S2 EP009 | Joyride With Expatriates – The Gringo Who Is No Longer A Gringo: An American In Brazil 

[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION

[00:00:00]

[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 their 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: In today’s episode, we’ll talk with Shane C. Kelly, who originally comes from the U.S. And now lives in Brazil. Here is his story.

[00:00:55] JOYRIDE WITH AN EXPATRIATE

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

[00:00:55] Taty Fittipaldi: Hi, Shane. Welcome to our show today. Thank you [00:01:00] so much for coming.

[00:01:01] Shane C. Kelly: Thanks very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

[00:01:04] Taty Fittipaldi: Thank you so much. So, Shane, how about we start by talking where you were born? What did you do in your original country? Tell us a little bit about that.

[00:01:15] Shane C. Kelly: Sure. Okay. Well, I was, I was born in, uh, New Rochelle, New York.

[00:01:19] Shane C. Kelly: Which is a pretty small city, uh, it’s about 40, maybe 35 minutes north of New York City of Manhattan. Um, and there’s about 000 people in it, just to get an idea of how small it was. So it’s, it’s a pretty small city, um, close to White Plains. And for people who are familiar with New York, it’s a pretty simple, pretty simple place.

[00:01:40] Shane C. Kelly: Um, it had two school, three schools, I think in the whole city, one post office. Uh, the little city center and stuff like that. And when I was living there, I mean, I, I had a normal life, went to school, and then I went to university there. I studied, I studied in college, uh, in New York. [00:02:00] And then after I graduated college, I started working as an English teacher.

[00:02:03] Shane C. Kelly: Pretty much, not right away, but I would say about a year after I graduated college. Yeah, about a year after I started teaching English pretty seriously. But that’s what I was doing. While the last thing that I was doing while living there. Yeah.

[00:02:16] Taty Fittipaldi: So that’s curious. So what drove you to move to different country?

[00:02:20] Shane C. Kelly: Well, my first like moving out of the country experience was in 2014. I had the opportunity to live in China for about six months. Um, and at that time I was in the middle of grad school. One of my biggest regrets is leaving grad school and not finishing it before going to China. But I was so impulsive at that time that I was just like, but what happened was basically my cousin had already been living in China for about three years at that time, and I was working as a waiter and I was teaching classes to kids and at night I was doing my master’s.

[00:02:56] Shane C. Kelly: So I had this really crazy life. I wasn’t really enjoying myself. I [00:03:00] wasn’t really enjoying my life. It was just too overwhelming. And I remember I called my cousin on Skype and I said to him, listen, I I’m, I’m kind of tired and bored. And I really want to like experience a new place, kind of like what you’ve been doing for the last three years.

[00:03:13] Shane C. Kelly: And he said, sure, if you buy your ticket, um, I’ll take care of everything else. It gets you a job. We’ll get you like Mandarin classes. I’ll do everything that you, you know, get you an apartment. I was like, amazing. So I just did it. I just like kind of dropped everything, told my parents, Hey, in three or four weeks, I’m going to be going to China and I’m going to be living there until the end of the year.

[00:03:29] Shane C. Kelly: They’re like, what? So that was like my first, like getting out of like getting out of, not, not that I was desperate to leave the States. I had a good life in the States for sure. Good family. But it was just like a curiosity that I’ve always had in my life. Um, and then, and then after that, About two years later in 2016 was when I moved to Brazil, which is where I live now.

[00:03:54] Taty Fittipaldi: So, and what drove you to move from China to Brazil?

[00:03:58] Shane C. Kelly: So it was kind of like this. I, I, [00:04:00] I lived in China.

[00:04:00] Taty Fittipaldi: Very different places.

[00:04:01] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah, like totally, totally like black and white. No, no similarities at all. Um, well, so I moved, I moved to back to New York from China in 2000, at the end of 2014. And then at the beginning of 2015, I got a job at an international school.

[00:04:17] Shane C. Kelly: Um, in, in, uh, in New York also, and I worked there for about a year, uh, and my first class that I was teaching, it was kind of, it was exactly in the middle, I would say, actually, it was probably in like May of 2015. And my first class, I met my, uh, I, basically I met who is now my wife, Fidencini, as she was my student.

[00:04:39] Shane C. Kelly: Um, she, I was 23, 24, and she was just about to turn 20 at that time, so we were pretty close in age. And, um, We dated for a year and we dated for a whole year in New York and she went to New York basically to learn English. That was her plan and she did very fast and then after about 11 months she [00:05:00] returned to Sao Paulo and she started to study medicine which is like has always been her dream and she still studies medicine now and she said to me basically like you know if you know I love you and you love me nice okay but if you want to like have a life with me you gotta you gotta come to Brazil.

[00:05:14] Shane C. Kelly: You got to come to Sao Paulo in Brazil because this is where I’m going to be for the next six years, for sure. And there’s no way our relationship is going to survive six years, you know, separate. So I said, okay, and I just kind of emptied my bank account, literally, like I spent all my money on the tickets to come to Brazil.

