Category: Blog

I am provoking you with this title, I want to get your attention!

In this world, we are forced to use words to share our ideas with others, but we all know how misleading these can be sometimes, especially when the individuals trying to communicate with each other come from different cultures, with different ways of understanding the same words… which could possibly be our case here! 😉 First of all, before talking about a “winner”, I want to turn things around a bit and define what I mean by a “loser”:

In my opinion, a “loser” is someone who has given up on discovering who he or she is, given up on growing and evolving, who has stopped serving others, and who has decided not to pursue a dream in life, either because they don´t believe that they are capable of achieving results, or because they are too concerned about other people´s opinions.

 

• The first way…

When I was still in Italy, despite the fact that I wasn’t giving up, that I wanted to serve others and that I was eager to evolve and improve myself, I certainly wasn’t feeling like a “winner”. Actually, it was quite the opposite… Why? Because I had no direction: I was allowing pressures from the society around me and from my family to weaken my self-image, and so I was feeling like a “loser” because I became convinced that I couldn´t succeed.

If you are like I was, you probably feel that something is missing in your life, that something needs to happen so that the word “loser” won´t apply to you. Right now, that word really bothers you, it makes you emotionally uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, I only know what worked for me, and this is the only thing I can share. But fortunately, on the other hand, I have noticed that the same thing has worked for many others, people who have a specific experience in common with us: that of being an Immigrant!

Prior to making the decision to immigrate, as I have shared in previous articles, my life was basically aimless: I was always trying new things, new jobs, looking to find something that I was good at and that I enjoyed doing. This is really pretty normal, especially when you are in your twenties, but instead of accepting my need to try different paths, every day I became more and more convinced that I was a “loser”! I still had no direction… and I was 27 years old!

I would look around, and when I noticed people who seemed to be going somewhere, to have a good job, a career or a business, I would mentally label them as “winners”, just because they were doing something and going somewhere. I wouldn’t even evaluate whether or not they were happy: the fact that they were going somewhere made them look very successful to me…

At other times, I would look around and notice others like me who were not doing anything interesting, aimlessly trying a few things here and there… and mentally, I would label them (and hence myself too) as “losers”!

I felt this need to prove that I was going somewhere important, to get away from this unpleasant feeling: I needed to show the world around me (and myself) that I too was part of the group of “winners” – I just didn’t know how!

One day when I lost my job as a door-to-door salesman, I firmly decided that I was going to immigrate. I had had enough, so it became a firm decision and I announced it to the world around me!

Mentally, that decision made me become one of the “winners”, and I suddenly felt very good…

I wish I could explain how charged I felt: my energy level was boosted significantly, my mood was always amazing and I start to share that enthusiasm for life with others.

Can you imagine? I hadn’t even started working on the immigration application, but my life had changed already, all because of a single decision.

I have claimed in other articles that I became an Immigrant that day, the day I decided to immigrate, long before I arrived in North America… My attitude towards life changed radically, and even if it took three and a half long years before I actually got the Green Card, I was more satisfied and at peace during those three and a half years than I had ever been before.

 

• The second way…

 

There was nothing wrong with the fact that I was still exploring life at 27 and that I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do: I was moving, I was exploring, I wasn’t just standing still!

But despite everything, the more I experimented, the more I felt inadequate and so unhappy with myself.

Something really strange happened when I arrived in Canada. I felt compelled to keep my options open, and while I was working washing cars at my uncle’s auto body shop, I started to wonder and explore ideas, and I magically felt no pressure to make a decision, to find a path…

Isn’t that strange? I was older, I needed to support my family and I needed to justify my “big move” with tangible results: but despite all that, I was more motivated to look around than ever before!

Why? Nobody around me really knew me, nobody had a strong opinion about who I was and I subconsciously felt this, I could feel the lightness in the air. I was no longer in any preconceived mold.

I had a few jobs that gave me the possibility of supporting my family and preparing for the next chapter of my life, but my dreams started approaching me easily, and many ideas and possibilities came to me without effort: there was no cultural blocking, the stream of possibilities was open, and the rest is history.

 

I will be forever grateful to the Act of Immigrating for putting me into that “winner mode” in two ways:

1. The first way at the moment I decided to immigrate, pulling me out of a psychological sludge and giving me a direction to aim towards;
2. The second way when I realized that immigrating helped me to eliminate cultural blocks, allowing such infinite streams of ideas and possibilities to come to me so easily and abundantly.

 

If you can’t find your way out from your own psychological sludge; if you feel suffocated in your surroundings; if you feel that, no matter in which direction you want to run, the muscles in your legs cramp up and don’t respond to your command; it could be a clear sign that you are one of us!

I am convinced that when you discover that life where you are won´t let you advance, it is “a wakeup call”: don’t ignore it, it can cost you a lifetime of regrets…

Make that decision to immigrate and give yourself the life you deserve – the world needs you at your best!

 

I wish you the best…

 

Stay awake!

 

Frank.

 

I´d like to talk about this topic from the perspective of a male Immigrant, a husband and father.

I think that female Immigrants live the immigration process a little differently than men do.

