More About Laurel

 

Wanderlust.  Girlfriends.  Sisters.  Camping.  Iron Juanitas surf weekends in Mexico.  Weekends in the snow, boarding at Mammoth.  Annual pilgrimage to surf Costa Rica.  Yoga retreats.  Friends, guitars, made up songs, and laughter around the campfire.  And the incriminating video tapes from all the fun trips with friends.  Time with family, little nephews, niece & siblings.  Visiting, experiencing and learning from professional colleagues & friends overseas.  Good wine and food with friends & family.  Surfing at dawn and dusk.  This, to me, is life.  Spending 14 months traveling with my husband, embracing our interests, enjoying our favorite things, places, people... priceless.

 

I've always had a passion for adventure & travel; experiencing new and different ways of living, and embracing thoughts, ideas and decisions through a set of global lenses.  I also have a passion for extreme sports, like snowboarding and surfing, and I have combined my love for surfing and travel to tackle new breaks in far flung locations in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Central & South America.  I've also focused my career on international jobs, establishing and building up offices in India, China, Japan, Europe and South America, etc.  After having spent time living as an expatriate in Asia Pacific, I was determined to do my next intensive trip with someone whom I could share the experience with for years to come.  My husband and I share this dream.

 

Personally, it's taken a lot of time and courage to break free from the corporate world.  Credit to my yoga and meditation practice, and an amazingly supportive husband, for giving me the piece of mind to pursue my true interests and dreams.  I often found myself in what Harvard Business Review terms "Extreme Jobs," where you work 90 hour work weeks, travel the world, and support clients 7x24 across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific.  The more intense the job, the more intense the adrenaline rush.  I was most recently a VP of International HR and gave it all up six months ago.  Well, gave it up for a 6 month international consulting assignment to ease me into the next 14 months on the road.  Last July through December were filled with consulting and wrapping up life in the states, along with a little route planning, which resulted in a much to complex MS project schedule, that we actually did follow.  For me, this trip is unique, it’s relatively unplanned - something that's quite a departure from the planning required for survival and success on the job.  We've done it by design; this trip is about learning to survive and thrive with change, dealing with unknown variables as they come up, to learn to take things as they come, and go with the flow.  No schedules, no alarm clocks, no wake up calls.  The planning and schedule mentality is one that will be hard to break, but to truly let go and experience new cultures, people, ways of living, we need to let go of expectations, preconceived notions and schedules of what 'should' happen over the next year, and experience what 'is' happening - a rare opportunity.

 

While we will keep our home in San Diego, we plan to keep an open mind as to where we plant ourselves next, and allow our experiences to dictate what paths our careers take when we reenter society to replenish the funds.  For me, I'm hoping to find something that allows me to contribute to society in a much different way, and make and impact, giving back to others.  We'll see what new learnings and transformations come out of the experience, and where we end up!