The duality of English/French Canada and what it means to you as an Australian

I recently spent a week in my hometown of Montreal. It’s in the French province of Quebec in eastern Canada. Ignoring the separatist Quebec issues and constitutional legal wrangling involved, the linguistic and cultural duality of Canada was something I took for granted when I grew up and lived there.

This recent visit was the first time, since I emigrated to Australia 12 years ago, that I fully re-immersed myself into the French culture. As a result, I had a paradigm shift.

When I am thinking in French (I am fluently bilingual so I don’t translate when I speak either language), I actually have different thoughts, analytical patterns and even specific emotions for each language. It is largely due to syntax, vocabulary, linguistic structure, local expressions and vernacular that trigger different parts of the brain including memories and emotional anchors.

The reason this is relevant and important for you as a business person who isn’t Canadian, is because without total immersion or even exposure to a different ‘world view’ – you will remain restricted within your ‘world’ and will continue to have the same thoughts over and over again.

That doesn’t mean you need to become Canadian, learn French (or any other language, although that is a wonderful skill to have) but you do need, from time to time, to extract yourself from the day-to-day monotony of running your business to stimulate and encourage different thoughts and thinking patterns.

It’s one of the reasons I enjoy traveling – even domestic travel stimulates the senses. However, the more culturally diverse your exposure, the better.

This has been one of the most powerful insights I’ve had in quite some time. Often the greatest and most valuable epiphanies are within the realm of our own experiences, we just need something, someone to rattle them out of us!

If you’d like to join an environment that creates and encourages these kinds of enlightened revelations, contact us and we’ll guide you through the various programs we have available. We have options for a wide range of budgets as well as matched to your level of ambition and drive.

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