The Germany Expat Business Show
A podcast that shares knowledge, stories and inspiration for anyone starting, running or growing a business as a non-German in Germany.
The Germany Expat Business Show
Helping ausländer new moms in Germany with Gitanjali More
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Navigating German bureaucracy can be quite challenging, especially when you don’t speak German, are new to the processes and don’t know what support is available to you.
If you’re a new parent in Germany, you’ve probably heard of Elternzeit, Elterngeld and Kindergeld and are totally overwhelmed by everything you need to take care of for your baby. And after Elternzeit, many mothers want to change jobs due to a shift in priorities or the need for more flexibility at work.
Gitanjali More understands all of these challenges because she faced them too and wanted to make sure her research also benefited other parents in a similar situation.
With The Confused Mother, she supports international families to successfully apply for these and other benefits available to them here in Germany. She also offers mothers two job coaching programs when they want to make a shift in their career after their Elternzeit.
She is from India and has been living in Germany for 10 years, speaks fluent German, English, Hindi and Marathi and helps people new to Germany in all of these languages.
In this conversation we covered:
- How she a long-standing family connection to Germany prompted her to learn German and eventually get a degree in International Politics at the University of Göttingen,
- How and why she got the idea for The Confused Mother
- How reach outs and direct emails to her existing network as well as strategic partners helped build her client base.
- Her business model of coaching, consulting and tutorials
- The difference in her marketing approach to indviduals vs. organizations
- What percentage of her business is focused on becoming a mom in Germany vs. rebooting a career after having a child.
- The biggest challenges she sees expat/immigrant women facing when becoming a parent and restarting their careers afterwards in Germany.
- How stamina and having a plan are key to running a solopreneur business in Germany.
You can find this episode and all episodes as well as show notes for each at https://thegermanylist.de/the-germany-expat-business-show-podcast/
Starting or running a business in Germany as a foreigner? Already running an online business in Germany as an expat? Wanting to grow your German-based business? Working as a freelancer in Germany? You'll love my guide with over 30 resources for expat business owners in Germany.
Hi, I'm Eleanor Meyerhofer, a native Californian designer and digital strategist. In October of 1999, a few years after graduating from design school, I flew from San Francisco to Munich with a fistful of Deutschmarks, a dial-up connection and an extremely vague plan. Twenty-plus years later, after a 10-year stint at a global agency agency freelancing and launching two online businesses, I'm still here. Now I'm talking to other expat business owners to share knowledge, stories and inspiration for other non-Germans running businesses in Germany. So I am here with Gitanjali. Did I do that right? Gitanjali with Gitanjali, did I do that?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, gitanjali, gitanjali.
Speaker 1:Gitanjali Okay, yeah, sorry. And, gitanjali, I am going to kick off with the question I ask everybody in this podcast, which is can you tell me the two-minute story of how you ended up in Germany, of how I ended up in Germany?
Speaker 2:Of how I ended up in Germany. Well, I came to Germany almost 10 years ago through a string of coincidences, I feel. I say even today because I kind of already had a great job and I had already finished a master's degree and everything. And then I kind of had the idea hey, what if I decided to study again? And that's how I started researching and then things kind of fell into place. I applied for a scholarship and I got it. I had a week to submit the application and then I got the visa. I did my German exam, like everything really just fell into place. And that's how I came to Germany and I did a degree in international politics from the University of Göttingen, where I had no idea what the university was like. It was a very standard German degree in politics, and yeah, and I ended up there. And then after my degree I moved to Berlin in search of work, as most people end up doing, and then I just kind of ended up staying.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so you are originally from. India, india, yeah, and what made you decide on Germany?
Speaker 2:I had learned, like I started learning, german almost 20 years ago, because we, like my entire family, had like some sort of work connection to Germany and my father had been coming here because he had clients. Then my sister came here to study, so there was always a bit of a connection. So I had been here on a visit when I was 18. And after that visit, during which I ended up learning quite a bit of German just on the go from my sister's friends and from people that I met, I went back to India and I decided to learn German and I started learning German. And then, you know, the question obviously came up what are you going to do with the German when you now know the language? And I kind of got recruited straight from the Goethe-Institut to become a translator at Bosch where I worked for a little over two years, and so I was kind of constantly in touch with the language and I kept coming back to Germany because of these connections that I'd mentioned to you.
Speaker 2:And then, like you know, this question was always in the air should I come to Germany to work? Should I come to Germany to study? What should I do? Should I do anything at all, or should I just be happy with the fact that you know, I'm, I know German and I have a job that lets me explore that side and live a little bit of you know, to practice my German and so on. And then, as I said, like this whole question came up about okay, maybe I can study here and do a second master's degree, and that's how it kind of all fell into place. And like, when people ask me why I learned German, I always say it's because the Allianz Francaise was too far away from where I lived and the Goethe-Institut was really close by. That was like a very practical approach and I thought, like back then I said, yeah, it would be cool to learn a foreign language. And that's how it happened.
