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2 Best Times - VIP Audio Hi it s AJ, welcome VIP member to this month s topic, this month s lesson. Now this one is inspired by a quote, which you may recognize. I think it was Tolstoy. I haven t actually read the book, but it begins like this: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. And that s the idea I want to explore with you right now regarding our current modern age that we re living in right now. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. This is an idea that I ve heard a few people talk about and I ve really begun to appreciate and see. Because in many ways, you look at any aspect of modern life today in any country, on one hand it seems like things are worse than ever before. I mean absolutely frickin terrible and, yet, on the other hand if you look at some other things, if you shift your focus, things seem to be better than they ve ever been before, just amazing. So, in many ways, it s kind of hard to process this, to understand this, especially emotionally, and it s really easy to get caught in one or the other. Unfortunately, I d say it s probably easier to get focused on the worst parts. Let s face it. Our media, the news, all these things tend to focus on those things and so it can become super overwhelming and, yet, at the same time all those terrible things are happening and they are happening, there s all these amazing, wonderful, incredible things better than ever before also happening in the world. So let s just talk about a few examples, a few of the really major things in modern life, in modern societies today and let s look at both the worst and the best so that we know hey, yes, things are terrible, but we can also find some amazing things. The first one will be media, in terms of media, news, television, radio, print media or even online. So on one hand the media is worse than ever before. I mean there s more lies, more propaganda than ever before and it s more sophisticated than ever before. I mean here in the United States, mainstream media, meaning normal television, normal television news, major newspapers, they re total lies at this point. They re all owned by super-huge, massive corporations and so they serve the interest of large super-huge corporations and the U.S. government. They re both connected quite closely. So on one hand if you look at this situation, it seems just really terrible and horrible. It s very much like the world that George Orwell described in his book 1984 where the lies are so deep and, yet, everybody believes them, seemingly everybody. Not everybody, but it seems a lot of people just kind of believe all the lies and how even the language has been corrupted.

3 For example, one of his famous examples he called doublespeak. Doublespeak is where the media propaganda makes one word mean its opposite. So, for example, now we have wars for peace. That phrase, war for peace, right? People will just kind of accept that. Oh, war for peace. This is something you ll hear on the news and, yet, when you think of it okay, war is not peace. War is the opposite of peace. War is murdering and killing and bombing people and, yet, people will just get confused by this sort of propaganda-type of language and we see this constantly. You know the war on terror, the war on drugs. The war on terror is not a war on terror. Terror is just an emotion. What is it? It s a war against certain countries and certain people. They re killing them. They re murdering them and most of them are no threat at all. The war on drugs what is that? They re not shooting drugs, they re shooting people. They re capturing people. They re putting people in jail. They re destroying lives all over the planet. So this is just like oh, my God, it s terrible. I get really overwhelmed by all this stuff myself, all this propaganda. It s just pure lies, the lies about all the wars to support all the wars, all these other things about science, about health, about nutrition. I mean any topic in the United States and I think probably everywhere in the world, if you listen to the main news sources you re going to get distortions or complete lies and you re also not going to hear a lot of other stuff that s true. They re just going to leave it out. They won t cover it. They won t tell you about it. So that seems overwhelming, it s the worst of times. It s worse than ever before oh, my God, but on the other hand it s also the best of times because, especially through the Internet, we have this amazing connection to all kinds of alternative media, independent media. I mean anywhere from little small individuals writing their own little blogs or Facebook pages, all the way up to bigger organizations that really are dedicated to truth and they really are against war and against lies. It s amazing. There s this incredible integrity. So if you search a little bit and it doesn t take a lot of effort, online you can find incredible news sources. You can hear all those things that the big corporate media is not telling you, that the governments aren t telling you. You can get an incredible amount of really great information about politics, about economics, about health, about anything. It s quite amazing. I mean HYPERLINK " InfoWars.com I read that for a lot of political information. I don t agree always with their opinions; however, I get so much more valuable real information with some integrity than I would if I watch CNN, which are just mostly corporate lies or distortions. There s one called HYPERLINK " NaturalNews.com, another great source for independent alternative media. I mean there are hundreds and thousands of them out there in all

