🎙️Why Am I Here? How I Found My Purpose After Moving to New Zealand
In this episode, I share how I hit a turning point after our first year in New Zealand, when survival mode started to fade and bigger questions began to surface:
👉 Why am I here?
👉 What is my purpose?
👉 How do I design a life that feels intentional, not just busy?
I walk you through:
-
My honest struggles post-immigration
-
The exact questions I asked myself to become more self-aware
-
How I defined my personal purpose and mission
-
A powerful tool called the Wheel of Life to plan goals across all areas of your life
-
My step-by-step process to get the noise out of my head and into an actionable life plan
💡 Whether you're new to New Zealand or simply feeling stuck in the "what now?" stage of life, this episode will give you the clarity and structure to reconnect with your why — and start building a life you love.
📝 Download the FREE workbook to guide your own purpose and goal-setting journey:
🎧 Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and all major platforms.
🟣 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/soft-landing/id1805477245
🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5t3FeTxjNup90JfemCzkH0?si=0IsIieMqTfGB2-vGfv1uVg
🔴 YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@softlandingnz
Soft Landing NZ—Making New Zealand Home.
SUBSCRIBE and FOLLOW: https://linktr.ee/softlandingnz
📩 Share this with someone who needs clarity, direction, or encouragement today.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
There are over 100,000 people whoimmigrate to New Zealand every year with
the intention to make New Zealand theirhome, leaving behind everything they
know as normal day-to-day life and havingto learn new ways of doing things, new
norms, new cultures, and different values.
There are many people who struggle withthis transition and find it challenging
(00:25):
to adjust and settle so they cancall and make New Zealand their home.
The purpose of this podcast is for meto share my journey and our challenges
with the hope that you can learn from meand my family and have a softer landing.
There will be good days and baddays, but with time, more good days.
I believe we have made theright choice for our family.
(00:47):
I want to try and help you do the same,but hopefully with a softer landing.
This is Soft Landing and Iam your host, Brett Colette.
Welcome to this podcast, designed foranyone thinking about preparing for, or
who has just immigrated to New Zealand.
Subscribe now so you never miss an episodedrawing from his personal experience.
(01:09):
This series will guide you throughthe process of preparing for your
move and helping you navigatethe challenges of immigration.
Hey everybody, welcome back and thankyou for listening to my podcast again.
I really, appreciate you guys listening.
I've been getting a lot of feedback, bothon, oh, whether it be comments or some
(01:30):
people are mailing me on my, email box.
it's just been so niceto hear from many of you.
Even, just the responses onsome of the Facebook shares or
wherever I've shared the content.
I've started getting some feedback whereyou guys are just, Appreciating what I've
put out there, which really motivates me.
It helps me to keep going.
It's just nice to know that the stuffthat I'm putting out is actually helping.
(01:53):
So I just really appreciate it.
thank you so much for the feedback.
I really, appreciate it.
I think today what I wanted to dois I wanted to chat a little bit.
It's a little bit different today.
So a big thing, the whole reason behindSoft Landing, and the reason I've created
all this content and I'm trying to doeverything via soft landing, is it's to
(02:15):
help all immigrants coming to New Zealand.
I'm an immigrant, in that's,that arrived in New Zealand
two and a half years ago, and.
It's been a challengingtwo and a half years.
I really, immigration is not, aneasy thing and I've been through a
lot of different things in my life,including, kicking cancer's butt.
(02:37):
And I think potentially even movingto another country has been a lot
more difficult in a lot of ways.
So it, it's been one thing that Ihaven't found easy, especially if
you're moving to the country andyou, don't have a support structure.
You don't have family or closefriends here that you can.
Lean on and help youthrough the difficult times.
(02:57):
when you're by yourself doingthis, it makes it even harder.
and that's the situation we were in.
So it really made me think I have to sharemy experiences to try and help as many
other immigrants as possible when theycome here, just to try make it as soft.
And I've seen it before, but thatreally is where my passion is, to
try help as many other immigrants aspossible to make New Zealand home.
(03:22):
And it got me thinkingand a lot of my content.
Yeah.
I shared, my journey and you can learnfrom me with my journey just with
some of the mistakes we've made, learnfrom us, don't make the same mistakes.
Some of the thingswe've picked up as tips.
Yep.
Definitely sharing those.
But I've also done a lot of practicaladvice on how toss and budgeting and I.
Getting your kids in school,et cetera, which is good.
(03:43):
The practical advice is good.
But one of the things that I've found mostchallenging is, your mental wellbeing.
and this is probably maybe more onceyou've been here a little while.
when I say a little while for atleast 12 months, I think that's when
I've really started struggling a bit.
the first year, don't get mewrong, when I say struggling the
(04:04):
first year is like, survival.
You're just trying to survive.
You're just trying to make it workwith whatever curve balls have
been thrown at you and your family,you're just trying to overcome them.
you've got a huge, learning curve.
it's like skyrockets up where there's somuch you're trying to learn all at once
in a new country from the most basicthings like I've joked about before,
(04:25):
and pumping up the tires in your car toenrolling your kids, working through the
school system work, the cultures, the.
it's so much you're trying tolearn in the first year, so it
really is just a year of surviving.
But once you post that first 12 months,I know for me that's when reality
starts setting in and you start saying,okay, it's starting to feel like home.
(04:47):
You're starting to settle.
Yeah, you've still got your challenges,but you hopefully starting to get
into a little bit more of a groove.
But it starts getting me thinking,and this is where I was chatting with
my wife, and it's like I said to her.
Inside my head is like noise.
There's so much going on.
I put my head on my pillow atnight and there's, thinking
(05:08):
about so many different things.
I'm showering in the morning and I'mthinking, you're sitting on the toilet.
You're thinking you're every.
But if moment that you got to yourself,my brain is constantly thinking and it's
thinking about so many different things.
It's thinking about our future.
It's thinking about buying a home.
It's thinking about work, it's thinkingabout everything that's going on.
And I feel like I've got so much noisegoing on in my head and you're probably
(05:33):
thinking, oh geez, this guy's crazy.
but it's all those thoughts and it's,almost the only way that I can try and.
Get myself into a situation where Idon't feel overwhelmed and I don't feel
like I'm just that hamster running onthe wheel, spinning and going nowhere
because it's just so many thoughtsin my head and I don't know what
to do with what and where to start.
(05:53):
The way and what works for me, justlike I said, and maybe it's just the
way I am, is when we were moving to NewZealand, I said, you've gotta have a plan.
So if you go back to one of my, firstpodcasts, I said, one of the things
you've gotta do is have a plan.
That's because I'm very much aboutstructure and process and being
methodical and working through things.
It just helps me with somany things in my life.
(06:15):
And it helped us with moving toNew Zealand and not everything went
according to plan, but having that plan.
It definitely helped us.
So getting back to all the things thatare going on in my life and in my head
and what I'm trying to think of to tryand bring some sort of structure to it.
I had to start thinking about, and nowit's really getting a bit philosophical,
(06:37):
and getting a little bit deep.
What is, it is more tryingto think, why am I here?
What is my purpose?
What is, my mission in life?
what's important to me?
You start getting into a rut almost.
you're middle aged.
You've made this big change.
You've got here now you started tosettle, but you're like, okay, so what
is the rest of my life until I turn 60?
Gonna be.
(06:59):
The same old as waking up in the morning,going to work, doing a nine to five,
coming home, looking after kids Mondayto Friday, then the weekends catch up
on things that you couldn't do duringthe week and then start all over again.
And that's just that rut thatgoes over and over again.
'cause it can feel like a, bit of a rut.
But then it was tryingto think, okay, but fine.
That, is life.
(07:19):
And some people, oh man, thatthey, would give their left arm
to have the life that you got.
So it's.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not great,not being grateful for what I
got, but it really got me thinkingabout, okay, we are settled now.
We're doing well.
We, are getting there, but why am I here?
What's important to me?
And it's really where I started thinkingabout a process, of, trying to, and it's.
(07:45):
It almost got back to where it's sofunny, I'm in the IT industry and I've
explained that before, but I do, I ama line manager as well, and one of my
big things is working with my teams andtrying to give them direction and trying
to give them focus and trying to makesure what we're doing is in line with
what the business is trying to achieveand that's what I do every day of my life.
(08:06):
And it's almost like that I had thateureka moment where I started thinking,
I do that well in my job and trying to.
Direct the teams and give themdirection and help them grow and,
deal with whatever blockers they gotin place, removing those so they can
get on with what they need to do.
And it's almost made me reflect andsay, I need to do some of that in
my own life and try to work out,what is my purpose in my life.
(08:28):
Just like I'd work out what my team'spurpose is and the company's purpose
is, and our vision is what's my purpose?
What's my vision?
What, why am I here?
What do I wanna achieve?
So it was really starting tothink, I gotta think about a
lot of those things for me.
And I think it gave me time now that Istarted settling here in New Zealand,
I've done it before and I have thoughtabout it years ago, and you would
(08:50):
always put your goals together for theyear, but a lot of the time I would
just think of those goals in my head.
And maybe back in South Africa youweren't because you, were in your
home country and you, everything was.
