The Expat Mindset
(with thoughts about the audio universe)
One way to reduce the tedium while on the treadmill at the health club - and to multitask safely - is listening to audiobooks and podcasts. This week, I finished a classic, The War of The Worlds by H. G. Wells. Back in 1898 - that’s 1898, not 1998 - he wrote about an alien invasion where the Martians brought heat rays (lasers), handling machines (robots), flying machines (airplanes), and black vapor (nerve gas). All this was imagined by Wells before the turn of the century. What was impressive, also, was how he described how the average person would react - disbelief, disdain, scoffing, attempts to make jokes, apathy, and ignorance piling on ignorance. Then, as the reality became clear, he wrote convincingly of panic, depression, lethargy, resistance, and resurrection. Think of it as a very early version of the war in the Terminator movie series. Amazing. Highly recommended.
Even more amazing was my next audio adventure, Earl Nightengale’s 1956 smash hit The Strangest Secret. This one recording started the entire spoken word industry, especially in the personal development genre. Still highly motivating and inspiring after all these years. (That’s why my legs are so tired as I am typing these words.) Also highly recommended.
In general, if you have not yet discovered the joy of the audio universe, you are in for a rare treat. The entire spectrum of educational, motivational, inspirational, and worthwhile entertainment is available. My son and my friend Jorah Kai, author of Amos the Amazing, have to be ubercool with their BlueTooth wraparound earphones and Bose sunglasses with tiny speakers built into the frame. Me? I am resisting the allure of their yuppie toys and getting along with my huge, wireless, over-the-top headphones with big, comfortable pads and automatic noise cancelling feature. (ANC makes it possible to keep my listening private even on a crowded subway or bus or in the health club.) There is an additional benefit: they make quite comfy earmuffs against the coldest wintery blasts. With any form of listening device, audiobooks and podcasts make travel time into useful and pleasant listening time. Getting caught in a traffic jam holds no terrors for me. I probably wouldn’t even notice; I might be on a different planet. (Because I’m not driving; I am still refusing to own a car.)
But, back on Planet Earth - with or without Martian invaders - we must return to the plebeian matter of funding this weekly outpouring of information and provocative thought exercises. Please consider a brief stop at my Buy Me A Coffee page to buy me a coffee:
The Expat Mindset
I had a minor health problem last year. It was nothing serious but a foot injury kept me largely immobilized for about a week. That unscheduled disruption of my usual routines to allow time for resting with my foot elevated gave me an opportunity to reflect on one of the greatest challenges of reinventing our lives. I am referring to our mindset, that is, what we expect from the world, from relationships, and from ourselves. As an expat, by the physical act of relocating to another place in the world, we are often forced to review our physical routines – but not always our mindsets.
Are you in the “Fixed Mindset” group which sees everything, including your own personality, as being largely unchangeable and beyond your conscious control? Or are you in the “Growth Mindset” group which sees themselves constantly presented with opportunities for growth and expansion of personal abilities and boundaries beyond their current levels? To reduce this academic discussion to a more behavioral level, imagine a boyfriend and girlfriend having a disagreement. Let’s listen in…
BF: Stop trying to change me! You’re always pushing, pushing, pushing me. What you see is what you get. You knew what I was like when you accepted me as your boyfriend. That’s the way I am; I’ve always been this way. I can’t change and I don’t want to change.
GF: I disagree. How many of your problems came about because you believe you can’t change yourself? You are a good person. You already do many things well and have many accomplishments. But you can become a better person if you will use some of the opportunities around you to grow instead of resisting change. Why do you insist on seeing things the same way you have always viewed them? Why do you limit yourself by believing you cannot change your expectations about yourself? The person who is holding you back… is you!
In place of BF, think of Fixed Mindset. And, in place of the GF, think of Growth Mindset. At best, the Fixed Mindset person sees every situation as a challenge to prove that they are capable and competent. But the Growth Mindset person sees every situation as an opportunity to learn and to develop new abilities. For the Fixed Mindset, failure can be devastating; it displays their limits which they believe are fixed and permanent. (Can you say “self-fulfilling prophecy”?) For the Growth Mindset, however, failure merely shows their current limits. The Growth Mindset doesn’t say “failure”; it says “not yet”.
Especially for an expat, the Growth Mindset model is superior and what we should strive for. But it is so difficult! For almost all of us, it means we must change our basic way of thinking about ourselves and our place in society. It means that we must give up our lifelong self-image and push the envelope in new directions – and keep on pushing. (It’s called growing.) It can be uncomfortable, it contains much that is new and unknown, and it eliminates one of our most precious safety nets, our beliefs about perceived limits which prevent us from attempting what we regard as clearly impossible. Those beliefs keep us from venturing outside our comfort zone. Changing our basic way of thinking also means doing something socially terrifying, i.e., being different. For many people, the fear of being labeled as “weird” is sufficient to bring them scurrying back to the safety of the Fixed Mindset. By becoming an expat, you are, by definition, weird. The people back home may think you are living a fabulous life in a more exciting place… but you will also be branded as “weird”.
