S2 EP004 | Joyride With Expatriates – Chinese Cultural Insights From A Canadian Perspective 

[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION

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[00:00:05] Taty Fittipaldi: Hello and welcome to The Leadership Nest podcast. This is season two of the global leadership podcast that combines stories, knowledge and science to soar the leadership in you. I’m your host Taty Fittipaldi. During this season, we invited 20 different expatriates from around the world to share their stories, their learning journeys, and they’re tips to make you a better leader and an inspired person. You can also watch the live interviews on our YouTube channel search for coaching expatriates channel, then select the playlist called joyride with expatriates.

[00:00:43] Taty Fittipaldi: On today’s episode, we will talk with Drew Eric Noffle, who originally comes from Canada and lived in many different countries around the world. Here is his story.

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[00:00:54] JOYRIDE WITH AN EXPATRIATE

(This section’s transcript was AI-generated and may contain errors)

[00:00:54] Taty Fittipaldi: Drew, thank you so much for coming to our show today. [00:01:00] Thank you so much for being here with us.

[00:01:02] Drew Eric Nofftle: My pleasure.

[00:01:04] Taty Fittipaldi: The pleasure is all ours. So how about we start our show by you telling us where’d you come from? which countries have you lived in? for how long have you lived in those countries? And maybe tell us which language just do you speak?

[00:01:21] Drew Eric Nofftle: Sure. Yeah, no problem. Um, well right now I’m living in my hometown, Vancouver, Canada. Um, and uh, I, I first moved to, I first went to China, and I went to China in 2001, and I was on and off there for about 10 years in total, so I spent 3 years in Beijing, I spent 5 years in Shenzhen. I spent, uh, about a year up in the north area of Dandong and Harbin in the far northeast.

[00:01:50] Drew Eric Nofftle: So I spent a lot of time throughout that country. Um, after that I went to Brazil. I went to Brazil, uh, in 2016. Or what, no, [00:02:00] 15 actually. It was 2015 and I was there for about a year, about 11 months. Um, after that I went, spent six months in Hong Kong and then I went to Indonesia and I spent six months there.

[00:02:11] Drew Eric Nofftle: Now I’ve been back in Canada for the last two or three years.

[00:02:14] Taty Fittipaldi: Wow, that’s a long ride. That’s a very long ride.

[00:02:18] Drew Eric Nofftle: Yeah, as for languages, I, I, I speak just English and Chinese. I spent a lot of time learning Chinese when I was in Beijing. I never really fully picked up Portuguese. Um, I put very little effort into it.

[00:02:33] Drew Eric Nofftle: However, to my surprise, by the end of the year in Brazil, I was able, my listening was pretty good. I could pick up a lot of it, uh, uh, just naturally.

[00:02:41] Taty Fittipaldi: Well, speaking Chinese is, quite a feat already. So, so I, I just want to congratulate you on that already.

[00:02:47] Drew Eric Nofftle: Thank you. Yes, that was enough. I was exhausted.

[00:02:49] Drew Eric Nofftle: I didn’t want to learn anymore.

[00:02:52] Taty Fittipaldi: Absolutely. so, Talking about China. You told me before that, you had your best expat business [00:03:00] experience was in China. So tell us how that came about and what were the things you had to do to adapt to move forward with that business?

[00:03:09] Drew Eric Nofftle: Yeah. Well, um, just living in China for, for a number of years, studying there and teaching English. You know, I saw a lot of the schools, how they were run there. And I thought, you know, this is something that I could really do, which is sort of what every. Foreign teacher does in China. Hey, I want to start a school too, right?

[00:03:26] Drew Eric Nofftle: Most people though. Can’t do it. Can’t get it done Um, I I did that when I was in Shenzhen in 2009 I opened up my own school there with uh, I had a few investors. I had a business partner Um, and it was a lot of work. It took about a year of planning And the most important part of it was just kind of um Getting used to the Chinese business culture, um, understanding how, how to speak to them, understanding what, uh, what’s different, um, than, uh, in my, than what we would do in Canada.

