Starting again sounds exciting when you say it quickly.
A new country. A new environment. A different rhythm of life. New possibilities.
But starting again also means leaving behind many of the things that once made life familiar — professional networks, routines, reputation, relationships and the confidence that comes from knowing how things work.
After spending much of my professional life in Indonesia, moving to the Netherlands gave me the opportunity to experience that transition firsthand.
In Indonesia, I had spent more than two decades working across marketing, communications, public relations, digital, stakeholder engagement and crisis management. I had worked with multinational companies, Indonesian businesses, agencies and organisations across very different industries.
I understood the market. I understood the nuances. I knew how conversations happened, how decisions were made and how relationships were built.
Then I moved countries.
Suddenly, experience remained valuable, but context changed.
Experience doesn't automatically travel
One of the most interesting things about moving internationally is discovering the difference between having experience and having locally recognised experience.
The knowledge doesn't disappear when you board a plane.
You still know how to manage a difficult situation. You still know how to advise senior stakeholders, build a communications strategy, understand audiences or recognise when something is beginning to become a reputational issue.
But you enter an environment where people don't necessarily know your history.
You have to introduce yourself again.
And sometimes you have to explain why experience gained in Jakarta, Bali or elsewhere in Asia can be relevant in Rotterdam, Amsterdam or The Hague.
That process can be humbling. It can also be useful.
Because it forces you to ask a question we don't always have time to consider when we're busy building careers:
What do I actually know that remains useful wherever I am?
Learning to see both sides
Living between Indonesia and the Netherlands has gradually changed the way I think about markets and cultures.
Things that once seemed completely normal in Indonesia became more visible when viewed from Europe. And aspects of European business culture became clearer when I compared them with how relationships and communication work in Indonesia.
Neither approach is necessarily better. They are simply different.
Indonesia often requires patience with ambiguity, sensitivity to relationships and an understanding of context that isn't always written down. The Netherlands tends to value clarity, structure and directness.
Working between these environments has made me appreciate the importance of translating more than language. Businesses also need to translate expectations, behaviours and assumptions.
Starting again isn't starting from zero
Perhaps this has been the biggest lesson.
Moving somewhere new can sometimes feel as though you have returned to the beginning. But you haven't.
You bring everything that came before: the difficult projects, the mistakes, the crises, the clients who challenged you, the colleagues who taught you something, the campaigns that succeeded and the ones that didn't.
The ability to recognise a problem before it becomes obvious. The confidence to say, “I don't know yet, but I know how to find out.”
Those things travel surprisingly well.
Today, I increasingly see my professional life not as choosing between Indonesia and Europe, but as connecting them.
Perhaps starting again was never really about leaving one professional life behind and creating another. Perhaps it was about discovering how the two could eventually come together.