#24 Fighting rejection and self-doubts by moving to the other side of the world!

Foreign.

And welcome to purpose Fueled Performance with me, your host, Tim Jones, the grow good guy.

In the one week the girl who I was dating broke up with me, I got the rejection letter from the army and as I opened that letter, walking from the letterbox into the house, I trod in dog poo. And my housemates were just like, haha, you know, you're a complete and utter failure. You've got nothing. You know, even the, even the dog poo is out to get you. So that was a real moment for me of like, okay, I need to get away from here. I need to run away from all of this because I now don't know who I am and I don't know what I want to be. So yeah, that was like the really big thing that sent me to the other side of the world initially.

Hi everyone and welcome to episode number 46 of the Immigrants Live podcast where we share stories of people who left the country to chase a better life. And through these stories you can find ideas, resources and motivation to do the same. I'm Dario Dibiase and in this episode I had the pleasure to chatting with Tim who moved from the UK to New Zealand. Tim is a business coach, trainer, consultant and a public speaker. He's also known as the grow good guy. Tim's journey abroad started when he got a rejection letter from the army, a career that he spent 10 years building. Feeling like a total failure and completely lost, he decided to move to the other side of the world. Trying to find himself and prove his worth. As you will hear from him in this episode, his destiny following to Australia, where he stayed for a year before coming back to the uk. Back home he met a girl from New Zealand and together they decided to move back to the other side of the world, this time to New Zealand. If you are considering moving abroad and just need a little motivation, I think this episode will do it. Tim shares his story in such an inspiring way, giving away great life lessons. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Tim. Hi Tim, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. So Tim, let's start from. I don't know a little bit about yourself. Where are you originally from and where are you now?

So originally from the uk. So I was born in Oxford, which is down in the south of England and currently living in Christchurch in New Zealand, which is down in the south of New Zealand.

Okay. The other side of the world.

Literally the other side of the planet.

Yeah. And what age did you live the UK?

That's a great question. So it was in 2004. It's now what, 20, 21. I'm 42. I don't know. Do the maths. I was sort of mid-20s, I guess. I'm so old now, I can't. Can't remember. Yeah, I think I was about 25ish. Somewhere around that. 25, 26.

And did you go straight from the UK to New Zealand or you went somewhere else?

Sort of, kind of. So I guess full part of the backstory. Initially left the UK in about 2001, 2002 and. And lived in Australia for just under a year and then went back to the UK and then, yeah, 2004, came straight, pretty much straight to New Zealand. Yeah. Other than the, the stopover, I think it might have been in la. Can't remember. So many years ago.

Okay. You mentioned you went to Australia. How long were you in Australia for?

So, yes, I lived in Australia for a year.

Okay.

I think growing up in the uk, watching, you know, Neighbors and Home and Away and any other movie that. Or film that had Australia and it was always. It always seemed to be this amazing place where people are friendly and the beer is cheap and cold and the women are beautif and, you know, life's just amazing. So kind of thought, well, let's go check it out. Let's go and see how true this, this, this story is. So, yeah, went. Went to Australia for a year, I guess, partly. Also in the uk it's quite common. Well, back then, I don't know what the kids are doing now, man. But back then it was quite common that people would do a gap year. So between leaving school and maybe going to university, they take a year out and go traveling. And I didn't do that because I kind of thought in my head, I just want to go, just get university done. So I think it was, yeah, partly a bit of a, hey, I just need to go out and go see some of the world, see what's out there. But yeah, I think Australia, New Zealand probably at the time Australia more so held a little bit of an interest, like I say, from being based in a rainy, dreary, cold uk, it's like, well, what. What's not to like about Australia, obviously, apart from the myriad animals that will just eat you and bite you and destroy you at the first opportunity.

So when you decide to leave the UK was just for. Have an experience, just for a year and then come back and start your life or carry on with your life.

In the uk yeah, that was particularly When I went to Aussie, for me, there was. There was a couple of things that happened in the UK just before going to Australia that I guess were, looking back, were really sort of driving forces on that. I think when we first connected last week, we sort of say, you know, humans are fundamentally driven by fear or desire, so you're either running away from something or running towards something. And at the time, I think there was a genuinely a part of me that was like, I just want to get out of the UK and go and travel a bit and, and go somewhere, you know, go to the other side of the planet by yourself and see what happens. You know, can you survive? It's one thing going from, I guess from Oxford down to Cardiff or I went to university for three years. Sure. I mean, that's quite a big step for a young adult, 17, 18, you know, living away from home. But to go and do that on the other side of the planet where you literally. And I chose Brisbane to go and live in Australia because I thought there's no point going to Sydney and living in a house full of British people working in a. Typically what most people were doing was going, getting a call center job, so working in a call centre in Sydney and then hanging out with other British people. What's the point in going to Australia if you're just going to hang out with other British people? So there was a part of me that wanted to go and have some life experience, but also, I guess I had a series of disappointments in my life in the UK that really, looking back, were probably a bigger part of that journey of. For exploration, to go and I guess go and find myself, as people might say. So, yeah, the type of school I went to, it was pretty much predestined that you were going to go to university. There was no question at the age of 15, 16, would you like to leave university and maybe go and get a trade or, or start a business? It was, you know, which university would you like to go to? What do you think you'd like to study? And I think as part of that process, not really knowing what I wanted to go and do when I was an adult, the only thing that really came to my mind, because a lot of my mates were the same and I think a lot of young boys are the same, is I wanted to join the army. So I wanted to join the British army as an officer. And in 19, it would have been 1999, just after uni, I went through that process and I failed. I failed the selection. Everything that I planned on for my future was sort of torn out from underneath me. I remember in the same week I was living with a group of boys in Cardiff. And obviously in general young males are very supportive of each other emotionally. Not in the one week the girl who I was dating broke up with me. I got the rejection letter from the army and as I opened that letter, walking from the letterbox into the house, I trod in dog poo. And my housemates were just like, haha, you know, you're a complete and utter failure. You've got nothing, you know, even the, even the dog poo's out to get you. So that was a real moment for me of like, okay, I need to get away from here, I need to run away from all of this because I now don't know who I am and I don't know what I want to be. So yeah, that was like the really big thing that sent me to the other side of the world initially.

And did something change when you went to Australia? This something that clicked and something that you discover when you left?