Before I begin, I want to clarify that the following thoughts come from a simple family guy with a high school education, obsessed with observing human behavior and fascinated by every aspect of the Act of Immigrating. What I say isn’t based on any formal education; it is just what I perceive when I observe myself and other Immigrants, through my direct interactions, messages and reading.

Recognizing that my observations are very generic and that every case is different, I would like to say that nothing compares to the Act of Immigrating for proving how much stronger, more tolerant, adaptable, persistent, proud, intuitive, independent, resourceful and resilient women are than men.

I have noticed that when they immigrate with a spouse, independently of whether they are the inspired immigrants or the compliant follower within the couple (please see the article entitled “The Immigrant´s Spouse” for more details), in many cases women have no problem staying in the shadows, taking no credit for anything. They are the foundation, the rock of the family; they´re ego, not as needy and insecure as that of the men, allows them to make sure that their man takes most of the credit, because that is just the way they are, that maternal instinct to support and boost self-esteem in loved-ones always kicks in when needed.

Women instinctively understand that even the biggest achievers, the confident game-changers and dreamers need their support as much as the simple, ordinary, insecure man.

As I´ve mentioned many times before, immigrating, no matter how much you want to do it, is an extremely traumatic experience for everyone! The impact of the cultural shock is the reason why many immigrants are defeated and either go “back home” or stay in the new country but suffer from continuous feelings of regret.

I have seen wives and moms start the Immigration Experience with the worst attitude ever, psychologically forced to make a step like this by their husband or another family member, and they still go on to become the natural logistical and emotional pillar of support for everyone!

In stressful situations, women are the ones that stay quietly in the background, finding the strength and even the creativity to make sure that every loved one is in the best position to win their daily battles, and then they go on to tackle their own challenges.

In many Immigration success stories, when referring to couples, it is almost always the man who appears to be the “achiever”, the one that made it happen!

But behind that apparent truth, the reality is different!

Take Daniela and I, for example.

When talking with friends, family members and even in random conversations with strangers, I often get complimented on the degree of success I have achieved in a relatively short time as a newcomer. Daniela? She usually receives little or no recognition.

The assumption that I am the one who is strong minded, talented, creative, etc., is so strong in everyone that they think Daniela is just a pretty face!

It is very intriguing to notice how most people judge things using very superficial and subjective measuring systems, and that the part of the “success” that they perceive is only the tip of the iceberg, the most obvious and shallow aspect. Most don’t pay attention to the transformation that happened to the human being, the internal changes – not even family members that held you as a baby and changed your diapers perceive this part most of the time. I have never heard anyone who knew me before I arrived in Canada say something like: “You seem so happy now, so at peace…” or “You seem so confident, you have changed so much since…” Everyone seems to be impressed with how big the business has become, how often we change cars, how often we go on vacation, etc.

Well, that same degree of superficiality is the reason why so many people don’t see what women do and mainly what women ARE in the “act of immigrating”.

I have no doubt in my mind that without a woman like Daniela, I would have gone back to Italy within the first year, or I would have become a victim of the Immigration Experience and lived for the rest of my life in a “foreign country”, never calling it my own, working as a woodworker for a window company, stuck with a life full of regrets.

Besides working full time, raising three boys, taking care of the house, cooking healthy meals for the family every day, her real “thing” is her rooted will power and innate ability to make me feel invincible, even in moments when the only thing I wanted to do was to quit!

One of those moments that I will never forget was right after I quit my full-time job and decided to go all in with the business to hopefully make it profitable, when suddenly we experienced a drastic slowdown of incoming phone calls from new customers. It seemed almost like a joke: I was running out of jobs and accumulating debts because I had bought a cargo van, more tools and a big ad in the Yellow Pages. I started to panic, and the more I panicked, the harder it was for me to sell my services when meeting with the few people who were interested. Every night I would go home, tired after a day of working at the job site and an evening spent trying to convince homeowners to buy my service. Every night I felt more defeated… This routine went on for several weeks. Our first son Luca was just born, Daniela was on maternity leave and money was really scarce.

What finally caught my attention after spending weeks chained to negative and fearful thoughts was her way of dealing with me and the situation… until one day I confronted her…

I asked her why she was not worried about anything, using an “offended” kind of tone. In my head, I was the only one that felt the responsibility and she was just coming along for the ride… She didn’t answer; I continued listing all the things that were not working, whining and blaming everything on the fact that I was an Immigrant, not able to communicate properly, and that I was failing to sell effectively because I couldn’t understand the customers with all their different cultures.

I concluded that monologue the same way I had concluded similar monologues in the past: “What’s the point of leaving your country if you have to keep struggling…”

I was secretly looking for pity, but after a moment of silence she said something that literally changed everything for me, and that beautifully caught me off guard: “Keep going, don’t worry!” she said. She waited a few seconds and then went on: “We came here with nothing, and we have bought a house and made a lot of progress after only 4 years. Even if we have to sell the house to support the business, who cares? We have got nothing to lose, we will start all over again. We know how to do it!”

If you knew my wife Daniela, you would have been as shocked as I was… she is not the “motivational speaker” kind. She didn’t say those words just to cheer me up: she wasn’t excited, nor did she seem particularly inspired. What was profoundly empowering for me after those few words of hers was the simplicity of her statement and the calm that she used in making it. She made it sound the way a teacher would talk while explaining how to add 3+3 to a six year-old!

