How to move abroad as a 30+ woman with Cepee Tabibian 💁🏻‍♀️ ✈️

🇺🇸🇪🇸 In this episode of Expat Experts, we chat with Cepee Tabibian, a Texan now thriving in Málaga, Spain. Cepee's inspiring project, She Hit Refresh, helps women over 30 embrace new beginnings and move abroad. Tune in to hear her journey, tips for making the leap, and how she's empowering women to reinvent their lives and find adventure beyond their borders!

Follow Cepee on 📲:
https://www.instagram.com/shehitrefresh
https://shehitrefresh.com
https://the-refreshers-lounge.mn.co

Transcript

[Music]
This is Expat Experts.
[Music]
Welcome to this special episode of Expat Experts.
Today we are back a little bit like the COVID quarantine times and we are
recording online again. I'm really happy to have here with me
Cepee. I will need to get used to the name connection a little bit.
I do the name not saying it too wrong.
You've lived in Spain. You're living currently in Spain right now
and you are originally from Texas, USA.
Cepee has a crazy interesting project that we will talk in the
second part of the episode. But a little bit like right now what you
are doing is creating content and helping women who is
over 30 years old to move to other countries.
You actually have a blog, you have websites, you have social media, you have
even like a podcast on your own, you have videos in YouTube, you have
quite a lot of content that we can talk about later and you can
explain a little bit why and how you're creating all of this.
You've been actually mentioned by Forbes and New York Times which is
not bad for having, I suppose it's not easy to achieve.
But just before going a little bit more into
your life and to the real episode part, I just as always remind
everyone to follow us in social media. Instagram, Facebook, TikToks and
all of these but especially in Spotify and YouTube. And also Podemo which is the
platform for podcasters so you can stay tuned about the new episodes
coming in and the whole podcast in general.
With that said, let's go for it.
The X-PAT Episode 5 with Sapit Tabibian.
So, thank you so much for accepting first of all. To be interviewed
today and to talk about your experience. As I said, you are from Texas, correct?
Yes, yes. Thank you, Marc. First, thank you for having me on. I'm super excited to
be here on X-PAT Experts. So yes, I am originally from Houston, Texas.
Nice. And you've been living abroad for quite some time actually. I don't know,
like it has been some years. Yeah, I've been on and off
abroad for the last I would say 20 some years but this most recent time I've
been living in Spain for about nine years now.
Okay, so it wasn't the first time that you were living abroad when you moved to
Spain? No, well I tried moving to Spain many
times and it always failed. So I had moved here in 2006, again in 2009
and then again in 2015. So there were many
times that I came and I tried, stuck around for maybe a year or so, and then
had to move back to the US. But in 2015, I thought let me try one
more time and it worked, so I'm still here almost nine years later.
Okay, so why this like more failure? Was more job related or visa related or
what was going on in there? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I
mean when I first fell in love with Spain, that was a very long time ago. That
was the first time I came here was 2001 but I was still studying so I wasn't
really in a place where I could move abroad.
But when I moved here in 2006, I came on a program to teach English that's really
popular in Spain for native English speakers. It's called the
North American Language and Culture Assistant program.
So I came here, did that for a year teaching English in a high school.
But I didn't want to teach long term, you know, that wasn't what I wanted to do
and unfortunately at the time teaching really was the only
one of the very few ways that Americans, US citizens could really live in Spain
or many countries around the world. So that was the biggest challenge. All
those times I tried and failed. So after I taught English for a year,
tried to stay, stayed a little bit without a visa so I won't go into that
too much but I stayed here for another year like that.
Went back to the US and just after a few years had that feeling like I
really want to come back to Spain. So I came back and I did a master's
degree in Madrid for a year but when that program was over I had
to move back to Texas for personal reasons.
And then finally in 2015 like I said it worked out and it did work out. I
came to teach English but I was able to figure out that
obstacle of what am I going to do that isn't English and so
I went on a journey from there and since then I've been able to
figure that out. When I can get rid of trying to make
Spanish speak a language that they are not very good at.
I will not criticize more because then I will not
I will not be able to go back home but our level of English it's not the best
in the world that's for sure. Yeah, that's true but it helps you
learn Spanish right because you have to learn Spanish to survive here.
