RELAX and stop feeling embarrassed when you speak

Hi. James from engVid. No Mister E; just me. Right. Beautiful. Anyway. Different

location, as you can see; and I don't have Mister E with me, which is

unfortunate. What was that? See that? That's cool. That you can't get with a

whiteboard. Anyway, this is a... another video — I call them learning processes —

where I may not be teaching you English directly, but this could be applied to

any subject, but specifically English and I'm trying to make it that way. And

this lesson is called: "Two Sides of the Same Coin". What I'm going to teach you

is about how embarrassment... learning to let go of embarrassment or

learning... allowing yourself to be embarrassed and learning how to relax —

how they're kind of joined together; and how if you learn to master these two,

you can learn to master English. Okay? Now, before I do that, I'm going to do

what's called a "test retest". And when I do with these test retests, we're

going to see where you are; and at the end of the class, we'll do the same

thing to see if something has changed by the end of the class. So, that means you

actually learn something. I kind of like this concept; and I think you will, too.

So, what we're going to do, I'm going to take one minute... and this is a

one-minute test retest. We're gonna do some breathing. We're gonna do this

three times. I'm gonna explain how you do it, and I want you to pay attention.

So, I'm going to count. We're going to breathe in for seven seconds, and you're

going to breathe out for eleven seconds. So, that'll be inhalation for seven;

exhal-... exhalation for eleven. We'll do it three times, and then we're going

to see how you feel. So, take ten seconds right now, close your eyes, and

just see how you feel. Do you feel stressed? Relaxed? Whatever's going on,

just take ten seconds. I'm gonna look at the pretty flowers. Okay. So, you have

an idea you feel? Let's do this now. We'll wait a couple more seconds. For

that happy dog. Happy thoughts. All right. So, inhale. One, two, three,

four, five, six, seven. Exhale. Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,

four, three, two, one. Say to yourself: "Relax". Got it? And, again, inhale.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Excuse me. Exhale. Eleven, ten, nine,

eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Say the word: "Relax". Last

time. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Exhale. Eleven, ten,

nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Okay? I forgot to tell

you to close your eyes, so you can redo that again, if you wish — but make sure

your eyes closed. You should be opening your eyes. How do you feel? Feel the

same? Feel less stressed? From one to ten: How did you feel at the beginning.

One to ten: How do you feel now? You should notice a difference. That's...

takes one minute. Okay? And we've changed how you are actually feeling.

That's all it takes — a little bit of breathing; a little bit of time. Okay?

Once again, if that was, you know... want to try that again? Take... remember

how we took a couple seconds to see how we felt? Usually give yourself between

the number one to ten — stress/not stressed. Right? Then what you do is: Do

that breathing. You can just... I gave it to you, so you can follow it right

along. Then afterwards, open your eyes, see how you feel. That's our test

retest, which we'll be coming back to at the end of the class.

Now, let's get to: "Two Sides of the Same Coin". Why is this lesson

important? When students don't embrace the idea of a little bit of

embarrassment in order to learn or don't learn how to relax — and you probably

notice what I did with you at the beginning of this class — it makes it

difficult for them to learn. So, I'm going to give you some strategies or

tips to eliminate these two problems, or to help you access relaxation so that

you can learn faster; and maybe actually make this whole thing fun. So, let's

take a look at the ideas of the two sides of the same coin. I'm going to

start off with the embarrassment. Master the art of being embarrassed. That's a

tough one. No one likes being embarrassed. And in case you don't know

what that means, it's being put in the position where you feel uncomfortable;

you don't feel confident. Right? Most of us avoid this at all... at times. But we

don't realize that that's a place of growth. Embarrassment can be good

because you're in a place that you're not comfortable, and you can learn to be

comfortable and learn something from that situation. Now, this happens,

usually for two reasons. One we call: "ego", and "ego" is yourself; how you

feel about yourself like that. "Who I'm... who I am and everything I am".

And that ego likes to be right and correct.

The other I call, like: "tribe", or I call it: "the group". So, it's like

yourself versus the group. Ego works... well, let's start with the tribe. The

tribe is a scary one. When you're embarrassed in front of the tribe, it

means you've done something wrong. Now you might go: "Well, why does this have

to do with tribe or...?" and "tribe" means group of people. And usually our

tribe, now, it's... we live in cities, so the tribes aren't the same. But long

time ago, we used to live in tribes of 20 or 30 people; and if you did

something wrong, something horrible would happen. It was called: "being

ostracized". And it meant they would take you and kick you out of the tribe.

