Navigating Midlife: A Business Lawyer Journey of Discovery, Adventure, and Lifelong Learning
Emily Bron in the conversation with Rosemary Bointon, a former international business lawyer turned certified content marketer and SEO strategist. Rosemary shares her transformative journey of living and working in 13 countries, transitioning into digital nomadism, and discovering new passions in midlife. She discusses navigating life changes, adapting to different cultures, and embracing new interests like content creation and marketing. Rosemary also shares her decision to settle in Lisbon, Portugal, influenced by Brexit and her love for sailing. She emphasizes the importance of having fun, staying active, and taking on 30-day challenges for a fulfilling life. The discussion touches on her upcoming book, motivating individuals to walk more by making it enjoyable. Tune in for insights into finding purpose, joy, and adventure at any stage of life.
Join Emily Bron in a conversation with Rosemary Bointon, a former Business Lawyer turned content marketer. Discover Rosemary’s journey living in 13 countries, embracing midlife changes, and finding fulfillment in new passions like content creation.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction to the Age of Reinvention
00:21 Meet Emily Bron: A Life of Relocation
01:53 Introducing Rosemary Bointon
02:35 Rosemary’s Journey: From Law to Content Marketing
05:36 Adventures Across 13 Countries
09:47 Settling in Lisbon: A New Chapter
13:09 Embracing the Portuguese Culture
17:43 30-Day Challenges: Fun and Health
22:28 The Joy of Learning Languages
26:45 Writing About Aging and Active Living
35:51 Advice for Aspiring Expats and Career Changers
40:02 Rosemary’s Upcoming Book: Go Walking
43:03 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Emily: Hello I’m Emily Bron, host of the podcast, Age of Reinvention, how to find a new freedom lifestyle and purpose at midlife, where I’m exploring midlife stage from the real life experience of the professionals, international experts, and immigrants who have found new passions, purpose, and added fulfillment in their life.
After 15 and today I have special pleasure I’m meeting Rosemary Boynton. Rosemary Boynton, a certified content marketer and SEO strategist, writes about people having fun to keep themselves healthy. Formerly an international business lawyer. She has sought fun and adventure, living and working in 13 different countries.
and visiting many more. She currently lives in Lisbon, Portugal. Welcome, Rosemary.
Rosemary: Thank you, Emily. It’s a real pleasure to be here.
Emily: Okay. Let’s start from the start. Even I know you have so many pages, chapters in your life and your remarkable career trajectory has taken you from the being international business lawyer To becoming a certified content marketer.
But please tell me, tell us a little bit about where you from family and how you get to the international business lawyer work.
Rosemary: Okay, well I was born in the south of England, and by the sea, and I I grew up there, and married rather too young. And had two children and my first husband and I then went to a abroad and lived in Dubai for a while.
But it was very difficult for me there because there wasn’t very much I could do and my children had started school, so I didn’t really have enough to do. So I decided to apply to university, went to university as a mature student in my mid to late twenties. And, um, eventually got a degree and thought, Oh dear, I now need to earn a living.
So I had to decide what to do. And I’d always been interested in languages, although I didn’t study languages. And I decided to go for law because this is something you get a professional qualification and so on. So, I did that and got duly qualified and chose to work for a very well known firm in the City of London.
Which had foreign offices. And so that was, that’s how I started my career by picking, looking at all the firms which had foreign offices. And so after a while, I eventually moved to live in Brussels and then that was And so and I was asked if I would move to Hungary, so I moved to Hungary just at the time when the, when it was changing in it, the regime.
So I went there in 1992 and then one thing led to another and I ended up working in. All sorts of different countries in most, a lot of them in Eastern Europe. And I ended my career by going on a pro bono trip for a year to live in Timor Leste, which is at the other end of Indonesia and is the, one of the newest states in the world because it was only formed in 2002 and I worked in the legal department of the finance ministry.
And helped them to procure a new port, which is now in operation. So that was a really good experience. And In between there were lots of other countries where I lived and worked, so and I also went on holidays and so on, so that’s how I ended up traveling to so many different places.
Emily: Okay, so living and working in 13 different countries is no small feat. Yes, I was very fortunate. Can you share a notable experience or lesson from your international travel work journey? How you became digital nomad,
Rosemary: it was really because I was willing to do it, you know, I mean, I, I was I volunteered to, to go and then because, because people knew that I was open to it, I then got asked if I would then move.
So I would, you know, I’d been I worked in Kiev for a year and and then so then a partner in a, in the office in Georgia had a, a family crisis and he was American and wanted to go back to the States and they needed somebody to take his place in various deals that were happening. So I, I moved from Kiev to Tbilisi and you know, That all of these things like that were serendipity.
They meant, you know, they weren’t kind of planned. It was, it was difficult because those, you know, they had a family crisis and that somebody needed to look after their clients and not very many people would be willing to just get on a plane and move to Tbilisi. So you know, perhaps they’re at a different stage with their families because.
My family were grown up by that point. So that was, I didn’t need to worry about just leaving them so I could go. And you know, but when you’ve got to if you’ve got a family to take with you, it can be a lot harder. So I w I was fortunate in that respect that I was freer than other people. And, and then just one thing just led to another, you know, I was asked to help out in, in Austria.
And then. And then I went to Russia.
Emily: Did you consult government, some government organization, or only private clients?
Rosemary: No, I did all kinds of different work. I helped the city of Moscow with drafting of the laws. For having large projects, which are financed privately or have some internal finance.
I worked for the Czech government for a while, but I didn’t actually live in the Czech Republic. So I don’t count that one as being one of the places where I lived, but I spent a few, you know, I went to and fro quite a bit with that one. One of the projects that I worked on was for Donetsk Steel, which, of course, every, a lot of Donetsk these days because of the, war between Russia and Ukraine.
So I’m not really quite sure what’s happened to those people that we were trying to help them out with rearranging loans for their business. And I don’t know now what has happened to them all. So it’s difficult.
Emily: I understand, but I think it’s your, adventure spirit and actually your adventure is seeker with all your moves like professional and personal life and it’s like your family were always supporting you or moving with you.
Rosemary: Well my children certainly did, and, my husband does too. So he, a lot of the time, when I was working in different places, he was actually living in Switzerland and I would go backwards and forwards to see him, and he would come backwards and forwards to see me.
So that, you know. It did involve having being very patient with each other about you know, the demands on our time and how we got to see each other. And if you didn’t manage to make it for the weekend, well, you didn’t manage to make it for the weekend. But then, never mind, you could take more time off.
Perhaps in lieu at some later point and do something else. So you know, we tried to have adventures outside work as it were, as in addition to the adventure of going to new places all the time, because it was lovely that, at the weekend you could walk around the city or you could go out into the countryside and see all these different sites.
I mean, I just feel that I was amazingly fortunate to be in that position.
Emily: After all these professional moves, I would say you landed in Lisbon for your living. Can I ask why Lisbon?
Rosemary: My intention was to, or our intention was to actually live in France, because my son lives in France and with his family.
So after I retired, we moved to, live near my son. And we were going to build a house there. Like a chalet because it was up in the mountains in the Alps. And but then along came Brexit and for somebody British, which I am, and so is my husband. It was, quite difficult to cope with because actually nobody knew how it was going to work.
And. We would only just started to buy some land and we didn’t even know whether we’d be allowed to live in the house afterwards. I mean, in fact, probably it would have worked out, but it made us feel very insecure at the time. We were also very keen on sailing, the two of us, and have a boat.
And, one of my aims after retiring had been to do a lot more sailing. We’d kept our boat in Croatia for many years because my husband had business there. And in fact, he’s there today in Croatia. But we thought that we might move the boat somewhere different because we spent A lot of time sailing up and down the coast of Croatia because it’s such a fantastic place to go sailing.
And so when we lived in Timor Leste, which is a former Portuguese colony we met so many nice Portuguese people, like, and I’ve always liked the Atlantic coast for sailing because that’s so nice. There’s a difference between sailing in the Mediterranean and sailing in the Atlantic.
So I thought, well, I’ve never been to the Spanish or Portuguese coast sailing, so maybe we could take the boat around and take it over to Portugal, because we had actually touched base in Portugal once when we took the boat into the Mediterranean which was Many years ago now.