[00:05:29] Shane C. Kelly: I didn’t have any money at that time. Oh, actually while we were dating, uh, my wife actually had to pay my bills a few times, uh, because money was really tight. It was really tight. I was, I lived in, I lived in a, not a very good place. I lived in a house. It was like full of rats and it was just like a very, just anything to not live at home, basically.

[00:05:50] Shane C. Kelly: And I was living in this place, you know? And, and so I had to, yeah, I literally had to empty out my savings account to come to Brazil. And I did it and I was in July of 2016 and I’ve [00:06:00] been here since I’ve, I never moved back. So it’s like, well, this is going to be five years I’ve been living here now.

[00:06:05] Taty Fittipaldi: So, this is, if I may say, that sounds so romantic. Like I’m really touched.

[00:06:11] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:06:12] Taty Fittipaldi: So tell me from that to creating your channel and Inglês com o Shane, tell us how that happened.

[00:06:21] Shane C. Kelly: So the Inglês com o Shane was kind of, Um, the first, the first two years that I was in Brazil, uh, I just, I just kind of survived and I was trying to just kind of learn the language.

[00:06:33] Shane C. Kelly: I was trying to learn Portuguese and save up money and kind of experience the country. I got to go to Rio, um, during Carnival in 2017, which is amazing. Um, you know, I, I was basically just trying to, you know, Get to know the place that I was living like really get to know and I was also teaching classes Um, sometimes I was teaching classes online and uh, I was working I worked for uh, an An NGO I was [00:07:00] gonna say ongi.

[00:07:00] Shane C. Kelly: I couldn’t remember I was working for an NGO for about a year And then I worked for another school, an English school. I worked for a bunch of different schools in the, over the course of about two years. And then I got a job. This is really random. I got a job at, uh, a, a Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency investment company.

[00:07:19] Shane C. Kelly: This was at the end of 2000. This was at the end of 2019, I guess. I feel like it was, yeah, it’s 2021 now. So it was at the end of 2019. No, excuse me. It was at the end of 2018 that I got the job and they hired me to be a teacher, to full time teach at their company from Monday to Friday, all of their, because they, it was an international company that dealt with a lot of foreigners and stuff at about the end.

[00:07:47] Shane C. Kelly: Long story short with that company, the company went bankrupt and all of the employees got, got fired. Like there were, I think 400 employees. And within the course of one month, there were 30 employees. Like they literally emptied the entire country, [00:08:00] the entire country, the entire company. And, uh, It was about a month before the company went bankrupt that my wife said to me, why don’t you make an Instagram page where you can like teach, you know?

[00:08:11] Shane C. Kelly: And I said, you know, where I could teach. Cause I, cause I, I genuinely love, I enjoy teaching. I’ve always liked it. I really like teaching and I really like working with Brazilians. So she just kind of said, why don’t you make a page? And I did, and I made a page and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

[00:08:29] Shane C. Kelly: I just did it kind of for fun. And I was making silly little simple. Simple posts and, uh, I hadn’t really found what I wanted to do exactly. I just liked the feedback that I was getting. And then I started after like two months, I started getting students. People were like contacting me and saying like, wow, you’re a gringo that speaks Portuguese.

[00:08:48] Shane C. Kelly: That’s amazing. Can you teach me English? And I was like, wow, so I can get students. So I was, I was able to like kind of help people, uh, through, through Instagram, which was crazy. Cause

[00:08:59] Taty Fittipaldi: and [00:09:00] you saw, and then you saw as a business tool.

[00:09:02] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah. And then I, then I said, you know what? Like I saw, I saw two things simultaneously.

[00:09:07] Shane C. Kelly: And I always say this, I was actually talking about this with my, my business partner the other day. It’s like, I, I, I saw two things simultaneously. One, I saw it as an opportunity to be able to reach a lot of people and to help a lot of people at one time, which. It’s kind of been my goal over the last like two or three years, uh, especially the last two or three years to help Brazilians specifically with English.

[00:09:28] Shane C. Kelly: Um, because I really love Brazil and I really love the culture of Brazil. And I really want to kind of give back because I feel like I’ve been given this gift of being kind of like an adopted Brazilian, which is really cool. Um, you know, Brazilians are super, super warm and friendly and like, they really want to share their culture with you.

[00:09:47] Shane C. Kelly: And, um, so that was the first thing I saw. I saw it as a medium to really like reach a lot of people at one time. And then I, then I also saw, and I didn’t even really understand the potential of it at that time. But I saw it as, yeah, as, as a [00:10:00] business opportunity as like an opportunity. It’s like, wow, I can, like, I can make a living basically playing on my phone, which is what I like to do anyway.

[00:10:08] Shane C. Kelly: And then over the course of time, I taught myself how to do video editing, um, you know, watching videos and taking classes and like really like complex video editing, like green screen and special effects. And I started just kind of self teaching myself and then implementing that into my classes and into my videos on Instagram.

[00:10:25] Shane C. Kelly: And then I was, you know, after a couple months, I was getting like, I had a thousand followers in 2000. Now I have almost 31, 000 followers, which is really crazy. Yeah. So it like it exploded. Yeah. And I didn’t really, I didn’t expect that much of an explosion, uh, to happen, but it kind of inspired basically where my career is today.

