Hello, I am Marcos Grisi Reyes Ortiz, author of this website, www.marcosgrisi.com. You are now visiting my home, welcome. Feelings, memories, sorrows and joys are housed in this virtual place. Human stories are told here.

I have had the honor of being the spokesperson for those who wanted to share something about their lives. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I had to serve them and put my little grain of sand to make this a better world.

MY STORY

It occurred to me to make a short story to explain how I built this website and the path of life that I chose. The reading will take you eight minutes. If you are curious enough, you will get to the end. If not, well, there is my photo for you to locate me mentally.

THE BEGGINING

I worked for many years in executive positions in different companies, fulfilling my profession as a business administrator. On average, I change jobs every six years, whenever I feel that my cycle in a company is over and need new challenges.

Between 2017 and 2018 I found myself in the middle of one of those labor crises; I had the impression that a cycle was ending and that it was time to make a new change. Initially, it didn’t catch my attention because, as I mentioned before, this happened to me from time to time.

However, I felt that this time the situation was different, my mood had changed. Business meetings were no longer so interesting. I got tired of managing staff, looking for clients, watching over competitors, taking care of suppliers … I had lost my passion and enthusiasm.

I questioned the very continuity of my professional career. I wondered if I wanted to continue doing the same until my retirement day. The answer was a resounding no. I needed to find something that would give me joy and, how to say it, the connection with my essence.

How to do it? What skills do I have? And, in the end, the most important thing: who am I?

THE INVENTORY OF WHO I AM

I realized that I have always been very curious. Since I was a child, I never stopped asking the grown-ups about everything I found in my life. It was like a tireless search to try to understand what was going on around me. Through the years I have not lost that curiosity. Still today, I love talking with different kinds of people, learning about new concepts and about other life experiences.

I thought that, perhaps, that passion to know more could be redirected in some way.

Besides that, I like to write. It seems that there are some literary veins running in my family coming from both my paternal and maternal side. I once published a couple of articles in El Deber (newspaper from Santa Cruz, Bolivia) with good comments.

On the other hand, I could take advantage of some skills that I acquired in so many years of work, such as computer skills, the ability to execute projects and a certain talent for organizing processes and people. In addition, I am very persistent: I insist a lot until I achieve what I propose.

THE PROJECT 

So, I put all the pieces together and decided to start a new project, which may work. It was about creating my own website that would distribute my written content. It was a very risky move considering that, among other things, I was not even remotely known in the field of letters.

Members of my family had a logical concern by such a change in my life. It wasn’t easy to face it and explain it, but it had to be done. Around the same time I got a huge dose of self-confidence. This happened on the third trip to the road to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. I felt like a silent voice telling me: «You can do it.» The chronicle I wrote about that trip describes in greater detail what happened.

So, in mid-2018, I quit my job and started the project. I overcame many challenges at the beginning, especially technological ones. I invested a lot of time and effort in developing a modern website, with all the functionalities and interfaces that would allow a clean and easy navigation for the visitor. Also, I made integrations with content distribution platforms. I even had to learn some HTML and CSS coding.

WHAT SHOULD I WRITE ABOUT?

At the same time, I started generating my own content. The idea about what to write came from the second trip to the road to Santiago de Compostela. The stories I heard from the pilgrims made me feel very close to them, as if their stories were actually mine. It occurred to me, then, that perhaps I could write real-life stories based on the experiences of people who want to tell something about themselves.

One idea that I rejected from the outset was to write about political, sports, social or crime stories. That’s a very easy way to drive website traffic and get into the number of hits game to get publicity. I preferred, however, to take the long road of disseminating material that provides good vibes and lasts over time. It may not generate as much traffic, but it is something that would allow readers and I to grow as human beings.

DEFINE AN OWN STYLE

Once I knew what the theme would be, the next step was to create a different way of telling the stories, with which I would feel comfortable. I made another decision: I avoided taking writing courses. I didn’t want anyone to teach me «how» to write. Generally, when someone tells you «how» to do things, it somehow inhibits creativity.

Intuitively, I knew that I had to capture the feelings of the interviewee, structure his ideas and give fluidity to the story with simple words and clear concepts. Here my experience in the corporate world intervened, where communications are structured, short and direct. On the other hand, I know that writing something simple but beautiful takes a lot of time and work. That was another challenge.

Little by little, with a lot of persistence and patience, I was able to build my own style. I also got the help of professional editors who gave me, little by little, lessons on how to write properly. I needed plenty of pacience and humility to recognize that there was a lot more to know about. In any case though, I always knew that this was a process and that it would take time for me to be successful writer, I just had to persevere.

EMPATHY

Over the months I met wonderful people who shared their experiences with me. The fact that I wrote in first person allowed me to express my interviewee’s feelings in the purest possible way. I cried, laughed, got angry, dreamed … well, everything that went through them also passed through me. The result of this process can be seen in the stories contained in the website that you are now visiting.

INTERVIEW FOR TELEVISION

In May 2018 I was interviewed for television, where I explained how this project was born:

DO YOU NEED MORE INFO?

If you want to contact me, please fill out the following form, which will arrive directly to my email: