Ep 176: Personal Update: Life in Mallorca After One Year Here
Episode Summary
In this episode, Jenna opens the door to life in Mallorca after a full year—the real version, not the glossy Instagram version—sharing the daily lifestyle shifts, cultural differences, and behind-the-scenes of the day to day. If you’ve ever dreamed of moving abroad for a better life or simply wondered what a three-day workweek and new country actually look like in real life, you’ll want to listen in.
Inside, you’ll discover:
• What makes Mallorca feel completely different from the version of “Spain” most people picture
• The surprising community and lifestyle advantages that make the challenges worth it
• How Jenna manages business, parenting, and major life transitions with minimal impacts to peace, income, or freedom
Hit play now for a candid, refreshing, and eye-opening look at what life really becomes when you redesign it on your own terms.
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Each episode from top-ranked women’s business coach Jenna Harrison addresses common pain points like overwhelm, decision fatigue, entrepreneur burnout solutions, and the guilt of stepping back from hustle culture. Jenna shares tools to streamline your business systems, cultivate powerful habits, and delegate with intention—all designed to help you reclaim work-life balance and boost your freedom.
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Full Episode Transcript:
In this episode, I'm going to catch you all up on what it's like for me living in Spain, having been here for about a year now. Welcome to The Uncommon Way, where high-achieving women, entrepreneurs, and leaders pitch the rulebook and design success on their own terms. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, a top-ranked business coach sharing business growth strategies, mindset mastery, and power moves to help you attract ideal clients, leverage your unique genius, and scale with freedom. Let's dive in. Welcome, welcome back to The Uncommon Way.
I get a lot of questions about what it's like living in Spain and what I do on the daily and all the things. And I just thought I'd record an episode about it. I really, really love any and all questions that come in. I'm so grateful because it gives me something to respond to. It makes this part of the job really fun and easy, more like we're having a conversation. And so if a little thought ever pops through your mind when I'm talking and you're like, I wonder about this, whether that's my life, my business, or business questions in general, ways that I think about things, please just pop into my DMs, respond to any of my emails, and let me know. As a content creator, I want to respond to things that you're looking for. So keep them coming. Okay. So we are so glad that we chose to move to Majorca. In some of my earlier episodes, I was honest about how it was kind of a bumpy landing. It was a rough process, but we were really always in love with the place, just not in love with the process of getting settled in the place. And the first thing I really have to let people know when they're wondering about my life here is that Majorca, it's not Spain, really. I mean, it's more Spanish than French, of course, but it's not like the idea you probably have in your head about Spain. When I used to live in Andalucia, which is southern Spain, they used to say that people from up here, like from the Barcelona region, and then the islands are kind of offshoots of that region, that they're really more like Germans than Spanish. They are more industrious, they tend to keep to themselves more, there's colder weather up here. And so they're a richer part of the country. And so they used to say, oh, those are the Germans of Spain. And so really, the people that are native here to Majorca, they have a culture where they are very private and a bit slow to warm up to outsiders. And that's because they have such a long history of being invaded by different cultures. They had a very strategic place in the Mediterranean and lots of pirate invasions. And so the people that lived here just learned to be distrustful of foreigners and to really kind of close in in their own little communities. So I think the biggest downside of living here is that we don't get that immersion into the Spanish culture that a lot of expats talk about, about how warm the people are and how fun it is. And I've certainly experienced that myself in decades past. But what we do get here is that there are a lot of mainland Spaniards that are here and also a huge international community, South Americans, Europeans, Africans, Australians, and yes, more and more Americans. And that really creates its own culture. And it's a culture that I absolutely adore. I was talking to my friend the other day who's from the UK, and she was saying, when she thinks about it, what she realizes is that she has so many friends back in the UK who are like, yes, we want to move to Majorca. We're going to do it someday. But they don't actually do it. And the thing about everyone that's here in Majorca is that they've actually done it.
