My name is Hicham Soutou, a young entrepreneur and a future philanthropist, born and raised in a small village in the south of the Netherlands. In our family, I was the oldest of three children and as a kid, I always had a particularly peculiar interest in music and animals. Growing up wasn’t always easy though. In spite of the fact that my life has always been somewhat comfortable, I actually had little to no clue about who I was and where I was heading. My biological father passed away when I was only seven years old and aside from the fact that I’d just lost the one person who I looked up to the most, I had to learn to become my own man. Needless to say, this was quite a challenge.

Over the course of the following years, my behavior started to change drastically. The nice kid who would always listen to his parents all of a sudden turned into this annoying little brat who would do anything to get some attention. During my high school years, my mom had probably seen more of the principal’s office than the principal himself. Hell, they might as well had become roommates. I got into fights with pretty much half the school, just to gain popularity among the other half. I argued with almost every teacher and skipped class way more than a pair of hands can count. It surprises me ‘til this very day that I somehow still managed to keep my grades up.

As the years passed by, I felt more and more insecure about who I was. It felt as if my identity was going through a severe crisis. I felt torn apart between being a boy who had lost his all-time hero and an adolescent who had no idea who he was because of it. Consequently, I lacked pretty much every social skill a son usually would learn from his father. I must admit though, I was exceptionally good at pretending that I did have all the crucial skills to ‘’make it’’ in life. Meanwhile, I would seek escape in the two things I actually was good at, writing and music. I would even put myself out there from time to time and perform in front of hundreds of people. Me, the insecure kid who was more frightened of the outer world than the average teenage girl is of spiders and smeared makeup!

Luckily, at the age of 20, things finally started to change. During my university years, I had the opportunity to go abroad for six months. I decided to go on a new adventure, and not long after that, I found myself laying on a beach in Mexico. I vividly remember thinking to myself, ‘’It’s nice to be here’’, but simultaneously being unable to take the burden of feeling inadequate any longer. If there was ever a time and place to take action, it was here in this moment! I decided to try all the things that felt so unnatural to me up until that point. Basic stuff, like having a friendly conversation with a random stranger, or maybe even awkwardly approaching the pretty girl sitting in front of me. As the months passed by, I started to feel more confident. I finally understood that I had to be my own advocate of change. Blaming others for my shortcomings was just no longer an option. And before I knew it, I became so obsessed with finding my blueprint that I started reading pretty much any and every self-help book out there.

Today, a decade later, a couple of failed ventures ahead and more rejections further than any excel spreadsheet could ever process, I’ve finally arrived at a place where I no longer have the need to fit in. Rather, I now wake up every day with the need to stand out. To excel in what I do and to ensure I do it in the service of others. See, once you understand this frame of mind, you start becoming more of who you are. You become loyal to your authentic self by living life on your own terms. You learn to be grateful and to embrace each experience in your life as it is, because you realize that everything always happens for you, not to you. I am the sum of my history and although I cannot control every circumstance, I am the architect of my blueprint. One that is built upon hard work, love, and connection. To me, this is what Blueprint Travels stands for; this is exactly what life is all about.