Writers: Missed Some Great Writers' Links on Twitter?

Hi Everyone, If you are an aspiring, or a professional, writer, here are some of my recent writer-related tweets that might interest you, as you write your expat stories and/or you write for business or pleasure:

Highly Recommended: 52 Great Blogs For Self-Publishers http://bit.ly/i4keQx

5 Strategies for Success as a Freelance Writer http://bit.ly/g6QpM5

Inspiring: Interview with self published, single dad, whose income went from poverty level to US$25k this quarter http://bit.ly/hOENKz

Just Discovered: 50 Things Under $50 To Help Promote Your Book (2009, but still great tips) http://huff.to/gaua80

Tips to help you overcome writer's block, by one of world's leading thinkers http://bit.ly/czJxKr

23 Websites (http://bit.ly/aM56LE) and 23 More Websites (http://bit.ly/d8ClJj) To Help Make Your Writing Stronger

Some good answers to the "How do you prevent a PDF/e-book from being shared?" question: http://su.pr/1otRLj

3 Ways To Capture/Visualize Your Literary Goals http://bit.ly/g58Sff

Thinking of Getting Bloggers to Help Promote Your Book? Advice: http://bit.ly/g80qxh

Writers: How to Find Paying Magazines with Keyword Research http://bit.ly/etmQH4

Writers: Tips For Checking Your Book Proofs From The Printer http://bit.ly/gpvn9e

How to Sell More Books on Amazon http://bit.ly/hcMNsL

Next Big Market For eBooks? South Korea http://goo.gl/uhBn8

Writers: Seen Duotrope's Digest? Free resource site listing publications that might take your articles... http://www.duotrope.com/

Recommended: 7 Secrets for Amazing Author Websites http://bit.ly/dXZ42f

Writers: 12 Ways To Create A Mailing List That Will Sell Books http://huff.to/gjACcX

Writers: Book Designer, Book Shepherd, Book Doctor or Book Producer: Which One Do You Need? http://bit.ly/ewpOx4

Writers: Tips for Setting Financial Goals for Your Book http://bit.ly/fD3vDN

Authors: Thinking of Using a Pseudonym? http://bit.ly/eYMrIh

6 things wannabe expat writers must know featuring Jo Parfitt http://nblo.gs/bGuhp

Is This The Biggest Book Promotion You Have Ever Seen? http://bit.ly/fSyxTg

Want To Get Published? Watch interview with John Wiley and Sons rep at Blog World 2010 http://bit.ly/fNiYSJ

Do You Make These Press Release Mistakes? http://bit.ly/hIhSCq

Writers: Success Story: Karen van der Zee: 35 Romance Novels Published! http://bit.ly/g3NTQm

How do you get Google to notice your eBook? http://oreil.ly/e4HoYJ

Influencers 2010: On Writing, Publishing, Blogging, Marketing and Entrepreneurship http://bit.ly/gI4R85

If you would like to follow me in 'real time' on Twitter, my Twitter ID is @andreaexpat, or you can just click here. Twitter is surprisingly easy, once you take a look.

Best wishes, enjoy your day/evening! Andrea :-)

ps. My apologies if this text/font comes through too large. I'm still adjusting to a Mac and my Mac doesn't talk well to Blogger, apparently. Thanks for your understanding. Andrea.

Update (1 week later): Sorry Everyone. The title was originally "expat" links. It should have been "writers' links". It has been amended now. My sincere apologies for any confusion. 

Videos From The Expat Forum 2010: Hosted By Clements International

Hi Everyone, If you missed the Expat Forum 2010 in Washington last October, you might like to take a look at a few of the short video excerpts of the event here.

The panel comprised of four wonderful people. This will tell you a little more about each:

Alan Paul is the author of Big in China, to be released by Harper Collins in March 2011. (Click on the link just mentioned to see his awesome promo video that I loved - congrats Alan!)  It is a memoir of living in China as a male accompanying spouse, raising three American children in Beijing and the unlikely success of his Chinese blues band, Woodie Alan.  The book explores many issues of central concern and interest to expat families, including: raising Third Culture Kids; the challenges and joys of being an accompanying spouse; and the difficulties of being part of a very transitory community.

