Mark Cohen, Metlife, on How Travel Improves Your Career

Traveling is a wonderful pastime to enjoy while on vacation or in your spare time, but it can also improve your career. While you’re traveling for pleasure, you can have experiences that change the way you approach your job or develop new skills that aid in your career. Far too many people stay at home and lose the opportunity to get out and see the world. Make sure to take your vacation time; it benefits you and it’ll help you at work!

Making decisions is easier

When you travel, it means you’ll need to constantly make decisions. There are various decisions, some small and some major, when planning a trip and while you’re actually traveling. Sometimes, you have to make split decisions and you’ll have little time to think through your options and have to go with a gut reaction. Making decisions is a huge part of business that many people struggle with doing quickly enough. Traveling helps you improve this skill.

Get better at communication

As you travel, you’ll meet people from all over the world and you’ll learn how to communicate with them. Whether you speak the same language or not, you’ll need to talk to people with different ideas and lives than you. Traveling teaches you to communicate well with people, no matter who they are or where they’re from.

Improve your network

Traveling allows you to meet many different people and gives you the chance to significantly improve your network of contacts. You never know who you’ll meet while traveling and how they could impact your life.

Enhance organization

In order to plan a successful trip and make it as stress-free as possible, you’ll need to plan ahead. Consistent travel forces you to become more organized in order to avoid making mistakes and messing up any part of your trip. As you get more experienced with traveling, you’ll continue to become more organized, planning ahead, keeping important documents in an easy-to-reach place, double checking your reservations, and knowing how to pack efficiently.

Work with change

No matter how carefully you plan your trip, there are going to be bumps in the road. These could be small issues or something more serious; regardless, you need to learn to adapt to changes in your plans. Much like in business, it pays to plan ahead and stay organized, but you also need to be prepared to work with change.

About the Author

Mark Cohen is a financial professional who has previously worked at BCG Securities and Metlife. Mark has extensive experience working as a financial advisor and enjoys being able to help others successfully manage their personal finances. He feels that working in finance provides a challenging environment where there are constant developments and changes. Mark Cohen has enjoyed great success in his career and achieved much at the various companies he's worked at, including building a talented team of investors, being recognized in the top one percent of financial advisors in the country, and being recognized in the top 20 of advisors throughout the country.