Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. By the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.
00:27
Now let's get communicating with our guest today joining us from The Hague in the Netherlands. Anna Denis is a storytelling and communications expert. She is the author of the book, Re-Inventor, and she's here to show us how communication makes everything possible, especially when it comes to career transitions and reinventing yourself.
00:55
And before I go any further, please welcome her to the show. Hi, Ana. Hi, Roberta. I'm thrilled to be here and thank you for having me. My absolute pleasure. Welcome to the show. Were you born in the Netherlands? No, no, I was born in a small Russian city. And then when I was 17, I moved to Moscow. 17 years later, I moved to the Netherlands. So every...
01:22
17 years, I moved somewhere. Those are your phases. Over 17 years, there's going to be a shift. What is it that you started doing career-wise and then realized that, wait a minute, I don't have to do this for 45 years and retire like it used to be a few decades ago? Yeah, exactly. Well, reinvention has always been a part of my journey because I actually started my career as a translator.
01:50
I graduated as a journalist while speaking to foreign languages, English and Spanish. And I really wanted to have some kind of international career. But when you're young, you don't really know the opportunities that are available out there. So I was looking for any job that would allow me to practice English and Spanish. That was the only requirement. And then I got into translation. I was translating books.
02:18
for when I was a student to pay for my rent. And then I got the position of a translator at the cybersecurity company. That's kind of how my senior career started. Then from there, I made a move to switch to marketing. After several years when I already was going up the corporate ladder and I became the engineer and managing supervising the localization team, I just hit
02:47
the ceiling and I was curious like where do you go from there because I was not happy with staying in the same position for seven years or 10 years. And I've had lots of these examples in front of me because I was working for a really good employer where people really stay. But I was like, yeah, but I would really love to do something else. And I didn't know what. I was fascinated by brands, by marketing and
03:16
I assumed that maybe this is the next step. So I switched to marketing and then I got invited into business development. So that was my career. After 10 years in cybersecurity in a male dominated environment, I was really, really tired of that. There was a hobby that I was developing and that was preloved designer handbags, sustainable fashion. Absolutely nothing in common with cybersecurity.
03:46
But for some reason, I really enjoyed doing that. It helped me maintain myself balanced. And at some point this business started to grow. And then I just looked at it and decided, well, maybe, maybe I should try just switching into being a business owner completely. So I left in 2019 and in 2019 I became a business owner. Then COVID hit.
04:15
And during COVID, me and my husband, were really trying to manage the deliveries because I was selling these handbags to the U.S. During COVID, that was a nightmare. Especially with all the transatlantic movement of goods suddenly became expensive. I remember because I was there and I was trying to send stuff home and it was more expensive than the actual stuff. Crazy. And not only it was expensive,
04:45
The delivery would take three, five, 10 times longer than usual. Some parcels were being delivered in six months. Oh, no customer can wait for that. Exactly. So I received a lot of refund requests. I was thinking like, what would be the next step? Do I develop this business? Do I transform it into something else? And eventually I decided to go kind of for both because we made the decision.
05:14
to go to the Netherlands to later develop this business and to develop the AI part for this startup. We really wanted to live abroad for some time. And I assumed that I can always rely on my experience and my skills and my CV. Like for me in my life, a lot of things were changing at some point, like apartments were changing, boyfriends were changing, but my job really kept me
05:43
grounded. I always assumed that building that kind of professional experience, you will be able to survive any storm, basically. I'm very intrigued to earlier when you were talking about the company where you moved to different departments and even one of them invited you to join them. You know how we always think the ladder, obviously you move up, but you moved horizontally. Were you not thinking
06:11
Is this the right career move for me because if I'm here in this department, I will go up. It's a manager and then vice president or something like that versus if you keep changing departments, it's almost like you're starting at the bottom. I totally see what you mean. I made the first move to marketing just because of that.
06:35
because my career in the localization department in four years has gone from being just a translator to being an engineer, a senior engineer, and a manager of the team. Everyone else above that line had been working for a company probably over seven or 10 years. There are four people in this department above me and they're not planning to leave.
07:01
As you said, they were very loyal to the company. was treating them well. Exactly. It was a good employer. All of them were really happy. So I was like, yeah, but, but I would really love to grow. So how do you grow from that? Even back then, yeah, almost 20 years ago, we kind of assume that at some point, everything will be automated. Okay.
07:26
didn't see the AI coming necessarily, but like back then there were some software for translating texts and much of what we were doing was automated already. So I was like, yeah, but I don't really want to pursue a career route that is going nowhere. There was a part of me that craved that. The excitement of staring out of your own comfort zone with regards to that. Exactly.
07:55
For some reason, I believe that this stage is the environment where I feel safe. So I was safe to express myself speaking up. When you wrote your book, Reinvento, you interviewed women who had made career transitions. What did you find were the common themes when they made those transitions? After what I told you, so what happened is we moved to the Netherlands.
