AEE 2643: The Warning Signs Were There - How to Relate Over Early Indications of a Problem

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2643. The warning signs were there. How to relate over early indications of a problem. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android.

app. What were the early warning signs of COVID? Or the last time you got sick? Or when your car broke down? These are situations we all encounter. So learn how to talk about them today.

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Go to allersenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Hey, Michelle, how are things going in your world today? What's going on?

Yeah, everything is good over here. Lindsay, has your car ever broken down? Oh, my gosh. Has my car ever broken down? Shockingly, no. Yeah, I've never had a car break down on me.

But what about you? Has that ever happened to you? um it's happened to dan where he had to then you know sit on the side of the highway um but yeah um i'm trying to think if there were any warning signs i don't think so that's what's so crazy about it um sometimes that can just happen it can just be totally unexpected but sometimes with the car there are certainly warning signs that you can just kind of ignore and then you're like oh no i i knew it

Ignore the warning signs at your own peril, right? Yes, exactly. So yeah, that's what we're talking about today. Because when something bad happens, there's often some warning signs before the actual event.

But are warning signs actual problems, Lindsay? They're not problems because they don't necessarily stop warning. whatever you're trying to do. Like maybe Dan had a hard time.

I'm just guessing maybe the car didn't start at first in the morning when he took the car out that day. But he eventually started the car. And so there was no problem initially. The problem just happened when the actual breakdown happened.

Yeah. Yes. And then you look back and you're like, oh, I remember now I had trouble. Yeah. But talking about warning signs can really help you build connection because when we talk about warning signs, it's really easy to sympathize with others' experiences.

And it's just relatable because we've all been there, right? We have a problem. And when we look back, we realize that there were several early signals that something wasn't right. Oh my gosh, for sure.

I mean, I think we're going to talk a little bit about COVID. COVID is a great example because everyone went through this. Every single person on planet earth went through COVID and we all have a story about where we were, you know, the Sunday before the Monday when everything shut down.

Right. And you know, how we felt and what we knew at the time. And we have so much more knowledge now. It's just a really interesting connection moment.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So today we're going to talk about common warning signs, how we use this term in English. And yeah, just talk about some stories.

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Excellent. So, all right, Lindsay, what are some bad situations that often have earlier warning signs? Hmm. A good one is that your computer is going to crash, right?

Or just something breaking. Something is going to break, right? What do you think are some warnings when it comes to your laptop, let's say? I feel like we can all relate to this.

I know. And there are things that it's just inconvenient in your life at the time. So you're not going to take the time. I mean, so your screen freezes, right?

Or the fan is super loud. Yeah. Yeah. Or things slow down on the computer. The mouse pad stops working. The battery life deteriorates or you have random crashes.

Right. These are all signs. Things are not going in a good direction. And you know, it's going to break when you're like in the middle of an important meeting too.

Right. And you're just like, I should have done something sooner. I have, this is not really a huge problem, but it's funny. My letter A is cracked totally down the center and

And it's fine. It's not going to do anything to me, but sometimes I'm typing and I'm just like, uh-oh. No, I get it. I get it. I'm definitely missing a couple of keys on my old laptop, which I still use that sometimes.

And it's like, okay, well... Right. Well, this is life. Life is messy, Michelle. It's okay. What about getting sick? That's a good example. We can all relate to this too.

Oh my gosh. So some early warning signs are getting sick. I mean, just being tired for no reason or achy, right? Yeah, for sure. Having a sore throat on and off.

Maybe it goes away and then it comes back. having a headache, just feeling off. Like we know our bodies, we know when we feel on and we feel off. Yeah.

Right. And yeah, I mean, what's incredible is the power sleep has. I mean, you know, you know, I've been feeling not so well the last few days and I had a, I mean, it was crazy. Like I had a sore throat, swollen glands thinking, okay, I, you know, have strep throat or whatever.

And then I just really focused on taking a couple of good naps, getting a good night's sleep. And I don't have it anymore. Knock on wood, knock on wood. But sleep is incredible.

Yeah. Sleep is incredible. It's so important. And it's so healing, too. Yeah. So, yeah, just so I think when you get those early warning signs of being sick, you can your body can fight it a little bit if, you know, you get that sleep.

