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Whether you’re moving down the road, semigrating to the coast, or upping sticks and making a new life in a new country, change can be scary.
It’s exciting and full of possibility, but it’s not without its risks. So, to find out more, I caught up with Johan Oldenberg when he was last in Cape Town, and had a long, leisurely chat over lunch, gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean on one of those gorgeous sunny Cape Town winter days
Johan emigrated to the Netherlands right after graduating and flung himself wholeheartedly into his new life. It was hard at first, but he persevered and — more importantly — succeeded. Spectacularly. And part of Johan’s ethos is to share all the good things. Not only has he shared his success through philanthropic works back in his hometown of Richards Bay and in the rest of the world, but he’s also shared the secrets of his success in his new book, Emigrating Successfully: The Insider’s Guide.
It’s not a how-to guide dealing with the nuts and bolts of moving, investing, and relocating; it’s a little treasure trove of wisdom, life lessons, witty insights, and sensible advice. Rather than list the practical rules and regulations that — anyway — change constantly, he has focused on the eternally relevant soft skills that can make the difference between surviving and thriving. It’s really about attitude. Each chapter covers a specific aspect of dealing with change and challenge, and they pretty much all come down to being open, humble, and respectful while maintaining your personal integrity and personal space. Okay, that’s a lot, but he breaks it down into manageable chunks.
To deal with homesickness, for example, he says you should accept that you will be homesick, accept the feelings of sadness, and then move beyond them. Possibly the most important strategy he recommends is to not immerse yourself in the expat community, constantly reminiscing about ‘when-we …’ but to embrace the new culture — the language, the food, the people, and the ethos. Make friends with the locals in your new country, develop satisfying routines, and keep busy. Of course, that doesn’t mean losing all contact. When he first emigrated, he wasn’t earning much but he budgeted carefully for phone cards so that he could keep in touch with family back home. (Remember how expensive intercontinental calls were before mobile phones?)
One of the reasons that Johan is such a successful immigrant is that he is also a very successful entrepreneur, and he believes the skills and attitudes required for each of these are the same. The secret to success in both entrepreneurship and immigration, he says, is learning not to give up too quickly. You may fail but, if you do, his advice is to ‘fail, fall, and get up. Dust yourself off. Try again and learn the lessons. You might fall again but get up again and enjoy the experience.’
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And he could not have done that if he hadn’t had a dream — a big one. ‘When you dream, dream big,’ he says. ‘I believe that when my dreams target the stars, they’ll reach the moon.’ But that doesn’t mean he’s a head-in-the-clouds, fly-by-the-seat-of-his- pants forest fairy. It is important to be realistic — and to plan. Planning, he says, is essential, whether you’re starting a new business or moving to a new country. ‘Write down every step of the process in a practical and logical sequence as you would for a top ten list of priorities.’
Another similarity between immigration and entrepreneurship is that both require a big leap of faith, courage, conviction and confidence — a willingness to do things differently, to try new strategies, to take risks. It’s important to embrace risk, he says, while still being realistic — learn to differentiate between unfounded anxiety and realistic risk assessment.
For example, one of the first things Johan did when taking over a struggling clothing factory in Asia was to increase wages and to decrease working hours.
(You read that right – increase wages, decrease hours.) That was kind of contrary to the sweatshop mentality of his competitors, but it worked.
Big time. And after building his clothing business into a successful enterprise and selling it for a figure ‘he couldn’t refuse’, he now has the freedom to pursue his real passion — philanthropy — which he approaches with the same spirit of adventure and openness that made him a successful immigrant and entrepreneur.
Get the book: Emigrating Successfully: The Insider’s Guide by Johan Oldenberg. It’s a surprisingly simply written book.
It’s clear, honest, concise, and absolutely without frills. Rather like its author.
