Before and following my trip to France earlier this month, several friends shared, “Paris is my happy place, you’ll love it.” True enough: As I left France two weeks ago, I had the thought, “I would enjoy living here” in France and, possibly, Paris.

So, I started thinking about that transition. What would a move to France involve?

At one level, easy steps: Engage a relocation service, obtain the appropriate visa, rent an apartment in or near Paris or other cities in which Americans and other ex-pats live, learn enough French to conduct day to day transactions, and carry on as Americans in France, making a few French friends and hanging out with other English-speakers as an extended-term tourist. It could be a comfortable life. What fun!

But, as I thought about what might be involved in actually becoming a member of the community I might choose, other points arose. There’s the language, of course: Fluency in formal French (I’m a beginner), regional dialect, and slang. In addition, after one becomes familiar with the usual French icons (e.g., Charlemagne, Voltaire, Napoleon, de Gaulle, Chanel, Eiffel, Descartes, Bardot, Zidane, Camus, Hugo, Piaf, Louis IX, Louis XIV, Robespierre, and so on), there’s the stuff that one learns as one grows up in France – social relationships and customs, manners, beliefs, daily routines, values, and the ideas that influence day to day decisions and practices or, more broadly, political and economic choices.

Case in point: One day during my Paris visit, I spoke over lunch with a friend who, three years ago, moved permanently to a town in Province. I asked him about his involvement in his new community.

“I’m fluent in French,” he said, “and I’ve invested time over many years traveling in and learning about France. Yet, although we’ve bought a home and lived in this town for three years and we have two friendly dogs and we participate actively in local events, people are just beginning to accept us. Just beginning. There’s still a feeling of ‘you’re American, you don’t understand.’ As in: You’re not one of us.”

I looked surprised. “After three years?”

“Oh, we may get there,” he said, twinkling. “It’ll just take time.”

Nick Miller and Clarity train banks and bankers to attract and develop deeper relationships with small businesses. Many more Sales Thoughts like this and a host of other articles and resources at https://clarityadvantage.com/knowledge-center/