I don't think so initially. I mean to be honest, I was that time, what, 21ish, 22ish, you know, young guy, still had no idea, you know, what I wanted to be. And really it was, I think it was just a case of putting myself in a completely foreign environment to see was I still kind of worthy as a human. And what was really quite random or quite interesting in retrospect was the first guy that I kind of really bumped into who became really good mate of mine, Tyson. I'd been living in a backpackers for about a week and then I thought, I need to get out and go and get a house. Let's go and rent a place well before I need that to get a job. And so I was cruising around the Myers center in Brisbane and I just thought, oh, maybe I'll just get a retail job. I had no idea really what kind of job I could I would want to go and do. And cruising around the my center there was a Canterbury Rugby store and Canterbury Rugby is a big New Zealand rugby sort of apparel company. And lo and behold on the, on the front door it had, you know, retail assistant required, you know, apply within. And I walked up to the counter and I'm like a 6 foot 400 kilo plus dude. The guy behind the counter was this sort of 6 foot 400 kilo dude. And we sort of looked at each other, kind of squared each other up a little bit and I was like, hey, I'M interested in the job. And he said, oh, yeah, so clearly you play rugby. And I said, yep. And he said, who have you played for? And I said, well, I've just landed here, but in the uk, I played for my university. I played for the army and a couple of other local teams in South Wales. And he said, oh, you played army rugby? And I said, yeah, why? And he said, oh, I've just left the navy. I'm a Navy rugby guy. We should probably become mates and drink beer. And that was pretty much it. So he was like, look, as far as I'm concerned, you got the job. I'll talk to the manager. I'll just. You've got it. So he got me the job. And then pretty much within about, well, a few days of getting to know Tyson, I said, hey, look, you know, I've got no friends here. You're the first person I've kind of met that seemingly is a decent guy who I could go and have a beer with. Have you got any other mates that I could take out for a beer and I could just start building a network here? And he was like, yeah, sure. So that first weekend we went out and he organized a few of his mates. I'll never actually. I'll never forget this. I said, hey, look, thank you so much, guys. I know this is a bit weird. Like, you know, Tyson's just met me and you guys have no idea who I am, but, you know, I think I'm a decent guy. I'll go and get the first round of beers in. And so I guess having watched so much Australian tv, the only beer that you used to see on TV in the UK was vb. So I went up to the bar, I was like, can I get, you know, a round of vbs? And I came back to the table, and this is in Brisbane, in Queensland. And they all just look at me as if I've, you know, I don't know, spat in their beer or, like, throw. Put cigarette butts in their beer. And they're like, what have you bought? And I said, I've got you some beers. Isn't this what you guys all drink? They're like, no, of course not. This is Queensland, mate. We don't drink vb. That's from Melbourne. I was like, oh, okay. Sorry. He said, we only drink Forex here. So Tyson went back to the bar with me. He said, right, he needs to exchange these for some Forexs. And you also need to get four Bundys. And I'm like, what's a Bundy. And I was very quickly introduced to Bundaberg Rum and Coke. So he said, right, from now on, this is your round. It's 4x and some Bundy.

Okay, so, yeah, that was great. But it was interesting. I met these guys and they were all ex army guys or ex Navy guys. And a lot of their parents were ex army, ex Navy. And Tyson ended up introducing me to a family, some family friends of his. And the dad was an ex army guy who'd served with Tyson's dad. And they had a room to rent in their house and he hooked me up with them and they gave me a really good deal. And I basically ended up having this second family in Australia that I live with for just about a year. And it was just kind of bizarre that I left the UK to get away from this whole military thing. And, you know, this is the group that had kind of rejected me, me and I land in Australia and within a month I'm back with basically hanging out with the same type of guys that I was hanging out with at university in the uk, like carbon copies of the people. And I think at the time it was just kind of almost just a sort of resignation that, okay, well, this is my type of people. So, yeah, I don't think I still spent much of that year just trying to do something and just spent three months working as a rugby coach for the Queensland Rugby Union, going into primary schools, teaching rugby with young kids and stuff. I did some. I can't remember, I think I did some other random jobs because I was on a working holiday visa. I could only have, like, three months was the most I could work in any employment before I had to move on. So, yeah, but yeah, there was. I think it was just more a case of having been through quite an intense schooling system. I went to private school in the uk, so it's quite. You know, I went to school on a Saturday from the age of seven until I was 18, you know, so it's quite intense schooling, you know, nine till five every day and Saturdays until lunchtime. So I think a big part of it for me was just almost like a bit of a release valve and just like, just go to Australia, no one's kind of watching you. You can just kind of start to be a bit more you. But still very underdeveloped as a human being. In my mid-20s, you know, when you. The brain for males typically doesn't develop until their mid-30s. So I was still. I think it was almost like an extension of university in terms of drinking and having a good time, but just having that reassurance that other people do like me. Because I think that's fundamentally what that big hit given me was like, you're a loser. People don't like you.

It's so interesting, the fact that you flew through the other side of the world. You still find, like, the same group of people that you were hanging out in the uk, but generally question. Because for me, if I was in the same situation, I will like a question myself, like, should I pursue this career as in an army? Should I try again? Should I just, I don't know, do something about it? Because it seems like this career is following me around the world, literally.

And I did. I actually, after a couple of months, I thought, maybe should I apply to the Australian army and maybe see. See if that's the thing. Maybe this is like, maybe this is part of the journey. And I generally. I went and met a recruitment person and having talked to the couple of dads who I was around, I was like, hey, you know what? What do you reckon? And they're like, yeah, like, we think you'd be a good fit, and da, da, da, da. But because I wasn't an Australian citizen, you couldn't volunteer or you couldn't join up. And I sort of said, well, surely if I do volunteer, though, I'm a British citizen, so surely, like, there's something within that, and if I was going to volunteer for your military, wouldn't you give me citizenship? Like, couldn't that be a thing? And they were like, yeah, it doesn't work like that. And I was like, yeah, okay. So I guess I just sort of consigned myself to hanging out with the guys that are from that kind of background. I threw myself into playing some rugby with the local rugby clubs. And I think for me, the message was, you know, you are who you are. Just because you didn't pass one test in your life that doesn't define who you are. Whereas the kind of person I am or I was at that time, that was quite defined, if that makes sense. It's like, I think it was. It was almost like reaffirming that you're not. You're not a complete muppet, because these people think you're okay, and these people are the people that you could have been if you'd been on that track in Australia. So still, it's quite bizarre, though.

Totally. But after a year or after finding that you moved to the other side of the world, you managed to survive, find a place. And also Being the other side of the world and see that you can survive, you can take care of yourself. Did it give you like the self confidence that you can actually. I don't know. You are capable and you are responsible for yourself.

Massively so. Because I guess I'm an only child. So a lot of people think that only children are sheltered and massively privileged potentially. I think I was quite sheltered. I don't think I was really ever pushed too much by my parents. They were always quite cautious, like, oh, you know, be careful, don't do that or don't do this, don't do this. So I think there was an element of wanting to just burst out and go, I'm going to give this a go. I mean, you could argue that I wasn't that adventurous. I went to an English speaking country, a mini version in terms of a lot of its culture and systems and processes of the uk, like, you know, the legal systems, the same, you know, everyone speaks English relatively safe and, and I did know, like I said, I chose Brisbane to go to because I didn't know anybody there. But I did have friends in Sydney and in other cities in, in Australia so that if I did get stuck I could go to them. So it wasn't, you know, it's not like I went to Venezuela or you know, the middle of the Amazon, had to sort of go and, you know, learn a new language. But it was quite interesting and you know, leaving fairly well crafted communities and networks and basically going to. So, I mean literally I was in a backpackers to begin with, didn't know anyone, met a couple of people in the backpackers, went on a bit of a road trip with some people from the backpackers but pretty quickly got, you know, back then there was the Internet, wasn't I guess as established, you know, got the local newspaper to go and find listings for rentals, went around on the bus to try and get a rental. Ended up, I moved in with these two girls. Initially they had a room in a basement sort of thing and kind of worked out they weren't really my people quite quickly. And then at the same time I was working for, you know, where I met Tyson. He's like, hey look, you should talk to the Tollhurst. They've got this, you know, it'd be awesome because we can just hang out and, you know, you've got instant friends. And the one thing that did always, there was a guy, Gary, I can't remember his surname. He was another one of these like retired army officers. One of his, I guess Bits of advice has stuck with me for my life. And it's something that I always advise people who are about to go traveling or go and move somewhere. And he said, look, all you got to do is keep smiling, shaking hands, and saying good day and good things will come your way. And I'm like, you can't fault that as a premise for when you are in a foreign country and you don't know anyone, go out of your way just to go and meet people, say, hi, I'm Tim, it's great to meet you. What are you up to? Who are you? And I guess it's hard to do that because, you know, you're in a foreign country and naturally, on a psychological basis, we, you know, stranger danger. We're always taught, you know, don't talk to strangers. And. But I think if you're considering going somewhere else, it's on you to throw yourself into the community rather than wait and rely on people to invite you in. Although it's nice if people do invite you in, but you can't guarantee that because people are so busy, they've got their own networks, their own social networks, their own communities already going, and it's kind of on you. And I think that's sort of two bits of advice I always give to people is don't go to the city where all your fellow countrymen and women are living. Go somewhere. Like, a lot of people travel from New Zealand and Australia to the UK and they always go to London. I'm like, why would you go there? Because you're going to live with a bunch of Kiwis and Aussies in a flat in London. Go drinking with them, work with them, party with them, go to Manchester, go to Leeds, go to Edinburgh, go to Glasgow, go to Dublin. Go to a city where you will be an anomaly, you will be different, because people will want to hang out with you. And that was definitely something I did find in Brisbane. People like, you're a Brit, like, what are you doing Brisbane? And I'm like, I just wanted to come where there were no British people. And they were like, cool. Yeah, we get that, because we don't like them either.

