Think and Grow Rich | Living The Dream

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, creator of the Business English Conversations course.

and of course the VIP program, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com, EffortlessEnglishClub.com, commit, don't quit. Today we're going to talk about money some more.

I get a lot of requests for books, you know, for the book club. One of the most common requests, most requested books I get is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, a very popular book.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about that book today and some of my experiences connected to that book, the ideas in that book. And then we'll talk about maybe some of the weak points of the book, in my opinion.

Welcome, we're live on YouTube today. Here in Osaka... Another big typhoon is coming. I think it was last year we had the really big one hit us directly.

Well, we got another big one coming. Hopefully not hitting us directly, but it's still going to hit us some. Already it's windy outside. Unfortunately, really bad luck.

My sister's flight is delayed. My sister and my niece delayed because of the typhoon. So now they have like an extra six hours. They're going to have to wait.

They'll get here late. So that sucks for them. Let's talk about money. Alright, looks like we're good. Alright, so anyway, welcome everybody who's joining live.

I'll jump in and get to your questions and comments, of course. But let's talk about this. Think and Grow Rich. The title. It's a good title. You know?

Best-selling books usually have good titles, and he has a good title. Think and Grow Rich. Now... The central idea of this book is to change your mindset about money.

To change how you think about money, change your mindset about money, change your attitude about money, change your beliefs about money. All of this, and that by doing those things, you then will become rich. And Napoleon Hill, how did he write this book? He went around and he, basically, he interviewed rich people.

It's an old book. So the people he interviewed were people like Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, the original Rockefeller, you know, these kind of big, really the first big business guys in America, really big.

Not very nice guys, honestly, but anyway. He interviewed them about how did you become rich. And then he interviewed some other very rich people. And he tried to identify what were the common beliefs, the common attitudes, the common behaviors...

among all of these guys. And so, you know, how do they think differently than regular people? You know, he's kind of like a Tony Robbins of his time, right? Like 100 years before Tony Robbins.

Maybe not quite 100. 70 years before Tony Robbins. Napoleon Hill. But kind of the same kind of thinking, the same strategy to find success. And so he did this, and he wrote the book.

And so a lot of the book then again is focused on, there are a few major ideas in the book. One major idea is to really clearly kind of have this deriving desire, this motivation to kind of very clearly picture your dream of being rich or whatever in lots of detail and give that a lot of emotion and to think about it and imagine it every day. And then he has other advice like about what he calls a mastermind. That's where you form a group with other people who also want to be rich.

And you basically, it's like a support group, a help group. You all get together and you keep motivating each other and helping each other and sharing ideas. And this is a very powerful strategy of success.

So connecting it to my life. I, you know, I told you this week, I told the story about before I started Effortless English. Well, let me tell you a little bit about after. What happened after.

Ah, just dropped something. What happened afterwards is also kind of interesting. When I finally became financially free. So as I said, from, you know, my first job was age 17.

I became financially free at the age of... Sorry, I used to... At the age of 38. So about 20 years. It took me about 20 years to do it. So before that 20 years, I was almost always unhappy in my jobs.

Sometimes I was, you know, sometimes the jobs were so-so. They were okay. Sorry, one second. Let me just clean my desk for a second. Alright, there we go.

I just dropped a bunch of dirty stuff on my desk. Just cleaned it. Alright, anyway. So, I hated working for other people, right? I hated having a boss.

I hated having my schedule decided by someone else. So, you know, eventually as a social worker and definitely as an English teacher, I had some jobs that were okay, where the job itself was okay, you know, decent, but...

Other parts of the job I still didn't like. I didn't like the schedule. I didn't like that I had no vacation time. Things like that. I didn't like that I didn't have enough freedom.

For example, teaching. I had to follow a textbook or something. So there were still problems. So basically 20 years of frustration and then finally became financially free.

And what changed? Well, everything changed in my life at that point. A completely different life. You know, first of all, at the most basic level, this seems like a small thing, but for me this was a big thing, that I could wake up when I wanted to wake up.

I didn't have to be at a job at nine or eight or 10 or seven, whatever. I didn't. I could stay up really late if I wanted to and then sleep in the next day and wake up at noon.

And I did sometimes. The other thing, the big one, I traveled, I traveled, I traveled, I traveled a lot. The first few years after becoming financially free, I should say I, we, my wife and I both, we just went on so many trips. We traveled around.

We went to Europe. We went to Southeast Asia. We traveled all over the place. And we took long trips, meaning like two months, three months, four months, right?

Not just two weeks. We learned scuba diving, and we went on several scuba diving trips. We traveled with my friends Kristen and Joe sometimes, visited family, lots and lots and lots of travel.

Something else I did when I became financially free, I went to a lot of seminars. This is when I went to all of Tony Robbins' seminars. All the ones he had at that time, he may have new ones now, but I went to all of them.

I should say I, we, my wife and I both, went to all of Tony Robbins' seminars, meaning all the different topics that he does seminars for. It was like, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, five different ones, I think.

They were expensive, but I could afford it, so I did it. I went to Brendan Burchard's, a couple of his seminars. I just went to a lot of these either business or motivational or personal growth type of seminars, just because I'd always been interested in these. I always wanted to go, and they were too expensive, so I finally did it.

Again, for several years, we just went to so many of them, so many, lots of them. and it was a very positive experience it was good it was good um so these were the big ones you know for me I didn't go buy a lot of stuff I didn't go buy a lot of stuff um for me I just had not interested in that but it was more of like just having all that freedom of time you know and using it to do all the kinds of things I wanted to do you know I learned to kite surf I learned scuba diving um

It was great. It was really fantastic. And of course, this is the kind of life I had dreamed about before. And this is what Napoleon Hill is talking about, having that clear, very clear vision or dream of what kind of life do you want to create?

Because just saying, I want to be rich, it's really not that powerful psychologically. It has to be more specific. You have to actually imagine the kind of life you want. What is it you exactly want?

You have to visualize it very clearly. And so I would encourage you to dream about this if you were financially free. Meaning, you never had to work again. You never had to work a job again for money.

You can do it for enjoyment. You could do it for extra money, but to survive, to live, you never had to work again. So you had all day, every day to do anything you want to do.

Complete freedom of your time. What would you do? What kind of life do you dream about? Why does financial freedom sound great to you? And again, like Napoleon Hill says, you have to be specific about it.

You really got to be clear. I was clear. I wanted to travel. I knew the different countries I wanted to go to. I knew I wanted to do scuba diving and do things like kite surfing and go to these seminars.

And then I did all that stuff. It was great. It was really great. And after I did that, after several years of doing that, then I was ready for something different.

You know, like I'd gone to all those seminars. I don't go to seminars really anymore. We still travel, but for different reasons now. It's not just traveling around for vacation all the time because my whole life's a vacation.

