How To Stop Worrying | Part 4

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I'm a little sick today. I've got a cold. Don't usually get cold, but I've got a little one today. So, anyway, my energy might be a little lower than normal.

Today we're talking about our book club, part four of... How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Now there are lots of... Part four is kind of long. So I'm going to do this one a little faster.

I think there are seven different techniques. So I'm just going to review the techniques. I'm not going to talk a lot about the stories in each chapter and all that stuff. We're just going to focus on each technique because that's a lot still.

Seven techniques. So I'm just going to... Say the technique and then discuss it. Say the technique, discuss it. Say the technique, discuss it. We won't worry about all the extra stuff in each chapter because this is kind of a large section.

Of course, we are live. Today we're live on Facebook with lots of people saying hello as usual. Lots of Brazilians today on the weekend. But we also have Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kurdistan...

Poland, Algeria, saying congrats on your babies. Thank you. All right. Very good. Well, why don't we just get started, shall we? Excuse me. As usual, let's just jump in.

And Diego, hey, in Italy. Hello. Let's go ahead and just jump in and let's talk about these techniques. Then I'll come to the comments and questions as usual.

All right. So this is section four of the book. All right, rule, the first one. He calls them rules, but, you know, these are basically techniques to stop worrying.

So we're just getting, this book is just basically a big collection of different techniques to help you with worry. And the idea is that you just choose ones that, you know, that seem useful, that you think might be helpful for you. So some of the techniques, maybe you think, this one's not useful for me, or I don't like this one, or that one's no good, or I tried that one, didn't work. That's okay, because there's so many in the book that, you know, hopefully you can find three or four techniques

techniques that work well for you to handle worry, to reduce worry. And then you can practice those a lot. Try all the techniques and then get your favorite ones and then practice those and make them into habits. And in this way, you can reduce your fear, reduce your worry long term when you find a few favorite ones and make them habits.

So we're just discussing all of them. As I said, don't worry if some of them you don't like. That's normal. Okay, number one. In this section, technique one.

Let's fill our minds with thoughts of peace, courage, health, and hope. For our life is what our thoughts make it. So this is basically prevention, right? This is preventing worry.

And what's the best way to prevent worry? The best way to prevent fear? All these negative thoughts... is to fill your mind as a habit. Constantly think about positive, good things.

Make this a habit. So when you wake up in the morning, have a habit to think of something good. Read. A big one is media, especially now. right, with internet and phones and all of this.

I mean, if you can watch the news, you can read about the news, it's all negative, it's all fear, it's all bad, and you're going to worry, worry, worry all the time. But you can instead focus on reading or watching or listening to positive things, things that make you feel happier, stronger. Hopefully this podcast is one of those things, and you can even find other podcasts. Books are a great way to do this, right?

So you try to fill yourself up, fill your mind up with thoughts about health and goodness and family and peace and love and all of these good things as much as you can. I mean, sometimes some negative thoughts will come in, of course, but the more you focus on these good things, you definitely will reduce the amount of worry, the amount of fear in your life.

Too many people spend all day focused on bad stuff reading bad stuff, listening to bad stuff. So of course they're unhappy and they have more worry and fear in their life.

So that's a good technique. That's just a good life practice, really. All right, the second one, the next chapter. Here's the next technique. Let's never try to get even with our enemies.

Okay, this is interesting. Because if we do, we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let's do what General Eisenhower does. Let's never waste a minute thinking about people we don't like.

Okay, so this is basically about revenge. Revenge. This does not mean, I just want to point out, this does not mean that you are weak. I mean, if you're being attacked, fight back.

If someone's attacking you, someone's lying to you, someone's doing something bad to you, absolutely, definitely fight. But what this rule is saying, what this technique is saying, that after the fighting's finished, after everything's finished, don't continue to think about revenge and bad stuff about these other people. Because it's over. It's done.

You have to let it go. So he mentions after World War II, there's no point for... to continue thinking about the enemy. You know, the war's over. Now it's time for peace.

You have to let go of all of that, as an example. Now, some countries don't do this. There are some countries in Asia that still complain about Japan, even today. It's a propaganda technique to control their population.

But it's foolish. It's the opposite of this rule. But, you know, like all the European countries, they've just kind of let go now, right? The French are still not blaming the Germans for World War II, as far as I know.

Certainly Americans are not. We don't care. But this is not political. This is about personal life. So a better personal life example, let's say you're a guy, a boy, and you have a girlfriend, and, I don't know, she lies to you, she cheats on you, and then you break up.

Okay, so of course you're going to be upset when all this is happening. And no, you should not be weak. Tell her she's a liar. Say whatever you need to say.

But then, after you break up, you have to let go. Because some people, then, some people, for many months, sometimes for years and years and years, they still will continue thinking about that person. And, oh, they cheated me. Oh, they cheated me.

They did something bad to me. For years and years and years, and thinking about all these bad thoughts about the person. The person's gone. It's crazy.

