Profits & passions: Michele Sorensen: Stream of consciousness and the art of kayaking

For Michele Sorensen, kayaking and self-reflection are two ends of the same paddle. "The second your foot comes off the land and both feet are in the boat, it's like Nirvana."

A Norwalk resident, Harvard business school graduate and former investment banker,

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She also says she looks 20 years younger today than she did five years ago, The secret to the reversed aging process? An aimable divorce after 24 years, which allowed her to embrace her passion and fully focus on herself.

Sorensen grew up on Long Island as one of nine children. Her family lived on boats during the summer, which nurtured her love of the open water. "The minute you get into the water, your whole body relaxes." Her mother wrote a book called "Nine Boats, Nine Kids," which traced the development of both the children and the boats.

In her professional life, Sorensen was an investment banker. She formed a partnership with her husband and started Vistech Corp. in Westport, helping European and American companies looking for strategic acquisitions and investments in Latin America, as well as Latin American governments seeking to divest in American companies.