Course Correction | Halftime Adjustments

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Today, a couple metaphors. We're going to talk about something that's very important in life. I was thinking about my own life yesterday, walking around yesterday.

And this topic kept popping into my head again and again. Really, I realized it's something that I have done quite significantly in quite a large and powerful and, you know, you might say radical way in my own life. And it has been something that has helped me a lot to be happier, more successful in life. And so...

It's something I want to talk about with you, and I'm going to use a couple of metaphors, a couple of ones in idiom, I guess you could say, but a couple of metaphors, an idiom to describe what we're talking about. But an important thing for having a more successful and happier life, which kind of, for me, is basically the same thing. A happy and virtuous life is a successful life.

That's what it means. So just because you're rich, I don't consider that success. It's a specific kind of material success. But when I'm talking about a successful life, what I mean is really a fulfilling life, a life full of happiness and love and virtue.

All right, so let's talk about it. We'll come back to comments and questions as usual at the end of the show. So the first one is called course correction. Course correction.

So there's something in... Outdoor skills called orienteering. Orienteering is kind of a long word that's often used. Orienteering, I think there may be some other words used to describe it.

But basically, it's how you use a compass. Use a compass to find your way in the wilderness. This is something you do in the wilderness when there are no paths. No paths, no roads, nothing.

You're out in the Rocky Mountains in the United States. And he's walking in the Rocky Mountains and you're trying to go from one point to another point on a map.

Right. So how do you do that? How do you do that? There's no paths, no sign, nothing. And maybe you can't see where you're going. Right. Because it's kind of far.

It might be over some mountains. It might be through a forest. Right. How do you find your way? And so there's a skill, it's called orienteering, where you use the map and you've got a compass.

So you look on the map, you figure out where you are, you figure out the direction you need to go, you use the compass to find that in the real world where you are, you pick a point in the distance that goes that direction, you walk to that point.

So this is called orienteering. It's finding your way in the wilderness. And of course, you know, ships used to do this before GPS, because we're talking about before GPS, guys, no satellites.

Same idea, you know, they would kind of have a heading, they'd be going a certain direction. And they would just keep going. But what they would often have to do, they would often have to do a course correction. At some point in the journey, usually several times, they would stop and they would figure out, okay, where am I now?

So maybe they travel for, you're in the mountains and you hike, you walk for, I don't know, four hours. maybe less, but let's just say four hours. So you're walking for four hours. You don't just keep going in that same direction because the problem is maybe you made a mistake.

Maybe you made a small mistake. Maybe you made a large mistake. Maybe you're not actually going where you thought you were going. And so at some point in the journey, maybe several points, you have to stop and you have to look around you and look at the map and say, where am I?

Where am I? And maybe you realize, oh, I went the wrong, I'm too far to the north, I'm too far south, I'm too far east, I'm too far west, right? And you realize, I'm not where I should be.

You realize, I was going a little bit in the wrong direction, and I have walked for four hours, and now I'm in the wrong place. And so what do you do? You make a course correction. You correct your course, right?

Once again, you find, oh, where am I now on the map? And then you have to adjust. You can't continue going the same direction on your compass because then you'll go farther and farther and farther off course. You'll get more and more and more lost, right?

You have to change your course so that you get back towards where you're trying to go. Course correction. I think you can probably see the obvious metaphor for life here.

Another one, another kind of nice metaphor for the same idea, one that I like, I was recently thinking about American football, American football. And you'll hear this, if you watch American football, especially professional football, the commentators, they always will say, they talk about halftime adjustments, halftime adjustments. Oh, the Patriots, the Patriots are so good. The coaches are so good at making halftime adjustments.

What are they talking about? Okay. And it's true. They are. This is a true thing. Where it's some really great teams, for example. So they'll be playing a game.

And American football is very strategic, right? It's kind of complicated, and they have to make some kind of very complicated plans for the game. They can't just go play and just try to change their plays all the time. They have to have what they call a game plan.

They have a game plan. So when they're going into the game, they have a game plan. But many times what happens is that during the first half, maybe the team is losing. They go in and the game plan is not working.

Their game plan isn't working. They're losing. The other team is beating them. The other team is destroying their game plan. So, for example, maybe the team says, okay, their game plan, they say, ah, we're going to go, we're going to run the ball a lot.

We're going to run a lot. We're going to run and run and run and run. And the first half, they try to run, they try to run, they try to run. But the other team is stopping them, stopping them, stopping them.

They're just not able to run the ball. So what happens? There's a halftime break. And what happens is in the halftime break, the really good teams, they will change their game plan.