You didn't have as much challeng asyou did in New Zealand where you are
learning so much and also getting to NewZealand in the middle age, you're like,
oh, I gotta do a lot of catch up now.
(09:11):
And it was that rude awakening of, inSouth Africa I was 20 years in and I'd
been able to save and working towards apension and, we're starting to build up
a, life to where we knew we wouldn't be aburden on our children when we were ready
to retire, we're starting to build up.
What investments and what we neededto be able to, get to a point where
(09:34):
we'd be comfortable in our older age.
But once we made that decision to moveto New Zealand is when it's oh wow,
we've, cashed everything in to be here.
You're in the middle of your life,you're middle aged and your forties,
and you're starting all over again.
And now that you've got through thatfirst year of just survival, you're like
(09:55):
in the second year where you could startthinking and thinking, okay, but now.
I can't just think about the nowand living day to day, I've gotta
start thinking a little bit ahead andthinking about, where am I gonna be
in three years, five years, 20 years?
how are we gonna buy a home?
And all those thoughts that werein my head, you, you now had time
to start processing those 'causeyou weren't just trying to survive.
(10:17):
And I think that's where I got to abouta year and a half ago, after being
here for, almost two and a half yearsnow, and starting to think, okay, I, I
really need to get on top of this and.
I, I pulled on my experience of being amanager, and, managing teams and being
in business and the way we did it there.
So I know it's a, very methodicalapproach, but that's just who I am.
(10:39):
I had to use some sort of process to workit out, but I think one of the companies
that I worked for back in South Africashowed me how this can really work.
It was a phenomenal company andmaybe at the time I didn't realize
how good they really were at it.
What I'm getting at is.
As much as they would try to put thebusiness metrics and everything in
place and your KPIs and everythingthat you're trying to do with business,
(11:01):
they had a big focus on the peoplewhere they really talked about the
dreams of the doers and they wouldreally invest time in people trying
to, as much as you were trying to thinkabout what the company's trying to do.
They really pushed you to try to thinkabout your personal life and what was
important to you and what were your dreamsand what were you trying to achieve.
And that's where they taughtme as a manager back then.
(11:23):
A lot of skills that I actually justremembered again, and I thought,
geez, we were using that back like5, 6, 7 years ago, whenever it was
when I was back at that company.
That actually is so valuable.
I really need to startthinking about that now.
So that's, where I got to about ayear and a half ago thinking I need
to really start giving it some thoughtabout my life and where I'm at and
(11:44):
what's important to me and the blessingof being here in, in New Zealand is.
I was able to leave work in theafternoons and I, because we stay by
the beach, I was doing a lot of walkingon the beach, almost every afternoon.
So I'd do a 5K walk along the beachand it gave me time to just think and,
really start pondering about my lifeand really starting to think about
(12:05):
where am I going and how I'm gonnasolve the challenges that I've got in
my personal life, be it my finances orwhatev, whatever it may be, that was
bugging me and I'll get into that now.
So it gave me a lot of time to.
Think what it also gave me time to do isstart saying, okay, do a bit of research.
Find some other podcasts of some otherpeople that talk about being financially
(12:26):
free or getting your freedom or.
How you can take control of your life,how you can be motivated, how can, how
you can improve your mental wellbeing.
And I started listening to a lot of thosepodcasts while I was on those walks.
And there's a couple of booksthat I started, audio books I
started looking, listening to.
So it really gave me a good bit of time.
It took me a few months ofwalking almost five Ks every day.
(12:47):
So it's a couple of hours really tryingto listen to what I was learning from
them and then trying to think, okay.
How do I apply some of it that,that they're talking about in
those, podcasts or what theywere referring to in their books?
And I'll share some of thosebooks shortly and podcasts.
But I'm just telling you how I gotto this and how I worked through it.
And over and above that time that Iwas investing in myself with, trying
(13:12):
to educate myself with a podcastand educate myself with the, audio
books, I also started signing upon, Udemy, on plural sites, on a
whole lot of other sites to do some.
Self-led training.
I signed up for some other courses.
I think I've mentioned social mediabecause it's one of the things, and
I'll get to it how I thought about that.
So I was, I really thought,I've gotta invest in myself.
(13:32):
I've gotta start thinking how I'mgonna get on top of this, how I'm
gonna take control and be ableto get a plan together, so that I
can actually achieve the goals andget rid of that noise in my head.
So that's really what Istarted thinking about.
And what it reminded me is a big thingthat I do with my teams and I have for
years, and I, I did it even back when,I was with this other company in South
(13:54):
Africa many years ago, is I started,I really loved Simon Sinek and I loved
his theory on or his teachings on.
You really gotta start with the why.
You gotta start with your purpose.
You gotta really understand why areyou here, and if people understand
their why and their purpose,that's like their North star.
Then you can work backwards from there.
(14:14):
But you, really gotta spend some timefiguring out your purpose and your why.
And that got me thinking to whatI used back, many years ago.
And I thought, okay, how do I get to that?
Why, how do I figure out whatmy why and my purpose is?
And it started getting me thinkingabout a couple of questions.
So the first question I started askingmyself is, what do I think about most?
(14:38):
So I am asking you that same question.
If you, wanna give this a try?
Find some quiet time and thefirst question is really give
it a bit of a ponder and say.
What do you think about most?
What, are the thoughts in your head?
What takes up a lot of your time inyour head that you're thinking about
and try to plot down those things?
I can tell you one, a lot of thethings that I think about is I was
(14:58):
thinking about how do I improve?
How do I improve my health?
How do I improve my wealth?
how do I be a good exampleto my family and others?
How do I lead my teams?
how can I be more, more positive?
How can I add more value?
Those were a lot of the things that.
Would go through my head, for example.
So that's the one question I'd ask myself.
(15:19):
The next question I asked is,
what do you spend yourtime doing most and why?
Okay, so really start thinking aboutwhat do I actually spend my time on
and why do I spend my time doing it?
So I started really giving athought, and one of the things
I spend a lot of time on.
Besides going to work because I haveto keep a roof in my head and provide
for my family, is I started thinking,I actually spend quite a bit of time
(15:42):
at gym and I enjoy my time at gym andI enjoy my time walking on the beaches.
so it's really started makingme think, okay, health is
obviously very important to me.
And then I started tyingit back and thought, why?
it makes sense.
I had cancer a few years ago and Icould have not made my 40th birthday
and I wouldn't have been there formy family and I wouldn't have been
able to make memories with them.
And so I realized no health.
(16:03):
Has to be a priority.
it's important to me.
So that's probably why I'mstarting to focus on that a lot.
I think also I often, I strugglewith self-confidence and everything,
so health and looking afteryourself was important to me.
So that started making sense why I'mspending a lot of my time there, but
(16:23):
start asking you these questions to startbecoming a little bit more self-aware.
So that was the second question Istarted pondering on a, but the next
question I started pondering on was.
What do you spend your money on most?
So it was really doing a bit of aninvestigation and looking at my.
My, my, statements andstarting to work out.
Okay, looking at my budget, lookingat my statements, and I know I've
(16:44):
just started a new country and I'vedone tutorials on, how to budget,
and I know in the first year, geez,it's just like, how do you survive?
But once you've got those twosalaries going, it's starting
to think, okay, you've got.
A bit of extra money freed up and you'vealso, you've got life lessons of the
last 20 years before you got here.
in my case, I had 20 yearsworth of life experience to
now start over again from zero.
(17:05):
But with all that experience andtrying to look at my budget and
saying, what do I spend my money onand where should I spend my money on?
And is there things that I'mbleeding money on and spending on
that I shouldn't be spending on?
And it really started making methink, and obviously there's things
you have to spend, money on, likekeeping a roof over your family's head.
Different insurances and food andmonthly expenses, but it's started to
(17:26):
make me think maybe I need to channelsome of that money for reinvestment in
myself, if I want to grow and do more.
It's not selfish to invest in yourselfand spend a bit more money on yourself to
try, but from an education perspective,so I can use that skill and that
knowledge to potentially do other things.
IE start other businesses or m make.
(17:49):
Extra money somehow to be ableto address the issue that I had.
And I'll get into it where it was.
We're starting over at 40.
We gotta play catch up.
Just working for my currentsalary, my wife working.
Over the next 20 years, we are notgonna have enough saved up to not
be a burden on, on, on our children.
We need to figure out how dowe make some other income?
(18:09):
How do we make some other money?
And then I was trying to look at, whatskills do I have or what skills is my
gap that I have to build on to be ableto make that more, additional income?
So it's really starting to thinkwhere do you spend your money?
What do you, what are you mostdisciplined about or what are
you most disciplined in and why?
So I started unpacking that alittle bit and thinking, okay,
(18:32):
I'm really disciplined with Jim.
Why am I so consistentand disciplined with Jim?
And started really trying to unpack that,trying to understand, I'm very disciplined
with my budgeting and my finances, andwhy was I so disciplined with that?
And that really took me down a bit of arabbit hole and started making me think
right the way back to my childhood andstarted making me think, oh, with Jim,
(18:54):
back when I was young and a kid, I wasteased for always being overweight.