And so we thought we’d come and look at marinas. So we did. But we liked it so much here that we decided that we would live in Portugal and the boat would stay somewhere else. So, We’re now in Portugal, and the boat is in Italy. So, at some point, we might sail it back here.
But it’s getting quite a handful now, because we’re not getting any younger, the two of us, and so I think we might opt to get a smaller boat than the one we’ve got at the moment.
Emily: I believe you get residency, you kind of legal resident of Portugal now?
Rosemary: Yes, we were resident before Brexit became law, as it were.
So, we actually moved here in 2018. Because, it was partly because we thought that the Portuguese seemed to have a more relaxed attitude to Brexit, and that they would honour arrangements with British people because of the Really ancient treaties that Portugal had with the UK going back to the 13th 14th century.
So that’s why we kind of thought that we might prefer to live here for a while So here we are.
Emily: So how has living in Portugal been affecting you? What new did you learn about the Portugal as a country? Portugal’s people, which you knew a little bit, and the culture.
Rosemary: Well one was the history because, you know, Portugal is quite a small country, and I don’t think people realized how extensive their explorations were.
You know, we all know about Columbus but what about Vasco da Gama and some of the other great navigators who went to Asia? Before other people did, you know, the Portuguese were the first in it to explore Asia. And in a way you can see that because, you know, geographically they are that they don’t have so far to go because they just go down the African coast and they can, you know, Go around the corner and go into the Indian ocean.
And it’s sort of a logical progression because you do it bit by bit. And then of course they went to South America and lots of people know about what, how rich the Spanish got because of the because of exploiting the wealth of South America, but they don’t know that it was actually opened up first of all by the Portuguese.
So, that kind of history was it opened my eyes to the achievements of the Portuguese nation, which I found really interesting. And of course, then, their great connection with the sea. You can’t. But helped learning about all the fishing that they do. It was the Portuguese that colonized the Azores and the islands in the middle of the Atlantic.
And you know, many Portuguese people then went from the Azores, went to live in North America and parts of Canada and so on. And again, you don’t really hear much about what they did. but they did that. And then we heard about how there’s some Portuguese who well known in America for raising cattle over towards in California.
And I think, and they all come back to the Azores to celebrate each year, apparently. And, there’s all those, all these kinds of cultural activities that. You just don’t hear about in a way that you do, like everybody knows about the, about the Spanish and bullfighting. It’s kind of common knowledge that nobody, very much knows about how the Portuguese celebrate their relationship with cattle because of the, wonderful climate and conditions of raising animals which exist in the Azores.
And then there’s the whole fishing industry, whaling and in particular, cod fishing. I guess one of the things about modern Lisbon is something that I really noticed when I first came here, the supermarkets, when you walk in the supermarket, a Portuguese supermarket has a very particular smell.
And the smell is a salted codfish. It’s called Bacalhau and it’s an interesting dish. You could do all sorts of different dishes with, the Bacalhau, the salted codfish. And it’s eaten at Christmas and on anniversaries and birthdays and, every supermarket has a section devoted to Bacalhau and it is rather pungent in its smell.
So it kind of perfumes the whole of the supermarket. So that’s something that I’ve really learned about. And there’s a delightful little a museum devoted to Bacalhau. One in the main square in Lisbon itself.
Emily: I I’ve been recently again in December in Lisbon and obviously Bacalhau and all around it.
It’s a big yeah, sign of pride in in trade.
Rosemary: Yes. Yes, exactly. I mean, it was, it was traded everywhere. I mean, a lot of their fish now comes from Norway because of overfishing and all the rest of it, not just by the Portuguese, but many countries have put big factory fish factory type boat that ships into the Atlantic, and they’ve taken out too many fish.
So you know, they don’t have the same numbers as they used to. So anyway, it’s one of the delights of going shopping.
Emily: Thank you for sharing it. And as far as I understand, despite all adventures and movement in your life, it was not enough for you. That’s why you started to set up 30 days challenges for yourself You probably started do it earlier than it became, you know part of the online culture, I would say Please tell about aspects of this 30 days challenge and What is a memorable challenge you set up for yourself in Lisbon and I understand that you involve other people as well.
Rosemary: Well, I started it for myself really to help me to have a great believer in having fun.