So I don't need to go on vacation, right? So in fact, I don't even like traveling that way anymore. I don't like to go somewhere and just sit around and relax all day because for me, that's boring because I do that every single day.

So I like to go do things like the Camino de Santiago where I'm hiking, doing a pilgrimage. I love those long walking, those long trekking or hiking type of trips now.

Really love that kind of stuff. So you've got to get clear about this, you know. And imagine what it is you want. Because, you know, you're different than I am, so you might have a very different idea about what that free life, totally free life would be.

What would it be for you? But it's good to really imagine it, to be clear about it. Because this, it gives you that energy, that fuel of a motivation.

And it... According to Napoleon Hill, it creates a kind of unconscious problem solving in your brain where your unconscious brain will actually, if you have a very clear vision and is very strong, your brain will find a way to achieve it.

Excuse me. So, I think all that stuff is good. I think that's exactly right to a point, and I think it's very positive. I certainly, during those long 20 years, I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed of being free.

It kept me going. The two reasons I continued going, the two reasons I didn't quit, was number one, I had that dream, and number two, I was unhappy. The working jobs was painful, and I wanted to escape that pain.

So, it's all very good to do that. So, those are the good points. Now, I would say the limitations of the book, and this is the same for books like The Secret and anything like this.

The limitations of the book is that it's not enough. It's the first step only. Okay? Having that visualization, having that strong, clear idea what you want, having that vision...

With energy and emotion and clarity. All very, very good, but not enough only. A lot of people have that and never do anything. So, yes, you need that.

And then from there, you have to figure out some specific strategies. Exactly how are you going to do it? For example, Your Money or Your Life, the book we're reading now, that's a book of exact strategies, so you could follow that path.

But you need to have exact plans, exact strategies, exact plans of where to go, of how to do it, of how you're going to cut your expenses, how you're going to make more money, how you're going to become free, exactly.

And then, of course, then step three, you have to do these things. You have to take action, take action. And I guess step four is you can't quit. Don't quit because you're going to take action and you're going to fail a lot.

And then a lot of people just quit. Like for me, it was 20 years, guys, 20 years of trying job and then another job and then another job. 20 years. So, believe me, it would have been easy to quit.

But on the other hand, maybe not because I was so unhappy. I was motivated. So, that's the limitation of the book and of The Secret and any of this stuff. You can't just wish your way to success.

You can't just imagine your way to success. It's the first step of several. All right, let's go ahead and get to questions and comments. Okay, let's see what everyone says.

Oh, Dave is asking, what is a typhoon? Yes. Okay, so it's weird. I don't know why. But we have two words for these really big storms. If it's in the Atlantic Ocean, it's called a hurricane.

Hurricane. You probably have heard this word. Hurricane. Florida. is kind of famous, gets hit with hurricanes a lot. Okay, well, it's the same exact thing, these big giant spinning storms with strong, strong winds, but for some reason, if it's in the Pacific Ocean, it's called a typhoon.

It's the same thing, but in the Pacific, it's called a typhoon. In the Atlantic, it's called a hurricane. So, yeah, it's basically it's a hurricane and it's coming to it's going to hit us. The last one.

Wow. That's the strongest storm I've ever seen directly that I've ever been in. The last typhoon that hit Osaka. I was kind of surprised. Because all my life I kind of, you know, kind of heard of hurricanes and gotten little pieces of hurricanes like when I lived in Georgia.

But hurricanes never directly hit Georgia. And even here, I'd been in Japan a few times when a typhoon came, but never directly hitting and never a really, really big one. So then I think it was last year.

A really big one was coming. My wife said, oh, big typhoon coming. And I said, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. You know, kind of laughing about it.

And it was a big one and it hit us direct center right here. And oh, my God, it was strong. I have never seen that kind of wind and power before. I thought our windows were going to explode into our apartments.

They were shaking like this. And I was looking out the window and just like birds are flying by, like, you know, can't fly because there's like just rocks and stuff. And I watched the roof of a house just get pulled off. It was amazing in a scary way.

I'm hoping this one's not so big I think this one's fairly big but the last one hit us direct center this one I think is going more north it's going to hit Tokyo area more directly so we're getting just kind of the side of it but it's already windy and you know this is Friday night and I think the center is hitting Japan tomorrow afternoon so we're already feeling it and it's so it's a big storm it's very large that we're already feeling the wind and the center doesn't hit until tomorrow. So I'm hoping it goes more north, and it kind of avoids Osaka more.

If you only... This could be the sequel. If you only think you won't get rich. Ding. Nice. Nicely said. Yes. If you only think... You won't get rich. Clever.

All right. Oh, great. Fernando says, I have a little baby too. Identify when you talk about babies. Greetings from Curitiba. Yes, Fernando. Thank you very much.

I'm getting a break from the babies tonight. Because my sister's coming, my wife took the babies to her parents. Her parents are going to help her while I help my sister. It means that tonight I will finally get one full, complete night of sleep.

This is special. If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. I'm very excited about it. Good morning from Chicago. Ellie, good to see you. You're where my family lives.

Ah, Sriracha, good to see you again. She says, Hello, my dear teacher. I like this topic today so much. I read this book. I love it and try to think like that book said.

Yes, it's about keeping that. It's kind of connected to yesterday's topic of motivation. It's about keeping that motivation high because it's not just language learning. It's any difficult thing in life that requires, you know...

Weeks and weeks and months and months and years and years. We have to keep the motivation high because quitting is the worst thing. And it's exactly the same with trying to become financially free. Because for most people, it takes time and it takes a lot of motivation.

You will have failures. You will have problems and challenges. So you've got to keep that up. So that vision, that clear vision that... Napoleon Hill is talking about, and of course his other strategies too, they are very important.

They are. They're strong and they're important and they're good. It's just that you have to keep going. You have to take actions too. Ron John says, how many countries have you traveled to?

I'm not sure. A lot. Over, I don't know, over 25, something like that. 30? I counted one time. I can't remember. Oh, yeah. Philip says, I'm concerned with your channel on Instagram.

I didn't want you to lose content there. Yeah, I'm not an Instagram guy. You know, I've been trying it. I'll keep the channel, but I'm not really into taking photos.

I got kind of bored with Instagram. Every photo, if you look at my channel on Instagram, they're basically the same photo. It's just a picture of me sitting in a coffee shop somewhere.

I don't know. Like, I just got tired of doing that. It just seemed like it was the same every time. So it's photo-based. So anyway. And the other thing is that there's just too much social media.

Like, you know, we don't need to have... three, four, five social media, do we? I mean, one's enough, right? One's enough. So I just decided I'm going to focus on one gab.

That's it. That's great. I can meet you. I can ask questions. You can... You know, give me your answers. You can ask me questions. We can all communicate together.

We only need one, right? I mean, Twitter is basically the same, but Gab's better. Facebook is not much different. They're all the same. I mean, they're all basically the same.

You can do a photo or a video. You can do a link and you can do some writing, some text. It's just, you know, some of the time and some websites like Instagram, the photos, the big thing.

On Twitter, it's the writing, you know. On Facebook, it's kind of a mix. So, I mean, they're all the same. It's like, so I'd just pick one. There's enough for me.

Do an interview with, Udaya says, please do an interview with Kalki, the host of my Indian Life podcast. She's a good host. I'll check her out. An app.

Coach, remember you said some app with good reading tips like instant translate in English to English or whatever. I'm wondering what you use. I use Kindle. It's just Amazon.

Kindle. Kindle app. They have apps and they have their own devices too. But I just use the apps. I'm going to jump to the bottom and go backwards. Oh, the discount, yeah, the code for the English course, I keep getting delayed by these different things, but it'll be soon.

Soon, soon, soon, soon, soon. Constantino says, have you been to Greece? Yes, just Athens. I've been to Athens. That was one of my surprising trips, honestly.

So we, my wife and I, It was part of a bigger trip. We did an event in Barcelona for our VIP members. We did a cool social event, and we all got together.

It was really fun. And on our way home, back to Japan, we thought, well, let's visit Turkey and Greece. First Greece, then Turkey. And... Really, honestly, I didn't really think much about Greece.

We didn't really plan much. I didn't research at all. Of course, I know about Greek history and all of this. But I really didn't know much about Athens.

And, in fact, online, on some travel websites, I'd read bad things about Athens. It's a dirty city and all this stuff. So, you know, I don't know. I didn't really expect anything.

But, in fact, I loved it. I loved Athens. And the food was just great. I don't know if we got lucky but it was fantastic I was really surprised by how good the food was and of course I just love the history of ancient Greece so it actually was too short it just gave me a taste like I want to go back now and I want to see Athens a little more and I'd like to explore more of Greece it's just an amazing place

I'd like to do Greece and Italy both much more. Oh, Philip says it's Telegram. Ah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Oh, Anastasia says your wife doesn't use social media.

She does just with family. Yeah, family and a few friends, that's all. Oh, great. Philip says he purchased your Effortless English book from Amazon. I loved it.

Thanks. I'll follow you since I started your videos with three or four other guys a lifetime ago. Yes, indeed. Ah, a little Spanish here, a little Spanish practice.

I'll just translate it to English. Hi, I'm Beth. Your podcasts are motivating for me. That's nice. Thank you. Visit Nepal 2020. Well, I'll visit Nepal.

My friends are in Nepal right now. Kristen and Joe. I love Nepal. So I'm kind of hearing about their trip. They're sending me messages and photos while they travel.

It's a great place. Nepal is great. Okay, Douglas asks, what is the better strategy to get more focus on business? Hmm, I'm not sure exactly what you mean about that, to get more focus on business.

I think you've got to start, you know, if you're wanting to create a business, I think you've got to, first you've got to, as I said in today's topic really, you've got to focus on what kind of life do you want because that will decide what kind of business you should create.

So I'm just kind of guessing your question. I'm not sure if that's what you're asking me, but it's a good topic anyway. Some people, I don't know, they don't really think clearly about what kind of business to start, for example. They just think, oh, this sounds cool, or I'm good at this.

But I think you need to think about what kind of life do you want to create, because that will decide the kind of business you start for. You know, like I wanted a life of maximum freedom and travel and all of this. So I created a business that's online that has no employees.

That most of it runs automatically all the time. We say it's on autopilot. meaning I don't have to do much, and it just keeps going. So that's what I wanted, so that's the kind of business I created.

Now, that business has some weak points. It's probably going to make less money than other kinds of businesses might. Like if I wanted maximum money, I would probably get employees and maybe open some schools in different countries, and I could build this big empire.

But then I'd have to constantly be working and managing people and doing business travel, which is much less fun than traveling for enjoyment. And I'd be busy, busy, busy, busy all the time with the business. It'd be very complicated, stressful. I didn't want any of that.

So I'm not worried about maximizing my money. I want to maximize my freedom. But maybe, you know, you might be different. So you have to decide your goals.

This is important. Good luck, Vivek, on the IELTS exam tomorrow. Good luck to you. Oh, well, Kasim, yeah, I can give you some great advice. Kasim, any suggestions about books to read that can help me improve my vocabulary?

Kasim, any book will help you improve your vocabulary. But specifically, you know, real books, not textbooks, not study books, not test preparation books, not vocabulary books.

What does that mean? Well, it's fiction or nonfiction. So fiction are just stories. You could do graded readers, which are the easier ones, or you could just do full books, you know, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, whatever.

Or you can do nonfiction, right? Books about real subjects like anything, whatever you like. So the key thing, Kasim, is that read books about topics that you like or about, you know, whether if it's a fiction and stories, stories that you like, or read about, you know, nonfiction topics.

Real topics that you like. Like, I don't know, if you like computers, read about computers. If you're into travel, read about travel. You could read travel magazines.

You could read travel books. There's some great books by travel writers. They write about their experiences going traveling. So, you know, that's the key thing.

And then just read a lot. It's really that simple. Simon says, I've got a business plans, but I don't know where to start. Just start. Just launch your business as fast as you can.

That's my advice. Don't try to be perfect. Just launch it, and then just adapt. Change as you go. You learn as you do it. There's no perfect business plan.

How does that say out of the babies? They're doing very well. Thank you. All right, Vong says, I've read the Hardy Boys. Great, I've seen the word folks several times.

It's used for parents. Is that right? That's one meaning, yes. You can say my folks. My folks, his folks, is, yes, is a kind of word for parents. It can also just mean general, it can also mean people.

It can be a more general meaning of people. It depends on the situation, how it's used. But one of it's in the book, I think, Probably it's mostly used to mean parents.

That's correct. Someone else with a baby. Oh yeah, a bigger baby. My baby is sleeping already. So good. Sounds wonderful. I can't wait. Someday I'll sleep again.

How can I read... Arif says, how can I read books if my level of English is bad? Do graded readers. Do the easy, you know, the easy versions of books. It's what I'm doing in Spanish.

Okay, so just... It's just easier versions of stories. They're called graded readers. Just read those. There's lots of them. Lots of them. In English, there's a huge number.

N says, why don't you write a self-help book? Have you thought of it? You know, lots of knowledge, ideas... Yeah, maybe. Maybe I will. I guess this is a self-help show.

It's easier just to do it on video. Yeah, Philip is agreeing with me. That's it. Just start. Yes, just start. Just do it. Just launch your business as fast as you can and then you figure your stuff out as you go.

