We moved to Switzerland! Fall 2023 Life & Business Updates
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So, life update. (I'm not pregnant!) Haha! I feel like when you're 32 when you say you have news you have to start with that if you say you’re gonna drop some life news!
We moved to Switzerland a couple months ago and I'm finally getting around to sharing that.
I am so excited to share this country with you and some of the amazing aspects of it that I've already had the pleasure of experiencing. But in terms of if you're wondering why the hell did you move to Switzerland?
Like random choice?
Great question friend!
So when we were in the UK the job opportunities for my husband were not so fabulous and then a friend of ours was mentioning, back in March, like “hey have you two ever considered Switzerland?”
To which we were like no we've never thought about Switzerland for five seconds!
Why do you ask?
He mentioned that there was a desperate need of people in my husband’s field in the country and in thinkin’ about it, it's very international and pretty minimal bureaucracy for small businesses which is high on my priority list.
So while we absolutely loved living in the UK, loved London more than you could possibly imagine, (we've actually decided that we want to do an annual UK trip because that's how much we enjoyed being in the country).
In terms of finding a place that works for both of my husband's job and my job we decided to test out Switzerland!
We have only been here a short amount of time but I can already tell you I am highly impressed by the country!
I am so excited to take you on the walk that we've been going on from our apartment and share some fabulous things about the country! So let’s go!
It is just mind-blowing.
You hear that Switzerland always tops the list of the rankings of the best places to live and when you come here you really do feel like this bunch know how to operate a country!!
Not to mention it is so international which is random because in my whole life I've barely ever met anyone who lives here!
And when digital nomads talk about traveling Switzerland is never on the list of places that anyone ever talks about. Which I guess does make sense - it’s not somewhere like you know Asia which is cheap to get started in.
But IMHO - Switzerland is fabulous, I’m a big big fan of this very well-running beautiful place with amazing nature, incredible ski hills (I cannot wait for winter I am going to go skiing more than I've ever done in any other year I can guarantee that!!!) We’re so stoked to be here!!
Sooo now let’s get to the business updates!!
Update 2 - I’ve decided to stop…
So second update if you are a diehard follower then you would know that I created a second YouTube channel, posted three videos on it and…
… I decided I'm actually not going to continue with it!
So why is that?
The content was going to be a lot more lifestyle personal brand type content and I quickly realized that influencers are a seriously hard working people and as much as people want to tease them these bunch work hard!!
I realized was the sacrifice in your personal life which you make to do that kind of work and I just realized I’m not down with that.
I went on a vacation and whilst I was on that trip I knew I should be filming but I was like I just don't want to take out the camera I just don't want to do it, but actually that's the style of content which that channel needed.
So whilst I love doing a video like this where I'm taking you outside of my office and going into the world and all those things showing you a bit of life.
I don't actually want to film every vacation.
For example at the weekend I went to Oktober fest and it was a riot! I had so much fun but I didn't have to film the entire thing which was really nice!
So the lesson here is that in business you're allowed to try things! You can test them out and then decide because you'll never be able to make a decision on something if you don't take some action and try it!
So after having posted three videos on the channel I just realized I don't want to film my vacations, if I host a dinner party I don't really want to film it.
Creating educational content on a business channel like this is actually so much easier than doing influencer-style content and so I'm very happy to continue with what I have and do a life updates type video like this every now and again but I don't want to have to do that all the time.
I was chatting to a business friend of mine if you've been in the Squarespace world for quite a while you'll remember someone named Nesha Woolery.
Nesha is incredible - she was a Squarespace website designer, but she's gone on now to talk more about systems and processes and running a simple business which I love! On the side of her business she’s also actually started a more personal youtube channel with her partner (defs worth a peek!).
They bought a boat and have been renovating it so that is what the other youtube channel is about and so she mentioned two things to me
She was saying the amount of hassle that just one brand partnership takes is bananas.
For example the amount of back and forth emails, the difficulty with your publishing schedule and everything is really annoying and that's a major way that that type of content is monetized, so you kinda have to deal with it - but it’s a bit of a pain!
The other thing that she mentioned is she gets recognized significantly more now.
Even though her business Instagram has maybe 30,000 followers & the boat renovation YouTube channel has way fewer subscribers - she realized that with this type of content people have a way deeper connection with you, which on the one side is amazing - but on the downside you get recognized a lot!!
I started thinking about whether I want to be just out and about in everyday life and constantly getting recognized…
I think there's some real downsides to that for example, for really famous people really it's a major downside and when you think about it realistically for your own life I don’t think it’s something I’d like.
So with alll of those things considered I’ve decided not to continue with that channel right now (maybe I’ll do something with it in the future, but not now, that’s for sure!
Update 3 - my YouTube Content’s Gonna Change…
The content on this channel is going to change slightly for the immediate future, at least for the next couple months.
Reason being is that business content is very easy to produce. You sit down, have your idea, maybe stick it in a teleprompter, read it off… it's pretty simplistic. Of course there’s effort to it but it’s defs easier than some other content you could create.
But the other day ( admittedly at the end of a very long day on a Friday), I was like “okay I need to think of new content ideas I need to put the next pieces of content into the editorial calendar”
and for the first time ever in seven years I did not have an idea!
Of course I have like I have zillions of ideas in my asana that I can just pull from and put onto the editorial calendar but I didn't want to create any of them.
I felt like I just didn't want to talk about the same thing again and again again…
So I decided I had to do something to make the content more fun for myself!
One of the things that I just love in business, in general, is chatting about business with business friends so I decided that for the next little while I'm just going to invite some friends of mine to have conversations about things I want to chat about and that's going to be my content!
I’m stoked about it coz I’ve been feeling the need to change it up a bit for a while & this feels like the perfect solution!
Update 4 - We’re selling up!
We are actually selling our house in Germany! We haven't lived there in a while so it doesn't really make a lot of sense for us to keep hold of it. It's on the market and I think we have a buyer so it should be sold by the time you see this video!
It’s the dnd of a chapter - but it feels like the the right thing to do.
Update 5 - Plans for 2024…
So getting close to the end of the year which is when I do my annual planning and start thinking about what I want to do in the new year and this year I'm debating between a few things.
I have two specific new ideas which I would be very excited to create but I’m also trying to remind myself of my core values in the business which are joy efficiency and integrity. When I think about what brings me joy… I’ùm realizing that free time also brings me joy.
And maybe for the first time ever I might not launch anything new!!
I think that this also relates to efficiency too. I think when you’re thinking about doing something new, you need to take into account whether it’s just that you’re bored and therefore it feels more joyful to create something new, but I also want to consider efficiency too as starting anything new takes time.
I feel like for me, joy and efficiency aren’t always connect to the same thing & so I need to figure out the right mixture.
I was trying to a business friend the other day who was basically saying not all of your joy and excitement need to come from your business. For exmaple - you can also just do your hobbies more, enjoy your free time more and she’s right!
As business owners we always start these businesses to have more free time and then suddenly when it's working well & it feels like it's just too easy & it's just going too so we feel like we should be working more or that it should be harder. When actually - no!
Having freedom is actually what you built or what you intended to build so maybe it's time to just start enjoying that thing!!
So anyways I decided that with the two ideas I have, although I would be excited about doing them I'm not 100% sold on if I should implement those yet or if I should just scale what we're currently doing.
Update 6 - Our new home!
So legit today - the most exciting thing is that we are just about to head out to pick up the keys for our new long-term apartment!
We're in a short-term rental right now, but from when we first got here while we were looking for a more permanent place, and we found one! We were extremely lucky because finding a place is exceptionally difficult here, but the first place that we got that we saw we liked and we decided to take it!