And at school I, was that fat kid, And Ididn't like going and swimming and taking
off your shirt or anything like that.
That was, me.
I hated that.
So it became such a big thing for mebecoming body conscious and making
sure you looked after yourself so thatI would never be that fat kid again.
(19:15):
So it's still obviously mentalstuff I need to work through, but.
It started to make me realizethis is over and above my health.
My cancer scare.
There, there was more to it andwhy I, prioritized gym so much
and why it was so important to me.
But also with budgeting, it mademe think, geez, growing up, my
parents, they struggled with money.
There was times when, Iwas a kid, you know, we.
(19:36):
We literally couldn't keep the lights on.
Different reason why you can't keepthe lights on today in South Africa.
But back, when I was young,the reason we couldn't keep the
lights on is my parents sometimescouldn't afford to pay those bills.
money was tight.
They would, I would've friends that.
They would get pocket money.
There was no such thing aspocket money or an allowance.
My parents couldn't afford that.
(19:57):
obviously they'd provide whatever theycan and if they could give it, they would.
I love my parents.
They gave me a great childhood,but it was tough financially.
there was times we had to rely onmy grandparents who would, just drop
off food for us to be able to eat.
So it was tough, growing up financially.
It sometimes there was good timeswhere there was extra money when
I was a bit older, but there wastimes when there was just nothing.
(20:20):
My parents.
I just weren't as good at budgetingand keeping on top of the finances
and consistent income coming in.
So that's probably why it became such animportant thing for me in my life and why
I've been so particular about making surebudgeting is right, finances are right.
So it became a big focus for me.
So I was really trying to unpack andbecome a little bit more self-aware.
(20:41):
So that was why I wasasking that question.
The next question I was trying toask is, what do you talk about most?
So I was trying to think, geez,when I have friends around or.
Meet new people.
What do I talk about the most?
And I was thinking, big thing is I, talkabout my life and my journey and the
challenges I've had and how I've overcomethem and how you've gotta stay positive.
(21:03):
And sometimes how I, Idon't get that right.
it's a lot of what I talk about.
I talk about.
Case in point, my podcasts andeverything that I, have been sharing.
So that, that, that is generallywhat I will talk about with people.
So I was just trying to understand,why, do I talk about that stuff?
Why is that stuff important to me?
And it, it started resonating withme that it's really, I wanted to
(21:26):
share, to try and help others.
I enjoy helping others and I startedrealizing I really like helping
my teams at work because I alwayslike trying to help understand
what, is preventing them from.
Developing their career, getting a certainjob done or what's not, making them happy.
I wanted to take away those blockers.
I really wanna help them succeed and grow.
(21:48):
There's nothing more satisfying to me whenI see somebody in my team that started
at X level and how they've grown over ayear or two or three or whatever, and.
Even if they've superseded me, gonesomewhere else, it's like, it feels
like a feather in my cap when I, getgoosebumps thinking about it when I can
see how I've had a small part to playin helping them achieve, and, do well.
(22:09):
I love that.
I really love that.
And that's why, and I startedrealizing, I actually enjoy.
Serving and helping others.
It makes me feel good, andmaybe that's just a human thing.
It can't be just unique to me, butI was just trying to self-reflect
and understand, but it really makesme feel good when I can help others.
And it started making me think,even with soft landing, that's why
(22:30):
I've started off because I reallyenjoy being able to help others.
I don't want them to struggle andhave as harder time as I have.
I want them to learn from me.
Same as.
Anything that I try and deal withpeople, it's, from a serving perspective,
it's from a helping perspective.
So that's obviously very important to me.
So that's why I wasasking these questions.
Try to become a little bitmore self-aware and understand.
(22:52):
Another one was, what do youfill your spare time with most?
Okay, so if you've got spare time,what do you do in that spare time?
So you can become, reflect andstart realizing is it what you
should be spending your time on?
Are you.
Wasting your time and spending toomuch of it, potentially just sitting
in front of the TV, doing brain deadstuff and not using that valuable
(23:13):
time to rather think of ways to.
Improve and fix the challenges you've got.
So is that the time you should beusing to build up your side hustle?
Or is are you having a challenge withconnecting with your kids and your family?
Is that time that you should bedoing stuff with them, going for
walks, going to whatever it is?
Maybe you just gotta reassess whereyou spending most of your time to try
(23:35):
and channel that time most effectively.
So it was really starting toponder what that time is for.
And then the last one, if you had toask a friend or somebody that knows
you well, And you ask them what youwere known for, what would they tell
you, is your, traits or is somethingthat they can expect from you?
(23:58):
So I was really trying to think, and Iwas thinking, some people would probably
say I'm a bit anal and, organized.
quite an organized person.
I like everything in a certain, done ina certain way and in a certain order.
even my family.
Jokes with me in my car, everything,even the air vents have to
all be facing a certain way.
So maybe a little bit too muchOCD, but I like being organized
(24:18):
and I love getting things done.
I'm very much a doer.
I, struggle with the thinking of newideas and everything like that, but
if somebody can come up with an ideaand there's a problem to be solved
and they could tell me what it isthey need done, I can get things done.
So these were just some questionsthat I started pondering
through to try get to a point.
And I'm gonna land whereI'm going with this is.
(24:40):
I'm sharing those questions with youso you can start doing a little bit
more self-reflection, starting to getto know yourself a little bit better.
What, is taking up your time?
What are, your interests?
What do you really enjoy?
To try and get to a point to under,get back to what I was saying about
understanding your why and your purpose.
So it really helped me get to a pointwhere eventually I almost had that
eureka moment where, and I, wrotethis down trying to say, okay, on all
(25:05):
those questions, I wrote them down.
I wrote down on a piece of paper.
I say a piece of paper, but I'm busylooking at my tablet here in OneNote,
but it's actually in OneNote answeringall those questions with all my ideas.
and then eventually I got to a point whereI said, okay, so with all that thought
and everything that I've just answered,why am I here and what is my purpose?
And that's where I landed.
(25:25):
And I said, my why andmy purpose is really.
I just wanna be able to help people,and I wanna help people that are
struggling to be able to do better, toachieve what they've set out to achieve.
It's just too.
Make life better for others.
If I can be it my family, be it the peoplethat, report to me and my team, or in
(25:48):
the case of side, just trying to helpother people that are migrating here.
That is, really why I'm here.
I really want to help asmany people as possible with
whatever challenges they've got.
So I thought, okay, now I'vegotta, I've got a purpose and
I've got an new start north start.
That I wanna help people, but Igotta unpack how am I gonna do that?
So at this stage, I hadn't started offmy social media and everything like that.
Yes, I was working with my teamat work and obviously helping
(26:11):
them with guidance, et cetera.
But.
I was really trying to reflect on mypersonal life and trying to get a bit of
a sense of a purpose in my personal life.
And that's when I started realizing Ineed to help my family and provide for
them, but I also need to help othersthat are going through what I'm going
through so they can do it better.
And that's where this idea ofsoft landing came through and that
(26:32):
started giving me a bit of a mission.
And that's where I thought of my mission.
I thought, okay, my mission inlife is gonna be, three things.
Okay.
I wanna get to a point where.
My money that I have isactually working for me, and
I'm not just working for money.
So everything that I'm doing with tryingto help people, I gotta tie it back to.
(26:52):
If I can help people, can I also turnit into a way that I can eventually
have enough money in the bank tofree up enough of my time to be
able to spend more and more timehelping others and helping my family.
So how do I do that?
So it, I, needed to be financially,I call it financially free, but it's
just having my money working for me.
I needed to have that kind ofties in with 0.2, enough passive
(27:15):
or near passive income coming in.
So that.
It could free up more of my timeto invest in helping others, and
I needed to have enough of this Mmoney in place in the next 20 years
so that I wouldn't be a burden onmy children when I'm 60 years old.
I didn't want to, mywife and I to be able to.
Not be able to retire and afford tolook after ourselves and have to rely
(27:36):
on our children as and be a burden.
So my mission was I hadto work on my finances.
Finances were a big thing, but with ameans to address my purpose, which was
to help others, to help my family, and tobe able to provide for them, help them,
achieve and whatever they're strugglingwith, to be able to get over it.
So that's why I had that mission, andthat's what my why and my purpose were.
(28:01):
So now that I had a clear missionof what I wanted to do, and I
really knew what my purpose was,I thought, How am I gonna do this?
What am I gonna focus on?
And that's where I worked throughin, that other company and remembered
we went through the Wheel of life.
Now, if you haven't heard of the Wheelof Life, the wheel of life is broken down
into eight different areas of your life.
And the eight different areasare, it can be your business
(28:23):
and your career side of things.
It can be your finances.
It's your health.
it is your, family and your friends.
It's your significant otheror romance in your life.
It's personal growth, in your life.
It's, your fun and leisureor your fun and recreation.
(28:43):
It's your physical environment oryou could call it if not physical
environment, your, it's your,like your family and your friends.
So you, really trying totouch on all different.
Aspects of your life.
So your significant other personal growth,fun and leisure, home environment, career,
money, health, and friends and family.
