Episode 83: Smart Habits for Saying “No” with Dagmar and Judy Jenner

Smart Habits for Translators

Episode 83: Smart Habits for Saying “No” with Dagmar and Judy Jenner

Today’s episode is one you may not be expecting… or maybe if you’ve been a long-time Smart Habits listener, you understand how it aligns with what we discuss here on the podcast.

Saying “no” and doing it with confidence can be difficult in any area of life, especially in business. But saying “no” is essential to running your business with less stress and more time for what you really want to work on with the clients you really want to work with!

Today, we have the pleasure of discussing smart habits for saying “no” with two guests we know you’ll recognize! We’d like to welcome Dagmar and Judy Jenner to the podcast.

Dagmar is a German, Spanish, English, and French translator and conference interpreter based in Vienna. She grew up in Austria and Mexico City and has an advanced degree in French from the University of Salzburg and a master's degree in conference interpreting from the University of Vienna. She runs the European side of Twin Translations and is the past President of the Austrian Interpreters' and Translators' Association, UNIVERSITAS Austria. Dagmar is passionate about literature, classical music, and chess.

And Judy is a Spanish and German business and legal translator and a federally certified Spanish court interpreter and conference interpreter. She has an MBA in marketing from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, a master’s degree in conference interpreting from York University in Canada, and runs her boutique translation and interpreting business, Twin Translations, with her twin sister Dagmar. She was born in Austria and grew up in Mexico City. She is a former in-house translation department manager. Judy writes the blog Translation Times and the "Entrepreneurial Linguist" column for The ATA Chronicle, serves as one of the ATA spokespersons, and teaches interpretation at the University of California-San Diego, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and at New York University as of fall 2023. And she’s a frequent speaker at T&I conferences around the world, mostly online these days. Judy flies a lot for her interpreting assignments, and one of her special talents is memorizing airport codes.

Dagmar and Judy are the authors of The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation.

Tune in to hear our conversation on:

• What services Dagmar and Judy offer, and how their careers have evolved over time

• Why they wrote The Entrepreneurial Linguist, and what they think is the biggest takeaway for our colleagues when it comes to their freelance businesses

• What values led them to become translators and interpreters, and how these values are reflected in their business

• What smart habits have been crucial in their careers so far

• What habits they had earlier in their careers that they no longer practice, and why

• Why they think it’s important for translators and interpreters to be able to say “no”

• Some key reasons to say “no,” and some strategies to do it with grace

• Their thoughts on whether saying “no” means losing an opportunity or future work with a client

• How we can practice saying “no” so it feels easier going forward

• In what ways saying “no” has paid off in their careers

• Other tips for our listeners on the power of saying “no”

• What advice Dagmar and Judy would give to their past selves

Resources we mentioned in this episode:

• Dagmar and Judy’s European website, Texterei, and their translation company, Twin Translations

• The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation

• Judy and Dagmar’s blog, Translation Times

• Connect with Judy and Dagmar on Twitter

• The Remarkable tablet and the Rocketbook reusable notebook that Judy recommends

• Dagmar’s YouTube channel on German orthography

See the full list of links and resources for this episode: https://smarthabitsfortranslators.com/podcast-episodes/83