Paul wrote "The Expat Life" column for WSJ.com from 2005, when he moved to China, until June 2009, shortly after he moved back to the United States.  Paul's columns normalized the expat experience and earned a wide following.  The National Society of Newspaper Columnists named him 2008 Columnist of the Year.  He also reported from Beijing for NBC, Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets.  Paul has been a senior writer for Slam magazine since 1999 and for Guitar World magazine since 1991.  His writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, People, ESPN.com, Rolling Stone.com, SI.com and many other publications and websites.  He has contributed to The Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Guide, The Insider's Guide to Beijing, and several other books. Alan, his wife Rebecca, and their three children reside in Maplewood, NJ.

Alyson Rose-Wood is former international white water raft guide, Alyson Rose-Wood is a 2009-2011 Presidential Management Fellow with the National Institutes of Health.  She is currently on detail to the Office of Global Health Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services where she is assisting with the Haiti health relief effort.  Alyson has a Master of Science in Global Health and Population with a concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is interested in all things related to mosquitoes.

The child of U.S. diplomats, Alyson grew up in Botswana, Ethiopia, Mali, and Honduras.  She served in the Peace Corps in Morocco and has returned to Mali and Ethiopia to work professionally.  Her interest in the Foreign Service Youth Foundation stems from her own background as a Third Culture Kid but also her time spent as the Globe Trotter's Program Director (2006-2007).  She now serves on the Board of Directors of the Foreign Service Youth Foundation.  Alyson credits her peripatetic upbringing with providing her with a sense of adventure (and restlessness) but also instilling in her, from a young age, a desire to serve and put her cross-cultural "know-how" to good use.

Maureen Johnston is a Resource Specialist at the U.S. Dept. of State's Overseas Briefing Center at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) where she assists both new and seasoned Foreign Service employees and family members with a variety of transition issues.  She also does training for the life-skills section of FSI's Transition Center.  She holds a BS in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland and a Masters in Education from George Mason University.  She has taught both in the US and abroad. During her years overseas, as the wife of a Foreign Service Specialist in Europe and Africa, she also worked in various positions within the embassy including protocol secretary for an ambassador and Community Liaison Office Coordinator.  Both her adult children were born and attended school abroad.

Andrea Martins - If you are a regular reader of this blog (thanks, as always, for your support!) you already know me. But if you are new and would like to read my bio, feel free to click on the Clements International site - Expat Forum 2010 - Speakers Page. Thanks.

Have a wonderful weekend, Everyone! Andrea

Note to anyone who watches the videos: The only reason my hair was limp that day was because Jennifer Aniston's hairdresser was not available. I'll book more in advance next time. ;-)

Robin Pascoe's Expat Blogella:The Rest of My Life

Hi Everyone, If you have ever read books written specifically for expats, there is a good chance that you have read one of Robin Pascoe's books.  Robin is well-known for her witty expat books and I know many of you enjoy reading what Robin gets up to. Many of you have also met Robin when she was on the international speaking circuit, championing 'the expat family' for so many years.

Trying to retire from the speaking circuit, last year Robin launched a Successful Living Abroad series of 20 online video lectures, that you can enjoy for free here. And now, Robin has taken a leap of faith and launched her own Expat Blogella: The Rest of My Life.

Robin's new blogella is expat fiction (although when you read the characters, you realize that Robin has based her fiction on people you have probably met in your expat travels, so whilst it is fiction in terms of Robin's family life, it is quite close to the truth for many expats who have either survived or witnessed the heartbreak of infidelity and/or divorce abroad - and for that reason, it certainly makes a good read).

So far, Robin has posted six installments on The Rest of My Life - the blog of her new fictional character, Joelly Schuster. If you are interested, you can read them all here, or if you'd just like a sample, you can read the first installment below. (Thanks Robin for granting us permission to re-post it.)

Happy Friday/weekend reading! Andrea


Installment One

"I have to begin somewhere, so why not today when I have been 53-years-old for just over twenty-four hours? Yesterday wasn’t the greatest birthday I have ever celebrated but it wasn’t the worst either. My lovely daughter took me out to a fancy restaurant because she didn’t want me to be alone.

She’s worried about her old mother in this new life which no longer includes her father since he recently ditched me, in Beijing of all places. Naturally, it was for a woman half his age and younger than our daughter.

There is a reason clichés were invented. Bumper stickers too, like “Shit Happens”. They can be incredibly useful for summing up one’s life.

