• life in the UK,  relocation,  UK

    London by the local

    When I moved to live in the British capital in 2012, it was not the easiest time for me to adjust. Suffice to say, I had a love-hate relationship with this city, mostly hate to be honest. Everyone told me how amazing my life would be in one of the best metropolies of the world and all I could see were ridiculous prices, problems with finding job, crazy distances between places and thousands of people on the streets; definitely, I felt overwhelmed. It took some time to get used to London vibes and now I love where I live; I feel proud of being a Polish Londoner, something I have…

  • business,  culture,  Poland

    Poland – a very short introduction – part 2, today

    When you deal with the Polish it is impossible not to talk about history at some point. We finished the previous post on partitions. They lasted 123 years and they changed Polish culture completely. When Poland became independent, obviously it was not Poland of 1795. And some other countries became independent as well. It includes Lithuania, and Vilnius, the old Lithuanian capital where almost everyone spoke Polish (which was the language of education and art, not necessarily of nationality) happen to become a capital of newly independent state. That enraged Polish to the point that we decided to stand up and win it back. To make it even more complicated,…

  • business,  culture,  Poland

    Poland – a very short introduction – part 1, history

    I know that many posts on my website is about travels, simply because I love learning about other people and cultures. That’s why I travel a lot in comparison to regular holidaymakers. And I would love to travel even more, by the way. Sometimes, though, it’s only the second-best option available – my work. Even though some people could say it is repetitive, after all I train, coach and mentor my clients how to communicate with the others, mostly British, US Americans and Polish and how to be a happy and fulfilled expat. That is true, but thankfully those using my services come from so many different cultural backgrounds that…

  • business,  coaching,  mentoring

    coaching and mentoring – strategic purpose and usage at executive and senior levels

    Coaching and mentoring are two of the effective approaches in Learning and Development which are gaining popularity nowadays. Since they were developed, they keep expanding and evolving across different organisations. The executive level officers are aware of the advantages of introducing these to companies, especially for the employees from the mid-level and up. Since both are, opposed to training, focused on establishing longer term, not necessarily immediate changes and share many similarities, they are quite often mistaken for one another (Stewart and Cureton 2014)1. The techniques they use are based predominantly on one-on-one meetings (although there are group and team sessions as well). While in the everyday use of these…

  • business,  life

    mindfulness practice for expats’ families

    Being an expat is tough, but it’s even tougher to be the expat’s partner, no matter how we would call them (my preferable term is “a trailing spouse”, but I know that for some people it sounds belittling). When I train, mentor or coach accompanying partners I encourage them to incorporate mindfulness practices into daily life. The purpose is to bring one’s attention to the present moment. There is no judgment involved, your present is neither good, nor bad – it just is. You learn to accept it, but it doesn’t mean that you stop being proactive, by the way. The perfect summary of this practices can be found in…

  • coaching,  life in the UK,  relocation

    questions my clients ask – part 1

    I have been working with expats relocating to other countries for many years and even though they come from different cultures, they actually ask very similar questions. They check my website, so this post is written to answer some of their questions beforehand, maybe even give you and them some insights about my work too, and will be one of many. It’s not possible to cover such a vast subject in only few minutes read, it would simply be too much for you to digest in one go. Trust me, you do not want to feel overwhelmed. If you have questions which are not answered here, let me know in…

  • business,  life,  Poland,  world

    My intercultural journey

    Hello, My name is Konrad Wdowiak and I was born in Poland in 1976, when the communist regime realised that it is supported by less and less Polish citizens. At one point they decided to introduce Martial Law, blocked the borders so no one could leave the country; not too many people could come in neither. And Lublin, my hometown, is the place where people of different religions and nationalities used to live together for hundreds of years. The remnants of its former burghers’ cultures are still there. During communist rule they were kept timidly hidden and never praised like those people have never existed. But they were still there:…