Where will a globe trotter end up?
Oh this is a question for an expat!
London – to go home I guess
San Diego and San Francisco – love the lifestyle and locations
Sydney – as you have to live there once in life
Hong Kong – similar to Sydney
New York – has to be done
Buenos Aires – to learn how to Tango properly!
Paris – to see more of my brother
York – as I've always loved that city and its history
Expat and a confirmed Tea drinker
Being a British Expat it has to be TEA! Strong, hot, with milk and occasionally with a spoon of sugar. Builders tea.
Funny when living in London what did I drink – cappuccino, latte, etc from large take away cups from trendy coffee bars.
Now having a proper (as I deem it) cup of tea has more significance. Here in the Netherlands, tea is made by a quick dip of a tea bag of no strength into luke warm water – whether herbal or black tea. And served without milk. I can drink tasty herbal tea or fresh mint leaves diffused by hot water but I gotta to have strong tasty black tea to make what I consider a proper cup of tea. Again tea bags or tea leaves I like I have to bring back from UK or Ireland of have imported from tea specialists. Hence why a good cup of tea has more significance whilst living overseas.
A nice cup of tea always makes things better 
Recently a lovely friend, who repatriated back to the US after 3 years in the Netherlands last year, shared how her repatriation was going. I found her honesty and sharing so moving and asked her if I could share parts of her blog as I felt there was great value for other expatriates who may be facing or going through repatriation or “re-entry blues”. She heartily agreed and I just want to say that’s she is fine and finding her way up and out of the “blues”.
To know that feeling blue and lost in the first year of being “home” is normal and others go through it can help. Remember how you first felt when you moved overseas – yes its similar feelings on going home – they take time to process and understand. Keeping active and engaged are important elements of coping.
Today marks the six month anniversary of my arrival back… It was at our six month mark after our move to the Netherlands that we came back to Seattle on vacation, and it was at that time that things started turning around for us. The misery that had been a big part of transitioning let up and we started doing more and being happier. I’ve been looking to this day to be the turn-around point for myself. I’m hopeful, most of the time, that this point will mark the beginning of the upswing back to my normal happy.
Because, frankly, it’s been pretty tough. I’ve been lonely and disconnected, unhappy and overwhelmed, burying myself in my vices and refusing all too often to do the writing and running that keep me on an even keel. I have read well over a hundred books, played way too much spider (and deleted it from my phone dozens of times), and spent hours and hours getting our music library in shape despite the urgency of other tasks.
…I hurried to get our Christmas picture taken in early December, then got the letters folded in with the pictures before Christmas, and they have been sitting on a shelf waiting for labels and stamps ever since. I have allowed my e-mail box to stuff itself until I am immobile (again), and I have nearly ceased activity on Facebook not because I haven’t craved the connection, but because I felt stupid, incapable, guilty, and unworthy. I am frustrated by my failings and my feelings. I have been impatient with myself and unkind in ways I wouldn’t tolerate in anyone else. I am ready for all of that to change…
I am making progress. I am running more. I am starting to make the personal and social connections that will keep me from feeling invisible at the schoolyard and at home. The weather is helping and I am able to work in the garden, something that gives me calm and satisfaction. Things feels more possible…
As one road ends another begins?
… I can bulldoze through obstacles that might otherwise stop me if I spent time beating myself up because I wasn’t doing everything at once.
So thank you my friend for sharing the truth, the challenges, the thoughts and the fact that it happens but does get better.
For my friend and other expats: I know you have the strength to get through this. As an expat you challenged yourself and learnt a great deal about who you are. Use that knowledge to ease yourself during this transition and remember BE KIND TO YOURSELF
Acknowledging culture and history – a view of St Patricks from the expat world.
Being half Irish and the mum of an Irish born son I can't say we don't celebrate but we don't do it to Dublin standards!!! T went to school today in his Ireland rugby shirt and his teacher was disappointed that I hadn't dressed up….well if my mum doesn't send me shamrock what am I too do!
