184: How to lead an unboring life

Caroline joins Sundae to share how she reinvented herself from an unfulfilled housewife to a successful professional. The ladies explore the sacrifices lovepats make for the betterment of their families. They discuss what finally motivated Caroline to take action, and the steps she took to arrive at her current place of jubilant satisfaction.

The post 184: How to lead an unboring life appeared first on Sundae Schneider-Bean, LLC..

When a lovepat decides to leave their life behind and start somewhere new, it’s because they believe their sacrifice serves the greater good of their spouse and family. Of course, it’s also under the premise that their forfeited happiness will eventually replenish itself in other ways. 

No one expects to forgo self-fulfillment indefinitely. That’s never the deal.

For so many of us, our identity is tied to our “professional self.” And if for whatever reason that no longer suits you or fits with your new normal, don’t surrender to living uninspired. Reinventing to reinvent.

This week, it’s my pleasure to welcome Caroline to share how she took her humdrum life and turned it into an extraordinary one. Decorated with multiple university degrees and with decades of upper-level executive positions, Caroline reluctantly hit pause when her family moved to Brussels. 

Typical of a high-achiever, Caroline became bored; everything in her life seemed grey and mundane. Most of all, Caroline was tired of lacking a kick-ass answer when people asked her what she did for a living. So, she got one. Now, Caroline’s the impressive conversation centerpiece at every party. 

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

Opening new channels in your brain
Cryptocurrency, seaweed, & the blue economy
The mismatch between your head & your heart
From housewife to retiring your husband
The luxury of full-time motherhood

Listen to the Full Episode

 

Featured on the Show:

A teleport machine doesn’t exist. Caroline got from where she was (unhappy) to where she is now (happy) by consistently dedicating small blocks of time to transforming her situation. Are you ready to get clear on your self-fulfillment plan, shut out the distractions, and move forward in micro-goals? You deserve something positive, productive, and fun that’s just for you this summer. Focus Camp registration is on now, so sign up right here before all spots are gone.

Here’s what one past Focus Camp attendee has to say: “If you want a push in the right direction or need to get on with something you have been avoiding for a while…Focus Camp is for you. The bite-size time frame guarantees finishing tasks each week.”

Sundae’s Facebook Business Page – Sundae Schneider-Bean LLC
Sundae’s Facebook Group  – Expats on Purpose
Expat Happy Hour – EP75: How You Introduce Yourself Says Everything
Focus Camp – Join now

 

We’re delighted by our nomination to the global Top 25 Expat Podcasts!

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Full Episode Transcript:

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Hello. It is 06:30 am in New York 12:30 pm in Johannesburg and 5:30 pm in Bangkok. Welcome to the Expat Happy Hour. This is Sundae Schneider-Bean from www.sundaebean.com. I am a solution-orientated coach and intercultural strategist for individuals and organizations. I am on a mission to help you adapt and succeed when living abroad and get you through any life transition. 

Ordinary, by definition, is tied to standard. It’s synonymous with natural, normal, traditional, typical, and for some, there’s some safety in ordinary and for others, there may even be validation in being “normal.” But what if that feels confining, claustrophobic even? What if at the same time the non-traditional, the non-typical, the non-ordinary, feels daunting as well? 

 

If this resonates with you, please know you were absolutely not alone. I have walked the journey with many of my clients as they’ve stepped out of their cages of ordinary and stepped into the wilderness of non-ordinary, and that journey isn’t quite as simple as you would think. And one of the things I’m really excited about is to share with you another person’s journey on how they came to living an unordinary life.

 

You might be in that tension right now, feeling bored by the traditional, the normal, or what other people say is typical, and wanting to break free, but you don’t know-how. I’ve got something actually in the works to help you do just that that might be perfect for you. So stay tuned to the end of this podcast and check out the show notes where you can learn more.

 

But to help me explore this question right now, and give you a behind-the-scenes. Look at how she navigated this journey. It is my heartfelt gratitude to welcome Caroline, a client of mine, who has walked this journey as a special guest on Expat Happy Hour today. Caroline, thank you for being here. 

 

Caroline: Thank you very much Sundae, very exciting to be here. 

