Watch: I Had Everything in Canada....But Was Miserable | Moved to India After 20+ Years

3:20 I I just couldn't stand working for a corporation anymore and it wasn't because like a lot of people I think when they think about burnout they think about like being overworked. For me it was the opposite. Like every time I had an idea I'd be like okay, let's I have I have this exciting idea to like make things better and that was part of my job. So I'd go and I'd be like okay, let's do this and then I go to a committee that has the the ultimate say and they say no. So I'm like okay, let's try another committee they say no too and it's like 20 different people telling me no all the time. So like I burnt out from underwork not from overwork because I wasn't being allowed to, I guess, express my creativity. I wasn't being challenged. Like, I essentially was just like kind of like by the end of it, was just sitting at my desk and not doing much. And for me, I don't know if this applies to everyone, but for me, like, I think like the brain needs some kind of challenge to like feel fulfilled and I guess I think like going back to our hunter-gatherer roots, like I think like we we need a challenge. and there was challenge back then. And nowadays, like,

4:21 You can live this like life of comfort, which is what was happening to me. Like, I was chasing comfort. There was no challenge at work. So, like, my brain was I guess finding challenge on its own, and what that turned into for me was anxiety. I was finding problems where there were none. I was creating anxiety for the smallest of things. So, I started having daily panic attacks in 2023. And I I actually ended up taking a 6-month leave from work to kind of figure it out. I started seeing a social worker. And [music] in our sessions, what I figured out over the course of the 6 months that I was off, and I I kept seeing him until I left Canada, but what I figured out early on was the reason I was having this anxiety was partially because of what I just mentioned. Like, >> [music] >> I wasn't being challenged, and I didn't enjoy what I was doing, and my brain was finding was finding issues. But the other thing is like my wife and I had been talking about starting a family.

5:21 And like, I just looked at who I was at that moment in time, and I didn't want to be that person So, I think that was compounding [music] the problem. so, I knew like by the end of those 6 months, towards the end of 2023, I was like, "I'm really scared, but I need to start my own business." because I've been following people online for years that have started their own business like these Indie Hackers like Levels IO and others. And it was very really inspiring, but I always like told myself I can't do that. I'm not a coder. I don't know how to market. I don't know how to sell stuff. but by the end of that time I was like no matter how scary this is, even though you don't know what you're doing, like you have to. And this was beginning [music] of 2024.

6:08 And then like the question was okay, well so how's this going to [music] happen? Like my work drained me. I didn't have enough energy at the end of the day to do anything. and most of my productive hours are in the morning. So like I decided [music] for me the best thing to do was to leave. and that was in 2024. But then the problem is like one like then we're on a single income. My wife was the only one working at that time. But she also wanted to do this. And [music] even like on a single income it's tough on in Canada. On no income it's very tough cuz it's a very expensive place to live. so like we were thinking like okay, so how how's this going to work? Like we both want to find fulfillment outside of work, build our own business. But we know from people who have done it and people online that it takes years to kind of learn the skills and like try enough things for something to be successful.

7:00 So like staying in Canada didn't make sense. We looked at a few other countries like my friend had moved to Costa Rica and they enjoyed it there. But like because we are also planning to start a family and Costa Rica's actually not that cheap compared to other places. Like we're like okay, well my wife's family's in India. We can get cheap help in India. it's a very family friendly place. and we would have a lot of time to build our own thing. so we talked about it for a while, but in in 2025 like in the middle of 2025 we both kind of committed that like we're doing this and we're going to we're going to give it a fair shot. cuz we'd rather give it a shot and fail than never try and then regret it later on in life. You know, the things you don't do that you regret.

7:53 We have one life so might as well just go for it and see what happens. >> Completely makes sense. So, how did you choose where you want to move to in India? So once you made a decision India would be the place to you know raise a family to give it a shot at you are

8:11 Entrepreneurs like how did you choose the place? >> Yeah, so that was actually like not as hard for us because my wife was from Bangalore. Her family was here. She knew the city. So we just we moved closer to to her family. I know like unfortunately I did this after the fact not so much before the fact but I've been like going through the return to India subreddit and trying to get advice from people there on like some of the problems that I still have now after the move. And what surprised me actually was like a lot of people like ask that question that you just asked like how to choose where to live cuz I my assumption would be everyone would kind of go live where their family is but it seems that people don't for some reason.

8:58 And what I did find and luckily for me is the people that moved to Bangalore seem to be the happiest. We made the right choice there. >> Yeah, I mean it could be because of the career I mean if you have the perfect place it could be like where the family and close to work but sometimes you know you just have to make a compromise. So how about have you visited India before making this decision like have you been here on a visiting >> Yeah, so in 2023 like when COVID was on its tail and we finally got a chance to come meet her family. So I came to Bangalore for 2 weeks. and Yeah, we we we were about a week here and a week in Goa.

