Nineteen Years in Switzerland: What I Never Expected
31 lug 2026
735 years for Switzerland, 19 for me here. My son never had to count.
735 years for Switzerland, 19 for me here. My son never had to count.
This weekend we celebrate Switzerland's birthday.
I came here in 2007 with two suitcases and a plan to leave again. Things I did not count on:
↳ I no longer drill, vacuum or do laundry on a Sunday. It took exactly one look from a neighbour.
↳ I get annoyed by a train that is four minutes late. Four.
↳ I wait at a red pedestrian light at 5 am with no car anywhere in sight. I do it abroad too.
↳ I say Grüzi to a complete stranger in the lift, and we say goodbye again when one of us gets out.
↳ I learned that “wir sollten mal einen Kaffee trinken” is just being friendly, not real planning. That one took me years.
Somewhere in the middle of all that I stopped visiting and started living here.
And this is the part I like most about this country. It is full of people who came from somewhere else, brought something with them, and became part of it.
Keep on growing stronger Switzerland, happy birthday tooo youuuuu 🇨🇭
More about me, my path to Switzerland, and why I started The Change Republic is on my about page.
What building a business as an outsider actually teaches you
I did not build The Change Republic in the country I grew up in, and I did not build it around a network I inherited. Every client relationship, every partnership, every room I have ever spoken in here, I built from a standing start. Nineteen years later, that same starting-from-zero instinct is still the one I trust most walking into a new room.
Starting as an outsider turned out to be useful. You cannot rely on assumptions, so you ask more questions instead of nodding along, and you notice what a room actually needs instead of what has always been done in it. Those habits, formed out of necessity nineteen years ago, are still how I run coaching sessions and keynotes today.
I see this pattern constantly with the leaders and career-changers I coach who are navigating a new company, a new industry, or a genuinely new country. That discomfort of not yet belonging is usually just the early, uncomfortable part of building something that lasts.