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Brand the Interpreter
What if La Malinche—the Indigenous woman who famously served as interpreter and advisor to Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest of Mexico—could share her stories? Imagine the insights and experiences she could offer about the power of language and navigating the complexities of two worlds. That’s the spirit behind the Brand the Interpreter Podcast!
Hosted by Mireya Pérez, an interpreter and personal brand advocate, this podcast gives today’s interpreters a platform to share their own fascinating stories, challenges, and triumphs. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the world of interpreting, from navigating high-stakes conversations to facilitating cross-cultural understanding, offering listeners a glimpse into the lives of the professionals who bring meaning across languages.
Whether you’re an interpreter, a bilingual professional, or simply curious about the magic that happens behind the scenes, Brand the Interpreter immerses you in the stories of language professionals making an impact every day. It’s more than just a podcast—it’s a celebration of language, connection, and the vital human element that makes communication possible.
Join us to explore how the power of language, driven by human connection, shapes understanding, opens new worlds, and transforms perspectives, revealing the deeper truths that unite us all.
Brand the Interpreter
The Business Mindset: More Than Just a Hustle with Corinne McKay
Unlock the secrets of a rewarding career in translation and interpreting with our special guest, Corinne McKay. From her fascinating childhood across Southern California, New York, and New Jersey to her family's incredible feat of fostering over 110 animals since COVID, Corinne's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Discover how her childhood dream of being a poet evolved into a thriving career in translation and interpreting, complete with a humorous high school memory of translating French poetry.
Follow Corinne's unconventional path from teaching high school to becoming a full-time translator and later a court interpreter. Despite initial discouragement, she found her calling in the translation industry after a transformative year in France and a backpacking adventure across Asia. Learn about her pivotal decisions, like joining the Colorado Translators Association and the American Translators Association, and the life-changing advice and support that set her on the path to a successful freelance career.
Tune in for an episode brimming with wisdom on how to stand out in the translation and interpreting world. Corinne delves into the necessity of strong business skills, effective marketing strategies, and the invaluable role of strategic volunteering. Whether you're looking to specialize, build credibility, or simply get inspired by a seasoned professional’s journey, this conversation promises to leave you with a treasure trove of ideas and encouragement to take your career to the next level.
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Welcome to Brand the Interpreter, the podcast for language professionals around the world. It's about time. By the way, it's 75 years. I've been the same old, same old, day in and day out. There was the Bernie Sanders event, where we both interpreted from behind the bar.
Speaker 2:Wait, really I say go for it. I second that.
Speaker 1:Your new drive time podcast Brand the.
Speaker 2:Interpreter, your stories are profession. Hey, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:It really struck me because the last year at the ATA conference, I ran into a couple of colleagues I hadn't seen since before, covid, who said weren't you thinking about going to school for conference interpreting? And I'm like, girl, I'm already done, you know. So I think the thing is like that time is going to go by and then you're going to be sitting there thinking like, ok, now it's two years later and I could have been done with that stupid program.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Or I could have pursued medical interpreting, or I could, have, like, gone for my federal certification. That you sort of tell yourself it's too late. You know what. You're going to be sitting there in three years thinking I should have taken the federal exam, I should have gone for my medical certification, because it is true that it doesn't take very long for today to seem like a long time ago.
Speaker 2:Welcome back Branded Bunch. That community title, by the way, was inspired by Janika Mayers, a former guest on the podcast, who said that it would be great to call the community the Branded Bunch, inspired by the Brady Bunch. Pretty creative, right. So welcome back Branded Bunch to another episode of the Brand the Interpreter podcast. This is Mireya, your host. Thank you for being a part of this small but mighty community of language professionals.
Speaker 2:As always, I am thrilled to share yet another episode with you, and today's episode we are going to cover a lot of practical tips, so motivational insights, things about discouragement, things about encouragement. We're going to talk about marketing and targeting direct clients, leveraging network opportunities and all sorts of great stuff. This was actually a really fun conversation, so I'm hoping you enjoy it and please don't forget to share this episode, if you do enjoy it, with a colleague, with a friend or anyone that you feel might benefit from the tips and strategies that we'll cover in today's episode. And hey, since I'm already in the asking mode, I ask that you please rate and review, if you've not already, this podcast on your favorite podcasting platform so that others that are looking for something just like this can easily find it. Plus, it's just a small way of giving back to the work that is put into creating something like this and, of course, a great way to say thank you to the guests that volunteer their time to share their stories here. And don't forget to follow me on social media. I've not been as active as I was in prior months just because I'm still sort of learning how to juggle all the different projects that are going on at the same time, but nevertheless, I do post from time to time, especially, of course, when there's new episodes, so feel free to follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram, which is where I'm mostly active, or visit my webpage at brandtheinterpretercom if you'd like to connect. And now on with the show.
Speaker 2:Corinne McKay has been a full-time freelancer since 2002, doing French to English translation until 2018, and adding French to English translation until 2018 and adding French to English interpreting after passing the Colorado State Court Interpreter Exam In 2020-2021,. She earned a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College and now combines translation and interpreting. She is based in Boulder, colorado, and served on the board of the American Translators Association for seven years, including as ATA president from 2017 to 2019. In addition to her own translation and interpreting work, she runs the online training platform Training for Translators and is the author of how to Succeed as a Freelance Translator and How-to Guide with more than 15,000 copies in print. So, without further ado, please help me. Welcome Corinne McKay to the show. Corinne, it is such an honor to have you here on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be here too.
Speaker 2:So excited actually for today's conversation. I think it's going to obviously be jam-packed with so much information for our listeners helpful, really great stuff, hopefully even motivational stuff, but I think, more than anything just to get to know you a little bit more as the individual behind the profession. So I'd like to begin with the very first question that I'd like to ask all of the guests that come here on the show, which has to do with taking us back in time a little bit. If you would be so kind as to sharing potentially where you grew up and what a fond childhood memory is of yours, sure.
Speaker 1:So I was actually born in Southern California, in Claremont, which is sort of east of Los Angeles, but we moved around a lot. When I was a kid we lived in San Francisco and then basically we did like six years in California, six years in Western New York in a small town on the Erie Canal and six years in New Jersey. So I always tell my parents, like isn't that the opposite direction of the way you're supposed to migrate? You know everyone else goes like from New Jersey to Southern California. But that's me and a favorite childhood memory. I guess I've been an animal person my whole life.
