There are a lot of stories about the spouses/partners of diplomats and foreign executives who find themselves frustrated and nervous when they are relocated with their loved ones to a new and different culture. Challenges with the social norms and the language can be daunting especially for people who have dedicated a large amount of their time and energy to learning the business practices of their home country. However, if you learn to view your situation as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, you'll soon recognize what a tremendous advantage it is to your professional life to have spent time on foreign soil.
As the wife of a UN representative, I found myself transplanted from my native Paraguay to the massive city of New York. Because of the language barrier, I quickly found that I couldn't conduct business the way I had been accustomed to back at home. I decided that even if I wasn't able to make any money at first, I should make every effort to assimilate with the local culture and community, so I decided to volunteer as a Spanish teacher at the Brooklyn Public Library.
My first challenge was with how to personally perceive my status as a volunteer. In Paraguay I had been a working professional with a good job, so I wasn't accustomed to giving away my time for free. However, I soon realized that I could consider the time I spent as a volunteer as a free cultural training exercise. Although I wasn't yet earning a paycheck, I was making use of my time by networking and making friends. Furthermore, my volunteer time was filling what would have otherwise been an unsightly gap in my resume, and it was giving me the opportunity to demonstrate my value in a non-stressful environment.
It was only a matter of time before one of my students suggested that I take on a position teaching at her school, this time with pay. That's when I started to work teaching Spanish to the staff, teachers, and PTA of a school in Brooklyn. To get private students, I designed flyers and posted them in the different coffee stores of the beautiful Park Slope. This gave me the opportunity to sample the various gourmet cafes of the district which was especially enjoyable!
However, I didn't stop there. The more I was involved with the community, the more I perceived a need for the type of business consultation work that I used to do back in Paraguay as a corporate trainer. Through networking with social groups that I learned about at the library such as the Hispanic Professionals Networking Group in NY, I became aware of an entire Latin community. From there it took only a little more research to discover that the members of this community were extremely excited about the possibility of getting some business advice in their native Spanish. I began offering my services as a corporate consultant and my new business flourished almost instantly. I also designed workshops and presented them to the library. The library approved of these workshops and hired me to present them. So, as you can see, volunteering opened the doors for a variety of paying positions.
It was easy to work for me in NY because my husband is an American citizen, and I eventually got my US citizenship while I lived there. However, many diplomats find themselves unable to work due to their migratory status. If this is the case for you, I suggest that you continue as a volunteer and use your expatriate experience as a cultural learning workshop to obtain skills you can apply when you return home. Also, should your migratory status change, due to your volunteer work you will find yourself in a position to quickly launch a profitable business.
Now I can't guarantee that my exact model will work for a person from Germany living in Brazil, or a person from India who has moved to Canada. But what I'm trying to convey is that no matter where you're from and no matter what your skill set is, there is probably a unique niche out there that only you can fulfill. The trick is to discover the community of your compatriots (of which there are guaranteed to be some) and learn what their needs are, and then to make yourself indispensable.
Packing up and moving to a new and different culture is a daunting and even terrifying prospect, of that there is no debate. However, once you get there you'll surely discover that there are others within the community who share your same doubts and fears and who need your help. By making a few simple efforts and injecting yourself into your new situation as a volunteer, you will quickly be able to determine what is the best way for you to contribute to your new home away from home. Making yourself indispensable is the essence of any good business practice, and the rewards you will gain from successfully adapting will be skills that will greatly augment your effectiveness even when you return to your native shores.
My challenge now is to improve my business and maintain it as a portable occupation that I can run no matter where I travel to. With this goal in mind I am working very hard on setting up a global cross-cultural communication service, which offers and provides intercultural training courses designed to help people gain confidence in building good and effective relationships with the Latin American market.
For more information on these services, please visit my web page at:
