Life

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Don’t Treat Others As You Want To Be Treated

Since I was a kid I was told to treat others the way I wanted to be treated by them. It always felt like a great advice and a common wisdom worth following. And so I lived by this motto for a long time. Until I didn’t.

Common wisdom

The fallacy of this statement is in the assumption that we are all the same, have the same wants and needs. But we don’t. Each of us is different and only because I like something it doesn’t mean you will like it too. By treating you the way I want to be treated I’m forcing you to accept my world view and I don’t respect you as an individual.

For example, I’m a internally motivated introvert. I don’t need external praise. In fact, I feel very uncomfortable when I’m getting one and often don’t know what to say in response. I definitely don’t like being put on a pedestal to the spotlight and having songs sang in my name. Because of that mindset, I always struggled to praise other people in my team. I appreciate what they are doing, but I had to be reminded to express this so they know that I know. It just doesn’t come naturally to me because I don’t have the same need. However, some people really enjoy when you express your gratitude in words and in public. I know this and that means I shouldn’t treat them the way I want to be treated.

Let’s look at this scenario. Each of us has a different expectations from life. We have different needs and various stages of our lives. Because of my educational background, and my life journey I put huge emphasis of continuous education and believe that one should never stop learning to be better and better at his profession. I believe each of us should have it as one of the priorities in life. But guess what. I don’t have kids and if you do, chances are that your priority might be to give the best education possible not to yourself but to your kids. If I’m your manager and treat you the way I want to be treated I’m putting you to a position to choose between yourself and your kids. Ouch.

While the “treat others the way you want to be treated” maxim works reasonably well on the general level, for example, we all want to be treated fairly and with respect, it may not work that well when you get down to smaller more specific details.

Treating others the way they need to be treated

If you are in a leadership position, the next step in evolution is to realize that your job as a manager is to help your team grow. You need to treat your team the way they need to be treated. What I mean by that?

Let’s look at this example. You have a team member who is not doing a particularly good job. Since you like it when people are nice to you, and you want your team treat the same way, you will be nice to this person. You will try to give him feedback about his performance in a “nice” manner, avoid conflict, make sure he doesn’t feel bad. Chances are that you will be sugar coating your feedback so much that the person will never get the message. Did you help him? Not really. What that person needs is for you to be “brutally clear” with him about what he needs to work on to get better.

Treating others the way they want to be treated

And the final step? What about treating others not the way “you” want to be treated but the way “they” want to be treated? To be a good manager and a leader you should do you best to understand your people. You should understand what is important for them, and why it is important. You should know what they need, and why. You should also know what their life ambitions are and help them to reach these. Only when you know them, you know how they want to be treated and you can make your best effort to treat them that way. Why? If you do that, your team will know that you care and they will care back.

Now you can see that treating others the way you want to be treated is flawed. But is it really so useless? Not necessarily. It is a great thing to do when you meet someone for the first time. If you don’t know anything about other people then treating them the way you want to be treated is the best and least risky approach. Just keep in mind that your goal is to learn more about them and ultimately treat them the way they want to be treated.

 

What’s your take on the topic? Do you treat others as you want to be treated or as they want to be treated?

Originally posted on LinkedIn.

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Excuses That Turn Us Into Jerks

Most of us worked with people or reported to managers who acted as jerks. Most of us hated these interactions and couldn’t understand why would anyone act in such antisocial, immoral, or abusive ways. In Why Good Employees Become Bad Managers I talked about how great employees can turn into bad managers. I talked about the most common causes and some tricks how to prevent such situations. But when we are moralizing about others have we looked into mirror lately? Are we sure that we ourselves don’t act as jerks?

Recently, I found myself in couple of situations that made me consider some of my own actions that could be seen by others in rather bad light and it made me realize that each of us can turn bad rather easily. So what are the things to watch for in your daily interaction to make sure you don’t act as a jerk?

