Good Habits, Pace

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native, Go To.

English Club dot com. Effortless English Club dot com. Join my VIP program. Speak English fluently. Speak powerfully. Speak effortlessly. Join my VIP program today at

We have a new book, our new book for our next book club, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

This is a book. It's a very clear title. It's a book about habits, good habits. Good Habits. It's a book about good habits, but very specific kinds of habits.

What kinds of habits? Well, these are kind of general habits. You could even maybe call them mindsets, attitudes. They're very general. Not habits like brushing your teeth or exercising or that kind of stuff.

Those are also good habits. But these are more mental and social habits. They're habits that are focused on learning and improvement, on achieving goals, specifically on achieving goals.

They're the kinds of attitudes, mentalities, actions and behaviors that very successful people follow. in all different kinds of life. As I mentioned in the last show, Covey's presenting in this book, he's presenting habits that are useful in all different kinds of skills and areas of life. So in your social life, in your financial life, with your health, with fitness, sports, family, all of that, everything.

So, of course, they have to be very general habits. As I was thinking about the book, I haven't started reading it again. I read this book, I don't know, many years ago.

But I kind of remember some of the main points. And I remember that one of the rules, or habits, one of the habits is connected to, actually, to the rules of effortless English. It's very interesting. I didn't plan that, but Covey, in one of his rules, I can't remember which one, habits, I mean, I keep saying rules, in one of Covey's habits, it's understand first, then be understood.

Covey's teaching this in a very general way, that in life, when you're dealing with other people, it's best to first try to understand them. To first understand. You need to understand.

And even when in general in life, the first thing you need to do, your first goal or focus should be understanding. Understanding the situation. If you have a problem, understanding the problem, really understanding it, what is the problem really is.

What are the causes, the deeper causes of the problem, really? As you can imagine, if you don't understand your problem, then you are likely to try a lot of things that will not help, that will not solve it.

You'll be trying to solve the wrong thing. So you have to first understand the problem. Or we could be more general and just say, the situation, right?

So let's say you have a goal. Imagine you have a goal. You have maybe a few big goals. But imagine you have a big goal, an important goal. Of course, you're not there yet.

You have not achieved the goal yet. Of course, that's why you have the goal. So you're not there yet. Well, the first step before you start working on getting to that goal and figuring

and taking a lot of actions and making a lot of decisions before that, you need to first understand where you are now. You have to understand your current situation.

So, for example, in English, are you a low, low beginner, a zero-level beginner? Or are you kind of a low-intermediate beginner? You know, person, you kind of understand my podcast, this podcast, this show, but it's quite difficult.

Or you're more like a medium-intermediate level, so you understand most of the podcast well. You understand over 80%, but they're occasionally words you don't understand.

Or you understand it quite easily, that means you're probably closer to the middle to high intermediate level, if you understand almost all of it. And if it seems fairly easy.

Why do you need to understand that first? Well, because your starting point requires different actions, right? Someone who's very low level needs to do different things.

to become fluent, to become powerful, to become effortless in English, their first actions will be different than someone who's high intermediate, who's trying to reach the same high level.

So the high intermediate level person might read a lot of audiobooks. They might join my VIP program. They might listen to lots of podcasts. They might start actually do a lot of reading, too.

They might be ready to do the pronunciation course and really work on their pronunciation. But someone who's low, low, low level, they can't do those things. All of those things would be much too difficult.

They have to start in a different place. In my system, in the Effortless English system, those lower level people, like the low intermediate level folks, people, focus mostly on the mini story lessons and the point of view lessons and they have to repeat them a lot. They have to do a lot more repetition.

When you get higher level, you still need repetition. You always need repetition, but you need less repetition as you get more advanced. As you get more and more advanced...

you can repeat a bit less and focus on more content, right? A more variety, which is kind of fun when you get more advanced. That's nice. But when you're low level, it's the opposite.

You have to just focus on just a few materials, just a few audios. Just, you know, like start with my original course, for example, and just really focus on those...

mini-stories especially. Or if you're a little higher, if you're like a middle-intermediate, focus on that Power English course and go slowly and a huge, huge, huge amount of repetition.

But you have to understand. You have to know yourself. You have to understand your situation. So first understand, then be understood. This is one of Covey's important habits for life success.

