The Thriving Abroad Podcast

Why is it that some people seem to absorb languages like a sponge and others struggle?

This is a question we have asked ourselves for many years. Learning a second, third or even fourth language can sometimes feel a bit of a battle for everyone, adults and children alike

As parents we often feel we need to persist in encouraging our children to learn another language, but it can all sometimes feel somewhat forced and contrived. In an attempt to keep their daughters Portuguese going once they returned to the UK, Louise’s family decided to make the language of weekends, Portuguese. Sadly the idea wasn’t readily embraced by the children. Having to force brains into action in a different language on a Saturday morning was received with cries of utter disbelief….

In this weeks podcast, Rita Roseback, author of Bringing Up Bilingual Children, empathises but also inspires those who are struggling. She presents sound arguments in favour of bringing up bilingual children, introducing very useful tactics and strategies.

Rita Rosenback understands our challenge from personal experience. Rita was born into a bilingual family on the Swedish speaking west coast of Finland. She moved to the United Kingdom with her then husband and two daughters. Her daughters became fluent in three languages, the language of both parents, Swedish and Punjabi, and also English.

Rita assumed that everyone who had the ability to speak different languages would raise their children to be bilingual as she had done, but found that this was not always the case and they often faced a number of challenges.This led Rita to conduct detailed research into the field of bilingualism. She discovered that while there were plenty of academic books on the subject, there was little written that was accessible to parents.

Enter: Bringing Up a Bilingual Child, Seven C’s of Multilingual Parenting.

In this podcast Louise talks with Rita about.

* The benefits of bilingualism

* How to make language learning more appealing to children.

* Some myths of bilingualism including my favourite, you don’t need to be fluent to be bilingual.

* The seven cornerstones of multilingual parenting.

We know that this interview will inspire you and we wholeheartedly recommend her book.

You can buy Bringing Up Bilingual Children from Amazon

You can learn more about Rita and her services at her website Multilingual Parenting. Here Rita shares over 200 questions and answers about multilingual parenting. She invites you to visit her website and sign up for her free weekly newsletter.

If you have questions for Rita then feel free to ask away in the comments section below. If you have enjoyed the podcast please leave a review for us in itunes. Every review helps to get the word out about the Inspiring Expat Podcasts.

Rachel Yates has been a guest on our podcast already where she shared her expat story and we learned how she created her company The Expat Lifeline.

For this, our 20th episode (cue music and party poppers), we invited Rachel back to talk about the work she does with The Expat Lifeline. Our conversation is fun but the topic we tackled is deadly serious.

In the interview, we discuss:

The potentially vulnerable position that expat partners put themselves in when they take career breaks, become financially dependent or even just move countries

Some of the issues expat partners should consider to address those vulnerabilities

How to have the difficult conversations

Why empowerment is important for expat couples

“A really strong and effective partnership has two equally strong players. Expat life is really tricky and the stronger you are individually, the stronger your relationship.” 

Rachel’s Global Girl’s Guide to Creating Your Backup Plan helps expat partners to address the risks that they take by becoming financially dependent.  It gives expat partners the information and the tools they need to address those risks and to put in place strategies and practical solutions to protect themselves.

Rachel has some great resources in her free members area. You can access it by scrolling down the page and clicking on the Sign Up button for the free members area.

Rachel recently ran the highly informative and widely viewed Moving With Kids Summit.  She interviewed a some of the foremost experts working with expat kids of all ages, covering topics from pregnancy and giving birth abroad to raising bilingual kids to supporting expat teens. There’s a wealth of great information in the summit and you can access it via The Expat Lifeline premium members area. If you’d like to hear Rachel’s story, her previous podcast episode can be accessed here.

If you’ve enjoyed this 20th episode of the Thriving Abroad podcast, don’t forget to subscribe using the link above to get future episodes directly.  

