The Real reason Why You’re Not Fluent

Hello.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the English Fluency Festival, Day three. How are you doing? So, before we begin, let's just check. Can you see me? Can you hear me? Before I start talking for five minutes and then realize that my mic is off. Hello. Hello. Marta is here showing up from Spain. Let me know where you're speaking to us from. And we have Solange from Mexico. Yes. Thank you, Mariam. Okay. Fernando says yes too, so we're good. It only took us three days to be accurate on spot right at the start. So I'm so happy to see you all. Thank you for all the amazing feedback. Thank you for showing up like you're showing up. Thank you for doing the work. I know that you have been actively participating in the conversation groups. I know that you have been uploading your videos to Facebook. For a lot of you, it's the first time that you've been uploading a video to Facebook. So kudos to you. You guys are doing great. And thank you for everyone who shared their story on social media and tagged me. I loved seeing your posts and seeing where you're at. Okay, let's see. How are you doing? We're going to wait a few more minutes till everyone joins in. And in the meantime, let me switch to the slides. So we're going to start with the fun stuff. I'll wait another minute or so. So I want to start with asking you, what is your biggest takeaway from day two? Whether you watch the recording or participated in the live training. We're going to do a quick recap if you don't fully remember what we talked about. But I would love to hear from you if you're here today, what is your. What is your biggest. Biggest takeaway? Martha?

Yeah.

You got in. Don't worry. Because even if your account is private, when you post something and you tag me, I can see it. So it's great. Good morning, everyone. So what is your biggest takeaway? By the way, today, since you are live, I want you to know that you get a chance to win prizes simply because you showed up live today. And today we're going to do something slightly different with the prizes. I'll explain in a sec. We're going to have quite a few prizes and it's only for those of you who are now live watching on Facebook, on YouTube or on the website. Okay, good. So specific, effective communication. Fernanda. Thank you. This is something that we definitely talked about. Like, what is. Like what is the best way to communicate and how to practice effectively. What. What do you need to do to take action. Good. Let your English as a habit. Fantastic. Right? Like you have to create habits around it. And we're going to talk more about that on day four. 30 times repetition, active vocabulary. Woohoo. Exactly right. Pronunciation confidence method. If you want to learn something, you have to repeat it and trick your brain into thinking that you're actually using it, but you're just artificially using it. Building that pronunciation confidence, building that experience of speaking. Okay, so wait. Marisol says, I've learned where I'm stuck and how to develop and take action. I've learned about the importance of pronunciation. Great. And you know that we have a few pronunciation groups during the program and in the pronunciation groups. First of all, you're going to learn a lot of tools to improve your pronunciation, but also learn how to use the pronunciation confidence method. Marta says my biggest takeaway was the right reasons to learn pronunciation. I'm happy to see my reasons are good ones. Yes. Amazing.

Good.

I'm loving this. A little echo. I know. I think I know. So three months and beyond. The winner of three months inside beyond beyond is our English practice community. We where you get to basically have an incredible community to practice. We have conversation groups, we have daily sprints, coaching sessions, and so much more. So we're offering three months and beyond. And today's winner is Laura Prada. Laura, thank you so much for sharing and thank you so much for your insights. And you are the winner of three months and beyond. We are excited to welcome you inside the program. Now for those of you who participated and you're here, don't worry because let me tell you what we have for you today. Okay? So congratulations, Laura. Laura, are you here? Let me know if you're here now. By the way, I don't. I can't see all of your names. So if you're watching this on Facebook, note that there is a link right above the video. And if you click the link, then I'll be able to see your name when you're commenting. So if you are active in the chat and. And if you are watching this on Facebook, then click the link so I can see your name when you're communicating, when you're sending messages. All right? Congratulations, Laura. So today's prize, as you can see, we have a few prizes. The first one is 30 minutes, one on one with a new sound coach so you can ask them anything about pronunciation, mindset and learning strategy. 30 minutes to get what you need. $25Amazon gift card. If you have that book that you wanted to get for yourself. We have created in the past a job interview cheat sheet with stellar techniques on how to practice and prepare for your next job interview and a few questions that you can work with. So we have that. And I know that some of you, when we talked about compromising, don't compromise your dreams. You said that you want to change your job, so this is probably going to help. And we also have a phrasal verbs workbook. It's something that we created, and it's designed to give you a different outtake on a different take on how to learn phrasal verbs. So it's not the traditional way, but it's kind of like a way that teaches you how to learn phrasal verbs through understanding the second part of the phrasal verb, the particles. So we have all of those things to offer you today. How we do it, you only have to fill out a quick form. We're going to share it in the chat. If you are watching live, then just Amar is going to pop it in the chat on Facebook and on YouTube and on the website. So simply just fill out your name and your email address, and at the end, I'm going to throw a raffle. You will have to be live for the raffle if you want to win the prize. So you'll have to stay here until the end. Until I do it. But. But we're going to do it at the end. I'm doing it so I can give more time for more people to sign up, because sometimes people join a little late, but you can sign up right now, so you can definitely get in the raffle. Let's see if. If the link is in the chat. Okay. So, okay. Yes. Here's the link. Cool. All right. If you want to win any one of those prizes, and I guarantee these are things that are going to help you. Maybe not the 25 gift card, if you get to buy things not related to English, but they're going to help you definitely with reaching your goals. All right, how do I sign up? So, Oksana, just notice the link in the chat that Amar is posting. We're going to post it a few times throughout the entire training. So just sign up, put in your name and email, and you're going to enter the raffle. And then we'll start. We'll do the drawing at the end. Okay, good. And this is what I just said. Fill out a form and stay till the end. All right. I wanted to make sure that you downloaded the workbook and you are keeping your notes there because it's important to stay on track and it's going to be hard for you to remember everything. The recordings are only going to be available until the end of next week, until the 19th. So if you feel that you're going through some kind of, like some changes, you have some thoughts that you want to keep and remember, make sure you write them down in your workbook. Now, let's start with a quick recap before we go into day number three, especially for those of you who just joined us today, because I know there are a bunch of people who joined us yesterday and today. So on day one, we talked about the old way of learning English. The old way of learning English that is based on overwhelm and making you feel bad, about making you feel mistakes and about getting you punished and about treating everyone the same way has led to the identity of the eternal English learner. And we talked about this identity as someone who is constantly overwhelmed, frustrated, in fear of making mistakes, values perfection over communication, not taking chances, not taking on opportunities, not making a change, feeling stuck. The identity of the eternal English learner with negative self talk. And we also talked about the new identity, right, like, and to get to the new identity, we have to learn a new way of learning English. We cannot, we have to let go of the old way and we have to look forward and think about a new way of learning English. A way that allows you to thrive and feel good about yourself and fall in love with English and stuck with that love, hate relationship with English. And we said that that leads to the identity, the desired identity of the new speaker of English, right? Someone who's confident in who they are, someone who is in full ownership of their journey, no victim mentality. Someone who learns from mistakes instead of fearing them, someone who takes on opportunities, someone who is making a change in their lives, someone who makes an impact, who is, who has a deeper reason for doing this work. Okay, so we talked about, to get there, one of the things that stop us is this feeling, that stagnant feeling and feeling of resistance. And I said, hey, you gotta reclaim your dreams. Because I'm sure that a lot of you have dreams not necessarily related to English. Some dreams require English for it. If you want a new job, if you want to start a business, right? Like sometimes you need English for it. So English is the means, it's not the tool, is the tool, it's not the means, Right? But you've got to remind yourself what you want in your life and how to make a move to get there. Now we've seen a lot of the members inside the Fluency Festival starting to make moves. For example, Samira, I don't know if you can see this, but Samira decided that instead of just reading in Arabic and French, she decided to start reading in English. She knows it's challenging, but she knows it's the right path and the right beginning to making a change. And Kelly, who opened a podcast Congratulations, Kelly from Costa Rica. And she opened a podcast so she can practice English. Like, I don't care if people are going to listen or not going to listen. And if people are going to listen, I don't care about what they're going to think. I know that this is good for me and I have something to share and I'm going to do that. So congratulations, Kelly. This is incredible. Best news ever. And we have Shareef, who already has a list of the top dream jobs. And we have Jane, who convinced her brother to make a move because he's been feeling stuck in nf, who started making changes to her website and and started doing things that she's procrastinated for years. This momentum is incredible and all you need is just to make a decision if you want to see results faster. And we also have Kiros who posted the video for the first time, which is incredible and I know it's very scary for so many people. So congratulations. That was day one a lot, right? Good. I make a move about Tongue Twister. I started my online teaching to friends. No charts. That's amazing. Good. I don't see your name. Tell me who you are, because I can see just Facebook user. So, so dreadful. Okay.

I think I am.

You can't hear me. I think I am connected to the mic. You guys can't hear me? Let's see. Okay, it's supposed to be this microphone, but if you can't hear me, let me see what I can do.

Let me just bring it a little higher up.

