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More on http://leanb2bbook.com/ <br><br>26 things learned by going to live and work in Asia for a year.
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26 Things You Can Learn by Living Abroad for a Year What I learned and how it changed me Etienne Garbugli Product Design & Marketing Consultant
I moved to Beijing in January 2011 Note: The plane probably doesn’t go in this direction. :) I arrived in Hong Kong in October 2010 I moved to Singapore in July 2011 I moved back to Canada in October 2011
To evaluate if where I was born is where I wanted to live To travel To take some distance To experience life somewhere else To meet people To come up with a great business idea To learn To discover and understand another culture To work on myself To get some experience working abroad To take a step back and discover what I want to do
1 It’s fairly easy to move and take a new place as your home
2 It’s also easy to meet people
3 Some relationships last, others are just circumstantial
4 Expat friends are easy to find. Local friends much harder
5 Without speaking the language, it’s hard to fully understand and integrate a culture
6 It’s also very hard to avoid isolation
7 But, you’ll never be as local as the local people; keep your identity
8 People are surprisingly nice and helpful everywhere
9 But, sense of humor & metaphors can easily be misunderstood
You soon realize that being abroad changes your perspective of where you come from 10
And that life goes on with (or without) you 11
We don’t change too much when travelling but, things change even less back home 12
You’ll probably miss your friends and family; it’s much harder to center your life without them 13
But, having things or people waiting for you somewhere else makes it easy to give up 14
Comfort comes when you get your own place 15
But, like everywhere else, routine sets in as you work 16
And you realize that it’s hard to have time AND money to travel no matter where you are 17
AND that, being close to a destination does not necessarily mean you’ll actually get to see it 18
Abroad, the most dangerous thing is the downward spiral; when everything starts to suck 19
It can be frustrating dealing with and understanding people from another culture but, people are rarely racist 20
It’s just naturally harder to trust and understand people from another culture 21
Since we naturally see things through our own culture’s eyes 22
Which doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically be friends with people from your home culture (many seem to think so) 23
But, ultimately, there’s good and bad things everywhere; maybe another city would suit you better 24
Moving away is not about having fears or not; it’s about how well you face your fears… 25
Life is more flexible than we think; with enough work, almost everything in life can be changed 26
Thank you. Answer ? Phone 514-298-7102 Email etienne@leanb2bbook.com No No Yes Availabl e to meet? Enough info? Yes Yes No Etienne Garbugli Product Design Consultant Blog leanb2bbook.com Twitter @egarbugli LinkedIn /in/egarbugli