Speaker 1:Okay Okay. So it wasn't like random. You didn't just throw a dart at a dartboard. You had connections here, you had the language. So that's how it makes sense. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think that I would not have done this. What you just mentioned, throwing a dart at the world map I don't think I would have done that. I feel like me, coming to Germany has been coming for a long time. I'd prepared in a sense, because I spoke the language. I'd been to Germany a few times. I had, you know, some friends and connections here, so it was not completely alien, foreign to me.
Speaker 1:Okay, and when you did your master's in Göttingen, you said right, yeah. Did you do it in German or English? In German, okay, oh wow.
Speaker 2:I was one of two non-native speakers in my year, okay.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's very, very impressive.
Speaker 2:It was very difficult. It was very difficult, it was very difficult.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so you moved to Berlin and you have and the reason we are talking, you have a business called the Confused Mother. Yes, so that sounds a little bit different than from what you studied, so can you tell me how you started it and what it is?
Speaker 2:is. So I have been working in the non-profit sector for many years. I was working for a German political foundation, while in India and also, after coming to Berlin, the Heinrich Bell Stiftung, and I was in the international department. Before I joined the Heinrich Bell Stiftung, I was also working for an NGO in the mountains in India, and for a long time my work has been centered in some way or the other around women, like supporting women, empowering them, working on their financial freedom, helping them build confidence and so on. And so I was on El Tan's side, my parental leave after I had my daughter here three years ago, and I kept.
Speaker 2:You know, once you become a mom, you start, you know, doing all the research and trying to figure out what exactly is happening with this child. Why is she behaving like this, why am I feeling like this, and so on. And then I realized I'm like why is nobody talking about so many of these topics that come up? You know there's so little public discourse about motherhood, topics around children, and it's very, very invisible. And so that was kind of the initial driver, saying that I want to make motherhood and these issues more visible. So, while you might think that it's disconnected from what I did previously. It's because you move to a foreign country, in this case Germany, you may or may not speak the language, you most likely don't know the culture, you most likely don't know the culture around having children and raising them, and then, of course, the land of bureaucracy. There's obviously so much paperwork to take care of. So all of these things kind of came together in my business idea and I said this is how I'm going to help other women in a similar situation as I am, because, honestly, my husband, who's German, and I we had already done all of this research what is Elterngeld, what is Mutterschutz, what are the papers that we need to collect? And, like, I had pages and pages of all of this research already written down and links collected and so on, and everything was very disconnected and I thought, ok, why not just bring it all together, make it easy, so that when people come to my website, they find essentially all the information that they need related to having a child here in Germany? So there's not just paperwork. There's also questions about like, what to do with your children, how to dress them, what food to give them, breastfeeding support, like a lot of different things that mothers usually struggle with. So that was how I came up with the idea. And then I also thought about okay, is this the only thing I want to concentrate on, or are there other areas that might be interesting for mothers?
Speaker 2:And then I again went into like a self-reflection mode and I realized that what I went through during my LTAN site this whole phase of questioning what exactly do I want to do with my life, my priorities have changed and I was doing such meaningful work before and still somehow that didn't feel like it was enough and I said I want to do something more. I want I want my work to have more meaning, I want my work to help more people, and preferably more on a local level, yeah, so that I have like one-on-one interaction. Because the projects that I was doing before they were for people living in Southeast Asia and South Asia and it was very, very far removed for me. And so, like then I decided, okay, I've been doing workshops and I've been doing job coaching for many years. Let me integrate that into the business as well. And that's how the three aspects of my work came together. So the paperwork and practical support for parents, then the workshops on work-life balance, self-care, communicating with confidence. And then the third is the job coaching.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so who? I mean you kind of said it, but like who is the kind of ideal person you're reaching out to, or who is the like typical person in Berlin that you found has been really responding and needing your services?
Speaker 2:responding and needing your services, all women who are new to Germany, new to having a child in Germany, because maybe there are people who have moved here a few years ago but they've not had children until just now and they are looking for answers to their questions. Most of the people who come to me don't speak German, and even if some of them do, they still can't, you know, sort out and decipher all of the paperwork. There's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of misunderstandings, there's a lot of scattered information out there, a lot of misinformation out there as well, and so so, yeah, so, international mothers who are living in in Germany so you, I noticed that your site is.
Speaker 1:Is it in English and German? It's currently only in English English. So did you find there was certain? I'm just curious because I know as an American I've found like English is kind of the second language here in.
