English is not Your First Language? Embrace It

I am writing this in English. It is not my first language (actually, third). Am I at a disadvantage?

On a shallow level, yes. I still can't quite understand many song lyrics, and my Canadian friends still have to explain some jokes to me.

However, on a deeper level, the disadvantage disappears completely.

Just think about this -- I learned English well enough to write this series of tips (and yes, yes, it is me writing, not an LLM). Honestly, after years of practice, I'm probably a better writer than most native English speakers. I also record videos -- and yes, I do have an accent! But what matters is that I have something to say.

Now, there is an actual advantage that I (and many of you reading/watching this) have and many native speakers don't -- I know a whole other language, which is a unique feature of my brain.

Some studies show that humans think in a language. So, for those of us who speak more than one -- our brain has this cool feature -- a multilanguage thinking mode! We might not always notice how it works, but think about this as an engineer for a moment -- if the brain has more "instruction sets," it must be able to do more, right?!

Now, on a purely practical level. You can read more books (I feel so privileged to enjoy Dostoyevsky's original writing). You can relate to more people. You can do business in more places -- not just because you understand what people say in Portuguese/Hindi/Swahili/Russian, but because you also understand the culture -- how to say things and build work relationships.

That's not just nouns and verbs -- that's your whole language arbitrage in action!

So, while you work on your English (which does have enormous value and does open doors worldwide) -- never forget that strategic advantage you have if you're not a native English speaker. Don't hide that advantage, don't apologize for it -- embrace it.