Hi Sarah, just wanted to know if everything is ok and if you progressing with your move to Berlin.
I am looking forward to hear from you ;-)
Best,
Torsten

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Hello Torsten, 
Yes, I am here and everything is going really well! I went to the …. holiday party in Hamburg and it was a really great time – I’m lucky to have so many good people to work with.
I am waiting to get my work visa, and I took care of getting health insurance last week. I’m currently still looking for a place to live, but I’m hopeful that I will have a place soon.
I am so happy to be here, and to have a job with ….; this is really a dream come true for me. Thank you so much for all of your help in getting me here :)
 Sarah

Any person over 30 has already had time to find out a lot about themselves and their skills. Ananlysing what you know and like are essential if you are going to find a new career direction which will be fulfilling over the long term. For those of you thinking about starting up your own business, you have to find the overlap between your skills/interests and a financially viable business idea. For example if your greatest joy in life is walking through a forest and you are a good walker, you might find it hard to make a living out of it. But perhaps the knowledge you have about the local forests combined with organisational or design skills could mean you could create a map/signage system for your area which would promote tourism and be funded by local authorities? And when successful you could offer the same process to other areas.

Last week I wrote about how people working in the communication industry are optimally placed – with their marketing, design, product and organisational skills – to successfully launch their own business. One of the biggest obstacles in many people’s eyes is the financing of such a business. While some businesses require major capital investment – making computer chips or starting a bio-supermarket chain – there are others which can be launched with almost no capital by working in partnership with other professionals or companies who can profit from your business idea succeeding.

Alec Brownstein, an unemployed copywriter, used Google Adwords to increase his visibility among potential employers: the creative heads of top agencies. The idea worked because those same creative heads seem to google themselves regularly. You can view the story here:

Many people in the communications industry go through phases of their careers where they prefer the security and regularity of a permanent position, then change over to work as a freelancer when they want more flexibility and are tired of the daily routine. Then when the irregularity and lack of regular collegues, not to mention the occasional financial insecurity, begins to take its toll, they go looking for a permanent position again.