A few years ago, I took a break from Corporate life, completed my Post Grad and became a teacher. One privilege was to be part of a Rowi Kiwi conservation project in Okarito.  One of the students said to me "Mrs. B, you are a Catalyst.  You help us understand what is important so that we can create something great".  Wow, what a gift that was..... 

I've had such an incredible life so far - I have lived and/or worked in over 20 countries, have seen Everest Base Camp, Machu Picchu at sunrise, the Mongolian Steppe, and the temples at Luxor, and was the first woman to Bungy Jump off the highest suspension bridge in the world. 

I've faced adversity too - lived through 10,000 earthquakes in Christchurch, lost a brother to passive suicide as a result of mental health issues, faced my own chronic health challenges (including the inability to have children), and experienced the dark side of corporate mobbing first hand.

But I've never let myself become a victim.  There is ALWAYS something you can do, a step you can take, an intervention you can make that can re-set the path.  Being true to your core is a great anchor, and discovering that is one of the biggest gifts I've even been given, thanks to Steve Gurney.  At my core, I am "A Seeker of Connection and Experience" - and as long as the decisions I make honour that, I know I'm on the right path. 

The most important thing to happen in my work life was what I call my "Epiphany of Liberation".  I used to think that I had to be good at everything.  When I was part of the leadership team at a company called Vistorm (now HP Security), we optimised our performance in a very dynamic and challenging market by focusing not only on the business, but on how we operated as a team.  Understanding that my peer was really good at the thing I didn't enjoy was a revelation, and a liberation.

The hardest job I ever had was as Head Teacher at 180 Degrees School - an alternative education programme for at risk youth that had been excluded from mainstream education as a result of significant behavioural issues.  My respect and gratitude for those that have the resilience to spend their lives in service to disenfranchised youth is boundless.

I am an insatiable learner, to the point of ridiculous - I am so in love with the process of learning it becomes near mania, and I have to discipline myself.  But I don't want to!

I love lifting heavy things and putting them down again - being strong and having heathy mitochondria is awesome.  I love walking and running in the bush, paddling on the sea, boarding on the snow, MTB the trails, kiting in the waves.  I am a practitioner of Nutritional Ketosis. I eat liver every Sunday, but otherwise try to be a pseudo-vegetarian. I create abstract paintings in acrylic. 

And I CAN'T WAIT to see what happens next. 

The real stuff:  I am married  to the incredible Colin Basterfield: Writer, poet, improvisor, agility Coach, filmmaker, muse, love of my life.  We live Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, with our cats Jacques Lacan and Special Agent Lundy.