One more thing I would do differently …

I need to add one more thing to my list of things I would have done differently and that is to read (and re-read regularly) A Career in Your Suitcase which has just been republished by it’s original author, Jo Parfitt, and her new collaborator, Colleen Reichrath-Smith.

If you read an earlier version of Jo’s book, as I did, then don’t think you can skip this new edition.  It has been completely reworked and updated, and Colleen’s contribution as a professional career consultant is considerable..

This book should be mandatory reading for any accompanying partner and I hope HR departments and relocation companies are stocking up on copies, to hand out to the families they work with.  Most first-time expats don’t realize the long-term impact that relocation can have on careers and identities, but this book provides the tools you need to assess, plan and monitor your future life path.

I particularly like the holistic definition of career which is used (adopted from the Canadian Career Development Foundation):

• Our life path
• The many roles we play along our life path
• The process by which we become the authors of our own futures and the creators of our own life stories

I also like the pragmatic “this is how you do it” exercises to help you identify not just your skills and interests, but also those which you can realistically hope to use in your present location, given language, work permit and logistical hurdles so often encountered by expat partners.

While many assume that a perfect portable career is self-employed, working from home, I’m pleased the book now gives equal weight and advice for those seeking regular employment and/or freelance assignments, with plenty of up-to-date advice about networking both in the real world and online.

Jo’s earlier editions were aimed primarily at the partners of those who are relocated internationally, but with Colleen’s input, I would now recommend this book to anyone seeking a career change.  In fact it struck me while reading it that there are now many similarities between the careers of expat partners and Generation Y.  Take this quote, for example from a recent article in Forbes Magazine:

“What do you do?” used to be a simple question. Individuals defined themselves by profession: teacher, engineer, pilot. Or by company: Con Edison, NASA, Kodak. But it was always one job, one identity.

Today’s young professionals, however, aren’t as easily categorized. I still can’t figure out what to prioritize on my LinkedIn profile. I am a journalist, marketing consultant, and co-partner for an Internet company. All are equally important to my identity. And my Millennial-aged peers find themselves in similar situations. I don’t know any Millennial who self-identifies using only one “job.” 

Asking an expat partner what she does is pretty much like asking a TCK “where is home?”  The response is usually at least a sentence, if not a paragraph.

A Career in Your Suitcase is very much a workbook, with the emphasis on ‘work.’ It’s filled with detailed exercises and links to online resources as well as detailed bibliographies for each chapter.  Although I downloaded it first as an ebook, I have now gone back and purchased a print edition and would recommend you do the same.

Families in Global Transition Conference 2013: Day 2

Day 2 of the conference I decided on a slower start which unfortunately meant missing out on that day’s Early Bird discussions over breakfast.  I arrived just in time to grab a coffee and something to eat during the announcements before heading off to my first session.

As I chose Eva Lazslo-Herbert’s presentation entitled “Living Whilst Surviving.”  I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but I’d heard rave reviews of her keynote speech at the 2012 conference.  Born in Transylvania she has lived and worked her way across Europe acquiring languages, in the way most of us gather stamps in our passport.  Using her own family history, she spoke to us about their resilience (both emotional and moral) in living through wars, forced relocations and even prison camps.  It was very personal and very moving.  Just some of her wise words:

• The only thing that defines you, is who you think you are
• Live in the moment
• Don’t forget, but do forgive
• Be independent, think what can *I* do?
• Give back
• Love the child you have, not the child you want
• Stop the glorification of busy

From there I moved on to a very hands-on session with Rachel Yates, entitled “Family Focused Assessment in Relocation Planning.”  I’m not a visual or artistic person and was at first a bit skeptical of her approach to needs assessment,  using posters, images, glue and scissors.  Divided into groups at large round tables, we quickly got over our inhibitions as we imagined ourselves as a family moving to Kenya.  As we put together our poster vision of what our lives would be like, we quickly realized we were having meaningful discussions over not just housing (would we live in a glamorous villa or a cramped high rise?) schooling but also what would day-to-day life look like and how much time would we really spend on safaris and lying on tropical beaches?  It was a useful and instructive exercise and a great tool for getting the whole family involved.

