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A thought I had after coming back from a short trip:

Founders, creators, entrepreneurs, builders, high achievers — you should travel more.

Not because it looks good on Instagram.
Not because it’s “self-care.”
And not because you need to escape your life.

But because travel can genuinely change your fate.

I just came back from a long weekend in Yilan — a hot spring town in Taiwan — and once again, I felt something I’ve experienced many times over the past few years:

Every time I travel, I come back as a slightly different person.

And sometimes, that “slightly different” version of me ends up making completely different life decisions.

That matters more than most people realize.

A few years ago, I would have rather stayed home, rested, and saved the money.

Travel felt unnecessary.
Too much effort.
Too much unpredictability.

But over the last three years — especially while trying to heal from the emotional aftermath of building my last startup — I started traveling more with my husband, my son, and my family.

Not luxury travel.
Not dramatic “find yourself in Bali” travel.
Just real trips. Big or small.

And over time, I started noticing a pattern:

Travel was changing my inner state.

Not just my mood.
My frequency.

When you stay inside the same routines for too long, your nervous system starts shrinking around the familiar.

Your days become about:

And if you’re a founder or builder, this gets even worse.

Because your life is already full of pressure and unknowns — so without realizing it, you start living in a constant background frequency of:

fear, scarcity, control, and mental tightness.

You may still be functioning.
You may still be producing.
You may even still be “winning.”

But internally, you’ve already become smaller.

That’s what travel interrupts.

No matter how well you plan a trip, something always goes differently than expected.

The weather changes.
A place is closed.
Your kid melts down.
You miss a turn.
The timing is off.
Something doesn’t go according to plan.

And strangely, that’s exactly why travel is so powerful.

Because travel keeps putting you in contact with one of the deepest truths of life:

You are not in control.

And if you stop fighting that truth, something beautiful happens.

You soften.

You adapt.

You start letting life unfold instead of trying to force it into your preferred shape.

That shift is much bigger than it sounds.

Because a lot of suffering — especially for high achievers — comes from one thing:

expectation.

We carry so many silent expectations:

Some expectations are useful.
But many become cages.

And some become curses.

Travel helps break that spell.

One of the deepest gifts of travel is this:

It trains your heart to be okay with what is.

Not because everything goes perfectly.
But because it doesn’t.

And yet, beauty still appears.

Sometimes the wrong turn becomes the best part of the day.
Sometimes the “imperfect” trip becomes the most memorable one.
Sometimes what didn’t go according to plan ends up opening something in you that your plan never could.

That’s when your heart starts to open again.

You stop asking:

“Why isn’t this exactly how I wanted it?”

And start asking:

“What is life trying to show me here?”

That is a very different frequency to live from.

This is the part I think people underestimate most.

The real value of travel is not the trip itself.

It’s who you become after you come back.

Because once you’ve loosened fear, softened control, and touched a wider version of life again…
you don’t return to your decisions as the same person.

You often come back:

And then something subtle but powerful happens:

You start making different decisions.

Decisions you were too afraid to make before.

You say no faster.
You stop forcing certain outcomes.
You stop chasing what no longer feels true.
You become more willing to choose the life that actually belongs to you.

And that’s how your life changes.

Not magically.
Not instantly.
But structurally.

Because your life is shaped by the decisions you make — and your decisions are shaped by your inner state.

So if travel changes your inner state, it can absolutely change your future.

I’m not saying every trip will give you some huge breakthrough.

And I’m definitely not saying everyone should constantly be traveling.

Travel takes money.
Energy.
Planning.
Capacity.

But I do think this:

If you’ve been trapped in your own mind, your own pressure, your own expectations, or your own fear for too long — you may not need a better plan.

You may need a wider horizon.

A different sky.
A different rhythm.
A different nervous system experience.

Sometimes that’s what helps you remember who you actually are.

And once that happens, you stop making choices purely from fear.

You start making them from something much deeper:

peace, courage, joy, and truth.

That version of you will always create a different life.

And maybe that’s what changing your fate actually is.

Not becoming someone else.

But becoming more of the version of you that was always there — underneath the fear.

Peace,
Peggie

The video version of this newsletter can be watched here