Yeah, Ilana, with a very good comment here. Many people don't know what exactly they want, how much money exactly that they need, what their goals are, where they want to be in five years. So the first step to try to figure out what you want is not so easy. Yeah, that's exactly right.

I think a lot of people have general, but we say vague, meaning not clear. These vague ideas, like I want to be rich. Well, what does that mean? What does that mean exactly?

I want to be rich. Like, exactly how much money is rich? $300,000? $500,000? $1 million? $10 million? What is that? Everybody has a different idea. Or you say, I want to be financially free.

Even that phrase. What does that mean exactly? I mean, I knew what it meant for me. I thought very clearly about what I wanted to be financially free.

But again, what does that mean for you? You've got to really be specific. That's, again, what I love about our book, in our book club, Your Money or Your Life.

Everything's very, very specific. You're going to have an exact number. I need this much to be financially free. An exact number. Not just I need to be rich.

I need to have a lot. I want to be free. No, no. It's exactly how much. When you figure that out, it's actually great because then you have a very clear idea, a very clear goal instead of just these vague feelings.

Los Machachos says, I went to Hawaii this year and now I would like to move there and live in my truck. Hawaii is fantastic. I understand. It's a great place.

How much do you get from YouTube videos? Nothing. Zero. Zero. Okay, Giovanni Baresi. I've got a question. Is it normal nowadays people always have overly high expectations once they're starting a new business?

Because there's a cousin of mine whose attitude always wants to top them. I don't know if it's nowadays. It probably is just a common attitude in general that...

See, here's the thing. This is why I said that there's a limit to the book, Think and Grow Rich. Because dreaming's easy. Doing is a lot harder than dreaming.

So... Dreaming and having a clear vision is good, but the next step is more difficult. Doing it. Taking the risk. Figuring out an actual plan. Following your plan every day.

Making mistakes. Failing. Learning. Trying again. All of that takes a lot of effort and is a little emotionally painful sometimes. So, yeah. It's good to have a nice dream and everything, but some people stay stuck in just that part.

And honestly, sometimes they're delusional. Delusional means they are being foolish. They have no business experience, nothing at all, and they're talking about being a billionaire. It's crazy.

It's crazy, right? Because it's easy to talk big. It's easy to think big. But doing big is much harder. Right? So, yeah. Don't listen to what people say.

Watch what they do. Watch what they do. What's the difference between Victorian English and modern English? Well, I can only say based on I don't read many, I've maybe read one or two Victorian novels in my whole life, in high school, because I had to.

So I'm basing this on movies, really. I don't know, it was very formal, very, you know, I think like Pride and Prejudice, you know. But I don't even know if that's real Victorian English or if that's just modern British English.

said in a formal way so I really don't even know exactly what Victorian English sounded like but so I would guess that the vocabulary was much more formal I don't know that's all I can say really I don't know because I don't know British I could tell you American a lot better that time period and like pre-Civil War but

I don't really know a lot of British stuff from that time period. Okay, Hemant says, I want to start a business. I have a good plan to start a business, but I have no money to start.

That's why I thought it was rich to me. Well, just start, Hemant. If you have no money, then you need to change and you need to try a different kind of business.

You've got to figure it out, so... You need a different plan, right? If you have no money, if you don't have enough money to start the business, that's your first idea, then you need a different idea that requires no money or very, very little money.

So don't give up. Don't quit. Okay, Silu, I have the same problem, so don't worry about this. Not in English, obviously, but everyone says to watch English movies.

I can't understand what they're saying. Very lengthy, very rapidly. What's the solution? Do something easier. Well, there's two solutions. There are two possible solutions for this.

So I have the same experience. I just talked about this yesterday. Same exact problem in Spanish, right? I was just saying yesterday that I was feeling really good with my Spanish, and then I tried to watch...

It was actually a TV series, and I couldn't understand anything. It was too fast, right? I mean, I could read the subtitles slowly, and I realized, okay, I do know a lot of the words, but at full speed...

Just right through. No way. I'm catching nothing. And so I really got depressed about it. Oh, this sucks. And I just, so what can you do then in that situation?

So it's too fast. This is called processing speed. See, there are kind of two elements of vocabulary, of really, of understanding a language. Number one is just understanding the basic, the ideas, meaning the vocabulary and the grammar, the structures.

Just knowing it. If you read it, you understand it, for example. But the second one is processing speed, like a computer. How fast can you understand it?

So it's possible, as you know, you might understand every word, but if they speak very, very, very, very, very, very quickly, you can't process it. Your brain knows the words, but can't understand them at that speed.

The speed is too fast. It's called processing speed. It's kind of a computer-type phrase. So we actually have to develop both, right? So for me, my Spanish, my vocab is not huge, but it's much bigger and much better than my processing speed.

I can read something in Spanish, and I can understand fairly good. I've read full books in Spanish, like Steve Kaufman's book, and even my own book, translated to Spanish. I read the whole thing. No problem, I can understand it.

But then I try to watch it like the TV show or I listen to a conversation between two native speakers and they're super fast. I might know a lot of the vocab, but I my brain can't do it that fast yet.

So it's all normal. This is normal. So it's the same for you in English. So what can you do? Well, two possible choices, really. Choice one is just do something easier for now.

It's too fast for you. Movies are too fast. So let's try just try doing audiobooks. Audiobooks are kind of in the middle. It's still a native speaker.

It's still a bit fast. It's a natural speed, but maybe not quite as fast as a movie or two native speakers. So that's what I'm doing, audiobooks and reading. The other thing you can do is you can do like a movie technique with the movie.

So you can play part of the movie. You can use the subtitles in English. You can rewind and watch the same part many times, trying to catch more and more and more. You can do all these kinds of things.

I'm kind of doing that in Japanese a little bit. So those are kind of the two options to help you. But don't feel bad. You know, that's totally normal, and it's okay.

Gmine is asking, a good dictionary translation app. I just use Google Translate, honestly. Okay, XYZ is recommending The Simpsons, so that's a good one. Watching shows you already know helps a lot.

For me, The Simpsons was very easy. Yep, not a bad idea. Oh, living in USA or Canada, can you change your financial situation? What's your thought? I don't think it's the country.

It's the person. Okay. Moving to America? No. I mean, this is such a common thing. It's so sad. It's Hollywood, I guess. People think, oh, I'll move to America and suddenly the money will fall on me from the sky.

It won't. It won't. Okay. It's hard living in America. Okay. It's expensive to live in America. Okay. you're not going to just automatically get rich.

So no, don't do it. I don't do it. If you think, if that's what you think is going to happen, because that's not going to happen. Um, what's more important are, is your mindset, your skills, you know, it's not the place you are.

It's, it's your business skills. Decide that. Uh, so there are plenty of, uh, Most people in Canada and most people in America are slaves. They're slaves to jobs.

