At the 2026 US Expats Financial Conference, Tati Paes, founder of Interoots, explores why living abroad feels different than you expect and how to adapt more intentionally. Drawing on 30 years of personal experience living across Brazil, the US, Singapore, France, and Spain, and a long corporate career in human resources across multinationals, Tati focuses on the internal and relational shifts that accompany international moves — from identity and social capital to family roles and performance context. She presents her Roots of Life framework, adapted from the Wheel of Life, to help expats and global mobility professionals stabilize key pillars beyond logistics and finances for a more sustainable and fulfilling life abroad.
The following transcript was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Hugo: Hello. Welcome everyone. We’re just going to wait a couple of minutes before we get started. Give as many people as possible chance to join. I’m delighted to be here with Tati. Whereabouts are you today, Tati? Where and how’s the weather there?
Tati: Hello Hugo. Thanks for the invitation. I’m currently in Barcelona. The weather here today is, I’d say, okay. We usually have blue skies. Today it’s a bit cloudy, but still pretty nice.
Hugo: And you were just saying you’ve lived in many places, several countries?
Tati: Yes.
Hugo: And you were in the US at one point. Whereabouts were you in the US?
Tati: Well, I’m originally from Brazil and I’ve lived in Singapore, in the US, Spain, and France. When I lived in the States, I lived in Miami, Florida for four years, and I went to college in Boston. So I was in Boston for four years. Very different experiences.
Hugo: And first college, then Florida, or the other way around?
Tati: No, first Florida for the last three years of high school, then college for four, and then I moved back for a year before repatriating to Brazil.
Hugo: Yeah, a lot of firsthand experiences as an expat. And you mentioned you’ve been in Spain five years now?
Tati: Yes, five years. We were in Paris for a year before moving here. So it was our third move abroad, the third time we moved abroad, this time with kids, which is very different. We were in Paris for a year, and then we’ve been here for almost five.
Hugo: It sounds like you’ve had a lot of different aspects of expat experience — from college to working to, as you say, as a family.
Tati: Yes.
Hugo: The last one to tick off your list will be retirement somewhere in the future.
Tati: Let’s see where we end up.
Hugo: So I think numbers of people joining have stabilized. Let me just read a little introduction and then I will hand over.
Hello and welcome to day two of the 2026 US Expats Financial Conference, sponsored by Expat Focus, Wise, Global Citizen Solutions, and Advanced AI Services. We have a fantastic schedule for you consisting of 17 sessions over four days, covering multiple aspects of information for Americans living abroad with perspectives from some of the world’s leading experts in their fields.
Today is the second day of the conference, and for this, our first session of the day, I’m delighted to be joined by Tati who’ll be discussing why living abroad feels different than you expect, and how to adapt more intentionally. Tati works with leaders and global mobility professionals navigating realities of life abroad.
With experience supporting organizations and individuals across multinational contexts, including her own experience living internationally, she focuses on how changing countries reshapes not only external circumstances, but internal dynamics as well. How these shifts influence performance, leadership effectiveness, and relationships over time.
Her work brings an integrated perspective to life abroad, supporting both individuals and organizations to navigate the complex personal and professional transitions with clarity and intention. Before we start, please bear in mind information is presented for educational purposes only, and you should always seek your own personalized advice.
Tati will be answering your questions at the end of our presentation, so please add your questions in the Q&A pop-up at the foot of your screen as and when you think of them, and we’ll try to answer them all, time permitting. So without further ado, over to you, Tati.
Tati: Thanks Hugo for the intro, and again, thanks for the invitation. Let me share here my presentation.
Can you see it? Yes. Okay, I hope everyone can hear me well. I’m here wearing red today, which feels a bit awkward for me, but because of the Chinese New Year, I’ve heard that it brings good energy. So let’s see.
Today I’m here to talk about why living abroad feels different than you expect, and how to adapt more intentionally. Why? Because we usually prepare a lot for a move abroad, but then after we move, we feel that maybe some things are a bit off, and most of the time we don’t understand why. I’m here today to talk about this.