1. Bias

Sometimes we act unjustly without wanting to or without even realizing. Very often the culprit is called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a great tool our brain shields us from too much confusion and from coping with being wrong by allowing us to see only the evidence which proves that we are right. That is what makes it so different form other biases. It is always here and totally invisible to the outside world and to big extent even to us. There are several aspects of this particular bias:

  • Search – the brain accepts only data that supports our view and ignores the ones that could contradict it
  • Interpretation – the brain interprets any given data through the lenses of us being right in the first place
  • Memory – the brain will let us remember things that support our argument and forgets those that don’t

This all in the name of our need of being right. It is a useful tool for helping us cope with cognitive dissonance and reconcile any disharmony between our thoughts, words, actions, and environment. However, it is a killer when we are in the business of managing and leading people. Why? Because it prevents us from seeing all points of views, all sides of arguments, all options without taking pre-set sides. It prevents us from really listening and generally makes jerks of us. The way to fight this bias is to force ourselves to listen. Truly listen.

2. Busyness

I today’s world we are busy all the time. In the heat of our daily busyness, we may forget some of the basics that makes us decent human beings. Have you ever thought or even said aloud some of these sentences?

  • I don’t have time to notice – we are being too busy not notice how we impact other people around us
  • I don’t have time to be nice – many people are often proud of their “brutal honesty”, direct and even accusatory approach. In fact, we are acting as jerks who don’t take the time to understand others
  • I don’t have time to take care of you – this is a particularly prevalent in management when you try to be as efficient as possible. Unfortunately, being efficient in human interactions doesn’t work. You can be effective but you should never try to be efficient when managing people or in communication of any kind. Check out Communication Shouldn’t Be Efficient for some thoughts on the topic.

3. Fear

All of us have various fears that are with us every waking moment. The more we worry especially about us being wrong or failing, the more we try to prevent that, and the more we act as jerks. Just consider these statements many of us are making in our heads:

  • I will not fail – some of us worry excessively about failing. We just have the need of constant success. We are worried about how our failure will be seen by others and how it will feel. Because of that worry, we act in ways that more relaxed person can’t understand and may label negatively.
  • I want to know what you are doing – when we work in a team or managing others we may turn the “I will not fail,” fear into “My team will not fail.” This may lead to us questioning what everyone is doing, second guess every step and decision done by others, micromanaging and generally acting in ways that destroys the team’s morale and ultimately leads to failure or to us acting as jerks.
  • I want to see more data – very frequent fear of making a wrong decision leads us to not being able to make a decision at all. It may be a simple thing of deciding what cellphone to buy or it can be more insidious in workplace when we are constantly trying to get more data, more opinions, and ultimately get to a position that the decision is done by others (so we can fault them) or it is so bulletproof that we are safe. Ultimately, this leads to company culture that is prone to decision paralysis and us being seen as incompetent jerks who shouldn’t be in the management roles at all.
  • I will try – this is a beautiful statement we use all the time. It has a build-in safety valve. It allows us to fail without much fuss, since we admitted at the beginning that we will do our best but the outcome is not ensured. Most of us use it without realizing and without thinking about it. At the end, it shows low self-confidence and may act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When it leads to jerkiness is the moment we employ it as a way to make halfhearted effort to help others.
  • You broke it, you fix it – have you ever had a boss, a coworker, or a partner who used these words? Have you ever used that sentence yourself? Behind all the bravado of making statements like this are in fact the opposite feelings. People often use it when they simply don’t know what to do, are scared, and don’t want others to see it. Again, they act as jerks.
  • I’m not at fault here, it was the other guy – this is a very obvious form of jerkiness. Let’s blame someone else for our mistakes, or even shared mistakes. In fact, you can make it even stronger by blaming the other person while showing yourself as a saint “I told him it won’t work and he didn’t listen”.

4. Pride

Pride is very often cause of many bad behaviors, though you need to have at least some predisposition to fall prey to it. However, not much is needed and even someone with healthy dose of humility can find himself thinking along these lines:

  • I know what I’m doing – very often it is a pride that causes us to be overconfident and ultimately leads us to treating others as lesser beings who don’t have a clue. Pride can then easily turn into fear when things don’t go as we planned and we finally realize we are failing.
  • I’m successful therefore I’m right – it is a variation of previous point. This one suggests that past successes elevate us above others and are making us infallible. This can be even true about whole teams or companies who are super successful and thus blind to changing world and new harsh realities where past successes means nothing.
  • I’m the boss here – this one is usually invoke by those with insecurities that just don’t know about any other way how to push through their goals. It is also often employed in situations where we feel that we are wrong, but pride doesn’t allow us to admit it so we resort to brute force – with my position comes entitlement to be right.