Funnily I was considering that I "celebrate" or mark this date more now I live abroad and have a child then when I was a child or young single woman. Why is that – now I want my son to know about his heritage and being abroad makes heritage more important than when you live there with it? Now I get why my mother and grandmother send shamrock and St Patrick's day cards – to keep the cultural heritage that family members share no matter where they are in the world.
So enjoy your St Patrick's Day the way you celebrate and honour it.
Slainte!
Stress in kids
What’s making your child stressed?
Write down possibilities. Consider how you can help them?
It may be possible to identify personal stressors from this exercise too and perhaps you can work on them together with the child.
Try to avoid showing your own anxieties as children pick up on them.
Encourage your child to make their own decisions on how to act within limits you’ve set with them.
Talk through pros’ and cons and consequences of the choices.
Try not to pressurise to get it right first time.
Trial and error is important in developing coping skills.
There are 4 signs of stress:
Fight behaviour
Resisting change,
Preferring what they know is safe and familiar
Unlikely to take any sort risks
Flight behaviour
May avoid something by doing something else, even something they dislike doing.
May pretend to be ill or tired
Avoids eye contact with adults
May do safe things again and again
May stay on the edge of groups
Freeze behaviour
Unable to speak or do anything when they are put on the spot in some way
Goes blank when asked a question to which they know the answer
Flock behaviour
Wants to be friends
Wants to be like friends, not to stand out in the crowd
Can lead to dumbing down, as “its cooler”
Having fun together - supporting each other
Development Needs of Children
Remember there are development needs, which children need to have met. Mia Keller Pringle in the Needs of Children (1980) suggests the following:
The need for love and security
The need for new experiences
The need for praise and encouragement
The need for responsibility
If you can meet these during your time as an expatriate and look at the opportunities that are around you to do so, then you will be raising an incredible human being with an ability to be communicative, empathetic and adaptive due to the experience of living abroad.
This blog is part of an article that was one of the first featured on IamExpat Netherlands when it launched in January 2010. If you’d like to read the whole article
Nicola McCall MCIPD is an expatriate coach based in the Netherlands since 2004. She is the mother of an Irish born, Dutch speaking English boy who gets on planes like he was taking a bus and is a pupil at an International Primary School in Hilversum. www.livelifenowcoaching.com
Yes I am – a surprise thought that became a fulfilling activity!
I have and I did. In 2006 I started Live Life Now Coaching – english coaching for expatriates based in the Netherlands or overseas. I did this as I realised I wasn't returning to the UK and my former HR career due to my partner's work overseas – he's been based in the Netherlands since 2004 and I needed an outlet for my skills and "self identity" as well as realising how coaching could benefit other expatriates. I'm glad I did it and I love how my business has allowed me to meet many other expatriates from differing walks of life and allowed me opportunities to be involved in projects that I never would have done if working in HR in UK! I also love that my business works in conjunction with my lifestyle both as expat in being a portable career and with my role as a parent.
A spider? Mindfulness and purpose in making its web - symbolic of creating meaning and happiness in yours?
As many of us begin a New Year looking for meaning and purpose in our lives, I recently heard about this visit that I felt I should share.
I think the opportunities to hear a Buddhist Lama speaking on 3rd and 4th February on the topics of mindfulness and on creating meaning and happiness in life may be of great interest to members of both the International and Dutch communities in the Hilversum and Baarn areas.
Tibetan Buddhist Lama, Geshe Pema Dorjee, is visiting the Netherlands for the first time from Dharamsala, India. Pema Dorjee is the director of the Bodong Research and Publication Center in Dharamsala, where he is responsible for reviving and promoting the Bodong Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, on the advice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He has previously been Director of the Tibetan Children’s Village School (TCV) and Principal of the College for Higher Tibetan Studies Sarah, both located in Dharamsala.
Geshe Pema Dorjee has since 1997 travelled to many countries of the world to give teachings, retreats and workshops and to raise funds for his humanitarian work and charitable projects in the North of India and Nepal. You can find more information on Geshe Pema Dorjee attached.
