Tandem Nomads - From Expat Partners To Global Entrepreneurs! Build A Successful Business And Thrive In Your Global Nomadic

In this episode, Ruth Van Reken shares her life story, how to leave a legacy and be a great leader.  Ruth is an American citizen and was raised in Nigeria. She is the co-author of the famous book among global families called Third Culture Kids: Growing up among Worlds.  A book designed to help TCKs, expat children and their parents with personal development and the identity issues that can arise from not belonging to one culture or one place.  She is also the author of Letters Never Sent: A global nomad’s journey from hurt to healing. She is also the co-founder of the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) organization, a welcoming forum for globally mobile individuals, families, and those working with them.  It is a venture that started on a kitchen table and grew over the years with hundreds of members that connect across the world through its online platform and meet every year at the annual FIGT conference. Highlights from Ruth’s Episode on how to leave a legacy Why and how she started buildin

Lisa Ferland is American living in Sweden where she moved with her husband and started her family.  She is a public health consultant but along her journey in Sweden she developed her expertise in writing and publishing books.  She is the co-author and publisher of her first book Knocked Up Abroad, an anthology about the experiences of global moms and dads with birth and parenting across the world.  The success of her first book has led her to launch her second one, Knocked Up Aboard Again.  This time she had the creative idea to finance the publishing of the book through a crowdfunding campaign, using the platform, Kickstarter.  Lisa also regularly shares her stories and journey as a global mom on her blog www.Knockedupabroad.eu. Since this episode was recorded, Lisa has launched her consulting business designed to help authors self-publish their books and crowdfund them. Check out her website here: www.lisaferland.com       Glimpse into Lisa's insights in this episode: What are

Sundae Schneider-Bean is on a mission to help you make the most of your life abroad. She has so much experience and advice to share that we invited her back on the podcast for another episode. In this episode, she shares her three steps to career and life reinvention.Sundae is an intercultural specialist and a solution-oriented coach. She’s a mother to third-culture kids and has lived overseas since 1998. She comes from the US and has lived in Switzerland, Burkina Faso and today lives in South Africa. She has helped individuals from over 40 countries go through transitions and change. Sundae also works with multinational companies and NGOs to support their employees. And of course, she has had to reinvent herself and has been through the journey a lot of expat partners are facing.Glimpse on Sundae’s tips in this episode:Some of the major challenges with reinvention that expat partners have“Expat partners feel something inside that says I want something more, but th

Carol Rattray is originally from Japan but was raised in New York.  She studied and launched her career as an investment banker in the US before she and her husband started traveling in Asia for his job.  They lived in Tokyo where she continued to work in the finance industry.  Then, when they moved to Hong Kong, Carol decided to take a short break to spend more time with her two young children.  However, what she calls a sabbatical, as you will discover in this interview, turned out to be an exciting journey that led her to become a fascinating and successful serial entrepreneur. Carol is a private investor, investing in starts-ups in the US and China.  She is also a philanthropist, among many projects, she co-founded the Rattray Kimura Foundation with her husband mainly focused on education and conservation.  Lastly, Carol also founded her own start-up company called Zoomdojo.  Zoomdojo is a career resource designed to support students and recent graduates around the world with their entry into the employme

This is the second part of Melissa Dalton-Bradford’s interview on Tandem Nomads. In the first episode, she tells us about her journey as a global mom and how she build a strong identity and portable career while moving 20 times from one continent to another. In this second part, Melissa gives us the precious gift of sharing one of the most intimate and sacred events of her and her family’s life: the sad loss of her son Parker in a water accident.  In this episode, she shares with us some insights to help each other deal with loss and mourning, especially when living so far away from “home.” In fact, over the years she turned this tragedy and transformative event of her life into an admirable source of strength to help other people around the world who have to deal with the heavy experience of loss.  She wrote the book “On Loss and Living Onward”, where she compiled the best resources and stories that helped her through the process of grief. With such humility, she also came to the belief that there are people

In this episode, Melissa shares her inspiring story of how she turned her doubts into confidence to grow a career in global transition and reinvent herself while moving across the world twenty times with her husband and kids! Melissa Dalton-Bradford was raised in Utah before becoming a true global citizen and a mother of 4 children.  She is a writer, holds a Bachelor in German and a Master in Literature.  Melissa has taught writing, humanities and language to university students.  She speaks, reads and writes fluent German, French, Norwegian and can also convert in Mandarin.  Melissa has performed professionally as a soprano soloist and actress in the US, Scandinavia, Central Europe and South East Asia.  She and her husband have raised their family in Vienna, Hong Kong, New York, Oslo, Paris, Munich, Singapore, Geneva and Frankfurt. “To be successful, you need to believe in yourself” Melissa is the author of the book “Global Mom, A Memoire” where she tells her journey living and raising 4 kids acr

