MY CASE THAT I AM NOT “JUST ANOTHER PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATOR”
I don’t care to mention every little professional success in my work for the sake of self-promotion but I can only assume that, to distinguish yourself in your industry and in this way yield visibly more chances to earn more money, you have to have a focus on fighting for respect and admiration as a figure in your industry. What I’m saying is that this requires something higher than agreeing to devote more time to doing the usual stuff – some might call it “grunt work” – however important it might be, and even if this would require sacrifices on your part.
To some it may be setting themselves challenges. To others it may be proving a capacity for initiative. You could say it requires some sort of thinking for yourself – while inspirational quotes / philosophies of life are often attributed to popular celebrities or athletes, or writers, or military leaders, the same can be said of entrepreneurs. https://under30ceo.com/15-philosophies-from-successful-entrepreneurs/ In my case, I believe that learning language skills and practicing those you already know is by no means guaranteed to teach you to put aside your own preconceptions in your work, and that’s why I bring up this story:
In a recent German to English project I did, an employment reference, I translated “Auch in Situationen mit hoher Arbeitsbelastung erwies er sich immer als besonders belastbar” as “He always showed himself to be particularly resilient, including in high workload situations”… and not “Even in high workload situations, he always showed himself to be particularly resilient”, as I would otherwise have been inclined to do. On closer consideration, it seems that “Even in” suggests an element of surprise on the part of someone which could have the potential to do a disservice to the person referenced in the employment reference.