Paul: As part of my engineering degree, I studied abroad for a year, at RWTH Aachen in Germany. While there, I carried out some projects at the Airport Research Center and was asked to translate some manuals from German to English. It was my first paid translation job but I never imagined that I would still be involved in translation over 20 years later!
Paul: Managing a team and multi-tasking. Sometimes it seems that there are so many things going on at once and it can be difficult to prioritize. But I love every minute of it.
Paul: Sometimes it's the small jobs that have the biggest impact. I remember writing a speech for a high-level government official and then recording it for her to listen to. She gave the speech at and an important congress in Italy and later told me that I had helped immensely with the writing, and that being able to listen to the recording had enabled her to perfect her delivery.
Paul: The freedom. The freedom to choose which projects to work on with clients that I feel are the right fit. The option I have to take my business in any number of new directions is very exciting.
Paul: Perhaps one of my greatest achievements has been coming to a new country (Colombia), learning a new language (Spanish) and setting up a successful company.
Paul: Hard work and a positive attitude. There are other factors of course, but I think those two are essential.
Paul: Focus on finding clients. Most of what you do should be geared towards that.
Paul: ProZ.com has been a key partner over the years, especially in terms of helping me to develop and share training programs specifically designed to help freelance translators.
Paul: The industry is changing and that change will bring lots of opportunity. I see a lot of potential for freelancers to combine translation with content creation and web services, for example.
Paul: Well, I'm really looking forward to developing more training programs at ProZ.com and helping freelance translators to succeed!