in this episode, you'll hear why releasing Regret helped one expat find success after life changing setbacks Welcome to starting over in the USA, the Expat Woman's Guide to overcoming homesickness, embracing cultural differences, and creating a new home away from home. On this podcast, we talk about leaving behind the familiar, you know, the pangs of homesickness and culture shock to the journeys of reinventing yourself. I'm Yolanda Reshemah. And after relocating six times, I know firsthand what it's like to start from scratch, feeling like both a foreign child and a foreign adult in a new world. I am taking a break for the next few weeks to unpack all these suitcases and to get over jet lag I need to relax myself. In the meantime, I've created some starting over mini moments, the sweetest bits from some favorite episodes for you to listen to while I'm on my summer break so grab these tips, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you with your decision to relocate to the USA. Today, my expat friend. Your key takeaway is releasing regret and living with gratitude instead of living with what ifs. We are revisiting my first ever episode and a lot has changed since then, I have to confess the recording quality in those days was not at its best. My first guest is a man by the name of Theo, the story that he shared is your key takeaway if you want the full story, go back to episode one. they actually did give me a choice, finish boarding school for another three years, or would you rather move to California with us? And I think it took me a microsecond to decide that I wanted to move to California from where? From Germany, Southern Germany. Do you think you were well received back then? I think I was mostly well received. I remember one time getting onto a high school bus and someone called me a Nazi and that really just took me aback because Oh. I was also very sensitive about it. That was a horrible thing that happened and we, Germans own that and I was just really surprised and angry about it that he would call me that. I don't think I even responded because part of me was ashamed of the past, having grandparents that were part of that era. Yeah. So other than that though, I was Very welcome. do you feel German or do you feel American? Honestly, I feel far more American than I feel German, and that's obvious to me whenever I go back to Germany. Huh. In what way? What do you mean? As much as I love Germany, it's a beautiful country. I can't imagine working in Germany. It's far more rigid and less tolerant of aberrant behavior in all kinds of ways. One of the beautiful things about America is that Americans are For the most part, quite aware of the fact that we were all foreigners here at one point or another. And when you meet another American here, they're very proud to point out to you, Oh, my grandparents came from Germany or they came from the UK or wherever. Americans have a pride of origin. Makes me much more comfortable here as well, because that diversity gives Americans a Generosity in however you want to be is okay in America, and much more so than in many other countries. I never want really want to get into the thick political side of things, but things have changed here. Things have changed everywhere. What am I saying? Do you think you'll ever go back? No. I think that the few friends that I still have in Germany know very well that I am here. I know that I love it here I'm here for. Good. what is an audio system architect? Basically it's the fun part of making a speaker. Engage with the customer early on when they give you napkin sketch or 3D drawing or of their speaker It's gotta play music, it's gotta be good for speech. And then you design the acoustic guts, craft the early prototypes of what this thing could be like You are actually a big dog in the industry, aren't you? You're well known. Yeah the big success came later when I I started making these rather large loudspeakers and I got to work with some of the leading people in the industry. I had a Fujitsu was my biggest customer. We had 20 employees, we did about 3 million dollars a year roughly. But then China really started to manufacture speakers much less expensively. My vendors started going out of business one after the other. I couldn't buy magnets anymore in the United States. So when I filed bankruptcy, I was just identifying with my business and I thought I was my business. And I made some really big mistakes. Like what? I tried to hang on to some of the assets of the company Okay. And in the back of my mind, I was thinking when this is done, I'll reopen my business and I'll just start using all these parts. And bankruptcy they take your car, they take Everything, yeah. You do get to keep your house. If you have one. I told the bankruptcy attorney, look, I made a mistake, I didn't tell you about these assets and here's where they are. I realized that it was a big mistake, I owned up to it. What went down in China? I lived on Xiamen Island, the beaches were absolutely beautiful. I ended up having a Chinese girlfriend. We intended to get married at some point even, and she really was much of my journey in China. So you are living there with your beautiful Chinese girlfriend, and and that was now six and a half years ago. And I was convicted. Did you know that was a possibility? That was not something I anticipated. She's now a nun in Sri Lanka. She's now a what? She's a nun, a Buddhist nun who lives in Sri Lanka now. So after bankruptcy I went through a really tough time and I ended up doing anything and everything that I could get my hands on in terms of I guess what you would call a spiritual journey, yeah. So I listened to Eckhart Tolle, who has this book called The Power of Now. In the midst of incredible panic and horrific stressful, I was just thinking about how terrible everything is. All of a sudden everything stopped as if somebody had hit the pause button. Everything came to a complete standstill. I was just present to just this moment. I guess I, I lost this identification with my circumstances. Do you ever, it sounds like you may say no, but I still have to ask it. Do you ever wonder if your life would have been better if you had stayed in Germany? I gave up the idea of wondering what could have been. The past is exactly the way it happened and I don't believe that anything happens for a purpose, but. So you don't believe that everything happens for a purpose? No. Okay. Not at all. But I do believe that whatever happens to us, whatever happens to me, I'm grateful for exactly the way it happened. Mm hmm. I wouldn't want it any other way. So you wouldn't change anything? No. Coming to America, everything that you've experienced has been worth it? Yeah. It made me who I am now, and I am probably as happy a human being as I've ever been. Mm hmm. So it's more than for you, and for everybody, it's more than the label of where you're from, what accent you have, it's about the sum of your experiences and the quality of your character and who you are as a human being right now. I realized that we're all on this journey together. I'm not better or worse than anyone else. And the perspective that I got was that everyone in my life that I run across is my brother or my sister. Everyone that I run across. Because if you're my brother or my sister, that changes everything, right? When you're able to see people as you see yourself, it's very difficult to treat them as though they are less than. Exactly. When you see them as souls and spirit, as you are, after the same things in life, as you are. Which is why I do this podcast because I really want to meet many people from many different cultures and races and different countries and hear their stories because I think it's important to find the people behind the numbers and behind the assumptions and behind the labels. And here it's, for me, it's so important to get down to the fact of an individual that we're not all the same when we can't all be lumped, into one category, as we often are, it comes down to individuals and judge us as an individual, right? And when you're able to Really see people and understand their life. I didn't have an interest in people to begin with right? Yeah, you know because Intrinsically, I don't think at least I wasn't interested in other people to begin with, you know That's a journey in itself to actually have a real interest in someone else, right? And to listen and to actually truly get someone else. Yeah, and I needed some hard knocks to be quite honest, I needed these experiences because I was arrogant and I just didn't wasn't interested in other people, and I needed to go the path that I had was perfect for me and it got me to. To where I am now, and I'm still on the path, right? Grab the full story on episode one, but the key takeaway just from this clip alone is stop wondering what could have been and fully embrace the life exactly as it is right now. It's not something most people can just flip a switch and do overnight. That would be unrealistic but it is realistic in a sense that it's a practice not a one-time decision. He got there after bankruptcy and heartache, cultural shifts, and a lot of uncomfortable self-reflection. The reason why it works is because the alternative, which is living in what if just drains your energy and it drains your joy and being effective and purposeful in the present. Letting go doesn't mean pretending the past didn't happen or that it didn't hurt either. It just means accepting that it happened exactly that way, you can't change it but you can choose a different perspective and It took a while it took practice and it took help from his friend. That's it from me today. Stay tuned for more starting over mini moments. Bye-bye.