Hey there:
First things first, how are you? Looking forward to the long weekend?
This week I’ve been sharing a lot of content with you, in different formats: video, slides, and posts. If you missed any of it, I invite you to head to the kitchen, make your favorite drink, and then check out the highlights on my profile.
A reader told me this week that as she read one of the posts, she realized she’d been avoiding letting go of a career that no longer fulfilled her, out of loyalty to her mother.
Another told me that just sitting down to write and ask herself a couple of questions had done her a world of good.
My intention is for you to have tools and resources to get to the root of whatever might be holding you back right now. Because sometimes we lump discomfort or a sense of not being enough into one big, undefined bag, and push it aside.
I’m here to tell you that self-discovery is a beautiful, revealing spiral of a path, and that every personal brand has a story that matters, a differentiating value, a why and a what-for that create connection with a certain group of people.
These past few days I’ve been sharing my philosophy with you. My “what for.” I dream of a translation industry with fewer drama-filled disputes and less unconstructive criticism. A translation industry with fewer middlemen. A translation industry with more collective power and support networks. With individual translators who know their differentiating value and what they contribute to society, and who communicate that to the world.
What motivates me is helping translation coordination teams complete their processes with good energy, inspiration, and genuine involvement, through my translations and reviews.
And I’m looking to break down what’s established in our industry from the inside (abusive practices, poor conditions, and complacency), so that professionals ignite their strategic spirit by connecting with the Athena archetype, and go after what they want without whipping themselves into it, but in a gentler way.
When you define your “what for,” your movement, or your philosophy (whatever you want to call it), you raise your voice and start leading whatever drives you to change things. Beyond your personal preferences or earnings (which are of course important), these words express your contribution to the world.
You might want to lead your movement for a very noble cause, like protecting children, or you might be moved by something more specific to a particular part of society. You’ll find your tribe, I’m sure.
This world needs more leaders, and you definitely have your own “what for.”
Here’s an exercise to help you find your philosophy.
- First of all, remember: to write your brand philosophy, you need to connect with something deep — what you want to achieve on the outside: a change, a revolution, inspiration… Your brand philosophy goes beyond what you want to achieve for yourself through your business. It should reflect the impact you want to have on the environment you operate in as a translation business.
- Next, to shape your brand philosophy, you can start by asking yourself “And what’s that for?” Ask that question again about your answer, and again about the answer to that answer. Keep going as many times as needed (I recommend going 5 or 6 levels deep) until you reach the root answer (and yes, since I love anything organic, nature holds all the answers).
- Once you reach your root answer (if you do the exercise slowly, you’ll feel a signal in your body), it might look something like these examples:
- I dream of inspiring a responsible, animal-conscious lifestyle, and I’ll use my language services to help spread conscious manifestos.
- I long to lead this change in the publishing industry through my way of working, bringing my own vision to it.
- My philosophy is to break with what’s established in the fashion industry through my translations, because they’ll give more recognition to small companies doing things right.
- I want to break with the outdated way of doing things in the audiovisual industry through my proposals for more connected workflows between everyone involved.
If this question doesn’t inspire you, you can try answering these instead:
- What do you want to inspire through your lifestyle?
- What kind of changes do you want to spark in other people’s lives?
- What do you want to revolutionize within your professional field?
This philosophy will help you connect more deeply with the people who resonate with it. It’s a fantastic way to step out of the crowd and stand out. You’re the leader of a movement that excites people and that they tune into.
And that’s it for today’s letter. Tell me, what’s your vision? What do you translate for, and what change do you want to lead and communicate to your tribe? If you like these letters, I invite you to follow me more closely in my Traducción con Estrategia Community and in my more personal newsletter. The new website, full of resources for you, will be ready very soon, and only community members will be able to access them. Shall we build a tribe?