Because a lot of times, a lot of people, they try to be understood, right? They try to talk, talk, talk before they listen. And that's where it connects to Effortless English. Because in Effortless English, we have the same philosophy.

First, you learn to understand, right? Input, learning with your ears, right? Learning through listening, listening, listening. You must build your listening skill first.

Your understanding skill comes first. It's the foundation of all your English ability to become really fluent and effortless. You must, must, must first be really good at understanding it.

You don't learn unless you understand it. Too many people, too many textbooks, too many schools focus on being understood first, right? Speaking. Fluency.

Pronunciation. They go backwards. This is a common problem in many areas of life. People trying to be understood first instead of understanding. But with Everett's English, you focus on

Listening, listening, listening, listening, listening. As you get more advanced towards the high intermediate level, you still focus on understanding, but then you add reading also. You start to add some more reading. I encourage you to read books.

That's why we're doing this book club. But it's still understanding. The reading helps you get more vocabulary. Reading is really the best way to build up

a lot more vocabulary. After you get that fundamental English, you master it. You become fluent with that most common English. That's the first step. And then the next step is you start widening, widening, increasing your vocabulary.

And that's with the VIP program. And also, it's with a lot of extra reading that you do. Reading and audiobooks both. But you're still focused on understanding.

You're really, really mastering understanding English first. Listening and then reading. Especially listening. And only after that, only after your listening skills are excellent, and your reading skills too, only after that,

do you start to focus on being understood by other people? In other words, speaking in a clear, understandable way. That comes after the listening ability.

Also with Effortless English, when you learn speaking with me, when we specifically focus on speaking... We focus on pronunciation because, again, that's the most important skill for being understood by others.

If your grammar is a little bad when you speak, it's not so serious. Other people will still usually understand you. Some grammar mistakes is no big deal.

If your fluency is a little slow, if you speak a bit slowly when you speak English, again, that's not really a problem. Other people will still understand you. In fact, they might understand you even better because you're speaking more slowly. So having superfluency is also not really important, at least not at the beginning.

But pronunciation is incredibly important. Because if your pronunciation is bad, then people don't understand you. You're not understood. Others will not understand what you are saying.

You might be using the correct vocabulary. You might be using excellent grammar. You might be speaking very quickly and fluently, but if your pronunciation's bad, it's all wasted.

If your pronunciation's bad, other people won't know what you're saying. They won't understand you. You'll be speaking and using all this great grammar and vocabulary and so quick, feeling great, and then they look at you confused.

Like, what are you saying? They can't understand you. There's a problem in, I'd say in language learning in general, but certainly in English learning and teaching. And the problem is this.

It got... taken over, controlled by linguistic professors. Okay? University PhD research professors analyzing the English language. And they created a huge amount of very complicated analysis, right?

Analyzing... the English language, all the nouns and the verbs and the clauses and the phrases. English teachers have one set of jargon of words and systems they use to describe the English language.

And then actual linguists, professional linguists, people like Noam Chomsky, they also look at the grammar and the vocab and the structures, but they use different systems, different words, different jargon, slang, basically, to describe the same language, the same systems.

And it's all super, super, super complicated. That's why you get these You studied for years and years and years in these grammar books and textbooks with all the names of all of these verb tenses and other forms of English.

You know, possessives and countable nouns and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Super complicated language. And it's because these people that created these systems, the people who wrote these books, they're academics, right? They're school people.

So their job is to just analyze, analyze, talk about, talk about, right? To analyze and talk about really anything, any subject. In this case, the English language. And so they make it more and more and more and more and more complicated because they're not focused on performance.

Actually doing it or helping other people do it. That's not what they're focused on. They're not players and they're not coaches. I'm a coach. So I'm interested in performance, your performance.

My performance with English is excellent because I'm a native speaker and, you know, I'm a fairly good writer, fairly well educated, all of that. But then my challenge is how do I coach you? How do I help you to really perform, to really do it?

so that you understand and speak. And so I'm looking at the doing, really doing it. And here's the good news. You don't need all of those complicated, complex theories and rules and all of that.

It's really quite simple with English. Number one, you need to understand. Number two, you need to be understood. That's it. Two skills. We can break it into smaller skills like reading, writing, speaking and listening.

But basically, it's understand, be understood. Right? That's the goal. That's exactly what you want. That's what language is about and that's what English is about.

