Seeds for a Better World PODCAST

Episode 141_0422 August 2021, 8 a.m. Angelique’s husband left for work like it was any other day. She stayed behind in a new country, in a house full of boxes, with two kids and no idea where to go.She had just left central London for Luxembourg, at the end of COVID, already exhausted. What followed was anxiety, then anger, then a hospital bed where she slept for two days straight. That’s when she heard it: your kids and your husband are fine, now take care of yourself.In this episode, Angelique Ziganek, certified coach for expat spouses and author of Bye Bye Wonder Woman, shares:-The question she never asked before the move: what’s in it for me?-What to ask the company before you accept the package-Why the first months of expat life take so much energy, and how to protect a space for yourself-How to rebuild a village around you when your family is far away-How writing her story became a book, and then her work with other expat spouses.If you followed someone to a new country and you are still looking for yourself in it, this conversation is for you.Hosted by María Lucia Romero-Grother.Seeds for a Better World Podcast. Real stories from people building something meaningful, and the seeds they plant along the way.Subscribe for a new conversation every week and connect with Angelique here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeliqueziganek/

How to Rent in Luxembourg as an Expat: The Mistakes That Cost You the Apartment. 140_03She landed in Luxembourg on the first of May. Every shop was closed for the holiday. Her parents left the next morning, and she stood there with one suitcase, in a country she had barely heard of.Aukse Poehle came from Lithuania fifteen years ago as a corporate lawyer. She moved from room to room, cried through sleepless nights, and learned French by reading L'essentiel on the bus every morning. Today she helps newcomers find a safe place to land, and the seed she is planting is trust, for people arriving in a country where nobody yet knows their name.In this episode:Before you move, come to Luxembourg for one week, test your commute, and have your dossier ready in French.A salary of 4,000 euros does not get you a flat. Landlords ask for three times the rent, and your dossier can be one of twenty perfect ones.An apartment listed as available right now should make you ask why. Good flats are listed two to three months ahead.A phone call to the owner can win a flat that an email never would.Never transfer money before both signatures are on the rental contract, and know that the agency fee in Luxembourg is split 50 50 between tenant and owner by law.Chapters00:00 Landing in Luxembourg02:21 Alone on the first of May04:00 Learning French on the bus05:02 Living out of rented rooms07:03 Availability, affordability and 20 dossiers10:23 The three times rent rule11:14 Do your homework before you arrive12:53 Why you should call the owner15:20 The red flag in "available now"18:32 What to look for in the flat itself22:06 Contracts, agency fees and your rights24:50 Never pay before both signatures28:46 Trust and working togetherThis podcast is part of Seeds for a Better World, the association I founded here in Luxembourg. Every conversation supports education for children in rural Colombia. If this episode gives you something today, you can give something back.Support the association: https://www.seedsforabetterworld.com/donateConnect with the guest:https://www.linkedin.com/in/aukse-poehle-at-bed-and-roof-8b845024/And share with us: What seed are you planting?Hosted by María Lucia Romero-Grother

You walk into the forest tired and you walk out lighter, and you never really knew why. In this episode, recorded in the forest in Luxembourg, psychologist Isabel Van De Voorde explains what happens in your brain and your body when you slow down among the trees.Isabel spent years in HR. Then came exhaustion, sick leave, and long walks in the forest where she felt on her own without feeling alone. As a psychologist, she wanted to know why. Today she is planting a seed of wellbeing, showing people how time in nature calms the stress system and changes the way we treat ourselves, each other and the living world.Why 20 minutes in nature is enough to calm your stress system, and why two hours a week is a realistic goal for a busy life.What happens in the brain when you look at ferns and trees instead of screens and traffic, and how natural fractal shapes let your attention rest.How the sound of birds lowers fear in the brain, why hospitals use it with children in cancer treatment, and why the effect is stronger in women.Why a forest walk with your phone on vibration gives your brain a very different dopamine response than a walk without it.The one thing you can do this week: before you walk into work or pick up your kids, stay a few minutes in the car without your phone, open the window, watch the clouds, and listen to the birds.Connect with Isabel here:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabel-van-de-voorde-8180432/?isSelfProfile=falseWebsite: https://naturalminds.lu/This podcast is part of Seeds for a Better World, the association I founded here in Luxembourg. What this work brings in goes to education for children in rural Colombia. If this conversation gave you something today, you can give something back here: https://www.seedsforabetterworld.com/donatePlant it. Grow it. Spread it.