5. Ambition

Ambition can be a very useful tool in your road to success but there is a danger of overdoing it. Excessive ambition can lead to rather jerky behavior that will manifest in some of these ways:

  • I will get what I want at any cost – you can easily turn from good to bad when you lose your humility and start acting like your goals and desires are more important than the goals of others. Your own ambition can hurt people around you and turn you into a jerk.
  • I will help you – as long as it helps me. In ideal world, this is a win-win situation. You are helping others and getting something in return. The problem comes when you are willing to help only when it benefits you. If you are not willing to help others without considering “what is in it for me” you are most likely acting as a selfish jerk.
  • I want to make sure we look good – another one that sounds great but has a hidden side. If you want everyone to look good in front of the boss regardless whether we deserve it chances are that those who deserve it more than you do will see it as a sign of your jerkiness. It is always better to give credit where credit is due and don’t try to pry on success of others.
  • I want it now – in the fast-paced world we live in this one is more and more frequent. We are so set for success and want to so badly and so fast that we are willing to build it on shaky legs and even by immoral means to get it. If you have no patience to do do things properly and reach success in its due time you may be cutting corners in the way you act towards others and ultimately be seen as a selfish jerk.

So what is the main lesson you learned today? Don’t judge others without first understanding their circumstances and more importantly review the topics mentioned in this article regularly to make sure you don’t turn into a jerk yourself.

 

What is your experience with jerks? Have you ever caught yourself acting in ways that you find unacceptable in others? Have you ever considered that others might think you are a jerk? What can you do to make sure these things don’t happen to you?

Originally posted at LinkedIn.

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Not My Fault! It’s The Traffic…

You hear it over and over again. In fact, you might be using the tactic yourself without even realizing it. Blaming others or the environment for your inability to get things done, keep your promises and duties.

Let’s blame someone else

Have you ever worked with a colleague who would be constantly showing up ten minutes late for meetings with an excuse like “sorry I’m late, but there was a traffic jam”? As if this would explain everything and make it right. Well, yes, there was a traffic jam, so what? If there is one every day then it is just not relevant. If you would continue that line of reasoning you could come up with: “Sorry I’m late, but there was a traffic jam. Police should make sure there are no traffic jams. In fact, it is police fault that I’m late. Or even better others should be banned from using cars. That way I wouldn’t get stuck and came right on time.” Rather ridiculous, isn’t it? So why are we all saying it?

What are the things under your control?

One of the challenges you have to learn when managing others (and yourself) is the tendency of trying to look good and blame others for our mistakes. If you want to move things forward and want the person in question to grow and build strong sense of ownership you need to make sure this is not happening. Always bring the attention and focus of the person to things that are under his control.

Let’s say you come to your teammate with something you want him to solve and his response is “No problem. We will need IT to prepare the proposal and finance team will have to approve it.” These couple of words are full of red flags. At this point you just need to stop him and say “Yes, I see your point and I know that other people will have to be involved. What are the things that YOU will do? What is it you have under your control?” Even if there is a part that needs to be done by someone else there are always things you have under your control and that is where your focus needs to be.

The best way to increase satisfaction with your life is to learn to distinguish what are the things you can influence. Those you should focus on and constantly improve. This works also the other way around. Learn what in your life is out of your control, what you cannot influence and stop worrying about it. If you cannot change something then it is just a distraction that makes you less productive, unhappy and dissatisfied with your life.

There is no try

As the Grand Jedi Master Yoda, the oldest and most powerful known Jedi Master in the Star Wars universe said “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Once you realize what you do have under control, and decide to do something about it, you need to make yourself believe that you will succeed. And since we shape our reality by the words we use you need to learn to set yourself for success. “I will try better next time,” is your archenemy. “This will never happen again,” gives you much more power to actually change your behavior as it means you have no doubt and are fully committed to succeed.

