Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a „successful“ immigrant? To achieve a decent standard of living even though your education might not be accepted? Is there a formula? So that before immigration you could take a test and get a result: „You have an emigration-ability-score of x, which means you have y% chance of succeeding in living a fulfilled and successful life abroad.“
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Accedera GmbH
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The more I think about it, moving somewhere abroad has many similarities to being an entrepreneur and building a business (and oh boy, how much do I sometimes wish that there was an „entrepreneur-ability-score“, so that every once in a while when I am doubting myself and my ability to make it work, I could look at my score result and think: Keep calm, the test said you will make it – (naturally I assume that I would ace that test…).
As you might know or might have guessed by now, I am an entrepreneur. I am not an immigrant, migrant, expat, exchange student,… I’m plain, simple German. But I do dedicate my life to two things (well, probably more, but these two do occupy my thoughts a lot): (1) How to support people moving to Germany from abroad in the best way and (2) how to do this while earning a living with it. Both tasks can be challenging. But as so often, it is easier for me to see how to help others than how to help myself.
When sometimes I can’t see how to help myself I ask an expert for guidance just like so many times people from abroad have asked me for guidance when it comes to establishing a life here.
Well, last time I asked for guidance in building my business, I was struck by the similarities of the qualities that both entrepreneurs and newcomers to a country require to have a good chance to succeed.
Let me name a few of them:
1. Courage and a lot of risk-affinity to leave your known surroundings and try out something new.
2. Self-Confidence and an almost unbreakable believe that you will be able to overcome any obstacle in the way.
3. Persistence to keep on going and going even when times are not positive.
4. Adaptability to change behaviour, to learn, to accept when your planned path does not lead you to success and to change the route.
These are only a few essential qualities, but I think they are important both for starting a life in a different country and for starting a business.
It is really curious that statistically in Germany more migrants become entrepreneurs than non-migrants.
Until now I thought there were many reasons for this starting with less prosperous possibilities on the labour market. But I am not so sure anymore. Maybe it is the fact that in order to be a „successful“ migrant, you are already cultivating all the qualities it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?
Accedera’s Guide to Germany is the go-to blog for everybody from abroad who wants to build a fulfilled and successful professional life in Germany. With our blog we support you in finding a job in your field of expertise by providing you with useful insights and behind-the-scenes information with regards to excellent CV writing, brilliant job interview performance, German regional particularities and much more.
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