Yeah, that's absolutely true. It does like very much
force you if you go to Spain but when the Spanish people go outside of Spain
and you see sometimes the level of English,
it's concerning like sometimes like I can compare it to here to Greece for
example where the Greeks have a pretty decent level surprisingly. Yeah, they
do. They actually have everything like translate
they don't translate that much in the tv and everything it's original language
and everything so that helps them a lot but yeah so you said you
came for a master also what are your background studies like what did
you study back then? Yeah, so my undergraduate what I studied
in the US was marketing so I got a degree in marketing
and I worked in sales marketing for a bit in my 20s
but there was a point where I wanted to really change
my whole focus and move away from business and work more in international
relations and so I came to Madrid and I studied a masters in
international relations at IE University and the idea was to do that
program and then find work abroad and really at
that point I was I would have loved to have stayed in Spain
but I also was looking at the Middle East my father's from Iran
and I had spent some time in Palestine so I really was driven to work
in development in the Middle East so really shift focus there now I don't
work in that so much my life took me somewhere else but at the time that's
what I had planned. So cool I heard like in one of the
episodes that you have from the podcast that you have like a pretty
international family is you just said that your dad is Iranian
but your mom it's also like not from the US it's a Colombian as far
as I remember yeah yeah you're right yes immigrant family both of my parents yes
are immigrants as many people in the US right have
immigrant parents did that influence anyhow
like the fact that you wanted to move somewhere like
because like if your parents did it maybe that's a
step like on your decision also to to try it out like
right that is such a logical way to see it but you know what it actually
wasn't it's so strange you know growing up I grew up in a very multi-cultured
household but I think you know when you're little
you don't want to be different you want to be like everybody else
and I really wanted to be like my you know
American friends that had you know where families were there for generations
and I didn't like my name I wanted my name to be
Sarah and you know all those things that I really kind of rejected
all the things that made me different and so I didn't have a desire to
to go abroad not until high school and what really got me curious about
even exploring the rest of the world was meeting
some of the exchange students or students whose parents got relocated to
Houston for work that were from other countries
and just becoming very close friends with them and learning about their
countries and their cultures and their languages
that's what piqued my interest to move abroad
cool but I remember also that you said something about like
that you start rather going traveling first and then
that also like piqued a little bit you in the sense of like triggered your
curiosity of saying okay I'm I'm traveling but that maybe it's
not enough or how that process happened like because a lot of
people travels and they go back home and and only see their countries from a
tourist perspective no like what what motivated you to to
decide no no I want to live in these countries
right yeah that's true well I did my first international trip by myself at
17 well by myself I say like I left I went on the trip alone but I was
going to stay with one of those friends that I had
met in Houston that their parents you know had got relocated so
I made one of my best friends in high school was a girl from the Netherlands
and she was in Houston for a year and then her family moved back
to the Netherlands and for my 17th birthday I begged my parents to send me
to the Netherlands to go see her and surprisingly they did which is very
unlike my very strict Iranian father but they let me
go halfway across the world by myself to go
stay with her and her family and really it was that trip that allowed
me to see the world and maybe for some people you know
the Netherlands isn't so different but it was different enough
for someone who had never left the US and just that experience of seeing so
many new things experienced a different culture
I just instantly almost instantly had that feeling like I want to live here
and really it started with the Netherlands right I was like oh I want
to live here this could be so cool and maybe
people who started off as travelers and later moved abroad can remember you know
that first taste of something different where you think like oh I want to live
here and then you try another country and
you're like oh wait maybe I want to live here in Germany or oh no maybe it's
France and and so I had that for a few years as
I as I traveled but as I said at the time I was very young and I was still
studying so moving abroad wasn't an actual option for me it was more like
the seed was planted like this would be cool to do one day but
there was no real plan for it. Cool was it always like I mean you said
that you were like also at some point considering like Middle East but more
from studies after the master perspective but
when you were thinking like of the first moves to say okay
this travel that you did at 17 and at that point of time of course like
you were under 18 which is not that easy you are studying it's complex to move
abroad but when you finally decided to go was always
European countries at that point of time or because
or it was really specifically some countries inside of Europe that were
that was more like the idea that you had it in mind.
Yeah I would say at first I mean I only had experience in Europe I mean I had
gone to Colombia but I was very young and didn't remember
but really those early like late teens early 20s
it was only Europe I had experience so that was my focus and
it was once I landed you know I had gone to the Netherlands had Germany
Switzerland and once I went to Spain one year
that was it I just went to Madrid to study Spanish for the summer because my
Colombian mother never taught me Spanish so I came to Spain to learn and it
was like love at first sight with Madrid. I just got there and I just felt like
this is my place in the world so really Spain became the place that I needed to
be very very early on and here I am like 20
some years later and I'm still here. Yeah I was I was actually going to ask
if it influenced the fact of like having a Colombian mother
in the language like if you learned Spanish
before coming and that was a decision to go for Spain there is a lot of South
American and Central American people who chooses
to come to Spain because of the language makes a lot of sense.
Definitely. In that case you didn't you learned Spanish
while being in Spain already or? Yeah yeah I mean of course I you know I grew
up around Spanish my mother speaking it and you know to her family members and
you know so we studied in high school but I was not speaking Spanish
and I actually think if my mom would have taught if I would have grown up
speaking Spanish I'm not sure that I would have come to Spain at that point
in my life because the decision to come to Spain was
very much linked to doing you know language course over the summer
and so maybe if I would have grown up speaking Spanish maybe I wouldn't have
ended up in Spain maybe I would have gone to France instead I don't know to
learn French and maybe I'd be in France or
or who knows where so as much as I'm like disappointed that my mother never taught
me Spanish and I had to learn it as an adult
I'm kind of grateful because it led me to to where I am.
Nice well who knows where you have been if you would be speaking Spanish from
Colombian Spanish. Yeah who knows? What what activated you from Madrid?
What what was the thing that triggered you like because you said I mean you
traveled to other places before and then when you went to study Spanish there
something did this click in Madrid what was it? Yeah
I think well Madrid just has a certain energy and vibrance to it and I come
from a big city Houston but it's a very much a car city it's a
very you know different way of living too when I went to go study in Madrid I
was staying in the Sydney center and I could walk everywhere and there was so
much energy and life in the streets at all hours of the day right it was
summer so it was hot people are outside I got to experience the nightlife as a
21 year old of course that's incredible to be able to
go out and be out till six seven in the morning and meeting all these
international people so it was just such a liberating experience also as I
mentioned coming from a background where I had a very strict father there
were a lot of rules growing up a lot of things I couldn't do.