[00:03:58] Drew Eric Nofftle: And a lot of that [00:04:00] understanding really was key to the success I had while I was there. So learning the language, though, was probably one of the other things, like, because I was able to speak the language, people took me seriously, right? Oftentimes, like, oh, he’s just a forwarder, he doesn’t really understand anything, but when you can speak the language, You sort of get accepted into the culture a little bit more.

[00:04:22] Drew Eric Nofftle: So that was also, um, uh, quite beneficial.

[00:04:26] Taty Fittipaldi: Wow. that’s a very interesting take. So, you were able to connect more with people by being able to talk to them in their own language and not having to use translators.

[00:04:37] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Especially because like a lot of things that you think come from the language you speak, right?

[00:04:44] Drew Eric Nofftle: You can’t have a. Thought if you don’t have a word in your internal dialogue to do that. So when you learn that other language, when I learn Chinese and I see how they write, how the language is, that makes you understand a bit of how they, [00:05:00] um, think. So yeah, I would say that it’s, that’s very important to understand what someone’s thinking.

[00:05:05] Drew Eric Nofftle: You gotta be able to understand their language.

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[00:05:08] Taty Fittipaldi: On that take, so tell us, share with us any, anything, either funny or interesting, an interesting story about an extreme cultural difference that, surprised you, you didn’t expect.

[00:05:20] Drew Eric Nofftle: So, one interesting story about that is something called face, which is very important in Chinese.

[00:05:28] Drew Eric Nofftle: You have to give someone face. You have to support them no matter how absurd it might be at some point, just so they don’t feel embarrassed in that given situation. So, one example of this is when I was in Juhai, um, I was also in Juhai for a year, at that point, um, I had already left my business, and I was working with an offshoot franchisee to rebrand their business, uh, long story, won’t get into it, but while I was there, um, one of the business owners, [00:06:00] um, she was meeting with the police, and, uh, she was saying, you know what, uh, cause in, uh, in Juhai at that time, um, You couldn’t really get working visas for foreign teachers or employees.

[00:06:12] Drew Eric Nofftle: It’s almost impossible to get that official working permit. So she went out with the police, uh, to have a couple of drinks and, you know, give them a little bit of money and say, all right, you know, uh, we’re, yeah, we have some foreign teachers, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, trying to build up a friendship and everything.

[00:06:29] Drew Eric Nofftle: So the, the, they came to an agreement. They said, all right, the police will. Uh, go to your school tomorrow at noon, make sure you have no foreign teachers there, and then I can write off that you don’t have any and we don’t have to worry about it. All right, great. So that’s what she did. Then the next day, um, she drank too much, fell asleep, and couldn’t remember this conversation she had with the police.

[00:06:52] Drew Eric Nofftle: Police came in while we were teaching. So, the regular thing to do is if you’re a foreign teacher and you don’t have a [00:07:00] proper working permit, you just leave. So that’s what we did. We left. Um, so then, later on, a friend of mine, Yufeng, who was the manager at that school, He says, I’ll, I’ll fix the situation.

[00:07:13] Drew Eric Nofftle: I’ll convince the foreign teachers to go down to the police station, be registered, and then they’ll be able to leave no problem. So he comes to me. He’s like, I really need you just to go to the police station and allow them to arrest you and process you. I said, why? That doesn’t make any sense. I had no knowledge of this previous thing about You know them trying to build a relationship with the police.

[00:07:36] Drew Eric Nofftle: He’s like, just trust me. Just do it Can you do this one thing for me? I say fine. Okay, so I go and I do that. I go to the police station They register me there. I I spend about 25 minutes there Um, and then, uh, later on, my friend comes with a certain amount of money to, to, to, to get us out and everything was taken care of.

