Interview: FINALLY Confident In English (after 20 years in the USA!)

hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

today I'm here with one of my students Long who recently joined my course

connect and communicate and we're going to talk about his recent success with

his English you know what he was struggling with before why he joined the

course and how he's doing now so hi Long how are you I'm good hi Stefanie so

before we begin could you just tell everyone a little bit about yourself

where you're from where you live how long you've been there that kind of

thing okay sure hello everyone my name is Long Nguyen I'm

from Vietnam originally but I've been in the States for about 20 years and I'm

currently working at University of Houston in IT field and outside of my 9 to 5

jobs I also have started building a business and have a business partner who

is a brilliant in market and you know in digital marketing she's really great

with communication and I let her handle all the communication with clients and

dealing with them but she said keep telling me that hey you need to work on

your communication skill because one day you're gonna do run this business our

company on your own so you need to step it up and you know improve the skill wow

you have me you know taking all the time you need to work on your skill yeah so

basically you've been living in the US for I think you said over 20 years right

or about 20 years yes and I think people are gonna find that really interesting

because a lot of times they think that oh if you've been living in the USA for

that long you're not gonna need help with your English by that time you

should be fluent confident fine etc so what can you tell people that kind of

think that way and think like you know oh once you live in the U.S. your

English is gonna be fine and perfect and you're not gonna have to worry about it

anymore that's true but it's also based on your

personality you know my personality is like a kinda shy quiet guy you know you

never like I try to avoid dealing with people but when you in a different

position when you run on the you have to deal with clients

constantly you know how to make client like you and offer you the job or the

business opportunity so I'm in a different position where I had to put

myself out and to deal with people issues mm-hmm exactly

okay so let's talk a little bit about how you found me online first of all do

you remember how you found me was it on Facebook or YouTube I think I saw a

couple of your videos popping up on my newsfeed I think I saw one video that

you would interview one of the software engineering from Brazil yeah Rene from

Ecuador that's a really popular video oh yeah okay yes and you talked to him and

I can see how confident he is even though his English is not that great you

know but you can see that he can have a conversations and and then he said that

within a very short period of time that he was able to get the confidence to get

in front conference and speak to a 1,000 people mm-hmm like oh my god this is

amazing you know I'm like okay let me see what

Stefanie had to offer on your mailing list

okay so that's it I just join your mailing list and then yeah then I

announced the course and then I guess we're one of the first students to join

and so yeah that's basically exactly what happened with Renee and what has

happened with so many students that I work with because at the end of the day

language skills take a lot of time to develop but as you've learned you know

confidence shifts they happen in our mind and they can happen instantly it

really all depends on your perspective how you see yourself how you see those

around you so thanks for sharing all of that and what I would love to do now is

just really start talking about the changes you've been experiencing because

we've done a couple coaching calls together and it's like the things that

you shared with me completely blew me away I was just like oh my gosh you did

what so talk to us a little bit about the changes you've been experiencing in

the last month and a half because you're still in the middle of this course like

that's the crazy thing you're not finished you're not close to finished

you're halfway through and yet you've already been having these amazing

results so tell us a little bit about what what's been happening sure so when

I first saw your email about connect and communicate you know and you can be a

little bit introduction about how I can improve my communication and like that's

it you know you just hit the nail right then for me because I'm like because I

need to work on my communication skills mm-hmm I'm pretty sure that I can invest

time and money on this course that helped me better myself you know

professionally yeah I think you were the first to jump on that so we talked right

away like as soon as you joined exactly I'm like hey I need to get it going

because I had so many things coming up to me so I need to talk to Stefanie as

fast as I can so I can improve my skill and people to practice with my clients

immediately so that's how I do it so I think when when I first talked to you I

was kind of really nervous I think and then you asked me what you nervous when

I was talking to you and I said yes you know was very nervous talking to a

native speaker mm-hm even though you live in the US and you speak with native

speakers on a daily basis right sometimes there's just like this lack of

confidence that we carry around and it's this huge burden and I know because you

know as you know I learned Spanish and I dealt with this myself so I'm bringing

all of that experience to really show you guys how to overcome this and Long

you started working on these things immediately you started connecting with

people immediately you started interacting in our private Facebook

group and just sharing progress in your results so what are some things you've

been able to do now that a month and a half ago you just weren't able to do

first I would think changing my mindset like

my way of thinking was all wrong you know like always doubt myself you

know like not confidence always worry about okay guys I'm gonna make a

mistake you know people gonna not gonna value my idea if I make a mistake

constantly worry about myself and then put negative all the negative talking to

myself instead of like you know hey you are an expert

on your field you have a lot of idea to share you are confident just like

everybody you know you are even more to some people that they don't know what they're