Sundae: Okay, so I’m going to tell people a little bit more about you Caroline, and they will decide for themselves if they think that anything about your life is actually ordinary. But what’s important is, where you were feeling. So, I’ll tell you a bit more about Caroline right now. So, basically born and raised in Stockholm, got a business degree from Stockholm University and also a degree from France. Spent early-on times hungry to travel and see the world, did some work overseas after graduating and working in a few positions, got into PR and communications while living in Johannesburg.

 

So kind of a neighbor at one point of our lives, crossing and then what happened? This is a story that many of us know, she met a South African, her husband now, South African, and became an expat spouse in the United States, England, and Switzerland. So people who are listening to this, who are expats, see a story that might resonate with you because your life looks like that. Of course, people who don’t live globally mobile lives might think this is a wild life but this is a story for many of us. 

 

So in that process, she shares about how she chose hard, fought hard to remain in her career because of all of the degrees that she had. But after 10 years of running an internal communication business out of Switzerland for a pharma industry, and starting a family, looking after small kids and helping your husband as he worked abroad, things can get hard.

 

In 2017, they moved to Brussels and that’s when she said goodbye to our communications agency and hit pause. So, I know there are so many people listening to Caroline that resonate with your story. That ambition, that hunger for travel, the falling in love with someone from another country, really working hard to make it work and then deciding in midst of it all to hit pause. That’s such a courageous move. 

 

Caroline: Yeah, maybe, but also I think sometimes it’s unavoidable. You get to a point where you just, I mean, maybe you get to a point because it’s like an opportunity to hit pause like I did a move and it just made me reflect and I just realized that “Okay, I can’t carry on like this.” Or sometimes it’s just something that you just feel regardless of change or no change, you just have to stop. Something has to change. So you stop and that is what happened. We moved and I just decided I can’t carry on the same way. 

 

Sundae: That’s the hard part, and I know this is from a lot of clients I’ve worked with, if your partner has an assignment and it creates stability for kids, let’s just say to be in an international school or to pay the mortgage, and you have a career as well, oftentimes families choose the one who has the less fixed role, to pause. 

 

Because of gender dynamics and the way things have developed over time. It’s often the woman, not always, that is changing, but it’s often the woman who does that. So you hit pause and then between 2017 to 2019, you were living your family life. You said your husband was finally home almost every evening, but this is when you and I met right? You were feeling dissatisfied. Can you say more on how you were feeling before? Like right before you hopped on the phone with me, how was life going? 

 

Caroline: So from one perspective it was going better because we had a better family life. My husband was actually working and we were living in the same city. So we were seeing a lot more of each other, the kids were seeing him, he could join for school events and sports events, and all those normal things that are nice to do together, but we had never really done because he was always working in another country. 

 

So he was the kind of person who was away Monday to Thursday or Friday. So from a family life perspective, things were better. I thought life in Brussels was much more suitable for my personality, my interests. I was living in the city or still is, but all those things were good, and it was also nice to have put the communication work behind me. Like I didn’t have that pressure anymore, I didn’t have to think about the industry in that way anymore, and that was nice because honestly, I was feeling like It wasn’t giving me what a job should be giving you in my view. 

 

So that was good, but I was feeling lost because essentially all the family things and the busy family life, that’s great and it can occupy all your time and that’s fine if you’re happy with that, but I wasn’t happy with that.

 

Sundae: I’ve said this so many times in podcasts and I’m going to say it again for new listeners, one of my participants in a workshop explained it really well. She said when in Burkina Faso, when you go to the market and you are trying to negotiate a price with someone at the market and you make a proposition for how much the thing should cost. And the market seller will say, “C’est bon mais n’est pas arrivée.” Which in my bad sort of West African accent in French, from an American. And she said that’s how she felt about motherhood. 

 

This is where you would get stoned alive from people. If you said that out loud, like how dare you ever say that! That’s not enough, because it’s such an important role, it’s such a wonderful part. Because we don’t have permission to say that, but her point is, “It is good like this is really good, and I want even more in my life.”

 

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, and I don’t think that’s a very unique feeling.

 

Sundae: We don’t have permission to say that as a culture though, and to recognize that even having the option to be a full-time mother or be a full-time mother and do something outside the home is actually a luxury some people don’t even have that privilege to choose. 

