An Engaging Chat With Hotel Manager Expat & Career Transition Coach, Jessica Morari!
Jessica Morari is an experienced expat and career transition coach who has lived abroad for many years. She recently sat down with Her Expat Life to discuss her journey and insights on living and working abroad. Jessica shared her tips on how to make the transition to living in a new country smoother and more successful, and her advice on how to build a successful career in a foreign country.
1: Tell us how you started your Expat & Career Transition Coaching career? What was
the catalyst for this business development? What does a discovery session with you
entail with clients?
Starting this business has been a natural development of my personal experience - I
have been an expat myself for the past 8 years, and my passion for helping people
with their personal & professional growth. Nowadays, moving to another country is
quite common, yet there are still very few services that help you to face this
transition from an emotional point of view. And this is what I do with my coaching
programs for expats. I help them overcome emotional instability and create their
inner home to strengthen their independence and make the most of their experience
abroad. During a discovery session, we make an assessment of the current situation
to understand if coaching is what the person needs and we see if there is a
connection between us.
2: You have lived in some incredible places like Kenya to Italy, Spain and now Dubai!
Do tell us more of your travels and what were/are some of the perks of living
abroad?
Living abroad means enrichment to me. You can get to live different lives in each
place you move to, taste new flavours, discover different ways of seeing and
perceiving reality, and get in contact with new mindsets. I have personally become
more flexible and more open-minded towards many aspects of life. At the end of the
journey, you end up creating your own culture, which is the sum of every place you
have lived in. And moreover, living abroad is a real masterclass about yourself. You really have the
chance to get to deeply know you and challenge and improve yourself.
3: What advice do you have for women who may be struggling with emotional
instability?
Do not hide your emotions. Many times we expat feel the obligation to be happy all
the time, because we somehow chose it. The truth is that every emotion is legitimate
and you are entitled to feel sad, scared, frustrated, and lonely sometimes. It is
absolutely normal to go through different phases after we move. A coach can help
you to learn how to deal with what you are feeling and reach a stability in your life
abroad.
4: Where have you traveled/lived that really made a lasting impression on you and
why?
Every place has left something that I still bring with me today. I love the meaning of
food in Italian culture. To me it represents the pleasure of family shared moments, of
cooking as a form of taking care of your beloved ones.
Spain taught me to slow down, to take a break and enjoy life with a simple walk on
the beach after work.
And in the UAE I have appreciated the growth and entrepreneurship mindset. Dubai is
for me one of the greatest examples of how you can create anything from nothing.
5: What challenges have you faced along the way in your career and how did you
overcome them?
I entered the job market right after my master and being a 24 year old woman
working as a manager in a culture designed for men hasn't always been easy. There
are still a lot of prejudices and misconceptions about gender, even if we now try to
embellish them with laws. I have never let this stop myself and I have been lucky and
smart enough to surround myself with other powerful female managers that have
supported and inspired me along the way.
6: You have been a hotel manager for a while now! How did you get into this sector?
What obstacles did you face?
I have always been relentlessly attracted to foreign cultures and languages and I saw
hospitality as a great way of combining this passion with my natural impulse for
leading projects and people. Working in such an international and multicultural environment means that sometimes you need to adjust your communication, both with guests and
coworkers. You have to tune to the person you have in front of you, eliminating
unconscious prejudices and minimising cultural barriers. This is definitely something
that I keep doing as a coach.
7: How do you juggle work, coaching and your spare time?
I set priorities and I have learnt to rest. There has been a time, many many years
actually, when I used to want to get to everything. I was overworked, frustrated and
unhappy. Now, at the beginning of each semester I set priorities and goals and
organise my months and weeks accordingly. Remember to schedule some rest time
too!
8. What is/was life like in Dubai and working there?
Dubai is an extremely fast paced city. It offers great opportunities in terms of career
development and an infinite choice of activities for your spare time. You can find the
best restaurants and hotels in the world, as well as the most bizarre things you might
see - like snowboarding and skiing slopes inside a mall.
It’s a very vibrant destination, which offers security, stability and a dose of
extravagance.
9. What advice do you have for women who are looking to advance or change career
paths while living the expat life?
During a career transition process, I always suggest starting from the inside. Know
yourself inside out, your strengths and your flaws, what you can bring from your past
experiences, even if it’s a different sector, and what differentiates you among the
rest. Knowing your real value makes it easier to communicate it when the time
comes. Set your goals wisely - they have to be challenging, yet realistic. And finally
design your roadmap to get where you want. Remember that you don’t have to do
this alone. There are plenty of professionals that can guide and support you through
this journey and speed up the transition.
10. Where would be your dream place to live and work?
I have a shameless preference for nature and green places, but then I ended up in
Dubai…so I am not sure that I really have a dream destination. There are so many
places where I would love to move to for different reasons and I feel that as I evolve
as a person, my dream place to live and work evolves too. I like being open to any
destination and feel the freedom to pick the best option when it comes.
Web link:
https://jessicamorari.com/ LinkedIn: Jessica Morari | LinkedIn