深圳 notes 2: my Nastia Liukin 2012 moment

Hi guys. I am currently in Shenzhen, it is nearly 3 am and I am terribly jet lagged, can't sleep despite having had a very long day at work. I am turning to blogging to make sense of what happened today because this allows me to organize my thoughts methodically. I had my Nastia Liukin 2012 moment yesterday and let me start by telling you who she is and what she did in 2012. Now most of you may know her as the Olympic champion gymnast from the 2008 Olympics when she won the all-round title, but did you know she tried to make a comeback in 2012 to go to the London Olympics? After having spent 3 years in the media spotlight for being the darling of the 2008 Olympics, she started her comeback attempt too late and at  the US 2012 Olympics trials, she looked out of shape and struggled, constantly making mistakes and most fans were horrified at how out of shape she was - we all saw her at the 2008 Olympics and knew what she was capable of, but in short, she just wasn't prepared. Not at all. Not by a long way. She crashed and burned, didn't make the Olympics team and retired after that. It was sad for us fans to see such a talented gymnast retire on a low note like that.

Could she have returned for another Olympics? Well, yes it is possible - other gymnasts have managed to do it, most notably Gabby Douglas, the American gymnast who did go on to win the 2012 Olympics and then still returned to be a part of the 2016 winning team in Rio. Nastia was over-confident and ill-prepared, that was why she failed - it wasn't a matter of talent: she had clearly demonstrated in 2008 that she was incredibly talented but back then, she was young and hungry, in 2012, she was returning as the defending Olympic champion. Well, that's the story, I had my Nastia moment in Shenzhen. I am at a business event hosted by the Shenzhen government and they have loads of interesting initiatives to support young people trying to start new businesses - it goes beyond just supporting he innovation, they want to own the IP and create successful businesses that will go on and become famous worldwide. they are doing all this in collaboration with a lot of successful tech-innovation companies around the world and have invited a small, selected number of award winning companies to attend this event. My partner was invited to present his company's product at this event, so we were flown in - put up at a really nice hotel and treated like VIP and we met other guests from around the world as well. So far so good, I genuinely felt really excited about being part of such an important event.

Here's the situation with my Mandarin: I can understand what people are saying around me, but when I try to speak it, it is usually mixed with some English words or I may struggle to get the right expression in Mandarin as I have not used it in many years. We were at one of the cultural events organized for the VIPs when I jumped in as the translator as the translator had to step away at the last minute to handle an urgent matter - that was translating from Mandarin to English which I did flawlessly. And that was when I thought, yeah piece of cake, I can do this and said that I would be my partner's translator during his all important pitch to industry experts in Shenzhen. Fast forward to the pitch - he was nervous and gave an okay performance, but I totally froze on stage and boy, you remember how Nastia Liukin fell on her face really hard during the 2012 Olympic trials? I stumbled, I couldn't remember my words, one of the hosts stepped in and rescued me twice because she could see I was falling apart and well, I totally failed as an English to Mandarin interpreter despite being totally competent to do it the other way around. The main reason was that it is far easier to translate into your mother tongue/first language, then to translate into a language you are not fluent in and Mandarin isn't even my second language: it is my third or fourth language. I swear I would have done much better in French or Spanish.

But could I have done it? Yes of course, I just needed to respect the amount of work that task would have demanded of me, I needed to have sat down and studied the text, memorized it the way a good student would have prepared himself for an important exam. It is called having a good attitude and in this case, well I didn't have the right attitude. I did two rehearsals and thought, yeah I will be fine, no problem. I was arrogant and well, talk about hubris - it was humiliating and crushing. I thought the Chinese audience all thought I was a total idiot in struggling with the translation and most of all, I felt awful because all I wanted to do was to support my partner's business rather people may now remember his pitch as the one with the dumb interpreter who couldn't speak Mandarin properly. I have built an entire career in sales out of being able to pitch in several languages - this is what I do, I am supposed to know how to do this: but I suppose you could have said the same thing about Nastia Liukin in 2012: she was the defending Olympic champion, she should have known what it took to at least get on that Olympic team, but like her, somehow we both missed the mark by an awfully long way. It was a humiliating, crushing defeat for her and a very humbling one for me. It feels like failing an exam not because you're plain stupid, but because you were just too lazy to have studied hard and prepared for it - that's a truly horrible feeling.

Of course I am angry with myself for not having been well prepared and I suppose the only way for me to deal with episodes like that is to put it out there and declare mea culpa, We can't always expect success in everything that we do, but when we make stupid mistakes like that because we were just too arrogant to put in the amount of hard work and preparation necessary to guarantee a good result - that's when we really should get angry with ourselves. It is too easy to blame other people of course: I was incredibly jet lagged, sleep deprived, there were problems with the hotel staff and oh boy, I could look for scapegoats easily - but the bottom line is unless I take responsibility for my mistake, until I do that, I may make the same mistake again in the future and at least now, I can say, okay Alex, you fucked up big time but at least in the future, you will never make the same mistake. Accept the blame, apologize and grow from the experience. I spoke to one of the organizers and she was frank, yes my Mandarin really wasn't good enough for the task, but she said the focus was on the technology and my partner handled the Q&A very well when they asked really difficult questions. His business proposition wasn't to be judged on how bad my performance was as I was merely his interpreter at the end of the day - it really wasn't a part of the equation that was vital, so some damage was done but not as much as I thought.

I felt it was important for me to put this out there, tell my readers I will learn my lesson and grow from this mistake. I also will no longer be mean and judgmental when I hear Chinese people struggle on in English because of this humiliating experience of having been put through the same process in Mandarin in front of a huge audience at an event in China - when someone is brave enough to try to speak publicly in a language that clearly isn't their mother tongue, cut them some slack and be forgiving. Too many people react negatively from their mistakes, I know of people who would either bury the memory and pretend it never happened, or they may blame others for their mistakes, or they might even go into complete denial and say, oh it wasn't that bad. I don't fuck up like that often - usually I am cautious enough to avoid mistakes like that, but how can I go through such an experience and pretend it never happened? That would not be right. What is the point of getting defensive when I know that this was entirely my fault? Thus my choice of response and hopefully, in sharing this with you, you may also benefit from the humbling lesson I have learnt here in Shenzhen. It is quite cathartic to share like this, learn my lessons and grow from it all. Many thanks for reading and allowing me to share.