What if you fall in love with another continent?
did you ever think about leave everything for love ? Travel to another continent because you had fallen in love? Or have you already done it? If so, you know what we're talking about.
If there is something capable of connecting two people separated thousands of kilometers apart is LOVE . It is curious that two souls are traveling, in places where they do not belong and that is when they connect.
That precise moment that serves to light the unstoppable fuse that sets everything in motion: a new trip, a business, a change of country, a vital project, children in another hemisphere... Because there are people who, when they come together, create magnificent things, motivating each other and making creativity fly.
Let's fall in love! Let's discover what lies behind those sensations that make magic arise, the spark of life.
A multicultural relationship can make you more creative.
The love between two people who belong to different countries enhances creativity . Is there any scientific proof of it? The answer is yes and it is social psychologist and professor at the Columbia Business School, Adam Galinsky who published in 2017 together with a university team the study ** 'Going Out” of the Box: Close Intercultural Friendships and Romantic Relationships Spark Creativity, Workplace Innovation, and Entrepreneurship' .**
This group of psychologists had been working for a decade on the study, which at the same time was made up of four investigations, which corroborated that love between two people from different countries could foster creativity. They did so taking into account the growth of a global trend that is travel to study
According to The Economist, from 2000 to now the figure has grown from 2 million to 4.5 million . And it is expected to be 7 million in 2025.
Motivation comes first, then creativity.
Adam and his team did four large studies among professionals and students. One of them was a test for MBA students to demonstrate that multicultural experiences among students had increased their creativity . 150 students with 39 nationalities participated.
"Did you date someone from a different culture than your own while you were on the show?" was the first question to which 22% answered yes. The researchers found, on all measures of creativity, that "participants who dated people from other cultures showed superior creative performance" at the end of the MBA program.
For the following study, they recruited 128 participants who lived in the US and worked at Amazon Mechanical Turk and had previously or currently had cross-cultural relationships. They made them reflect on their previous dates and asked them to do some creativity exercises, discovering that these relationships they had improved their learning by fostering their creativity In most cases.
The third study focused on the number and duration of relationships, the latter being the determining factor. while in the room, analyzed 2,226 professional returnees from 96 countries who had been working in the US.
The frequency of contacts with American friends since the return to their countries of origin positively predicted innovation in their workplace and the likelihood of becoming entrepreneurs.
And if you find love in another country.
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY...
But, what is creativity ? According to Adam and his team he is the ability to generate new ideas , in fact they indicate it as one of the most important and outstanding skills in the world of work , or at least one of the most useful. Let's say that without creativity there is no entrepreneurship.
There are historical cases that would confirm it. For example, in 1891 a Polish woman left Warsaw for the first time to study in Paris. There she met a Frenchman whom she ended up marrying, the two of them worked side by side and discovered radioactivity, a breakthrough she made that Marie and Pierre Curie won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903.
But the benefits of maintaining intercultural relationships go beyond the scientific. Steve Jobs was studying japanese zen buddhism when he met Kobun Otogawa in San Francisco. And no, no they were not a couple, but between them a bond was created that served Jobs to instill, later, the simplicity of Zen in the design of Apple products . The rest as you know is history.
Virginia and Kevin from Cuca Flavor in Bali.
Let's say Kevin (Canada) found Virginia (Salamanca) or vice versa. “We met at a party 11 years ago in Kuala Lumpur, where we were both living at the time. I had a boyfriend for 8 years but nothing can stop Kevin when he proposes something. At 6 months we were living together and, shortly after, we moved to Singapore and started a whole new life together ”, tells Traveler Virginia, owner of Cuca Flavor in Bali.
Virginia left behind Malaysia where she had been living for 10 years to travel to Singapore with practically nothing (just Kevin's new job). “Before I met Kevin, I took fewer risks and believed in myself less, even though I had been living alone and far from Spain for many years. I had suffered several disappointments but having Kevin around, and knowing that I could count on him, made me much more determined and believe in my potential”, she adds.
Four years later they decided to open a restaurant. “Today Cuca is on TripAdvisor's Top 10 list of the best restaurants in all of Asia. The secret of our success, apart from putting all our love and effort into it, has been, without a doubt, creativity” she comments.
The two complement each other although they are polar opposites. “From his culture I have learned to enjoy nature (I was extremely urban before I met him) and our annual trips to the mountains in Canada are always the best times of the year.”
She ends by reflecting that after having lived outside of Spain for so long, she could not be with someone from her own country because she needs the stimulation of the unknown, the new... “I wholeheartedly believe in the richness of multiculturalism . I have been in Asia for 20 years and I feel like a fish in water surrounded by different cultures, religions and languages. I couldn't live any other way."
Multicultural couples.
MULTICULTURAL LOVE MAKES US ENTREPRENEURS
How does that relationship have to be for creativity to emerge? The study 'Going Out” of the Box' says that there are two types of relationships that can help us be more creative: friendship and romantic relationships. Why?
These types of relationships are more intimate, voluntary and personal. “Close friends relate to each other on a deeper level through the disclosure of personal information, demonstrating mutual trust, mutual help and emotional support , while sentimental relationships are usually characterized by intimacy, passion and commitment ”, subtracts the study.
The longer and more durable it is, the more opportunities we will have to get to know the other culture, get to know the social environment, etc., so cultural learning will be infinitely greater , ergo so will be creativity.
In this sense, Nuria Codony, in charge of the management of the Haztúa Prosperidad Positive Psychology center and member of the working group of Emotional Intelligence of the College of Psychologists of Madrid , assures that “with creativity we arrive at solutions that allow us to adapt to the context that is constantly changing; the fact of having a partner from another country, takes us to that new context for us, Motivation playing an important role that makes us approach this unknown culture with greater interest and soak up it”.
Multicultural couples tend to be more flexible and tolerant.
for Nuria the relationship between two people from different cultures is a true mental adventure. “Among the benefits of this heterogeneity can appear from the learning of different languages to general knowledge of the perception of the world in another culture. It offers us the opportunity to get to know other religions in depth, adaptive richness to different social contexts, diverse traditions... taking us to greater tolerance, respect and flexibility before the cultural differences of the individual”, she adds.
Although we must not lose sight of an important concept such as openness , which may not have people who are traveling and know each other. "Creativity can depend on open-mindedness, so it would be said that the greater the openness to experience, the more stimulation, so there could be the possibility of having greater creative capacities."
And you, have you experienced the love that crosses borders?