Hitting the Expat Wall

Nearly three years into my time in Ecuador, my experiences running a real estate company that caters somewhat to foreigners, investing, living and doing business in a foreign country has given me a unique perspective on expats and expat life.

I, like most who decide to leave their homeland and relocate to a new place, with a new culture and new language did so with high hopes. I felt clear about my path, was ready for the challenges that lay ahead and excited to set out on this adventure.

For me all in all, it has been really successful. Both personally and professionally I am more or less where I would like to be. However, it has also been a long, hard road in certain respects.

Cultures really do vary. More so than I understood going in. And it goes way beyond language, food, clothing, etc. It gets into core beliefs, core values, peoples deep seeded perspectives. This has been an extensive learning process as I have assimilated into the culture here, the importance of which I underestimated out of the gate.

Then there’s language. Living and doing business in a place where you need to learn an entirely new language is challenging!

I am 3 years in and while I speak Spanish pretty well, I am still not truly fluent!

I share these experiences with you because I have seen many people set out to do more or less what I am doing. I have both experienced and seen the pitfalls. And I have seen many people come and go. Plenty of which left with their tales between their legs, thinking and saying something to effect of “this is not for me, I’m out of here”.

So what makes or breaks an expats experience?

I think two huge factors are attitude and perseverance. Now can you have a great attitude, be flexible, have perseverance and still realize that living in a foreign country is just not right for you? Absolutely! I would say for sure this is not for everyone.

All the things you are used to, all the simple things you take for granted, the ways of relating to people, transacting and doing business are significantly different. They may even be really hard to understand at first.

They may make no sense to you at all which can be frustrating ­– especially when it is all happening in a language you may not understand or be able to express yourself in.

Get ready for plenty of awkward moments, misunderstandings, miscommunications and times of feeling frustrated in the first year or so.

That’s where attitude comes in.