9:44 We came in April, which was a was a mistake to go to Goa in April in hindsight. But yeah, the trip like I thought the city was beautiful. Like I really enjoyed the city and and honestly wasn't as hot that year as it is this year. and I don't remember as much traffic, but maybe it's a a vacation high. but yeah, I I I thought to myself back then like this is a place I could live. Like this is a beautiful city. It's always warm. Like I was getting tired of the cold in Canada. and at the time it was just like a fleeting thought, you know, like I can do this, but like I still hadn't like figured out the plan of like how anything like that was going to happen or the fact that I needed to build a business and bet on myself. Yeah. but yeah, I I didn't do like any kind of extended stay. It was just kind of like a a brief brief thing and it looked nice.

10:34 >> Okay.

10:35 What about on the career side? I know on for you like you wanted to get into the entrepreneur side of the like what about your wife? You know, for her like in a transition wise in a career planning like how did it go? I think we were both like she didn't have as much problems with her career in Canada at the bank. Like we were both kind of like project / product managers there. I guess she wasn't as upset by kind of the corporate bureaucracy and red tape as I was. but she did also have an itch to kind of like build her own things. and I think maybe to some extent like I pushed her in this direction because I really wanted to do this. and I think I got her excited about it. And also I guess the other thing that I didn't mention that factored into our decision was like in 2023 24 like AI was really starting to like you could see it improving fast enough to the point where like

11:37 I was questioning like a lot of my friends when I made a decision to leave or when I was talking to them about the fact that I was considering leaving, they were like, "What are you doing? Like you have this good career. Both of you are making like six figures in Canada. Like You can buy a house. You'll be comfortable. Blah blah blah. But like it's a super risky thing that you're trying to do. But for me, it was it was the opposite. Like not only because I was not enjoying it and I was kind of like miserable in in that role, but also because I thought that AI would get to the point where it would I don't think I don't think it'll take all of the jobs in its current form, but I do think it empowers people to do a lot more per person. So, I think a lot of the jobs where people like had nothing to do are going to disappear. I think we've started seeing that with the layoffs that a lot of the tech companies are doing.

12:27 So, to me it felt riskier to stay in a place where I wasn't learning anything. I wasn't being challenged. I wasn't even allowed to use these AI tools that I'm now using every single day and that really have increased my productivity. so, like I think like that factored into our decision and that I think that that's also something that helped convince her and neither of us had backgrounds in in coding or in marketing or entrepreneurship at all, but like especially in the last few months, like Claude has become honestly incredible. Like I don't look at the code anymore. Like I did do some coding courses last 2 years ago in 2024 after I left work. so, like I used to check its output, but now like it knows a lot better than I do.

13:13 Now it's even getting pretty good at directing my marketing efforts, which I never thought that it could do. so, I think like it's an incredible time to be an entrepreneur with these tools at your disposal, but it also means a lot more competition cuz a lot is getting unlocked for a lot of people. so yeah, I guess there's [snorts] still there's still risk, but I think it's probably one of the best times to start a business and that's kind of why we we just went for it. >> Right, I understood. So both of you are on the entrepreneur side, makes sense. >> Yeah. >> what about I think the planning? once you made a decision, like how did you plan about moving to India? What are

13:55 The things that you thought through from a financial side, logistics side, anything that you can share? >> Yes, honestly, like I'll be 100% honest with you. I was terrible at this. I'm I'm figuring stuff out like in hindsight now. like I mentioned like I'm looking through the returns India subreddit and trying to find advice there. my biggest concern was I have a dog, like a service dog that I trained myself. And my biggest concern was getting her to come with us to to India. so like the first problem was getting her onto the flight with me. and originally we had booked Air India because it had the fewest number of stops and had direct flights. So we were going to go from Canada to San Francisco directly to Bangalore. all of our luggage would arrive with us and everything would be fine, but then their process and their customer service was so terrible that like essentially like I had to submit a form to get approval for the service dog.

14:56 But they wouldn't tell me where to send that form. I called them at least 20 times and every time they would send me to somebody else. So I just got like I I ran around in circles until it was actually my my wife's dad that was like, "Don't fly Air India. Like they just had that crash and they had like all of these I guess technical malfunctions on flights leading up to our departure." so we actually ended up canceling that and flying with United, but that was like a much more complicated flight. We had to fly to New York and then to Delhi and then to Bangalore. A lot of legs, a lot of extra costs for our luggage. So, like, my my main focus was like, what what I do with my dog? And also, like, how do I import her into India, which was another complicated process with the, animal quarantine services here. But, luckily, a friend of ours like put us on to, this pet relocation agency that like just took care of everything and that was totally fine.

15:51 But I didn't really think about like the financial aspects of like what happens to my investments in Canada, am I going to be, like, what's going to be my tax residency, am I Canadian, am I, Indian? I was actually talking to Claude about this last night and it was telling me you could actually be both because they both have different ways of determining, what your tax residency is. Like, India uses day count, Canada uses ties to the country, and I think that that part is still unclear cuz I don't trust AI 100% with financial matters. So, like, I think I'll I'll talk to a professional about that kind of stuff. but yeah, I need to kind of like figure out like, do I sell my investments and reset my cost basis for like there's this like R&OR period. I have a business that I earn some consulting income through and apparently now that I'm in India, they're going to tax me on that even though like all my other Canadian income is not getting taxed by India for a few years. but these are all things that I kind of figured out after landing rather than

16:52 Before and I think like if anyone's listening to this, like, my advice is like figure it out before it cuz there's some some like deadlines that you might miss and that's there are some consequences to missing those deadlines. >> Yeah, yeah, for sure.

