My Kindness Is My Strength

But, don’t mistake it for niceness.

I haven’t always been kind.

When I started working in India, I remember myself as a straight shooter who didn’t mince words and got used to adopting an aggressive style. I told myself this is who I needed to be in order to get the job done.

I worked in a manufacturing plant with fewer than 5 women in 1500 employees. The first time someone raised their voice at me, I went and cried. The next time, I stormed out of the meeting room without an explanation, which caused the person to come and apologize.

Could there have been a better path than aggression? Perhaps, yet this was the most rampant amongst achievers.

Hell, I wanted to be taken seriously. I was strong on the inside and ready to take on any challenge. I had been an achiever and wanted to prove I was one at work.

My style made me successful, but something about it didn’t feel right. I often sat alone in reflection, overcome with guilt later.

I was merely trying to stand up for myself, but I didn’t want to pull others down for it.

Once I met a French woman while I was living in Germany, and she told me she had lived in India. She had fond memories of her time with friends, but she made a conscious choice to move back as she realized how aggressive she was becoming in her style.

For me, I’m not sure if this was the key reason I was so keen to explore life outside India, my native country. All I can say is I was curious to understand other ways and wanted to do it sooner than later.

When I moved from India to Europe and later to Canada, I left the aggression behind. But when things got challenging at work, I didn’t know how to react. I often froze.

This resulted in saying nothing or doing nothing. It was an unintended change. To people I came across as a nice person. Inside, I felt jaded and lost.

In my head, I was still a lion holding back her roar. But others saw me more as a timid cat.

They wouldn’t believe if I told them who I was. Much like people in my past who wouldn’t believe the timid cat version of me. I was a dichotomy.

Nobody was stopping me. It was a different way than I was used to. Such things can happen when you adjust to new cultures.

When I failed to act in my best interest more times than I can count, I withered on the inside. I became a person who held back her words. Or spoke softly and with hesitation.

I noticed this change, but didn’t know how to address it at the core. So I tried to fix bandages externally, to no avail.

You don’t know how much being in unfamiliar environments and starting from scratch can change you. Your default instincts take over, you withdraw into yourself.

How did I wake up from this slumber?

My 2-year-old daughter was my saviour. She is my super girl. She even sleeps with one arm higher than the other, as if about to fly.

What will I not do to give her wings?

I went to pick her up at the daycare one day and her teacher told me she is a quiet baby. She had moved to a new classroom. I couldn't hide my surprise. I asked if we were talking about the same baby. The little fiery force of nature I encounter is nowhere quiet.

When I mulled it over, I realized she was like me. In uncomfortable situations and unfamiliar environments, she turns into a quiet observant.

I had 2 choices. The first was to try and control her environment by asking her teachers daily if she was quiet and if not can they try to cheer her up. This would’ve been a short-term approach.

The other choice was being the parent who shows the way. This means being more of a lion I am, and less of a cat to keep the core essence of my personality alive.

I am choosing the latter.

A lion who can be kind. This is the new me.

I am not the person who wants to be aggressive and I am also not the quiet person. I am calm and humble, learning to protect myself in new environments.

After living in 3 continents, this is what I’ve realized. Every environment you experience has pros and cons. How you adjust to cons, while making the most of the pros, is what can make a difference.

You can belong anywhere you choose to.

Therefore, I am taking small steps. This means challenging more, stopping myself from apologizing more, and accepting risks in my way of standing up for myself.

Most often, it means speaking my truth, no matter how hard it seems in the moment.

“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.” William Coffin Jr.

If you want to avoid my mistakes in your international career, you could download my free e-book.

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