Sara Cantelar left a career, a family and friends she had known since school. She arrived in Luxembourg with a baby and nobody to call in an emergency.This is the story of how a foreign city slowly became home.In this episode she talks about the guilt of leaving her parents behind, the day she stopped trying to be everything at once, and the small habits that told her she finally belonged. Walking without Google Maps. Her child asking for the same park. A barista who already knows her coffee.The seed Sara is planting is belonging. She is building the thing she needed and could not find when she arrived.The one thing you can do this week: 1. raise your hand, 2. ask one person for help, and 3. say yes to one place where people gather.We are also taking the podcast live in Luxembourg on 6 October 2026. Details on the website.This podcast is part of Seeds for a Better World, the association I founded here in Luxembourg. I do not get paid for this. What I earn from this work goes to education for children in rural Colombia. If the conversation gives you something today, you can give something back. The link is below.seedsforabetterworld.comConnect with Sara here:https://senseliving.app/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-cantelar/

This is the last episode of the Brilliantly Branded Podcast and the first day of Seeds for a Better World.After 136 episodes over three years, María Lucia Romero sits on the other side of the microphone while Philip Grother asks the questions. She talks about the live podcast event in Luxembourg where she decided not to sell a single ticket, the drive up into rural Colombia, and what she saw on the faces of 50 families waiting outside a school for something they had been told was coming but had no reason to believe in yet.What she is planting is a sense of belonging in Luxembourg, and education for children in rural Colombia. The two are the same project.In this episode:Why she gave away the tickets to her own live podcast event and asked for a voluntary donation instead, and what that changed about the room on the night.How 50 school kits and uniforms delivered in Colombia in 2025 became a target of 250 this year, then 500, with the aim of reaching more than 10,000 children in rural Colombia over the coming years.What happened when her contract in Luxembourg ended, nobody called back, and she built her own company because there was no other door left to open. This is the experience the association is built on.The takeaway from this episode: offer the help before anyone asks you for it. Sarah Cantelar sent one message offering support, and she is now organising the October event alongside María.Why 136 episodes about personal branding and women empowerment turned into an association, an ASBL registered in Luxembourg, with a podcast as its voice rather than the other way around.The live event, Building a Life in Luxembourg, takes place on 6 October 2026. Details and registration: https://www.seedsforabetterworld.com/eventsThis podcast is part of Seeds for a Better World, the association I founded here in Luxembourg. I do not get paid for this. What I earn from this work goes to education for children in rural Colombia. If the conversation gives you something today, you can give something back. The link is below.Donate: https://www.seedsforabetterworld.com/donate

In this episode you will learn something that most of us have felt but never been able to explain. Why some conversations drain you before they even start. Why you can be doing everything right and still feel like you are running on empty. And why the answer has nothing to do with working harder or managing your time better.Dr. Cornelia Kawann is an electrical engineer who built a method around something science has been studying for decades but nobody is teaching in the context of leadership and business. She calls it Business Energetics, and it starts with one idea: we are walking electromagnetic fields, and the beliefs we carry are frequencies stored in the body.In this conversation we cover:How our electromagnetic field works and why the heart is five times stronger than the brain.What a limiting belief actually is at a frequency level, and why talking about it is not always the fastest way to remove it.How to identify when your energy is off, in the short term and over years.What you can do with the energy you cannot control, other people, difficult environments, situations you did not choose.And then something happens live. Dr. Cornelia works on one of María Lucia's limiting beliefs, in real time, in front of the audience. No details. No analysis. Just the process, and what shifted after.If you have been feeling something you cannot name, this episode gives it a name.Guest: Dr. Cornelia Kawann, electrical engineer and founder of the Business Energetics Method.Find her at: https://www.corneliakawann.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cornelia-energy-on/Her book: Change Your Energy, Change Your Life. https://amzn.to/3HgUdEL

