What You Seek Is Seeking You: My Cape Town Global Experience

Sometimes what you’re looking for doesn’t arrive with a grand announcement. It just sits there quietly until you notice it.

That’s how I felt when I came across London Business School (LBS)’s Cape Town Global Experience course. I didn’t ask around to see who was going. With so many GEs to choose from, none of my close friends had picked it. I did not analyze the itinerary in any real detail. But the course title, “Igniting Creativity and Curiosity in Pursuit of Sustainability,” stood out to me in a way I didn’t quite understand yet.

At the time, I was still early in my transition from medicine to management. I knew I wanted to work in marketing, something that involved creativity merged into business. But I also knew I hadn’t quite figured out my own approach yet. Signing up for the Cape Town Global Experience wasn’t a grand plan; it just felt right.

‘EMBRACING THE DISCOMFORT’

What I hadn’t factored in was that, by picking a location none of my close friends had chosen, I’d be arriving in Cape Town alone. We were a cohort of more than 80 students, but none of them were familiar faces. Still, I had my DSLR camera with me, mostly to capture memories. What I didn’t expect was how it would become my way into the group. It started with someone in the cohort asking me to take a photo for them, and I was more than happy to do it. Soon, I became everybody’s go-to guy for a quick picture. Constantly snapping photos led to many conversations with those around me, and slowly, I started forming connections. I ended up clicking more than 1,200 photos that week — and only five of them featured me. I wasn’t trying to document myself; I was trying to stay present. The LBS team was kind enough to give me space for capturing candid moments with speakers, volunteers, and students throughout the trip. The photos gave me something to offer, even when I didn’t quite know where I belonged. By the time the formal learning began, I already felt more settled.

Global Experiences are week-long immersive courses designed to help students on LBS’s Graduate Masters, MBA, and Leadership programs apply their academic learning in diverse, real-world contexts. The course itself started on a clear note. Richard Hytner, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at LBS, encouraged the group not to get caught up in romanticizing problems. It’s easy to spot what’s not working, he’d tell us, but what matters more is what you do with that information. He reminded us that real insight often comes from “embracing the discomfort,” and that stuck with me. The week wasn’t structured like a standard academic program. We weren’t shuffling from the lecture hall to a seminar room. It was about being out in the world, listening to people, and watching how ideas took shape in places very different from where we had come.

One afternoon, we visited Taking Care of Business, a social enterprise that trains and supports individuals from under-resourced communities to run small businesses. They partner with big retailers to redirect unsold stock. This included everything from clothes to appliances, stuff that would otherwise end up in landfills. What stood out was how practical it all felt. It wasn’t framed as innovation for the sake of it. These were simple systems that created real income for people who hadn’t been given many chances before. One woman spoke about how selling refurbished clothes helped her to send her daughter to school regularly. Another talked about saving for the first time. It was quiet determination, doing the work.

Later in the week, we visited the District Six Museum in Cape Town. A local volunteer who had grown up in the area gave us a tour. She spoke about the forced removals during apartheid with a kind of measured calm that made you stop and pay attention. The museum wasn’t flashy. There were handwritten notes, old photographs, and names etched into walls. What I took away wasn’t some sweeping historical conclusion, but a quiet understanding of how personal memory and public policy collide.

INSPIRING ENTREPRENEURS

We also visited the home of a woman in one of the nearby townships. She worked two jobs: one in a café during the day, and the other at a call center at night. She invited us in for tea and bread, and we sat around her kitchen table while she talked about her routine and her hopes for the future. There was no emotional speech or big moment, but it reminded me how dignity exists in showing up every day for your life.

We met another local entrepreneur, a designer who created fashion from discarded fabric scraps. His work had structure and flair, but what impressed me most was how he had trained himself to see constraints as creative opportunities. Most of the raw material he received wasn’t enough to make a whole collection out of, so he decided to make his products one-of-a-kind limited editions — no two jackets were alike. He had turned the lack of resources into a stylistic choice that he continued with even when he started getting paid well and could technically afford to source new fabric. Instead, he reinvested the money into other aspects of the business, like buying sewing machines. He didn’t ask for ideal conditions; he worked with what he had and found expression within it. That mindset felt relevant well beyond design.