4 different countries of the world and all you have to do is just make a little effort to research them and you can get so much deep, real information. So it s also the best of times if you focus on that. What about health and food that I mentioned? Is it the worst of times or the best of times? It s both. It s the worst of times. There s more chemicals used than ever before. We re now getting all these genetically-modified organisms. Companies like Monsanto are trying to destroy organic food and takeover the whole food supply. They re putting horrible poisons on our food. They re driving out small family farms horrible, horrible stuff. Likewise, the medical industry, like cancer industry, for example, it s an industry that makes tons of money. In America they actually will arrest somebody who tries to help someone with cancer in a natural way. If they open a clinic and they tell people oh, you can possibly cure your cancer with nutrition and other natural health-building methods, the U.S. government with huge, big machine guns will come in and arrest that person and throw them in jail. Yet, at the same time hospitals can zap people, hit people with horrible radiation and give them these toxic chemicals that kill most of the patients. Their success rate with treating cancer is extremely low. Those people are not put in jail. Why? Because it s huge, big business. Seems like the worst of times with our food and our health. On the other hand, again, through the Internet, through books, through a whole range of things there is more information and more access to amazing, super health than we have ever had at any other point in history. I mean at this point because of the transportation systems, because of online, because of all the new discoveries out there, you now have access to the most powerful plants, nutrition, supplements, herbs and foods in every single part of the world. You can order amazing healing super powerful herbs from the Amazon, from Asia, from North America, from Europe. It s amazing. It s super powerful. You can gain incredible information about nutrition, fitness, health. There are all kinds of incredible athletic improvements that have been made through research and new cutting-edge training methods and new cutting-edge nutrition. I mean it s now possible to be stronger and healthier at an older and older and older age than ever before. So, in that sense, it s the best of times. The same is true with the international community. In war, of course, we know that there is just horrible wars and all this horrible propaganda about wars and this whole propaganda about the war on terrorism and terrorism and all this other B.S., you know bullshit. So it seems like oh, it s horrible. It s terrible. Oh my God, they re creating a police state all over the world. Oh my God, all this war and all these people are

5 supporting wars, yet, at the same time we ve never had more of an opportunity to build international communities. I mean look at our Effortless English Club and our VIP Program. I mean it s just amazing. You know people from different countries, different cultures, different backgrounds, different ages, different genders, etc. connecting, befriending each other, supporting each other, learning from each other. Some of our VIP members have actually visited each other. I have visited VIP members in Asia and in Europe. It s pretty cool. It s really amazing. I mean if you think back 50 years ago even, it wasn t so easy to do this. We didn t have the Internet. How would you connect with so many people from so many countries and learn from them, right? It was very, very hard. Likewise, international travel now is cheaper and easier than at any time ever before in history. Now I know that everybody can t afford an international plane ticket, but a lot more people can afford it now than in the past. I mean in the past people had to pay to take a ship and it would take months, possibly, to cross the Pacific Ocean if you wanted to go from America to Japan, for example. It was a long difficult journey. I guess not 50 years ago, they had planes then, but 100, 200, 300 years ago. That s fairly recent history and, yet, it was very hard to do then. Even 50, maybe 100 years ago, even when the first planes were coming, it was an expensive thing. It was kind of a luxury thing. The average person didn t just take a plane from San Francisco to Europe whenever they wanted to. Yet, now we have that available to us much more. We ve got all these little budget airlines. They have terrible service, but they re cheap. So there s this incredible opportunity for people to travel, actually go to another country and experience it and learn from it. It s much different than just reading a book about another culture. So, in that sense, we ve got more of a global community, more of a connected international community of regular, normal people, not politicians, not soldiers, than ever before. That s amazing and that is just the best of times. And so in sum, to end this, what I would like us all to think about and this is true for me too, because I also have this same issue in my own life, is that on one hand we cannot ignore the worst parts. We can t pretend they re not there because they re there. We see them. We read about them. We know they re there. So forget living in denial. We have to accept that yes, it is the worst of times in many ways. However, I think our job in the VIP Program, certainly my job, your job, all of us, to be happy, to be healthy, to really contribute to the world; we can t let ourselves become focused on the worst parts. Many of those things we can t control, so it is really in our

6 interest and in the interest of the whole world that we focus more and more and more on the best parts. On all these great, wonderful things I ve discussed and many other areas of life, these wonderful, great, amazing things, the more we focus on that and make those things part of our lives, the better we become, the stronger we become, then we encourage other people to do the same thing. In this way we can start making things a lot better so that more and more people are focusing on and living the best parts and less and less are focused on and living the worst parts. There s a big task for us, all right? So your task this month and my task as well is to just accept all these terrible things and then try to let go of them as much as possible and really this month try to be focused on all the best parts, the great things. So if you start getting upset about the news and the media say okay, I m going to focus on the great part, all these incredible independent media. So just decide, I m going to focus on the best parts and, I promise, I will try to do this, this month and I hope you will as well. So whenever we have this sort of overwhelmed feeling with anything that s bad that s happening out there in the world, let s sort of take a deep breath, try to let go of it and then shift our focus and say okay, but what s also great. It s a good question, right? What s also great? Let s just keep asking ourselves that every day all month and then we can discuss this on our VIP social site as well. Let s discuss what s great. Okay, see you next time. Bye-bye.