They're slaves to money. They are not financially free. Like 99%, 95%, something like that. Most are not financially free. Just like everywhere else in the world.

Okay? So, no. Going to America or Canada or wherever, Europe or something, is not automatically going to make you rich or free or something. It won't.

It won't. It's sad that so many people think that. And they go there, and then they're very disappointed. And they left their families and everything behind.

And they're stuck in a bad situation, working a terrible job. And it's kind of sad. Pronunciation question. Could you pronounce often? I'm asking because recently I listened to a Canadian podcast and I noticed they emphasized the T sound.

Well, that's interesting. I've never noticed that about those Canadians. So that would be a small difference between Americans and Canadians. Because, as you probably noticed, Americans, we drop the T sound usually.

We don't say it. We say often, often, and we don't say the T. So often. They're both correct, but you'll hear with Americans, we will usually drop the T. Often. Often.

So it's interesting that the Canadian. I don't know if all Canadians do that or just that person you were listening to. I'm not sure. Elena says, can you recommend the names of books about investing in real estate?

I personally don't invest in real estate, so I don't know a lot about it. I know that that is, however, Robert Kiyosaki's specialty. So I believe he and some of his company, the Rich Dad Company, I know they do have some books about that. So that's all I can really say, but I can't give you specific advice because I really don't

I've never owned a house myself. I've never even bought one for myself. So I've never even bought a house before. So real estate is definitely not my thing.

So good luck to you, but I'm sorry I can't help too much. I'm just relaxing, guys, because my babies and my wife, they're at my wife's parents' house. So I'm alone at home tonight. Home alone.

So we're just going to have a nice, I'm going to just sit back and we're going to relax. And I'm just going to answer your questions and no hurry. Take it easy. For one night, I don't have to go and help with the screaming babies.

So I'm going to enjoy it. All right. Yeah, okay, so this kind of follow-up then. Giovanni says, what do you advise youth nowadays who are always building castles in the air?

For example, they dream to become an actor. Do you think I should pursue that dream or is it impossible? First of all, For any dream like that, like that involves fame, because that's what that is, acting.

You got to ask yourself, or the person has to ask themselves, why do they want that? Do they really want that? I mean, because you'll meet, like if you go to a middle school, what do you want to be? I want to be a famous singer.

I want to be an actor. Why? Because that's what the media is telling them. I mean, is that coming from something inside of them? Or... Is it just they want to be rich and famous?

Usually it's rich and famous because if you ask them, okay, well, do you take acting classes? Are you doing acting in your school? Are you doing plays in your school or in your community? Usually they say no.

They're not actually doing anything to be an actor. Or you say, are you taking singing lessons? Are you in a band? Do you perform? And again, most of them will say no.

They're not actually doing anything. to actually pursue that. So again, watch what people do, not what they say, right? So if that's the case, if they're not doing anything, then it's all bullshit.

They're just programmed by the media. They just want easy money and easy fame. And hopefully they grow up later and realize how stupid that is. However, of course, there are some people who really...

do want to be actors, right? And they do it. They take action. They take acting classes or they, you know, when they're in high school, they join the drama club and they do plays and they love it.

And, well, yes, those people, I think they should try to do it. Now, and same for musicians, okay? Like if someone wants to sing or they want to be a musician, you say, should they do it? Yes, of course they should do it.

If they love it, they should do it. But they just have to realize they might not make money from it. That's the only thing. So they just might... You can pursue this and do this as your love and as your art.

And art's the same, by the way, painting or something. You can do it and you can do it your whole life. But maybe you might have to do something else to make money.

Or maybe not. But we know, though, only a few actors get lucky enough to... to make money, to really make money and survive. In Hollywood, if you go to Los Angeles, probably 1% of actors are just full-time actors making enough money to survive.

And what are the rest doing? They're all waiters. Every waiter in Los Angeles is an actor or a musician or something. And that's okay, you know. It's just that...

So I say, don't quit. If you love it, just keep doing it. Do it for love. Do it because you enjoy it. You might even make some money. That's the other thing.

Like sometimes people who are musicians, for example, they play, they're in a band... And they play at small clubs and they make some money and they love it and they have fans and it's very creative and they're really good. But they don't become superstars, right? They're not like, I don't know, you know, whatever, U2 or something.

They're not in stadiums. Because again, a lot of that is luck and there's all kinds of other things for that that's a tiny, tiny, tiny percent. So that's what I would say to someone who's young and who was seriously doing it, right? Not just this nonsense of I want to be famous, but they really love it and they're actually doing it.

They're really singing. They're really playing music. They're really whatever. Then I'd say, yes, of course do it. Of course do it. Don't quit. But maybe just have a

a plan to make money in another way. And maybe you want to make money in a way that will give you a lot of time and a lot of freedom to do your music or to do acting or to do whatever.

So that's what I would say to anyone who wants to do any kind of art or any kind of something where most people don't survive financially. You know, being a writer. being an artist, a musician, actors, those kinds of things. Yeah, I think you should do it, though.

I don't think you should quit. I think if you love it, you should do it. It's Bob... Oh, Paulica is following up. It's Bob the Canadian's channel on YouTube.

But of course, I could hear it wrong. No, you probably heard it right. I've heard... There are people who say often. It's definitely a way. Some people do pronounce the T.

Ah, Chodra, I've seen this guy's YouTube and I'm actually, I've been thinking of inviting him. Could you arrange an interview with Jim Quick, mental strength teacher? Yeah, I'd like to talk to him about memorizing vocabulary.

Memory in general, remembering vocab, using little tricks to remember. Okay, I can't read the letters, unfortunately. Is that Hebrew? I don't know. Do you believe in buying a house?

Is renting better? Robert Kiyosaki is against houses, except for renting, except as a business investment. No, like I said, I've never bought a house. Never bought one.

So I'm against it because I like... It's, again, freedom. I move around all the time. I like the freedom of just, you know, like... If we want to move to somewhere else, I can just go, right?

In one month, we could be somewhere else if we wanted to be. So I like that. I like that we pay super, super, super low rent. So... I just like simple... Buying a house isn't necessarily bad, I guess, but you've got to be careful.

Oh, Minati, AJ, please tell me which is preferred by native speakers, simple English or English with idioms and phrases. Do you mean you speaking? For you speaking, simple English.

You don't... You, as a learner of English, as a non-native speaker, you do not need to use idioms at all. You do not need to use slang at all. None. Not necessary.

You don't need it. You don't need it, and usually it's kind of a waste of time to try to use it. Because it can be challenging to use it correctly, and it's not necessary. You can communicate the same ideas with simple, common, direct English.

And I think it's better to focus on that and having good pronunciation. Those two things will make you very understandable. That's all you need. Buck here says, I have many dreams.

