Living & Working Abroad, German, Kate von Knobloch, Identified 4 types of Thriving Female Expats

EPISODE 28

June 8, 2022

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Born and raised in Germany’s Black Forest region, Kate is a mid-30s millennial, a self-professed ambitious career woman. She studied in the UK and Spain, relocating to Taiwan and then the US for work. Kate’s background is in digital marketing and business development, which she ultimately evolved into a business of her own as a certified coach. By way of building her reputation as an expert in her field, coaching international women, she piloted a fascinating study, interviewing 30, expat-women principle-breadwinners, resulting in Kate designating 4 types of “Thriving Female Expats.” In this interview, she talks about the ‘4 types’ and an additional study she conducted, exploring the topics, employability when moving abroad, and re-entering the workforce after a career-break of 5-plus years.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Louise: Welcome to Women Who WaIk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom – reminding us that women can do extraordinary things. You can find a transcript, with pictures, to each episode, and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com.

[00:00:47] Louise: Hello listeners. Welcome to Episode 28 of Women Who Walk. My guest today is Katharina von Knobloch.

[00:00:55] Louise: Born and raised in Germany’s Black Forest region, near the border with France, Kate is a mid-30s millennial, a self-professed ambitious career woman, who has always had an interest in travel and exploring.

[00:01:11] Louise: As a teen, she had short-term student exchange opportunities within Europe. After which, she chose to continue studying abroad, first in the UK and then Spain, followed by a self-initiated move to Taiwan for work and adventure.

[00:01:29] Louise: Currently, she’s living back in Germany, after three years in Chicago, where she and her husband were working, and from where their departure was sudden and quite traumatic due to Chicago’s stay-at-home mandate at the onset of the pandemic.

[00:01:47] Louise: Kate’s background is in digital marketing and business development, which she ultimately evolved into a business of her own as a certified coach. By way of building her reputation as an expert in her field, she piloted a fascinating study interviewing 30, expat-women principal-breadwinners, resulting in Kate designating four types of Thriving Female Expats.

[00:02:17] Louise: More recently, she’s conducted a second study, exploring topics such as employability when moving abroad, and reentering the workforce after a career break of five-plus years.

[00:02:32] Louise: As with my previous two guests, I met Kate online via the annual virtual conference hosted by FIGT.org or Families in Global Transition. My interview with Kate is the third in a series of interviews that I’m doing with some very bright and talented young women, researchers and professionals in the area of global mobility.

[00:03:08] Louise: Welcome Kate. Thank you so much for being a guest on a Women Who Walk. Can you tell us a bit about where you grew up in Germany, perhaps paint a picture for us with some memories of your neighborhood, the environment, your early childhood experiences.

[00:03:24] Kate: Hello, Louise. Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here. I grew up in Germany, the Black Forest region. I would say I grew up very well cared for. My parents have been doctors with their own practice. They were home for every lunch. The city was quite small, but not too small, but safe enough for me to wander around on my own.

[00:03:45] Kate: And funny enough, my future husband was living just next door. We went together to school every morning. He picked me up every morning, from first grade to graduation. It took some time for us from slowly, going from being just friends to a more romantic relationship and now being the father of my child. I was growing up very loved and in a very protected environment. Somehow I feel like this gave me the security and the confidence for me to explore the world later.

[00:04:14] Louise: Oh, lovely. That’s really rather a sweet story. And what city or town was it, Kate?

[00:04:21] Kate: It’s quite small. It’s next to the border to France. It’s called Offenburg, mainly known for some publishing company here in Germany. It’s rather small, like 80,000 people living there.

[00:04:32] Louise: Okay. So a small-sized city. And was there anything about your early years that caused you to want to travel later? In addition to security? It was a security, wasn’t it. Was there anything else that caused you to want to travel for instance, were you exposed to different cultures and languages, or did you travel with your family?

[00:04:53] Kate: Not really. As a family, we have been privileged enough to go on several vacations. Summer vacation, winter vacation, but not to really exotic places. We tended to visit the same place in Greece every summer, for example, and while living next to the border to France, living next to Strasbourg felt like it’s just another German city, so it does not have this international vibe when you’re actually living there.

[00:05:17] Kate: I went on student exchanges to other countries, not that my parents told me to do so, or pushed me to be in this international context. It’s just was part of the education. Everybody was doing it, so I was doing it as well. And looking back, I would say, I can’t really tell why I’m now the exotic one in our family. I’m the only one who chose to live abroad to venture out.