Maybe I could write bumper stickers instead of a taking a job as a barista at the Starbucks in the market. God knows I have served enough coffee in my life. I keep threatening to become a professional milk whipper because I’m now completely broke and it would seem, unemployable because of my age and a blank CV.

My daughter isn’t the only one fretting about what I am going to do now with the rest of my life (yes, it is the perfect title for this blog if I do say so myself). My son Brian isn’t exactly thrilled about his mother’s new and extremely reduced circumstances.

Barely out of college, the poor guy has his whole working life ahead of him (once he figures out what he wants to work at) but already he’s been offering his mother the money he has been saving up for a car. What a good son I raised. But I’ll crawl to the supermarket before I will let him give me his hard-earned money. 

Brian is so angry with his father right now, but what else is new? He’s been mad at him his entire life because he was simply never there. He was always on a business trip or working late for whatever oil company was controlling our lives at the time, always too tired if he was home on a weekend to coach any of Brian’s school teams.

I suppose I’ll have to get to that story at some point in this cyber diary with its clever title chosen precisely because I haven’t got a ******* clue what to do with the rest of my sorry little life.

Am I even allowed swearing on a blog? Too damn bad if I’m not supposed to since I’ve already been at it. My son isn’t the only one with anger issues obviously or so says the shrink I lined up before I even arrived in Ottawa.

Wait, am I supposed to even say where I’m living? Is there an instruction manual anywhere other than Blogging for Dummies which I saw in the bookstore? And does there happen to be a version for menopausal idiots who can barely remember to finish a sentence?

Please leave a comment and a link, dear reader. All one of you and that does not include you, Deborah (that’s my daughter). You don’t count. It’s your fault for even talking me into this in the first place."

Missed Some Great Expat Links on Twitter?

Hi Everyone, Here are some expat-related articles and links that I have tweeted about recently, that might interest you:

Expat Survey says it's the leisure time, not the money, that's better abroad
http://bit.ly/c0ZWTh

Top 10 Places for Women Expats
http://bit.ly/bVyQ5S

Loved new video promo for book by expat trailing man Alan Paul who reinvented himself in China
http://youtu.be/tAth-nW9L5U

Top International Women to Follow on Twitter
http://ht.ly/3hb9K

Why Should Expat Families Abroad Care About the Boarding School or College/University Visit?http://bit.ly/d1b00t

Ex-Career Expat Wives - Your thoughts?
http://wp.me/ptOFQ-mG

Expat study suggests that providing too much support may actually hinder workplace performance
http://bit.ly/crMypE

Got $500k to $1million to invest in the U.S. economy to fast track your U.S. citizenship?
http://ow.ly/2ZCjJ

Well-known author of expat books, Robin Pascoe, releases new repatriate "blogella"
http://t.co/55kLAqV

Article Writing: Interview with Expat Writing Coach Jo Parfitt
http://bit.ly/gtss5h

Want To Know Who's Speaking At The 2011 FIGT Conference?
http://www.figt.org/2011_Conference_Schedule

Moving to London, Geneva, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai?
Check out http://www.lookseecity.com/ - they just won industry award

Expat Wives: Blog Post for You
http://bit.ly/fJ1xEl

British expat woman in Turkey raising funds to help train families still recovering from earthquake of 1999
http://bit.ly/hrMW4K

Expats: Online Magazine for Parents Raising Little Global Citizens
http://incultureparent.com/

Expat Issues: Cauldrons of Cultural Complexity, Deal-Breaking Weather, Fashion Faux-Pas
http://bit.ly/a7NcCN

Expat Women moving to the U.S.? Check out Girlfriend Circles to meet new friends in your area
http://bit.ly/hlwUbC

Funny: Expats Helping to Re-Write Chinglish Signs In Shanghai
http://bit.ly/fzG7BF

Expats: Looking For The 'Good Life' in France?
http://bit.ly/fesy7F
and WAIF (Women Alone in France)
http://bit.ly/gEl4qe

Expat Secrets: Great Week of Posts about Damaging Expat Behaviors from Expat Coach Marie Brice
http://ow.ly/3n8IF

Do expats really have a better life abroad?
http://bit.ly/hRneCK

Does abuse occur in expat communities?
http://bit.ly/gxdWtQ

Congrats to Winners: Expatriate Management and Mobility Awards
http://bit.ly/gU3362

**

To follow me in 'real time' and keep up with even more great expat links on Twitter, please click here.