One of the more unexpected lines came from a former corporate banker, who now runs a farm making wine. He told us that we are all farmers by proxy. At the beginning of human civilization, everyone practised agriculture. Today, we choose where our food comes from by delegating the task to other growers. So, it makes us responsible for the kind of food that grows in the world. What we pick at the grocery store is a choice that defines whether farming in the world will be sustainable or destructive. Thus, in a bigger context, we’re all shaping futures with our decisions — whether we realize it or not. What we build, what we ignore, what we pay attention to — it’s all part of the same process.

This really struck a chord with me as, throughout the trip, we met several individuals who had grown up in townships, gone on to join global consulting firms, studied abroad (including at LBS), and returned to build something in their communities. None of them framed their lives as perfect success stories. But their choices reflected a kind of clarity and commitment that was hard not to admire. They were trying to build entire ecosystems, instead of only chasing short-term successes.

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

The learnings I gained will definitely stay with me, but it wasn’t all work and no play. I also had my fair share of “fun.” After long days of site visits and reflections, we enjoyed plenty of free time to explore Cape Town. Some evenings were spent eating incredible seafood in restaurants at the Waterfront, while others involved spontaneous hikes to the foot of Table Mountain or sunset walks on the beach. We even met penguins! I don’t know why they are called Jackass Penguins, but I am sure there must be a good reason. This space to decompress combined with the beauty of our surroundings, all helped the experience settle in.

It goes without saying that the trip wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without my fellow classmates, who I can now confidently classify as more than just acquaintances (I made friends, Mom!). Their acceptance ensured that I never had to eat dinner alone during our free time. But there’s one person I couldn’t have survived without — my roommate, Bilguudee Tuvshintulga. We got allocated the same room because neither of us had a preference for who we shared with. “Bill” is Mongolian by nationality, but thanks to his extensive travel history and global schooling, he’s one of the most sorted and mature people I’ve ever met. We got along like peanut butter and jelly. Our evenings were full of discussions about the course, the nuances of the sociopolitical landscape of South Africa, and prepping for the next day’s events. He is the one who taught me to own my wins and “stop saying sorry all the time,” and I hope some of my eternal optimism rubbed off on his pragmatism.

What made this course different for me was the kind of thinking it unlocked. I’d always associated creativity with campaigns, content, or visuals. But in Cape Town, I began to see it as something broader. It was in how people organized supply chains, adapted to broken systems, or found workarounds when resources fell short. It wasn’t a show. It was a way of solving problems, one step at a time.

Professor Hytner kept asking us what we were going to take back. Not just in terms of learning, but habits. I’ve thought about that a lot since returning. It’s easy to let inspiration fade once you’re back in a classroom or facing deadlines. But some things linger. I’ve caught myself thinking differently during group projects. Asking different kinds of questions. Noticing how often we aim for perfect conditions instead of just starting from where we are. As a student consultant, I’m working on a strategy for a new vertical my client wants to launch in India. Here, I’m facing a market that’s highly unorganized with no obvious entry point. Instead of being daunted by the size of the task, I’ve been focusing on learning from similar emerging markets to map out practical next steps. The challenge hasn’t changed, but my approach has. I’ve started to treat ambiguity as an opening, not a block.

If you’re wondering whether GEs — Global Experiences — are worth the time and effort, they definitely are. They offer something completely different. If the Cape Town program is anything to go by, a GE is not a checklist. It’s not a photo-op. It’s a week where you’re asked to observe, absorb, and engage. If you do that with even a little intention, you’ll return with more than a set of notes. You’ll return with a different view of the simplest things.

I didn’t know what I was hoping to find when I chose this trip, but maybe that’s the point. Sometimes you go halfway across the world to notice something that was within you, waiting to be discovered.

If you are looking for that “one” experience — the one that tells you that it all makes sense — don’t worry, it’s looking for you too.

---

Gaurav Singh is a Master’s in Management candidate at London Business School. After beginning his career in medicine, he pivoted to business to explore his interest in creativity and marketing. When he is not working on strategy decks or writing, you will find him behind a camera or wandering through bookstores.