Life is too short to achieve them. Yeah, well... People are writing me in Spanish now. You're testing my Spanish. Okay, I'm Fernando from Argentina. AJ, gracias for your service to all.

I began from two weeks ago with you. You're very helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, Neil says, enjoy the golden moment when babies are not around.

I'm kidding, yeah. I miss them, honestly. I miss them, but it is nice to have one night break, to get one night of sleep. It is nice. Hey, Paola. Nice to see you.

Paola, good to see you. I love you. I'm Brazilian. I can understand you very well. It's awesome. I love all your tips. You're great. Thanks, Paola. Thank you very much.

How old are your babies, Mohammed says? A little over six months. Six months old. Yeah, okay, here's a follow-up. Abraham says, all of Robert Kiyosaki's books are great for real estate.

Rich Dad's Guide to Investing is about investing. Other YouTube channels, Graham, Stefan, and Chris Krohn. Thank you, Abraham. That's nice. Abraham, that's nice.

Ranjan, how old are you, AJ? I am 51. Mymoon asks, please tell me about your parents, which, what is the happiest memory with your parents? Oh, hmm. I don't know, happiest, but, you know, I had a really, when I was a child, you know, a kind of small child, there's one point, uh,

And I was kind of an elementary school child. I have a lot of good memories of this one house where we lived in. And I kind of just played football, American football, with my friends. And I also played in a league.

And my dad and my mom would come. And my dad would help kind of coach. And my mom would make food for the team and things. That was really nice. Very nice.

I had a nice childhood. I did. Let's see. Do you think it's a good idea to become an influencer on YouTube for younger people? Nah, don't build your business with YouTube.

Can't trust them. They can just suspend you in a moment. Even PewDiePie, right? PewDiePie, who has helped Google and YouTube make huge amounts of money.

Google's always messing with him. They canceled his sponsorship. There's a chance that eventually they're going to get rid of him. You can't trust YouTube.

You can use it. It's okay to use it. Obviously, I'm using it. But you can't trust them. You can't build your business depending on YouTube only. That's insane.

You don't want to do that. It's a bad, bad business strategy. Use YouTube, but use other things too. And do not depend on YouTube for a business. Manuel says, good to see you again nowadays.

Doing a normal job is very boring. That's why most folks want to be famous. Yeah, I understand that. It makes sense. And they're young. I mean, these are young people who say this, right?

I mean, I think of kind of middle school age or elementary school age kids who say that kind of stuff. And yeah, I get it. Normal jobs are boring. Giovanni Barisi is not wrong.

You should also not do a boring job that doesn't drive you. Exactly. Yes, we all agree. I agree that it's just the problem is what's sad is that they're limited.

is that they're just programmed just because they're watching TV, like American Idol or something. And so they just think that that's exciting because all these people are looking at them and screaming.

But it's just hopefully they get older and they realize there are a lot of other things to do that are interesting. Yeah, here's Maya confirming what I said. I'm in America and I can tell you it's very expensive.

Yes. You can succeed in America. Of course you can, but it's not easy. It's not easy. Huh. Well, I'll try to answer this question. Could you give me advice to start a...

This is Adderley. Hello again. Uh... Starting a personal trainer business. I love to train people. Now I'm saving money to change my life because I'm tired of being a lawyer.

Okay. Read the Dan Kennedy books. Read... I mentioned them a couple days ago. So read Dan Kennedy books about marketing. Dan Kennedy's the writer. He's got several books.

So just look at the titles, read about them, choose ones that sound good. But I think those we've... especially Dan Kennedy, would be helpful to you because as a personal trainer, of course, you can do some stuff online for marketing, but I think offline also would be good for you.

So, Dan Kennedy. Yeah, let's just start with Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy. Emmanuel, again, I've got a question. I'm using your pronunciation course. Sometimes I'm overdoing it and want to sound like an American.

What do you recommend? So you're trying too hard, you mean? If you're sounding like an American, then that's great. Good for you. That's amazing. But if you're getting stressed about it, just relax, okay?

You don't have to be perfect. You just have to have a clear pronunciation so that Everybody understands you easily. If you have a little bit of an accent still, it's no big deal.

It's no problem. But if your accent is very, very strong, then the problem is then people can't understand you so easily. It causes communication problems. So that's why pronunciation is important, right?

So it doesn't need to be perfect, but it needs to be good. So that's what I would say. So don't stress yourself out about it. Just make it fun. Yeah, like Sachin saying, think of it like music.

The sound of pronunciation is like music. It's fantastic. Yes, exactly. How nice. Sachin follows up saying, I was once embarrassed by someone fairly advanced in English who were having a debate in school.

After following your methods, he recognized my hard work and praised My wish. That's great. Good job. Ah, Pazzini says, I started using your methods two years ago around April of this year.

Nice. Turned my head, and today I can understand at least 90% of your podcasts and videos. Thanks, AJ. You're simply the best. That's great. Pazina, you did the work.

So, very nice. Very nice. Great. Pronunciation methodology. Ambika's asking about, I've got a pronunciation course. Shadowing is probably one of the better ones that I recommend.

Do some shadowing. Okay, I'm going to jump to the bottom and try to catch up, guys. Okay. Can you play... Oh, Maxim asks, can you play any musical instrument?

No. I tried a few times. It seems the music's not for me. Is reading out loud a kind of speaking? Yeah, it is. You can do reading out loud. That's fine.

I read out loud a little bit. Manish says, I just left my boring job focusing to improve my English speaking skills, especially public speaking. Please suggest something. Dale Carnegie.

Get Dale Carnegie's book on public speaking. I can't remember the name. Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie, probably. That's my favorite book about public speaking.

Emmanuel again. I've got a... Ooh, the wind's getting strong, guys. Ooh, the storm's coming. I've got a last question, Coach. Is it normal nowadays most people are lazy?

Hmm. It's crazy here. In Germany, there's welfare. Most people depend on government. In the USA, is that the case? Yeah, welfare tends to make people lazy.

It's one of the reasons it's not a very good idea. There's welfare in America. I think it's less than Germany, and therefore... Maybe less. I don't know.

I've never been to Germany, so I can't really compare it to Germany. But there are plenty of lazy people in America, for sure. There are a lot of lazy people.

If it's more or less than Germany, I don't know. Ah, there you go, Philip. I knew someone would do it. The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie. Thank you, Philip.

Perfect. Yeah, it's a nice book. It's a very good method he has, sort of system for doing public speaking. I like it a lot. Okay, Shadi says, I have a question.

To be forced to move from a big house to a smaller house. Can this... Because of debt, can this depress us? Do you think we should work hard to save money and get a big one again?

No. Why? There's nothing wrong with a small house. I would say even if you don't have debt, move to a small house. Smaller. You know? Cut your expenses.

