Benny Lewis

speaker

589 appearances 9 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 12 Aug

Benny Lewis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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Language & Travel Hacking · I prepared for one career and built another · 12 Aug 2026 podcast

Each one was a step towards ultimately my big application to sit that master's degree and the career that I thought would be following it. matched

And I was planning all of this around going to La Laguna in Tenerife, which was the long-term plan of university there. matched

But suddenly, very shortly before I was ready to submit the application, the admissions changed the rule that that specific year the course would only accept people who were interpreting into Spanish, which meant that native Spanish-speaking candidates matched

Were the only ones viable. matched

In my case, it wouldn't be accepted because my plan was to be an interpreter, among other languages, from Spanish into English. matched

So I was completely disqualified and I was devastated because for four years this was the plan. matched

Spent years improving my languages, gaining qualifications, arranging my work life around becoming a stronger applicant so that. matched

That I would be more likely to get accepted. matched

And I accepted that poor pay and difficult training and the three-hour commute and everything I built up towards had just kind of collapsed and I had no clear replacement. matched

So when a destination to your plan disappears, it's very easy to look back on the whole road and say it was a big fat waste of time and that the work I'd done would vanish as. matched

soon as that university changed its rules. matched

But ultimately I still had the languages I'd learned, I still had the qualifications, and I had a certain level of professional training. matched

So I did have more options than before I started. matched

We don't have to pretend that every part of a an ultimately failed plan was a waste of time. matched

Some preparation, even if it's for a specific one goal, can help you in different ways. matched

In my case, the translation training became the immediate thing that I fell back on. matched

I tried online freelance translation to support myself and that ultimately began my life as a digital nomad. matched

That was the first ever job that I could do online. matched

Keep in mind this is way back in 2006 when working online was very, very uncommon, but I could receive the documents to be translated via email, and that meant I could take it anywhere I wanted. matched

And matched

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