In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Dominika Weston, a language and diversity enthusiast with over eight years of experience helping limited‑English speakers. Dominika shares her personal migration story from Europe to the United States, emphasizing courage as the driving force behind her transformation. She clarifies a common industry misconception by distinguishing the roles of interpreters (spoken language) and translators (written language), highlighting the specialized skill sets required for each. Her broader business advice stresses the importance of thorough research and preparation before any interaction. When reflecting on personal growth, she underscores courage, forgiveness, and gratitude as essential to happiness. Dominika also discusses her favorite book, Paulo Coelho’s Veronica Decides to Die, extracting lessons about appreciating life, maintaining sanity amid collective madness, and the choice between controlling one’s mind or being controlled by it. Finally, she directs listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn, describing the platform as her primary professional networking hub. The episode includes sponsor messages from Authors Unite and Anchor.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with the support you need to finish your book. Best part is, after you finish your book, they take care of the entire publishing and marketing process 100% for you. So if you want to become a successful author, make sure to check out authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo te va? ¿Cómo te va? ¿Cómo te va? ¿Cómo te va?
All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Dominika Weston with us. She is a language and diversity enthusiast. She has been working with limited English speakers for over 8 years now. She helps people bridge communication barrier through work she does with CETRA alongside with interpreters and translators, brings cultural awareness, and continues to educate on best international communication practices. So welcome to the show.
Pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Of course. Grateful to have you on. The first one I have for you, Dominika, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Okay, the best story is my life story, actually. My transition from Europe to United States, packing my stuff, taking my suitcase, and moving across the pond without knowing the culture, without knowing the language, without knowing what is out there. So courage, courage, courage, and one more time, courage. Taking challenges and just going for it. This is the best that has ever happened to me, and I'm so glad that I went through this experience because it shaped me into who I am right now.
And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Diversity has many faces. And also I want to point out specifically in the language industry There is a very common misconception for people who do not know who interpreter and who translator is. They are very different professions. They both work with languages. One is spoken and the other one is written. Just because somebody knows a foreign language or speaks more than one language does not automatically make that person being a translator or being an interpreter. There's a cognitive ability and there's so much more of a skillset. That needs to be aligned with ability to speak the languages in order to perform that. So that's something that I want to put out there, um, because we need to spread more awareness in the area of communication.
Absolutely. Yeah, I actually did not know the difference, so I appreciate you shedding some light there. Um, and what is your best piece of overall business advice, not necessarily industry specific?
I would say always do your research and always do your homework. Uh, come prepared. Whether it's a business encounter or personal encounter, doing a little bit of homework and getting to know your audience or getting to know a person who you are engaging with is just a wonderful way to start the conversation because it just makes it flow a little better and makes things easier.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I think there's nothing that I would have done any differently. I would say being more courageous, a little bit more courageous at my young age than I was. And that's, I think that's something that I would want to emphasize a little bit more.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Forgiveness and gratitude.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Okay, my favorite book is Veronica Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho. It's actually a book about a young European girl who is trying to take her life and takes sleeping pills where she wakes up the next morning in a mental facility and is told that she has only several days to live. So that story and actually the gist or the plot of the book hovers around appreciating life and living life to the fullest, living life with no regrets. And what I got from the book and what I always go back, and it's my book that I have gone through more than one time. I always like to go back to this book. It's just entertaining to me. What I see after I put the book away is that however you look at the madness, as long as it's a collective madness, it is called sanity. So, you know, we live in such a crazy world when we look around, but, you know, just looking at how other people interact and what other people do and what are the norms out there, you know, this is the only one way that you can keep your sanity going and keep on moving in this world, so. That's basically in a nutshell.
And then what is your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote, there's actually a quote from this book and I've written it down somewhere. Let me see. You have two choices: to control your mind or to let your mind control you. I think that speaks a lot.
I love it. Thank you so much for coming on. The last one I have for you before we let you go is where's the best place for our audience to find and/or connect with you online?
LinkedIn. I live LinkedIn day and night. Uh, it's my go-to platform. Um, I love connecting with people. I love to learn from people. There's just so much value in that platform. So this is the best media where you can find me.
Awesome. I agree. I love LinkedIn as well. Thank you again for coming on.
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
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