And because I think if you have lots of fun, then you, you’re going to remain much healthier. And I unfortunately have had Too many bouts of ill health. So I’m very keen to work out how to make the most of life. You can have fun and enjoy it, and continue to have fun to a nice old age.
I’m doing moderately well so far, so you know. I’ve got to keep going. And, that’s where the idea for 30 day challenges came from for me. It was out of my own need. And, one of the first ones I did was a lot of fun, and I, I continued Doing it from time to time. I don’t do it all the time and that’s why I set myself a 30 day cold water challenge and actually I started that one in France.
I read about Wim Hof called the Iceman. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he’s Dutch. He lived in Spain for a long time. And he has the Guinness World Record for sitting on an iceberg with no clothes or with Just with very limited amount of clothing and he takes people on adventures up Kilimanjaro, just wearing shorts and with no t shirts and things like that, so it’s quite an extreme thing, so I thought that I would try this in a much more limited way.
And of course, where we lived in the mountains, there was a lot of glacial water that came down in the rivers. And so I took up just walking up to my knees in the cold water. And I found that a lot of fun. And to begin with, I mean, it hurts quite a lot. You’re sort of like, oh, you know, it really takes your breath away and all the rest of it.
So, I mean, he, he does. You know, he swims underwater, under ice and things like that. And I don’t do that. I’m nowhere near as extreme, but on the other hand, I still find the challenge of having cold showers fun. And it does kind of stimulate you and get your. blood moving around you and makes you laugh and smile.
It takes a while to get to that point, but it works. It really does. So I, as I said, I did it in the little local rivers that were local to where we lived in France. And it’s more difficult to do it in Portugal because although the Atlantic is pretty cold, it’s not that cold. And also neither is the water supply because when you live in the mountains in the Alps, the water supply is really cold because it’s been snowed on and all the rest of it.
Whereas in Portugal it doesn’t really freeze, at least not when you live at sea level, which is what we do now. So rather than up high in the mountains. So that’s been one that was great fun, and then another one that I’ve done which, which I always enjoy doing and has been very useful here in Portugal again I started doing it before because I started it to improve my French, and When I lived in France, and that is talk to a stranger.
Do that. So every day for 30 days, you have to talk to a stranger. So that means that when you go out on a walk, you have to find somebody to talk to. And I did make a couple of quite nice friends doing this. , in, when I lived in France, one lady had two chickens in her garden. And I used to stop when I was on the walk and look at the chickens.
And then eventually she started talking to me about the chickens. And then one of the chickens died. And then we, we, we sort of, we, we mourned the loss of this chicken together in French, and then her daughter gave her another one. And so we celebrated the arrival of the new chicken. And, and, you know. I would never have talked about chickens to anybody other than because of this challenge to go out and just say something to somebody in passing, as it were.
And it was it was because I walked past her garden nearly every day that, and she had the chickens in her garden. So I saw them and, You should stop and say hello to them.
Emily: So when I’m listening to you going through your stories, what it’s really a good definition for you in three words.
I believe it’s a language, lover, and life. Three L’s actually determine yourself.
Rosemary: Yeah.
Emily: They say to know a language is to have one more window from which to view the world. And with your love for linguistic first of all, how many languages you know and speaking, and how it’s in each your life? stories and your interaction with people and actually probably lead you to writing to be as your strategist and writer.
Rosemary: Yes I only write in English because I’m not brave enough to write in a foreign language. the British very very sort of diffident about expressing themselves in another language.
They don’t like to open their mouths and just talk, you know. That’s why the talk to a stranger challenge was, is quite hard for somebody British. Because some people just do it naturally, of course. But I certainly wasn’t one of them. I was strung up by the British attitude of, you know, Oh, they’re, you know.
I can’t say this, it’s, I’m going to embarrass myself and oh, you know, I’ll get it wrong and things like that. But anyway.
Emily: So how many languages you can converse?
Rosemary: Well, I’ve, I have learned quite a lot, but I can’t say that I can particularly speak them because, some of them I learned such a long time ago.
I mean, I’ve never learned to be completely sort of bilingual or anything. I mean, my grandchildren who live in France They went to French schools and they spoke English at home and they’re completely bilingual. But it’s very hard if you don’t learn as a child to become So, you know, you never
Emily: We are trying our best. I’m trying. I’m still learning.