[00:07:57] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, so it was really awkward for me, [00:08:00] and, um, I, I don’t think, uh, I would have ever, uh, done that unless I really understood this thing about face, and when he was really asking me to do it, he’s like, you gotta do this for my face, because His employer, the one who went out with the police, um, needed this help.

[00:08:18] Drew Eric Nofftle: He said he would do it, so he has to live up to that, so I have to make sure that I don’t make him lose face in front of his boss.

[00:08:26] Taty Fittipaldi: So the image and the reputation seems to be something very important there.

[00:08:31] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. So very chaotic. Um, you know, a lot of gray area, uh, things out there, but, uh, but a lot of fun as well.

[00:08:41] Taty Fittipaldi: , that’s an interesting story. Very, very funny indeed. So you’ve been, besides being in China, you also have been in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Brazil. So tell me about these other expatriation processes, what did they have in common, what were the differences.

[00:08:58] Drew Eric Nofftle: So, um, when I [00:09:00] went to Brazil, I went to there right after, um, I left China, I was so sick of everything there at that point. I wanted to go as far away from, uh, China as possible. And that was Brazil on the map. You turn the globe around, there’s Brazil. So that’s where I went. And uh, it, I was expecting things to be again, very different, just like my time in China, but honestly, it was a breath of fresh air.

[00:09:23] Drew Eric Nofftle: It’s like American culture is the same in Canada as it is in Brazil for the most part. Yeah, there’s language barriers and a few other things, but it was a lot of fun, a lot of similarities, a lot more similarities than differences. Um, but there definitely were some differences. I would say probably the biggest, uh, shocking difference to me.

[00:09:46] Drew Eric Nofftle: Well, two things. One I noticed was on Sunday. There’s nothing happening in Brazil. Everything is shut down. Every store, you can’t even get a coffee or a piece of bread. It’s so hard to find a store, [00:10:00] um, uh, in, uh, Sao Paulo. So that, I found, was quite different. That was one of the biggest differences. I would say the other thing would really be punctuality.

[00:10:10] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, a lot of people just aren’t punctual at all. I had several students that we would have a one hour class, um, starting at like, say, 8 a. m. to go to 9 p 9 a. m., and that was it. And they would show up at about 8. 45 or 8. 50. We would have a very short lesson, and that was it. People just couldn’t get out of bed.

[00:10:32] Taty Fittipaldi: Yeah, that’s something interesting. And, in fact, you know, when we talk to expatriates, they usually bring this subject up, oh, I came to the U. S. and their are so punctual. Or I came to Canada or Germany, oh, they’re so punctual. It’s absolutely a very, interesting feature about the culture there.

[00:10:53] Taty Fittipaldi: So talking about, cultural differences, share with us an experience of an extreme [00:11:00] culture barrier that you’ve had.

[00:11:02] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, uh, culture barrier, um, in anywhere?

[00:11:06] Taty Fittipaldi: Anywhere, it could be anywhere.

[00:11:08] Drew Eric Nofftle: Okay. So, so one interesting story about a cultural barrier was, was when I was managing my school in Shenzhen.

[00:11:16] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, we had, uh, I had a sales staff, her name was Kitty, uh, Kitty Lee, and she was a great employee. She started as a student with us, she worked really hard to improve her English. We got along great. She seemed to understand my culture a lot more than others. We ended up hiring her as um a sales girl to to sell classes and stuff and she Was a wonderful employee and she worked with us for about a year and a half or two years Um, and then one day she comes into my office.

[00:11:45] Drew Eric Nofftle: She’s like, you know, I I want to quit Um, you as you know, I got married and we’re planning to have a baby and typically when it’s baby time The woman will quit her job Um, and that’s that Okay. So in china, you give one month notice. So she [00:12:00] gave me that one month notice and uh, You know because she was such a great employee.