So or you might start eating oranges and getting a lot of vitamin C, lots of things. Mm hmm. And then another universal thing all of our listeners have dealt with, relationship sending, especially romantic relationships, right? What are those warning signs that a relationship isn't doing so well?

I mean, I feel like both parties kind of stop trying or stop caring, right? I feel like I see this on Instagram sometimes. Sometimes this comes up in my feed, the warning signs. Yeah, yeah.

Why am I getting this? Right. Yeah. I mean, you might have less communication or kind of awkward communication, or you might have more flat out arguments.

I mean, just not feeling connected, just feeling, you know, contempt for someone. Contempt is a really serious word, really bad feeling. You're not spending time together as much. You're not trying to spend time together, things like that.

right? Yeah. Or someone, you feel like someone's keeping a secret. So they're, you know, they're just, you can just tell like something's not, something isn't as it should be.

Yes. And then businesses. I know a lot of our listeners, you guys are entrepreneurs. Some of you are entrepreneurs, business owners. So what is, what are the warning signs that a business is failing?

Or maybe your career is not going in the direction you want it to go in, right? Yeah. I mean, for businesses, delayed payments, like you're not making payments on time. Your suppliers are not getting paid.

Or if you see there's a lot of layoffs in your company or pay cuts. Sales are going down or there's high employee turnover. Like a lot of people start leaving, right? Then that's a warning sign of that.

Warning signs, yeah. Sure. Mm-hmm. And then one more is natural disasters. I mean, yeah. This is a hard one. Yeah, this is a hard one. You're not going to necessarily, unless you're a scientist, like a meteorologist, you're not necessarily going to pick up on these.

But what are the warning signs of a natural disaster? Yeah. Well, if you talk about like a snowstorm, that's easy because snowstorms are like the most harmless natural disaster in my opinion. And you could tell the air pressure becomes heavier, right?

Sorry, we got low pressure. Low pressure is more... Sorry, I'm still losing my train of thought. More snow or more precipitation, right? But I remember experiencing my first earthquake, Michelle, in Japan.

There's no warning for that. At least there wasn't for that one. I mean, it was just the middle of the night. I was in my apartment in Tokyo. Yeah. I think it was like a, something like a six on the Richter scale or a seven, but I was alone.

I was like, Oh my gosh. Were you freaking out? Of course I woke up. There was no warning and you never know when it's going to stop. Like, have you been through the worst part yet?

Or, and many of our listeners have been through much worse earthquakes, earthquakes than that even. Right. So yeah. Um, yeah, I think, um, with that it's, it's, you know, yeah,

I mean, we've even had some random we're not known for being a place with earthquakes, but we've had some random little shakes. And then you're like, and then everybody talks about was that an earthquake? What, you know, because you don't expect it.

Yeah, but yeah, definitely. Or, you know, for a tsunami, you know, earthquake or ocean water receding. Yeah, those are warning signs. Yeah, yeah. The good thing about tsunamis is they can usually predict them because the earthquake triggers the tsunami, right?

So the earthquake happens first, usually in the middle of the ocean, and then there's usually a tsunami warning. But yeah, the ocean water going back. So natural disasters are a tricky one because it's harder to get a sense of what are those warning signs. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Start your gratis proof period on shopify.com. All right. So how do we use this term warning sign in a sentence, Michelle? Yeah. Well, you could just use it on its own, a warning sign.

So how might that sound? I'm surprised you got sick. Oh, I'm not. All the warning signs were there. I was feeling fatigued and achy for a while. Or you could say early warning sign.

So it kind of means the same thing, early warning sign or warning sign, right? Yeah. Yeah. What were some early warning signs of COVID, Michelle? Well, they say a sore throat and fatigue are some of the first symptoms to show up.

But they change, right? Doesn't it always change for COVID? Certain strains of it have different, you know, more of the very sore throat. Certain ones have more of a headache.

Yeah. I think the early COVID variants had loss of smell, but I think maybe they don't need more. And so it's changed for sure. Yeah. For sure. You could also say clear warning sign.

For example, he hasn't responded to my messages in days. That's a clear warning sign that something is wrong. Let's check in on him. Yeah. Yeah. Then you might ignore the warning signs, right?

And like with your computer or something. So I heard you're experiencing some serious burnout. Yeah, I ignored all the warning signs. I was always tired and irritable, but I just kept working.