Speaker 1:Germany, yeah, but did you find there was like a certain breakdown of nationalities, because my like I'm just thinking out loud here, but if I think about like, ok, there's a lot of Ukrainian refugees in Germany right now, they have their own communities of like people helping out, but or did you find it was just like everybody, like all kinds of people from across the globe?
Speaker 2:I've had clients from a lot of different countries. So to just give you a brief overview, I've had someone from Mexico, from South Korea, from China, from Ukraine as well, one family from Russia, american family, south African family, so really, and also a couple of Indian families, so really quite mixed, and with the job coaching also, this kind of diversity in backgrounds is represented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that's interesting. So, yeah, people do just search or like we look for services in English.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I and the fact that I speak fluent German is also helpful, because sometimes they have some resources or some documents that they found and they're like yeah, what does this all mean? Right, and then you know, if it's something that I've never seen before, then I can just quickly translate it for them, which is also something that comes up in some of the consultations that we do. Right, right.
Speaker 2:And then I would imagine you also have to stay on top of things as they change, because I know, like something just happened with Kindergelt and stuff, exactly yeah, I wrote like I wrote a blog post and I sent out an email to my subscribers saying that these are the changes that have come since 2024. And I just read the other day that even Kindergeld is going to get changed from next year. I'm not really sure what the changes are, but there's some stuff coming. So, yes, you're right, there's always something happening. Then also, recently elton gill digital was introduced, which is the online portal to apply for elton gill, and I've I did, uh, my first consultation for since the new changes were introduced in april and the system has not updated that yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so they are still working on and the system has not updated that yet. Oh, okay, so they are still working on updating the system, this online application for babies that are born after April 24. Okay, yeah, so recently I did a consultation, but we did not fill out the Elton Geld form. Together. We answered or we discussed a lot of different questions, but we didn't fill out the form yet. That is still coming. So I'm curious to see, because this family's baby is coming only later in autumn. So they said we'll do it closer to the date, once they collect all the papers and so on. So I'm waiting to see if the system has already picked up the changes yet or not.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's amazing. It's such a valuable service. So I'm wondering so when you decided you started this business, you got your site up, all that stuff. How did you get the word out? How did you find your first clients?
Speaker 2:So I got clients from a lot of different places. I told people in my network that I'm starting out with this business. Like the day my website launched, I sent out an email to like 30 or 40 of my friends and colleagues and ex-colleagues and so on, and then I started reaching out to some people that I thought might be relevant, that might be interested in maybe collaborating or cooperating on something. I reached out to other family businesses or people working on motherhood topics and asked them if they wanted to write blog posts and recommend each other's services and so on. Social media also, of course, played quite a role. I post semi-regularly on LinkedIn. I used to post very regularly on Instagram, but now I've drastically cut down that. How come? Just to finish that thought. Just the Facebook groups also have played quite a role, because I try to answer questions as much as possible and then, whenever the opportunity comes up, I also present some things from my offer.
Speaker 2:Why I stopped posting so much on Instagram is because I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy posting regularly and you know I used to post a lot of photos of us as a family, or also of my daughter never showing her face from behind, or, you know videos where she's playing or whatever, and I made reels and I posted photos and those are the most popular ones and I think that you know they. That kind of leads to the social media addiction, because everyone wants to then get that kind of right um feedback, uh, over and over again. But at some point I said you know what, I'm not showing her face, but it's. I still don't feel nice about it. So I completely stopped posting any photos of her and I just basically cut it down and I said I'm okay with it, like, if I don't succeed on Instagram, I'm not looking to become an influencer, I'm not looking to get sponsorships, because I'm sure it happens to you as well and to everyone out there who's on Instagram nowadays is that you constantly get messages and requests because brands are looking for ambassadors and you have to pay just the postage and then you get some free outfits or free jewelry and free clothes and I don't know whatever else.
Speaker 2:And then I was just like this is not something that I'm looking to do. It just didn't feel me. So I stopped posting. Only when there's something new that comes up is when I post, or if I feel like, okay, this is something that I want to put out there, I want to spread, you know, want to put, inspire the mothers that are following me or, you know, give some updates, give some new information, like, for example, if I offer any discount codes then I'll post about that, but nothing else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. I actually don't get those kinds of offers on Instagram. I completely phone it in. It's all scheduled. Every now and then I'll throw up a story and I only do it because I have a visual business, so I just kind of have to have a brand. It's like, you know, keep the lights on there. But it my sister, who's in California, she has a business and she grew her following to 10,000 people and she was really Instagram all the time and she just like broke up with it. She said I it was becoming. She said it was just she was thinking about it all the time and always felt pressure to post and she just said I'm kind of done with it now yeah interesting, but so so you.