Much later on, we talked about those moments and she said to me that she believed everything she said because she saw what immigrating had done to us already, and those struggles and downsides were just part of the game: we had changed already and so success was just a formality around the corner.

She is the silent winner in our ongoing, exciting adventure as Immigrants! Even now, when I have my rare down times, I can hear her voice in my head and I quickly snap out of it.

 

Certainly, things change from culture to culture, but the Woman Immigrant is the real winner in this game, and not only for her “doing”, but mainly for her “being”.

The list of things that women “do” as a logistical support for the team (the family) is just infinite!

Their extraordinary ability to multitask makes everything possible.

To all my male Immigrant friends – recognize the women in your lives with whom you are sharing the Immigration Experience; wives, girlfriends, mothers or even sisters!

Tell them how important they are to your growth as newcomers, let them know that even if, I repeat… even if… you are this amazing invincible machine ready to conquer your new country, they are your ignition key, your fuel, and they own the instruction manual!

On the other hand, do Immigrant Women need a man to succeed, to adapt to a new country and become a successful Immigrant, creating a happy life for themselves and for others? I think that it will help them, but we men are not truly indispensable for women.

There are many women that, through the act of immigrating without a male companion, have rewritten the book of their life, and I have a feeling that for them that solitary Immigration was probably a real blessing. Maybe we will go deeper into this topic in a future article.  😉

 

 

Stay awake!

 

Frank.

 

We are going deep in this article. I am excited, because if I succeed in sharing what I have come to understand about this topic, it may save you years of painful, useless and dangerous stagnation in your growth as an Immigrant, allowing you to take off towards your dream life like a rocket ship!
About the word “perception”, I have summarized here the two definitions that I found in the dictionary:
• The ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses.
• A way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.
The first definition describes the simple, physical phase of detecting something through our senses; the second definition goes deeper, and I have purposely highlighted the words “interpreting” and “mental impression”.
When we see, hear, touch, smell or taste something, we are using our senses to get the information in and carry it to our brain; but when we are interpreting the information from our senses and so form a mental impression, we use something else, we use our conditioning, the hidden contents of our subconscious mind.
Why is this so important for us Immigrants?
It is not just important, it is vital that as newcomers we understand that everything we perceive when we hit the cultural wall of our new country is most likely seen through the eyes of our cultural conditioning from our native land.
I could tell you many stories (some seem funny now) of situations that compromised my serenity at the very beginning of my immigration experience, and compromised my judgment during the years immediately afterward, all caused by distorted perceptions.
After 17 years as an Immigrant, the way I perceive what happens around me now is almost always independent of my old cultural conditioning – “almost” means that a few times, when my guard is down, I still interpret what happens around me in a totally erroneous way. Thankfully, I usually catch myself doing this early enough and adjust it before building a wrong mental impression, or even worse, an entire, unreal movie in my mind.
I will tell you a funny story about something that happened to my wife Daniela and me simultaneously, but which we experienced separately, during our first few months in Canada.
As I have mentioned in prior articles, I was lucky enough to have an extended family here in Canada that certainly made my experience “warmer”, from one point of view.
While we were taking our first small steps towards our initial milestones, as most people do, we started sharing our progress with our cousins and uncles and with our new Canadian friends, with the intent of winning a much-needed “pat on the back”…
I remember sharing with my cousin Lenny how excited I was at buying my first car as a Canadian driver: it was a modest 1991 Plymouth Sundance, but it was a big deal for me. His answer was a grinning, “Good for you!” I didn’t give his answer too much attention at the time, but later on something was bothering me – I couldn’t stop hearing that phrase in my head, over and over again. It then seemed to me that he really didn’t care, or that he was almost jealous that we were making this small headway! Was it possible? He was always kind and willing to help, and had never showed signs of such feelings towards anybody before. I just put that thought out of my mind and moved on…
It must have been weeks or months later when I found myself talking to another cousin, Vito. I had stopped at their family´s Auto Collision Center where he was working, just to say “Hi”. At that time, I was working for a window company. When he asked me about my job, I rushed into an excited answer that I couldn’t wait to share with someone: I had just gotten a promotion! I explained that the management decided to give me the most highly paid position of any worker in the plant. I was going to build custom-shaped windows from scratch, working on my own workbench with my own tools outside the assembly line, and my wages were going to increase substantially!
His answer was exactly like that of my other cousin: “Good for you… good for you…!”
Well, now I was irritated, but I still couldn’t understand why? I waited a few minutes while we talked about other things, but finally I couldn’t wait anymore and, probably with a suspicious tone in my voice, I asked him, “What did you mean when you said ‘Good for you!’?”
He seemed irritated, and he impatiently explained that he was just happy for me. My answer was a cold “ok”, and after making up some excuse, I left.
For a long time, I ended up not sharing any more of my small victories with my cousins or friends. I was convinced that their “Good for you!” was a sarcastic comment, and I was convincing myself that they were jealous!
Then the craziest thing happened when I accidentally shared these incidents with my wife Daniela… Talk about “misery loves company…”! She got all excited and started telling me about her best friend/colleague at work who had this habit of saying “Good for you!” to every positive thing Daniela would share with her, and she confessed to me that now she was doubting her friend´s sincerity because of this comment! We really went for an intense mental trip, full of fears and negative ideas that had no foundation! Everything was in our heads, and only in our heads! Nothing of the movie that we played in our minds was real!
I am sorry for using so many exclamation marks, but I am really raising my voice now; we had stopped sharing our joys with our family and friends for a long time because their sincere caring was perceived as a danger, a threat to our well-being.
I honestly don’t recall if someone explained to us that we were perceiving this particular thing all wrong, and that surely those people were trying to support us, or if with time we just realized on our own that we were misperceiving.
Please, my friends, newcomers to the lands where you live now, don’t let your perception of things work against you, causing so much pain, fear and disconnection from the people around you who may have all the best intentions of supporting you: many times, they even look at you with admiration for being so brave!
This “Good for you!” incident was very light: it was not a momentous case that caused me to make a serious misevaluation of that could have ruined an important decision. If seen from a different angle and with a light spin to it, it actually seems to be a pretty funny incident.
In my native culture, in a small town in southern Italy, when someone says, “Good for you!” there is no way that he or she means it!
We were perceiving an expression of encouragement, a manifestation of someone´s pride in us, as a negative feeling! Why?
Because we were processing it through the filter of our native culture and not through our hearts. We were totally unconscious; our Italian programming was malfunctioning and misleading us because we were applying it to an incompatible reality.
The Immigrant’s Perception, the way of listening to your heart to know what is the truth in a given situation, will most likely not be at your service in the initial phase of your immigration experience, because you´re still operating in homeland mode, without being open to the moment.
Just knowing that this habit exists will allow you to catch it when it is not serving you, and slowly your perception will adjust to read the circumstances and people of your new country properly.
Perceiving your reality with your old conditioning will prevent you from finding your dream job, growing your own business, raising a happy family and being an overall self-actualized human being…

