Trailing and not Failing: How our relationships can sustain us in expatriation?

As many expatriate spouses do, I gave up my job when we decided to start traveling the world with Foreign Service.   I had a great job — the one that paid well and the one that was interesting — but then my husband got an opportunity that was too good to pass on.  And so we decided that I can perhaps find something as we move from place to place.

The first country we went to ended up going through the recession less than a year after we got there, so getting a job in my profession in the local economy was not an option.  And that’s when I decided that I needed to re-invent myself.  Instead of looking for professional opportunities every place I landed, I decided to carry a professional “opportunity” with me.  That’s how I came across what I do now and I became an expatriate entrepreneur.

As it is with every type of entrepreneurship, succeeding financially takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.  It also takes working on the computer at night, having odd tasks at odd hours — especially if your clients live in different time zones — and taking some time from the family.  It is not a “9-to-5” kind if job and that’s where spouses and their attitudes come in.

How so?

In various ways.  But here I am going to focus on two: understanding and encouragement.

(1) Understanding. When you forgo a full-time job and choose working out of your home, you pretty much stay at home.  And, for some people, staying at home means that you are responsible for all the home tasks out there — cleaning, cooking, ironing, etc.  If you are working on a business, you probably have just as little (if not less!) time for all the home tasks than you fully-employed spouse does.  Yet you are expected to do them.   This expectation may create guilt on your part and criticism on your spouse’s part.  The same feelings surface when you work at night.  In the end neither your business nor your relationship benefit from them.

(2) Encouragement. We all know making money on an idea takes time.  Time and a lot of work.  So when you spend your mornings and your afternoons and your evenings growing your business, the last thing you want to hear from your spouse is the reference to how your business isn’t really a business but rather a hobby since you have not really made a dime.  Doesn’t do a lot in terms of encouragement, does it?  In fact, those comments often shut you down, even if they are meant as a joke.

What are your thoughts on this?

People who read this post, also read:

Culture Shock Revisited or Is It Really Just About Going Through the Stages

How to Leave without Regrets

7 Behavior Choices of a Happy Expat

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.

If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

Legally Abroad or Experiencing Law Enforcement When Overseas

I got my very first traffic violation ticket yesterday.  Maybe I’ve been lucky or maybe I am a law-abiding driver (well…most of the time anyway), but the irony of the fact that my first citation happened in my own country didn’t escape me.  How did I manage to get in trouble in a country where I know the rules while I never did in other countries where I was not so sure of the rules?

It’s a good question and maybe the answer to it lies in “paying close attention” even in places we think we know.  But that’s not the point of this post.  My interaction with the police officer and my ticket experience got me thinking about our worldwide experience with police.  Having lived in many countries I’ve had my share of interactions with law enforcement (although not always about traffic violations).  What is the difference between these kinds of interactions at home and abroad?

Maya Angelou once said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  And I find that this is especially true for me when I deal with the law enforcement.  I understand that it’s not their job to make you feel good, but can they at least not make you feel awful?

I cannot claim to have experienced dealing with the police in every country of the world and I am sure there are plenty of downright horrible experiences out there.  And there are also good experiences — I’ve had a few myself.  So what has been your experience where you are living now?  And how does it compare to your home country?

People who read this post also enjoyed:

Culture Shock Revisited or Is It Really All About Going Through the Stages

Cross-Cultural Intelligence 101: Tip 3 — Leave your assumptions at home

Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings: Got one?

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center. If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

To tip or not to tip…is that a cultural question?

A couple of weeks back I left a 36% tip at a restaurant.  Not intentionally.  I just didn’t notice they had already included an 18% tip and I added my 18% to that.  I only noticed my mistake several days later when going through the receipts.  Sigh.

