Trippin’ - A travel blog

A year ago I made a decision to change my very fast paced corporate lifestyle - I took a breather, unpaid of course, a sabbatical of sorts.  If I didn’t, probably in another year or 2, I would have been promoted to a VP level role.  Do I regret the decision? Not sure yet.  What I do know is that it gave me the chance to do things that I had never found the time to do, like traveling. 

For those who are part of the "dog-eats-dog" corporate world, you know how stressful and fast paced life can be.  I took it a notch further, I took the express route (like a handful of people I know) where the  stress levels were at least twice the intensity.  Any person whose role is to lead a team of at least a few hundred individuals will tell you it’s not an easy task.  Long days, minimal sleep, high as the sky expectations, you name it.  A typical work day for me back then was 14-18 hour work days where I get up just in time for a 10 minute status report from my team before jumping off to a conference call with senior executives and/or my clients.  I saw my inbox and Outlook calendar in my dreams (this is no joke).  My working my ass off mode paid off in more ways than one.  A couple of promotions, bonuses, a video by the client thanking and congratulating me and the team for a job well done and an almost interview with some business publication distributed across Asia (almost being the operative term here - we had to cancel at the last minute) - all of these were smiling back at me.  But one question was burning a hole in my brain - what good is all of this if I’m not enjoying it?  I tried taking a 10 day break to make use of my leave benefits, and yet after 10 days, I was still asking myself the same question.  So I took a leap of faith and just did it - I handed in my resignation letter and began my transition to my successor.

It felt weird at 1st: not being challenged.  Sure, I helped out in our family business, but it was child’s play compared to what I was used to.  What I didn’t realize though was how much beating my body took from all of the stress that accumulated for almost 4 years.  I had occasional palpitations (and this was after I left my job).  Had myself checked and true enough the diagnosis was chronic fatigue which shortly developed into anxiety attacks. As if that wasn’t enough, I also didn’t realize I was experiencing asthma attacks which were also stress induced according to my doctor.  I took my medications and got myself a therapist and learned soon after that it was me, my high expectations to myself and my fear of failure that made up the root cause.  Lesson # 1 for me: Listen to my body, think positive and take calculated risks.  I’m still working very very hard on the 2nd one.

Well, the best part of this past year of course was the free time.  I took advantage of this and did some traveling, spending time with family and friends, hitting the gym, taking photos of what captures my fancy, reading a book…all the things I didn’t get to do (or purposely pushed aside) during the past few years.  In fact, next week I’m off to KL. It was and still is, high time for me to go out and smell the roses, and that’s exactly what I did.  The really, really good part of traveling while one is on a corporate hiatus is that while enjoying the scenery, you don’t have to worry about office matters like if this report was done or if the person you put in charge is on top of things and worrying about all the work waiting for you when you get back.  Life is good.

I did try to get back to the corporate world a few months back, but realized that I was not ready to go back…at least not yet.  My mistake was shifting back to full gear from day 1 because I thought I had to, with the challenge of launching 3 new programs while learning the business of my new employer, adjusting to a new living space and 2 hour weekly commutes to and from Manila, it was hard but at least I was able to do the job.  However, at the end of day I was unhappy.  Something good came out of it though, the re-introduction of stress cured my anxiety attacks - weird. Lesson #2: If I can successfully transition out of a role, I can successfully transition into a new role (transition being the operative word).

And now that year long break is nearing its end.  I’m about to affix my signature above that dotted line on a piece of paper called an employment contract and surprisingly, I’m really excited about it.  There were lessons learned this past year which helped me discover more about myself be it physically, mentally & psychologically and I sure hope I’ll put it into good use.  It me set me back a year behind some of my peers who could be promoted to a director or a senior executive role anytime soon, but during the past 12 months I realized, what’s the rush?  I know I’ll catch up in due time and it will be a leveled playing field again - because I know I can.  So do I regret the decision I made a year ago? - right now the answer is no.

Right now I’ll enjoy my (hopefully) last 2 weeks of vacation and make the most of my KL trip.  After that, it’s GAME ON.  If you do plan to make a similar decision, just one piece of advice, make sure your bank account can support you through this phase since it will be some time before you see another paycheck deposited in your account.