Speaker 1:Since the start of COVID my family has fostered 110 animals for cats and dogs. So 107 cats and three very memorable dogs for a local animal rescue organization and so, honestly, some of my favorite. I had a very happy childhood but some of my favorite memories are hanging out with animals. We always had cats and my mom is from Texas and my grandparents moved back to a very small town in Texas after they retired and a lot of their friends and family had ranches so we would go to their houses and see like the cows and chickens and you know all kinds of stuff like that. So I don't know. I had a happy childhood, but that's something that stands out is spending a lot of time with animals.
Speaker 2:Wow, I mean that definitely is a lot of animals being surrounded by them. Did you ever envision yourself growing up doing something with animals?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was always a crazy cat lady. I've been a crazy cat lady my whole life, so I think it's not it's not really surprising that I the fostering thing is kind of new, but we had pet cats, you know, my whole life before that.
Speaker 2:So, yes, what did you aspire to be when you grew up? Do you recall A poet Really? No way Did you dabble a lot in that, or how did that.
Speaker 1:You know. The crazy thing is that I sort of feel like in our, I feel like the weird turn, like I was that nerd who liked translating French poetry in like 10th grade. One of my most cringey memories of my school is sorry, this is probably.
Speaker 2:We're probably going deeper into this than you want to know I'm going to change the questions to that now.
Speaker 1:But you know, when people ask, did you always want to be a translator, interpreter? You know language person. So one of my cringiest memories is in 10th grade so second year of high school for anyone who's not from the US I had a really great but very sort of traditional old school English teacher who made us memorize poetry and recite it for the class. And I thought I'm going to do one better. I'm going to translate some French poetry and memorize my translations and perform them for the class. Oh, so, yes, oh yes, oh yes, I memorized my translations and, yes, did an interpretive performance of them for the class.
Speaker 1:So I was definitely always destined to be a word nerd, but I think the thing that's kind of crazy is, to be honest, if there's one thing I think that I'm sort of known for if that's the right way to put it, or that's sort of unique about me in the translation and interpreting professions, is I love talking about money.
Speaker 1:You know, like I, I feel like it's very beneficial to talk about rates and income. I write blog posts about how much money I make, which is kind of unusual, I feel like, for a translator or interpreter. But the weird part is I feel like I always kind of envisioned myself as like a starving artist, like I'm going to write and translate poetry and like live in a shack with 12 cats or something. I see the connection, you know. In reality I feel like now my that my sort of like unique angle on our profession is the business side of freelancing. Is running your freelance business actually as a business rather than as your starving artist side hustle? So that's the part that I feel like is sort of my career trajectory was both expected and unexpected.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that so much. Rather than the starving artist side hustle. I love that.
Speaker 1:That's probably more than you wanted to know. Where did I grow up and what was my childhood like?
Speaker 2:I'm going to change my questions from now on to you know rather than you know. What did you aspire to be? What was your? What is your cringiest memory?
Speaker 1:Oh God, I'm really I know my parents have since moved out of the house that I grew up in and I feel like I'm incredibly thankful that all of those translations that I did have since been landfilled. You know, I'm like I'm glad because this was before computers. I graduated from high school in 1989. And so there's no electronic record of those. They were handwritten only, and I'm actually incredibly thankful that they have since been dumpstered. The memory is cringy enough, let alone if I had to go read the poetry translations.
Speaker 2:I was going to go with it. It would have been measurable data from where you started to where you're at now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's actually true. I could see you know. Hopefully there's been some progress made in the ensuing time period, but yeah, so take us back then to the French component.
Speaker 2:So were you raised bilingual? When did French come into the picture? When did language enter your life?
Speaker 1:all Right, and that definitely. I mean we're kind of jumping around here, but when I went, I did a master's in conference interpreting in the 2020-2021 school year and one of the things that I said during that year was I'm the only real French B in this group, meaning I did not grow up bilingual. I didn't go to bilingual school. So, like most people in the US, I went to a good school system, but none of the schools that I went to had any access to foreign language classes until seventh grade, which, for those who aren't in the US, you're about 12 years old.
Speaker 1:We had no foreign language classes at all until seventh grade. So I started taking French in seventh grade. I loved it. It was always my favorite subject and luckily I went to a school system with an excellent language program. And so, like my last year of high school, we my entire I still can't believe our teacher did this my entire French class went to France for a month. This was our guy French teacher, our male French young man French teacher took like 18 teenage girls to France for a month and we lived with host families and went to school there and stuff like that. And then they came back and went to our school for a month and I feel like for me that's really like what solid Switzerland and um lived with a family that didn't speak English. I mean, I think probably not to make generalizations, but probably like a lot of people who went through the U S school system Um, I had very unrealistic ideas about how good my language skills were.
Speaker 1:So I had. At that I was in third year of college, third year of university, so I had been taking French in school for like seven years. I went to France and I felt like I couldn't do anything. You know, like I went there thinking I'm going to kill it. People aren't going to even know I'm American.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and think I'm a local.
Speaker 1:Oh my God Right, people are going to mistake me for a local. In reality I went there and was like oh my gosh, I have a splitting headache from trying to understand what people are saying and I can't say anything. But that year I lived with a family that didn't speak any English and we went the program that I did. We did a couple of classes in the part of the university that taught French, but the teachers never spoke English because the people in the classes were from everywhere. Like you could be from Poland, you know, and be learning French. It was not exclusively Americans. And then we did take a couple of classes in the regular French university and, like anyone who's familiar with the European school system, at least back then, there's no interaction at all. The professor talks and you listen, and the professors didn't know who was French and who was American. So that was the real like trial by fire. For me was just sort of jumping into the deep end of doing a study abroad year in yeah, in France my junior year of college.
Speaker 2:So now you've got to share what was the favorite memory there.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I mean I don't think that. I don't think I could pin down just one thing, because to me, like, honestly, one of the things that made me so I have now a 21 year old daughter and one of the things that made me the saddest during COVID I mean, aside from that, covid was a horribly sad time was thinking. For me, that study abroad year was, without a doubt, the formative experience of my young adult life and to think, you know, like all of the people, my daughter's age, I mean my daughter just took gap years during COVID, which now, in retrospect, I think was a good thing to do. She just didn't, she just worked and didn't go to school. But a lot of her friends who were in school and trying to do study abroad and they kept getting canceled and they couldn't go anywhere. That I thought like to me I mean I, my family, were travelers, like I will say that I'm an only child and my parents were travelers. We went lots of places, but I feel like I lived a, you know, pretty protected, only child life and so this idea of like deciding at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon let's go to Rome for the weekend, you know, was something I had never. I mean, I grew up in suburban New Jersey. Like we traveled a lot of places, but I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey.