Tracey Ellis is the co-founder and CEO of International Diagnostic Solutions (IDS), she is also an occupational therapist and disability analyst. Tracey has provided evaluation and treatment to children for over 20 years, and serves in several boards such as the Washington DC Health Professional Licensing Board. Her company International Diagnostic Solutions provides to global families educational and therapeutic solutions worldwide through online consultation, service, and program development.  In this episode she shares her tips and advice for supporting special needs children when moving from one country to another. The sooner you identify the child’s special needs the better – Tracey Ellis What you will hear in this episode: How to define “children with special needs” How to detect if a child has special needs Identify the challenges when moving abroad and how to deal with them How to find the right experts for a child’s special needs How to prepare before moving abroad when having a child wi

Maryam Afnan Ahmad shares her insights and lessons learned on balancing family and career. She is originally from Pakistan and holds an MBA from Pakistan's Lahore University of Management Sciences.  She was living in Pakistan, she teaching at NUST Business School in Islamabad when she and her husband started their nomadic journey to China. Maryam conducted corporate and personal development programs in Pakistan and China and served in a variety of volunteer roles in the expat community. Today she teaches full time at the Edlin School in Reston, Virginia, USA.  She has served on the board of the FIGT organization (Families in Global Transition) for nearly 3 years.  On top of that, Maryam is also a writer. She co-wrote the book Slurping Soup and Other Confusions, a story and activity book for children between 3 and 12 years old. "Motherhood is a great opportunity to know yourself and grow." Some of Maryam’s insights

Tandem Nomads is going through major events. Amel Derragui, the host, tells you about some important changes with the show, some milestones and learned lessons on the past year that you will need to know yourself if you want to start a portable business.  She shares her feeling behind organizing the first live Tandem Nomads event, reflects on the past year of Tandem Nomads, her motivations and lessons she’s learned. Don’t wait for the perfect moment.  Start and perfect later. Some highlights from this episode: Details on the upcoming panel discussion in New York: Expat Spouses, Careers and Entrepreneurship Lessons from one year of Tandem Nomads Advice on how to overcome the need for perfection Celebrating milestones no matter how big or small Podcast episodes will now be launched every other Tuesday And there’s a big project coming for 2017 The focus of Tandem Nomads is still about creating our portable career and business but will continue to share helpful resources, provide inspiration

Freelancing is one of the best ways for expat partners to earn income, find flexibility and build a portable career.  I interview in this episode an expert in the field, Emily McGee to bring you some great tips and advice on how to start and grow a freelance business.  She shares her story on building sustainable business while moving from one country to another as an expat spouse. “I found freelancing such a great way to keep taking care of my family, find flexibility and build my own identity beyond my husband.” Emily started her career as a teacher. She met her husband when they were both Peace Corps volunteers in the South Pacific. She quit her first teaching job to follow her husband to various states of the US and then to Nairobi, Kenya. By the time Emily arrived in Nairobi, she realized one big fact we all can relate to:  she couldn’t keep looking for a new job and then quit every time they moved to a new place.  She needed a job that was portable and flexible.  So, she started doing freelance writing

What do you need to start and grow a portable business as an expat partner? This week is entrepreneurship week! At this occasion you will find in this episode great inspiration, insights and tips to start and grow your own portable business as an expat partner. For those of you who know me well, you know that entrepreneurship is for me not just a sense of business and a way to make money, but a real passion and mindset that I believe every expat partner could benefit from. In fact, even if there are some jobs that can be portable for expat partners, these jobs are usually very limited. I really believe that one of the main solutions for expat partners is to start their own small portable business. That is why I try to bring you as many examples, inspiration and practical tips to help you take that leap and build your own successful portable business. You will be able to hear some extracts from four expat partners who  are also great entrepreneurs! Their extracts summar

Pursuing a career while moving from a country to another is indeed one of the most difficult challenges for expat partners. And it is also one of the main topics of Tandem Nomads, so I have to say that it was very difficult to pick just 4 extracts from all previous episodes that can be valuable to you, because all the guests on Tandem Nomads shared some amazing inspiration regarding this topic, so if you haven’t already, I really hope you will take the chance to listen to the past and future episodes on a regular basis if you are looking for solutions to build your portable career. For this episode, what I tried to do, is to select some of the factual points and advice that I think every expat partner should consider when they feel lost with their career and when they are working on building a portable career. We will start with Marilyn Gardner is a clinical nurse liaison, consultant and author of the blog and the book Comm

While enjoying the amazing experience of living across the globe, a lot of serial expats, and particularly expat spouses, end up after few years completely detached from the safety net that is very difficult to build when not being geographically attached to one place. For example, having a proper retirement, health care and tax plan, building a secure estate or building savings, dealing with children’s education challenges abroad and the costs that go with it, but also fostering the relationship in the tandem and remaining on the same page despite all these transitions. These are all the areas of life that can have some harmful outcomes when living abroad if not planned and thought through ahead of time. This episode is not about painting a disastrous picture of expat life, in the contrary it is about fully enjoying it as long as possible. As the expression says, "better be careful than sorry"!We also have to address the elephant in the room here, trailing spouses are very often in a situation of f

