Make Your Big Leap - Speak English Fluently - Advanced English Listening Practice - 85

hi there I'm drew badger the world's

number one english fluency guide and it

is a pleasure to welcome you to another

advanced listening practice lesson well

today I I wanted to bring a book on and

talk about that occasionally I will

bring books onto the program i haven't

done it in a while but i thought this

was a really interesting one

I'll read up like a bunch of books and

you know it's like anything else in life

you know you'll read maybe ten books and

then only one of them will be really

powerful for you and even within that

book only like one or two ideas or you

know really something amazing that you

should pay attention to but this is one

of those books that i was reading

recently and it is called the big leap

and it is by gay Hendricks Hendricks i

really like this picture actually a

little goldfish jumping up from the

smaller goldfish bowl into the larger

one

now the premise of the book the idea the

main point of the book is that you're

kind of psychologically within a certain

range about how happy you want to be or

how much money think you can earn or how

creative you think you can be in and

other things like this that are related

but it's a really interesting idea that

says you can kind of only become as

happy as you think you can be and people

may may think like well everybody wants

to be infinitely happy that's obvious

but it's not really the case and what's

interesting about this is that you have

an idea and and i'll talk about how this

is connected to fluency because it's

again one of these ideas where you have

kind of a specific area in which you're

comfortable where you think you should

be and when you try to hit the edge of

this thing this is where you start

becoming less comfortable because you're

going into a new a new area you're

expanding your abilities your skills

your knowledge your expanding that and

you're moving into an area that you're

unfamiliar with and because of that you

feel nervous about it

so when you're thinking about okay it's

easy to practice in the classroom but

when i get out in the real world I get

nervous about this again this is that

same idea of your kind of in the EP this

fear or the circle of something that's

comfortable which is the classroom or

practicing by yourself and then once you

try to move beyond that that's where the

nervousness come

from because it's uncomfortable and its

really unknown it's something that's new

for you

so the idea here is talking about how we

kind of sabotage ourselves and this is a

great advanced word to sabotage yourself

and this just means to hurt yourself in

some way or to create a problem such

that you can become kind of back into or

you can move back into this this more

comfortable area here so we think it

seems like an obvious thing that

everyone would want to be happy all the

time and that we would not do anything

to stop ourselves from doing this but if

you take a moment to think about it

often you may have even examples in your

own life about times where you

experience something like really amazing

like you learned a whole bunch of money

doing something where you were having a

really fantastic time with your

relationship but then like worry started

to creepy and you started to believe

like maybe like something was gonna go

wrong because often in life people have

this idea for this belief that the kind

of life goes up and down like this so

you have like some days you're really

happy and other days you're not so happy

and it's kind of hard to believe that

you could actually just be like great

all the time people just think well

that's that mean that's impossible but

if you think about it why not why why is

it impossible I mean you probably know

some people that are happy almost all

the time and then some people that are

you know always you know upset or angry

or cranky so cranky just means that

you're in a bad mood and you're really

just not happy enjoying your life so

it's just a really interesting book I'm

reading right now i have not finished it

but working through the book its kind of

giving me some own insight given me some

insight into my own life about how like

even in my relationships it's like

things are going really well you will

hit a point where you're you're kind of

reaching your maximum of this

comfortable area and when you hit this

maximum point that's when you start to

create problems for yourself but you you

try to say like well that it's that

person's fault for doing this or some

other reason outside of myself is

creating this but more likely is

something that you're creating for

yourself that you can easily you have

kind of any

excuse to move back into what's

comfortable instead of continuing to

challenge yourself and push yourself out

so you don't have to be stuck in this

one location in the end the point of

your life is to grow and expand just

like a tree wood or anything else in

nature that continues to grow and grow

and grow and if you are thinking in the

same way when you get to this point like

you will kind of notice as I'm as I'm

noticing now while I'm reading it you

get to a point where okay I like I

experienced something fantastic like the

business just did like much better than

we had anticipated and then like if

something bad happens at the point at

that point I have to stop and think wait

a minute is this a sign that i'm

actually like hitting my limit and I

need to break through that or is you

know is it just like well something like

really bad happen to me for no reason

now more likely than not it's because

it's a problem that i created and I like

to think about that for my life that

everything that happens to my life

everything that happens to meet in my

life is of my own creation so it doesn't

matter what other people do i am the

final person that gets to decide you

know if this is a good thing or a bad

thing or whatever so if that's true and

i believe it is and really your life is

just the beliefs that you have if I

believe that's true then i can choose to

look at something in a different way now

often when we have a problem or

something negative that happens to us

we're looking at that and we think okay

like it's somebody else's fault but

really if we decide like wait a minute

what if it's like the the problem is not

really that problem like it could be

something else like if you have a

problem in your relationship like maybe

my wife is like a why don't you take the