Right? That's the function, what you really, really want. When someone talks to you, speaks to you in English, you want to understand them. You want to understand what they are communicating.

The messages. What are they saying to you? What do they want? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? What are they communicating? You need to understand...

Number two, when you want to communicate an idea, a feeling, something you need, whatever, you need to be understood. You need the other person to understand what you are trying to say, what you want, what you need, the information, whatever. That's it. That's all.

So whenever you are learning English, practicing, training, you must always remember these are the two ultimate, final, most important goals. See, the good news is you don't need to be perfect to understand and be understood.

Especially with the speaking part, being understood, you don't need to be perfect. You can make grammar mistakes. You know, I talk to... I can talk to my nephews.

I have... In America, I have two little nephews. It's a little, small, like toddlers. Not quite babies, right? They're talking now, but they're... Yeah, they're still...

kind of that baby language a little bit. Well, they make mistakes. They don't use perfect grammar. But I understand them very well. They can communicate with me quite well.

They don't need to have perfect, perfect, perfect grammar every time. Because what little babies and little kids... understand, naturally, they naturally understand that communication is the most important thing, not some kind of intellectual perfection.

So if they say, you know, I want, I want eat, eat, eat, eat, food, food, hungry, I'm hungry. Okay, that's not... They should say, I am hungry. They could conjugate their verbs better.

We can look at this and find, quote, mistakes. So-called mistakes. But the truth is, it's very clear communication. It's totally clear. Completely, 100% understandable.

No confusion. We understand exactly what that child wants. We understand exactly what they are saying. That's good communication. It's nice to use great grammar.

It's nice, you know, to... You sound more intellectual. You sound more, you know, educated. All of that's great. It's nice, but it's secondary. It's of less importance.

So this is why, again, when you are focusing on speaking, when you start getting up towards that advanced level, you're speaking, but now you realize, you know, I really want to work on my speaking. I want to train my speaking.

You've got to remember that your first goal must be to be understood better. In fact, your goal really should be to be understood 100% of the time. Every time you speak English, the other person...

or the other people, they understand exactly what you're saying. Do you see? It's different. It's different. See, most students, because they're trained in schools, most students, their goal is, oh, I want to improve my English.

I need to... I need to... I've got to get my grammar better. I'm still... Oh, I keep making these mistakes. I didn't conjugate the verb correctly. And...

the verb didn't agree with the subject, that kind of stuff, and they get worried about that. But that's really distracting. That's not the natural or intelligent way.

Being understood is the most important thing. People will understand you if you make some verb mistakes with conjugation, but what they will not understand is bad pronunciation.

So that's why when you're ready to get that more advanced level and really improve your communication, your spoken communication, so that you are understood 100%, pronunciation should be the main focus. That should be the main thing you focus on for training your speech.

The fluency, the vocabulary, the grammar really happens naturally. That will improve naturally as you continue to listen, listen, listen, listen and read, read, read, read. You'll naturally improve your grammar and your fluency.

and the number of words you know and the number of words you use. All of that happens quite naturally as long as you continue to do lots of reading and lots and lots and lots of listening.

But the pronunciation, that does require some training, a little more focus, a little more discipline. That's why I created the pronunciation course to specifically train that.

So when... When you want to get to that more advanced level, when you want to focus on being understood, realize that pronunciation is the main thing, right? Bad pronunciation is the main reason that intermediate and above speakers have trouble.

The main reason that people who are intermediate or high intermediate and higher Those people, the reason that they are not understood is usually pronunciation. It's not grammar.

It's not grammar. It's not vocabulary. You don't need a huge amount of vocabulary to be understood. You can communicate most things, certainly daily, normal, everyday things, with very simple, common vocabulary.

And you can use short sentences. And you can make some grammar mistakes. All of those are okay. And still understandable. So work, work, work on that pronunciation.

Work very hard on that. And then once that's great, once you are clearly understood, then that last level is okay. You just continue growing your vocabulary. Oh, maybe you do work on that grammar a bit.

You know, most of it will happen naturally as you just enjoy English. So, understand first. That's listening. Mostly listening. And, of course, reading too.

Understand. Get that at a high level. Excellent high level. Then, number two, be understood. And, again, that's mostly pronunciation focus. Quite interesting.

When we get to that chapter in the book, Stephen Covey's book, Of course, we'll be talking about other areas of life, not English. We'll be using that same habit to first understand, then later be understood.