 

Caroline: Exactly, and I think that’s what makes it kind of a taboo topic, because who am I to complain and also that my situation is very good. I don’t have financial problems, I don’t have to worry about how we’re going to pay the rent, so I’m one of those fortunate people who really should just shut up and get on with it. 

 

Sundae: I hear that. I hear that from a lot of people, the one thing, this is just my personal opinion, if anyone who has a similar situation where you’re you’re feeling like you’re hungry for a deeper sense of purpose, or more meaning and yet you have all kinds of other sort of core needs met, you can easily feel guilt or shame for that at the same time. 

 

I can’t tell you how many examples I’ve seen of wonderful clients I’ve worked with when they find that deeper sense of purpose and meaning they actually contribute to their community and their society in much bigger and more impactful ways. So instead of just enjoying privilege, they’re actually doing something with their privilege to make an impact with their community members or family members and those around them. So without that sense of empowerment, they’re actually not making an impact anywhere. 

 

In fact, they’re going down a downward spiral in their relationships, their health, and their self-esteem and self-worth. So, alright, I’m going to bring people back, so you were feeling a little bit of sense of lack of purpose. We actually spoke twice, once we spoke a year prior. 

 

Caroline: Yeah, I think I was quite soon after I arrived in Brussels actually. I arrived in June and we spoke I think September time. I wasn’t ready to commit right? I didn’t think I was worth it. Let’s face it. That was what it was. 

 

Sundae: Thank you for saying that out loud. I can’t tell you how many people I work with, who eventually when we work together, they find out along the way that the reason why they delayed so long to do something for themselves as they didn’t feel comfortable with investing in themselves. They buy their kids the most high-quality, athletic shoes to protect their feet or they pick out really nice quality things for their family members for presents but they always get the cheap stuff for themselves.

 

Caroline: You and I have discussed all of this and it’s so true. 

 

Sundae: I mean, you’re not the only one this happens a lot. So then a year went by right we hadn’t talked to each other and then what changed? Why did you contact me again? 

 

Caroline: I just realized that I was in a good place in Brussels,  I could no longer blame it on my surroundings because where I live before there was a lot of things that I wasn’t happy with. Just for the sheer fact of where we were and now we were in Brussels and I knew for a fact that my surroundings were good. I had friends, my husband was at home, so I suddenly went “Clearly there it’s still not right, there’s still something missing and I need to get this sorted.”

 

It felt like time was just going past and nothing changed. I think that’s how I came back to you when I think you asked me “So where are you now?” I was admitting that I was in exactly the same place where I’d been a year before when I called you. 

 

Sundae: And what? That’s perfect because honestly, this is the thing about when I have a coaching relationship with someone, I can’t coach motivation into somebody. You have to be motivated to do something. It sounds like what you needed was to get installed and try everything and see if it got better, and once you did try everything and it still wasn’t different, you were ready to do something else. 

Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. 

Sundae: So I’m going to give them a sneak peek into how we started working together. This loops back to why you’re even on the show today. So I’ll bring the listeners in on how this all started. One of the first questions I ask when I work with people is “What are your top burning issues?” And she has  given me permission to read a short excerpt from her answer and she says, “I need to be able to happily and confidently respond when someone asks me what I do!!!”

 

I’m going to censor may be some of the language here, “It feels kind of bleep to not have an answer as it feels like I’m working my bleep off from morning until evening managing our lives and keeping everything going and everyone happy. All that makes me and my family comfortable but it gives me very low satisfaction.” 

 

And then you say, “My goal with the whole coaching thing is, when someone asks me what I do, I have a kick-ass reply that will make me feel great. And that if someone is interested in hearing more they can ask questions about that, and not about my husband’s job, my kids, what school they go to, where I’ve lived or where I’m from.” So Caroline, tell me, what do you do? 

 

Caroline: It feels quite good. I’m not 100% there yet, but jeepers, I’m 99%. I’m going to tell you what I do. I’m an investor. So I invest in various things and I invest in cryptocurrency, I run a pharmaceutical company, and I also invest in the blue economy, and that in my case means that I’m investing in seaweed farming in Europe. 

 

Sundae: I mean how interesting is that? I didn’t know the word “blue economy.” No, It sounds so good, and when I hear “Seaweed,” I just want to know more about seaweed, I’m intimidated by cryptocurrency, all of this stuff is so fascinating. So what I love about this, and I’ll give you a little back story, why Caroline is even on the show today. This is her real answer. This is what happened as a result of our coaching and you and I had exchanged a couple of emails, and it was actually Caroline’s idea to say, “Hey, we’re done coaching, you’ve done your job, I’m so happy this is where I’m at, is there a way that we can share this so it benefits others.”