Also that summer Madrid really was this this yeah this taste of freedom I had
never had and I will say also those other trips I had done before to
you know Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland I was always going to visit
someone and stay with someone a friend and their family. Spain was the first
time I went totally on my own and didn't know anybody where I was
going. And so yeah I think the language helped
too even though I wasn't a Spanish speaker there was a lot of familiarity
with the language and the culture. Spain is a very warm
culture. I would say not as warm as Latin America but still warmer than some
of the countries I had been to and so I just felt very much at home
there so there was this excitement there was this feeling of
I belong here in a way and there was also like I could really envision my
life there too I just really enjoyed the lifestyle. So yeah so it captivated me
early early on and still I still have that feeling. We can talk about that
later as well but I don't live in Madrid anymore but every time I go
I was just there two weeks ago and I still get this excitement.
Butterflies in my stomach and I just I love that city and love being there.
Nice that's actually one of the other questions that I was going to ask you
because I know that you are not in Madrid anymore
that you are living right now in Malaga. When this when does this change happen
why I mean what made you change inside of the same
country to another city? Right yes so I had been living in
Madrid for five years so this was 2015 to 2020
loving it having great life. We all know what happened in 2020 we had
pandemic and Spain had some very very harsh
lockdowns and I think I just needed a change you know
of being in Madrid during that time and kind of being locked into my shoebox
apartments. I just needed I just was
craving change and space a bit more maybe nature and freedom and at the time
I had some friends in Madrid who were moving to the coast of Spain
and I just it just kind of clicked in my head you know I never wanted to live in
Madrid I love Madrid thought I would you know live and die
there so I never thought of leaving Madrid but just seeing friends moving
to the coast and having that feeling of I need a little bit of a change.
I thought when I go to Malaga temporarily
I'll go for six months I'll go for the winter and then I'll come back to Madrid
in the summer of 2021 when this covid thing is over and things open up and
life is all normal again so that was my idea was just
temporary change never intended to make a life in Malaga
and and go back but that didn't happen three and a half years later I'm still
in Malaga and I never went back to to Madrid. What kept you in Andalusia?
Yes what kept me here?
So I love Andalusia actually I spent a year in Córdoba
in 2006 that's when I taught English and I love Andalusia always have never
envisioned living here but always loved to visit and you know what when I moved
to Malaga during when I said in 2020 moved here
temporarily so I never intended to to stay in Malaga
but you know two weeks after moving here is when I met my now partner so
yeah came here met somebody and that's why
I have never left we he also wasn't living here at the time he's from here
but he was living in the US actually which is
pretty funny and visiting his family during COVID
and we met and neither of us ever right I I never went back to Madrid he never
went back to the US and we decided to to stay in Malaga
but I'm always trying to convince him to to move to Madrid or trying to so we'll
see maybe one day I'll get my wish and we'll go back
we'll see. Have you ever been considering like
going back to to US at some point also like did it ever cross your mind
during these years?
I never wanted to but there was a point early on in my move in 2015
maybe a year or two after being in Spain as I mentioned you know the biggest
obstacle was always trying to find work that wasn't teaching English because
that's not what I wanted to do and I was struggling I mean I I was able
to very luckily after that year of teaching I
was able to get a Spanish company to sponsor my work visa
and I was working in marketing but I really disliked that job
it wasn't a very healthy work environment so
you know I had to quit that job and I found myself in this space of
okay now I don't have a visa because I quit the job I don't have a job I don't
want to teach English you know if I want to stay in Spain what can I
do to make this work because nothing is working at the moment
and that's when I you know started thinking is this
do I need to go back is this not going to work out?
So that was the only time that I really thought about it but it was more
because I was sort of maybe going to have to be forced to leave
it all worked out as we know but other than that I have never thought
of moving back I don't really see my life in the U.S. I feel very
comfortable in Spain but also I'm very much open to
maybe starting a new adventure and going to a different part of the world
but I think ultimately Spain for me feels
like you know a home base or my home now
but yeah I don't think I'm move back to the U.S.
is going to be happening I hope not. Did it like you said that the job part was
probably the most difficult part like having yeah that you had when you
arrived to to Spain and that it was like a little bit like
you needed to be forced a little bit to do jobs that you were not
happy with or that you didn't want to be doing at that point of time
I think it's kind of common for for like to arrive to
country and be a teacher of your own language there for
for some time as a part. Was there anything else that you
remember being it complex like when you arrived to Spain like
I don't know integrating into Spanish groups or like
any of that was was it complicated for you?