And the really, really good teams, the championship level teams, they can completely change their plan. completely very, very different in the middle of the game. Just during the halftime, they get, I don't remember, 20 minutes or 30 minutes maybe. And during that time, they will totally and completely change their strategy.

And they come back. This is called a halftime adjustment or halftime adjustments. And they will come back in the second half, and suddenly they're doing everything differently, and they will beat the other team, beat the other team, beat the other team. They will come back.

They were losing. They were losing. They will suddenly come back. They will be doing great. They will beat the other team, and they will win. And there are a few teams, like I said, the really great highest level teams like the Patriots are famous.

They're famous for being great at this, that their coaches are so good they can totally change their strategy in the middle of the game and then win. Those are called halftime adjustments.

Now, bad teams, or I'd say most teams, actually are not so good at this. See, most teams... they're just not flexible enough, the coaches and the players. So what happens is, maybe this team is very good at running, right?

There's a team, they're very good at running. Let's say the Dolphins, they're my favorite team, but they suck. So the Dolphins, they're good at running the ball, they can run. So their game plan, almost every game, is the same game plan, right?

The same strategy. Oh, we're going to run the ball, we'll run the ball. So they go into the game and they're playing... another team. They run the ball.

They try to run. They try to run the first half. It's not working. It's not working. The other team is stopping them, stopping them. So what do they do in the halftime?

Nothing. They just say, we've got to try harder. We must try harder. And we'll continue to do the same thing. So they come back in the second half. They still keep trying to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball.

They don't make a big change. What happens? They lose. Quite typical. So can you see the metaphors I'm talking about? What am I talking about? I'm talking about life, of course.

See, in life, we often do the same thing. We have in our life a game plan, a strategy, right? We have some big goals. We have some ideas about what is good in life, about how to be happy, about how to be successful, right?

We all have this. When we're young, of course, but at all different times. So we have this big game. Maybe you say, ah, I need to become rich, right? I'm not, no children, I'm not getting married, and I'm going to work hard and make a lot of money.

And you have this game plan, and you follow it, and you're following it, and you're following it, you're actually doing it. But at some point, you need to stop in your life, and you need to ask, is this working? Is this game plan working?

You have to make adjustments in your life. You have to make a course correction sometimes. In other words, you have to look at your values. You have to look at these big decisions you made.

And you have to ask yourself, am I happy? Is this working to give me a happy life? Right? You've got to be very honest about it. And if you're good...

if you're very intelligent, if you're wise, you might make some huge changes to your life suddenly. You might decide, it's not working. All this working at my job, trying to make money, I'm not happy.

And you might quit your job, stop trying to make money, go live in the mountains, in a small little house that you build yourself, get married and have a lot of kids.

Tolstoy did this. Tolstoy, the Russian writer. He did something very similar to this. He made a huge course correction, or we might call it a halftime adjustment, like in the middle of his life.

He was famous as a writer, very famous in Russia, had money, right? Just living this kind of very successful kind of city life. And he just suddenly, at some point in his life, he realized, I'm unhappy. He stopped.

He stopped. He thought about his life and he made huge adjustments. He made a huge course correction. And he went and he got married. He changed his life completely, grew a big beard, lived out in the countryside, had 14 children, became a very devout, a very strong Christian.

Huge, huge changes that he made. Very fast. So this is what... can bring us a great happiness. Because see, when you're young, you don't know. You don't have life experience.

And even when you're maybe in the middle of your life, sometimes you're stuck. You're stuck. And you're trying to do things that in the past you thought they would make you happy.

It might be money. It might be traveling around a lot. It might be anything. Who knows? A certain job, a certain career. but you have to stop sometimes and really think about it and look at these big decisions you made and

You have to have the courage. It's courage, right? You have to overcome the fear. And you have to be able to make huge changes in your life. You have to be flexible enough.

Like I said, in American football, the great teams like the Patriots, they are so flexible, they will completely change their plan in the middle of the game.

I mean, they'll change everything. And this is one reason they're so difficult to beat. Other teams have so much trouble because the Patriots will adapt. They're so flexible.

They can change their plan so suddenly the other team cannot do it. The other team, they come to the game, they have one game plan, and they stay with the same plan the whole game. They're not able to change everything quickly.

But you need to do it. You need to do it. All right. One second, I'll get to comments and questions, but we'll talk a little bit more. I just have to do a couple things here real quick.

I just got to make an adjustment to my software, guys. One second. Okay. So, what I find is that there are a lot of people in the world, a lot of people, who are, they're not flexible enough.

