[0.0] Have you ever fallen in love with a different city or country and jumped at a movie and
[4.4] starting a new life there one day?
[6.8] Who hasn't fantasized of leaving everything behind to go reinvent ourselves in a new location?
[12.3] With new friends and new identity and a new more fulfilling life?
[17.4] But how would you really make that happen?
[19.2] Especially if you're over the age of 35.
[21.7] What about your job, your finances, your mortgage, and Avisa?
[26.8] That's what my guest is happy to be an astro self.
[29.3] When at the age of 34, a chance trip to Madrid's Spain made her realize just how unfulfilling
[35.0] and lifeless her life by home had become, and this dream that she'd been suppressing
[40.0] three years started rising up in her again.
[43.1] The dream of traveling and living in another country, specifically Spain.
[48.0] But wasn't the time for travel and adventure long behind her?
[51.7] Was she really even considering leaving everything behind and starting over at the age of
[56.8] 35 in a new country and what even were her options for moving to Spain, especially at that age.
[64.9] Welcome to Sheerie invented. If you've ever dreamt of moving to Spain or to any different country,
[71.0] enter over the age of 35 and wondering how you can make that happen, keep listening.
[76.4] You'll discover how Sépé finally decided to go for it and start over in a new country.
[81.7] What little known Bisa Sépé found that helped her get her foot in the door for Spanish residency.
[86.8] What that first year was like in a new country, how she found friends and started building
[91.9] a community.
[93.4] Her career ups and downs before finally finding something that worked.
[98.2] The visas that she needed to get to make that work.
[100.9] In the second part of our interview, you'll hear about how a simple Facebook group turned
[105.0] into a business, how she finally went all in on that business and what that looked
[108.6] like.
[109.6] But COVID was like in Spain and how it led her to moving once again to a seaside town of
[114.4] Malacca.
[115.7] How she found romance over 40 during COVID after she had given up on dating Spanish guys.
[121.6] So what did episode one starting a new life in Spain at 35 and overseas re-invention?
[128.3] Tell me where you are and tell me what's the view from your window?
[133.4] Yes, so I am in southern Spain in a city called Malaga. This is actually the birthplace of Picasso
[140.0] and Antonyuan deres. Those are the claims to fame here. And I will say it from my window.
[146.3] I have a snippet, a very small view of the Mediterranean Sea, which is nice.
[152.3] How long to walk is it to get to the beach?
[155.0] Oh yeah, it looks further than it is.
[157.1] So while I only have a snippet here for my office window,
[159.8] it's actually like a seven or eight minute walk down to the water.
[163.0] And when people ask you what you do when you meet them in a conference or party, what do you say?
[168.8] Yes, sometimes that's a hard answer when you do so many different things.
[172.1] It is. It is. And I've actually been refining this as my business grows.
[176.3] But so what I do is I help women age 30 and over transform their lives by moving a broad.
[183.1] And I do that through coaching classes or courses and community.
[189.1] Nice, especially the community called She Hit or Fresh. I'm a member of that community.
[194.1] So how did this story of yours start?
[198.1] Yes. Well, first off, thank you for being a member of She Hit Refresh.
[201.8] I love that.
[203.1] So let's take it back to Austin, Texas.
[206.7] And let's go to 2014, okay?
[208.6] Where I was living a pretty conventional American life.
[213.4] I've heard Houston, Texas, but I had been living in Austin for a few years.
[217.6] I had a good job.
[219.4] I worked at a tech company in the recruiting department,
[222.3] although my background is not in my community.
[224.3] And, you know, it was a lifestyle where I went to work, worked out afterwards, went home
[229.9] to eat dinner and kind of sat on the couch and watched Netflix.
[233.1] So it was a comfortable life and easy life, but it was also very predictable and monotonous,
[240.6] which wasn't really how I had lived my life for much of my adult life.
[243.9] I love to travel when I was in my 20s and a lot of my time was spent traveling, exploring,
[250.9] and not sitting at home on the couch.
[252.2] So I can really relate to that.
[255.9] I had a similar background, and then I also found myself in a PR job.
[260.8] And at some point, I remember just feeling I'm really depressed.
[264.8] Was there a moment like that for you?
[266.8] Yeah.
[267.8] I mean, I wasn't depressed.
[269.8] So I definitely like to stress, like, I had a good life.
[272.4] I wasn't in it when I was in it.
[274.9] Sometimes when you're in it, you don't realize, you know, how it is, actually, right?
[281.5] So it wasn't until I kind of got out of my environment on a trip, but I was able to reflect
[285.8] of like, oh, wow, like I'm kind of sleepwalking in Austin, Texas.
[290.7] So where was that trip?
[292.7] Yeah.
