I find myself once again on vacation. My destination, not surprisingly, is back home to Washington DC. Coming back has become a ritual that not only clears my head, but I find it’s usually the best way to re-focus my attention on any new venture – in this case, being my new job which starts Monday.

Let’s be clear – DC is not the place you go to “relax.” In fact, like any trip home it’s only a matter of time before the endless emails about who I plan to meet, where it is we are going to catch up and I am forced to contemplate how much time I can actually spend doing vacation-type stuff. Though at times it may feel like more of a benefit for my friends, I do find there is one supreme upside to going home: the quiet sense of appreciation for where you’ve been.

The view from the corner of my old apartment in DC

It hit me as I wandered through Dupont Circle and past my former apartment; my world has grown so much in the course of only 19 months. At first, the act of disassembling my life and starting over in Nashville felt impossible.  Today, I can’t imagine what my life would be without it.  The reason is because my risking everything I knew and getting out of my comfort zone, I gained an enormous appreciation for almost everything around me.

It’s easy to take things for granted when you’re comfortable.  You begin to think of your limits as stabilizers and your scope becomes narrowed in an effort to reinforce what you think has worked in the past. The truth is that a little discomfort is good for you.  By keeping yourself off balance, you start looking beyond what is immediately understandable. In doing so you begin to master the art of appreciating the ever widening scope your own environment.

When marketers take their worlds for granted – whether it be in their understanding of consumer behavior, technology or even what they, themselves are capable of – they loose their edge. The best guard against that complacency is an appreciation of how big the world is and, perhaps, how much we don’t know.

For my own journey, I just have to look around at what I used to take for granted.  I look at places I used to pass by without a second thought and find appreciation in the company of friends I used to talk with every day.

Will I ever want to move back? Who knows…

What I do know is that I would have not traded my business school experience for anything in the world.  In it, I have gained an appreciation for the very art of appreciation and what a valuable tool it is.

For anyone out thinking of stepping out his or her comfort zone and into a big change I say, “do it.” You never know what you might find once you pass that threshold but in the words of Dr. Joyce Brothers, “if you can take the worst, take the risk.”