We'll learn that habit and how to use it in other parts of life. Of course, my pronunciation course and my VIP program, they're both at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

If you're at that kind of high intermediate level, somewhere around there, low advanced, high intermediate, somewhere in that range, I recommend start VIP first, commit to the VIP program, join, focus on that VIP program and those lessons for a few months, and

then when you have those good habits of using those VIP lessons, keep going, continue with VIP, then you can add the pronunciation course also. And they're both at effortlessenglishclub.com.

Oh, by the way, VIP members, current VIP members, we are doing an update on our website right now, the course's website. Actually, this is for all the courses, but especially VIP.

We're doing an update, so there are going to be a few problems on the website this week. In the next few days, you might notice that the current VIP lesson might disappear from the menu for a few days.

Some other changes will happen. We're just doing some changes to the computer system, so my apologies. Just be patient. We will get it fixed soon. Quite quickly.

Just a few days and then everything will be working normally again. So my apologies for that inconvenience. Following up with our last topic of appreciating those small pleasures.

I've talked a lot about simplicity. The benefits of living a more simple life. We talked about this a lot when we were doing the Rich Dad book. Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

There are many economic, financial benefits to what's called voluntary simplicity. Voluntary simplicity. Voluntary is important. It means you choose to do it.

It's no fun if it's not voluntary. If someone else forces you to live a simple life, to not spend much money, to not have nice things, well then you just feel like you're poor. It doesn't feel good. But when you use your own self-discipline and you choose to live a more simple life,

You choose to spend less money than you get, than you earn. That's very powerful. It has many benefits. We talked about that. Financial benefits, but also mental and emotional benefits.

The benefit of giving you more time. And indeed, spiritual benefits. Connected to this is the idea of pace of life. P-A-C-E. Pace. That's a nice word.

Pace. Pace means speed. It's the speed that you do something. How fast do you do something? That's called the pace. It's used in running a lot. So runners, this is a good word to know.

What is your pace? A lot of times runners will ask this question. We meet another runner. Oh, what's your pace? What's your pace in the marathon? What that means is what rate?

What's your speed, your average speed? So that means for a runner, that means like how many minutes per mile? Or outside of America, kilometer. But Americans, we say per mile.

So like I run an eight-minute mile. That means I run one mile in eight minutes. That's my pace. It's kind of like in a car. Your speedometer shows you your pace.

But it has the idea, too, of kind of your average pace. Not just right now, but also in a more general way, too. Or you might say, okay, I'm training for a marathon. What pace should I run when I train for a marathon?

Okay. If it's your first marathon, the best advice, I think, is to train at a very slow pace, like a 12-minute mile. which is quite slow, but that's the best, right? Obviously, when you do longer races, your pace will go down.

You can't run the same speed if you're running 50 miles as one mile. If you're only running one mile, you can run faster because you won't get tired so much. It's much shorter.

So that's pace. It's pace. Well, we can also talk about a pace of life Common phrases we use in English. It's very fast-paced. New York, for example. New York City.

New York City is very fast-paced. Fast-paced. P-A-C-E-D. Fast-paced. What does that mean? Well, it means the lifestyle in New York City is fast. It's very busy.

It's very busy. People are moving around very fast. They walk fast if you're on the street. New Yorkers, they walk quickly. They're busy. They always seem to be in a hurry, right?

They're always hurrying from one thing to another, to another, to another. So it's a fast-paced life. A very busy, fast life. And then, of course, we have the opposite.

The opposite. Slow-paced. Slow-paced life. So you might say, oh, the countryside. In the South, life is slower-paced. The South, where I'm from, is slower-paced.

At least traditionally, outside of the cities, outside of the big cities, life is slower in the South. People, less busy. They don't run around quite so much.

Fast-paced and slow-paced. One of the benefits of living a more simple life is that you get more time. This is also one of the benefits of financial independence.

And I believe in life. We need both. We need slow-paced times. Time periods. Daily, I think. Daily. Time to relax. Time to appreciate. Time to listen, observe, notice.

When you're too busy, when you're too active, doing, doing, doing things, it's easy to... kind of be so busy that you don't notice, that you don't appreciate anything that's happening.

I'll give you an example. A lot of families in America, I believe, in my opinion, they're too fast-paced. There's this kind of culture or mentality with parents that...