Stay awake,

Frank.

In the previous article, I shared my thoughts about how immigrating gives, as a default, the potential empowerment to anybody that has, secretly or not, the desire to start a new business.
I mentioned how some people immigrate with the hidden desire to become self-employed, even if they were not exposed to the idea of entrepreneurship before, or even worse, even if they were scared away from it while growing up in their native country.
Most newcomers from this group will fall into the trap of becoming an employee for the rest of their lives, even if deep in their hearts they suffer because of their unexpressed creativity and the desire to stretch their horizons. I can’t express how much I feel for them. Fortunately, a few of them will be able to break out of this, and even if they have no idea how, and are not sure if they are able to, they at least want to try. The fact that they are starting fresh in a new country enhances their ability to dream of other new beginnings.
The limiting beliefs are in part transferred to them by DNA (their genetic heritage), and in part by their native culture (their original environment).
We may be aware of all the statistics, we may have the knowledge required to open that dream restaurant, we might be a fantastic and renowned chef, we may have studied business management, we might have money to invest, etc. But if deep inside us, at the core of our being, we don’t believe we can do it, nothing will happen, and if something does happen it will most likely be a disaster…
Once we have established that we have the intention of starting a business as immigrants, no matter if we have been exposed to entrepreneurship in our native country or not, we need to understand one important thing: our imported belief system is always there to either help us or destroy us! There are definitely two sides to this “coin”!