(29:03):
And what you do is you take this aslike a pie chart and you break, each
one out and you start diving intoeach one and start to think, okay, if
those are the eight areas of my lifeI need to work on, what do I need to
do in those eight areas of my life?
So I know why I am here.
I know my purpose, I know what mymission is, but now I need to figure out.
(29:24):
What I'm gonna do in those eight areas ofmy life to be well-rounded and balanced.
So then I started digging into eachone and I said, okay, let's start with
my career and let's figure out whatdo I actually want to do in my career?
What is important to me?
And that's when I said, okay.
At work with my teams, I startedunpacking how I wanna build
strong relationships with my team.
(29:44):
I wanna build trust with my teams.
I wanna make sure that they have a clearvision, a clear purpose that aligns
with the objectives of the company.
And I really started unpacking.
What I wanted to do with my teamsat work, but I also wanted to,
say, also to my personal life,what do I wanna do with my career?
I thought, as much as I'm developing someof the skills and I worked out what I
(30:04):
need to train and skill up on to become abetter leader and a better, line manager.
I also started working out, but I need aside hustle and what do I need to do that?
And that's where I cameup with the, soft landing.
I thought, if I wannashare a whole lot of.
My experience with peopleso they can learn from me.
Social media is the way to do it,but I didn't know enough about social
(30:27):
media, so I started building out inmy career to say, maybe I start off
a company called Soft Landing, but Igotta build up skills, so there's a
whole lot of training I need to do.
So that's where I startedbuilding out that.
What I need to do is I need toenroll in social media courses.
I need to understand how all this works.
So I started building that out and startedbuilding out a plan for my career that I'm
(30:50):
currently doing, but also for my careeror my business that I wanted to run.
Now, you could say that you justbuild out your career under this.
Pie the career that you're in, andmaybe under the money pie you could
build out your, side hustle and planit there, whichever one suits you.
But the idea was you take eacharea of the wheel of life and you
(31:11):
start building out what you wantto do, and you plot that out.
And once you got the what that you wantto do, then what you start doing is say,
okay, now I've got all the things ofwhat I wanna do to improve my career,
what I wanna do to make more money,what I wanna do to improve my health.
So like under health, I started saying.
Things I want to do is, I need togo to gym and I need to do weights
(31:33):
at least three times a week.
I need to walk five Ks a day,at least four times a week.
How my diet needs to work,the vitamins I need to take.
So I really started workingout a plan with my health
and what I want to try to do.
So you try and work out what worksfor you and that area of your life.
Do the same for your family andyour friends and say, how do I
build out what I want to achievewith my family and my friends?
(31:55):
do I want to.
Maybe it's in a new country,you wanna make new friends.
How many new friends do you want to make?
How are you gonna gomake those new friends?
So you really start giving it a lot ofthought and Right, and I've written this
all down, trying to work it out so thatonce you've gone through all those eight
bits of the pie and you've gotta what youwant to achieve in all those different
areas, then you can step back and you canstart saying, okay, now I'm very clear on.
(32:19):
What my purpose is and why I'm here.
I'm here to help others.
I know that my mission is going tobe that I gotta be financially free.
I gotta be in a financial situationwhere I can provide for my family,
but also be in a position where I'vegot enough free time to help others
spend time on helping others that areimmigrating to this country, but are also.
(32:39):
Wanna make sure I've got enough moneyso that I'm not a burden on my children.
So that's my mission.
I've gotta make sure I address those.
I know my purpose is to help others.
Now I know with the eight spheresin, in the pie chart that I know
what I wanna do in each of those.
I've gotta figure out how I'm gonna do it.
And that's where you start unpacking.
You say, okay, when it comes to money,what do I need to do with money?
And then I gave myself goals with myKiwi saver, with other investments
(33:01):
that I wanna do within the year.
And I only did this 12 months at a time.
So I'm only looking 12months ahead for now.
And then what I would do with looking12 months ahead is, and planning all
this out, I would be very clear onthe why, the purpose, the what I need
to do under each of the eight wheelsof life, and then how I'm gonna do it
with also tying it to a smart, goal.
(33:22):
So it's almost measurable,so I've gotta make sure it's.
smart goals, they've gotta be measurable,they've gotta be achievable, et cetera.
So you've gotta make sure that it reachesall those criteria so that what I put
in my diary every quarter is that Iwould reflect on my plan for that year.
And then what I do is I, go, like I havethis year in April, I did a reflection
on everything that I did, and I startedtracking and saying, do a rag status.
(33:46):
So rag meaning whether it's green,orange, or red for each of the, eight
areas and saying, are they green?
Are they amber or are they sitting red?
Where?
Oh shit.
Okay.
I'm lacking in those areas and I evengo as far to try giving myself a rating.
So I know that in April I was only sittingabout 50% of the way on all my goals.
So there's a couple of areas I needto work on, and I have just done
a reflection again now in July,and I'm sitting at about 62.5%.
(34:08):
So I'm starting to head in theright direction, but there's
still areas I need to work on.
Some of them outta mycontrol, some not, but.
It really tries to make it real for me.
It's taken that noise outta my head andI've put it on paper so that I can try.
Have something to look at and worktowards and touch base on regularly.
Now, I know some people are gonna think,geez, they're listening to this podcast
(34:31):
and thinking, geez, Brett, you're mad.
You're absolutely mad.
That is so much effort.
I know I talked to my wife and I toldher this, and she said to me, that's
just, she doesn't have the time for that.
She cannot do that.
There's no way she can get aroundto that, especially since she's.
Got so many other things to do with thekids and she's just, she's thinking in
the now she's thinking, birthdays now.
She's thinking, tryingto get my nephew here.
She's thinking, trying to look afterthe kids that need to get vaccinated.
(34:54):
She's thinking about their schooling.
She's thinking about justfeeding us and keeping us alive.
So she's thinking in the now whereI'm starting to think a little bit
into the future, but I think the pointI'm trying to make there is that's
why we compliment each other so well.
I'm not good at thinking about thosethings if I didn't have my wife thinking
about those things in the family.
We joked, I said the kidswill probably be dead.
Oh, I know.
(35:15):
I joke.
I say it tongue in cheek, but it justshows how we compliment each other.
She's so good at making sure we make timefor those family outings on the weekend.
She makes sure that they are vaccinated.
She makes sure that they've goteverything they need for school.
She makes sure that the family has gotfood in the cupboard and that we're eating
and we're, that is hugely important.
(35:36):
she's like my partner.
If she couldn't do that, I'd be lost.
So I'm so grateful for that.
But she told me that's why shedoesn't have to worry so much about
the longer term thinking becauseshe knows I've got that area.
So I think it's important in arelationship, you communicate and you
realize also who's taking accountabilityand control for which area, and it's
good to have somebody that's thinkingahead, but then good for somebody
(36:00):
that's also thinking about family.
You look at what your strengths are andlet each person in the relationship.
Run with what they're strongat doing, and I think that's
what my wife and I do so well.
So I know it's a lot that I've reallytried to unpack in this podcast
today, but I was really just tryingto address and get people that have
been here after a year or so thatcould potentially be in that situation
(36:22):
where you're thinking, why am I here?
What am I trying to do?
Or they have that noise intheir head trying to think,
how am I ever gonna buy a home?
How am I ever gonnaafford to buy a home here?
How am I ever gonna haveenough money for X or whatever?
It's really the, what works forme is, yeah, I can worry about
that, but then I'm getting nowhere.
I actually have to.
Make, take action, actually do somethingabout it and what works for me, and it's
(36:45):
also to get that noise outta my head andget it on paper so that I almost feel like
it's structured and I've got order now andI've got a plan that I can work towards
and I can actually track if I'm doing it.
It's how my life works, how mybrain works, and what works for me.
So I'm just sharing it in hope that ifanybody else is in that situation where.
They just feel lost or they feel, Idunno where next, and they spinning.
(37:06):
This really works for me.
and I find it's helping,giving me direction.
It's helping me give, me structure soI've got something to work towards and
I'm seeing am I actually achieving?
Where am I lacking?
Where do I need to pivot?
What do I need to invest more time in?
And seeing that I'm moving forward totry and achieve my goals, to actually
achieve my mission, and to be ableto serve my purpose in life and being
(37:27):
able to help my family and help.
The rest, of, you guys outthere, those other immigrants,
so that you can learn from me.
So that's, really what I'm trying to sharehere is give you that sort of structure.
What I will do is I will share somelinks in the description as well.
I'll share a link to a. A workbookthat I did create for one of my
(37:48):
financial tutorial videos that I did.
it's got the wheel of life in there andit's got a little bit of a step by step
to follow, to ask some of those questions.
Those questions that I went through atthe beginning of the podcast, I'll write
those up as well and share those with you.
Yeah, the effort is just, or theintent is just to, to share this in the
effort to see if, there's anybody elseout there that thinks and works the
(38:11):
way I do it or feels that this couldhelp them, then that's what it's for.
I, maybe some people think,no, that's far too much effort.
That's not gonna work for me.
That's okay too.
You gotta do what works for you.
