6 Life-Changing Books For Advanced English Learners

What's up guys?

Today we're doing something brand new on our channel,

learning with books, aw yeah!

So this is not just a list of grammar and vocabulary

books these are real life books that natives actually read and they can help

you in developing practical skills like grit confidence and good habits that

will help you with your English but also in being a better human being and

achieving anything you want to achieve in life plus if you do read them in

English you can develop some advanced vocabulary.

Now we're not going to be

covering strategies for reading in English in this lesson but if you would

like us to make a lesson on this then let us know by giving us a like it down

below and if you're new here we are constantly helping you to take your

English to the next level like this, so if you want to learn real-life English

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bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons now let's jump into this

list of 6 incredible books for your English and your life!

All right, so the first book that I have for you on this list is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Now this is definitely one of my top books ever and I really

think it should be required in high schools all around the world because if

it were we would have a generation that would make such a bigger impact that

would get along so much better.

Now if you want to be more successful at

anything you should really consider reading this book it will help you

develop some essential skills that will help you to be more effective as a person.

Now what does this mean exactly?

This means that you will be able to

achieve more in a more productive way.

Now it will also help you in building

different relationships in business of course but also with your

girlfriend, boyfriend, wife or husband and with your children if you have them or

anyone else in your family.

Now The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

is packed full of advice that will help

you a ton in different areas of your life I want to take a look at just a

couple of these that will help you a lot with your English but then I really hope

that you'll go out and pick up this book.

So one of the first habits that Stephen Covey

talks about in this book is beginning with the end in mind.

Now Covey actually begins a section in the book by asking us to

envision our own funeral, he asks us who's there and what did they say about

us and ultimately the purpose of this is for us to get a vision of what we want

to accomplish in this life, who do we want to make an impact on.

Now as an English learner this can be extremely powerful as well as an exercise to think

about what exactly will it be like when you're fluent, what are you doing?

Who are you speaking to? What are you using the language for?

And when you can kind of

have this vision in mind it will really help power you through all of those hard

nights studying or the courage that you need to go and have a conversation with

someone in another language.

And really the more clear that you can make this vision

the more powerful that it will be.

Exactly who are you speaking to?

What are you using your English for?

Doing this should help you to actually make the

right choices today to get there.

And really what this habit is about is not

just letting life happen to you but actually designing how you want your life to be.

All right and then another habit from this book that I think really

applies to you as an English learner is to seek to understand before being understood.

Now this is really crucial in your own language but if you are

learning another language it becomes even more important.

Now what this one is about is that normally we don't really listen to people.

We're in a conversation

with another person they're talking and we're probably thinking in our head how are

we going to respond to what they're saying we're not really listening to

what they're saying.

As human beings we love speaking in fact think about it for

English learners almost everyone's goal is to become a great fluent English

speaker I very rarely hear any English learners say that they want to be a great English listener.

However the listening part is so important because

if you don't really understand people and I mean beyond just the words that

they're saying, if you don't really empathize with them really put yourself

in their shoes then it's unlikely that that relationship is going to go very

far and this is even more important when that person is from a different culture

from you because it can be so easy to judge someone when you don't really

understand where they're coming from.

Now I would imagine that your big goal with

English is to be able to communicate using the language right?

But communication is a two-way street and there's a really great quote that says

that you have two ears and one mouth use them proportionally this means that you

should listen twice as much as you speak probably really you can think of some of

the people that you feel like you connect the most to some of the people

that you've met in your life that really you felt like I understood you the best

and it probably was because they were really good at really listening to you.

So if you only choose one of these books on this list to actually go and read

I really hope it's this one, you will be a better english learner for it but more

importantly you'll be a better person.

All right so the first book that we

looked at was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, now how do you actually

even build a good habit or break a bad one?

Well journalist Charles Duhigg and

got really curious about all these questions and dug into all the science

of it bringing us a book that brings us some down to earth stories that help us

learn all about how we can replace our bad habits with really good ones.

Just to start out with an example one of the stories that I still remember is that he

tells us about a man who lost a lot of weight by creating a running habit.

What was his secret?

He actually ate a piece of chocolate after every run but more on

that in just a little bit.

So first off if you want to learn anything it's

really important that you are able to develop habits that support it because

when you do this it becomes effortless.

This is why I used to hold all of my

students accountable to creating fun everyday habits in English and with the

ones that actually succeeded in doing this I noticed huge differences in their

comprehension and English fluency.

So just to give you a taste of this book

let's look at how habits actually work.

Now a Duhigg tells us that habits have

three parts the first part is the cue now a cue is something that causes

another thing to start happening so let's take for example running again if

you want to develop a new running habit you might create a cue by leaving your

shoes right by your bed so as soon as you wake up in the morning you would see

your shoes and you would know it's time to go running.