They get stuck. They get stuck with old decisions. I've seen that so many times. There's so many people who, by the time they reach age 30, or age 40, or age 50, whatever, and

They are not happy. Maybe they're not happy in their job. Maybe they're not happy in their career. But they're stuck. They won't change, though. They're afraid to change.

They're not flexible. So maybe they're working a job. Let's say they become a teacher in the school when they're young. And they think, oh, this would be great.

And they do this, and they do it for 10 years. But then they're actually not happy. Being a school teacher, I don't know, in the beginning, maybe they were happy, maybe not. But after 10 years, they're very, very unhappy.

But they will not change. They will stay in that job for another 10 years, another 20 years. becoming less and less and less happy, more and more and more miserable and bored and stressed. Why?

Because they're unable to adjust. They just refuse to make a course correction. You know, they decided 10 years ago, oh, this is my career, this is my direction in life, I'm going to do this.

And they're just stuck and they just keep going, they keep going, they just won't change it. They just refuse to change it. Why? For a lot of people, it's fear.

They're afraid, right? Because, oh, what will I do? If I leave this job, I'm making good money. For many, it's security. They're used to it. They're afraid of the unknown.

For some, it's, again, they're inflexible, not flexible. It means their mind just becomes kind of hard. They're unable to... Make a change in life. When they were young, they were more flexible.

Now, they're stuck. And so, I've seen it so many times, again and again and again and again in life, where people will make these decisions at some time in life, and then they will not change them. They're terrified. People do it in their jobs all the time, where they'll be stuck in one career their whole life, just because when they were 18 years old, they decided to be a teacher or a programmer or whatever.

They're 18. They had no life experience. They made a decision. And then here they are. They're 30. They're very unhappy, but they'll just continue doing it.

They won't make that adjustment. And so what happens is then, of course, in their job, they're unhappy, but they become less and less happy in their life. They are not successful at life, meaning they don't create a happy, fulfilled life.

People do this even with, in the case of just, you know, decisions about, you know, like their values. Someone might say, I'm a liberal, I'm very liberal, I'm very left-wing, I'm a socialist. And they make this decision again, you know, at some point in life.

And they keep going, they keep going, and it actually, they start getting more information, they realize it's actually pretty evil, they are not happy in it, but they'll just stay because, you know, because they said it was part of their identity, this is who I am, they won't change. 10 years later, 15 years later, they still hold on to it.

And, you know, this is a lot of things like this in life. Like my mom, I always use my poor mom as an example, but still, I will. You know, she decided sometime early in her life that exercise was terrible and uncomfortable and, you know, super miserable and made her unhappy. And she has refused to change that.

Even as she's gotten fatter and fatter and more and more unhealthy, she has refused to change that attitude, that belief. And because of that, she's much less happy.

Physically, she's in pain and has all kinds of problems because she refused to make those big adjustments. You've got to be mentally flexible is what I'm saying. Now, some of you guys are doing that with English. So, right, you may be for many, many, many, many, many years, you studied with grammar rules and textbooks, grammar rules and textbooks.

And finally, you made an adjustment. You stopped. You asked yourself, is this working? Is this working? And you finally decided, no, it's not working.

This isn't working. I've been doing this for many years. It's not working. I'm going to make a huge, big change and do something totally different. Effortless English.

That's great. It shows you can do it. But you can also do this in your job. You can do this with your career. You can do this with your eating, with your physical fitness.

You can do this with your values. You can do this with everything, with relationships. I mentioned I was thinking about this and I did this in terms of children.

I was young and decided I'm not having children. No children for me. No, no, no. And obviously I waited quite a long time to do it. But thank God, literally thank God, that I woke up and I decided I'm going to make a big change.

I'm not going to be proud. A lot of it's pride too. Sometimes people are too proud to say I was wrong. My original plan was wrong. My original plan was foolish.

And sometimes the pride is that you're following your original plan and on the outside you seem successful, right? Maybe you're making a lot of money in your job.

But on the inside you hate it and you're miserable. But some people are too proud to leave that and do something that pays less but that will make them happier.

So there are lots of reasons. But the point is, I recommend, I don't know, every few years, maybe every five years, stop and really, really look at your life.

Look at where you are in life and all the major areas of your life and ask yourself, is this working? Am I really happy? Is this what I want? And if the answer is no in any area, make a huge change.

Don't be afraid. Make a huge change. Quit your job. Quit your career. Do something completely different. Break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Find someone completely different.

