Want to raise your self-esteem? Move to a country where English is not the native language and work with English-speaking foreigners. They will love you and thank you. I’ve worked with many Americans and Canadians here in Mexico and they always get impressed with how well I speak “their” language. I can’t blame them for not knowing that I lived in the US for most of my life and that English is basically my native language.
The extent to which you can raise your self-esteem is tricky though. You don’t want to live in a very touristy place where tourists expect you to speak their language (Cancun). At the same time, you don’t want to live in such a remote area where you make up 80% of the tourism every month (small village in the Guatemalan rain forest). The nerdy side of me wants to draw up a graph and/or flowchart to illustrate what I mean, but just close your pretty eyes and visualize it with me. Your self-esteem is worth it 😉
I forgot to mention that an important requisite is that you speak a little bit of the local language or dialect. You don’t want to look stupid when they ask you for a favor that requires some translating live on the spot!