And people. I found that people like that, that you want to try to integrate with, you want to try to get the first step to try to integrate with their culture and hang out with them totally.

And I think that's the whole point of traveling. You know, this. This is where, I guess again, the British do such a poor job in general. You know, the stereotypical British holiday maker is they fly to Spain, they want to stay in a British run bed and breakfast where they can eat British food and they want to go to a local pub that sells fish and chip British beer. And it's like, well, you're just going, you're going to a little England with better weather. That's all you're doing. Instead of actually, let's go and meet a different culture, let's learn about them. And for me, that's always been a really big thing. Whenever I've traveled or gone anywhere overseas, it's like, I want to meet the locals, I want to understand what makes this place tick as much as I can. Being somewhere for a short period of time. But to get to know people, like, what's happening in your world? Like what's good, what's bad? You know, and particularly for me as a traveler, what is the impact that I have of being in your country? Like, is it, is it good or is there stuff that I'm bringing that you don't like? Because I want to make sure that you know, when we go somewhere, hopefully in the post Covid world more so you know that you've been a good citizen, but you're also learning stuff. That's the whole point of travel.

No, I absolutely agree with you. But at the same time, I think, like, I find maybe people try to find comfort when you go to a new country. Everything is really new. So having something that is familiar and people there already speak your language, your accent, they have the same kind of culture, it just makes it easier. So that's probably why everywhere you go there's like a Chinatown, Little Italy, like this community that people created just because it's easy, it's just easy to live abroad. So I'm totally with you though.

It's totally sensible. But I think at some point you have to break out, you know, have that as a bridgehead maybe. But I would totally advise people, we're safe and practical, to throw yourself into somewhere, yeah, you're gonna meet. I mean, I'm pretty sure. Well, I got robbed in the backpackers. Someone robbed. I think I was really, I was quite naive in that regard. I kind of thought, well, my room's got a lock, I'll be all right, I'll just leave my stuff there. I had like a mobile phone and a mini stereo stolen potentially from by the cleaner, you know, so that was like 101. I think, you know, there are some practicalities you have to really think about when you're traveling in a foreign country, particularly if you if English is not the, well, whatever your preferred primary language is, if they're not speaking that in that location. But then, you know, I've had, I don't know, I've had just as much in terms of robberies and stuff happened to me in the UK when I was living there. So you sort of go, well, you know, it's not necessarily a thing, but I was naive in that regard. But I think, yeah, take calculated risks. But you got to, if you don't put yourself out there, you're not going to grow as a person. You're not going to, you know, have that depth of experience. I mean, culturally, you know, white Australia is not massively culturally different from white Britain. But you know, the family I live with, they owned a farm in a place called Dubba Dubba, which is sort of just in the over the New South Wales border from Queensland. It's like, well, I got to go and experience staying on a rural farm in rural outback New South Wales because the family had a farm there and they said, yeah, come down for the weekend, you can help us do some stuff. And you know, so I've got a depth of experience beyond just going on one of those big buses, you know, where they take you to all the tourist places, which is you can get that experience anywhere in the world. Say if you're going to do that, you almost might as well just stay at home, save your airfare and just go on boozy bus trip around your local community.

I totally agree with you. And going back to your story, like trying to find yourself, because I think, at least from my experience, when I moved to New Zealand, I don't know, I have this kind of like this feeling that I could be whatever I wanted. I can start fresh, I'm in a new country on the other side of the world, I can start completely fresh. Did you have the same kind of experience that helped you, trying to figure out who you were or you are?

I think probably not. Like I say in Australia, it was more around just having a good time and just trying to get over that army mess or that, that fail that kind of sat over me. And then I went back to the UK because when I was traveling in Australia, I was working minimum wage jobs, not really earning much money. And I just thought, well, you know, this is, I don't get to really do as much as I wanted. I'm kind of living the life of an Australian. That's cool. But now I'm working minimum wage jobs, I'm not getting to see as much of the place as I kind of would want to. So I messaged a few mates back home and they're like, look, why don't you come back, get a, you know, a proper job and then you can look to transfer and get, you know, move back to us? Like, well, that's. That's a really good idea. So I went back to the uk, ended up getting a job with Johnson and Johnson, so, you know, massive global company on their graduate entry program. And a few months after starting that, I met a Kiwigo. And so we went out for about a year in the uk and my training program was coming to an end and her visa was running out. And so it was pretty much the two options we had, you know, to stay together was either we had to move to New Zealand or she. We'd have to get married so that she could get a visa to stay in the UK. And I guess being, yeah, mid-20s, early 20s, I was like, probably moving to New Zealand is less risky than getting married at this point. And I thought, well, you know, I've been to Australia. New Zealand can't be that different. They all speak, they have a funny accent. They like rugby and barbecues and beer and they're so outdoorsy. I think by that point, I kind of compartmentalized the army stuff in my head. I'd got into a. You know, I'd got a good job, was well paid. I think really my whole focus just went on material stuff. It was like, just earn as much money as you can. It's like I was very much kind of in the system, I think, at that point. And really moving to New Zealand was. It was slightly different. It was similar in some ways because, like, well, I'm in a foreign country. The only person I know is my girlfriend. We ended up staying with her brother for a bit. He introduced us. It was quite random. He was good mates with a former All Black. So for those of you who don't know New Zealand and rugby, the All Blacks are like, the New Zealand rugby team, pretty well known. And within, I think about the first three or four nights of being there, her brother was like, hey, we go and play some pool with this dude. And I was like, yeah, cool. And we get down there and it's like, holy cow. Like, you played rugby for New Zealand and, like, you're massive. And, you know, my girlfriend's brother, like, this is quite random. And he'd had a few beers that I hadn't. I wasn't drinking. He's like, oh, can you Just move my car and put it outside, you know, Ian's house. I was like, really, like former all black has given me his car keys to move his car around the street. It's like, that's random. Welcome to New Zealand. Yeah, I think I was kind of just on the treadmill of earning and working that I didn't really have. I didn't give myself space. I think, like I say, when you look at the psychological development stages for boys, typically it's early 30s is when you actually start to think about life, who you want to be and challenge yourself a bit more. So I was still in that phase work. I didn't get to the army, but I've got a good job here, I'm earning good money. It was relatively easier, I think, moving to New Zealand, having already once moved to Australia and had no network. Moving to New Zealand with some connections, some networks. I even managed to pre, sort of almost pre interview for some jobs in this because I sold medical devices, I was selling hips and knees. And so it's quite a boutique, I guess, role. And so if you've got experience in that, it's quite easy to get a role. So that, that was really useful having a job that was sort of in demand or not many people could do it, which meant I had sort of two or three offers of a job within a couple of months of being in New Zealand. So it almost just felt like I'd taken life as I was living it in the UK and was running it now just in New Zealand and just people just spoke funny, they had a funny accent. And it wasn't really until I went out with that girl, we went out for about another three years in New Zealand. 2007, so 2004 ride. We broke up 2007 and that part of that was I wanted to move down to. So I was living in Auckland in top of the north island of New Zealand. Part of it was all things weren't going as well as they could have been, but I also had an opportunity to move down to Christchurch with the job that I was doing. They were looking at creating a role in South Island. And I said, well, actually I'd quite like that, so why don't I take that role and, you know, recruit for my old role instead? And they're like, yeah, sure, we can do that. And I'd always been attracted to the south island for the lifestyle, it's the climate. I like the climate down here. It's colder in the winters, it's a drier heat in the summers. Whereas Auckland is sort of just muggy and sort of humid and rainy quite a lot. And it's like just not really. It was interesting. You know, Auckland is a subtropical environment. So it's like this is interesting. I'm living in a subtropical place. I've never done that before. There's different, you know, that landscape is different. But yeah, I kind of felt this draw towards Christchurch. It's a bit more British. I guess there was something in that. Yeah, I didn't really feel a massively unpacked more of myself until we, we hit the earthquakes here in 2010, 2011. And that was like the major oh my God, like what are you doing? Who are you? Moment. I was also, yeah, around about that 32 mark. So I think I started to have some conversations in my head around actually, like what are you doing? Like you don't really enjoy this job anymore. I've been doing it for 10 years. Was seeing quite a lot of stuff going on in that role and in the industry more broadly. But yeah, it wasn't really until the earthquakes and then our wife and I had our daughter in 2012 that I really started to think about who I am and what do I want to do.