They've actually made the difficult choice and the decision and moved forward all because we want a better lifestyle. That's the reason that we're all here. It reminds me of my ancestors that came over from Ireland to the United States. And they also were really leaving behind everything they knew so that they could have a better life, their children could have a better life. And they were more excited about that prospect than they were fearing what they would, you know, the pain they would go through or what they would leave behind. And it's that kind of orientation that just draws to it a really special group of people. It is a very, very easy to make friends here. People are very warm and inviting and helping each other out because we are each other's family. None of us have family or older established friend group here, or older established friends groups here. We are it. Kids learn that people come from all over, that speaking multiple languages is normal. They all learn the ones that I know, of course, because we send Bill into an English speaking school, but a lot of other people send their children to English speaking schools because they speak a different language at home and they want their children to become fluent in English. So by the way, the reason we send Dylan to an English speaking school is because he does have other needs like ADHD and those schools tend to be a bit more progressive and a little less structured. They allow him a bit more freedom, but also because the predominant language that's taught here is not Spanish. It's not Castellano. It's Catalan, which is a language that they speak in this northeastern part of Spain. And it's a language that you will use if you live in this part of Spain, but nowhere else in the world. So it's not where we want to prioritize his learning. But anyway, a lot of people do send their children here. So of course, they're speaking a different language at home. Maybe that's Brazilian or German or Swedish or whatever it is. And then they're learning English. And then everyone in these schools is learning both Spanish and Catalan at the same time. So with all of that diversity of language and cultures, they really learn that no one place on earth is better than any other place, except of course that Mallorca is the best. But no, really, it's really all about what you choose and where you choose to live. It's not a tribal culture. And it's very family-friendly as well. Like we in the spring and early fall, we're going to the beach after school. We meet up with our friends there.
The kids get all this free play. We tend to meet up in playgrounds after school. And that's not everywhere. But luckily with our school and our area we live, our friend group, they just have all this free play in the playgrounds while the adults are chatting and catching up, both men and women. They will go out to like, there are cool areas where there are farms that have things set up for kids to play on, like hay barrels and trampolines. And you could feed the animals. And basically the kids just get to run wild. I think that's a big priority for a lot of the parents here. The kids just get to run wild. And then of course we also get to socialize and have some fun while they're doing it. So we'll go to these farms. We'll barbecue, cook out. We'll just spend the whole day there and the kids can have fun. When there's water, slide parks, zip lining, I mean, this is a huge tourist area. So they need to create activities for all the tourists that come in and fun things to do. And of course the rest of us get to enjoy this when the tourists leave in the summer and we're left for the rest of the year. There's indoor things like trampoline parks. There's festivals going on constantly. Every little town is always having a festival for their saint or there's an olive oil festival or here's the stomping of the grapes, you know, for the wine season. And there's just always something going on. Something that my friends and I love to do is actually get away from all of that and go out into nature and hike. And when we were choosing a place to live, that's one of the things that we loved most was that there's this vibrant, really cool city, Palma, with a very, very active airport because so many people are coming here. But it's also, you can just 20 minutes, you can drive out of the city and be in a gorgeous, you know, mountain range. That's a protected forest and beautiful coves and beaches and the nature here is just absolutely breathtaking. In my opinion, the most beautiful place in the world, but I'm very partial. And so my friends and I love to hike through all of this beauty and we'll go on these nice long hikes and then we'll try a new restaurant for lunch and just kind of have this lazy lunch where we're just talking and catching up. We went out for a girls night the other night. It was such a cool concept. This was in Palma, in the city. And what you do is you go to four different restaurants. It's all arranged by these two girls from Holland. They're really nice. But what they do is you get sort of like a little tapa or a little, one little plate and a glass of wine or whatever you want to drink at each of the restaurants. And you're going to four different restaurants and in between each one, you're walking. So it's like a four hour event through the night. And you get to sample all these different restaurants and you don't have to worry about making reservations or where to go or the map. It's all provided for you. And we were all laughing and saying, this is the perfect mom's night out because we don't have to think about anything. We don't have to remember anything, plan anything. It was just like, oh, it was so fun. But those are the kind of fun, different things that are always available that you get in a city that I did not get in our last home in the farmland of Pennsylvania. There are always a lot of cultural events going on. We just went to the big wine festival. There's big wine country here. And so they all come together in an area of Palma and you can sample all the different wines and they have live music and food trucks. And this is also, Mallorca is really the yachting capital of Europe or one of the top two. And so there are a lot of different events drawing in people from all over and different sailing regattas and things. And now though, it's becoming Christmas market