7 Best Times - VIP Mini Story Hello this is AJ, welcome to the mini story this month. Just the normal thing, I ll do three things. I will make a statement, when I make a statement you say ah, hum. Make some sound. It helps to keep your brain awake. If you just sit there quietly it s kind of easy to fall asleep, so don t do that. Make a sound every time I make a statement hum, ah. You can nod your head, move your head up and down, even better, stand up with your shoulders back and walk around. Keep moving. Go for a walk with your ipod in the park or on the street, whatever. Just keep yourself moving and awake with sounds and movement, very important. Number two, I ll ask a question that you know the answer to, when I do that shout the answer if possible and use your body as you do that. You know gesture with your hands powerfully. If you need to be more quiet, if you re in an office or you re walking out in public or something maybe you do it very quietly and in a small way, but any little sound or movement you make really wakes up your brain and it makes your memory stronger and better. A lot of good benefits so don t just sit there. At the least, walk and move around. Then, finally, I ll ask a question that you don t know the answer to and if I do that just shout a guess. Let s start our mini story. * * * * * There was a woman named Cathy. Her full name was Chatty Cathy. Chatty Cathy was a blabbermouth. What is a blabbermouth? A blabbermouth is a great slang term, very common. A blabbermouth is someone who just talks too much. They re constantly talking. They talk and they talk and they talk and they talk and they never stop talking. Blabbermouth can also mean a person who talks about secrets. You know they re not supposed to say something, but they say it anyway. You can t trust them to be quiet. You can t trust them to keep a secret. So it is both of those things. In this case, we re talking about a woman who just never stops talking. So what was Cathy? She was a blabbermouth.

8 Was she a blabbermouth or was she quiet and discreet? Well, of course, she was a blabbermouth. Who was a blabbermouth? Chatty Cathy. Chatty Cathy was a blabbermouth. Chatty Cathy is her name. Chatty Cathy was a blabbermouth. She never stopped talking. So was she quiet or was she a blabbermouth? She was a blabbermouth. Did she talk and talk and talk and talk all the time? Yes, she did. She was a blabbermouth. Who was a blabbermouth? Chatty Cathy. In fact, when people were with Cathy no one could get a word in edgewise. There s another kind of an idiom, to get a word in edgewise. No one could get a word in edgewise with her. So sometimes we might say I couldn t get a word in edgewise with him. I couldn t get a word in edgewise with her. What does that phrase mean? It s a little complex, so let s talk about it. Edgewise means sideways. So the idea is if you can imagine that a word is a physical thing, like it s a piece of wood and we re trying to push it into something. So maybe there s a small space and we want to push the wood into that space, so maybe we turn it to the side so that it s smaller so we can get it into that small space. That s kind of the image I want you to think about. So imagine that that wood is a word or it s a phrase, it s something you re trying to say. So the idea is, the idea of this phrase is that someone is talking and talking and talking and they never stop, so you cannot get your words in, right? You can t get in what you want to say.

9 Even if you try to interrupt very quickly, even if you try to say something during the small pause that the other person has, the small space, you still can t do it. You cannot get your words in at all because the other person never stops. They never give you a chance to speak. So that s what it means. If you say I can t get a word in edgewise, it means you re not able to say anything because the other person never stops talking. So that s the situation with Cathy. No one could get a word in edgewise with her. No one could speak when they were with her because she was always speaking, speaking, speaking and never stopped. She never let other people speak, so no one could get a word in edgewise with her. No one could get a word in edgewise with who or whom? Chatty Cathy. When they were with Chatty Cathy they couldn t get a word in edgewise. They couldn t say anything because she was always talking. Why couldn t they get a word in edgewise? Because she was a blabbermouth. Cathy was a blabbermouth. Chatty Cathy was a blabbermouth and because of this no one could get a word in edgewise with her. One time, she went to a movie with her friend Angelina Jolie -- you may know of her -- and Chatty Cathy blabbed during the entire movie. She blabbed during the whole movie. To blab means to talk a lot. It has this idea of talking a lot, talking quickly, maybe talking loudly. Again, it s very casual. It s not something we use in formal writing, for example, but in speech to blab. To blab is, again, this idea of speaking in a fast way, a loud way. So Cathy blabbed during what? Chatty Cathy blabbed during the movie. She blabbed during the movie with her friend Angelina Jolie. She blabbed during the movie with her friend Angelina Jolie. So who did she blab to? She blabbed to Angelina Jolie. And where were they? Obviously, they were in a movie theatre.