08:25
And in four months, the war has started between Russia and Ukraine. That really transformed everything. It kind of blew up our whole lives and the whole plan that we had. My husband had a good job and I had that business catered to my needs. And then all of a sudden I'm losing 50 % of the business because I can no longer sell my stock.
08:53
So I was only left with a part of online services and courses that we were providing. All of a sudden I was in so much anxiety, stress, shock after that depression. The fact that it was also in midlife also played a big part because I was kind of trying to understand more about my purpose and my next step. And I started feeling that having a job is not enough.
09:21
So I would love to do something meaningful, but how do you find something meaningful? I was suffocating myself. I'm very much accustomed to looking at the resume and saying, this is who I am. This is why I need to be. But when you are relying only on your past experience, how do you make a step forward? How do you develop? How do you grow? How do you evolve? That wasn't clear. And I was like, yeah, well, I would love to do.
09:49
something related with communication and public speaking and all of that. But I'm not an expert. I was presenting at conferences and organized partner events and all of that. But that wasn't really my hyper focus in my role. That was just one of the things I did. I could not give myself permission to go with the flow, experiment a little bit. And that is exactly what I've seen with other women as well.
10:18
reason it's called experts guide to reinventing your career and identity because the common thread between all of these stories when you are switching countries, you are also switching cultures and language. Any person who has ever switched countries will relate to this because once you switch countries, your sense of normality disappears. Of course. Yeah.
10:46
And I didn't expect it to be that different. And that's what I've heard from a lot of women. When you are making the move, when you are switching, you are basically have to rebuild your life from scratch. So what we are doing is we are building our careers. We are building our homes. are building our families. All of that becomes a foundation for your confidence and personality and who you are.
11:10
you have like a part of your family, but you're away from your family, you're away from your social circle. Right, your support system. Your support system is gone. And how do you manage that? Yeah, it can be with the uncertainty of it. And then the question becomes, what skills can you equip yourself with if you are considering making that move, moving across cultures,
11:38
countries and going to start in a different environment that you're not familiar with? guess the main skill, I would say it's curiosity. Because without curiosity, there is a high chance that our ego will overtake every single scenario you will be facing. In midlife, we have all had lots of experience, good or bad.
12:05
What I see happens with a lot of people I know, for instance, is you assume that you know all the answers in career or uh any life situation, you become experienced because you are not facing it for the first time. which gives you foundation to see that, okay, I know how to solve this. I know how to act. I also know how other people in this situation think. m And I can, um,
12:35
build my line of action from that. But then when you're moving to another country, all of that suddenly doesn't work because the mentality is different. Like, know, in Russia, being a good leader means knowing all the answers, exercising authority and being the person who, yeah, kind of intimidates other people. So you are maintaining the distance between yourself and your employees. In the Netherlands, for example,
13:04
It's just the opposite. Your leader doesn't have to have all the answers. And we do actually bust that myth and discourage that. Also, everyone in the team is independent. Everyone is encouraged to think for themselves. Very pretty much discouraged in Russia. If you think for yourself and you are making your calls, your decisions, you will be fired at some point. different culture. So then the question becomes.
13:32
If you were to move from the Netherlands to Russia and just think, let me go spend one year in Russia, and you come from that environment and you find yourself in a Russia-like work environment, how do you navigate that until you probably decide maybe this is it for me after a one-year contract or something? How do you articulate to a different culture that I didn't realize you guys do things differently? This is a first for me.
14:02
I think the key to doing that is knowing yourself. Like for instance, I'm currently going through the intercultural communication and management course. This is an excellent way to reflect on who you are and how you compare to other people. When you immerse into a different environment, you might react in a way that this environment does not really deserve. In many cultures.
14:29
It's very customary to stay and work longer hours. That is actually expected. But then in the Dutch culture, for instance, it is not encouraged, not needed, and not expected at all. no phone calls after hours regarding work. Yeah, exactly. And people are also very mindful of their time. If you are calling someone after working hours, they will not be responding to this call.
14:59
I can talk to you directly if I see you at the office. Right. And also the reward system is different. In many cultures, a very important question of how you reward people. This is how we do it here. We know that you came from the Netherlands, but now this is Russia and this is how we do it. So the question becomes, who is supposed to ask those questions? Let's say I moved to Russia. Am I supposed to ask how things are done here or
15:28
Is the onus upon my Russian colleagues to say, Hey, I see that you knew here. Guess what? This is how we do things around here. Whose responsibility is it to communicate? Well, if you asked me 10 years ago, I would, I would have said that's a manager's responsibility to know this thing. No, I'm seeing things differently. And I, and I truly believe that the more you know yourself, the better you can build the communication with others.
15:57
Because eventually for me, like the main goal of communication is being able to regulate yourself, your own mind and your emotions. And what happens in a different cultural context is that your emotions get triggered very often. Like, oh, these people are leaving soon, so they are lazy or the boss didn't give me recognition, so he's a bad manager.