talking about exactly you were really putting yourself down and your expertise

down and basically letting the people around you dictate how you feel you know

that day at work rather than owning your expertise and saying yeah I'm an expert

I know what I'm talking about and I'm here to share my ideas and change the

world exactly instead of prepare myself to do that my mind was all worried about

oh my god I'm gonna make me say oh it's gonna be my turn what I'm gonna say but

I'm gonna say next okay so what about now like do do you

still deal with that do you still have them no not not no at all after I talked

to you I turn the table I'm an expert you know I had more confident now my

mind's clearer because all this worry is out of the door because I don't need to

worry about all that nonsense yeah do not just focus on what I know

and what I know it's best and try to communicate that across to my audience

yeah I just think that is so fascinating because this is a burden that you've

been carrying around for 20 years ever since you came to the states and have

been living there even though you've lived there for so many years and you

interact with native speakers on a daily basis constantly I can't imagine

constantly living with like a debilitating fear like that for decades

you know so obviously as the coach it makes me so happy to see you and other

students have results like this and really take the things that I say to

heart because it's like I see you guys they're struggling and I'm like no I

don't want you to struggle I want you guys to be confident because I see so

much in you I see your potential your intelligence everything and sometimes

you need someone to believe in you first and it helps you believe in yourself

right so you told me a couple things in our last call I think two things one you

stopped a guy on the street a photographer and ended up having a great conversation

with him and then also you went to some kind of

like teacher conference at your son's school and talked with the teachers and

basically what you emphasized was these are all things you never would have done

in the past so talk to us about those experiences yes that's right like I say

I'm a shy person so I avoid you know contact with human all the people

on the street you know I'm just like oh no eye contact

keep walk away keep walking don't talk to anybody

yes exactly so I feel awkward you know when when I had to talk to people

because I don't know what to do I'm not a good conversationalist I would say so I

think after I took your course there's a couple of homework assignment that give

me the inspiration to go do it you go go after those people when it whenever I

have a chance so I met a photographer who tried to take picture for clients and

just like just come and be very genuine and very engaged interesting on what he's

doing and I asked him hey are you a photographer professionally and he said

yes I'm like oh my god I have a new camera just like you have but I have no

idea how to work this thing maybe you can give me a few tips on how to use

this device you know this new camera that I have and he said sure why not

and I get his business card if you have and I try to follow up with him

like immediately first it's like who is this guy he didn't want to respond to me

he didn't remember you yeah he didn't remind remember me and I was like I

call him one and he was like having a dinner time and I told him oh it's not a

good time so how about I call you back and we set a time and he did he said hey

call me back tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock I did so I at 10 o'clock I text

him instead of calling this time text him and say hey we have an appointment

at 10 o'clock is it a good time so is it still a good time and I didn't hear from

him like an hour later mm-hmm I didn't give it up I text him again

I'd say I'm sure you are really busy but I just had this one question on how to use

his camera please give me a call back when you have time

immediately he called me back and then we just like talked on the phone I

talked about him where he from he actually running the business and try to get as

many clients as he can and then he showed me how to use how to work a camera so we put

face time just like you and I face time with each other and he showed me how to

work the camera perfectly that's awesome so this is basically a guy that you met

on the street you use strategies that you learned in the course to approach

him and to get him to talk with you and that's actually one of the trainings

that we have it's specifically called how to get people to talk with you you

got him to talk with you you were persistent you didn't give up and then

you ended up forming this pretty cool relationship with someone and then you

found things that you have in common you're both starting a business or both

in business you're both trying to get clients and that probably gave you even

more to talk about right the other day I was texting him and say hey how's it

going and it's like how is business going and I'm like yeah I just have two new projects