Have kids. Whatever it is. Do new hobbies. Just change it. Change it in a big, big way. Don't be afraid. Don't be stuck by your past decisions. Don't be too proud to say, I was wrong.

That's how we learn. Too many people are too proud. They say, you can go now. You can listen to some of my old lessons. You can listen to some of my very old podcasts.

And I say things. in those podcasts from 12 years ago. And then you listen now and I'm saying something totally different. Why? Well, because I learned something.

I'm not going to be too proud and pretend that I feel exactly the same. I've learned something. I've changed in a big way in many areas of life. So I'm going to share that with you.

And I'm not too proud to say I was wrong. I was wrong about those things in the past. I was being honest at the time. In the past, I was being honest.

That's what I thought was right. But Now I have more experience and I was wrong. So be willing to say you were wrong. It's an important thing to do. Say, this is not working.

My past decision was wrong. And now I'm going to make a big change, a big course correction. Or if we use the football metaphor, halftime adjustments, right?

Make that adjustment in the middle of your life. And change everything if you need to. You can change everything. Like Tolstoy, you can change everything.

He was living as an aristocrat, rich in a city, famous, parties, all of that. He changed everything. He moved to the countryside, grew a big beard, became a Christian, and had 14 children.

That's a big change. And he became much happier. All right, let's get into our questions and comments, etc. Okay, I was just saying something nice. Rosado says, Hi Jay, good morning.

I started your Effortless English system. I'm listening every day to your mini-stories. I'm so impressed with your mini-stories. Well, thank you very much.

Good luck to you. Hey Slavika, good to see you. Okay. Yes, La Vica says, sometimes people are not helped by a map or a compass because they have no real life plan.

It's enough for some to know that the moss is growing on the north side. Yeah, you know, I think it's just, you know, even if you don't have a plan, though, you're making decisions, right? We're constantly making decisions. It's

unavoidable. We have to make decisions and actions. Sometimes it's more unconscious, but it's good to think about these things. It's good to just examine your life every few years, really examine your life carefully, and just look at the different parts of your life and ask, is what I'm doing working?

Have my decisions been good or bad? Is the direction I'm going in this area of life making me happier or not? Don't be afraid to make big changes. So many people are afraid to make big changes because, I don't know, they're embarrassed.

What will other people think? That's one thing a lot of people worry about too, right? What will other people think if I move to the mountains and just grow my food and live in a tiny little house that I built? What will everyone think?

They're so worried about that, right? Don't worry about what other people think. You've got to just be willing to make big changes. And to try something totally different.

Maybe you try something different and it also doesn't work. But there's nothing to be afraid of. Tonke says, sometimes changes are not good, especially in middle life.

I don't know why especially in middle life. It doesn't matter. Change. If you're not happy, change. If you're happy, then of course don't change. I think that's pretty obvious.

When you look at these areas of life, if you decide, oh yes, I'm very happy in this area of my life. My marriage is wonderful and I'm very happy. Well, of course don't change that.

Or if you love your work, then don't change it. Don't change just to change. But the point is, if you're unhappy in an area, you've got to change. It doesn't matter what your age is.

If you're in the middle of your life, I'm in the middle of my life. If I didn't change, I would be so much less happy. Thank God I made the changes that I did.

This idea that you've got to worry because it's a certain area of life. Just do the big change, guys. Do it. Don't be afraid. Don't be stuck. That's fear talking.

Yeah, like Ilana Khan says, is fear. People fear leaving their comfort zone to do the adjustments. This. That's right. People are afraid and they're proud.

It's kind of a combination of both. Of course, pride is a kind of fear, really. It's a fear of what other people will think. I've got a baby next to me.

He's waking up. So anyway... Fear. It is. This is kind of, you know, it's a topic we come back to a lot. Do not fear. But that's right. But if you let fear win, you're going to be, then you just, you're doing something that's making you unhappy.

And you just continue, you'll make the rest of your life unhappy. It's stupid. It's stupid. It's like, again, it's like you're hiking and you look at the map and you realize, oh, I'm going the wrong way.

But you just continue to go that way anyway. Well, I'm going the wrong way, but I guess I'm just going to keep going this way. We see that in hiking, in walking, that would be stupid and foolish.

You can see it in sports. The team's trying something, trying something. The first half, they're losing. It's not working. They come back, and the second half, they just keep trying the same thing again.

It's obviously stupid, and that's why those teams are not good. That's why those teams lose, usually. So we see these kind of little metaphors are obvious. Well, it's the same in your life.

It's just as obvious. It's just that fear causes you to make bad decisions. Yeah, like Slavica, this is a good point. Halftime adjustments are necessary in every decade of life.