Rosemary: Yes, I know. Well, I try my best too, but The other thing is that when you’re married to somebody who’s English as well, I think if you’ve got the two languages going on in the same household, it does help a lot because you hear it more frequently. And that was another thing about the, the challenge for talking to a stranger because, I would say hello to all the people down the street where we live here.
And now, they all talk to me. I can’t walk down the street now without having conversations, probably three or four before I even get to the end of the road, you know because I always bump into somebody I know. And that’s come from taking the initiative, and actually speaking up to begin with, and trying to say things, and of course getting them wrong.
But, so, I can read Portuguese pretty well, but I can’t really speak it that well. I can speak it well enough. I was talking to the plumber this morning about the leaking valve on the roof of our house . And you know, and I was asking him what the word, what the word for gutter was, because I couldn’t remember that. So I can do things like that, but
then, actually he told me what the word for gutter was and I’ve already forgotten it. So I need to pay more attention.
Emily: I remember you mentioned once in our conversation that for the purpose of learning more Portuguese, you live in actually Portuguese area. And today in Portugal, you can meet expats from many different countries.
So at the same time. Kind of to exercise your other language skills.
Rosemary: Yes, that is true because when we moved here, which was five years ago now we were the first foreigners in this street, but now there are quite a few. There’s a French lady across the road and then next to them there’s a Jamaican couple and there’s a Russian lady and her husband lives a couple of hundred yards away in the other direction.
And there’s we have an Australian friend here and Swedish friends. And, because my husband doesn’t like learning foreign languages in the way that I do, it does tend to mean that our social life is much more Mixed with English speakers. But it’s not difficult to find, to make a social circle.
But what, I must say that I do enjoy speaking to local people. And I get on well with the neighbours, which is really nice. So.
Emily: And as far as I know, one of the latest interest you have, it’s writing about aging. Yes. And actually covering topics such as changing careers, finance, maintaining active and healthy lifestyle. What you would say about it?
Rosemary: Yes, what I would say about it is that what I’m interested in most is using, how are you going to live when you get older? How are you going to make the most of your life? What are you going to do with yourself? For some people, it’s quite a big crisis in their life.
And I got the idea for this because when I first started thinking about writing, some years ago now, I was thinking about writing about being a grandparent, because at that time I was a relatively new grandparent but I realized that actually part of being a grandparent is, you know, you need, what you want to do is you want to be able to keep up with your grandchildren. You want to be able to, run around with them and you want to do stuff with them. And in my case, I wanted to take them sailing and teach them sailing.
And I wanted to, travel with them and things like that. I mean, obviously those are aims that a lot of older people want to, they want to carry out because those are the things that make your life really fun. Celebrating with your family and having good times and doing stuff together, you know. I remember taking them round Split in Croatia because we had our boat in Croatia and it was really fun to stay in the marina there for a week or so and actually look around at the palace there and and the other Roman remains and so on. It was, it was It was great fun to do that with the children and eating different food and all the, all the interesting things that you do when you, when you travel.
So we have some wonderful memories of things like that that we’ve done. But then, as you age even further, you’ve got to take into account that, your powers, even if you’ve been quite sporty as, and you know fit as, as I have been for most of my life they decline!
You know, and you’ve got to work on it a bit harder than you used to. But then the thing is to do is to make that itself some fun. So I actually started moving from looking at the, how to have fun with your grandchildren to looking at, How to make it fun to be in a position to have fun with your grandchildren, if you see what I mean.
Emily: Exactly. How to be active. Yes, exactly. Enjoyable.
Rosemary: Exactly. How to have, fun in that way. So, that’s how it developed. And the trouble is that there’s so much to write about in that area. My husband, for example, he still wants to work on the business that he’s trying to create in Croatia.
You know, he never wants to retire. Whereas I wanted to have a change of life and did retire. And to be able to try to do different things and
Emily: Saying retire from the past. For me, retirement changed the meaning as the word itself. You retire from your past and you start your new life chapter or adventure or new business or something new, projects, sport, dance.
Rosemary: Absolutely. And When I was thinking about the things to do with being a grandmother and looking at my getting on for teenage grandchildren at that point I was thinking, your children who are going through their teenage years, they are undergoing huge changes.