[293.7] So that trip was that year 2014 for my 34th birthday.
[298.9] I gifted myself a trip to Morocco and it was like a running trip.
[303.2] So you know, I was really being into marathons, half marathons and trathons.
[306.9] And this wasn't a race, but it was just like, you know, a trip where you're running through
[309.8] different parts of Morocco. And on the way back to Austin from that trip, I decided to stop
[315.1] in Madrid for a few days. In Madrid as a city, I had lived in before, I had actually lived there
[319.8] four years prior and down a master's, but it hadn't been back since. And those four days in Madrid
[326.2] were magical and really awakened something inside, but actually had been dormant in those
[332.2] past four years in Austin that I didn't realize. That's what I mean when I was Austin, I wasn't
[336.2] depressed, but I actually didn't realize how kind of little my world maybe had gotten
[342.1] compared to when I was in Madrid.
[345.2] So just being in this vibrant city Madrid for those few days, a walkable city, a city with
[349.8] energy, a city that never sleeps, it really just gave me life in a way that I didn't
[355.1] have in Austin.
[356.1] That was my wake up call.
[358.3] What did you do right when you got back?
[360.2] Did you immediately act on it or did you have the immediate idea that you wanted to move
[365.2] to Spain or did that idea come later?
[368.6] No, I mean, that idea felt crazy at the time.
[371.8] So I was reveling in that high of being in Spain.
[377.2] And I did have like the little inkling like, oh, that was so fun.
[379.9] Wouldn't it be cool to live there again?
[381.6] Wasn't serious at first, but I would say that idea started growing and really started taking over my thoughts
[386.8] as the weeks went by the months went by.
[389.4] That's when I started being curious about, Oh, how can we do this again?
[394.4] And right, because like I said, I had studied there, done a master's.
[396.8] I had taught English in my 20s, but I was 34, about 235 at this point.
[402.4] So that's when I was like, how could I do this at my age?
[405.4] And what would I do?
[406.9] And then I just became like, how can I do this?
[409.2] It wasn't like what?
[410.0] It was like, how are we're doing this?
[411.4] I'm convinced I have to get out of Austin.
[414.0] I have a good life here, but it was getting in the way of a great life.
[417.4] And I knew Spain or I felt that Spain just had that great life that, yeah, that I wanted.
[423.4] And then you discovered something, you discovered a way, which is something that I did a similar
[428.5] program in France right out of college. But you discovered a program in Spain that I think is so
[433.8] cool because it has no age limit. It's basically the same program that I did, but there's no age
[438.2] limit from what I can tell. And what was that program you found?
[442.2] Yeah. So I did the now-cap program, which is the North American Language and Cultural
[447.7] Assistant Program, which actually has an age limit I think of 60 now.
[451.5] Okay, there's some similar programs that maybe don't have an age limit and you know what I had
[457.8] come back and revisited this program because they actually did this program in my 20s when I was 26
[463.0] so that that was hard because I knew about this program but I never wanted to go back and do it
[469.7] because it almost felt like a step back right I can totally understand so how did you deal with that
[475.4] feeling of taking a step back you're in your 30s it's the prime of your life you're supposed to be
[480.1] at the prime of your career, working your way up.
[483.9] How did you get over that mentally?
[486.9] Yeah, so I, you know, looked for many other options.
[490.0] I'm like, this can't be the only option.
[491.5] What else is there?
[492.5] Are there any new options?
[493.9] No, there wasn't.
[494.7] It kept coming back to this is the way to get your foot
[497.5] in the door.
[498.5] And so you're really gonna have to put your ego aside
[501.6] because not only did I feel like I was set
[503.3] taking a step back, but also I was afraid
[506.5] of what people would think.
[507.4] So I had that fear of judgment.
[509.0] What are people gonna say, me leaving in a good job at 35
[512.7] to go teach English without really having a plan
[515.0] or what I'm gonna do afterwards?
[517.2] So I just kinda had to have a heart to heart
[519.1] with myself and say, you know what?
[521.7] That's fine.
[522.5] People are gonna judge me, that's fine.
[523.8] I have to believe in myself and I know this is what I wanna do.
[528.3] I have this nagging feeling and something
[530.4] is pulling me towards it.
[532.4] And I just have to remind myself, what is the worst case
[535.3] scenario, right?
[536.8] Yeah. And so this was all, this was just like a toe in the door.
[541.1] It's just like not your ultimate destination.
[543.7] But explain a little bit what does the NALCA program give you?
[546.7] It gives you a visa for a year, doesn't it?
[548.7] Oh, yes, I didn't explain what it is.
[550.3] So the NALCA visa, it's a teaching assistant program
[553.3] run by the government and Spain.
