Finding Hope Amid Global Tension

Life as an American in Europe

How can I launch a book about global understanding when our world alliances are falling apart?

I’m in Paris this week talking to people about events around the launch of my first book.

Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Create Value across Cultures arrives in June, so I will share more about it.

The final layout just landed in my inbox. As I reread the stories from around the world, I’m reminded that many Americans are considering moving abroad by the recent New York Times real estate listings for 2-bedroom apartments where I live in Nice.

I understand why expats are coming. There is a kinder, gentler approach to life in Europe. Certainly, people here know what it’s like to be ruled by fascists, so they’re clear-headed about what’s at stake.

For those coming, know it’s not all it seems.

Especially for us Americans.

I was in Italy over the weekend. When someone asked me where I was from, I replied, «Sono Americana.» His silence awoke the PTSD I had gained as an American abroad during the Bush WMD era. That was only months after people offered sympathy for us as Americans landing in their country on 9/11 from New York. But after America invaded Iraq, their emotions turned to disdain. In France, my family was living in a country mocked by our fellow Americans who replaced the word French with falsehoods like “Freedom Fries.”

I learned to hide my blue passport in foreign airports.

Not again, I thought. We are entering another long era when America fails to live by its own standards. Our 80 years of global leadership are over.

The Italian asked me where in the U.S. I was from. As the reply «the West Coast» left my mouth, I felt a different identity, one I recognized and felt comfortable sharing. I hoped he knew that the entire land mass between Mexico and Vancouver, British Columbia voted against the current president. I am an American with Western hope.

I found my new coping strategy. I proudly declare I am from the West Coast of America.

Over the next 3 days planning my book launch in Paris, I tried out my new identity.

I am an American from the West Coast.

My book speaks to the challenges brands face today. As our world grows increasingly global and interdependent, our cultural identities threaten to pull us apart.

How to build a brand across that divide? Find common ground. More than ever, we must celebrate our universal values yet recognize and respect that they show up differently across cultures. It demands a kind of vision—a global mindset where shared values offer a kaleidoscope of unique opportunities to build connections across borders. Not crises.

Most importantly, the exact same skills we develop to navigate foreign cultures help us embrace and celebrate diversity at home. Yes, diversity.

A diversity born in each of us, embracing our differences, meeting them with humility and empathy, to understand and appreciate what makes others’ lives meaningful. Because that, in turn, expands ours.

In Paris, I stayed with my good friend whom I met in Tokyo when we were both fresh out of college studying Japanese at Keio University. We found one another amid a sea of Korean men who could master kanji. While of different nationalities, we were both outsiders in Asia.

I enjoy staying in her home in Paris. We WFH at her antique French desks. I hear her speaking to colleagues in India while I edit my new proofs.

Our lives are intertwined, even before her President Macron manhandled mine.

Her oldest daughter studied law in New York and is now married to an American; I live half the year in Nice. She and I shift fluidly from French to English to Japanese.

I dined with a Japanese colleague from our days together at Gucci in Tokyo. She now works for L’Oréal in Paris, so we spoke English together for the first time. She doesn’t know if she could ever return to life in Japan.

I popped over to the Louvre with another Parisian friend I met in Tokyo to visit their inaugural exhibit on the French history of High Fashion. I hoped the excess would distract me from our poor reality.

As we viewed the scepter of Charlemagne in front of a modern echo of a gown with bejeweled rubies, he shared an interesting thought. While deploring the American president’s cozying up to an aggressive Russia, he thanked “us” for forcing European countries to mobilize. He believes Europe will grow in independence both psychologically and militarily.

Living in the cultural crossroads of the 21^st century, those armaments may be retooled for the new world order.

I met with EDHEC Business School leaders about a lecture on my book. They are delighted to learn of my career path, one that started in the United States, was formed in Japan, and blossomed in France and Germany. I represent the value of a global mindset.

The students, they say, will want to hear about the future of global brands—and learn about my career. They are surprised that I am American.

I find myself repeating to anyone who will listen: I am American from the West Coast.

And there are many other Americans who think like I do.

The sitting U.S. president won with 77 million votes. Another 79 million people voted for someone else.

Over breakfast at the Georges V with a former colleague, I savored the hotel’s unctuous specialty—oeuf à la coque with truffles and foie gras. As the flavors and scents melded in perfect harmony, I let the tension slip away. My Sicilian colleague and I found common ground in our belief in the power of emotional intelligence for teamwork, especially in Palace hotels where guests from every corner of the globe expect nothing short of excellence. Understanding their needs and desires demands both cultural and emotional intelligence.

This is the heart of Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Values across Cultures.

It seems my book is actually coming at an important and necessary time. While I may feel I have nothing worthwhile to share with the dismal state of politics, it’s just the opposite.

I have a lot to say.

When shit happens, we need a new vision. A global mindset provides the strength of our convictions with the flexibility to find common ground.

For my last night in Paris, I ate delicious foie de veau (sweetbreads) with my Peruvian sister, the exchange student who lived with my family in San Francisco during high school. She had married a Frenchman and made her home in Paris, while her sister married a Swiss and lives in Zurich.

Driving back along the dark, cold and hard streets around l’Etoile and the gleaming Arc de Triomphe, through the beautiful city the Nazis could not bear to bomb, I realized the timing could not be better for my debut. My book is not a panacea. But it is an antidote, packed with salves and strategies to connect us across cultures.

International growth begins with international understanding—and that is a triumph for us all.

Where are you finding hope these days? And what connections do you hold dear?