To sign up and receive our monthly, motivational Expat Women newsletters, please click here.

Thanks for your support and have a great week!

Andrea
Twitter handle: @andreaexpat

January Edition of Mobility Magazine Online

Hi Everyone, If you are in the expat, global mobility and/or relocation industries, you may be interested in the January 2011 edition of the Worldwide ERC® Mobility Magazine, which features the following:

2011 Worldwide ERC® President Susan Schneider, SCRP, GMS
By Frank Mauck

Relocation Training 2011 and Beyond
By Nancy Harmann, ABRM, ABR, CRP, CRS, GMS, GRI, PMN, SRES, WRS, and Ryan Carrell, CRP

Andrea's note: Are there any training qualifications that Nancy does not have? ;-)

The Power of Virtual Teams
By Charlene Solomon

Destination Profile: The United Kingdom
By Anne Dean, GMS, and Julian Grose-Hodge, GMS

2010 Worldwide ERC® Global Thought Leaders

Relocation Integration: Primary Component to Any People Strategy
By Jill Heineck, CRP

Hey, Where is My Replacement?
By Daniel T. Bloom, SPHR, SSBB, SCRP

The Price of Inaccuracy: Eight Ways for Improving International Payroll Compliance
By Tim McCarney, GMS

Lessons Learned
By Jennifer Rosene

Happy reading!  Andrea

Happy 4th Birthday Expat Women & Blog Shout-Out Competition!

Hi Everyone, Today is ExpatWomen's 4th Birthday online. It is a day that we celebrate all of the wonderful supporters like you in our audience - who send us positive emails, contribute ideas and who help us gain new members by telling your friends to join ExpatWomen.com as well. (More members = more sponsors = more bills paid = we stay online longer!)

So, a huge thank you to you, wherever you are around the world.  We genuinely appreciate your support and we are eternally grateful that you read our newsletters and share our site with your friends.  Thanks to you, ExpatWomen.com now has over 10,000 members worldwide - of 165 nationalities, based in 187 countries!

We also need to say a big thank you to our sponsors.  Despite the odds at times, we have managed to keep our site completely free and still paid all our bills (which is a great achievement for a very niche site). For that, we would like to take a minute to thank our (2011) sponsors: Aetna (Health Insurance); Barclays Wealth International; SIRVA Relocation; Trafimar Relocation (Mexico); Clements International (Multi-purpose Insurance); and US Global Mail. If you are in need of any of the services that our sponsors offer, please consider supporting them, as they do us.  Many thanks.

***

Expat Women Blog Shout-Out Competition:

To celebrate our birthday, we are randomly giving away one US$100 Amazon.com voucher to one lucky blogger who gives us a positive, happy birthday shout-out on their blog - anytime between now and midnight 31 January 2011 (US EST).

To enter is as easy as 1-2-3:

(1) Say good things about our site and wish us a happy birthday for this month;

(2) Remember to include a link in your shout-out back to ExpatWomen.com; and

(3) Please email us your blog URL (in an email entitled something like “Blog Competition”), your name and location, by the deadline above.

Blog shout-outs help us a lot, so thank you very much in advance and good luck!

Potentially useful text for your shout-out:

ExpatWomen.com is the largest global website helping women living abroad. The site displays 1,000+ content pages, 1,600+ expat women blogs, 300+ readers' stories, invaluable country resource pages, interviews with successful expat women, loads of motivational articles and an inspirational blog and newsletter.

***

Thank you very much again for your support Everyone! 

Have a great day/evening/week/year! Andrea x

Expat Women January 2011 Home Page

Hi Everyone and Happy New Year! Now that you are probably back from any great holiday that you enjoyed over Christmas/New Year, please take a few minutes to read, share, tweet and be inspired by our Expat Women January features. Many, many thanks and we wish you a fabulous start to 2011! Andrea

***

Success Story
Elaine Young
CEO & Co-Founder, Shama
Elaine Young, mother of three, is a savvy expat entrepreneur based in Hong Kong. In 2009, Elaine was named the Entrepreneur of the Year by the prestigious RBS Coutts and Financial Times, Women in Asia Awards, and in 2010 she successfully sold her multi-million dollar property business…
Read more...