Let me tell you the story of Vlad, a fourth-generation barber from a family of skilled and successful barbers in Croatia, aware of all the finest techniques and the small details transferred down from his great-grandfather. Vlad fell in love with a Canadian tourist and immigrated to a Toronto suburb.
When Vlad arrived, he had everything he needed to start his own business right away! He had a multigenerational wealth of knowledge in the industry, he had money, he had the logistic support of his Canadian wife’s family, his English was decent and he was used to a lifestyle that required a high income, so motivation was not a problem either.
Vlad apparently had every resource needed to succeed, and now he is making it happen, he is on his way to growth, but he did not jump into the pool head first right away, even if his circumstances may have tempted him to do so.
Intuitively, he did a very smart thing: he decided to work for somebody else for a few years, certainly not to learn a barber’s skills or to learn business skills either. He did learn something about these areas, but that was not what he was looking for; his intention was to learn about the new culture he was in, what people like, how to talk to them, etc.
All this is very important stuff: he was taking the right approach, being humble and smart, and I applaud him for it.
He was, however, ignoring one important thing – while preparing for his success, he was not aware of or paying attention to the most important piece of the puzzle: the programmed conditioning he had received back in Croatia, quietly but effectively running his mind and his actions 24/7 and 365 days a year.
I have been his customer ever since he was an employee in somebody else´s barber shop, and I spent some time asking him a lot of questions about his intentions and his immigration experience. I could see quite clearly how, on the one hand, his programming had been the basis for the success he had achieved so far, and yet at the same time it was also responsible for his slow growth.
Vlad has been doing everything brilliantly: he is rapidly building a portfolio of his clients (he´s often booked up and you need to wait a long time to get a haircut), he has been using his European work ethic, attention to details in cutting hair and tremendous pride in making sure that he gives the right suggestions to his customers. Vlad does not care how many people are waiting, when he is cutting your hair, he won’t even think about them: during those 15-20 minutes that you are sitting in his chair, you are the only person in his shop.
It is very obvious that all of this is a complete behavioral package built on a belief system that came across the Canadian border with him, and this is all good, behavior that is helping him!
What is not so good is what the same imported belief system is doing to limit him, now that he is ready and willing to take his business to the next level.
He has been struggling to find help! Every time I go there, after I casually provoke him into talking about it, he expresses his frustration about how terrible Canadians are as employees, how hard it is to find good help, and he keeps saying that they want to get paid well without knowing how to do the job, that they should be grateful that they get a chance, and more, much more…
His conclusions may be true, but the real problem has nothing to do with his potential employees and everything to do with what his imported belief system says about being an employer, the very beliefs that make Vlad behave in a certain way when he is hiring someone.
I am very familiar with this subject because I caught myself behaving the same way as Vlad when looking for help. I am glad I caught myself before giving up.
I have never been present when he interviews someone, but I have seen my own behavior reflected in him when we discuss this subject. Like many people who come from that part of the world, Vlad believes to the core that when he is interviewing someone to fill his chair at the barbershop, he is giving that person an opportunity to work. In his mind, this individual should almost jump up and down, showing immense gratitude. Basically, he believes that this individual owes him something just because he is offering him a job! This is a small facet of a typical old-school European attitude with regard to being a boss… I am sure that if I cornered Vlad and accused him of this behavior, he would emphatically deny it, just like so many others in his position. What’s important to understand is that he is denying it because he can’t see it!

I remember 3 years ago, my assistant Donna literally made me feel like a worm after I interviewed a young man to fill a position as an installer, a position that I was having a hard time filling!
I thought he was going to start working with us right away, due to the fact that he was making very little money at his present job and driving one hour to work; but, inexplicably (as far as I could see), he ran away, and fast!
When I started to complain to Donna about this young man´s behavior, she literally turned red and with a nervous smile on her face she asked me, “You really don’t understand why this guy ran away, even if he needed this job so much?”
When she took her time and explained how much I had scared this guy with my heavy jokes, my too-direct questions, my serious speech about responsibility and the very high volume in my voice, I was just devastated!
In the European work market, where finding a job has always been hard, where the number of people seeking work has always been much greater than the demand for employees, everyone expects the behavior that Vlad and I had shown. But in the Canadian market, where the situation is reversed, it´s no wonder that such an attitude could be an obstacle for business and personal growth.
I was aware of what the imported belief system can do to you, and how important it is to always keep it in check, but it still got me… I had been operating in some kind of unconscious mode, and the classic “Italian employer” in me was hiring a Canadian employee – of course it wasn’t going to work!
I wanted to share Vlad’s story and mine to demonstrate how sneaky these imported beliefs are: they take control over our behavior, thankfully permitting the habits that can help our business, but when the negative and limiting habits appear, we need to take control and replace them with new ones. We need to stay awake!

Stay awake,

Frank.

In my previous article, I attempted to separate the different types of an immigrant’s spouse into four groups, according to the degree of support that they give to their partners in regards to the immigration adventure.
I want to reinforce the fact that a spouse is rarely stuck in one group all the time; within a few years, a spouse that starts as an antagonist may become proactive, or the other way around.
As an immigrant who has consciously made the choice to change countries, you hope that your spouse will be as supportive as possible, independent of whatever psychological state he/she is in at the beginning of this adventure.
I know my wife Daniela went from being a passive spouse to being supportive, and finally became a jackpot spouse, slowly becoming an inspired immigrant herself, with her own goals and dreams. And hers is not a rare case; this transformation has happened to many other immigrants’ wives and husbands that I know.

If you are the inspired immigrant in your family, please understand that it is possible that your spouse has not really decided to immigrate! They may have said “yes” with a smile or with tears, but either way, there may have been no internal decision on their part to become an immigrant. Unless your spouse belongs to the jackpot category (if they were an inspired immigrant right from the start, like you), they made their decision driven by one or both of two powerful forces: love or fear!
The love is directed towards you and the kids; the fear is of losing you and the kids.
Because of this, we can safely deduce that, basically, your spouse felt forced into immigration, and so every obstacle will seem twice as big to them, and every victory will often seem almost like a defeat, because it guarantees that they won´t be going back…
• As inspired immigrants;
We need to understand that our decision to immigrate, independent of all the noble reasons behind it, may be the cause of deep internal pain and a feeling of emptiness for our spouse. While, as inspired immigrants, we were consciously willing to feel the pain of leaving our parents and siblings, our friends, our culture, while we were willing to detach our identity from all these things… our spouse was forced into this painful process!
We get so frustrated when our spouse is negative, always miserable, does not understand us, has such a lazy attitude, always talks about “back home”, etc. And on top of being frustrated, we don’t understand why, right when we need their support the most, they seem to want to sabotage everything; and for this reason we resent them, and that causes them to increase their resentment towards us even more. It is a vicious circle!
What to do? Two things!
As the inspired immigrant in the family, we can:
1. Use empathy, compassion and support for our spouse so they won’t feel judged and guilty for the way they feel about the whole subject of immigration. If we do this, we will help them to allow these feelings to surface instead of being dangerously repressed deep inside them. By doing so, these feelings will automatically fade away with time and they will support you during challenges.
2. Stay focused on our goals and dreams, stay motivated and enthusiastic about the new life in the new country and never blame situations, luck or our spouse for our own failures; no matter how much they may influence the process, this was your decision and so you must accept full responsibility for it. If, as inspired immigrants, we stay enthusiastic about immigrating and keep focused on our goals and dreams, sooner or later our enthusiasm will infect our spouses with the same naturalness as a cold or flu.