[00:05:43] Kate: I had several backpacking adventures, which my mom hated at the beginning, but now she made peace with that. And most likely we will move abroad again at some point in the future, my partner and me, kind of writing our own story there, and I’m not really sure where this is coming from. I do believe in passing on emotions over generations. So I’m always thinking that might be because my grandma has to flee with her small kids from the war. This was always a thing but, um, yeah, not from my childhood, I would say.

Kate backpacking in Thailand

[00:06:15] Louise: And it sounds like it really thought about that. That’s a interesting perspective. Considering your grandmother fleeing from the war. What countries did you go to as an exchange student?

[00:06:28] Kate: England and Poland. It was pretty well organized. Very safe. You would go there just for one week and you live in the household there. It was not just me on the plane on my own for three months. My parents would not allow me to do that. I still tell them that they should have allowed me this kind of gap year and now they see my point. But back then those exchanges have been very small, very secure and just a very small glimpse into the world of somebody else’s life.

[00:06:59] Louise: Hm, nevertheless, that did sort of open a door.

[00:07:02] Kate: Yes. Yes.

[00:07:03] Louise: And how did you manage those cultural experiences?

[00:07:07] Kate: I’m, I’m not a very extroverted person. I’m not the one who was very loud in larger groups. So I’m digesting everything I’m seeing and observing. I’m more an observer role. I would say the families would describe me as maybe shy back then, young and shy girl, but very curious about the lifestyle and very grateful for being in this position to actually share the meal and just being very curious about that. Yeah, I was always in this observer roles and I love reading my diaries from back then. Always checking myself, my little me and saying, why didn’t you do more? Why didn’t you ask more questions, but I guess it’s the normal development when you’re at that young age. But I really, really appreciated those exchanges.

[00:07:52] Kate: You made an interesting comment there, about your young self and the ability to be culturally curious. We’re going to talk about your research on the thriving expat female, so you’ll let me know if this is one of the traits that you’ve discovered in your research.

[00:08:08] Kate: Then you went on to a corporate career in digital marketing and business development, eventually working in Spain, the UK and Taiwan. And we hear quite a bit about Taiwan in the media these days, because it’s a tech giant and because China has its eye on it. What were your experiences of Taiwan?

[00:08:30] Kate: Taiwan is very, very close to my heart. It’s the country I think about the most, when reading the news, even though I only spent a couple of months there it’s, it’s a place where I call home almost. It was actually before my digital marketing career that I went to Taiwan professionally. I did my Master’s degree in the UK in Brighton and in my class there have been more than 18, uh, other students from Taiwan. There was a huge Taiwanese community.

[00:08:57] Kate: So I was in touch with the culture, not within Taiwan, but in the UK and after graduating one of them got married and invited me to her wedding in Taiwan. I guess expecting that I would politely say thank you and not showing up. But I got so hooked about this idea of maybe living in exploring Taiwanese culture a bit further. So I seek out employment situation there. I got an internship at a German trade office in Taipei and not because I wanted to work there, but because I wanted to be at that wedding and I wanted to live in Taiwan and it was just a tool for me to pay the rent and be there.

[00:09:34] Kate: I guess it feels so much like home for me because I was greeted with so much hospitality. I was living at my friend’s place. I was at their wedding. I was with her when she got pregnant because I visited again and I was with her when she got her second child. I’m still very much in touch.

[00:09:51] Kate: A couple of years ago when I was living in Germany, I got frustrated of not living abroad. So in a, in a weird emotional state, I booked a ticket to Taipei and I was on the plane for 24 hours and I was in Taiwan for 24 hours. So it was a really, really short trip and everybody freaking out, you know, who would fly to Taiwan for two days. But for me, it was just so nourishing to be in touch again with this country and the people and eating the food and having discussions. And I came back very happy after those 84 hours something trip.

[00:10:27] Louise: Does it feel like that might be a country that you and your husband would relocate to at some point.

[00:10:33] Kate: I’m trying to convince him. I’m planting the seeds again and again. He is not the explorer-type of guy. I’m the explorer part of our relationship. I feel like this would be a perfect country and I can’t wait to bring my daughter to Taiwan. This is something I have on my bucket list that when she’s a bit older, I could show her this country because it’s so diverse. It’s kind of small. It’s not that big, but you have everything in just one island. You have the food from everywhere from any other Asian country. You have this authentic Asian life westernized. It’s kind of a mix and there’s a certain vibe. I can’t really tell why I’m so hyped up with this country. I guess it’s because I have really, really good friends there.