[554.9] So the great thing, the reason why it's
[556.5] put in the door for a lot of Americans,
[558.9] especially at the time before now there's digital nomad visa,
[562.5] which is a more viable option.
[564.1] But at the time, this was the best option
[566.2] because it does give you a visa,
[567.8] gives you a student visa
[569.0] because you are teaching English
[571.2] and you receive a grant.
[572.4] So you're kind of there under student terms.
[574.7] But it also gives you health insurance
[576.7] and it gives you that stability
[578.2] because you feel like you have some support,
[580.3] you have some income.
[581.9] It's not a lot.
[582.7] I mean, it was about 1,000 euros a month.
[585.1] But at the same time,
[586.1] I was working about 16 hours a week.
[588.3] So it just felt like a gaming foundation
[590.8] and it got me to Spain,
[592.1] which is what I needed in order to figure out
[594.3] what was next.
[595.3] Right. So so many times when we're at a certain age in our life, we think, I can't go back.
[601.4] But sometimes going back is just a way to kind of carve out the new path.
[606.3] And so I really like that.
[608.3] So then after your year, actually tell me about when you first got to, was it Madrid?
[613.3] Yeah. So you, you fell in love with Madrid.
[615.7] You were kind of were you able to choose where you wanted to go or was that just luck that you got sent to Madrid?
[620.4] Yeah, so in the program, you can't put your top three regions in Spain and I selected
[626.5] the Madrid and I got placed in Madrid.
[628.4] So I was very happy about that.
[630.9] So what was your first week like in Spain?
[633.6] What was it like when you first stepped off the plane and that first week that you were
[637.7] there?
[638.7] Were you happy?
[639.7] Oh my God, where'd you?
[641.1] No, it was pure joy in relation.
[645.2] I was on cloud nine and just was so giddy and had that child like wonder walking around,
[651.7] even though I had lived in the city, but I just have so much love for Madrid that I just really
[656.2] felt like I was in my place. And I was in awe that I actually had done it. It was almost like
[660.4] hard to believe like I'm here and this in my life. And I spent a lot of time that first week
[665.1] rekindling with friends that I had made, but also just walking around the city and just taking it
[670.8] all in. And how hard was it to, at that point, I don't know if you had a partner. I assume
[675.9] that you were single, but maybe I shouldn't. But how did you, she's not in her head. Yes.
[680.5] How did you, she was single? How did you explain this to family, friends and family, but
[686.1] especially family? Yeah. So luckily my family was kind of used to this. So, you know, travel
[692.1] as a, as a big part of my, my younger life. And that was international travel. And I was
[696.4] quitting jobs left and right to travel. So my family was, this wasn't anything new for them.
[702.3] This yearning, sliver broad and one is with a broad. But they were a little bit, you know,
[708.3] concerned because of my age, because they were wondering, all right, well, what about your career?
[714.6] You're giving up your career to go teach English. And you know, nothing wrong with that, but that I
[718.6] am not an English teacher and that's not something I wanted to do. They were also concerned about
[722.4] how this would impact, you know, or not concerned,
[725.3] but they would ask questions like,
[726.3] well, don't you want to get married or have kids,
[728.3] things like that?
[729.2] So there were a lot of fears that they had
[731.3] about me doing this,
[733.0] but I think they knew I was going to do it anyways,
[735.2] but maybe they weren't sure that it was going to work.
[737.1] So they knew that there was no point
[738.9] trying to convince you otherwise.
[740.1] They were just expressing their concerns.
[742.5] And similar, actually similar to me.
[746.5] Speaking of finances,
[748.5] did you have anything saved up or did you just go for it?
[752.4] Yeah, so I didn't have savings. So I would say every time I kind of had my stints abroad
[757.0] I was responsible and saved money
[760.4] Because I you know at the time remote work wasn't a thing so you really weren't able to work while you were abroad
[766.0] Right you really had to have money to
[768.0] To sustain you for your time there. So I didn't have savings that I knew that that would supplement my income from the program
[774.6] I was in because they're I just knew that I couldn't live on a thousand euros a month
[778.2] So I had savings, you know, from the time I had the idea of I wanted to move to Spain
[783.3] to the time I actually did it was about a year.
[785.4] So I did have somewhat of a game plan to get there in that first year maybe.
[791.3] And it was like figuring out what was next was what I needed to do.
[796.9] I want to hear about what happened after that.
[798.6] But I'm curious what was experience like when you were there, what age children were you teaching.
[804.1] So I was placed in a secondary school.
[806.4] So that would be the equivalent of a high school.
[809.7] And my students were probably anywhere from 13
[814.1] to maybe 17 years old.
[816.3] And what was the experience like, did you enjoy it?
