Calvin Soh had one of the hottest gigs in Asia when he decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater and run off to rediscover himself.   

We decided to catch up with him and find out what inspired this wonderful moment of clarity, the likes of which not many of us are lucky enough to experience.

“With medicine progressing the way it is, the day isn’t far when they can 3D print internal organs,” he tells us, “This means the average life expectancy, which is already pretty high, will go up even further. I couldn’t see myself being just a Chief Creative Officer for the rest of my long life.”

We couldn’t agree more. And not just because Chief Creative Officer is possibly the cheesiest sounding designation in the world.

So what did the man do after taking a break from the world of trophy pencils and lions?

Farming, of course. Urban farming to be precise. Calvin lives in Singapore, where the only person that has a property big enough to resemble anything close to a traditional farm is the Prime Minister.

Calvin organically transformed his ancestral home over two years into Onekindhouse, a place where he grows an assortment of fruits, vegetables and herbs, while Mrs Soh, Calvin’s mum runs cooking classes using freshly grown ingredients and traditional recipes.

“Pretty much anything grows here in Singapore,” he says, while offering us some rocket from Italy that has a beautiful pungency we’ve never tasted before. His mum offers us a blue drink made from a flower. It’s insanely good.

Calvin tells us about his son’s TED Talk and Kickstarter Project, and another project where the two of them went down to Finland to talk to educators and students about the system there as compared with the one in Singapore.

He’s making Singapore themed T-shirts with attitude to counter the negative ones seen in tourist shops. One reads, “Stealing jobs from USA since 1965.”

Calvin’s also just collaborated on a large painting that offers social commentary on Asia; Singapore in particular. We love the Asianized statue of liberty he’s got in there. He’ll be selling limited edition prints of the piece soon.

His son’s about to launch another Kickstarter project. And mummy Soh is thinking of starting cooking classes for kids now.

The Soh family has ideas and projects sprouting everywhere. And we’ve got a head full of them too as we say our goodbyes.