That's a good way to do it, every 10 years, to really make some big changes in your life. We need the right life direction and our life dreams. What you doing, little guy?

Yeah, here's a great one. Faith Idiom Channel says, I have both citizenship that's Brazilian and Italian. Finally, I'm 39 years old. I've lost the fear.

I've decided to move to the UK this year. Why not? Try it. Great. Good for you. You can always go back to Brazil, right? Or you can go to Italy. There's nothing to lose, guys.

And 39 is not that old. But the age doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, like Bennett says, human beings must be flexible and change according to time.

Right. And a lot of it's just about having a flexible mentality, a flexible mind, not getting stuck. You know, so often when we're stuck, we say we're stuck. You know, we...

It's just, we're doing it. No one else is, we say, oh, I'm stuck in this job. No, you're not. You are stuck. I mean, you're doing it yourself, right? It's your mind that makes you stuck.

It's not the job. The job's not holding you. You could quit tomorrow if you want to. People act like it's the outside that is like a prison that stops them from changing, which is not true.

It's always you. It's always just your thoughts that are stopping you. It's, you know, it's our mental slavery. Little boys, waking up. Twentron says, I think most people are afraid of changes due to their big ego.

And they always claim they're always right. This happens to a lot of the older generation. Not only older, a lot of young people this way too. Yes, like I said, I think you kind of have...

A group of people who do it, who stay stuck, who won't change because of fear. They're just kind of fearful. Oh, what'll happen? And then there's also a group of people who have big egos, often hiding fear, I think.

but you know that I'm right and they refuse to admit they're wrong they'll never ever say they were wrong about anything and this keeps them stuck but again like I think many times that their ego is just they're hiding the fear they don't want to show the fear and so they kind of say no I'm right I'm right and they will not change and they just become less and less happy it's sad I got a cute little baby next to me and he's making cute little sounds

Hey, Ryuchi. Good to see you again. Good, Ryuchi Kojima. Nice to see you. It's been a while. Oh, you've got a little baby, too. Yay! See you, little guy.

Bye-bye. Mommy's coming. Mommy came to get the baby. All right. Sorry about the interruption, guys. It's too cute. Too cute. Rodrigo Gamer says, I don't understand why people are so afraid of changes.

You have one life here on earth. Time flies so quickly. Amen to that. That is right. I don't either. It's like, what are you worried about, guys? There's nothing to worry about.

There's nothing to fear. There's nothing to fear. You have one life. And what a shame to be stuck with foolish decisions. You're going to make a lot of stupid decisions in life.

When you're young, you have no idea. So how do you make good decisions when you're young? You're just guessing, really. You're guessing. Maybe you listen to parents, maybe you don't.

A lot of young people just follow the media or what they're being programmed by media in schools. And so they make decisions and they study something in school or they choose a certain job. A lot of girls and boys are foolish about relationships and dating. They're just following their hormones.

Okay, all this is kind of normal. But the problem is that a lot of bad decisions get made, right? A lot of foolish things. So the question is that, you know, 10 years later, 15 years later, you're wiser, you have more life experience, you can look, and you also can look at the results of your actions.

So you can stop and see. And if you're smart, you'll say, hmm, I was foolish about this. I was foolish about that. This was a bad decision. This is not making me happy.

And you'll change in all those areas of life. And you'll make big decisions Strong changes in those areas of life. And then if you do that, you'll tend to get happier and happier and happier as you get older.

the more common thing that happens is people become less and less and less happy as they get older. This is why there's this stereotype of older people who are angry and bitter and unhappy. It's because they don't make changes. So they make bad decisions in their life early on, when they're young.

And then because they won't change those, then everything gets worse and worse and worse. It's like, again, you're hiking in the mountains and you're going a little bit in the wrong direction. Well, in the beginning, it's just a little bit. You're just a little bit in the wrong direction.

But over time, of course, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. You get farther and farther away from your destination, your goal, which is happiness. And this happens so often. If you don't stop and adjust and make some big changes and get back on a good course, then life tends to get worse and worse and worse as you get older, less and less happy.

Ilana Khan again says, I think formal education and the media try to make everyone just drift without any real thinking about purpose, without trying to change, even though they're not happy.

Mind control. Exactly right. That's exactly. They want you just to be watching videos, going to work, spending your money. Don't think about anything.

That's what they want. Yeah, like Ryuchi says, sometimes a good book can give you a hit to change your life, for sure. You can catch it because you've already started to double your life before you found the book.