Hired other people that said that the earthquake just something clicked in their mind. The perspective completely changed. The fact that you have to. The work life balance just completely changed. But just because you, you value more of your lifestyle, the life that you live outside of the work and you enjoy more what you have after the earthquake 100%. That's not the first time I hear.

Yeah, a lot. A lot of people had what's called a subconscious awakening. So if you. Which is what I had. So if you have a near death experience or if you lose someone really close to you in a tragic accident or even just death and the birth of a child, those are sort of three major ways that you can have what's called the subconscious awakening. And I had two out of the three. So we had earthquakes and then birth a child. So very, very quickly my brain's going, whoa. Like you're not living your life like you should be here, brother. You need to have a real think about stuff. Stuff. And I think a lot of people in Christchurch, we all had that simultaneously. It's quite interesting.

Yeah, totally. I kind of want to go back a little bit. When you said that you moved back to the uk, you were doing like a low pay job in Australia and you have to move. You decided to move back to the uk, you had like a, let's call like this failure of not being able to go to the Army. Did you see going back, not make it in the. In Australia? I have to go back to the UK as another failure or not with just like another step in your life?

Yeah, no, I definitely didn't consider that a failure because I guess I went. I didn't have any intent when I was going to Australia. It was like, I'm just. I just need to get out of the uk. I just want to go. Go find myself. Whatever that looked like at the time. Which I think was more about meeting people who thought I was a good person. I think that was the majority of what I was looking for, rather than. I think it was that reaffirmation of like, you're not a complete dick. It's like, you're actually a decent human. You're a good guy, you've got some qualities. It's just that the time wasn't right for you, you know, at that time, or genuinely, I just did not meet the criteria. I mean, I look back and it's like. Like actually a. I'm quite glad because if I had joined the. The British army in 1999, I would have spent the next 10 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I'm like, would I really want to do. Have been there, you know, fighting a war that I'm skeptical about best? You know, I think, yeah, sure, there are some genuinely evil people in that region who are doing some really bad things, but I think there's a whole lot of other reasons as to why we're there, which. So I kind of look back and go that. I kind of think it will happen for a reason. So I definitely didn't consider leaving Australia as a failure. It just felt like it was a stepping stone. It was part of that forward movement or that momentum of like, okay, we need to get yourself out of this. Because I was. Was I depressed? I don't know if I was depressed, but I was pretty annoyed, pretty miffed. That's like, well, what do I do now? Like, the only thing I'd set my heart on for sort of 10 years of schooling you've just been told you can't do. So, yeah, it was definitely more of a stepping stone. And then coming back into or getting like a proper job in the UK was again, like, to get through the selection process for the, for the graduate training program. Only two of us out of about a thousand applicants made it it through. So it's quite intense. I was fortunate in that I got recommended for the role. So I think it was like a four step screening process. So they had like general applications and then there was an initial screening and then there was some interviews and then some psychometric testing and then a final test was like the process. But because I got recommended by a mate of mine who was already working for them, you basically get through the first two stages. It's like, okay, you've met the character test because you've been recommended by someone who basically my mate Will said, look, he's pretty much a carbon copy of me, you know, he'll do really well. So, yeah, I think that Aussie was kind of just part of the stepping stone and I think getting the graduate training position at Johnson Johnson, that was kind of like, cool, I'm back on track. Like, I'm back winning again. Because I think realistically throughout my life to that point, the failure of the army was pretty much the only major failure that I'd encountered. So I guess partly I was psychologically unprepared for that because up until then it's like, yeah, you've passed your GCSEs, you've passed your A levels, you've gone to university. It's like, you know, you kind of one of life's winners, you're doing okay here, you're going to leave university, you're going to get a job somewhere, you know, someone through your school network, you know, or just whatever. So, yeah, it was kind of like one setback, but I think it was because it was such a deep setback and it was like, now it's like a real chat. I've got to think of a new direction and a direction that I've not even pondered. I think that was probably more of it.

Now it makes sense. And when you were in New Zealand, you broke up with your girlfriend.

Yes.

Why did you decide to stay in New Zealand and not going back to the uk? What make you stay in New Zealand?

Yeah, because it was. When I went to New Zealand initially, I said to my parents, oh, look, I'm just going to go for a year, I'll just go and see what it's like. And then, you know, we'll sort the visa stuff out and we'll probably come back. I guess, you know, we kept going out for sort of three years. I got a pretty good job, which had some good opportunities. Like I say, I was kind of focused on that work mindset at that time and it was all just about material, you know, get more money to be able to do more things. I was really fortunate. The company that I Ended up getting a job with was a Swiss based multinational company. So every year I got a business class trip back to, well, to go to Davos in Switzerland. And to do that trip you pretty much had to go LA Heathrow, I think Geneva, and then got the train from Geneva to Davos. So I basically got a business class trip ticket back to the UK every Christmas. So I'm like, well, this is kind of working for me. I get to see people in the uk, I'm not having to pay to go home. I also get two weeks skiing in Switzerland. Every Christmas is like, this is terrible. You know, life was pretty good. I got to go to a lot of conferences around the world as part of this, the role I was doing. And I was like, would I be doing this if I was working for this company in the uk? No, because I think by virtue. So I was the first person. Well, there was like three divisions to the company was working with. And the one I ended up getting the job for, I was the only employee in New Zealand. So basically I had to create this division. And so that was my job for two to three years. Well, four years was building the revenue of that division so we could sort of start hiring more people. So although I was only the sales rep, I effectively had the, like, I met the criteria of a general manager of a division. So I was being invited to conferences in Malaysia, Australia, Switzerland, in the US as like a pay level or pay grade way, way above of what I was recruited for. So I was kind of looking at that and going, would I be doing this if I was in the uk? It's like, no, you'd just be a number in the system. So it's like, okay, I think there was a part of that. And also like, I mean, you've lived in New Zealand. It's not a bad place to live in, you know, some place to live. Yeah, it's a beautiful country. There's a lot to see and do. I think, yeah, maybe at that 2007 point when we broke up, but I guess there was still there was the opportunity of, oh, wow, you get to live in Christchurch. I like skiing, you know, the ski fields 90 minutes from the house where we live, where I live here now in Christchurch. It's like, again, you know, would I be living a better life if I was in the UK right now? And I was kind of like, don't think I would be, you know, I mean, sure, I get you can go to go skiing, but you have to fly to France or Italy or whatever. And It's. You can't really do that for a weekend. Or you can get that. There's a train, I think it's called the night train, you can get from London that leaves on a Friday afternoon at like 4 o' clock and you sleep overnight and you ski Saturday, Sunday, and then get the train back Sunday night. I mean, you can do stuff like that. Sure. But, yeah, I think the life that I was living, it just kind of felt like I'd probably be going backwards if I moved back to the UK just because of what I was doing with my. With the business or the company I was working for. Yeah. I don't think it really ever crossed my mind in those first few years.

