Unconventional Choices Can Pay Off
This article was first published on LinkedIn. Republished here for my friends who don't have a LinkedIn account!
Here we are! Six years in Singapore recently completed (we left last Friday) and we're now on a two month motorcycle adventure around the United States.
A lot of people have asked how we’ve made some of the unconventional choices we have, and I share this in the hope it may inspire someone to step outside their comfort zone and see what happens.
My husband, Noel Jelsma, and I love challenging ourselves, and embracing the unknown. I think it’s a symptom of our short attention spans!
Since we married (22 years ago this month) we've embraced the unknown, to a great extent, through travel and new jobs. The friends and opportunities we’ve found along the way have always outweighed any risks. And looking back, we clearly have a lot of faith - either that or we're incredibly naive and slightly mad! I'm going with the first option though, because I figure, if we don't believe we can succeed, why should anyone else?
Here's how we got started on some of our bigger adventures together:
Moving to the Netherlands – pregnant and without a job
In the late 1990s we were in our 20s, with a 10 month old son and pregnant with our daughter. We lived on Waiheke Island, New Zealand at the time. That in itself was an unconventional choice. Our first house was a ramshackle house on Waiheke Island that necessitated a ferry ride for us to get to our jobs in downtown Auckland. Not the usual choice for a young couple, certainly not a 'safe' first house, but for us, we saw potential.
Anyway, to continue with the story of how we moved... Noel came home from work one night and said, "I'm tired of this work, shall we go back to Europe?" (side note: We're both Kiwis, but Europe was where we fell in love).
"OK," I replied.
That really was my reply, but we both knew it required due diligence. We spent the rest of that evening weighing up the pros and cons of such a radical move before deciding that, yes, this really was a good idea – after all, what did we really have to lose? We sold everything (and missed out on the property boom that hit Waiheke Island shortly after!) and went to Europe.
Noel found a job the old fashioned way once we had relocated to the Netherlands – he applied to an ad in the newspaper. Of course, we have to acknowledge Noel's aunts and uncles who put us up for a few weeks while Noel found a job and we secured a house for our small family.
Our back up plan was to simply move back home to New Zealand if Noel didn't find work, but we never considered that as a realistic option.
We reaped so many great results from the next four years we spent living in the Netherlands. Including our beautiful baby girl and savings of a scale that set us up nicely when we returned to New Zealand.
Setting up home businesses
Back in New Zealand again, with two kids now aged 6 and 4, Noel was working full-time but it wasn't enough for me. To keep busy I needed the world of business, but it was also a priority that I be home for the kids before and after school. We looked around and over the next few years we were fortunate enough to start two businesses.
One was a franchise, and the other was a business that I started from scratch. We chose carefully, and I was able to run both of them from home. But, it wouldn't have been possible without Noel - we needed his financial support from his full-time job, his head for numbers and his muscle in the weekends for one of the businesses.
The learnings that come from entrepreneurship are invaluable and they have been important to so much that we've both done since.
Not all couples can work together, but it works for us. We allow each other the space to magnify our individual strengths and we communicate and trust each other. We consider all ideas that the other person may come up with. Not all of those ideas have seen the light of day, but having someone you can trust with ‘baby ideas’ is important.
Travelling around Australia
Fast forward six year when the kids were 12 and 10. One evening we found ourselves trying to convince a 'friend couple' of ours to take an extended holiday and go and check out Australia with their family, to see if they liked it as a place they might want to consider working.
We suggested they take a couple of weeks off, get a caravan and tour around a bit. While they liked the idea, it wasn't for them. Us, on the other hand - well, that night we stayed awake discussing the merits and decided "heck, why don't we do this?!"
Two months later we'd put managers in place for our businesses, and we took the kids out of school for five months. We bought a 4WD and a caravan (for our US friends, think 'camper') and drove around exploring Australia. Those five months created so many memories for each of us. Including the night we got stuck in salt flats and needed a police rescue (reference: 24 October – Surviving the Karunjie Trail Campout). Be sure to check out the link to our old blog if you want to read the story of mosquitoes, m&m's and outback police.
The kid's schooling did not suffer. They are both avid readers anyway, so on advice from their teachers they had to do maths everyday but otherwise, their education was in the day to day experiences.
From that adventure came the opportunity that took us to Singapore. While on our Australia tour we took a week and flew to Vietnam. It was there that we met a young American couple who were on a weekend trip from Singapore where they lived and worked. We'd already talked briefly about Singapore as an idea, but to meet someone doing it made the idea a lot more understandable and attainable as a concept.
Leveraging LinkedIn and moving to Singapore
Once back in Australia, on the road again, Noel kept talking about Singapore - should we, shouldn't we, what would we do there, how would it be for the family, the kids? After three weeks of this, I had enough and suggested he reach out to his LinkedIn network and see if they knew of any available positions that might suit him.
That night from our caravan, Noel mailed several of his LinkedIn contacts. The next morning, sitting outside in the sun and surrounded by free roaming emus, Noel looks up from his laptop and says "you're not going to believe this - I've just been offered a job in Singapore if we want it."
The rest is recent history. Moving to Singapore was difficult for our kids at first (because it was an unexpected move and they weren't used to large schools), but they survived and even thrived. We all did.
The next adventure
And now we find ourselves as empty nesters! We chose to quit the roles we had in Singapore so that we can totally reboot while we take two months to travel the United States. We are staying with a bunch of different friends (made from our overseas adventures to date) or in Airbnb properties meeting amazing people everywhere we go. Once we’re back in New Zealand we will spend some time fixing up a small lifestyle property we’ve purchased.
