Diana Monterrubio holds the position of Global Procurement Director at Teleperformance, her focus is Hardware and Software procurement. With over ten years of experience, she has been published by Procurement magazine and has spoken as keynote speaker for Procurement and Supply Chain Live in London. She has also appeared in vendor owned channels to discuss women in the tech industry and enjoys bringing sensible tech procurement tips to people of all income levels. She currently lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.
I am not a writer; however, I know I can write. Good or bad? That will be up to you to decide. In most cultures, when a young adult turns eighteen, it is expected for them to choose a path, a career in life that hopefully will make their dreams come true, but What dreams? Have we started observing society from the capitalism point of view? Are our dreams for sell, or at some point did we start dreaming to be able to survive in this world? Did society start dreaming for us?
I wanted to be a writer, I wanted it will all my heart: I spent High School burying my face in books and the wonderful smell they get with years, like their only purpose is to collect a smell for the right reader to come along, books are patient. I also loved blank notebooks, to this day I still love the look of an empty page, I find it inviting every single time. I love writing in blank pages, even if I only get to write my name because I have nothing more to write. For so long, I did not dare to write more than my name, but I was waiting for my story, for my words to come out like a waterfall, sometimes it happened, but when it did, I rarely liked what was written down, I thought that if I wanted to be a writer, I had to write a masterpiece. Most people will say that they had no support from their parents when they started diving into the arts, but that is not my case: My father would buy the most amazing books and was never shy about sharing with us, he did not find me young for any type or reading, I have always believed my dad finds in me an old soul, so I always had his trust. My mom was the one who loved it the most: She loved to read the poems that I wrote as a kid, she would even have me make photocopies for our extended family: I felt so validated: A kid with something to say and people to want to read what she had to say, I was living the dream, I was eight years old and my dream had come true. After a taste for, I wanted to professionally write, that was my next dream, my big dream. However, when it came to choosing a career my parents feared that I could not make it and I would end up a starving artist: So after many talks with my parents, I told myself I would build a safety net: I would study business, I would work in an office, that was the new dream; The dream that was carefully incepted into my mind by a lifelong fear that I was not going to be good enough to write.
I believe that we all create in our own way, we create our own lives, ideas, and spaces; even if it is a story in our heads, or a drawing while bored in class: We all have indeed created. Which brings me to the basic principle of creating: Not everything that is created will be useful, but everything that is useful has been created by someone, so the question here is not so much how we create, but how we create something that will last, how will our leadership today influence business tomorrow? For me, it came as a shock when I found out that I was afraid to not be a good businessperson, too, It did not matter the career, turns out I was just afraid of failure. However, this fear, is the very proof that I can create, that we all can, if it was not, No one would not be afraid of rejection. Unfortunately for most of us, we live in a tough society, where creating is not always something that is understood or even worse, accepted. Therefore, we are told to create something safe, something that will be accepted and provide a good living for us. For the latter, my parents did not want me to be a writer, they were afraid and so was I, we just did not stop think that I would be afraid regardless of the path… I was afraid of how society would see me, of how society would read me. I was afraid that society wanted a businesswoman, not a writer. I thought society wanted numbers, not poems. And yet I was afraid of both.
This reflection takes me to my final words here: We are all afraid, aren’t we? If we, for one second look at Maquiavelo’s masterpiece, “The Prince” We will learn that it is much safer to be feared than to be loved, but what do we want? Do we need approval? Do we need acceptance? How can we be ourselves in a world that wants only to see us as efficient or not? My dear reader, I do not have an answer for you, but I do have this: Take a chance on yourself, try to write, (Or whatever it is that you feel you are). After a few years in business, I find that I actually liked it, I am still not sure if I am a writer, a businessperson or something else entirely, but I know what I am not: I am not a quitter, I have given life my best, I have created and even found a way to create in business. So the basic principle of creating, for me is very simple: Look at what surrounds you, and there, were you see shadow try to bring light, do not expect for the world to return the same: The world might reply in criticism, but some people will find comfort in the light you bring them, like I recently read in some one else’s reflection, only when someone sees the value of the fruit and longs to taste its sweetness, will they take the effort to throw a stone. Creating is easy, we all do it, but standing by what you create, putting it out there, will not make people fear you, it might actually make you fear the opinions of those who surround you, however, whatever love you receive out of it, will be worth a lot. We do not need to fear creating, because what we create reflects who we are and we must embrace it, because only by creating new ways of business, will we find the humans behind the numbers. The basic principle of creating in business, at the end of the day, is believing that what you create will inspire others and maybe yourself on the way, and it is only by inspiring that our creations will endure.
I am not a writer, but I wanted to write this, for me, for you and for all out there afraid of their potential: be patient, like books, wait for your right audience to find you.