10 They were in a movie theatre and during the movie Chatty Cathy constantly what? Blabbed. She constantly blabbed. She constantly talked and talked and talked and talked. Did Angelina Jolie enjoy Chatty Cathy s blabbing? No, she did not enjoy the blabbing. No one enjoys blabbing during a movie. In fact, Angelina Jolie got very annoyed. She said Cathy, don t be such a motormouth. Listen to the movie, just chill. Okay, so what did she say? Do the whole thing. Cathy, don t be such a motormouth. Listen to the movie, just chill. Okay, a motormouth is really the same as a blabbermouth. Again, it s a person who talks fast all the time, always talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. That s a motormouth. It s the idea that the mouth is like an engine that never stops, right? That s the image. So she said Cathy, don t be such a what? Don t be such a motormouth. Was Angelina Jolie a motormouth? No, Angelina Jolie wasn t a motormouth. Who was a motormouth? Chatty Cathy. Chatty Cathy was a motormouth. She constantly talked and never stopped. Was she a motormouth during the movie? Yes, she was a motormouth during the movie. She constantly blabbed during the movie. Did Angelina Jolie appreciate her being a motormouth?

11 No, she was annoyed that she was such a motormouth. She said Don t be such a motormouth. Just listen to the movie and chill. Okay, to chill that s more slang. Kind of a slang phrase again that we use when we speak. To chill means to relax. It means to calm down. It means to be calm and relaxed. Chill means kind of cold, right? So, if you re cool or cold you might be a little more relaxed, right? Cool your feelings. Cool your emotions. Just chill, this is very, very, very casual. I wouldn t say this to my grandmother. Grandmother, just chill! Some children might now, but I wouldn t. But it is something you might say to your friends or someone that you know well. You d say hey, just chill. It means just relax, right? If they re being too excited, they re too upset, they re too emotional, they re talking too much, you can say hey chill or just chill. It means just relax. So who needed to chill? Chatty Cathy needed to chill. Why did she need to chill? She needed to chill because she was a motormouth, because she was blabbing all the time. Well, finally, Cathy realized that she was a compulsive talker. She realized that she was a compulsive talker. What kind of talker was she? Compulsive. She was a compulsive talker. Who was a compulsive talker? Cathy. What kind of talker was she? A compulsive talker. What does compulsive mean? Well, compulsive means kind of forced. It means that you must keep doing something again and again and again and again and again and you can t stop yourself.

12 A compulsive eater, for example, is someone that just keeps eating and eating and eating and eating. They have no control. They can t stop themselves from eating. That s a compulsive eater. A compulsive talker is someone who just talks and talks and talks and they don t have control over themselves. They re not controlling that. They re a compulsive talker. So was she a controlled talker or was she a compulsive talker? She was a compulsive talker. She couldn t stop herself. Who was a compulsive talker? Cathy. Did she realize that she was a compulsive talker? Yeah, she finally did. After Angelina Jolie yelled at her, Cathy realized that she was indeed a compulsive talker. But why? Well, she contemplated this question for a long time. Why am I a compulsive talker? Why am I a compulsive talker? To contemplate means to think deeply about something. To think about something deeply, quietly for a long time, that s to contemplate. So what did Cathy contemplate? She contemplated the reason that she was a compulsive talker. She contemplated the question, why am I a compulsive talker? Did she think about it a lot? Yes, she did. She thought about it deeply. She contemplated this question. Finally, one day she woke up in the morning and she drank her normal 18 cups of coffee and she suddenly realized something. Aha! I drink 18 cups of coffee every day. I m always amped up. Well, this is a little more slang, a little more casual English. To be amped up means to be really excited and super energized. To be amped up really has the feeling of too

13 much. You have too much energy. You re too excited. It s too much, right? If you drink 18 cups of coffee, for example, you will be amped up. You ll have a lot of energy and you ll talk too fast. Too much energy, that s amped up. So who was always amped up? Cathy. Chatty Cathy was always amped up. She was always too excited, too much energy, hyperactive. (That s another phrase we use, hyperactive.) She was amped up all the time. Why was she amped up all the time? Because she always drank 18 cups of coffee a day. She drank 18 cups of coffee a day, therefore she was? Amped up. That s right, she was always amped up and she realized Aha! I m always amped up because I drink coffee, 18 cups a day. That s why I m a compulsive talker. And so she quit drinking coffee. First she got a lot of headaches and she felt terrible, but eventually she relaxed. She chilled out. So to chill out is the same as to chill. It s the same, sometimes we add out to it. Sometimes we ll say to chill out. To chill out means to relax, to calm down. So she quite coffee and she chilled out, she relaxes and eventually Chatty Cathy became an excellent listener. * * * * * And that is the end of our mini story for this month. Listen to it every day for seven to 10 days or more. Answer those questions. See you again, bye-bye.