Building a strong identity and self-confidence is probably the central piece of what is often at the origin of expat partners challenges when moving from a country to another. In the episode 51, we talked a lot about the general challenges of defining home and our identity when living on the move and adapting to so many different cultures. In the particular case of expat spouses, identity has a lot to do with finding on top of that the balance between being a parent, and particularly a mom, dedicating time for the family while trying to pursue our own dreams, aspirations, careers and building a strong self-confidence. In this episode, I have chosen some extracts that explain really well where this challenge comes from, but also some great insights and important advice to turn this challenge into great opportunities. We start with Evelyn Simpson, an ex banker, expat partner and co-founder of the coaching company, Thriving Ab

Hello Nomad Nation, I hope that you enjoyed your summer break! As I took the time to rest, enjoy family time but also reflect on my own path as an expat partner and reflect on all previous Tandem Nomads episodes, I realized something very important that I share with you in this episode (press play to know all about it!). In fact, as you know, one of my main focus through Tandem Nomads is to provide all the inspiration and tips for expat partners who feel the need to build their own source of fulfillment and portable career while moving from a country to another. So after reflecting a lot on this topic, I realized something that can seem quite obvious but so crucial for expat partners career abroad, and yet very often this is the exact thing that causes an important loss of confidence and strong identity for a lot of expat partners. In this episode, I share with you what for me is the secret and first step to finding a purpose and building a successful  port

When we go through so many transitions and change, I really think that it is very important to learn how to deal with our emotions and believes to make the best of each experience, even the most challenging ones. I have selected for you some of the best insights that have been shared by previous guests on Tandem Nomads. You will discover how mindfulness can be practiced and be helpful in many different difficult situations. Let’s start with one of the main challenge we discuss in Tandem Nomads, building our source of fulfillment as expat partners through a portable career. In this extract from episode 21, Jodi Harris shares how she practiced mindfulness to handle her identity and career challenges when she moved abroad with her husband. Jodi is the founder of World Tree Coaching, she helps expats find the balance they need to enjoy their life abroad. Jodi shares so many more valuable insights of how she managed to build her

Last week, was Gentlemen’s Week where I interviewed male expat partners. Additionally to sharing their experience adjusting their careers to their spouse’s, many of them also shared some great inspiration on how to be happy in a relationship. This week we continue along this topic with the Nomad Couples Week, we discuss tips and insights on how to keep a healthy relationship while moving from a country to another. This first extract is from the episode 11 with Jodi Ballard. Jody is an expat partner who managed to build an inspiring portable business, as a therapist, author, speaker and founder of the Women Heritage Walk. In the full version of this episode, Jodi tells us more about her career journey while traveling the world, she shares some really inspiring insights and tells us about how she created the Women Heritage Walk, a fascinating annual project where women cross the desert in the United Arab Emirates from Al Ain

It is Gentlemen’s week!! Best of series with short extracts from previous interviews of male “Trailing spouses”, or as I prefer to say male expat partners. They will share with us in just few minutes how they perceive their role as expat partners and how they manage to maintain their careers while following their spouses abroad. We will see that most challenges are definitely very similar to female expat spouses; however, you will notice in these short extracts some differences compared to the ladies I interviewed. We might indeed have few things to learn from our male friends The first extract we are going to hear is from Jeremy Piccoli, episode 42, an international tax expert who works for the global mobility consulting company, AIRINC. He managed to keep his job while joining his spouse for her assignment in Switzerland, he tells us how. Jeremy wrote an interesting blog post about the resistance of certain expat spouses

This week’s best of series is dedicated to parents abroad and TCKs. You will find extracts with great tips about giving birth, raising and educating kids abroad, but also about building an identity and sense of home when being a TCK. Karen Wilmot, interviewed in episode 40, is a midwife that created the fantastic concept of The Virtual Midwife. She brings online support for mothers who live far from their support system. She can additionnally offer VIP packages where she flies in once moms are close to giving birth and support them after birth. She also takes part in the first baby center launched in Oman, nine.om. In this extract, she shares some powerful insights about the challenges and solutions for women who become moms and give birth far from their home, without any immediate available support system. There are also many more insights and some very practical tips about giving birth abroad that Karen shares in the full

In this Best of Series, I will share with you extracts from the first season's episodes. Each series is dedicated to a specific topic. In this series we focus on topics related to being a Global Nomad, like adapting to new cultures, building a sense of home when moving regularly from a country to another or dealing with some of the challenges that go with it. We start with Alison Trainer, a talented Soprano singer and the founder of the private Facebook Group Grumpy Expat. She helps us understand some of the frustrations that expats can experience abroad and how she decided to address this issue. To listen to the full episode where Alison tells us more about her experience and how she created Grumpy Expat go to www.tandemnomads.com/22