I'm really only sharing from mypersonal experience what works for
me and the intent and the hope.
That'll work for someof you guys out there.
So I really hope it helps.
(38:31):
If it does, please share it withanybody else that you think,
could benefit from, hearing this.
and then I also ask, pleasesubscribe to my, YouTube channel.
it's at Soft Landing nz and.
Check out any of my other content thatcould potentially help, or be worthwhile
listening to and, share it with others.
(38:52):
I'm really trying to reach asmany immigrants as possible
just to try and help.
So help me do that, please.
so with that, maybe I'll say, thanksfor listening again and, I look forward
to chatting to you again next time.
Keep safe.
Cheers.
There are over 100,000 people whoimmigrate to New Zealand every year with
the intention to make New Zealand theirhome, leaving behind everything they
know as normal day-to-day life and havingto learn new ways of doing things, new
norms, new cultures, and different values.
There are many people who struggle withthis transition and find it challenging
(00:25):
to adjust and settle so they cancall and make New Zealand their home.
The purpose of this podcast is for meto share my journey and our challenges
with the hope that you can learn from meand my family and have a softer landing.
There will be good days and baddays, but with time, more good days.
I believe we have made theright choice for our family.
(00:47):
I want to try and help you do the same,but hopefully with a softer landing.
This is Soft Landing and Iam your host, Brett Colette.
Welcome to this podcast, designed foranyone thinking about preparing for, or
who has just immigrated to New Zealand.
Subscribe now so you never miss an episodedrawing from his personal experience.
(01:09):
This series will guide you throughthe process of preparing for your
move and helping you navigatethe challenges of immigration.
Hey everybody, welcome back and thankyou for listening to my podcast again.
I really, appreciate you guys listening.
I've been getting a lot of feedback, bothon, oh, whether it be comments or some
(01:30):
people are mailing me on my, email box.
it's just been so niceto hear from many of you.
Even, just the responses onsome of the Facebook shares or
wherever I've shared the content.
I've started getting some feedback whereyou guys are just, Appreciating what I've
put out there, which really motivates me.
It helps me to keep going.
It's just nice to know that the stuffthat I'm putting out is actually helping.
(01:53):
So I just really appreciate it.
thank you so much for the feedback.
I really, appreciate it.
I think today what I wanted to dois I wanted to chat a little bit.
It's a little bit different today.
So a big thing, the whole reason behindSoft Landing, and the reason I've created
all this content and I'm trying to doeverything via soft landing, is it's to
(02:15):
help all immigrants coming to New Zealand.
I'm an immigrant, in that's,that arrived in New Zealand
two and a half years ago, and.
It's been a challengingtwo and a half years.
I really, immigration is not, aneasy thing and I've been through a
lot of different things in my life,including, kicking cancer's butt.
(02:37):
And I think potentially even movingto another country has been a lot
more difficult in a lot of ways.
So it, it's been one thing that Ihaven't found easy, especially if
you're moving to the country andyou, don't have a support structure.
You don't have family or closefriends here that you can.
Lean on and help youthrough the difficult times.
(02:57):
when you're by yourself doingthis, it makes it even harder.
and that's the situation we were in.
So it really made me think I have to sharemy experiences to try and help as many
other immigrants as possible when theycome here, just to try make it as soft.
And I've seen it before, but thatreally is where my passion is, to
try help as many other immigrants aspossible to make New Zealand home.
(03:22):
And it got me thinkingand a lot of my content.
Yeah.
I shared, my journey and you can learnfrom me with my journey just with
some of the mistakes we've made, learnfrom us, don't make the same mistakes.
Some of the thingswe've picked up as tips.
Yep.
Definitely sharing those.
But I've also done a lot of practicaladvice on how toss and budgeting and I.
Getting your kids in school,et cetera, which is good.
(03:43):
The practical advice is good.
But one of the things that I've found mostchallenging is, your mental wellbeing.
and this is probably maybe more onceyou've been here a little while.
when I say a little while for atleast 12 months, I think that's when
I've really started struggling a bit.
the first year, don't get mewrong, when I say struggling the
(04:04):
first year is like, survival.
You're just trying to survive.
You're just trying to make it workwith whatever curve balls have
been thrown at you and your family,you're just trying to overcome them.
you've got a huge, learning curve.
it's like skyrockets up where there's somuch you're trying to learn all at once
in a new country from the most basicthings like I've joked about before,
(04:25):
and pumping up the tires in your car toenrolling your kids, working through the
school system work, the cultures, the.
it's so much you're trying tolearn in the first year, so it
really is just a year of surviving.
But once you post that first 12 months,I know for me that's when reality
starts setting in and you start saying,okay, it's starting to feel like home.
(04:47):
You're starting to settle.
Yeah, you've still got your challenges,but you hopefully starting to get
into a little bit more of a groove.
But it starts getting me thinking,and this is where I was chatting with
my wife, and it's like I said to her.
Inside my head is like noise.
There's so much going on.
I put my head on my pillow atnight and there's, thinking
(05:08):
about so many different things.
I'm showering in the morning and I'mthinking, you're sitting on the toilet.
You're thinking you're every.
But if moment that you got to yourself,my brain is constantly thinking and it's
thinking about so many different things.
It's thinking about our future.
It's thinking about buying a home.
It's thinking about work, it's thinkingabout everything that's going on.
And I feel like I've got so much noisegoing on in my head and you're probably
(05:33):
thinking, oh geez, this guy's crazy.
but it's all those thoughts and it's,almost the only way that I can try and.
Get myself into a situation where Idon't feel overwhelmed and I don't feel
like I'm just that hamster running onthe wheel, spinning and going nowhere
because it's just so many thoughtsin my head and I don't know what
to do with what and where to start.
(05:53):
The way and what works for me, justlike I said, and maybe it's just the
way I am, is when we were moving to NewZealand, I said, you've gotta have a plan.
So if you go back to one of my, firstpodcasts, I said, one of the things
you've gotta do is have a plan.
That's because I'm very much aboutstructure and process and being
methodical and working through things.
It just helps me with somany things in my life.
(06:15):
And it helped us with moving toNew Zealand and not everything went
according to plan, but having that plan.
It definitely helped us.
So getting back to all the things thatare going on in my life and in my head
and what I'm trying to think of to tryand bring some sort of structure to it.
I had to start thinking about, and nowit's really getting a bit philosophical,
(06:37):
and getting a little bit deep.
What is, it is more tryingto think, why am I here?
What is my purpose?
What is, my mission in life?
what's important to me?
You start getting into a rut almost.
you're middle aged.
You've made this big change.
You've got here now you started tosettle, but you're like, okay, so what
is the rest of my life until I turn 60?
Gonna be.
(06:59):
The same old as waking up in the morning,going to work, doing a nine to five,
coming home, looking after kids Mondayto Friday, then the weekends catch up
on things that you couldn't do duringthe week and then start all over again.
And that's just that rut thatgoes over and over again.
'cause it can feel like a, bit of a rut.
But then it was tryingto think, okay, but fine.
That, is life.
(07:19):
And some people, oh man, thatthey, would give their left arm
to have the life that you got.
So it's.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not great,not being grateful for what I
got, but it really got me thinkingabout, okay, we are settled now.
We're doing well.
We, are getting there, but why am I here?
What's important to me?
And it's really where I started thinkingabout a process, of, trying to, and it's.
(07:45):
It almost got back to where it's sofunny, I'm in the IT industry and I've
explained that before, but I do, I ama line manager as well, and one of my
big things is working with my teams andtrying to give them direction and trying
to give them focus and trying to makesure what we're doing is in line with
what the business is trying to achieveand that's what I do every day of my life.
(08:06):
And it's almost like that I had thateureka moment where I started thinking,
I do that well in my job and trying to.
Direct the teams and give themdirection and help them grow and,
deal with whatever blockers they gotin place, removing those so they can
get on with what they need to do.
And it's almost made me reflect andsay, I need to do some of that in
my own life and try to work out,what is my purpose in my life.
(08:28):
Just like I'd work out what my team'spurpose is and the company's purpose
is, and our vision is what's my purpose?
What's my vision?
What, why am I here?
What do I wanna achieve?
So it was really starting tothink, I gotta think about a
lot of those things for me.
And I think it gave me time now that Istarted settling here in New Zealand,
I've done it before and I have thoughtabout it years ago, and you would
(08:50):
always put your goals together for theyear, but a lot of the time I would
just think of those goals in my head.
And maybe back in South Africa youweren't because you, were in your
home country and you, everything was.
You didn't have as much challeng asyou did in New Zealand where you are
learning so much and also getting to NewZealand in the middle age, you're like,
oh, I gotta do a lot of catch up now.
(09:11):
And it was that rude awakening of, inSouth Africa I was 20 years in and I'd
been able to save and working towards apension and, we're starting to build up
a, life to where we knew we wouldn't be aburden on our children when we were ready
to retire, we're starting to build up.
What investments and what we neededto be able to, get to a point where
(09:34):
we'd be comfortable in our older age.
But once we made that decision to moveto New Zealand is when it's oh wow,
we've, cashed everything in to be here.
