Ayessa Bautista

Ayessa is the blogger & content creator behind UnDiplomaticWife, a lifestyle blog where she shares her home, health, expat, travel & organizing hacks as a bipolar, plussize diplomat’s wife.

She is also a mental health & self-love advocate for women.As the founder of DeclutterMNL - a group of 12,000+ members & growing - and Minimaluxe.com, she teaches best practices of decluttering & selling online.

Through her Decluttering Concierge services & Move Coaching she has decluttered many expat & diplomat’ homes to help them move with ease.

As a diplomat's wife she has moved her entire household - with baby, dog & car - three times to different continents in a span of 6 years.

This 2021 she is tackling a move from Manila to Switzerland during a pandemic.

Pueyen Lee

Originally from Malaysia, Pueyen lived in England for 10 years before moving to Tokyo in 2014. As a professional, Pueyen is registered as Chartered Accountant and Certified Internal Auditor who currently works for MetLife Insurance in Japan. She specializes in the emerging Data Governance area, where she plays an important role in reshaping the culture and environment in data management.

As an individual and a parent, Pueyen strives to become a female leader in Data. Pueyen believes in leading by example and that our environment plays a big part in shaping our mindset and life-long journeys. Outside work, she devotes personal time to master key insights about mindset. She recently became a certified therapist with the intention of empowering more women and children to lead themselves with a growth mindset, grit, and a self-fulfilled life that is happy and healthy. 

This month, she will talk to us about her "Me Project" - an incredible two-year self-led transformational process - and how we each might set out on our own personal journey of self-discovery and inner growth. Her essential insights will help cultivate your Growth Mindset and will empower you as an individual - in life and in your career.

Measure

I love looking to both the etymology and definition of a word when contemplating its meaning in my life. Here is the definition of "measure" from the Oxford Dictionary:

(v) 1. to ascertain the size, amount, or degree of (something) by using an instrument or device marked in standard units. 2. to assess the importance, effect, or value of (something).

(n) 1. a plan or course of action taken to achieve a particular purpose. 2. a standard unit used to express the size, amount, or degree of something.

Unlike so many other words I have studied, the definition of "measure" has remained relatively true to its Latin root of "mete." Thank goodness, because the definition alone, when applied in today's context of COVID-19 becomes very complex.

When the days all seem to run together, how do we measure the passage of time? When we cannot gather to mark major life milestones - graduations, birthdays, anniversaries...and worst of all, deaths - how do we memorialize those occasions? When we are away from the office for extended periods of time, how do we demonstrate our progress on projects?

In this period of isolation, it is time to turn inward. It is time to take the time, leverage this time, to look back at where we have been, take stock of where we are now, and strategically start to move towards a brighter tomorrow.

Where are you in life right now?

Is it where you thought you'd be?

More importantly, is it where you want to be?

What can you do today to more closely align your actions, your activities, with the path you'd like to be on?

How will you know that you are making progress?

Are there different ways you might measure your success?

Think on these great questions for a bit...and join us for our meeting this month, where Pueyen Lee will talk us through how she took stock of her life and slowly made huge changes in the way she approached everyday living. How? Through what she has aptly named the "Me Project."