You just make yourself so unhappy. And then this negative mindset will make you worry and be upset and be negative all the time about many, many things.

So basically this rule is saying, let go. When after the situation is finished, if you have a fight, if you have an argument, just let go. Children are good at this, by the way. I remember as a child, I had a little group of friends when I was a boy.

All these other boys. We would get in fights. I mean, arguments meaning, well, sometimes even fights, physical fights. But usually, you know, arguments.

We'd be angry with each other for maybe, I don't know, a couple days at most. And then we would just kind of, oh, sorry, sorry. You know, we'd say sorry to each other. And then, boom, finished.

It was done. We're back to being best friends again. And we just start playing and having a good time. Never thought about it again. That's a great thing to do, especially with people, your friends and your family members.

You know, I think that kids are good at that, that they can just quickly just, they can be angry, but then when it's done, it's done, and then they're back to being best friends again.

Okay, technique number three, moving on to technique number three. instead of worrying about ingratitude let's expect it okay so this is something else people worry about they worry that people will not be grateful i'm guilty of this one i have been in the past where you do something nice you help someone but they're not grateful right they they they don't they don't say thank you or they say thank you but they really don't care and uh And then what happens is people start to worry about this. Oh, you know, should I help them?

Because they're not going to be grateful to me. Or I did all this good stuff and they weren't grateful to me. They're not grateful. This is called ingratitude.

The in is negative, I-N. The beginning of the word makes it negative. So it means not gratitude. So I've been guilty of this myself where I have done nice things for people and they're not grateful.

And I've done it many, many times. And usually people just are not very grateful. And I'll worry about it. I'll get upset about it sometimes. But he says, he gives a great example of this.

He says, let's remember. So he's talking about the Bible. He's a Christian. He was a Christian. He's not alive anymore. Dale Carnegie was Christian. So he says, let's remember Jesus healed ten lepers.

Leprosy is that terrible skin disease. So Jesus, he healed. He cured them. He healed ten lepers one day. Only one of them thanked him. So, right? In other words, this is an old and this is basic human nature.

I mean, this is a terrible, horrible disease. Jesus heals them. No more disease. And nine of them did not say thank you. They're just like, yeah, great, fine.

And they just kind of walk off. Not grateful for something that amazing and that wonderful. Only one said thank you. So, you know, this is kind of an example.

He's saying, why should we, you and I, why should we expect gratitude when even Jesus did not get it? Jesus did not get gratitude for healing this terrible disease.

From most people, you know, 9 out of 10, 90%, no gratitude. So, we're probably not also, we're also probably not going to get gratitude most of the time. So that when you do something nice, when you do something good for someone, often, you should just expect it. Don't expect to be thanked.

Don't expect them to say, oh, thank you so much, it's so great. It's not human nature. And I'd say today, you know, so 2000 years ago with Jesus time, I'd say it's much worse today because people have more of an entitled mindset, meaning people just almost expect you to do something good for them like they deserve it. So there's even less gratitude now, I'd say, culturally around the world.

So basically, this is kind of the inevitable. It's kind of connected to that past technique we talked about before, the rule that where don't fight against the inevitable, right? Inevitable means something you can't change. So this is just human nature can't be changed.

I've kind of learned this myself slowly that I just expect it now. I just realize, you know, this is the way people are. It doesn't mean they're evil. It's not that the lepers were not evil people that Jesus healed.

It's just people are not very grateful. They're just very selfish. They're focused on themselves. And it's just the way it is. We don't like it, but that's just the truth.

And then as part B of that, the positive side of this technique, number three, is that let's remember that the only way to find happiness is not to expect gratitude. Don't expect gratitude. Just give for the joy of giving.

Give just because you enjoy giving, because you enjoy helping. Don't expect anything to come back. I can't remember the exact words, but Mahatma Gandhi, in his biography, said something very similar.

I just have a general remembrance. It's been a long time since I read his book, but I remember him talking about the same idea that you do good just to do good and don't expect something to come back. I mean, really, this is connected much like the Gita, the Bhagavad Gita that says, you know, you do good actions, you do virtuous actions, but don't worry about the rewards. Don't worry about the results that come after.

Don't expect a reward. The reward is the action that you're doing. What happens afterwards, you don't know. Okay. Next, moving on to the next technique.

Now, this is really more of a saying than a technique, but count your blessings, not your troubles. So this next technique, count your blessings, not your troubles.

Now, this is about creating gratitude in your own mind. It's kind of the opposite. So in the third technique, we learn most people are not grateful. In this technique, he's saying be grateful.

Be grateful to God, basically, is what he's saying. Meaning that each day, you should think about all the good things in your life. And, you know, some people make this a habit, like they'll pray at the end of the day and they'll say, you know, pray to God and they'll say, you know, thank you for, and then they'll just try to think of all the things in their life that are good. Thank you for my mother and father.

