The Man who Traveled 563,000 km in One Year

The Man who Traveled 563,000 km in One Year - When he was only in his early 20s, for the first time he saw a wider world. Flying overseas and traveling often is a lifestyle he can get used to. When I graduated college I was looking for a job that kept me going, Neira said. He got the opportunity as an export manager at Concha y Toro, the largest wine producer in Latin America.

For the next seven years, the Chilean continued to travel, representing the company in Sub-Saharan Africa and eventually served in Stockholm as commercial director for the Nordic country branch.
Neira is now working for the largest wine importer in the Baltic, Global Wine House, as the managing director of the Chilean portfolio.

His duties include meeting with wine makers to develop new drinks for consumers in Europe.
He launched six new Chilean wines by 2015 and plans to launch another three by 2016 in supermarkets located in more than 20 European countries.
Neira, 36, found one foot in her homeland in Chile and another in Europe, as a continent where she spent most of her adult life.

He traveled across the Atlantic from his home in Berlin which became his base to Santiago five times a year for up to 10 days each time away.
He also went to his company headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia, for a week every month. In addition, he also travels every month in the European region for market checks, training and cooperation.
Thus, Neira travels 20 weeks per year, covering a distance of about 350,000 miles or 563,000 km.
He said the added benefit of his life that was stained with many of these trips was that he got a free holiday from the points collected through two airline loyalty programs.

But there is a negative side of life that jumps from one country to another and from one culture to another; having a sustainable personal relationship proved to be a breeze, overcoming different customs could take energy, run a routine almost impossible, and after all these years, Neira still had not found a way to overcome his biggest enemy: jetlag.

The intercultural lifestyle has provided many lessons for Neira.
For example, when his bag was left on the train from Oslo Airport to the Norwegian capital a few years ago, he was sure he would never see his bag again. But because his bag contains a passport, a laptop and 2,000 euros or about Rp30 million, he makes a loss report.
The same train returned about an hour later and Neira was surprised to get back not only her bag but also all of it. He explained that the system of mutual trust in Europe is very foreign to us in South America.

He applied the lesson to personal relationships. In Chile we are very careful when running a business related to who we trust and who we do not trust, he said, but in most parts of Europe they start by trusting us automatically. It then made her start a meeting with business partners from a position of trust - not skepticism - in terms of their abilities.

Another difference that Chileans make in practical life is when to be polite and when to be candid. In South America we do not say 'no'. We will say maybe, yes or let's talk later to say no, Neira explained. We think we're being polite by doing that, but, there's no room for such indirect conversations in Europe.

Neira also found that his recent work in Eastern Europe was more confrontational than what he experienced in Scandinavia.
A small problem can be a big quarrel marked with screaming and we feel business partners will break the relationship in total, he explained. But then we know that's how they are. They like to frighten us and put us in a very challenging situation to know our limits.

What's going on, the traveling life he once dreamed of was not as fancy as it is, Neira said.
In fact many of these trips are from one office to another, he said.
My friends do not trust me, but going to Prague, Oslo, Madrid or wherever, it does not matter because we go to the airport, take a taxi, go to the office, go to the office, back to the airport and we go to the next destination .

Neira stay at the same hotel from time to time because being in the usual neighborhood can save you time and effort. Conditions that help if he does not have to start something from the beginning for example, looking for the nearest restaurant or find a route to and from the meeting place. In places like Estonia, which has become a second house.

That's The Man who Traveled 563,000 km in One Year. Thank you.