 

So Caroline actually, you suggest that yourself, and it’s so generous of you because I know someone who’s listening right now is like, “That’s me! And I want to be able to go from that place of low satisfaction to that kick-ass answer.” 

 

Caroline: Yeah. No, it’s good. It feels really good. 

 

Sundae: So tell me, help the listener understand too. How did that happen? How did you go from that part of low satisfaction to now? 

 

Caroline: So, it was definitely that I wasn’t ready to accept being so dissatisfied with my life. I think that’s the first thing that I really was like “This is not on, how can it be this way?” I have so many opportunities or more like it felt, I had so many opportunities, what happened? So it was from dissatisfaction and wanting to change things, but I mean it was going on for years before I found you and contacted you. It wasn’t good, it was this unlike me. 

 

Then also I think what happened when I finally came to Brussels was that I had more time too because I didn’t work anymore. So then I went like, okay, well, I’m going to do this, I’m going to find out about this thing, I’m not going to just hear something and then go “Oh, I don’t understand that.” It was a bit more like “Well, I’m gonna understand that.” Why couldn’t I be able to learn about that. 

 

Then in 2018, I met this guy who spoke about cryptocurrency and I just decided “This is it, I’m going to learn about this.” There’s something about it that is appealing, so I signed up for a conference in London, went over there, had two days of immersion, learned, learned, and then it kind of just took off and it was great. It was exciting. I finally learned something new and I did it. It was only me and I found all the online resources and I taught myself how to do this and it’s kind of an ongoing topic and Industry that will change, and there’s so many aspects of facets to it, but I do my part of it and I’m also kind of satisfied with that.

 

There are parts that I already know, parts I can never understand, conquer or be interested in, but I can do my bit and that gives me satisfaction. So that’s great, and then I think it was this curiosity of changing and allowing myself  to explore areas that I never had time to explore before. 

 

Sundae: Right and what I’m hearing from that is, there’s something from my nerdy intercultural side, is when I hear that, one, there was something inside you that had a growth mindset,  where you said “Hey, I’ve learned other things in the past, I can learn this.” And from an identity perspective, it’s like you didn’t believe the lie: “I’m not the kind of person who learns about cryptocurrency.” You weren’t going to accept an identity that was limited.

 

Caroline: I think once you take that step, and you decide basically “*bleep* you, if I want to learn this, I’m going to learn this.” There are no limits, it’s not like you’re applying to go to Harvard. My God, you got the whole internet, you’ve got all the courses, you’ve got everything there. You can learn almost anything on your own, you can do it without a lot of resources, it doesn’t cost a lot of money. Once you’ve taken that first step, I think then you’re ready to explore, and that starts something within you, it changes you.

 

Sundae: There is another belief that a lot of my clients,  even myself have. This is one of my favorite lies that I like to tell myself is, “It’s going to be difficult and it’s going to take a long time.” Those are my two favorite lies. I discovered they were kind of my default in 2008 and I still work on that. They’ll go away for a while, and then every time I’m up-leveling, they’ll come back again and I’ll giggle because I’m like “Oh you’re back, nice to see you again.” 

 

So what I’m hearing you say is you weren’t believing the thought “Hey, it’s gonna be difficult.” You’re like “I can do this, I can break it down, I’ll do the first step.” That’s super empowering. 

 

Caroline: But remember you and I had a good session on that as well, to reinforce that. I mean, I remember that session, it was great because it helped me to change my perspective and kind of “I can do this. I can do it in small bits and chunks, right?”

 

Sundae: Yep. So, small chunks, take the first step, focus on what you can do. I love all of that. That’s wonderful. Wow, so that’s a lot. That’s a lot already that you’ve done. So what else did you do that got you? Tell me about the messy bits in between. This is great that you’ve done that, but there must have been messy bits for you. 

 

Caroline: Yeah, there were lots of messy bits, and I think they were confusing but I think that the one thing, when I look back now especially at our period, from when we started and we had our first session up until when I suddenly went like “I think I’m kind of good.” 