And with the earthquake hitting Christchurch, where you were living.

Yep.

You are an immigrant, so you don't have like roots anywhere, so you can move freely. Pretty much, yeah. Why did you decide to stay in Christchurch and not move somewhere else after this, after the earthquake? Because that scared a lot of people. Some people lost their houses. It was like a huge earthquake.

Ultimately we did.

And that's one thing, I guess that would be the other piece of advice I'd give, would be don't trust the advice or don't trust the brochure that the tourist board gives you as to what goes on in the country. Because at no point was there any brochure that I saw that said New Zealand has earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters of quite large scale. That was never on any brochure that I saw when I entered New Zealand. It was just like, oh, look, there's no animals here that can bite you. It's amazing. The people are friendly. You'll have a great time. Time. So always check that fact, check the country you're moving to. But yeah, after the earthquakes, we actually did move. And I guess this was, I mean, after I moved down to Christchurch from Auckland, within a couple of months, I met a different young lady. And pretty quickly we thought, yeah, we quite like each other. So 2009, we got married and 2010, just before the earthquakes started, we were like, yeah, we know, maybe we should think about having kids. And so when the earthquakes hit. So my wife owned the house that we sort of were living in. She'd bought it before we met. We sold that house so that there were two big earthquakes, sort of thousands of little ones, but the two main ones were the September one, which was the initial one, and then February 2011 was the really, really big one, and we had sold our house the day before the February earthquake because we'd realized that we wanted to move from Christchurch if we were going to be serious about having a family. We just thought living in a city that is experiencing thousands of aftershocks with potential for another massive one is not a great place for someone to be pregnant and, and right. You know, and there's a lot of interesting research around this. It's a topic called epigenetics and not many people have heard of this topic, but the trauma that a mother experiences whilst they have a child in the womb can significantly affect the child's long term outcomes to the level that it can affect. It can alter the DNA of the child. And this they think it's all based on hundreds of thousands of years ago. If you were a tribe of people walking around, you know, trying to find somewhere to settle down for the winter. If the mother felt that the win was going to be particularly harsh, the child would have to be, I guess their genetic makeup would be altered so that they could handle a harsher environment to which they were going to be born into. Whereas if the environment was like, hey, actually the harvest looks really good this year, the winter is going to be quite mild, then the child doesn't have to be as resilient. So we didn't know this at the time, but we are super, super glad that we ended up getting out and we ended up moving to Auckland for a couple of years because the role I was doing for the company I was working for was a national role. So I changed companies a couple of times where this point. So I was the only, again the only employee for this company in New Zealand. And they were like, well, we don't really care where you live as long as you can service the clients. And my wife's company were amazing. They basically said, look, here's two months salary. Call us when you're ready. We don't expect you to be going to work. You just call us when you're ready. And when she, you know, she basically had a conversation. 7 Look, we're, we're thinking of looking to relocate. And they said, well actually we've got a vacancy for a job in Auckland. If you want it, we can kind of just make sure that you get it. So we ended up that getting transferred. Yeah, my wife got, I mean in general, you know, other than the army thing, I just feel like my life has been incredibly fortunate. Like there's been a. I don't know whether that's, I'm just a positive person who, looking back you kind of go, well it could have been worse. But There seems to have just been some significant moments where it's like it actually could have been a hell of a lot less. Like, what if our house hadn't sold and we'd been left with a house that was. I mean, the lady who bought it, I don't know why she bought it. It's. Why would you buy a house that's just been through a massive earthquake that no one knows like, like if there's going to be more or actually how damaged this property is. It's like insane. But she bought it so it's like cool. We get to move on. So yeah, we ended up living in Auckland for a couple of years, which is quite cool. Yeah, my wife hadn't lived outside. Well, she'd lived outside New Zealand but she. Within New Zealand. She'd only really lived in the South Island. So yeah, we went out to Auckland, lived up there for a couple of years. For me it was kind of okay because I had mates who were still there from the first time I'd been there and it was pretty seamless for me to get back into things.

And why do you decide to back to Christchurch?

So ultimately, yeah, we had our daughter 2012 and so it was around about 2013, there was a couple of things. So I'd really, by this point really had enough of the medical device industry. I was like, as part of this subconscious awakening, I kind of realized that I wasn't living the life that I wanted to live. And so I kind of had like a massive early midlife crisis in terms of the transition of my career. I kind of thought maybe it was just the medical device stuff. So I ended up in 2013 I applied for and got a job as a general manager for firm surveyors and engineers. Really quite random, but it was part of the plan. In 2013 I was like, right, I want to get out of medical, so I want to get a job that's non medical. I want to get a leadership role ideally for sort of job progression, CV progress and we want to move back to the south island. And the south island move was, was really for family because my wife's family are all local down here. Whilst it was good for the first maybe 18 months of having no one around to sort of, oh, no, don't do this. Because people with, if you have kids, you know, everyone's got an opinion as to how you should do everything from holiday. You don't hold them like that. No, you have to. Bottle of milk has to be at 34 degrees, not 32 and it's like, whatever, I'm tired, the kids getting fed, like, leave me alone. So it was quite nice not having that. But then we got to a point where actually having some family and friends around would be useful. Plus also, I guess if you haven't. If you don't know much about New Zealand, the housing prices in Auckland are just utterly insane. So I was like, well, we can have a better life. And I guess my wife was originally from here. I'd originally chosen to move to Christchurch. It just felt like a natural thing to go back once the earthquakes had.

Settled and earthquakes on the side. Would you recommend New Zealand for people that wants to move abroad as a first country to go?

Yeah, definitely. It's pretty easy to get into in general. Well, obviously Covid.

Not being here. Yeah, it's interesting. Kiwis. I have to be careful what I say because technically I am a Kiwi. I guess in some ways I have a Kiwi passport. I still can't bring myself to support the All Blacks. I don't think I'll ever get there. Kiwis like to say that they're the friendliest people on the planet. I think every nation likes to claim that they're the friendliest people on the planet. In general. I think Kiwis are pretty welcoming. They can be a little bit suspicious sometimes of foreigners. Even if you're English. English is sort of first language. But again, I think I refer back to my first comment. It's kind of on you to try and integrate. People do say that the south island and particularly Christchurch can be what they call quite cliquey because people tend to stick to their groups. Auckland and Wellington less so. Auckland is a very transient city. It's a big city, very ethnically diverse. So I think it's easy, probably easier to land in Auckland and get opportunities than it is in a smaller place in New Zealand because some of the smaller centers are very small. But yeah, in general pretty friendly. It's pretty accommodating. Doesn't sort of matter really who you are, what you're about. Most people give you a chance. So definitely worth a go. And a beautiful place. I mean, the south island of New Zealand is such varied terrain. It's amazing.

Yeah, and I noticed that with the earthquake, actually the earthquake, the reconstruction of the city brought a lot of foreign people into. Into the city. So everywhere you go there will be mostly like a foreign people than Kiwi usually. Even the company I used to work for like, like 40 people maybe there were like five kiwis and everybody else were from all over the world. So for me making friends was much easier just because there's so many people in my same situation. But also even the Kiwi that I met, they were Kiwi from the North Island, Kiwi from somewhere else. So I don't know, I never actually felt what you said like a close community because I always found even people like a local Kiwis that were not from crisis. So we're pretty much in the same boat.