• In relation to an immigrant’s spouse;
It is important that their feelings are allowed expression, no matter how painful they are!
When invited to speak in front of immigrants, I usually like to chat individually with some of them; and when I perceive that I am meeting what we call in this context an “immigrant´s spouse”, I just wait for the usual poker-face attitude! In these gatherings, the spouse rarely admits hating the immigration move, leaving the loved ones, the difficulties with the language, the cultural trauma, the different climate, etc.… They seem so ashamed of these feelings, and it´s mostly because, as spouses, they are not understood by their partners (the inspired immigrants); they are judged and labeled by them!
As an immigrant spouse, you can:
1. Understand that your partner´s disappointment in you is fueled by ignorance of the details, and so it is nothing personal. Please understand this as a favor to yourself; they compare your reaction to the stress of changing countries with their own expectations, but totally ignore the fact that your decision was to follow them, and was not necessarily made because immigrating was something you wanted! You want this to be appreciated as an act of love, a gift you have given them, but instead you only get criticism and resentment!
2. You are in this new country now; you are an immigrant! Take advantage of the hidden power of immigration; you can improve everything you don’t like about your life and experience hidden sides of yourself that used to be suffocated by layers of other people´s beliefs about you. Immigration can do this to you, if you can understand its possibilities and take advantage of them.
3. Support your partner in the best way possible: have your own goals and dreams, and follow through on them, so that instead of being your spouse’s right arm, you will become their biggest source of inspiration.

I believe that the immigration experience can be an incredible tool for any couple, especially if both partners live it together, supporting each other but pursuing their own individual purposes and goals.

Stay awake,

Frank.

How can we use our culture to grow as immigrants instead of being penalized by it?

Appreciating and leveraging what we bring with us in our cultural luggage can only happen if we don’t attach our “being” to it.

I will give the following example in general terms, so that when reading it, you can personalize it and make it yours.

When I say, “I am Italian,” “I am Chinese,” “I am Indian,” etc., I should feel this simply as a life situation that I share with several other million human beings. We are all participants in a beautiful and rich culture inherited from the past, in which many artists, inventors, and visionaries were born, and my heart should fill with pride and a sense of responsibility for being part of it. If I feel like I belong to this culture without making that belonging a part of who I am, then I own a powerful tool that will master my own immigration experience. Yes, if this is what I do, I am using my culture and not being used by it! Suddenly, just writing this sentence, I feel the freedom that comes with it!

It´s true: if we are able to detach our culture from our identity, we will not play the stereotyped part, and so we will be free to express only what we like from our culture and disregard what does not serve us, leaving room for new ideas, new beliefs, to live the life we want to live!

I remember my first job as a carpenter in Canada, at a window factory, where we manufactured high-quality wood/aluminum windows; it was in the wealthy town of Oakville, Ontario.

There were slightly under 100 people working there, and I would say that, along with tiny representations of several countries from Europe and South America, there were three major groups representing people who had been born as Canadians, Portuguese, and Croatians; in the entire factory, there were only four Italians, and two were management.

Looking back now, I see things that I could not see during the three years I worked there. I was in that initial confused phase; at the time, I just felt this urgency to find a way out, it was impossible to feel happy there, everyone was stuck! Every single comment, every act of jealousy, every frustration from almost all of the workers was somehow directly linked to, and fueled by, cultural differences.

That place was where so many talented people, beautiful human beings, who had immigrated with big dreams and good intentions, ended up killing and burying their potential… all because they were abused victims of their culture! And most of the time, these cultural barriers are the reason of negative feelings toward each other were hidden by fake compliments and by fake multiculturalist preaching.

Because everyone was carrying an imaginary flag tattooed on their forehead, everyone was judging each others´ cultures and being judged according to their own culture, but because of the identification, the individuals themselves were being hurt! You would hear remarks that would range from “look at that guy… classic Asian, always works overtime and makes us all look lazy!” to “this guy works at a slow South American pace… back home, he would be fired!” And when similar comments were shared directly…. anger, frustration, sadness and inner pain would proliferate, causing separation and isolation!

I went from an entry-level position to be the most highly paid employee within six months because I was able to fill the position outside the assembly line, building customized windows of any shape! More than 10 years working with my father as a fine carpenter and woodworker really came in handy…

This fast “career advancement” caused a major rebellion! Colleagues who had worked there for 25 years were complaining that the position had not been offered to them, and I started to be labeled as a classic Italian who had special connections with the management. The least upset of my co-workers would “joke” around, smiling and saying: “you Mafia, Frank, you Mafia…!”