Cut, cut, cut. Hey, there's Mehdi. I'm going to have to definitely jump in and say hi to Mehdi again. Okay. But anyway, the house, your housing, even your apartment or the place you live, accommodation, is usually your highest expense, your highest single one-item expense.

So that is usually, for most people, that is the best place to cut expenses. That is the best place to spend less money, is to move to a cheaper place. It might be smaller, but just cheaper is the key point, right? So whether you're renting or own, it doesn't matter, but go to a small place and then try to work hard to save money just to get a big one again.

No. Work hard, save money, buy assets. Don't move, just move back to a big house and now you're saving no money again. Now you're just stuck again. That's the rat race.

You're never ending. No, no, no, no. Move to a smaller place. Save money with the extra money. Buy assets. Create assets. Businesses, real estate, investing, things that make money.

Then you get more savings. Then you buy more assets. You know, it's rich dad, poor dad. It's the basic system of rich dad, poor dad. That's what you should do.

Forget the bigger house. Buy assets. And then when you're really rich, then buy your big house if you want to. Okay, I got to go back because I saw Metty.

Hey, Metty. Long time no see. Good to see you. How's it going? Been missing you so much. No kidding. Haven't seen you in a while. Good to see you again.

El Camino. Breaking Bad movie. 2019. Just what? Really? Breaking Bad movie. 2019. Just released today. Breaking Bad movie. You got to check it out. I will be checking that out.

I didn't know they made a movie. Too cool. Well, I'm really curious. Okay, I'm so curious. I'm going to do a search right now. Let's all check out what's going on with the Breaking Bad movie.

No one even told me about this. Breaking bad. So this must be about Jesse. Yeah, Aaron Paul. Okay, let's see. Let's see the plot. Here it is. After escaping Jack and his gang, Jesse Pinkman goes on the run from the police and tries to escape his inner turmoil.

Well, cool. I'll be checking that out. Thanks, Matty. Okay, let's see. I'm an ESL teacher suffering to make children not be shy to use the language. How can you advise me?

You've got to create a no-stress environment. That's the key with kids. Don't push them and force them because that makes it worse. Actually, I find that the mini-story TPRS is great.

The method of TPRS, teaching through stories, is great. I have them do a lot of reading, like storybooks and things like that. You got to just make it fun and enjoyable and don't pressure them to speak. No pressure to speak at all.

If they don't want to speak, they don't have to speak. That's why TPRS is so great. If they want to speak, of course, that's great. But some of them won't for quite a long time and that's also fine.

That's the key. Just let them enjoy the language and have fun with it and no stress, no pressure. In my opinion, British English is tougher than American English. What's your view?

That's hard for me to judge. Obviously, it's not harder for me. It's different, but a little different. Yeah, I don't know. What's more different? Is it the pronunciation?

Yeah. Such Bella asks, what's the favorite place you visit in your life? Hmm, because travel lets the human find a good mood. It's hard for me to say because I have a lot of, there are several places I like a lot and they're very, very different.

So it's hard to say. Like one is better because they're just, I like them for different reasons. I love Nepal, for example. Nepal and India both are great.

I love Thailand. I have a kind of a connection to Thailand. I love Japan. I have a very strong connection here. In Europe, Spain, because of the Camino especially, Italy just is a great place.

Yeah, I can't choose. It's too hard. Too hard. Okay, cool. So Dave's saying, you know, another teacher of English here. I'm a teacher of English. The pro is my boss doesn't push me to focus on textbooks.

That's great. My last job in San Francisco, I had that same situation, and that's very nice. What can I do to encourage them to learn the English language? Again, kind of similar.

I don't know the age of your students, but TPRS. Just for classroom teaching, I think TPRS. Total physical response, storytelling, whatever they say it is now.

I think it's the best method for classrooms. That's a good one. You can also do the movie technique with your students in class. That was developed as a classroom technique.

Watch my YouTube video about the movie technique because you can do that as a teacher. And students always love that. I promise you they love the movie technique.

They love learning with movies. Okay, this is a common question. Greetings from India. Namaste. Oh, Namaskaram. Nice. Thank you. I live in a small village.

Nobody speaks English here. I have trouble to speak alone. Okay. Number one, do shadowing. Watch my videos on shadowing or tracking. And number two, you can try to find maybe some conversation partners online so you can chat online.

So those are the two things I suggest. Okay. And you can actually, I think you can get a lot of practice. That's what a lot of what that Matt guy that learned Japanese in America did, that kind of stuff.

Ah, well, okay. Here's an example. Shiny says, Walden is still hard for me to read. Yes. Well, Walden is very tough. Definitely don't feel bad. First of all, that is, you know, like 18...

When did he write that? 1860? Something like that? Pre-Civil War. Something like that. 1850s or 60s. So the vocabulary used is very, I want to say advanced, meaning not common, very kind of intellectual.

And the sentence structures are long and formal. It's a more formal style of writing than most people use now. So for all these reasons, Walden is not easy.

Don't feel bad about that. You might start just... You get some easier books. That's all you got to do. Don't get stressed about that. Sometimes you find a book and you try to read it and it's too difficult.

So just relax and just find a different book and later you can try that book again. What matures would you recommend for total beginners like parents to learn English from zero? It's always a little tough, this question.

If they're motivated, they're willing to do a little work, they can use mini stories. Like they could use Flow English or even my original course and use the text and use a dictionary if they need it and they could sort of figure it out. And the first few months would be a little difficult, but then I think they'd be fine.

They could use Pimsleur has a few English ESL courses for zero level for different languages. You could try that. And Maria said, I had an English teacher who followed only text. Zero conversation.

Only grammar. That does sound terrible. Yep, Clippy's using TPRS. I'm teaching a class using TPRS. All the students are very excited, and I'm very happy too.

That's great. You can get Blaine Ray's books about TPRS, TPR Storytelling, I think is the name of the book. He even has some teacher training videos where he explains how to use the technique.

So that's all you need. And this answers this question right here. What's the best way to teach English? In a classroom? TPRS. And movie technique is also good.

Movie technique for variety. Man, I can hear the wind blowing. Wow, let's see. Ooh, something exciting about a storm coming. Okay, Arif says... I've got to check my phone here, my sister.

I've got to make sure my sister's not having a problem with her flight. Nope, she's okay. Okay, good. Two English courses in Mundelein, Chicago. But until now, I'm not improving.

What should I do? You're not, you know, the class is... Save your money. Don't waste your time. Instead, do the same amount of time at home independently learning English.

You'll get better results as your own boss. That's my advice. Christian says, I've got a question. Do you recommend me to improve my pronunciation? A lot of people poke fun at me saying my English is poor.

Um, so again, you know, watch my, get on my, go to my YouTube channel. You can find some videos I did about pronunciation. There's one about shadowing or tracking. It's called, shadowing is the more common word.