What happens inside you when you build something from nothing, and it slowly starts to feel like it has a heartbeat of its own.Claudia Glass spent over twenty years as a high school English teacher. One day, driving home after class, a voice said her name. It said: it is now time. She did not have a business background. She did not know what a textile engineer was. She had never built a product in her life.She wrote an email to a Swiss Federal Materials Science Laboratory anyway. Three years later, she launched SwiJin, a high-performance sportswear brand built for women, by a woman, from a need she lived herself.In this episode we talk about what building something from nothing actually does to you. The brain science behind why founders love their startups the way a parent loves a newborn. The nos, the failures, the pressure, and the one reason she kept going. What she learned about women's bodies that most women were never told. And the word she would plant as a seed for a better world.If you are building something, questioning something, or standing in front of a decision you have not made yet, this conversation is for you.Guest: Claudia Glass, founder of SwiJinLearn more: https://swijin.com/Host: María Lucia Romero, Brilliantly Branded Podcast

Moving to a new country looks simple on paper. A job, a flat, a fresh start. Then you arrive, and the real life begins.In this episode, María Lucia talks with Denis Niedringhaus, who has spent eight years supporting expats and their families through relocation and cultural integration in Luxembourg. María knows this from the inside. She left the corporate world to build her own business here, and she remembers what it takes to go from arriving to belonging.What you will learn:Why the promise of Luxembourg and the reality of the first months are often two different thingsHow to approach the housing crisis, and the best time of year to look for an apartmentWhat the four languages of Luxembourg mean for your daily life and your sense of belongingHow expat spouses can build a network and feel at home, even when they arrive aloneWhat it takes to start a business and find clients in a small, formal, relationship-driven marketWhy asking for help is the single most useful thing you can do when you landThis is a conversation for anyone moving to Luxembourg, living here already, or supporting someone who is. Honest, practical, and full of the kind of advice you only get from people who have lived it.Guest: Dennis Niedrinhaus, relocation and intercultural specialist, Luxembourg.Connect with him on Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/denis-niedringhaus/

You have the stable career. The title, the salary, the clear path. And still, something keeps pulling at you. A small voice that says this is not it anymore.In this episode, Tine Van Camp shares how that pull turned into a decision. She spent seven years in the Big Four, became a mother twice, lived through a birth that scared her more than anything in her life, and then lost the job she had given everything to. Instead of rushing into the next role, she used those six months to build the thing she had wanted for years: Bonbeur, a rainwear brand made for women who want to feel good even when the weather is against them.This is a conversation about the moment you stop waiting for permission. About what it really takes to start something with two small kids at home. About confidence breaking and slowly coming back. And about turning a personal frustration into a product the world actually needs.What you will hear: How a traumatic birth changed the way Tine saw her career and her time What it really feels like to be slowly pushed out of a job after years of being the strong profile How she built discipline and structure from scratch as a new entrepreneur and mother Why she made Bonbeur for women specifically, and where the name came from The one word she would plant as a Seed for a Better WorldGuest: Tine Van Camp, founder of Bonbeur, rainwear for women. Host: María Lucia Romero.

A story that become a brand. At 33, Irene Del Olmo went in for a routine checkup. She came out with two pieces of news that changed everything. A rare form of breast cancer. And the confirmation that becoming a mother would not be possible.What she did next is what this episode is about.In this conversation, Irene shares how she rebuilt her health from the inside out, spending years as her own testing ground, reading research, fine-tuning supplements, and refusing to accept impossible as a final answer. She tried fertility treatments across three countries. Nothing worked. Then, naturally, against every medical prediction, she fell pregnant. She miscarried. And three months later, fell pregnant again.Her daughter Theodora, a name that means gift from God, is now here. And so is Birtz Nutrition, the supplement brand Irene built from everything she learned.In this episode:What it feels like to lose your identity after eight months of chemotherapyHow Irene used nutrition and supplementation to restore what the treatment tookThe moment a doctor suggested she consider getting a dog insteadWhy she went back to university to silence the imposter syndromeWhat grit looks like when every expert has already told you noIrene is a former lawyer, founder of Birtz Nutrition, and a woman who built something real from the hardest chapter of her life.Find Irene and Birtz Nutrition at www.birtznutrition.com