Okay, you can hear me. Let me see. All right, now this is the mic. Amar is telling me that I need to switch microphone, but I think it's okay. Okay, you can hear me Loud and clear. Good. Day two. So let's talk about day two. Day two, we talked about the illusion of learning. If you remember how to not get into the trap of the illusion of learning. Right? Like just acquiring knowledge more and more and more. Like passively learning and then not putting it into action. Just creating a bigger gap between the English that you know and the English that you're actually able to speak. And then we Also talked about what to do to get out of the illusion of learning and to understand where you're at and to identify where you're stuck. And we talked about specific, effective, and clear action. And I gave you three tools to be able to do just that. For specific action, we talked about the fluency wheel. Later on today, you're going to have an implementation workshop with Christina. We, who is going to go through the fluency wheel in depth and help you identify what specific action you need to take. Then we also talked about the pronunciation confidence method, the method that is based on the idea of perception. You need to understand the differences in the problem, and then you need to understand what to do. Okay, hold on. Let me check. I don't know. Let's try it again. Cam link. This is it. Give me a sec. You guys, give me a sec. I'm just gonna check something. All right, Just testing, testing. No, it seems like it's the right mic. All right, so sorry, guys. So pronunciation confidence method. You can hear me. Okay. Pronunciation confidence method is this idea of perception, then understanding. Like, you have to make sure that you know how to pronounce it, then repetition, right? So you have to repeat it to create muscle memory. And then you want to use it intentionally. And throughout all of that, you want to prioritize and to understand what to do. So that's the pronunciation confidence method. And then we want to take clear action. And this is where I taught you the pronunciation. The communication flow, how we produce a thought. Thought. Until we're like, thoughts. We first have the thought, and then we have. We turn it into word structure, and then word structure turns into utterness. Utterance. Okay? So first you have a thought, then you turn it into words, then it becomes words, Then it gets into someone else's ear, and that is the interpretation. And today on day three, the mic is not working. So I think. I don't know. I don't know what to do because it tells me that this is the right mic. All right, so maybe. Yeah, it seems like it's not, but switch it. No. All right, so we're gonna have to stay with this. If you can hear me, I understand that my. This mic is not working for some reason. Okay. Yeah, I think I have a. Now I have a problem with my mic. So it's just. It's just. What can I tell you? You can hear me now, right? Thank you, Marcelo. Thank you. All right, so we're gonna let go of this. That is, like, has decided to stop working. But, you guys, we're Here. We're here, right? We're doing this. So day three, this is the important part where things. Now it's clear. Okay, day three, are you ready for day three? The real reason why you're not fluent. Okay, good. Day three. Here's what we're going to learn today. We're going to learn what is mindset and how does it affect your English. We're going to talk about the law of cause and effect. We're going to talk about how to manage your mind, and then we're going to talk about designing the right environment so you can thrive and succeed. This is what we're going to talk about today. And I cannot wait. And I'm so excited to teach you what I have to teach you today. Just a reminder for those of you who are live here with us, who are going to be live throughout the training, we have prizes for you for those of you who are live. So we have a link in the chat that is going to that you can sign up just to let us know that you're here with us live. And you may win one of four prizes that we're offering today. So you can do it in the background. Okay, so let's get started with how to work on your English from the inside out. This is one of the most important things because, you know, we talk about working from the outside in. We talked about pronunciation, confidence, method. That is all about from the outside in. It's so physical, right? It's not even about understanding it. It's about like just making it a physical habit. And when we're learning, we're learning like something externally. But what about what happens when we speak? What happens to our impulses and what happens inside ourselves, you know, emotionally, mentally, psychologically when we're speaking in English? And this is where we start talking about mindset. Mindset is a set of beliefs about our abilities, intelligence and talents that shape how we interpret ourselves and the world. This influences how we think, feel and behave in any given situation. And I want to talk about mindset when it comes to English now, what does that look like? What is happening in to us inside when we speak, think or listen to English? So first of all, it's the thoughts we think. I'm going to turn the AC off so it's a little quieter. What is happening inside? Like what are the thoughts that we are thinking when we are speaking in English? That's what, that's mindset, right? So you just take for granted sometimes the thoughts that you think and it's just like A natural part of communicating. No, but you can manage your mind. You can control your thoughts. The feelings we feel, the emotion that we have when we're speaking or when we're thinking about speaking, the decisions we make around English opportunities. Yes or no? Is it maybe for too long? So all of those things is all about mindset, how we handle failure, right? If something did not work well, if you messed up in a conversation, how do you respond to it? What do you. How do you feel about it? How do you even define it? Right. Our external. How our fluency is influenced by external circumstances. For example, maybe you're speaking to someone who is a little more judgmental or speaking to your doctor or a government official, and then you feel stressed out, right? Like, and then your English deteriorates. Why is that? So we have to understand how external circumstances affect us. And this has to do with mindset, the expectations we have about our performance and achievements. Okay. Do we have unrealistic expectations? Because if that's the case, it's definitely going to affect you and how present we are in a conversation. Right. Are we wrapped up with thoughts? Are we only thinking about ourselves and how we're feeling and what we're going to say? Or are we present with the other person? That is mindset, how we think about others. Do we criticize them? Do we judge them? Do we compare ourselves to others? Right. All these thoughts about other people definitely influence our English experience. And especially in particular, it got its own bullet. How we compare ourselves to others. Oh, they're better than me. They're worse than me. They're native speakers. They're this, they're that. And, you know, without knowing the story behind it and without even giving yourself the opportunity of just, you know, thinking of yourself as, you know, having your own journey and not having to compare yourself to others, you don't know their story going back to day one. What are you compromising? Because ultimately, all of those things that we have discussed end up costing us something. All right? And we're going to talk about this today. Like, all of those fears and thoughts and behaviors and decisions, they cost us our dreams, our goals, our relationships. So I want you to keep asking yourself, what am I compromising? What am I not doing and why? I want to talk to you about the law of cause and effect, A universal law. The universal law of cause and effect states that for every effect, there is a definite cause. Likewise, for every cause, there is a definite effect. Seems pretty simple and straightforward, right? If something, like, if we're doing something, it's going to have an effect. Even if we don't think there will be an effect. It's not something, you know, that you have an immediate effect, but maybe in the long term it's going to have an effect. Right. And if you have a certain result in your life, it is caused by something. Usually it's not just caused by life. It is caused by a certain action or inaction that we take or a certain decision that we make in our lives. So Ralph Waldo Emerson says, man becomes what he thinks about all day long. So today we're definitely going to go deep into exploring our thoughts, because that is the most powerful thing that controls our lives and that we have control over, even though we think that we don't. So let's look at this idea of cause and effect. Do you agree that there is this. Do you agree with the law of cause and effect question? Yes. So let's see. For example, let's say I have this very harmless thought that creeps in every time I hear myself. Oh, I have a bad accent. Right. I specifically use phrases that I've heard my students say. Yes, okay, good. I don't like my accent. I have a bad accent. Right. And we think it's just a harmless thought, or it's a thought that you can't control because it's just coming in. Or sometimes you might even think that that is your reality. Right. It's just what it is. Right. But let me prove to you that it's not, because here's what's going to happen. Let's say you have a thought, I have a bad accent. And then what's going to end up happening is, for the most part, you are going to find yourself avoiding speaking because it's like, I have a bad accent. I don't feel good about speaking. They're going to judge me, whatever reason that is. And ultimately the action is going to be just to avoid speaking. And then you might say, okay, I'm just avoiding speaking. I did not participate in the conversation. I just didn't feel like it. But the outcome of it is that you're not going to be improving your fluency. Right? That's the immediate outcome. I told you, if you want to get better, just speak more. And a lot of the negative thoughts cause us to not speak. That's it. Because we're so afraid of making mistakes. And then if you're not improving your fluency, you may not take clear action towards your goals because you're like, I don't. I'm not going to Apply for a job because my English is not good enough. I'm going to wait until I get better. And you keep doing things, but you're not improving English because. Or your fluency because you're not speaking, because you think that you have a bad accent, but you're not even connecting those things together. And then because you're not taking clear action towards your goal, you're feeling stuck in your life, and you feel like you have an unfulfilled life. Now, it does not mean that you're not joyful. You might have other things in your life that you're happy about, but you might feel unfulfilled because if you have something that you're not fulfilling, if you have resistance, and if you have this negative energy in your life that is preventing you from doing things and changing things and accomplishing things, then there is this feeling of stuckness, right? You're gonna feel stuck in a rut. And it does not matter what negative thought it is. I make mistakes. Avoiding speaking. I don't know what to say, right? I don't know what to say. It's not gonna sound good. So, same thing. You're gonna avoid speaking, not improve fluency, not take clear action towards your goal. You're going to feel unstuck and unfulfilled in your life. I'll get criticized. The fear of being criticized. I'm not going to do that because people are going to criticize me. And again, sometimes the thought is not as clear as I laid out. Laid it out. Here you just feel a lot of emotions about something. But if you go to the bottom of it, if you try to get to the bottom of it, you will see that this is the thought, I'm not ready. There's another flow, another cause and effect. Maybe you're feeling. You're not ready, so you're waiting, you're deferring action. You're not taking action because you're waiting to be ready. But then if you're not taking action, you're not making a change. If you're not making a change, you feel incompetent. That's how we are. If we're not seeing change during a certain period of time, we start feeling incompetent. Not enough. Like frustrated, unhappy, unsettled, right? And then you end up just simply not living joyfully. And look at the cause and effect here. And I'm sure that a lot of. Some of you may say, no, no, no, that's not the case for you, for me. But some of you, right? And Let me know if that's you in the comments. Some of you might really feel that this is something that they're seeing. They're seeing that they're not happy, they're unsatisfied with things. And they're also seeing that they're thinking that, or they're also thinking that they're not ready, that their English is not ready. These are not two separate things. This is cause and effect. Okay? I want you to remember that every thought you have has a huge impact on your life. And here's the thing, our brain likes to optimize itself, right? It's very efficient. So the brain likes to think the same thoughts, not new thoughts. It's easier. Like once you have created this neural pathway between, you know, like which is a thought, a repetitive thought, then the brain is always going to go back to it. It's not gonna like it. It's harder to like. It's not optimal to start thinking different thoughts every time. We are creatures of habits. So ultimately once you have you think a thought for several times, right, Then it becomes something that is repetitive in your brain. You always go back to it. Now the bad news is, is that it's hard to change because you need to carve new pathways. The good news is that you can do it because ultimately, if you've done it with a negative thoughts, you can do it with other thoughts as well. And I'm going to give you a framework to how you can manage your mind. So I guess we can all say here or most of us can agree that we have some negative thoughts. Sorry, we have some negative thoughts in our heads, like around English and around thinking in English, right? And ultimately, you know, we have to do something about it because it's affecting our lives one way or another. So here is how we can manage our mind. The first thing we want to do.

