Six Months Employed: How to maintain courage as an entrepreneur in the workplace

Traveling abroad to a foreign land where you don’t speak the language puts things in perspective. In the immediacy of the moment when you realize you cannot communicate effectively — — there is a kind of isolation. Some people allow themselves to become trapped in perceived isolation. Others discover who they are.

When you don’t speak the same language, you have to figure out how to communicate in other ways that are more universal. Gestures become your language. Referencing a celebrity figure or universally recognizable icon becomes your form of a translator. Then there comes a point when you stop trying to talk, and instead, you open your eyes and begin to see things for what they are.

You start to see the beauty around you, not as a tourist, but as someone looking deeply at the marvel and wonders you’ve never experienced. You also see the ugly for what it is and begin to associate the universal aspects of pain, under-resourced, and neglect. You also begin to listen, not with just your ears, but your entire being. And through this exercise, you begin to build new muscles for understanding.

The first six months working as an employee have been a spectrum of these moments. In many ways, I am a foreigner, not only to the company I work for but being an…