My last session of the day was with Elizabeth Liang, a TCK actress and actor on the creative process for writing memoirs.  She took us through a series of writing exercises, which I know worked for many in the room, but if I finding writing hard here on my own at home, doing it in a room full of strangers is totally impossible.  But she did provide is with a detailed hand out and one of these days (yes, really) I will try it all again.

All too soon we reassembled in the main hall for the closing of the Conference.  Ruth Van Reken introduced the closing keynote speaker Leila Buck, who was to speak on the topic of goodbyes.  She gave us an amazing performance, combining suspense, tragedy and humour, describing her hasty departure from Lebanon in 2006 when fighting broke out with Israel.

Having made my own goodbyes I reluctantly headed by metro to the airport.  Unlike many who attend, I don’t make my living working with expat families, but this organization feeds my soul, and I know I will keep returning.

Families in Global Transition Conference 2013: Day 1

As always the Families in Global Transition conference sparked a lot of ideas in me, including ideas for future blog posts, but to start with, here is some straight reporting on the conference itself.

One thing everyone comments on about FIGT is the friendly atmosphere.  Those of us who arrived the night before met up in the hotel lounge and it was impossible to tell who was a newcomer and who was an old-timer as the small group quickly fell into animated conversations over drinks and snacks.

You will never be short of something to do at an FIGT conference.  Even discussions over breakfast are organized by topics of interest to the community.  I hosted one such “Early Bird” on HootSuite, one of my favourite social media tools, which morphed into a short workshop when I found most people at the table had never used it and wanted to learn.  Other topics were Parenting from Afar, Close Neighbours (moving to a neighbouring country), Uplanned Repatriations, The Multicultural Self, Setting up an FIGT Affiliate and Adult TCKs/CCKs.

As soon as breakfast was over the conference was officially opened and we were entranced by Pico Iyer, the keynote speaker for well over an hour.  He is one of that rare breed of successful authors who are also eloquent speakers.  Modest, humorous and very perceptive he rolled from one engaging anecdote to another, all pointing to his central theme that even in our increasingly connected world the distances between us remain and in some instances seem to be increasing.

During the break prior to the first session, I headed straight to the bookstore.  Is it just me, or are more and more good expat books being published every year?  The photo above is of the authors who attended this year’s conference and books by many more were available for sale.

For my first session I chose “We Are a Family Case” presented by researchers Debra Miller, Dr Rebecca Powell and Becky’s cousin, Abigail Thornton.  The write-up sounded a little dry, but the topic of adult Third Culture Kids was of interest and the session itself didn’t disappoint.  Research on Becky Powell’s extended family was the topic, comparing those who had been mobile with those who hadn’t and how they formed and maintained relationships.  Fascinating stuff as I really enjoy content that is based on solid research.

After a buffet lunch (excellent food this year!), we gathered in the main ballroom for a new feature in 2013, 7 Ignite sessions.  Similar in style to short TED talks, these presenters were strictly timed to 6 ½ minutes and I’m hoping their presentations will soon be up on YouTube, so stay tuned for the link.

For my second session I chose Building Cultural Intelligence with Trisha Carter, an Intercultural Psychologist who had travelled all the way from Sydney, Australia.  Having followed her for quite a while via Twitter and her newsletter, it was a thrill to meet her in person.

By now my knees were seriously knocking as I was presenting a third session on expat blogging.  Not only was this my first time as an FIGT presenter but the conference microphone I’d requested for my Skyped-in panelist, Maria Foley, had failed to materialize.  Fortunately the rest of my panel of expat bloggers, Linda Janssen, Norman Viss and Rachel Yates didn’t so much as blink at the prospect of huddling around a spindly desktop microphone so that Maria could hear their contributions.  Expat resiliency won the day!  A post dedicated to this presentation will follow soon.

Sorely in need of a stiff drink, I headed off to the last event of the day, an evening reception and was delighted to find that both the drink and canapés were complimentary.  I have to admit that I’m no good at mingling in large groups, but again the organizers had planned an image-matching activity to help us break the ice and meet new people without feeling intimidated or foolish.

