Boomeranging: Expat to Repat

S2 Ep6: Michael Ellis

“I wish I knew how it would be to be free.” Nina Simone

 

 

This was the song that Michael Ellis used to describe his year of lockdown in the UK and his decision (and subsequent adventure) to get back home after 19 years living in London.

 

 

In February, when UK COVID deaths were at over 1,800 a day, Michael secured a spot on a very happy DFAT repatriation flight.  Prior to COVID, Michael had no intention of coming home.  He had a great career and established life overseas and as long as he could come home at least once a year, it was a lifestyle he wanted to continue.

 

 

But the forced separation from family, particularly in the lead up to his father’s 80^th birthday, forced a re-think, as it has for so many Australians living overseas.

 

 

Upon returning to Australia after a year of living on his own in lockdown, Michael took advantage of his new found freedom in Australia with an epic road trip from Darwin to Melbourne following the compulsory two weeks of quarantine.

 

 

Now back, he is now navigating and enjoying a very different life back in Australia.  But he has not yet answered the question, will he stay?

S2 Ep5: Sarah Ntiamoah

For Change Manager Sarah , coming home from ten years in London was a change she thought she could handle.

Like any project, she planned ahead. She started thinking and planning two years in advance, secured a job and didn’t lose so much as a sock during the relocation thanks to her expertise in project management and excel.

So why did Sarah, who had spent a decade advising global companies in change, ring a friend after six weeks of arriving home and ask the question ‘What have I done?’

Fast forward two years and Sarah is one happy and settled Sydney-sider but she acknowledges that in the beginning she was not quite prepared. For Sarah, ‘reverse culture shock’ was very real but once she was aware of it, she found it easier to ride out the rest of her change curve.

Along with her story, Sarah shares her tips for others embarking on the repat journey.

S2 Ep4: Nicole Webb

Nicole had a great career in Australia as a well-regarded journalist and newsreader with Sky News when her hotelier husband James was offered a new role, first in Hong Kong and then in the ancient Chinese city of Xi’an.

 

For Nicole, the initial transition was challenging – her whole professional identity until that time had been ‘journalist’, and the role of English-speaking newsreader didn’t quite work in mainland China.

 

Wanting to work, but realising she needed to change what ‘work’ would look like, Nicole began building a portfolio of roles which included freelance writer, MC and media trainer. She built her portfolio steadily while she lived in Hong Kong however, she found herself pivoting again in Xi'an, when language became more of a consideration.

 

While living in Xi'an, Nicole returned to her roots and started interviewing differing people she met – but not for the news rather to capture her experience living as one of 1,000 expats in a city of 9 million people.

 

Returning to Australia in 2017, this research ultimately became the foundation for her latest role – best-selling author.  China Blonde was released in late 2020 and is Nicole and her family’s story of living in Xi'an. As blondes.

S2 Ep3: Michael Waite

Michael Waite, his wife Whitney and three kids were on an 18-month global adventure, popping back to Australia for the Southern Hemisphere summer to visit family when COVID and family tragedy struck. 

With travel grounded, the former Seattle-based family had to put away their backpacks and establish a home living in between Normanville and Naracoorte, two regional towns in South Australia, starting a total rethink on their three-to-five year plan.

With regional South Australia home for the immediate future, Michael, a senior finance executive who ran for State Treasurer of Washington State in 2016, embarked on an unusual COVID side project, starting the Naracoorte News, which created his own headlines.

Now he and his wife, a highly experienced paediatrician, are keen to ignite their careers while living in a regional area.  Facing multiple challenges of trying to reshape international experience into a local market and a regional one at that, the Waite’s are asking themselves if staying is more short than medium term.

S2 Ep2: Bridget John

For six years prior to annus horribilis, Bridget John had been living a globally nomadic life between home bases in France, Morocco and Australia.

She balanced work as a freelance brand consultant with building her vintage Moroccan textiles business all from the road. It was a lifestyle she had curated for herself borne from her love of travel and living overseas.  Bridget’s experiences of living abroad included living in England as a child and in her 20s and moving to the Basque Coast of France in 2015 with Quiksilver as the Global Trade Marketing Director at their global headquarters.

After a few years of carrying her career and laptop across Europe and Australia, she finally set up a home in Marrakech in 2019.

A ‘quick trip’ home to Melbourne in February 2020 for two weeks to visit family has turned into an extended stay and a total re-think of her business and life on the other side of the world.

Bridget shares how she pivoted her business back here in Australia, while packing up an apartment in Morocco remotely, and her hopes for positive change within the digital nomad community.

 

 

S2 Ep1: Shane Masters

Over the last few years, Shane Masters has tried three times to come home.

Past attempts have been thwarted by a lack of job opportunities which matched his background and experience.  When he first left home for overseas after university, it was easier to get a job as a lawyer in London than it was at home.  Then it became easier to stay overseas because that was where the demand for his experience in Ag Tech came from rather than a job in Australia where, as he was once told, despite his many years of international experience and new MBA, he would have start from the bottom.  Again.

Shane finally cracked the code to returning home in 2020 after proactively building networks in Australia while overseas.  With the job opportunity and family sorted – you could think it was finally plain sailing for Shane.

Until you added COVID into the mix.

It took Shane and his family five months, countless cancelled trips, $52,000 worth of booked flights and a nervous drive to Belgium from France (to avoid a train strike) to finally arrive back in Adelaide in August 2020.

The six-month ordeal put enormous additional stress on Shane, particularly when he returned home to hear the unsympathetic chorus of some Australians who thought ‘all expats could have come back when the Government told them to…’

If only it was that easy.

Shane has been long aware of the challenges to mental health being both an expat and repat can bring.  He founded the ‘Australia Day Games’ when he was living in Sweden to provide a supportive network for Australians living away from home. Now back in Adelaide, he is also acutely aware of the mental health challenges returned expats are facing, particularly in the face of COVID.

He’s even thinking of bringing the Australia Day Games….to Australia.  So get your inflatable sharks ready, Shane and his throwing competition could be coming to a town near you.