ME33: Challenges & Opportunities for Expat Partners: Meaningful Work, Sense of Purpose, & Professional Identity (With Guest: Claudia Landini)

Today’s Mindful Expat Guest is Claudia Landini!

Claudia is an intercultural trainer and mobile careers coach. Originally from Italy, Claudia has been living abroad for the past 27 years, since 1989! She has lived in four African countries (Sudan, Angola, Congo Brazzaville and Guinea Bissau), two Latin American countries (Honduras and Peru), in Jerusalem, and she now lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. She also speaks quite an impressive number of languages – Italian, English, French, Spanish, and German – and as if that weren’t already enough, she also knows a little bit of Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, and Arabic.

Claudia is the founder of the non-profit organization ExpatClic, which is an online platform and community supporting expat women in a number of different ways through their transitions abroad – both personally and professionally.

She is also an intercultural trainer and cross-cultural transitions coach with a focus on helping expat women develop and maintain their careers as they move abroad.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Some of the challenges that expat partners may face in their careers when they move abroad and how this can impact their sense of professional (and personal) identity.
• The importance of finding meaningful, satisfying activities that allow us to continue to learn and grow -- whether or not we have an official job that pays the bills. 
• How our professional paths can evolve and shift when we move abroad in ways that we might not have envisioned but that can be incredibly enriching and satisfying. 
• How moving abroad and navigating some of these challenges can actually teach us important things about ourselves and foster not only profession but also personal development.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Claudia mentioned "MOOCs" or Massive Open Online Courses, which are often available for free. To learn more about MOOCs, click here (this Wikipedia entry has a great list of MOOC platforms that you can explore further). Some other great resources for finding MOOCs include: www.mooc.org, www.coursera.org, and www.edx.org.
• Claudia mentioned the book, Exile, by Turkish author Ciler Ilhan (the source of her inspirational quote!).
• Claudia also mentioned the book, Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman, which she recommends for anyone moving or living abroad and navigating cultural challenges.
• We also discussed the platform that Claudia developed, ExpatClic, which supports expat women in a number of different areas of their lives when they move abroad. Some sub-projects associated with ExpatClic also include: Expat à Table, Expat Books, Expat Women at Work, and What Expats Can Do. These are wonderful resources, and I highly recommend you check them out! 

More about Claudia and how to follow up with her:

To learn more about Claudia's work, you can visit her website at www.claudialandini.it or her profile on Expatclic.

You can also find Claudia on Facebook or Twitter, and you can email her directly at [email protected].

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