The truth was that nobody had the woodworking skills nor the desire to fill the position; none of them was a fine carpenter, they had been working in the same position and taking the same steps every day for years, and they knew they could not do it. Their behavior came from personal frustration and dissatisfaction, and that small negative side of my culture (the Mafia) was for them easier to blame than admitting their own technical deficiencies.

 

Let’s face it! We all are products of our cultures: the problem is that most of us are so into the idea that our culture is a significant part of who we are and not just something we belong to that we can’t even see how much the Act of Immigrating can do for us in terms of self-development.

 

When I detached my culture from my being, I stopped being the victim of it and began to use my Italian heritage to my advantage; and because I had made this change in how I saw myself, I automatically started to see other people the same way. I was able to recognize immigrants who were identifying themselves with their culture, and instead of reacting to their insane behavior with something even more insane, I responded with the intention to help and with the kindness required to guide someone that has lost his way.

 

This shift became a major success factor: when selling for my own business, after leaving the factory, I was now able to understand where my Indian customers were coming from when they asked for crazy discounts; or why some Asians would be disappointed if I refused to offer discounts in exchange for cash payments; or why other Italian customers who expected thousands of dollars in discounts simply for being from the same culture as me. Instead of walking away offended and full of judgment, angry and without making a sale, I now tell them exactly what I am writing here; I explain it to them and the magic just happens! I either sell and help them shift their own viewpoint, or, worst-case scenario, I leave them thinking…. really thinking.

 

Stay tuned,

 

Frank.

 

I am aware that my insights about this topic will not win unanimous consent, and I am perfectly okay with that. I prefer to pay the price of losing one hundred readers in order to help one single immigrant to shift into an inspired, victorious mode, rather than have a thousand immigrants just skim through my articles with as much attention (and as much life-changing results) as a fish in an aquarium!

I share my ideas because I am motivated by the extreme transformation that the act of immigrating had on me, along with years of devouring self-improvement material and overcoming psychological effects of immigration, of living the life of an immigrant entrepreneur, and of just being madly in love with observing, studying and helping other immigrants. This last aspect just seemed to happen to me on its own, it was not planned; I have not been formally trained for it, but I was literally drawn to it! My goal is not to teach you anything; my intention here is to provoke your own thinking so that you become aware that YOU are in charge of your immigration experience and not the other way around!

 

Desperation, Passiveness or Inspiration are the three generic states that newcomers can find themselves in.

Desperation is a negative feeling that pairs up with a state of fear, panic, need and dependency, and that can easily slide into the dangerous attitude of either entitlement (“I deserve to be taken care of”) or of complete abandonment and defeat. The desperate immigrant is a liability to both himself and the recipient country.

Passiveness is a neutral feeling because it does not carry any negative energy with it, but it´s  not very positive either; it is usually seen in newcomers that are just exploring, looking to find something different but which they don’t know how to describe; there are no dreams attached to the move, nor any major discomfort.

Inspiration is a positive feeling that pairs up with a state of growth, creativity and independence, and can easily be passed on to other human beings. The inspired immigrant is an asset, with an infinitely growing value for himself and for the recipient country.

I personally think that inspiration is conceptually the extreme opposite of desperation, although this differs from the definitions given in most dictionaries.

 

I have noticed that the emotional state of an immigrant once he or she arrives in their new home country is not always related to the degree of personal negativity, ugliness, poverty, violence and insanity that he left behind in his native country.

We might instinctively deduce that, as an immigrant, if you come from a desperate reality, you will arrive in your new country in a desperate mode, and vice versa; if you come from a positive and comfortable environment, you will be more inclined to be inspired toward abundance, growth and new possibilities. But is this deduction true? Not necessarily.

I have met inspired immigrants coming from tragic situations where leaving their native country was the only alternative to being killed, or others that suddenly lost their wealth at the hand of a tyrannical government! They were people that had every reason for being “desperate”, but arrived in their new country inspired to start all over again, ready to create a new reality for themselves and become a source of inspiration to others.

On the contrary, I have met newcomers that came from realities that were not so terrifying, comfortably armed with monetary resources, with a job position waiting for them and a family in the new country to support them, and who have still managed to be in a state of passiveness, or even worse, desperation!

 

Why as immigrants do we arrive with these different emotional states? If it is not the situation that we leave back home which dictates our feelings, then what does?

It is our perception of what we are doing!

• If we perceive immigrating as a sacrifice, an unfortunate circumstance, a punishment or the “loser” way out of our problem, then desperation will govern our thoughts and actions, and consequently, our results!
• If we perceive immigration as a trial period to see if we can get more than what we had back home, with an internal dialog that might sound like this: “If it is good, I’ll stay for a bit; otherwise, I’ll go straight back home…”, then passiveness will probably be our emotional state.
• If we perceive immigrating as the chance to create limitless opportunities because we can reinvent ourselves, free of the old unwanted beliefs we left back home, we will certainly be inspired and harvest the fruits of our experience accordingly!

