By the time I met Solonia Teodros in 2016, I was already vaguely familiar with her work. Sol had reached out to me a few years before on a new project she was working on with her brand, The Change School. The Change School, which she co-founded with Grace Clapham, creates meaningful learning experiences to help individuals align their interests and values in a way that leads to transformation.  At the time, they were looking for third culture adults and global citizens  to discuss how their international experiences impacted their lives – and I was game.

So while I was on a trip in Singapore, I knew I had to meet up with her to find out if she was just as chill in person as she was online. And guess what, she was that..and much more.  

Sol is a change strategist, learning designer and a thrive coach. She’s also a third culture kid, a veteran expat and a mama, who has been on her own  journey of transforming and reinventing.   And at the time of this interview, she had returned to Asia, after living in Portugal for a few years. And as no big surprise,  a lot has changed since I last saw her.

In this episode, Sol and I discuss what it meant for her to grow up  Ethiopian-Taiwanese-American in the 1990s and dealing with always being the different kid, especially in Asia.  She also discusses why job-hopping isn’t always necessarily bad and how those experiences can be used to leverage the next one.   And she  shares her candid thoughts on being a new  mom and  the reality of trying to actually raise a mixed heritage global citizen, even when you are one.

So this might be the most third-culture kid eppy I’ve had in awhile, when two TCKs unpack the reality  and impact of an international childhood.  There’s lots of reflections, a few questions, and maybe a couple of answers in this one.