trash out today and she gets angry at me

and I I stop and think like are you

really angry about the trash you angry

about something else and then we talking

it's like I like it's not that you

forgot the trash is that you forgot my

birthday last week

something like that actually I'm quite

good at remembering my wife's birthday

but you understand the point of the

story

what we're really talking about is that

number one you take responsibility for

your actions but also for the things

that happened to you even if it seems

like other people are directing those

things that you so it's easy to to

complain about

our people into say other things are

doing that but that's really doing is

limiting the area in which you can

expand so if you like let's say you you

spend most of your life living with like

parents that didn't have much money as

soon as you start making more money you

will be hitting the same limit of like

okay I think it's comfortable for me to

make this amount of money but if i try

to make more than that then i will

create kind of subconsciously a problem

for myself and i will make it so that i

can i can go back to this particular

level that i was at before and this is

why you often hear stories about people

that maybe they have not much money at

all but then they win the lottery in

there

expand that like the expansion of their

money is it's too great for them and so

they have to find a way to create

problems even though they may think it's

other people causing those problems but

they find ways to create problems to

shrink that money back and so they they

end up losing that money or worse and

going back even smaller than that

so when you have this idea stop and

think if there's a problem that happens

especially after like something really

important to really amazing or great

happens in your own life if you're

noticing something great happens and

then you notice kind of a problem or

you're like feeling nervous or worried

about that that's really just an

indication that like it's time to break

out into the new area and the way that

you do this according to the book is

when you're thinking about uh I should

be like happy and enjoying this this new

area that I mean so you kind of

breakthrough a little bit and you move

in like let's say you make more money

than you thought you should be making

and you start feeling nervous about that

it's that point where you should be

thinking like wow like maybe I'm maybe

I'm ready for this maybe I'm actually

it's like a good thing that I'm doing

this because that's what your body

really wants to do even if you

personally feel kind of uncomfortable

about that but if you continue to press

forward and to challenge yourself you

will move beyond this area that you're

in and be able to move into other forms

of that as well now I noticed the same

thing and the reason I'm again bringing

this up now is because the connection of

fluency is quite powerful more people

often have this idea of what they think

they can do typically because they learn

in a certain way that made them maybe

not so happy

or maybe

it was just really like a frustrating

experience that stop them from actually

speaking now what usually happens as

students go to school the traditional

way and they learn languages where

they're learning how to read and write

to pass tests but that's only really

giving them an incomplete language

education that's not helping them

prepare to speak so because of this they

have a kind of limited view of what they

think they can do in conversations and

then it creates also their view of

themselves as a learner of the language

and ultimately if you fail and struggle

too many times then you just think you

know as I used to that you're just not

the kind of person that can learn

languages and so you create these

beliefs about yourself in your mind and

then it's up to you now to break those

to reverse those beliefs and to expand

your circle so all the ideas that you

have about well native speakers might

not want to speak with me because i

don't know maybe i would bore them or I

don't want to make mistakes or say

something that maybe would offend

somebody or make someone angry even so

these ideas the beliefs that you have

they again keep you inside this circle

but the really the idea the kind of

amazing idea about is that you can move

outside of that circle by again

experiencing the the kind of movement

outside but and then being grateful for

that being happy and saying like wow

maybe maybe i can maybe I am ready for

this

and so as you learn more and you try to

expand the circle in your life in

general but also with your fluency

specifically these are the things you

should be thinking about so how can I

expand the circle I mean how can I learn

more how can I continue to improve and

expand my circle outward so that I'm

always moving bigger and bigger and

bigger

from what gay Hendrix calls a zone of

competence or a zone of excellence to a

zone of genius and this just means where

you're thinking and doing things very

creatively and you're not worried about

anything you're doing really exactly

what you were kind of put on this planet

to do well these are just some things to

think about quite some deep ideas and

i'm not even quite sure if I understand

everything completely i'm just reading

the book now for the first time I'm not

even finished with it but I was so

excited about it i thought i would share

it with you anyway

you might be able to find it in your

language or if you want to challenge

yourself you can check it out in English

as well but again just take this idea

that's really the basic premise of the

book where you got this limited sphere

of what you think you can do but this is

just created by what your beliefs are

and the more conscious you become of

feelings as they arise especially after

you accomplished something like you

learn some more words and you think okay

I'm like expanding my situation but how

is that now like making me feel nervous

you should take that as a sign that

something good has happened

not that something is you know- or

something that you should be worrying

about

so use that and you decide to control

the way you feel so that you can expand

your circle outward well that's the end

of this video I hope you have enjoyed it

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I look forward to seeing you in the next

video until then keep expanding that

circle and i'll see you next time bye

bye

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