14 Best Times - VIP POV Hello this is AJ, welcome to the point-of-view stories for this month s VIP Lesson Set. Let s go. Let s just start right away. Three versions, just listen. Your job is just to listen to these every single day again and again and again. Notice the changes. Don t think about grammar rules. Please, don t do that. All right, let s start. Let s tell it from the present as if it s happening right now. * * * * * Chatty Cathy is a blabbermouth. She never stops talking. In fact, no one can get a word in edgewise with her. No one can get a word in edgewise with Cathy because she s such a blabbermouth. Well, one day she decides to go to a movie. She goes to a movie with her friend Angelina Jolie and during the entire movie she blabs. She blabs and she blabs and she blabs during the whole movie. Angelina gets very annoyed and she say to Cathy, she says Cathy, don t be such a blabbermouth. Don t be such a motormouth. Listen to the movie, just chill. Just relax. Well, after Angelina yells at her, Cathy realizes that she is indeed a compulsive talker. She realizes this, but then she thinks why. Why am I such a compulsive talker? She contemplates this question for a long time. Finally, one morning while she s having her 18 th cup of coffee she says Aha! I realize why. It s because I drink 18 cups of coffee a day. I am always amped up. I m always super excited. I m always amped up, too much energy. So she decides to quit drinking coffee. She quits drinking coffee and, eventually, she relaxes. Eventually, she chills out and becomes a very relaxed person. In fact, she becomes an excellent listener. * * * * * That is the first version of our story. Next version let s go to the future, as usual. The future is a very common simple one. So, again, let s imagine I have a crystal ball and I can see into the future and I know what s going to happen in the future. * * * * * I know there will be a woman named Chatty Cathy in the future. She s gonna be a blabber mouth. She s going to be a blabber mouth. (I remind you every month that

15 gonna means going to. We use gonna in casual, informal speech. We don t really use it in writing.) Chatty Cathy is gonna be a blabber mouth. She ll never stop talking. No one will be able to get a word in edgewise with her. One day in the future she s gonna go to a movie with her friend Angelina Jolie and she s gonna blab during the entire movie and Angelina will get very, very annoyed. Finally, Angelina will say to Cathy Cathy, don t be such a motormouth. Listen to the movie, just chill. Well, at that point Cathy will realize that she is indeed a compulsive talker, but then she ll ask herself why. Why am I such a compulsive talker? Hum, I don t know. She ll contemplate this question for a long time, until one morning in the future while she s drinking 18 cups of coffee she ll realize. She ll have an aha moment. She ll realize Aha! It s because of the coffee. I m always amped up. She ll realize that she s always amped up because she always drinks 18 cups of coffee a day. Well, at that point she ll decide to quit drinking coffee. She ll decide to quit drinking coffee and she will indeed quit and then she s finally gonna relax. She s finally gonna learn how to relax. In fact, she will really chill out and she will become an excellent listener. * * * * * And that s version two of our story. Let s go on to version three. Version three starts with since, since she was a small child. It means starting when she was a small child and continuing for a while up until a point closer to the present. Let s start. * * * * * Since she was a small child, Chatty Cathy has always been a blabbermouth. She has been a blabbermouth most of her life. She has never stopped talking. Starting when she was very young and continuing for most of her life she has never stopped talking. No one has ever been able to get a word in edgewise with her. Every time she has gone to a movie she has blabbed during the entire movie, every time since she was young and then continuing on. She has blabbed and blabbed and blabbed during every movie she has attended and she has annoyed everyone she has attended with. In fact, usually people have not wanted to go to movies with her because she has always blabbed so much during the movies.

16 Well, one day she went to a movie with her friend Angelina Jolie and, again, of course, she blabbed during the entire movie and this time Angelina got very annoyed and said Cathy, don t be such a motormouth. Listen to the movie, just chill. At that moment, Cathy realized that she was a compulsive talker, but then she asked why. Why am I such a compulsive talker? She contemplated this question for a long time. Finally, one morning while drinking her 18 th cup of coffee she realized that it was the coffee. Aha! It s the coffee. It s because I drink 18 cups of coffee. I m always amped up. And so at that point she quit drinking coffee. She quit drinking coffee and she learned how to relax and she became extremely chilled out, relaxed, and after that she became an excellent listener. * * * * * That s the end of our third version. Now, with our third version you notice change, right? Somewhere in the story it changes. In the beginning of the story I m saying she has been. She has been a blabbermouth, she has gone to movies, she has always blabbed and then somewhere in that story I changed it and I said she went, she realized. This is normal. That has been means starting in the past and then continuing. It s just something that s happening many times in the past over a range of time and then when I changed it s because I m talking about one time, one specific movie, one specific time with her friend Angelina Jolie. Now, I know you ve studied this grammar before in the textbooks and I m not even going to mention what it s called. I m not going to name it. You don t need to. Just notice the change, notice how it s used and listen to it every day. All right, I will see you again next time. Bye-bye.