It’s not the traffic, it’s you…

And to get back to our example from the beginning and look at alternative scenario where you don’t try to blame the universe for being late but you take ownership of your life. Understand the natural consequences of this repeated behavior of tardiness (in the form of others having to wait for you or you not being informed about or part of important decisions). And ultimately ask yourself the obvious question: “What is under my control that I will do so this doesn’t happen again?”

 

Originally posted at LinkedIn.

For more read my blog about management, leadership, communication, coaching, software development and career TheGeekyLeader or follow me on Twitter: @GeekyLeader

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What Is Preventing Your Future Success?

Life is complicated. Everything is connected with everything. Cause and effect. There are so many variables in life that any attempts to come up with a simple mathematical formula so far failed. Heck, we are not even able to accurately predict weather or how much satisfaction we will have from an event in the future. So what leads us believe that we have things under control and that we can predictably repeat successes we had in the past? Many of us who reached some level of success often feel that we are entitled to it and that we are somehow better than everyone else and thus anything we do will always end up being successful. And then we are surprised and feel hurt when something doesn’t go as we planned. But why? Mostly because we misunderstand what made us successful in the past. In fact, as I wrote in Human Brain, The Biggest Liar Of All Times our brain has a unique capacity to deceive us.

Misunderstanding of past successes

Depending on your current frame of mind you tend to either overestimate or underestimate your role in the past successes. Let’s say you love running and just won a race. Why did you win? I already hear you saying things like “I trained really hard, 5 hours a day, and gave it everything I had.” And now imagine you lost. What would you say? “It just wasn’t my day. I didn’t feel on top of my game and even during the preparation I trained just 5 hours a day.” You have done exactly the same before the race you won and the race you lost. Maybe it wasn’t just you. Maybe the environment was different, and the competitors were different. Maybe it wasn’t really you that made the difference but the people around you.

As Phil Rosenzweig writes in Left Brain, Right Stuff people have an imperfect understanding of how much control they can exert. When control is low they tend to overestimate their impact, but when it’s high they tend to underestimate.

Correlation, causality and single explanations

In another of his books The Halo Effect Phil Rosenzweig talks about nine business delusions that cloud our judgement. Relevant to our discussion are those of correlation, causality and single explanation.

Why were you successful in the first place? Over the years in business world I have heard many times that “we are successful because of the way we work.” But often I have wondered is it really “because” or “in spite”? In the complex environment it is often very difficult to distinguish what is the cause and what the effect, it is very difficult to understand whether a something was helping or hurting our chances. Especially, if you fall into a trap of single explanation. We tend to blame one guy when things go wrong or one hero when there is a success. We tend to forget all the other things that had influenced the outcome. Keeping in mind that “everything is connected to everything” should help you to keep an eye on these biases.

Overconfidence

One of the most dangerous reasons why you may easily fail in the future is overconfidence. Rosenzweig splits it into three categories. Overprecision as a tendency to be too certain that our judgment is the right one. “I’m the expert. I know what I’m doing. This and only this is the right way to do things to end up in success.”

The other category is Overestimation as a tendency to believe that we can perform at much higher level than we are capable of. “Of course I can do it even though I’ve never done anything comparable. With my track record of success anything I touch changes into gold and can end only well.”

And the last type of overconfidence is called overplacement as a belief that we can perform much better than others. “I’m much better manager than majority of others. I’m, if not the best, then definitely above average software engineer and should be treated as such. Or I’m much better driver than the others.” This one is nicely demonstrated for example in a study performed by Ola Svenson asking students to compare their driving skills to other people. 93% of the U.S. sample and 69% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%. This is a mathematical impossibility and shows how unrealistic views we have of ourselves.

Sense of entitlement

Because of the reasons mentioned above most of us believe we are better than others and thus we deserve more. We deserve better treatment, more money, better life, bigger house, more promotions and we are unhappy when we are not getting it.

I can give you just one advice. Get a dose of reality and switch your mindset to one that tells you that everyone is good at something, everyone has the right to be happy, well paid, and treated with respect. You might have some strengths that others miss, but you have also weaknesses, and all in all you are not much different from the other 7 billion human beings on this planet.