You're in the middle of your life,you're middle aged and your forties,
and you're starting all over again.
And now that you've got through thatfirst year of just survival, you're like
(09:55):
in the second year where you could startthinking and thinking, okay, but now.
I can't just think about the nowand living day to day, I've gotta
start thinking a little bit ahead andthinking about, where am I gonna be
in three years, five years, 20 years?
how are we gonna buy a home?
And all those thoughts that werein my head, you, you now had time
to start processing those 'causeyou weren't just trying to survive.
(10:17):
And I think that's where I got to abouta year and a half ago, after being
here for, almost two and a half yearsnow, and starting to think, okay, I, I
really need to get on top of this and.
I, I pulled on my experience of being amanager, and, managing teams and being
in business and the way we did it there.
So I know it's a, very methodicalapproach, but that's just who I am.
(10:39):
I had to use some sort of process to workit out, but I think one of the companies
that I worked for back in South Africashowed me how this can really work.
It was a phenomenal company andmaybe at the time I didn't realize
how good they really were at it.
What I'm getting at is.
As much as they would try to put thebusiness metrics and everything in
place and your KPIs and everythingthat you're trying to do with business,
(11:01):
they had a big focus on the peoplewhere they really talked about the
dreams of the doers and they wouldreally invest time in people trying
to, as much as you were trying to thinkabout what the company's trying to do.
They really pushed you to try to thinkabout your personal life and what was
important to you and what were your dreamsand what were you trying to achieve.
And that's where they taughtme as a manager back then.
(11:23):
A lot of skills that I actually justremembered again, and I thought,
geez, we were using that back like5, 6, 7 years ago, whenever it was
when I was back at that company.
That actually is so valuable.
I really need to startthinking about that now.
So that's, where I got to about ayear and a half ago thinking I need
to really start giving it some thoughtabout my life and where I'm at and
(11:44):
what's important to me and the blessingof being here in, in New Zealand is.
I was able to leave work in theafternoons and I, because we stay by
the beach, I was doing a lot of walkingon the beach, almost every afternoon.
So I'd do a 5K walk along the beachand it gave me time to just think and,
really start pondering about my lifeand really starting to think about
(12:05):
where am I going and how I'm gonnasolve the challenges that I've got in
my personal life, be it my finances orwhatev, whatever it may be, that was
bugging me and I'll get into that now.
So it gave me a lot of time to.
Think what it also gave me time to do isstart saying, okay, do a bit of research.
Find some other podcasts of some otherpeople that talk about being financially
(12:26):
free or getting your freedom or.
How you can take control of your life,how you can be motivated, how can, how
you can improve your mental wellbeing.
And I started listening to a lot of thosepodcasts while I was on those walks.
And there's a couple of booksthat I started, audio books I
started looking, listening to.
So it really gave me a good bit of time.
It took me a few months ofwalking almost five Ks every day.
(12:47):
So it's a couple of hours really tryingto listen to what I was learning from
them and then trying to think, okay.
How do I apply some of it that,that they're talking about in
those, podcasts or what theywere referring to in their books?
And I'll share some of thosebooks shortly and podcasts.
But I'm just telling you how I gotto this and how I worked through it.
And over and above that time that Iwas investing in myself with, trying
(13:12):
to educate myself with a podcastand educate myself with the, audio
books, I also started signing upon, Udemy, on plural sites, on a
whole lot of other sites to do some.
Self-led training.
I signed up for some other courses.
I think I've mentioned social mediabecause it's one of the things, and
I'll get to it how I thought about that.
So I was, I really thought,I've gotta invest in myself.
(13:32):
I've gotta start thinking how I'mgonna get on top of this, how I'm
gonna take control and be ableto get a plan together, so that I
can actually achieve the goals andget rid of that noise in my head.
So that's really what Istarted thinking about.
And what it reminded me is a big thingthat I do with my teams and I have for
years, and I, I did it even back when,I was with this other company in South
(13:54):
Africa many years ago, is I started,I really loved Simon Sinek and I loved
his theory on or his teachings on.
You really gotta start with the why.
You gotta start with your purpose.
You gotta really understand why areyou here, and if people understand
their why and their purpose,that's like their North star.
Then you can work backwards from there.
(14:14):
But you, really gotta spend some timefiguring out your purpose and your why.
And that got me thinking to whatI used back, many years ago.
And I thought, okay, how do I get to that?
Why, how do I figure out whatmy why and my purpose is?
And it started getting me thinkingabout a couple of questions.
So the first question I started askingmyself is, what do I think about most?
(14:38):
So I am asking you that same question.
If you, wanna give this a try?
Find some quiet time and thefirst question is really give
it a bit of a ponder and say.
What do you think about most?
What, are the thoughts in your head?
What takes up a lot of your time inyour head that you're thinking about
and try to plot down those things?
I can tell you one, a lot of thethings that I think about is I was
(14:58):
thinking about how do I improve?
How do I improve my health?
How do I improve my wealth?
how do I be a good exampleto my family and others?
How do I lead my teams?
how can I be more, more positive?
How can I add more value?
Those were a lot of the things that.
Would go through my head, for example.
So that's the one question I'd ask myself.
(15:19):
The next question I asked is,
what do you spend yourtime doing most and why?
Okay, so really start thinking aboutwhat do I actually spend my time on
and why do I spend my time doing it?
So I started really giving athought, and one of the things
I spend a lot of time on.
Besides going to work because I haveto keep a roof in my head and provide
for my family, is I started thinking,I actually spend quite a bit of time
(15:42):
at gym and I enjoy my time at gym andI enjoy my time walking on the beaches.
so it's really started makingme think, okay, health is
obviously very important to me.
And then I started tyingit back and thought, why?
it makes sense.
I had cancer a few years ago and Icould have not made my 40th birthday
and I wouldn't have been there formy family and I wouldn't have been
able to make memories with them.
And so I realized no health.
(16:03):
Has to be a priority.
it's important to me.
So that's probably why I'mstarting to focus on that a lot.
I think also I often, I strugglewith self-confidence and everything,
so health and looking afteryourself was important to me.
So that started making sense why I'mspending a lot of my time there, but
(16:23):
start asking you these questions to startbecoming a little bit more self-aware.
So that was the second question Istarted pondering on a, but the next
question I started pondering on was.
What do you spend your money on most?
So it was really doing a bit of aninvestigation and looking at my.
My, my, statements andstarting to work out.
Okay, looking at my budget, lookingat my statements, and I know I've
(16:44):
just started a new country and I'vedone tutorials on, how to budget,
and I know in the first year, geez,it's just like, how do you survive?
But once you've got those twosalaries going, it's starting
to think, okay, you've got.
A bit of extra money freed up and you'vealso, you've got life lessons of the
last 20 years before you got here.
in my case, I had 20 yearsworth of life experience to
now start over again from zero.
(17:05):
But with all that experience andtrying to look at my budget and
saying, what do I spend my money onand where should I spend my money on?
And is there things that I'mbleeding money on and spending on
that I shouldn't be spending on?
And it really started making methink, and obviously there's things
you have to spend, money on, likekeeping a roof over your family's head.
Different insurances and food andmonthly expenses, but it's started to
(17:26):
make me think maybe I need to channelsome of that money for reinvestment in
myself, if I want to grow and do more.
It's not selfish to invest in yourselfand spend a bit more money on yourself to
try, but from an education perspective,so I can use that skill and that
knowledge to potentially do other things.
IE start other businesses or m make.
(17:49):
Extra money somehow to be ableto address the issue that I had.
And I'll get into it where it was.
We're starting over at 40.
We gotta play catch up.
Just working for my currentsalary, my wife working.
Over the next 20 years, we are notgonna have enough saved up to not
be a burden on, on, on our children.
We need to figure out how dowe make some other income?
(18:09):
How do we make some other money?
And then I was trying to look at, whatskills do I have or what skills is my
gap that I have to build on to be ableto make that more, additional income?
So it's really starting to thinkwhere do you spend your money?
What do you, what are you mostdisciplined about or what are
you most disciplined in and why?
So I started unpacking that alittle bit and thinking, okay,
(18:32):
I'm really disciplined with Jim.
Why am I so consistentand disciplined with Jim?
And started really trying to unpack that,trying to understand, I'm very disciplined
with my budgeting and my finances, andwhy was I so disciplined with that?
And that really took me down a bit of arabbit hole and started making me think
right the way back to my childhood andstarted making me think, oh, with Jim,
(18:54):
back when I was young and a kid, I wasteased for always being overweight.
And at school I, was that fat kid, And Ididn't like going and swimming and taking
off your shirt or anything like that.
That was, me.
I hated that.
So it became such a big thing for mebecoming body conscious and making
sure you looked after yourself so thatI would never be that fat kid again.
(19:15):
So it's still obviously mentalstuff I need to work through, but.
It started to make me realizethis is over and above my health.
My cancer scare.
There, there was more to it andwhy I, prioritized gym so much
and why it was so important to me.
But also with budgeting, it mademe think, geez, growing up, my
parents, they struggled with money.
There was times when, Iwas a kid, you know, we.
