I've restarted this episode three times. I've made coffee I didn't drink. I've listened to approximately four true crime podcasts this week and I know more about cases in rural Ohio than I do about my own content plan.

And I'm guessing you have a version of this too. Not about a podcast. About the move. The research you've been doing. The applications you've been sending. The thing you've been working toward that hasn't quite shown up back yet.

This week I'm talking about the in-between. The hardest part that nobody names. The place where you've committed in your heart but the rest of your life hasn't caught up yet. Where the motivation has quietly left the building and you're going through the motions on a good day and not even that on a bad one.

I don't have a tidy solution today. I'm still in it. But I've got something brewing that I think is going to help. Stay tuned.

Also: send me your true crime podcast recommendations immediately. I'm almost out of episodes and it's urgent

I am, in English, reasonably funny. Quick. Articulate. I can read a room.

In German, even after years, I am a flattened version of myself. I can express the basic version of an idea. I cannot do nuance. The jokes don't translate. And in social situations I go quiet — not because I have less to say, but because the gap between what I want to say and what I'm capable of saying is genuinely embarrassing.

This week I'm talking about something I call competence grief ... the real, disorienting loss that comes from being good at things and then suddenly being a beginner again as an adult. The language piece, the cultural piece, the identity piece. Why it's harder than the visa paperwork in some ways. And why it's temporary, even when it doesn't feel like it.

You've optimized your LinkedIn profile. You have the right keywords, the right headline, the right summary. You're applying to listings that match your experience. You're posting content to stay visible.

And nothing is happening.

This week I'm telling you why. LinkedIn is not a job hunting platform — it's social media for people who are at work. And the difference between those two things matters enormously when you're trying to get a job in another country as a foreign applicant hitting apply from six thousand miles away.

What LinkedIn is actually good for. What it's specifically bad at. And what actually gets you a job abroad — which is almost never the apply button.

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