[00:12:05] Drew Eric Nofftle: I wanted to sort of Help her get on her way and everything. Um, so I, I helped her ease out of that transition. And after about two weeks, um, of that month, so about halfway through the month, I, I cleared all of her customers. I brought her into the office and I said, you know what, Kitty, you’re so great.

[00:12:23] Drew Eric Nofftle: We’re going to let you leave a couple of weeks early. We’re going to pay you for that time. We’re going to give you a bit of a bonus just to show how much we appreciated everything that you’ve done for us for the two years. And then when I did this, she, she got very, very angry. So angry. She started to cry and she was very, very upset about this.

[00:12:44] Drew Eric Nofftle: And I couldn’t really understand why. Now in, in Canada. And you know, this is a common thing that we would do. We, we, you know, pay up the salary, try to get you out and help you out when you’ve done a good job, but not so much in China, in China. [00:13:00] She wants to show that she’s a good employee and work to the very last minute as hard as she can on the very last day.

[00:13:07] Drew Eric Nofftle: And the fact that I didn’t allow her to do this, she was losing face and she felt embarrassed about it. She felt that I wasn’t respecting her, that I was pushing her away. So, it was, it was very odd, and, and, and, again, this just goes to show that you can’t really take anything for granted. Things that I took for granted in my culture, I cannot take for granted over there. So so that was a surprise. I probably should have consulted my business partner a bit more before making that decision and after that I did do that if there’s any chance of a cultural misunderstanding. But that was one that kind of kind of caught me off guard, especially since i’ve been there for so long already

[00:13:53] Taty Fittipaldi: Absolutely. And everyone in your shoes would feel like that. So, you mentioned a little [00:14:00] bit that what you would do, if you went back in time, but explore a little bit more what you think people would have to do in these extreme scenarios, where, you’re faced with something that is quite surprising that you wouldn’t expect, how could you prevent that in your experience?

[00:14:18] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, exactly and I would definitely say that if you are going to travel abroad, um, especially for work and living kind of like you guys are, or to start your own business like I did in China.

[00:14:32] Drew Eric Nofftle: Don’t take anything for granted. Like I just said, don’t assume. Um, I remember my mother told me that, uh, assume makes an ass out of you and me. That’s why it’s spelled the way it is, right? And that’s definitely true. Um, don’t take those things for granted. Consult with, uh, you know, a local. Before making any decisions on something whether it’s just like like renting a house So like I had to do this when I first went to Sao Paulo, I went to [00:15:00] Lapa Um, and I stayed with with uh with some Brazilians there that I didn’t really know them very well And there were some misunderstandings that that some friends helped me out with a bit later But um, yeah, make sure you really understand the culture They have that expression, you know when in Rome do as Romans do and there’s a reason For that, for sure.

[00:15:20] Drew Eric Nofftle: You can’t go into someone else’s culture and expect everyone to adjust their way of life for you to accommodate you, right? Um, you really have to understand deeply the culture and learning the language is a good way to do that and just having a proper friends having friends there or business partners or Some sort of consultant whatever to help you make those decisions is definitely important.

[00:15:46] Taty Fittipaldi: I love that. I love, really love that and love about the assume thing. I, I really love that.

[00:15:54] Drew Eric Nofftle: Like even for me, like I said, like I had already been in China eight years when I made that mistake with Kitty. [00:16:00] I thought I knew everything by that point. No, no, you don’t.

[00:16:05] Taty Fittipaldi: Yes, absolutely. So tell me, in this Skill and mindset arena.

[00:16:09] Taty Fittipaldi: So tell me what other things, other skills or change in mindset you, you gained or developed along your way, that helped you and how this is helping you right now in your life.

[00:16:23] Drew Eric Nofftle: So skills, um, one learning the language, like I already mentioned that, that, that is, is definitely one, but one very important thing I would also say is patience.