If you’d like to hear more expert interviews addressing expat challenges and issues, tell us what you’d like to learn about in comments below

Stand Proud – The positive impact of volunteering

This week we are excited to welcome Naomi Hattaway to our podcast interview series. Naomi spent her expat years in India and Singapore and volunteering was a massive part of her life. Today she shares her experience and we talk about the value of volunteering.

Wherever you live in the world, there will no doubt have been times when you have been asked to volunteer and give your time, skills and experience for the benefit of others.

Andy Haldane, Chief Economist of the Bank of England (The Economist 2014) stated that volunteers in the UK do the work of approximately 1.25 million ‘proper’ employees. The volunteer sector of the UK producing about £50 billion worth of economic output, roughly the size of the British energy sector.

Worldwide each year nearly 1 billion people are engaged in volunteering.

There are obviously huge benefits

For the communities and people the volunteers serve.

For the volunteers in terms of social interaction and general sense of well-being derived from their engagement in their volunteer roles.

For expats volunteering is often an excellent way to become involved in the new local community and at the same time make a valued contribution.

And yet

We know anecdotally and personally how we can downplay those contributions, especially the expat partners. This is demonstrated by the way we refer, or prefer not to refer to our voluntary activities. We hear people saying things like,

‘I help out a little bit at the refuge, its nothing really.’

‘I have a huge career gap, all I did was some volunteer work while we were overseas.’

‘I don’t know who will want to employ me, my role (full-time leadership role) was only voluntary while we were abroad.’

Today we want to celebrate your contributions and encourage every volunteer to stand proud and recognise the massive contributions that voluntary efforts make.

We interviewed the wonderful Naomi Hattaway on this topic. Naomi is the founder of ‘I am a Triangle’ a hugely successful Facebook community, created for people who have lived their lives in other cultures and countries, either as an adult or a child.

Her approach to life is represented by these words;

‘There are only two things required in life, one is to show up, the second is to be kind’

In this podcast episode Naomi shares

The role that volunteering has played in her life at home and abroad.

Her suggestions on how to talk about our volunteer experiences from a professional perspective.

Her belief that volunteering doesn’t have to be about finding and joining something that already exists. Her suggestion:

‘You can fill a gap, there is no bigger confidence builder than the fact you created something that was needed’

How her experience as a volunteer was invaluable in the creation of her own business.

We hope that you enjoy the interview and will be inspired to see your voluntary contributions in the positive light that they deserve. You can listen to our conversation on the player at the top of the post where you can also download it and subscribe to future episodes.

You can connect with Naomi via LinkedIn and get to know her better through her Blog.

Naomi also invites you to join the Facebook group I am A Triangle and participate in the Tri-Connect meetings which are beginning to spring up all over the world. 

How do you represent your voluntary activities positively on your profiles such as LinkedIn and your resumé?

What shines through in this week’s episode of the Thriving Abroad podcast, is Renske Ten Bosch’s positive outlook on her life as an expat.

Renske is a Dutch expat partner living in Manilla in the Philippines. Evelyn met Renske in Belgium where she lived prior to moving to the Philippines.  Never idle, she ran cooking classes for kids with a friend and ran a business called Dots and Con selling handcrafted items manufactured in Vietnam, her home prior to living in Belgium. 

“When you are abroad, well for me, it was an opportunity to follow my heart” Renske Ten Bosch

In the Philippines, her zest for life and action has continued and she has two businesses; Makulay Colourful Memories, which she co-founded with a friend and Crates & Co.  Both companies make handcrafted items with a local flavour.  For Renke though, its not just about her businesses and her own fulfilment.  One of her core values is that she gives back to the communities in which she lives, so as well as employing local crafts people to make the merchandise, the profits from Crates & Co are donated to Young Focus, an organisation that helps to make education accessible to the poorest children in the Philippines, with their main focus of operations in the communities around the Smokey Mountain garbage dump in Manilla.

We hope that you’ll be inspired by Renske’s story.  We couldn’t help but be captivated when we listened to what she has done and it’s impact on her, her family and her community.