Abusing relationships with the powerful

And since we are talking about the business world there is one additional danger that can hinder your future success. I would call it “abusing relationship with the powerful” or in other words using the relationship with a powerful figure in the company to advance your agenda. It may take a form of you directly requesting the big guy to intervene on your behalf or a bit more subtle you frequently invoking his name to achieve your goals.

Either of these two will have great initial effect but rather negative long-term consequences. The moment you start relying on this technique you will stop trying hard enough on your own, you won’t develop the necessary skills, and you will most likely damage your relationship with others around you. They will reluctantly comply just to make sure they won’t make powerful enemy but ultimately they will look for ways to get back at you. You are the target since they cannot touch the big guy, can they?

And then the day comes when your powerful benefactor leaves, or you move to a different group or company. And suddenly you find out that you cannot get things done as in the past, you fail at your job, and you are confronted with the hard reality of not being as good as you thought.

So what does it all mean?

Humility is your friend. Never assume that you are better than others only because you had some sort of success. Chances are that success wasn’t your alone. You should also reset your expectations of the future. Always strive for the best but expect the worst and thus have a healthy well-balanced level of confidence. A level that inspires you to do your best but not too much to take success for granted or too little to never even try.

 

How do you ensure that your current success doesn’t lead to future failures? What advice do you have for others to make sure they don’t sabotage their own careers and happiness?

Originally posted at LinkedIn.

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Are You Friends Or Just Colleagues?

Have you ever wondered how many of the people in your workplace are friends and how many just colleagues and work buddies? Let me borrow a definition of “friend” from Merriam-Webster “a person who has a strong liking for and trust in another <really close friends who like to do everything together and are always sharing secrets>” That is a tall order and I guess you won’t find many of these in the workplace, but you still have many people around you that you enjoy working with. So what is it that makes most of your colleagues pretty close to being friends (at least in a healthy organization)?

Proximity

Obvious one. You spend eight to ten hours a day with these people in a confined space. You talk and whether you want or not you share a lot from your life and you learn about theirs. It is natural and if you are in environment where this doesn’t happen chances are you are not particularly happy and won’t stay for long.

Common professional purpose

You and the team around you hopefully share the same professional purpose and goals. There is a project to be delivered, product developed, number to hit. You share the success and failure. Chances are you talk about work related stuff even when you are not required to, at lunch, or when taking a ride on the same bus.

Similar educational background

Especially if you work in the same department or in similar roles you most likely have similar educational background. This helps to have the same understanding of the things around you, the same understanding of meaning of things and to certain extent even similar interests.

Similar life values

Even when it comes to life values chances there will have at least some similarities with your colleagues. At the end the values are based on your cultural background, upbringing, education, and influenced by the environment and people around you. And yes, there will be a value or two that you won’t share with your work buddies as at the end each of us is unique.

You didn’t pick your colleagues

So far so good and we are really close on the road to friendship however there is one thing that stands in the way. You pick your friends but you usually don’t pick your colleagues. And even when you have the power to pick your colleagues (being part of the hiring team) you consider other criteria than you would use when picking friends.

Being friends is about chemistry and ability to count on each other in difficult life situations. These are the things that may not be present with most of your colleagues. It is neither good, nor bad, it is just a reality. It is also a reason why some of our best friends are usually the ones from our childhood when we haven’t spent too much time over analyzing whether someone is “the right” friend for us and when we decided more instinctively.

In today’s fast moving society you may work at different team or company every couple of years, you may even live in a different city, you are surrounded by hundreds of people who may want things from you and you from them. All this can be rather overwhelming and may limit you from forming a really strong and ever-lasting friendship.

So next time you are on Facebook counting how many friends you have consider how many of them are just work buddies or associates you barely know and how many of them are the real friends who would be there for you even in twenty years and in the time of the biggest need. And maybe, you want to consider how much time you spend with people who fit into this category and who really care about you.

 

How many true friends do you have at work? And how is your relationship with your colleagues different from that you have with friends you never worked with?

Originally posted at LinkedIn.

