An immigrant's experience in the Netherlands has fundamentally shifted their perspective on success, productivity, and self-worth, moving away from a performance-driven, exhausting lifestyle towards a more balanced, authentic, and fulfilling way of living.
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I used to think that exhaustion was a
sign that I was doing something right
because busy meant I was valuable. It
meant that I was taking things serious.
And if I didn't come home on Friday
night flat out tired, I probably wasn't
trying hard enough.
But 8 years in the Netherlands will
change that thinking real fast. And I'm
not talking about going on holiday and
coming back refreshed. I'm talking about
living here. Navigating the norms and
the values of this society. And slowly
without even really noticing it,
the Dutch society and their habits
started to rewrite things that I didn't
even know were broken. So today I'm
going to share with you five Dutch
habits that have really changed my
>> [music]
>> Let me start with the one that probably
hit me the hardest. When I was living in
the US, I was performing. Not on stage,
but in life. But did I know I was
performing? No.
I was joining the right circles so I
could stand out, dress to impress, and
slowly becoming a version of myself that
I wouldn't say I necessarily liked, but
it was what you had to do to, you know,
get ahead in the US. And then I moved
here to the Netherlands. And I was hit
with a couple of phrases that were
really jarring for me. One of them was
niet opvallen, which means don't stand
out. Or the one that you've probably
heard of is
uh doe maar normaal, which means roughly
just act normal. And this doesn't mean
that Dutch people lack ambition. I do
not want that to be the meaning of this, but
but
because I mean, let's be honest, there
are some extremely wealthy people here
in the Netherlands that have really nice
homes and really nice cars. But they
don't have this need to show it off or
to put it in your face.
And the reason being is the the Dutch
society is pretty horizontal. And an
example of this is you're riding your
bike and the lady next to you probably
owns half of that building right there.
But you would never know it because she
doesn't have this need to point that out
or to show it off to you. And the reason
why this was so jarring to me is because
this is a completely different way of
living in a completely different way of
thinking. And over time I've realized that
that my
my
definition of success has become a lot
quieter, more honest, and to be honest
with you, a hell of a lot cheaper.
When I think about my first day in the
Netherlands, I came here with one
professional speed,
fast and decisive. And I was rewarded
for that behavior. You see, in the
United States, we make quick, decisive, clear,
clear, top-down
top-down
decisions. And we are rewarded for that
kind of behavior. And to be honest with
you, I was pretty damn good at it.
And then I made it here to the
Netherlands and I was humbled by their consensus-driven
consensus-driven
approach. Basically, they do a polder
model. And this means that everyone that
has a stake in the decision gets to
provide their opinion. Uh they get to
ask questions. And sometimes that
feedback felt borderline rude. And I
would just look at my colleagues like,
what the hell is happening? And they
were like, no, it's just we're just
being honest. And I mean, they could be
talking to the CEO and I'm just sitting
there thinking, holy smokes, somebody
going to get fired? Like, it was just
such a different way of working. And
now that I look back on it, I realize
that in the United States, we tend to
have a decision that comes from on high
and we start moving. And if we need to
fix things along the way, that's what we
do. Here in the Netherlands, because you
build this consensus ahead of time,
there's actually less things to fix on
the back end because you've already run
through a lot of different obstacles and
you play kind of these war games to make
sure that things move smoothly. So, what
I've really the habit that I've really
learned here is that
it's it's really nice to go with people
versus going ahead of people. And in
this society, trust me, that's going to
pay dividends. For this next habit, I
need you to picture something. So,
you're at work and you're typing away on
your computer and your head is down >> [clears throat]
