Last week, in the lift at work, I bumped into a colleague I haven’t seen in a very long time. I wanted to catch up with her but I was already late for another meeting. She was surprised to find out I took a sabbatical over one year ago and wanted to know everything about it, there, in the lift. “What did you do?” “What was the best of it?” And so it happened. I had a real life ‘elevator speech’ moment.

And that’s when you realise how silly this business jargon is. The only time you may actually need an elevator speech you most likely won’t be prepared for it…

We were arriving at my floor and of course no brilliant sharp line came to my head and all I managed to say was “It was great, really good!” Just the regular ‘elevator small talk’.

But the episode made me wonder what the ‘elevator speech’ of my sabbatical would be. Is it possible to explain in a simple way the extent of the damage that those months of leisure really had in my life? Not sure… but it made me want to write again, and figure it out.

Re-wiring

I still get surprised everyday by the way I choose to conduct myself in the world today. From what I eat, where I shop, what I shop for, what I read, to more fundamental choices such as what I want from my relationships, my work, my future… I don’t even remember how I used to feel about the same subjects before the sabbatical… And I think I know how it all started… with a very basic decision I made in July 2015: to quit eating meat.

It was triggered by one particular piece of news on a Facebook post; the hunting and killing of Cecil, a celebrity lion from the Zimbabwean National Park. I was really touched by the tragic end to that gorgeous animal’s life so I let social media invade me with all sorts of stories about Cecil’s life, his family and his agonising death of over 40 hours after being hunted down by an American tourist. It was then that I came across another post on the subject that had a picture of a cow, a pig and a chicken, all of them with a sign saying, “I’m Cecil”. “I’m Cecil”. “I’m Cecil”.

And that was it. Of course the main reason wasn’t really Cecil (who I believe had a better life than most animals on this planet), nor the post. It was the state of mind I had during my sabbatical: open, curious and willing to revisit all the connections of my very well-wired brain. Cecil’s death was just the ray of light that entered in the little crack I left open. And once you let the light enter, it takes over, and there is no coming back.

Quitting meat wasn’t difficult. Actually it was the most logical and consistent decision I’ve ever made. I have considered myself an animal lover my whole life. It’s something I have inherited from my parents and from having pets since I was little. I’ve always felt a profound respect for animals, all of them. Nevertheless I have consumed meat since I got my first teeth. Yes I did use to enjoy quite often a medium rare stake with frites or a spicy chicken curry. How come?!

The answer is simple, it was a total disconnection between my mind and my heart. A mind ruled mainly by the assumptions and conceptions of the world that I inherited from the western world in which I live.  And a heart full of love and good intentions, but that I have never given too much consideration, having learned it is not supposed to be a reliable source for wisdom by the same society that conquered my mind.

But this time I decided to stay with the discomfort that emerged from that post. I promoted my heart and allowed myself to empathise with the pain that many animals go through on this planet. Not just Cecil. Or Bambi. Or Nemo.

I unplugged the ‘It’s-ok-to-eat-meat-and-love-animals’ wire because that wire wasn’t mine in the first place. I suddenly looked at that very well-established habit of mine through a new heart and mind connection. I woke up to the fact that animals and nature deserve as much respect as any living being; humans are just one of them. This planet and all its wonderful forms of life are not at my service. Something I’ve always understood, but this time something different, I also felt it.

A new software update

With that brand new connection of heart and mind, the short circuit started. When reading about animal rights I also discovered the equally shocking truth about the impact that livestock industry has on the environment. It is by fact one of the biggest sources of destruction on the planet due to deforestation, water consumption, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions emissions. All those indisputable facts have always been there, one click away from me.

And to be honest I have read about of animal agriculture on climate change quite a few times in the past. Not just read it, understood it, got angry, even wanted to do something about it. But then my comfortable life got in the way and thoughts like “What difference could I make?” or “Maybe it’s just a conspiracy theory” won, and poor heart had no chance with the super armoured mind charged with ‘keep-the-establishment’ technology.

But this time no excuses were accepted. The partnership heart and mind was in action providing me with a total new perspective of those same facts, where I could clearly see my own diet taking part in the horrific plot of climate change.

From there I haven’t stopped questioning. I got fascinated about understanding what is behind other daily choices. What am I really eating, drinking? What am I really buying? How are my everyday habits and beliefs contributing to the world?

