I spent last weekend, 26-27 January, at Know Your Worth seminar Kyiv Edition held by Julia Poger, M.A.C.I. (MIIS); AIIC and ATA member. Since 1998, she has been training interpreters in consecutive interpretation, English as a B language, and marketing and negotiating techniques, and has taught and/or conducted exams in schools in six countries.

She also co-organizes the Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course (CCIC), the best continuing education course for professional conference interpreters, as every attendee calls it then.

That is a global event for interpreters, interpreters all over the world come to attend it in Paris, New York and even Brazil.

And probably it is the best thing I did in my entire professional life for my future.

In a nutshell, the seminar is about treating the interpretation as a business. Topics include branding, positioning, sales arguments, pricing and contracts, among others. Also Julia shared world standards with us — something to strive for.

There is a home task for every participant, a step-by-step plan for the next 18 months to improve their status and wellbeing over that time frame. I will report the outcomes to you in a year and a half in another blog post.

But one can find all that in other places for free, you might argue. Yes, you can. In so many books, articles and YouTube videos scattered all over the internet. Talking about various fields of human activities. But here it is about your profession, from someone who has been doing it since 1987, tailored for you.

I’ve never been to such a practical training before. Actually, I didn’t know trainings could be so useful; every sentence was meaningful for me, literally.

There is one more thing that was not announced but blew my mind completely. Julia is a brilliant speaker. Smart, very funny, fast thinking, tactful, and neutral. She hooks the audience right in, I couldn’t throw her off even once — and that’s what I normally do best with speakers, so it’s the only time in my life when I failed to.

But most importantly, she handled my attempts in such a way that I accepted it. А kind of a master class in public speaking — that was an added value, something that an interpreter will get to use very often.

Besides Kyiv-based interpreters, colleagues from Lviv and Odessa joined the seminar as well. The audience featured both experienced interpreters and the ones who just started their career.

Besides the content itself, I was so glad to have spent two days alongside my dear colleagues, most of whom I’ve known for a long time already. It’s such a rare joy in our work — hanging out together for two whole days.

A part of my personal joy during these two days was about the past, not just future hopes.

As I was already doing some of these things when I moved to Kyiv — a new market for me — 4 years ago, I didn’t know whether they’re gonna work or not; on top of that, very few local interpreters have their personal website and are active in social media.

But I took the risk, and it has proved to be the right decision; now it inspires me even more to carry on with my plans in this direction.

Take a risk, strive for more. Take Julia’s seminar, no matter where and no matter how much you will need to pay for that. It’s totally worth it, as there is a better life waiting for you behind this knowledge. If you believe—which I most definitely did.