Now for your English you

might want to try something like pairing your studying with your morning coffee

so I have my coffee in the morning and automatically I know

it's time to study English.

All right so the next part of the habit is the

routine this is really the bulk of the habit so for running it would probably

be doing the warm-up exercises the actual run and then the stretching

afterwards and for your English maybe it's actually studying some grammar

recording yourself and listening to it or doing some writing exercises.

Now the last part of the habit is the reward and remember I told you about that man at

the beginning who use chocolate to motivate himself to run?

Well that was his reward but eventually you didn't need the chocolate, he just felt so good

after running, getting a runner's high, that that was a reward in itself.

In most of time when we think about habits we only think about the behavior, right?

We think about like eating the donut or going for an exercise and going

for a run right but this cue and this reward are kind of the keys to unlocking

habits and to shaping them and remaking them and so if you know this as an

individual it's enormously powerful.

Now for your English you could totally do

the same thing you could have a treat after you've done some really hard

studying or taking really good notes watching this video but you could also

use for example watching an episode of Friends or a funny Ellen video or

writing a friend on Whatsapp and in English for a few minutes to reward

yourself for having done something more difficult in the language.

So The Power of Habit is a really great read if you want to upgrade your learnings from any of

these other books because you'll just make them a habit.

So the next book I have for you is called A Mind for Numbers, now don't be deceived by the

title of this book it's another really great fundamental read which will help

you with so many other things.

Now while it actually takes the point of view of

learning math and science which for the author Barbara Oakley was a really huge

struggle even though she eventually got her PhD in Engineering it actually

teaches us the skills that we need to be able to learn anything more effectively.

Now for me one of the most impactful things that I learned with this book is

that we usually think of learning just as studying that time when we really

have our head down in the book and we're trying to memorize really difficult

concepts and in English for sure this for you would be when you have to

memorize grammar rules or vocabulary now while this is

important for part of the brain what is called the focused brain to actually be

spending that time really memorizing which Oakley actually shows us how to do

better this is just half of the equation, so the other half of the learning

process is the diffuse brain and this is actually how our brain makes the

connections when we're not studying and we can actually use the diffuse brain

in an effective way to make information stick.

So the best thing to do when

you're really stuck and frustrated on a problem is not to keep focusing on it

you actually need to get in a very different mode of thinking and that's

what is represented here and so what this means practically

for you is you're sitting there you're working, hey get out go for a run go down

and have a...go take a shower if you need to or do something that really gets your

mind totally off it because when you're in this mode as long as your attention

is focused on that problem you're still in this mode you can't get to this way

of solving things.

So while it is important to actually have that time

where we're really studying hard if we can then activate the diffuse brain

doing something like taking a nap or playing sports it is going to stay with

us much longer this is why if you study at night sometimes it can be good then

when you sleep you'll wake up with the information much more locked down in your brain.

Now Oakley gives us a really great example of this with Thomas Edison

who is famous for inventing the light bulb.

What he would do is he would be in

a session where he was thinking really hard trying to discover something and

what he would do is he would sit down in his chair with something in his hand and

take a nap now right as Edison was falling asleep what he had in his

hand would drop in the floor and it would suddenly wake him up and what he

found often is that suddenly he would have a discovery that he wasn't

realizing before so he would kind of use this to activate the diffuse brain.

Now this concept is really just the tip of the iceberg so if you read A Mind for Numbers

this is definitely going to help you a lot with learning English and also

for learning any else you want.

Hey so I highly recommend

you go and follow us over on Instagram because every week we are doing fun

reading exercises with some incredible books like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games

The Hobbit and so much more.

So for some more fun reading with your

favorite books go and check us out over on Instagram.

So the next one is called

Grit by Angela Duckworth.

Now this one made a really huge impact on me when I read it.

in fact it should be a required reading for any parent out there as

grit is the number one characteristic that you can cultivate in your children

but even if you're not a child you can cultivate grit.

Now what is grit?

I'm saying this word a lot, right?

Now Duckworth uncovered that grit is the

number one characteristic shared by successful people whether they are

soldiers, musicians, athletes or students.

Now grit is a combination of passion and perseverance.

Now passion is the deep desire to master

whatever skill it is that you're learning and it's not really the

fireworks it's not that excitement that you get about something new, its enduring.

Maybe you already know what perseverance is perseverance is not giving up when

things get difficult.

Now a really great place to start is with the fantastic TED

talk that Angela Duckworth gave on grit and then you can grow your grit by

reading the whole book.

Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint

Now if you can learn to be gritty with your English learning you are guaranteed

to reach your goals.

All right so the next one is Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

and this one is a bit different than any of the other

ones that we've seen so far.