I started to study about emerging theories that propose a more holistic view of the world as the way to lead to a more sustainable and fair future: Theory U, Conscious capitalism, Transition Design for a Limited planet, Systems View of Life, Systems Thinking. And the more I read about them the more I’m clear that the answer for a better world won’t come from a new economic system, government, party or religion. It will only happen when we truly connect with ourselves (heart and mind), with others, and with the nature.

And that’s quite a mind-fuck for someone who studied Economics and that learned that the effects of our actions on the planet, or in communities, are just negative externalities; that the more I’m keen about maximising my individual utility, and everybody does the same, the ‘better’ for all, as we let the “invisible hand” do its job and find the perfect balance of supply and demand. Well, in 2016 looking at the state of the planet and the amount of inequalities that still exist, I think someone needs to find that hand and fire it.

System Thinking, for example, took over me like an upgraded version of my own Operating System, and as such, there is no way back to the old one. It is so simple that it almost annoys me it never occurred to me before. Thinking in a systemic way means always pushing ourselves to “see the world through the eyes of another”. Because another is always involved, in everything we do.

It got into me when I had to answer this one question in the System Thinking course I took: “Should you eat fish?” In order to answer it we had to consider all the different systems impacted by that question: the fishing communities, the distributors, the retailers, the ocean, my own health, my beliefs, and even the one system we all forgot during the exercise: the fish itself. It was striking to realise that such a routine decision could impact so many entities…

In the end, to eat or not to eat, that is not the question. It’s about realising the extent of the impact of our daily decisions, and how we all, individually, contribute with our actions to many more systems than the ones we want to see.

This new O.S. has shaken my world on absolutely every aspect. It has given me permission to embrace a new sort of curiosity that is committed to question absolutely all the assumptions and beliefs that used to dictate the way I act in the world. I consciously decided to take full accountability of my place in the universe, with respect and gratitude. And awake to new perspectives, new possibilities, new truths…

A new Heart-Mind connection and a new Operational System: an upgraded version of myself. Maybe that’s my elevator speech.

 

So here is the last post about my sabbatical and I’m already feeling nostalgic… This one is about different kind of trips, the ones I did from a classroom or a screen.

With my companions of free time and curiosity I jumped into all sort of new subjects. And what surprised me was that the more I opened myself to new ideas, new possibilities, the more I wanted to know, the more curious I was, and the list of new courses to do, books to read and films to see only increased. Today, even after all the knowledge acquired in the last months, I can say I feel more ignorant than before the sabbatical, and more eager to keep learning and exploring.

Short course of Philosophy of Time and Space in Cambridge: This one was to please my nerdy side, as I used to love Physics when I was in school but ended up pursuing a completely different route in college. It was a weekend course in this gorgeous castle talking about relativity theory and time travel.  I think I didn’t really understand more than 10% of the course’s programme but it was totally worth it. I felt inspired by this academic paradise town, and by discussing themes that are not subject to opinions but supported by theorems and equations. And the best part: to finally be able to understand (just don’t ask me to explain it) that eventually, some day, it would be possible to travel to the future, but never to the past! So sorry, McFly…

Coaching training course in London: A friend of mind offered me the chance to become an accredited coach and, since trying new sides of me was the sabbatical mantra, I couldn’t say no. It was truly a gift. I think anybody who leads teams and cares about having a positive impact on others should do some coaching training. What really inspired me was its main principle: the idea that often the answer to what you are looking for is inside you, because, in most of the cases, you are the best person to know what’s best for you. The job of a coach, therefore, is more of a facilitator, that helps you to get more clarity about what you want to achieve, why, and how. It gave me a completely new perspective on how to support someone or teams when guiding them to achieve their objectives. It’s not always about advising, telling what to do or sharing how we would do it in their shoes. The thought that sometimes the best answer to our worries could be inside of us, and that all we have to do is listen carefully, is a human super-power I was happy to discover.

I’ve been intrigued about the impact that the connected world is having on our everyday lives way before the sabbatical. I learned in a digital workshop that the proliferation of the internet is one of the biggest milestones in mankind’s communication history. Firstly, there was the language, then the writing, followed by the invention of printing, which enabled the distribution of information and knowledge to many. Now we are living its fourth milestone: the internet.