[00:11:18] Louise: I had no idea of the extent of the multiculturalism of Taiwan, but you’ve really painted a very vivid picture. And then the moves to Spain and UK, you mentioned going to the UK for study, but was Spain a move with the company that you were working with or was that also self-motivated.

[00:11:39] Kate: It was also self-motivated and kind of in between. So before starting my first serious corporate career in Germany, I always tried to combine my education and work with living abroad somehow. So I chose a study where I was forced to move abroad and work abroad to get the degree. Spain was also part of that educational program so that I have to live there and was self-initiated.

[00:12:06] Kate: When I then started my very linear corporate career in Germany, at first I did not notice that I was now changing gears a little bit, focusing on the very German company. And I was quite happy then at the later stage, when I started to have projects with American companies as well, having negotiations with Americans and having negotiations in New York and so forth, but always based from Germany.

[00:12:30] Louise: In 2017, you moved to the US with your husband’s work. Were you able to continue working with this country move?

[00:12:39] Kate: Technically, yes. Back then having a career was very, very important to me. It was a huge part of my identity. Me and my husband studied the same thing we had at the same work experience. I became team lead quite early on. I was just very happy with my career. But back then, we have been living in Germany for five years and when he came home with this proposal, I was like, yes, yes, let’s move abroad. Only a second later I could ask, okay, what about my career then?

[00:13:07] Kate: And I figured out a way of, uh, having an interview with a local startup, which was connected to my current employer back then. We hopped on the plane knowing, okay, I can work. He can work. It’s all good. It’s all fine.

[00:13:21] Kate: We arrived in Chicago when Obama gave over to Trump and the whole work-permit process got a bit delayed. I imagined there was a huge pile of work applications and, uh, I have waited three months, four months, five months, six months, seven months. In the end, finally I got the work permit and the startup was not there any longer. Because of the nature of startups, sometimes they go bankrupt and out of business.

                                                                                                      Kate in Chicago

[00:13:46] Kate: I was planning to continue my marketing career and then I found myself in the situation where I’ve never been before, out of job and slowly realizing that the Americans around me have not waited for somebody from Germany, with a marketing background. They always wanted to have somebody with an American background and American marketing experience. That was a new and challenging situation back then.

[00:14:12] Louise: So what happened?

[00:14:15] Kate: First I got, uh, not really depressed, but kind of clueless about what to do. So I booked a plane ticket to Thailand. I left my husband waiting for our furniture to arrive. I left him in an empty apartment. I packed my backpack and went on a backpacking journey. My first backpacking journey alone with no friends, partner.

[00:14:37] Kate: That was a really, really good experience. Looking back, I’m very thankful I had this experience in my life. In the end I was three months in Thailand, Ecuador and Cuba and Mexico. There was no real plan behind why this or that country, it was just whatever was feasible money-wise and plane-ticket wise. I just tried to elaborate a bit on this question of what to do professionally.

[00:15:02] Kate: It helped me a lot to get some distance and to be outside of that hamster wheel for a bit, especially defining career as something very linear and breaking out of that situation helped me a little bit. I also had coaching, back then in Chicago and this one coach asked me, ‘why does it has to be the marketing job?’ And I was a bit, what do you mean? That’s my background. That’s what I’m good at. And then I figured, I always wanted to do my own thing, I could do that now.

[00:15:30] Kate: I went home to my husband very angry for not asking me that question. I was like, you always knew that I wanted to start my own business. That’s perfect timing now. And he was like, yes, but you kept repeating that you want to have this marketing position. I was like, oh, interesting. So neither of my friends or family members encouraged me to start my own business because I was keeping on telling them I want to have this marketing position. Then I realized the power of coaching and that changed everything for me.

[00:15:58] Louise: Sounds like that three months travel gave you an opportunity to reflect on your life and do some internal work that in combination with the coaching then launched you into this phase of building your own business. Now, is that what you did while you’re in the US, launched your own business?

[00:16:21] Kate: Yeah, about a year in our experience in Chicago, I started to really take it serious with being a professional coach. I always was interested in content creation and writing about the experience of living abroad, digging deeper into academic studies and publishing that on my platform. That’s also why my website is called ShareTheLove.blog because it started as a blog. And then about one year into the adventure, I slowly recognized that I can help more by not only sharing information, but also by becoming a coach myself. That was a time I really started my education. I started to explore more topics, having a more holistic view on the whole topic of living abroad and the effect and the impact of career planning, especially for women.

