Episode 62
Amel Derragui - From School Canteens to Global Communities
In this episode, Trisha interviews Amel Derragui, a truly global citizen, business coach, and powerhouse behind The Time is Now and the Cosmopolitan Table. Born in India to Algerian parents and raised across Serbia, Algeria, and Uganda, Amel has built her career helping women create portable businesses while navigating cultures worldwide.
What happens when a 14-year-old witnesses racial fights at an international school and decides to take action? How does a school canteen project teach us about breaking down barriers through shared experiences?
Amel's journey from teenage entrepreneur to global community builder reveals the complex intersection of entrepreneurship and social impact. Through compelling stories spanning continents and decades, this conversation will challenge how you think about identity, justice, and building bridges in our divided world.
Connect with Amel at thetimeisnow.biz and learn more about her work empowering globally mobile women through entrepreneurship.
Make sure you join Trisha in this journey of growth and discovery throughout the year via Substack or LinkedIn.
Transcript
[00:00:14]
[:[00:01:00] The shifts in our thinking. Some of you have been with us on this journey for a while and others have not, so I just want to explain cultural intelligence for those of us for whom it's a new term. We often refer to it as cq, cultural intelligence. It's made up of four areas. There's motivational, the CQ drive, cognitive, the CQ knowledge, metacognitive, the CQ strategy and behavioral, the CQ action.
[:[00:01:47] My guest, is Amel Derragui she is a truly global citizen. A business coach, a speaker, and she's the powerhouse behind the time is now Tandem Nomads and the Cosmopolitan Table. She's been recognized as a top podcast host with a show ranked in the top 2% globally, and she's helped hundreds of solopreneurs, particularly women, build thriving portable businesses and grow visibility through their marketing frameworks. Now Amel was born in India to Algerian parents. She was raised across Serbia, Algeria, and Uganda, and later studied and built her career in France and the USA. She began her career in sales and advertising, but made a bold move to quit the corporate life and build a portable business while moving around the world.
[:[00:03:02] We first met at a Families and Global transition conference in Amsterdam. I think it was about 2015. Was it Amel?
[:[00:03:10] Trisha: Oh, was it?
[:[00:03:12] Trisha: I can still remember aspects of that first conversation. It was at morning tea time or lunchtime, and we were bonding over the challenges of helping the globally mobile population.
[:[00:03:26] Amel: Oh, thank you so much, Trisha it's an honor to be here and it's been amazing to be listening to your podcast and I feel even more honored than to be here and share with you this conversation. I hope it'll be help your listeners.
[:[00:04:00] Amel: I think timeline is often what influences my answer, but it is true that it's hard to choose among all the cultures that I've been influenced by. But I've gotta say, now that I'm in Thailand I have discovered something that I did not see as clearly before, that I really love about the Thai culture.
[:[00:04:48] It does not mean that they don't have opinions.
[:[00:04:58] I, for example, have never lived in any country, including a western country where the lgbtq plus population is like everywhere and open and it's, you don't even see it anymore.
[:[00:05:12] It's so much there that I can tell a beautiful story that moved me. I was in the airport and there was a man who, I mean, from our perspective, we would, we call a man, but he looked very old and very traditional Thai man, and then suddenly he turns around and had like a very pink, fleshy lipstick. That was a moment of like, wow, I love this so much. It just made me so emotional because I'm like, and it was just so normal. And yeah, that's something I really appreciate of how they managed to do that. It does come with some I think Like this strong aspect of the culture means also not standing out.
[:[00:06:10] And not taking strong positions. So yeah, it's very interesting, but I really appreciate that a lot. And I wish more of the cultures I have been part of had more of.
[:[00:06:46] Yeah.
[:[00:06:48] Trisha: yeah. That would be a real book. You could write Amel things I've Learned along the way, and you could start it with all the different places you've been.
[:[00:06:58] Trisha: Yeah. No,
[:[00:07:01] Trisha: well, that is true. That is, well, it could be like a a staged book Every five years you'd have to do an update.
[:[00:07:12] Trisha: Okay. And now a question about the shift. Can you tell me about a time when you experienced the shift, a moment when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective?
[:[00:07:45] And that has been part of my normal way of being. It's just was natural. It's always been natural until I grew up a little more and started, you know, asking myself now that like what I. What do I stand for? A little bit like the Thai culture, right? What do I stand for? What do I want people to adapt to when it concerns me?