17 Best Times - VIP Commentary Hello this is AJ, welcome to the commentary for this month s VIP Lesson Set. So, let s get started. Once again, in the commentaries I just talk about the topic some more. You know a little extra input, maybe a different way of looking at it and also in the commentaries I tend to give you a kind of homework. Don t worry, this isn t like school. It s not serious homework. It s just some thought about actions you can take in your own life related to the topic. You don t have to. Obviously, I can t force you to and I don t want to force you to, but I would like you to think about these topics each month and just try them, try taking some actions. Some months the topic will be very powerful for you and some months it will be less powerful, it just depends on your personality, your life, your goals, all of that. No matter, I would still like you each month to at least try some of these ideas and activities in your life. You might find that oh, wow, something is very helpful for you and if it s not helpful then you ve still gotten out of your comfort zone. You ve pushed yourself a little bit and that s great. I do the same thing in my own life. I am not a master of every single topic we discuss each month, but I ve tried them all. I ve tried some little activity in these topics related to these topics. So when I m giving you your kind of assignment or your homework or your action steps, they re almost always things that I have done myself. In fact, I think always they are that I ve always at least tried them myself. Sometimes I have mastered them and sometimes I have not done them well at all, but, you know, I still try. It s a process of learning and growing and pushing yourself to expand a little bit more. So this month s topic is kind of interesting, a little bit different topic this month. It was called the best of times and the worst of times, which is sort of the beginning of that novel which I can t remember the name of at the moment. It doesn t matter. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. So, apparently, people have felt that way for a long time, this idea that things are horrible and terrible. Oh, the world is horrible and terrible and then at the same time oh, my God, the world is wonderful and incredible. I think it s been possible for most of human history to feel that way, because I think simultaneously in our societies, our cultures, we have had really terrible things and really great things happening at the same time. So it s normal, maybe it s more accelerated now. Accelerated means speeding up, going faster, so it s almost more intense now. The worst things, the bad things, are in some ways getting worse and worse and worse. Like our environment, the global environment in the world, the toxins, the poisons, the chemicals, that s getting worse and worse and worse, worse than it s ever been, but on the other hand many of our opportunities are also getting better and better and better

18 than they ve ever been before. And I discuss both of those in the video and we ll talk more about that today. So there are two things we can do. We can focus on either of these or we can ignore it all, it s our choice. If we focus on the worst things, that s okay because those things need to be solved and improved. So it s great to, for example, focus on the environment, on ecology and on improving that, but if you only focus on that you will quickly get depressed and overwhelmed. This has happened to me many times in my own life. In fact, using this exact example, I have worked with some environmental groups, some ecological groups. As I mentioned, I ve gone out and I ve tried to raise money for them or help them and on one hand I felt very good about doing that, but on the other hand I found myself getting more and more upset and angry and depressed because the situation is so terrible. If I just focused on that all the time it really didn t make me very happy and if I wasn t happy, if I was depressed and angry, then I really wasn t even helping to improve the situation at all. You have to have balance, so it s important to also focus on the great things and I think that takes a little more effort and we need to think about that side of it more. It s easy to focus on the bad stuff because we hear about the bad stuff all the time. Especially if you watch TV you re definitely getting it all the time, but even if you re just online you re going to read about all these terrible things that are happening in the world and it becomes overwhelming. It s less common to hear about all the positive, great, amazing, wonderful things. We have to think about those a little more and we have to kind of dig in and find them a little more. So that s what I m going to encourage you to do this month. We re going to focus on the best part, the great things that are happening in the world now and how that might apply to your own life. So one of the great things that is happening, yeah, one of the great things that s happening, see, I have to think about grammar sometimes. One of the great things that s happening right now in the world is this whole Internet revolution and explosion. There are maybe some negative parts about it, but there are also some incredible positive things about it. And a few of the positive things, which I have mentioned in the video and I ll mention again, number one, is this kind of global connectivity. It is now possible to really truly maintain global friendships, global connections, with people anywhere else in the world. I mean I now have good friends in Thailand, for example. I lived in Thailand for a couple years. Now in the past, if I had lived in Thailand let s say 50 years ago and then I returned to the United States, well in the past it would have been quite difficult for me to keep those connections. I could have written letters

