# The unique mental health pressures of expat life

- **Episode:** [118](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/118.md) (2024-07-25)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** expat mental health, stress, wellbeing
- **Time:** 14:30–22:18 (start 870s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/118?t=870](https://truthliesandwork.com/118?t=870)

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[14:30] Leanne Elliott: I'm curious, as you're talking, what I'm thinking is, do expats experience some mental health challenges differently? Like burnout, for example. Is that a universal experience or does that look a bit different for expats?
[14:43] Nathan Cornwell: Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day about kind of the pressure of working as an expat, because often you're hired as an expert and you're brought into an organisation and expected to kind of work at a very high level. Which can also encourage a lot of pressure on you in terms of the workload given to you, the kind of demands that are placed on you. And sometimes, you know, you don't get that support. You don't get the time to kind of settle in the country. Sometimes, you know, first day you're straight into work and expected to reel off all these tasks. There's an expectation that you're going to perform quite highly. And I think that's one of the sort of Things to be wary of, especially when you're going out there for financial reasons. There's a lot of nice financial packages abroad, but with that comes these extra pressures. So I think, as you say, burnout can come for these expats because they're in expert roles. So trying to understand exactly what the different causes are for individuals is important. So is it the fact that they're overworking because Their expectations are there. Maybe it's to do with the level of demands that are placed on them, or the expectations are more than they actually anticipated before coming abroad. Maybe again, it's that social support that they're not receiving in their new team because they're having cultural issues. I don't know if they're not able to gel with their team as much. There's lots of different ways that burnout can be forced. But yeah, I guess understanding the root cause for Each person can be different, but I think it's certainly a factor that comes out in a lot of expats that are abroad, especially at the leadership level. Right. Because I think there's a lot of expats that get brought out to kind of be leaders. And as I say, if they've not experienced working abroad before, they're facing pressures that they've never anticipated before. They're dealing with cultures that they perhaps never worked with before, trying to control and motivate teams
[16:50] Al Elliott: Yeah
[16:51] Nathan Cornwell: That might have their own style, you know, depending on where they've come from. So I think there's certainly a lot of burnout that occurs at the leadership level. I also had a really interesting conversation the other day with an expat, and we talked about the visa process. You know, in a lot of countries, your company is your sponsor, and for that reason, sometimes you're kind of— I don't want to say You know, held hostage. I think that's too severe, but you're almost— they can sort of control you a little bit more, which, you know, if you're someone who wants that autonomy, if you're someone who's perhaps later in your career and you're wanting to settle down in that new country, and yet your company's got control of that, it really puts an extra pressure on you. So if there's a way in any contract to kind of Sponsor your own visa, I know certain countries allow that, then that can really sort of take the pressure off a little bit and kind of set you up for a bit of success. I think it's important obviously to do your research in terms of understanding what other perks are out there for other packages, you know, in terms of perhaps the finances or whether you get housing included. There's lots of different aspects that can be added onto these packages, but research will give you the best sort of insights. I know a lot of people jump onto Facebook or social media groups to kind of understand what the lay of the land looks like before coming out. Sometimes, I mean, again, I found this in China, you don't know what to expect until you make it out here. I think all the stuff that was online was not as accurate as it was when I arrived and I could actually see and talk to people people in person. It was like it's a whole new market, if you like, and you start to understand what was being offered there and what a typical contract could look like. I think anything that can support that ease of moving abroad is also important. So that could be logistical aspects, it could be support for the family coming over, it could be stuff around housing. Getting someone to support you find a house or find somewhere to live, because these are all the friction aspects that you'll face once you move abroad. So trying to take them away as much as possible is going to really help you start performing quicker, you know, have a steadier landing, if you like, when you move to that new country. So yeah, it does vary from country to country, organization to organization. So it It takes some proactive research, I guess, to try and understand exactly whether you've got a good deal or not. And I think, yeah, just communicating with people. LinkedIn's obviously a great resource for connecting with people that are in that country. So having some conversations and trying to understand what it's like from their eye view, and then you'll start to understand whether the deal you've got is going to be a good one or not. I would always encourage people to have an experience abroad because I think, you know, speaking personally, I think it's always It's helped me with my sort of professional development, and I've got a lot of value from it. So I would always encourage people to do it, but I think there are aspects that potentially could sort of derail that move abroad. And I think one of the dangers that organizations overlook is actually choosing people based on talent when they're thinking about getting them to move abroad for an international assignment. And I think just basing your decision on talent could have potential downfalls because individuals that are talented in their home country don't necessarily have that capability when they're abroad. This could be for a number of factors. It could be the fact that, again, going into that personality piece, they're not necessarily people that were kind of high on openness, if you like. They're not necessarily that curious to kind of understand what the new culture is like. So kind of monitoring for these aspects is really important and understanding that we need to think about how we support that individual if we are bringing them abroad, what other factors that we can put around them to really help them succeed. Because you can't just sort of bring them over and leave them to their own devices. It needs that support system around that individual to help them succeed. I think the other factors are around kind of their Families, you know, are they coming with families? Families has a kind of a two-way effect, you know, on the positive aspects, it can really help individuals, you know, they're supported by their family, they don't suffer from loneliness as much if they've become an expat. On the other hand, their family might react differently to this move abroad, which can cause extra pressures on that individual, not just to kind of support them back, but actually— Yeah. It puts pressure on the individual who's actually uprooted them from their lives at home to bring them out to another country, and now they've got to all adapt to it. So it can put pressures on that individual working abroad. So these are a couple of red flags I consider, and I think it's on the organisation and an onus on them to really support these individuals as good as possible to help them succeed and overcome some of these red flag aspects
[22:08] Leanne Elliott: I mean, if anyone's listening and perhaps is feeling in one of these low moments, is there any advice that you'd give them if they are an expat and they're struggling right now?