(19:36):
We literally couldn't keep the lights on.
Different reason why you can't keepthe lights on today in South Africa.
But back, when I was young,the reason we couldn't keep the
lights on is my parents sometimescouldn't afford to pay those bills.
money was tight.
They would, I would've friends that.
They would get pocket money.
There was no such thing aspocket money or an allowance.
My parents couldn't afford that.
(19:57):
obviously they'd provide whatever theycan and if they could give it, they would.
I love my parents.
They gave me a great childhood,but it was tough financially.
there was times we had to rely onmy grandparents who would, just drop
off food for us to be able to eat.
So it was tough, growing up financially.
It sometimes there was good timeswhere there was extra money when
I was a bit older, but there wastimes when there was just nothing.
(20:20):
My parents.
I just weren't as good at budgetingand keeping on top of the finances
and consistent income coming in.
So that's probably why it became such animportant thing for me in my life and why
I've been so particular about making surebudgeting is right, finances are right.
So it became a big focus for me.
So I was really trying to unpack andbecome a little bit more self-aware.
(20:41):
So that was why I wasasking that question.
The next question I was trying toask is, what do you talk about most?
So I was trying to think, geez,when I have friends around or.
Meet new people.
What do I talk about the most?
And I was thinking, big thing is I, talkabout my life and my journey and the
challenges I've had and how I've overcomethem and how you've gotta stay positive.
(21:03):
And sometimes how I, Idon't get that right.
it's a lot of what I talk about.
I talk about.
Case in point, my podcasts andeverything that I, have been sharing.
So that, that, that is generallywhat I will talk about with people.
So I was just trying to understand,why, do I talk about that stuff?
Why is that stuff important to me?
And it, it started resonating withme that it's really, I wanted to
(21:26):
share, to try and help others.
I enjoy helping others and I startedrealizing I really like helping
my teams at work because I alwayslike trying to help understand
what, is preventing them from.
Developing their career, getting a certainjob done or what's not, making them happy.
I wanted to take away those blockers.
I really wanna help them succeed and grow.
(21:48):
There's nothing more satisfying to me whenI see somebody in my team that started
at X level and how they've grown over ayear or two or three or whatever, and.
Even if they've superseded me, gonesomewhere else, it's like, it feels
like a feather in my cap when I, getgoosebumps thinking about it when I can
see how I've had a small part to playin helping them achieve, and, do well.
(22:09):
I love that.
I really love that.
And that's why, and I startedrealizing, I actually enjoy.
Serving and helping others.
It makes me feel good, andmaybe that's just a human thing.
It can't be just unique to me, butI was just trying to self-reflect
and understand, but it really makesme feel good when I can help others.
And it started making me think,even with soft landing, that's why
(22:30):
I've started off because I reallyenjoy being able to help others.
I don't want them to struggle andhave as harder time as I have.
I want them to learn from me.
Same as.
Anything that I try and deal withpeople, it's, from a serving perspective,
it's from a helping perspective.
So that's obviously very important to me.
So that's why I wasasking these questions.
Try to become a little bitmore self-aware and understand.
(22:52):
Another one was, what do youfill your spare time with most?
Okay, so if you've got spare time,what do you do in that spare time?
So you can become, reflect andstart realizing is it what you
should be spending your time on?
Are you.
Wasting your time and spending toomuch of it, potentially just sitting
in front of the TV, doing brain deadstuff and not using that valuable
(23:13):
time to rather think of ways to.
Improve and fix the challenges you've got.
So is that the time you should beusing to build up your side hustle?
Or is are you having a challenge withconnecting with your kids and your family?
Is that time that you should bedoing stuff with them, going for
walks, going to whatever it is?
Maybe you just gotta reassess whereyou spending most of your time to try
(23:35):
and channel that time most effectively.
So it was really starting toponder what that time is for.
And then the last one, if you had toask a friend or somebody that knows
you well, And you ask them what youwere known for, what would they tell
you, is your, traits or is somethingthat they can expect from you?
(23:58):
So I was really trying to think, and Iwas thinking, some people would probably
say I'm a bit anal and, organized.
quite an organized person.
I like everything in a certain, done ina certain way and in a certain order.
even my family.
Jokes with me in my car, everything,even the air vents have to
all be facing a certain way.
So maybe a little bit too muchOCD, but I like being organized
(24:18):
and I love getting things done.
I'm very much a doer.
I, struggle with the thinking of newideas and everything like that, but
if somebody can come up with an ideaand there's a problem to be solved
and they could tell me what it isthey need done, I can get things done.
So these were just some questionsthat I started pondering
through to try get to a point.
And I'm gonna land whereI'm going with this is.
(24:40):
I'm sharing those questions with youso you can start doing a little bit
more self-reflection, starting to getto know yourself a little bit better.
What, is taking up your time?
What are, your interests?
What do you really enjoy?
To try and get to a point to under,get back to what I was saying about
understanding your why and your purpose.
So it really helped me get to a pointwhere eventually I almost had that
eureka moment where, and I, wrotethis down trying to say, okay, on all
(25:05):
those questions, I wrote them down.
I wrote down on a piece of paper.
I say a piece of paper, but I'm busylooking at my tablet here in OneNote,
but it's actually in OneNote answeringall those questions with all my ideas.
and then eventually I got to a point whereI said, okay, so with all that thought
and everything that I've just answered,why am I here and what is my purpose?
And that's where I landed.
(25:25):
And I said, my why andmy purpose is really.
I just wanna be able to help people,and I wanna help people that are
struggling to be able to do better, toachieve what they've set out to achieve.
It's just too.
Make life better for others.
If I can be it my family, be it the peoplethat, report to me and my team, or in
(25:48):
the case of side, just trying to helpother people that are migrating here.
That is, really why I'm here.
I really want to help asmany people as possible with
whatever challenges they've got.
So I thought, okay, now I'vegotta, I've got a purpose and
I've got an new start north start.
That I wanna help people, but Igotta unpack how am I gonna do that?
So at this stage, I hadn't started offmy social media and everything like that.
Yes, I was working with my teamat work and obviously helping
(26:11):
them with guidance, et cetera.
But.
I was really trying to reflect on mypersonal life and trying to get a bit of
a sense of a purpose in my personal life.
And that's when I started realizing Ineed to help my family and provide for
them, but I also need to help othersthat are going through what I'm going
through so they can do it better.
And that's where this idea ofsoft landing came through and that
(26:32):
started giving me a bit of a mission.
And that's where I thought of my mission.
I thought, okay, my mission inlife is gonna be, three things.
Okay.
I wanna get to a point where.
My money that I have isactually working for me, and
I'm not just working for money.
So everything that I'm doing with tryingto help people, I gotta tie it back to.
(26:52):
If I can help people, can I also turnit into a way that I can eventually
have enough money in the bank tofree up enough of my time to be
able to spend more and more timehelping others and helping my family.
So how do I do that?
So it, I, needed to be financially,I call it financially free, but it's
just having my money working for me.
I needed to have that kind ofties in with 0.2, enough passive
(27:15):
or near passive income coming in.
So that.
It could free up more of my timeto invest in helping others, and
I needed to have enough of this Mmoney in place in the next 20 years
so that I wouldn't be a burden onmy children when I'm 60 years old.
I didn't want to, mywife and I to be able to.
Not be able to retire and afford tolook after ourselves and have to rely
(27:36):
on our children as and be a burden.
So my mission was I hadto work on my finances.
Finances were a big thing, but with ameans to address my purpose, which was
to help others, to help my family, and tobe able to provide for them, help them,
achieve and whatever they're strugglingwith, to be able to get over it.
So that's why I had that mission, andthat's what my why and my purpose were.
(28:01):
So now that I had a clear missionof what I wanted to do, and I
really knew what my purpose was,I thought, How am I gonna do this?
What am I gonna focus on?
And that's where I worked throughin, that other company and remembered
we went through the Wheel of life.
Now, if you haven't heard of the Wheelof Life, the wheel of life is broken down
into eight different areas of your life.
And the eight different areasare, it can be your business
(28:23):
and your career side of things.
It can be your finances.
It's your health.
it is your, family and your friends.
It's your significant otheror romance in your life.
It's personal growth, in your life.
It's, your fun and leisureor your fun and recreation.
(28:43):
It's your physical environment oryou could call it if not physical
environment, your, it's your,like your family and your friends.
So you, really trying totouch on all different.
Aspects of your life.
So your significant other personal growth,fun and leisure, home environment, career,
money, health, and friends and family.
(29:03):
And what you do is you take this aslike a pie chart and you break, each
one out and you start diving intoeach one and start to think, okay, if
those are the eight areas of my lifeI need to work on, what do I need to
do in those eight areas of my life?
So I know why I am here.
I know my purpose, I know what mymission is, but now I need to figure out.
(29:24):
What I'm gonna do in those eight areas ofmy life to be well-rounded and balanced.
So then I started digging into eachone and I said, okay, let's start with
my career and let's figure out whatdo I actually want to do in my career?
What is important to me?
And that's when I said, okay.
At work with my teams, I startedunpacking how I wanna build
strong relationships with my team.