Good point. Yes, books can help you wake up to other possibilities, other decisions. Very good point. Mehdi, good to see you. Mehdi says, it takes courage to be different.

It takes courage to get up at the crack of dawn pursuing your dreams. You want to hit the success, get your gear, dude. Nicely said. It does take courage.

It does take some courage to be different. To be different from everyone else. Pablo Robles with a good point. I changed so many times. I'm okay. But some people surrounding you don't like it.

Yes, right? This is what some of you fear. Some people are afraid. What will everyone else think? Yeah, I've lost friends because of it. Just... I don't know, just in the last few years, I've lost, you know, friends.

They weren't really friends anymore, honestly. But, you know, I thought, oh, maybe they're kind of friends, still old friends, but now they're gone. You know, so what? We move on.

You move forward. You move forward. It's foolish to hold, even with people, it's foolish to hold on to people who are not really friends anymore. Thank you.

Ah, Ryuchi getting a second daughter. Excellent. Very nice. Congratulations to you. That's great. Okay, Mohammed says, when some commenter said to you, I'm afraid to start a business, you said do it, start now.

Yes. And then you also said not everyone can own their own business. True. Not everyone has the mindset to do it. What's your viewpoint on that? Well, I think that's clear, right?

Not everyone can do it. I guess maybe he's asking, how do I know if I can do it? You try. That's how you know. So just try it. You might fail. There's no guarantees, guys.

I say what to do if you want to start your own business. Start now. Does that mean you will 100% succeed? No, it doesn't. You might fail. You might realize after you try your own business that you are not really an entrepreneur.

You might find that doing your own business makes you stressed and unhappy. And you decide to stop and go back to working and maybe find a different job. Maybe you change careers, whatever. But there's only one way to know 100% and that's to try it.

So you got to just do it. So on the other hand, you might try it and you might be very successful and realize that being an entrepreneur makes you super happy and you love it.

But again, how will you know? By doing it. So stop talking. Stop thinking. Stop avoiding it. Stop waiting. Just start the damn business. Start it now.

Start it now. Okay? And learn as you do it. Stop waiting. What are you waiting for? Do it. Someone who visited Japan. Anat says, I visited Japan in 2002.

I went to the Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido. That's very nice. It was awesome. I've been learning a lot from you. Well, great. Yep, that's a nice snow.

We went to Hokkaido just after, but we could still see a lot of the snow. They make these big sculptures out of snow and ice. It's really amazing. It's nice up there.

Armstrong Liberato says, I miss when you make homemade videos where you show your room sometimes very messy. Oh, I just did that for members, for the YouTube supporting members. I just did one. I showed my little workout equipment in my apartment here.

So I'll probably do more of the relaxed ones like that for the YouTube supporting members. It's something extra for you all. Thank you. Yeah, Rodrigo is exactly right.

This fear of changing is created in school where they measure you by looking at your failures and your errors. Some people don't allow themselves to do new things in life. I call this propaganda BS. Absolutely.

The fear of failure is indoctrinated. It's kind of programmed in you very strongly in schools, right? every error you know you're always worried about every mistake every error gets a big red mark everything everything you do gets a grade so yeah you become paranoid but if you really think about it so what it's just so stupid it doesn't matter there's nothing to fear

Faith says the older we get, the harder it turns to make big changes. Not necessarily. For most people that's true, but not for everybody. If you build a habit of making these changes, these adjustments, then you can do it your whole life.

It doesn't matter your age. You can be 70, you can be 60, and you can make a big change. I'm 51. I have just made giant changes in my life in the last couple years.

Huge changes in most areas of my life. Huge. And good. Good changes. They're all ready. Obviously and clearly, good and right changes. I'm much happier.

Much, much happier. I'm 50. Some of you think that's old. It doesn't have to be. The more you do it, the easier it gets. You can stay flexible mentally as you get older.

Age is an excuse. It's just an excuse. Hmm, Lyubov says, I changed myself totally. I became more optimistic. I appreciate each moment. I feel like life is so short.

I feel it so sharp. Thank you so much for your pep talks. Indeed, as you get older, you do. Life begins to feel very short and quick. It's a good point.

You feel it. And it's another reason to not waste time. And if you're not happy, change and do it right now. Don't sit around waiting. People wait, wait, wait.

As I was just saying, that example of starting a business. Oh, my God, people can waste so much time talking, talking, talking, talking, talking about starting a business. Just start it.

Stop talking. People will say, oh, I first have to write a business plan, some 50-page business plan. It's ridiculous. Don't do it. Just start your business.