Speaker 1:I just think, really, that whole experience was what made me realize like, wow, this is that. I think one of my you know deepest values as a person is seeing the world with your own eyes. You know going and really experiencing. You know what is it like to be somewhere in 3D. I mean, I think, particularly now you know that you think, oh, I can just watch it all on YouTube.
Speaker 1:And I think that's really where, for me, that idea started, because we just, I mean, we were 20 years old, we just did these crazy things. Like we went to a tiny town in Hungary because the world's northernmost Turkish minaret is there, the world's northernmost Turkish minaret is there. So we literally like rode a train to go see this tower, which is the world's northernmost Turkish minaret, and we're like, yep, there it is. So I just think you know it was kind of this. Like you know, really seeing the world with my own eyes for the first time, combined with the boundless enthusiasm of being 20 years old, like why not? You know, I mean your your whole outlook on life, which is, you know, I mean, I'm an optimist by nature, so I try to sort of maintain some of that, but I feel like your whole opt, your whole outlook on the world when you're 20 years old is like what else am I doing Exactly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what else am I going to do, like, why not?
Speaker 1:Right, exactly Right.
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 1:just like you know, go to Prague for the weekend. What else would I be doing?
Speaker 2:I love that and at some point you you go from poet to translator maybe both you know, aside from from that project in school. When did that occur? When did that sort of shift, or maybe even just the welcoming of, hey, why not translation, you know, as a profession or doing it professionally, when did that enter into the picture?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the reasons I think I have a particular interest in writing and teaching and mentoring for beginning translators is because I got a lot of really bad advice when I was young. So I, like, I said I graduated from undergrad in 1993. And I told one of my professors, you know, I came back from this year in France and like my life is all worked out. Know, I came back from this year in France and like my life is all worked out, I want to be a translator because we took a, I had to take a translation class and I did a sort of short-term translation internship while I was there and this professor said well, if I were you I wouldn't, because I think, number one, you have to speak more than one language.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, what was she even talking about? Maybe interpreting for the UN? I mean, you know that's not true. And I mean really the only aspect of our profession that I can think of where you quote unquote have to have more than one foreign language, is in the UN system, you know, is simultaneous interpreters in the UN system, for example. That's one reason I won't ever be able to work in the UN system, not that I could pass their tests, but also because you have to have English, french and Spanish together, like that's right. But I don't think she knew that. I think she was just pulling this out of the air and said and you know what else? I just think computers are going to take all that over and I'm like, literally it's 30 years later and all of us are still here. So really I mean, but the hard part was, what did I know? You know what I mean? Like I just thought, okay, no-transcript teaching is it for me? Or, you know, teaching full-time high school? I don't really feel like this is it for me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not you, it's me.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, right, exactly so, then. But the real tipping point which I actually think is true for a lot of translators and interpreters was I had a baby, so my daughter was born in 2002. And I thought like I would really like to work from home for at least a few years. And what is it? I mean I really started out with, like what is a job where I could work from home and use French? I mean I really started out with like what is a job where I could work from home and use French, you know? And so, really, like the first day, I mean I tell people all the time don't do what I did. You know. It's like my grandparents the ones who my mom's parents, the ones who lived in Texas got married when my grandmother was 17 and my grandfather was 30. And my grandmother would always say, just because I did it doesn't mean it was a good idea. So that's what I tell people about.
Speaker 1:Starting out as a freelancer, I had done really minimal translation work. I did have a master's in French literature. So in the ensuing time I did go to grad school at night for a master's in French literature. But the first day that I thought of myself as a translator. I sat there at my kitchen table with my you know micro daughter. My daughter was, like you know, two months old and she was asleep on my lap. So I had my microscopic child asleep on my lap and I sat there and, cold, called translation agencies on the telephone and asked I know, you're like, oh my God, you're like, just for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is what I mean about. Don't do what I did, right, I literally sat there with my sleeping baby on my lap and, cold, called translation companies on the telephone and asked what do I do to apply for work for you with you as a French to English translator? Now, in my defense, this was 2002 and freelancing was a lot less developed than it is now. I mean, the thing is that, of course, now I look through it through the lens of the resources that we have today, and the reality is the resources that we have today didn't exist. Podcasts didn't exist, zoom didn't exist. Online courses, you know, didn't exist, even like I started teaching an online course for beginning translators in 2005. And, to tell you the truth, I don't even know what I called it, because the term online course didn't exist. So I mean, I guess it wasn't the worst way to start because things worked out anyway, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to just, you know, build a plane while you're flying, which is kind of what I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but I think still. I mean there's something there and just to show you know just that, that desire to, to do exactly what you have in mind and you've set yourself to do and you know, baby on lap or not, you're making some calls and you're going to find out like, just tell me what to do, what did you? What did you find out Like when you were making these calls? Like what was there was, aside from, I'm sure, it being so tiresome with you're supposed to nap when the baby naps, but Exactly Right.
Speaker 1:So I mean, basically all of them said send us your resume, you know. So, this is right, the common thing that they were like send us your resume, you know so, this is right, the common thing that they were like send us your resume. So I can't really remember how I found out about translators and interpreters associations, but for me that was really the key was I joined the Colorado Translators Association and I joined the American Translators Association and for me, like I'm such a huge proponent of professional associations now, because that was really like the tipping point, I mean I was saying to someone else the other day this sounds kind of dramatic, but I don't honestly know if I would have made it as a freelancer if it weren't for the people who I met through those groups, who were like here's how you find clients, here's how you decide how much to charge, and some of them even funneled me their overflow work, you know, would say to their agency clients, I mean, which I do. Now you know what I mean. Like I love meeting energetic new French to English people who are really good, because you think like that's always great to have somebody who doesn't have a lot of work because everyone else, you know who's established is also busy, you know. So it's great having, you know good new people who have time in their schedule and can take, you know, last minute projects.