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Holiday Special – The Best Posts Of 2014

Another year of writing this blog. I’m now at 100+ articles and I’m sitting here and thinking about what to write about as the year is coming to an end. And the same as last year the answer is right here. How to celebrate better than by looking back and remembering some of the key articles that appeared on this blog. So allow me to present what I consider the best posts dealing with various aspects of leadership and life itself.

Communication

7 Reasons To Pick Up The Phone – Always think twice before sending yet another email whether it wouldn’t be better to be brave and just pick up a phone and call.

Communication Shouldn’t Be Efficient – Forget efficiency when communicating important information. Go for effectiveness.

No Surprises Please! – A good manager should never get surprised by anything as it points to a failure of understanding risks, miscommunication or broken trust.

Recruitment

Hire For Strengths, Not Lack Of Weaknesses – Next time you talk to a candidate don’t forget to identify his key strengths and values he would bring to the organization. If you cannot find any and find yourself talking to a mediocre robot you may want to continue your search.

Effort And Attitude Beats Talent And Knowledge – The focused effort and can-do attitude of determined underdog beats a raw talent and theoretical knowledge of complacent rival hands down most of the time.

Leadership

Good And Bad Software Engineering Manager – What does it take to be a successful manager in a progressive software development company? What are the traits you need to have to build solid software development teams and ship great products?

5L Principle Of Leadership: Live, Love, Laugh, Learn, and Lead – A talk about what you can do, and what mindset you need to learn to be able to cope with stress and downsides in life.

You Manage Things, You Lead People – Management is a science. Leadership is an art.

Real Leaders Are Vulnerable – No one will eagerly follow a robot. If you lead others you need to show your human face and heartfelt convictions.

Real Leaders Own Their Mistakes – Did you make a mistake? Admit it, apologize for it, fix it and prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future.

Find The Best Leader For A Given Situation – You don’t need to be constantly in charge. Just find the right situation to put other passionate people in the lead.

Productivity

What Is Possible Is Not Always Right – How often do you decide to do something only because “you can”? When you really think about it you may realize that it is way too often.

Getting Stuff Done: The Right Attitude – No pain, no gain. Working smart is a good start but you cannot take shortcuts. You have to put in the hours of hard work if you want to succeed.

Life

7 Ways How Leaders Lie To Themselves – We lie to ourselves. And as strange as it may seems that is the worst thing we can do as it is constantly holding us back and prevents us from reaching a true success and happiness. Just read through some of the most common lies and if you recognize yourself find a way how to break the loop and stop this lie.

The Pitfalls Of Living As Expat – Living abroad is one of the most intense experiences you can have. And if you move to a country that is at the other side of the world you must expect that things will be really different.

Life Is About Communication And Attitude – Life is about the way you influence others and are being influenced. It is about the way you see the world around you and the people living in it. Each and every one of us creates our own version of reality formed by our beliefs and our approach to life.

Your Heart Is Not In It Anymore – You have a great job, excellent team around you, you do what you love, but still something feels wrong…

Introverts: How To Be Happy – To live a happy life make sure that what you do aligns with your core values, dreams and mission of your life.

Surprising Thoughts On What Makes Us Unhappy – Constant learning and exploration gets you into a vicious cycle of unfulfilled dreams… unless you find solace in the journey itself.

 

What are your favorite thought leaders and articles of this year?

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The Pitfalls Of Living As Expat

Living abroad is one of the most intense experiences you can have. And if you move to a country that is at the other side of the world you must expect that things will be really different. And let’s face it, you will have to adapt if you want to get most of that opportunity.

I’m originally from the heart of Europe (Czech Republic). I travel quite a bit and visited pretty much all the continents (not counting Antarctica) so I would say that I’m pretty adaptable and not easily surprised. I also spent six months in Australia couple of years ago and recently twelve months in the Philippines. So if you are considering to try a life of an expat let me point out couple of things to keep in mind.

Fresh start

Why do you want to live in a foreign country? In my case it was easy as I was sent by the company to build a new office in Manila. But when this opportunity came up I also planned to use it and do some changes in my life. You are already changing location, social circle, potentially job, so why not to change also some of your habits. Well, as it turns out we are who we are regardless of location. In fact, changing everything around you most likely puts pressure on keeping at least some things familiar.

