Your voice matters!
My good friend and fellow photographer shared this poignant reminder through out our conversation on CulturallyOurs podcast. Minh Cao is a native of Vietnam who has studied and worked in the U.S. for many years, as well as spending a year in France. Minh grew up in Hanoi, where she shared a house with many generations of her family and shared some beautiful stories of her Vietnamese culture. She then left Vietnam to attend Villanova University where she gradually overcame her culture shock and introverted nature to connect with others.
Minh returned after college to work at a bank in Vietnam where she dealt with reverse culture shock as she learned to navigate relationships with coworkers and supervisors, as well as a lack of the guidelines and processes that she had become used to in the United States.
Minh returned for graduate school in Philadelphia and then spent many years in Corporate America working in corporate development – doing mergers and acquisitions and other large projects.
Minh has a lot of interesting observations about the different work styles she encountered in Vietnam and the United States, among other things. She also shared her story of finding her own voice and believing in her abilities to succeed in the corporate world in the United States.
After a few years in the corporate world, Minh changed directions, pursuing her hobby of photography more seriously. Once again, she transcended a limiting belief in her family that they don’t have the skills to be entrepreneurs, and now she is the first person in her family who owns her own successful business.
Have any of you readers or listeners worked in different countries? How did you learn to effectively navigate the different work communities? I’d love to hear about it.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode of CulturallyOurs.
Follow Minh’s journey over on her website or via her Instagram.
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