“Trials and daily life build spiritual maturity.” – James 1:2-4

My formal education is easy to list: degrees earned, institutions named, credentials framed and hung. Yet alongside that orderly procession runs another curriculum — unofficial, untitled and profoundly influential. It is my informal education, the one that sharpened my intelligence and expanded my capacity to share what I have learned as I moved steadily along the discovery spectrum: from data to information to knowledge to insight to understanding hopefully, ultimately to wisdom.

This education did not unfold in lecture halls alone. It emerged in airports and marketplaces, in conference corridors and ancient ruins, in volunteer projects and late-night conversations with strangers who became teachers. Travel, which I learned early, is a demanding professor. It insists on adaptability, rewards curiosity, and tests assumptions. Each country became a classroom, each encounter, a case study. Over time, this “University of Travel” transformed theory into lived experience and curiosity into practical skill.

Conferences played their part as well. When approached with intention — before, during and after — they became immersive learning laboratories rather than passive events. Reflection turned presentations into insight and dialogue into durable knowledge. These experiences complemented my formal studies, grounding abstract models in human realities.

Between 1972 and 1992, from the ages of 31 to 51, I was invited to deliver 140 lectures on a range of management topics across a wide spectrum of public and private sector institutions. I also served as lead consultant in numerous strategic visioning interventions in a number of fields. Teaching, I discovered, is itself a powerful form of learning; clarity demands understanding.
My passport tells another story. As a biometrician, CPTM smart partner, Rotarian, CMEx director, international consultant, student, tourist, resident, conference attendee, strategic visioning facilitator, workshop convenor, UN employee and CDB consultant, my travels have taken me to 67 countries in all continents except Antarctica. Each country added a lens; each journey added depth. Together, they formed an education no syllabus could contain.

A prosperous New Year to you all!

(Dr. Basil Springer GCM is a corporate governance adviser. His email address is basilgf@marketplaceexcellence.com. His columns may be found at https://www.nothingbeatsbusiness.com.)