After that, who knows what unconventional choices we might make? We certainly don’t – but we will always keep ourselves open to all possibilities.
Here we are! Six years in Singapore recently completed (we left last Friday) and we're now on a two month motorcycle adventure around the United States.
A lot of people have asked how we’ve made some of the unconventional choices we have, and I share this in the hope it may inspire someone to step outside their comfort zone and see what happens.
My husband, Noel Jelsma, and I love challenging ourselves, and embracing the unknown. I think it’s a symptom of our short attention spans!
Since we married (22 years ago this month) we've embraced the unknown, to a great extent, through travel and new jobs. The friends and opportunities we’ve found along the way have always outweighed any risks. And looking back, we clearly have a lot of faith - either that or we're incredibly naive and slightly mad! I'm going with the first option though, because I figure, if we don't believe we can succeed, why should anyone else?
Here's how we got started on some of our bigger adventures together:
Moving to the Netherlands – pregnant and without a job
In the late 1990s we were in our 20s, with a 10 month old son and pregnant with our daughter. We lived on Waiheke Island, New Zealand at the time. That in itself was an unconventional choice. Our first house was a ramshackle house on Waiheke Island that necessitated a ferry ride for us to get to our jobs in downtown Auckland. Not the usual choice for a young couple, certainly not a 'safe' first house, but for us, we saw potential.
Anyway, to continue with the story of how we moved... Noel came home from work one night and said, "I'm tired of this work, shall we go back to Europe?" (side note: We're both Kiwis, but Europe was where we fell in love).
"OK," I replied.
That really was my reply, but we both knew it required due diligence. We spent the rest of that evening weighing up the pros and cons of such a radical move before deciding that, yes, this really was a good idea – after all, what did we really have to lose? We sold everything (and missed out on the property boom that hit Waiheke Island shortly after!) and went to Europe.
Noel found a job the old fashioned way once we had relocated to the Netherlands – he applied to an ad in the newspaper. Of course, we have to acknowledge Noel's aunts and uncles who put us up for a few weeks while Noel found a job and we secured a house for our small family.
Our back up plan was to simply move back home to New Zealand if Noel didn't find work, but we never considered that as a realistic option.
We reaped so many great results from the next four years we spent living in the Netherlands. Including our beautiful baby girl and savings of a scale that set us up nicely when we returned to New Zealand.
Setting up home businesses
Back in New Zealand again, with two kids now aged 6 and 4, Noel was working full-time but it wasn't enough for me. To keep busy I needed the world of business, but it was also a priority that I be home for the kids before and after school. We looked around and over the next few years we were fortunate enough to start two businesses.
One was a franchise, and the other was a business that I started from scratch. We chose carefully, and I was able to run both of them from home. But, it wouldn't have been possible without Noel - we needed his financial support from his full-time job, his head for numbers and his muscle in the weekends for one of the businesses.
The learnings that come from entrepreneurship are invaluable and they have been important to so much that we've both done since.
Not all couples can work together, but it works for us. We allow each other the space to magnify our individual strengths and we communicate and trust each other. We consider all ideas that the other person may come up with. Not all of those ideas have seen the light of day, but having someone you can trust with ‘baby ideas’ is important.
Travelling around Australia
Fast forward six year when the kids were 12 and 10. One evening we found ourselves trying to convince a 'friend couple' of ours to take an extended holiday and go and check out Australia with their family, to see if they liked it as a place they might want to consider working.
We suggested they take a couple of weeks off, get a caravan and tour around a bit. While they liked the idea, it wasn't for them. Us, on the other hand - well, that night we stayed awake discussing the merits and decided "heck, why don't we do this?!"
Two months later we'd put managers in place for our businesses, and we took the kids out of school for five months. We bought a 4WD and a caravan (for our US friends, think 'camper') and drove around exploring Australia. Those five months created so many memories for each of us. Including the night we got stuck in salt flats and needed a police rescue (reference: 24 October – Surviving the Karunjie Trail Campout). Be sure to check out the link to our old blog if you want to read the story of mosquitoes, m&m's and outback police.
The kid's schooling did not suffer. They are both avid readers anyway, so on advice from their teachers they had to do maths everyday but otherwise, their education was in the day to day experiences.
From that adventure came the opportunity that took us to Singapore. While on our Australia tour we took a week and flew to Vietnam. It was there that we met a young American couple who were on a weekend trip from Singapore where they lived and worked. We'd already talked briefly about Singapore as an idea, but to meet someone doing it made the idea a lot more understandable and attainable as a concept.
Leveraging LinkedIn and moving to Singapore
Once back in Australia, on the road again, Noel kept talking about Singapore - should we, shouldn't we, what would we do there, how would it be for the family, the kids? After three weeks of this, I had enough and suggested he reach out to his LinkedIn network and see if they knew of any available positions that might suit him.
That night from our caravan, Noel mailed several of his LinkedIn contacts. The next morning, sitting outside in the sun and surrounded by free roaming emus, Noel looks up from his laptop and says "you're not going to believe this - I've just been offered a job in Singapore if we want it."
The rest is recent history. Moving to Singapore was difficult for our kids at first (because it was an unexpected move and they weren't used to large schools), but they survived and even thrived. We all did.
The next adventure
And now we find ourselves as empty nesters! We chose to quit the roles we had in Singapore so that we can totally reboot while we take two months to travel the United States. We are staying with a bunch of different friends (made from our overseas adventures to date) or in Airbnb properties meeting amazing people everywhere we go. Once we’re back in New Zealand we will spend some time fixing up a small lifestyle property we’ve purchased.
After that, who knows what unconventional choices we might make? We certainly don’t – but we will always keep ourselves open to all possibilities.