Start it tomorrow. Start your business tomorrow. And it's the same thing. People talk about losing weight. Oh, I've heard this so many times. I have to lose weight.

And what do they always say? I'm going to start a diet. I'm going to start a diet next week. I'm going to start a diet on Monday. It's always in the future.

They never say I'm starting a diet right now. Right now I'm starting my diet. Right now I'm going to fast. I'm starting to fast now. There's always some time in the future because they just delay, delay, delay and avoid it.

Right? Or I'm going to start exercising. I'm going to join the gym next week. Don't say that. If you decide, I need to join the gym, walk to the gym right now, today.

Go in, pay your money, and work out. Do it today. Do it today. You know, people talking about traveling. Oh, someday I'll travel. Not someday. Start researching now.

Choose where you're going now. Start saving your money right now. Start today. Start today. Anytime you realize something, when you make this decision, this realization, this understanding, then take action immediately.

Immediately. This day. Is there any job interview course in the mini story lessons? I do talk about job interviewing in my business English course, business English conversations.

Yeah, stop standing there and do something. It's a Slavica. Yeah, it's a nice, a good way to say it. Yeah, here's Pablo says, I went all year to the same school when I was young.

Now with my kids, I realized after three changes and some homeschooling in different countries, I was programmed to fear change. They don't. Nicely said. That's right.

That's right. We're programmed to fear change. It's nothing to, be afraid of. Changes can be good. Changes can be bad. Changes come. They go. It's better when you make the decision to change yourself.

Armstrong asks, what do you think of the Christopher Gardner story? I believe that's the Pursuit of Happiness guy. They made the movie Pursuit of Happiness.

The guy, he was homeless. And he became a quite successful stock trader. That's a great story. I don't know how much of it's true. I just saw the movie.

But as a movie, as a story, it's very nice. And there's a guy who made a huge change. And he worked very, very hard. He suffered quite a lot. But he was successful.

He realized he had to make a big change in his life, and he did. So good for him. Yeah, Cesar has a good point about health. If you're healthy, you've won 90% of the battle.

The other 10%, you need to get up and work for it. Conquer it yourself. Absolutely, health and fitness are very, very important. That's an area so many people do not make changes, right?

And here's what happens. You'll hear people say a lot, you know, oh, well, when you get older, you're going to get fat. Well, that's bullshit. You shouldn't, but some people do.

A lot of people do. But here's the reason why. When they're 20, they're eating junk food and garbage. And when you're 20, you got a huge amount of energy.

Your body's still growing somewhat. You can burn all of that. So you maybe don't gain weight so much. But the problem is they continue to eat the same way.

So now they're 30 years old and they're still eating junk. And then the weight starts to come. And then they're 40 years old. So for 20 years, they have been eating garbage.

Well, then the fat starts coming on and other health problems. And then it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse. But they don't change. So then they're 60.

This is most Americans now. They're 60 and they're big and fat. And they have all these problems. And oh, my knees hurt. And oh, my shoulders hurt. And my back hurts.

And oh, I have diabetes. I have to take insulin. Do they change how they eat? No. They say it's because they're older. I'm just older now. I hear this in my family all the time.

And I want to smack them. I don't smack them. I bite my tongue. But it's a bunch of bullshit. Ajay says, change happens when some bad incident happens in life.

Like breaking up with a girlfriend, fighting with someone, or family members say something bad. Well, it can. It doesn't have to only be bad incidents in life. You can just...

I think it's less painful if you just stop and think about your life, what I'm talking about today. But yeah, sometimes it's forced, right? It can happen to us. Some crisis will force us to change because we become so unhappy that we have to change.

Yes, it does happen, but it's less painful to make the change before that. Some people have to wait until something terrible happens, but it's usually a lot less painful if you just think about your life, see what's happening, and make the change.

It's a more enjoyable way to do it. Okay, a couple more. Now I've got to go play with babies. 44 hour flight. Wow, amazing. Yeah, Mina's got a good point.

I'm at the fear again. Some people are afraid of life changes, thinking that any change that may happen could put them at risk. Right. And this is where the fear mindset, because they only focus on the bad things.

They imagine all the possible bad things that might happen. Instead, they could focus on all the great things that might happen. Right? Right. And usually the bad things are very exaggerated, and they're not going to happen.

Yeah, like Faith asked, what's it like to move so far away to a different country like Japan? Well, that's one decision I made a few years ago, was that we're going to live in Japan, and this is going to be our home now. It was a good decision. I'm very happy about it.

