Adventure to make the world less boring

This must have been the most hilarious website I’ve seen recently and definitely the most disturbing to read while being confined between the 4 walls of my office: http://www.theadventurists.com

The idea of Adventurist is simple. Take the smallest and least practical vehicles available in an entire continent and throw it into a charity race at some of the most ridiculous and least hospitable terrain on our good earth. Brilliant! And incredibly dangerous. But I love it. The races come in different shapes and forms: the Mongol Rally, the Rickshaw Run, the Africa Rally and the Mototaxi Junket. Woohaa!

Update on my life: why I decided to go overseas?

I’m sipping on my fresh Cuban Breeze Mojito while typing the night away in the hotel lounge of Novotel, in Bandung. Who would have thought 11 months ago.. where to start writing this long overdue update on my life? I’m not the most succinct in style, so I’ll have to do this in several times

Why did I decide to go overseas?

I left Belgium on the 19th of Nov 2008 for Singapore, to start my first professional steps outside the safety and comfort of AIESEC and my student life. The 3 months that led to my decision, I mostly spent on the road doing some soul searching, reading and meeting enriching people.

I knew I needed to leave Belgium again, to find my way. I felt it was holding me back and couldn’t carry the weight of my expectations and aspirations. I always wanted to discover Asia – the one continent I knew the least about. But I wasn’t quite decided on what to do there, to find my next peak.

Of course, it had to be something that was aligned with my long-term goals of living as responsible global citizen, with humility and integrity, and of setting up my own change management consultancy focused at “world-work”. The questions I eventually ended up asking myself were:
- What opportunity is most unique at this point in time and aligned to my vision?
- What lifestyle do I want?
- And what qualities do I want to develop in the next year?

The answers came in the reflections and conversations I had on the road:

# The most unique experience would be to live in a continent I knew least about and a have a job that required intense challenges intellectually and would maximize my exposure to business fundamentals. I choose Asia as place and management consultancy as professional field.

# The lifestyle I envisioned was one where I could slow down and focus on myself. These may sound selfish, however during my years in AIESEC my focus gradually moved from my own personal development to serving the organization and its members. In the process, my attention moved away from my own identity. I needed a year for ‘me’. The other element I felt strongly about, was mobility; to explore new cultures, places and people – but also to finally have the financial independence to stand on my own two feet, to follow my heart and express my values in my economic actions. In short, I was looking for a new “life-mix” and a diverse but yet balanced environment where I could develop a career and have my space.

# Finally, I thought long and hard about the qualities I aspired. In my years in AIESEC, I developed a strong sense of intuition and learnt a great deal about people and what drives them. It has been the perfect place to develop the life skills that will allow me to navigate life’s hurdles with determination, joy and meaning. However, by living several lives in one – juggling with university, AIESEC, and my other personal investments – I was running the marathon and along the way undervalued slowing down; to appreciate the breath of fresh air that comes with deep sensing and balance; understanding problems more profoundly and systematically in order to act with more leverage; to value my own body and physical experience. Using Wilber’s integral framework, I envisioned a year focused on the “body” and the “mind”, as compared to “heart” and “spirit” in AIESEC. One interesting reflection was my need to actively use my analytical and strategic skills again. Although my last role as president was supposedly “strategic” in scope, I felt the AIESEC lifestyle and “operating system” (with 1 year cycles) did not truly allow for anything beyond tactical thinking.

This led me to define 4 simple decision-making criteria:

1. A job in management consultancy in Asia with client facing time and high-impact projects involving significant change. Access to different industries was a bonus.

2. Early on, much responsibility to contribute to the content and process of my work – e.g I had to find an international-minded and ambitious SME, with a leader who would be willing to invest in my learning.

3. Ability (time, money & context) to invest in my lifestyle: identify exciting urban areas and regional hubs in Asia where “many worlds meet”.

4. Rational criteria aside, I needed to feel excited and happy with the opportunity. My heart and intuition had to be singing in chorus.

I shortlisted a large number of places in Asia, down to India (Mumbai, Delhi), Singapore, Hong Kong and China (Shanghai, Beijing), and started researching websites, talking to my network and generally putting all my feelers out there.

