Team Spotlight: Introducing Elliott

Every week we ask a Terra team member to let us know who they are. Here's Elliot:

Elliott! What wearables do you use?

I have an Oura ring, Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, and an Eight Sleep bed.

Why do you have so many?

The first one that I owned was the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 - I bought it when I started working at Terra and heard about all the new specs. The other two came for free from working at Terra... great employee benefit!

Now I'm addicted to them, I wake up every morning and check three different devices for how well I slept...

What else do you use them for?

I use my watch to track my activity, any sort of training I do I turn it on and get started. The Oura ring takes the data from my Samsung.

What type of training do you do?

Strength training, Callisthenics, a bit of weights, any of that stuff. I've been training seriously for two years now, and I'm working towards some really cool Callisthenics stuff. The biggest achievement for me so far was getting the muscle up during the pandemic:

Gym and Terra aside, what else keeps you busy?

Well, that's all I have really. Gym and Terra. The sad part is that I actually don't do much else. I spend the rest of my time catching up with friends. Oh and spending time with my girlfriend. That's my life right now.

Haha, how long have you been in London?

Just over six years.

Do you like it here?

Bro, when I came the first couple of years I liked it and now I realise it's not that great. If you ever ask me if I'll stay here, I would probably say no. Eventually I want to go somewhere less crowded like the USA, Canada, China.

Have you been to those places?

Yeah I've been to all of them, and my favourite would have to be Canada. The people there are pretty sweet and the food quality is far superior. It's a lot less crowded too!

Where did you grow up?

St Maarten, on the Dutch side. Born and raised there.

(A day in the life for Elliot in his early days)

What was life like there?

It was quite dull. Back then I stayed at home quite often playing video games, and would go to the beach occasionally. I guess a very big selling point is that it's hot all year around, but super humid. I'd probably only go back for vacations as only my Aunt is still living there now. When me and my sister left for the UK for studying my family also went to Canada after hurricane Irma and never went back.

What's Canada like for you?

Pretty cool. I was a bubble tea barista every Christmas and summer there in my teens. Often I'd go pick strawberries and blueberries with my family.

(Always working hard)

What does the future look like for Elliott?

It really depends. It's not that I don't want to stay around London, I'm pretty used to it and will stay if I have good opportunities - seeing Terra acquire it all would be cool.

Sounds a bit like global domination?

Exactly.

Main things you've learnt from Terra?

Stay brave, never give up. Take all incoming challenges. It's helped me quite a bit, not only in the tech space but working as a team was one of the biggest things that transformed me

Going back to your move to London, how was it?

A complete fresh start, we had no idea how things work here. Like a quail egg coming into an eagle's nest... or something like that. I had no clue what was going on. I did find it surprisingly easy to get used to though, and getting around is simple. The main change came from me spending my own money.

Was it a bit of a cultural shock?

Yeah in St Maarten everything is informal, but not so much in the UK it's pretty formal and you have to show more respect or formality. But luckily everyone in London is pretty chill, if I made a mistake they would look past it.

How about travelling, do you do a lot of it?

I've been to a lot of European countries already. Out of all, I think the UK is one of the better places in Europe (speaking in pre-Brexit terms here). Maybe Holland is close too as I have quite a few friends in Holland that came from St Maarten.

What about outside of Europe?

I would have to say Hong Kong, despite the crowding. When I was there for vacation I liked the vibe. If you spoke to people there they'd be very friendly and approachable and the food quality is insane. Food to me is important and it's great there. And everything is close by and convenient, all of life's necessities are so accessible.

How about languages, it seems you have a pretty diverse background. How many languages do you speak?

I speak three Chinese dialects - Mandarin Cantonese Hakka and I also speak English.

No Dutch? Four is not enough..

It used to be at a lower intermediate level but being in London for six years I lost it. I'm at intermediate level for Korean... French and Spanish are ambitions to pick up in the future!