You know, they’ve got physical changes, they’ve got mental changes, they’re growing up, they’re getting into new relationships. They’re moving away from their parents. They’re developing interests in careers and all this sort of thing. But actually, I saw people around me of my own age in sort of like late 50s, early 60s, 70s and, and older and they are doing exactly the same things, but it hasn’t been recognized as, you know, people think that, okay, you stop working and that’s the end of it.
And then you, you might go on a cruise and you might look after the grandchildren for your kids, or you might move to live nearer them, or, you know. And it’s a much more passive way of looking at life. I know that that’s what my parents, my parents lived in that way.
Emily: Well, we live in a different time.
Rosemary: But some people have find it quite difficult to make the adjustment just as some teenagers find it difficult to make the adjustments to the new kinds of life that they’re expected to lead when they are more independent and so on.
And, a lot of people get their identity from their jobs. And You might be left with the feeling that you have no purpose in life that you know what you do you know it’s kind of like life becomes quite can become quite boring if you let it be so you have to go out and look for it and make the changes yourself it has to come from you from within you but people find that hard to do and so that’s was what gave me the spur.
Is to the comparison between teenagers going through a certain stages of life and older people similarly going through changes of life. And after all, it was what I did, what I was doing. And I’ve always wanted to write. When I was like six and seven, I used to write plays for me and my sister to perform for my parents, you know.
And I’ve always written in one form or another. It might have been extended letters to people or, and as a lawyer, you write contracts. Okay, not such an interesting form of writing for most people, but it is still a form of writing. And you’ve got to be very conscious of the words you’re using, and, and so on, and the concepts, and making it clear and comprehensible for other people.
And so, it just seemed like a natural development to try and try and do that.
Emily: It’s one of the purpose of my podcast actually to show and prove people that it’s possible. There are many people who already did it and doing now and I believe in Lisbon or specifically in around there should be some clubs, for adults, I would say clubs by interest, sport, music, like a community club.
So people can take different classes, even language and other subjects.
Rosemary: Yes, they can. I mean, the digital nomad community. Admittedly, a lot of them are young, but they are the ones that come here and, and just work on a short term basis and then leave.
Although they’ve introduced a new visa, which lasts for a year now. So which is meant for what I would call real deep digital nomads. I’ve always regarded myself as a serial nomad where I go and sort of plonk myself down somewhere for like a year or two or more, and then move on to somewhere else afterwards to, to get a different experience.
Because when you actually live somewhere, it’s different than from just being there and kind of staying there for a couple of months, even, you know. If you living there a bit more longer term, you get the more inside experience of the daily life of a country.
But there is so much for digital nomads here huge meetup groups and Facebook groups and in the little place where I live, which is a little relatively, it’s mostly Portuguese here Enclave. We’re on the, just on the other side of the river from from Lisbon. So to get to the centre of Lisbon, I get on the ferry, which is a terrific fun, I really like doing that.
And that’s a, that’s a lovely aspect of life in living here in Portugal. And to be able to meet with people in this little area. We have a friend of mine and I set up a little walking group. It’s only quite small at the moment, but it’s You know, people come and go and that’s a lot of fun.
Emily: So what, in your opinion, is helping people to live an active, enjoyable, and productive life for many years? What is the secret here?
Rosemary: Being a little bit brave, I think, is very important. Because, when you haven’t done something before, you have to take a deep breath and say, okay, I’m going to go, and that can be hard to do.
It’s really hard to, you know, I mean, obviously look more people do it now than used to in the past, but it’s still not that easy. And lots of people have have quite nervous about taking off and just getting into another country. I got so used to moving around that you know, somebody said to me What about working somewhere else?
And I’d say, okay, I’ll show up, well, oh, I can be there on Tuesday if you like, you know, sort of, basically like, what? You know, sort of like, we’ve been thinking about maybe in three months or something, that you need more time to organize yourself, but I got used to moving, so I wasn’t bothered.
I could just pick myself up and go.
Emily: For those who stand at the crossroads, eager yet uncertain about embracing the expat life or making a daring career switch after 50, what words of encouragement or advice would you share?
Rosemary: I would say just go for it because you will have a lot of fun. you can get, stressed out with it as well.