[819.4] Or was it?
[820.2] Teaching that it could be really hard.
[822.3] But just curious about your day-to-day life at that era.
[826.1] Yeah, it was wonderful.
[827.5] I was really fortunate to be placed in a school
[830.3] that was very welcoming.
[831.5] I mean, most people are, but every experience
[833.5] is different in this program.
[835.2] So the staff was very welcoming,
[837.6] the students were very welcoming.
[840.4] And that made it just so much easier
[843.1] to walk into a classroom and to be able to
[846.0] interact with them and feel comfortable there.
[848.0] And I will say in this program,
[849.8] you don't have to have qualifications,
[852.2] teaching qualifications, which I didn't have,
[854.4] because you're not teaching grammar.
[855.8] Really, I was just teaching culture
[858.0] and helping with the conversation.
[860.1] So talking about Thanksgiving and having them do vocabulary.
[863.5] So it was really fun.
[865.3] I could create fun lesson plans.
[868.4] Was it every day?
[869.6] Did you have work every day?
[871.1] Yeah, luckily it wasn't every day.
[872.6] It was four days a week.
[873.8] And I think it has Fridays off.
[875.4] So I had that nice long weekend.
[879.1] And yeah, and it was actually a little bit
[880.6] outside of Madrid city center.
[882.3] So I took a bus every morning,
[884.1] got there, did my time, and I went back home.
[888.2] It's kind of a cool option that you say
[890.0] is not the best option, but it is nice to know
[892.1] that there are options like that that exist.
[893.9] I know that several of their women in your community
[896.1] have also kind of used that program as their foot
[900.2] in the door to living in Europe.
[902.0] Some of them don't even end up living in Spain
[904.1] and living in different countries.
[906.3] Would you recommend that to somebody maybe
[908.7] if they don't really have any other options
[911.3] or they can't figure out any other options?
[913.6] Would that be a program that you think
[915.4] is a viable option still?
[917.8] Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on what your ultimate goal is.
[921.3] I mean, I like to think of this program as kind of a working
[924.4] sabbatical.
[925.3] So if you're looking to slow down your life a little bit,
[928.2] but you still want a little income,
[929.5] but don't want to be commitment.
[931.0] I think this is a great program to give you that space.
[933.4] Maybe you know you want to change,
[934.9] but you don't know exactly what that change is.
[937.3] So why not take this working sabbatical
[939.0] to give you a year to think about maybe what you want
[941.7] to do in your life or maybe even to feel out spain?
[944.7] I think it's a great option for that.
[946.5] I love that.
[947.1] I'm working sabbatical.
[948.1] That's a good way to think about it.
[949.5] Yeah, you know, they give you a visa for a year.
[952.3] Does it, with that visa is the next visa easier?
[955.8] Or are you back to ground zero after the visa expires?
[959.7] Yeah, so the visa is issued for the duration of the school year,
[962.5] which is like nine or 10 months.
[964.4] You can renew.
[965.3] So there's the option to renew.
[967.8] So you don't have to start at Brown zero,
[969.5] but there are limitations on the renewals.
[971.1] And I actually don't know what they are right now.
[972.5] I think it might be two or three years
[974.5] with this specific program.
[976.1] Right, but it all.
[977.8] It doesn't make it easier to go to the next type of visa.
[980.8] It's just not knowing that same type of visa.
[983.5] Actually, this is such a great question.
[985.2] Actually, now it does make it easier to change visas.
[988.4] Before it was as easy, but now it is a lot easier,
[992.3] like once you're in Spain to modify your visa.
[995.1] So that could be a really good foot in the door for somebody
[997.5] who A wants just to work in sabbatical,
[1000.1] and then B maybe wants to consider living in Europe.
[1002.9] So that's it.
[1004.5] I think it's great to know that things like this exist,
[1006.7] and with the age limit of 60.
[1008.9] What I did in France is very similar,
[1010.8] but the age limit was 30.
[1012.2] And so I love that these programs exist.
[1015.2] So after your year working as an English assistant,
[1020.9] a language assistant, you probably decided
[1023.4] that you didn't want to keep doing that forever.
[1025.8] But I'm assuming you wanted to keep living in Spain.
[1028.4] So what did you do next?
[1030.5] Yeah, so I definitely knew when I moved to Spain,
[1032.5] like this was gonna be a one-year thing.
[1034.9] But and and my plan was I'm going to just shoot my shot everywhere.
[1038.8] And that man I was applying to every job out there that I felt I could do.
[1044.2] Knowing that a work visa is very difficult to come by.
[1047.3] I had lived in Spain before.
[1048.8] I had tried to get a work visa never had luck.
[1051.2] So I knew the odds were against me.