Speaker 1:So, if I hear you correctly, you sort of strategic partners. You reached out to people kind of talking to the same same community. Uh, facebook, facebook groups are huge for all non-german businesses. I would say we all go into those places. It's easy to find um people in a similar circumstances some instagram um and and giving presentations and talks. Is there anything you would say was like a gave you the most traction, or was it a combination of all the above?
Speaker 2:um, to be honest, I think I lack the data. Yeah, you don't have the data to say what exactly I mean. When people reach out to me to book a consultation or something, there's a question in the booking form to ask where you heard about me. So it's either Facebook or referral.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and so you, but you also. So you help with people becoming parents, becoming mothers in Germany, but you also have this career coaching business. Yes, so well, it's the same business. But did you start out saying I am doing these two things, or did one naturally kind of lead into the other?
Speaker 2:things, or did one naturally kind of lead into the other? Well, the name the Confused Mother. It's primarily for the consultation and Elterngeld. So I also have tutorials. They are like two online tutorials explaining. One is everything related to baby, postpartum, kindergeld and so on, and the other one is related to paperwork for parents, like Elterngeld, elternsight and so on, and the other one is related to paperwork for parents, like Elterngeld, elternsight and so on. So these are two online tutorials that I created and then I also offer the one-on-one consultation for parents who don't want to watch the tutorials, or they have watched the tutorials and then they have more questions after that for their own particular situation.
Speaker 2:So that was the first thing that the confused mother is kind of directly related to. But, on the other hand, the job coaching is also for confused mothers, so for women who are out of paid work for a while and they rethink their priorities. They rethink their careers. Their priorities are different. Or in some cases also, they come here with their spouse like they come as accompanying spouses. They don't have a job here, they have a kid. Then you know they're out of work for many years Now. They're looking to get back to work because from their home countries they are highly qualified professionals. Or they say you know what, like, like I'm done, my kids are old enough. Now they're going to Keita.
Speaker 2:I have all this time, let's, let's find a good career and look at what my professional goals are, and, um, so that is also another subset of confused mothers that I work with in the job coaching part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I mean, I started it all at the same time. So when you look at my website now under services, you have three things. That's basically how I started with these three offers the workshops I did not offer, so the coaching and the consultation and tutorials those started right from the beginning, which is a year and a half ago. And the workshops I said I'm not really going to do those so much. I think I must have offered two workshops, but I offered a lot of workshops for companies, okay, okay, yeah, and that is also something that I'm I think I need to rework on my like the communication on that, because I realized that for private paying clients, the workshops are not as interesting as they are potentially for for companies, and so so far I've not done that many workshops for private clients, more for companies what would many workshops for private clients more for?
Speaker 2:companies. What would the workshops for private clients be? The workshops for private clients would include regaining confidence after your parental leave and work-life balance and self-care. Those are the two main areas that I have found, because I did a survey before I started the business to make sure that what I'm doing is actually in demand. People need it, people are willing to pay for it, right? So I did that before I started the business and these were the topics that came up most. Okay, yeah, I also have a blog post on my website called Regaining Confidence After Motherhood, called Regaining Confidence After Motherhood, and that is one of the most popular blog posts I have so far, because it seems to really really hit a nerve and everyone who has read it has or many people who read it messaged me later saying that, oh, my God, you said it. You said it. This is exactly how feel you know. Um, so, yeah, clearly there is.
Speaker 1:There is a very big need there and what would the workshop that you give to organizations look like?
Speaker 2:um, I think that, um, these topics on mental health in in a certain way because I'm not a mental health professional, but I and I have a very practical approach to solving issues and also dealing with mental health issues in that sense is to reduce your stress by simplifying your life and so building resilience as a parent, work-life balance and self-care, setting boundaries this is a very big topic that I've also already offered corporate workshops on which resonate a lot with the companies as well as the employees, and I've also had a lot of non-parents in my workshops in corporate work who say that you know, this is, this is something that is impacting everyone nowadays and work-life balance, setting boundaries, how to simplify your life, how to find time for other things beyond work and household chores this is a topic that's very interesting. Another topic that comes up is the confidence one, communicating confidence. This is a workshop that I offered for the first time, I think four years ago or five years ago. I offered it for the first time. It's a concept that I came up with because these are two of my strengths communication and confidence Because everyone I talk to they're like oh my God, gitanjali, how do you, like you, look so confident, how do you always, you know, and I'm like I don't know, I just do it, and then I, and then I spent some time reflecting on where that confidence comes from, and I think that, uh, in my case, a lot of it is to do stuff even though I feel scared and insecure. Um, and I think that that is something that a lot of people, uh, could like. They, they, they feel like they need it as well. Okay, and they've walked out of these workshops saying, wow, I feel better.
