Saving the planet by day,saving souls by night,still surviving the bass by weekend.
Meet Keziah Quek - a sustainability consultant who makes corporate giants pretend to care about the environment, a meditation guru who runs a sensory deprivation cave called "The Cave," and a woman who buys earplugs in bulk like they are a prescription medication.
She wears two hats.
Neither of them is boring.
9-to-5: Corporate conscience
Sustainability Consulting Manager at EY Singapore
By day, she sits in boardrooms and politely tells massive corporations that their supply chains are on fire (sometimes literally). She has made more carbon-neutral PowerPoints than most people have had hot dinners. Her speciality: making "net zero" sound achievable while everyone in the room knows it is not. She is very good at her job. This is deeply funny given what happens next.
5-to-9: Zen misstress
Awakin with Kez at "The Cave"
After 6 PM, Keziah sheds the blazer, steps into a sensory meditation cave she built (yes, it has particle generators and light sequences, yes it is exactly as sci-fi as it sounds), and guides people through mindfulness. She has helped hundreds find their inner peace. She has also written a sustainability report for a palm oil company. The duality is not lost on her. She jokes about it constantly. The Cave is genuinely beautiful.
"She told a room of executives that their carbon footprint was 'concerning' and then went home to teach a room of strangers how to breathe. Both rooms cried. For different reasons."
She teaches stillness.
She pays for bass drops.
This is the woman who tells you to "sit with your feelings." She then flies to Thailand, stands in a field for ten hours, and lets a German DJ called Acid Pauli rearrange her ribcage with a subwoofer. She does not see the contradiction. Or she does, and simply does not care. Either way, she brings earplugs.
Wonderfruit
Sunda Festival
Acid Pauli
Essential safety gear
Keziah does not mess around when it comes to hearing preservation. She orders Alpine MusicSafe Pros and Etymotic ER20XS in bulk - enough to supply a small army of tinnitus-aware ravers. She will hand you a pair before you even ask. She will also judge you if you refuse. "You only get one set of eardrums," she says, before walking directly into a wall of bass. The commitment is admirable. The hypocrisy is the point.
Running from corporate firewalls
to find "inner peace."
She says she travels to find herself. More accurately, she travels to get away from the 47 unread Slack messages. Inner peace is apparently located in three specific places. She has not found it yet. The hotel pools are excellent though.
Ubud
"Coming here to reconnect with myself" = opening her laptop by the infinity pool every morning. The yoga helps. The WiFi helps more.
Hilton Grand Asoke
The executive lounge is where she goes to feel powerful. The rooftop pool is where she goes to feel like she has her life together. Both are lies. Both are worth it.
The Curveball
Nobody expects Muscat. She went once and now it is part of the rotation. The architecture is stunning. The peace is real. The emails are still there when she gets back. She ignores them a little longer.
Required reading for
balancing spreadsheets and bass drops.
These are the books that keep her sane. Or at least keep her from writing passive-aggressive emails to the entire sustainability division. She reads them on planes, in airports, and during meditation retreats (silently, of course).
The Daily Stoic
Ryan Holiday
Keziah reads one page of this every morning before logging into her work laptop. It helps her accept the things she cannot change - like the fact that her client's sustainability targets are entirely performative. "Amor Fati" looks great on a mood board. It hits different when your boss asks for the Q3 report by Thursday.
The 4-Hour Workweek
Tim Ferriss
She does not work a 4-hour workweek. She works a 60-hour workweek. But she reads Tim Ferriss and dreams of a world where she can automate her sustainability reports, outsource her meditation sessions, and spend her free time doing absolutely nothing in Ubud. The 5-bullet Friday newsletter is non-negotiable.