[00:10:47] Shane C. Kelly: Um, which is essentially, and I’m an English teacher and I’m a digital influencer and I work with social media. Like that’s what I do. So, I mean, that’s, [00:11:00] that’s basically, yeah, like, uh, that’s kind of like where, where Inglês Comunicado, and now Inglês Comunicado is actually a, uh, it’s an officially registered school in Brazil.

[00:11:09] Shane C. Kelly: I got it registered.

[00:11:10] Taty Fittipaldi: Congratulations! That’s awesome.

[00:11:12] Shane C. Kelly: Thanks. Yeah.

[00:11:13] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s an accomplishment.

[00:11:14] Shane C. Kelly: Oh man. It’s, it’s definitely the most, like, professionally speaking, the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life for sure. I mean, I was able to open up, you Um, you know, I was able to open up a school and I have like hundreds and hundreds of students that have gone through Inglis Kungshin, um, just in a short time, I just, I mean, I just opened a school not even six months ago, you know, so that’s, yeah, that’s, that’s basically how Inglis Kungshin was born.

[00:11:39] Shane C. Kelly: It was just kind of an idea that my wife had randomly.

[00:11:42] Taty Fittipaldi: So from the house with hats and inglês com Shaine, you had a lot of experiences. So tell me a little bit, once, once you got to Brazil, what was either your biggest challenge or a cultural shock you had? And, tell us a little story or [00:12:00] fun story or some examples of Your adaptation, during this time,

[00:12:05] Shane C. Kelly: um, sure.

[00:12:06] Shane C. Kelly: Well, I’ll start by saying that I was from day one. I was really like welcomed warmly when I came here by pretty much everybody, which is something that’s really wonderful. Um, I wish my country, the United States. Was a little bit warmer with, you know, immigrants in general, but that’s another story for another day.

[00:12:26] Shane C. Kelly: But basically when I started out in Brazil, so I started on Sao Paulo and like, for those of you who don’t know, um, that are listening, like Sao Paulo is, is the, by far the biggest. Metropolis biggest city in all of Latin America, including Central America. I mean, in terms of population and geography, it’s just massive.

[00:12:45] Shane C. Kelly: It’s bigger than Mexico City. Um, it’s bigger than Santiago. It’s bigger than Buenos Aires. It’s, it’s massive and it’s growing really, really rapidly. Um, and as with any other big city, there are amazing, beautiful places and there are [00:13:00] really poor and dangerous places, right? So when I first got here, Like I said, I, I didn’t have any money.

[00:13:07] Shane C. Kelly: I didn’t have any plan. Really. I just knew that I was going to teach English. I just had my wife. I didn’t know anybody besides my wife. And, um, I didn’t speak any Portuguese, which, you know, nobody speaks English on the streets day to day. Like it’s impossible. Like no, no one’s most people, taxi drivers and things like that, the store, no, one’s going to speak any English.

[00:13:25] Shane C. Kelly: Um, so we lived for the first like three months with my mother in law. And she kind of lives in the front of what’s called a right like a favela, which is basically like a slum. So she lives in a really poor part of the city and we live there. So I was basically like living in the hood for the first 3 months, which was a really strange experience because I’ve never really, I’ve been to the hood, like from where I’m from, but I’ve never, I didn’t grow.

[00:13:50] Shane C. Kelly: I never lived in the hood, um, in the ghetto kind of, you know, and, um, You know,

[00:13:56] Taty Fittipaldi: quite, quite scary too, right?

[00:13:58] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah. It’s, it’s, [00:14:00] it’s hard to explain. Cause like, thank God, nothing happened. Like nothing ever happened, but we, you know, nothing ever happened to us, but there were shootings and like a police officer got killed a couple of years ago when right in front of the house where I used to live and or the apartment I used to live, like, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a funky neighborhood for sure.

[00:14:17] Shane C. Kelly: Nothing happened to us, but there’s an energy about it. I don’t know how to explain it. Where you feel. At least for me, I feel like excited. Like, I feel like you have to be aware at all times, you know, you have to be like, okay, what’s happening now that we usually walk around at night and stuff. But your question was about culture shock.

[00:14:34] Shane C. Kelly: And I have one culture shock story. Actually. Um, I don’t know if I’m talking

[00:14:38] Shane C. Kelly: to us.

[00:14:39] Shane C. Kelly: Okay. So one culture shock, like. The difference between, for example, the United States and China, pretty much everything is culture shock because they’re so different, right? It’s like so different. The difference between Brazilian culture and American culture is not that different.

[00:14:56] Shane C. Kelly: There are many differences, but it’s not shocking as it is [00:15:00] as like East Asian culture is, for example. But one thing that I picked up on kind of quickly was There is, uh, the Brazilian, especially if someone’s from Sao Paulo, I don’t know if this is a national thing, but they’re, they have a difficult time being direct and saying yes or no, it’s usually a lot of like, “enrolação” like kind of just beating, beating around the bush and not getting to the point, not just saying yes or no.

[00:15:26] Shane C. Kelly: And I didn’t know about this. I had no idea that this was a part of the culture. So my first, uh, after about, after three months of living in like in that bad neighborhood with my mother in law, my wife and I. So my wife’s story is crazy. So her parents are divorced. Her mom is from a poor part of very poor part of the city.

[00:15:44] Shane C. Kelly: And her father is also from a poor part of the city, but about, I’d say a decade ago, my father in law became very successful. He started a business with a friend of his and they got, they made a lot of money. Um, so her father who, you know, has a lot of money and her mom does it. Her [00:16:00] father had a very, has a very, very, very small apartment, like 450 square feet, 45 square meters, really small apartment that he owns in a pretty nice neighborhood.

[00:16:10] Shane C. Kelly: And he kind of just said that you, you guys can live here if you want, um, to start your life. And it’s super small, but it’s like more than enough. It’s one small bedroom with a small kitchen and that’s all we need. And so when we first moved into this apartment in front of the apartment, if you can imagine, there’s this really busy Avenue.

[00:16:29] Shane C. Kelly: With just, it’s called the Radial Leste and it’s just like a massive highway of cars of constant motorcycles and that’s another thing that shocked me was the motorcycles. They have no boundaries at all no limits in Brazil, but, and then on the other side of the Radial is the metro station is the subway.

[00:16:50] Shane C. Kelly: And this subway station is, it’s called the red line and the red line is like notorious in Sao Paulo for just being ridiculously dangerous and ridiculously [00:17:00] crowded, like massive amounts of people and homeless people and lots of things. Like people commit suicide, unfortunately, on the train tracks pretty regularly.

[00:17:09] Shane C. Kelly: So I, when I first started, when I was starting my kind of just trying to make some money and get some students, I literally printed out 500 flyers that were, it was written in Portuguese. My wife had written, it said like, Oh, uh, you know, native teacher. Here’s his WhatsApp number, contact him for classes.

[00:17:28] Shane C. Kelly: And I stood in front of the red line, in front of the, in front of this busy avenue, distributing flyers every day, all day long. You know, just saying like, Oh, Professor Nativo, Professor Nativo, Professor Nativo de Ingles, Aulas de Ingles. Just saying like, Oh, I’m a native teacher, here’s some private classes.

[00:17:42] Shane C. Kelly: Every day for weeks, I did this for weeks. I even stopped at the red light, uh, You know, at the red light when all the cars would stop, I would go to between the cars and hand out the flyers to people, you know, like selling it alongside, um, you know, like lower income people and old ladies trying to sell [00:18:00] candy to make an extra couple of dollars retired old men trying to sell like some clothes and some like dirty rags to, you know, it was a surreal experience.

[00:18:09] Shane C. Kelly: And. The culture shock happened when I received my first message and it took about, I would say, I think it was like 12 days. It was almost two weeks before I could get, before I got my first student to call me and say, Hey, I want classes. It was two weeks. And he said, Hey, can you give me some information about your class?

[00:18:28] Shane C. Kelly: I was like, sure. And I told him the pricing. I told him what type of classes they are. I told him what kind of hours I had, et cetera, et cetera. And he was like, wow, that’s really great. I’m going to just take a look here at the information, and then I’m going to talk to my wife and then I’ll get back to you in a couple of days, right?

[00:18:45] Shane C. Kelly: So, uh, just like a spoiler alert, in Portuguese, this means no. In Brazil, this means no. Right? This is not a yes. This is not a maybe. This is a no. Like, there’s a 99 percent chance that that means no. I, [00:19:00] however, didn’t know that because I was still learning Portuguese and I read it literally and it sounded to me like a good thing. pretty strong, maybe. So I told my wife, I was like, I got my first student. You’re not going to believe it. It’s amazing. And she said, so like, let me just explain this part of the culture. And it was like, it was really discouraging. I got like my dreams crushed. I was like, ah, and sure enough, he never contacted me.

[00:19:24] Shane C. Kelly: She was right. Like that was a no. Um, But I, yeah, that’s like one thing that today I’m okay, but in the beginning it was hard to get past that, that whole, like, fear to say no kind of thing. Yeah.

[00:19:36] Taty Fittipaldi: So that’s very interesting. It sounds like, yeah, you’re right. So it, it usually Brazilians, they’re sort of ashamed to say no.

[00:19:44] Taty Fittipaldi: And they, then they use some subterfuges to say no. But if you don’t know that that’s a no, they, you know, you won’t. You will know that it’s a no. And

[00:19:54] Shane C. Kelly: it’s just to be polite, for sure. The intention is

[00:19:56] Taty Fittipaldi: They don’t want to be, they don’t want to sound impolite, or they feel [00:20:00] ashamed… that’s an interesting take. So how about we move from how people engage To pizza. Let’s talk about pizza. Yeah. A little bird told me that Americans have a different taste in toppings versus Brazilians. So tell me a little bit about that.

[00:20:20] Shane C. Kelly: Yes. So I have grown to, I will just start by saying I have grown to love Sao Paulo pizza.