At first I was hoping to find exciting consultancy opportunities through AIESEC’s internship program, but quickly realized these companies usually don’t advertise through recruitment channels like AIESEC.. at least, not officially. Needless to say, it left me wondering to some extend about the quality of options AIESEC offers, beyond the personal network. Eventually, 4 weeks of search later through my network, I got interviews in Delhi and Singapore with management consultancy SMEs that fitted the profile.

Singapore got the upper hand; it offered a more professional opportunity with (not surprisingly) much better remuneration package, with regional traveling as opposed to India-wide, and a better gateway to the multicultural facets of Asia. Though no contribution to AIESEC’s exchange numbers (god, how often have I been reminded by my fellow AIESEC friends hehe), I signed up as business analyst.

So, what do I actually do then? That’s for my next mojito..

Some people see more in a walk around the block than others in a lifetime

My chinatown, my neighborhood

This must have been the most random night since long!

I had a late dinner around 11.30pm and walked around my beloved neighborhood of Chinatown with my new SLR camera – a Canon EOS 1000D, a beauty – taking pictures of “the ordinary” nightlife here. I stumbled upon a group of happy locals, drinking at a hawker center in typical Singaporean style, with lots of bottles kept cold on ice and laughing loud at random jokes. It was such a lovely sight and put a smile on my face, so I stopped and started taking pictures from afar.

No later than 3 pictures and they spotted me, waving to join them. I did of course And what an unexpected experience! They treated me on beer – lots of beer – and questioned me about everything; from who I am and what I do here, to my travel experiences and my impressions of their society. All in drunken-interview style, with the occasional hick-ups, the accidental pouring of beer over each other, uncontrolled laughter and convincing jibberish and mumbling conversations! I got to learn a lot too about local life and the people that live in my neighborhood! They were quite a diverse inter-generational bunch; 2 youngsters from Vietnam (25-35) and 3 Singaporean Tamil/Chinese (Thomas, Mike and Lian) between 40 and 70.

As soon as I get my camera all setup, I’ll share some pictures. To be continued …

Goodbye farang

After 6 days of Bangkok I am back in, what very much, feels like home – Singapore.

Overall Thailand left me with good impressions. People are extremely friendly and helpful, ever-smiling. Despite what everyone says, Bangkok is not as chaotic as I would have imagined. Sure there are traffic jams and people seem to make up their own traffic rules on-the-go, but I’ve seen much worse in cities like Istanbul, Cairo and Manila – not to mention anywhere in India.

And besides, the skytrain and MRT get you to most landmarks. The pollution though is far more disturbing. In the evening, my eyes were burning from wearing my contact lenses in the polluted air.

I stayed in the MC house of AIESEC Thailand, in the south of the city. Every morning and evening, I took a motorcycle down to the closest skytrain. It was so much fun. To be honest, I have never really felt comfortable sitting on a motorcycle, as if I was not in control – even sitting on the back while someone else drives. Though, the sensation of speed and the freedom that comes with a motorcycle excites me obviously. Hence it was so refreshing to drive through the city in Bangkok. I can’t wait to the next opportunity, and to actually getting my driving license (yes, it’s been on my todo for more than 8 years, go figure..)

Though I’ve only stayed for a short time, I feel I got a good sense of the culture and the business environment, to a large degree thanks to the conversations I had with an ex-business partner of my boss whom I met for some business development, my visits to the chamber of commerces, and my night out with locals. When we went out in Route 66, one of the hip nightclubs, I noticed so many Thai girls were hanging out with farangs (“white guys”, like me). A friend of mine told me, these were for most part of them Thai students, which couldn’t necessarily afford going out every week and decided to keep white guys company in return for free drinks..  Yuki, a Japanese AIESECer told me both Japanese and Thai culture resembled each other, being “submissive”, and he had little difficulty integrating. Surely, the large amount of Japanese businesses and cultural influences (they sell mangas at every street corner!) won’t hurt either.

I can’t wait to return and hopefully next time I’ll have the chance to go to Ayutthaya.