I understand that some of you are still planning a move abroad while some are already living abroad. But what I will bring here today is very important for everyone because if you haven’t moved abroad yet, this will help you prepare even more. And if you’re already living abroad, this will help you settle in better, even if you’ve been living abroad for quite a while. This is very important in terms of creating awareness and looking forward towards your goals of your life abroad.
Today we’re going to go through understanding why it feels harder than we expected, understanding what actually changes beyond the changes that we already know about, the hidden costs that many times we don’t realize, and then I’ll present to you a framework that I work with for a more intentional adaptation that will help you feel better about your move abroad and enjoy it more.
By the end of today’s talk, you’ll understand what’s actually happening beneath the surface and how to stabilize performance in this new system. And by performance, I don’t only mean at work. Even if you are not currently working, this means performance as a whole, in all the different roles that you play. Performance in terms of the decisions that you make, clarity, influence. Think of performance in that way, not only at work, though of course it applies to work as well — but personally and professionally.
Have you ever felt more tired abroad than you expected? Even though everything is technically working? When we plan our move, we have a huge checklist of things that we have to do, and when we move, we feel tired because of that, because we have a lot to do. But then there are other things that happen underneath, and this is what we’re going to be covering today, this gap.
Hugo has already made a very warm intro about me, but I just wanted to share a little bit more. I’m originally from Brazil, as I mentioned, and I have lived in different countries and cities inside Brazil and outside of Brazil. I had a very long corporate career working for multinationals in human resources across different continents.
As I mentioned, I have a long experience living abroad. The first time I moved abroad was 30 years ago as a child. I have lived in different countries and through different stages of my life, which gives me a different perspective of the different moments that we experience within a family or within our lives abroad.
In the past five years, after moving abroad and leaving my career behind to move with my husband and with my family and facing the biggest identity shock in my life, I started Inter Roots and I work today with professionals and companies through international transitions. Looking more at what we usually miss, which is the human side of these changes.
Again, we usually focus on the external, but what changes inside is very deep and it impacts and influences everything else that we live through these experiences. This is why I work with this today.
You are here in this conference, very focused on the finance side of life abroad, which is extremely important. However, this is the external part that I’ve been mentioning. We usually focus on our finances, on our taxes, how that’s going to work out, immigration, visas. We prepare for logistics — we define our house, our school, neighbourhood, everything that we need to get set before we move.
This is where we spend a lot of our time and our energy organizing a move. And after we move, for a few months we are going through that adaptation of living in a new city, but we still don’t feel like things are okay.
I know this from my own experience because I remember that when I moved abroad with my family six years ago, I thought I had it all right. I had moved abroad so many times in my life. I knew exactly what to expect. But there were some huge changes that I didn’t see coming, like my professional identity. I left my corporate job to at the time be with my family.
When we go through these changes — and these don’t only happen if you change careers, regardless if you’re moving from the same job to a new country — you also face these. So what are these feelings? Fatigue, irritability. You lack confidence — the confidence that you had before, you don’t really have it so much anymore.
Reduced clarity, decision making. You have to make a lot of decisions when you move abroad, and it can get very confusing at times. You don’t know what you have to decide first. Is it the school? Is it the neighbourhood? What do I have to look into? Is it the taxes? My immigration process? There’s a lot going on, so you end up losing a bit of clarity and focus.
You question if you made the right move. This is classic. People usually question for a few months if the decision that they made was actually the best one. And you feel disconnection from others, those that are around you, just because of everything that’s happening, all the changes. But also you feel disconnected from yourself. Why? Because you’re focused too much on the outside and you’re not looking inside.
Why is that? Because international transitions disrupt systems. When you move abroad, you’re not only changing countries. The biggest changes happen internally, and this is what we many times don’t realize. We’re not aware of how much this impacts us.
What kind of changes are these? Identity. Sometimes in our countries, we’re known for being an expert in a certain area. You are known for being a great leader, or you’re known for being the mother or the father that’s very involved in school. These are part of your identity. That’s who you’re known for. When you move, you’re not known for those things anymore because a lot changes.
