Find out how Efthimis Kalfas, Millennial Maker of Mismi.gr light up your own dreams in 3 minutes

Q1. Welcome Efthimis, it’s my pleasure to host you at GR Millennial Makers. Could you share with our audience some important things about yourself?

Hello, Antonis! It is my pleasure to be with you at GR Millennial Makers, thank you very much for having me. So, I am Efthimis; I just turned 26 years old; I am a content writer who deals with all possible forms of content and in my free time I enjoy writing about things that stand out to me.

Q2. You are the Maker (“father”) of mismi.gr. As a good father, you are the ideal person to talk about your “child” to us.

Oh, yeah! I did not listen to my parents, you see, and in the age of 25 I ended up with a baby! :P But, honestly, this was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself. Mismi.gr is a personal blog, in which I present stories — of mine or others’- that have something nice about them. They aim to persuade, to encourage, to define and to prove that stories are made to be shared.

Q3. You launched recently another innovative and entertaining project “8 More Minutes”. Could you tell us more things about this?

8 more minutes’ is an online show, with its own YouTube channel. Using vivid images and sound it presents in just 8 minutes all these things that you wanted to know, but you never asked! I am normally the presenter, Kostas Christoforidis is the video producer and overall this is a Mismi.gr production. In my first episode, I was delighted to have the best Greek stand-up comedian, Katerina Brana, with me and it was a great laugh. Have you seen the first episode, maybe? What do you think?

Q4. In your opinion, writing and storytelling skills are necessary for Millennials nowadays? How someone could start writing from scratch?

If I am being objective here, I have to say that text is the very essence of many things. Be it writing for your blog, writing an opinion article or a love letter, everything revolves around text. Not just for Millenials, but for people of all ages and all times. I think that the only advice about how to start writing … is simply by writing! What I mean to say is that the knowledge, the mistakes, the experience, the coherence and the ability to express yourself come only by practicing writing. Take me, for example; I’ve been writing ever since I can remember myself. Nobody taught me how to do it well. Even now, I make some serious mistakes, but I am still learning — I correct myself and I want to believe that I become better and better.

Q5. How could your experience light up the dreams of Greek Millennials out there?

Right, my success story is mainly related to the fact that I had worked very hard and more importantly as a volunteer, without expecting anything more than experience in return. When I was a student, I came to realise who I really was, I fought all my personal demons and inhibitions and decided to show the world what I can really achieve. I got ‘exposed’ and asked or applied for jobs that I got — or didn’t — but this doesn’t matter anymore. What is important is that I told myself “I made it to this point and I want to stay here. You will learn my name. End of the story!”

You know, most people do this great mistake that I kept making, until I was 20 years old. Even though I knew I am talented, I was expecting to somehow be discovered by a talent-seeker or someone, who would find me, guide me and help me get started on this job. However, sad but true, this only happens in fairytales. But it does not work like that in real life; real life is more like ‘action — reaction’. The moment I realised nobody would discover me when I was at home all the time, was the moment I started visiting the… ‘balcony’ more often. And you know what? No financial crisis, no mishap or negative energy would be able to stop me.

Q6. Could you share with us two of your favorite quotes? Which and why do they motivate you?

• Be content with being you!

This is one of my rules in writing. Any text deserves the truth and only the truth so when you write you need to be yourself; the reader can tell who’s a fake writer, anyway, so why do it? I mean, if you don’t want to speak about something, then it is better to not write about it at all. It’s much better than writing an opinion and pretending you are someone different than what you are, right?

• We all have stories to tell

This is how I think of every interview I need to hold, or every story I need to share. There is no such thing like a human being without a story, and the sooner we accept it as a society, the better we will become. Having this in mind, it’d be easier to stop judging people and rushing into invalid conclusions about them and their past…