But that’s part of the experience. And it’s quite stressful being at home and doing nothing and being bored out of your mind as well. So, why not try something? A little bit of stress is a really good thing.
One of the articles I wrote was about hormesis, which is the thing that you need a certain amount of stress because actually it stimulates you to learn more things and do different things. And it energizes you if you do that. Hormesis can be a very good thing. If the Navy SEALs one is the most well known saying about it, which is, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
I’m not advocating that you do anything so extreme because you don’t have to be extreme. You can take small steps. That’s, I think, the second thing that I would say is, first is go for it, but the second thing is do it in small steps to begin with. Don’t just, some people, I don’t know how they do it, but they just sell up and they just go, right?
And If you’ve never done it before, I think that’s really hard and really stressful. But actually what you can do is you can, if you have your own house or something in one country, you can rent it out for six months or something. And then you can rent a house somewhere else to live for six months, and maybe that’s the way you can do it.
And some people, of course, have a lot of financial problems to do that kind of thing. And if you don’t have an income and you think, You’re going to try and get a job somewhere else that can be, make it really quite hard to do. So, the thing is to do small things first.
And, don’t Tell yourself you’re going to live in Antarctica for six months when you don’t like it when it rains or something, because it’s not realistic.
Emily: Be realistic, but try, try new things.
Rosemary: Yes, but try small things to begin with, like you go and learn a new dance or go and Go and learn to swim if you can’t swim, or all sorts of different things that you can do.
So take small steps to open your horizons to new experiences. And you will find that the larger experiences will come along, because you will suddenly start, as you start looking for them, they will appear. And you get the chance cause, I think every move I made was not one where I actually asked for it.
It was that people came to me because they knew I was open to it. So my firm, when I. I’d actually got quite bored doing what I was doing in one place and I just went and I resigned as a partner and in a law firm, And then I went to the senior partner and said you know, I don’t feel that I’m contributing the most to the firm and, what can I do for the, so that I had a long notice period of a year.
So I said, what can I do that would help the firm? And actually what I did was they said, well, we need somebody to go, to Eastern Europe. So would you do that? Yeah, of course I’ve done it before. Yes. I’m off, you know, so, so I did. And then they then asked me, well, would you go here?
And then, and then the next person asked me, so I didn’t actually, all these opportunities just presented themselves to me rather than me going out and looking for them, but you have to make yourself open to them in the first place, because if you don’t do that, then they won’t ever arrive.
Emily: Absolutely. And I know that you are working on your book. What is the title of the book and what is it about?
Rosemary: Well, the book is called Go walking. Because, I’ve had various bouts of illness and getting over it has, has been quite difficult in various ways. And so I was trying to encourage myself, it was like setting myself a 30 day challenge as it were.
You know, how could I get myself to do more of the things which would be good for me to help me get better quicker? And, I knew that I needed to do more exercise because one of the, a couple of the things that had gone wrong with me involved getting very dizzy and not being able to walk very far.
And so, I knew that I wanted to concentrate on going out and walking. So, going out and walking needed to be made into some fun for me. So, I was, I started thinking of all the things which could make, Walking fun and I’ve come up with more than 80 ideas about what you can do when you go for a short walk that will make it more fun.
So that’s what the book is about. It’s about different ideas to turn reluctant walkers into. You know, motivated walkers who have turned it into a habit that makes which they then don’t have to think about because they just do it. And I’m certainly not all the way there, back to where I used to be, because I used to, The first time that I was ill, I got better through starting off by going walking and then I took up running and trained for half marathons and things like that.
I’m not doing that this time. I’m just doing it quite gently. And what I have done is I’ve learnt all sorts of different flowers, the names of flowers in in Portugal because there are just so many and one of the joys of walking here is that the profusion of flowers that you get.
All year round. Well, not in the summer because they all die off because it gets like all brown here then. And the names of the different kinds of birds and so on. Things like that. Which I didn’t pay attention to before, but once you start to pay attention, you see how interesting it is and how, what fun it is so that you can, I can actually name things.
Namely, I can walk along and say, Oh, yes, look, there’s a an onion weed or something that I’d never heard of a year ago. So that’s just a small example, but I’ve got all kinds of dilly, silly, silly ideas as well to make it fun. And practical ones as well, to help you get stronger and So, yeah, that’s why And, but making it fun while you do it.