Speaker 1:So my first year that I was in business, I applied to 400 translation companies. I only did written translation at that time. I applied to 400 translation companies out of the ATA directory and then I think the real turning point was I passed the ATA certification exam when I had only been freelancing about six months and I think that's like that's another you know, sort of pro tip I would give. Is like when I started as an interpreter, which is in 2018, I didn't honestly think at that time that I wanted to be a court interpreter, but I thought, like to me, I want to get some sort of credential.
Speaker 1:And it see, I'm not a medical person, you know. I think you kind of know if you are or you aren't. I don't really enjoy being in hospitals or medical environments. I'm not a scientific person. So I just thought, you know, I'd like to get some sort of credential and studying for the court interpreter exam on my own feels manageable. You know, like you can buy the interpreter's edge, which is the main. You know home study course that everybody uses, it feels manageable, and so I think for me, like the key, both when I started as a translator and when I added interpreting, was trying to get some sort of credential right off the bat so that people at least know you have like some clue what you're doing. I mean that sounds crazy, but you know what I mean that there are so many people who are like exclusively self taught. Decided yesterday, you know like. Oh, I grew up speaking Spanish with my grandparents. Maybe I could be an interpreter.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I think passing the ATA exam as a translator translator and then passing the court interpreter certification exam and bonus. It turned out I love court interpreting and I have stuck with it, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask are you of the very few, because I meet very few people that actually love both sides of the profession, like meaning, like you know, the translation side and the interpreting?
Speaker 1:side I do. I mean, I think that I did a small amount of I guess what we would call community interpreting when I first started freelancing. But the big roadblock for me then was logistical. Like remote interpreting didn't really exist, other than like a small amount of over the phone interpreting. I guess there were probably phone interpreters then, but nobody really talked about remote interpreting and I just couldn't figure out how to make it work with my schedule when my kid was really little, so I dropped it. So I dropped it and then in 2018, I sort of had this like now or never moment where I thought like so I'm 52 now, so I was like late mid to late 40s at that point and I thought, you know, no one's forcing me to do this, to pursue interpreting, but if I want to do it, I need to get going. You know like I need to really start making some steps here, and so I studied with Athena Matilsky If you haven't had her on the show, you should, she's.
Speaker 1:So she's a French and Spanish interpreter French, spanish, english interpreter and she has a company called Athena Sky Interpreting and she has courses and one on one coaching, largely for people who want to take court interpreting exams. So the first thing I ever did she and I we ended up going to the same master's in conference interpreting program years later, which was kind of crazy, but she was a year ahead of me, but we ended up going to the same conference interpreting master's program. But the first thing I ever did toward interpreting was do a consultation with Athena and ask her like do you think this is completely crazy? Wasn't I supposed to do this 20 years ago? Like is this still possible? Like do you think I'm nuts? So no, and she was really encouraging and basically said you know, I think you should at least study for a year and try the court interpreter exam. Like you don't have to decide today what you're going to do with this whole idea, but at least you know it'll.
Speaker 1:And she, I feel like, was supportive but realistic. You know, told me, if your start, like when I started trying to learn simultaneous, I couldn't even shadow because I couldn't talk fast enough in French. My spoken French was okay for a translator Some translators don't speak their source languages at all and I had the advantage that I did, but I had never done any interpreting. And so I feel like Athena was very supportive but very realistic, like I said, you know, if you're starting from zero, it'll probably take you around a year to study for the court interpreter exam. And she was right. But yeah, but that's how I started out, and now I would say like I love doing both. I feel like it like translating makes me a better interpreter and interpreting makes me a better translator, you know, and there's a. I also work for clients that need both translation and interpreting.
Speaker 1:So, it's worked out really well for me.
Speaker 2:They get a two for one with that one. Well, sort of right, the service maybe not necessarily we wouldn't want to price it that way, but most definitely so. What was going on in terms of that internal struggle when you know, questioning should I, shouldn't I, what, what? What do you think was that doubt that you, you were really like going back and forth with oh God, so many doubts.
Speaker 1:How many doubts do you want to know about? Well, so the so. But I mean I will say again like whenever I talk about the silver lining of COVID, I feel kind of horrible doing that, because the reality is like a million people in the US died from COVID and I'm very fortunate that no one in my family was, you know, hugely affected. But how it really shook out was I passed the court interpreter exam in 2019. Court interpreted for basically a year until COVID hit, and here in Colorado we have a really surprising amount of work for French. I've interpreted about 100 days a year in the Colorado courts ever since I got my certification, because we have a lot of West African, french-speaking West African immigrants. So I court interpreted for basically a year until COVID, and then, lo and behold, you know like I had always had in the back of my head that I would like to do a master's in conference interpreting, but again, I could not figure out the logistics, like there's only four programs in North America that have French and I wanted to do another. You know, tip I would give to your listeners is, if you really want to be a conference interpreter, do a full master's in conference interpreting, not a translation and interpreting master's. I feel like if you really want to make a go of it as a conference interpreter, do the whole program for interpreting. So if I wanted to do that, there were only four programs in North America. None of them are near where I live. But okay, covid hits and all of a sudden they start going online and so I really sort of thought, you know, I can sit home and watch Netflix for five hours a day. This was like at the height of the lockdowns, right. So COVID hits in March, august, you know, the summer is when we're sort of all realizing like this is not going to be over. You know, the first few months of COVID, there was like this hope, you know, of people saying, oh, things are going to be normal by August, things are going to be normal by, you know. And that's when we're realizing like no, things aren't really going to be normal until there are vaccines, which is going to take a while. And so I really thought like, okay, everyone else I know is, you know, watching five hours of Netflix every day, and so I could do that, or I could see if I can do a conference interpreting master's online, which is what I did. So I took the. I went to Glendon College, which is the French-speaking campus of York University in Toronto, canada, and so in August of 2020, I passed their exams to do the program in one year, which, if any of your listeners are interested in a conference interpreting master's is a pretty common thing. If most programs say that their full program is two years, but a lot of them have what they call an advanced entry option. If you have some interpreting experience, so I pass the exams to do the, so you do just the second year of the program. They take you straight into the second year of the program. So I pass the exams to do that. And so I did that program from August through July. We started in August and we got our exit exam results in July of 2021.