Not so much I mean I guess it depends maybe where you are in the
country and also where you are in life right when I moved I was in
my mid-30s and Madrid is a very social city with a
lot of events and meetups going on it's very easy
to make friends and there was you know a lot of people
my age there and also it's a city where people come from
all over Spain all over Europe so it's a city where people are seeking
friendships right because a lot of people are not from there
and so I found making friends not so difficult
but that's more international friends I did find it a bit challenging
and maybe still so is breaking into you know Spanish friend circles but I
think that's probably the same anywhere you go in the world right I
think at a certain age really people also have
their friendship groups established if they are locals
they have their family their friends from you know their whole life they're not
really looking to pick up some foreigners here and there
to add to the group and so I think that can make it difficult to
make local friends especially if you're not
working you know in an office in that country or going to school you don't
really have a community kind of built into your day-to-day experience so
that's always been a bit of a challenge it helps having a partner
from the country right that helps getting into those circles
but I think yeah other than that I think the the work visa is always the biggest
headache or a visa and finding the right work
how how is it now like visa wise for for
Americans like is it a very complex process
or or how it has been the experience for you because I know that there is
it's not the easiest bureaucracy in the world that's for sure like
yeah it's uh it's actually never been easier for a US citizen or anyone right
to move to to Spain because there's now there's more visa
options than when I moved here and in particular the digital nomad visa so
um and also remote work wasn't really a thing
when I moved here sure there were some remote jobs it was very very few and far
between and now the whole work world has changed
so those two things have made it a lot easier for people to move here
I guess I should mention part of the job challenge in Spain was also
the salaries the salaries here are very low so when
I got a work visa sponsorship and worked for this startup
as somebody you know in their 30s with experience and a master's education
my pay was I think 22 000 euros a year right so the average salaries in Spain
are very low which can be a big deterrent for people to want to find work here so
remote work visas um I'm sorry remote work and the digital
nomad visa has made it a lot easier for people to be able to move here
and maybe come with a higher salary yeah definitely
I think it's one of the biggest challenges
Spanish people are having right now we're having right now
in especially in the big cities like where your salaries are still capped to
to a thousand thousand something thousand two hundred if you are lucky
uh at the end of the month and then your apartments are like
eight hundred or a thousand euros per apartment and
you're spending an eighty percent of your salary in that so
I get it I mean and it makes it easier for the people to come and if you get the
salary and you're lucky you get the salary from
somewhere else and you're able to live in these countries it's easy but for the
people who live there it's it is a whole struggle I think
it's a big struggle yeah they cannot afford to live in their own cities and
you know that's always part of the conversation is are we part of the
problem as foreigners you know or maybe Americans who are coming and
there are a lot of Americans not only Americans but
um you know North Americans people around the world coming and I think you
know I think we are maybe play a part in the
problem but I think the problem is even greater
than us right there's a lot of housing well there's a shortage of
housing happening everywhere right but a lot of that is happening because
companies are coming in and buying buildings and making those into
airbnbs so really the government has to get involved um
there's always going to be demand but you have to cut off the supply somehow
and so that locals can also afford to to live in their in their cities and I
would also say that I have rented airbnbs in Spain um
and they were run by locals not foreigners because a lot of people say
oh the foreigners are buying airbnbs and renting those out but a lot of locals
also because they also need a form of income that's
adequate and so they are renting out places to foreigners who will pay those
high prices I mean the biggest problem is not it's
what you're saying at the end it's like big corporations banks
locals of people like getting having thousands of flats in the big cities
where they know the tourists will always pay a price for
going there on renting them taking that not reducing the amount of licenses that
you have for tourist flats for example in Madrid or Barcelona or in Malaga it's
happening it's even gentrifying like the smaller cities of Spain which is
crazy that's one of the problems of course
the other part it's not like keep increasing the cost of life in a in a
country where the salaries has not been touched for the last
how many years 20 years yeah exactly um well besides that
like maybe going back a little bit and not criticizing the society only
um how different is life in from in Spain or right I mean right now you could
compare it I suppose to Malaga Madrid uh Córdova the cities where you live
versus Houston and Texas in general like you mentioned for example the car
culture you know that it's very American like doing a lot of things
uh with the car for example what what are the biggest differences that you feel
uh between the the two countries yeah I think I mean one is lifestyle so
I think and you know that's no secret that people
work a lot in the US not that they don't work a lot in other places but in the
US I think work is kind of your identity and I don't feel that in the same way
here in the US I feel like people just live to work
um and they don't really have much of a life outside of that and in Spain you
really see people making other aspects of their life a
real priority whether that's family friends people meet up you know
spontaneously casually after work um and so I really
love that aspect of life where there's this very big
joy of life and living and prioritizing enjoying your life so that's a big one
um yeah we talked about the cars or lack of needing cars here
in a lot of cities in Spain not all of them I mean in Malaga it's nice to have a
car to be able to to drive to different places but
for the most part you can get by on public transportation which is
uh one just I love that way of living one because it's healthier
but two I just love being in contact with people on a daily basis which is
something you really lose when you live in that car culture you just
are in your home your car a building and then car home
you don't have that contact organic contact with people
yeah a big one for yeah I'll add one more a big one for me is safety
um I don't think I've explained that too much but
um I I just feel so much safer here in Spain um in general but also as a woman
um and when I go back to the U.S. for visits definitely
I feel a bit more on edge um there because of the gun culture
that we have there and the challenges that we have um
yeah I think those are some of the the biggest differences between the two
nice um what would you say like it's the most
funny or crazy story you remember from when you moved to Spain besides
uh meeting a guy from Malaga living in the United States
right that was gonna be my story that's so crazy
don't tell me that he was living in texas because that's like way too much
then no that's too much too much no he was not um
I'm trying to think I feel like that was the craziest story I've had um
I will say I mean I will say we've talked about this but I will say just
