Book reviews
A review by dialogin member Kate Berardo, USA
When I was first given Living Your Best Life Abroad to review,
I will admit I was thinking, ‘not another book on transitioning
abroad.’ Then I read the book. I was pleasantly surprised.
Living Your Best Life Abroad is an innovative, effective guide to help women transition abroad in a meaningful and holistic fashion.
It was refreshingly different in its approach: practical rather than theoretical, focused on maximizing the experience abroad rather than simply surviving it, and filled with anecdotes and insight from other women who have gone through a similar experience. It’s about time we had this type of next generation book on adjusting abroad.
Living Your Best Life Abroad is written specifically for women transitioning abroad and cleverly uses an adaptation of the “Wheel of Life” developed by the Coaches Training Institute as the base tool for its work. Renamed the “Art-of-Living-Abroad Wheel,” this classic pie-chart tool enables individuals moving abroad to assess their current life and then create their ideal life around eight critical areas, including their: living environment, finances, work, personal growth, leisure time, health and well-being, family and friends, and their relationship with their partner.
The book is largely structured around the Art-of-Living Abroad Wheel. The initial chapters introduce the book concept, discuss personal values, and introduce the wheel itself. Then, there is a chapter focused on each section of the wheel with an integrative final chapter that pulls all the pieces and process together.
What makes this book highly effective is a couple things. First, using a tool like the Art-of-Living Abroad Wheel helps individuals to look at the experience of living abroad at a holistic level while at the same time enabling them to focus in on those areas where there is the most imbalance between their existing and ideal life. By doing so, living abroad is framed from the perspective of thriving and of creating the best life possible through this experience.
This is a refreshing change from many of the heavy-handed books on transitions abroad that associate culture-shock with illness and transitions largely with problems. That is not to say that the author, Jeanne Heinzer, glosses over the challenges of living abroad. She gives them their due attention through a fair dose of tips and insights and anecdotes from other women. But she doesn’t simply stop at trying to mitigate challenges; instead, she focuses on maximizing the experience of living abroad and helps move people to action through many end-of-chapter exercises such as action plans and weighted criteria decision-making models.
As a second main strength, this book is fresh in its approach. You will not find antiquated models like the U-curve of adjustment in it, but instead newer, more effective models like William Bridges work on transitions. Insights in the book build on the basics, rather than regurgitate them, anecdotes are novel and powerful, and even quotes used to start each chapter are refreshing alternatives to the classics around culture and transitions.
If I were to fault the book, it would be around two features (one minor, one not). First, this is the kind of book that doesn’t just ask you to create a vision for your life abroad, it asks you to create “Your Powerful New Vision” and constantly refers to this Powerful New Vision in all caps throughout the book as if it were a product rather than a concept. At the end of the day, it is still just a vision, albeit one dressed up with a fancy title. I find this type of writing gimmicky (and a bit irritating if I am honest) and I believe it detracts from the power of the book and its message. That’s the more minor fault.
At a deeper level, for me the one area this book was too light in its treatment was on the discovery of one’s personal values. Identifying one’s core values should be a process that is introspective and involved, and something that you iterate on through a series of thoughtful exercises. The three short exercises provided (which were: think back to important values you had as a child, ask others what they see as your top values, and select five values from a list) keep the value discovery process short and superficial.
And yet, it is recognized that your core values should shape your daily behaviors in all eight areas of the Art-of-Living-Abroad Wheel. Even though this deeper work would have shifted away from the lighter touch, constantly-moving tone of the book, it would have been more powerful to have a purposeful pause around personal values for true insight and discovery to build on throughout the rest of the book.
Ultimately, any book is going to have limitations when compared with the power of training, coaching or facilitation processes—and this book is no exception. Still, it is one of the more effective books of its kind, and something that I will pass on confidently as a supplement to training and coaching work.
Kate Berardo is an intercultural consultant and trainer based in
California. She is the co-author of Putting
Diversity to Work and the founder of Culturosity.