The internet not only allows the “massification” of content distribution, but also its production; if you exist online you are also a source of content, and that makes a huge difference in the quality and variety of information that we are now exposed. And the implications are huge. It affects basic everyday decisions, such as how to get from A to B, to the definition of many industries that had to reinvent themselves, such is the case of music, travelling or paid television. I’m also completely convinced that what we are seeing today is just the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to come, but that’s subject for another post. Now what I want to share is what I decided to do with all this overwhelming availability of information during my sabbatical: I decided to dive in the fascinating world of the online documentaries and courses.

Documentaries exist way before online channels like Netflix or Youtube. The main difference is that these new channels enable the distribution of a bigger variety of independent productions that, in the world of a few powerful, and probably risk-adverse broadcasters, we wouldn’t have access to. The flip side is the amount of options available so I decided, initially, to go for the ones that touched those subjects that were like little bugs in the back of my mind, having a nap, that before the sabbatical I was too comfortable to wake them up. And three of them touched me in a way that forced me to rethink some of my habits. They brought me more than just new content, they gave me a new level of consciousness, because they were able to reconnect me with some of my fundamental values:

 True Cost, about some despicable practices behind the affordable prices of some fast fashion brands.

 

 

 Fed Up, about the food industry and how some of its practices have resulted in the un-healthy and over-weighted population that we now face in most of the western world

 

 

 Cowspiracy, reveals the uncomfortable truth about one of the biggest sources of pollution and environmental destruction, the livestock and animal agriculture; the big elephant, or better to say, the big cow in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

 

My two biggest sources of online courses are edx.org and coursera.org. Both offering courses from top universities, easy to follow, sometimes even directly from classrooms, and the best, if you don’t care about getting a final certificate, for free! Imagine what it is to attend a lecture directly from the M.I.T. to your computer screen no matter where you physically are! Isn’t that incredible? The problem, again, is the variety. Many interesting courses! So I ended up flirting with all sort of topics, from Shakespeare to Economics, and still have a huge list of new courses I want to attend.

The ones that inspired me the most were the ones that used this channel to propose new theories, new ways of thinking that aim to improve our lives looking at business and systems from a completely new perspective. In this sense, my top ones were Transforming Business, Society and Self with U. Lab and New Models of Business in Society .

And here is another big effect of the sabbatical: it gave me permission to be more aware of the main challenges we are currently face in the world. And I’m talking about consciousness rather than knowledge. Maybe I didn’t know about the scary statistics on climate change or slavery work in our society, but I knew all that existed. The big difference is that now I’m open to read that data and ask myself : “do I want to be part of this?” and if the answer is no, “what am I going to do about it?”. “Nothing” is also an option and that’s fine. But at least now I’m more conscious about the effect of my everyday decisions in the world around me.

Now the sabbatical is over and it has left me with more than just the feeling of a great time. There are concrete consequences that the new me will have to deal with. Mostly new habits that I hope will stay with me forever, because they are a better response to my true values, to my beliefs. They represent the respect I re-gained in these past months for the environment, nature, animals, the planet and most importantly, for myself. Now I consciously look differently at:

what I eat : I quit eating every kind of meat with the exception of seafood, and my goal is to become a vegan in the near future. I’m also trying to avoid processed food and sugars.

what I shop : I think I never shopped so little, and it wasn’t just because I was on a sabbatical and needed to be careful with my savings. I simply didn’t feel like shopping. I somehow managed to fill my days with so many other pleasures that the idea of entering a Zara shop made me want to cry. I’m also more discerning about what I buy, whether it was produced in an ethical way and its effect on the environment. I want to make sure the money I spend, specially on things that are not filling any basic need, goes to business that do good to society.

what I watch : I have always loved cinema, but I realised I’ve been stuck in the same sort of Hollywood blockbuster plots for too long, films that at the end don’t leave me anything, don’t make me want to talk about them, don’t make me cry, nor laugh, don’t surprise me, nor provoke me. They just feel like remakes of the same stories with different castings and locations, and I guess I simply got bored of them. As a result I had to do a bigger effort than simply going to the nearest Cinemark, so I ended up digging in the fabulous world of alternative cinemas and discovering a broader spectrum of great films, that I’m keen to keep as a new habit. Flip side is the pop corn. Why we can’t find good pop corns in alternative cinemas?! Is pop corn too pop?