Buoyed by the warmth of my favourite expat tribe and not having fainted with fear during my session, I headed off for dinner with friends.  More about Day 2 in a future post.

Evernote for Expats

I’m a scheduler and an organizer.  I’m one of those people who has to have not just a Plan B, but Plans C through Z.  They’re my security blanket.  Once I know I have all my bases covered I’m willing to take all kinds of leaps of faith, including moving halfway across the world to place I can’t even find on the map.

I’m also a bit of a geek, and looking back I’m amazed at how I managed so many moves without the aid of the tools I take for granted today.  One which I’ve fallen in love with over the past few months is Evernote.  It’s cloud based (although you can download it to your computer if you have the paid, upgraded version) and is a way to store information so you can access it on any type of computer, tablet or smartphone.

I registered about a year ago, took a quick look, but couldn’t see an immediate use for it, so left it alone.  Perhaps you did too.  But recently I started using it at work and quickly realized that this could be a powerful tool for expats.

Evernote’s tagline is “Remember everthing” and that truly is what it’s about.  It’s strengths are the many types of information you can store in it (text, emails, pdfs, photos, web pages, bits of web pages, photos, sound files, videos…) coupled with the ease of putting that information into Evernote and finding it again when you need it.  Let me give you some examples.

I’m going to the Families in Global Transition Conference next month and no doubt will be meeting lots of new people and picking up a lot of business cards.  As soon as I get home I throw them in a desk drawer, along with all the other cards I’ve been meaning to enter into my contact list.  Three months later I’d like to contact someone.  But what was her name?  She worked for a relocation company in New York didn’t she?  Where are those cards?  Frantic rummaging ensues.

Using Evernote I just whip out my smartphone, open the Evernote app, take a quick photo of her card and hand it back to her.  Three months later I open Evernote search for “New York” or “relocation” and Evernote searches for those key words – including the text on her card as well as anything I may have hand written on the card and I’ve found it.  Instantly.

Another example.  Imagine I’m apartment hunting in Dubai.  I have 2 days of appointments set up with several different real estate agents.  I set off in 45⁰ heat, armed with a notebook and camera (I’m organized, remember).  At the end of the second day I sit down with my damp and crumpled notebook, filled with notes like “#1505 blue, no “unreadable scribble”, laundry, Bella, 130K”.  The photos would be helpful if only I knew which apartment was which.  Did that great view go with the one with the hideous bathroom or the one with the dark kitchen?  And who the hell was Bella?  What did I do with her card?

Using Evernote I could leave the notebook and camera at home.  All I need is my tablet or smartphone.  My only preparation is to create a “notebook” (file folder) in Evernote for each property I plan to see.  For each one I

• snap a photo of the agent’s card
• snap a photo of the building from the outside and the number on the apartment door
• take photos inside the unit and of the view
• make a short voice recording of my impressions of each property and the answers to any questions I ask the agent

At the end of the 2 days I’ve got all my information automatically organized into individual notebooks and am ready to make a decision.  Better yet, I can instantly share those notebooks with my spouse who (of course) is out of the country on a business trip.

Imagine how great this would be for school visits.  In addition to photos and audio notes,  I could prepare by clipping bits of the school website and putting them straight into Evernote from my browser.  The email they sent confirming my appointment I could forward straight into the relevant Evernote notebook.  The pdf attachment?  That’s there too.  All in one spot, easy to access anywhere I’ve got internet access.

Copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, academic certificates?  Scanned and stored in Evernote, ready to print out or email whenever and wherever I need them.

Starting a shopping list for the next home visit?  Photos, clipped web pages, or even just hand written notes, all stored in one “Home Visit” notebook and tagged (yes you can tag notes, just like blog posts) with, say “drug store” or “grocery store” for example.  Everything will be there on your phone, just when you need it.

Now are you starting to see why I’m a fan? And no, I don’t work for Evernote or benefit from promoting it.  I just think it’s really useful, particularly for expats.

Do you have an expat escape plan?

“Get out, the building’s on fire!”  What would you do?  What would you grab?  How many of us have given that serious thought, much less planned for it?