They have to constantly, constantly be busy. Their children, that is, need to be constantly busy doing some kind of organized activity. So what happens is the parents and the kids are constantly moving, moving, moving, running around, constantly in a hurry all day long. You know, they get up early and then they're running and they're eating their breakfast very fast.

Then they have to rush and hurry to school. And then, of course, they're busy at school. And then, you know, mom or dad or whoever... gets them from school, and then immediately after school, they go to some other activity, maybe a sport, maybe music lessons, dance lessons, something like that.

And then they're doing that, and then immediately after that's done, oh, then they've got to, parents pick them up again, and then they have to rush to some other activity.

And after that, they rush home, and then they have to do homework, because they've got homework from school, and then they're busy doing that. Then it's time to eat. You know, it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There's never a moment of

stillness, calm, right? It's just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Very fast-paced. And the problem with this, and it's a complaint, it's something that parents in America complain about a lot, it's something I've noticed a lot in families in the States, is that they're so busy

They miss out on something so important that they don't take the time to just be with each other and enjoy each other's company. To just be with each other in a relaxed way, nothing to do specifically. Just, you know, enjoy being together. Just, you know, enjoy appreciating each other.

Maybe playing a little game together. Maybe, I don't know, maybe just sitting in the kitchen and, you know, helping to cook a meal. Maybe just running around the house. Maybe running around and playing outdoors.

Maybe doing some little art project together. but not structured, not organized, and no hurry, right? No time limit, no time schedule, just to be together.

I think that's when most of the magic moments happen in families. I think those are the most important moments. I think that is... Much more important than some lesson or activity outside of the house that requires a slower pace of life.

Individually, the same thing. In the last show, I discussed just sitting and appreciating those small pleasures of life, right? Well, again, that requires a little time. You've got to slow down.

Mostly, it's slowing down your mind. Because when you're rushing, right? When you're in a hurry, when you have such a busy schedule, your mind gets very fast. It's filled with thoughts constantly.

And it's easy to become very distracted and not to appreciate this moment now. There are two ways. For example, you can drink coffee in two ways. You can just make a cup of coffee and drink it really fast because you're in a hurry and you've got to run and get off to work or wherever.

And it's just rush, rush, rush. You hardly even taste it. You're just getting it for that caffeine energy and that's it. You're kind of distracted. You're thinking about the next thing you have to do and the next thing and the next thing.

That's a fast-paced of life. Fast-paced. Fast-paced. A fast-paced life, if we want to use it as an adjective, add a D. Fast-paced life. Or as a noun, just a fast-paced.

I'm using it like a phrase there. But the other way, the way I prefer to drink coffee, is to get your coffee and to sit and to drink it slowly and notice the flavor.

Sip on it. Sit back and relax. While you're sipping on that coffee, look around. If I'm in a coffee shop, I like to just look at the people, notice the people.

I listen, I kind of just listen to the background noise of all the conversations happening and the music playing. And then I'll just notice my thoughts. It's kind of a little bit of a kind of meditation.

Notice my thoughts and a lot of times I'll get... You know, creative and interesting thoughts pop into my head at that time because I slow down and I let them come and I listen to them, right? That intuition, remember, that intuition and also creativity requires a calmer mind.

So I'll sit there and often I'll have my little notebook and a pen and as these thoughts and ideas come, I'll just write them down. It's all very slow paced.

And as I do that, sometimes I'll just think of things I'm grateful for. I'll think of the many things in my life I appreciate. It's the reason I now enjoy walking more than running.

I think running is still great. Jogging is still a great exercise. I'm not doing it currently. But I actually prefer walking or rucking. I usually, when I walk, I carry a little bit of a heavy backpack.

Not super heavy, but a little heavy. Add a little weight. Makes it a little more difficult. But I like it because it's slower. And the reason I like that is because it's slower, I have more time to look around and notice the people, the buildings, the sky, the sun, the clouds, the moon, the stars...

my own thoughts. And again, because it's slower paced, because my mind is calmer, again, I often get some really nice ideas while I'm walking. When I'm running, it's less so. When I'm running, it feels more like I'm training.

Running can still be nice. When running, sometimes what I try to do is... Just focus on my breathing as I'm running. And I'll let my mind just become totally clear.

Try not to think at all. But the point is, these things, intuition, creativity, appreciation, they all require a calmer mind. And that usually requires slowing down.

