Going Long Podcast_SOLO Episode 427_Billy Keels

Thu, Jun 06, 2024 10:03AM • 12:04

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

recognise, working, living, italy, wanted, started, podcast, billy, life, perspective, understand, corporate ladder, realised, moving, overseas, sardinia, language, france, happening, business

SPEAKERS

Billy Keels

‍

Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by the Billy keels advisory programme. If you want to learn more about how to make your nine to five optional, just go to Billy keels.com. Forward slash advising. Once again, that's Billy keels.com forward slash advising.

‍

00:10

You're listening to the going long podcast, the number one podcast for the strategies, tactics and actions high wage earners need for living an intentionally designed life of wealth and resilience.

‍

Billy Keels  00:24

Welcome to the Golang podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable as well as confident in building the wealthy and resilient life that you're looking to lead in lead that even faster. I'm your host, Billy keels, I'm back once again. And it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the podcast. And also want to say thank you right from the very beginning to those of you who continued to download the podcast, you continue to tag us across social media like LinkedIn, and Instagram really means the world to us. Thank you so much for that. And those of you who want to continue to leave your honest written reviews, as well as ratings, we always appreciate that. And if you need a little help, there's also a little short video to help you on the Apple podcast platform. And also to for those of you who want to find any of the over 425 episodes at this point in time, yes, almost four years in the making. Just go to Billy keels.com, forward slash podcast once again, that's Billy keels.com, forward slash podcast. And so if you've clicked on and you want to listen to this very brief episode, I'll try to make it as brief as possible. It's here because you're here because you want to understand how working overseas will make your perspective improve, or will help to improve your perspective. And the reason I want to talk about this is this is one of the things that really, I think about it now after having lived in Europe for over almost 23 like two and a half decades, which I started on a one year sabbatical is what I wanted to come over here to do. But what I've realised is that having this really unique experience of living overseas and being here in Europe and living in multiple countries, and you know, at this point, having worked across 87 Different countries worked and travelled, let's say, lived in four European countries, there's something about perspective, and being able to have these different life experiences that I want to share with you. Because if I think about, I'll actually want to go back to November of 2004 actually want to go a little bit before that. But the actual moving forward takes place in 2004, November 2004. But at this point, I am living in the South of France never imagined there when I started my one year sabbatical in Paris. But this is now the mid of that towards the after the summer of 2004. I am in a position where you know, 31 years old, I'm single, I am working. Because working in staying in Europe, because this was the the life that I wanted to lead, I moved from a public relations role where I'd been working previously managing really large teams, 300 people all over the world. And now I was actually selling batteries and cables but in the IT sector, and doing that in the south of France, which wasn't bad at all. And I wanted to continue to have good times, right. So these were things that were happening to me never really realised that I said happening to me, but happening for me, I just didn't realise it at the time. And all of these different things are going on in my life, sticking in Europe get to stay there and get to work in the IT space, which I knew people were really into. And I knew there would be job security for a while. And so what I wanted to do was get back to what I'd been doing before, which was now I'm in a new company, I'm starting to understand the sector. And I wanted to start moving up the corporate ladder. But that's what I really wanted to do. Because you know, being that kid who's an A student and high achiever top performer, moving up the corporate ladder was the dream that I had bought into because that was going to keep me from being poor and keep me from having to work two or three jobs, just stay in one job, work and focus and move up the corporate ladder. Now secretly, what I wanted to do was stick around Europe, I just wanted to stay in Europe, I wanted to continue to learn these new perspectives because as an American who was living overseas, like I found a way to move from my student visa to my working visa. And now I got to get this like new perspective, in terms of the way that business was operating outside of the United States and actually living there, right, which was something different, very different living in a place and travelling and place. Maybe I'll do a podcast episode on that. But but one of the things that also happened in my life was, as I mentioned, like I was used to managing really big teams of people, you know, the smallest teams are probably 1015 people but manage teams up to 300 people I love that leadership aspect of working with someone one on one, and being able to do that around the globe. Well now, I didn't understand the sector it I didn't really speak the language, which initially was French and then it was Spanish and then I had to get to a point where, you know, I needed to be able to interact and do that with ease. And so I'd taken this kind of step back professionally so that I could move forward or progress forward personally. And so I was in this kind of conflicted situation. And then bringing it back to the where I'm talking to you about in late latter part of 2004 have this amazing conversation with a leader. Today, he is a friend, big shout out to Marketo. And I remember when he and I had this conversation, we had a number of different conversations. And I didn't really understand them one day, he was asking me about thinking about being able to go and work in another country. And I thought, well, wow, that would be really, really cool. But you know, what country and he mentioned, there would potentially be an opportunity, there were people that were interested in and looking to grow the business in Italy. And we had this long conversation, maybe I'll come back and just drill in on that conversation, because it was a life changer for me. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. But not not this one. Because the thing that's important is, one of the things that my manager recognised that I didn't is that not only was I understanding the business, the IT business in the in the line of business, as they call it that I was in so that that department, I was achieving overachieving. Again, I was managing the team as a team lead. And eventually, he recognised that I had a string that I could do this again, this time, it was just going to be in a different country, in Italy. Now Secretly, I had always had a dream of living in Italy actually wanted to live in Italy in 2001. But because I couldn't get the working papers that never worked out. And so then, like, literally, less than two, no, sorry, less than five years later, I got a chance to live in Italy. I wanted to live in Rome, but this was in Sardinia. So I go through the process, I end up getting the roll. And so then what do I do? Like I go into planning mode. And so it is a matter of I need to have got this was going to be seven months, I was going to be living in Italy, I didn't speak the language, I wanted to be able to get the business. So I started taking language classes, I started following my format of learning languages, which is also maybe if I haven't talked about that, I'll talk about that as well. It's a process to learn languages like super, super fast, which is one of the reasons that I've learned five languages in so are four additional languages plus English. But being able to do that I wanted to learn the business, I wanted to learn the language. So that knew that was going to help me learn more about the culture. I also wanted to, you know, like little things I didn't know, like, there was a big thing in Italy, between the North and the South. Although ironically, in the north, in the US, it's same in Spain, it's the same. And so it's really, really interesting, you start seeing all of these different things because it's it gives you different perspectives when you are living or interacting with people from places that are not your own. So anyway, as I start putting this plan together, everything comes together. Finally, November 2004, I leave I'm confident I know, I'm gonna um, started learning a little bit of Italian, a bi level info. So I used to speak just a little bit. And I got to the point where I was actually in Italy. So this is like November now. And so I go over as part of a leadership team. So each one of us had different segments of the market, I was responsible for what was called direct sales. So like working with, with families and stuff like that selling computers. And the thing that happened was, you know, I get there, and the frustration starts again, because I don't speak the language as much as I wanted to. But I realised that I needed to go through this process of making a lot of mistakes. I was frustrated, I was not happy. You know, I couldn't speak I felt inadequate, all of these different types of things. Fortunately, for me, I had great friends that were there were also specially louder. So they're helping making sure that things are going forward, Fabio. Dottie Oh, like these guys were amazing. And so I got through that point. And before I knew it, it was the end of seven months. And so at the end of the seven months, here's the thing, right? Not only had, I did have the opportunity to build a team, and live in Italy, which was like one of my dream destinations. That part was cool. But what was even better, was the fact that now this guy from the US, me, who had lived in the US, then lived in France, was now in two different places in France and Paris and Mobley. Now living in Italy, in Sardinia, right. I started to understand and recognise patterns, I started seeing things not because I theoretically understood about it, but I started gaining my own perspective because I was living in a new place. I was working day to day with people that come from different backgrounds, different nationalities, different cultures than my own speaking different languages. That gave me a massive amount of confidence in terms of being able to work into a new culture, to recognise to analyse and be able to help not only build a business, but help grow the people, the individuals that were there, and having this clarity of being able to do it quickly and being able to have the clarity of understanding What needs to happen in knowing that these accomplishments can be achieved, like I said, it just gave an amazing amount of, of confidence and also created a momentum that I knew would be able to take any other place. And so when you start thinking about like working overseas, and sometimes I know people can get apprehensive about it, other people really want to dive into it. This is just a very small snippet of my story, and the positive outcomes that I know when you work overseas, it's going to help to improve your perspective, and make a larger impact on others. And so I just wanted to share that with you because I know it's coming to well, depending on when you're listening to this, and maybe you have the this is the time of year that you're really thinking about, Okay, should I think about moving myself, my family overseas? I've been there I've done it, over two decades of working and living outside of the US living in France, Italy, Spain. And I know that this is one of the greatest ways for you to add perspective to your life. So I'll stop there. And I would also say, if you know someone who is thinking about this, they are saying, hey, look, I want to get a new perspective, or I want to live overseas, or I've been thinking about this, share today's episode with him. It's really simple. It's really easy just forwarded over to him. It makes it super simple, and you're the person who's actually helping them. So while you're doing that, I'll be preparing for the next solo episode and getting it out to you as quickly as possible. So until then go out and make it a great day. And thank you very much. Today's conversation was sponsored by the Billy keels advisory programme. If you're looking to make your nine to five optional and need some help, just go to Billy keels.com forward slash advising once again, that's Billy keels.com forward slash advising

‍