Speaker 2:And even in my job, coaching, you know, confidence becomes one of the topics that that they want to cover as well. Because, you know, in the beginning of, in the first session of my coaching, I discuss the topics that they want to cover, because I have a set of topics that I cover in a long-term coaching, and I always ask them, I said what are the things that you want to work on? So that we kind of have a checklist at the beginning of the coaching and at the end then we can say, ok, how are we doing regarding the checklist? Are we doing what you want to do, what you want to work on?
Speaker 2:And confidence is, almost every single time, a topic that comes up and the last four clients that I had we did like a reflection at the end of the coaching and they said, hey, you know what, if my coaching, my confidence, was at a two at the beginning of the coaching, right now it's at a nine and I'm like, wow, that is some serious change and yeah. So like I realized that this is something that a lot of people struggle with. In my case, I work almost exclusively with women, so this is a very popular topic amongst women.
Speaker 1:Okay and I'm curious. So giving workshops to organizations versus individual clients, like private clients, that's a different marketing approach. How did you approach that? Like getting into a corporation, like you know, delivering your workshop at a company versus for a person.
Speaker 2:So the corporate workshops I haven't really started with any kind of acquisition strategy. That's something that I am planning to do now. Workshops that I offered in the last one and a half years I must have offered eight, nine workshops, and these workshops actually came by request. So someone recommended me and someone saw me on linkedin, someone saw me on at some event or something, um, so through people that I know and who said, oh yeah, gitangali is the right person for that topic, okay, yeah. So that's how it kind of came about through network. Okay, yeah, it all networked.
Speaker 1:Important. So you mentioned confidence. That's like something that resonates with a lot of people. But I'm curious what you're seeing in terms of, because I can imagine that is I. I mean, I came here on my own and I had a job and my residence permit and all that stuff before I met my German husband and so I went through my whole. What am I doing with my life after I had a baby? But I didn't feel like I was here kind of you know, because of somebody else and I couldn't work and all that stuff. So what are you finding? What kind of strategies are the women that you work with using to deal with their situation when they're ready to get back into professional life?
Speaker 2:get back into professional life. A lot of people don't even try, okay, unfortunately, and these are some of the women that I've actually met over and over again. And then, you know, I try to motivate them to come to me and I'm like let's just do one session and see where you are and what you want to do. It doesn't result in anything because I think that confidence is an issue, imposter syndrome is a big issue. They feel like, no, I've been out of work for so long, how do I even get started? That's a very big fear and insecurity that people have. There are a lot of women who don't go through this transition. I've seen a lot of women who have great jobs before they become moms and then they have their kid child starts going to Keita and then they can return to work and, yes, it's difficult and challenging, but they power through somehow, you know, and there's also that whole set of people, so there's a lot of different people and there are some people who say, okay, I am ready to take the next step, and they then are willing to pay for private coaching and, to be honest, I think my coaching programs are so affordable. They are not extremely expensive. I went to see what's out there, like 5000, 8000 euros for a coaching program. I take, like you know, three weeks and six weeks, very practical, very hands on less than 1000 euros. It's very, you know, like very, very affordable in my opinion opinion for most people. But of course, that willingness to pay for a coaching program is also your willingness to actually do something about your situation and change it, which is where a lot of where it gets stuck a lot of the times I also have sorry.
Speaker 2:I also have clients who come to me from the unemployment agency, right like so, from the Argento for Arbeit, and that was my next question. I have a lot of people coming from there and you know I recently I wanted to make a LinkedIn post about this but I never ended up doing it. But I recently spoke to two other coaches, but not not like me, but from a different specialization, who said, oh, like, with great like, uh, disdain. They said I don't want to work with clients from the job center and and I don't want to work with people from the argument of your abad and, and I actually find those the most rewarding because those are people who are in survival mode. They are really desperate to change their situation and they are highly motivated. They are so relieved that someone is paying for their coaching. They really come to me at each session very motivated. They do the work, they make their notes, they do the exercises. They actively work with me to find the answers.
Speaker 1:And let's dig into that a little bit. So I assume are these Germans. I mean, you're fluent in German or do they send you people that are not comfortable speaking German?
Speaker 2:I get some German clients. I've also had non-German natives coming to me and doing coaching in German, because they've reached a level of like B2 in which with which you can actually do a coaching in German as well. It may be a bit lower, but it's possible for sure, and a lot of my coaching is also in English, even with clients from the Agenda für Arbeit. They are, yeah, they've been, they've come here, they've worked for a year or two, and you know. Then they become unemployed or they got laid off. A lot of people this is unfortunately a reality of a lot of mothers going back to work is that they're not able to join their companies back in the same you know, I don't know at the with the same amount of hours or at the same position. Then they get let fired, let go off, you know, yeah, things like that. And then they are and they end up at the agent of your and then they ask for coaching. So that's also something that happens.