I think that definitely changed post quite a bit. Quake, pre quake.

Okay.

It was. Christchurch was renowned for being very difficult to integrate as an incomer because it was all like, you know, what school did you go to? And all the rest of it. Whereas like you say now there's large amounts of Filipino and Irish immigrants through the building industry. Massive, massive populations. And yeah, like I said, a lot of regional immigration or immigration within New Zealand. So Christchurch has definitely changed. But I still think in many ways if I still would probably go to Auckland as my first because it's just bigger, there's more jobs, there's more opportunities. I mean the housing is tough, but in terms of. Yeah, you know, all the. Most of the big companies are based in Auckland. It's kind of like it's probably an easier place to get going. Yeah, I don't know, maybe it has changed, but I think I'd probably still go go there.

Okay. I want to only add one thing because maybe things has changed, but last time we was there a few years ago, if you were living in Auckland and if you're trying to apply for the permanent residency, it will get less points because they were trying to get people away from Auckland is like a 60 or 70% of the population of New Zealand is in Auckland. Pretty much they're trying to give. Spread people over the country. So if you are in Auckland, it will be harder to get a permanent residency. That's the only thing. And do you have any regrets about leaving your country?

I wouldn't say not necessarily regrets. I think it's don't. If you remember there was that movie Sliding Doors with I think it's a Gwyneth Paltrow where, you know, there's all these moments in life where. And I think that is such a true a truism. It's like every opportunity that there's at least one or two, if not ten doors that you can go through. When I was in Aussie, I can't remember the name of the movie, but there was this movie and in the movie there was a French character and this line Stuck with me. It's like, there's no such thing as regrets. There's only things you did or didn't do. I quite like that as a general. Like, you had two options, you chose one, you didn't choose the other. It's like. And you don't know how the other one would have panned out. It might have been better, but you don't know. So I think it's a dangerous thing to kind of go too far down that. Regret might be a big word for it, but things like, I mean, I've made it back to a couple of friends weddings, but there's been quite a few friends weddings that. It's like, I just can't make it back. It's, you know, it's $3,000. You know, I can't take the time off work. It certainly makes it hard in that regard. But then a lot of my friends from university are living all over the country, all over the world, so not so much. I think I miss things I don't. I wouldn't say that I regret. I like my rugby. I really miss being able to go to Cardiff and watch Wales play rugby in the Six nations, particularly since I've been in New Zealand. I think they've won more Grand Slams and won the Six nations more than they have in the history of the thing since I've been living in New Zealand. So it's like, really? But then a part of me is like, well, maybe that's because I'm living here is helping them win, so I just need to stay here. I don't know.

Yeah, exactly.

It's my superstitious thought and I'm sticking to it. I think more recently, what I am. There's an interesting topic that I've come across, and it's this idea called domicide, where you kind of don't feel at home in the place that you're living. And I do increasingly have a sense of that. Occasionally I'll. I'll say stuff like, oh, you know, know, why do Kiwis do that? And my wife kind of goes, well, you are a Kiwi and you live amongst Kiwis, so kind of get over it. And you go, yeah, but I'm. I'm kind of not a Kiwi because, you know, I lived in the UK for 26 years of my life, and I've been in New Zealand 14 years, so I'm kind of still more British than I am Kiwi in the majority of my life. And I think the more I've been on my own journey of growth and expansion and trying to work out who I am and my place in the world. I keep being drawn back to the fact that it, I guess, and it's rightly so, you know, there's big moves to have more Maori culture in day to day life in New Zealand. But I reflect on that and go, I have nothing in me that is mori. I am more Celtic. You know, my, my dad's family was Welsh. You know, Jones is like the most common Welsh surname. My mum's family is effectively Irish. So I should be spending more time thinking about learning Gaelic or Celtic than I should mori because that's more who I am. And I think that's the one thing I do really miss is that that deep connection to culture, my culture and my heritage is quite missing in the newer parts of the world. Like, I mean maybe like in Canada as well, you know, the us, New Zealand, Australia, you know, the school that I went to, my secondary school. They can trace their history back to I think it was 11:58. It's like there's a seat of learning, been on that site since 1158. And then you come to New Zealand and you see a sign for historic house and it was built in 1920 and you sort of go.

It'S not quite, is it? So I think that's, that's the one thing I'm really struggling, you know, on a regular basis is this connection, this deeper cultural connection to who I am in the land here, which I don't feel and I do, I am slightly increasingly feeling a calling to get back and have that sense of nourishment from the country that you kind of come from, which is an interesting one to, you know, in a pandemic ridden world where you can't even go and do that for a holiday. I don't know, maybe if I went back to the uk, I kind of feel like if I went back to the UK and Europe for a couple of months, months and just really experienced a whole lot of culture and kind of got my fix for it, I probably see a whole lot of stuff that I don't like happening, you know, there'd be idiots because you know, you always see the local idiot. Oh God, people in the UK such idiots. And you kind of go, oh, back in New Zealand they don't do that. So maybe I just need to go back to the UK for a couple of weeks and see that there is just as many idiots doing silly things there as there are here because undoubtedly there is. But I do think that Cultural thing is. That's the thing I'm missing. But I don't say I regret it yet.

Okay, that's. That's an interesting point. Yeah, I never experienced that. Maybe I experienced especially like a different language, different culture, that when I talk to local people, I can relate with my childhood. The things that I. Even the movies, they're kind of the culture from different countries. I can't relate with that. So maybe I kind of miss that in a way. But at the same time, I'm still attracted to their culture because for me, it's still like a new culture. I'm still attracted. I learned more about that. So I haven't missed my original culture yet. So. Like to see that in a few years. But that's an interesting point, I think.

Because you do end up being in a really. There's a potential risk of ending up in cultural no man's land because. And quite often, you know, people back home will. When I speak, oh, man, you sound like such a Kiwi. Whereas here, a lot of people go, oh, so how long have you been in New Zealand for? So it's like, well, I'm not kind of readily accepted by either group on face value. So obviously, because I don't fit into either group fully either, you know, where I've come from, because they think I sound different and where I am, they can clearly, generally clearly identify that I'm not of, you know, New Zealand. It's a really interesting place to be where you kind of. You don't feel as if you belong to either one fully. So there's like. It's like there's this little part of you that's kind of floating in the ether that doesn't have a home, which is this. This sort of domicile concept of not. Not being fully. Maybe I just need to support the all blacks and go all in. And that. That'll be the. I just can't. Can't bring myself.

But it's interesting because that's not the first person that I interviewed. They say the same thing. They move to a different country and still don't find a place that they can call home that they feel settled. They're trying to always maybe find a different country, trying to move to somewhere else with the hope that they can find a place that can call home.