Thank you for the blue sky. Thank you for the food that I have to eat. Thank you that I'm healthy and alive. Thank you that, you know, and you just try to think of everything you can, right?

On and on and on for all the good things in your life, all the things you are grateful for. And as you do this, then the little problems, because we all have little problems. We all have complaints. We all have things we don't like.

But when you focus on the gratitude, those things become smaller. You start to realize, okay, the problems are smaller. They're less important. Of course, usually we do the opposite, right?

It's just easier. It's easier in our mind. Again, human nature, human psychology, we naturally, when something is uncomfortable, we focus on that. When something is a problem, we focus on that because it's causing us a problem and we don't like it and so we'll focus on it.

But this is also a problem because it makes us become too negative and then we focus too much on the problems and they become very big in our mind, bigger than they really are. And then we forget all the great things. You know, we forget all the wonderful things. There's so many wonderful things.

You're on the Internet now. You have electricity. You don't even think about this probably. I don't usually each day. That's a miracle. 500 years ago, nobody had this.

Nobody had a refrigerator with electricity. with all their food. They didn't have huge grocery stores, just walk down, get anything they want anytime. They couldn't click a button on the internet and order something and it's at their house in a few days.

They couldn't learn English from someone on the other side of the world. So we have to remember all these things are quite wonderful for us. We have lots of these things, but we just forget about them because we're like fish in the water and we forget the water, right? But we actually...

have a lot of very good things in our life. All of us have blessings. Blessings. And we should each day, he's saying, count them. Meaning list them. Really think about them one by one.

Oh, thank you for this. Thank you for this. Thank you for this. Thank you for this. And think of all those good things and make it a habit. And in this way, you will reduce your worries.

You will reduce your complaints. Okay. Quick water. really quickly sorry my got a little bit of a cold okay next technique number five let's not imitate others let's find ourselves and be ourselves because envy is ignorance imitation is suicide

Yes and no. I disagree with this a little bit, or we should at least discuss the details of this. There are times when imitation is actually very useful.

But what he's saying is that too many people, what he's talking about is envy. He's talking about envy. Right. This is where especially you're watching the media and you see, oh, there's some famous person and they have all this money and they seem like their life is perfect.

And then you feel, oh, I want their life. I want their life. I want to be like them. You know, and then you feel bad. Then you start to worry because then you compare to your own life and you know, oh, man, my life's not so good.

Or even more, I think more common, is something like Facebook. Not a famous person, but maybe somebody you know, a friend, a family member, someone you went to school with. And you see, oh, they're making more money than you. And, oh, look at this, they married some great person.

And, oh, they're putting all these pictures of their amazing kids in there. their super nice house and their super nice car. Oh, they're doing so much better than I am. And then you can start to feel this envy, this little jealousy.

And then you start to worry about yourself. Like, oh, what's wrong with me? Maybe I'm not doing well enough. Personally, I don't have this problem very much.

Maybe... Maybe a little bit. When I was living in my car, just at the beginning, I worried a little bit because I know most people my age, I was in my 30s at that time already, early 30s, and I worried that, oh my God, I'm 30 years old, I'm living in a car, I'm delivering sandwiches.

Most people my age, my schoolmates, everybody, they're all working professional jobs. Lots of them are buying houses. And I'm living in a car. But then, you know what?

But then I kind of naturally just use this rule. I said, you know, be myself. Be yourself. I was like, well, I'm not them. A lot of them also are slaves to jobs.

And I don't want to be. So I'm not criticizing them. But I'm myself. I have to live my own life my way. I have to find truth my way. And so I didn't envy them.

But I also just stopped worrying. I was like, I don't care. I don't care what other people think. It doesn't matter. So that's what he's saying, number five, is really don't worry about what other people think.

Live your own life. Find your own way. Now, when is imitation good? Imitation is good when you use it as modeling, when you're trying to learn a skill, for example.

You're trying to learn how to do something. And you want to improve quickly. Well, you can imitate someone who's much better than you. And this will help you.

So, for example, public speaking. You want to be a good public speaker, you can imitate other great public speakers. This will help you get the skill faster. You can imitate Steve Jobs.

You can imitate Tony Robbins or whoever. And this would help you gain the skill more quickly. You're not trying to be like Tony Robbins everything, like live your life like him. You're not trying to become Tony Robbins.

You're not jealous of Tony Robbins. You're just specifically... copying his skill so that you can learn the same skill now eventually you will have your own style you know i did this when i started public speaking i i i did this i imitated tony robbins a lot he was my favorite public speaker and there were a couple others a guy named tom peters and a few others but they were all kind of high energy speakers so i imitated them i copied their style in some ways this helped me improve very quickly

For a short time, it was obvious. You can see I did not have my own style yet. I was kind of copying them. But that's okay in the beginning because that helped me get a lot of confidence.

I really improved. I learned a lot of great skills about public speaking. And then as I got better, then I started to develop my own style. Then I began to relax more.