16:25
understanding those differences and also knowing about your personal needs, what's important to you, allows you to just regulate others behavior. okay, uh I come from another culture. This is how I would approach things. I know about the difference. I'm aware about the differences. So I'm flexible. And of course, I'm willing to adapt. In the beginning, I would really appreciate your feedback or any corrections that you might have.
16:54
just for me to understand what's expected of me because this is currently hard and then it all becomes easier. you are basically telling other people how to work with you, giving them the instruction manual instead of assuming that they will know, they will be aware of those differences. None of us are going to be psychic enough to know. Exactly. We don't even know it about our own family members. Like for instance, my siblings.
17:24
If something is wrong between us and they're quiet instead of telling me what happened, most likely I don't know. Unless they to me, sis, because I'm the oldest big sis, you know, I don't like when you said this. Then I'm like, oh, then they bring it to my attention. But in most cases, people are not psychic enough to know what's going on unless you bring it to their attention. Exactly. And also what happens is
17:52
Like our intentions are always good. The cases where your manager wants to, to perform bad, to fire you are like maybe 1%, 3 % of cases. Why would they want that? They would probably want a good atmosphere in the team because that makes sense for the business. And then they would want you to perform well. So they're not interested in like crossing you or making you feel bad about yourself or any other.
18:22
issue at hand. In a lot of work environments I've been in, I've seen this, you know, passive aggressive attitude, which is formed when people are not happy with the state of things, but they either try to change that state of things or didn't even try to change those things, but they are not happy. nobody is communicating or there's no clarity in what's going on.
18:51
Because as soon as nothing is communicated, you start making your own assumptions. And guess what? Typically as humans, we usually go for the worst case scenario. And therefore, whatever horror story I'm playing in my head about why my leader did what he did or said what he said, I'm now gonna assume the worst instead of thinking he had good intentions, I just misunderstood because it's a different culture or whatever the case may all boils down to
19:21
like you said, curious, asking questions, and most importantly, just communicating and say, let me know if I'm being off here, but is this what's going on? Or I notice this, I'm not familiar typically with this situation, can somebody just walk me through this? Yeah, and it seems to be so obvious. But we don't do it.
19:45
We rarely do that. I remember when my husband got his first job in the Netherlands, that was a small Dutch company. So the first Dutch environment he's operating in, his sense of normality was destroyed. Everything was different. During the first month, he would come home with the saying, I'm going to be fired tomorrow. They're going to fire me because he was struggling with getting information. He was struggling with understanding the division of
20:15
tasks and responsibilities between him and colleagues and no one could explain that. No one was explaining anything and he was expected to start working, but he lacked information, access to some systems and all of that. There was no one to help him at his point. And no actual induction process. You know how we used to have induction back in the day, like three months and everybody just showing you the ropes and
20:43
Exactly. was not there. It was not in place. But as this was the first environment, he was struggled with making sense out of it. So is it normal? Is it how all the Dutch environments are like and how you are expected to operate in such an environment? Or is that just this company? And it wasn't clear. And also is it why am I not giving feedback? Because in Russia they would
21:12
Definitely would give you some feedback at first. Yeah, I'm not in most countries Yeah, same as in South Africa to you. They give you feedback on what's going on. Yeah, and how you perform a No one was providing any feedback. So as you said we assume the worst so His conclusion was yeah, I'm be fired. We fired for her. Oh man, that must have been so so traumatic but uh one last thing and uh
21:39
You were talking about your book, Reinvento, the woman that you interviewed who making transitions. If anybody wants to make a career transition and sometimes they don't know what to go for, you mentioned that you had a business, you started a hobby, what you called it, you ended up being a business. Is that one of the ways to do that? To actually think, what do I like doing? This is my hobby and actually start investing more time in that maybe?
22:08
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That is not the only way, but it's one of the ways for sure. I would probably recommend like in every transition that I was making, one thing that was important to me was looking at something that I enjoy doing. Yes. Like as a process. When I moved to the Netherlands, one of the things that I started is I started a YouTube channel because I really enjoyed the process of
22:36
improving my speaking abilities and also creating videos, editing videos. I loved all of that. So at least even if it doesn't work, even if I don't hit 1 million subscribers on YouTube. the process is what you enjoyed. The process is rewarding and I love doing that. At least I have a good time.
23:00
Which is very important. They say it doesn't feel like work when we're enjoying it. Thank you so much, Ana Dennis, storytelling and communications expert, author of the book Reinvento, who specializes in public speaking and cross-cultural communication. It's been such a wonderful, wonderful conversation. I appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much, Roberta, for having me. I enjoyed our conversations very much.
23:26
Thank you. too. My pleasure. Before you go, would you like our listeners to reach you? What is your website? Yes, my website is anadennis.com. My YouTube channel has pretty much the same name, Ana Dennis. Anna Denis dot com. We'll put that in the show notes. Thank you, Ana. Thank you, Roberta. My pleasure. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and a review on Apple and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.