Now, today, you don't think about this; because back then, you had to hunt with

the tribe — the tribe kept you alive. They made the fire; you made the

buildings; you stayed together. If you were ostracized and on your own, you had

to do everything by yourself. No, ladies and gentlemen, there was no Amazon at

the time. You couldn't... "I... I'm good. I'm just gonna... I'm gonna Am-...

Amazon", bring them up. No. You had to kill something by yourself, and hope you

didn't get killed. The numbers meant something. So, keeping that in mind,

being embarrassed meant you've done something wrong that might get you

kicked out of the tribe. That's a very scary thing. That's why with a lot of

people, going up to see somebody new, like meeting a new person or someone

that they like and talking to them, they get... they get all nervous because our

ancestors would get nervous; if they made a mistake, that could be the end of

them. That's what happens.

So, we got to look at it this way and think it's not a silly fear that you

don't want to be embarrassed by asking a question in class. It's not a silly fear

that you don't want to talk to people, and you know... strangers and try and

use your English. That's your ancestral roots, or, you know... "ancestors" —

people before you; family before; generation, saying: "This could be a

dangerous situation; you got to be careful." But let's look at that. This

is the 20th century; this isn't 5,000, 10,000 years ago. So, this fear of being

ostracized is kind of a 20-... in the 20th century, it's a phantom. And a

"phantom" is like a ghost. Because I was joking, but I wasn't. Right now, if half

of Toronto didn't like me, I would just stay home. Actually, you know... even

better, if we had something called a disease, a major disease that shut down

the world — I could stay at home, call Amazon — hopefully they'll still be

around when this video comes out — and I could order my food, order my books,

order anything I need to be brought to me. I don't need a tribe. I don't need a

tribe; I have a car. I don't need a tribe; I have a cell phone. I don't need

a tribe. So, this fear that we have is from something in the past that would

have killed us to be alone. Most of us now live in states where we're alone, so

we can start letting go of that fear. Okay? That's one thing to keep in mind.

You won't be alone; you won't be ostracized.

The other thing about, you know... as I said, the first thing is your fear of

being ostracized. The second thing we talked about, when we talk about

embarrassment, is ego. Okay, so what's the "ego"? That's the individual thing.

And the problem with the ego is this: Your ego makes you want to always be

right, and that's a good thing. No, not really. It wants... if it's helping you

be right, that's good. If you always want you to be right, that's not such a

good thing. When we talk about the ego in this case, the problem with the ego

is it keeps you blind. And two things happen from that. You don't know if you

are actually getting better, because if you're always right, you don't know if

you're wrong. And how can you improve? There's a difference between the gap

between what you don't know and what you do know. So, sometimes, your ego says:

"Yeah, yeah. I'm right. I'm right. I don't have to study. I don't have to

look at it." Right? That's the embarrassment thing. You say: "I know

everything. I don't need to know more. You don't need to talk to me", because

you don't want to be embarrassed in that you don't know — that's your ego. And it

gets in the way of two things: Your progress; how you can improve, if you're

improving. Are you improving? Are you getting better? Because if you know

everything, you don't need to improve. Right? And where you really are. Are you

advanced or are you a beginner? You don't know. And your ego doesn't allow

you to really get a good hold of that, because you might be embarrassed and

find out you're not as good as you thought you were, or you're not as far

ahead. But you can't track it. So, what we want to do is we want to look at that

thing about being embarrassed, and we want to embrace it. "Embrace it" means,

like, hold it and hold onto it. There is one thing I did forget, and I'm sorry

about that. When I was talking about being... being kicked out of the tribe —

risk and reward, which is very important. Once we get past... when

we're talking about being embarrassed and being kicked out of the tribe or

ostracized — right? — you got to remember: If you want to get anything in

life, it's a risk. You got to put yourself out there. And when you put

yourself out there, you could fall or you could fly. It's a risk, but there's

reward. Okay? So, let's back that back up to the ego. I'm sorry; I just wanted

to make sure I put that in there, because sometimes when we forget things

like that, we don't strive... "strive" means to work towards something; we

don't try as hard as we should. Anyway.

So, the second part of the coin, what we were talking about is relaxation, and

the importance of relaxation. And I'll tie it to... too, at the end, and you'll

see why I'm doing this. Learning to relax. Because embarrass... okay, I'll

get to that. It's, like, when you learn to relax, a few things happen that make

learning much easier. Number one: You get more energy. What happens is when

you're tense and you're stressed out, your muscles are all tight — that

restricts or stops the movement of blood through your body. When you relax, the

blood can move better. When the blood moves better, it actually brings more

energy to your body and more oxygen, so your brain works better and you feel

better. That's gonna make studying easier. That's why we want to get into a

relaxation mode. Once again, you're going to go back to the first minute of

class. Yeah. Test retest, right? Tried to teach you some relaxation.