[00:20:26] Shane C. Kelly: It’s really good. But it’s a, it’s like essentially a different food. It’s not even really like a, you can’t really compare like New York pizza. I, I prefer New York pizza because I’m from New York, but like, they’re just different foods. They’re, they’re different sizes. The bread is different. The crust is different.

[00:20:42] Shane C. Kelly: The toppings are different. Everything’s different. But, um, I would say, That the main difference in terms of the topping, the toppings in America and New York, I won’t speak for America, I’ll say New York, are just simpler. Like the most popular flavor or topping for pizza is just plain [00:21:00] cheese. That’s it.

[00:21:01] Shane C. Kelly: Maybe pepperoni. Um, you might find even some like sausage pizza, some mushrooms, pizza, onions, pizza, but like, that’s about it. Like I just named probably 80 percent of the topping options. Now, if you go to Brazil, the topping options are about like, it’s like two or three pages of topping options, you know, and my first, my first pizza experience was a little bit scary.

[00:21:25] Shane C. Kelly: I, I was, it was like my first. Or maybe it was my third day in Brazil. I don’t even think I was living there yet. I was visiting. I had visited for one week before I moved there. And uh, they order two types of pizza. One, one is called calabresa and the other one is called portuguesa. The calabresa is basically just sliced, really good sliced sausage, like thinly sliced sausage with onions on top of it.

[00:21:48] Shane C. Kelly: That’s really good. I like, I, even to this day, I sometimes order a calabresa. The portuguesa one, Was the one that really scared me. So like, if you’re an American and you’re not Brazilian, I’m just going to describe to [00:22:00] you, like, what is on this pizza that scared me. So first I’m just going to start, it has cheese and sauce, right?

[00:22:05] Shane C. Kelly: It’s a normal pizza with cheese and sauce, but on top of the cheese and sauce, you have ham. Okay. That’s not that bad. Corn, sometimes peas. Okay. You also will get some onions on there. And then the thing that scares me the most is they have a sliced hard boiled egg on top of it. So this like traumatized me.

[00:22:28] Shane C. Kelly: I just, I don’t know, hard boiled egg with pizza. I don’t know, man. It just, it just doesn’t do it for me. Even, and I’ve tried it before, since then, like now that I’ve developed my Brazilian palate a little bit more, I can’t do it. It’s just, it’s too strange for me. It’s way too strange. What is your favorite type of Brazilian pizza?

[00:22:45] Taty Fittipaldi: So I love Portuguesa and I love the boiled eggs on top of it.

[00:22:50] Shane C. Kelly: It’s so popular. I’m the only person that I know that doesn’t like it. It

[00:22:55] Taty Fittipaldi: is here because we don’t have any here. So it’s, I really, I really miss [00:23:00] this here. But yeah, I’m so curious. And I’m just bringing up this topic because sometimes we don’t realize how very small things are different in different places and countries and how people see things differently.

[00:23:17] Taty Fittipaldi: So I just wanted to bring up this example because I thought it was such, such a good example. Is there anything else that is in terms of food or something like that is, that is not shocked you but surprised you and you think it’s… Feijoada, for example, or anything like that.

[00:23:37] Shane C. Kelly: Well, I would say.

[00:23:38] Shane C. Kelly: In general, I would, I would, I would say that my I prefer Brazilian food to American food. I would rather eat Brazilian food than American food in most cases. There’s some individual dishes like New York pizza or buffalo wings or something like that that I would choose from America. But in general, Brazilian food for me is just tastier.

[00:23:59] Shane C. Kelly: It’s got [00:24:00] fresher ingredients. It’s simpler and simple food is just, is just better. Um, in most cases, feijoada that you mentioned is awesome. It’s like a pork and beans dish that’s served on top of rice with, um, cassava flour and collard greens. And then also it has pork rinds on it, like fried pork rinds.

[00:24:21] Shane C. Kelly: And it’s just, it’s amazing. That’s really good. The one, one thing that I really like, uh, and I don’t eat it often cause it’s very unhealthy, but I really like the Sao Paulo style hot dogs, uh, hot dogs, basically every food in Brazil, it’s, they took an idea from another country and then made it Brazilian.

[00:24:40] Shane C. Kelly: So they, for example, Portuguesa Pizza, they took normal pizza and then just put a whole bunch of things on it, and it’s like the most popular flavor in Brazil. Hot dogs are the same. A hot dog in Brazil is actually like a sandwich. It’s not really a hot dog. It’s not something that you can eat in like one minute before going into work, like in New York, right?

[00:24:58] Shane C. Kelly: Because in New York a hot dog is, [00:25:00] what’s the bun? The the hot dog itself. And then mustard. In Brazil, you got mayonnaise, ketchup, you got potato sticks, you got corn, you got, uh, mashed potatoes, you got parmesan cheese, sometimes you got, uh, pico de gallo on it, like a salsa. Uh, I’ve actually even had a hot dog that has all of that with, uh, eggplant salad on it.

[00:25:25] Shane C. Kelly: It’s like, that was the, that was the strangest one.

