Tribute to my revealers
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Sometimes, life can take an unexpected turn and drop you where you didn’t mean to go or even, where you didn’t dare dreaming to go! If it happened to you, I’m sure you see what I mean! If not, then I invite you to keep reading!
Three men allowed me to envision my life differently, actually they hustled my quiet comfortable (and quite boring) life plans!
The first one I am talking about is my friend and mentor Vincent. I met him when I decided to give a try to a career as a scuba diving instructor and flew to the French West Indies, in Guadeloupe, to live there for a couple months and practice scuba diving as a newly graduated instructor. Not only is this place a paradise, but I was lucky to work with an incredible team and great bosses! Vincent pushed me to level up when I arrived in Malendure, this very small village on the beach where the scuba diving club was located. Thanks to him, I spent hours studying to graduate in another scuba diving federation that would allow me to work worldwide and get paid for it (the French system permits, on certain conditions, to work as a scuba diving instructor without getting any money for it, fabulous, isn’t it?) and to upgrade my current level to the official French state diploma to be validated as a professional instructor and get paid too! I came back from Guadeloupe, 7 months later, with 3 new diplomas and an experience most instructors would dream of!
But this is not the major point I want to emphasize on Vincent’s contribution to my career. A couple years after I went back home and pursued my scuba diving instructor’s career, Vincent called me and announced me his first novel had just been released. WAOW! That was an epiphany for me: I am writing since I was 12 years old, several forms, lengths, styles… but I had never taken the plunge to a career as a writer. When Vincent told me he had done it, I thought: “ok, he just achieved one of my dreams… and if he did, so can I!” That was the beginning of my writing career. It took me years to publish my own novel, but I finally did it and experienced my kids’ pride for doing so. Since then (2016), water has flown under the bridges and I wrote many more pieces.
The second man who changed my life significantly is named Chrysantos. In October 2015, I was enjoying a trip to California, spending all my days to visit all the magnificent parts and nooks of San Francisco, one of my favorite cities in the world. At that time, I was involved in network marketing as a distributor and I was learning how to operate in this industry. One of my leaders, Chrys, called me and asked me to translate the next international event that would take place a couple weeks after in Florence. I was a little shocked: despite my good comprehension of English, I didn’t considered my self qualified for this job. But Chrys, as a good leader, applied some valuable lessons he learned on how to communicate with people and push the right buttons to get a “yes” to his requests. When I replied that I could reasonably deliver 80% of the message to the team that would listen to me, he said: “well, Mary, I have no intention to force you but if you don’t translate, that’s not 80% of the message your team will get, but zero!” He just pronounced the magic sentence… he knew, like many others, that I am a people person and he used the perfect shooting angle for a heart shot!
When we arrived in the convention centre in Florence, I was terrified, not knowing what to expect. I received a 2 minutes training before the event began: “well, here is the mic, here are your headphones, press this button to speak and move this one to listen, good luck!” Okay! No other option than moving forward, giving up at that time would have been impossible! Here comes the revealing phase: I was blown away to notice that, not only I was able to follow the speakers, much better than what I had imagined, but I also really enjoyed the journey of translating. This was an incredible experience. I lived unforgettable emotions but the most valuable lesson I learned that day was definitely about focus: I have always struggled with focus, since I was a child. And I had never found a tool to help me focus to the maximum before. But once you close the door of the translation booth, I am with the speaker on stage. November 2015 was the first time I translated an international event. Many other events came after that one and I had to raise the level or, should I say, “raise my standards” (thank you Mr Anthony Robbins!) to deliver a better quality of translation. It looked I did. During the events I translated, I always crossed the path of team members who either thanked me for the translation I delivered, or congratulated me for my improving level of english. Guess what? That kind of words act like boosters for me! This is why I want to give my best every time I am asked to translate an event. Being one of the persons who serve the team makes sense for me…
Recently — this is the reason why I didn’t published for a while!- another man acted like a revealer to me. I met Mehdi 6 years ago, we were involved in the same multi level marketing company at that time. Mehdi already hired me as a translator in 2017 for a private event he had organized for his team with his mentor, an amazing leader from Cyprus. This private event was, of course, a great source of teachings for me but also the beginning of a collaboration with Mehdi and his team. In February 2021, Mehdi called me one day in the morning, while I was quietly sipping my coffee in the kitchen. He told me the company he was associated with wanted to professionalize more and needed a translator. He had thought about me for that position and wanted to connect me with one of the VP’s of the company. Thanks to the technology, I was able to receive a professional phone call while sipping my coffee in my kitchen in my comfortable pyjamas! Thanks Mr Covid! ;)
Not only did I get a new mission that day, but Mehdi also asked me to translate and sub title a series of videos he had produced to educate his team. I didn’t know how to do that, at all… but I accepted anyway! I remembered the wise words of a wise and well renowned man called Richard Branson: “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes — then learn how to do it later!” I knew that I would find a solution to mind the gap between my current tech knowledge and what I needed to master to achieve this mission. Once again, no choice than raising my standards! Saying no to a mission linked to translation or writing wasn’t an option I could consider… After more than 3 weeks of complete immersion in this task, after hours and hours of coding (yeah, adding subtitles to a video is just a question of coding!) after hours and hours of checking and double checking the videos before and after merging the subtitles… it is finally achieved and I can affirm now that I know how to add subtitles to a video! #Joy! I can promise you that I sweat a lot and that this mission was by far one of the hardest I got in the world of translation. But I am glad that I achieved it and gained a new skill! Even if I struggled and had to concentrate all my efforts on this for three weeks, this is the kind of mission I would do again, just to improve my pace doing so and maybe find another organization that would make things run smoother!
To sum up, here are the lessons I learned from these three great men and the experiences they offered me to live:
- you never know who will reveal you your own talents and skills so, pay attention to the people who surround you, listen carefully to what they say and watch them do! And above all, choose wisely who surrounds you and remember you are the average of the five persons you spent most of your time with!
- discovering I was qualified for new missions and tasks lights my days! The pleasure is in the journey, not the destination! Learning something new gives you this information that you are stepping forward, growing as a person and keep your brain connections organizing or reorganizing.
- if someone did what you want to do, you can do it too! (Seems obvious, but…) just make a decision and go! Have faith in yourself!
- grab all the opportunities you can get to raise your skills and knowledge, it will serve you, sooner or later! It also helps you to build your self-confidence and maintain your inner fire!
- don’t underestimate the power of network… build one and connect regularly with the people in your network, it will open new doors for you, and you will be able to open doors for others!
- serving others is a pleasure; I feel aligned with my life mission when I do it and this is a boost of energy for me! Getting regular recognition for that gives me even more energy and will to do better and better from day to day. (Yes, human being needs recognition, if someone pretends the opposite, please, run away fast and far away from them!)
Now it is time to thank these three men for the faith and trust they placed in me! Thank you guys for being the ones who pushed me to give my best, no matter how hard it could be! You are precisely my definition of a leader and I have no doubt that you will push a lot of other men and women to grow and raise their knowledge and skills! You Rock guys! #gratitude!