[00:17:14] Kate: I have a few male readers and I have a few male clients, but honestly, the majority are women who are consulting me and the number one topic is always what to do about my career. So my clients guided me to the business I’m having today.

[00:17:30] Kate: Also, reflecting back on the three-month backpacking journey, now as a coach with the perspective of my clients, I can see that this journey helped me to say goodbye to this victim role, blaming it on Trump, blaming it on bureaucracy and work-permit delay, and whatever, and allowed me to be more proactive to take my faith into my own hands again and make the best out of the situation.

[00:17:56] Kate: Leaving the room intentionally allowed me to think outside the box and that’s what coaching is all about. I guess there was a connection for me, at least, traveling and exiting the room, and reentering it with a different perspective, a more empowered perspective.

[00:18:13] Louise: Mm. Hm. And speaking of reentry, after that three-year period in Chicago, you repatriate to Germany, where you start to build up your business. Were you applying some of that stepping out of the room, reentering the room as you repatriated to Germany?

[00:18:32] Kate: My whole repatriation experience reminded me a lot of my dad, who was a doctor. I remember he’s always the worst patient ever, so he knows how to treat other people, but he is the last person to seek advice and go to a hospital. And my repatriation journey reminds me a bit of that, like an intense emotional roller coaster. I help my clients figuring the way and making it a bit smoother, but for us, we came back to Germany in the first wave of the pandemic. We left Chicago in a very, very bad state.

[00:19:05] Kate: Everybody was afraid of losing a job and actually they already lost their job while we have been in the transfer process of staying in the hotel, we came to this hotel for the last two nights in Chicago and it was fully staffed. The next day was half staff. The next day three people left. We saw it with our own eyes what happened, and there was a lot of fear and anxiety in the environment.

[00:19:28] Kate: We also brought our five-month-old daughter home. Our firstborn. It was a very intense time because of that. We come back as foreigner to our own home country, we came back as parents. We came back to our old apartment, now bringing also a baby with us.

[00:19:46] Kate: And there was no real intentional goodbye in Chicago. We have to flee the country. There was martial law back then, meaning no gatherings and no open shops, et cetera. There were no souvenirs to take with us. There was packing in a rush. There was losing my engagement ring in one of the million boxes because my mind was all over the place.

[00:20:08] Kate: And when we came to Germany, they have not been people waiting for us at the airport. It was all shut down. And our baby girl is the first grandchild in our both families. Our parents had to wait a couple of months to see her. Everything a bit on delay, but looking back, I would say we mastered it as a family and it was severely enriching experience.

[00:20:30] Kate: We learned a lot of that and, um, but we started buying plans for our apartment and painting the walls, like only one year into our repatriation journey, because I always was in this mindset of, okay, we’re here for now, but you know how long, maybe we move again. And then the pandemic forced us to slow down a lot and weirdly enough for two-full years, who would have imagined that!

[00:20:55] Louise: Yeah. Yeah. My word that’s an extreme story. Do you know it actually reminded me of the comment you made about your grandmother, fleeing the war with a small family. There was some sense of you having to flee with a lot of chaos and trauma around you. In the notes that you sent me about your background and your journey, you made the comment that the one gift that you came back with was your baby daughter, so there’s a silver lining to the extreme situation that you encountered at that time.

[00:21:29] Louise: Now, one of the things I’m actually fascinated about your story is your research that you’ve been working on and integrating into the work that you do. And that’s the research on the thriving female expat and you came up with four types of the thriving female expat and I’ve got those written down here: it’s the Adventure Seeker; the Expat by Chance; the Career Seeker; and the Changemaker. I’d love you to talk a little about these and your research.

[00:22:04] Kate: I use research as a tool for me to bring a message across. There is so much very, very interesting academic research out there about the whole expat experience ,about the topic of living abroad, reinventing yourself, what happens when you don’t have a career, blah, blah, blah. But it’s hard to access this kind of information. It’s not much fun to read those papers. And what I’m aiming for is always to bridge the gap here and to have the real life role model stories, backed up with the academic research, and that I’m using here as well.

