Get the transcript at www.feelgoodenglish.com
To get started with today’s topic, I got a question for you. What kind of person are you? Are you motivated? Are you lazy? Are you always running late? Are you a leader or a follower? Are you good at sports? And where did those beliefs come from? A former teacher, your friends who have labeled you a certain way, or maybe simply from yourself?
We all have an image of the type of person we are. Some of these images are positive, but some are detrimental to moving forward and making positive changes. We use stories to understand the world, but sometimes we can make ourselves the villain without thinking twice about the consequences of that narrative.
For example, if you think of yourself as a failure, you’ll quite likely fail. Conversely, if you consider yourself successful, you’ll find ways to succeed. If you think you’re bad at learning languages, well, you might subconsciously resist becoming a great English speaker. That’s dangerous.
And that’s the basic idea from the book I recently read, how our self image dictates our behavior. The book is called “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz. It was published in 1960, so it’s been around a few years, but the book is great. I read a lot, obviously, and i read a lot of regurgitated ideas. People take some basic self-help ideas and write their own book about them. Put their name on them. Nothing really special there. But this book, even though it’s from many decades ago, I found plenty of interesting ideas I hadn’t thought of or read about before.
I’m going to focus on one chapter in this book; keep it simple. The ideas in this chapter stuck out to me the most and I want to share them with you because I think they’re so relevant to not just life in general, but to speaking a foreign language. Here I go again, connecting life lessons with English learning. You ready?
#101 The Smallest Decisions Matter Most: "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy
#100 - #100!!!
#099 The Secret Ingredient - A TED TALK on Passion and Perseverance
#098 Badass BUSINESS ENGLISH with Spoken.io - Interviewing Henry Blue
#097 The 4 Most Important Life Lessons "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz
#096 Having Sex with Someone Else "Sex at Dawn" by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá
#095 Why You are You "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"
#094 Language Hacks that Work "Fluent Forever" by Gabriel Wyner
#093 Nice Guys Finish First "Give and Take" by Adam Grant
#092 No, you're not a badass, yet "The Ego is the Enemy" by Ryan Holiday
#091 How to Live A Calm Life "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle
#090 Why We Make Stupid Decisions. "Driven" by Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria
#089 I gave up on going to the gym. Here's why...
#088 Practical Ways to Make BIG Things Happen "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J Schwartz
#087 TED TALK "10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation" by Celeste Headlee
#086 How to Create a Business Based on YOU "Will it Fly" by Pat Flynn
#085 Kevin Answers Listener Questions :)
#084 Level Up with Brian Kwong from the Add 1 Challenge
#083 An Episode for Shy People - "Quiet" By Susan Cain
#082 Vital Tips for Entrepreneurs - "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Hansson
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