I was more confident in front of groups. And then my own style came out more. And my own style for me, like, for example, just being more kind of funny. More acting a little more crazy, more like people say Jim Carrey.

Sometimes I was not trying to imitate Jim Carrey, but that's my style of humor. I don't really tell jokes, but I have more like physical humor where I'll make. funny faces and especially when I'm telling stories and I'm teaching so I would start to do just let all that kind of crazy storytelling come out and I'm also just more relaxed than Tony Robbins and so anyway all my own style finally did develop so if you're trying to do that you're learning a skill it's totally fine to imitate to copy someone if you're trying to improve your pronunciation with English it's okay copy my speaking

Just copy it. Try to sound exactly like me. It's okay, because later, when you improve, of course, you'll use your own voice and everything. But for a while, it can help you.

So for something specific, a specific skill, it's fine. Just don't be jealous. Don't try to copy someone's whole life. That's what he's saying. Okay. Number six.

Technique number six is... Okay, this is an old saying again, an old idiom. When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade. Okay, this is an idiom, a very old one in American English.

When you get a lemon, make lemonade. Right? The idea, a lemon means it's like a lemon by itself. Just only a lemon tastes sour, right? If you try to just drink it straight with no water, nothing.

Right? It's... But we can make a lemon taste very good if we add some water and a little bit of sugar. Now it's a very tasty drink. It tastes really good.

So what does this mean with this rule? It's saying that when we have a bad situation, when we have bad luck, when we have something bad happens to us, look for ways to make it into something better.

We can often, maybe not always, but many times, we can find there's something in the bad situation that might be able to become good. We might turn it into something good.

It could be possible. For example, you're starting a business online and you have no money. You have no money. This was me. I started my business. I had no money.

Well, so you could say that's a lemon. That's bad luck. Starting a business with no money. But you can turn that into something good. How? Well, if you have no money, you must, must, must be energetic.

You must be creative. You must make fast decisions. You must be very decisive. It teaches you to think and to problem solve very fast and very creatively.

Sometimes when people have too much money with a business at the beginning, they become lazy. They waste their money. They just spend the money on stupid stuff, like they buy expensive furniture. They rent a very expensive office.

They buy a lot of expensive equipment. And when a problem comes, they just try to solve it with money. And this creates some very bad habits for the business. It creates bad financial discipline.

And later, this can hurt the business a lot. These people often go bankrupt. Their businesses fail. But if you start with no money, you, number one, definitely you learn to be very creative.

You learn to be very disciplined with money, right? To be very, very careful about spending. So you learn a lot of good habits when you start a business with no money. And that can help your business succeed later.

So that's the idea. Don't just cry and complain when something bad happens. Look for the opportunity. Look for something in the bad situation where you can turn it around a little bit, where you can use it for something good.

The Marines say, improvise, adapt, overcome, right? Improvise, adapt, overcome. It means take a situation and find a way to make it better. Okay, finally, another one.

This is a really nice one. The last one, the last technique. And this one definitely works, by the way. And this is probably the most powerful one for today, I think.

Personally, I think this is the most powerful. Let's forget our own unhappiness. Maybe you're unhappy. Maybe you're worried. Maybe you have a good reason.

Maybe you have something terrible in your life. Let's forget our own unhappiness by trying to create a little happiness for other people. When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.

When you are good to others, you are best to yourself. This works. This helps. I remember back... Back in my 20s, I had a time period, a very low time, a very bad time in my life.

It was after I graduated, just graduated from university, undergraduate. I was poor. In fact, I was in debt. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had a job.

I just had lots of different jobs that paid almost no money. I hated them all. I didn't know what to do with my life. My girlfriend broke up with me. I was just lonely and miserable.

Really, really unhappy and just spending every day miserable and unhappy and worried and sad. And what I did is I went and I started to volunteer. I started to volunteer at a psychiatric hospital where people had mental problems.

Because I thought, oh, maybe I'll go back to school. I'll become a social worker, which I did eventually. But first I wasn't sure, so I wanted to volunteer in mental health. So I went there as a volunteer, and my job as a volunteer was very easy.

Just talk to the people there, listen to them, talk about their problems, play games with them, just try to help them be a little happier. But what was interesting is it made me happier.

Every time I would go there and spend a few hours there, I felt better. Number one, I realized, well, these people have much more serious problems than I. Some of them were, you know, drug addicts or something, but...

Mostly it was people like maybe they tried to commit suicide or they had some just horrible things happen in their life. So number one, I started to realize, oh man, AJ, your life is still pretty good, right? Started to count my blessings a little. But also just because I was helping them.

Why? Because I was thinking about them and not myself. I stopped thinking about myself all the time. When you think about yourself all the time, you usually become unhappy, okay?

When you're just focused on yourself, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That does not create happiness. When you focus on someone else or others, how can I help others? How can I help the community?

How can I help my family? You'll be happier. This is, again, just kind of some human nature psychology. I think it's one of the nice things about human psychology.