[00:16:34] Drew Eric Nofftle: You’ve got to be patient and when I was running my business, you know in China the you know I was doing very well where a lot of other foreigners had failed and people would look at me and they’d like ah that guy He doesn’t really know anything more than I do. I can start a school just like him and I had several teachers work at my school, quit, try to start their own business, and they couldn’t understand why they would fail.[00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Drew Eric Nofftle: And one of the reasons for that is that it’s just patience. I would see some of these guys and they think they know better and they think, Oh, in my country, we do it this way and that’s what we’re going to do here. And that’s not how it works. You need to be patient. You need to understand the culture.

[00:17:17] Drew Eric Nofftle: Like, you know, in Brazil, I couldn’t get frustrated when my students were late. That was just a way of life. In China, I cannot get frustrated at some of the times that we have to pay someone off, right, that we would call corrupt, being corrupt, right, but in China, it was just business as usual. That’s how you get things done, right?

[00:17:38] Drew Eric Nofftle: So when you, when you really come in with a closed mind and you don’t open up, that is definitely the number one biggest thing. So I would say learning the language and having an open mind are number one and number two.

[00:17:52] Taty Fittipaldi: Wow, that’s very interesting and, and they tie with your experiences and, how things came up for you and how things [00:18:00] developed for you.

[00:18:01] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, yeah.

[00:18:02] Taty Fittipaldi: We still have time for another question. So share with us another story. Another interesting story about cultural differences or how you have to adapt

[00:18:13] Drew Eric Nofftle: well, well, I’ll try to be to to to make a longer story a bit brief. I remember earlier I was telling you I was a bit questionable if I should tell this story or not about it.

[00:18:24] Drew Eric Nofftle: the larger situation we had with police, um, but it was a situation that we had to deal with. So, um, to make it brief, like basically I was on vacation, uh, when we had a very serious incident. I got a call when I was, I believe I was staying at a monastery on the side of a mountain in, in Sichuan province somewhere.

[00:18:45] Drew Eric Nofftle: And I got a call. From my secretary saying that the police are here that they’re arresting all the foreign students and the four are the foreign teachers and the foreign interns that we had. So I was like, what’s happening? So immediately I had to leave and come back. [00:19:00] And what had happened is that our business was taking a sizable market share in a certain district.

[00:19:10] Drew Eric Nofftle: And our competitor in that district wasn’t happy about this. So, a common thing to do was, like I mentioned before, the work permit thing is always a thing that is in the grey area. You cannot get work permits for your foreign teachers or whether they’re interns or not. Um, even though we had legal agreements with, with uh, our interns at their universities in Boston that were coming to teach with us for, for six months or so.

[00:19:36] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, couldn’t happen, so the competitor, uh, went to the police, um, found, uh, you, you know, uh, uh, one of the police chiefs in the district, and they paid them a sizable amount of money, said, here’s the money, go arrest those, uh, competitors of us. So that’s exactly what they did. They went and they went to the school.

[00:19:57] Drew Eric Nofftle: This is the trouble school. Okay, they go in there, take these [00:20:00] people, um, put them in jail. So, uh, what we had to do is I had to find a friend who had friends in the government a level above where that police chief was. So I did that. I had a friend who is very well connected and, uh, that friend had friends in the provincial level government.

[00:20:22] Drew Eric Nofftle: So what we had to do with these provincial level in, uh, employees is, uh, we took them out for a dinner, a very nice dinner. We gave them gifts of very expensive alcohol, very expensive cigarettes, um, all of this stuff. Um, and, uh, At that dinner it cost us. I don’t know how much it must have come to like about 20 000 us dollars at the end of it Um, but at the end of it, they were very happy with their gifts and the time that they spent with us So they, um, went to, uh, their friends at the [00:21:00] local level, and they said, Look, these, uh, people are in trouble, they’re our friends now, so now you, you’ve got to undo it.