[1054.2] And so from day one, I was applying for jobs.
[1056.8] But when it came time to when I had the option to renew to stay at the school
[1060.5] next year, I didn't have a job yet.
[1062.8] So I renewed with the school.
[1066.1] And then a few weeks later, I had a job interview
[1068.9] that actually led to work, these is sponsorship.
[1071.0] So it's kind of funny how that worked out.
[1074.7] But so that would be, that was like what happened next.
[1077.5] And that was a very pivotal moment in my journey in Spain.
[1080.7] You were, was it a social media job that you were working?
[1084.0] Yes.
[1084.8] So I got hired for a Spanish startup
[1087.1] to work on their marketing team with the US markets.
[1090.3] And it was a social media position.
[1092.5] Although I had not a lot of experience in social media.
[1096.1] So it was kind of like luck and just being in the right place at the right time.
[1100.1] And what was that like?
[1101.5] What was that working experience like?
[1104.3] Oh man, it was not.
[1106.5] Yeah, it's funny because I also moved to, well, I won't get too much into my story,
[1112.9] but it's, there's so many similarities.
[1114.7] You want to escape your working life in the United States.
[1117.5] You move to another country, then you find yourself in a similar environment.
[1121.5] It's not just the location. It's also finding other things.
[1124.7] But so what was this like working as a social media person for this Spanish company?
[1130.2] Yeah. So they were a tech startup and I had left a tech company in the US.
[1135.1] And if you're familiar with tech companies, it's the beer on tap.
[1138.6] And at the time, we could work from home once a week, which was like so progressive and it's just like a fun work environment.
[1145.9] That's good. So that was my tech job experience.
[1148.4] And now I got hired at a tech startup in Spain, in Madrid,
[1152.4] and it was not like that.
[1153.6] There were a lot of rules.
[1155.3] It was quite conservative.
[1158.2] I had to take lunch at a certain time every day,
[1162.1] and it was very rigid, and that was just not working for me.
[1165.6] On top of that, luckily, my team was very international.
[1171.7] So I could speak Spanish, but it was a lower level of Spanish.
[1175.5] It wasn't really working level, I think.
[1178.4] So I was able to speak English with my team, but two months after I got hired, my manager
[1184.8] quit, and I don't know why the CEO may be the manager of the team. So now, oh my gosh, why?
[1193.7] How many months? Two months? Two months. Oh, two months. Oh my gosh.
[1199.5] So that just puts so much pressure on me because even though I could really talk to my team
[1203.7] I had to go to like department meetings
[1206.3] and that was in Spanish and just trying to navigate
[1209.1] the working world in a different culture
[1210.7] in a different language was way too much.
[1212.9] And it's really not what it came to do.
[1214.9] I did not come to Spain to work a nine to five.
[1217.4] Like I was doing in the US that I, you know,
[1219.9] it was a serial job hopper.
[1221.1] So why would I think this would work here?
[1223.4] So very quickly six months after I got hired,
[1226.8] I had to quit because it was like my anxiety was out of control.
[1230.1] And I really just wasn't enjoying my life.
[1232.3] And so I quit that job knowing that I would lose my visa also.
[1236.7] Wow.
[1237.7] And I would be at ground zero again, trying to figure this out.
[1240.5] Wow.
[1241.1] And so what was that like when you quit?
[1243.8] But what did you do next?
[1245.1] What was going through your mind?
[1246.1] And what did you do next?
[1248.5] Yeah.
[1249.3] It was tough because I was now maybe 36 about the 737.
[1254.7] Came to Spain, found a way I didn't teach in English, lost that.
[1258.9] And now it's like, what do I do?
[1261.1] But luckily in that experience, I had gained social media skills and I had been doing things
[1266.7] on the side too to polish those skills.
[1270.1] And I thought, let me try to find a remote job.
[1274.3] I mean, the 2017 people had remote jobs, but it wasn't very prevalent.
[1278.1] But I was like, let me try.
[1280.4] And that was my plan.
[1281.4] There was a visa I could qualify for.
[1282.9] It wasn't the digital nomad visa.
[1284.6] It was like a retirement visa.
[1286.9] You don't have to be retired to find it.
[1289.8] And so I applied to a lot of remote jobs using platforms online, jobs outside of Spain.
[1297.0] And I had to start from the bottom.
[1298.4] I remember one of my first gigs was like a six-week gig and I got paid $12 an hour.
[1304.0] So now almost like freelance work.
[1306.3] It was freelance work and I had to start somewhere.
[1308.9] I had to build my portfolio so that I could level up.
[1311.7] And that's what I moved into.
[1314.7] Another big thing about moving abroad is finding community.
[1318.7] And I think this is around the time
[1321.6] when you start getting really into that.
