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John Hetherington helps mid-market healthcare, manufacturing, and fintech leaders get board-grade visibility into their AI landscape. He also advices and coaches startup companies on how to scale their business at Innovate Calgary.
In my episode with John and his niece, Caitlin, we chat about:
The "do the opposite" principle and how it applies to everything from buying a stranger's coffee to moving countries
Why human-to-human communication is the skill John would tell every immigrant to build, and why AI makes it even a more important skill to learn
What happens to your British humor when you arrive in Canada
What the Canadian job market looked like in 2007, and what Caitlin is seeing two months in as she figures out her next move
What it looks like to be the newcomer when your uncle has 20 years of lessons he wants to share
Chapters
0:00 "Canada won't come to you"
1:39 Intro
2:16 What John told Caitlin before she arrived
4:49 Canada then vs Canada now
7:50 Finding your feet when you have a guide at the dinner table
9:56 The unsaid rules of Canadian life
11:43 Coming to Canada with Ernst & Young
18:14 Skype then, WhatsApp now
22:38 What John tells newcomers
30:01 Going home after 20 years
49:28 What moving countries teaches you about yourself
57:31 The book of questions
1:05:32 Outro
Some takeaways
John say the one thing he would tell someone arriving in Canada today is that Canada won't come to you. You have to go get it. I would add that going to get it means you have to be willing to be bad at it first. Bad at the small talk, bad at the customs, bad at the unsaid rules of navigating your new home. You are already in the some discomfort. You might as well accept all that comes with it.
The feeling of being a guest in your own country is one of the quieter costs of the immigrant experience that does not get named enough. You go back and your parents are there and you click back into something familiar and warm. Then you step outside and the country has moved on and you have moved on and you are somehow visiting a place that used to be yours.
Do the opposite thing. When your instinct tells you to hold back, that instinct is usually wrong. Raising your hand in the meeting when you are still reading the room, showing up to the community group where everyone already knows each other, or saying yes to the coffee chat with the stranger who offered. If you allow it, your self-protective impulse will keep you exactly where you are. Especially for we immigrants, where everything unfamiliar triggers caution more often than not.
Links
Where to find John:
The Newcomers resources
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