Speaker 1:And how did you I'm assuming it being Germany you need like a special house building, Like how did you even get hooked up with the Arbeid Group?
Speaker 2:Again through network. Okay, yeah. Okay, well, I knew someone who was working for this company and then she introduced me and initially they were like, no, no, we don't need any more coaches. And then, after I met the boss, she was like, oh my God, we have to have you. And so that's how. Then I came on board and I started getting clients, and it's been a pretty steady flow of clients since I started.
Speaker 1:I see. So you work with an agency that has the relationship with it, so it's not like they.
Speaker 2:I'm not certified myself, because that's a very long and lengthy process, because then I would have to create a new company. Okay, okay, I get it the entire certification process, which takes like a few months, I think, like maybe half a year, and then costs also close to 10,000 euros or something, and it's not my focus area, so I would be, happy to just do this with an agency.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, that makes sense. Okay, okay, cool, okay, cool. So this is a little bit of a tangent, but you've I assume you've become a mother. My view there is just no family policy and it's like downright hostile towards families and somebody like I cannot imagine like having a baby over there, like I don't know how people do it with the money and everything. Do you have any insight, like when you think about this for yourself, how and I know it's hard to compare, but do you? How was your experience having a baby here versus like in your home country?
Speaker 2:I think that there are pros and cons to both, because in India, you have a very strong support system through relatives and family, because that's how it's also historically been like. If you don't, you don't have a midwife, but you have your mothers, your sisters, your aunts, grandparents and so on, who basically do this work, and then, um, I think that a lot of the tasks of a doula are also covered by, or even the midwife actually are covered by, um, these women who are like massage specialists in india and they will come home, they massage the mother, they massage the baby, they wash the baby, wash the mother. So the first, you know there's a lot of support that's available to mothers in India as well. You get paid leave for half a year and then a lot of women go back to work because they have their grandparents, like their parents, help out and take care of the children and so on. So there are definitely a lot of pros to having children in India as well.
Speaker 2:But I think that you know and this is also one of the big reasons why I do this is also I say that when you live in Germany as an, as an international person, you may not have the support system of you know, family and so on. But the good thing is that Germany offers so much other support in terms of all the things that are covered by your health insurance and also these financial benefits and so on. So I say that you don't have a support system, but Germany offers you a lot of support. So let's make sure you get all of that support so that you can, you know, have at least a little bit of an easy experience.
Speaker 2:And nowadays, like there are also other businesses that have come up with just such great ones, like, for example, postpartum food there's a lot of doulas. Doulas are becoming more popular, you know. So there's this, this there's a whole industry developing out of this like it's. I think it's picking up even more now because germany's gotten just that much more international yeah, I had a great experience here just uh, right after and I had my baby.
Speaker 1:She was born july 1st, it was like the middle of winter, but there were. It was not covid which you had that experience, oh do I do so.
Speaker 2:When I, when I went to the hospital, um, I had actually a very uh, I don't know, uh it was. It wasn't the easiest situation. Um, I was uh past my date, bursting at the seams. I went into the hospital to get my final ultrasound and they said we can't find any amniotic fluid, so that's why I had to be induced. Now I don't have any comparison, but I know that in India usually doctors don't wait past the due date. They usually will then kind of induce you or you end up having a c-section. They also do mostly do not allow, so to speak, but I don't know if allow is the right word but they highly discourage using an epidural. It's possible you can get one if you want one, but they discourage it. They no, just do it naturally, because that is, in the postpartum period, the less stressful version, and so, yeah, so I had an epidural and yeah, I know, but we were talking about COVID. So when I so I had to be admitted into the hospital and then they had to induce the labor and so on. So I spent a night in the hospital. So my labor basically lasted 24 hours almost, and my husband was actually allowed to come into the hospital. Only right when I went to the room to deliver, he had to do a COVID rapid test and when it came back negative was when he was allowed to come in, when my baby and I were moved to the room, he had to leave and yeah. So that was quite intense and crazy.
Speaker 2:And also, I mean, the postpartum phase was really difficult because that was around the time the delta wave was going on in India, so tensions were extremely high. Everyone was terrified. I was obviously terrified. I have this tiny little creature that I want to protect at all costs. And so you know my friends who were so keen to kind of bring us food and come and visit and take care of us and be with us and so on, all of them. I had to say no, you can only come if you've done a Schnell test, because I'm so scared, I have no idea what can happen. And you know, looking at how dramatic the Delta wave was in India, at the same time I was just not willing to risk anything. So until the end of the fourth trimester, I was just on edge the whole time.
Speaker 1:Wow, Wow. And then after that I mean the reason I asked that, because I just felt like there were so many resources. Like my daughter, my daughter went to a Tagessmutter at one, so I was with her for the whole first year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But there were like Mutterzent centrum and nursing groups and, like I've heard. You know, motherhood can be an isolating experience, but I was like out and about all the time at the park, at the groups doing all the things. Yeah, the baby yoga, it was great, it was just a fantastic experience. But I guess in covid you miss all that. Exactly that's so nice.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you had that, because it's something that I desperately wished for, and I'm sure that all COVID moms went through the same. It was extremely lonely, extremely isolating. I think my husband also went a bit crazy because he was like we can't do stuff yeah yeah, for ourselves, my, oh god, the.
Speaker 2:The birth preparation class, the kibbutz for, because we did it in february or end of jan. It was minus two degrees. They said we're going to do it in person. We were all sitting there with masks, oh god, with open windows, at minus two degrees. Can you imagine what it was? Oh my god, oh my god. And then you know you're looking at other families wearing masks and then you know you can't connect with anyone on a personal level. Then you just basically go there, listen, ask questions and leave you don't? Yeah, chance to have make friends with anyone. And then even the postnatal recovery. I did it online. It was just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And how old is your child now? She's a little over three, okay, and so how are you finding motherhood and child raising? You know, post-pandemic in Germany, great.
Speaker 2:She's such a cool kid, like she's such a cool kid, and she's always open to trying new things.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm always open to trying new things, and we just had our first camping weekend, so we slept, which was so fun for her.
Speaker 2:And, uh, yeah, I mean she, she's riding a cycle now, so you can just, you know, she's very curious, and I think that for us, initially, it was a very conscious decision that we took, saying that we are going to raise our child to fit our lives, not the other way around, as far as possible, so we include her in all the things that we enjoy doing.
Speaker 2:We enjoy traveling, we enjoy going out to the park, going for a swim, going to the beer carton, you know things like that and we said we're going to take her everywhere, and so she's used to it, she's used to being out, she's used to seeing people, seeing our friends, being the only child amongst a lot of adults and you know, like that was a very important thing, and I think that we also got lucky in that sense, because I know a lot of parents who would love to do that, but their kids are so sick or they have colicky babies and you can't go traveling, you can't go to restaurants, you can't be in public, because they're just so terrified of like hours of screaming child yeah, yeah. I feel like in that sense we were.
Speaker 2:We hit the jackpot yeah, touch wood yeah, um, okay, but yeah, no, I mean.
Speaker 1:Also, I have to say that my husband and I both have the luxury of being able to work part-time, which makes it a lot easier yeah, yeah, my um, after COVID, actually, my husband went down to 80 percent, so now he's like back at 90, but he takes, he does Fridays. My daughter's seven now. So, um, I that's just another thing I do feel very grateful about living here. I just feel like you can have a pretty good standard of life here, um, with like time for family and other things that would, even though Berlin, munich, they're expensive cities, yeah, like I feel like we couldn't live this way in the states. We would just both to have both have to have like two really high-powered corporate jobs to have the same standard of living there was this woman on Instagram who did this comparison between the states and Germany.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you ever saw that Like there was a, I think, a newspaper article or something on how she said that you might earn more money in the states, but and you pay higher taxes in Germany and what you take home is very little, but on the other hand, you end up saving so much because you're already paying into the health insurance here and in the States you have very high deductibles, you have very high premiums and you know, so you end up paying much more in the US than in Germany.
Speaker 2:And I think the same thing applies here between India and Germany as well. So, you know, you might think that you take home a very little low salary, but on the other hand, you have, like in Berlin, you have free kita, you know, so you don't have such high kita and school costs like in Munich. So there are definitely a lot of advantages. And then you also have, like, these sports associations where children can learn sports and become really experts in whatever sport they decide to play, and I think that even the whole concept of Kita is very, very good, is very, very good India, if you want to send your child to a daycare it ends on a good quality daycare you have to be willing to shell out a lot of money. It's a luxury that only a few people have right. A lot of them then end up just keeping their kids home until they have to go to school, but the school is mandatory in India.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as it is here, yeah exactly um, okay, what? Okay, one last question that I noticed on your website and you said you're going swimming mountains. And then we'll wrap up with the final question. But I noticed on your website you said you love the mountains, yes, and you mentioned that when you were still living and working in India, you would go to the mountains a lot, where we're in India.
Speaker 2:I lived in in the mountains as well for a while in India.
Speaker 1:Yes, what? What part of India?
Speaker 2:so I am from Pune okay, and I think I developed my love for the mountains when I was 13, when my friend's mom took us hiking in Nepal. So I did two big treks when I was 13 and 14. And that was where the love for like big mountains, not like hills, okay like the Himalayas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly the Himalayas, really in Nepal and then in India as well. I lived in Ladakh for one and a half years and I spent a few months in McLeodganj, which is the lower Himalayas, which is also but like 2000 meters almost I think, and yeah, so I've lived in a few different places and traveled around. But also I think that people from Pune really love hiking, because we also live close to the hills from Pune and not the Himalayas, but the Western Ghats, and those are very popular for hiking as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then so do you go. Okay, you're in Berlin, but down here in Bavaria the Alps are nearby. Have you done any hiking in Germany?
Speaker 2:So we went when, when my daughter was a couple of months old, we went to the Sächsische Schweiz, which is just a couple of hours from here, and so we went a little bit there. And then, when she was, I think, three months old, three or four months old, we went to Füssen, in Allgäu, okay, and we climbed up the what was that called Tegelberg, which is next to Neuschwanstein.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I'll take your word for it.
Speaker 2:It's a mountain. We actually walked all the way up. It's like 1200 meters and we went up there and then we did one or two small other small hikes, but that was like the mountain.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I that in in august that I get to do something else. If I come to munich I'm gonna get in touch with you okay, please do please do okay.
Speaker 1:So I was born and raised in la. It took a while um, I never would have described myself as an outdoorsy person okay, but living here and I've lived here a long time. After the first few years I was like, okay, upper out, I'm going to like figure out this nature thing and I did start, I do like it now, like I I mean I I don't do it nearly as much now that we had our daughter, but we would. We had friends that had a little hut and I like getting out into the mountains. I really do and I really do and I just I appreciate, especially in winter, if you can get up into the mountains and get, you know, above the clouds and get sunshine. I really I am a city person. I like I need to live in a city and I need to be a city, but I really like living in a city that is close to nature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, munich, it really is like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's great, that's something that I miss living in Berlin. I miss being close to the mountains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, always like a little bit more work. Yeah, anyway, did you want to ask me anything else about the business? Yeah, so the last question is just what advice would you give to anybody, or lessons learned you have from starting your business in Germany?
Speaker 2:So many, so many. It's really OK. I have to say that starting a business is not for the faint of heart. You have to really have a lot of stamina, because it may start slow and take a while to pick up. But I think that the difference between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs is this, the stamina.
Speaker 2:And I think making a plan and executing that plan is really also quite important, because you need to have goals that you're working towards. You need to have a step-by-step plan and make like small, small goals initially, keep it realistic compared, like you know, keeping in mind what your life circumstances are, and I think that that is that is what has helped me a lot, because initially, also the first two, three months, I would have run myself into a burnout because I was just, you know, I had no structure because I'd always been employed before, so the structure was already preset, so to speak. And here, suddenly, I was faced with this like gigantic task of setting up a business, and then I said, you know, I just went haywire until I ended up in bed for like three weeks or something, unable to recover, and that's when I said, okay, I need to take a step back, and it unfortunately happened again, so I get carried away. I think I get so excited about my work and I'm so passionate about it and I feel like, oh my God, I have to help more people, I have to work for more, and so on, and so I think that you have to keep like hitting the brakes on your life or actually just go slow.
Speaker 2:Important, because I don't want to do this for just three years or four years or five years. I want to do this forever now. Yeah, for as long as I'm working, I would like to be doing this work because it is really, really meaningful. So I think that, um, there's a lot of things that I can you know, a lot of advice I can give, and so on, but I think these are the two main things is really stamina and making a realistic plan that you think you can stick to, uh, recognizing your, your boundaries and and just accepting them and saying, yeah, I have only this much time and this, yeah, and that's fine. Um, so like, comparing myself to a multi-million dollar setup is just not useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah like you can you can get inspired by them. Yeah, you can. You can draw inspiration from successful entrepreneurs, but there's zero point in comparing yourself to them.
Speaker 1:Good advice, Good advice for all to remember yeah, pace yourself, don't compare and keep at it.
Speaker 2:I have the privilege of being a mentor in the EXIST program. Do you know that?
Speaker 1:Yes, I do, I've seen it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I have the privilege of mentoring a female entrepreneur there who's also a mom of two, and so I can like dish out a lot of advice. So if anyone is interested any of your listeners is interested you can find me everywhere, with my name or with the Confused Mother on Instagram, linkedin, facebook website. Feel free to reach out and, yeah, I'm happy to share whatever I know.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that was my last question, and can you just say your full name again, just in case anyone wants to go, will you? Gitanjali?
Speaker 2:More Okay, great.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much for coming on. It was wonderful talking to you and maybe, maybe I'll see you on your way to the mountains.
Speaker 2:I hope so thanks so much for having me, eleanor thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:You can find this and all other germany expat business show podcasts at the germany listde bye. Thanks for listening. You can find this and all other Germany Expat Business Show podcasts at thegermanylistde Bye.