[1323.8] Is that correct?
[1324.9] You start trying to build your community in Spain.
[1328.2] And can you talk about that a little bit?
[1331.3] Yeah, because around the time
[1332.6] I had been in Spain two and a half years,
[1335.0] I'm a very, I would call myself extra-verted.
[1337.5] I like I'm social.
[1338.7] So I was putting in the work to make friends in Madrid.
[1343.1] But I wasn't really finding my people.
[1344.9] I had a lot of acquaintances.
[1345.9] So a lot of people I could hang out with,
[1347.1] but they weren't really my writer dies
[1348.8] or the people I was going to, you know,
[1351.4] remain friends with, you know, while I was in Spain.
[1354.4] So I thought, you know,
[1357.3] I had been learning all these social media skills.
[1359.1] I just wanted to meet people who were doing creative things
[1362.3] like I was.
[1363.2] And so I started a community for bloggers and creatives.
[1367.0] And that really took off.
[1368.2] And that's where I met a lot of my friends
[1371.3] I still have to this day from that community.
[1374.0] And it was kind of, you know, started on a whim.
[1377.4] And it ended up being, you know,
[1378.4] the largest community for content creators in Madrid
[1382.7] and ran for three years until COVID hit.
[1385.2] Ah, really?
[1386.4] Was that through?
[1387.2] Did you do it through meetup.com
[1388.7] or was that a Facebook group?
[1390.1] Yeah.
[1391.0] It was both.
[1391.8] It was the Facebook group.
[1392.7] But we also, you know, we advertise on our showcase
[1395.2] ourselves on meetup also.
[1396.9] And was from Madrid bloggers?
[1398.2] Was that correct or Spanish bloggers?
[1399.9] Yeah, I was the Madrid blogger network.
[1401.6] Yeah.
[1402.4] I love that.
[1403.3] So when you can't find community, create it yourself.
[1405.6] When I lived abroad, I also...
[1407.8] Oh, my God.
[1408.6] One lived art, hair all lives, started meetups.
[1411.0] To me, one of the most, I will say,
[1412.7] one of the most, I was thinking about it the other day,
[1415.1] one of the most valuable online web applications.
[1417.9] And it's not like I use it every day,
[1420.0] but throughout my life has been meetup.com.
[1422.5] I have met so many people for meetup.com.
[1425.5] I started using it when I was living in Spain.
[1427.9] And I think the first meetup I ever went to was probably in 2010 or something.
[1433.1] I started right at the beginning.
[1435.1] And that is such a valuable resource.
[1437.2] And if you don't find the meetup that you want to join,
[1439.5] you can always start your own meetup group.
[1443.1] Chest players in Spain are what have you?
[1445.6] I think that's really cool.
[1447.9] And then you started, she at Refresh,
[1450.1] which is such a cool community,
[1451.9] the concept of the community, women who want to refresh their lives abroad
[1456.3] over the age of 30.
[1457.8] How did that idea come about?
[1460.2] Yes.
[1461.0] So luckily I had the Madrid blogger network experience under my belt.
[1465.1] I had created community.
[1467.1] It was thriving.
[1468.2] I was running a Facebook group for it.
[1470.8] And I just got the idea to start a Facebook group
[1473.9] for women over 30 who wanted to move around
[1475.6] because a lot of my friends in the US
[1477.8] were asking how I did it.
[1480.1] And there was a lot of fear-based questions, too,
[1481.9] like my family.
[1482.7] Didn't you think you were too old?
[1484.3] What about career, all that stuff?
[1486.3] But at the same time, I was meeting incredible women
[1488.5] in Madrid, my age and older who had done it.
[1490.8] And I just thought, let's just put these women
[1492.9] in a Facebook group and we can help each other.
[1495.7] It was not a business idea, there was nothing more
[1497.8] behind it other than like, you know,
[1499.5] I have access to these two groups.
[1502.1] I know how to do a Facebook group.
[1503.4] Let's just put them in there and see what happens.
[1505.7] And what was it like at first where people
[1507.8] were they active, were they sharing ideas?
[1509.8] What was that first day is like in the community?
[1513.2] Yeah.
[1514.2] Well, I started it with a friend.
[1515.7] So my bestie who was actually on that Morocco trip
[1518.9] that kind of started it all.
[1521.3] And we invited our friends to the community.
[1525.0] I mean, I didn't really have anyone to write
[1526.2] other than people I knew, right?
[1527.9] So I invited my friends and some of the people
[1529.8] I knew in Madrid and you know,
[1532.3] I was a little bit strategic in the sense like,
[1535.5] you know, I was scheduling posts
[1537.3] and coming up with a topic ideas to talk about.