That was a lesson for me.  And not only in reading paperwork before I sign it, but also in cultural habits and cultural conditioning.  Now that I once again live in the US, I am becoming more and more inclined to tip…everyone and everywhere.  I tip the waiter, I tip the valet, I tip my hairdresser, and I tip my dog’s groomer…the list can go on and on.  Tipping is now a responsibility, not a good gesture.  And I am quickly beginning to feel imprisoned by it.

Why?

Because for those of us, who are used to a different “culture” of tipping — either because we’ve lived overseas for a long time or have been brought up in another country — the tipping is still a choice.  One can still forego a tip if the service was bad and not feel horrible after the fact for days.  When you move to the US, that choice is taken away.  You must tip.  Or you’ll rot in hell of “cheapskates” forever.

So much it is a “must” for most Americans, that the tipping question has become one of our first questions before we travel somewhere.  “How much do we tip?” we ask our friends or contacts nervously.  My experience with answers is usually the same.  “It doesn’t matter,” my friends say, “if you like the service you tip what you want.”  No expectation, no counting percentages, no agonizing.  How liberating.

The restaurant where I left a 36% tip happens to be in the part of the United States that receives a lot of international tourism.  They include the tip because they know that foreigners are not “imprisoned” by the “tip culture” of the US and so, unless they count the tips in, they may not get them.  Smart thinking on their part.  Not too smart on mine.

I read my receipts a lot more carefully now.  And I’ve noticed that here many restaurants include the tip.  I think I prefer it that way.  It leaves out the guesswork of how much to tip — and it liberates me from worrying, if I have tipped enough.

What about you?  What is your cultural experience with tipping?

The people who read this post also read:

What makes repatriation difficult?

Cross-Cultural Intelligence 101: Tip 3 — Leave Your Assumptions At Home

Cross-Cultural Intelligence 101: Tip 2 — Pay Attention

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

Culture Shock Revisited or Is It Really All About Going Through the Stages

Whenever I give a presentation on Culture Shock, I try not to speak a lot at the participants.  Instead I allow them to share and, as we discuss what Culture Shock means to them, we discover how different each Culture Shock experience is for everyone.

However, if you read the research available out there on Culture Shock, you’ll discover, that most of it presents the phenomenon of Culture Shock as something that consists of five (5) stages.  And so when people look at this definition, they immediately begin to try to figure out what “stage” they are at and what awaits them in the future.  And while this process may offer some comfort and may show you that you are not alone, it’s not ideal.  Because not everyone goes through all the stages, not everyone goes in order the stages are presented, and not everyone can identify with these stages.

So instead of pigeonholing people into the stages and figuring out where each person is and how we can help him/her there, I take a different approach.  I encourage participants in my presentations to look at our experiences in another culture not through the lens of “stages” but rather through the lens of “perspectives”.

When we go through life, we find ourselves constantly changing perspectives.  In any one-day we can go through “frustrated”, “elated”, “sad”, “creative” and many other perspectives.  These perspectives color the way we look at the world around us and they also either empower or dis-empower us.

The same with Culture Shock.  When we move to a foreign place, we may find ourselves in a perspective of “curiosity” or perspective of “hate” or perspective of “longing for home”.  Any one of those can be a section of your Culture Shock journey, almost like those stages are.  Except that there is one thing you can do with perspectives that you cannot do with stages.  You can change perspectives at will.

That’s right.  If you are stuck in a perspective that’s not working for you, you are free to change it and choose another one — one that would be more empowering.  How?  There is a great exercise for that, but it would take too much space to describe it here.  You can read about it, though, in my Culture Shock book or you can join us for one of the Culture Shock Webinars and learn there.

So, what perspective are you in?  And what perspective would you like to be in?

UPDATE: Following this post I received many queries about my method of managing Culture Shock.  That’s why I decided to offer my innovative THREE STEPS TO MANAGING CULTURE SHOCK AND MAKING TRANSITIONS EASIER presentation over the web.  All you need is access to the internet and a computer.  For more information please click here.

People who enjoyed this post also read:

Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings…Got One?

