As if I had only closed my eyes for a moment, I heard my alarm go off. It was six o’clock and time to head to the gym for my morning workout. I got out of bed, put on a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt, tied my shoes, and walked out the door. I descended the two flights of stairs just as I had done the day before, but that day, I was looking forward to my workout and sauna a little bit more than normal. When I opened the...

Taxis in Germany were always better than those back home, and the ride from the airport to the hotel passed faster than expected. Before I could replay the previous night in my head, the cab pulled to the curb outside my temporary home. The driver unloaded my suitcase, and I tipped him twenty euros, earning a surprised look as he drove off. Inside, the lobby opened cleanly in both directions—the bar to the left, the ameni...

I was sitting by the pool waiting for my sister Emily to come back. “What could be taking her so long?” I thought to myself. I really didn’t care that much about my sister’s company at the moment – I had a drink, a seat in the sun, and several attractive men to watch around the pool – but I was about to need to get in the pool to cool off, and I was hoping Emily would bring a hair clip back for me too. I was about to say...

Every year, my family takes a summer trip when all of my siblings and I are out of school. It has been a family tradition for as long as I can remember. Usually, we would choose somewhere warm and sunny like Florida or Hilton Head, South Carolina, but on special occasions like major birthdays, graduations or things like that, my parents would splurge and choose somewhere more exotic like Hawaii, Aruba, Jamaica. I had just...

The life of a consultant can be exhausting. For the past 3 years, I have been traveling from Chicago to Stuttgart, Germany once per month. A manufacturing company hired my company during the acquisition of a small startup. What started out as a “quick and easy” evaluation of their profit and loss statements and valuation estimate turned into a more elaborate chore once we realized just how messy their books were. The flig...