Social capital also. This is very difficult and it doesn’t transfer when you move countries. All the people that you know, all your network, the trust, everything that you’ve built — you don’t have that anymore in a new country.
Family roles. This is a very big one and many times we don’t realize the impact of this. It’s very common that for a couple when they move, one isn’t going to work at the very beginning, or one is going to be working remotely as opposed to having been working in the office before.
This impacts the family because the family dynamics will depend on these new roles. If one is being expatriated, the one that’s not leading the move is probably going to be the one responsible for adapting the family, understanding and figuring out how things work in the city. This is a big change depending on what you’re coming from and what you’re going into.
Also status. Perhaps you have a title where you currently live or where you used to live, and that title has a different meaning where you’re moving to. The position that you had before, in this new country, is not the same.
These are big changes that happen and that many times we don’t realize will happen. Also, power dynamics in terms of making decisions. Who decides on what? Who has the power? Who has the influence? This also changes when you go from one country to another.
And performance context. I’m going to go into more detail here, but this is really how you are valued based on the value that you add, on the results that you bring to the table.
These are the external changes, the changes going on outside. And then when we look at what this means for us: your reference points are disappearing. This is why you’re feeling a bit off — because your external system just changed and you have to adapt your internal systems in order to perform in this new system. This is where most people aren’t aware and don’t realize that this is happening and that they need to adjust.
What’s actually changing? Your competence — what you’re known for. This is something that we’re usually measured by, and in this new culture, it might not be perceived in the same way. You might not feel competent in this new city.
Also, this is a classic one: feedback changes. Before, you were used to getting feedback. You knew what to expect, you knew what was expected of you, you knew what kind of feedback you would be getting. Then all of a sudden you’re not getting the same type of feedback anymore.
You are already feeling uncomfortable, already feeling not so confident because of all the changes. Then you begin questioning things that you thought were fine, things you were doing well. You begin questioning if that silence that you’re getting — what does that mean? Is that feedback direct? Or are they speaking between the lines? And you have to read between the lines.
Also informal influence. Before, you knew how things worked. You knew who made decisions, you knew where to go, you knew how to navigate the system. You knew what to influence and how to influence, and this you have to build from scratch. This is also something happening where you don’t have that reference point anymore and you need to recalibrate.
Then, what used to feel effortless, what was automatic to you, all of a sudden requires a lot of energy. A simple presentation, a simple meeting that you would go into — now you have to think before you speak. Why? Because how are you going to be interpreted? How are they going to perceive this? They don’t know you yet. You haven’t built trust.
All these questions that you’re asking — you don’t even realize it’s happening inside you. And they consume energy. Also, speaking in a different language. The people that I work with, they say, “No, but I’m fluent. I thought I was fluent in Spanish, or I thought I was fluent in English.” And then all of a sudden, speaking in a different language all day long with everything else that’s going on in your life — it’s not just a meeting, it’s the whole day at work.
Outside of work, you go to the supermarket and you have to find the new brand of whatever product that you have no idea what it’s called in this new language because it’s not part of your vocabulary. All this that before used to be easy — all of a sudden you have to stop, you have to think. And this is just draining.
Considering this is mostly an American audience, I wanted to bring this here. I don’t like to stereotype and I know that this can feel very different even if you are American. But this is typically what achievement-oriented cultures — how they function and how they work. I wanted to bring this here for you to really understand what might be going on. And if you haven’t moved abroad, think about this when you do.
These are four conditions that are disrupted when we move. In achievement-oriented cultures, identity is very closely tied with competence — how competent you are, that’s what your identity is. This is something that’s moving and you don’t feel competent because your identity’s changing.
Also, performance is a core value. How much am I progressing? How much am I delivering? What are my results? All of a sudden, this might change. Maybe you will progress slower because you are in a different environment, because you’re operating differently. Your results maybe won’t come as fast as they used to. Why? Because a lot is changing.