getting the work visa sponsorship um if anyone for anyone who has tried
to get a work visa in Europe you know how hard that is so when it finally
happened for me um I was shocked in the interview um
often you know I went on many interviews in Madrid for working for
trying to find work with local companies um and always it would get to
the point in the interview where they would ask
do you are you you know do you have legal papers to work here do you need a
sponsorship and I would say yes I would need a
sponsorship and that's when they would say oh we're sorry we can't
help you we can't move forward and then it was the one interview where I
said that and they said okay yeah we'll sponsor
you and it was like shocked and everything
was in Spanish so in my mind I was thinking did I just
not understand something correctly maybe I misunderstood them
um but it was it was true so it almost felt like winning the lottery
when that actually happened yeah I feel like
with with the sponsorship of visas and I see it in here in Greece but also in
Germany where I lived before and even in Spain like I think it's it's
very limited to either rather big companies international companies who
are bringing people from other countries also and then they are sponsoring them
like but already with like flying them from
somewhere else and then doing the sponsor stuff or it
really falls down to the startups and IT sector who are sponsoring
business the rest of the companies are just like it's
they say okay this is too much work I'm not like
going to do that so it's sad I mean it's I suppose it's also a
complication on top of the fact of like and the stress of like
already being there in your case and then needing something to stay and then
seeing the time pass and the stress I suppose it went up and up
was was spanish a barrier in that in that time or
like or you were already fluent as speaker I mean if you were doing
interviews in Spanish right yeah I had a good level like yeah
I was doing interviews in Spanish but I wasn't
fluent I was maybe the two I would say so I could get by enough but a lot of
the jobs luckily I was applying for were more for English was more what they
needed you to use in the role but of course the staff you know
everyone spoke Spanish so English worked on my benefits especially
for this particular role that was a big plus for being a native
English speaker okay yeah that also happens a lot of times
it's a demand as I said in Spain to have people who speak proper English it's
also really nice to have in companies I suppose
yeah it is like at the end you quit this company
and you start when did you start with your own project did it influence the
fact of like staying in Spain also because you have your own
stuff going on or what happened there um yeah good
question I have to think real quick back to that time
so I think I had started oh I I don't think I had started
she hit refresh yet so um it wasn't it did not influence that
no at all yeah that was something that I did later
but the skills that I had acquired in that job and around that time
were skills that I did use to help me launch my my business so that did play a
part there nice so just before we close this first
part if it's okay for you I always do like a
little bit of like these are that questions like if you are supposed to
choose one or or the other yes or yes um Madrid or Malaga
Madrid
Spanish or American food oh my gosh people are gonna kill me but
American food and I don't mean hamburgers and hot dogs I just mean like
diverse food from all around the world
the proper text mix
also uh uh so the weather Andalusian or Texas weather
oh it's kind of the same so um I guess I like Andalusia better because
yeah I have the sea yeah it's just as hot in both places yeah okay
what about the times for doing things I interviewed some other U.S. people and
they are always like okay Greeks or Italians or Spanish and
suddenly like their friends are telling them like let's meet at
10 p.m and it's always a surprising or shocking thing for for Americans I think
like are you still right like do you still
prefer the American time style or the other Spanish and Andalusia
it's also like everything goes late I think it's postponed some hours
right I love Spanish time give it to me I like
everything later later later yes yeah okay and with a good CS time between
I support
that's the best making international or local friends
that's a tough one I feel like they both have value and they're both
incredible can I say both
let's skip that one okay let's say both
then let's do the last one moving before or after 30 years old
oh you know that they answer that after 30 do it after 30
you're wiser you have more money you make better decisions
you can enjoy it more after 30 nice let's use that as a bridge directly
then to go to the second part of the episode if that's okay for you
yeah that works wonderful the expert helping women over 30 to move abroad
cool so welcome back and as I already mentioned in the introduction
you actually your whole project is turning around helping women to move
abroad when they are over 30 years old and you do that
through multiple channels content social media like
I suppose the part of like studying marketing influenced
a little bit into that but how that whole idea came from how
you decided to I suppose it's your own experience
translated and magnified a little bit or how
how the whole project built from where yeah no that's very true it did come
from my own experience I mean really it was a lot of people
in my network friends and acquaintances had asked me
after I moved abroad asked me you know how I did it
you know they were there's a lot of questions based on fear like weren't you
too old what about your career don't you want to get married all
these questions that was like what okay um and also once I moved abroad to
Madrid I had met so many incredible women
that were around my age that had done this too not just from the US but from
all over the world and I just thought let me start a
Facebook group because Facebook groups were very popular
at the time let me start a Facebook group put both of
these people in there the people who are asking questions people who have done it
and we can just you know talk to each other and help each other so
it definitely was not a business idea it was just like let me try to help people
through my own experience um but that Facebook group while it
started out with just me inviting friends and people I knew
within one year we had grown to four thousand members all around the world
just through word of mouth and so that's when
I kind of had an aha movement of like oh okay maybe there's something here
right well okay that's quite a lot of people
especially yeah from back in the day like I think right now with Instagram
and everyone being in social media like things are a little bit more speed up and
just like you grow in followers and stuff relatively easy if you do a product
that is attractive but back in the day Facebook groups back
in the day like in Greece they're still using Facebook a lot I
don't know yes here too yeah and I think
in Spain or in Germany for example it's got very reduced to that
to the groups to the events and nothing else
so that's still quite a lot of life like where are you
present what was your strategy back in the day because you start with a Facebook
group you realized that that was it has a hack not that that people
were triggered by the idea or wanted to know more how did it grow
to what it's now
yeah so once we grew I mean even before we grew I knew I wanted to start
a blog I think we started the blog the same year 2017 so we started the
Facebook group in November 2017 I think maybe I created a blog a few months
later again it was not a business idea it was
just like let's share information and we can reach more people
but it was maybe after that first year when I had that aha moment like okay
this could be something just listening to what my members