Business Idea
'Chef in Berlin'
Jill DiGiovanni
When growing up near Niagara Falls, Jill DiGiovanni dreamt of being happily swept away. Her dream came true; first when she began cooking as a chef on the seas, and now, while running her own business as a chef in Berlin...
Read more...

Travel Writing
6 Tips to Make it Better
Sybil Baker

When I first moved to South Korea to teach English in 1995... I would write long letters home to my parents detailing the mystifying and fascinating world of “exotic” Asia. My parents would share those letters with friends or other relatives, and invariably people would say...

Read more...

Global Students

The New Global Student: Skip The SAT, Save Thousands On Tuition And Get A Truly International Education
Maya Frost
In 2005, Mindfulness Trainer Maya Frost put her creative, "eyes-wide-open" strategies into action by selling everything in suburban America and moving abroad with her husband Tom and their four teenage daughters...
Read more...

Getting Help
Living Without a Net: Getting Help, Far From Home
Sean D Truman, PhD LP And Susan Bernstein
The experience of moving and living overseas is, as all expats know, a compelling and even seductive event... There are times, however, when our coping mechanisms break down, and it becomes difficult if not impossible to make the adjustments that are necessary to do well...
Read more...

Expat Confession
Finding The Right School
Expat Women Girlfriend
We are on the verge of moving to Lithuania and I was wondering if you could please give me some tips to help me choose the 'best fit' school for our 7 year old son. All of the school websites I have visited make each school look so picture-perfect, but...
Read more...

* * *

Not A Member Yet?

Just a reminder that our blog is separate from our main site, so if you are reading this blog post online or you are only subscribed to our blog, you will not automatically receive our Expat Women monthly newsletters

To receive our January newsletter and to go in the running to win our monthly prize of a complete set of Explorer Publishing's Mini-Guides, please sign up today to our main site ExpatWomen.com, and also receive your link to our free e-book of Winning Stories!

Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of January, Andrea.

Expat Women: Best of 2010 Newsletter

Hi Everyone! First of all, Happy Holidays to each of you and thank you so much for your support in 2010. We hope that wherever you are and whatever you are doing this festive season that you are safe, healthy and creating some wonderful end-of-year memories with treasured friends and family members.


Second, for those of you who missed our Expat Women Best of 2010 Newsletter earlier this month (or if you are not subscribed to our main Expat Women newsletters), please find below some of our most popular features this year, as voted by you, our readers. Enjoy!


Success Story

Debbie Travis
Television Star, Producer and Entrepreneur Extraordinaire
Once upon a time, Brit Debbie Travis modeled with celebrity supermodel Gail Elliott. Today, long-term expat Debbie Travis is a household name in Canada, famous for producing and hosting three successful lifestyle television series that now show worldwide...

Read more...

Success Story

Deanne de Vries

VP Africa Strategic Initiatives, Agility (Kuwait)

Deanne De Vries is a career woman, a traveler and an adventurer. Born and raised in San Jose, California to Dutch parents, she has lived in Belgium, the Netherlands, Kenya, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Iraq and now Kuwait...

Read more...

Business Idea

Stylemakers

Renée Coppinger

Fashion-lover Renée is a shining example of an expat entrepreneur who has reinvented herself, over and over. From electronics, to fashion, to care giving, to study, to art and then back to fashion, she has set up businesses...

Read more...

Business Idea

Surf Haven Bali

Janine Hall

Janine Hall combined her career skills with her passion for coaching, surfing, yoga and well-being to create Surf Haven Bali, a luxury boutique surf and yoga spa retreat. Her guests experience and adventure of a lifetime and leave recharged and refreshed...

Read more...

Expat Confession

Not Welcome

Expat Women Girlfriend

Help! My husband's job has taken us to a small, remote, island community in the middle of nowhere. The population is just over 1,000 people and the locals resent and bully the foreign community. They even chased an expat off the island who blogged about her time here...

Read more...

Expat Confession

A Lonely Affair

Expat Women Girlfriend

My husband's new role is very demanding and he is frequently travelling away from home. I am embarrassed to confess that my loneliness has led me to start an affair with my neighbor. I feel extremely guilty about what I am doing and know that this is not right. Ironically, I started the affair to ease my loneliness...