coming in and he said well I'm pretty sure you're very busy with this I'm like

yeah that's so cool so you still keep in touch it all started with a stranger

that you decided to take the initiative and approach on the street and and you

never used to be able to do something like that before no just like ignore

people I just ignore people I said I would rather work with the computer than

the people but it's completely different now now that I run a business I have to

deal with people on a daily basis yeah so at the same time it probably

feels really good right like knowing that you're transforming into this

different person who doesn't have you know issues talking with other people

and you're just like oh yeah I can talk with whoever I think that's not even a

problem for me I bet that feels really good it is it's opened so many doors

many opportunity because I learned so much from talking to these people I am

really good networking I can get into their network yeah

learn what other people are learning the experience or the lesson that they

struggle with they'll share with me that is so cool and then really quick

Long why don't you tell us also about the story talking with your son's

teacher I believe because that was also a really interesting story okay so I

think I went to an event where one of the teacher had I think was middle

school to high school but my kid is in the kindergarten so he doesn't need

middle school high school yet but I still come up to her and and showed

interest that I wanna know about her school system and what do they have to

offer for my kid like for the future for the future yes when when he turned to

sixth grade that's when they accepting student at sixth grade mm-hmm and you know

we just have a good time she's like talk to me all this interest thing idea or or

plan all the I think all the program and support that the school offer for

student you know like like this school is only have student with because I know

I read it somewhere this school prepared student to go to college 100% because

everyone that went to that school they're all end up in college in in some

sort of college or university and a lot of these kid are under disadvantaged

kids who family doesn't have a lot money they a lot of them are Hispanic and African

American but they are very successfully entering the college but how did they do

that so with the school support you know the school will give you financial to to

take those SAT courses because parent probably doesn't have money to support

this kid to go detect those advanced placement test SAT to enter colleges but

this school you know take all this away you know the gift of scholarship for

student I think they paid him twice um throughout the the high school to take

those SAT tests so if they didn't pass the second time you have to pay on your

own out of your pocket but if you have not then they'll keep them you think

they pay them two times to make sure you pass your test

it's funny because you sound like an expert now on this school the program

what they offer and this is because you talked with these people for how long I

think I would I talked to her like an hour for one hour and then I come back

for another hour to talk about something else totally different yeah

history talked about LinkedIn how they reclute people and totally different

thing the first section was all about school for my kid the second section is

more building relationship I want to learn more about what she does and what

she does for networking and what she used that effectively to connect with

other people basically she would say Oh LinkedIn was my number one tool to

connect to to people who want to work for her school oh so she was basically

like the principal of the school or one of the leaders

she was the program coordinator yes coordinator or program developer so I

just want to point out again because when we when you told me this originally

I was like you talked for how long with who would a stranger because I knew your

struggles previously so basically you talked with this stranger for two hours

and some people are hearing that going oh my gosh I can't even talk to my

family members for 30 minutes like some people just are not talkers right but

you used to not be a talker yourself right but again you learned these

strategies like how to maintain a conversation how to get people to talk

with you how to talk with them and now it's just completely opening up new

opportunities and again you're just learning that this is the best way to

move your life forward and to learn new things this is something that I learned

a long time ago connecting with people talking with them directly asking

questions it is the best way to get information and once you learn these

strategies in the psychology behind all of this because so many people you know

they're just focused on oh I want to learn a language but nobody's thinking

about how to use that language strategically to get the things that

they want in life because you know we're not just using the language we're using

it with other people so you have to think about the other

perspective and how to position things so that they will help you move forward

and get what you want because if not we just get into problems with

communication and we have mis miscommunication you know so anyhow I

guess just to wrap it up here like what are some final thoughts that you would

like to share would you recommend this course to other people if so why and

what kind of person do you think would really benefit from it yes I I would

definitely recommend its course to everyone because Stefanie have a lot

of lessons all her lessons is really valuable and fun to watch and I watch

them several times not just one you know because Stefanie is the kind of

person you know is very friendly is very supportive and it's not like my

my business partner she's like always it's like oh you need to get to work on

this instead of being supportive she was nagging about it but you are different

you're like you unlock so many door to me like like my you went to my head and

clean up all the mess in my head really that's a really great analogy thank you exactly

like clean house because I don't have to be all worried about this worry anymore

that is so awesome to hear I'm so glad and I cannot wait to see where you are

with your life your confidence your business everything a year from now

sure I'll keep you updated thank you so much Stefanie yeah and thank you for doing

this interview with me I am just so excited to hear about what what you're

doing with this material yeah appreciate it

great have a wonderful day thank you you too bye bye