Exactly three years ago I left for the world tour. When I see this film I can still feel my excitement and curiosity for diving into the unknown. Never I had foreseen I would travel for 16 months through 26 countries and thousands of people would participate. I also hadn’t anticipated the impact I could have. The people who rethought their lives and otherones who I had given home.

Next week I’ll leave again. This time for two months. The unknown doesn’t feel as big as then. I still don’t know what will happen, but I’m far more used to uncertainties then back then. I know there’s always enough to figure out and I trust myself that I will figure this out, probably together with the lovely people I meet on the road. Also this time I’m excited about going. There is this curiosity and hunger for meeting new people, places and stories.

Does it mean that this time it will be easier? I don’t think so. It will just be as easy and hard as last time. Questions I didn’t have then, are questions now and vice versa. No matter how experienced you are there will always be difficult things and new insights to unravel. That’s the fun of it.

This time the decisicion to go collecting was more complicated. In Australia I met a possible publisher. He said: ‘If we want to publish the book worldwide, you’ll need to have American stories in it.’ A fair point. People love to see moments from their hometown and how they compare to the rest of the world. Given how big the US market is, it made total sense. I wanted to go to the US this summer for a conference any. Why not combine it with a new collecting tour? So I responded that wouldn’t be a problem.

But it didn’t feel right. I could see all the advantages of doing this. It would be the rational thing to do. But also the most dangerous. If I would collect with an external goal, other than the wish to give people a good experience. I would fail. Collecting beautiful moments only works if I want to give people a beautiful moment, not if I want to get them.
To top it up. It had me taken me almost a year to admit to myself I didn’t solely want to collect beautiful moments anymore. I also want to develop my other capabilities and didn’t feel a hunger to hear new beautiful moments. It had taken me a year because everything Seize Your Moments stands for is so important to me.

How I to untie this knot in my stomach? Should I go collecting or not? I approached it from every angle I could think of. And that was the problem: I just thought about it. So I set down and asked my self: ‘Janne, if you imagine collecting through the US for 6 weeks how would that feel?’ And my belly came to live. It bubbled and butterflies came out of their cocoons. Excitement rushing to my veins. Gone was the knot and I knew what I wanted to do. Get my cards, my markers and hit a plane. Just go and give people beautiful moments. I can’t wait.