So, you get more energy — that's one of the things. What's the second thing that

happens? Well, your focus increases. "How does my focus increase when I'm

relaxed? That makes no sense." Well, let me explain. When we use a trick... not

the trick, but we use the method or skill of meditation — what that does is

it helps us create a more efficient and effective brain. A bit of science, here.

Neural pathways — these are the things... how the brains connect. So,

this is your brain. So, this is the cell, and it has little fingers come

out. Neural pathways start connecting, and they get stronger and better, and

they can communicate better so your brain works more effectively and

efficiently. By working on meditation, like mindfulness meditation, the brain

actually gets better at thinking. So, it's easier to learn because you have

more connections, so you can process more information. Pretty cool, huh? And

you thought you were taking a nap in school; not doing anything right. Shame

on that teacher for saying that to you. All right? So, we get more energy;

better connections. The third thing that happens when you are relaxed and it

comes to learning is that we let go of fear. Okay? You cannot be fearful and

relaxed at the same time.

Do you remember I said I was gonna tie embarrassment with relaxation? Well,

embarrassment you're kind of fearful, right? But when you're relaxed, it's the

opposite. You can't be both. So, if you're relaxed, you can't really feel...

feel that fear or embarrassment, which will allow you to go through the process

of learning. Not bad, right? So, by being relaxed, we get more energy to

study, we're much more efficient. Ah, and I forgot one more that's really

important. Less stress. Notice I didn't say: "no stress". I said: "less stress".

When we're embarrassed — that's a high level of stress, and that's a problem

because it stops us from learning. And why does that happen? When you have a

high level of stress, the brain has too much information going on, so you can't

take in new information readily. So, memory is poor; and learning skills are

poor because you can't take that in. Okay? You can't remember it because you

can't take it in. When you are relaxed... and we talk about, you

know... relaxation through meditation and whatnot. Well, less stress means

there's the emotional... okay. I should be careful; make sure I get this to you.

Notice I said: "less stress", not: "no stress"? You have to have a little

stress. That stress that you have is emotional, and not bad emotion. When we

have emotion, we tend to remember things. Remember your last birthday when

you were 12? You're not 12 anymore; you remember — you were happy. Emotions help

us glue memories. So, when we lessen our stress, then we go from that

embarrassed, crazed state and come down a little bit, but we allow a little bit

of stress for our emotions to come in so we can help remember, and that's what

relaxation does. It gets you relaxed, so you can feel those emotions; your

memories stay. Why is this important? Learning is memory, so if your memory is

sticking, basically learning sticks. So, if you're in a classroom and you're

relaxed, you can actually take in what the teacher is saying to you a lot

better and keep it; or if you're watching a video.

Some of you comment that I make jokes. Every once in a while, I get the German

who says: "Stop the joking. Just be serious. Yeah?" I'm like: "Whatever.

You're watching it." No, I'm not joking. And my... actually German students are

great. Thank you very much; you guys make some of the best comments. I tell

the jokes — so now you'll know — because if you giggle, or laugh, or even if

you're like: "What a dumb joke" — I got an emotional response. You're going to

remember when you tell your friend: "And then he stopped and he says this joke in

the middle of teaching me the grammar point about..." you remembered — that's

my point. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So, we talked about relaxation, and I've tied it

together with embarrassment. Remember I said: "When we relax, we lessen the

stress"? Embarrassment is too much stress; it makes it harder for us to

learn. We lessen that stress, so we can let the emotional content come in to

help us remember, make our memories better, learn easier. And remember this?

We talked about getting more energy — yeah? — and better focus. Putting those

two together, we're able to learn better, and that's what I talked about —

enhancing the learning process. And I gave you a tool you're going to use.

Now, I want to do that test retest, since we've done this lesson. We're

gonna go back to the breathing. And let's just see, now that you know how to

do it and I've explained it, we're gonna test and retest. See if it changes your

state. So, take five seconds now. You can look at the nice, little plumage

here, or the nice little plants. Okay? And take the time to see how you feel

right now. How relaxed? Give yourself a number between one and ten. Okay. That's

the take off because I'm about to give you your numbers now. Are you ready? So,

let's start the relaxation process. Remember: Eyes closed. Inhale. One, two,

three, four, five, six, seven. Exhale. Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one. Relax. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five,

six, seven. Exhale. Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,

two, one. Relax. Last one. Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Exhale. Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Relax.

