Business Travel Archives - Dr. Petri I. Salonen Views on Life, Entrepreneurship, and Software Business

How do you cope with jeglag?

October 3, 2009 by DrSalonen Leave a Comment

My business takes me on long trips with considerable time difference between home and destination. Yesterday I arrived to Helsinki that is +8 hours from Helsinki. With a travel of 16-17 hours and the hours that you have to stay up when arriving to Finland, you are looking at almost 30 hours of staying awake. This is hard and the older one gets, the harder it gets as well. How do you cope with it if you do it on regular basis? I have talked to quite a few fellow travellers, and everybody tells me that you just have to live with it. When I travel back to Dallas, it is going to be easier the first morning, but after 2-3 nights, a tremendous tiredness arrives and you can feel it. If you plan to be in international business, you better remember that the travel has some side effects, jetlag being one of them.

Living as a parent in international business: identifying balance between travel, family and hobbies

September 24, 2009 by DrSalonen Leave a Comment

My son Sebastian started his high school this fall in a brand new high school Byron Nelson in Trophy Club, Texas. Yesterday, I had to drive to the school to get him registered for driving lessons as he is turning 15 in October. I arrived early to the school and had 30 minutes to reflect on things, our lives here in Texas during the past 11+ years and how we have been integrated to this community. I have to say that I felt good about how my kids and wife (and me of course) have been integrated to the society, this place has been good for us, good for my business and I can not believe that even my company will turn 5 years soon.

However, there has been tradeoffs of this life. I have had to spend a lot of time on the road each year to support my family and for anybody living outside the “comfortable zone” in your native country, it is not as easy as one would expect. Cultural differences, issues when your parents age on the other side of the planet; grand kids not having a chance to visit with our parents; not having a chance to help parents when they need you and a million other things that we never thought of when emigrating. These are some of the topics that I will describe in more detail in my new upcoming book and it is fascinating to think about the things that we take for granted when we are younger. I have to say that I am blessed in many perspectives, and it is better to realize this and enjoy every day of life.

How to handle the tiredness after a week of travel?

September 19, 2009 by DrSalonen Leave a Comment

I have noticed that the older I get, the more I am impacted of a hard traveling week and if you add time difference to this, you have a combination that is hard to deal with. I was in Seattle/Redmond this week, left early morning on Monday and came back home on Friday midnight. The time difference between Dallas, Texas and Seattle, Washington is 2 hours and this should not specifically impact one… but it does….

The first few days in Seattle you get tired early in the evening, you get up early in the morning and once you get adjusted, it is the other way around. Today on Saturday, I feel very tired and had issues to get sleep in the evening due to these 2 hours. I also was a but unlucky, the hotel ExtendedStay was not what I expected and will not be my choice going forward.

One or two hours should not be an issue, but I think they are the older you get. When you do international travel, the time difference adds to the complexity and these are issues that I will be talking in my upcoming book.