[00:25:27] Taty Fittipaldi: And it’s impossible not to eat and make a mess. Right. It’s

[00:25:30] Shane C. Kelly: impossible. And it’s so, so very good. And it’s like seven reais, which is like a dollar 50 American dollar 50. It’s, it’s awesome. And it’s huge. There’s no way you’re not going to be full after it.

[00:25:42] Shane C. Kelly: But yeah, if you come to Brazil, you gotta have the hot dog, especially in Sao Paulo, um, you gotta try the barbecue. The barbecue is amazing. And again, Brazilian barbecue is. It’s literally two ingredients, like good Brazilian barbecue. It’s really good, high quality [00:26:00] Latin American beef. Brazilian beef and rock salt.

[00:26:05] Shane C. Kelly: That’s it. There’s no fancy stuff. There’s no seasoning. It’s just because the meat kind of speaks for itself. It just tastes better. Um, so I would say those are my top three right there. Hot dog, feijoada. The hot dog was a little bit of a culture shock, but in a good way. And then, and then churrasco, which is the barbecue.

[00:26:21] Shane C. Kelly: It’s awesome.

[00:26:22] Taty Fittipaldi: Awesome tips. Awesome tips.

[00:26:26] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah.

[00:26:26] Taty Fittipaldi: So you, when in the beginning of the show, you mentioned how Brazilians are friendly, right? So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how people engage differently in Brazil, engage with each other in Brazil and in the U. S.

[00:26:43] Shane C. Kelly: Um, one thing that, well, like I said, yeah, Brazilians are super friendly.

[00:26:49] Shane C. Kelly: Brazilians pay, it looks like they pay more attention to you when you talk to them. They like look you in the eye. Um, Brazilians say your name a lot when they’re talking to you, [00:27:00] which makes you feel like they’re really paying attention. I’ve noticed this. Uh, you know, it’s like your name. Okay. You’re like Tatiana.

[00:27:06] Shane C. Kelly: So I’d be like, I don’t know Tatiana. Like, I just really love, uh, you know, I really love talking about Brazilian mannerisms. It’s just an amazing thing. But Tatiana, so like, it’s like, I’m really engaged in the conversation with you. Um, If you’re from like an Italian family in New York or like New Jersey, the east coast of America, you can definitely relate to the touchy feelings also, ’cause Brazilians are very touchy.

[00:27:29] Shane C. Kelly: Um, my mom’s side of the family is like that. My, my dad’s side of the family not so much, but my mom’s side of the family who’s Italian, they’re have Italian origins. Um, you know, they like to kiss on the cheek and hug and, and all this kind of stuff. That’s something that’s really different. Um, they also Brazilians take birthdays very, very seriously, which is something to, to prepare yourself for.

[00:27:51] Shane C. Kelly: Um, this is a funny, funny one. When I worked at the investment company, uh, every day that it was someone’s birthday, they would [00:28:00] send kind of like a, a company wide email to announce to everybody like, Hey, today is touch on his birthday. Okay. So finally it was my birthday and they announced it and the whole company.

[00:28:10] Shane C. Kelly: You know, discovered that it was my birthday and then people were just showing up in my classroom that I had never seen before in my life, like employees that I just met and they’re like, are you Shane? I’m like, yeah, why? I’m like, dude, happy birth. And it would like hug me and like make me get out of my chair.

[00:28:25] Shane C. Kelly: And it was like, I hope you have an amazing year, like a year full of like happiness and success and money and love. And I’m like, gee, it was like intense. Cause in New York, it’s just kind of like, Yeah, happy birthday. You want to get like pizza later or it’s like simpler. Um, so I kind of, I like that about Brazilian culture.

[00:28:41] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah. I don’t know if that answers your question, but

[00:28:44] Taty Fittipaldi: it does. It does. Absolutely. so tell me you gave some advice, some tips about food and some tips about how people engage differently. If you had an American, if you learned about an American going to Brazil, what kinds of tips would you give him [00:29:00] or her?

[00:29:01] Shane C. Kelly: If they were going to live in Brazil or visit

[00:29:03] Taty Fittipaldi: either leave or visit.

[00:29:05] Shane C. Kelly: All right, so if you’re, if you’re going to visit Brazil, I would suggest if you’re going to go to Sao Paulo, go to the north coast of Sao Paulo, to the beaches, to see like Marazias and Sao Sebastião and Ilha Bela, like all these really famous beaches in the north.

[00:29:20] Shane C. Kelly: Um, and if you’re going to stay in the city of Sao Paulo, just, just look up, look up some really good restaurants. Buena Braza is really good. Like there’s just really, really famous old, old school restaurants. Um, there’s a pizzeria, I think it’s San Pedro in Moca, right? I think it’s the name of it. And it’s a really good pizzeria.

[00:29:40] Shane C. Kelly: Go to Moca. If you go, if you want to get good pizza, like that’s probably the best pizza in the city, at least that I know. Um, and if you’re, yeah, if you’re just going to do like a tourist thing, go to Rio, Rio is amazing. Um, Go to Rio, go and see the, the, the Christ, the Redeemer statue, go to see Sugar Loaf Mountain.

