The Journey to Boardroom Prodigy
Lost in Tokyo
In the final year of my Master's in Economics at the KU Leuven, a Top 50 University globally as ranked by US News and Times Higher Education, I would experiment with drugs, go out, and get selected for a reality TV show. The show was called 'Lost in Tokyo'.
Looking back, it was a marvelous experience, with a free full 2-week trip to Tokyo, a night's stay in the Presidential suite of the Hilton, and learning how a TV show is made, and I got eliminated by refusing to kill and fillet a live eel, even if it has repercussions, as I couldn't win the €25,000 anymore.
The Initial Cracks
At 19, I would move for the first time alone abroad on an exchange semester in the city of Toulouse in the South of France. It can be hard. At one point, I felt a little lump in my nipple and thought it might be a tumor. It was a cyst that could be sorted with meds. It was the first time I realized that I experience things psychosomatically. It happened again when I fell in love for the first time, feeling pain in my body physically. And again, with a mystery fever when my dog Hugo died.
I didn't know my physical limits. I did a 10K run in 53 minutes. The next weekend, I did a 10-mile run. It was in a forest with very steep climbs and descents. A couple of 100 meters before the finish, I stopped and walked the last part. Walking to the car, people said that I looked pale. I started feeling unwell and felt tingling all over my body.
My dad came and drove me to the hospital, and I got the all clear. One week later, I went back to the gym and felt unwell again, and the gym staff called an ambulance. I stayed all night in the emergency room, and they found a conduction error in my heart. I was advised to never run a marathon, but that I could exercise.
A couple of weeks later, I left to start the Business Graduate Program in London. I remember that the stress resulted in lying down on the bathroom floor in the Canary Wharf building, listening to calming meditation music.
I moved to Geneva. Because of stress, my heart would skip beats. In the bathtub, I would feel that my heart rate was half of the normal one.
The Healing Journey in Singapore
Moving to Singapore - a country that I had never visited before - 7000 miles away. 22, but looking way younger, with a mind that could handle the world but with a body that hadn't yet discovered who they were.
On January 22nd - my 23rd birthday - I was taking a taxi and asking the universe what my gift would be. I opened an expat magazine that was in the pouch in front of me, and my face got glued to an ad on one of the pages of a chiropractic healing practice called Innate.
I would start going to sessions 3 times a week, and I could make the full connection that I was gay.
The Total Collapse in New York City
In January 2011, I moved from the equator to New York City, at the opposite ends of the world. From tropical weather to freezing weather. The tone was said for an ice-cold experience.
Walking to work in the snow from 350W 43rd street to the Times Square office, I would feel the cold on my skin and think about Simon and little did I know that the full experience of unrequited love, my genes, my identity issues and an unhelpful Harvard Business School SVP would push me offer the edge and get me into hospital.
In Bellevue Hospital, I would stay for 17 days. A challenging environment, but I was safe. The oddest experience was a roommate writing a love letter in his own blood, but he was moved to a different room.
My mom flew in immediately from Europe, and she was waited on at the airport by the driver of the CEO, and a hotel was also booked for her. The handling of the situation by Thomson Reuters was exceptional. Nevertheless, the experience was harsh for a 24-year-old looking like a 20-year-old.
Looking back, I sense that my soul shattered because my soul was too good to be on a pathway to darker things.