Mindfulness, you know, noticing the present moment now. Again, it's easier to do when you slow down sometimes. And the reason I'm talking about this is because in our modern world, it tends to be busy and noisy, right? We need action, too.

I mean, just sitting around all the time, then we can become lazy. So that's the sort of negative extreme, right? If you become too slow-paced, then you become lazy, and that's not good. We know that.

But I think generally, for most people now in our kind of city-type lives or our modern lives with... I think for most people it's the opposite problem. Most people, too fast-paced, too busy, too noisy, too distracting. And what most need is a slower pace of life to balance that out.

You've got to find a way to slow things down. Each individual naturally has a kind of point of balance that they prefer. It depends kind of how you're raised. I think that's part of it.

It depends on your personality. So again, someone born and raised in New York City probably will want a more active, faster life than me. I was born and raised in the South. I prefer a much slower pace of life.

So of course there are individual differences there. But in general, we all need both. We all need both. And I think in general, a lot of us don't get enough slow time.

And when you don't do that, that's when you suddenly feel like your whole life is zooming by, is going by, and you're not connecting with other people. There's something missing underneath it. That's what I see with those families in America. They're all racing around and doing all this stuff,

The parents are doing all these things that seem positive, taking the kids to all these activities and classes, and they're all running around doing all this stuff. Clearly, the parents care about their kids. Of course they do, but they're missing something.

It's because they never have the time to just make those deep, loving connections. That requires just hanging out together. You don't have to do much special.

Just be together lots and lots of time with nothing to do. That's when the magic happens, usually. Because when there's nothing to do, that's when you or the kids start thinking, well, what do you want to do? And then everyone has to get creative and you start talking and maybe you play a game and maybe you do a little activity or who knows.

I just want to encourage you this is why I encourage you as you listen to English go for a walk some of you are fitness people I know I understand it so if you prefer jogging no problem or biking that's also great

But also just take those times, especially you runners. Maybe on your easy days when you, some runners, you guys, you take days off or you have, you schedule easy days.

I know you cyclists do the same. Well, maybe on those easy days, those rest days, instead of doing nothing, go for a nice slow walk. It's actually better. There are a lot of fitness studies about this.

It's called active rest. Your muscles actually will benefit from the slow walk. It's better than doing nothing. It's better than total rest. Because when you do the active rest, when you just slowly walk, it gets some fresh blood into your muscles and it helps your muscles recover faster.

So even if you are doing some hard exercises on those rest days, do active rest. Go for nice, long, slow walks. Not as training, just to slow down. And most importantly, while you're doing that slow walk, do what we discussed earlier this week.

Look around. Appreciate the beauty around you. I've been doing this, too. You know, I often comment how Osaka's kind of an ugly city. It is. Architecture-wise, it's not pretty.

But there's still, you know, there are little parks, there are trees. Especially in the evenings, there is a little bit of magic, you know. Cities have their charm, too. The lights and the energy and all that.

Sometimes I just need to slow down and notice it and appreciate it for what it is. So try that. I'd like you to try that this weekend. Just try slowing down.

Start designing time. Cutting unnecessary busyness from your schedule. And allowing more time for just whatever. No plan. No schedule. Nothing. And during those slow times, don't watch TV.

Don't distract yourself with something passive. Instead... You sit, sip on a coffee, sip on a tea, sip on water, juice, whatever. Just notice what's around you.

Notice and appreciate the people around you. The people you love and care about. Even just strangers around you. If you have nature around you, notice that.

That's wonderful. You've always got the sky and the clouds above you. As I said, even in a city... There can be a kind of beauty in a city with the energy and the lights and the movement.

You just sit back and appreciate it and notice it. That's all you do. And if you want to... As you do this, your mind will get calmer. You can have a notebook with you and a few, maybe some cool ideas pop into your head.

Just write them down and then let them go. Just write it down. Then you don't have to keep thinking about it. Write it down. Put the pen down. Continue to notice and appreciate.

And just think about all the things you love and appreciate and are grateful for in your life. Slow down. Slow down. Slow that pace down sometimes. I am going to go for a nice slow walk home.

Have a great weekend, and I will see you in a couple days. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com Commit to my VIP program. Commit today at EffortlessEnglishClub.com EffortlessEnglishClub.com

Thank you.