This is important to realize — that when you measure yourself by your performance, you might feel that maybe you’re not doing as well as you were before. Also, the influence that you had, that’s changing, and the impact that you can have with your influence. Again, it’s not the same that you used to have. Your network is different, your system is different, everything is changing.
The last one, which I find very important and interesting, is that in achievement-oriented cultures, we tend to think that we have to do things on our own. “I can make it. I don’t need support. I don’t need help. I know how to do this without any guidance.” And then all of a sudden you are in a situation where you will need support, where you will need guidance.
Understanding this is important because these are strengths and they’re valued strengths. However, depending on where you’re moving to, you might need to recalibrate this in order to use them as strengths. The way you used them before, maybe they’re not going to be as valued in this new place. Understanding how to recalibrate so that you don’t overuse something that’s not positively seen in this new country is extremely important.
I’ll give you an example here, and this is something classic that I hear quite often with my clients here in Spain, especially those coming from achievement-oriented cultures, regarding what’s expected of time, what’s expected of productivity levels here in Spain.
When a client moved here, he scheduled a meeting with his team on a Friday afternoon. First week, let me get with my team. We’re going to plan the next week. Friday afternoon, all agendas were empty. Perfect time for a meeting. He was called in by HR because he was scheduling a meeting for Friday afternoon.
Again, I’m not stereotyping here, but this is just something that’s important to understand because you might arrive somewhere bringing that “let’s perform, let’s go, let’s do it” attitude. And maybe the country where you’re in, it’s not that they don’t perform — they just do it differently. And this doesn’t make you weaker, but it’s important for you to understand so that you can adapt.
And again, I’m not talking here only about the cultural aspect, but how this influences you internally. This is the important part here.
Remove these foundations and the strategies that made you exceptional lose their effectiveness in the new country. And what this means for organizations: if you’re working with international talent, this impacts performance, disengagement, and also unexpected assignment turnover.
And what’s the cost of this? This is the hidden cost that many times we don’t realize. Sometimes we think it’s something big that happens, and that’s the big impact we’re going to have. And actually it’s the little things — the things that are not so little.
The constant decoding — trying to understand what’s going on, what are they thinking, what are they expecting. Also, behavioural filtering. Am I being too aggressive? Am I being too direct? Am I doing this right? It’s very draining.
Also cultural calibration. How are you compared to the other culture? Are you really reading what’s going on? How are you adjusting your style to this new culture? And the relational rebuilding, which is pretty much how do you relate with others. Who are those around me? Who do I need to trust? Who do I need to work with?
All of these changes end up draining a lot of our energy when we most need it, because there are a lot of decisions that we have to make and a lot of impact that we have to create. And where it backfires is that in performance-driven cultures, our instinct is to put more effort in, try to get more control, more pushing. Maybe it’s not the best way to do it.
So what can you do? I think everyone gets it. There are the external changes. We all see it, very obvious. Everything’s prepared, everything’s planned, everything’s fine on paper. However, the internal part is what we need to prepare so that we don’t burn out.
How can you thrive? This is the framework that I mentioned. It’s the framework that I created based on the Wheel of Life. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Wheel of Life, but this is adapted to living abroad.
From my experience and what I’ve seen, not only inside corporations but also from the perspective I’ve had looking from outside corporations during the past years and through my own personal experience — when you stabilize these pillars, that’s when you can reach your fulfilment abroad and sustainable performance considering the long term.
While most people manage the visible parts such as finance and logistics, performance is sustained by the relational and the internal part of life abroad. This is the wheel, and it’s not a wheel because I didn’t make it as a circle. I don’t think everything is rounded in life abroad. There are always some bumpy parts to it.
I’ll briefly go over this for you to understand. Goals — this is very important. What do you hope to achieve in your life abroad? Why is it that you’re moving? This is especially important for families because many times I speak with spouses and they say, “I’m moving abroad because of my spouse.” But why are you moving abroad?