Open your eyes. How do you feel now? That's one minute. Only one minute. See

how your status changed or how your... your mind and your body have changed.

Okay. That's our test retest. Good.

Now, teaching you all this stuff is great, but then you're gonna say: "So,

how do I use it? What am I going to use it for?" Well, I'm going to give you two

tips — this is your homework — in order to take what we've done in this class

and put it into practice to help you get better at learning English. Notice how I

said that was a one-minute relaxation. You can use that same one-minute

relaxation before you start studying English to get you into that state where

you're more focused, feel more energy — okay? — and you lessen the stress so you

can study better. Sounds like a woodpecker. Woody Woodpecker. Heh, heh,

heh, heh. Heh, heh, heh, heh. Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. Yeah. You can go watch

the stuff afterwards. "What's he talking about? Woody Woodpecker." Anyway, so:

Before you study, do the one-minute... it's not a test retest. It's a

relaxation technique. To make it even stronger, do this three times a day for

30 days. For the next 30 days, just randomly sit down, breathe in and out

three times, three times a day. That's three minutes of your life. Okay? I'm

not asking for very much. And also, at the same time, just before you study

English, do it again. You'll find that pretty soon, when you say that magic

word: "relax" — you're just gonna drop like a stone, which is what we want;

getting you into the perfect zone to learn.

"Now, what about the embarrassment thing, James? You gave me all this bad

news and good news about it." Well, I have a solution for that, too. There was

a guy who did "40 Days of Rejection" or "100 Days of Rejection". I forgot his

name and his book. Sorry. I'll have to remember and some time... or maybe

you'll look it up. Anyway. What he did was he went through 100 days, looking

for rejection. He would go to places to purposely get people to say: "No". I'm

not that mean to you, but while you're doing your 30 days of relaxation,

because you're gonna need it — I'm gonna suggest you go out of your way for 30

days, and you go to get rejected. "What?" Yeah. I'm telling you: Go to

McDonald's, walk up and go: -"Hi, McDonald's. Can I get a Burger King

special?" -"Get out of here. No." And then leave. Now, here's the key to this:

I want you to, after a while, go: "Why?" And I go: "Well, this isn't... this

isn't Burger King." You'll start finding after about the first ten days, you

don't die when people say: "No" or they say: "Leave" or what... you just don't

die. And when you say: "Why?" Some of them will actually explain it to you.

And you'll start noticing that rejection doesn't bother you, so that whole thing

about the tribe and the ego won't bother you so much. And you'll realize when you

say: "Why?" it's not usually personally about you; so it won't be bothering you,

because it's not your ego. It won't be rejected from the tribe, so you don't

have to worry about that. And then we're doing the relaxation technique, and

you're gonna start finding that you don't mind. And that's also going to

help you when you're doing your English: You won't mind if you don't do so well,

or being embarrassed of asking that question in the classroom, or asking the

teacher something, or talking to a stranger. Yeah. Go out there. Go talk to

some stranger in the street. Go up and go: "Hey. Do you mind if I borrow $500?"

When they go: "No", then go: -"Why?" -"I don't know you." -"Okay, that's cool.

Oh, yeah. I wouldn't either." Totally different attitude than: "Oh, my gosh,

oh, my gosh. They're..., they're gonna say..." What are they going to do to

you? Kill you? No. In most cases, they're gonna look at you and laugh, and

that's it. And you'll notice each time: Whoop, I'm still alive. Okay? And then

it's going to become a natural state for you. If you like the experiment enough,

don't do it for 30 days; do it for 100. And I'll give you a little hint. Mark

off 100 days in your calendar, start at the 100 day, and knock it off. By the

time that's done, you're going to forget that I even mentioned this to you and

it's just going to be the new, natural you. So, this isn't just about English,

I guess. I know. But if you apply this for English, you're gonna get amazing

results. If you apply it on other things, you're going to get even better

results.

Anyway. I gave you your homework. I gave you your test retest, gave you your

lesson. Hope you like these learning process videos. We'd like to do more of

them. Just let us know. Just do not ask us to do it between... between November

15th and, like... no, not February. March 20th. It's cold in Canada. Want to

see me die? Want to see me die for this? I'm not going to die for this. But I

love you, so I'll do more. Okay? Anyway, listen: It's been a pleasure. But before

I go, I need you to go to www.eng as an English, vid as in video.com. Go look at

the more... the learning process. I believe Alex has one up there; a few

others will have them. They're great videos, along with our normal English

sets, so you can apply the techniques we give you here to the other videos. Don't

forget to like and subscribe; and I look forward to seeing you in the next

videos. Anyway, enjoy the scenery. I love it out here. Ciao.