Seeing the world through foreign eyes

When I was in college, I was fortunate to be able to travel extensively across Europe by using the Eurail pass. I loved hiking the Alps, admired Parisian art and architecture and marveled at Spanish and Italian cuisine.

Back then, the country I had the least interest in visiting was the UK. It lay across the sea, and you had to take some sort of exotic vehicle to get to it (Ferry, Jetfoil or Hovercraft).

It was until 1992, when my sister graduated from an English boarding school, that I finally made it to this island. I was confused by my first impressions: the accent was difficult to understand. They drove on the other side of the street. Dress codes and traditions seemed awkward. Everything looked old.

But London intrigued me. It was a huge European city, and it seemed full of life and energy. It had an air of mystery compared to other Continental capitals, and it felt like many things were happening there.

Years later, I had to take a course called Creating Modern Capitalism. The class described the American, German, Japanese and English versions of market-based economies. And while the Professor described the UK as a country in decline, the stories we read ignited my curiosity about this place.

They spoke about the scientific developments that led to the Industrial Revolution and the harnessing of steam. They described how Rolls Royce transformed itself from a luxury car maker into a warplane engine manufacturer during World War II. And they narrated how -facing incredibly odds- the British managed to outmaneuver the Germans by being flexible, creative, and optimistic.

This seemed like a country full of ingenuity. One that created the world’s Lingua Franca, football, tennis, industrialization, and many other things we were unaware of. The English had a somewhat baffling sense of humor and a strange way of doing things. But they still had huge influence over the modern world.

Perhaps as a coincidence, I ended up living for 9 years in London and two of my daughters were born there. While in Britain, I marveled at people’s politeness, at the beauty of the parks and surrounding countryside, at their cosmopolitan outlook in life. Professionally, I was impressed by the ease of doing business, the simplicity of their legal system, the incredible museums and universities, the quality of political discourse, their history of scientific inquiry and their excellent bookstores.

I fell in love with London.

So, it was very surprising for me to see how some locals viewed things differently. They lamented how the Empire had been reduced to a “little” island. They moaned about how the Germans always beat them in football. They were obsessed over the “grim weather”. Theirs was a “soggy, grey country in decadence”. A vast contrast to how I saw London and the UK.

When I came back to Mexico in 2013, I viewed my own country with glee. It was the Mexican Moment. The energy sector was booming, and luxury hotels were fully booked with potential investors.

Fast forward to 2021. Business newspaper headlines are dominated by political affairs, and many locals are negative about the country’s current prospects. And yet, the last few months have seen record investments in tech start-ups: Bitso, GBM, Gaia, Kavak, Merama, among others.?It turns out Mexico is one of the world’s fastest growing e-commerce markets. And it is still one of the largest, most-advanced Spanish-speaking economies; offering plenty of opportunities for those able to see them.

Amid an influx of negativity, I wonder whether we need to adopt a foreigner’s way of looking at things: an appreciation of everything the country has to offer; an eye for opportunity; a healthy disregard for the establishment.

Immigrants can be more open; they tend to start more companies and they enrich their host countries with their diverse perspectives. Many of Mexico’s most successful companies like Grupo Modelo or Grupo Bimbo were started by migrants. A significant number of Mexico’s top artists - like Frida Kahlo, Juan O′Gorman, Diego Rivera and Remedios Varo- were either foreign, or had important foreign influences. And today – as in the past- many of the hottest startups in Mexico are being founded by people from abroad. The is also true for the US, the UK, and many other advanced economies.

Immigrants have a different mindset. They have an eye for opportunity. They are optimistic. And they are tenacious.

?Perhaps we should all start looking at things through foreign eyes?

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" - Marcel Proust