“The best at all that stuff”
There is something to be said about a person’s mental attitude that is fundamental in their future success. When I was growing up, my best friend’s dad who was very competitive, used to always refer to his son as “Alex is the best at all that stuff”. “Stuff” referred to playing tennis, or to his grades in school. Then he would ask my friend and I to sprint in the parking lot to see who ran faster. Often it was my friend who won. While he wasn’t particularly faster or more athletic than I was, I think the difference was he constantly heard the voice of his dad’s praise playing in his head, and unfortunately for me, I heard it too! It made me feel uncomfortable, and quite frankly somewhat humiliated. I was never presented to my friends as “the best” at anything, so I sought solace in ridiculizing this phrase at home while relating the experience to my parents. Somewhat consoled, I would then arrive at the implicit conclusion that my friend’s dad was, perhaps somewhat ignorant and naive, because assuming his son was simply “the best” at everything is, of course, impossible. No one is the best at everything! But this strategy worked, at least against me, his competition.
I have learned from this experience, and now that I have created my own company, I have chosen the name “The Source Language”, using it as both the language of origin and as synonymous with “the best”, the “go to” company. Can my friend’s success then and now be attributed to his mindset? I think it can, and the lesson for you and me is that the source is the place where something valuable to us can be found, a main resource, and that’s exactly what I want to be for my clients. I believe in my skills and training as an interpreter, and in my capacity to deliver excellent language services. Like my friend’s dad, I believe I am one of the best at “all this stuff”.