what I care : I can’t really say that I feel more connected with the world and more aware of the mess in which we are if I’m not willing to do something about it. So I started my first volunteering work. Feel ashamed I never did anything like this before, but can’t do anything about the past, can I?

what I do for living : This for sure is and will be a huge topic for this blog. With everything I’ve been through, I can’t escape asking myself whether I’m proud, or not, of what I do for living. I think this is probably one of the most important questions we should ask ourselves, because our jobs should be the place where we deposit our main talents, and it is where we spend most of our active lives. If you were born, like me, in the privileged part of society that had the opportunity of great education, the minimum you could do is working on something that makes you proud. And being proud shouldn’t be just about having an important position or earning lots of money, but in which way your work is contributing to a better society, to a better world. I saw this great quote on Facebook the other day, that parents rather than asking their children what they want to be when they grow up, they should ask them what kind of problems they want to solve. I thought that was spot on, and I’m keen to embrace that question myself in the months ahead.

So this is it. What an amazing period. Which was much bigger than what I managed to describe on this blog. I feel I missed to mention so many other important events, such as the quality time with family and friends in London, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, NY, Miami, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Donegal; other wonderful places I visited like L.A., Rome, Bordeaux, Lake District; the fabulous trips with my acting group to Normandy and to the gorgeous Ile d’Yeu; and simply having more the time to relish the variety of leisure and cultural alternatives that exist every day in the amazing city where I live.

Now I’m excited about what’s next for me, about finding out what this new me will do when rejoining the Matrix. But I’m also fearful of the temptations of the easy roads to my old habits and my old beliefs. Specially the ones I didn’t consciously choose, the ones that got stuck on me as I became an adult and wanted to mingle with the society around me. That’s the reason for this blog. A sort of an open commitment to never let go again the curiosity I regained about myself and the world around me. Now I’m outside the boxes. And it’s nice to meet me again.

This is the second post from my sabbatical trilogy.

The sabbatical concept is very ancient, from the Greeks to the Bible. It means literally “ceasing”, a rest from work; a break that usually is used to travel or to achieve some goal. In my case it wasn’t that clear, I just felt I wanted to stop my routine in a moment of my life when I felt good about myself, and had the energy, and the experience, to revisit those things I always wanted to do, but never got the time or the mind space to do them. Those things that have always been in the back of my mind as “I’d love to do that someday” but didn’t want to spend my holidays on them. Holidays are generally about disconnecting, forgetting, and I wanted to connect. Reconnect with my curiosity.

It could take me a book, and not just a blog article, to write about everything I lived in the past months. And it wasn’t just about the different things I did but how I experienced them, the effect they had on me. The sabbatical gave me the freedom to look outside the boxes I have piled up around me during the course of my life, without even realising it. Once released from my everyday obligations, I gave permission to my brain to wander to new places, to ask new questions. I reconnected with my childish side, eager to learn, to question, and to revisit some beliefs and habits that I didn’t know anymore where they come from, and why they were part of my life, untouched, for so long. My sabbatical was ruled by two basic elements that we tend to lose in the adult life: curiosity and time. And what a powerful combination that is!

So with that in mind, once the sabbatical decision was taken, I started to fill my agenda with a variety of activities, courses, trips, a wish list of a lifetime. And here are a few of them and why they ended up being more than just a tick on my bucket list.

I will start with a few trips and leave other activities like courses for the next post.

TED Women in Monterrey, California – During three days of conference I watched over 20 talks from amazing women and men in the quest of bringing more equality to the world. So inspiring! One of the talks that really impressed me was  “Why gender equality is good for everyone” by American sociologist Michael Kimmel. He presented a thought that really caught me : “privilege is invisible to the ones who have it”. I think this is a powerful insight for all inequalities we face in the world and, in the case of women’s, it made me understand why it’s so difficult for many men to engage with this topic…

Washington – I think everybody knows what a great nation the US is, and how influential they are on so many fields, but I think I never really got what make them so unique as during my trip to Washington. And it wasn’t the imposing city, the celebratory monuments or the amazing free museums; it was at the National Air and Space Museum watching President Kennedy’s speech to the Congress in 1962. In that speech he presented the case to get funds to win the Space Race, and put the first humans on the Moon before the end of the decade. Now that’s done and past, but I imagined how bold and progressive that would have been at that time. I realised why the US is a country that, in so many areas, pushes mankind forward. They do believe anything is possible and the fact that nobody has done it before has never been a barrier, but actually an incentive to be the firsts. It made me look at that nation with a new kind of respect. I just wished all this pioneering and forward thinking is not replaced by the narrow-minded and xenophobic ideas of Mr Trump…