[:[00:08:33] So that was the first big shift that I had, I would say in my thirties. But the recent one has been one that I'm still processing. So forgive me if I'm not very clear about it or very cq about it being very, as much as I can be mindful, but for me it's always been important to use my voice and my life and my business as a way to stand for what's for me morally.
[:[00:09:15] I've always brought my community together to do something about it. When October 7th happened, of course the first reaction was. Being terror, terrified. But what has happened to these innocent people who were killed and attacked and taken hostages, but very quickly being in Austria, I didn't know yet what was happening in the world, but the narrative has been really supporting the killing of people in Gaza.
[:[00:09:59] Discuss with people around me, we have to do something about that even within my audience, and then suddenly came the complexity of this narrative. I understand being careful because we don't wanna, we wanna make sure to not. Have any hatred speech against the Jewish people and be very careful of any antisemitic statements, but at the same time stand for defending innocent people who are dying.
[:[00:10:43] And what was the real shift for me was suddenly people telling me, oh, it's okay if you feel that way so strongly about it because of who you belong to, because of my origins.
[:[00:11:18] And for me it was really not, it was being about being an ally, but I realise I cannot be an ally if people are associating me, identifying me as somebody who belongs to this society, which I don't feel I do. To be honest with you. If I went to Palestine, I don't think I would feel home. It just doesn't fit with who I am.
[:[00:11:58] Trisha: Yeah and sort of recognizing how people saw you. Not necessarily as a thinker and someone with a heart, but someone who was one of them who would automatically belong and think that way rather than having carefully thought through things and more being motivated by almost a moral decision.
[:[00:12:39] Amel: I know that I will become more of an ally than ever before because of that, because I know what it is now to be part of a. Group, although I don't identify as that, but people did it for me. I know now even more what it feels like to not be credible for speaking up. And so I'll even be more of an ally than ever before.
[:[00:13:02] we can't fight for every cause. We're human beings with limited bandwidth, but we need to choose very carefully our battles and knowing that we have power in speaking up. For groups that we are not part of
[:[00:13:35] And, you know, how did you get into that? So we'll go back to those things and we'll cover some of those and we will come back to some of the belonging and the questions around some of the moral aspects as well. But you started in advertising and sales and, even, which I had not been aware of this before, but you'd done door to door encyclopedia sales in Utah, which I cannot imagine being an easy job.
[:[00:14:11] Amel: I think I've always been entrepreneurial no matter what. Even I would say, even as being an employee, I was an entrepr, an entrepreneur. 'cause I would always take initiatives. Sometimes it, it was welcome, sometimes not. But yeah, I say it was a leap of faith and a leap of love. I traveled to Iran and on holidays, met my husband.
[:[00:14:53] You know, I can introduce you to some people. Maybe you can figure out if that would work. And I did go in an excursion and Tehran to figure out if there is something there. And I was very much attracted to all the impact I could do there with my business. And so, yeah, so then I said, okay, let's do it.
[:[00:15:12] Amel: Yeah.
[:[00:15:16] Amel: No. I had actually started my business as a corporate consultant for corporate companies. I've always, even as an employee, focus, marketing strategies on impact. Like how can we use our budget as a, in marketing to not only gain visibility, but also make a difference in our communities.
[:[00:15:38] Trisha: the social impact
[:[00:16:06] But very quickly, I realized I needed to make my business portable. I could not depend on the Iranian market, although within six months I have exploded, like within six months there my business had. Amazing traction. But I realized it was not sustainable. So I became obsessed about how to make my business location independent.
[:[00:16:45] So I've been very obsessed about that and continue to build my business globally and location independent. And six years later I realized that, I mean, along those years there were so many women around me who had also given up their career spouses of expats. And to be honest with you, I've been. Quite shocked and hurt by seeing some of the situations of where these women were in very unhealthy marriages.
[:[00:17:30] Trisha: I think that might have been what we bonded over with our concern for expat partners in Yeah. When we first met.
[:[00:18:00] And then COVID came, and then the need has expanded beyond that niche. And that's how I ended up you know, really rebranding from Tandem Nomads to the time is now. And I really work with solo entrepreneurs and small business owners who are impact driven, mission driven, and want to go from invisible to in demand.