needed somebody early on within after that first year asked have
you ever thought about doing a retreat one of our members asked us and I was
like a retreat oh no and luckily I had some friends who
I had gone on one of their retreats they do running
trips around the world and they reached out to me and let me know said hey if
you ever need to do a retreat we can help you
and they did at the time we're doing trips to Morocco
and so I thought oh that's great Morocco's close to Spain people want to
go to Morocco sometimes women are afraid to go by
themselves let's put this idea out there let's see if people want to go on a
retreat with us people who have never bought anything
from us who don't really know us let's see what they say and we put the
idea out there and it sold out and so that was kind of
the second validation that we had like oh people
okay they don't know us they've never bought anything and now they're giving
us $2,500 to go to Morocco so they're something
here that they that they need right there's a
need that's not being met that we can help with
and so it kind of grew from there to where we had the retreats
then we started doing meetups then what else did we do
then during the pandemic I wrote a book I wrote a visa guide to living in Europe
so you know what are the the easiest ways to move to Europe what are
the visas because that was the question I kept getting people wanted to move here
but didn't know how to um how to figure out or solve that problem
the visa so I did that and that was a hit that book actually is what got us in
Forbes we had our Forbes feature so it just kind of snowballed um from
there and just continually to listen to what the the audience wanted you know we
did a podcast because they were asking for it um and yeah just kind of following
their lead um and refining things until where we are right now which is now you
know we don't do do the retreats anymore we don't do a lot of in person but we do
a lot of virtual now um we have a an online master class which I'm launching
in June so that's right around the corner um and that's four day that's a four day
online training to learn how to move abroad and understand where to start and
then we have a premium community from our Facebook group so the Facebook group
we have you know I think 14 over 14,000 members there now um and so we've
started a premium community that's much smaller where we help guide you through
every step of the new broad process so that's the Refreshers Lounge so we
started off yeah just a Facebook group and we have expanded um over the last
seven years to help our members out so it was more like a strategy of like saying
you had your content some of your content for free in in social media YouTube
et cetera et cetera where you offer some content in there and then you have like a
BAP lounge let's say like this like a more like more personalized approach and
paid um premium version I don't know if calling it yeah I think that's yeah I
think that's right I mean for so long we did a lot of things we just you know
gave information and content for free right because I always had a full-time job
like she hit refresh again was just was just a site well first it was just a
hobby then it became a side project um but as we started building momentum you
know we did the free stuff for a very long time even though we had the
retreats it was still giving out a lot of information for free but we just you
know realized maybe a year or two ago very recently that we could do so much
more if we had some premium products right um and so that's where uh that idea
came into place again listening to what people needed they needed more than just
going into a Facebook group and asking a question they needed more than that and
more direct information they wanted to talk to experts uh they wanted more in
depth resources not just what the blog covered and so we created um kind of
containers for them to access that information you always talk in plural in
this that means that there is I mean I know that you had like a partner at
least in the podcast that that's what I what I check I mean I've seen it's so
it's more like a collective project or was kick-started by yourself alone and
then someone get into it and how many people it's yeah I love that's so yeah I
like that you mentioned that because I didn't even remember I didn't realize I'm
saying we um yes so actually so um you know the idea of the Facebook group
started with me and a friend um you know I had the idea I was like let's start a
Facebook group um and she said okay yeah let's do it and so you know she helped
me bring that lift that off the ground and then we started the blog together
but she's been located in in Texas so she's like my best friend Annette she
helped me in the beginning she came and you know was at our first retreat and
helped us um but you know she has a full-time job she's very busy and so Annette
has been you know more of my sounding board over the years as I kind of ran
would she hit refresh because everything was moving so fast and I was moving so
fast with it that I've kind of been yeah one woman show I would say for the past
five five ish years yeah but you know still turned to Annette for advice and
especially so since she's still in the US and wants to move abroad I mean she's
also such a great resource because she really is my my target market there
right but although I talk in a we a lot of the things that you see it's just a
you know me one woman show with some of my freelancers that helped me out with
stuff nice what was the current target on the idea behind this always your main
idea when you created the first group was already focused on women over 30
years old or it where why this focus like I understand the focus on women and
I understand that I understand where it comes from and that the market target
it's there for sure but why did you choose to specify like to go to to the
very specific target users yeah I think just because that's who I was right
that's you know that's what I did I moved at 35 and as I mentioned in the
beginning my network was asking me how I did it and they were also you know
around my age bracket and when I moved there were there was not a lot of
information for someone like me there was a lot of information for doing a gap
year you know if you're in college or right after college to somebody who is
very young and doesn't have a lot of responsibilities and really can just pick
up and go very easily it doesn't have to think about things like a mortgage or
your career yet right and many other things or there was a lot of information
for solo female travel of a certain age but I wasn't traveling I was trying to
move or there was information for someone who was going to retire which I wasn't
in that bracket either so so I just realized too when when people were
asking me for information of how do you do this when you have certain
responsibilities that you have accrued over your life right if you're in your
30s 40s and 50s when you have a career how do you start over in a new country
nobody was addressing that and so that's another reason why I really honed in on
this niche is that those are the people who are coming to me so those are the
people that I want to try to help solve these problems nice I mean it makes sense
like if you find a nice niche that's incredible like and sometimes that comes
with making the target user smaller no and not trying to tackle all the problems
for everyone but what you know yeah related with that actually because I saw
a lot of content and you don't even like you don't limit yourself to talk about
Spain or moving to Spain you talk about other countries also majority of them
European countries as far as I saw how do you do that like because at the end a
visa process from Spain it's absolutely different from Italy or from France and
how do you gather all this information how do you have people helping you in