When we moved to Baku we were advised to always have a wad of cash on hand (in an easily convertible currency) in case we had to leave in a hurry.  This was 1996 and incoming BA flights diverted to avoid flying over Grozny, just the other side of the Caucus mountains and Azerbaijan itself had only relatively recently signed a truce with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

We called it our “running way money,” and we kept it under the ice cream in our chest freezer, the only place in the apartment with a lock and key.  One thousand dollars of cold hard cash (quite literally) in new bills.

Fortunately we never had to evacuate for security reasons.  In fact Baku turned out to be a very safe place to live, but there was a morning when we did have to get out in a hurry.

At 6am one Tuesday morning we woke to a loud pounding on our door.  A quick glance through the peep hole revealed my American neighbour, clad in her nightgown.  “The building’s on fire, we need to get out.  Now!”  I could already see tendrils of smoke drifting up the stairwell and the alarm in her eyes told me this was serious.  I shook my son awake (he’d sleep through WW3).  My husband grabbed the passports and the running away money.  I grabbed my jewelry roll in the bedside drawer together with our coats and we headed out the door.

The source of the smoke was an electrical fire in a single storey garage attached to the back of the building.  Hardly surprising given the poor state of the wiring (click on the photo to enlarge it and you’ll what I mean).  In fact it’s amazing we didn’t have fires every day.  You’ll be glad to hear it was extinguished before it did any damage to the main building and soon we were able to return to our apartment and get on with our day.

But this episode highlighted for me the importance of always knowing a) how to exit my home quickly and b) exactly what to grab and take with me.  We started keeping everything in one place (passports, money, important documents), together with a bag we could quickly scoop it all into.

While this is good policy for anyone, it’s particularly important for expats.  Passports usually contain your residence visas and important documents issued in your home country may be impossible to replace without showing up in person.

Present day technology, including cloud storage and mobile devices has given us many more options for keeping things safe.  Documents can be scanned, photos, music, videos and even books can be digital and stored online.  My mission in 2012 was to make my life as paperless as possible and I’ll be sharing some of my favourite tools and experiences in upcoming posts.

Career choices and the expat partner: what I could have done differently

“If only I’d known then what I know now” is not something I say often, partly because I don’t believe in crying over spilt milk and partly because the world changes so rapidly that often today’s solutions just weren’t available back then.  But an upcoming webinar on portable careers for expat spouses has got me thinking about what I would do the same and what I would do differently with my career, if I were to do it all again today.

Same: I would be a stay-at-home mom until my son finished school.  I am forever thankful that I had an opportunity to be both a working mum (before expatriation) and a SAHM (during expatriation) and to experience the joys and frustrations of both.

Different: I would have studied more while I wasn’t working.  Distance learning when we first went overseas would have been difficult but not impossible, these days it’s just a mouse click away and the choices are almost limitless.

Same: I would study the local language.  Even though I know now that hell will freeze over before I could work in another language, it is such an insight into the local culture and even just a few words and phrases make everyday life so much easier.

Different: I would find a mentor or coach to brainstorm with from time-to-time.  Like many expats I had no idea how long we would live overseas.  Even those who have fixed term contracts often find they are extended or cancelled.  I had never heard the term “portable career” and I didn’t realize that once my spouse had an international resume, more international assignments would follow.  Years slip away before you realize what’s happening.  If I were doing it again I would conduct an annual review of my situation and goals, ideally with someone who has expat experience, an unbiased opinion and enough guts to tell me what I need to hear (in other words, probably not a close friend)!

Same: I would do a lot of volunteer work.  Looking back I can see I learned a hell of a lot doing things I didn’t get paid for and with a bit of creativity they can be made to look quite impressive on a resume. Nobody ever asks how much you got paid.

Different: When I did finally return to the paid workforce overseas I would have looked harder for something related to my original profession.  My personal experience, and what I’ve heard anecdotally from other expats, is that starting a new career when overseas often doesn’t translate well when you return home.  I found prospective employers here far more interested in what I did in Canada 15 years ago than what I did in Dubai 1 year ago.  But maybe that’s just me and Canada, and for those who never return to their country of origin it wouldn’t apply anyway.