[00:21:06] Drew Eric Nofftle: So basically, the way they undid it is they let everybody out, they crossed the border to Hong Kong. And then they, they, uh, say, okay, these, uh, people that were arrested, they have left the country now, so case is closed, they close the case, they call us when that happens, they come back into the country, and they’re allowed to work as they did before.

[00:21:26] Drew Eric Nofftle: So This is one of the reasons why I ended up leaving China is because it got to the point where morally I felt that this was wrong and I probably shouldn’t do it. I really honestly didn’t have, didn’t mind paying off a fire chief once in a while to let us get away with a certain kind of sprinkling system or the thing like helping out my friend, you know, go to the police station, do this thing for me.

[00:21:53] Drew Eric Nofftle: Okay, well, that’s fine. But It got to the point where it was too much and um, I realized [00:22:00] that if we were going to continue to have Success at higher higher levels, which we wanted This is going to end up getting worse and worse and I just you know said i’m out. I can’t do this anymore And that’s why I I was happy to go to brazil breathe that fresh air there.

[00:22:17] Drew Eric Nofftle: Enjoy those smaller cultural differences. Um, but yeah, it is what it is, right? When in Rome, you gotta, you gotta play by their rules. And those just were games I didn’t want to play anymore.

[00:22:29] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s an interesting insight because, when I talked to a lot of expatriates and they connect going back to their country or leaving the country as a sign of failure. And you were bringing up a very, very good point. It’s not that it’s about failure. It’s about, how that country connects with your values. And sometimes, you will be there and you, and it will not connect with you and then you will need to leave and that’s okay. That’s fine. That’s perfectly [00:23:00] normal.

[00:23:00] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, sure. Sure. And I would say like, there’s nothing wrong with. With Chinese culture, the people there are amazing. The people are wonderful. But when it got to working with the government There’s some things in there that I just didn’t enjoy. Um, so so so nothing against the people at all But but yeah, it’s true.

[00:23:19] Drew Eric Nofftle: It’s true. You you do what you want to do and And leaving there, I don’t think there was any failure in any sense. I enjoyed my time there. It was a wonderful experience and I’m happy to move on. And it was good. I got to go to Brazil. I got to go to Indonesia, experience more different cultures, and try to take what I learned from there, apply it in different areas.

[00:23:37] Taty Fittipaldi: Absolutely. since you brought that up, do you have anything that comes up to in your mind that things that you’ve learned somewhere and you applied somewhere else , to share with us?

[00:23:48] Drew Eric Nofftle: Well, yeah, like, like I mentioned, the patience, you know, are going to Brazil, having people being late all the time, um, um, dealing with some of the, the, the different things, everything [00:24:00] closed on Sunday.

[00:24:00] Drew Eric Nofftle: There were a lot of frustrating things I had to deal with in Brazil, but. They were small compared to what I dealt with before. So, um, you know, when I was in Brazil, I pretty much, I had a great time. I got to work. I traveled through the entire country. Um, I used the, the, the, the bus systems there, the planes, and I did all this stuff.

[00:24:19] Drew Eric Nofftle: And I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy my time in Brazil if I hadn’t gone through all those experiences before. So one, learning the language and two, just like, like, like how to take a bus. What do you do, right? Who do you talk to, to go do that? Well. When I was in China, I saw something like this.

[00:24:37] Drew Eric Nofftle: So, you know, you sort of figure it out, right? And a lot of people, they’re worried. They’re like, well, I would love to go somewhere, but I don’t know the language. I, you don’t, I don’t want to learn. That’s not a problem. When I went to Brazil, I traveled through the entire country. I didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese, right?

[00:24:55] Drew Eric Nofftle: But I was able to do it. You recognize things. You learn [00:25:00] how to, you know, wherever you go, this means two, right? This is five, right? So, you know, like, when I went to, to, I remember, uh, my first night when I moved to, uh, Brazil, I was staying in a, in a hotel, I wanted to go out to a bar. I couldn’t even tell what a bar looked like.

