My first speaking engagement for 2026 was delivering the keynote for PraXis Experiential, an advertising agency known for its work in experiential marketing, during their annual business planning retreat in Tagaytay City on January 6, 2026. It was also my first corporate speaking engagement of the year, and a meaningful way to begin it.
The theme of PraXis’ planning session was “Breakthrough Leap.” My talk, titled “Making Giant Leaps Around the World,” drew from my own life journey and explored how real breakthroughs—both personal and organizational—rarely happen in one dramatic moment. More often, they emerge through sustained, subtle steps taken into uncertainty.
In my keynote, I shared the major “leaps” that have shaped my life: from scientist, to world traveler, to community builder, and now, author. These roles are explored more fully across this website and in my recently released memoir, The World Is My Mirror, whose central message closely aligns with the ideas I shared with the PraXis team.
Travel, for me, became the vehicle through which I learned to embrace uncertainty and discomfort. Every place I visited came with the unknown. Every new person was a stranger. Every culture offered a different way of seeing the world, and every country carried a lesson. Traveling largely on my own, I learned how to solve problems in real time, how to observe more carefully, and how to reflect more deeply.
Over time, those encounters quietly recalibrated me—how I understood others, how I held responsibility, and how I defined what truly mattered. I came to see my own life more clearly by witnessing how other people lived theirs. The same process applies in business: transformation rarely starts with strategy alone. It begins with shifts in perspective, awareness, and mindset.
READ MORE: Finding Your Travel Superpower: A Speaking Message on Cultural Connection and Global Citizenship
I also spoke about what each personal leap required of me at different stages of my life. As a scientist, it required ambition, discipline, and staying the course. As a world traveler, it demanded courage, resilience, and the willingness to let go of a life that no longer fit. As a community builder, it required connection, leadership, and a sense of purpose. And as an author, it called for reflection, storytelling, and the courage to share what I had learned.
These experiences led to the core insights I shared with PraXis—insights that resonate just as strongly in organizational transformation as they do in personal reinvention:
1. A breakthrough leap rarely comes from one bold, dramatic move.
2. It emerges through a patient process of exposure, reflection, resilience, and engagement.
3. It is built through sustained small steps into the unknown, staying present as conditions shift, and allowing what we observe and experience to reshape how we think, decide, and lead.
4. Over time, those small internal shifts become the breakthrough leap others see from the outside.
My work today—through speaking, writing, and community leadership—centers on helping individuals and organizations understand that growth, reinvention, and meaningful change are processes. They require courage, yes, but also patience, presence, and a willingness to learn while in motion.
I’m grateful to PraXis Experiential for the opportunity to open their 2026 planning with this conversation, and I look forward to continuing to work with organizations that are ready to take their own breakthrough leaps—one thoughtful step at a time.
If you’re interested in bringing this conversation to your organization, you can explore my speaking topics and keynote offerings here:
My talks are designed for corporate teams, leadership groups, and institutions navigating change, reinvention, and purpose—drawing from lived experience, global perspective, and grounded reflection.
