Whenever you travel, your senses are treated to an abundance of new experiences and situations. They stimulate your thinking and have valuable lessons for your business. All you have to do is be sufficiently observant, and connect the dots. Here are a couple of lessons observed during my recent journeys. One highlights the flawed market strategy of simply copying others. The other serves as an inspirational reminder of the need to continuous renew and reinvent your business.

A couple of months ago, I spent time on a Caribbean island that requires visitors to pay an exit tax. The tax, which is a way to generate revenues from tourists, is paid at the airport after checking in for the outbound flight. When it came time for me to make the payment, I counted over a dozen people already in line in front of me—at least a 15 minute wait. No more than 50 yards down the corridor was another tax collection kiosk with not a single person in front of it. I walked over, paid the tax without delay and proceeded on.

For me this is an example of how people, as well as businesses, often don’t look around and consider all the possibilities their environment has to offer. Rather, there is a tendency to follow, to copy what others are doing, and therefore be oblivious to superior opportunities. The people in line accepted a completely unnecessary wait because they were preoccupied with following. All they had to do was to give a quick glance around, in order to discover a much better solution. Similarly in business, when you are obsessed with copying your competitors you lose sight of much great market opportunities and new, more meaningful ways to serve your customers.

In contrast, on a flight heading to Europe, a charismatic elderly lady caught my attention and we struck up a conversation. She was an 81-year-old Detroit native traveling alone on a grueling 24-hour trip whose final destination was a village in Ghana, West Africa. She displayed remarkable vivacity and had an inspiring explanation for her travel: In 1995 she happened to meet a young orphan boy from Ghana on a bus in Turkey, which led to her helping him and his siblings and visiting them in their homeland. It is then that she became aware of the sad reality of suffering and poverty in Ghana. Compelled to make a difference, in 1997 she established a charitable organization with the aim of improving the lives of Ghanaians.

She has been personally responsible for building and running five orphanages and schools that provide for 400 children, constructing a clinic that is the only healthcare facility for nearly 40,000 people, coordinating and sending containers of goods from the U.S., and establishing several livestock raising farms. Her organization uses 100 percent of all donations to help the poor. Each year she makes extended trips to Ghana, and as we spoke on the airplane she said she could hardly wait to get there. It was easy to see that her mission has given her a new life force, youthful energy, focus and fulfillment.

What does that have to do with your business? Here is the connection: Gisela Becker, the lady I met on the airplane, reinvented herself at age 67, radically changing her life. She embraced change and found it highly rewarding. To run a successful business you have to have a mindset of continuous renewal. You need to exercise flexibility, to be open to new directions which allow you to broaden the relevance of your business. Let Mrs. Becker’s story inspire you. You can reinvent your business the same way she reinvented herself.