[:[00:18:53] Amel: When they do see them.
[:[00:19:13] I think that's a very good point. So for me, there's three core, core things that I've started really beginning working on is number one confidence. Which means debunking all the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves. And also of the, some of the mindset barriers we have about business, about, you know, how about work, about visibility, about all of that.
[:[00:19:47] Very often, honestly, starting a portable business is not that expensive. You have nothing to lose, and that's when I'm like, you have absolutely nothing to lose besides few hours of work that you can still, even then as a portable business, have the freedom to arrange as you want.
[:[00:20:26] And it's also about not losing ourselves in this whole thing, right? Overwhelm and lack of clarity creates burnout. And we don't wanna start a business to burnout. We wanna start a business to have freedom. So that's the second pillar. And then the third one that's so important and that I talked about so much is support system. Women very often carry not only the load of the family, even in modern societies well now and even more expat. It's interesting how in the expat community things have gone almost like backwards in time, where suddenly the, or very often the women is the one taking care of everything and carrying the whole mental load of the family and the move.
[:[00:21:30] I really thought, I was like, yeah, I got this. And I remember when I had these two businesses and my business and we were in New York, I was really struggling at the beginning financially. I'm like, why is this not working? So I took my timeline. I look at my schedule, I'm like, and then I had a huge aha moment realizing, oh my God.
[:[00:22:10] I said, but why don't you just ask me? Then I arrange my schedule and I come home when this guy, you know, I'm like, wow, I just assumed that I had to carry all of this alone. So very important. Since then, when we have a plumber who comes from home, we don't assume because I work from home that I should be available.
[:[00:22:36] Trisha: Yeah. And they quite possibly haven't really thought things through at all. So yes I'm thinking about you as that kid in Uganda. And I'd love to. To know, you know, what you did there and how it sort of started your social impact perspective.
[:[00:23:16] We lost about between 200,000, 500,000 people in Algeria during that time due to terrorism. Then we went to, we were in Serbia before, during the war and then we ended up in Uganda. And by the time I was in Uganda, it was during the genocide that was going on, you know, in Rwanda. And a lot of the kids, the refugees were in my school. And so I was very much in contact with what was happening in the neighboring countries, but also in my own school. And I arrived in this school thinking in international school, you would think that in an international school you would have suddenly what the ideal world would be like. Like people from different countries, different origins, different religions and ethnicities coming together and seeing beyond that because suddenly, but all was happening during school breaks were fights above.
[:[00:24:30] And I remember going to the principal and say, Hey, that was like my first or second week. I don't remember, but I was like, you need to do something about this. And she was like, oh. If you care about it, why don't you do something about it? I'm like, I was so shocked. But at the same time I think that's when my competitiveness with it, with myself started.
[:[00:25:10] I was thinking money, food, and party. I was like, these are the three things that I can see can bring people together. Not being nice, not being cool, not right. And we had a problem in this school, which was the fact that there was no canteen, no restaurant for lunch. The parents were always complaining that kids had either to eat sandwiches all week or have to be taken home.
[:[00:25:42] Trisha: Okay.
[:[00:26:06] By ABB, which is the biggest electrical company at the time in Africa. And the biggest DJ of the city was actually playing for us for free.
[:[00:26:16] Amel: And for me that was one rule to those fundraising events, was to actually not cater the food. We had to do the food. 'cause what I realized, racism has a lot to do with touching.
[:[00:26:51] The first person was buting the bread, the second one, putting the lettuce, the third of cheese, et cetera, and then, and having all these kids sitting around the table holding the same food, preparing the same food together for the party. And that was for me more than anything else, the one the major victory. So that's how it all started for me to see how business entrepreneurship and marketing can actually make a difference.
[:[00:27:44] And so first of all, your compassion. So what you showed there was real compassion for people and also the ability to identify the problem. Also, the ability to jump to potential things that might pull people together. I mean, the compassion. I'm guessing might've developed from living in those environments that you spoke about in those formative years and in, in Algeria and Serbia and then Uganda.
[:[00:28:24] Amel: You know, today I say compassion, but I think the real value behind all of this is justice.
[:[00:28:36] But my fight, what I was seeking for was a sentiment of justice that I still look for, where fairness fairness. And what I've realized very young is how society and the world is not fair.
