JUST LEAVE

As I sit in the back of a car winding down the Côte d’Azur from Antibes toward Saint-Tropez, the Mediterranean glittering off to one side and mountains rising on the other, I find myself laughing at a thought I never could have imagined when I was twelve years old.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, playing baseball on rough fields made more of rock than grass, I never once thought there would come a day when I would be invited to places like Antibes and Saint-Tropez simply to share my point of view.

Truthfully, I don’t think I ever imagined I would even have a point of view worth sharing about worlds like these.

Places such as the French Riviera have been enjoyed, celebrated, and romanticized for generations. Writers, artists, aristocrats, and dreamers have all passed through these landscapes. To now find myself here not as a tourist checking a destination off a list, but as someone invited to experience it and interpret it through my own lens is a humbling thing.

What I have come to realize is that my role is not so different from that of the writers and storytellers I admire. We are given the privilege of stepping into worlds that many people may never see firsthand and then returning to tell the story. Not exactly as others lived it, but as we experienced it ourselves.

And that journey began with something surprisingly simple:

Leaving.

I often tell young people, especially kids growing up in New York, that one of the most important things they can do is leave home.

Not forever.

Just long enough to discover who they are without it.

Maybe that means studying abroad. Maybe it means taking a job somewhere unfamiliar. Maybe it means attending a school that isn’t close enough for a weekend visit whenever life becomes difficult.

For me, it was Lynchburg, Virginia.

For a kid from Brooklyn, it was immediate culture shock. Everything felt foreign. Everything felt uncomfortable. I didn’t understand the rhythms, the people, or the environment.

And that was precisely the point.

Because once I realized I could survive being uncomfortable, I discovered something powerful: I was capable of building a life beyond the borders of what I knew.

One new place led to another.

Then another.

Then another.

Each experience stretched my understanding of the world and, more importantly, stretched my understanding of myself.

Many students today have opportunities I never had. They can spend semesters abroad, immerse themselves in different cultures, learn new languages, and develop a broader view of the world while they’re still young.

I didn’t have those opportunities. I went to college to play sports. Student-athletes don’t often have the luxury of studying abroad or disappearing for a semester in Florence or Paris.

In many ways, I’m doing all of that now as an adult.

Thankfully, my work has allowed me to travel, to learn, and to experience cultures I once only read about.

But if I could offer one piece of advice to young people standing on the edge of adulthood, it would be this:

Leave.

Even if your parents don’t want you to.

Even if staying home is easier.

Even if comfort is being offered to you at every turn.

Leave.

Go somewhere that challenges your assumptions. Go somewhere that makes you uncomfortable. Go somewhere that forces you to solve problems without the safety net of familiarity.

Because pressure reveals character.

Pressure builds resilience.

Pressure introduces you to the person you are capable of becoming.

The most transformative moments of my life rarely happened when I was comfortable. They happened when I was uncertain, homesick, overwhelmed, and forced to rely on my own resourcefulness.

That’s where growth lives.

That’s where confidence is built.

That’s where perspective is earned.

And as I look out this window somewhere between Antibes and Saint-Tropez, I can’t help but think that every remarkable view I’ve been fortunate enough to witness began with a decision made years ago by a kid from Brooklyn:

To leave home and see what was on the other side.