season. So this next week coming from recording, probably actually when this is released, that's when the Christmas markets start opening up. And that's always a lot of fun to go to as well. The lights, of course, are so pretty. All the towns and even the little towns are lit up with lights. It's very magical, of course, being in Europe for the Christmas season. And it's interesting because when I'm interviewed, I've been doing a podcast tour lately and when I'm interviewed and I specifically am talking about working a shorter work week, because that is something that the podcast hosts really respond to and want to know more about, especially when I talk about a three-day work week. But they're always like, what do you do? What do you do with your extra time? And of course, there are lots of great things, which I've just told you about, but also we're quite busy. And it's because we didn't, it's been a little atypical, our journey moving over here, because as soon as we finally got settled in, which was a month's long process because of the paperwork and visas and all the steps that you have to take in order to become kind of installed here, to get a telephone, to get a bank account, to be able to buy a car, all the things. And then we went and bought a house. So that in many countries would have not been that big of an issue, right? You would have, you know, the realtor would have talked to that realtor. You would have come up with a contract that you both like and a month later you would have signed on that. That's not how it works in Spain. It was actually about a three-month process. And then when we moved in, it's a new build construction. So it's about two years now. There was one previous owner before us, even though they didn't ever live in the house. That's the kind of money that is flowing around Mallorca. It's like, I think I'm going to buy this place. No, I don't like that place. I'm going to buy this other place instead. They never even lived here. They were from Sweden. But the issue then is that a lot of the like new issues weren't solved, the things that weren't working. And so my husband's actually taken over. Since he's retired, of course, he's taken over as president of the board. And there are all of these building issues that were never done correctly and need to be gotten up to. We need to get the building up to a certain level so that then we can begin just like the maintenance. You know, we need to fix all the issues so then we can get to the maintenance. So it's been as if we had a home renovation project going on all this time. And the thing is, I'm the one that speaks Spanish. And so a lot of people around here speak English as a common language. But when it comes to the people who are contractors or electricians, they don't necessarily speak that much English. And with other people as well, even doctors, it just depends what their upbringing was. And so I end up going to all the appointments or meeting with all the contractors just because I'm the one who can facilitate the flow of information the most quickly. And so that definitely takes a lot of time. And we also, I've mentioned before, have our son who has a very hyperactive impulsive form of ADHD, which means he does need a care team. We need to interview different doctors. We need different specialists. We need to find the right fit.
We have more parent teacher conferences than people with a neurotypical child might have. We switch schools with him already once since he's been here, just so that he could have a great, big, wonderful playground and areas to run, which we know always helps him with his ability to focus when he's actually in the classroom. So there's been a lot going on. And that's why it's kind of funny because when people are like, what do you do with all your time? And yes, it's all these great things, but also I feel like I don't have time to work more right now. There's so much going on. And I'm so glad that I designed a business where I can have that flexibility. But more importantly, I think this is the most important part is the mindset, right? And really the spiritual trust to not be freaking out about the fact that I'm working less, right? Or thinking that working less means I won't be able to create results or I will, you know, the business is going to collapse or I won't be able to create money. I really kind of really got this lesson to sink in for me. I'd been doing the, you know, learning about it and believing this is how things should work, but it wasn't until COVID was happening and my son was in daycare and every time there'd be one COVID outbreak, the whole daycare would shut down, you know? And so all of a sudden he'd be home for two weeks and it would throw such a wrench. And I remember I was working towards a year-long goal. And right then at the beginning of December, they said the announcement that kids were going to be home. And I thought, you know, I saw my brain go to, well, this is it. Goal's not going to happen.
It's just impossible. And I just really took this moment as an opportunity once and for all to get that kind of thinking out of my head and remember that time does not create value. I'm the one that creates value. And what are the very small strategic moves that I can make that really don't take time but yield big results? And so that was a huge evidence builder for me. I did make my year-end goal and it's really been a life changer. I know it's hard for people to believe when they haven't lived through it and they haven't done the work around it. I remember being there, but now that I'm on the other side, I am so grateful because client numbers can go up and down. My availability to work can go up and down and yet my lifestyle continues really wonderfully. Like, money is always coming in and safety and, you know, happiness is always coming in as well. And it's all because of this disconnection, the fact that I've been able to separate and disconnect abundance from doing this. I've known plenty of people who are constantly doing and constantly broke. So doing is not the key to abundance. Now, being real about the doingness, I have been choosing to work some nights lately because I am launching a new membership community. This is the first time I'm announcing it publicly. And I've been wanting to work on, you know, the ads, the backend stuff, all the tech that's super fun for me, the curriculum. And I just, I really like it. So it's not a hardship in any way. I will tell you what is a hardship. When I have podcast interviews or I hold a meet and greet or a webinar or something at 8 30 my time, that is not something I like at all. But because of the time zones, that is really the most effective time to do those things. That's when I'm able to connect with the podcast host. And A, my brain is tired. 