 

In conclusion, ask yourself how you feel right now, at this exact moment:

• If you are desperate, in panic mode and fearful that your move to immigrate was not worth it, that it was a mistake because your kids are not happy in the new school, your spouse blames you for his/her unhappiness, the money is not enough, you feel lonely… please just stop! You have arrived as a desperate immigrant, but that is just a mindset, an affirmation, a perception which you can change; it is just the way you see things, and not the way it has to be. The way you feel is just your self-image talking to you, it is just your temporary opinion about yourself… Please believe me: because of this attitude, no one more than you needs to experience the power of immigrating; stop limiting your identity to what has happened in your life so far! Your circumstances are not You! They are your creations, based on beliefs implanted from birth in your old environment [native country] … Learn to see the opportunity in front of you. You are in a new country now, it is much easier to trade your old beliefs for new ones that will automatically change your life. This simple but often ignored concept can make the desperate newcomer a very inspired one.
• If you are a passive, calculating person, always hunting for what you can get for the least effort, for an easy way out, always trying to take advantage of situations, please understand that you are not a bad person nor a bad newcomer, you are just in a deep state of unconscious behaviour. Your habits are running your life, and it has probably been like this since you were a kid; most likely, immigrating to a new country will not change the way you act. A desperate immigrant has more chance of turning things around than a passive Despite this, if you are tired of your circumstances and you want to change them, the power of immigrating is the greatest tool you can find… use it to grow!
• If you are inspired, excited, ready to make a difference… Congratulations!! You have most likely grasped the hidden power of immigrating, either intentionally or intuitively. You have probably detached your personal identity from what happened in your earlier life, and have realized that who you are is far greater than your circumstances and that moving to a new environment will facilitate the discovery of your limitless You! If you allow it to.

 

 

Stay tuned,

 

Yours truly, Frank.

 

 

 

 

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your day to visit my website. As you probably already noticed, my page is a safe space for future or current immigrants to learn more about how they can enhance their immigration experience and cope up with the identity issues is one of the biggest challenges of moving to a new country.

Believe me when I say, immigrating was one of the scariest, yet most empowering decisions I have ever made. I know how scary it is to start this new adventure.

Leaving your home country feels like you are abandoning your old life; all your friends, family, and special places are now in your past. Never forget that you are human. You are bound to experience feelings of loss or separation anxiety when you leave everything behind. And, at the same time, you struggle with the issues of losing your own identity.

About a week before I left Italy to come to Canada, while thinking of how real this experience was about to become, I suddenly become awareof the past as I was walking through the church parking lot where my friends and I used to play soccer.

I started remembering all the exciting moments that we had hadas boys during those soccer games;the sweaty, smiling faces, the messy hair, and the running commentary of the goalkeeper. We played for several hours; so long that our scores were almost as high as those in basketball games.

When I look back at these memories, they bring a gigantic smile to my face. It is crazy how these memories are from so long ago, yet the emotions that they give me have not changed at all.

Another memory I have isthe unique smell around our little town when it was olive harvesting season. It was a mix of the scent of olives and soil in the air thatwas the concentrated representation of what my roots and my people were all about:simple, infinitely passionate, hard-working souls very anxious to receive the fruits of a year´s worth of tough but skilled labour.

I soon realized that I was not going to have these placesand/or smells triggering my memories anymore.
What about people? From the co-actors of our past experiences to important role models?

I am sure that, just like me, the unexpected viewof an old friend, a cousin or a teacher often would prompt a memory,reminding you of a hidden side of your personality, a traumatic experience that changed you or simply a funny anecdote that makes you laugh.

I feared that I would forget these significant people in my life if I never saw them again. However, this was not the case.

One of my role models was my grandmother who was 80 years old. I was afraid I was not going to see her again after moving and I knew it was a realistic possibility; I felt like my decision to immigrate was anticipating her death and all the memories I had of her.

Behind the fear of not seeing the people or places again, or smelling the scents anymore, hides the fear of forgetting these memories, and behind the fear of forgetting the memories hides the fear of losing the sense of belonging and so losing our identity.

Arriving in your new country with this fear will lead to loneliness and a sense of guilt, and can make the integration process into your new society very painful. I have personally experienced this and I know that many other immigrants have as well.

Most of us underestimate ourselves; we are used to the idea that that to experience something we mustexist in the moment, use one or more of our senses; it is not true!

The reality of the situation is we can tap in on those happy memories and the emotions attached to them, at any point in time.

When I feel the need to get in touch with my past I just think about it and I am there, in that place, re-experiencing everything, the smells, the colours, the noises and the feelings attached! I have done it and so have the many immigrants that I have interviewed; which means you can too!

Furthermore, you need to know that our mind organically tends to eliminate memories of people and experiences that are harmful to us and enhances the ones that make us feel good! This brings me to highlight one of the most powerful advantages of immigrating; you will not encounter people or end up in places that will trigger harmful memories anymore. You will soon only be able to recall the positive memories that make you feel good!

Being afraid is a positive sign. It means that you care about your experience as an immigrant, and you are willing to work hard to make it as positive as possible.

I hope that this content has helped you, please share it with the people you care about!

Stay tuned,

Frank.

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