No one talks about it, but becoming an expat rewrites you from the inside out. You don’t fake who you are; you adapt it into a language the world can understand.

By Murielle Hebbo Kalash
They say moving to a new country teaches you how to adapt, but what they don’t say is that adaptation often feels like a quiet, daily rebranding campaign. You land in a new city thinking you’ve changed your view, your timezone, and maybe your coffee order, but slowly, subtly, you begin changing your tone.

You start editing the most minor parts of your personality as if it’s second nature. You dial up the friendly, tone down the opinionated, and reshape the way you say your name so it fits more easily into someone else’s mouth.

You begin managing yourself like a brand, intentionally but unconsciously. You adjust your smile depending on the room, fine-tune your energy based on who’s watching, and start anticipating how different versions of you will land across various cultures, conversations, and contexts. It’s not inauthentic. It’s strategic. You’re no longer just “being yourself.” You’re rolling yourself out, one version at a time, tailored, translated, and tactically refined.

What no one prepares you for is the way this rebranding isn’t just external. It seeps inward. You find yourself rethinking your reactions, second-guessing how your humour will translate, and pausing before you speak, not out of doubt but out of calibration.

Every interaction becomes a test run, every introduction a soft launch of who you are. And while it’s impressive how fluent you become in this new social architecture, there’s always a moment, late at night or deep in a conversation, where you pause and ask yourself: when does adaptation become erasure? And how do you even know the difference?

Taglines and Tone of Voice
You begin to tweak your tone, much like a tagline, experimenting with warmth, brevity, and clarity. You speak more slowly and less emotionally. You find yourself explaining your jokes before you’ve even told them, worried they’ll land wrong. You start using words that are safe, universally acceptable, and phrases that won’t misfire.

What once was instinctive becomes deliberate: your casual becomes professional, your friendly becomes formal, and your bold becomes cautiously packaged. And somehow, it doesn’t feel fake. It feels smart — a version of brand-safe. You’re not watering yourself down; you’re just making yourself legible. Like any good brand, you’re editing for clarity.

A/B Testing Your Personality
You notice how many versions of you show up depending on the room. There’s the version of you in the office, where you’re composed and thoughtful, aware of every cultural nuance. Then there’s the version of you at the neighbourhood's cafe, where you smile differently, use borrowed slang, and feel proud of knowing how to order without hesitation. And somewhere in between those two extremes is the quiet, original version of you, the one that only comes out with certain people or sometimes only with yourself.

You’re not pretending. You’re adapting. However, over time, the distinction between the two begins to blur.

You start testing tone like a campaign rollout. You try out different openings in emails. You soften your confidence in meetings to avoid being labelled aggressive. You observe more than you speak at first. You run cultural split-tests in real time, and the data isn’t in numbers; it’s in how people look at you, how quickly they reply, and how often they misinterpret you. When they don’t, you save that version of you as a template. When they do, you revise.

Building a Brand Book
Eventually, you stop asking, “Who am I here?” and start asking, “Which version of me fits best right now?” You begin to operate like a well-managed identity system, with one voice and multiple expressions. You’re not diluting yourself. You’re deploying.

You build a quiet mental guidebook filled with tone-of-voice rules: how to greet someone from this culture, how to pitch an idea to that client, and how to navigate awkward pauses without over-explaining yourself. You’re not overthinking. You’re optimising. And your emotional fluency starts to feel like your real superpower.

There are brand rules for everything, and expats build them instinctively. The tone for immigration paperwork. The elevator version of your life story. The one-line response to “Where are you from?” explains enough but not too much. The smile you wear in places where your accent doesn’t belong. The silence you hold when the room is full of assumptions. It’s not fear. It’s calibration.

Version Control and Emotional UX
This isn’t about self-erasure. It’s about precision. It’s about learning how to hold multiple truths at once. You can be confident and soft-spoken, bold and polite, foreign and deeply at home. Living abroad doesn’t just stretch your comfort zone; it also expands your horizons. It teaches you how to shape-shift with intention.

You learn that identity is not one fixed logo. It’s a living system, and every place you live in redesigns a piece of it. You keep your core. But you need to update your interface.

You don’t fake who you are. You localise it. And that’s not survival. That’s storytelling.

So the next time someone asks why you sound different in different rooms, smile. Brands don’t sound the same on billboards, websites, and packaging. Why should you? You’re not overthinking it. You’re just fluent in adaptation. And honestly, that’s your real native language.

So, tell me, which version of you feels the most like home?

Murielle is a Lebanese writer and senior bilingual copywriter based in Dubai.
She writes about the quiet side of expat life, from culture shocks to soft wins and unspoken homesickness. With over 8 years in creative agencies, she’s now more drawn to stories that can’t be pitched. Her work explores identity, disconnection and the search for meaning in foreign cities. Murielle believes the most powerful writing doesn’t impress; it connects.