This Expat Life

In this episode I share some (pretty personal!) examples of the power of community and of having a coach by your side that I saw in my life last week.

Listen to this episode how I'm finding working with a coach on some deeply personal issues and on the business decision I took that just opened up SO much space.

I'm realising that being so open also feels very vulnerable, but as always I hope that my experiences inspire you in some way. Enjoy this episode!

Welcoming another guest today: Claudia Arroyo - or better known as latina in The Netherlands!

Claudia is Peruvian and has lived in The Netherlands for 18 years, and is famous on Instagram for making funny, relatable videos about life in the Netherlands (this is also how I got to know her!).

I invited her to This Expat Life because I wanted to hear more about how she looks at the difference between the Netherlands and Peru / Latin America. And I loved her answers. 

Listen to this episode to hear how Claudia struggled at first to make Dutch friends, what she misses from her home country, what she adopted from the Dutch and how she started creating events to connect hundreds of people. Plus some useful tips she shares for newcomers.

Want to see those funny relatable videos she creates? Check her Instagram account here for a daily laugh!

Become the CEO of your expat life, so you can thrive abroad!

I want you to thrive & flourish in your expat life - not just survive. And you can do that by adopting a CEO approach to your life abroad: think, act & feel as a modern CEO. How that looks, I share all about it in this episode, as well as the 3 pillars of becoming that CEO of your expat life.

If you want to learn more, download my FREE Guidebook to becoming the CEO of your expat life.

Welcoming a guest of honour to This Expat Life today: retired ambassador Kees van Rij! 

Kees was a Dutch ambassador to Turkey, Spain, Greece and Brazil, and was also posted in Brussels, Peru and South Korea. I met Kees in Brazil, where we worked closely together on the topic of deforestation in the Amazon during the Bolsonaro administration - and this is when I learned a lot from him and his strong experience in diplomacy.

In this extra long episode, Kees talks about what diplomacy really is about (it's not like The Diplomat show!), the 24/7 ongoing work as an ambassador, what it's like to take decisions on your own & on the spot, and how a political conflict affected his personal life. And of course, we also talk about expat life.

I absolutely loved hearing Kees's stories and I hope you do too. As always, let me know what you think of this episode!

This is a recording of a LinkedIn stream Coco and I did on the personal & cultural dynamics of living abroad (and specifically: in The Netherlands).

Listen to this bonus episode to hear more about:

✅ the Dutch directness - and their positive intention behind it

✅ how finding friends on the work floor is difficult in the Netherlands

✅ how constantly having to rely on yourself as an expat can be really tiring

✅ and of course our Success Beyond Borders event on 13 September in Amsterdam!

Returning home is definitely the hardest part of expat life - or at least that is what it was for me. Today, as this episode comes out, marks exactly 3 years that I returned home from Brazil 🇧🇷

And with that questionable anniversary I'm looking back on 3 very eventful years in the Netherlands. Listen to this episode to hear how change upon change rocked my boat ever since my return. It's my most personal episode as of yet. And... I have an exciting announcement at the end!

Here are the things I mention in this episode:

- Love Phobia by Hannah Cuppen

- my 1:1 coaching in The Hague, schedule a free call now to not miss out.

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts on the podcast - especially on this personal episode! Leave a review or send me a DM on the socials.

Another fantastic guest on the show today! I'm speaking with Puck Landewé, founder of start-up Elfin and on a mission to making women financially independent. A mission I personally very strongly support and which we also talk about at the end of this episode.

But I invited Puck for another reason: and that's because she splits her time between the Netherlands, her home country & where she runs her business, and Switzerland, the country of her fiancé & where she finds peace in the mountains. I was really curious how she's able to do this well, because it's very easy to feel torn between two lives when you travel back and forth all the time.

In this episode Puck shares what she loves about Switzerland, how she manages living in 2 different countries, and how she deals with the guilt that comes with it. Enjoy!

PS. If you liked this episode, I'd love it if you could leave a review! This helps us to grow our community of like-minded expats across the globe.

In this episode I speak with Esther Grootenboer, a Dutch psychiatrist who moved to Norway with her family. Esther shares what it's like to continue her career in Norway, how living in Norway has made her more relaxed, what conscious decisions she took to start her new life, and how mindfulness has helped her in her expat journey. I really enjoyed talking to Esther and I hope you'll enjoy this episode too!

If you want to know more about Esther and her online courses, take a look at her website.

Expat life isn't a stagnant line, just like normal human lives. I identified 7 typical phases that often occur, and knowing what they are about helps you to ride expat life like a smooth operator instead of a rollercoaster maniac. As always, I give practical tips as I go. Enjoy the ride!

For This Expat Life I spoke with someone who has a successful career in something I know very little about... jazz music!

In this episode the Dutch, New York-based vocalist, conductor & composer Vivienne Aerts shares her story of how she built her music career in the US, plus some tips if you are dreaming of something similar.

And that we would speak about chocolate from Congo, I never expected! Tune in to hear how she is linking this to her music and why it's so important to her.

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Vivienne Aerts is a Dutch New York-based vocalist, conductor, a composer with a focus on electronics, chocolate, multi-sensory experience design as well as a clinical psychologist and faculty at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Want to follow her journey? You can find Vivienne on Instagram!