each country or what's going on yeah that is a great question so I would say
yeah we mainly focus on Europe although we do have you know women in our
community who are interested in going to Latin America or Asia but I would say
Europe is a main focus because that's what I know best and that's where my
network is and I tap into that network so yeah definitely like you know I don't
know about every detail of every visa right that's impossible for one person to
know but I would say at the end of the day the visa process is pretty
straightforward pretty similar you know in each country you there are certain
requirements that you have to meet there's certain documents you have to
get there's a process you have to go through and at the end of the day that's
very similar across the board right a work visa in Spain is very similar to a
work visa in Poland right but to get down into those nitty-gritty details I
do rely on other people to fact-check I mean I do a lot of research myself when
I wrote my visa guide to Europe there's over 50 visas included in there we cover
18 different countries I did a lot of research on that but then I have people
my network that are experts for instance you know there's expert in Croatia who
you know helped me ensure that the information for Croatia was intact and
the same with our blog posts a lot of those are outsourced to people who have
expertise in that country or have gone through that process so I definitely
rely on other people to help me make sure that that we're giving out accurate
information yes yeah I mean I suppose with visa and bureaucracy at the end you
can find information and you can talk with people but when people ask for a
more generic question and like I don't know I'm planning to move to Italy where
do should I go as a woman or where is the best job situation right now if you
never lived in Italy or you are not someone who moved there that information
it's complicated to answer that like you need someone who knows I suppose
definitely and that's where the power of community comes in you know in in our
Facebook group for example I mean as anyone who's tried it you've been in a
Facebook group especially for foreigners or expats you know you can ask a
question and you'll definitely have people who have been in that situation
you know that will comment and let you know you know hey I use this lawyer or
hey I've lived here or worked here and I would say you know for our VIP you know
kind of experience in our premium community the refreshers lounge we have
experts come in where you can you know talk to them live and ask questions and
so I definitely you know again use the my network to to come help answer those
questions for my community because again like you said I can't know it all I've
never I've never lived in France so how can I know everything about France right
but I do know people who live there and our experts and I can connect them to my
community I was just asking about the job like because I suppose a lot of the
people who is willing to move abroad they don't have a job and that makes
them fear even more like the fact of moving abroad because without having a
financial sustain that can maintain you into into a country you don't really
like sometimes you do the jump but I suppose a lot of people especially after
30 as you said I suppose this fear increase how do you deal with that like
I saw that you have some recommendations of like remote job and like finding and
whatever but do you really offer like or you help people to search for new jobs
yeah this is such a great question well for yeah first I would say I do not for
my audience I do not recommend moving without a job unless if you can
financially afford to do so right some people are retiring early or some people
have savings to do a year-long sabbatical that's great but if you want
to move abroad I and you want it to be a successful move you need to have your job
situation figured out before you go also because a lot of visas are linked to
work so you probably as a US citizen probably can't even move to a foreign
country if you don't have a digital nomad visa or if you're able to get a
work a job in country so what we do is we support people with providing
resources you know in the in our refreshers lounge or VIP experience we
have a job board where I hand-pick I go and look for jobs that are remote that
meet our members like the jobs that our members are looking for we have remote
work experts come talk to us we have recruiters come talk to us and so just
trying to get our members in front of the right people who can help them you
know fix that problem faster so I don't per se you know I'm not a recruiter or
a headhunter I don't you know personally help people find a job in that sense but
definitely you know give them job links to work from anywhere jobs help them
understand what countries you can move to in Europe easier in terms of finding
a job in that country right you not every country in Europe is easy to find
work in but some are a bit easier so helping them understand the challenges
and opportunities for both of those I mean there's two ways you can do it again
you can find remote work that you can take with you or you can find a job in
country I see I also saw like I mean you already said the majority of the focus
that you have right now it's in European countries although you have some people
who are interested in moving at other places yeah well our community is global
so we have people from all over the world but I would say the biggest
demographics are going to be from the United States from Canada the United
Kingdom and Australia those are our biggest demographics but we have you
know members who are located in Latin America in Africa in East Asia so we have
members from all over the world but the biggest ones are going to be those that
are coming from the regions I just mentioned or the countries I just
mentioned yes what it's the place that you would recommend right now like is
there any place that you recommend on top of other places well there's one I'm
recommending but I haven't been there yet so maybe wait till I get more
information but I've heard great things and I'm going in September about Albania
and I'll tell you why I recommend Albania so Albania is one of the only
countries in Europe that does not require a visa for Americans to move
there for the first year so if you are in the US and you want to leave the
country tonight and don't want to have to figure out your visa situation you
can just hop on a plane and go to Albania and and live there very
comfortably because it's a very affordable country to live in right now
so that's what I'm recommending to people who don't want to deal with all
the bureaucracy that's a funny one like all the Albanians coming to Greece and
all the Americans going to well with with that what it's what it's the core so
what would you would you say that it's the core value of the products that are
the project that you have in your hands like what is the most relevant points
because you're touching multiple things but if you need to summarize it somehow
how you do it how you explain your project or yeah definitely I mean we are
here to teach women over 30 how to move abroad and how we do that is one
educating you so letting you know exactly the steps that you need to take
connecting you to the right people right the right resources and also
connecting you with a community so you don't feel alone I think a lot of women
who are you know over 30 doubt that this is a good idea that maybe it's a mistake
maybe they're too old maybe it's too late maybe they're the only one who has
this crazy idea that they want to move abroad and that couldn't be further from
the truth I mean and she here refreshed I think that's the first thing that you
get to experience is not being alone and that there's thousands of women out
there who want to do the same thing and have done so and we are here to support
you and teach you how to do it in a way that you can make a successful move