19 and mailed them, but it would take a very long time for them to arrive in Thailand and they would have gotten lost a lot of the time. It would have been more difficult. Now with , for example, I can my friends in Thailand any time and with Facebook. I have Facebook friends in Thailand and I can put a picture about a recent trip I made or a picture from Hawaii and then my Thailand friends can comment on that and my Japanese students can comment on that and then our VIP members in Europe can comment on that. So I can have all these connections in all these different countries and it s really fantastic. I really enjoy that. It s allowed me to expand my social world and my world view. So I don t think of myself just as an American anymore, right? I ve lived in other countries and I have these connections with people in all these other countries, students and friends and family. In fact, my wife is Japanese so I have family now in Japan. So it s really expanded my life and enriched my life, improved my life and given me a wider view of the world and a deeper understanding of things. Those are very positive things and they re much more common and much more available now thanks to the Internet especially. With the Internet you can chat, you can talk to someone in any country for free or at least very cheaply, just for the cost of your normal Internet connection each month. Of course, you can use Skype, which is an Internet phone service which is free. I think Google has got one, Apple has one. There are lots of different phone chat programs that are free for Internet and for computers. You can choose whichever one you like and whichever one your friends want to use. So this has a lot of great possibilities. For you as an English learner, this is an amazing opportunity. Because now, even if you live in let s say the Czech Republic in Europe, you live in the Czech Republic and let s say you re in a small town in the Czech Republic and there are no Americans there, no British people there that you know, it doesn t matter. You can find and connect with British people, American people, Canadians, Australians. You can do this all online and you can get conversation partners online. Maybe you pay them or maybe they re free it depends, but it s possible for you to talk to native speakers who are actually living in the United States and it doesn t matter where you live. Even if you live in the Czech Republic, even if you live in Thailand, even if you live in Japan, even if you live in a small town, as long as you have an Internet connection you can have English-speaking conversation partners. In our own VIP Program you can connect with other quite advanced English speakers who are from Europe or Asia or other countries. You can make all of these international friends. So even if you re living in a tiny town in Northern Japan, for example, you can have good friends in Europe, in the United States, in South America, in Thailand. You

20 can talk to them on the Internet phone once a week or more if you want to. You can practice your English with them. You can learn about their countries, their cultures, they can learn about yours. And the really cool thing is that you can, eventually meet them face to face if you want to. Several of our European VIP members have done this, they have taken trips together. They first met in our social website then they started to talk to each other using Skype or other phone programs and they did this regularly, consistently. Then they became friends and then they decided to take a trip together and they all went to Ireland together. They all met together and spent a few days together. My wife and I did this ourselves. Tamoa and I, we flew to Barcelona and we met several of our European VIP members, several of them in Barcelona and a few had traveled from other countries, from France, from Italy and that was fantastic. I loved it. What a great opportunity. It s amazing. So as a language learner you have so many opportunities now. Of course, even our program is an amazing opportunity for you. You have much more choice now. You know 50 years ago maybe there were only a few boring textbooks and you had limited choice. Now there are so many, you know, English lessons, English programs, extra audios, audio books, texts, blogs, websites. All of this is available to you. You can even watch CNN, whatever. There s so much real English material out there. You don t need to use boring textbooks anymore and you can mix all of these. Don t worry. I won t be offended. You won t hurt my feelings if you add other things to the VIP Program, to Effortless English; in fact, I want you to. You know use the lessons each day or each month as your kind of core, basic building block, your core basic fundamentals, but also add audio books or podcasts if you enjoy those or anything. Just collect English audio and reading material that is interesting to you and in this way you can really improve and you don t need to go to the United States. You don t need to go to Canada. You can if you want to it s fun, but you don t have to. You can bring all of this into your own home and in that sense it is the best of times to be an English learner, certainly. Not just as an English learner, you have access to so much incredible learning now. You have access to motivational speakers, people who will teach you about success psychology and all these amazing psychological methods and tricks to help yourself feel happier and more energized and to achieve your goals more quickly. You have access to financial experts and financial websites where you can learn much more about economics and investing and finances than ever before. You can learn much more on your own by yourself in this way than by going to a university and taking a bunch of kind of boring classes. All you need though is just the

21 initiative, the motivation to do this yourself. If you have that there s so much out there for you. It doesn t matter what the topic is. I ll give you another example. My young cousin, he s in high school, he s a baseball player. Well, I recently found a Facebook page that is focused on helping baseball players. Baseball is a popular sport in the United States and in some other countries, some Caribbean countries, Central and South American countries, Japan, Taiwan. I think those are the main baseball countries. Baseball players now can go online and they can find a lot of great teaching about how to improve as a player. So, you know, maybe a baseball player is in a small town and they have only one coach and there s only one team and maybe the coach is not very good. Well, in the past there s nothing much they could do. Now, however, they can train themselves. They can get online, they can find so much information and they can improve themselves even if they re local coach is not very good and this is true for any popular sport. It s true for any skill. You can teach yourself computer programming online through online courses. It s amazing. There s so much available out there. Now, I get excited about this myself. There s so much sometimes I get overwhelmed by it because there s so much out there. Amazon, for example, is one of my favorite websites. HYPERLINK " huge online bookstore. In the past there was no physical bookstore that could hold all of those books. In the past you would wander into a bookstore, you d go into a bookstore and you d just see what s available. Now you can just search on Amazon and you have access to hundreds and thousands more books. There s so much more out there. Very, very, cool, very exciting. This is an exciting topic for me. So what I want you to do this month is to really get excited about this yourself, to realize that there s so much opportunity. In the business world there s a huge opportunity out there online. Of course, I created my own business, which is mostly focused online and I ve met so many cool entrepreneurs. So cool means great or awesome and entrepreneur is someone who starts their own business. I ve met these great entrepreneurs who are doing fantastic, interesting businesses, all different kinds, and they have used the Internet and different online tools to build their business more quickly and more easily than they could have in the past. It s much easier to do it now. That s true if you have a local business. If you have a local business you can promote yourself online and there are so many online tools where you can really build a local business and it s cheaper, easier and simpler to do than in the past. You just have to learn how to do it. You have to get in there and try it. With some businesses you can have a global international business and you re just working from your bedroom or your living room, right? You could do so many things. You

