We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bethany Quinn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bethany below.
Bethany, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
As an immigrant, you become very resilient. Resilience is brutal, and has been a tough one for me to learn.
In school, I was always that jerk who never studied and often broke the curve. A lot of things came easily to me and the things that didn’t, I figured, weren’t meant to be. But then I got into entrepreneurship, because I have so many ideas & love to develop them.
And failure – and resilience in the face of failure – is an essential part of entrepreneurship. You really have to reframe your thinking about failure: it’s all about testing and iterating, or accepting that that person doesn’t want to buy from you and it’s good that they told you, gauging what traction looks like, etc.
If you ever want to be beaten over the head with your own inadequacies, become an entrepreneur.
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is another big thing I’ve had to overcome. RSD is a condition that often coincides with ADHD and other neurodiversity, but essentially you misread things as rejection (radio silence is a big trigger for me). You build up this whole scenario in your head – the other person is mad at you because of that one thing you said, or they’re ghosting you, or they’re cheating on you or whatever, so you react to the situation you’ve invented. But back in the real world, all the other person sees is you exploding and sending them 40 texts out of nowhere. There’s a significant psychosomatic component too – higher blood pressure, tightness in your chest, etc.
It took me a number of years (and seeing friends melt down the same way) to realize that what I was doing wasn’t helpful, and many more years to learn about RSD. But you can take medication for RSD, and for me that was a game-changer for my resilience.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m the cofounder of GTFO Tours, where we help Americans get out of the US and into their peaceful new lives. We help people figure out where they can go, put together a plan to get out, and connect them with experts on the ground. In the Netherlands, we offer relocation tours and “settling in” services like putting together your furniture. You can learn more about our services on our website at gtfotours.com.
My clients go from being scared and confused about their future to being excited, relieved, happy. A lot of my clients recently moved and are getting settled in, which is really exciting. One of them moved from the Midwest to Panama, and now lives near the beach, has a pool in her backyard, and has a maid come a few times a week to clean and cook. Another one had had trouble finding work for years and within two weeks of moving to Germany had a job offer. Another family moved into a beautiful house with their kids near the museums in Amsterdam.
One of the big things that we focus on that distinguishes us from other relocation companies is community. We host regular networking happy hours in Amsterdam so our clients and friends can meet each other. But also, if I have a black client or a trans client or a client in a demographic or community that I’m not part of, I try to connect them to someone in that community so they can hear what it’s like for people like them where they’re moving.
We’re also restarting our webinar series on things like how to move to different countries, doing the “Under the Tuscan Sun” house rehab thing in Italy, the Dutch education system, etc.
And lastly, I’m working on an initiative to help people who live abroad support the fight against totalitarianism back in the US.
In the age of the internet, you don’t have to stay to fight. Stay tuned on that.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1) Business acumen: when I was in college, I basically minored in photography and was planning to be a photographer. My classes taught me to take beautiful, compelling photos, what I discovered when I graduated was that being a photographer is 90% business acumen and 10% your ability to take a decent photo. And my classes taught me *nothing* about business – I didn’t even know what an invoice was. Understanding business is essential, especially if you want to be an artist. How do you get clients, how do you market yourself, how do you make sure you’re actually making money…these are the types of things you need to know how to do. And if you know how to run a business, you can basically work in whatever field you want because even if no one will hire you, you can always start your own business.
In terms of developing it, I don’t recommend doing business school in the US because the return on investment isn’t there unless you’re looking to become a middle manager at a major corporation, or a consultant at one of the big firms. But there are plenty of cheaper ways to develop that knowledge. I would Google MBA curriculum and find the material online for free. And possibly start a business and know that you’ll be learning a ton along the way and that’s part of it.
2) Resilience – I talk about that in my previous answer.
3) Sales skills: this falls under business acumen, but it bears reiterating. Honestly, I wish I’d been put in an entry-level sales job early in my career. I think it would have been really helpful in terms of learning to be more resilient, learning to just work my way through a call list, understanding how to follow up, etc.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
Our ideal client is an American who has heard about the Netherlands, is interested in moving here, but feels overwhelmed and wants someone to help guide them along the way and ease their transition. They have some money ($60K+ – though we can absolutely help them if they have less than that), and they have either worked as an entrepreneur (freelancer, consultant, etc.) and/or they have a career that lends itself well to freelancing. Trades folks like carpenters do really well here. OR they have a remote job and their employer is willing to let them move abroad.
Typically, our clients are Americans who are fed up or scared or upset with what’s happening in the US and are ready to see what else is out there. We help them figure out their options, figure out how to make the money work, put together a plan to move, and connect them with people on the ground who can help.
In the Netherlands, we help with the on-the-ground piece like relocation tours and moving logistics.
Some of them are parents who want a better future for their kids, without active shooter drills (or school shootings), where they can be transgender and/or gay and still be safe, or where they don’t need to worry about the police murdering them – and they’re willing to move to make it happen.
A bunch of our clients are also Americans who are close to retirement (or retirees) who want to retire somewhere peaceful where they can just live their lives. My favorite conversation to have is when people think they’ve got a long time before they can afford to retire and I can tell them, “Actually, if you move to Portugal (or Spain, or Panama…), you could basically retire now!”
Contact Info:
- Website: gtfotours.com
- Instagram: gtfotours
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574864462184
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtfo-tours
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCamzw0b1CyCeayK4ZyrJwnw
Image Credits
Hope Byrd, Bethany Quinn