Some human psychology is maybe not so nice, but we have some weaknesses in our our human nature, but we also have some good things. And this is one of the ones that's good, I think, that we actually become happier when we focus on others.

And by focus on others, I mean focus on helping others, being good to other people, contributing. This makes us happy, too, even when we're having a hard, hard, hard time in life.

Whoever's writing Arabic here, you need to realize that this is an English channel, and... Most people cannot read that, so please type in English. All right, that's it. Those are our seven techniques for today.

Let's go back to comments and questions time. I saw a few people wrote some very long comments while I was talking, but I didn't read them. Let me go back now.

Ah, Vladislav actually has... I just noticed his... He's got a good one because this is a technique I used. This is not a technique we just talked about, but it is a good technique for worry.

When we're talking about worry, it's really worry, depression, feeling terrible, having a hard time in your life, whatever. These techniques work for all those kind of hard situations in life.

Okay. Vladislav says, when you travel for a long time, that's a way to distract from everyday routine, to reimagine your life, to make a mental cleaning, because you don't have time for trivia.

Yes, I agree. This travel, especially like you said, long travel, that means like a month, two months, or even longer, can be very healing, mentally healing. you know, therapeutic, because I also found this. Oh, he says, like me now, traveling in Italy.

Yeah, for sure it does. First of all, it breaks all your routine up. It gets you, again, instead of sitting around in your house, thinking about yourself and your apartment, me, me, me, me, you're out in the world, seeing new things, meeting new people constantly.

Yes, travel can be a great way to overcome... really hard times and worry and all this kind of stuff. Let me just back up. Alright, let me back up and look at the comments here.

Okay, Rafiko says, we can't forgive without the power of Holy Spirit. It's too hard to do on our own. If we're truly willing, God will enable us, but we must humble ourselves and cry out for help. It does work.

Indeed, indeed. This is, again, an advantage of praying and meditation. Sometimes these things are too difficult for us individually. So I agree with Rafiko.

Oh, wonderful. So, Ms. Ba says, I'm listening to The Rich Dad Poor Dad All Day, one of our older books. I want to start my own business, doing clothing and textile course for my own business for inspiration. God bless you.

That's fantastic. Good. Go for it. Just do it. Do it. You'll be fine. Okay, here's the big long one. This is Vladislav again. Let me see if I can read all this.

Wow, it's a big one. Okay, so just to follow up what Vladislav was saying. I'm traveling in Italy currently. It's a long trip lasting as much as 17 days.

Great. Three cities, Milan, Venice, and Florence. Now I'm in a bus going to Rome for the rest of my trip. I visit different museums and galleries. The problem is when you visit a famous big museum, you want to learn more.

There are lots of pictures, sculptures, lots of long comments to them. In the beginning, you try to read carefully, but you might skip the text. Kind of fast reading. At the end of visiting the museum, you feel exhausted.

Yeah, your eyes are tired. You skip some comments. You just take photos. Yeah, it's hard. It's right. If you have an audio guide, there's the same issue.

In the beginning, you listen carefully, then you get more and more tired. After visiting, you've forgotten most of the information. Yes. Do you have advice how to visit museums the optimal way?

I don't have advice because I have the same problem. Here's the thing. So like what you're talking about, you have to understand there's a difference between learning wide and deep, right? Wide and deep.

And for this kind of experience, like to walk through a museum, like this happened to me in Athens, Greece. There's a big museum near the Parthenon. It's the same idea, right? It's like, you know, centuries and centuries of Greek

ancient Greek history, which I find very, very interesting. But it's just too much for all at once, right? You visit for a few hours and you're just... So that's wide learning.

You're just being exposed to it. Of course, you're going to forget. So what you have to do is then let it just make you interested, right? That's the... For this kind of wide learning, it's more just to get your curiosity.

And then what you need to do is follow up. So what you do remember, right? Maybe some things will kind of be in your memory more strongly that were especially interesting to you. Go find books about those topics.

You know, like maybe, okay, just like using my own example, maybe, you know, like the Iliad and the Odyssey and that time period, like really, really early Greek history.

Maybe that gets, so then I'll go and I'll buy the, Iliad and the Odyssey and read them and then read about the history and the archaeology connected to the Trojan War and all of this and not the Trojan War the war with Troy but you get the idea right so you can pick different time periods like in Rome you'll see the same in Rome you don't even need to go to a museum just walk around the city and you just see these oh wow the Colosseum this that oh this and it's overwhelming right even just the Colosseum

has so much history with the gladiators and everything. So you might go to the Coliseum and then, oh, this is really interesting. Then you go find some books and read more about the gladiators and the games and all of that.

But it's fun. I would say just be fun with it and enjoy it. It's impossible to know everything, right? It's impossible to learn everything. So just make your imagination come alive and then follow what seems most interesting.

Okay, Alexei. Alexei Sobolov says, unfortunately in our modern, and hey Alexei again, unfortunately in our modern society it's really hard to keep our mind positive because we are surrounded by hatred, envy, violence.

