Recently I recorded a ten minute talk for The Change School‘s TCK Summit. The TCK Summit is a series of short talks hosted on youtube discussing different aspects of cross-cultural life, especially as it affects TCKs.

September’s TCK Summit talks centre on the theme of “Cultivating The Mind”.

One area of focus for The Change School is lifelong learning. Another is “developing a Global Mindset” so part of what I talk about is what this has looked liked for me.

The core of my talk is about connection to multiple cultures, and why this requires cultivation of mind. There is stress attached to navigating differing cultural expectations, which can dim mental clarity. This is something that came out in a number of my interviews for Misunderstood – TCKs faced with the need to make a decision about the future often experienced anxiety they needed tools to work through.

“The influence of multiple cultures can be quite stressful at times. If you are influenced by two cultural systems that means double the information to take in, double the social rules to learn, double the means of communication to master, double the values to internalise… Knowing yourself deeply, consciously processing emotion, acknowledging difficulties, creating mental space – these are all strategies that make it easier for each of us to grow through our engagement with multiple cultures rather than become overwhelmed by all the noise.”

You can watch my talk on youtube now!