Speaker 1:And I, I really, really like I. I'm not, like, I'm not. This sounds weird to say I'm not the world's greatest interpreter. You know what I mean. I'm solid as an interpreter, but I'm not a genius interpreter, but I am crazy about studying and preparation. So and by that I don't mean to say like everything about me is amazing as an interpreter, it's not. I do fine, like I'm a good interpreter, but I'm not a genius level interpreter. But I am not about studying and preparation nut, about studying and preparation.
Speaker 1:And so the passing rate for the exit exams my year at Glendon was 50%. There were six of us in the French group and three passed and three failed, which is pretty normal for an IEAC level program. Like, if you do IEAC A-I-I-C is the International Association of Conference Interpreters, and if you do IEAC A-I-I-C is the International Association of Conference Interpreters and if you do a program that's approved by IEAC, that's pretty typical. Is that the? Yeah, the exit exams are very, very rigorous.
Speaker 1:But I just thought, you know, I'm going to give this thing everything I have. And despite the fact that I think I mean and I'm saying that for your listeners who think like it's too late, I'm not good enough, I should have done this when I was 22. You know that, despite having, you know, probably the least interpreting experience of anybody in the group, I just thought like I'm gonna go at this thing with everything I have and I passed the exit exams on the first try, and so, yeah, and so then I started conference interpreting and now my sort of dream quote unquote was to be 50% translation and 50% interpreting within a year after I graduated from Glendon and I'm actually way ahead of that more like 65% interpreting and 35% translation. You know, to the point that I thought like I have to start actually looking for some translation work Because there's so much interpreting work out there and you know, like the rest of us, I would rather work than market that I have found quite a bit of French interpreting work.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. I really love the fact that you know you bring up the thought that may potentially come up in many people's minds when they're considering maybe adding on or even doing a change. Or, you know, in the profession right, a change in in your profession right, just like sort of like a mid career sort of swap type of thing which is it's too late, right, I'm right, this, this age, and it's just it's too late.
Speaker 2:I should have done this. You know, 20 years ago, I remember one time when I had I had someone like almost like your, your teacher, your instructor, that that made that comment same way with me one day. It was, it was another colleague and and she basically said you know, we're just too old for that, you know, and it was like I, I was in my late thirties, oh my God. And that like hit me like I'm, like man, I'm already already considered too old. So why would I, why would I think about that? But you know, luckily, you know, I don't know, other other people inspired me and, you know, sort of helped me along the way, and so I deviated from that mentality. But I think, even without the assistance of other people, even as that negative feedback, that we do that to ourselves, even right, just the thought of it's too late. So I love that you mentioned that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the thing is that I think like I'm an you know, I'm an eternal optimist, but it is too late for some things. Like, for example, there were a couple of people in my group at Glendon who were in the French cohort, who were say like early to mid-30s, who said you know French cohort, who were say like early to mid-30s, who said you know, my next goal is to add Spanish and try to go for the UN exams. And I thought you know what? I'm 49. It's not happening. So I think it's. So I think it's. I mean, I guess I could. But to me I just thought I put so much work into maintaining my French already because, like I don't live in an area with a French speaking population, I don't use French in my daily life. I put a lot of work into maintaining my French anyway. And so I think you have to be realistic that maybe there are some things that the door is kind of closed for you. The door is kind of closed for you, but for most things. I mean, when I sort of ran this idea by people like do you think that I'm nuts, you know, doing this grad program when I'm almost 50? I have a really funny friend who said does your brain still work? I mean, that's really the only question.
Speaker 1:But I think that the best sort of like life coaching advice that people gave me which I think is something we hear a lot, but it's really true, the time is going to go by anyway. You know, like when you say I'm going to be, you know, I thought like geez, we're going to the first round of the first try at the exit exams is in June and I'm going to turn 50 in September. And one of my friends said 50 in September. And one of my friends said you're like, god willing, you're turning 50, no matter what, like I hope, as long as you don't get hit by a bus, you're turning 50 anyway, and so you may as well make the most of the time. And so I think you really have to have that you know attitude. That right, if there is, I would, I would put.
Speaker 1:You know, adding a language is something that you may really want to think like is that where I want to put my energy? It's not that it's too late, but is that where I want to put my energy? But I think when you tell yourself, oh, it's not worth pursuing this goal that I really want to pursue? Sure it is, because the time is going to go by anyway and you will have done something with it, you know, instead of sitting there thinking. You know, it's like I saw this meme the other day that said in not very long today is going to seem like a long time ago, like that's kind of woo-woo. But it really struck me because the last year at the ATA conference, I ran into a couple of colleagues I hadn't seen since before, covid, who said weren't you thinking about going to school for conference interpreting? And I'm like, girl, I'm already done. So I think the thing is like, you know, the like that time is going to go, go by, and then you're going to be sitting there thinking like, okay, now it's two years later and I could have been done with that stupid program.
Speaker 1:Exactly that you sort of tell yourself like no, it's like not necessarily I'm too old, but like it's too late, I'm not. You know that. You think you know what. You're going to be sitting there in three years thinking I should have taken the federal exam, I should have gone for my medical certification, because it is true that it doesn't take very long for today to seem like a long time ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then, and then it's the worst, because then we're like, maybe, if I would have, is that could have right, like yeah, and then it's like you're beating yourself up again, for a different reason this time, though, but I also feel almost, corrine, like what happens is that we it's almost like we are coming up with reasons why we should not. Maybe we fear going back to school, or maybe we fear that, you know mid-career change or or just adding something extra that is going to, you know, take time away from you know our usual schedule, or whatever.