You can listen to our conversation on the player at the top of the post where you can also download it and subscribe to future episodes. If you enjoy hearing Renske’s story, don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes and while you are there, click subscribe to make sure you don’t miss future episodes.

If you are interested in joining our private Facebook Group for expat partners interested in a focusing on their personal and professional development while abroad, click on the link above and ask to join.

Would you move half way across the world to a country you’d never visited before? That’s exactly what Sharon Swift and her husband did over 10 years ago when they moved from the UK to Australia. Sharon was no stranger to moving countries though. She grew up as a TCK and a consummate traveller moving 18 times between 12 countries and 5 continents.

“Never leave a country undiscovered. If there’s somewhere to live or to visit, just do it. Its only a plane ride away and a plane ride back and there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Despite her sense of adventure, her move to Australia was not plain sailing. However always someone to see the lemonade in the lemons, Sharon realised that challenge was her opportunity to create a business that fulfilled a real need.  As an added bonus, it meant she could leave a corporate career she wasn’t loving.

Now the founder of The Expat Concierge, she provides destination services to people who are moving to Australia. She’s also the author of a new book “So You’re Moving to AUSTRALIA” and has recently launched a new online product, SettleTO aimed at helping expats access the information they need to be able to settle smoothly into life in Australia. With further launches planned for additional SettleTO countries, we’re certain we’re going to be seeing a lot of Sharon in the future.

Sharon has shared her story and her plans for the future with us on this week’s Inspiring Expat Interview podcast. You can listen to the episode on the player above. If you enjoy listening to the interview, don’t forget to leave us a great review. To make sure you don’t miss an episode by subscribing to our podcasts.

It can be easy to downplay the value of experience gained through international relocation as the expat partner.

For many the move abroad leads to a career break or rethink. The time away from work, while living in a new international environment can impact negatively on confidence and self-belief.

We may begin to think that…

We accomplish little through international relocation OR believe that our accomplishments are nothing special.

The CV gap created by time away from our careers presents a challenge when it comes to future career development.

The experience and personal development gained from voluntary positions is irrelevant in the ‘real world of work’.

While we have plenty of funny tales and experiences to share, few stories can be related to the world of work.

In this interview Diane Lemieux shares why she knows the opposite to be true. Co-author of four books including The Mobile Life. Diane’s life has been truly international.

Diane has lived abroad as a child, a teenager, a student, an assignee, a wife and a mother, living in 11 countries across 3 continents.

If you want to identify what your international experience means to you in terms of opportunities and accomplishment, then this interview will help you to consider,

The opportunities that have arisen as a result of international relocation OR may be out there waiting to be found.

The value of your personal accomplishments.

The power of your personal stories in demonstrating your personal skills and talents.

Your value as a change manager, as Diane said,

‘We need to understand our value as change managers… and take note’.

Listen to hear Diane talk about the importance of your international experience as,

‘a step in your longer term life, it cannot just be a sacrifice, that’s just no good’

‘if you want to do more than survive, and thrive, you need to consider where this is going to be leading you in terms of the bigger picture.’

Diane also talks about her book The Mobile Life, which describes how you can plan and build a successful life for yourself, and your family, anywhere in the world. It cleverly uses the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Antarctic expedition as a metaphor for your international ‘project’.

You can listen to our interview HERE. If you enjoy the interview, don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes and please leave us a review! It helps to get the podcast series noticed and we love to hear from you!

You can learn more about the book, The Mobile Life HERE and join the Facebook conversation HERE

You can learn more about Diane Lemieux HERE and HERE

Natasha Vorompiova is the woman to go to if you want to make your business life easier. Her company, Systems Rock, helps small businesses to systemise to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Natasha is a Ukranian expat living in Belgium. She set up a consulting business after moving to Belgium, where she struggled to find a job and where it is tough to secure positions unless you speak both French and Flemish. Initially challenged by juggling all the tasks on her plate, she realised she could bring the systems knowledge from her former career to her new business and life. In our interview with Natasha she shares her inspiring story of building a business as an expat. She also gives us a few of her favourite tips and tools for using systems to make your personal admin easier. 

We are big fans of Natasha and Systems Rock and have applied a number of her suggestions in our own business. You can listen to our interview on the player above.  If you enjoy the interview, don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes and leave us a great review.

If you want to learn more about systemising your business, join Natasha for a free 5-part training to ensure that what you spend your time on today brings you closer to your big, audacious goal several months from now.  Once you register, you will also receive a free mini-guide “10 Things That Make Your Business Unique” Register Here

We’ve known Rachel Yates, founder of The Expat Lifeline for a long time, before Thriving Abroad was created in fact. She’s on a mission to make moving internationally easier and to help expat partners to keep their agenda and financial security in the conversation. What makes Rachel really stand out though is the humour she brings to what she does, which helps to make difficult topics more manageable. In our interview, she shares her inspiring entrepreneurship journey including these highlights:

How she’s applied the skills she learned becoming a pilot to preparing for an international move.

The challenges for expat partners of keeping themselves in the conversation and renegotiating the balance in the family when changes are made.

How her realisation that she wasn’t walking the walk led to her becoming an expat entrepreneur

Her epiphany on how cognitive dissonance applies in expat life

Why expat partners should always have a backup plan

What expat relationships and furniture have in common

We certainly had a wide ranging conversation and you can listen to all of it on the player above. If you’d like to learn more about Rachel and her business you can find her at The Expat Lifeline. You can also learn more about how The Global Girls Guide to Creating a Backup Plan can help you to look after your own financial needs and you can purchase the Expat Family File which is an indispensable tool for organising the exponential amount of admin that seems to come hand in hand with expat life.  You can also find Rachel on Facebook and Twitter.

If you enjoy the interview, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a great review on iTunes. If you’d like to continue the conversation about making expat life work for you, ask to join our closed Facebook group.

Louise and I have worked together since 2011.  We both value our partnership immensely. It enables us to move forward more quickly than we would have done alone. We act as sounding boards for each other, provide accountability and generally have a great time working together. That’s why we were delighted to have the opportunity to interview Betsy Polk and Maggie Ellis Chotas.

As well as running their own successful coaching and consulting company The Mulberry Partners, they have become experts in understanding women’s business partnerships. To write their book, they not only drew on their own experience working together, they also interviewed 125 women partnerships to learn what made them tick and what they gained from being in partnership so that they could truly understand the power of those partnerships

In Evelyn’s interview with Betsy and Maggie. They share the story of their partnership and some of the secrets of what make women’s partnerships so incredibly successful. Evelyn also got the chance to ask Betsy and Maggie how partnerships can help expat partners who are looking for new careers or directions.

You can listen to the podcast episode in the player above or read a transcript of the interview here.

If you’d like to learn more about the book, buy it or download a free sample chapter, you’ll find all the information on the book website. You can also find them on Twitter and Facebook

We’ve followed Stephanie Ward’s blog for a while and have valued the advice she shares on marketing and business building. We were thrilled when she agreed to be interviewed for our podcast. In our interview, Stephanie shares the story of how she followed her heart from the US to the Netherland then followed her head to leave a job she wasn’t enjoying to set up her own business. Her company Firefly Coaching now helps other people living all over the world to do the work they really want to do.

Stephanie has a huge amount of experience in business and marketing and in the interview she shares some of her thoughts with Evelyn about what makes the difference between successful marketing and marketing failure.  You can learn some of Stephanie’s marketing secrets and hear her story by listening to our interview on the player above or, as always, if you prefer to read the interview, you can read the transcript. Not surprisingly, you can also connect with Stephanie and Firefly Coaching on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

If you enjoy the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe using the link above and leave us a review on iTunes.