Read more...

Relocation Decisions

To Relocate Or Not To Relocate?

Louise Wiles

Currently over 200 million people worldwide are living abroad... But how do you decide if relocating is right for you? Expat coach Louise Wiles takes us through 8 steps to making the decision that is best for you...

Read more...

Repatriation

How To Overcome Expat Withdrawal

Heather Carreiro

After living abroad, moving back to your home country can be even more of a shock than learning to live in a new country and culture. So much of how we define ourselves while living and working overseas is wrapped up in being an expat...

Read more...

Job Search

Expat Job Search In The Digital Age

Lois Freeke

Job searching can be a frustrating process, especially if you are an expat trying to find your way abroad and unsure who to approach for that dream job offer. However as a job seeker in today’s digital age…

Read more...

Motivational

Reinventing Yourself: 5 Steps To Creating A Better You

Kim Seeling Smith

As expats we are forced to reinvent almost every aspect of our lives when we choose to pick up, pack up and pluck ourselves down in another country...

Read more...

Web Tips

10 Ways to Boost Your (Relocation) Brand Online

Andrea Martins

Relocated families love the Internet. It feeds their need for information about new destinations and keeps them “connected” with friends and family when their companies transfer them thousands of miles from home. To boost your brand in this market, you need to be online media savvy...

Read more...

Travel Tips

10 Travel Tips For The Seasoned Traveler

Susanna Zaraysky

If you consider yourself a master at the travel game, but you are still looking for some new ideas to save money and better navigate travel, read on to learn from Susanna Zaraysky who has lived in nine countries and is the author of Travel Happy, Budget Low...

Read more... If you are not a member of our main site, ExpatWomen.com, please join today to support us (and receive a link to download our free Expat Women e-book "Winning Stories"). This will also mean that future Expat Women newsletters will be delivered directly to your inbox. Thanks Everyone and all the very best for 2011! See you again in mid-January. :-)

Expat Women December Newsletter Highlights

Hi Everyone, For those of you who missed our Expat Women December 2010 members' newsletter last week, or did not get time to read the new features, please find below the highlights and we encourage you to click on a few for a great read!

(If you are a member and did not receive your newsletter, please email us here, thanks)

Success Story: Karen van der Zee, Romance Novelist;

Business Idea: Janet Dorey, emBoxed;

Expat Needs: The Pyramid of Expat Needs, by Elizabeth Abbot;

Student Campus Visits: 10 Most Important Things to Look for in the Campus Visit, by Rebecca Grappo;

Expat Confession: Local Poverty, by our Expat Women Girlfriend;

BlogWorld2010: 12 Insights from the World's Largest Social Media Convention, by Andrea Martins;

Currency Exchange: 4 Key Ways to Protect Yourself When Using A Currency Exchange Service, by Deborah Benn;

Winning Story: Black and White for Thanksgiving - The Mourning After; and

Winning Member: The name of our Explorer Publishing mini-guide pack winner.

If you are not a member of our main site, ExpatWomen.com, please join today to support us (and receive a link to download our free Expat Women e-book "Winning Stories"). This will also mean that next month your newsletter will be delivered directly to your inbox.

Thanks Everyone!  And look out for our "Best of 2010" newsletter later this week...

Andrea

December Edition of Mobility Magazine Online

Hi Everyone, If you are in the expat, global mobility and/or relocation industries, you may be interested in the December edition of the Worldwide ERC® Mobility Magazine, which features the following:

Moving Into the Future
By Eric Read, CRP, GMS

Commoditized Services: Balance Between Quality and Cost
By Boris Populoh

Balancing Talent Mobility with Talent Productivity

By Jill Heineck, CRP

European VAT Charges on Mobility Services

By Johannes Laxafoss, Peggy Smith, SCRP, SGMS, and Joseph Morabito, SCRP

Reality in the Workplace: Long-distance Commuting

By David Barlow, SCRP, SGMS

Are You Practicing Responsible Employee Mobility?

By Jennifer Harvey

Can You Afford International Assignment Success? A Business Case for Investment in Cultural Assessment and Training

By Michael F. Tucker, PH.D., CMC

Happy reading!  Andrea

Escaping Corporate Life To Find A More Relaxed Expat Life Abroad

Hi Everyone, If you have taken a break (or are aspiring to take a break) from corporate life back home to explore a more relaxed lifestyle abroad, you might be interested in our recent interview with Courage and Croissants: Inspiring Joyful Living: A Story and Life Guidebook author, Suzanne Saze-Roux, whose family did just that...