Yeah, and this is the next part is the important part, especially from news and the internet. So we have to be careful as much as possible. what we are listening to and watching. Therefore, the reading of books like Animal Farm and Brave New World is really primarily necessary for us in our children.

Yes, yes, yes. 100% agree that's why I'm choosing these books. That's why we will do Brave New World next. That's why I chose Animal Farm for our first book.

And what's really interesting, think about this phrase, he said. We are surrounded by hatred, envy, and violence. A lot of us feel this, right? We're surrounded by it.

But not really. We're not really, we're not. Walk outside your door. Go walk outside your apartment or your door. Do you see a lot of hatred and violence?

You know, unless you live in a war zone or a really bad crime area. For most of you, no. Like if I walk out here, there's no hatred, there's no envy, there's no violence around me. Not at all.

It's all in our minds. And where does it come from? News, internet, media. It's virtual reality. We are living so much in this virtual reality of TV, movies, media, fake news, internet.

And yes, the media is full of hatred. The media is full of envy. The media is full of violence. Why? That's what they focus on. They go around the world and they find the few little things and they focus on that.

You know, they'll focus on one bad thing that happens in a country. And then they'll put it on the news constantly. And then everybody thinks, oh my God, that country is full of violence and death. But it's just one thing happened.

So then we can feel this if we're too much in the virtual world. So one solution, and that is correct, he said, we have to read about these techniques so we can start to see the mind control in the media.

And we'll start to realize, oh, No, no, no. This isn't true. This is created by the media. The second thing we can do is spend more time in the real world and much, much less time in the virtual world, the media world.

Because when you're out in the real world, you realize, oh, nobody attacked me today. I didn't feel any violence. There's none of this stuff happening around me. Most people are basically nice to me and basically friendly.

I mean, when I travel around... Does crime happen? Yeah, of course it does. You should be ready for it and know some self-defense and be careful, of course.

But still, overall, in general, most every day you'll be fine. So we're not really surrounded by all of this, but it's a media creation. This is why it's our minds. We have to be careful.

Valdenizio asks, talking about imitation. Studying English, people sometimes ask me to imitate native English accents. Is that a good idea? Yeah, it's a good idea.

Yeah, go ahead, do it. It's fine, you know, imitate an American accent, imitate a British accent, whichever you prefer, or Australian, whatever. It's a good way to improve your pronunciation. In fact, it's the best way.

So, certainly do it. Yes, don't feel, just pretend you're an actor, have fun with it. Okay. Okay. This is Michelet. It says, I'd like to be able to imitate Tony Robbins.

He's so energetic. Yeah, he is. But he speaks so fast with such casual language. True. That after only 75% of your powerful English lessons, he's always too difficult to understand.

But I continue to listen and to read. That's okay. Okay. This is common. He's a very fast speaker. He's unusually fast. So he's not normal. He is definitely a fast speaker.

Tony Robbins is a very fast speaker. He uses a lot of idioms and slang also. So if you can't understand him completely, just don't worry about it. If you can't imitate him completely, it's totally fine because he is very, very, very, very fast.

For Tony, what you can do with Tony for public speaking, imitate his nonverbal. His body language is really good. He has very strong, powerful gestures, the way he uses his face, his arms and hands, his body, the way he walks around the stage, the way he uses his voice. These are all very good for public speaking.

And you can copy that. You can imitate that, even if you need to speak more slowly. I don't speak as fast as Tony Robbins, obviously. so that's what I imitated when I imitated Tony when I was trying to improve public speaking I imitated mostly his non-verbal skills my speaking speed I did not imitate his speaking speed it's too fast I don't like it I'm from the south in the United States I just have a natural more natural slower speed of speaking hello from India thank you

Okay, Lisa or Liza, you'll have to tell me how to pronounce your name. But anyway, welcome back. If something bad happens to me, I ask the first what it wants to teach me.

See, this is an example of using the technique, trying to find something good in there. What can I learn from this? And often there's something to learn.

If I know that I have developed again, then I can forgive myself and others more easily. That makes me free. Then I spend my energy for learning and not anger. I try to make things better for myself and others.

Yep, so using several techniques she's describing there, really putting a couple of them together, helping others, letting go and forgiving, and trying to learn from these tough situations. We're often tested, we're often challenged, and we can learn from that.

We can become better people. In fact, that's the usual way we become better, meaning more virtuous, good people. It's not usually through good luck. It's through overcoming difficult things that we become stronger and wiser and better.

Merrick with a great comment. I think many people should ask themselves this question. If you don't like someone... you don't value his opinion, then why do you care what he talks about you?

Excellent point. Why does it make you mad if this person talks nonsense about you? It does not make sense. Exactly. So many people, and this is true, especially on social media, they get so upset about criticism, about someone doesn't like you or says something bad about you or whatever, negative comments, but you don't even like them.