Seven Behavior Choices of a Happy Expat

A Different Take on Expatriate Motivation

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

How to be a successful expat?

Guest Post by Greg Satell

In an increasingly globalized world, it’s tough to build a career without crossing borders and more and more executives are spending at least a few years overseas.  I’ve worked in foreign countries for more than a decade and I thought it might be helpful to for me to share some of what I’ve learned about being an ex-pat manager.

Focus on technical expertise: Your local employees are going to question everything you do, even more so than in your own country.  They are usually a bit resentful that they have to work with an ex-pat and not someone who shares their nationality, culture and language.  So, at least for the beginning, you will need to emphasize your area of expertise in order to gain their respect.  Once they recognize you as an expert, they will begin to respect your opinion in other areas.

Try to learn the language, but don’t embarrass yourself: Many ex-pats get by without learning the local language at all, but I recommend that you at least make an effort.  Even if you never achieve a high level of proficiency, your local staff will appreciate the gesture and you will be much more aware of your environment.  However, avoid using the local language when you need to be seen in a position of strength.  Unless your proficiency is very high, you will appear childish and not particularly bright.

Don’t hide your cultural identity: Your presence in a foreign office is not just a cultural experience for you, but also for those  with whom you are working.  There’s no point in hiding who you are, nobody is going to confuse you for a local.

Double check your instincts: As an ex-pat, you will tend to use the information that is most easily available:  What you see in your daily life and the people who speak your language.  In both cases, you are being given a warped view of your environment.  In many cases, people will use the language barrier to manipulate you.  You won’t be able to trust your gut feelings as you do in your home country

Re-examine your assumptions: One of the most difficult and gratifying parts of working abroad is that you will be working with people who don’t share your assumptions.  Often, when you state what is for you an obvious truth, they will ask “why?”  If you think about it honestly you will find the answer is one of three things:

1. There is a good reason that you can explain coherently
2. Your statement was one of several valid options but the one that you expressed became standard for your market.
3. Your statement was either completely wrong or was valid at some time but not anymore.

It is probably this last point that makes working abroad such a valuable and enriching experience.

I hope this has been helpful.  I’m sure others out there also have some tips.  I would love to hear them.

-Greg

Greg Satell is an expatriate media executive with over 10 years experience in board-level management roles. He’s developed and implemented winning online and offline strategies in Poland, Russia and Ukraine.  The original post can be found here.

The homelessness of repatriation

Lately I’ve noticed that there had been a lot of discussions in various expatriate forums (on LinkedIn, Twitter, and others) about the difficulties of repatriation.   And, of course, I have also worked with clients who had repatriated or were facing repatriation. But not until my own recent return home have I felt the full “homelessness” of the experience.

For me there are two kinds of “homelessness”. One has to do with feelings of not belonging — the feelings that come to many of us when we return home after a long expatriation. We find that not only have we changed, but also that our home country has changed. If we fit together before like pieces of a puzzle do, we don’t seem to fit together now. And so we begin the quest of trying to fit in, to belong, to make a “home” — a quest that for many ends up in an overseas stunt again.

And then there is that second “homelessness”. This one is more logistical in nature although it’s no less frustrating. It presents a dilemma for those of us who don’t have a house to come back to and, upon repatriation, have to find a place to live. Having been used to the housing that often differs from what’s available at home — in both quality and character — we go through denial, disappointment, frustration, and finally feelings that “one has to compromise somewhere” all in a span of the first few weeks.

This second “homelessness” is the one that has been affecting me. I’ve been looking for a house for a few weeks now and with each new place that I see I get more and more disillusioned. I try to think where to put the various mementos I’ve accumulated from my expatriate travels, I try to see myself in the new place and imagine it being my “home” for the next few years, and I try to predict if I am ever going to “love” it.

