Chronicles of Erika Vol. 1 - 2014 August 2014

Normally, I would apologize for this 20 month period of white-noise since my last Chronicle and allow my subconscious to berate

me for not being better at staying in touch – but not this time. This time, I’m happy with my reasoning and excuses; being

preoccupied with living life, and spending much of the past 2 years re-connecting personally, face-to-face with many of you, is

a pretty good reason to justify the, “I was super busy” response. In fact, I have since learned that this is the only way to

reasonably, justifiably use “I’m busy” as an excuse for anything at all.

For the most part, it was 20 months of the best kind of busy-ness; the kind of busyness you aspire to. I don’t mean ‘too busy’ in

the down-trodden sense, that most people associate with the term ‘busy’ – but in the “larger than life”, soul-expanding, batteries-

fully-charged, sharing some love and doing a happy dance across the globe sorta busy. Amen.

Photo: Off the

coast of San Pedro,

Belize, I check out

the coral terrain

60ft below the

surface of the Sea.

May 2013

Photos (L-R): I capture a moment of joy experienced by a little girl celebrating Holi Festival in Hampi, India (March 2013); My twin

brother and I spend a few days trekking across glacier peaks on the beautiful 52km Chilkoot Trail from Alaska to the Yukon (June 2013)

“To live is the rarest thing in the world; most people just exist.” – Oscar Wilde When I left you last, I was 1/3rd of my way through my “Quarter Life

Mini-Retirement”, a 365 day sabbatical of sorts, which carried with it

a blissfully gargantuan serving of “freedom” in the most purest form

available in the 21st century. In a time when many of us have the

money but not the time, or the time but not the money… I decided

to buy myself 365 days of freedom, which came with it the greatest

education (and indulgence) “in how best to live life.”

The sabbatical has been my proudest and most inspired milestone

to date, and I highly recommend it to everyone and anyone who is

able. It has, without a doubt, been my most successful investment I

have ever made in both myself and life in general – with such a high

ROI (return-on-investment), I struggle to quantify it.

The closest parallel I can make is this: my 1 year sabbatical carried

with it a price-tag equivalent to my 4 year undergraduate degree at

McGill University (note: Canadian University tuitions are much lower

compared to price-tags on American post-secondary education), but

the return on investment was 10 fold: I travelled to over 15 countries,

learned by implementing a ‘hands-on’ curriculum designed with

curiosity at the forefront, stimulating me not only intellectually, but

also spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Instead of running

‘suicides’ and conducting court-side drills that I once ran as part of

the McGill Varsity Women’s basketball team, I instead practiced

yoga and meditation most days, climbed a few mountains and

peaks, ran beachside trails with the dog, and walked my way across

dozens of languages, cultures, and side-streets. Instead of taking

notes in my interpersonal psychology class, I connected and

reflected with my most trusted friends and family scattered across

the globe. Instead of studying the firing speeds and patterns of

neurons in my neurobiology class, I allowed my brain to make new

neuronal pathways and feedback loops as new perspectives had me

firing on all cylinders. Instead of taking the ever-so-popular World

Religions elective, I studied my grandmother’s sect of Buddhism

(Tenri-kyo) at its’ Mecca, near Kyoto, Japan; I studied Hinduism

from the monks at Sivanada Yoga Ashram in Neyar Dam, Kerala;

and I saw countless Churches and Chapels across Europe,

Mosques across the Middle East, and Buddhist Temples and

Shrines across Asia. Instead of reading only the required texts that

University courses set out for you, I fed my insatiable appetite for

knowledge by reading dozens of lonely planets, religious texts,

conducted my own research, crowd-sourced information on

facebook, visited various museums, galleries, and memorials,

watched countless documentaries and read my way through my

ever-expanding “books to read” list. And just like my university days,

I also managed to catch up on some of my favorite TV series –

because let’s be honest… after an eventful day or month, I love a

Netflix binge just as much as the next girl. Sound pretty productive?