[00:22:40] Kate: So I interviewed 30 female role models, the one who have not been the expat partner, but the ones who have been asked by the companies to move abroad for their job or the ones who seek out the opportunity abroad for themselves and either brought their husband with them or went single. So I only talked to these 30 women and after a couple of interviews, I realized, oh, okay, there is a pattern going on. I have seen this motivation. I’ve seen this challenge. I’ve seen this type of personality again in another interview. Okay, there is different profiles going on here and coming from marketing it’s a common theme to think of personas in order to help us to think about what does she want? What is her fear? What is her issue? And the same goes for here, so I found out that there are four repeating patterns.

[00:23:33] Kate: Obviously there is a gray area as well, but if you combine it all and you look at the data, there’s the Adventure Seeker; the Expat by Chance; the Career Maker, and my personal favorite, the Changemaker.

[00:23:46] Louise: Is it your favorite cause you’re a Changemaker?

[00:23:50] Kate: No, I can’t really tell what I am actually. I never asked myself that. I started the research thinking, okay, all those 30 women will be Career Maker. That was like my thesis back then, because many of them have been CEOs or having very high senior positions. So I was surprised to find out that the career woman is just 30% of the sample. And I was curious to hear that many other motives have been in play here.

[00:24:16] Kate: The career woman for example, is the one who does not really care about living abroad, but she uses this lifestyle abroad in order to push her career, because the headquarter asked her and she jumps on that opportunity to make a better senior rank back in home country. Very ambitious, linear mindset. So that was the one I expected. Then there was the other one, which I might expect a little bit, like the Adventure Seeker, the one who does not really care about her job at all, just works to be able to live abroad. She always had this curiosity for living abroad since being a little child, and she just uses this job, for example, the tourism industry, just to be able to live abroad and to be a foreigner. And then there was this Expat by Chance who I know a little bit better to do my work as an expat-partner coach, because she also finds herself in a situation without knowing it – it just happens because she falls in love. But there is not this trauma of not being employed and not thinking about your career because she finds a career right away, very easily or she is being asked by the company to go abroad again and again, and for the third time the company asks, she says, okay, yes, I go. I mean, not very motivated, but I go and then being abroad she finds like, oh, okay, that’s, that’s cool, I’m so glad I have this experience.

[00:25:43] Kate: The persona I’m most fascinated by is the Changemaker, because she uses this global lifestyle as a tool, as a facilitator to have the life she wanted, to actually be able to have children and having a career. Because many of my participants had children and career ambitions and have been struggling of having both in their home country. Interestingly, many of them have been coming from Germany, for example. And they told me the daycare situation is so bad, I just can’t have a senior CEO position and daycare, and I can’t afford to have private daycare, so I deliberately went to Asia, or whatever country or south America, to afford daycare, especially as a single mom, some of them have been single moms doing that and this enabled them to have it all. Or they fled their home country because of the perspective of the working mom. I find it fascinating because for her it’s motivation to actually live abroad, but she seeks out this opportunity and finds, oh, okay, I can actually have career and family at the same time, but not in my home country.

[00:26:54] Kate: Here in Germany, we have the saying, when you’re working and being a mom, you are a bad mom. So some of them went to other European countries where it’s totally normal to reenter the workforce after a couple of months. It’s not for everyone, but for these women, this has been the solution to their challenge.

[00:27:12] Louise: This is just really fascinating work. And of course, for those listeners who are living abroad or thinking of living abroad, I’m sure like me you’re thinking well, which am I, where do I fit in this lineup of the four types? Now, how are you applying this research in your work today? Are you working mostly with internationals? You mentioned you have some male clients, but mostly female clients. Tell us a little about how you apply what you have been researching.

[00:27:43] Kate: I’m using my research as an kind of an open source for people to have free access to, to make up their own mind because there’s so much support and so much research going on, but somehow it’s hard to access. I remember clearly when I was the expat partner, I thought I’m the only one with my feelings. Only later when I started doing this professionally, I found out no, by far, not the only one. And there’s so much research. So I’m trying with my work to make it more available and to have more reach and people downloading it and reading that and feeling, oh, okay, I know that kind of person and this can be an inspiration.

                                           Kate’s research findings, available as a free download on her website

[00:28:20] Kate: So I’m using that as an open source, as my way of giving back to the community as my way of digesting my experiences and translating into something valuable to others. And with my coaching, I’m always focusing on the topic of what to do with my career. In the beginning, it was heavily with expat partners, accompanying partners, then slowly I have added people who just changed countries for whatever reason, maybe the Adventure Seeker who finds herself not happy in this position abroad, maybe the Changemaker, or the Expat by Chance, and now I’m coaching women who have repatriated or reentered the workforce after quite some time.