Please come and let yourself be inspired at the following talks
Thursday, 3rd February, 2011:
20:00 – 22:00: MINDFULNESS
How to Create Mindfulness and Compassion in our Western Culture.
Venue: MEC SPIRIT, Javalaan 24, 3742 CP BAARN
Registration: bodong.mindfulness@gmail.com by 31st January, 2011 (limited seating).
Admission: € 20 p.p.
Friday, 4th February, 2011:
19:30 – 22:00: CREATE MEANING AND HAPPINESS IN YOUR LIFE
Venue: VIOLENSCHOOL IPS, Rembrandtlaan 30, HILVERSUM
Registration: bodong.lumla@gmail.com by 31st January, 2011 (limited seating).
Admission: €20 p.p.
Please note the two different email addresses for registration.
All proceeds from both events will go towards the building of a Nunnery/Girl’s School in Lumla, Arrunachal Pradesh, India (further information on project attached).
The questions below are powerful in helping you to reflect on what has happened in the past 12 months. They may not all have an answer but consider them and see what comes to mind for you. Have fun with it too!
What was your biggest challenge in 2010?
What qualities did you draw upon to meet this challenge?
What have your achievements been this year? What are you most proud of?
Which project or commitment could you let go of in order to release energy and time to spend on something joyful this coming year?
Which people do you most value in your life? How can you spend more time with them in 2011?
What is your greatest learning this year?
In 10 years time how do you want to remember 2011? It was the year you did what?
HAVE A SUCCESSFUL, FULFILLING AND HEALTHY 2011!
I recently was interviewed by Expat Alley – another excellent blog for expat information from the “mouths” and experience of other expats. Hope you enjoy learning a little more about me and where I live in the Netherlands by clicking on the link below and check out other interviews on the site too – there are some amazing expat stories and lives out there in the world!
Expat Coach. Amersfoort Netherlands. Expat Alley Interview. Nicola McCall.
In our third and final interview Heather looks to the future impact and benefit that Expat Coaching can have in business and on the expatriates personally as well as how she would like The Expat Coach Association and The Expat Coach Directory to be perceived.
In the short time since we did this interview, Heather has put much energy and work into developing further projects for the Association and Directory. One of the projects I’m happy to be a part of and have championed in a recent blog is that of The Expatriate Coaching Challenge, which is to source an international organisation (or number of) to take part in using and then measuring the impact that Expatriate Coaching has on its expatriate employees, their roles, their productivity, their assignment fulfillment and to the organisation’s Return on Investment (ROI) and bottom-line. Hard and soft benefits to be measured and I have no doubt they will impact.
If Reader, you as an expatriate think your organisation could participate or you as decision maker in an organisation know you could, please contact either Heather Markel or myself for further information! We’d be delighted to hear from you. (See end for contact details)
I’d like both to be perceived as professional resources that serve the needs of multinational corporations and their employees.
1. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT ORGANISATIONS SHOULD OFFER/ PROVIDE THEIR EXPATRIATES WITH COACHING?
As mentioned above, from a purely business perspective, it’s about protecting their investment. Again, I’m speaking from a “bottom line” perspective here, that organizations would relate to. The other reason they should offer coaching is because if a business expects to be competitive in other regions of the world than their corporate headquarters, they need to be able to blend cultures as they expand, so the coaching becomes imperative.
To meet corporate goals, it is then necessary for them to offer employees coaching to help orient them to the culture shifts they will have to learn and adjust to to be effective in business, and also socially, outside of work, so they can create a life for themselves beyond the office.
2. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BEING COACHED AS AN EXPATRIATE?
Some of the benefits include being able to effectively settle in to a new culture – to feel like they fit in, rather than sticking out like a complete foreigner having no idea how to begin friendships or how to go about blending in. Coaching is also a huge aid in deterring the onset of depression which can arise when moving to a new culture, stemming from the self-imposed isolation that can arise as part of the transition process.