(29:44):
I wanna build trust with my teams.
I wanna make sure that they have a clearvision, a clear purpose that aligns
with the objectives of the company.
And I really started unpacking.
What I wanted to do with my teamsat work, but I also wanted to,
say, also to my personal life,what do I wanna do with my career?
I thought, as much as I'm developing someof the skills and I worked out what I
(30:04):
need to train and skill up on to become abetter leader and a better, line manager.
I also started working out, but I need aside hustle and what do I need to do that?
And that's where I cameup with the, soft landing.
I thought, if I wannashare a whole lot of.
My experience with peopleso they can learn from me.
Social media is the way to do it,but I didn't know enough about social
(30:27):
media, so I started building out inmy career to say, maybe I start off
a company called Soft Landing, but Igotta build up skills, so there's a
whole lot of training I need to do.
So that's where I startedbuilding out that.
What I need to do is I need toenroll in social media courses.
I need to understand how all this works.
So I started building that out and startedbuilding out a plan for my career that I'm
(30:50):
currently doing, but also for my careeror my business that I wanted to run.
Now, you could say that you justbuild out your career under this.
Pie the career that you're in, andmaybe under the money pie you could
build out your, side hustle and planit there, whichever one suits you.
But the idea was you take eacharea of the wheel of life and you
(31:11):
start building out what you wantto do, and you plot that out.
And once you got the what that you wantto do, then what you start doing is say,
okay, now I've got all the things ofwhat I wanna do to improve my career,
what I wanna do to make more money,what I wanna do to improve my health.
So like under health, I started saying.
Things I want to do is, I need togo to gym and I need to do weights
(31:33):
at least three times a week.
I need to walk five Ks a day,at least four times a week.
How my diet needs to work,the vitamins I need to take.
So I really started workingout a plan with my health
and what I want to try to do.
So you try and work out what worksfor you and that area of your life.
Do the same for your family andyour friends and say, how do I
build out what I want to achievewith my family and my friends?
(31:55):
do I want to.
Maybe it's in a new country,you wanna make new friends.
How many new friends do you want to make?
How are you gonna gomake those new friends?
So you really start giving it a lot ofthought and Right, and I've written this
all down, trying to work it out so thatonce you've gone through all those eight
bits of the pie and you've gotta what youwant to achieve in all those different
areas, then you can step back and you canstart saying, okay, now I'm very clear on.
(32:19):
What my purpose is and why I'm here.
I'm here to help others.
I know that my mission is going tobe that I gotta be financially free.
I gotta be in a financial situationwhere I can provide for my family,
but also be in a position where I'vegot enough free time to help others
spend time on helping others that areimmigrating to this country, but are also.
(32:39):
Wanna make sure I've got enough moneyso that I'm not a burden on my children.
So that's my mission.
I've gotta make sure I address those.
I know my purpose is to help others.
Now I know with the eight spheresin, in the pie chart that I know
what I wanna do in each of those.
I've gotta figure out how I'm gonna do it.
And that's where you start unpacking.
You say, okay, when it comes to money,what do I need to do with money?
And then I gave myself goals with myKiwi saver, with other investments
(33:01):
that I wanna do within the year.
And I only did this 12 months at a time.
So I'm only looking 12months ahead for now.
And then what I would do with looking12 months ahead is, and planning all
this out, I would be very clear onthe why, the purpose, the what I need
to do under each of the eight wheelsof life, and then how I'm gonna do it
with also tying it to a smart, goal.
(33:22):
So it's almost measurable,so I've gotta make sure it's.
smart goals, they've gotta be measurable,they've gotta be achievable, et cetera.
So you've gotta make sure that it reachesall those criteria so that what I put
in my diary every quarter is that Iwould reflect on my plan for that year.
And then what I do is I, go, like I havethis year in April, I did a reflection
on everything that I did, and I startedtracking and saying, do a rag status.
(33:46):
So rag meaning whether it's green,orange, or red for each of the, eight
areas and saying, are they green?
Are they amber or are they sitting red?
Where?
Oh shit.
Okay.
I'm lacking in those areas and I evengo as far to try giving myself a rating.
So I know that in April I was only sittingabout 50% of the way on all my goals.
So there's a couple of areas I needto work on, and I have just done
a reflection again now in July,and I'm sitting at about 62.5%.
(34:08):
So I'm starting to head in theright direction, but there's
still areas I need to work on.
Some of them outta mycontrol, some not, but.
It really tries to make it real for me.
It's taken that noise outta my head andI've put it on paper so that I can try.
Have something to look at and worktowards and touch base on regularly.
Now, I know some people are gonna think,geez, they're listening to this podcast
(34:31):
and thinking, geez, Brett, you're mad.
You're absolutely mad.
That is so much effort.
I know I talked to my wife and I toldher this, and she said to me, that's
just, she doesn't have the time for that.
She cannot do that.
There's no way she can get aroundto that, especially since she's.
Got so many other things to do with thekids and she's just, she's thinking in
the now she's thinking, birthdays now.
She's thinking, tryingto get my nephew here.
She's thinking, trying to look afterthe kids that need to get vaccinated.
(34:54):
She's thinking about their schooling.
She's thinking about justfeeding us and keeping us alive.
So she's thinking in the now whereI'm starting to think a little bit
into the future, but I think the pointI'm trying to make there is that's
why we compliment each other so well.
I'm not good at thinking about thosethings if I didn't have my wife thinking
about those things in the family.
We joked, I said the kidswill probably be dead.
Oh, I know.
(35:15):
I joke.
I say it tongue in cheek, but it justshows how we compliment each other.
She's so good at making sure we make timefor those family outings on the weekend.
She makes sure that they are vaccinated.
She makes sure that they've goteverything they need for school.
She makes sure that the family has gotfood in the cupboard and that we're eating
and we're, that is hugely important.
(35:36):
she's like my partner.
If she couldn't do that, I'd be lost.
So I'm so grateful for that.
But she told me that's why shedoesn't have to worry so much about
the longer term thinking becauseshe knows I've got that area.
So I think it's important in arelationship, you communicate and you
realize also who's taking accountabilityand control for which area, and it's
good to have somebody that's thinkingahead, but then good for somebody
(36:00):
that's also thinking about family.
You look at what your strengths are andlet each person in the relationship.
Run with what they're strongat doing, and I think that's
what my wife and I do so well.
So I know it's a lot that I've reallytried to unpack in this podcast
today, but I was really just tryingto address and get people that have
been here after a year or so thatcould potentially be in that situation
(36:22):
where you're thinking, why am I here?
What am I trying to do?
Or they have that noise intheir head trying to think,
how am I ever gonna buy a home?
How am I ever gonnaafford to buy a home here?
How am I ever gonna haveenough money for X or whatever?
It's really the, what works forme is, yeah, I can worry about
that, but then I'm getting nowhere.
I actually have to.
Make, take action, actually do somethingabout it and what works for me, and it's
(36:45):
also to get that noise outta my head andget it on paper so that I almost feel like
it's structured and I've got order now andI've got a plan that I can work towards
and I can actually track if I'm doing it.
It's how my life works, how mybrain works, and what works for me.
So I'm just sharing it in hope that ifanybody else is in that situation where.
They just feel lost or they feel, Idunno where next, and they spinning.
(37:06):
This really works for me.
and I find it's helping,giving me direction.
It's helping me give, me structure soI've got something to work towards and
I'm seeing am I actually achieving?
Where am I lacking?
Where do I need to pivot?
What do I need to invest more time in?
And seeing that I'm moving forward totry and achieve my goals, to actually
achieve my mission, and to be ableto serve my purpose in life and being
(37:27):
able to help my family and help.
The rest, of, you guys outthere, those other immigrants,
so that you can learn from me.
So that's, really what I'm trying to sharehere is give you that sort of structure.
What I will do is I will share somelinks in the description as well.
I'll share a link to a. A workbookthat I did create for one of my
(37:48):
financial tutorial videos that I did.
it's got the wheel of life in there andit's got a little bit of a step by step
to follow, to ask some of those questions.
Those questions that I went through atthe beginning of the podcast, I'll write
those up as well and share those with you.
Yeah, the effort is just, or theintent is just to, to share this in the
effort to see if, there's anybody elseout there that thinks and works the
(38:11):
way I do it or feels that this couldhelp them, then that's what it's for.
I, maybe some people think,no, that's far too much effort.
That's not gonna work for me.
That's okay too.
You gotta do what works for you.
I'm really only sharing from mypersonal experience what works for
me and the intent and the hope.
That'll work for someof you guys out there.
So I really hope it helps.
(38:31):
If it does, please share it withanybody else that you think,
could benefit from, hearing this.
and then I also ask, pleasesubscribe to my, YouTube channel.
it's at Soft Landing nz and.
Check out any of my other content thatcould potentially help, or be worthwhile
listening to and, share it with others.
(38:52):
I'm really trying to reach asmany immigrants as possible
just to try and help.
So help me do that, please.
so with that, maybe I'll say, thanksfor listening again and, I look forward
to chatting to you again next time.
Keep safe.
Cheers.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.