Now shame is a normal emotion, we all feel it, shame is

the fear that we won't be able to connect with others because they will

judge something within us that tells them that we're not worthy of that

connection with them.

Now Brené Brown actually discovered that the way to beat

shame is through vulnerability, however in most societies we tend to think that

vulnerability is the same as weakness.

Now Brené Brown shows us that this is not so.

Brené shows us the vulnerability is actually courage.

Now the courageous people, the people who are willing to be vulnerable

they show up, there in the arena, they are willing to fail.

I have a vulnerability issue and you know and I know that vulnerability is kind of the

core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness but it appears that it's

also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.

now the reason that this book is on this list is because most English learners feel shame when it

comes to speaking English now for you as a learner vulnerability is being able to

admit that you are not perfect that you make mistakes and to embrace those mistakes.

Is that courage to be able to have a

conversation with someone and to sound a bit like a child to feel that silliness

and be okay with it and to know also the people who are critical are just scared

by your courage because they don't have that same courage to go out there and to

do something that's really difficult like speaking in another language.

Now Brené Brown can say it's so much better than I can

she actually has one of the most watched TED talks of all time on these topics so

I highly recommend that you start out by watching that and if you're interested

in these ideas then you're going to really love at reading Daring Greatly.

So a really great strategy to improve your English with these books is to listen to

the audiobook while you are reading it this way you not only improve your

reading and your vocabulary but you also improve your English listening and it's

just so convenient I love listening the audiobooks every day while I'm making my breakfast.

Now I've got a really great opportunity for you to do this as well

you can sign up for audible with the link down in the description below and

in addition to a free 30-day trial you'll get two free books!

So just imagine you could choose two of the books from today's video and listen to

the audiobook absolutely free and even if you decide not to continue your

subscription after the 30 days you get to keep those two audiobooks yours forever.

So what are you waiting for?

Sign up with that link down in the

description below so that you can start learning with audible and improve your

listening with those two free audiobooks.

All right so the last but not least

book on this list is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Now this one is very short but nonetheless impactful and it was extremely popular in the

entrepreneurial community. Now Pressfield shows exactly why we don't

do the things that we know we must do in order to become better at whatever the

skill is that we're dedicating ourselves to and it's called resistance.

Now resistance is the fear that you feel when you want to go up and start a

conversation with someone in English but you don't or it's the procrastination

that you feel when you really know that you should be studying or it's the

excuses that you give that you can't do it for some reason even though other

people are out there doing it and resistance shows up all the time in our

lives just to give you an example this has probably happened to you there's

something that you know that you're going to do that you want to do it's

something that will help you to advance your English or another skill that

you're building but then all the sudden your head you think okay well the dishes

are dirty so I better do the dishes and then I need to take out the trash and

then by the time you actually have done all these little chores around the house

or little things that seem important you don't have time for the thing that is really important.

Resistance is when we tell ourselves that we'll start tomorrow

instead of just getting started right now.

Resistance as I define it with a capital R is that negative force that arises

whenever we try to move from a lower level to a higher level or we're trying

to identify with our nobler nature with our higher nature you're trying to get

out of your own little petty ego and and channel the muse or try to get something

wonderful out there so that elicits resistance it'll assist this equal and

opposite negative force.

Now Pressfield differs between pros and amateurs

now amateurs let all that fear excuses and procrastination get in the way of

attaining their higher self now the pros they also feel the fear they also hear

the voice in their head tying them they have to do something else before

they get started but they recognize that as part of the process and they show up and do it anyway.

Now in the war of art Pressfield gives us the information that

we need to stop being an amateur and to become a pro.

Now are you a pro or an amateur with your English?

An amateur we'll watch this video and then not

really do anything different, a pro will watch this video and get inspired and go

out and get one of these books or sign up for audible and download the

audiobook and start learning with it or just watch one of the TED Talks that I

mentioned in this video or do something else that's going to actually advance

their skills in English.

So my challenge to you is to pick one of these books and

download it or order it and start reading or you could get the audiobook

and start listening or do both together now you could read these in your native

language and they will really have an immense impact on you that could be a

great place to start but you could kill two birds with one stone learn a ton of

vocabulary by reading in in English so let me know down in the comments

below which of these books are you going to read or if I missed any great ones

then be sure to share them with me and other learners down in the comments below.

And if you enjoyed this lesson and want more lessons to help you with your

reading then let me know by giving it a like below or let me know down in the

comments what you would like to see and if you'd like to get some help learning

the vocabulary that natives really use in our everyday lives

then our Fluent with Friends course can help you a ton so I highly recommend

that you check that out by signing up for our free three-part masterclass.

Now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live your English, aww yeah!