The author of a book called Relocate Smart, Lydia also offers an informational webinar series about relocating called Tuesday Evenings with Lydia.
1. What are some common difficulties people face when it comes to relocating?
Relocation involves tackling some important milestones. This means planning and syncing operations, and people are a bit tired of following another plan because it can feel like a routine. How do I know this? I also provide one-to-one coaching, and after hundreds of hours of personal work, I discovered it all boils down to setting strong foundations from the beginning.
The second most common challenge people face is dealing with "plateau periods." These come up during the mid-relocation planning phase where people have nailed everything down to the "T," and they are feeling that "nothing" is happening. Maybe they aren't getting the job they want or the best home, and something is stuck.
Actually, this is natural and should be welcomed. A plateau period is the time your thoughts and plans are maturing. It's waiting for the first results after sowing the field of life. It's the moment some people get a bit discouraged and may even cancel plans or worse, make really hasty decisions. Relocation is a form of growth, and growth happens best in spurts. It's like when we grow physically. We grow in spurts, and at some point the growth process finishes. When people give up quickly, it's like they stopped eating before they got taller because they didn't manage to grow as tall as they wished immediately.
2. Do you find that people face more complex issues with relocating when they are moving to another country and/or moving a great distance?
This is unique to every single relocation plan. I have seen people make phenomenal moves abroad and equally phenomenal moves cross-state or even cross-county.
Moving abroad is often advised for people who have a strong multi-cultural background. In practice, I have found this to be totally irrelevant. Successful relocation abroad is easier for people who have good coping mechanisms and advanced social skills, and know the importance of community. Generally put, people who know how to stay busy.
Community is the KEY to successful domestic and international relocation. Support groups are what most successful participants in this program report as the key to happiness, zero loneliness, and personal and professional growth. In my book, Relocate Smart, this is an integral part of the program and general advice.
3. Would you tell us about your Tuesday Evenings with Lydia video series and what the webinars offer?
It's really made me grow personally and the way I communicate this work. I chose to do the video series parallel to one-to-one coaching because some recurring questions come up, and I can only take so many people at a time. The video lectures are always fresh, and though we work on the basics, we can always spice up things by incorporating some more current questions.
The live webinar, I find, is a great tool, yet as people come to Relocate Smart from all over the world, summoning people to attend during early morning hours or midday working hours is less of a service to others and very unfair in many ways. It's about treating these questions globally and giving people fair chances to have access to this material at whatever time of the day.
I have a middle program where people who register for the video lectures get a few features of the live webinar, like shooting me questions before the week's video comes out, and I am happy to say that I honor every single question. These are all answered in the forthcoming video.
Our hottest topics are:
--Setting strong foundations for successful relocation
--Preserving cash-flow and increasing means to meet opportunities
--Ways to tackle housing and many alternatives to traditional housing
--Smart advice on evaluating work opportunities and how these can influence your relocation plans and your finances in the long-term.
For example, we really emphasize being cautious and skeptical about relocation offers by companies who are not willing to pay for moving expenses. We discovered that the cost of relocation for most cases--singles, families and young professionals, and our dear retirees--comes up to 3 months' salary, and that's a lot of money in today's economy and can result in debt. We want relocation to be at your advantage and growth. Quality companies would cover at least half your expenses.
4. What will readers find in your latest book, Relocate Smart?
Ten power sessions that will change the way you look at the process of relocation. It focuses on success based on the critical balance of health, love, and money. We need all these, and they must hold hands firmly--that's the way they grow and make our relocation worth the while.
Relocate Smart and The Complete Step-by-Step Relocation Calculator are excellent for studying on your own and also as teaching material. I have a church in Nigeria that ordered several copies through our site and an HR firm in Dubai who is really out to train their staff to understand relocation from the personal and practical side. We also have a community college in Spain that uses this material for people graduating and making these first decisions to move either for work or further education. It gives readers insight into how much people have to put into the relocation process. It makes them better bosses, community leaders. We are so happy with this dimension of the work that we offer and have discounts for quantity orders so that this material can be used in groups.
5. If you could offer just three pieces of advice to someone who is planning to relocate, what would you say?
1. Turn off the television. It really gets people too anxious and too worried about current politics the western world is facing. Do not allow media to influence your decisions or thrive on your misery by sharing bad news. Instead, opt for uplifting people, examples of people around you who are doing well, and think, "INSPIRATION."
2. Have faith in yourself, in your skills, and in the divine. Whatever your spiritual path may be, I see every day how people make it even in challenging times, and support from good spiritual communities helps tremendously.
3. Join Relocate Smart. It's a project with a strong culture of quality material that takes a bit of work, but nothing compared to the benefits. We've done the hardest part for you.
Thanks, Lydia!
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