Speaker 2:We might be coming up with just reasons why not to. Is that imposter syndrome? That's like why do you want to? You know like yeah, you're totally right, it's going to take you too much time. You're gonna be 50 by the time you're done. Like, like, yes, it ends there, or something.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So, true, I love this conversation and I actually want to transition now into getting into the conversation about once you started and you had all of this and bringing in direct clients and sort of what are, what were those strategies that you figured out along the way, or maybe that somebody suggested and you sort of created or made your own in order to be able to bring in some business, because, as you mentioned, when you first started, freelancing wasn't necessarily something that was, you know, as buzzword as it is nowadays. So where, where did you begin? What was that process like for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think that one of the things that I always accepted that I think really helped me was, like you have to market a lot to have a successful freelance business. So one of the things I made a lot of mistakes as a beginning freelancer, but one of the things that I think I did correctly was every second that I didn't have paying work, I marketed, you know. So this was when my daughter was a baby. So if I thought, you know, I'm trying to work, I don't know 15 hours a week, if I only have two hours of paying work, I'm literally going to sit there and market for 13 hours. And so I think that that's, and I think now there's a ton more people freelancing. You know there's a lot of work out there, but there's a ton more people freelancing. And I think one of the things that we're really going to see in the whole, like machine translation and artificial intelligence you know boom that's going on now is there's a huge market for human translators and interpreters, but you really have to have good business skills. So the thing I think is really different is when I talk to translators and interpreters who are like a generation ahead of me. I talked to someone the other day. These are people who are now, you know, approaching retirement age. I talked to someone the other day who said I started as a translator in 1989, and I had an AOL email address and a phone number and in six months I had so much work that I had to hire another translator to work with me. And you're like, yeah, it doesn't work like that anymore. So I think that's sort of one thing that I had going for me is that I just thought, like the quote unquote right amount of marketing is the amount of marketing that brings you the amount and quality of work that you want. Right, like sitting there thinking I'm doing all this marketing and I'm not getting any good work, well, like the universe doesn't feel sorry for you and send you to work. Then you know, like, right, like the pity party. I mean you can have your internal pity party, but the pity party doesn't bring you any work. You just have to keep marketing until you have the amount quality of work that you have.
Speaker 1:And I think I mean another big advantage is that I still really believe that there is tons of good translation and interpreting work out there. I mean the example that I always give people is if my 21-year-old who is, you know, sadly going to school to be a mechanical engineer much to my dismay, but if she wanted to be, she speaks not bad Spanish and if she wanted to be a translator or interpreter, I would actually feel quite positive about that and I would have no problem paying for her to go to school to do that, although I would tell her the profession has changed a lot since I started. You know like things have really changed since I started. But I think, particularly if you want to go for direct clients, you have to present yourself as a business person. You know, you have to present yourself as an expert who they can trust, like I think the thing that I feel like is the biggest compliment from my own direct clients is they say when we're working with you, we know it's going to be done right. Like when we're working with you, we know that we can just exhale because we know that the job is going to be, you know, done right. And I think you have the advantage because I work with.
Speaker 1:So for translation, I work with almost only direct clients, almost no agencies, and for interpreting, I work with some direct clients and mostly agencies and I think like for your listeners, the advantage you have with interpreting is people, even if they don't speak your other language, they know good interpreting when they hear it, because it gives everyone this feeling of confidence.
Speaker 1:You know, like I was doing. I was interpreting the other day for a podcast, so we're doing I have to kind of obscure the details, but it's a current events podcast that does interview interpreting and the podcast host said to me you know, when we work with you, I feel like I'm getting every single word. You know, I really feel like sometimes I forget that we're doing this through an interpreter, because you're confident and expressive and the person you're interpreting for is sort of nodding along like yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what I meant. And so the thing is that I feel like if you really want to be in the direct client market, that's where that's the image I mean, not just that's the image you need to project. That's the kind of service that you need to provide, that you can't just sort of show up and be like I'm here because the agency told me to be here.
Speaker 1:Right right, exactly. And so and I think you know just as far as like tangible things, that I think you both need to be actively marketing. So I do a lot of marketing through email and LinkedIn because I like to do sort of like fast, simple stuff that I can do in. You know, I mean today, like LinkedIn just switched a couple months ago to you can only send five personalized connection requests per month. The rest are you can't. You know where it says like do you want to add a note with your connection? You can only do that to five people a month now and they cut you off unless you pay for LinkedIn premium.
Speaker 1:And just today I was actually waiting in the waiting room for a remote interpreting assignment and I thought, ooh, I haven't used my five connection requests this month and it's, you know that's a waste to not use them. So I went in and like really quickly found you know five people that I wanted to connect with and just said here's who I am, I'd love to connect and fired those off. So you need to do that. And then you also need to have some sort of online presence that they can find you Like this podcast. They actually found me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:I don't find LinkedIn to be like super tremendous source of direct clients, but you never know, because this podcast, which I love interpreting for it's so interesting, they found me on LinkedIn. So I think you need to be doing both of those and I think you need to be realistic, that if you don't want any sort of online presence, if you don't want to be actively marketing, then you're going to be limited to just working with agencies, which is okay. You can. You know no one's forcing you to work with direct clients. But if you want to be under the radar, then I think that you need to only work with agencies.
Speaker 2:My goodness, there was like so much there, and I said it one time. I made the mistake of saying it in front of my business coach and what I said was I've tried everything. And then she replies back like but did you, though, Everything? You've tried everything. I'm like, okay, maybe there's a few more things.
Speaker 1:Perfect response, right Bouncing it back to you. Really, really, there is nothing. There are no more clients on the face of the earth who could use you, who don't know about you. Really, you've done it all.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, maybe not everything. All right, let's break it down. What should I do, Right? So then your wheels start turning, as do we get so stuck in this, in this moment of uh, I'm not seeing it come back. And what's funny is like I think that that's another speaking of mindset shifts is when we're thinking about pushing stuff out, when we're marketing. We have to sort of shift from this mentality. Would you agree that the moment we send it out, it's going to come right back to us when, in actuality, you might post something on LinkedIn and you might not get something or someone responding to that for maybe a couple of months? I know that there's been people that have connected with me on something that I posted or pushed out or years later.
Speaker 1:right that they come back.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, oh, wow, that's still out there. Huh, it's so true, so it's, but it's. It's the consistency of continuing to be out there uh, pushing out stuff, right.
Speaker 2:You also talked about that online presence, which, my gosh, if. If you look up the definition of personal branding, you'll probably see Corrine's picture in there, because look up her name and you're going to see the perfect example of an online presence or a digital footprint or a personal brand. If someone says I want to see if this interpreter is legit and types her name, I mean the very first page you'll find stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll find stuff Good to go, we're good.
Speaker 2:No further information is needed. But, for instance, you give the example of marketing could be something like going on LinkedIn and as easy as sending out those five connections. What other strategies, when you say marketing, would you say would be a good for someone that's starting, would be a good approach to marketing themselves? Because I think that potentially, even those that are doing maybe like a mid-career shift you're thinking about marketing and you are thinking about me going door to door, leaving my, my business card at their, at their door.
Speaker 2:Remember you could go to the offices and leave my little notary business.
Speaker 1:What marketing strategies?
Speaker 2:are you suggesting at this point that individuals can approach?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think the main things that I would do is I think, realistically, you're going to work with you're probably going to work with some agencies at least, like I think it's pretty rare to meet a translator or interpreter who says that they work with zero agencies I mean some people, but I think probably you want to at least and that then it's just a matter of going to their website and doing what they tell you to do. So go to the agency's website and they'll have a link that says, like careers, join the team, freelance for us, you know opportunities. Just do what they tell you to do, but follow up three to six times. We all fantasize that we're going to submit these agency applications and, like 10 minutes later, the phone's going to ring and they're going to say oh, we have this juicy project for you. When can you start? It doesn't work that way. So I don't know where the online applications go, but you barely ever get a response to that. You're probably going to have to email them, find people. I think hopefully everyone knows that when you go on LinkedIn, if you put the name of any company into the search box and then you click people, it'll show you every person on LinkedIn that has that company's name in their profile.
Speaker 1:So go in and what I do is connect with some of their project managers and say, I applied on your website. Could you let me know what would be the next steps? You have to ask them a question, right? Don't just say like hi, I connected on your website. They'll be like, great, and it ends there, right. So say, right, could you let me know the next steps? And I think with agencies, it is reasonable to nudge them until they tell you yes or no. Like you don't want to do that with direct clients because you don't know if they need you and it can be aggravating, right? And you don't want to be that person who's like hi, it's me again, hi, it's me again. And they're like I would have responded if we need you and we don't. But with agencies, I do think it's fair to keep nudging them until they tell you yes or no. And like I just actually did this to a project manager yesterday that I said this is my final follow-up, you know I'm contacting you once more about the projects that we talked about. I'm still very interested, but if I don't hear from you, I won't contact you again. But I think that you have to be. It feels so pushy and cringy, but agencies get so many applications that I feel like you really need to follow up until you either get a response from them or follow up at least three times. I know that sounds painful and it is. Follow up at least three times and tell them like this is the final time that I'm going to follow up. Let me know if you're interested and if I don't hear from you, I won't follow up again.
Speaker 1:Now with direct clients, it's more subtle. So first of all, you have to have some sort of specialization, because you don't know who to market to. I know that interpreters are less specialized than translators. It's pretty rare to meet an interpreter who's like I only do medical devices specialize. But let's say for an interpreter that you thought I want to work with immigration law firms, like that would be. I feel like for your listeners who are court certified, that a pretty good first step. One thing that I always tell people is, with your first round of direct clients target clients who have work that you are like I could do this in my sleep. You don't want to feel stressed by the work that they want you to do if you've never worked with a direct client before you know. But you want to think like you know. Interpreting for immigration law firms or doing depositions you know would be like you need to do some studying about what a deposition is. I don't know if you've interviewed Judy Jenner. I have all kinds of ideas for you about what a deposition is.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've interviewed Judy Jenner. I have all kinds of ideas for you, okay. So Judy Jenner periodically teaches a class called Anatomy of a Deposition. Take Judy Jenner, if you have your court certification. Take Judy Jenner's class, anatomy of a Deposition. She's going to teach it at the Nogit conference that's coming up. Learn what a deposition is.
Speaker 1:But I'm just trying to give a real world example that your listeners could relate to that they think like, okay, I've been doing court interpreting for five years. I feel like a good first step for me would be interpreting for immigration law firms or just regular law firms that have foreign language depositions. So do stuff where you think I am not going to be stressed by the work, but, like I've interpreted for witness testimony, like up and down in court, like I am not stressed out by you know what this work is going to consist of. And then what you want to do is let's take immigration law firms. They're really easy to find right, because law firms also belong to a million bar associations. You know you can look for immigration law associations your local bar association and then go to the law firm's website and lots of them have contact information right there and you're going to email in a small firm, you could email the attorneys in a bigger firm, maybe one of the paralegals or the admin people. You know of the paralegals or the admin people. If the law is like three people just email the attorneys, but if the law firm is like 300 people, the attorneys aren't going to write back to you. You need to contact maybe one of their paralegals or an admin person. The email needs to be short 125 words or less.
Speaker 1:So if anybody, if you've never done warm email marketing before, I'd really recommend Ed Gandia. His last name is G-A-N-D-I-A. He's like the guru of warm email marketing and wrote a book about, ebook about it. He has a podcast and stuff. So he says 125 words and here's what I would say something like if I were writing to you. I'd say you know, dear Attorney Perez, I'm a French-English interpreter. I'm a court-certified French-English interpreter in the area.
Speaker 1:I came across your website while researching immigration law firms in New York. I'm wondering if there might be a need for a French-English interpreter to interpret for your clients. Would you be the correct person to speak with about offering my freelance services? Again, don't say let me know if you need me. Don't let the email just like run off into death. You know, say would you be the correct person to speak with about offering my freelance services, so that hopefully they'll reply to you or say, oh, I'm copying our HR person. Or like, oh, our other, this other attorney handles our foreign language matters and they might need you and you're probably going to have to do that 50 to 100 times before you get a client out of it. You're not going to. I mean, maybe you will email six law firms and have them. You know will email six law firms and have them. You know, come back at like, if you research it really carefully, maybe.
Speaker 1:But for example, I think for your listeners who are court certified, starting out with immigration law firms and also agencies that hire court reporters, I've gotten quite a bit of deposition interpreting work through agencies that hire court reporters because they have to use a court reporter for a deposition and it's usually live for whatever reason. They don't do. You know? Most of court is just recorded. Now, in my experience they only use human court reporters in or at least in the Colorado courts only for high-profile stuff, like if it's a motions hearing or a trial or something, you have a live court reporter, but the rest of the time they just record it. But every deposition I've ever done has had a live court reporter and I think that a lot of times the agency that provides the court reporter will be asked like do you have referrals to any court interpreters that we could use because we have this foreign language deposition? So that's an example of how I don't know. Do you do medical, maria? I don't. I'm not coming up with. I don't do any medical.
Speaker 2:Very little, but my main, speaking of specialization, my specialization is K through 12 public education. Oh gotcha, yeah, yeah, which.
Speaker 1:I feel like education is kind of hot right now, like now you guys have your own association.