Courage and Croissants

Five years ago, Suzanne Saxe-Roux and her husband, Jean P. Roux, left behind corporate life in the United States for a small, peaceful village in Southern France. The expected year away soon turned into three, at which point the family reintegrated back into American society part-time. Suzanne and Jean’s book, Courage and Croissants: Inspiring Joyful Living, A Story and Life Guidebook, explores the events that led to their life-changing move to France and their adjustments to the local culture. Courage and Croissants also features a section of tips for anyone seeking a significant life change and wondering how they can make it happen.

Suzanne is a consultant, facilitator, coach, author and speaker who has travelled the world to train leaders, professionals and teams.  She is currently based in Tiburon, California with her husband and eleven-year-old daughter, but they still enjoy spending a great deal of time at their home in Montpellier, France.


Expat Women’s Interview with Suzanne


Expat Women: Suzanne, what made small-town France appealing enough for you to give up the security of corporate life in the United States?

Suzanne: We loved France and had gone every summer for 12 years. It felt natural to truly take the time off we so desired and regroup, regenerate, and reprioritize life.


Expat Women: What was it like reentering the busy American lifestyle, three years after you had left the U.S. for France?

Suzanne: We came back for a variety of reasons, one being work and another to get our house ready for sale.   I also wanted to visit with friends and see how I felt after being away.  During the first six months, we all felt great sadness over the transition.  We desperately missed the rhythm of how we had lived in France.  As time went on, we adjusted, but we continue to hold on to some aspects of our French life.

Our lives are much more hectic here in the U.S., but we manage the busyness in the following ways:

1. We make only one plan for the entire weekend.  One social event with a schedule and one activity for our daughter on Saturday mornings.  Sundays are free, spontaneous and a slow day in which we are together doing whatever we feel like doing.  Taking control and saying no to certain activities and invitations is often hard, but it is how we keep our pace of life sane;

2. We continue to cook at home and invite people for dinner about once a month.  This brings us pleasure, reminds us of France, and our friends love it as well;

3. We are out in nature as much as possible (especially on weekends) and amidst the busyness, try to focus on the simpler things in life;

4. Our house is much cleaner and void of “stuff” now.  It is “simpler living” even though the house has not changed; and

5. We continue to read as a family and still do not own a TV – we use the Internet instead.   Not being constantly bombarded by the outside world keeps things simpler as well.


Expat Women: You write candidly about your experiences and struggles learning the French language, discovering French cuisine and finding a new appreciation for your body, to name a few.  How did you allow yourself to adjust to the cultural transitions while keeping a smile on your face, and what tips do you have for others in a similar position?


Suzanne: Be curious and put yourself in the place of being a student.  Continuing to learn French is a lifelong goal because language learning does not come naturally to me.   I find though that with every conversation in which I am understood, I am secretly pleased with myself and feel like I am making progress.  Unfortunately, this is much more difficult to do in America as I am not immersed in the language, but I keep on pushing.  I am also constantly cutting out recipes.   I dream of using them and it makes me happy.  Once a month I try to cook something new, which helps me to be creative.


Expat Women: What vital steps do you believe are necessary for someone to pursue their dreams?


Suzanne:

1. Decide on a clear dream or vision.  What does it include or not include?  The more specific you can be about what you want, the easier it will be to focus on achieving it;

2. Know and understand your fears.  Write them down, stare at them and then let them go.  Throw them, burn them, and shift them to the back burner;

3. Develop a strategy to move forward on your vision/dream.  Create three to five bold outcomes to help you.  You might look at all areas of your life that need to be included to make your vision/dream a reality;

4. Once you have written your bold outcomes – develop action plans for each one.  Take one at a time or do them simultaneously, moving them forward;

5. Get support from a friend, partner or coach; and

6. Acknowledge the small shifts as you move towards your dream.


Expat Women: Suzanne, thank you for sharing your thoughts and inspiring experiences with us. We wish all the best to you, your family, and your new book, Courage and Croissants.


Thanks go to Ashley Thompson (Expat Women) for this interview.