That’s the general idea. So for me, it’s always about the connection between fun and living a longer, healthier life and so that you can actually do more and have a happier life. because you have the ability to enjoy it more with your mental and your physical being.
Emily: Thank you very much for your time, for your stories, for your wisdom.
And today I was speaking with Rosemary Bointon. Thank you very much.
Rosemary: Thank you. It was really nice to talk to you too.
Rosemary Bointon
International Lawyer
Rosemary lived and worked in 13 different countries in her job as a international lawyer. She now lives in a renovated fisherman’s cottage in Portugal. Her passion is finding out easy ways for people to have more fun in a longer, healthier life. She has a book, ‘Go Walking’, coming out soon.
Reinventing Midlife: International Business Lawyer Journey of Discovery, Adventure, and Lifelong Learning
In a recent episode of the podcast “Age of Reinvention,” I had the pleasure of chatting with the incredible Rosemary Bointon. Rosemary has lived a life filled with adventure, transformation, and endless curiosity. From being an international business lawyer to a certified content marketer and SEO strategist, her journey is a testament to the power of reinvention and living life to the fullest.
Meet Rosemary Bointon
Rosemary Bointon is far from your ordinary professional. With a background as an international business lawyer, Rosemary has lived and worked in 13 different countries, adding a zest of fun and adventure to her life. Currently residing in Lisbon, Portugal, she helps people stay healthy by writing about the joys of life.
From England to the World
Rosemary’s journey began in the south of England, where she married young and had two children. Her adventure started when she and her family moved to Dubai. Finding herself with ample time when her children started school, she decided to apply to university as a mature student, eventually earning a degree in law. Her career took her to various countries, from Brussels to Hungary, and even to Timor Leste, where she worked in the finance ministry’s legal department.
Life as a Digital Nomad
Rosemary didn’t just stop at being a lawyer. She embraced the digital nomad lifestyle out of a willingness to explore and help where needed. Her career took her to places like Kiev and Tbilisi, often at short notice. Her openness to new experiences has been a key factor in her remarkable career.
Consulting Across Borders
Rosemary’s expertise spans both private and government sectors. She has helped draft laws for the city of Moscow and worked with the Czech government. Her projects have taken her to places now affected by war, such as Donetsk, making her work even more significant and poignant.
Family Support
Despite the constant moving and professional commitments, Rosemary’s family has always supported her. Her children and her husband adapted to her lifestyle, showing the importance of family support in pursuing such a dynamic career.
Settling in Lisbon and embracing Portuguese Culture
After all her travels, Rosemary chose to settle in Lisbon. Initially planning to live in France near her son, Brexit uncertainties led them to Portugal. They fell in love with Lisbon, and it has been their home since 2018.
Living in Portugal has been a learning experience for Rosemary. From discovering the rich history of Portuguese explorers to adapting to local culinary traditions like Bacalhau, she has embraced the local culture wholeheartedly.
30-Day Challenges for Fun and Growth
Rosemary firmly believes in having fun to stay healthy. One of her favorite ways to do this is through 30-day challenges. Whether it’s cold water challenges inspired by Wim Hof or talking to strangers to improve her French and Portuguese, these challenges have added excitement and growth to her life.
Languages and Lifelong Learning
A lover of languages, Rosemary has used her travels to learn new tongues, though she primarily writes in English. Her curiosity and willingness to communicate have helped her build meaningful connections wherever she goes.
Writing a New Chapter
Now, Rosemary is channeling her experiences into writing. She is working on a book titled “Go Walking,” filled with over 80 ideas to make walking enjoyable and fun. Her goal is to turn reluctant walkers into motivated ones, emphasizing the connection between fun and a longer, healthier life.
Conclusion
Rosemary’s story is a powerful reminder that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself and find new passions. Her journey from a business lawyer to a content marketer, digital nomad, and now an author, illustrates that life is full of endless possibilities. So, take a page from Rosemary’s book and embrace the adventures and opportunities that come your way.
Thank you for taking the time to read about Rosemary Bointon’s incredible journey. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories on “Age of Reinvention.”