 

We did some exercises in the beginning that I would never have done, unless you ask me to do that. I remember our session with you said to me “Before I see you next time, I want you to have done three really fun things.” Fun things that have got no purpose to them. They must just be fun. Something that makes you excited, and I realized my mind went blank. I had nothing fun. Nothing fun came up in my head.

 

There was nothing, and I just realized how depressing, like how sad of a state of mind this is! I’ve dug myself into a hole, where someone says go and do something fun and nothing comes up, nothing pops up, I mean, that is sad. So that exercise, when I was thinking about doing something fun, I think I achieved at least two fun things. It was very liberating because it forced me to think In a different way and I started to allow myself to have fun.

 

Sundae: Yep, totally and that’s where the creativity comes; that’s where the opening of new channels in your brain starts.

 

Caroline: Yes, absolutely, and what I was going to get to. So that changed something within me, but of course, if you would say “Is that exercise actually going to make it come out at the other end and know what you want to do with your life?” Of course, if you look at it like that, no, you’re going to say no, but the point is when I look back, every step I took and everything I did, although in the moment, it didn’t feel like they were the ones that were going to change anything. All of those adds up and then suddenly a period of time later, you look back and you look at your life now and you realize “Wow something has changed, I have changed.”

Sundae: That’s so good, and what that really requires is you need to trust the process and that’s the thing, I trust it because I’ve been doing this for a decade. I’m like a giddy little schoolgirl every time someone new signs with me because I’m like “Yay, we get to discover the thing.”

 

I don’t know what the thing is yet, but I know the process works and I’m just going to quickly step back for a second for people who’ve never worked with me before. The process happens, unique to each person – there’s no cookie-cutter approach. But what you can often expect is, people usually come to me when they’re feeling like they’re not happy anymore and whatever has been happening isn’t good enough and they want to… they feel stuck and something has to change.

 

When people are feeling that kind of level of frustration or pain, that’s usually when we start working together and then we look at the *bleep* that we tell ourselves. Like I said, two of my favorite lies is it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to take a long time. You might have heard other versions of that as well, and we just start to see those and how they are really flowing through our lives. I’ve also shared another podcast about how a thought like “That’ll do,” was in my own life and how it led to completely transforming my entire wardrobe, and life because of one thought.

 

So the power of what we’re thinking really impacts our emotions and our behavior and how we show up in the world, and then we get to the part where we went to dreaming. We’re like, “Hey, you could do stuff more with cryptocurrency, you could work in the seaweed industry. What if you spent your day like the CEO of your own company?” We got to play in that dreaming space and then you had to do the hard work and that’s where I was there to make sure that you stayed on track.

 

Caroline: Absolutely.

 

Sundae: That’s when my job is done, when you’re like “What I’m really happy, all I’m doing is tweaking my level of stress down and my level of happiness up.” You don’t need a coach when you’re at that point of your life. 

 

Caroline: No, but then also, I think I was very open with you. “That feels good, everything feels fine.” But I also totally can see that maybe I’ll need you again. I need someone to push me back on track, and that’s the beauty of the whole thing, isn’t it? That you get to a point where you’re fine, but then again, things change all the time and they evolve, but now it’s more like I have trust in myself to do the journey.

 

First, everything was grey and boring but now it’s not. It’s exciting and I know it’s still going to be hard but I feel like it’s going to be okay. I just have this positive feeling which is amazing. 

 

Sundae: It’s so amazing. So tell us now, give us one or two examples of how you’re living a non-ordinary life.

 

Caroline: Well, first of all, my unordinary life, in my whole period from university up until very recently I just met with people who were basically, very similar. They were all chasing big careers. They were all working for big companies. They were all moving around the world and staying in offices all day, traveling, and that was success. That was how I thought success looked like. I never met different people or if I met them they weren’t around. I didn’t have anyone to look at that could show me this is you can live a different life. 

 

So that was what I thought would be good and there was something I was looking for but then again I never threw myself into the full corporate life because I always just took a step back and looked at “What the hell, I and my husband are doing this corporate life. Who’s going to be with our children?” and I could never accept that, like the kids are always top priority. 

