What does it take to keep a career alive through twenty years of following someone else’s postings, across three countries and as many reinventions? In this episode, an entrepreneur and now-published memoirist shares what she learned about resilience, community, and coming home changed.
In this podcast episode, I chat with Clara Motsisi, someone I actually met right here in New Zealand, when she joined the Careers and Employment team at Victoria University of Wellington. I knew pieces of her story from our time as colleagues, but this was the first time I heard the whole arc: a young mother in Johannesburg whose promotion was just coming into view when her husband was posted to Israel, and everything that followed across Israel, China, and New Zealand.
An idea that ran through our whole conversation was Clara’s own line:
“Your career is not ending. It is evolving.”
It’s a reframe I come back to often in my coaching work, because so many career changers, not just accompanying spouses, experience something that looks like an ending and feels like a threat, when it might actually be a pivot they haven’t recognised yet.
It made me think about how much of what Clara built across three postings had nothing to do with a job title. A communications degree studied around a newborn’s nap schedule. A volunteer role chosen on purpose, not by default. A return to formal work built entirely on transferable skills rather than a resume that made sense on paper. If you’ve ever had to rebuild your career from scratch in a new place, or support someone else’s career at the expense of your own, I think you’ll find a lot of yourself in Clara’s story.
Meet the Guest: From Media Coordinator to Diplomatic Spouse to Entrepreneur
Clara Motsisi is an entrepreneur and co-director of Motsisi Developments (Pty) Ltd, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She lived in Israel, China, and New Zealand over the course of her husband Edgar’s diplomatic career, working across communications, community leadership, and higher education along the way. She has recently returned home to South Africa, where she is developing her property business and has just published her memoir, Becoming Clara.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EcNbR7RkT5M
How Community and Networking Carried Her Through a Foreign Posting
Clara doesn’t pretend the news of her husband’s posting was easy. She had been working hard in her job in media production and was preparing for a promotion. She describes the excitement of the move tangled up with something closer to grief, watching the promotion she’d worked hard for slip out of reach just as it came into view. It’s a feeling a lot of accompanying partners will recognise: the sense that your own momentum has to make way for someone else’s.
Surviving, and eventually thriving, in a new country often comes down to how deliberately you build community around yourself. Clara talks about the isolation of being home all day with two young children in Jerusalem, and how she made a point of getting out, meeting other mothers, and going to playgrounds rather than staying inside. She credits her landlord in East Jerusalem, a grandmother who effectively became family, cooking for her, looking after her older son when her second was born, with support she says she’ll never forget.
For Clara, this wasn’t incidental. She’s clear that opening your circle and actively seeking out support is something you have to choose to do, especially somewhere you have no existing network at all.
“It is actually very important to be able to network, to be able to know people, to open your circle a little bit, so you can get all the support that you need.”
While Clara talks about her time in Israel as a pause, what she did with that pause is inspiring. Rather than accepting that her media career was over, she enrolled in a communications degree through UNISA’s distance program, timing her study around nap schedules and the rhythms of a new baby. She talks about needing something that was “for herself,” not despite motherhood, but alongside it.
“I needed something that would make me feel like, hey, don’t forget about yourself. Do not forget about your career.”
Why Strategic Volunteering Can Do More for Your Career Than a Job Title
Volunteering, done with intention, can build exactly the experience and credibility a career needs, even without a paycheck attached. During her time at the next posting In Beijing, China, Clara joined an association for diplomatic spouses from the Southern African region, starting as social secretary and being elected chairperson within a few years. She recalls proudly how as chairperson, she led the association to winning the Best Community Award in Beijing.
Her advice on this is direct: volunteer strategically, and choose roles that support the direction you actually want your career to go. For Clara, the skills she built organising events, securing sponsorships, and eventually leading an entire association were never separate from her career. They were her career, continuing in a different form.
“When you volunteer, do it strategically. It must be a role that will support your career path.”
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oDyn26JcTcFbIoW0FBf7x?si=fjqC_E0cR3-KVrMpnnmjrQ
Why Focusing on Skills, Not Titles, Opened New Doors in New Zealand
Focusing on transferable skills, rather than chasing a specific title, is often what makes a return to formal work possible after years away from it. By the time Clara’s family arrived in New Zealand, her sons were older and more independent, giving her time to think seriously about her own next step. She took a role at Victoria University of Wellington’s law school before moving into the careers and employment team, which is actually how the two of us met.
What she says about that period is another insight into navigating your career when you are limited to fixed term roles. Clara describes never really chasing the role itself. She was chasing the chance to use the skills she’d built across three countries and three very different cultures. The job title was far less important than what she could do and the opportunity to build new skills and connections.
“I could bring all the skills that I have gathered around different countries, different cultures, and give them into these roles that I had in New Zealand.”
What It’s Really Like to Live Between Cultures and Come Home Changed
Returning home after years abroad can surface a quieter kind of adjustment than the move itself, the discovery that you’ve changed in ways the people around you haven’t seen happen. Clara describes noticing her own perspective shift over twenty years abroad, becoming more global and, after New Zealand specifically, more inclined toward quiet, in ways that occasionally puzzled friends and family used to the person she was before she left.
She doesn’t frame this as a loss. If anything, it’s the clearest thread running through the whole episode: change isn’t something that happens to you against your will. It’s something you can carry forward, on purpose, into whatever comes next.
“My perspective is more global than local, which is not a bad thing at all. … I try to bring everyone into it, so they understand it, and I don’t leave everyone out.”
Q&A Highlights
What’s your favourite local food you rediscovered when you came back to South Africa?
“Pap chakalaka, and braai meat… every South African loves that, and especially when you do braai, you cannot do braai without the pap.”
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received about international careers?
“Your career is not ending, but it is evolving. Just keep going, and trust the process.”
If you could go back and tell yourself something at the start of your first posting, what would you say?
“Remember, you don’t know where you’re going. But remember, you will be okay. Just keep moving. Just keep trusting. And never stop.”
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About Dr Sherrie Lee
Dr Sherrie Lee is a career coach and educator for international professionals, ACC ICF-certified in positive psychology coaching. She is a Professional Member of CDANZ, where she hosts the Character Strengths Special Interest Group, and writes and speaks regularly on international careers, character strengths, and cross-cultural identity and belonging.
Learn more at thediasporicacademic.com. Wondering if career coaching is right for you? Book a free 20-minute discovery call.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my monthly newsletter, International Career Journey on Substack.