Is to identify the thought.

Like I told you before, you know, you might have a certain feeling about it, but you don't know what is the underlying thought. So it's really important to first understand what is the underlying thought and identify it, give it a name. Then you want to reframe it, you want to replace it with something else. Then you want to change focus because I told you the brain likes to obsess over certain things, right? And repeat the same thoughts. And the way to do it is to change your focus to something else. And then you want to evaluate. And this is what I call comparing outcomes. This has been working tremendously well for me when I'm afraid to do things or when I have, like when I second guess myself, I always do this. And then the answer is very clear to me as to what I need to do. Currently, I need to turn on the air conditioner. So step number one, identify it. Identify the thought, the emotion it causes and the underlying reason. Okay, good. And I have, I see some great comments here. So I know that even if I can't read it right now, the team is going to collect your questions or important comments and they're going to put it in the doc. I'll answer all of it later. Okay, Just reading some of the comments. So identify it. For example, if we have a thought, I won't be able to understand them. So every thought that we have or every thought that we have creates a certain emotion or a physical experience.

Right.

What are we feeling before because of the thought? The thought leads to a certain emotion. It's not the other way around. We're not feeling bad and then we're putting words into it. No, usually it's the thought that triggers the bad feeling. So if you have a thought that is, I won't be able to understand them. Before a meeting or you're starting to talk to someone, that's the thought that comes to mind. What you may feel is stress, anxiety, shame, self blame, self loathing. You know, you might feel like your, your hands are sweaty, your palmers palms are sweaty, you have short breaths, maybe fast heartbeats, unsupported voice, you all of a sudden lose your voice or your voice is really soft or low and you don't know how to control that. Right. So you have all these emotions and it's not just fear or it's not just the fear of English, it is caused by a certain thought. And again, sometimes we can't know exactly what the thought is unless we put our minds to it. And then I want to encourage you to think about the underlying reason. Because ultimately all the thoughts that we have that cause the feelings that we feel, the negative feelings that we feel originate in some sort of fear. Right? Whether it's the fear of being judged, whether it's the fear of not being enough, whether it's the fear of rejection, the fear of not being loved, not being accepted, not being a part of the group, not being a part of the tribe. Right. It's so primal because you know, in ancient times if someone was not a part of the tribe, they would die. So it's like a survival thing. If you want to be you, if you want to survive you, you have to be accepted you cannot be rejected. Right? So there is this rooted fear of being rejected, even though the world has changed significantly. And a comment on YouTube is not going to kill you. The fear of criticism. Same thing with criticism. Someone says something about your English or about your work, it's not going to kill you. But sometimes this fear is so crippling, and we feel as. Like our body responds to it as if it's about to kill us. Okay, So a certain thought creates a certain emotion, and all of that originates in an underlying reason. And here, you know, when we have a repetitive thought and that thought causes all of that stuff, right. It becomes a limiting belief. Why? Because a thought, when it's repeated, it becomes a belief. Right? And a belief is something that we know is true even though we don't have proof for it. And a limiting belief is a belief that has been limiting your true potential. Why has it been limiting your true potential? Because it's preventing you from doing the things that you want to do or you know are good for you. And really, it's not just about English here. So why do we have limiting beliefs? Let's talk about that. Right? Why do we have to begin with limiting beliefs? Right. Why do some people have a lot of limiting beliefs about something and other people may not have any limiting beliefs about them? I'm looking at my two daughters, and one is fearless and the other one is fearful. Like, one is more worried about what people are going to think and the other one does not care in certain situations. Same household, right? Same teaching. Why is that? So I. There is a root cause to why that is different. People respond to different situations differently. We carry a lot of things with us. So it could be something we learn from people we believe and trust that help us design our belief system and perception of reality. Others are just responding or it has been created by past experience or trauma. And sometimes it's just social and cultural, no norm that we're sensitive to. So all of those things are. I'm going to bring it back because I know I just rushed through it.

So some of these reasons, and there.

Are many reasons, but a big part of it is how we grow up. Usually limiting beliefs are. Are rooted or created when we're young, right? When we're just learning about the world, what's right, what's not right. So a lot of it can be specifically about English. Let's say, you know, if you. I had a student who had a mother who was a teacher, and she always heard her mother speaking about her students or correcting Them or, you know, and she was very strict with them. And she grew up to believe that mistakes are really bad. Right. And, you know, we always want to please our parents, and we always want to please the adults in our lives and the people that we love. So one of the ways to do that is to stop making mistakes. Now, mistakes are impossible to not make in a second language. So not speaking provided her with not making mistakes. Right. Because when you don't speak. Yeah. You don't make mistakes, but then you don't speak. So there are like, our brain works in a really weird ways to make sense of those things. Right. Even if logically you're like, this does not make sense, subconsciously it does. So we have those limiting beliefs and we need to identify them. And one of the good ways, like, first of all, we sometimes it's very clear to us. Yes. I had a teacher who told me, you know, don't speak because you sound funny. And then that creates a certain fear. And sometimes we don't know what that is, why that is. So I want to ask you. Now, I talked a lot about cause and effect and limiting beliefs and what it does to you. But if we're trying to think about those repetitive thoughts that we have in our head, and I think all of us do, right. All of us do have those thoughts. When you think about the repetitive thoughts that you have in your head and they're negative thoughts, and those thoughts probably create or don't create things in your life, they have an effect. What are those thoughts? Let's try to identify some of the things here. Try to kind of like summarize it into one sentence if you can. What is that thought that is preventing you, that keeps showing up, that keeps popping up? Let's see. Feel free to just put it in the chat. Yeah. My accent always was wrong. Yeah, I. I always get it wrong. I always mispronounce things. Not. Not good enough. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time is a complete limiting belief because it prevents you from practicing and speaking. I don't have enough time. Fear of not being enough. Right. But okay, and how that. How does that sound? Right? Like, what is. What are the sentences that you say to yourself in your head? Perfectionism inside me, which probably ends up being like, oh, I can't make mistakes. Mistakes are bad. I'm not good enough. I need to improve. Okay, that's a question. I'm not good in languages. Right. This is another thing. Like, I'm just not talented in languages. What Can I do? This is a limiting belief because it's preventing you from taking action, from actually improving. If you have this belief that you cannot learn languages, how do you expect yourself to learn a language? Who's going to do it? Your brain that does not believe it's possible? How will you be able to remember it or to see results? So you will be able to learn it. You're here, but you're not going to have the breakthrough and the freedom that you deserve because you're caught up in this idea that you're just not. You can't.

It's not for you.

People won't understand me. Not learning. Not good at learning foreign languages again. Fear of failing. I have a very heavy accent. My pronunciation is bad. I can't speak until I'm perfect. Right? Like, waiting for the right minute words won't come to my mouth. I won't remember what I want to say. Yes, yes. And think about the effect of those thoughts. Someone else is better.

Pamela. Yes, right?

Like, what a horrible thought to constantly have. And it's so aligned with, I'm not good enough. Right. Someone else is, but I'm not good enough. I have a podcast episode. I shared it with you yesterday in the resource document that we shared about the imposter syndrome. This feeling of not being good enough constantly, of feeling like a fraud. Like you are always, you know, just. Someone is leaving. This is. Someone is going to discover that you're a fraud, that you actually don't know English the way you pretend to know. Or, you know, maybe they think that you know English, but in re. In reality, you know, they will realize one day that actually your English is really bad. The inner voice saying that I sound funny, right? I have a funny voice. My pronunciation and my vocabulary is poor. My accent sounds fake sometimes. And look at that. And I just want you to, like, take a look in the comments and see that whatever horrible thoughts you have, it's not just you. It's practically everyone here, right? It's practically everyone who speaks English as a second language. And I told you, it's not your fault. We are constantly being led to think that we are not good enough, that there is the cycle of, like, you know, success and. And hierarchy and you are not there. And fomo, fear of missing out and all of that. People are going to judge me, afraid to make mistakes. I'll never be able to learn grammar. Yeah, I still make mistakes. My vocabulary is not enough. I want to reduce my accent. Passive vocabulary is poor. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Too Late, not good anymore. Priorities are somewhere else. Right. I think a lot to speak. Yeah, I'm just scrolling through all of them. I always hesitate in stressful situations. And I also, before we even go continue with this, I want to invite you to first of all remember that you deserve a lot more love and compassion. Right. Again, like we are forced in a way to, to think about ourselves. You know, like to think how not how bad we are doing and how we're not good enough and you know, all the things that we need to improve and we forget to be kind to ourselves and to show ourselves some love and instead, instead it takes up all the space with self loathing and self hatred and self judgment. You know, think about yourself as a child and think about all the negative thoughts that you have about yourself right now and all the bad things that you're saying to yourself. And now imagine yourself as the adult you looking at the three year old you. If you have a photo of yourself as a child, so put it in front of you and think about the fact that when you're saying all those things to yourself, you're actually saying it to that child as well, who does not deserve it. And like that child does not deserve it. All of a sudden we're like, oh no, we can't say that to a child. You can't say that to an adult too. We have the same precious soul that needs to be tended and taken care of and nurtured and loved. Right? So when you have all that negative self talk, remind yourself that you are the first person who deserves to be loved by you, then everyone else. Now all of those things that you wrote here, do you have proof that it is true? My accent is heavy. Heavy. Okay. Do you have proof? Do you have it written out by the association of the pronunciation? Association of the world does not exist. I just invented it. Do you have proof that this level of accent is too heavy or that your passive vocabulary is indeed, indeed lower? Or that you're not enough? Do you have proof? Did you get a report card at the end of last year saying oh no you did not good. Do well in life. Not good enough. Yes. No you don't. Because it's a belief, it's not a fact. A fact is yesterday I walked outside and it was 38 degrees. That is a fact. A fact is that the world is round. Some people may argue, but let's say it's a fact. That is a fact. You can't, you can't, you cannot disprove it. So if you have if, if you don't have proof that it is true, then we all agree that it is a belief. And a belief can be changed. Now I also want to encourage you and this is something that you can journal on and you know Yelena is going to help you go through that. In day three, Implementation workshop Where were you first exposed to that belief? To this belief, right? Where were you first exposed? Did someone tell you that your accent is heavy? Did people not understand you in some situations and then you just assumed that it's you? It's not them, it's you who has a thick accent and that's it. So usually it's something about someone telling us something, right? You can't make mistakes because people are going to think that you're stupid. If someone said that to you when you were a child, then you know that ends up being mistakes in a second language as well. But I also want you to remember that this belief is protecting you from something. Okay? This belief is protecting you from something. And that something is rejection, abandonment, criticism, not being loved. Right? All those fears that we talked about, it is protecting you from that. But it is it really good for you. Now I also want to invite you of a counter example. Do you know of people with the same circumstances as you, right. Who have different results? Do you know of someone who has a foreign accent, a non native accent, who is actually successful if your belief is around. I don't live in an English speaking country. This is why I can't improve. Do you know of someone who also does not live in an English speaking country who is at a totally different place on their English journey? Or someone who lives in an English speaking country, yet they are at the same level as you? If that's the case, then this belief is not right. So we need to kind of like go through this logical process, this analysis to see to dismantle this belief. But it's not enough. Because once you identify the belief, and I think many of you have started identifying your beliefs and maybe the underlying reason and maybe where you picked up those beliefs from and what it's protecting you from, the next part is to reframe it, okay? To replace the thought with another thought that will have a desired impact. Like I told you, the brain likes to optimize itself. And we can decide how we want to optimize it. Do we want to optimize it with negative thoughts or do we potentially want to optimize it with positive thoughts? And if we do it with positive thoughts, repetition is really important here as well. So it's not the pronunciation confidence method, but it's all about repetition and creating new habits. Because if you want to make a change and to create again a new neural pathway, a new thought, think of like carving something on a stone, right? You make one line and you can't see anything. And another one, and another one and another one at the same place, and you still can't see anything. But do it enough times and you'll start carving this path. And that is the same. Same thing with thoughts. But it has to be focused, it has to be repetitive, and it has to be specific. So here are a few things that I love talking about, and I've talked about it and beyond my program, and I want to talk to you about it. It's also in your workbook, how to replace fluency, killing thoughts with fluency, boosting thoughts. Okay? So really think about that. You want to have a negative thought? Great. Go ahead, destroy your fluency. You want to boost your fluency? Replace it with a positive thoughts thought. Cause and effect. No way around it. You're going to have to do the mindset work, my friends, if you want to get fluent. Oh, it's so hard. I don't get it. I'm so overwhelmed. It's so hard. Who here has thought this at some point in their lives in an English class during their practice? Right? Put yes in the comments. Let me see. For extra participation, for exceptional participation, you're going to get another vote into the raffle today. Amar is checking. If Amar sees someone commenting and kind of like engaging a lot, then Amar is going to add your name again to the raffle to win some prizes. Yes. Okay. How many times have we thought it's so hard. Gosh, it's so hard. I just don't get it. Hey, how about this? I know how to do hard things, yo. I've done it before, right? You've learned a language before. Your brain knows how to learn a language. Yeah. Maybe you don't remember it because you were two, but you've learned a language so your brain knows how to do it. Just let go. Stop with the judgment. Stop with just feeling so bad and start allowing your body to do what it knows to do. Don't get in the way. Okay, next one. I'm ashamed of my accent. Many accent shame here in the comments. Many accent chain thoughts. Right. Pronunciation is not good. I have a heavy accent. And remember what I said at the beginning? Like, what? What is. What is this costing you? How about instead, hey, I have the privilege of speaking More than one language, and I'm not gonna hide it. Okay, wait. I need to make this bigger so you can see it and then skip all those again. Where is it?

Sorry.

