The Thriving Abroad Podcast

Alison Cornford-Matheson is an expat partner who accompanied her husband Andrew to Belgium. The career she created as a writer and photographer has changed their lives and they are about to start their new adventure travelling around Europe in an RV. As well as continuing to share Alison's beautiful photos, they'll be writing about their adventures and they food they enjoy as they go.

Friendships, so the perceived wisdom goes, are built on the basis of commonality of interests and shared experiences. Expats seek out other expats because they “get” the challenges and provide support that often is unavailable from other sources. BUT often there the similarity ends. The truth is an expat group is often a diverse group of people drawn together from different ends of the globe by a common interest or need. How exciting and fascinating. Rich conversations, an appreciation of different ideals and beliefs based on mutual respect.

Recognition of our differences is the first step towards appreciation and understanding of those differences. The next step is to then seek to use our understanding and appreciation of our differences in a positive and constructive way.

Tayo Rockson, apart from sounding and looking a bit like a rock star, is a champion for respecting and celebrating difference. He is the founder of UYD media, creator of the “UYD (Use Your Difference) Magazine” and “As Told By Nomads” podcast. Both give people a platform to talk about their international, global, expat experience and to share what they have learned in the process. A voice to Third Culture Kids whose experience, as his own, has led them to question their personal identity, to reflect on “how and why they feel different” and turn the sense of loss that can come from a lifetime on the move into one of a celebration of their difference.

Tayo is a man with a vision, one where he wants people to “use their difference to follow their passion, to champion a new way of thinking, that it IS OK to be different.”

We are delighted today to share our interview with Tayo with you. You can access it and/or download it HERE

If you are keen to learn about his work you can go to his site “UYD Magazine” and Podcast “As Told By Nomads“. Tayo has also just launched together with his business partner Lauren Zelek the UYD University and you can learn more about that HERE

Enjoy the interview!