[00:25:16] Drew Eric Nofftle: I, I went into a place, and, uh, I pointed over there to the beers, uh, those, those Two of them. How much? Right? And, uh, and he, he wrote a number down and I paid him and I took them. Right? I went to, I went to leave. They said, no, no, you can’t leave. You have to drink it here. And, um, I didn’t know what he was saying, but just with his body language, we were able to figure it out.

[00:25:39] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, it’s no problem. Right? You learn as you go. Don’t be afraid to go someplace new. Like you’ll figure it out. And that’s part of the fun of going to another country is figuring things out on your own. Learning the language is great, but it’s definitely not mandatory.

[00:25:55] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s a fabulous tip. I think, yeah, we have to take [00:26:00] risks. We have to be adventurous. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:26:05] Drew Eric Nofftle: Definitely, for sure.

[00:26:06] Taty Fittipaldi: So drew, we’re coming to the, almost to the end of the session. So I wanted to share with you a card. So coaching expatriates is going to launch a deck of cards, uh, for self development exercises. And I wanted to give you a sneak peek of one of the cards.

[00:26:25] Taty Fittipaldi: And what I want to propose to you is for you to read the card, and tell anything that comes to your mind that connects your experiences with whatever the card is saying. How, how about that?

[00:26:37] Drew Eric Nofftle: Excellent. Very excited. I want, I want to read it and see, see what it’s about.

[00:26:42] Drew Eric Nofftle: Okay, so on this side here it says, I regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others. That does not mean I accept them. I am in control of my life. Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine, uh, harmony by the Dalai Lama. Very nice. [00:27:00] Okay, so yeah, a couple things I could definitely say here and, um, Let’s, uh, let me talk about, I’ve talked a lot about China, so I could relate this to Brazil as well. Um, I had, I had a couple of really good students, uh, that I became great friends with there.

[00:27:19] Drew Eric Nofftle: And, um, actually I taught them on Sundays. It was the only class I would have on Sunday. Nobody wanted class on Sunday. Sunday is stay home and barbecue and drink. Yeah, forbidden, forbidden. So that, and you know, going to that one was a bit frustrating. It was very far away. You know, nothing was open. I couldn’t get a coffee in the morning.

[00:27:38] Drew Eric Nofftle: But I, I go into their home, uh, they were very welcoming. And, uh, our class was a three hour lesson. So lesson, or the first hour, they made the schedule. They’re like, oh, this is how we want to do it. The first hour, we’re going to learn from the book. Like, okay, great. So we do that. The second hour, we just want more conversation.

[00:27:58] Drew Eric Nofftle: Use some of the words that we’re learning. Like, okay, [00:28:00] great. Third hour, we drink together and have fun.

[00:28:06] Drew Eric Nofftle: It did sound nice, but Sundays was a busy day for me because I often wanted to go home. I was working on a novel at that time and I wanted to go home and write. Um, this would really interfere with that time. I said, just go with it, right? Whatever. So we would do that and I ended up staying there for, we had our three hour lesson, it would finish at noon.

[00:28:27] Drew Eric Nofftle: I would often stay there till four, five, six, sometimes late into the evening. They would take me to the pool hall across the street. We would drink a bit more there. We would go out for dinners together. And it was a great time. And although my Sundays ended up not being as productive as I hoped, I really got to learn about, um, the people, right, about what they do, the different type of things that they drink, how they spend the time, why they have their Sundays off.

[00:28:59] Drew Eric Nofftle: Um, [00:29:00] and it was great. I really enjoyed it for sure. It was a lot of fun. So I just put things aside and yeah, this isn’t how I would want to do my day, but I’m going to go with it. And I built a great friendship out of it.

[00:29:11] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s awesome. That’s a very, very nice story and I’m so happy to know that you enjoyed it.

[00:29:18] Drew Eric Nofftle: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was great. It was a lot of fun for sure.