So if you are thinking about fresh start, getting rid of bad habits, or dream of a better life I would strongly encourage you to first change the way you think and your attitudes and only then move. You should make sure you have the right answers to questions like “Why do I want to move?” “Am I trying to run from problems or do I march towards opportunities?”

I love the quote by Lance Miller (champion of public speaking in 2005) from his winning speech The Ultimate Question “I had changed everything in my life, but nothing had changed.”

Culture

Different environment and cultural background breed different habits, ways of thinking and value systems. Moving to a new country means you need to be willing to listen, watch, adapt, and enjoy it. You don’t need to completely throw away your heritage (in fact you probably shouldn’t) but the flexibility and willingness to embrace new way of thinking will be a key to whether you will enjoy the experience or suffer.

So if you plan on keep doing things the way you have always done them and complain that the others around you don’t know how things are supposed to be done you probably shouldn’t even attempt to move.

Work

If you are moving to a new country without a promise of a job you need to expect that you will struggle at the beginning. You should always consider “What is my competitive advantage / disadvantage” on the local job market? Chances are that there will be tons of disadvantages coming from the fact that you don’t know the culture, you don’t know the language, you don’t know anyone. If you are in a position I was, being sent by your company, then your life is thousands times easier. The drawback in that case is that you need to work from day one and that leaves a little room for adapting and you essentially learn by making mistakes as you go.

Health

You are moving to new environment and it can have rather radical impact on your health. If you live your whole life in cold or moderate weather and suddenly move to tropical climate it will take toll on your body. Make sure you account for that when planning the move. If you have any medical conditions you should carefully consider the health system in the target country and whether it will provide you with what you need.

Routine

Routine helps to deal with stress. Moving to a new environment is pretty stressful. You don’t really know how things work, you don’t really know anyone to ask for help, and in case you don’t speak the language you are really lost.

Setting up some solid routine can help you to get through the days and limit some of the decisions you need to be making. Adding regular exercise and good eating habits will give you energy to deal with all the unknowns.

Network

We all need help. You cannot really survive in today’s world alone. When I showed up at the Manila airport I was alone and needed to quickly build a circle of people who I could ask for help, who would share pieces of wisdom and who would help me to keep sane.

The good news is that most people understand that you are in a difficult position and they really try to help you so building a network of people you can turn to is actually not that difficult. Specifically, if you are a professional you can turn to LinkedIn or similar service to quickly find couple of names that might be relevant and reach out to them. What always works is to plug into the local expat community as these guys know exactly how you feel, they still remember how difficult the start can be and will help you out. Just make sure you don’t rely on expats too much. If you want to blend in and understand the culture, you need to spend most of your time with the locals to see their way of life, feel their values, and build a really strong relationships. You don’t want to live a gilded cage, do you?

Social circle

And that leads me to the most important part. When you are moving to a new country you are leaving behind your social circle, your security net. If things go wrong you don’t have anyone to offer a shoulder to cry on. And yes, in the world of internet it is easy to talk to someone back home but since they don’t really understand what you are getting through and have no knowledge of your new environment they won’t be of much help.

You need to quickly find some new friends. If you are extroverted globetrotter it won’t be much of a problem. If you are more introverted like myself, you will need to use some tricks. I mentioned plugging into the expat community is a good start. Assuming you have a job then bonding with your colleagues is another source of contacts you could turn to (though you probably want to be careful which topics to discuss). You may also find some local community around one of your hobbies (if you do some sports or play music it should be relatively easy). In my case the first thing I did was to join a local Toastmasters club. Since this is a global non-profit organization that is open to anyone and since it is all about communication, it helped me quickly make some friends with similar interests yet with different backgrounds.

People you left behind

And last but not least you should think about people you left back home. Especially in case of family you need to understand that your departure will have impact on their lives. So before you leave, make sure that not just you, but also they are ready.

The life of an expat is a great experience and wonderful opportunity to expand your view of the universe. It will help you to understand other cultures, it will make you more resilient to stress, more adaptable to change, more open to new ideas, and most likely more curious and humble.

What are your experiences or worries when it comes to live of an expat?

Originally posted at LinkedIn.