The Youngman Family: from London to Portugal via Mongolia
This Video Series takes us along on the incredible journeys of families who took the plunge. They gave up their lucrative and “safe” corporate careers to swim the vast oceans of the world, live lives on their own terms, grow through the challenges and, ultimately, attain the freedom and connection they were seeking.
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Adrienne and Tom Youngman talk about their epic journey as entrepreneurs and parents which took them from their corporate careers in London to starting a company in Mongolia, raising two children while on the road, and eventually moving to Portugal.
Here is the full transcript of the interview. Enjoy!
Tom: They see the world as an open sand pit. We talked to Ollie, and he's like, I want to live in a beautiful country. I said, Okay, where's that? “Malaysia!” His concept of where to live in the world is so much more open than mine ever was.
Adrienne: I feel like we are a unit we are a team. There is that sense that we're all working together as kind of a unit. And that I think has come to some extent because we've moved so much.
Adrienne: I was born in the west coast of Ireland. And then we moved to Zimbabwe when I was three, and then we moved back to Ireland when I was six, and then we moved to England when I was 10. So I'm a bit all over the place.
Tom: I was in the UK till I was about 25 and then moved to Mongolia, had about 10 years gambling around Asia and then came to Portugal.
Adrienne: We are now living in Sintra, just outside of Lisbon. And Portugal seemed like an amazing base. We ended up here and then we settled in Ericeira, because Tom loves to surf. And then we came down to Sintra just a couple of months ago.
Adrienne: I fell pregnant with Ollie when we were living in Mongolia the first time. And I went back to the UK to deliver when he was two months old. And then with Rosie, I fell pregnant the second time we were in Mongolia. And then we traveled through China with Ollie as a toddler and me heavily pregnant. And we did the Hong Kong and Vietnam period when I was pregnant with Rosie and I delivered her in Singapore. They are incredibly resilient and incredibly adaptable, especially when they're given the freedom. And if you act like it's perfectly normal, to just rock up into a new school with a completely different language.. We've dropped him in Bahasa in Malaysia, we've dropped him in Mongolia, in Ulaanbaatar. In Singapore, it was bilingual Chinese English and then Taiwan, we threw him into a Mandarin local kindergarten. And then here, when we moved to Portugal, we just dropped him off in a local school where it was all Portuguese. And actually, as a result, I think they there's not much that throws them, like they actually adapt really quickly, and they have developed a lot of confidence.
Tom: Just do it, there's no real reason not to do it, if you can work remotely, you give it a go. Worst case scenario, it's an extended holiday and you go home. Worst case scenario, you have an adventure together. And [if it’s a] horrible experience, you hate it, you go back home, nothing's changed, at least you tried to just do it.
Adrienne: I think it is one of the best things you can do for your kids. Because, you know, we're increasingly living in a, in a multicultural society in a world that has a lot of kind of international opportunity, and to grow up feeling like that's all open to you not to grow up kind of just in the country that you live in, and the country you were born in, and to grow up with an awareness of all these other places and other opportunities and understanding of difference in flexibility in a you know, that kind of aptitude for navigating difference and recognizing difference, I think is going to be really important for the future. So you know, any negatives that that you could see in our lifestyle for the kids that I think of a more than counterbalanced by a lot of the positives that I see them absorbing and I see them demonstrate
Tom: Also, I think maybe this may be selfish, I don't know. We've had a really awesome time and we're much happier adults, because of the choices to live in the amazing countries we've been very fortunate to live in. And I think that I don't see how that is going to be bad for the kids having happier parents. The ability to move as much as we have has made me a much happier person which I think is a massive benefit to the kids.