Not all decisions go according to plan. So let me illustrate how 1 day of what I’m advising can be worth infinitely more than a host of famous “executive coaches”.

I was on a solo motorbiking tour of the northern mountain ranges in Vietnam and had been pinned down in Bao Lac by heavy rains for a few days.

On the third morning, the sun came out so I loaded up my backpack and hopped on the bike. It was about an eight-hour ride to get to my next destination. This was a high elevation leg of the journey and I was looking forward to the amazing overlooks.

All was well for the first few hours of the ride, lots of sunshine and smiling faces.

About 2 hours into the ride I started an ascent up a mountain where the winding roads took me higher and higher towards the clouds. As I got higher in elevation, the temperature started to plunge. It began to rain, hard. I hopped off and tossed on my plastic rain suit and carried on.

Typically, these storms would come and go as long as you kept moving. This was not one of those times. The roads in Vietnam don’t really have a shoulder so there’s not much room for error, and high in the mountains, there’s zero shelter or places to stop and rest.

I carried on like this for hours and the rain didn’t let up. I was shivering cold and it seemed like I was never going to descend to the other side of the range. I could feel myself becoming defeated. I can still remember that minute where I just wanted to pull over and give up. It was raining too hard to open my bag and get warmer clothes (and they would have gotten soaked in minutes regardless).

I was freezing, soaked, and feeling a little sorry for myself. So how is this relevant to your business success? I’m almost there.

As I started coming down the mountain I was passing through a little village. I didn’t really know when the next opportunity would be to get a bottle of gas so I decided to pull off (yes, the gas is sold in glass liquor bottles).

I was in the middle of nowhere, stressed, and a little dazed from the road. As the young woman handed me the gas someone pulled on the back of my jacket. It scared the shit out of me. People don’t usually touch or grab you in Asia. He stopped pulling and motioned me inside his hut. I was hesitant, but he insisted, I eventually decided “what the hell.”

When you’re alone in a foreign place you sometimes have to make split-second decisions with no idea what you’re getting into. When I stepped inside his family was there to greet me, there were children all over the place along with chickens and pigs. There was a dirt floor and the fireplace was an open hearth. There was a large wooden table with several men sitting around motioning to me to take off my coat. I obliged.

We sat there for hours drinking tea and using google translate to try and get to know one another. The tea in Vietnam is very strong and the men were passing around “happy water” which is a local liquor. I always carry candy in my daypack when I travel so I passed around candy to the kids.

I’ll never forget how they went out of their way to make me feel at home, even though I was a complete stranger. The lesson of the day was gratitude. There were no words on a page that could touch this type of impactful feeling. Sadly, I had to move on. They tried hard to get me to stay in the village for the evening, but I had to get to my destination and still had several hours left to go before dark.

By the time I reached my destination, I felt like I could conquer anything. I still carry that with me to this day when things get rough. It was a deeply moving experience and it only happened because I was miles from my comfort zone.

The invaluable takeaways like a deep sense of gratitude, overcoming fears, and persevering through obstacles are not the types of things you can learn in a seminar or corporate setting. These powerful life/business ideals can only be honed way outside the day to day rat race.