[00:29:23] Taty Fittipaldi: Drew, thank you so much. So I was wondering, do you have any stories left to share with us? Do you want to say anything or give any tips? to, to, uh, people who want to become expatriates or who want to adventure going to another country. So any, any final takes?

[00:29:42] Drew Eric Nofftle: Yeah. Well, definitely. Um, I w I would say, you know, go with the flow is definitely an important thing to do. Um, you’re going to have hiccups along the way. Um, don’t feel like, some people say, well, you know, um, before I go, I want to have everything [00:30:00] worked out, right? And, uh, I believe some of the conversations I had with your husband before you guys moved to the U. S., he was like this, he was like, everything has to be perfect, and I want it to be set in stone, like, that’s not how it is. Go with the flow. Figure it out as you get there. When I went to Brazil, I only had a six month visa. How am I going to stay for the full year? I figured it out when I got there. Right?

[00:30:24] Drew Eric Nofftle: So, so go with the flow. Don’t be afraid to, um, um, do things that, that may or, like, if you’re in a country where there is a lot of grey area, don’t be afraid. To to put some money down in some place you normally might not in your own country to get my daughter here from indonesia I uh, I could have waited six months to do all the proper paperwork or I could just pay a guy 50 bucks And and he meets a friend and we get it done a visa done in a day, right stuff like that Isn’t that bad have your limits but but go with the flow again This [00:31:00] is how business gets done in a lot of these countries, especially asia. So you’ve got to be willing to sort of compromise a little bit. And realize that the thing the way it might be black and white in your country, It might not be so much in uh in the other countries as well Um, but everywhere you go is different. Go with it. Enjoy. If you have a problem, calm down. Chat with some locals and i’m sure you’re going to do fine

[00:31:25] Taty Fittipaldi: Great. Thank you. That, that’s an awesome tip. Drew, thank you so, so much. I really enjoyed having you in our show today. I really enjoyed your stories and I really want to thank you and I really appreciate the time you took to, to talk to us today.

[00:31:42] Drew Eric Nofftle: My pleasure for sure. No problem. I should say it was my pleasure. Yes.

[00:31:47] HIGHLIGHTS

[00:31:47] Taty Fittipaldi: This brings us to the end of these Leadership Nest episode. I trust you found value in acquiring insights that can elevate your decisions and performance in critical global leadership roles and [00:32:00] situations. Stay tuned for a next joy ride with expatriates interview! we promise to surprise you with new stories and concepts to help you learn more about international relocation, acclimation and cultural integrations.

[00:32:14] Taty Fittipaldi: Wherever you are in the globe, this is Taty Fittipaldi wishing you a beautiful day.

[00:32:20] Taty Fittipaldi: If you have any questions, you’d like us to answer in a future episode of this show, just go to speakpipe.com/tatyfittipaldi or click the link in the show notes, to leave us a brief audio message.

[00:32:38] Taty Fittipaldi: Make sure to visit us on our website www.theleadershipnest.com, where you can subscribe to our show anywhere podcasts are streamed, so you never miss the fun.

[00:32:51] Taty Fittipaldi: While there, if you find value in our show, you can also subscribe to our global leadership weekly newsletter from Coaching Expatriates®, [00:33:00] where we deliver bite-sized lessons on global leadership, decision-making, and cultural competence to help you learn how to think, relate and strategize in a whole different way as a global leader.

[00:33:13] Taty Fittipaldi: If you liked our show, you might want to check her online global executive leadership program. A nine week leadership development and learning system, that will help you lead internationally while making financially conscious and impactful business decisions.

[00:33:28] Taty Fittipaldi: Taty Fittipaldi is also available for private coaching. See the websites for more details at www.coachingexpatriates.com/executive-coaching.

[00:33:41] Taty Fittipaldi: Thanks for joining us this week on The Leadership Nest podcast. I trust you found a value in acquiring insights that can elevate your performance in critical global leadership roles and situations.

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