17:05 >> so, how is life in India? I know like after visiting like it's just two weeks, now it's been about five to six months. So, like, how how has it been going? >> yeah, so I think honestly, like the first month was just like I expected to land and to just immediately start building my business, but again, like this is me not thinking it through and planning. The first month just went into like setting everything up. like I had never moved, I guess, to the point of like having to get everything for for a a new place that I'm living, you know, like I've always taken my stuff with me. so that was the first month, and then the second month I was like, "Okay, well, I don't know anyone here." and unfortunately, my wife so all her childhood friends have moved out of India, like to the US or Canada.

17:53 So we were both kind of in the same situation. Like the second month we were trying to make friends. and I guess adjusting to to life here. So like we would make these plans to like like go shopping for furniture, go shopping for appliances, or clothes, or whatever. And I think cuz she she left here in my So it's been like 14, 15 years ago. So like the traffic was not as bad back then. so she remembers that version of the city, whereas the city has changed a lot since then with like all the tech companies coming here, everybody moving here for jobs. The city's infrastructure, I guess, hasn't kept up with that demand. So like we had planned to go to like three stores in a day to do some shopping. We'd get maybe one done because like it was like a lot longer to get there than Google Maps estimates. Then once you get there, like trying to figure out what to do, the sales people not being super helpful.

18:50 So yeah, I think a lot of like unexpected challenges have come up like like that. Like I guess setting up the house, the reliability of some of the service people that have come to our house, like one guy who was setting up our appliances, like he flooded the house on two separate occasions. cuz he like didn't fasten some some hoses. And like I guess naively I thought like, okay, he must have learned from the first time. Like he's not going to do it again. And then he did it again. so like I guess like I I've learned that like you need to like find trusted people to do stuff around the house. and and we have found some now, luckily. But I guess like just some early moving pains that that were rough. And then it's been I guess a a challenge. I I don't like when when I talk about it on Reddit, like there's there seems to be like two camps. Some people are like, "Why would you go back to India? It's the worst. Like stay in the US." And then other people are like, "It's nice, you know, like just just like don't

19:51 Expect it to be like the US. And then you can accept it for what it is and you're going to enjoy it. And honestly, like I've I've been more towards the second camp. I think there's pros and cons to anywhere. And for us, even with whatever cons might exist here, this is the right place for us at this time. And with that mindset, it's like, okay, like you figure you figure out how how how to make it happen. >> Yeah, for sure. There is no perfect place and you just need to do >> the problem.

20:25 >> Cool. is there anything that we haven't covered that you want to bring up or any advice for people who are considering moving to India? >> I guess I would reiterate the like doing more planning before leaving than I did. I guess I'm historically not much of a planner. I just kind of like wing things. But with something this big and this important that only happens like a few times in your life, I think with the planning is is useful. I guess the other thing is for anyone that's kind of in a similar situation as me, like the non-Indian spouse or maybe doesn't have a network here, I think like social isolation is is a big factor. Like I think like humans need some social network.

21:22 I have been like even though like I have all this stuff that I need to do for my business and even though I hadn't spent so much time on it, like I was putting in extra focus on building that social network early on so that I would have I guess like yeah, I would have that whenever I needed like someone besides my wife to to lean on. >> and I think it's important like you people can read about what other people's experiences are, but they should make the decision for themselves. and once they make that decision, like I said, like I think like you just accept the good and the bad that comes with whatever decision that you make. You know, like there's obviously some downsides like pollution and air quality and traffic and whatever here. but there's also upsides like the cost of living and being near family and support network.

22:19 And Canada has its upsides and downsides too, you know, like the reason I left is it's it's it's expensive. >> One last thing I think especially as you said like a non-Indian spouse, from an immigration perspective, so you took OCI like maybe you can explain about the process like when you decided about moving to India, like how did the process go? >> Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I actually haven't finished that because we got officially married in October of 2024. And in order to apply for OCI, I think you have to have been married for 2 years. so actually I can't till this October this coming October. But what I was able to do is because I'm married to an OCI I got an entry visa on the category of like spouse.

23:08 And that is valid up to 5 years, but like it's either 5 years or the duration of your passport. And unfortunately my passport expired in 2 years, so I got a 2-year entry visa. And hopefully by the end of that entry visa, I'll have OCI and then I won't have any trouble staying here. And I think entry visa just allows me to stay here. it just doesn't allow me to to seek employment, which is fine cuz I'm not doing that anyway. >> Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Thanks a lot Stephen for taking the time sharing your story with us. Good luck with everything. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks again. >> Yeah, nice chatting.