Toronto, Tuesday., November 4, 6.10am

Last Saturday, I facilitated a full day program with 500 new, highly skilled  immigrants to Toronto. They came from all over the world. For many of them, English is their second language. Many of them also come from countries with very different cultures to Canada. For all of them, just being in the room was a monumental achievement. Now they have to find work and that was the objective of the session. Together with TRIEC, Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, we coached the group on the power of networking and self-marketing. Prospective employers like the government of Canada, Deloitte, State Farm Insurance, CGI and RBC also held workshops that informed immigrants of the opportunities available and how they could exploit them. See http://www.triec.ca/events/12

It was an electrifying day. From my first word to my final wrap up, the engagement was total. The listening was so intense, I was almost overwhelmed. EVERYTHING I shared with group was new for them. There was no “I’ve heard all of this before” because they hadn’t. There was just the silent appreciation and awe that comes with absorbing new concepts that could make a major difference in their lives. Irrespective of age, there was a hunger in the room for the insights that would empower them to grow their future and feed their families. I learnt as much from them as they did from me. Specifically, I left the session looking at everything through their eyes: the eyes of someone who is seeing it all for the first time.

And that’s the simple lesson of this blog: look at your world like you’ve just immigrated to it. You have. We’re all immigrants to the future. Just in the last three months, so much has changed so much that it’s all NEW. You may just not have realised it yet. To quote T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

The immigrants to my program in Saturday have literally just arrived and they are beginning to know their new place. If you’ve been around for some time, it’s time to arrive at a new place. It’s time to see things from a new angle. It’s time to embrace new points of view. It’s time to talk to new people. It’s time to begin anew. And it’s time to take new immigrants along with you. Reach out and share. You’ll get far more than you could ever anticipate. I did.