I love Japan. I really like it here. I'm happy to be a guest here. I love the Japanese people and culture, so I'm quite happy about it. It was a big change to move from America, my home country, to here, but I'm very happy.

As long as the Japanese will welcome me, I will stay here. Yeah, like Dario says, I'm doing intermittent fasting for about two years. Don't have a fear of new habits. You must not have a fear of new habits, exactly.

That's another great one. Fasting is a great change that I've made and also great. Bennett says, what do you think? Maybe someday all Effortless English members can meet together.

Yeah, we'll do a meeting again somewhere. I've done them in the past. They always seem to be in Spain, but maybe somewhere else we could do social meetings and we can all get together and speak English to each other and it'd be great.

Wow. Here's Isaac says, see, this is the point. You take action and you get great results. Isaac says, my name is Isaac Analko. Greetings from Mexico City.

I applied fasting more than one year ago, so started fasting under medical advice. Without exercise, I lost 52 kilos. 52 kilograms. Awesome. Fantastic.

You know, congratulations. See, that's just amazing. Great. In one year, That's, oh, 100 and whatever. Over 100 pounds. Very nice. Excellent. Oh, like Armstrong asking, you know, some people seem to succeed easily and others have to fight, fight, fight.

Well, sometimes it's because... You've got to follow what's your natural course. Sometimes the reason it's hard to succeed in an area of life is because you're doing something that actually doesn't fit you, right? Like if I tried to succeed, maybe this is part of the adjustments you have to make.

Imagine I made a decision when I was younger. I decide I'm going to work in a big company and become successful and make a lot of money. and I did it and then it would feel very tough and I'm working and working and it's ah it just seems so hard and I'm struggling well is that because there's something wrong with me no it's because it doesn't fit me I hate that environment so if I tried to do that my natural strengths my natural personality is going against what I'm trying to do so this is where you have to identify and say maybe the reason it's so hard is because I'm doing trying to do the wrong thing maybe my goal is not right

And I need to change it. I need to find a different way to be financially independent or financially successful. This is also true for fitness. Let's just talk about exercise.

So it depends on your body type and also I'd say probably your personality. There are many, many, many, many, many ways to exercise and have a decent fitness level.

And sometimes people try to do the wrong thing. Like if you're a big, big, heavy guy, I mean like, you know, big muscles, big bones, you know, you're kind of built like a powerlifting guy, like a big kind of just, you know, some people are built like that. They have that body type, kind of the opposite of me.

Well, those kind of people, you know, they don't do well trying to run long distances. So if you have that body type and then you try to run marathons all the time,

And then you say, oh, running is so hard. Oh, it's so hard. My feet and my knees hurt all the time. Well, it's because it doesn't fit them, right? That body type, much better lifting heavy weights, right?

Being a power lifter, for example, or... Maybe doing some other military type of exercise. They could still become very fit, strong, and good endurance. But maybe you doing kettlebell workouts would fit someone like that much better.

On the other hand, someone kind of really thin like me, kind of thin, taller, long legs. You know, powerlifting doesn't fit me, right? Trying to lift just huge heavy weights. I find that I tend to get injured or I don't recover.

It takes me a long time to recover. But on the other hand, I can go run easily. I can just go out and run. I've done a few marathons. I can go for long, long, long walks.

I've got very good endurance. It just fits my body type better. I still do some weight, try to get some strength, but I'm never going to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So sometimes we just have to adjust and choose what works better for us. Fitness is a great goal, but how you do it, there are many ways. And you've got to look at your body, look at your schedule, look at your personality, and find something that works. Maybe swimming works for you, maybe kettlebells, maybe powerlifting, maybe running, whatever, right?

There's lots of ways to do it. Keep going, Isaac. Isaac says now he's doing exercise because now he can do it without hurting himself. Exactly. So you fasted.

You got rid of that huge amount of weight. Now it's not stressing your body. Now you can get out there, go walk, do whatever you're doing. Man, I just want to say thumbs up to you.

And finally, I'll just say, Raja says he's going to start a business. I'm in my professional life, working since 2010. It's time to start my own business. I need motivation.

Nope, you just need to take action. Just do it. Alright guys, that's a love to you all. Book club tomorrow, The Hobbit. We start with The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins.

We'll start reading about Bilbo Baggins. So read chapter one of The Hobbit. I have to reread it again tonight. And then Sunday we'll continue with our movie club, Jerry Maguire.

Until then, lots of love to you. Join my Effortless English Club VIP members. Get your free movie course. Get on there and get it. EffortlessEnglishClub.com See you next time.