Why do you care about them? They're nobody. They're just... You know, my policy now is I just block and ban people on social media. If they're really negative or nasty, they're trolls.

I just block, ban, gone. That's it. I'm not going to give them any more energy than that. Just gone. In my own life, like real life, this is not a problem for me anymore because I just don't, I don't,

I'm not around these people. If someone's negative, if someone doesn't like me, then I don't want to be around them. So I just eliminate them from my life. I just don't do anything around them.

I don't have anything to do with them at all. They're gone. So the only people around me are people I like. So this is exactly, this is a good point. Mohammed Nadwan says, AJ, you are number one.

Thank you. Muhammad Hamdi says, just listen to your voice in the podcast. I feel happy and optimistic. Well, good. That's one reason I'm doing it. Okay, here's a good comment.

Taha... I'm sorry about the pronunciation. Taha Abid El Rahman... Hi, AJ. I do really miss this show. It's been a while since I joined. Well, welcome back.

About Rule 7, yes, it is one of the essence of my life when I'm miserable. Miserable means very unhappy. Sometimes, or maybe cannot focus on my study, I directly pick up my phone to call one of my friends to make sure they are okay with their life and everything. See, it's so simple, right?

You're feeling bad. Pick up the phone. Call someone. Call someone. Call your grandmother. Call your mom. Call your brother or sister. Call your friend.

And go, hey, how are you doing? And just listen to them and make sure they're doing okay. And then you'll feel better. You will. It does work. It absolutely works.

It's fantastic. It's very simple. And see, it can be very small like this. You don't have to do some huge charity or go feed homeless people. You can, but you don't have to.

It can be something very small like that. It's so simple, but it's powerful. It's good. He is asking, how are your family, Tomoe, and the babies? The babies are doing well.

Baby has a cold also a little bit. Tomoe is fine. And other babies still in the hospital, but recovering, getting stronger little by little. Zobed says, please review.

I don't know what you're talking about. Just go back and watch the recording. That's why we record this. Gloria. Gloria Isabel Galvin. One thing I would like to be grateful is the fact to have a person like you.

To me, it's been very helpful for my English. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Gloria. Very nice. Thank you, thank you. I'm grateful, too, because we have our Effortless English...

Supporters and fans and family and members are all, you know, you can see so positive and makes me enjoy doing this. So thank you. Freddie Vargas also says, it's been a while. I really missed you.

Welcome back. Thank you. You've got a San Francisco or San Diego hat you have on in your picture. I can't quite see it. Let's see, make it bigger. Oh, I might be wrong.

Looks kind of like a San Francisco baseball hat. Hello from Taiwan. Hello. All right, let me jump down to the bottom here. Santi Sankar Chowdhury says, AJ, you are my motivational guru.

Thank you. Nice. Thank you. Yeah, Rafiko again with a good comment. It's natural for people to forget to be grateful. It just is. This is just human nature.

I've learned this myself. It just is. I don't like it. It's no fun, but it's just true. If we go around expecting gratitude, we are headed straight for a lot of headaches.

Yes. I'll try to remember that leper, Jesus and the lepers, because that's a good thing to remember. Edrum is saying I'm from the Netherlands. I want to buy Effortless English program, but it must be paid for by credit card, right?

Is there another payment choice? You can get my Power English course with PayPal. Now, eventually, I do want to expand payment options, but I've got to do some research and find some different ones. I'd like to add some payment companies, processors.

They're called payment processors from different countries. Not just these. The ones I have are more American focused. But I'd like to find some European ones, some from Middle East, some from Asia.

But they have to work with my American system. So it takes a little time. But anyway, be patient. But for now, PayPal, I think most people can do that.

Okay, and Elena is saying, can you help me figure out which of your courses to start with? Power English, pronunciation course, or VIP? Thank you. Generally, I recommend Power English as a good one to start with.

It's kind of a middle intermediate level, so Power English would be a good one as a starting. Most people start with that. If you're a little more advanced, you feel you're a little more advanced, like a little higher intermediate, VIP.

Okay, Abraham Ali, hello again. When we plan for something important in the future, we have some worries, of course. Of course. Some kind of fear, fear of failure.

So we must prepare ourselves for the worst and find the best solution. There will always be a plan B. Yeah, see, this is what planning, planning can help you get rid of worry. Because when you plan, you also plan for

You don't just plan and you expect everything will be perfect, right? Oh, I'm going to start a business and then it's going to make a lot of money and then I'll be a millionaire and then I'll be a billionaire. The end. No.

You plan. You say, I'll start a business. Well, what happens if? Then you have to plan for all the possible problems. Start thinking of the problems. What happens if...

we're not selling what happens if this doesn't happen what happens if we have bad luck what happens if this and you start making plans for all the bad stuff that can happen and then think how will you adapt what changes will you make how will you change your plan to deal with other problems and this is good planning

That's not worry. That's planning. It's like playing chess and you're trying to think ahead several moves and you're trying to, what will the other person do, right? And you're making all these plans.