10 o'clock is actually when I get my second wind. I'm really great after 10 o'clock, but unfortunately I can't take advantage of that because my little guy wakes up way too early. And if I do not have a full night's sleep, things get really ugly around here. I'm very, very like sad and depressed and cranky and things just, I don't have the motivation and I know how this works in the brain. I understand exactly what's going on. And so I really do prioritize sleep. But also the thing that gets to me, it's like my inner free spirit just doesn't like it. She just puts her foot down and she's like, oh hell no. Because even though I'm reminding her, but you have your mornings free or your afternoons free, she remembers that when Dylan was an infant, I worked every single night except Fridays for two years. So I think she's just not having it. She is not in full trust that I'm not going to revert to the old ways, even though I actually feel like the adult in me, the CEO of my mind feels very certain that we're not going back there. But everyday life is, it's interesting here. I mean, I love noting the differences. There are pros and cons. Some of the things are just so much easier. And I think to myself, why don't we do it like this back in the States? For instance, when you're in a parking garage, it takes a picture of your plate when you're driving in. And so you don't have to even hold up a ticket or anything when you're leaving the parking garage. The gate just knows you and opens up. I can only assume that it's because of privacy issues in the United States that people don't want a picture of their license plate being taken or something. I don't know, but it just makes it so much more easy and efficient. You just drive up and you go out, right? And they use WhatsApp here for everything all the time. And it makes life so convenient. For instance, my mom's coming to visit now for Thanksgiving and I wanted to get her some help going through the airport. So I was able to WhatsApp Iberia Airlines and be like, hey, can you help her with airport assistance? And that's just something I can't imagine doing in the States. I would have to call or of course they'd try and make me go through the website, but then the website wouldn't really be working. And I'd have to call customer support and it'd be this long wait. And then I'd finally get through and I'd have to have this whole conversation with people, but it's just done with a couple of text messages here. It's so nice. Same with my pharmacy. When I need some medicine, I send them a little text. Like my pharmacist, I know my pharmacist, it's this tiny little, her name's Pilar, and it's this just tiny little place. And I walk in and she says hi and she goes and gets my medicine from the back and I pay for it and I leave. That's it. Oh, and by the way, if I ordered in the morning, it's there by five in the evening. But on the downside, things take so long here. Like I mentioned with buying the property, you just have to tack on extra months to everything you want done, which is why all of this building renovation, I guess, upkeep things that we've been doing has just been dragging on for so long. And it's there, but it's also in government things. And we only got a one-year visa, so we had to reapply for a visa. And it's a very long thing and there are tax certifications that you need. And the work here is not always the highest quality. Our Swedish neighbors really complain about this because they're used to everything just being so perfect and efficient. And we have an issue right now. I'm actually recording this with a scarf around my neck because we're having issues with the heating. Now, it's only been cold here. We've only needed the heating in the last week, so it hasn't been an issue. But we moved in in spring and we noticed the heating seemed a little wonky. It didn't really seem to correspond to what we were putting on the thermostats, but it so quickly got warm that we turned the heating off and we just haven't had to think about it. But wouldn't you know, we turned the heating back on and it just was not working. Our room was freezing cold and the office here was boiling hot. Well, this is also the guest room. This is where mom's going to be sleeping, so I knew she would just die if the room were boiling hot. So we got someone in to look at it. And it turns out that when they built the building, all of the valves were switched incorrectly for the floor heating. And so the thermostat for one room is actually controlling the heat in another room. That thermostat is controlling the heat in another room. So of course, the thermostat with the control keeps reading the temperature saying, it's still cold in here. So it keeps pumping up the heat more and more and more. Meanwhile, the other room's getting boiling hot, but there's no feedback loop to turn off the floor heating. So we finally figured it out. It's good. But now we're in the getting it fixed stage, which is a whole other process, especially if you need to order a part or something. So anyway, a scarf in the meantime. Luckily, these things are not coming out of our pocket because Spain has strong laws about when a building is built, how long the developer is responsible to get all of these kinds of issues taken care of. So that also adds to like the slowness of the issue because obviously the developer is upset with the contractor who built the building incorrectly and the contractor's done. So they want nothing to do with it. And it's just like they're good and bad things about all of this. Some of them we've just decided to pay for out of pocket because we wanted to get them done. But on the plus side, the service costs tend to be a lot lower for certain things like babysitting and gardening, things like that. And there's no tipping here. And it's so funny because as more and more Americans are coming in, there's now a nonstop flight from Newark that is functioning like spring through fall.
