Exclusive: Author Navigates Hope, Debunks Superficial Differences Across 85 Countries And 7 Continents

Not many of us dare to live the life we have always wanted, and yet we are aware that the journey of thousand miles begins with a single step! 'Not all those who wander are lost' and this is where travel comes in. How different life would be if we have more stories to tell and less stuff to show?

Well, it goes beyond a doubt that travelling exposes one to new people, cultures and experiences, something that can never be achieved sitting at home or staring at screens. Travelling is essential when it comes to looking past superficial differences, and putting an end to the endless cycle of misunderstanding and mindless conflict. It is undoubtedly a great way to comprehend, learn and appreciate non-verbal communication, and create new bondings that one will reminisce about for the rest of their lives.

In an exclusive interview with Boldsky, author of the book 'There Are No Foreign Lands', Jeff Sheehan shares his life-changing experiences on what inspired him to opt for a round-the-world trip, why the world we live in has a more hopeful scenario, and his observations gleaned from his travels to 85 countries on every continent.

When asked, in a world obsessed with cynicism: What compelled you to return to relentless optimism during your travel? Jeff says, that he is a 'people person' and has spent 30 years visiting countries on every continent except for Antarctica. 'One of the rewards of this extensive travel was the opportunity to meet a lot of people. I retained all the business cards I exchanged and filed them carefully by country and name. Since I returned frequently to almost all these countries, I often collected new business cards from those who changed jobs. When I finished my work with Wharton, I took a week to look through all my business cards. First of all, I counted them: 13,464 cards from 85 countries. Second, I reflected on all the people I had met and how many different languages they spoke, cuisines they preferred, professions they pursued, religions they followed, and cultures they represented.'

What struck him more than anything else was that the differences in languages, cuisines, professions, religions, and cultures seemed universally superficial. 'What was far more important were the fundamental, common human values and dispositions that almost everybody shared. I met and became close friends with a variety of people from countries with which my country had terrible arguments - Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and so on. I stood in Red Square in Moscow, Tiananmen Square in China, and many other similar locations, each time wondering why we spent so much time arguing and so much money on nuclear weapons to threaten people who are so similar to us. I am not a social scientist, so my observations are not credible in an academic sense. But I do feel that 13,464 data points represent a valid basis for reaching some conclusions. Primary among my conclusions was that "there are no foreign lands," which became the title of the book I wrote about 17 of these people and their common values and dispositions. The more I travelled, the more I learned, and the more optimistic I became,' he tells Boldsky.

Jeff grew up in a small, semi-rural town in the northeast of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, where he had no experience with diversity until he graduated from high school. There was something different about my family, says Jeff. 'My paternal grandfather, whose parents had emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century, pioneered international sales for the company for which he worked. He became legendary because of two trips he took to Latin America to promote the sale of his company's products. It was quite complicated to fly to Brazil when the biggest plane available was a DC-3. Leaving La Guardia Airport in New York, he had to stop twice before he reached Miami. After he returned, he told stories about Ipanema Beach in Rio and gauchos in Argentina that got my blood racing. His son (my father) became a history professor and had a particular interest in geography.'

The dinner table conversations were as often focused on the evils of colonialism as they were on Jeff's favourite professional baseball team. One day his father brought home a gigantic, late-18th century Japanese map of the world. Much to his surprise and delight, Jeff was awarded the privilege of hanging it on the wall of his bedroom. 'I created an entire fantasy world about a Japanese sea captain and his travels around the world. In short, both by nature (more on this in response to the next question) and nurture, I was hooked from an early age. I sprinted out of high school like I was shot from a gun. I did not stop moving for the next 50 years,' he recalls.

About his round-the-world trip, Jeff believes that every trip he takes is a leap into the unknown, and nothing gives him more pleasure than visiting a new city or country. Also, his favourite country, language, and cuisine are always that of the place in which he finds himself at any particular time.

Jeff says, 'Some paleogeneticists have a theory about the origin of travel. It begins with the universally accepted theory that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and that we are all part of the African diaspora. They further hypothesize - and this hypothesis is not universally accepted yet - that Homo sapiens in Africa was a somewhat timid race. You might call them "homebodies" who had no interest in going anywhere, trying anything new, or taking risks. Then, about 60,000 years ago, a mutation in the DRD4-7r gene changed the attitudes and behaviour of the species, making some of us adventurous risk takers. Those Homo sapiens who inherited this mutation decided that there was more to life than what they and their ancestors had seen and done. They started to explore, travel, try new ideas, to take risks. These mutants eventually left home and reached what we now call the Middle East. Some of them then turned left and ended up in what we now call Europe, where they met (and exterminated) the Neanderthals. Other mutants turned right and ended up in what we now call Asia, then in what we now call the Americas via the Beringian land bridge. The mutation is called the "wanderlust gene," and exists in only 20% of the humans in the world. The people who sign up to be astronauts, climb Mt. Everest and have 10,000,000-mile frequent flyer accounts all share this mutation. There is no question in my mind that I have inherited the DRD4-7r gene. As a consequence, I have no choice. I am genetically programmed to travel. This is not a harmful compulsion: I love to travel and find travel to be the most intellectually stimulating while at the same time a humbling experience.'

Now a thought leader and marketing influencer, Jeff's global peregrinations involve hundreds of trips to every corner of the globe, but rarely as a tourist. 'I interacted almost exclusively with non-Americans, by choice. As a consequence, I learned more about the people, their values, their dispositions, their dreams, and their aspirations, than their monuments, both natural and constructed. In fact, I looked with some disdain at groups of Americans who flocked together and learned so little about the countries they visited. Why travel, I thought, if you did not meet anybody but the people you already knew? Slowly but surely, I got to know Indonesians, Peruvians, Swedes, and South Africans, not as stereotypes or tour bus operators but as individuals with parents, spouses, children, fears, hopes, triumphs, failures, toothaches, and worries about having enough money for retirement.'

What Jeff discovered did not really surprise him, but it did confirm the assumptions he had made about the superficiality of characteristics that other people found to be profound. 'As I got to know these "foreigners" well, I stopped thinking that they were foreign and realized that what we shared was far more profound than what separated us.'

Citing an example from his incredible journey over the years, Jeff recalls, 'There was the Uruguayan pediatric cardiac surgeon who taught me the true nature of altruism, the Spanish ballerina who touched my soul off-stage as much as on-stage, the government official who with great reluctance agreed to run for vice president of Indonesia and won more votes than Barack Obama, the Russian oligarch whose mother was born in Kyiv and who left Moscow in tears after Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Each one contributed to my growing list of characteristics and dispositions which they all shared and to which, I realized, I aspired. None of this had anything to do with business education (remember that I was working for a business school) but luckily my employer never figured out that I was actually learning more than I was working,' he concludes.

About the author:

Jeff Sheehan has travelled across 85 countries, exchanged business cards with 13,464 businessmen and reached one big conclusion- There Are No Foreign Lands. This life-changing experience compelled him to write a book with that name. As a leading communications expert and globalist, Sheehan offers the world a more hopeful scenario, based on his observations gleaned from his travels to 85 countries on every continent.

In addition to his writing, Sheehan was an Associate Dean for International Relations at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The book "There are no Foreign Lands" is divided into two parts. The first part consists of concise biographies of 17 people from 17 different countries from all the inhabited continents, pursuing 17 different professions, speaking 11 different mother tongues, and following 10 different spiritual traditions. The second part consists of his explanation of 13 different values and dispositions shared by the book's 17 heroines and heroes.