 

So there was this mismatch, what I thought success and happiness was with what I felt in my heart and that I needed to do as a priority, which was to always look out for the kids because my husband… 

 

Sundae: I’m just going to step back for a second, I’m sorry to interrupt. You said there was a mismatch between what was in your head and what was in your heart. I think that’s really important to recognize and honor. To anybody who’s listening and feels a mismatch between what’s in their head — and often what’s in our head is what society says or what we believe is true — versus what’s in our heart of what we really want. 

 

Caroline: I have struggled to do what my heart wanted which was to be there for my kids. If my husband would have been at home, we could have shared more but that just wasn’t an option. So, it fell on me and that’s not criticism of him. It was our life. It was what we decided to do consciously or unconsciously. But I always felt I needed to be with these kids because like seriously, I wasn’t going to have some au pair look after them for most of their time. So the point was that was what I thought life should be like, and that was success and there was going to be happiness. 

 

Now when I’m going through this whole process, and maybe because I reached a certain age, I just realized “Stuff it!” And then Corona, I mean that was kind of the last nail in the coffin. That’s nothing to strive for, to be away and sit in an office. It doesn’t work for us people anymore,  so now the non-ordinary is that I’m doing challenging staff business-wise. I’m combining that with my passion for the environment and for the ocean.

 

I’m into investing in the current cryptocurrency field because I think it’s new, it’s novel and I’m just really keen on things that are new and novel and that is disrupting the status quo. Something that is just shattering the way it used to be and I think both of these industries, the blue economy, and the cryptocurrency, it’s creating something new in the world and that’s amazing to be part of.

 

The pharmaceutical side of things, I think that’s going to be a really good income for my family which means that I can allow myself to be, and my husband, that’s the plan. I’m going to *bleep* make him stop working and get off that corporate wheel.

 

Sundae: That’s one of the things I always joke with my husband, I’m like, “My goal in my business is to retire you.” 

 

Caroline: Yeah and it’s a realistic goal. It’s here and now, I want to make it happen. It’s not going to happen in 10 years. It’s gonna happen soon. We need to seize the day, which Is amazing.

 

Sundae: You’re the perfect example of what I was just saying. You’re someone who is investing in the blue economy, you’re putting your energy and heart there. And if you hadn’t given yourself permission to step up to line your head and heart, you wouldn’t be working on the front lines of the blue economy. So you are actually making a contribution in your way for the environment and to reverse climate change because you did your own work. It all started with a dissatisfaction on how you introduce yourself at parties. 

 

Caroline: Yeah. I think you’re right there. It’s as easy as that. 

 

Sundae: That is why I love to do what I do because it’s that one moment where you’re like “no”, and you had no idea it was going to lead you here.

 

Caroline: No, absolutely not. 

 

Sundae: I said you have to trust the process and what you said earlier was “I trusted myself.” 

Caroline: Yeah, and I gave myself permission to go and change, and get some help to change. 

 

Sundae: That’s why you just blew me away with your suggestion to share your story because it’s your story, it’s your journey. You don’t have to share that with anybody but I hear from you if you can make that change imagine if 20 people listen to this and they all made a change. That would make a collective impact on them and the communities.

Caroline: That would be wonderful. That would be absolutely wonderful because if there are a lot of women or men like you and me, who have lived this expat life or expat spouse life, we all know how many amazing people are living this life, but they’re a bit lost. They’re a bit lost on a personal level and they solve it in various ways.

 

We all know the whole brigade that runs half of the school and they do amazing things at the school and it gives them a huge amount of satisfaction and it’s fantastic. And it’s fantastic for the rest of us who are not involved in it so much. They do it for our kids as well, and for some people that works right? Like for me, that was never going to be an option. I help, I want to be involved but that’s not what’s going to give me a kick and give me this energy.

 

Sundae: I just want to say too, it’s around the kick and the energy and for some people. It might be leaving a position and deciding giving yourself permission to stay home as a full-time mother or full-time father or whatever there’s no judgment in what shift you make. It’s about honoring that where you feel lost or where you feel stuck, is valid and worth listening to and that you can get into a different place. It actually doesn’t have to take a very long time and it doesn’t have to be that hard. You can actually have some fun along the way, can’t you?

 

Caroline: Absolutely. I don’t think it took us many sessions before it started to kind of lift. I totally feel excited and there was a feeling that I had missed for a long time. So yeah, so good, It’s great. 