[:[00:29:07] And this is why I went to the Principal because I consider that you adults are responsible for this.
[:[00:29:15] Trisha: She de delegated it
[:[00:29:50] And I went to France after that, you know, when I was 16 after Uganda, and I had a lot of, I've been, yeah, a lot of prejudice being Algerian in France and being treated as savage people and just because it has such little education what was going on, but a lot of opinions.
[:[00:30:51] And so you can see that it's not just one side causing the problem because of the way it's taught. So growing up I didn't have the perspective taking ability to see beyond what was taught to me. And so those people in France may, that you were encountering at the age of 16 may not have had that perspective taking ability to see beyond.
[:[00:31:32] I think about all the things you, you've carried with you, with the goal to sort of simply to do good to help the people who need help. And I think, you know, sometimes do, does it feel like this is a heavy burden to carry? You know, does it feel like you need to hold yourself carefully in sometimes in some situations?
[:[00:32:20] Honestly, some of my friends who would tell me that, like, who do you think you are? That you have to be responsible for all of this? Is that interesting? I got chills that just, you know, remembering that sentence. Those said much more gently, but that's how I think that they meant it. I do think that I should be a bit more considerate though towards the fact that I don't have the power to fix all the problems I would like to fix.
[:[00:33:02] I'm like, no. There's always something we can do. Even at the smallest level, I'm not saying I can change the whole thing, but if I can just move one little bit, I wanna do it. Even if I go demonstrate and there's only 30 people will at least have done something and hopefully those 30 people will grow to 40, 50 hundreds.
[:[00:33:37] And I wouldn't have been able to be on this episode with you if I hadn't done the work.
[:[00:34:04] Trisha: And knowing how justice sits in your heart and knowing how for you, there are some things that are core that can't be moved, then, you know, this is something you need to step into. Yeah. I had a recent episode of the podcast and I spoke about expanding our moral circles. As a way to potentially reduce tribalism. And it's not my idea, it comes from Peter Singer. It was something that Martin Seligman raised at the Positive Psychology Conference. And so when I thought about those moral circles as I dived into the idea after the conference thinking, you know, what did he mean and how can this impact on us?
[:[00:35:06] And sometimes I think about those sorts of moral circles because then it's easy to feel like we care about other people who are similar to us. And I'm not sure if that's what Peter Singer was really thinking about as he thought about his moral circles. I think he was originally thinking about the sort of racial and ethnic ones that we are talking about, but in asking us to expand them, that was one of the ways that I thought of as expanding, as seeing other people for what we stand in the same circle with, which might be about as women experiencing challenge because we are globally mobile.
[:[00:36:10] A sense almost of sitting above so many of these circles. What do you think, how does your experience fit with that idea about expanding the moral circles?
[:[00:36:50] Not needing to have something in common and still have the respect, and I wanna use the word love for the other. Because I think pure love is what's needed to create a more peaceful world. And that's a hard one. But I. Interestingly though, although I'm saying that I feel like I'm contradicting myself a little bit here because I have my own experience with my father-in-law who love, I mean, and it's a cultural marriage with an Austrian, and my father-in-law is the most amazing father-in-law I could have hoped for.
[:[00:37:50] So although he loves me, although we are in the same circle because we share the same person, we love his son. It did not make him move one bit towards not seeing foreigners as a threat and Islam as a threat.
[:[00:38:18] But I do think that it, you need to want it. You need to want that world where we all live together. And honestly, and I feel like some of us are still in that DNA tribal state of the amygdala that we cannot see past the threat of not understanding another culture and another value system than ours.
[:[00:38:50] Trisha: That is hard, isn't it? Because you'd, I mean, as a, like, as I think about the theory behind the way people relate and about cultural intelligence, then I think if you're able to. Step above and to see some of your biases. You know, if you, if you already have something in common and something that draws you from a CQ drive perspective like your father-in-law would have in terms of his love for you, and then if he could see the good things about you, then why can't he see the bias?
[:[00:39:24] Amel: Because he considers I'm the biased one.
[:[00:39:28] Amel: And I mean, how can I dispute that? I mean, for him, I'm the biased one that I don't see the threat that my religion brings to this world
[:[00:39:46] Trisha: So you've often probably had to work through your responses to him and had to think about, remind yourself of your love for him in dealing with him.