Let’s not forget, I completed this sabbatical in a quarter of the time

it took me to complete my B.Sc. I think alternative education has a

case to make here.

Photos: The different forests I found myself in during 2013 (from top

to bottom): a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan; palm fringed forests on

one of the many remote islands off the coast of Belize; a slender pine

forest in Alaska, USA.

It was a year of dramatic extremes – but in perfect proportion: all components seemed to balance each other out. It was, at

once, the most selfish and selfless year I have yet to experience. There were moments of extreme solitude on various

mountaintops throughout Turkey or India, quiet moments sat in a café writing thoughts in Paris (France), Luxor (Egypt), or

Seoul (Korea), or even quieter moments during my 2 week intensive immersion in Sivananda Yoga at an Ashram in southern

Kerala (India). These quiet moments were all contrasted by many rich moments with family and friends: from taking my

Mom on a memorable 60th birthday celebration on a remote island in Malaysia (Langkawi); enjoying a week in the open Red

Sea scubadiving epic sunken ships and underwater craters with my Father and Uncle; spending 5 days hiking the Chilkoot

Trail through the remote glacial wilderness between Alaska and the Yukon Territories with my twin brother; and getting to

experience scuba-diving adventures and practicing wonderful gastronomy with my sister, her husband and best friends from

NY on the beautiful coasts of San Pedro, Belize; spending my first full summer in 10 years surrounded by my childhood

stomping grounds on Vancouver Island (West Coast, BC, Canada), taking a PADI rescue-diver course with my father in the

chilly Pacific North West, enjoying daily nature walks with my stepmum and the family dog, and watching my baby brother

Adam compete his way through swimming and karate competitions… all while surrounded by a handful of my favourite

childhood friends to share a late night cup of tea or beer with… it was a picture of life pretty darn close to perfection – if

such a thing existed. Weeks of experiencing idle stillness in Japan or in a Yoga Ashram in India were contrasted by the

whirring and buzzing of globe-trotting to over 15 countries. For those born in the generation of the “Chicken Soup for the

Soul (CSFTS)” series of books – the year off the treadmill of ‘life’ felt like this book’s mission statement in action: “101 stories

to open the heart and rekindle the spirit.”

Photos: Spending time with some of my favourite people (clockwise from top left): 5/8ths of the 2008-2009 AIESEC Canada

Team meet in Alberta for a mini-reunion; my mom and I checking out the peach blossoms in Japan; me and my sister with

friends in Belize; taking a nature walk with my baby brother Adam and my Dad in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island.

“There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other should teach us how to live.” – John Adams The sabbatical was a success in most ways that I can count; it was meant to inspire, replenish, recharge, reconnect, invest

in and educate me. It was meant to brush off the cobwebs of the daily grind, and begin to teach me about Eudaimonia, “life

lived meaningfully well”. And ultimately, my sabbatical was to ingrain these new ‘sustainable living’ habits and morsels of

precious knowledge into my life so that when I returned to what most term “normal life” (ie. the rat race), I wouldn’t burn-

out, I’d be better at balancing it all, and I would prioritize what was most important. After all, it was a sort of burnout that had

led me to make the decision to take a sabbatical in the first place. Belgium philosopher Pascal Chabot calls burnout

“civilization’s disease”. He writes, “It is not only an individual disorder that affects some who are ill-suited to the system, or

too committed, or who don’t know how to put limits to their professional lives, it is also a disorder that, like a mirror, reflects

some excessive values of our society.”