That's a good one to do for getting your fluency and start working pronunciation. If you're really serious about it, then get my pronunciation course. It's the same website, effortlessenglishclub.com. If you go to the bottom, there's like,

Maybe at the top. I can't remember. But anyway, you can look on the courses menu. You'll see pronunciation course. Get that and use it. And these things will help a lot.

Good luck. Hmm. Patrick Senemi says, people on SoundCloud are imitating you, trying to sound like you. Do you know about them? Who are they? I don't know about them.

I have no idea. That's kind of funny. Are they good? Do they sound like me? Or not close? Please be careful about Typhoon. Don't want you to get hurt.

Yep, well, I've got water. I've got food. I'm ready. Last time we lost electricity for one day. That was not fun, but hopefully, like I said, I'm hoping this one's a little better than last time.

Yeah, Phillip says the video I like the most of you is the one you teach the TH. Yeah, a lot of people think it's kind of funny because I make funny faces, but yeah.

What's the perfect time to learn a language like English in the morning or the night? Well, whichever you like. When you have good energy and focus, I'd say. Whenever you've got a nice mental energy is a good time.

So some people are more night people and some are more morning people, right? Madame Salmane says... I'm from Morocco. Have you ever visited? I have not.

Nope. Not yet. Well, Angel says, Angel or Angel, thank you so much, AJ. I started with Everless English since January. I've been improving so much. I really admire your help for everybody.

Thank you. Yeah, that's a good idea. Can you do a live conversation program, day-to-day conversation with family? Well, I might try for this show, the podcast.

We'll see if I have time. I'll try to record something with my sister. Probably not video. I don't think she's going to come here to the apartment. But I have a little audio recorder.

Maybe I could do an audio chat with my sister. Can you talk about minimalism someday? Minimalist. Well, yeah. It's basically living simply, right? Simple, simple, simple.

Simplifying your life as much as you can. That's what minimal means, right? Less, small. These are synonyms. So, I'm all for it. Thumbs up to that. Thumbs up to minimalism.

Just get what you need and you don't have to get a lot, a lot, a lot more, right? There's kind of luxury. Luxury has a lot of problems. Too much luxury in your life makes you soft and weak.

And I don't think that's good. We don't want to be uncomfortable and unhappy, of course not. But even if you have enough money, even if you're really rich, I still think there are benefits to controlling what you spend and living a fairly simple life. There are mental benefits, psychological benefits, spiritual benefits to not living the super luxurious life.

I think, yeah, I think I'm quite a fan of minimalism. That's why Walden is one of my favorite books. The whole book is about that. Can you explain about yet and till?

I need a little more context. I need a little more situation. What you're talking about. Yet. I have not done that yet. I haven't eaten yet. So what does that mean, yet?

I haven't eaten yet. That means that you're planning to eat, but... You haven't. Right? Like I could say right now, I haven't eaten yet. Did you have dinner?

No, I haven't had dinner yet. It means you haven't had dinner, but the yet gives the idea that you plan to do it. You still plan to do it. Okay, and then until... Until can be used in a lot of different ways, so that's a little more... Yeah, they're quite different, actually.

Okay. I'm trying to think of a similar sentence. I won't eat dinner until 6 o'clock. It's more specific, right? Yeah, I can't... It's hard for me to explain it without...

If you have a confusing situation, let me know, but that's the best I can do right now. Oh, Douglas is in Japan. I forgot. Typhoon coming there, too. I think... Where are you?

Nagoya, I believe you said? I might be wrong about that. Brazil. Okay, Shadi is asking about assets. Now, let's see. I'm going long, man. Almost an hour and a half.

I probably am going to go get some food in a minute and eat. But we had a long show today. Okay, Shadi says, I kind of understand the meaning of assets, but can you explain to me the exact meaning? Tell me what you call an asset.

Okay. Can we call buying gold an asset? Okay, so there can be a little confusion because this word, the definition of this word, is a little different, depends on which definition we are using.

So I'm using the Robert Kiyosaki definition, which is not the technical definition. Accountants have a very specific definition for like a meaning for an asset. And there's a dictionary definition of an asset.

But these are a little different than Kiyosaki's definition. And I like Kiyosaki's. So Kiyosaki says, an asset, maybe we should say a real asset, a real asset is something that creates money for you.

It creates money. It creates income. Robert Kiyosaki, he says, it puts money into your bank account. So that's what he calls an asset. It puts money into your bank account.

If it's not putting money into your bank account, it's not an asset. So the question of gold, that's a good question. Because is gold an asset? Well, is it creating money?

Is it putting money into your bank account every month? It's not. So... From Kiyosaki's point of view, it's not an asset until you sell it. So what is it?

It's savings, it's investment, you could try to use other words, but it's not yet an asset. It's not creating any income. On the other hand, if you own a house and you rent it, someone lives in it, they pay you money every month, that's an asset. That's a real asset, a Kiyosaki asset.

Maybe we should just call it a cash flow asset, meaning it flows, it moves cash into your bank account. It's a cash flow asset. Other things that you just buy and hold on to, even like stocks, for example, are stocks assets. Not really.

It's a little more gambling, right? It's not really an asset. And that's why I agree with him. If you buy a stock, it's not an asset until you sell it for a profit.

But we all know you can sell it and lose money also. So then it's definitely a liability then. So that stock, let's say you own Apple stock, 100 shares of Apple stock. Is that an asset or is that a liability?

Well, we don't know until you sell it. When you sell it, if you make money, it becomes an asset. It added money to your bank account. If you sell it and you lose money, well, it's the opposite.

It's a liability. It subtracted money from your overall worth. So it's the same with gold, technically. Gold people will argue about this, but anyway.

The point is that if you buy gold at... $600 an ounce and you sell it at $300 an ounce, you lost money at least in terms of dollars, so it's not an asset in that case.

Okay, I think that's about it, guys. Okay, I'm going to follow this with the last one from Ibrahim Ali. When will you meet Steve Kaufman? It will be... Oh, let's see.

What are we talking about meeting? We don't have a day yet. We're still trying to figure out the exact day. Let me look really quickly. I can tell you.

We have a choice of days. Okay. So Steve Kaufman from the linguist. Okay, it'll be October 21 or 23. I'm not sure yet. But the 21st or the 23rd of this month, I will be meeting Steve Kaufman in Osaka.

And we'll do a video together where we'll interview each other or just chat or something. And I'll probably just invite him to do like an online interview later as well.

Looking forward to it. All right, guys, that's all. I'm going to go get some food, and let's hope to storm the big typhoon. Let's hope it moves north and goes away from Osaka.

Lots of love to you. As always, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That's where you get my Business English Conversations course and where you commit to my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

Thank you.