Continuing with the celebration of our birthday month and introducing our team, we thought it was the right time to introduce our third co-founder and advisor, Darren Collins. Darren lives across the pond in the U.K. and was the person who sparked the idea of HIGH BEAM by sharing with me the student story that's featured on our "About" page and in Darren's previous post, "Taking A Bite Out of the Big Apple". Darren feels lucky to have experienced transformative travel while he was very young. Read on to see how a life can change direction even at a young age. -Yasmin
For those who have only known me as an adult, it might come as a surprise that I was a reserved teenager. That’s because I, unfortunately, fell into the common trap of comparing myself to my classmates. Even worse, to new classmates in a more affluent neighborhood. The fancy cars and designer everything made my teenage mind unreasonable in thinking I wasn’t enough. I know it shouldn’t have, but at that age, I couldn’t help it. I did well playing football (or as Americans would say, soccer), but I was far less outgoing with my classmates. Then I got the opportunity to travel to the U.S. to play in a tournament called the Ken Aston Cup. And everything changed.
I was thirteen, played on a district team in Essex county, and trained hard. I was invited to join this tournament team and traveled for a little over two weeks playing in the tournament and in other games around Southern California. Two things happened during that trip that changed me and the course of my life forever. The first is that I gained confidence as a player. I was selected as a substitute on the travel team, but on that trip, I was playing better than ever and my confidence grew with each goal. I was never a substitute again. In fact, I was scouted after that trip and later went on to play for Norwich City Football Club.
It wasn’t just the sport that affected me, though. The traveling itself did so much more for me than I could have ever imagined—so much so that the day before the trip, if anyone had told me all the things that would happen in the next four years, I would’ve said they were crazy.
Naturally, I had a lot of fun experiencing a lot of things for the first time. Just being served meals and watching TV on the plane was impressive! But then we visited the magic of Hollywood, Disneyland, Universal Studios, bodyboarding and… American pizzas. We would’ve eaten them for every meal if we could! I experienced the magic of a currency conversion in our favor when we went shopping for the latest trainers (sneakers to Americans). We also experienced the magic of independence (or a taste of it), which always makes an impression on a teenager. Still, there was something about travel, itself, that allowed me to be more me. I don’t know how else to put it. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes and I could see myself and opportunities more clearly. I wasn’t affected by the more affluent city of Mission Viejo, where the Aston Cup was held. Back home, just my more affluent neighborhood was enough to make me reserved, but when traveling, it didn’t affect me. Maybe it helped that the locals I met were friendly and warm, but the confidence I was able to build—even during that short period—made me feel a foot taller and the feeling stayed with me long after!
Was it the confidence I built that attracted the new opportunities that came over the next several years? Or was it that I was more easily able to recognize opportunities because I wasn’t so preoccupied with socioeconomic status? I’m still not sure I can say which for sure. All I know is that I wouldn’t have been able to make the same progress as a person in such a short amount of time without travel. I feel like I owe a lot to football for making me the person I am, but it was because of that trip that I leveled up. I’m a more open person and I have higher expectations of myself, both of which contribute to a richer life than that of others who didn’t have the same opportunities or confidence.
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