[1540.5] So I did nurture the community.
[1542.8] But in the first year, we had 4,000 members worldwide,
[1547.3] just a word of mouth.
[1548.7] And that was really another pivotal moment.
[1551.9] Thank you.
[1552.5] Yeah, that is a pivotal moment.
[1553.7] I guess you realized, wow, there's a lot of women out there
[1556.1] over the age of 30 who want to move abroad.
[1558.8] Exactly.
[1559.3] We realized, yeah, that there was a knee shot there.
[1561.6] There was a sector that just wasn't being served.
[1564.9] And really looking for resources that spoke to them
[1569.9] and understood them.
[1571.3] Now, when you were in this era of being a freelancer
[1575.3] and starting the Facebook group,
[1579.6] is this around the same time
[1580.7] that you started the podcast
[1581.7] or did that come a little bit later?
[1583.7] Yes, the podcast.
[1585.4] I can try to remember when I started it.
[1586.9] I started it, I think two years later.
[1588.3] So I think the Facebook group started in 2017
[1591.2] and I believe the podcast maybe started in 2019.
[1594.7] I wanna say.
[1595.5] You know what I think?
[1597.5] But there must have been a point there
[1599.2] where you were doing a lot.
[1601.0] You had a freelancing Facebook group podcast.
[1605.6] Is that, did you do that all at the same time?
[1609.0] Yeah, sort of.
[1609.9] And I was doing the blog and the social media,
[1612.5] we were doing retreats.
[1614.2] It was a lot, but I tell you, I was,
[1618.2] and I still am, was just like so fulfilled
[1620.9] by the work that I was doing.
[1622.0] Like I was addicted to it.
[1623.1] I couldn't, it was like so hard to walk away from it.
[1625.2] I would, I remember just staying up, you know,
[1627.5] doing my nine to five,
[1628.4] doing my remote work hours. And then staying up late at night to just be in the Facebook group
[1634.1] and read what was going on in common or work on a blog post or think of something else.
[1638.5] Prepare for a meetup I wanted to have like I was addicted to the work. So it didn't feel
[1643.6] like a burden. It was actually, you know, something that I just I loved.
[1647.8] It was a passion project. And so when did you finally just decide to decide to completely focus
[1652.9] on that and let go of the freelancing work.
[1657.6] Yeah, so I did it.
[1658.8] I fully committed to she hit refresh.
[1661.0] I think it was two years ago now,
[1663.1] so maybe 2020, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20,
[1666.8] what?
[1667.6] Think 2022 is when I fully committed.
[1671.2] Yeah, 2022, January.
[1672.5] January or were you just completely ready?
[1677.9] Okay, so that's the end of the first half
[1680.9] of my interview with Sepi.
[1683.3] So many great key takeaways from that.
[1686.6] One was, you know, she really just decided to go for it.
[1691.5] There was a point where she wasn't sure how,
[1694.6] and then she just decided,
[1696.2] well, I'm going to do it no matter what.
[1698.5] So it's happening.
[1699.8] And so when she fully decided,
[1701.4] the way we came clear.
[1703.3] And then she reframed what could have been seen
[1705.9] as a step backwards, doing a program that she already did
[1708.9] 20s that many people do in their 20s. She reframed that as a bridge to where she really wanted to go.
[1716.2] Some people would have seen that as a step backwards, but she was so determined she knew
[1721.9] with clarity that what she wanted was to get to Spain. So that became the goal, not making other people
[1728.6] happy, not filling her own ego or conforming with society. When she got really clear on what she
[1736.1] wanted to do, she just took the path of least resistance and many times that's what we have to do.
[1742.9] And she also didn't have it all figured out beforehand, but she did have clarity on what she did
[1751.2] want. She knew she wanted to live in Spain and then she also had clarity just on the very next step.
[1757.4] So the very first step was, okay, I'm definitely going to Spain. How is this happening?
[1763.1] then the path of least resistance doing the Nalcott program. Then she knew for sure she didn't want
[1769.7] to stay in the Nalcott program being a teaching assistant. So the next focus was getting a job.
[1776.8] First job she found was not a fit so then she stayed focused on going freelance and it's not like
[1784.8] any one of these was her ultimate destination. It was just the next step and she was very clear
[1790.8] on the next step. So sometimes we just have to think one step ahead and I often do this. I think if I
[1797.0] have to have it all figured out. I have to have the entire huge big plan figured out before I can
[1802.8] even make a step forward. Even with this podcast, you know, I'm thinking, okay, where could this
[1808.1] potentially go? And I have to tell myself the next step is just to edit this one audio. And sometimes
[1816.2] Sometimes we're in an executive mode and sometimes we're just in worker mode.
