Watch the Episode https://youtu.be/U8igtg_IdI0 What happens when you legally belong to a country, yet still feel like an outsider? For Elee Joven, moving from Guam to mainland America wasn't simply a change of address. It meant navigating a world where many of the everyday customs she had grown up with were suddenly misunderstood. Simple interactions …
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What happens when you legally belong to a country, yet still feel like an outsider?
For Elee Joven, moving from Guam to mainland America wasn’t simply a change of address. It meant navigating a world where many of the everyday customs she had grown up with were suddenly misunderstood. Simple interactions carried different expectations. Familiar ways of showing respect no longer meant the same thing.
In this conversation, we explore what happens when our assumptions about “normal” are gently challenged. Together, we consider how culture shapes the way we communicate, the way we build relationships, and the way we interpret one another’s actions. More importantly, we ask what becomes possible when curiosity replaces judgement.
What’s Brewing in This Episode
Every one of us has been shaped by the culture we grew up in. We learn how to greet people, how to express gratitude, how to resolve conflict and how to belong, often without ever realising we are learning culture at all. We simply call it “normal.”
Elee’s story invites us to look more closely at those invisible assumptions. Growing up between Guam and the Philippines before building a life in mainland America, she found herself balancing the traditions that had shaped her with the expectations of a very different environment. Along the way, she discovered that fitting in doesn’t have to mean leaving yourself behind.
This conversation moves beyond cultural intelligence as a concept and into something far more human. It explores the quiet tension of trying to belong, the exhaustion of adapting to unfamiliar expectations, and the freedom that comes from recognising there is more than one way to be human.
Whether you’ve moved countries, changed workplaces, entered a new community, or simply found yourself surrounded by people whose experiences differ from your own, this episode offers an invitation to replace assumptions with curiosity.
Guest Bio
Elee Joven is a cultural intelligence speaker, consultant and trainer who helps individuals and organisations build stronger relationships across cultures. Raised between Guam and the Philippines before moving to mainland America, her own life has been shaped by navigating different cultural expectations and discovering how easily misunderstanding can arise when we assume our way is the only way.
Today, she draws on both her professional expertise and lived experience to help people communicate with greater understanding, build genuine connection, and create environments where difference is recognised as a strength rather than a barrier.
Brew the Change
This week’s invitation begins with one simple question.
Share a chocolate and coffee with someone whose background or life experience is different from yours and ask:
“What’s something people often misunderstand about where you come from?”
Then simply listen.
No fixing.
No debating.
No comparing stories.
Just listen long enough to understand another human being a little better.
Because sometimes the smallest conversations challenge our biggest assumptions.
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