But I think there's partly. There's an element, you know, if you look, the fact that you've left your country in the first place would suggest that there's an element of you that has an. Itch that needs to be scratched in terms of not being where you are. So I always think about, you know, if you look at the populations of the countries that were settler driven, you know, particularly from a Western European perspective, the first people to go there gave up everything and risked everything to get on a boat to go to the other side of the planet. Like there's a mentality of the people that have settled a country and that is going to be passed down. Like there was a strong proclivity for people to be of a certain personality type to go and do that. And that has to have filtered down genetically. And yeah, sure, over time home, you know, more people coming to the population, da, da, da, da. But the very fact that you have, that you had. Because there's plenty of people I know, I mean, there's people that we know here, they have lived in like two different houses within a block of each other and that's it. In fact, there's, there's a couple, we went to their wedding a couple of weeks ago and the wife, she and her three siblings all live within like 10km of where they grew up. I mean, they've all traveled, but they've all come back to live, live within 10ks of where their mum and dad live. And a part of me just goes, I can't understand that. Like, why wouldn't you just go a bit further than that? That seems a little bit too close. But then there's plenty of people that still live within 10km of mum and dad and have never even traveled. So I think there's a, there's an element of personality type that drives you to go. So maybe that's just. I mean, I've got a good mate of mine, he moved to New Zealand about the same time as me and he started the job with me in New Zealand on the same day. And he, he would have been. Or maybe five or six years ago, he was like, I've just, I think he's different because his wife's British as well. He was like, we've just had enough of New Zealand. We just don't feel it's got anything more to offer us. So they ended up immigrating to the US and they've been there and my mate Matt's got a successful job then and they love it. They moved to. I think they're in Colorado, so Denver, I think. Yeah, I think it perhaps is different for me because my wife's Kiwi, my daughter's half Kiwi. You know, it's kind of like where we Live feels like home, home. But it's just that deeper kind of.

Cultural level makes totally sense. I feel like I have friends in Italy. I don't know if it's the same in England, but even like I'm come from like a small town in Italy, even then feels like if you are even moved to a different town, like 2km away, feels like you are living. It's kind of like a being a part of the team. So you're leaving your team to go to another team, so people feel their way. So even like, I can't leave the town where I grew up, the town where my parents up grew, I grew up, I can't live because that's part of what I am. And some people don't never leave, maybe for that reason.

Yeah, I think some people just scared to go and try new stuff. You know, I think you can broadly split people into two categories. You know, people who want to go and try and do new things and are wanting to explore and test and try and push the boundaries and others are like, kind of happy here. I don't. I don't want to go and try something different kind of like what I got. And I think that's what, I guess on a high level makes humanity interesting because you bump into these different types of people and everyone's got different thoughts and.

Exactly. And probably the people that are listening to these episodes, this podcast, they are from the other category, the people they want to explore, but maybe they are afraid to do so. So hopefully through your story, they can find the motivation to, I don't know, move to New Zealand, go give it a go.

I mean, the worst that you know, if all, as long as your financial considerations are well thought out, realistically you get on a plane. I mean, when I came to New Zealand, I got myself a working holiday visa because I wasn't sure how to get a work visa and residency and all that kind of stuff because I was young and naive and if I'd actually looked into it, it would have been quite easy. But I thought, look, I'll get a working holiday visa. If I don't get a job, worst case scenario, I'll go and get a job working on a ski field or in a mountain bike park or whatever. I'll do six months, I've got a return ticket, I can go home. And I think that's the big thing to realize is unless you're frighteningly unlucky and you end up in some country that has some kind of military coup or a natural disaster destroys or stops you getting to the airport to get out. Out in general, if you don't like it, if it's not working out, you can just get on a plane and go home. And you just said I had a holiday. You know, it's not like. Because you imagine 100 years ago you sell everything that you had to get on the boat with a one way ticket. That's a different.

Totally different.

We're in a different world.

Yeah. I actually met an old older man in the airport in Christchurch. He was telling me they moved to New Zealand from the UK in the. Must be like at the 60 or 50 or something like that. Took six months on a boat to get to New Zealand. So things like now it takes like a 30 hour which is a long time but still it's not six months.

Because you can, and you can sleep for half of that time and you're watching and you're watching movies for the other half and they feed you. Yeah. And you're not getting scurvy and you're not going to be raided by pirates and your boat's not going to sink. Yeah, it's like, yeah, no, no, no.

I agree 100 and also I use the same kind of visa when I moved to New Zealand which is, I don't know, it's, it's an amazing visa as you say, you can do whatever where if you have to pay the bills you can do any jobs and yeah. Just go from there.

Yeah.

There's no, pretty much there's no risks, especially in New Zealand. There's like such a safe country. There's like really no risks. And did you have to face any challenges in your journey that you can think of?

I guess probably. I mean the biggest challenge has been more recently. So 2016 my dad got quite sick. I think this is the challenge or the consideration for anyone who ends up living away from home for an extended period of time is, you know, especially in this period of time we've got this, a mum that we know through school, know her mum just passed away in the UK or she was pretty sick and I think she passed away when she got back. You know that's doing that under these situations. It's just been pretty testing and now she's in managed isolation for two weeks. So yeah, 2016 my dad got. Well late 2015 he actually got diagnosed with cancer but he didn't tell me till early 2016. And so 2016 was my. So 2015 I went out on my own in business so I just quit corporate life late 2015 to start my own business. And then early 2016, had a Skype call with my dad and he's like, oh, look, I should probably let you know I've got stage four cancer. Don't know, it's not looking great, but they don't really know how long I've got. Him and I had had a bit of an interesting relationship on and off, which is. I mean, I guess ultimately my. The relationship I had with both my parents probably was also a driving factor in terms of, hey, let's just get out of here. Let's just sort of get away and just go and live your own life for a bit. But that's probably the biggest challenge is navigating a sick parent on the other side of the planet with no clear timelines as to how they're doing. So when he told me, I went back initially in. I think it was like July 2016, 16, to give his partner, because my mum and dad divorced when I was just after uni to give his partner a bit of respite because she was looking after him. And I stayed there for about a month and then I came back and then in late, it would have been September. He was like, hey, look, I'm feeling like I'm going downhill quite a bit. I think you should probably come back over. This might be, you know, the last visit. So went back over and in fact, it was about. I said, okay, look, I'll book a ticket for like a month's time or three weeks time. And about a week, week after I'd booked the tickets, I had a missed call from his partner. I was like, oh, this doesn't look good. And she sent me a text saying, hey, look, he's going, you know, your dad's going downhill really quickly. You should probably get over here. And then I had a call after that from one of the consultant oncologists saying, hey, yeah, look, I think this was like a Thursday evening or no Wednesday evening New Zealand time. And they said, look, realistically, we struggle to see a dad getting through to Sunday. So they're like, you should probably get on a plane now. So literally, I changed my rang. A New Zealand said, hey, look, can you help me out here? So I got. I literally packed my stuff and 6am the next morning I was on the plane to the uk, landed Saturday lunchtime, and I get to the hospital and my dad had had a couple of blood transfusions and he was like walking around as if nothing was wrong. So I ended up staying there for about another month and he was seemingly kind of doing okay. And it got to the point where I said, look, I got to go home because I've got a wife and family and a business and, you know, I can't. I can't. I'm spending a lot of money in an Airbnb and. And stuff where I was in sort of just outside Swansea in South Wales. So I went back and then, yeah, in November, he passed away, so I had to go back for a funeral. So that's probably been the biggest challenge of. Of being over here is sort of navigating intense personal relationships with a parent and then severe illness, because it's. It's hard not, you know, not being able to be there to sort of help as much as you can, but. But just also economically, mentally, physically, spiritually. Like, that was a hard year, you know, really, really hard year.

Yeah. Must have been like an uncertainty that you're.

Yeah, yeah, just. Just not knowing, and I can't even.

Imagine what that means.

Yeah, it's just like.

And do you feel lucky to be an immigrant?

Definitely. I mean, I guess there's no, you know, I've got my Kiwi passport and citizenship. There's no guarantee that they. They give you that, you know, if you're not of upstanding character and meet all the criteria. So I definitely feel hugely blessed and lucky for the opportunities that I've had and, you know where I am. I pretty much love what I'm doing where I'm at. You know, my wife, my kid just finished building a beautiful house. I certainly wouldn't be living in a house like we've built in the uk. Pretty unlikely. Life's pretty good. It's hard, but like I said, it's really hard to know. Would it be any better if I hadn't come here? We'll never know. But, yeah, definitely, I think. But again, I'd argue that the people that put themselves out there and go out of their way to go and try things, generally you're going to land on your feet. You're just going to be open to the opportunities that are presented to you. But, yeah, definitely feel pretty good to where I am, particularly. We're a month away, a month away from the ski season, so life's about to get really good.