Okay, write it down. My friends, if you are identifying a thought that I'm talking about here, please write it down. Even write it down in the chat. If this is something that you want to carve into your brain, write it down in the chat. I have the privilege of speaking more than one language, and I'm not going to hide it. I'm not doing enough. Right again, society, teach us that we're not enough. And we're not doing enough. You're seeing all these other people practicing, posting videos, reading books, doing all those great things. I'm not doing enough. I think every person here has probably thought that just along with it's so hard. So I'm not doing enough. How about I am enough and I'm doing what I can to improve daily. I have my own rhythm, I have my own pace. I know my limits and I'm doing what I can. That is, if you are taking action and you're practicing and you're doing. If you're not doing anything, then yes, it's actually a fact. But if you're doing things and you're thinking that I'm not doing enough, then wait a minute. This is just, you know, my brain is messing up with my head. I'm enough, and I'm doing what I can to improve daily. I have my own pace. I know my limitations. I know my priorities. I'm focusing on other things during this season of my life. I am enough. Please write it in the chat. Because a lot of you talked about not being good enough. So it's a like, it's a moment that we all need to take and to just agree that we are enough. I am enough. Write it down. I can't find the time. Someone actually mentioned that. Yeah. Kelly, thank you. And Keiko. I'm enough. That's it. Any thought that we have, in a way, is rooted in not being good enough. Not being good enough is the fear of resent, the fear of rejection, the fear of abandonment. But no, I am enough. I belong here. I belong in English, and I am enough. If you have the thought of I can't find the time, I'm so busy, then English is important for me. And I don't need a lot of time every day to improve. Because sometimes the belief, the underlying belief of, you know, I can't find the time is that I have to do so. Much to improve. I have to do a lot more, right? I'm not doing enough. And this is. And I also don't have the time because I think that there's all these things that we need to do. No, you do not need to do a lot to improve. You just need to do it consistently and daily. Okay, 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. As long as you have that habit, as long as you're doing the work, as long as you're constantly improving, it's the compound effect. You're doing something small every day. Maybe you're not seeing the results every day, but ultimately you will feel a tremendous impact, massive results, and you won't know where that came from. Like, I don't know what I did, but, like, all of a sudden, everything is a lot easier. What you did was, you know, just practicing for six months, every day for 10 minutes, for 15 minutes, speaking three times, picking up the phone more often. I can't make mistakes or mistakes are bad or anything related to mistakes, or it has to be perfect. Whatever that thought sounds like in your head, say to yourself, mistakes are the currency of fluency. If I want to get fluency, I have to make mistakes. There is no way around it. You have to make mistakes to learn. You have to make mistakes because it means that you're speaking. If you're speaking, you're improving. That's basic math, right? If you're speaking, you're improving, and if you're speaking a second language, you're making mistakes. Hence, making mistakes means that you're speaking and therefore you will improve. You know, not to mention the fact that if you're actively doing something about those mistakes, let's say, oh, you know, instead of feeling bad, let's learn from it. Because mistakes are basically a flashlight on what is still unclear in your head. I'm going to say it again. When you make a mistake, it's a clue for you on what is missing or what is stuck in the communication flow. Do I not have a theory? Let's say you made a grammar mistake. Do I have no idea what. What I need to use? Right? On Interact, I actually don't know. Let's learn the theory. Is it. I know the theory. It's just when I'm speaking, like, other words just come out and I say something else. But if I were to write it, I would get it right. And then it's the utterance part, right? Like, you know, the thought is here, but something else is coming out of your mouth. Is it you're saying it, but someone else is hearing something else, right? And that's that next stage. But you, you now you know how to practice. What's a practice? What to identify. You got stuck because you couldn't come up with a word. Great. There was a missing word. There was a missing word because it's in your passive vocabulary and stuck all the way back. You got to make it active, do the work. But usually what we do, what do we do? You know, let's say you have a meeting and you get stuck because you can't think of a word or like you. You forgot a word or a phrase or whatever, and that got you into this. You know, maybe you had a blackout or you just stopped speaking. Usually what, you know, what people do is they leave the room or close their zoom call, and they just don't want to think about that anymore. They just obsess about messing up. They have this anxious feeling, and then they just go and do something else just so they cannot deal with. With the negative emotions and they're not doing anything about it. So if mistakes cause you to just feel defeated, yes, mistakes are not the currency of fluency. But if you made mistakes because a mistake, and then you're like, okay, what was the word I was looking for? Obviously, I know it. Obviously it's not available. Let's do something about it so it does not happen next time. And that's how you make a change. You got to be proactive. You got to be proactive. No one's going to give you the stuff that you need to know, and you'll be able to take that and implement it, and then everything's perfect. It's your own journey, and you have to take ownership over it. Just have to have the right methodology and the right environment to succeed. And you have the. Have to have the habits to keep you going no matter what, whether you succeed or not. Now, once you replace that thought with a positive thought, and you said it like a mantra several times in your head, mistakes are the currency or fluency or I have the privilege of speaking another language, right? Privilege, privilege, privilege. I'm privileged. I deserve to speak. My words matter in whatever, whatever that mantra, positive thought, sounds like. The next thing you want to do is change your focus. Because usually when we have a negative thought, like I said, the brain likes to obsess over negative thoughts. And usually at that point, something physical is going to help you. For example, just go and take a walk. Walk outside, go throw out the trash, wash your face, take a shower. That's what I do. When I'm, like, nervous, I'm anxious, I'm, like, not enjoying my being inside myself. I take a shower. It always helps. It always changes my state of being. Do 10 jumping jacks. Jumping jacks, 10 of them. Like, get physical. Dance. Hop on a call with a friend and just talk about something completely different. Get distracted again after you shifted your thought, but you don't want to go back to the negative thought. Do something good for yourself. Dance for five minutes, sing a song, really out loud, yell out the song, meditate. Unless this is just going to get you to obsess over those thoughts. So it depends on. On you. But that's something else that you can do. This is something that I love to do. Or journal. Just get out all the trash out of your head. Just write out that negative thought again and again and again until you're tired of yourself and your brain is just like, okay, just leave me alone. Right? Empty out everything into the page. Move on, but do something. Take five minutes and change your focus. Listen, a lot of times we get so busy and we're like, I don't have time for it, Like, I can't do it. And you guys write it down because it's not written anywhere except for here. So sometimes you were like, I don't have time to do it, I have to work. But then you work, and you're so not efficient because your brain is always taking you to those negative thoughts. And then you feel defeated and tired and you just want to do other things, and you go eat lunch and that. Right? Take five minutes, shift your. Shift your mood and come back, and you're going to be a lot more effective. Okay? I have to move more and more. Don't do food, though. Especially not alone. Not healthy. Substitute it with water. Yes, it's so true. Ilya. Hi. Nice to see you here. Food is just a way to push down feelings. It's a way to be healthy and to kind of like, you know, nourish yourself. But if we feel stressed out and go to food, then usually it's just to stuff down emotions. We do that with other things as well. We, you know, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, watch television, go to social media, all of that. It's just another way to not for us not to deal with our emotions, and we do that, and then we don't feel our emotions. But you're not solving anything, you're not changing anything. And soon enough these things are going to come up. And on the contrary, because you're not processing it, you're not taking the right action to make a change. Okay, we're gonna reach my favorite part, which is evaluate. Right? You shifted. You did everything. And then at night, before you go to sleep, you process those things and you think about, you know, the two outcomes. Remember, cause and effect. I love thinking about it because I think it's so powerful. And you want to evaluate the effect of the two options that you have. What you already know and the new thought or the new behavior. Okay, Compare the outcome of both thoughts and both actions. For example, option one, say the thought is, if I make mistakes, they'll think that I don't know English or that my English is really bad. So let's say this is the thought that you enjoy in air quotes. Enjoy thinking. Your brain likes to go back to this thought because, you know, when you have this thought, then ultimately you know, like, you, you, you. You are taking care of yourself. Now, this thought creates a certain emotion. Anxiety, shame, feeling crippled, like you can't do anything, feeling inhibited. Now, when that is the emotion, it leads to a certain action. Because when you feel shame, you're not going to go live on Facebook and tell everyone, you know what you did today. You're not going to go out and look for a new job. Because when you feel shame and anxious and crippled, then you're probably going to end up not speaking, saying no to opportunities, and then that changes the outcome in your life because you're not improving. You're regressing, even, and you're not making changes. You're not reaching your goals. Right? So usually if I make mistakes, that's because, you know, we're afraid of judgment. And the fear of judgment ends up leading us to living a life where we're not making the changes that we want to see frustrating lives. But let's say the thought is expressing my voice is more important than being perfect. And. Or mistakes are a natural part of speaking a second language.

Right?

Say it to yourself enough times and your brain will start believing it, believe me, even if you don't really believe it right now. So sing to yourself. It's a natural part. It's a natural part. What I'm doing is natural. It's like, you know, drinking water. It's like walking in the park. It's just like. It's something that people do. And then when you have that thought over and over again, you obsess over that thought. You're like, okay, I'm proud of myself because I speak two languages. Maybe you feel hope, right? Wait. Expressing myself, My voice is more important. You become hopeful. You're in ownership of your journey. You are in control. It's not about other people. It's about you and what you decide. And then when that is the emotion, you're more likely to say yes to things, even if it's scary, because you're, like, in control. I feel hopeful, so maybe I'll succeed. It's not, I feel crappy. I will fail. No, maybe I'll succeed. You feel communicative. You feel like you want to be around other people. And then the result, the outcome is improving and evolving and making a change and instead inspiring others and reaching your goals. Because you're like, you don't settle and you say yes to opportunities. So cause and effect, right? We see the cause and effect of those two options. And I like to ask myself, when I realize that I have those thoughts and those fears, I want to ask you, will you be willing to pay the price of experiencing fear to get the things you want in life? Because the thought of, I'm gonna make mistakes and they're gonna think my English is bad is basically the fear of what people are gonna think about. Your fear of judgment, feel of being rejected, feel of fear of not being good enough, right? So you're fearing what other people are gonna think about you. And that is costing you a lot. That is costing you your dreams. So the question is, are you willing to pay the price of feeling that fear? Usually no one's going to do anything about it. No one's going to say anything. It's just you and the fear. So the question is, are you willing to feel that fear? So you change those thoughts and you start having different outcomes in your life. So avoiding this, right? To clarify, the fear of being judged, fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of not being loved, fear of criticism. You are trying to avoid this. This is why you have those thoughts. This is why you're not taking action or you're taking the wrong action. This is costing you. Sorry. This is costing you improving. It's costing you evolving. It's costing you making a change. It's costing you making an impact, influencing the people around you, being a role model, leaving a legacy, reaching your goals. Is it worth it? That's the only question I'm asking, and you will answer it. For some of you, the answer might be yes. You might say, I rather avoid feeling the fear, and I'm okay with not reaching my goals. I'm okay with not making a change. I'm okay with that. I just don't want to feel that fear. Now here's the thing. Some of you may tell me hadar. Some of you may tell me hadar. Come on. It's not just the fear. People are going to respond to it because people are going to tell me something. I'm going to fail. Okay, you're telling me go to a job interview, okay, I'll go to a job interview and then I'm not going to get accepted because maybe my English is not good enough. And then I failed. Right? It's not just the fear. It's also I don't want to fail. But here's the thing. I don't know of any successful person that even has the definition of failure in their vocabulary. There is no such thing. Because just like mistakes are the fluent, the currency of fluency, failure is the currency of success. You cannot succeed without failing because failing means that you're trying and you're learning what's working and what's not failure. How we perceive failure is just the universe making sure that you're on the right track. Because that's not the job for you. This is why you didn't get it. That's it. What a better way to think of things. It's just that it's fine it wasn't for you. But hey, you got all this experience.

Because you practiced really well.