And a lot of us do this, right? We work right through burnout. And then we really crash hard. Yeah. Yes. And then there's a related expression. Now we've, we've talked about this expression before, but I wanted to touch on it today.

So hindsight is 2020. Yeah. So 2020 means what, Michelle? What are we talking about with these numbers? Yeah, perfect vision. Right. So but we use it like in this kind of a way, you know, you think about a current problem and you look back in time and it seems so obvious.

Right. All the warning signs were there, you know, and they do this a lot when they talk about COVID, actually, you know, talking about, oh, well. we should, you know, oh, we know that it only impacted these communities or that, you know, like, this age group or people with pre-existing conditions or, you know, like that, oh, if it was outside, you were like, this, this, this, and that, and what's safe and what's not. And,

Oh, so we should have reacted in this way. Yes. Yes. But it's always so easy. That's really conveying that feeling. You feel like, oh, it should have been so easy.

It should have been so clear. But in the moment, it's usually not that easy, you know, because you're dealing with new information. It's a new scenario.

And so we just say this looking back on the thing that we missed. Yeah. Right? So you might hear it like this. I can't believe I didn't see this coming.

There were so many warning signs. Yeah. Well, hindsight is always 20-20. Yeah, that's true. You can almost make people feel better that way, right? Right.

True. It's a way of saying, hey, it's okay. It'll give yourself a break. There was no way you could have known, right? Yeah. There's no way you could have known.

Yeah. All right, Michelle, let's break into a role play. We are friends here talking about my laptop breaking. Oh God, I hope not. Knock on wood. Please don't let that happen to me today.

No, not the day for it. Yeah. All right. So my laptop completely died yesterday. I'm so annoyed. I shouldn't have ignored the warning signs. Oh, no. Well, what were the warning signs?

Well, I kept overheating and freezing. I should have known. Hey, Lindsay, you know, hindsight is 20-20. Don't beat yourself up. It happens. True. I just need to rush to the repair store.

Hopefully they can fix it quickly. Okay. Oh, I hope so too. Good luck. Yeah. And then it becomes this whole stressful thing, right? Where you have to take your computer in and you can't work and it's like, oh gosh.

Yeah. It's also like, that's like how, you know, with cars too, you have to make a rental and yeah, that's no fun. It's like these, these things that power our lives, our laptops, our cars, we take for granted until they're not there. And then everything is disrupted when they're not there.

Right. Yeah. You don't realize like you don't think about how essential these things are for just running your daily life. So yes, yes, exactly. So that's why I said I shouldn't have ignored the warning signs.

And then I said, well, what were the warning signs? So you're asking a little bit more, having a conversation. And I said it was overheating. It was freezing.

I should have known. And you're making me feel better here. You're saying, hey, Lindsay, hindsight is 20-20. Don't beat yourself up. It happens. Making me feel better.

Yeah, really good stuff. So yeah, this is really important for connection. And just, you know, for kind of recognizing these warning signs. Guys, check out episode 2571.

That was don't let English vocabulary break down on you. Yes, good episode two. And Michelle, what's our connection takeaway today? Any final thoughts for our listeners today?

Yeah, well, maybe you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, wait a second, I have some warning signs going on in my own life. My relationship might be in trouble. My laptop might be about to break. Yeah, hopefully.

But maybe we brought some to light for you to get you thinking about it. But yeah, we all experienced this. these warning signs and to be able to talk about it. It's something that everybody experiences.

And a lot of times people don't realize the warning signs until later on, or maybe they see the warning signs and they're just want to ignore them. So exactly. Yes. Don't want to deal with the hassle or the heartbreak or whatever it may be, but it's a very universal thing.

situation. Or we just hope we'll get lucky and everything will be okay, right? It's true. It's true. So it's a very relatable, universal thing that we're going through here.

So that builds connection, like you said, Michelle. So guys, lean into this connection here. Anytime you share something in common with, I mean, Almost everyone in the world has gone through these scenarios, getting sick, something breaking, relationship ending, COVID.

That's kind of cool, right? That we share these struggles as human beings. So there's got to be something there in terms of connection if you know what to say, right? Good stuff.

Okay. All right. This was fun, Lindsay. And I'm wishing you good luck with all of your technology. I hope nothing breaks today, Michelle. All right. You have a good day.

I'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye. Bye. See you next time.