Do you think, like, your journey as an immigrant and going through different stages, different places in life, do you think that helped you as well to grow your business because you say you got your own business? Do you think that part of being an immigrant helped to run your business in a way.

I mean, I guess the path that happened to me, the fact that I ended up in Christchurch and I went through the earthquakes, if I. If I hadn't experienced the earthquakes, would I be who I am today? Probably not. I think there's an element of. When you're trying to unpack what's happened to you and what hasn't happened to you in your life, you can either look at it from a deeply rational perspective or you can look at it from a more spiritual perspective. And I think there's almost more fun in looking at life as slightly with an element of fatalism. And you kind of go, well, if I got into the army, me, would I have made it out of Iraq or Afghanistan? I could have been a statistic. I could have been in a body bag that maybe that was a path. Was a path that the universe said, no, actually, we've got something bigger for you. But at the time, you don't see that. I absolutely love my daughter to bits, you know, best thing that's ever happened to me, like, wouldn't have happened to me if I'd not come to New Zealand. So I think all of the things that have happened to me and coming to New Zealand is a big part of it. Had led me to start my own business, would I have done that in the uk? I don't know. I think I have a general proclivity to wanting to be my own boss deep down inside me. But would it have happened? I don't know. So I think that the journey that I've been through here, 100% led to that. And there's lots of learnings and things that I've had on the way that, yeah. Change how I do things and how I approach stuff. For sure.

Yeah. It's all about all those lighting doors. That opportunity you actually decided to take because even just the beginning, just decided to go to Australia. That was a. Yeah, I was a sliding door. But it was your decision to. To do.

Do it. Yeah.

Same going back to the uk, Same try and follow your girlfriend to New Zealand. Those like a. Yeah, they are sliding doors. You don't know what would happen, but at the same time you create your own luck in a way.

Exactly that.

And I like to talk about a little bit about your business because you're Tim Jones, but you're also known for being the grow good guy. Right.

That's the one.

Do you want to tell the listeners what do you do?

Yeah, totally. See this. This was a big part of this. The earthquake experience. Birth a child, subconscious Awakening stroke, early midlife crisis, which I think one, they are both the same thing, just in a different guise. And so there's a really good movie on Netflix called the Bleeding Edge. And if you haven't seen that, it's basically, it's the best way for me to summarize what my job was and what it was about. So I was selling these medical devices and really realized that the whole industry, the whole medical device industry is massively corrupt. And the companies, all they really care about is making as much money as possible. And if they kill patients on the journey to making more money money, it's like, well, you know, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs is the sort of general mentality of the industry. I guess it was the earthquakes and the birth of my daughter that led me to really see that for what it was. And so it's like, cool, I'm done, I'm out of this. And then I worked for this firm of surveyors and engineers for 18 months and just seemed to be that, particularly property developers and other people in sort of the big, big end of town in construction. All they cared about was making as much money as possible. It's like, we don't care if the buildings are environmentally friendly or if they support the local communities. It's just like, who cares? It's just about making money. And it was on that journey I discovered these things here. I don't know if there's going to be video for this, but there's a group of businesses called B corporations, so certified B corporations who are for profit businesses that want to balance making money with doing good in the world. And I thought, well, that sounds a good place to start. So yeah, 2015 ended up going out on my own and I thought, right, I want to start a business that will become a B corp that can help grow other B corps. Because my background was in sales, I figured if I can take all the skills that I've learned in some really big, I mean Johnson and Johnson pay thousands of dollars or pounds to help you become a better salesperson. It's like if I can take all the content information I've Learned on my 10 year career to date as a salesperson and give that to smaller businesses that are wanting to make meaningful social or environmental positive impact, that sounds like a pretty better place for me to be in rather than making money for these big companies. So yeah, that's kind of what Grow Good's all about is helping the businesses doing good in the world to do more good, specifically through sales training. But I also do purp coaching, basically trying to help misguided people like myself navigate that midlife crisis, to work out who they want to be when they grow up and so that they can maximize the amount of good that they can do in the world. So, yeah, my business is called Grow Good, and I'm the Grow Good guy because I'm all about trying to help grow more good in the world.

Yeah, I really appreciate what you do because, I don't know, that's the kind of way I like to approach business, to actually do something nice and they actually help other people that don't do it just for the business. I'd like to finish look with another question. Do you have any. Any other advice for the listeners that wants to move abroad?

Just give it a go. I mean, literally, I think I'd go back to Gary's comment. You know, just go out there with a positive mindset, shake hands, say good day. Just like, hey, I'm Tim. What can we do? Like, how do we play with each other? I think just go with that kind of mindset. Just be open to opportunities and like I said, give it a go. The worst that can happen is you have to, after a week, you get back on a plane and go, you know what? That wasn't for me. But, hey, you've just learned something about yourself or you get somewhere else and you go, oh, my word, these are my people. I love it here. I'm just gonna. I think just be open to the opportunity. There's a really cool guy, he's called Professor Richard Wiseman. He's got. He's done a whole lot of studies on luck. And essentially, the people who consider themselves lucky get more things in life because from his research, they're just more open to the opportunities that come their way. So just have a go. Be open to the opportunity. Say yes as many times as you can, as long as it's legal, moral, ethical, and within your boundaries of tolerance. But, you know, just. Just give things a go because you'll learn so much by yourself. And I think that's the. For me, that's the true value of travel and getting out there is to see parts of the world that you would not ordinarily see, smell, touch, you know, whatever, and just see what that. What that tells you.

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And where people can find you if people wants to get in touch with you, related your story, where people can find you.

Best place is probably just on my website, which Is Growgood co or if not I'm on LinkedIn. If you look for Tim Jones, the grow good guy on LinkedIn I will definitely it put pop up so those would be the two best places to come find me.

Sweet. Awesome. Everything will be in the show notes@ immigrantslife.com thank you so much Tim to share your story and be on the show.

Thank you man. And thank you for what you're doing. Hopefully helping people live their live the dream.

Exactly. Yeah. Hopefully your story will inspire people to move to Christchurch, to move to New Zealand. Maybe people will come to see you on the street and introduce themselves like.

Hey, well I mean if anyone does, I've helped a few people through friends of friends like people who do make it to New Zealand. Like if you need connections or help. Yeah, can always try and Sweet.

Thank you so much for doing that. Awesome. Thank you so much Tim.

See you mate.

Thank you so much for tuning in this week. You can find the show notes with links, insights and much more@ immigrantslife.com Episode 46 if you enjoyed this episode and want to support the show, you can share this episode with your friends and you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or podchaser. And one more thing, if you want to move to a new country and you need help help, feel free to reach out to me either via email@daniel immigrantslife.com or through our website immigrantslife.com it's absolutely free. I don't charge anything for it. Just reach out to me and we can schedule a call. I look forward to meeting you. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you in the next one. Ciao.

And that's a wrap. Hey, thank you so much for listening into my podcast. I hope you found it informative and inspirational. I'd love to know where you are on your purpose journey. And if you have any specific questions or people you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know. Also, feel free to connect with me on other social media platforms. You can check out all those links in the show Notes below. And if you want to see how I might be able to help you specifically on your purpose Journey journey, you can go and check out my website, www.growgood.co or drop me a line by email timogrogood.co all those links will also be in the show notes. I would genuinely love to hear from you. But anyway, until next time, go well and keep seeking that purpose. Fuel performance in your life.