[:[00:39:59] I'm just not gonna fight this one.
[:[00:40:16] But again, going back to choosing our battle, this is one that I cannot win. And I'm not gonna try. I tried with every single CQA, sharing my food, sharing my history, sharing my culture but it's not.
[:[00:40:40] Like they don't want mosques around their city. And that's, for example, I don't want a mosque in my city. That's it. And how can we, that's what he wants.
[:[00:41:07] And the first one is sometimes even just recognizing that the difference exists around you and that everybody doesn't think the same. And then there is recognizing that there is good on both sides of difference, you know, and that good people can be quite different to you. And then recognizing that the difference itself is not necessarily.
[:[00:41:47] Who knows? We can keep hoping that might happen.
[:[00:42:16] And that's where I am so grateful that I am surrounded and I know that so many people like you are doing the work today to help people understand the human being. Because we need to understand who we are as human beings today, to know how to show up in the midst of all the major societal shifts we're gonna go through.
[:[00:42:40] The word humans is gonna become a thing. And I'm hoping that we will see each other as humans versus AI and robots, you know,
[:[00:43:10] Now it's quite often the people director. And so we have switched from the human resources perspective to the people. And now we're switching back to the human because we are contrasting the human with the non-human. So yes. I like it for its simplicity. Human first is, you know, the way that I will be talking about ai.
[:[00:43:33] Amel: yeah.
[:[00:43:49] And we need more and more people that help us and analyze and understand our. Behavioral patterns towards change, towards other people, towards challenges. And I think yeah, that's why I love what I do actually, is to empower people who have the skills I don't have.
[:[00:44:23] So I do think you're actually quite good at sort of hopping into people's thinking about their thinking a little bit.
[:[00:44:31] Trisha: I want to acknowledge the work that you've done with the Cosmopolitan table. And I want to know a little bit about what's next for you just as we wrap up. So you've worked to create a bit of a circle of globally minded women, so tell us a little bit about that.
[:[00:45:08] So, so I started with that. I was just wanting to connect the amazing globally minded women I've met. So I brought them to a dinner. And the other influence was also to discover in the United States, the power of cigar clubs for men. I got the chance to actually be invited to a couple, I don't know how, but it met, I made it through the barrier of being a woman.
[:[00:45:50] And basically that was the inspiration of it. Let to create a club where women come together to support each other. Exchange net networks, exchange tips, refer each other. But beyond that, it has become a family.
[:[00:46:16] So it is a family, it is a group of amazing women entrepreneurs who want to grow. But we are learning a lot about how to. How to grow a community in a mindful way without losing our identity. And that's one is a also because even being a globally minded person is still not even enough to actually create consensus and harmony
[:[00:46:41] And that's what we're learning. We realize there were a couple incidents are not the word, but a couple times where we could have showed up more mindfully and we're learning now how to integrate in our organization. The mindfulness of making sure everybody feels seen and heard. Seen and heard, while still being very clear about the direction we're going, even if we don't agree.
[:[00:47:19] Making sure that our members are not being forgotten.
[:[00:47:29] Amel: Yeah, I think we're working on it. It's still, we're testing it. It's the beginning of a process. We had to rethink the leadership of this organization now. But I'm loving the whole process. I'm learning so much about it. Let's see what it goes. Maybe we can do another episode about that. And right now it's very fresh.
[:[00:47:58] Trisha: I love that. So if people want to connect with you to find out more about that or to get your advice on their business idea, how can they connect with you best?
[:[00:48:34] Trisha: We'll have those links in the show notes for sure. And Amel, what advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and bring about meaningful change?
[:[00:48:53] Trisha: True. Yes.
[:[00:49:04] Don't linger. I always say to my team, to my friends, to my clients, start first. Perfect. Later. Start somewhere and you figure out how to perfect it.
[:[00:49:22] Amel: I have so many hopes, but right now, definitely a more peaceful world.
[:[00:49:48] Trisha: I think so too. Thank you so much, Amel, for sharing your journey and your stories and your ongoing mission to uplift everyone.
[:[00:49:57] Trisha: It's such a lovely story of turning challenges into opportunities and really. Building bridges through business and purpose. I think that's it's core there as well.
[:[00:50:28]