[00:29:57] Shane C. Kelly: It’s unbelievably surreal, incredible, [00:30:00] life changing. I mean, it’s, it’s ridiculously beautiful. Like, I can’t even, I, I could do a whole show just talking about Rio. I love Rio. I’ve been there three times. Ipanema Beach is incredible. Um, Just stay in the South zone of Rio. If you go to Rio, cause that’s like the safe zone, the rest of the zones are not so safe, unfortunately.

[00:30:18] Shane C. Kelly: Um, the rumors are true in fact about Rio, but not necessarily in the South zone. The South zone is pretty cool. Copacabana, if you go to Copacabana beach on New Year’s. First of all, if you’re from North America, you’re gonna experience a hot New Year’s on the beach with fireworks and like the best fireworks show you’ve ever seen in your life.

[00:30:41] Shane C. Kelly: But yeah, try the food, don’t be like afraid, like don’t be afraid to say, hey, excuse me, like I’m a foreigner, can you help me, you know, use your translator on your phone or whatever, like. People will help you out. I mean, nine out of 10 times, the people are going to be like excited that you’re just there experiencing their country, you know.

[00:30:57] Shane C. Kelly: And if you’re going to live there, [00:31:00] if you’re going to live in Brazil, Learn some, learn Portuguese. It’s going to make your life a lot easier. And I’m also a firm believer that if you’re going to live in the country, you should, out of respect, you should just learn a decent level of the language. If not, you don’t have to be fluent necessarily. Um, but you should learn enough to survive and talk to the shop keepers and stuff like that. And, and you’ll also have more job opportunities if you speak the language too.

[00:31:26] Taty Fittipaldi: Cool. And talking about respect , since you’re bringing this up, when expatriates go to a different country, they usually have to prove themselves. They have to develop certain things and prove themselves so that they can fit in in society and, you know, work this kind of thing.

[00:31:43] Taty Fittipaldi: In your opinion, how do you see a foreigner trying to find a job in Brazil versus, for example, a foreigner trying to find a job in the U. S.?

[00:31:55] Shane C. Kelly: That’s a really good question. Yeah, I, uh, I saw that question when you sent it to me. I thought it was awesome. [00:32:00] Um, well, yeah, like we, we meaning gringos, like Americans or people who are from Canada or Britain or something like that coming to Brazil, we are super privileged.

[00:32:11] Shane C. Kelly: Um, we’re super privileged for a couple of reasons. One, Brazilians, I’m just going to speak for Americans. Brazilians are warmer in general than Brazilian, than Americans. They’re more receptive. They want you to be, they want you to come over. They want you to experience their country. They want you to come to see their place, you know, uh, come into their house.

[00:32:29] Shane C. Kelly: And, um, also English is at such a huge demand in Brazil that, and there’s so many different things that you can do with English. That it’s really easy if you just speak English, like I, I am a certified teacher. Like I have a teaching certification, but there’s a lot of teachers that just come to Brazil being native speakers without any actual teaching certifications and just make a living for themselves and make a decent living, you know?

[00:32:54] Shane C. Kelly: Um, so I, I would say there’s, there’s a lot less bureaucracy as a gringo, as a foreigner in [00:33:00] Brazil, there’s a lot less bureaucracy. If you’re, if you have green eyes and you’re from the United States, like. People are just going to like, want to do classes with you. They’re going to want to talk to you.

[00:33:09] Shane C. Kelly: They’re going to want to be your friend. Um, it’s, it’s kind of like the opposite of the States. Like there’s that kind of negative stigma of like, Oh, you know, Mexican immigration or like, um, that our former presidency put on our country. But anyways, that’s another story. Um, but, but you know, it, it, that is like the total opposite.

[00:33:30] Shane C. Kelly: In Brazil, like if you say, oh, I’m a foreigner in Brazil, they’re like, wow, like tell me everything about you, you know, whereas like most of it’s not most of the time, but I’d say half of the time if like a foreigner goes to the United States. I mean, I’ve had students, for example, that were lawyers in Brazil, and they wanted to follow their dream to live in the United States and they go to the United States.

[00:33:50] Shane C. Kelly: And they’re super qualified. I mean, they have master’s degrees and seven years of teach of, of, of work experience and worked at a crazy law firm. And they wind up like being a cleaning lady [00:34:00] or working at a restaurant. And it’s just because like, they can’t get legitimate work simply because, I don’t know, their English is not perfect or they’re, they weren’t born there or they’re And they look different and they act different.

[00:34:15] Shane C. Kelly: I don’t know. You know, I don’t know what the reason is exactly, but it’s definitely harder. And I’m speaking from experience. My wife lives in the United States for a year and was studied there and did all the applications to study there. Um, I’ve had, I don’t even know, 150 different students. that moved to, um, that moved to the United States, you know, and had a really difficult time.

[00:34:37] Shane C. Kelly: And, but I don’t know one single foreigner that came to Brazil and didn’t have an amazing, really easy time at it. I don’t know any.

[00:34:48] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s… um, you’re a good advocate for Brazil.

[00:34:52] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I’m just, I’m just keeping it real. I mean, that’s just. That’s my experience, right? Like, that’s just, that’s just how I feel.