London-Brighton cycle ride – For the first time in my life I joined a charity race. I cycled over 60 miles (almost 100 km) from London to Brighton. Before this race I have never cycled more than 10 miles on a row so this was huge. And I made it! I got completely surprised by what my body is able to achieve and not because of the training or any natural cyclist ability. It was the result of being totally focused and supported by the energy of hundreds of people sharing the same goal, the same pain. That joined energy does move mountains, or at least, it moved my legs! I’m sure that if I would have tried that by myself, on any random day, I wouldn’t have achieved half of what I did that day. Felt so alive!

Hiking the Dolomites – Love the mountains. Miss the mountains. So I joined a completely random  hiking group for a week in the Italian Alps .

I don’t think there is a more peaceful place in the whole world than at the top of a mountain. That’s my cathedral. Which looked even more stunning during summer, coloured by green meadows and an endless variety of Alpine flowers. From basic gorgeous country flowers to beautiful tiny orchids, which are born every year during spring and die with the arrival of autumn. And that happens every year! I know this is obvious but when I was walking through those mountain trails I was delighted to realise that absolutely every year nature manages to give birth to all sorts of flowers, including perfect orchids, from scratch, from nothing, after everything is gone, dead. And we, the superior species, often struggle to keep our New Years resolutions or simply don’t have the patience or courage to start things over when facing obstacles… I think humans must be the most spoiled of all living being.

Berlin – I’m sorry London and NY but I think today Berlin is the coolest city in the world. It’s a welcoming, vibrant city, full of culture and open to embrace new initiatives for a better community life, such as the hollowed tree in the picture where you can exchange second hand books. It’s hard to believe that only 60 years ago this city was totally destroyed, defeated, humiliated, and today they stand as one of the most progressive places on Earth. The transport system is also an example to follow. Not only because is flawless, and can take you to every corner of the city, but also because of its trustful operating system. Once you pay for your ticket that’s it, no controls nor barriers. You can simply hop on and hop off freely on trams, trains, underground and buses and never being asked for a ticket. The big assumption behind is that, if you want to enjoy such an amazing transport infra-structure, you will have to pay for it, so why wouldn’t you? A system that could be questionable given that we are talking about a city that gets invaded everyday by thousands of tourists that surely are not used to that practice in their own countries. Admirable. No wonder Germany is one of the most open countries to receive refugees in Europe. Totally consistent.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe – After many years living in the UK I finally managed to attend the Fringe festival, the largest arts festival in the world, which happens every August in one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, Edinburgh.

It is a fest of creativity, where you can choose from over 3.000 different performances in all sorts of artistic fields. It’s the place where artists go to try new ideas and where viewers go to be surprised and provoked. With that amount of options of course not everything I saw was great, but it didn’t matter. I just loved to discover the existence of a space where performers and viewers are so committed to experimentation, in pro of developing something great, that failure is part of the fun.

 

People say that after doing a detox, senses become more acute. You smell better, hear new sounds, and relish food as never before. I think that’s the best parallel with the sabbatical I’m about to finish. I got a detox for mind and soul. I feel connected to myself as never before and, as a result, I see everyday life choices in a new refreshed way. And I don’t want to miss this awakening feeling ever again. Therefore this blog, and my commitment to keep my head outside the boxes, despite the fear of exposure, of writing in a language I’m not totally familiar with, and that nobody may care about what I care.

So what is this blog about? Hmmm… I wished I had a straightforward answer for this one, but I don’t. It’s not about travelling, films, food, shopping, exercising, relationships, environment, learning and working, but at the same time it’s all about travelling, films, food, shopping, exercising, relationships, environment, learning and working. The big difference is that it’s not about the specific subjects, but about how I relate to these themes after the sabbatical. Decisions in all those matters are taken every single day of our lives, most of the times on automatic pilot: what we eat, what films we watch, what we buy, what meetings we attend, who we spend most of our time with. And I finally realised those mundane decisions are actually what we are, not our titles, possessions or abilities, no matter how important they are for us; we are how we choose to spend our limited and precious time on Earth, every single day of our lifetime. And it’s about that awareness that I want to write about, hoping it can make sense to more people, or inspire other points of view.