This helps you prepare so when bad stuff happens, problems always happen. You're ready, right? You're not expecting. You don't expect everything to work perfectly.

It never does in life, right? Nothing. In sports, right? Any sport, the teams, they do the same thing. They prepare for lots of different They know the other team might do this, they might do this, they might do this.

They're ready to change the plans. In American football, the best teams are good at changing their plan in the middle of the game. Because sometimes, both teams, they have a plan. They start the game.

Something happens. And maybe the plan's not working. So for the first half of the game, the plan is failing, failing. And so the good teams, the really great coaches, they will make a change quickly.

They're ready for the failure. So they say, okay, this is not working. We have to try something else. And they change their plan and they do something else.

And then this is how they win more. Alexei describing, he says he's describing Ukraine, but he's also describing America. In my country, Ukraine, 80 to 90% of the population are watching this fake and bullshit TV news.

America is exactly the same. And even worse, things are happening. They are ready to insult other citizens who don't agree with them. Same in America.

Just because of what they hear from TV, what they're telling from TV. Does it make sense to persuade them to avoid watching TV? You can try. I mean, I tried to do this.

Or is it too late to bring them back to the real world? Hmm. A lot of them cannot be reached. You know, Aristotle even said this, that some people cannot, you can't, some people you can't change their mind.

Some people, it's impossible. So don't waste time with them. Now, here's the good news. Change happens in life. You know, it really, it's actually about a top 10 or 20% of people

in a country, in a society, in a group. They will make the change and everyone else just follows. So you don't have to change everybody's mind. You really just need to change that 10%.

So if you meet somebody and you're trying to show them, you know, this TV is not good, this is fake news, it's just lies and they won't listen to you, just move to the next person. Don't waste your time because a lot of people are not ready. It's the same in the United States. I'm shocked that

It just shocks me that people still, there are still people, maybe millions of people that still watch CNN and they believe it. I can't understand it.

They are such obvious liars. We know so, so, so, so many examples of them lying and lying. Everything lying, lying. The Iraq war, the first one. The Iraq war, the second one.

Everything now. Everything. It's nothing but lies and propaganda. And still some people watch CNN and believe it. How, why, I don't know. But I don't waste my time with them.

Because obviously there's nothing you can do to change their mind. Because some people just, I don't know, this is a bad part of human nature. Some people just, they're kind of like robots, like zombies.

Okay. It's almost time for me to go. I hear a baby crying in the other room. Bahar says, I'm always grateful for having great people in my life. Yeah, right?

And you're one of them, AJ. Thank you. Your show is the food for thought. Keep it up. Thank you very much. Yes, we can be grateful for the people, the good people we have in our life and the great people we've had in our life in the past.

there's lots of things to be grateful for if you think about it. So that count your blessings is nice because often we don't think about it, right? We forget to think about it.

Elena, enjoy Power English. Yes. Yes. Hugh Le says, AJ, there are Vietnamese people who are big fans of you. Have a nice day. Oh, I know. I've been to Vietnam a few times.

I'm sure I'll come back again. It's been a few years since I was in Vietnam. But anyway, hello to Vietnam. Good morning, Vietnam. It's not morning, it's night.

Good evening, Vietnam. Okay, let's jump to the bottom here. Alright, one more, one more. Let's go with Hasina. Okay, Hasina, hello again. Before Effortless English, I always worried what others thought about me.

Hmm. I thought I should be a person that others want to see and the person that I wanted to be in the future was just a dream. I accepted that it will remain a dream. But then I listened to your YouTube video.

My whole life changed. My whole world changed. I understood that I'm not the only person dealing with the problem. Right. Thank you, AJ. We need more teachers like you.

Never stop. Thank you very much. No, no, no. Most things in life that we struggle with, you know, if you're having a problem, if you have a worry, if you're having something upsets you,

There are probably many, many other people in the world right now dealing with the same or a similar problem, a similar worry, a similar weakness. And not only that, not only right now, but for thousands and thousands, maybe millions, hundreds of thousands of years, humans have been dealing with these kinds of issues. The technology has changed, of course, but our human nature is the same.

All right, well, thank you so much. I enjoyed this. I'm going to go rest now, and we'll be back again for another live show. We'll just continue to do these book clubs on the weekend, so we'll do next weekend, we'll do the next section, section five, I guess, right?

And remember, we already know our next book. It will be Brave New Worlds, but we have, I think, three more sections, probably three more weeks for this book, and then we'll do a new one.

All right. Lots of love to you. Say hello to me on social media, on Twitter, AJ Hogue, on Gab, A-J-H-O-G-E, AJ Hogue. We also have a Gab group, Effortless English group on Gab.

See you there. Bye for now. As always, join my VIP program. Commit to my VIP program. Speak English fluently and powerfully and effortlessly. EffortlessEnglishClub.com If you prefer to start with Power English...

Also, EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Get that course. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Commit. Don't quit.