In her book titled “Thrive”, Arianna Huffington writes, “’What is a good life?’ This has been a question asked by philosophers

going back to the ancient Greeks. But somewhere along the line we abandoned the question and shifted our attention to

how much money we can make, how big a house we can buy, and how high we can climb up the career ladder. Those are

legitimate questions, particularly at a time when women are still attempting to gain an equal seat at the table. But as I

painfully discovered, they are far from the only questions that matter in creating a successful life… this (limited) idea of

success can work – or at least appear to work – in the short term. But over the long term, money and power by themselves

are like a two-legged stool – you can balance on them for a while, but eventually you’re going to topple over. And more and

more people – very successful people – are toppling over. The way we’ve defined success is not enough. And it’s no longer

sustainable: It’s no longer sustainable for human beings or societies. To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not

just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money

and power – and it consists of the four pillars of well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.” Ms. Huffington’s book is one I’ve

recently finished reading, well after my sabbatical was over – but it rang true and served as a reminder for me as to the

elements in life I found important during my sabbatical.

Last Chronicle, I also introduced you to the influential mind of Umair Haque, an economist that believes that our current

economy is driving us away from our ultimate purpose of living a meaningful life. Haque writes, “The economy we have

today will let you chow down on a supersize McBurger, check derivative prices on your latest smartphone, and drive your

giant SUV down the block to buy a McMansion on hypercredit. It’s a vision of the good life that I call (a tiny gnat standing

on the shoulders of the great Amartya Sen): hedonic opulence. And it’s a conception built in and for the industrial age: about

having more. Now consider a different vision: maybe crafting a fine meal, to be accompanied by local, award-winning micro-

brewed beer your friends have brought over, and then walking back to the studio where you’re designing a building whose

goal is nothing less than rivaling the Sagrada Familia. That’s an alternate vision, one I call eudaimonic prosperity, and it’s

about living meaningfully well. Its purpose is not merely passive, slack-jawed “consuming” but living: doing, achieving,

fulfilling, becoming, inspiring, transcending, creating, accomplishing — all the stuff that matters the most. See the difference?

Opulence is Donald Trump. Eudaimonia is the Declaration of Independence… Eudaimonic prosperity is about mastering a

new set of habits: igniting the art of living meaningfully well. An active conception of prosperity, it’s concerned not with what

one has, but what one is capable of.” Many of my friends simply call this: “living an inspired life” instead of living an

“impressive life”. What does an inspired life look like to you?

Photo: I run a ‘meditation and visualization’ session with 300 Canadian

university students at the AIESEC Canada National Leadership

Development Conference 2013 (Calgary, AB). May 2013.

Photo: I participate in a 5am

meditation walk and satsang on

a mountain top in Neyyar Dam

with the students from the

Sivananda Yoga Ashram in

Kerala, India. March 2013.

If only they taught this in University, how much better off would our societies be? Instead of pressuring students to climb

that corporate ladder towards that “American Dream” of finding a career that brings financial security, glossy car, matching

spouse, dog, house, white-picket fence, and inevitable 2.2 kids… what would our world look like if we pushed students to

explore what eudaimonia means to them, and how they can live a fulfilling and meaningful life (which may or may not contain

some of those material possessions)? If money and power are still part of the equation, that’s up to them. But I have a

feeling the world would start looking like a different place when the bright young minds of tomorrow begin to look at the

difference between living in the ever paramount ego-centric world versus a holistic eco-system.

I had a glimpse of how thoughtful the next generation was last year when I was invited to Chair AIESEC Canada’s 2013

National Leadership Development Conference, hosted in Calgary, AB. It had been 4 years since I had connected with this

organization I once worked with in Toronto (2008-09). I was infinitely impressed by these 300 undergraduate students

representing 28 Canadian Universities. My most memorable and most awe-inspiring moments of the entire week-long

conference were born from an opportunity I was given: I was asked to create a seminar and speak on any topic I wanted

for 1 hour – and I spoke on exactly this topic discussed here. I titled the session “Lessons from a Quarter Life Retirement:

Living an Inspired Life vs. an Impressive Life”. The response was unbelievably positive, the conversations and discussions

sparked were fuelled with passion, and the individuals that came to me to share their experiences, dreams and conundrums

were equally compassionate as they were ambitious, equally emotionally and academically intelligent, and profoundly

thoughtful. It was easily one of the most awe-inspiring weeks of my 52 week sabbatical… and it lifted me up knowing that

today’s youth are even more thoughtful than I ever could have imagined.

