Meet the expats - Sophie le Brozec : living her Best Life

Sophie le Brozec is one of those persons that definitely leaves a lasting impression. The British born mum-of-two made the move from London to Mauritius back in 2015 with her small family, setting up the life and business of her dreams.

Now as a lifestyle entrepreneur, author, blogger and teacher (among many other things), we were intrigued to find out more about her varying life experiences and what got her to where she is today. Bright, joyful and genuinely loving life, Sophie was a pleasure to interview for this feature, and here’s what happened when we met her in Tamarin a couple of weeks ago…

Such a pleasure to meet you Sophie! So to begin, can you give us a bit of an insight into your life before you made the decision to move to Mauritius?
So, I’m British and I’m married to a Frenchman who I met in France – hence the exciting surname! I earned a degree in French and Spanish in Liverpool (England) and part of my degree requirements was to spend five months in France and five months in Spain, so I went to Nice for my stay in France. When I graduated, I decided, with two other friends who I met in Nice, to go back for the summer… so we booked a 3-month return ticket.

Within a couple of weeks, all three of us realised we didn’t actually have to go back and so somehow, by accident, I ended up moving to France for 12 years! During that time, I met Ben, we got married, had a kid and everything, and then we moved back to the UK. We had our first daughter in France and second daughter in London. We lived in London for five years and when we moved there, Ben was super happy because we’d gone from the heat of a Nice summer to a cooler British summer. 

What were you doing in London and how did the ‘Mauritius decision’ come about?
We were both working in London and had an au pair. London was great - lots of free museums, lots of things to do. Then after a while, the constant grey skies started getting to Ben, so we talked about going to live on an island, jokingly. But that kind of sowed the seeds of wanting to move.  My husband set up his business and I decided to stop working after we had our second daughter.

I wondered about what I was going to do at that stage but then, I decided to train as a child-minder. I had my kids and I was writing for my blog at the same time, and I had two other kids to look after, who were in the same age range as my children.  It was brilliant.

One day, Ben and I were just sitting around talking and he said: “You do realise we don’t actually have to live here anymore?” as at this point, we were both now working for ourselves. We could actually live anywhere, as long as it had a good Internet connection. On another day, he turned around to me and asked randomly: “What about Mauritius?” And I was like “HELL YES!” - And then, “where is it again?” *laughs*

Anyway, after that the gut decision was to just do it. We looked into it and we saw it was safe and had good private healthcare and private schools - and the more we looked into it, it just ticked more boxes. We actually found our dream location! We sold and gave away our belongings, got everything booked and signed a lease on a house that we had only seen online. We arrived on 31st October 2015 and the rest is history!

Wow, what a story! What were your initial feelings upon arriving in Mauritius, especially as this was your very first time here?
It was like some kind of a dream. I woke up really early the next morning and the birds were singing and the sun was out. I was like, “look there’s a mango tree outside my window!” As great as it was, we needed to get our paperwork rolling and because of a few issues, we didn’t really enjoy our first couple of months as much as we would have liked to. But we did manage to go swimming with dolphins in that first month and we were like “this has to work out” – because this is amazing. 

After that period, did you all settle in quite well?
It was hardest for our eldest daughter because she had to leave all her friends behind in London and she was obviously much older than our younger daughter. Just because they didn’t start school until January, they didn’t really make any friends until they started school. Anyway, now she says she doesn’t want to leave and has even decided she’s going to go to university here! *laughs*

Are there any challenges you faced in the beginning stages of living here?
I don’t think there were any massive challenges. We were expecting the whole paperwork thing to be really hard but it was actually easier to get my paperwork done here than in France or the EU! With Mauritius being so diverse too, we were used to that coming from London, as it’s also very diverse. Plus, with our family being bilingual English and French, I think for us it almost felt like coming home.

When I lived in France there was British food I couldn’t get hold of and when I lived in the UK there was French food I couldn’t get; but here it’s like the best of both worlds! I can get Marmite from the UK and I can also get French cheese from France. 

I think the torrential rain was a bit of a shock to the system and the huge wasps and flying cockroaches! But no major challenges, no. For us, we had six months to prepare, we watched lots of documentaries and basically, we took in as much as we could. On top of that, we both made a conscious decision that we wanted to be here. We got Ben’s occupational permit and when we were settled, I applied for mine, so now we can both work here and we’re both running businesses we love. 

