature a walk alone that starts with yourself on a road which is unknown.

Encounters with many helpful and unhelpful people abound - but the tough decisions and moments of doubt usually happen alone.  Leadership is not a team sport and decisions on the direction of your company can only be finally decided by you alone.  Win or lose, you must accept the outcome.  Becoming your own best friend enables you to think things through when you need to be alone with your thoughts.  And, along the way to building a successful business, you will find yourself "in places no one has ever been before" as Albert Einstein has said.

In our current culture, "walking alone" is not highly regarded.  With a cell phone in-hand, most people stay connected all of their waking hours.  Walking alone is not lonely, sad or distressing; walking alone is part of the life of a woman who wants to find her own path.  A woman who wants to create a life which is uniquely her own and one which will require a clear vision to succeed.  Many wonderful experiences in feeling one's own strength and passion will only be realized in times that we are alone.

Often, I have taken time away from my business to find new roads with adventure travel; to stretch myself mentally and to change my comfort zone.  The unfamiliar opens new ways of seeing things, new experiences with people of another culture expands one's thinking and the physical challenges enlarge our own strength.  My most recent trek was through the tea plantations in the Ghat mountains in Munnar, India.  The photos below show you how beautiful this part of Kerala, India is - and, high in the mist, in stillness, people hand pick tea surrounded by astonishingly beautiful vistas.   Traveling solo, I never felt alone but rather felt enlivened by the breathtaking natural world that surrounded me.