Photos: Left, pictures from the AIESEC Canada National Leadership Development Conference; Right, post-conference I make a

last-minute decision to join my sister on her holiday to Belize… obviously, once beer in hand, it was the right decision.

“As long as you feel inspired, your life is being well spent”. – Hugh McLeod Many of you wrote me at the beginning of this 2014 year, asking for my latest Chronicle. Most of you were curious to know if my

sabbatical dedicated to learning about eudaimonia, happiness, and balance was successfully transitioned and transplanted into

“real” life. After all, living “the good life” sounds pretty easy when you’ve got a year of no-expectations, living a no-holds-barred,

do-anything-you-want-when-you-want life, with seemingly unlimited freedom and ‘CEO-level’ control over your own life.

Well, the ultimate experiment still continues, one year after I re-joined “real life” and the 9 to 5 grind. There are many lessons I

have learned during and after my sabbatical; here I list 5 in no particular order.

(1) No illusions. First off, as hippy-dippy as the ‘pursuit of eudaimonia’ can sound,

I assure you that I was under no illusions; I knew that I wouldn’t come out of my

one-year sabbatical with all of my soul-burning questions answered. I knew that

it wouldn’t unlock any “single truths” or push me out the other side completely

enlightened, one step away from being an avowed monk. But, it also was not,

as some feared, a band-aid solution. How could a year spent on love, curiosity-

feeding, adventure, learning, travel, family, and just plain-jane fun – be just a

cosmetic experience?

(2) Refreshed Resiliency. In contrast to my deepest fears, I did not come out of my

sabbatical slow and sluggish, dim-witted or rusty. Instead I proved to be more

productive and a more resilient professional than when I left the game. My results

this year were stronger than years passed, and I trust that my ‘year off’ to

recharge had something to do with it. I vowed to stop and let me body and mind

take more breaks in life; rest and recuperation is not a luxury but a requirement.

(3) Time is worth Buying. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ‘corporate

world’, the economy, the professional sphere, and ‘life’ as I knew it hadn’t

changed much at all. Coming back into the corporate fold, I felt I had missed out

on nothing of any significance. Meanwhile, I had just embarked on a very

significant personal journey around the world. It was time well spent.

(4) Clarity. I have come out of my sabbatical with very clear expectations of what I

want, and what sort of life I am trying to design; this does involve understanding

that critical elements to life lived meaningfully well for me includes, at minimum:

(a) creating a great community of friends and family, and living a life where I can

put people first, (b) doing inspiring and mentally stimulating work that satiates

me on many dimensions (mentally, socially, physically, emotionally), and (c)

figuring out how to add the element of ‘freedom’ in my life is key: one day I want

to be free to choose the work I want, with people I like.

(5) Reintegration is always hard, no matter how well you prepare. This so-called

reintegration back into “reality”: settling back down in one general place – or at

least one region of the world, starting back at work, replacing freedoms with

responsibilities, re-creating a sense-of-community, assimilating a life that people

expect you to have – all of this was harder than I initially expected. Despite all

my preparation and desire to abandon nomadism, assimilating to life in the ‘real-

world’ hit me like culture-shock. Every ‘supposed milestone’ like buying a car,

leasing a condo, signing a job contract, or buying a bunch of furniture (all of

which I enjoyed), filled me with an odd concoction of contrasting emotions:

mostly a mix of joy and simultaneous dread. The dread came from the heavy

burden of responsibilities; after a year of freedom and no assets or liabilities –

each contract signed or material possession purchased weighed heavily on me;

it was as though I was hand-cuffing myself to the illusions of society that I had

cut-myself free of just the year before. It took a few months longer than

expected, so plan accordingly.