 

Sundae: Oh, thank you so much for sharing your story. It means the world to me and I’m just hoping that there are people out there right now who are like “That sounds a lot like me!” Maybe in a different context, maybe a different direction, but that same process of something’s not working. 

 

When you’re feeling lost or feeling stuck, you are such an inspiration of how that doesn’t have to stay that way and I’m sure your family thanks you for it. Yeah, any last words of wisdom that you would give to people who are kind of feeling energetically in the same place you were when we started working together. 

 

Caroline: I think one of the things that you taught me very early on which would never have occurred to me, it wasn’t part of my past and how I behaved or what I did and that stopped me from changing. I never put myself first. I always went “Okay, I’m going to do some chores instead of going training.” And then I did chores and then maybe I still had time to train. Am I going to have a cup of coffee and sit and think for five minutes or am I going to rush off and do whatever?

 

Now I’m the opposite and it doesn’t mean that I don’t do all of those things, but it’s just like they have to wait. My training is first if I need a cup of coffee and sit and stare at the window for five minutes, I’m going to do that. 

 

Sundae: Yeah, you fill your tank, so you have the power to do.

 

Caroline: Then suddenly new thoughts come into your head and that’s amazing. 

 

Sundae: And it’s that simple, it’s as simple as starting the day with 5 minutes of coffee, it can catapult your entire day in a different direction. Caroline, thank you so much for your awesome offer to come and share your story with people. It’s really meant a lot to me. I love your journey and loved how you’ve shown up courageously for yourself and for your family and for these really important priorities that you’ve defined for you.

 

You’re an inspiration and I’m really grateful that you’ve taken this platform and you can share and inspire others. So, it means the world to me. 

 

Caroline: Thank you. My life is different now thanks to you, so it’s been amazing. It’s been great, thank you so much. Thank you. 

 

Sundae: All right, you guys, you heard it from her. It’s been so wonderful to share that with you. I see amazing stories like this all the time and sometimes I wanna scream from the rooftops but obviously that’s not my job to do, and she was so generous to offer to come on today and use her journey as a jumping point for you if you’re thinking you’re in the same place and it all started with her saying “The way I feel right now is not okay and I want to do something else.” And then she reached out for help. No matter whether it’s help from me or someone in your network or someone outside of your community, but to sort of say “I’ve come as far as I can on my own now, now I’m going to take action and do it differently.” 

 

So you have been listening to Expat Happy Hour with Sundae Schneider Bean. 

So, I promised you something to help bring some fresh energy and focus into your life so you can do the work to create momentum on what matters most to you. Like Caroline did. You are going to want to pay attention if you’ve slipped into a rut, and you find yourself replacing hard-fought positive patterns with some not-so-healthy behaviors.

 

Are you kinda worried that you are giving up on the personal and professional goals you actually committed to achieving in 2020? 2020 is not a write off yet, even though it feels like it is. But there is plenty 2020 left, and this is really where the rubber meets the road. You’ve spent your attention everywhere but on yourself, and there’s no way your goals should take a back seat forever. 

 

That’s why I’ve created Focus Camp, because this is an opportunity, use this weird limbo time and restrategize your 2020 goals, refuel your energy and get fresh focus and make real progress on the things that mean the most to you. I absolutely know the world is upside down, but you still need to move ahead. Okay, so I’m filling up spots right now to Focus Camp, and I would love you to grab one of them. 

 

Don’t take my word for it, I’m going to share with you some things that my Focus Camp attendees said after they completed the Focus Camp. They said things like “It gave me a clear strategy for the rest of the year.” One said “I’m much more productive and focused in short slots of time” because you’ve got multiple priorities that you’re balancing. Someone else said “I feel like I’m working on a team, I don’t feel lonely in my solopreneur routine.” I mean how amazing is that! Another said, “It’s a perfect mix of challenges to keep you going and on your toes, first-class support, fun calls, straight forward feedback on your work, and the feeling of working on a team!”

 

Right, this is what you get when you work in Focus Camp. So join the Focus Squad. I want you to be saying these things, even as early as next week. So check out Focus Camp in the show notes, I would love for you to join us. 

 

Thank you for listening. I’ll leave you with a quote from The Minimalists. “An extraordinary life doesn’t just happen. It is constructed, crafted, and curated.”

 

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