When everyone has a clear understanding of why they’re moving and what they hope to achieve, that move becomes meaningful for everyone. This is the basis because then everything else, all the decisions that you make, should be aligned to this.
Finance. Again, I think everyone here is getting a lot of content on this pillar, more than I could ever give. But really understanding your financial situation — taxes, financial planning, retirement, all of that.
Family. How is your family within this move? In terms of adaptation, in terms of building closeness and support amongst each other.
Partner. Also a very critical one, especially when you go from a double income to a single income. You change jobs, you change family dynamics, family roles. This is a very important pillar because that’s what’s going to sustain everything else if you’re moving abroad with someone. And if you’re not, in the place that you’re going, who will you partner with?
Wellness. Here I talk about wellbeing — your mental wellbeing, your physical, spiritual. Really looking at yourself and how you are in peace and feel well.
Social. A very important one. Here we talk about integration, which is what comes after immigration, and where the biggest challenge is. How do you connect with others? How do you feel like you belong in this new place?
Growth. Professional and also personal growth. How are you growing? Everything that I’m bringing here is with this in mind — really having a growth experience, which is in my opinion one of the most beautiful things of living abroad, how you grow.
And then leisure. How you enjoy this new place that you’re living. Really go to the places and make the most out of this experience. So this is the Roots of Life, the different pillars.
If we classify them into three different layers, this is where usually imbalance shows up. The external stability, which is the things that we can see — our finances, how clear is your compensation, taxes, all of that, and your goals, what you want to achieve abroad. This is your external part. This is where most international moves overinvest.
Then come the two critical ones: the relational and the personal. You need these in order to sustain the external part. That’s the key message. When you have this, then everything else is sustained.
Relational stability. This is your relations with everyone in this new system and also keeping your ties with your old system. Your partner, your family, your social — your friends, the people that you relate with at work. These are your relationships. This is the network that sustains you in a new place.
Personal sustainability. This is where you look at yourself. Here we talk about your wellness — your physical, your mental health, your spiritual. How are you taking care of yourself?
This is very important because we just talked about the energy drainage that you get every day, even when you feel like you didn’t do anything, but what it required of your brain and your body is so high. It’s very common that people say, “I don’t have time to work out. I don’t have time for anything.” But really, if you don’t focus on this, this is an investment for your sustainable future. If you don’t look at this, that’s when things begin to fall apart. That’s when burnout shows up.
Growth. As I mentioned, this is one of the most important things because when you move abroad, that’s the biggest opportunity you have to actually grow — because of all the new skills you’re going to develop, all the new opportunities you’re going to have. Really having a clear understanding of all the growth opportunities in this new country.
Even the smallest ones, like understanding different cultures, not only the culture that you’re inserted in, but the other people that you can meet, the different cuisines, the different skills that you can learn. This is something very important to have awareness of.
And leisure. Just enjoy, have fun. Really make the most out of your life abroad.
When organizations support this balance, that’s when they reduce the assignment risk. This is when ROI starts making sense with all the expenses, all the costs with an international assignment. When you look at the whole system, that’s when you get the return that you expected with this huge investment, if you are an organization.
What can you do? Well, like anything in life, you have two options. Sometimes you don’t choose to move abroad. It happens. I work with people that just had to leave for political reasons, for security, for whatever reasons. It’s not always a choice. Sometimes you have to leave.
But you always have two options of how you see your new life abroad. You can be reactive. You can push through. And I hear this all the time — “Yeah, the beginning is hard. Adapting, yeah, it’s tough. That’s what it’s like.” And yes it is, but you can do something about it.
You don’t have to wait six months to begin thinking about taking care of yourself or going out to meet new people. And for many expat expatriations, you have a set timeline. Let’s say you have three years there. If you wait six months to start doing something, then you only have two and a half years. So don’t wait. You can begin doing this from day one. This is really what’s going to make it sustainable and successful in the long term.
Focus only on logistics? No. That’s very important, that is necessary, but don’t only focus on logistics.