And we notice where the Americans are hanging out and the people, the service people there are getting really used to tipping. Like it's starting to become a thing where it's like, come on, where's my tip? I mean, not overtly, but we're seeing that happen. And Ben and I are like, no, the Americans are coming. They're going to change the culture. Because another thing that has started happening, this never used to happen in Spain. You used to be able to, if you sat down at that table, that table was yours for the night, whether or not you're having just like one more bottle of water or whatever, that is your table. Well, they're starting to put time limits on the table and think about profit and efficiency and all those things, which are great for them for business owners. But it does change the atmosphere. You know, it is, you do feel rushed. It used to be that you had to try so hard to get the server's attention and tell them that you were ready for the check. Like if you didn't know to ask for the check, you would literally sit there all night because that server was not going to come bring you the check. That would have been so rude. That would have meant like they were trying to kick you out. And then after you finally asked for the check and they gave you the check, they would always invite you to a chupito. Chupito is like a little suck. And that's what they call a shot, right? A shot of something, which they believe was for the digestion. So it would be like an herb liqueur or some sort of little schnapps or something or vodka or something that was supposed to apparently help with the digestion. And it was a really, it was their way of saying, thank you for choosing us for choosing to spend your money here. Unfortunately, that is kind of also in this part of the country anyway, kind of gone by the wayside. And it's really too bad. I think it's just more about efficiency and money rather than it is about the really cultivating the people that are coming to eat at your establishment. Anyway, off of my little thing. Another great thing here is that the buses are free. So you're taking public transportation. They're really encouraging people to drive less and use more earth-friendly forms of transportation. They're very much more environmentally conscious here. Also, all of the streets get cleaned by street cleaners. Now the downside is that because the streets get cleaned by street cleaners, people often will leave just a little bit more, not so much litter, sometimes litter, but also like unfortunately excrement from dogs and animals and things. But luckily there are street cleaners coming along to clean everything up and keep the streets clean. And so we're starting to get used to social services. We're starting to get used to this kind of higher overall quality for everyone type of living, but it still makes us scratch our head every once in a while. And you see this kind of shift between the old and the new coming about. Like for instance, with shopping, you still see the older people with their little, they're like little shopping suitcases on wheels that they, like an overnighter bag that you'd take into the airport. It's like that, but that's what they put their groceries in. And you still see these people that in the, you know, a couple of decades ago when I lived here, people would still go to the bakery and they'd get their daily bread and then they'd go to the fruit store and they'd get the fruits and vegetables they were going to need for the meal. And then they'd go to the butcher and they'd get the meat that they're going to get. But now we tend to have, it's pretty similar as anywhere else. You have like larger supermarkets, of course you can order delivery from the supermarkets, but you still see elderly people who are maintaining their old habits and ways and wheeling these suitcases around, especially in the markets. They have wonderful farmers markets and gourmet markets and things. But the reason it's important about that I see these activities of elderly people is so important is because they are so active. All walking around, they're walking up and down hills. There are a lot of hills around here. They're very, very active and very involved still. And that's a huge reason we moved here was really for the Blue Zone lifestyle where, you know, longevity has been shown to increase in areas where people do maintain active levels and are still climbing hills and doing gardening and have really strong communities and are eating healthy food. And I really get to see that play out here. Like even the younger people here, very, very active. Everybody is cycling or playing pickleball. That's what it's called. They call it paddle here. It's slightly different, but or tennis or they're hiking or doing water sports. And like I went to a birthday party with a girlfriend recently and she chose to have a birthday party around Tardeo and that is, Tarde means afternoon, and that is this phenomenon of clubbing actually in the evening, specifically for people who are kind of in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. You know, it's basically not the younger crowd that goes out from 1 or 2 a.m. until the wee hours of the morning. It's more for people who want to be asleep by midnight or so. And a lot of times people don't even have dinner, so they actually do this before they go to dinner. Oh, I'd laugh. It's just so different, so fun. But anyway, they have these clubs which are just for people that, you know, and they get started around maybe, I don't know, six in the afternoon and people have had a long lunch. Maybe they've had some tapas or something and then they go clubbing. It just cracks me up. It wasn't really my thing, but I think I'd just rather do the full clubbing thing if I'm going to go clubbing, which I don't anymore. But it was a fun experience. And I just love that stuff like that exists. Like, I love that there's no age limit on when you can go dancing, you know, or that there's no, you know, that people are out and about and people are living full lives for the entirety of their lives and spending time with friends and family.
It's a really nice thing to see, I think, especially in this age where everything's becoming so much more automated and depersonalized and AI is everywhere. It's just wonderful to get back to humans being humans. So I am about to hop off and go be a human and pick up my mother, but I hope this was fun. Let me know. I hope it answered any questions. If not, you know where to find me. All right. Have a wonderful week. Let's talk again on Tuesday.