And now for the next job interview, you're gonna nail it. And in a meeting where you messed up and you got quiet in the middle of making an argument, at least people saw that you had the intention of saying something. Because up until that point they thought you have nothing interesting to say. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, they have something. They might have not even noticed the fact that you got stuck. Usually people don't even respond to the things that we think of this as failure. And I want to give you another point of view. If that's not enough, are the potential thoughts of other people of you more important than your goals, achievements and life? Because my friends, if your fears are keeping you stuck, then ultimately if we're stripping it out, the thoughts of other people, it's not even the thoughts, the potential thoughts. Because a lot of times people are not even thinking those thoughts. It's us projecting our fears onto them. I hope I make sense here. But the potential thoughts of other people in a way are more important than ourselves, than our self expression, than, you know, our achievements, our goals in life. Now that does not make any sense. Right? Of course. People's thoughts. What's Going on in people's brains and other people's opinions are not more important than your self expression, of course. So why are you behaving exactly the opposite? Right, because not taking action because of fear is exactly that. I'm just saying it as it is. So you need to take a deep breath and like, take. Do some soul searching and ask yourself, what is the fear of other people's opinions of me costing me right now? Could be the fear of what your mom is going to think about you, or what your spouse is going to think about you, what your kids are going to think about you, Your friends, your teachers, your colleagues and strangers on the Internet. Sometimes it's even more scary. Strangers. Who cares really? Now we all care. I care. I don't like to be criticized. I don't like when my videos go viral for a bad reason because they're controversial. I do not like it. Yet I battle the emotion. I won't go and like and remove the video because I know that it's not helping me, even though I really want to do it. I had one video on how to pronounce February that got like 5 million views in two days. Mostly because British speakers were sharing it and just mocking how I taught, because I taught two different pronunciations and one of them was mostly American. And it was just like, I don't need this. They're not even my potential clients. But it was like. So one voice in my head was like, let me just take it down and not have to deal with all that crap. People were giving me bad reviews on Facebook. And then another part of me, the proud part, the part that knows that if I cave into that, right, if I cave into that, then I'm just caving into that fear of what people are thinking about me. So I'm not going to do it. So it's a constant battle. It's not going to go away, right? Don't expect it to disappear. Just manage it better. Be in control. Manage your brain. Become aware of it, but decide that it's not going to predict or indicate what you're going to do. So let's wrap up this part really quickly. And then I have one more part to talk about. And then we're going to go into Q and A. How to manage your mind. First of all, you want to identify it. You want to give it a name. Then you want to reframe it, replace it with something else. Then you want to change focus. You want to move your focus to something else, right? Do something physical, get out of that Situation, zoom out. Finally, you want to compare outcomes. What is you. What is this behavior costing you right now? What is this thought costing you? What is the dream that it's costing you now? Sometimes it's very like, I'm simplifying it, really. But to me, it's very helpful because it's just like a simple yes or no. I want to tell you the story of Mio. Mio is one of my students, and before she was in my training, you know, she was really, really afraid of going into job interviews using English. And when she did this specific mindset work, right, she decided that she's excited about it. That was like a big mindset shift for her. And, you know, after doing this work, she actually interviewed for two jobs and finally got both job offers. And she says, I'm a different person now and I'm excited to start my new life. Or Jessica. Jessica was one of my students as well, and she had the same story before that she had. She felt like she had no voice, right? And she said, through this training, especially the mindset training, I was able to change my mindset and get back the confidence that I've lost. I'm a thousand percent more confident. This course has changed me for the inside out. And she as well, after doing this work, especially the mindset work, got a job. She lives in the U.S. right? Or Rosa, that was not able to connect with people before, it was really hard for her to start a conversation, right? But when she gained her confidence back with this type of mindset work, she was able to overcome the fear and have conversations with other people. So all of a sudden, her social life has completely changed and of course, her English. Because when she was. When she started communicating in English and started saying yes, you know, it changed everything about her English, and she got to learn a lot of people and connect with people from different countries and cultures. What an amazing experience. You want to remember that you need to create the best circumstances for you to succeed. Now, one more thing I'm going to teach you today is about your environment. And I want you to ask yourself, is your environment helping you succeed? All right, this is something that I want you to take a look. I want you to take a look at your life, your environment, and ask yourself this question and give. You know, you can share it with us as well. So first I'm going to talk about personal environment. Your personal environment is really important, and it's important that the people who love you and you love them understand why English is important to you and what you need from them to thrive. Their support, patience, lack of judgment, and understanding is imperative for your success. For a lot of you, English is a big passion, right? The English work, the English practice is a big passion. And when you. In any way, we're battling our inner resistance. When you don't have the support from the people around you, and sometimes, on the contrary, when you're being criticized and laughed at and ridiculed for the work that you're doing, why are you doing this? What's the point? Oh, you're English again. And I know of many people who experience that maybe, oh, you sound funny. Why are you doing all this work? So when that is the experience, the resistance that you're already feeling might be validated, and then you might stop or just feel bad about it or feel guilty, and you might try to downplay your experience. Oh, I'm not doing anything. And like, secretly practicing. So it's important that you speak about what's important to you and that you ask people to respect your passion and the time that is needed for you to succeed. Because to be able to do this work, you need support. It's really important that you'll have support from the people that you love the most. And if you need to make. To have hard conversations to make that happen, then again, don't be afraid of what people are going to think. Think about what you need to succeed and do it. Okay? No, they're just kidding. They're. They're teasing me, right? But if it's not making you feel good, then why are you putting up with it? Okay, now, for a lot of you, it's the other way around. Like, people fully support you and encourage you to keep going and do what you love. And that is amazing. That is what I wish for all of you, and I hope that you fight for having this in your life. But personal environment is not enough. You also need your English environment or even professional environment, because surrounding yourself with people who want the same things as you and who understand you gives you an internal sense of freedom. It's totally different than the support from the family. You want to be around people who are passionate about the things that you are passionate about. Okay? You want people around you who care about their personal growth as well as their fluency. So it's not just about, let's learn English, let's practice, you know, sounds. No, it's also about the personal development that goes into that. If you weren't interested in personal development or mindset, you wouldn't be here right now listening to this, you wouldn't be even following me with all my, you know, mindset talk. But you are here. That means that it's important to you. And this is why I want you to understand that when you find speaking partners or a community where you feel safe in, you know, this community has to be a bit more than just about English, because then you'll feel at home and it will give you this inner sense of freedom. Just today I saw this post in the Fluency Festival, Community from Eden, which is, I really love this community. I feel safe here meeting people with the same goals and think about it. Think about like. And the slides that I've prepared were already far before I've seen this post, right? And this post, I was just like, ah, that's exactly what I was talking about. Right? Because when you feel that people have the same goal, you feel free and you feel safe. And it's so important for your personal and professional success. If you keep fighting the currents and what people think and you feel alone, it's really hard to succeed and feel inspired and stay motivated. You want to surround yourself with people who do, who already achieve the things that you want to achieve. Nicole, also one of my students, says, I feel more alive and have completely changed my mindset, not only about my English, but other aspects in my life as well. So she was going through that as well. And she also had the support of the community, just like the community that we have here today. Like, you know, you have to find the right community and support to thrive. She says this community is like a family. We share not only the main goal of speaking freely, but our struggles in English and our achievements. I'll be forever grateful to this beautiful team, team and community. Right? So when you have this feeling, it's no wonder why you are succeeding and thriving. Or Claudiana. She's very active in the English Fluency Festival. Claudiana works at a hotel and before she used to be afraid of speaking to native speakers. But now she says, I'm no longer afraid to speak with native speakers at work. This was my most important goal. Everyone in New Sound supported me and I felt at home. So, yes, she's a New Sound student, but she was a big part and an active part of the community. You will see now in the comments because I have a lot of students watching this right now. So, you know, they will tell you that this is true because a part of your success is not just about the right strategy. It's not just about the mindset work that you're doing. It's having the right support and community and so that you can thrive and feel like you're not alone. And one more thing that is important is your physical environment. You want to create for yourself a distraction free environment, one that inspires you and allows you to focus on what you need to get done. So this is also important. And I want to ask you all, and I implore you to take a moment and ask yourself, what is in my physical environment that is preventing me from feeling inspired when I do the work? When I sit down to do this practice, is it messy? Did I want to get a new plant, maybe. Maybe a new lamp to feel like, you know, like a little fancy or luxury or something? Maybe a candle with a scent that you like? You don't need a lot to help you focus, but do something for yourself to improve your physical environment, okay? Because the personal environment, which is the people who are around you, your professional environment, which the people you learn with and practice with because English is not mental to be learned alone. And your physical environment, how you do it, where you learn what's around you, what happens when you look to the side, right? Like, is it messy and you have dirty dishes? To me, that's not inspiring at all. And then I just get angry. So make sure that you create the right circumstances for yourself to succeed. And here's what we learned today. We talked about what mindset is and how it affects your English. We talked about the law of cause and effect. And we said that every thought that you think has an impact on your life and has an effect. And every effect, every result that you see in your life is rooted in a cause. And that causes usually your thoughts, how to manage your mind. We talked about the four steps and then designing the right environment for you, your personal, professional, and physical environment. All right, my friends, how are you doing? How are you doing, Amar? How are we doing? Do we have a lot of people who signed up to get some prizes here? Some prizes and surprises? Good, good. All right, so we're going to move on to the questions phase. But before that, I want to remind you that for those of you who showed up live today and are still live with us, we are going to do a raffle, and we're going to give away four different prizes. Let's see if I have them here. I think I have them somewhere. Hold on.

No, I don't. Just a sec. I'll come back to them.

