00:00:31Hey, hey, hey, it's me. John McFarland. I'm sitting here on a Friday afternoon at the Riveter and I can tell you that hardly. Anybody came in today. And those of us who are here. I've had a very difficult time focusing.

00:00:53Has had a day where they know that they need to do a lot of work and yet the work is just not happening more than anything. You're not alone.

00:01:31She's a wonderful, wonderful, young woman and I miss her every day because she's not on Facebook or social media. And as far as I know, she doesn't even have an email account or if she does, she wouldn't know how to get mine because she didn't have one when I left Kazakhstan to 2006. So, this is someone that was very important to me for a 2-year. Her family took care of me, and my husband has food. We spent a lot of time drinking tea. We were teaching her English. But in any sort of exchange, you're always learning something from the other person and that's certainly true. In Peace Corps, where you are learning so much in any sort of cultural exchange that, sometimes it's more than anything you could possibly teach. So, Rehan is Kurdish.

00:03:20The other story that's a little just a little back story about this is that I've been watching some shows about WWII and one of the things that people don't realize because in World War 2, Russia was on the same side as the United States is that we always talk about the Holocaust and we should talk about the Holocaust. And there was also another ethnic cleansing going on at the same time in Russia because Stalin was just not a good person. And the reason why I would be meeting curds and chechens are people from Turkey, all in my little village of Kazakhstan is because they were robbing people of their homes. Some people were killed putting them on trains, were many people died and I had to leave all their possessions behind and sending people to places like Kazakhstan. So that the chechens for example, another people without a country, lost their land.

00:05:20I've actually led to people feeling like they needed to out of desperation, hold people hostage. Now. I'm not advocating that. It's okay to hold people hostage. All I'm saying is there's a lot of complexity to geopolitical stories that we hearing the news that unless you've actually talk to people from that part of the world. You you don't really know because we're only told a certain part of the story when we watch it on the news. So all of that backstory actually is relevant in that when we're in a culture things happen, and they may be unlike anything that has experience you've experienced in your life and I want to relate that to what, it's like to run a business where you are, often placed in situations that you've never been in before, for the first time in your life.

00:07:15Couples to, you know, go to the same country and have a room in a bed and we had to live with family for quite a while because the weather is so harsh there. So during training, my husband and I were almost always together we would walk, it was probably a couple of miles to the school maybe and a nice easy breezy walk but it took us quite a while to get to school everyday. Compared to everybody else. It was a lovely walk and my husband and I were almost always together, talking not really paying a lot of attention. Everybody is always watching you all the time because it's like the Americans, you're always the difference. And for some reason and I can't even remember now cuz it's been over 10 years, John went home ahead of me and I stayed late to do something. So we didn't walk back together and we didn't have cell phones. I didn't know the phone number of mom is Amira and Louisa, so, you know, but everybody knew that I was going to be

00:09:15New here. And at the same time, my Spidey Sense was sort of like, but it's going to be okay. Like I would never do something if I really felt sure. Like, oh man, this is going to be bad. So I was like, okay, I feel relatively safe. It's weird. So I go into the house.

00:10:14And I'm like, okay, she's calling somebody about me. I don't really know these people better what's going on. So you sit there and I drink tea and I start like cooking all kinds of things in the kitchen and just start like putting out. I mean it is like the thing that is like maybe the most memorable about the entire experience of Kazakhstan was just like the unending Hospitality from people who just didn't have a lot. But they were willing to be so giving and be willing to share with you and share their experiences and talk to you. And it was like the most incredible and amazing thing, right? So here's somebody that, I don't know. I come in off of the street and they're cooking like a spread. I mean, it is like a buffet of like all the food that they have that they can like, with up together. I mean, clearly stuff that they just had cuz they didn't know I was going to walk by by myself. You do it. So I'm just sitting there like this, what's going on? This is taking a really long time.

00:11:41Because I didn't know John so culturally they didn't really want him there because they want to make sure we're home safe. And I knew that I would be safe. It's just cold. Surely. It makes sense. So I came in Rehan comes in and her aunt is like she speaks English is what I gathered from from the Russian. And I say hello and Raven says hello, and we talked and it's very beautiful and very awkward and we eat together and I realize that this is somebody who has never ever spoken to anybody, who is a native English speaker. Of course, she lives in a small village, you know, not too far from the capital, but it might as well be a million miles away. So all of the people of privilege, who live in the Capper, the former capital of Almaty, you know, they have may be encountered English speakers before Nativity.

00:13:24We're all back into this time to live there permanently, and I had to working at my school for a while. Jonathan working at his school for a while, out of nowhere, one day, every easily, Jennifer Jennifer. There are people wanting to talk to you. It's cool cuz like, I don't know anybody else here and it's on and two friends. And it turns out that the three of them were at the local College, which I didn't even know that her dad had a college but that the three of them were out of college. And they heard that the Americans for back and re-hang and I were thrilled that we got to see each other again. And what happened out of all that was this lovely friendship, where eventually? So the first time John came to Ray hunt house with me.

00:14:28You know what? It means to be Kurdish about different traditions and things like that. The point of the story is not to take your own safety and risk, certainly, right? But it is to say that you have these opportunities all the time and business, right? Like you have these chance meetings and things that happen. That seem kind of weird that don't seem like they quite fit into what you have in mind as a business owner, right? And you're feeling kind of like, I don't know, should I do this? Should I not do this? So am I to tell you the answer to that question? Every time one of the things that we have talked about is how in order to grow. You need to take risk and taking risk as a part of success because success is related to growth. It's like a big spiral, right? Or a big interrelated web.

00:15:43But at the same time, your Intuition, or your spidey sense or your gut instinct is telling you that it's probably going to be okay.

00:16:03The tells you that culturally this is the way that things get done. If you stay there.

00:16:14You never get to bridge those deals. You never get to cross those bridges and. Those eyes across, those teas, and write those big checks and get those big checks.

00:16:53Thank you so much for listening.

00:17:56Fox over the next couple of months for clients who are ready to make a move. It just takes a few minutes at Jen mcfarland.com, ready?