Cross cultural team success - greater productivity and engagement
3. HOW CAN THOSE BE DEMONSTRATED TO AN EXPATRIATE EMPLOYER? DO YOU HAVE ANY EVIDENCE?
There is evidence out there, but I don’t think anyone has a good enough handle on it yet. The biggest statistics out there are Return on Investment (ROI) – the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to send an employee overseas. Combine that with survey results from organizations like Brookfield, which show the rate of assignment failure, and you begin to make “dollars and sense” out of the importance of expatriate coaching.
My hope for our Association is that we can plug into all the resources out there that have, or are developing, statistics to show the cost of the investment in the employee, versus the benefits of the employee staying in an assignment over time, versus money lost when an assignment fails. One of the avenues I’m pursuing is having some questions asked in the annual Expat surveys related to coaching, so we can start raising the profile of this important service.
4. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS ON THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXPAT DIRECTORY AND EXPAT ASSOCIATION? HOW DO YOU WANT IT TO BE PERCEIVED?
As I’ve mentioned above, part of the direction I would like us to head is to help us be more effective working with corporations. I’d like us to plug in to resources and businesses that make logical partnerships for us, and to uncover and bridge the gaps to our being more successful and larger in the world.
I’d like the Directory to become “the single most important and user friendly place to find an Expat Coach”. We’ll need some more feedback from our end-users to make this happen. In the near future, one direction I’d like to go is to add a “search by location” feature, so that people requiring a coach to be on site can easily find one nearby. I think the ability to search by languages spoken is probably another obvious direction.
I’d like both to be perceived as professional resources that serve the needs of multinational corporations and their employees.
5. HOW DO YOU SEE THE MEMBERS DEVELOPING THE GROUPS? HOW CAN THEY BEST SUPPORT THESE INITATIVES?
I think if we keep growing as we have, it may make some sense, in the near future, to have some sort of regional “team leads” that maybe mould the Association in the directions it needs to go.
I think we have to get solid on how we are going to accomplish the tasks we need to, and then I can see there being different leaders for different pieces of the Association so that we can have further reach and success. (Nicola’s comment – this is already happening since the interview!)
6. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE EXPAT DIRECTORY AND EXPAT ASSOCIATION IN 5 YEARS TIME?
I’d like the Directory to be the #1 resource to find an Expat Coach, and probably, between the two, have developed some standard business practices that make it easy for corporations to work with us, as well as a real community – I would LOVE if we could have live meetings, perhaps once or twice a year, in different parts of the world, to really come together and brainstorm in the same room! I can already tell that would be extremely powerful.
7. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE THEIR IMPACT TO BE BEYOND THAT PERIOD?
There is a natural merging that is happening between coaching and cross-cultural training. I think that’s going to become more and more apparent. I’d really like the world to know what an impact for positive change we can all have – think about how culture clashes frequently deter businesses around the world. Imagine bringing in a coach who can help businesses to understand one another through cultural understanding, and help them to create happier lives for transferred employees, which translates into higher productivity all around the globe!
This is another benefit Expatriate coaching can have for BOTH organizations and individuals.
8. IF YOU COULD MAKE ONE CHANGE IN THE WORLD THROUGH CREATING THESE GROUPS WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Ultimately, that being from a different culture is not a deterrent to living anyplace you like, and perhaps one day, helping all cultures to reach a point of mutual understanding and effective collaboration in life and in work!
9. HOW CAN OTHER EXPAT COACHES JOIN THE EXPAT COACH DIRECTORY OR ASSOCIATION?
At present, all they have to do is sign up!
The Expat Association is at www.theexpatcoachassociation.com
and to get listed on the Directory, it’s www.theexpatcoachdirectory.com/GetListed
Thank you Heather for the interview and your keen belief and passion to see Expatriate Coaching impacting on the success of Expatriate assignments for both international business and the expatriates individually. I wish you and the Association and Directory every success with The Expatriate Coaching Challenge.
If you or your business would be interested in knowing more about participating in The Expatriate Coaching Challenge please contact either myself via the comments box below or email expatriatecoach@livelifenowcoaching.com
OR contact Heather Markel via email heather@culturetransition.com