So here I go….

I think I didn’t realise the effect that the past 7 months has had on me until last week when an executive recruiter called me to discuss a job opportunity. When looking at my CV the thing that impressed him the most was my sabbatical and, more than finding out what I have done, what I have experienced, he was keen to know why I did it. I learned in a Coaching course that you should never use the word “why” when coaching someone because the word itself usually tends to carry some baggage, some judgement, which could end up inhibiting people from talking openly. And this was the first time I felt it myself. Somehow that “why” wasn’t just about finding out the reasons that got me to take a break from work; I could sense there was a “what’s wrong?” behind it. I even checked with other friends who have taken sabbaticals in the past and they also got similar reactions. They were assumed to be stressed, depressed or, the best one, they did it to take care of someone ill in the family, while none of these reasons were actually the true drivers. Well, the “why” question from that recruiter did confirm to me, once again, WHY stepping out of the machine was one of the best things I’ve done.

It wasn’t easy to go for this sabbatical. Now it feels so right that I can’t believe I didn’t do it years ago, and at least a few times, but unfortunately this is not a practice we care to nurture in our society. To start with it’s an unpaid leave so I needed some savings to keep me going with my fixed commitments, and with the things I wanted to do during that period. But that wasn’t the toughest one; it was hard to find other examples in my area (a corporate role) doing the same move, even though some companies do offer it as a benefit without having to resign. Most of the people who do it prefer to take it when they are younger, not after reaching a certain position in life. The reasons can be many, from family commitments to money constraints, but I can’t help thinking there is also some level of fear of pausing a career, of losing some exposure within the company, or being seen as not as committed with their jobs. Never saw anybody senior taking a sabbatical. There is a sort of pride in the corporate world of senior people being seen as always very busy and never taking big breaks; but in my mind some time out could only benefit my career, being in contact with new ideas, new stimulus, could only make me a better professional and, more importantly, a better person.

I was keen to pause and find the mind space to revisit the road I “chose” to take long ago. After 18 years working non stop since college I started to think I was somehow stuck in my habits, hanging out with the same kind of people, hearing the same problems, giving the same solutions. I was becoming predictable and so was everything around me. I was settling down to a way of life I knew could keep me going comfortably for the next 40 years. And for some people that’s fine and I can respect that, but it wasn’t enough to me. I was afraid I was becoming a female version of Homer Simpson and that wasn’t quite the vision I have dreamt for me.

The sabbatical bug started to kick inside me almost two years ago when I decided to take some acting classes. It was something after work with the intention to bring some artistic flavour into my everyday life. But those drama classes completely pulled the rug from under my feet. I thought I was a confident and successful executive until I entered those acting classes’ doors. Then I was a child again. I realised I had completely forgotten how to behave in a group of people so diverse: different ages, backgrounds, careers, interests… I remember the reading of the first play, when the teacher asked us about the intention behind the actions of one of the characters. Everybody gave an opinion, as I gave mine, and I was anxious to hear who got it right, or more precisely, “was I right?”. But I never got any clear answer. Just a “Yes, it’s possible”. Or “Yes, maybe”. So frustrating! It was at that moment that I understood the real meaning of acting: interpretation, which allows a million possibilities to bring a story to life. That realisation felt liberating but also scary. I was used to environments where we would easily agree who is right or wrong mostly based on hierarchical positions, so I wasn’t really sure I could handle being part of a group where no one holds a definitive answer to a debate…

The same happened with the improvisation exercises. I felt I was by far the boring one, always giving the most obvious and predictable solutions to the sketches. They could easily replace me with a computer programme and it would make no difference. And if it wasn’t enough, I was always surprised by the least expected person of the group, usually the one that at first glance I wouldn’t care to exchange a word with, who would give the most creative solutions, those that my mind wouldn’t dare to get close to in a thousand years. The ironic part of all this was that I used to consider myself a creative person… Ha! Was I really? Those unpretentious acting for beginners classes started to instigate a curiosity that I somehow lost over the years… a curiosity not only about the world around me, but about the infinite possibilities that I still had for myself. I realised I had been a very good actor but of just one script, and that was too little for the big theatre of life.