The truth is that I really loved every one of my overseas houses. And I feel that loving the place were you live accounts for a good percentage of your happiness as an expatriate. For in every place you go you thrive to make a home for yourself and your family. A home that will be your sanctuary and support you when things get tough. The same remains true when you repatriate. “Loving” your new home in your old home, or your home country, is important.

And so I am continuing my search for that one place that will speak to me, that one place that I will know I will come to love. What about you? What was your experience like in finding your “new home” in your own country?

People who read this post also read:

What makes repatriation difficult

How to leave without regrets

Moving again?  Need packing “know-how”?

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

Should expatriates be writing?

Before I became an expat I never thought of writing as something I can do on a regular basis and as something I can enjoy. In fact, writing was never my strong point… well, according to my 6th grade Soviet teacher anyway.

But then I moved to my first overseas posting. And even though English was officially my second language and I had to get comfortable writing in it, I started to experiment with the written word. First I wrote extensive letters about what I was experiencing; then I started writing short stories — my first one (the one about buying a car in Uzbekistan) actually made it onto the NPR’s Car Talk website; and later I began to base my fiction on what I saw around me. My writing really took off and I haven’t stopped since.

Recently I read in one of the LinkedIn group discussions that, according to a recent study, expatriation does wonders to one’s creativity. When you move overseas you become more creative — and that increased creativity may express itself in off-the-wall business ideas and/or in nurturing your inner artist either through writing, painting, or any other art form. In my journey both things happened: I took up writing and I created a business.

Reality is stranger than fiction. And who better know it than us — the expatriates — people who on a daily basis experience something new, something we can tell the world about?

What about you? Do you have some short stories in you? Have you been writing about what you see and about what you experience? Someone out there would love to read it, I bet!

People who read this post also read:

Cross-Cultural Intelligence: Tip 6

“What will I miss” list makes it easy to remember

How to leave without regrets

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

Three reasons to become an expatriate

Growing up I never had an opportunity to travel and see the world.  I was born in a country that didn’t let its people go abroad and thus I was effectively cut off from anything that lay beyond the borders of my homeland.  Naturally, as it is with all human beings, the prohibited became an fascination — and I wasn’t of, course, the only one fascinated with seeing what lie beyond.  Most of my generation was just as infatuated as I was.

When I finally broke free and moved to another country, I had all the freedom in the world.  I could travel, see new places, experience new things, and learn.  Travel was no longer prohibited yet the fascination stayed with me.  To this day I am happier when I find myself in a completely new territory with adventure, things to explore, and change to experience.

Later in life, when I learned about values, I realized that my fascination with the “abroad” was the direct result of values that I held and hold dear to this day.  Values such as adventure, newness/change, learning/growth, and challenge are central to my feelings of fulfillment.  And those values are the ones that I was seeking to honor when I embarked on an expatriate lifestyle.

And so here are my reasons for becoming an expatriate in no particular order:

(1) Learning and Growth. Expatriate lifestyle offers you an unmatched opportunity to grow.  Yes, you can read about most places in books, you can watch programs about them on TV, and you can even travel to most places for a vacation.   But you’ll never learn as much about a country and its people as you learn living in their midst.  So, if you have a particular hunger for learning about different places of the world, this might be a reason for you to consider becoming an expat.

(2) Challenge. Surely things can be challenging anywhere, but living in another culture takes the concept of challenge to a whole other level.  So, if you thrive on being challenged to the brim, if you enjoy overcoming difficulties, and if you find yourself being bored in you current place of residence, expatriate lifestyle might for you.

(3) Change. Many people have trouble tolerating change, but I am certainly not one of them.  I even have to move furniture around in my house in order to change something.  I thrive on change — change feeds my creativity, it empowers me, and it creates possibilities.  So if you feel that change is something you crave, becoming an expatriate will definitely help you find it.

What other reasons to become an expatriate are out there?  Any thoughts?

People who enjoyed this article, also read:

What do expats look for?

7 Behavior Choices of a Happy Expat

International Partnerships — How tricky are they?

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.