All right, I'll show you the prizes. Hold on. And here we go. It's gonna take me another second. There we go. Okay, here it is. So you can win today if you filled out the form, and Amar is going to share it in the chat as well. If you filled out the form and I. I think I can post it here. If you are on YouTube. No, I don't think I can. Let me. There it is. So if you are on YouTube, I'm going to share it with you as well. You can see a comment from me. Kimberly is here. Hi, Kimberly. I don't know if this is the right chat. Yeah, it is. Fill out the form so you can enter the raffle, and when it's ready, Amar is going to send it to me. It's going to have. I'm gonna have, like, a wheel of names, and we're gonna do the raffle right now and share those prizes. Maybe you're gonna win the interview cheat sheet, and that will inspire you to start a new to. To look for a new job. Okay, questions, questions, questions. Do you know that when I was younger, the way for me to remember spelling was just. I'm sure that all of you did that. But till this day, I still remember how I used to think about words, to remember the spelling. Because, of course, in school, it was more important that I spelled things correctly, so I had to manipulate the pronunciation. Quest. Right. Sorry. To remember how to spell it. So I got an A in the quiz, but not an A. C minus in my pronunciation. Okay, questions. Let's see. Alice is asking. Alice says, I found myself to be guilty. Every time I speak my native language, this just comes out of my mouth naturally. Someone recommended me to distribute most of my time in the day, like 80% of it of speaking English. How can I do that? Easily. Alice, first of all, let go of guilt. Guilt is not serving you. It's not helping you. Second, it's your first language, right? So if you speak your first language, of course you have this affinity towards your language. Of course you would want to speak it more often now. At the same time, of course, that if you want to improve your English, you want more speaking time, but it does not mean that you have to spend all of your day speaking in English. I don't feel that that's the only solution. Have a designated time of practice where you practice English when you. Where. Where you actively speak, where you do sprints, where you do some exercises, where you follow the path that I've laid out for you, and I'm going to keep sharing it with you tomorrow as well. Do the mindset work. And that is going to be a Lot more effective than feeling limited or than. Than not feeling, you know, feeling forced to speak a language even when you don't have to. If you enjoy it, then of course, speaking most of the day in English is going to help. But also, more English practice without being very clear about what you're trying to change is not always effective. So sometimes five hours of speaking is not as effective of a very intentional, concise, pronunciation confidence based practice. Right. It's not the quantity, it's the quality quality. So if you're practicing effectively 30 minutes, you record yourself, you listen to it, you're recording yourself again, implementing the notes that you've given to yourself. That would be more effective than speaking 80% of the day. Okay. That's what I think and I believe. Okay. Brenda is saying, hi, Brenda. I speak English at my work every day. I can communicate and I feel confident. My problem is understanding. How can I improve my understanding when I'm in on a group? So first of all, we have a listening practice with Christina, listening practice group. And she will teach you the method that we use with our students to practice listening. But mostly it's exposure. One of the, one of, one of the tools that we've been using is we let our students listen to a recording of a person's speech speaking, and we try to expose them to different. Different speakers, different accents, because that's how real life is. Right. And then you want to transcribe it without knowing what the person is saying without having the script. This is a really effective method. And then you write it down, and then you listen, you look at the actual script and you look at the differences. Right. Where did you get it? Where didn't you get it? Right, Right. And then you're like, okay, mistakes are a spotlight on what you still need to learn. And then you're like, okay, here's a mistake. I didn't get it right. Why is that? Oh, because it's a reduction. Oh, it's because I don't know this word. Oh, it's because I know this word, but I thought it was pronounced differently. So many discoveries, and that's definitely going to help you as well. So like I said, intentional effective work is far better than just, you know, just keep doing the same old thing over and over again without seeing results. That's the illusion of learning. Even though speaking all day is much better than just, you know, watching videos. Okay, let's see from Livestream today, Andrea, is it a good idea to memorize interesting speeches and repeat it? Yes, absolutely. I found it to Be very helpful. Now, I'm not assuming anything. I think it's really helpful. I think you end up remembering things within their context. Try it once or twice, see how that works for you. If you feel that it's helping, keep going. If you feel that it's just frustrating you, then it's not for you. That's the thing. And that's for everyone. Not every method that you hear out there. Even if I'm like, speaking about it with all the passion in the world, it may not be right for you. And like I said, when you are the new speaker of English and all of you are starting to be or already are, you are in full ownership of your English and you're not second guessing yourself and you trust your gut. So if you feel like this is not right for me, you're not saying to yourself, oh, I'm just not succeeding. It's like, I know myself and I know it's right for me. Right? How freeing is that? Okay, Elijah is saying, I like to talk to native speakers, but sometimes I feel there aren't engaged in a conversation. Or maybe they are losing interest because perhaps I'm not contributing emotionally or verbally. That might be caused by me not following their point clearly. And sometimes I identify there aren't understanding me clear clearly because of my accent. I'm going to suggest a few things. One, I'm going to suggest that these are just negative thoughts that you have. And you take a certain response and you interpret it in a way that validates your negative thoughts. So maybe someone says and you're like, oh, they're bored. Why? Because when you think they're bored, it validates our brain likes to validate our beliefs, right? It validates the thought that you are not interesting. But if you are coming from a positive perspective and saying like, you could have been just like, oh, they're interested in what I just said. That was a remark just to show me that they're interested because my voice is important and my words matter, right? So first of all, it could be interpretation. Second, it could be that because you have those negative thoughts or fears, or maybe you're like consumed with thinking just about what you're gonna say. Because that's usually what happens when we speak a second language. Then you might not be fully present. And maybe they're feeling like you're not listening to them. So maybe they're not getting from you this reciprocal experience that you want to have in a conversation. And this is why I think that, like, dealing with those things are not Just to be better speakers, but also to be better communicators and listeners. Because it's not less important than speaking, because you need to be able to be present and to, like, respond to what they're saying. I know of a lot of people who. Let's say I'm saying something, and they would say something totally different, something related to what we had discussed five minutes ago. I was like, you're not. You did not listen to what I just said because you responded to something that we talked about before. So I know that they're just thinking about what they want to say, but there is no back and forth. There isn't. Isn't that ping pong, which is what people look for? So if you want to be better community, a better communicator, one of the ways is just to be fully present and to constantly respond to what the other person is saying. And if you feel that clarity is the issue, there are ways to solve that. There are ways to improve.

Right.

You need to understand where it is that it's affecting your communication and what you can do to improve that. But I would assume that a lot of it has to do with either listening or just misinterpretation of the situation. Okay, are we ready for the raffle? Yelena. And let me know in the. In the doc if we're ready for the raffle. Maybe we are.

Let's see.

Okay. Yes, we do. Yes, we are. We are ready for the. Oh, we have a lot of participants. Let me show you. It looks fancy. Hold on. I'm gonna come back to those questions. We have plenty. Let me put it on the side. Are you ready to see if you have won one of the prizes? Wait, let's put, like, dramatic music here. Let's see if we have.

Okay, let's do it.

Oh, oh. Okay. Wait. You can't see it.

The first prize that we're gonna offer.

Is going to be.

I'm gonna. Stop it.

Don't worry.

It's going to be a 30 minute, one on one session with a new sound coach. That's going to be the first prize. Let me share it with you. And so the first prize is a one on one coaching session with one of our coaches in the seat. Can you feel it? All right, let's do it.

Who's going to win a 30 minute coaching session? Giselle. Sierra, are you still here?

You have to be here to get the prize. Are you here? Let us know where you're at. Right.

I'm here. Yay.

Okay, so Amar is going to tell me for good. And if you have found these out. And then we are going to move on to the next Prize, which is a 25Amazon gift card. But you're also going to get it along with a list of my favorite books, if you want to use it for a book. All right, so 25Amazon gift card with a list of my favorite books, if you're interested. And that goes to.

Lucia.

Hello. Congratulations.

So are you here?

Let us know if you're here. Okay. How did I put those names on? We had a form that we shared at the beginning of the band, and people joined. But don't worry, we'll have more opportunities to win. All right, next up, what is the next prize? The next prize is. Oh, Are phrasal verbs work? So who wants our phrasal verbs workbook, which is an easy way or a different way to learn phrasal verbs and how to use the pronunciation, consonants method to learn those darn phrasal verbs finally get those phrasal verbs right. So let's go. And the winner is.

Millie Chong.

Millie, artists are here. Okay, good. Okay, so if someone is not here, by the way, we're going to do the raffle again. Let's try it out. Maybe it's.

I don't know.

I'll do what my team tells me to do. The last thing is our job interview cheat sheet. Now, listen, even if you're not looking for a job, it's an excellent way to practice your English because it has very precise questions that only if you practice answering those questions, it's going to help you improve your English significantly and your vocabulary. So even as a resource to improve your English, and it's really organized and a lot of tips and, you know, to prepare, all of it is going to be relevant for other speaking opportunities as well. Definitely the questions that are well curated to help you improve how you talk about yourself, which is ultimately one of the hardest things to do, but most important things to do. So it's going to be valuable even if you're not actively looking for a job. And if you are, I hope it's going to help you get that job. All right, so who's gonna win the chichi? The job interview?

Chichi Marja Polo.

Congratulations, winners. My mic changed to my bad one. Jesus. What's going on here? Danielette? No. Okay. No, no, it's not. It doesn't say anything.

How about this? 1, 2, 1, 2. Can you hear me? Let's go back to this. Let's give it a try now. Let's see. Maybe. No, this is dead. Can you hear me? One, two. Oh, maybe the raffle impacted it. Okay, let's see what's happening. Is this better? One, two. No, don't change it back. So is this good? Yes. Okay, I'm waiting. Like, my team is writing me on the secret document. I can hear you better. I don't know, because the streaming software has changed completely. It says that I'm with one mic, and then actually, it's a different one. Hello? No, I don't think this is it, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna stay with this.

Okay.