Photo: I check out Mt. Nebo, Jordan – the

last tourist site left on my Jordan Check-list

during a quick visit in July 2014.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho In the New Year, just as I was thinking that I was in need of a change, a greater challenge - I was approached by a CEO of a

Strategy Consulting Firm from Asia, called Solidiance. Solidiance is based out of Singapore, with 10 country offices throughout

ASEAN. Out of left field, he offered me a potential career opportunity I simply could not turn down. Fast-forward to summer of 2014,

and after spending the past 7 weeks visiting with friends and family in Japan, USA, Canada, Jordan and Oman – while whittling out

a few days of me-time in Sri Lanka for some R&R… I am a day away from officially starting at Solidiance as the Director of Business

Development for the Middle East. Check out my new role here: http://www.solidiance.com/erika-masako-welch.html

As part of my transition, I will start out here in Japan, then head to Singapore next week to meet the Partners. A few days later, I’ll

be shipped off to Jakarta, Indonesia – where I’ll call home for 2 months while I lead several consulting projects for an American

Fortune 500 company, a Middle Eastern industrial player, and a Japanese car maker – exposing me to the different projects my

new firm undertakes from market penetration strategies, market growth strategies, and M&A support. It should be an incredibly

stimulating and insightful next few months before I return to Abu Dhabi to establish the company’s first presence in the Middle East

with the CEO.

A few months ago, I didn’t know if this was what I wanted. I certainly took my time making up my mind on whether to take this job

offer or not (fortunately the company themselves had quite a long rigorous process to go through in order to hire me). But, I do

believe that sometimes the universe throws something in your lap, at just the right moment in serendipitous fashion for good

reason… and I’m excited to see where this takes me. As the Rumi proverb goes, “What you seek is seeking you.”

Photo: Sailing off the coast of Vancouver

Island with childhood friends. July 2013.

“Freedom lies in being bold” – Robert Frost Danielle LaPorte writes, “Positive feeling states are a sign that we’re in sync with our soul. Negative feeling states are

indicators that we’re out of sync with our soul.” Simple, really. If you’re feeling more positive than negative on a day-to-day

basis, you’re synchronized. The goal here isn’t that we’re in a perpetual state of positive, bountiful, piercingly beautiful

moments of extreme happiness – but it’s to accept that there’s a cycle, listen to our body, minds and hearts, and get back

on track when we get derailed.

“Getting off-track is not only natural, but it is absolutely inevitable for every single one of us… regardless of if you are a

monk, a yogi with aligned chakras, or markedly wiser than the majority… getting off track is essential to our growth.” Ms.

LaPorte, I couldn’t agree more. When I decided to take my sabbatical, I was mentally, emotionally, and physically tired

EVERY day. I was a drag to be around, and for every one positive thought I had go through my head, I had 10 negative

one’s to beat it up. I was exhausted, and I wasn’t in a good place… but having fallen so far off track, got me to pay attention

and led me to a year of great personal growth. Furthermore, I feel much more synchronized with my soul, I can tell when

things are off or on and how to tend to it faster.

My mother always told me that “things last only as long as you take care of them and invest in them.” My sabbatical was a

means to take care of myself. My father once told me that, “for every opportunity of a lifetime, there is a lifetime to that

opportunity”… I suppose this applies to both the opportunity to take the sabbatical, as well as the opportunity to take the

recent job offer with Solidiance. Most people assume that opportunities will be there, waiting for you until you’re ready to

make the decision – but that’s an illusion. I was only able to take my sabbatical with relative ease because I had no assets,

spouse, or major responsibilities holding me back. And I trust that if I asked my new firm to wait until next year, the position

would find itself filled by then. So take a few extra chances… live a little more… after all, it was Mahatma Gandhi who said

that “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes”… and he’s always right!

For any of you in Asia from August to October, it’d be great to meet-up if we can cross paths. Let’s connect! …especially if

you are in Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, or the Philippines gimme a holler at:

Whatsapp: +971.50.834.3971 | Email: emwelch13@gmail.com | FB: facebook.com/emwelch13 | IG: @chroniclesoferika