22 can teach things. You can sell actual physical products. There are so many things you can do and then you can get online and you can create your website and through different kinds of marketing online you can reach people in countries all over the world. It s absolutely amazing. This was very, very difficult to do in the past, you know 50 years ago to do that, I won t impossible, but super difficult and it required a good amount of money, a lot of money and you would really have to travel around and make tons of contracts. Not easy at all, much easier now. So that s exciting too. So what should you do this month? What are the more focused activities I want you to take? Let s be more concrete. Let s be more focused. So what I want you to do this month is to really just brainstorm. To brainstorm just means to think freely about ideas. Don t edit them. Don t judge them. Just let all the ideas come out and think about in the area of learning how you can use these great opportunities, how you can be more creative about finding these opportunities. Think about things you ve wanted to learn in the past, you know any kind of skill at all, and then get online and look for online courses, books, DVDs, audios, whatever, member sites, that are focused on that skill. It might be a hobby. It might be something for your career. It might be something related to a business, maybe something just more personal. It doesn t matter what it is. It could be meditation. It could be some kind of art. It could be learning how to edit videos. Up to you, but I guarantee there s some cool stuff out there. You can do Google searches. You can do Yahoo searches, Bing searches. Don t just look on the first page, look on page two, three, four. Do searches on Facebook and just keep looking. Keep clicking links and you ll start to find a whole lot of interesting information. So that s what I want you to do. Pick just one skill, one hobby, one thing you ve always wanted to learn and actually get online this month and find a lot of information about it, lots of courses and skills and websites, etc. The second thing I want you to do is to focus specifically on your career or business. So if you want to start your own business, great. Start thinking about how you can do that online and start doing searches online for online business, online marketing. There are so many books about this topic now, so many websites. It s unbelievable how much there is, probably too much, but just do that and really start learning about it. Sometimes people are intimidated by this, they re fearful of this, but there s no need. Just get in there and learn about it. So do some searches and start learning about online business. Even if you don t want to start your own business if you just want to be

23 an employee, I still encourage you to do this because even as an employee it s important to use the power that s available online because we all know that job security does not exist anymore. You know it s always possible to lose your job. Now that can feel scary, but on the other hand you don t need to be afraid of that. You don t need to be scared of that. You can use a lot of online tools to stay connected with a lot of employers, so if you ever need a new job or want a new job you ll be ready. You won t need to be afraid. You won t need to panic. People use LinkedIn for this. LinkedIn is a common one. I don t really personally use that one very much, but a lot of people do. You can get on there, you make a profile on LinkedIn and then you start joining different groups on LinkedIn. You don t just promote yourself, that s not the purpose. You don t want to just talk about yourself all the time, nobody likes that. Instead, you just want to learn and connect with people as a normal human being, but as you do so you can start making connections with people who in the future could possibly help you get a job or maybe you could help them get a job. It s just building a nice network outside of your own company. It s important to do. I used to do this back when I was still just teaching, doing teaching jobs. I always knew that I needed to be ready to have a new job for two reasons. Number one is I like to travel a lot, so I would get bored at one job and I would be ready to go somewhere else and the other reason too is that I was always trying weird, strange things and I knew that sometimes some of my bosses wouldn t like that and that could also cause me to need to leave. So because of that I started a blog. I had an online resume. I had a podcast and I started to write to and connect with people at different schools, with English teachers in different parts of the world, and I, over time, over several months, built a lot of connections with this and that gave me a lot of security because I knew that if I needed a job I could contact these people, these other teachers and I knew that some of them would know of job openings, maybe in their own school or maybe at another school. I knew that they would give me a good word. It means say something good about me to their bosses. So I knew I could quite easily get a new job if I needed to and you can build that same kind of network over time, professionally if you need to. So I recommend doing that as well. So one is personal, personal, just find something cool, interesting, fun that you want to learn and find all the courses and information about it you can online and the second one is professional and that s start joining things like LinkedIn, maybe making a blog, you know maybe making a Facebook page, maybe even a separate page just for your professional life. So you might have a personal Facebook page, but you can also make