[00:34:59] Shane C. Kelly: That’s how I feel. That’s how [00:35:00] it was for me. That’s how it was for the people that I know that went through similar stuff. Um, and we have, I have expats in my family. Like I said, my cousin, he’s been living in China now for, I think for about 10 years. He’s been there for a long time, long time. So it’s like kind of in our family.

[00:35:14] Shane C. Kelly: Uh, and my family is pretty small. My mom’s side of the family is small. It’s just like me, my cousin that are in the same age level, kind of, you know, age, uh, around the same age, me and my cousin and his sister. So two out of three, I don’t have any brothers and sisters, but two out of three of the kids moved.

[00:35:28] Shane C. Kelly: Went to different countries, you know, um, and so I, I’m speaking just based on my own experience, you know, but Brazil is a great place. Yeah. Brazil is a great place.

[00:35:38] Taty Fittipaldi: That’s, that’s awesome. And now we are almost to the end of the show and I wanted to share, um, a card with you, uh, as I said, offline, you’re going, this, this card is part of a product that we sell at coaching expatriates.

[00:35:53] Taty Fittipaldi: It’s to help people develop mind resilience, develop different types of perspective, a [00:36:00] different mindset about things. So what I want to do now is show you one card. I draw a randomly a card for you and I want you to read this card and then tell me anything that comes to your mind, um, in regards to your expatriation experience or anything that happened, you know, that shows up in your mind.

[00:36:19] Taty Fittipaldi: How about that? Okay,

[00:36:20] Shane C. Kelly: sure. So

[00:36:21] Shane C. Kelly: okay. So starting from the top says I decide what to experience. I’m in control of my life. Everything is accomplished when you live in the moment and cherish life existence. Um, okay. So in regards to my expatriate experience, it was, it’s kind of, it’s kind of difficult to not live in the moment while being here.

[00:36:47] Shane C. Kelly: Um, being in the city that I live in with such a high amount of energy and stuff like that, it forces you to pay attention at all times. Um, and I think that [00:37:00] I had been so worried about the future for so long. Like, what am I going to do in the future? What am I going to do when I grow up? Now I’m going to be 30 years old next week.

[00:37:08] Shane C. Kelly: Like I’m not a kid anymore. Um, at all. Like not even, I’m like, I’m fully, fully, very much an adult now. Um, and I think I was so worried about growing up in the future and this and that, and that being, becoming an expatriate, leaving my country, forcing myself into kind of an extreme situation for like a long period of time forced me to slow down.

[00:37:33] Shane C. Kelly: And just kind of like live and really, yeah, just like exist in where I am, like be where I am. Um, and that has worked so far pretty well, like almost five years here and I have my own school. It’s pretty cool.

[00:37:49] Taty Fittipaldi: Yes, it’s an amazing accomplishment.

[00:37:52] Shane C. Kelly: It’s bizarre. Like even to say it’s bizarre. It’s just strange.

[00:37:55] Shane C. Kelly: Yeah, but it’s cool.

[00:37:56] Taty Fittipaldi: Shane, thank you so much for coming in our [00:38:00] show and thank you so much for being so candid and share your story with us. I am sure they’re going to help a lot of people and inspire a lot of people. So I, I’m really thankful to you.

[00:38:11] Shane C. Kelly: Uh, thank you. I, I appreciate it really. Thank you so much for, uh, for inviting me to, to come on the show.

[00:38:17] Shane C. Kelly: I think the show is a great idea, a really great idea. Um, I think being an expatriate is a risky thing. It’s a scary thing, but it’s like one of the most fulfilling things you could possibly do in your life. And I think that this, this show really kind of, uh, uh, showcases that. So thank you really for, for inviting me.

[00:38:33] Taty Fittipaldi: Thank you, Shane. Thank you.

[00:38:35] Shane C. Kelly: My pleasure.

[00:38:35]

[00:38:37] HIGHLIGHTS

[00:38:37] Taty Fittipaldi: This brings us to the end of this Leadership Nest episode. I trust you found value in acquiring insights that can elevate your decisions and performance in critical global leadership roles and 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 [00:39:00] international relocation, acclimation and cultural integrations.

[00:39:04] Taty Fittipaldi: Wherever you are in the globe, this is Taty Fittipaldi wishing you a beautiful day.

[00:39:09] 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.

[00:39:27] 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.

[00:39:41] Taty Fittipaldi: While there, if you find value in our show, you can also subscribe to our global leadership weekly newsletter from Coaching Expatriates®, where we deliver bite-sized lessons on global leadership, decision-making, and cultural competence to help you learn how to think, relate and strategize [00:40:00] in a whole different way as a global leader.

[00:40:02] 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.

[00:40:18] Taty Fittipaldi: Taty Fittipaldi is also available for private coaching. See the websites for more details at www.coachingexpatriates.com/executive-coaching.

[00:40:30] Taty Fittipaldi: Thanks for joining us this week on The Leadership Nest podcast. I trust you found value in acquiring insights that can elevate your performance in critical global leadership roles and situations.

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