[00:29:02] Kate: I’m currently conducting another research interviewing women who have a career break of plus five years and who have reentered the workforce and sharing with me how they did it and how they felt during that time. So my coaching is always around this topic of finding clarity on what to do professionally.

[00:29:22] Kate: And with the answer to that question, actually helping them with the whole application process. Because this can be a very intense, lonely journey for many, because it takes time getting this motivation back, making yourself available to the workforce, getting the confidence back and the knowledge that you are of worth, that you have something to contribute. The longer you are not working the harder that part is. Ah, and to help those women to seek out and network, to raise their hands, to raise their voice and be back in the workforce.

[00:29:54] Kate: After returning to Germany, I have chosen not to focus just on Germany because I’m German, I’m coaching women around the world from whatever culture or country, because the interesting and fascinating effect for me is that they all have the same challenges. It’s the same questions. The same doubts. The same fears they’re having, no matter where in the world they are. There is very similar emotions coming with not being employed, not being sure about the next professional step. It can be lonely. It’s great for me that this is a very global topic. I’m sitting here in my living room in Germany coaching women from all around the world. So while I’m not abroad right now, at least during my working hours, I’m kind of abroad, right?

[00:30:38] Louise: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, how are people finding you, Kate? I mean, this might be a good time for you to tell listeners if they’re interested to know more about what you do, where they can find you?

[00:30:50] Kate: They can find me on my website, ShareTheLove.blog where if you want to know more about the thriving female expert study, you can download it for free and read about the motivation and the challenges of other female breadwinners and get inspired by their stories. I put so many quotes in there. It’s really, really cool to read through that. They can find also my coaching and more info and ShareTheLove.blog.

         Kate’s ShareTheLove website

[00:31:12] Kate: I’m also hosting global coffee dates every month. A way for me to create a space for women to connect and to chat. And we use fun breakout rooms to have a cool one-to-one connection and not having only small talk. We go a bit deeper and facilitate real connections between people around the globe, because I believe in community. There is so much wisdom out there already.

[00:31:37] Louise: That’s fantastic. So if listeners are interested, can they participate in those online coffee mornings by finding a link on your ShareTheLove.blog?

[00:31:49] Kate: Yes. It’s just sharethelove.blog/coffee/

[00:31:53] Louise: Oh, slash coffee! Okay. Okay.

[00:31:55] Kate: It’s very easy to sign up.

[00:31:57] Louise: Oh, I love that idea!

[00:31:58] Kate: While it’s important to have local connections, it’s also important to be in connection with somebody who’s living at the other side of the planet, but experienced very similar things and can give you some advice or some insights. This is very interesting for me to see in just 15 minutes, you’re so deep into a very intense conversation and you’re taking away so much more than just the typical, small talk. I really love how these women are always happy to jump in with advice or ideas. Also my former clients are using this kind of space to reconnect with me and others. So it’s a nice way for me to recreate a space on a monthly basis.

[00:32:35] Louise: Sounds wonderful. In fact, I, I identify with that because the podcast has become like that for me to hear the stories of women like yourself and such inspirational stories. And I do it from home. This is my job these days and it gives me an opportunity to connect with women all over the world and hear their stories.

[00:32:57] Kate: That’s an amazing skill to be able to listen to these stories. Thank you so much for offering this podcast and to be curious about other people, to dig a bit deeper, I really appreciate your work.

[00:33:07] Louise: Thank you Kate! Again, there’s that word ‘curiosity’. I’ve lived outside of my country of origin for 36 years. I think the driving force behind that is my curiosity. I’m so curious about other people and their cultures and how different cultures function. Anyway, thank you so much, Kate. This has been inspirational and an absolute joy. I will link to ShareTheLove.blog so that listeners can easily access your site and ShareTheLove.blog/coffee. Thank you again, Kate.

[00:33:42] Kate: Thank you so much for having me Louise, and greetings from Germany to all of you who are listening.

[00:33:47] Louise: Thank you for listening today. And so you don’t miss future episodes with more impressive, intrepid women do subscribe on your favorite podcast provider or on my YouTube channel, Women Who Walk Podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on either Apple or Podchaser, I’ve linked to them both in the transcript of this episode, on my website, LouiseRoss.com.