because yes you can string this together and do it yourself but remember like I
said I tried and failed many times to do this so we want to teach you how to do
it in a way that that's gonna work nice you kind of succeed pretty much with
this project like you have a big amount of followers you have like a premium
thing I suppose like a lot of it has been hard work but also like having the
knowledge in marketing I don't think everyone can throw out a product out
there and succeed with it unfortunately it was because I hope they
has the the band with that your project had for example and arrived to other to
ask more people of course I am always have an extra job and a full-time job
it's not always easy it's more like a side project but how did you arrive like
how do you what do you think it's what when it triggered the fact that you
succeed and I mean I you mentioned for example that farmers was through your
like the mention or the sponsoring purpose was like coming with your book
there is also like a mention in New Year Times so you were like also there how
do all of this happen yeah I think thank you so much for for the kind words I
think you know a lot of it with any project and you'll hear people say this
like you have to love what you're doing because it does require so much work so
that's one thing is you know I did this for many years without you know making
very much money I mean less than you know a few thousand dollars I did a lot
of work just just for the pure love of the project and the belief that you know
we were going to be able to attain certain goals in time and just creating
that content and quality content that's what really helped us get those features
right when I reached out to Forbes and pitch them you know I had things to back
it up I had things to show them New York Times they found us you know they were
googling love abroad women abroad and you know we our content came up and
that's how they found us so I think just having you know understanding that your
brand is your reputation having quality content and being consistent putting it
out there and not always thinking that everything is transactional I knew that
you know the blog isn't making us money per se but it does have a reach and gives
us exposure right so that that has helped a lot but I think at a certain
point you have to understand that you know yes I have a marketing background
but I don't know I don't know a lot about building a business because I've never
done that before and so it's really important to invest in experiences
people programs that are going to elevate you to the next level right and
I did that you know maybe it was last year I invested in in a program that
helped me build my master class that I've mentioned my four-day training
that's something that I went through a program to learn how to build this and
so you know I've invested in business coaches I've invested in going to certain
conferences to meet the right people so I think it's it's not just luck or hard
work it's also being strategic and understanding that nobody is really
successful by themselves it really takes I want to say a village not a village
but it does take that investment in others to help elevate you right to the
next level so I think that's really important I definitely wanted to point
that out that other people help me get to yes having a plan and having the network
and the context to arrive there I suppose that's key in every success from
anyone like major yeah you're not yeah network and anything in life helps you so
definitely putting yourself in places where you can meet the right people can
help open doors well from my side like very congratulations even like I'm a
designer so from a perspective of like visuals and everything I think you
achieved like a very nice if you do it on your own like wow okay that's like
congratulations on like not doing work art because you would freak out how many
people like it's building things that for us designers is like a wow so in
that sense congrats I think you so much hey that means a lot coming from a
designer that means a lot we also had help with our branding so you know it
pays it pays to pay people to help you right we we don't only paint things we
actually designers we do things like sometimes from time to time we work
art what you are like focusing right now like currently it's the project that you
are working on or you are like having also site the other site the other side
projects that you're working on yeah no I would say yeah it was two years ago
that I gave up working for other people so I was working you know as a
freelancer full-time I stopped doing that just to focus on my project on she
hit refresh from some time to time I will consult other people who are building
online communities I do help for that very infrequently but yeah I would say
90% and 95% of my time is on she hit refresh it keeps me busy and yeah we're
just trying to grow and you know reach some new goals this year so excited
about that sounds good so before we close the episode actually is there
anything that I haven't taught anything that you want to talk about any tips
general tips I don't know anything I mean at the end of course take seppi's
Instagram like the whole project like under she hit refresh like if you search
it yeah it appears in all social media in YouTube in their website everything
like I think it's pretty pretty easy to find you around but please use the
platform to spread the word if there is anything that I missed or that you want
to promote yeah thank you I'll just say two things I think one just to remind
anybody out there who's listening who wants to move abroad but just feels a
bit discouraged or like nobody gets them or it's a crazy idea really find a
community that you can talk to I think there's anything in life if you're
talking to the wrong people they're gonna make you feel like this is a crazy
idea because they don't get it it's not their dream they haven't done this you
really have to turn to people who get you or who have done this and that's
where you're gonna find empowerment validation and you'll you won't give up
on the dream because you can see that it is possible and it is very much
possible if you're a woman over 30 of course turn to our community we have she
hit refresh as Mark said you can find us on Instagram on you can come to our
website and you can join our Facebook group there and as I mentioned we have a
training coming up our master class our move abroad after 30 master class that
starts on June 8th so would love to have you there it's four days it's fun
informative and I'm gonna break down how to move abroad in four steps so
definitely gonna simplify it for anyone who's feeling overwhelmed and doesn't
know where to start I think that is it just want to thank you Mark for giving
me the opportunity to to be here and share my story it's been a wonderful
experience on your podcast no thank you for for accepting the invitation and
coming to to talk about your project but also about your personal life it's not
always easy to expose yourself a little bit outside the world let's say like
this but I really much appreciate this as always everyone who is listening and
as the episode will be released the week of the of the master class if you're
listening that in premise just like check out the master class and maybe yeah
register for it again thousands of thanks for for your experience and for
for explaining as your project and I mean for the job that you do with with
helping people move abroad I think that I can relate to it even though I'm not a
woman and I'm barely over 30 let's say like that but of course I know how
difficult it can be so I think you're you're doing a great job and I hope it
helps other people and reaches to everyone again thank you a lot and hope
everyone enjoyed this episode thank you this is expat experts support this
podcast by listening us in pot a mo and subscribe in Spotify and YouTube