Granted, a Growth Mindset is not necessary to have a fulfilling, happy expat life with lots of High Standard of Living goodies around us and plenty of Quality of Life comforts too. We live in the richest, most technologically advanced period in human history. Abundant resources ensure that more people across all levels of society – including the huge Fixed Mindset group - can share in the blessings of modern life. Changing to a Growth Mindset way of thinking involves questioning every thought and conclusion with the presumption that our first impulse is probably wrong. So, why should we begin the work and discomfort of changing our basic way of thinking?
Time for several pithy statements: First, Albert Einstein, who said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Second, Marcus Aurelius, who wrote that we should respond to unpleasant situations by 1) Don’t get upset. Control your impulse. And 2) Do what’s right rather than angrily respond to a provocation. Third, Prof. Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, wrote, “Your view of yourself can determine everything. If you believe that your qualities are unchangeable — the fixed mindset — you will want to prove yourself correct over and over rather than learning from your mistakes.” Fourth, me. Long ago, I wrote in my journal, “Thought for the day: The past determines the person we are today; but our thoughts and actions today determine who we will be tomorrow.” (Wow! I am putting myself in some pretty distinguished company. I’ve often wondered how such a devilishly handsome, brilliant, accomplished, dazzling urbanite could continue to be so inexplicably modest.)
Like every human being, I remind myself that I am almost entirely the result of what I have learned. Virtually all of our social training was absorbed unconsciously before we were five or six years old. In academic terms, it’s called socialization. Those often unspoken rules we learned as little children prepared us to live in the society that surrounded us. Those rules seemed absolute, permanent, and “natural”. But, if we had been born in another place or another generation, we would have learned a completely different set of rules which also would have seemed absolute, permanent, and “natural”. (For example, try arguing the superiority of monogamous marriage to someone raised to adulthood in a polygamous culture. It is usually an exercise in futility.) Still, it is never too late to adopt a new set of rules we have consciously selected instead of simply following some arbitrary rules because they were what we learned as a small child in the society where we happened to be born.
We are what we learned. But that does not mean we cannot change, including changing our mindset. As an expat, such a mental shift is essential to optimize our experience. We must remember changing our mindset will require constant self-monitoring and reminding ourselves that our first impulse is probably wrong, our expectations are probably too low. Later, as a consequence of making that mental shift, our actions and their consequences will change. We learn mobility by learning to walk. Now, what would happen to those walkers if they suddenly learned how to fly? They would experience a quantum leap in performance comparable to the social changes when the automobile replaced the horse. That shift changed the world overnight. Similarly, our brain is able to make such a leap; but it will not be easy. Some parts of such a change may be distinctly uncomfortable at first.
Indeed, many of the expat’s problems labeled as culture shock are simply from judging the behaviors of your new society by your old society’s standards. While you struggle with the disorientation and frustration, you will find the natives ponderously unhelpful, unwilling to adapt themselves to your way of thinking. As the Texas saying goes, “We really don’t give a damn how you do it up North.” Until you change the way you have been thinking, it is unlikely there will be any substantial changes in your inner life, even if you are in a new time zone. If you keep thinking the same old thoughts and keep doing things the same old way…you’re gonna keep getting the same old results.
The work of shifting to a Growth Mindset remains largely an individual endeavor but it helps to have some company. It’s not so lonely that way. As you make this shift in your way of thinking, remember the words of the American motivational speaker, Jim Rohn. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If you want to change yourself, begin to surround yourself with the type of people you wish to become. Sadly, the vast majority of people around you will not do much to encourage you to make any major changes in your mindset. On the contrary, it is far more likely for them to pressure you to be “just like everyone else”. Social approval via conformity is easy and comfortable.
Have faith. Your Rohn 5 people do exist and they can accompany you on this mindshift journey. As a member of a local expat community, you may find other people just as weird as yourself - maybe. Or, if it feels impossible to find comparable, compatible weirdness, remind yourself that there are currently 5-plus billion people around the world who are accessible online. If you diligently search for your five special people, your Rohn 5 Circle, you can develop the community of friends you are looking for, even if they are not in your immediate physical environment. On the internet, a person’s time zone doesn’t matter.
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Yes, on the internet, it’s always Friday night, always an opportunity for meeting new friends, enjoying scintillating conversations, exploring new ideas, exchanging stories and histories, always a chance to sit down over a digital cup of coffee and truly communicate with someone - perhaps even to find one of your Rohn 5 Circle. As my friend Derek Sivers says, you might even meet someone as weird as you. Perhaps I could be one of your Rohn 5 Circle.
And, while you are considering all these extraordinary digital possibilities, please consider visiting my Buy Me A Coffee page and digitally contribute to my personal coffee fund. The price of a cup of coffee seems reasonable enough in that context.