Speaker 1:And you know, I feel like education used to be sort of lumped in with community and that's an area where people interpret and translate. Because take something like an IEP, you know, for your listeners who interpret and translate, we've got to translate the IEP into Spanish for the parents and then we've got to interpret for the IEP meeting between the you know, district special ed staff. So that also that is like I found for me, as someone who enjoys interpreting and translating, that immigration stuff is a good niche to be in, because they often need interpreting and translation and they're excited to find someone who does both.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh yes, Especially those that aren't. They're like oh, we got to go find someone now and yeah you position yourself as as somebody that can do both things, like you said earlier, right, can do both things. Like you said earlier, right? Uh, two birds, one stone, yes, I mean, you gave us so much. Definitely, first and foremost, of course, getting out there. Just just start, just getting yourself out there.
Speaker 1:You have to put yourself out there. I know you don't want to. I feel you. I know you don't want to and you have to it's just there's no, there's no way.
Speaker 2:How are people going to know about you if you don't get out there? Right? So you've got to get out there. You've got to follow up. You've got to consider specializing in something I liked earlier when you said you know, if it's an interest, that you have something that you like, you know something that you're interested in, maybe throwing that in as potentially something that you could specialize in and not want to do, not want to do it just because you feel like you, you have to. You're supposed to like the medical piece, like you said earlier. Right, if you're not?
Speaker 1:that's not. There's a ton of work for medical interpreting but I'm just not. I don't like being in hospitals. I don't have a strong science. I doctor's offices kind of freaked me out, like I know that I'm not. You know, I'm not cut out to be a medical interpreter.
Speaker 2:For sure. If you don't, I mean if you don't like it, there's just, there's no point, I suppose, in pursuing it and putting so much hard work into something that you're just like eh, I don't really like that, Right.
Speaker 2:So you look for something that you like, you specialize in that and then making those connections, like those very direct connections. I think that that's something that many, many just get sort of tunnel vision and say, well, if I want to go into this area, then I should only be marketing to this specific client or this specific audience, when in fact there's so many other ways to get to that specific audience, such as what you mentioned earlier, right, the, the, the, the individuals, that, um, what'd you call it?
Speaker 1:The, the transcribers uh court reporters yeah, so like for you guys who do education, I would think that there are probably, for example, educational consultants who do seminars, and so then you go like would you be interested in offering that in Spanish?
Speaker 2:Yes, you know what I mean. Like, I just think that are out there for special education, yeah, and all I mean for you guys who do Spanish educational interpreting, all that stuff should be in Spanish, you know. Yeah, so I feel like such a high need for that too. Yes.
Speaker 1:That when you think about direct clients, lots of people sort of think like, oh, so I'm supposed to like cold call some Fortune 500 company. No, think about what's like directly adjacent.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That you sort of go like huh, I wonder if you know some of the sort of consultant type people that I work with on these IEP projects. They probably have their own side consulting businesses and maybe they could use me Like I don't. I mean, I don't know whether that's a great example, because your contract with the school district might prohibit that, but I'm just saying as a business idea, you know, going like right, I worked with this occupational therapist who does seminars for parents of special needs children and maybe she would be interested in doing those in Spanish or having a recorded, at least having a recorded version, and I'll do the Spanish voiceover. Like think you know what is just like one step removed from what I'm doing now. Don't think like, oh, so now I'm cold calling scholastic books or whatever. You know what I mean. Like, no, think, like what sort of one step removed from what you do now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and thinking outside the box is just really what it sounds like and there's so many different avenues to take just to get to that desired outcome and I think we just sometimes get in our own way with you know our thought process and and not really going out there to asking the question. I liked earlier too, that you asked a couple of people what are your thoughts? What are you thinking People in the profession that could give you that direct uh, you know that direct advice, that that you can do something with, and sort of just inspired to see maybe spring up some ideas of something different, different approaches.
Speaker 2:I mean we can go on and on about this topic because there's so much to learn, but you guys, corinne does masterclasses as well. You know she has books out there. She's an author, she has books out there on on these topics and you know, I really encourage you to to connect with her. When we talk about connections, connect with her. If you don't have that LinkedIn, I don't know why, after four years of trying to convince you all that you need to have a LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1:Send me. I'll connect with any of you. Send me a connection request. I'm there.
Speaker 2:Before we go, just one last question for you. If you could give anybody that's starting in this business a piece of advice, or a couple pieces of advice, what recommendations would you give to them as they start their journey, or maybe even mid-career shift, into this profession? What would you like to recommend, aside from everything else you've already given us?
Speaker 1:So one thing I was thinking of when you were just talking, maria, is here's one of my new mindset things is, when you think about marketing, approach it from the perspective of where can I be useful? Who should I be serving? Who really needs me but they can't use my services because they don't know me. Because I think then when you market, it feels more like I don't want to say like treasure hunt. But here's an example let's say you're an educational interpreter and you think, like I'm super passionate about this work and you know what One of the speech therapists who I work with does this whole webinar series on supporting your child at home if they're in speech therapy.
Speaker 1:Like what can we do at home to support our kid who's in speech therapy? And you know what so many Spanish-speaking parents could benefit from that. So I'm going to try to partner with this person and do those webinars for Spanish-speaking parents. And that's an example of something where I think you're, instead of thinking like well, here goes another round of spam to people who don't want to hear from me, that you're thinking this is hugely useful, this is hugely helpful, like my skills are the key between this person's expertise and these parents who are really struggling, you know. And then I think you approach marketing with this mindset of like service and usefulness. That is a lot more appealing than like here goes another round of spam, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. I had someone on the podcast that called that strategic volunteering, so you're very strategic about right when you volunteer, that time in a way that you know is going to benefit both sides benefiting you, because you're keeping up with that and you just never know that social worker might say hey to school district or something else.
Speaker 1:I have this fabulous interpreter. Right, I have this fantastic interpreter who you got to use. Yes, right, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:It has been such a privilege. I knew our conversation was going to be great, just because you were going to be here and everything that you had to share. It just time flew by so fast and there was like so many other things we could have touched on, but I know that you also offer so many different platforms and information I should say on different platforms where individuals can come back and connect with all of the great information that you have to share with regards to the profession. So I just want to say thank you so much once again for being here with us today and sharing your knowledge and your experience and, of course, your story. Thank you so much. Thank you, thanks for inviting me.
