When I was 23, I took a job opportunity that plucked me away from my French culture and comfort zone and brought me to Sweden, where I was suddenly surrounded by colleagues with very different cultural and professional etiquettes. This led to numerous challenges and confusions. My team's continuously cool composure in the face of crises, for example, made it hard for me to gauge the urgency of situations, as the emphatic verbal cues I relied on when communicating with French colleagues were suddenly replaced with neutral tones. A cultural barrier had emerged, and it would take me a couple of months of continuous efforts to adapt to this new culture and start to bridge the gap.