That takes us nicely to learning more about what you do for work. We understand that you run online courses for women wanting to live happier, more fulfilled lives. Tell us more… 
So it all started with me running an English course for French speakers and a French course for English speakers. I created my courses and they took off and were selling well. Then I was like, “what should I do next?” I already had the parenting blog but I was more interested in ‘you’, what makes ‘you’ happy and how to help people live a life they love, because people are normally just ticking boxes.

Like being married, having kids, living in such a such house, getting the kids into a certain school, driving this car, having these possessions and going to holiday in certain places. There’s no thought related to: “Am I actually enjoying it?” For many, it’s just about ‘do it’, ‘do it’, ‘do it’ and maintain that ‘special place’ in society. I decided I was going to move my parenting blog to more of this kind of stuff. 

Just before we decided to make the move, I was aged 39 and was feeling a bit depressed and didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do next. I didn’t know whether I wanted to go back into digital marketing or whether I wanted to try and make my blog or business work. I had to work a lot on my own mindset. 

Can you explain some of the techniques you used in order to shift your mindset and move you away from becoming more depressed?
Yes, one of the techniques I used was gratitude. The whole idea is giving thanks for what you have got instead of complaining about what you haven’t got. And that was a real shift for me in the way I looked at things. At the same time I discovered a lady called Denise Duffield-Thomas; she wrote two books that were really interesting. That’s where I discovered manifesting and the ‘Law of Attraction’, and she talks a lot about forgiveness as well.

I think I was holding a lot of grudges against people who had done me wrong - in my eyes - in the past and this was affecting me negatively. I went all in with forgiveness and I felt so much lighter afterwards. I also did things like making sure I got out of the house. I massively cut back on social media and screen time too, as when you’re a blogger and spend so much time online, you start comparing yourself to other people and it’s not healthy.

These are all tools and techniques that I teach in my brand new ‘Life Reboot Course’ aimed at women who want to change their lives for the better, but just don’t know where to start. 

The Life Reboot Course sounds amazing! Can anyone join your course at any time?
We just did a big launch and now it’s available all year round on my website. There are six modules in the course and it’s for anyone who wants to make a change in their life. It doesn’t have to be a drastic change like giving everything up and moving to a tropical island but even small changes, too. It might be that someone may just need to shift their mindset so they feel happier.

Registration to the course is normally Rs.16,500 but I’m offering a Rs. 6,500 discount to any News on Sunday readers who may find my story inspiring and would like to shake up their own lives. There’s also a payment plan available where people can spread the cost over three months.

That’s fantastic, thank you! So your course is aimed at women… Are there any issues in particular that you feel Mauritian women face that your course could help with?
I actually did a talk at Accenture about parenting and finding balance. I got a lot of feedback about how people live their lives here… and the parents and in-laws are a lot more involved, as they might be living with them or next to them, and the grandparents have a big say in the way they raise the kids. I think they will find things in the parenting module of the Life Reboot Course that could be very beneficial.

We hope many women are able to benefit from your wonderful course and we wish you the very best of luck with it! Before we let you go, we’d just like to return to your life here in Mauritius…  You seem to have created a wonderful network of friends for yourself. Can you tell us how you went about making friends so quickly?
I’m very sociable anyway… *laughs*

To be honest, it took me quite a long time in London to make friends and I was quite lonely, and I thought that’s how it would be here. But I really threw myself into it. Before arriving, I discovered expat.com and threw out a zillion questions on there. I also set up a book club. I only knew a couple of people at first, so I think there were about three people for the first one, then through word-of-mouth, there were 12 people for the next one and then it just absolutely snowballed! 

Amazing! What do you love most about Mauritius?
Just feeling the warmth and the sun! It just makes me feel so happy and high-energy and upbeat. I love the multicultural factor and I’ve always found it really fascinating. I love it when they dress in traditional outfits for different religious occasions at school here. Mauritius is so beautiful but it’s also a country of beautiful people. I feel so safe here and I think people are so welcoming and very friendly. 

Finally, if you could share any message with the world, what would it be?
My message is life is too short and for a lot of us, most of the things that we’re putting as a priority today, on our deathbeds, we wouldn’t regret not doing it. So many of us are chasing things - like status - rather than experiences. Life is too short! Do what makes your heart sing!

By Sabah Ismail & Khalid Khadaroo