The webinar, “Creating a Flexible Career for the Accompanying Spouse,” is hosted by a new Canadian group, Spouses Without Borders, but is open to anyone who has an interest in this topic.  It is on Tuesday, January 29 at 8.30am EST (1.30pm UK time) and you can register here.   I’m looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

Out of my comfort zone

When I tell my friends that I’ve battled shyness most of my life, many of them laugh in disbelief.

I was the toddler who cried when the bus driver said hello to her and I earned the nickname of “Noddy” when I went the entire first semester of school not speaking to the teacher (I would just nod my head).  My mother often recounted the day I finally rushed home “Mummy, mummy, I SPOKE to Miss Dixon!”  “That’s nice, what did you say?”  “Yes, Miss Dixon” I said with pride.

Making friends for me was always a slow and painful exercise but was made much easier once I married a sociable extrovert.  However when we moved overseas, I suddenly found myself alone and friendless while he was at work.  My shy inner-child re-emerged.  Fortunately in most of the places we lived I found friendly fellow expats who reached out and drew me into tight and friendly expat communities.  In time, I felt comfortable enough to extend my own hand of friendship to newcomers and locals alike.

In Dubai I started hosting a weekly coffee morning for expatriate women.  For the first one there were 5 of us (all friends I had coerced to attend) but soon the group grew to 20 or more.  From time to time I had announcements to make, gulp, I was public speaking!

Looking for a portable career, I enrolled in the CELTA course to learn how to teach English as second language.  It was very intense, very hands-on, involving a lot of teaching practice.  To say I was petrified to stand in front of class of 20 Emirati college students is an understatement.  But I did it and I survived.

As a volunteer I got involved organizing the Terry Fox Run for cancer research. When I  took over as Committee Chair one of my responsibilities was to take the microphone at the starting line to thank all the volunteers.  As I looked out over a crowd of 12,000 people, my relief that we had a record turnout helped overcome my wobbly knees.

Each of these experiences was a valuable step along the road to overcoming my shyness and none would have happened if we hadn’t moved overseas.

This year I’ve been strong-armed asked to moderate a panel discussion on expat blogging at the Families in Global Transition Conference in March. Fortunately the panelists are well known to me, as (I hope) will many of the audience. Inside that little girl is quaking at the prospect, I just hope I can shut her up with cookies.

A Middle Eastern Christmas

They say the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and that certainly seems to be true in our household this Christmas.

Christmases overseas were spent pursuing the British traditions of my childhood – a decorated tree with gifts piled beneath it and dinner of turkey with stuffing, brussel sprouts, roasted potatoes and of course mince pies and Christmas cake in abundance.  None of which was an easy achievement when living in Muslim countries and often involved shopping for vital ingredients and supplies while on summer vacation (Christmas crackers and mincemeat in August?  Hmmm).  It also involved learning to cook a lot of things from scratch, as there were no microwave stuffing mixes or pre-basted turkeys in Baku in 1998.

When we first returned to Canada I enjoyed the convenience of having everything to hand just when I needed it, but this year, having cooked a turkey dinner at Thanksgiving, the thought of doing it all again so soon seemed, well, blah.  A foodie friend (who will also be my guest on Christmas Day) suggested a lamb tagine and the idea caught my imagination.  Why not a Middle Eastern themed Christmas Dinner?  After all, Mary & Joseph wouldn’t have been tucking into turkey and cranberry sauce all those years ago, more like hummus and tabouleh.

So now here I am again tracking down elusive ingredients like tahini paste, sumach and rose water as I prepare for the big day next week.  I’ve pulled out the cook book which friends in Dubai gave me as a leaving present and I’m chopping and blending as I cook from scratch, just as I did in my days in Baku.

Seems no matter where I am, I’m thinking of someplace else.

My own Road Home

I can’t say that I often get a flash of insight about my own life when watching a film, but I did the first time I saw ‘The Road Home’ at the Families in Global Transition Conference a couple of years ago.