What can you do to be more intentional? Reassess your goals. This is important if you are living abroad and if you’ve been in the same place for more than two or three years. Let’s do this again. Why are we still here? What do we want out of this experience?
Rebalance the pillars. This is an exercise that I like to do every month with my mentees — just look at your Roots of Life, look at the pillars again. Where did you focus on last month? What went well? For next month, what’s your goal? What can you do differently?
This is not something where you always have the same level of energy in every pillar, but really understanding — what’s my goal for this month? Where do I need to put a little bit more effort? This pillar is doing better, I don’t need to take care of this now. If I focus on this pillar, it’s really going to impact these other pillars that are very important for me. Rebalancing these pillars is very important.
Align expectations. This is something very important, especially at a job if you’re working for a company — what are the expectations within that job, within next steps? Also align expectations within the family. That’s the best way to have everyone on the same page, and not just assuming things and expecting things to happen.
Redefine success. This is a very interesting one. I had a talk with about 20 women last November, and this was one of the main topics that came up — the redefinition of success. When we live in our countries, we are many times used to defining success by certain KPIs. Reaching this position, or living in a house like this, or making this amount of money.
When you move abroad, that’s really an invitation for you to redefine what success really is. Is that really what’s going to measure your success? When you’re exposed to different cultures, different ways of living and thinking, some things begin to change. So be open to redefining success.
When you’re able to stabilize internationally, that’s when international moves become the accelerators of growth. That’s really when you’re able to say, “It’s worth it.” There are a lot of trade-offs when you leave your country. There’s a lot that’s left behind. But this is why it’s worth it.
Before we close, I just wanted to bring here some reflection questions for you to think about. When you think about the pillars that I brought up, which one feels right now the most fragile to you? Which one do you feel needs to be held? Because if that’s not held, then everything can fall apart. We do tend to focus, especially when we’re moving — if you’re going with your partner and through your job, you focus on your career. That’s it. And your partner focuses on the family. That’s it. But that’s not enough.
The other question is, which pillar are you over-relying on? Which is the one that you’re really holding onto, that maybe you can let go a bit?
And the last question is, what definition of success needs updating? This is a big one, and I recommend you think about this during the next few days. This is very interesting because many times we are so focused on automatic mode, we just keep going, and we don’t realize the changes that are happening internally, not only externally, and how this can make you grow — not only professionally, even though you might have moved because of your career, but personally.
To wrap up: living abroad is a system shift, not just a relocation. You’re going into a new system and your internal system is changing. Your relational system is also changing.
Our identity and reference points destabilize more than we expect, because many times we’re not aware of this, we’re not conscious that this is going to happen, and all of a sudden you don’t know what’s going on. “I prepared for everything — what’s going on?”
In achievement-oriented cultures, the disruption is often underestimated. Why? Because “everything is fine, I know how to perform. I can do it. I can do it on my own.” And then all of a sudden, maybe not. Maybe you need others. Maybe you need support. Maybe doing it on your own is not so well seen as it used to be, depending on what culture you’re in.
The real cost is cumulative micro-adjustments and role recalibration. There is a cost to it, and if we don’t take care of it, it might burn us out. We might go home earlier than expected. Our expectations might fail.
Stability comes from rebalancing key pillars — not increasing effort, but really choosing where you’re going to put your energy. If you put all your energy into one bucket, what happens to the other ones? How can you rebalance that?
I really hope this has brought you some insights, perhaps answered some questions or addressed some discomfort that you had that you didn’t understand what was going on. I don’t know if Hugo wants to say something before I open up for questions, but this is my contact information if you want to add me on LinkedIn, and I’m open to connecting individually with you. Thank you.
Hugo: Tati, thank you very much for that. Really interesting presentation. Something a bit different. Most of our sessions this week are financial, but anyone who’s lived abroad knows from experience how important the adapting is, and the unexpected challenges of adapting to living abroad. I thought it was important to include the session and it was fantastic. Thank you.
Tati: Thank you.