Let's see. Okay, I think this is better. Seems like the audio is working better. Okay, let's go back to asking some questions here. Congratulations to all the winners. Congratulations. I hope you use it.

For, you.

Know, to improve and feel inspired to do the work. Okie dokie. Anna is asking. On day one, you mentioned that you started your business by teaching local students. Did you teach English in English or did you teach English in your native language? Oh, you don't know the story, so it's a good story. I was so afraid to teach pronunciation in English when I first started out because it was after years of not using English. So I actually started teaching in Hebrew. I'm just telling you how it is, right? Like, this is how I am right now, and you're thinking, oh, because she's. You know, she has a lot of experience, and she was an acting student and all of that. No, I was totally where you are at right now. I was. I wanted to teach, but I was also afraid of being criticized. So I ended up teaching, but in Hebrew, but teaching the American sounds. Right. Which worked well for a little bit, just for me to gain my confidence until there was one moment, and I. I still remember this. I was like, hadar, I had that conversation. Hadar, you need to start teaching in English. I don't want to. But, Hadar, you know that if you want to be perceived as more professional and if you want to improve your English, you know, your flow, not just the pronunciation, but your flow, then you need to speak in English. But they're gonna notice that I'm not, as, you know, accurate with my sounds when I'm speaking. But Hadar, this is something that you have to do. And it took me a few months to have, like, having this conversation until I said, one day, we're gonna switch to English. Now, it was also easy for my students because, of course, for them, yeah, let's speak Hebrew. No challenge. More comfortable. They didn't mind it. But when we switched, they actually really enjoyed it. I did not feel judged just by myself, but not by them at all. I remember we used to record these sessions, and every time I accidentally hit play and heard the recording or I checked something, I was like, I hated my voice, really. That was back in 2008, 2009, when I first started teaching. Yet I had the passion to teach. So that was more important to me than those feelings. So what I did was just like, I. I just. I'm not gonna go into this. I'm not gonna go listen to myself and feel bad about it. I'm just gonna turn it off and continue as if nothing had happened and go back with my plans. And gradually, I built my confidence and, of course, my fluency. Because when I started teaching in English more, I started building my English confidence as well. Mario. Mario says when I don't feel any progress, I tend to. I tend to punish myself. Is that a common feeling? Unfortunately, yes. As far as I know myself, with me, it's not about English. It's about other things. And again, it's something that I'm battling, right? Like. And I punish myself with just bad thoughts, right? Like, oh, you know, with me, it's about time, how I manage my time. I also have a lot of high expectations around what I can accomplish in a certain time frame. And then when I don't get it, I was like, oh, you're so ineffective. You're not doing this. I'm so much better right now. But I totally relate. So I punish myself with just feel like, making myself feel bad or just like, having those negative thoughts.

Thoughts.

Who else here, and this is Mar. Mario is asking, is this a common feeling? Who else here tends to punish themselves for not seeing the results or not improving? And how does that look like for you? I think it would be important for other people again to see that they're not alone and that other people are experiencing the same things. And in the conversation groups, I. I encourage you to go deeper and talk about these things. Don't talk about the weather. Talk about these things. Be open, vulnerable, and go deep into the English learning experience and the psychological experience. Because I want you to understand that the same thought patterns that you have and behaviors, other people have them too, and some already have a solution for it which you can share and learn with, right? And maybe just awareness or the comfort of you're not alone, so it's not your fault. It's not you that is the problem. It's the situation or it's a universal human problem, then it's a lot easier to deal with it because it's not personal anymore. Yeah, Tanya says yes. Feel the same, Ina. I also punish myself in other areas in my life. Same here. Mario, you're not alone. So the thing is that I want you to use the four steps that I shared with you today. This is how you get out. Like you leave it. You have that negative thought. So ultimately the result is that you punish yourself instead. Think of the reason. Think of the underlying fear.

Right?

I'm not good enough. That's why we punish ourselves. Right? Or I'm not enough. And then change that thought. Right? Take that thought and replace it. We have the fluency killing thoughts and fluency boosting thoughts list. Go there and look for examples and find your fluency boosting thought and then change. Change your focus. Do something else. Do something different. Right? I really encourage you to do that. Go out for a run, whatever that looks like for you, and compare the outcome. I just hugged my iPad and then I messed up everything. Just like I can't hug you. So I'm hugging the iPad. How can I record myself while reading or speaking randomly? You have. Well, when you record yourself, you have to plan for it. It's not random, but you can just record yourself on your phone. There are a lot of free recording apps on the. On your computer. There is Loom Loom, which is a screen recording and a voice recording. So you can use. You can use that and other features as well. I'm sure people can kind of like share it here. I'm sure you have apps that you know of. I'm old school already. I'm too old for this. Kidding. But you have a lot of, you know, technology is really useful. I used to have a tape recorder where I used to record my speech teacher. I still have it in the cassette tape. So yeah, just use that. If you know that you're going into a meeting, just hit play and listen to yourself and then. Or just hit play or record and then just do the stream of consciousness exercise. I think it's valuable. Okay. Marta is asking a question about new sound. So some of it is from previous days. I have it all listed here. So, Marta, if you're here, this is the. The answer. New Sound, my program that is going to open next week. And if you want to continue after the festival so we can implement everything that I have taught you, then obviously, you know, like, I will be there to support you if you want. Then Ideally it's between 30, 40 minutes a day, but it's to be done at your own pace. So sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's a full hour, sometimes it's, you know, you're going to have days where you're not going to do anything and then you'll have time to catch up because it's a long program, so not too long, but like, and you have lifetime access. So basically you take it at your own pace and time. What I do recommend and what is important and the thing that we are focused on is to create the, the, the habit. So Even if it's 10 minutes a day where you do a sprint, you get the sprint master, you know, like, or, you know, we have exercises inside.

The program.

That is, you know, doing the work. It's all about doing the work. So we're going to talk more about that next week too, when we, when we talk about the program. But my belief is that you shouldn't and needn't to invest too much time when it comes to your English, because then it would be very hard to build the habit. Because to be able to build a habit, you need to have an upper threshold, especially at the beginning. Especially the beginning. Tita is saying, even though I've been living in the US for more than 20 years, I don't feel confident when talking to a group of. Of people. I get anxious and my words does not, do not come out when I want to. Any advice, please? So it's all about exposure. To me, it feels like the fear of public speaking. It has to do with it being your second language. But I think that you need more exposure of that. So first of all, having you want to get some better at something, do more of that something. So you need to have more opportunities where you speak in public. Could be even like in a zoom call with other people in a group and a conversation group here. Making videos help, because making a. Especially if you post them to social media, like in the Influency community or the English Fluency Festival, my two free communities, right? That is going to help you because what is the fear of speaking in public? Let's break it down, right? You feel that more people are watching you, so you're more likely to be judged. It's not just one person. It's like a lot of people also you're afraid that you might not say the right thing and then more people are going to think that you're like, who is she and why is she talking to us? Right? Because there is this. It's. It's a Platform when you speak to more people, there's responsibility here. So, like, we. We feel like we need to perform. We can't be ourselves. We need to be something that maybe we are not. So we start having these different feelings about ourselves. And again, it all goes back down to not being enough. Fear of being judged, fear of being rejected. So you need to go to those thoughts and be like, how can I replace them? My words matter. I'm important. Right? People want to hear what I have to say. I have a lot to contribute. And when you change those thoughts, then it starts becoming a little easier to say yes. And to be like, okay, I'm just going to do my thing. And even if I make mistakes, even if I get stuck, nothing is going to happen. But also. But ultimately, you know, take active action towards reaching those goals. Okay? Valeria is saying, how can I overcome my anxiety and my fear? Recording more video and to be more active. I'm always feeling ridiculous to record videos. So usually remind yourself that you are. You feel ridiculous, but it's just you feeling that other people. Okay, we have a practice group in five minutes, so I'm going to wrap it up. That's the last question. So remember that other people don't see it through this lens. They don't see this perspective. It's only you with those thoughts about you and those thoughts that you have about yourself. And they're just your thoughts. You're projecting them onto. Others are preventing you from succeeding. So compare the outcomes. I'm afraid so. You're not improving because you're afraid of other people's opinions, Potential opinions. But think about it. Potential opinions of other people are preventing. Are costing you your progress. Are you okay with that? Because if not, start making those videos and just do it. Just say effort. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make one video. I'm not even gonna look at it. I'm just gonna post it without re. Recording it, without anything. And when you do, please tag me, okay? Because I know it's going to be awesome. I know it's going to be awesome. Because there is no right outcome. It does not matter. The most important thing is that you do it. Okay. All right, my friends, we're gonna wrap up. Not before. I'm gonna talk about what's waiting for you tomorrow. And then you have a practice group with the magnificent Jelena. You're gonna get to know her. So tomorrow we have day four. Shift your strategy. I'm gonna give you the fluency pronunciation roadmap. What has helped thousands of my students see incredible results. So I'm going to lay out all the components that are needed to reach limitless fluency. Bring a pen and a paper, because this is going to be interesting. All right, my friends, thank you so much for participating. Thank you so much for being here today. I hope you had some insights. I hope you processed some things, you realized some things. Take action. Make a move. Make a difference. Change those thoughts, and let's celebrate. All right, we're gonna wrap it up, join Yelena's practice group, and I'll see you tomorrow at the same time. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for being here.

Bye.