[1819.9] We do have to do both, but sometimes you just have to commit to the next step.
[1823.9] You don't have to commit to everything, but you can just commit to the next step.
[1828.1] Like she's thought, okay, I'm just gonna try it for a year.
[1831.3] I'm going to do now cap four year and then reassess.
[1834.9] So I think that reinvention, the process of reinvention can be a series of small decisions
[1841.4] that we decide to commit to.
[1843.8] There's a lot of messaging of you have to commit to the big thing go all in and
[1848.7] That can be daunting if you don't know what the big thing is
[1852.5] But if you at least just have one clear next step you can say okay?
[1857.1] I'm just committing to this one thing and maybe that will just be I'm just committing to
[1863.5] Researching visas boom. I don't know if I'm gonna go to Spain
[1867.3] I don't know if I'm gonna go just to Europe, but I can at least spend an hour researching potential visas
[1873.1] and breaking things down into just the next clear step.
[1876.9] And if you don't know what's beyond that, that's okay.
[1880.3] So I did, she was so clear each step of the way
[1884.4] even without having everything figured out.
[1887.4] And personally, I also feel like the fact that she was
[1892.0] and even says she is a surreal job hopper
[1894.5] and then finally found her passion as a fellow job hopper
[1898.5] and as someone who's continually evolving
[1901.1] and reinventing myself and have a lot of different interests.
[1905.8] I love that she eventually found what worked for her.
[1910.1] And what's so interesting is really,
[1912.5] it was her problem that eventually became her passion
[1916.5] and her profit, her business.
[1919.3] So her problem was that she was a woman over 30.
[1923.3] And I say problem and quotation marks,
[1925.3] who wanted to, who still wanted a life of adventure.
[1928.7] And normally society tells us,
[1930.9] If you're over 30, a woman or a man, both you should really have things figured out now
[1936.4] is a time to settle down.
[1938.0] But her quote unquote problem is that she didn't fit into that box.
[1941.4] Well, rather than shying away from that and using her problem, her unconventionality,
[1947.7] just her natural not being conforming to what other people say you should want, she used
[1955.4] that as her way to create community and then eventually thisness.
[1960.2] And there's a lot of messaging out there turning your passions into profit, which I think
[1964.9] is great.
[1966.4] But I think often an overlooked element of that is it's often the pain and problems
[1972.6] and struggles that we've had ourselves that turn into our way to passion and profit
[1980.2] overcoming something, finally accepting some weird thing about yourself can be the way
[1986.4] to your passion and your profit.
[1988.6] Not always. There's never just one way for anything. But I did love that aspect of her story.
[1994.2] I also feel like a key takeaway was a knockout program. That is a way to like she said,
[2000.0] take a working sabbatical, get paid by the Spanish government. Work, I think like maximum 20 hours
[2008.0] a week, maybe a little bit more, but not even 40 hours a week. And have a small stipend and take
[2014.3] a year in Europe to figure things out. Get your visa, get your foot in the door. It's great
[2019.5] to know that programs like this exist and she does have a book that details many different visas
[2025.4] and it's called I'm out of here. An American's guide, I think, to moving abroad or to European
[2031.2] visas but I know that it's called I'm out of here. And I'll link to that in the show notes.
[2036.0] And so tons of great takeaways from that episode and in the next episode we get further into her
[2043.2] transition from being a freelancer and deciding to go a freelancer and doing her
[2051.8] business on the side to going full in on her business.
[2055.4] She hit refresh.
[2056.9] And then what happened when COVID hit Spain and how it led her to moving to a seaside
[2062.7] town, how she found her apartment there, and how she found love after the age of 40,
[2070.0] years of feeling frustrated and pretty much having given up on the dating scene in Spain.
[2075.3] And then she talks a little bit about a new country that she's visiting next that has
[2080.1] a cool visa option for Americans and other people.
[2083.7] And then she ends with the mistakes she feels like she made when she moved abroad what
[2088.4] she would have done differently and then gives her forced-up process to do it the right
[2093.3] way.
[2094.3] you want to tune in for the next episode of part two with seppity bibbean.
[2105.3] If you like this podcast and you'd like to show your thanks, the number one thing you can
[2109.1] do is to subscribe.
[2110.9] Subscribe on YouTube, hit that button, subscribe on the podcast app that you're listening
[2115.4] to, or if you use iTunes, subscribe on iTunes.
[2119.5] That's the number one thing you can do to help me out as I'm growing this podcast.
[2122.9] And if you want to connect online, then find me across all the socials at She Reinvented
[2130.0] on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
[2133.6] And until then, have a great day, have a great week.
[2136.5] And remember, it's never too late, you're never too old, you're reinvent yourself, and
[2141.5] become who you want to be.