Hugo: I think there’s only a couple more questions. To our audience, if you have any questions, just drop them in. If you scroll near the foot of your screen, there’s a Q&A window. If you have any questions for Tati, drop them in there and Tati, I’ll read them out.
The first one — Cheryl mentioned, what are KPIs that you mentioned?
Tati: What are the KPIs that I mentioned? I think I mentioned when I was talking about —
Hugo: Or what are KPIs in general?
Tati: Ah, key performance indicators. Usually when you measure success, and that really depends on your definition of success, which is different for all of us, it’s very common that we measure by what position you want to reach, how much do you want to make, what is it that you want to buy? “I want to have this car.”
Many times it’s very — depending on your culture, they’re very clear to you because that’s what it is in your culture. That’s what people use to measure success. And then when you move abroad, you start opening your eyes to different things and thinking that maybe having a better work-life quality, or visiting a certain number of countries, or whatever it is, maybe that becomes more of a definition of success than what you had before.
Hugo: Thanks. And those are very common in business, aren’t they? In jobs and roles often, as well as in life, you have KPIs.
Winfred says, “Hello, I’m an American in Spain. How important is it in your opinion to learn the local language to a level to be able to socialize locally, versus connecting with other expats? It seems to be a big way to get more out of the experience, but it’s also difficult.”
Tati: I don’t know where you are in Spain, and this is very different depending on what region in Spain you are in. But in general, when you speak the local language, it’s a lot easier for you to connect with locals, depending on what you want out of your experience.
Some families that are constantly moving abroad, sometimes they prefer to live in a bubble because that’s what makes sense for them. They will enjoy locally, but they won’t really integrate. Why? Because in a few years they’re moving somewhere else. They’re not going to be learning different languages all the time.
It really depends on what you want out of this experience. If you really want to integrate, then yes, learning the language is very important. In some regions it’s more important. For example, in Barcelona, I speak Spanish and I feel that people are a lot more open to me than to others that don’t speak Spanish.
However, in Barcelona, there’s still Catalan. I don’t speak Catalan, and this is the actual official local language here. I know that a lot of Catalan families aren’t open to being close because I don’t speak Catalan, because that sends them a message that I’m not going to be here for a long time.
Because of the way Catalans are, they value more in-depth relationships, as opposed to, for example, in AndalucÃa, where they’re more — I don’t want to sound like I’m stereotyping, but in general — they’re more superficial in their relationships, in the sense that they’re more welcoming to meeting new people. And it’s okay if they don’t become very close friends. For Catalans, that’s more important.
Perhaps in AndalucÃa you don’t have to speak the local language as much as here if you really want to integrate. It depends on where you are and the level of depth you want out of this experience.
Hugo: That’s a great question, and thanks for answering that. And you don’t just work with expats in Spain though?
Tati: No. I work with expats worldwide. Again, not only Americans, not only expats moving to Spain, but expats everywhere. As I mentioned, what I work with is the internal, the human dynamics, the human aspects, and everyone has this regardless of where you’re moving from and where you’re moving to.
Today I did bring some more content on American or high-achievement cultures because of this audience, but really it’s a matter of understanding yourself, understanding your relations — less about what’s on the outside, but more about what’s on the inside.
Hugo: Nice. I think that’s all the questions we have. Somebody just said at the end, “I don’t have a question, but I would like to thank Tati for all this information. I think it is super useful.” Of course, thank you.
If you’d like to reach out to Tati, her website is — would you just like to mention that again?
Tati: Yes, I can put it here in the chat. It’s interrootsbytatipi.com.
Hugo: Which I now see I’ve been mispronouncing this whole time.
Tati: No, sorry, that’s how I pronounce it in Portuguese. But yeah, I’m used to every kind of pronunciation.
Hugo: If you have any questions, reach out to Tati via her website. Our next session, Tax Optimization Strategies for American Expat Entrepreneurs in 2026 — so back diving into the finances — starts in about 40 minutes. If you haven’t already, you can register for that at usexpatconference.com.
Everyone, thank you very much for joining us, and thank you to Tati.
Tati: Thank you very much. See you.