If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

Different colors of money

Have you ever noticed that it’s often much easier to spend money overseas than at home?  For instance I had no qualms about spending 500 rubles for lunch in Russia but I think twice about spending the same amount in dollars in the US.  Even the Euro – which carries more value than the USD – has been easier to part with than my own home currency.

What makes foreign money different?  Or, rather, why do I react differently to expenditures enumerated in “green” bills?

When I think about it, I realize that for me different money means different feelings about spending money.  Different in that I feel freer to spend and less guilty about spending, when I do so in any other currency but USD.  There appears to be less “baggage” and less anxiety attached to my actions of spending.  I feel more independent and more in control.

So does this mean that at home I feel disempowered, imprisoned, and intimidated by money and spending it?

Maybe a little.  Why?

Because we all grow up listening and taking in the money attitudes that surround us.  Expressions like “money doesn’t grow on trees”, or “there is no free lunch”, or “you have to work hard to earn your living” create a context around money for us.  We think of money as something unattainable, something hard to get, something unfriendly, something cold, and something that our lives depend upon.  This context affects our own attitudes towards money and our feelings towards spending it.

Naturally the context that people create around money changes from culture to culture. And that’s why our attitudes towards money changes when we go abroad, when we leave the realm where that context was created.

I personally like my attitude towards money when I am abroad.  And that’s why I am now trying to recreate it here at home.  I am changing a habit of looking at money from the perspective of lacking and hard and instead choosing to look at it from the perspective of abundant and friendly.  As we all know – what you focus on …expands!

What about you?  How do you relate to spending money when at home or abroad?

People who enjoyed this post also read:

Money Everywhere

Do Expatriates Have the Gimmies?

Flight $500, Hotel $150, Expatriate Reunions…Priceless

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!

What makes repatriation difficult?

For the last few weeks I have been going through the all-consuming process of returning back home after an overseas posting.  First the packing, then the suitcases (which had to include things that somehow didn’t make it into the boxes!), then the long flight home, and then the realization that this is it.  Our overseas adventure is over.

Of course, I realized this seemingly simple fact before – all through the moving and the packing process.  But the emotion of “having left” didn’t fully hit me until now.  It’s not so easy to leave behind a place where you’ve spent four happy years of your life and never long for it.  Especially when your Facebook friends who are still there post little reminders of it every day!

 So what do these feelings of longing for a place that’s become your home have to do with difficulties of repatriation?  Aside from the fact that we experience some sadness from leaving behind a part of our lives, how do these feelings affect our experience back home?

I’ve been watching myself these past few days and I’ve discovered something that I think contributes to a negative experience with repatriation.  The thing is, I’ve been engaging in a lot of comparisons.  Starting from the size and quality of baked goods and ending with how tolerant the society around me is towards dogs, I’ve been criticizing everything.  Statements like “there I’d never have to…”, “this is not how it’s done in…”, “it’d be much better if these people here …” and so on have been populating my speech and my thoughts.  So how am I supposed to move on and start integrating into my new life when I am not even giving it half a chance?

Comparing often means that you come from a place of judgment and a place that leaves very little room for curiosity and exploration.  Because if we already decided that “there” is better than “here”, it’ll be very difficult for us to allow for an opportunity to develop “here”.  If we keep comparing the “there” and the “here”, the “here” will never have a chance in our lives. 

As adults we do a lot of judging and I think we would benefit from taking a cue from our children, who, instead of judging and comparing, look around them with openness and curiosity.  My daughter, while being a little sad and missing the country we just left, is wide open to possibilities that await her here.  She isn’t judging and she isn’t comparing.  She is just living her new life.

So I am going to try to do the same.  I am going to try wearing the “glasses” of curiosity and openness and take off the “glasses” of judgment and comparison.

What about you?  Have you had a similar experience with repatriation?

Copyright © 2009 by Global Coach Center.
If you’d like to reprint this, please do so but make sure you credit us!