The plot summary on the DVD case tells us “Bullied for insisting he is British despite his Indian heritage, ten-year old Pico runs away from a boarding school in the Himalayas, determined to return to his home in England.  As he journeys through a landscape unknown to him Pico encounters others who mistake him for an Indian boy, forcing him to face the painful truth that the world does not see him the way he sees himself.”

The film mirrors Director, Rahul Gandotra’s, own struggle with his identity, a common issue for Third Culture Kids and his Director’s commentary on the DVD version is well worth watching, once you’ve seen the movie.

Although I’m not a TCK, the notion that the world doesn’t see me the way I see myself lit up a large light bulb in my head.  I immigrated to Canada from the UK in my mid-twenties, took up citizenship as soon as I could and like many immigrants worked fervently to “become Canadian.”  I adopted Canadian English, learned to cross-country ski and bought a BBQ for my back yard :p.  But the one thing I never mastered was a Canadian accent.

So 17 years later when we started travelling again I discovered that, amongst the English speaking expat community at least, I was instantly pegged as British as soon as I opened my mouth.  Even the locals saw me that way sometimes.  And yet that wasn’t how I wanted to be seen.  I was Canadian dammit.  I’d worked hard to become Canadian.  My son was a born-in-Canada Cannuck.  Why couldn’t they see I wasn’t British anymore? I felt a lot like a TCK when asked the question “where are you from?”  “Well, I was born in England, but …” I would begin.

Thirty years after swearing my oath of allegiance to Canada, watching The Road Home  made me realize what I should have known all along, I am both Canadian AND British. I don’t have to stop being British in order to be Canadian.  Just like Pico, I don’t have to choosem; it’s OK to be both.  Duh.  Boy, It certainly took a long time for that penny to drop.

The film, which I highly recommend is now available for purchase or rent.  You’ll find all the information on the The Road Home website.

Online Support Groups: Facebook

In my last post about the Online Coffee group, I mentioned that they also had a Facebook group. It was set up to a) promote the online chats and b) continue the conversation in-between.

Facebook groups are a excellent way to provide free online support for expats.  Why?

• A large number of expats are on Facebook. 
• Groups can be ‘open’ (totally public, anyone can join and all posts are visible) ‘closed’ (an admin person grants access and only members can see posts, but someone searching FB can find the group and read its official description) or ‘private’ (similar to ‘closed’ except it cannot be found in search)
• No matter what the settings, groups “feel” more secure and friendly than FB pages, so conversation flows more freely
• Posts in groups are more likely to appear on your Home Feed than pages you’ve liked, so they are more visible to members, thus increasing participation
• Apart from the Expat Partners Online Coffee group, I also belong to the Toronto Newcomers Club FB group, which is restricted to club members only. They have a lot of real world activities, and the FB group represent less than half the members but it offers useful location-specific support such as, “where can I buy…” “have you seen this exhibition… “here are the photos from yesterday’s event …” Some relocation providers and companies set up groups for transferring employees, which sounds like a good idea, allowing families to ‘meet’ prior to departure and exchange information with those already on location.

Search for “expat” on Facebook and then select “Groups” from the left hand sidebar to narrow it down and you’ll find literally hundreds of groups, some with a handful of members and some with thousands.  But if there’s still nothing to meet your needs, why not start your own?  Technically it’s very easy, but there are a few things to bear in mind:

• Choose which kind of group will serve your needs (open, closed, private)
• Decide who will be eligible to join
• Create some guidelines for posting and publish them in the group as a document, it may be obvious to you that it’s not appropriate to promote your cousin’s business, but someone’s gonna do it! 
• More than than one admin is highly recommended. Quite apart from sharing the responsibility, I once deleted myself accidentally and needed someone to let me back in!
• Someone needs to monitor the group at least once a day, every day
• At the beginning you need to “seed” the group with posts, images and articles to generate discussion. 
• Similarly, like and comment on posts to encourage participation

Facebook groups can be a useful tool for offering friendship and mutual support. They work well for people with a shared interest who are separated by distance and also for those who meet face-to-face regularly but still want to connect in between meetings. Just remember to step away from that screen every now and again